I

“Nach der Lese”

Wir schreiten auf und ab im reichen flitter
Des buchenganges beinah bis zum tore
Und sehen außen in dem feld vom gitter
Den mandelbaum zum zweitenmal im flore.

Wir suchen nach den schattenfreien bänken
Dort wo uns niemals fremde stimmen scheuchten.
In träumen unsre arme sich verschränken.
Wir laben uns am langen milden leuchten

Wir fühlen dankbar wie zu leisem brausen
Von wipfeln strahlenspuren auf uns tropfen
Und blicken nur und horchen wenn in pausen
Die reifen früchte an den boden klopfen.

—By Stefan George

Today's poem is taken—via Salinger's anthology—from George's “Das Jahr der Seele,” or “The Year of the Soul.”.

II

Every two weeks The Onion prints a two-for one (rental) coupon for Four-Star Video Heaven, and since I only watch movies every-so-often (making Netflix a waste) I find it convenient to use the coupons, get two or four DVDs, and get a reasonable price (I preferred them at $2, but $2.25 still isn't that bad).

Last summer or so they tore down the great but decaying University Square, which had a post office, a number of small restaurants, “The Den,” a mini-mart, convenience, drug store thing. Over the years I used it mainly when I needed to get a birthday card to send to my mother or father; I was always slow on these things, and with the post office across the way it was convenient.

I like that word.

University Square also contained a movie theater, a cinema that held several advantages, despite its faults (mediocre sound, so-so visuals), primarily cheap tickets, ice cream from The Chocolate Shoppe, beer, and big, spacious seats. They also showed more-or-less first-run movies, but it wasn't until I moved back downtown in 2003, after my brother had dated an ice queen named Christine who worked there, that I started attending movies there. A colleague and I watched Sin City there because her now ex-husband recommended it and she wanted to know what he saw in it. Since it was right off campus and drew a lot of college students, the cinema showed most of the comic book inspired movies, and so I caught the second Spider-Man there (the first, May of 2002, I caught out in Mountain View, I think), and I think I watched Batman Begins there. It was great because it was within walking distance and cheap, it was reasonable and convenient since movie watching had become a solo activity.

Yesterday I picked up Batman Begins since I hadn't seen it in a couple years, since the theater, and just had a hankering for it.

Hankering is another good word.

It was as enjoyable as it had been before, great cast, all of that. I like Chris Nolan as a director.

But I also realized that I hadn't yet seen Superman Returns. I missed it last summer because it came out in the U.S. when I was abroad, but it opened in Germany a day or two after I left, and since at best I could have gotten it in a dollar theater, I decided to wait until it came out on DVD, and then I forgot about it, since I really didn't care that much. I was, though, pleasantly surprised. If Bryan Singer makes it, I'll watch it, and his presence was missed in the underwhelming X-Men 3.

As you're all aware, director's cuts, special editions, 2nd and 3rd and 4th DVDs ... they're all the rage, but they're also such a waste most of the time, no? Neither Superman nor Batman provided director's commentary, nor any commentary at all. A couple “trailers” of various sorts, and a bunch of boring production featurettes ... though the format and arrangement varied by movie. Over in Superman Returns you get an accessible, clear menu of things to view; over in Batman Begins you get something approaching a video game ... find the f**king thing to click on, it's here somewhere. And to keep the “game” uninteresting, let's make all the uninteresting featurettes single-topic and short and spread them out. Over with the Man of Steel you have fewer mini-movies, but several are much longer, and with the exception of one devoted to Lex (quite amusing in some regards, I must admit), all the non-Superman characters and actors got little documentary time. It was all about casting a complete unknown. But back with the Dark Knight when it came to talk of casting, sure they spent far too much time on Christian Bale, but they actually dedicated minutes and minutes to most of the rest of the already-famous cast, though Tom Cruise's stupid and/or brainwashed wife got considerably less screen time than did Sir Michael, Scary Gary, and Magical Black Man Morgan.

One thing that both sets of “documentaries” focused on was the physical fitness of their respective main actors, and all that grueling work they undertook to achieve such sculpted muscles.

Speaking of Superman, while I don't have either of Donner's entries in the franchise currently available, I do have 16 Blocks (panned by The Onion, a more ambivalent review by Stephanie Zacharek), though Donner-nostalgia might lead me to Ladyhawke ... oh do I love that movie.

Manohla Dargis writes:

Mr. Willis has always been an acquired taste, but for those who did acquire that taste, riding shotgun on his good times and bad, it's a pleasure to see him doing what comes naturally. Which means holding a gun and fending off bad guys with as few words as possible.

III

Salinger captures enough of George's poem in his translation. The poem itself, German or English, seems pointless in a way, something transient. I read it and enjoy it but then it is already gone. Part of me suspects this is George's fault, but another part of me realizes that the verses we have here have been taken out of context, and while context is a ground against which the text is supposedly foregrounded, we are also missing the related texts, which is to say the texts that are intertwined with this one might give it meaning. Perhaps read with the rest of the cycle it does not evaporate.

Or not as quickly.

“After Harvest”

We stride together in the rich brocade
of broken sunlight almost to the gate
under the beech-trees down the long arcade
to watch the almond's second blossoming, late.

We look for benches shadow-free in streams
of sun where strangers' voices never fright us.
Our arms are intertwined as in our dreams.
We drink the mellow afternoons that light us.

And when the autumn wind, soft and sublime,
nips at the treetops, sunbeams tilt and pour
upon us and we hear from time to time
the ripe fruits thud against the orchard floor.

—Translated by Herman Salinger