nobody, not even the rain

Woody Allen har blivit gammal - eller nja, åtminstone 70 - och det verkar inte ha gjort honom ett dugg mindre gubbsjuk eller fixerad vid döden. I en fin liten Washington Post-artikel berättar han om sitt liv och varför han pysslar med film egentligen (mest som terapi, visar det sig). Insikterna flödar, på ett skönt - och torrt - Allenskt sätt:

"He dislikes looking back, if only because his life seems wispy to him in hindsight and death is a punch line that turns the past and present into cruel farce.

'It's like the two trains at the beginning of my movie 'Stardust Memories,' " he says. "There's a train with these gorgeous winners on it, and a train with all the losers in it. You want to be on the train with the winners, but five minutes later, you're pulling into the same depot. My 70-plus years will be spent better than those of a beggar on the streets of Calcutta. But we'll wind up in the same place."

Apropå Allen, eller egentligen kanske mer apropå ee cummings: jag läste Konrads utläggning om In Her Shoes härom dagen, och det slog mig att jag har glömt större delen av filmen, men det smetiga slutet, där Cameron Diaz läser en romantisk dikt, sitter kvar. Ni vet, den här:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Allt är ee cummings fel, tror jag. Han fastnar. Jag kan inte se Allens Hannah och hennes systrar utan att ha Somewhere i have never travelled ringandes i öronen i flera dagar, dikten som slutar med:

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

Jag vet inte varför jag smälter för den, jag kan bara inte låta bli. Men det är lite skönt, på något sätt, att Edward Estling Cummings skrev annat också. Som det här:

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance