Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (2003)

'Tis the season of perverted pagan rituals, to be reminded,
"Lust awakens the desire to possess, and that awakens the intent to murder."

Possess a Samsung - 42" Class 720p Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV and Microsoft - Xbox 360 Pro Console, available at Best Buy now for just $899.98.

A season of giving, a season of taking.

With a large stone roped to our child's bust we step boldly before a blue Ford pickup speeding down Laurel Canyon, we slip quietly through a hole in ice covered White Bear Lake, we leap faithfully from a Bedford Falls bridge.

Recall indulging an old friend's addiction at the Triangle Bar, mimicking the stupor of Exile on 4th Street, watching "Torn and Frayed" shredded by Zuzu's Pedals--the souvenir laughing that after death comes a Wonderful Life.

The gravel baritone of Reverend Cleveland, gospel's tragic king, calls:
Say you gotta habit.
(everybody gotta habit).

A choir of evergreen cliffs responds:
Tell me about it.

Back leans into fingers painting grand colors into carved keys:
Man said, "I'm hooked! I'm hooked! Aaand--I--caaan't--get myself freeee!"

'Kerchief dabs, temple glistening:
(Shhhh)
Where is your faith?
Where--is--your--faaayyth
in God?

Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977)

The Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1931:

Divorce Over Tree Planting Held Invalid

Rudolph Fotsch, 73 years of age, who recently was given a divorce on his testimony that every time he planted a certain tree in his back yard his wife, Addie Belle Fotsch, 68, would change it, has no divorce today. His wife had the decree set aside yesterday by Superior Judge Edmonds on grounds of fraud.

Mrs. Fotsch, through her attorney, declared she did not contest the suit because her husband had informed her it was dismissed.

She also asserted that they had not separated last May 20, as set forth by her husband, but only two weeks ago.

July, 10, 1931:

Elderly Pair to Renew Divorce Battle Today

Mrs. Addie Belle Fotsch, 85 years of age, and her octogenarian husband, Rudolph Fotsch, are expected to meet again today in Superior Court for trial of their contested divorce suit.

Fotsch recently obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce on his testimony that every time he planted a certain tree in the back yard of their home his wife would move it. Mrs. Fotsch then came before Superior Judge Edmonds and had the decree set aside on the grounds that it was obtained by fraud.

The case is scheduled to be heard by Clarence J. Morley, one-time judge and Governor of Colorado, who has volunteered to serve as jurist to relieve congestion in the local courts.

February 4, 1936:

Deaths

FOTSCH. Mrs. Belle E. Fotsch, beloved wife of Rudolf Fotsch of 3028 East First street. Funeral services today at 1 p.m. from the chapel of W.A. Brown, 1815 South Flower street.

Nov 8, 1938

Deaths

FOTSCH. The funeral services of Rudolph Fotsch will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. from the chapel of W.A. Brown, 1815 South Flower street.

And so, a man from Halau, Switzerland, who left his first wife back in Muscatine for California in The Day of the Locust, is found by his great-grandson buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Boyle Heights with an unknown woman.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

In Persona Liv Ullmann holds a photo of a boy, frozen hands held level with capped head, soldier leveling rifle at back. The same photo found in Night and Fog precedes piled corpses bulldozed to burial pits.

This boy, now behind barbed wire, Shmuel--Prophet, Judge, Son of God--meets Bruno--son of SS soldier--in a light-hearted tale of mistaken identity at a death camp.

An allegory for our own mistaken identity, fictional self-representation: as Milton Mayer says of his Nazi friends, kleine Leute, ordinary Germans, "they thought they were free," and Mayer asks, "isn't this true of us all?"

It feels good feeding delectably soft pastries to comic strip Pig-Pen neighbors, dirt covered with rotting teeth, imagining our joys untraceable to their pains, sweets untinged by Zyklon B pellets.

And after we absorb the chill, the bite of our crime, our betrayal, what will we sacrifice to give a clasping hand in love, friendship?