Some reading and watching

I had mentioned a few weeks back that I finished "Dombey and Son" and was looking for something else to read.

My wife gave a collection of essays on atheism that was interesting. Well, I didn't read them all -- that's some heavy stuff -- but have enjoyed looking through works by Emma Goldman, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein and Joseph Conrad.

I picked up a collection of Robert Browning's poem's again. I love this volume. Jayne got it for me and it was published in 1949 in England (still has the price marked in pounds in it) and it does not footnote, thank goodness. I find constant breaks with notes to stop the flow of poetry, like coming to a stop sign every block on a bike ride. It just slows you down and sucks the life out of you..

I think that's why people are taught to hate verse. In school, it's constant analysis and breaks and more breaks and analysis. Just enjoy the rhythm first, then look for the meaning, like listening to music.

I'm reading "Paracelsus," whose photo I stuck at the top of this blog. He was a 15th- 16th-century doctor and alchemist. I'm still reading through it and will be for a long while -- a poem from the 1830s about a medieval alchemist/scholar is not a ride on the S.S. Minnow!

Blazing Saddles

Speaking of TV: I had a coworker say the other day she did not like "Young Frankenstein" or "Blazing Saddles." Shocking!

These are some of the top film comedies created, but that's for another blog. I settled down last night to watch "Blazing Saddles" on AMC to revive my shaken views. I expected an uncut version, but got one that hacked out blatant obscene words and covered up all racial terms!

Oh, come on. Without the word nigger, the movie loses its humor and, most importantly, its social relevance. It becomes emasculated slapstick. The movie is funny because it confronts society's racism and, instead of wagging a finger at us for our idiotic beliefs, it turns up its middle finger and waves it in our faces.

The scene where the town folks have to negotiate their fate with the black railroad workers is hilarious, but AMC cutout the white man's rant about which ethnic groups his people would work with. The censors left in, "but not the Irish."

That rant is a great social commentary on the idiocy of racism, but people who watch it on AMC won't know this.

Thought: Someone's gonna have to go back and get a shitload of dimes!