06 January 2018

Why need it mean anything?

In the car behind me were a couple of men whom I've known practically all my life, but who no longer communicate with me. Driving was my dad, now deceased for some years, rest his soul. He talked over his shoulder to one of my brothers in the back, speaking in atypically tender, supplicatory accents. Out of the car, there was an oblong wooden box (no, much too short to serve as a coffin), and on the top two parallel rows of broad discs to be tightened with a Phillips head screwdriver. The tool I was using was awkward, as the head was worn and pitted. Someone said, "Perhaps your dad has a better," and someone else agreed, "He must." As my dad handed me a fresh screwdriver, I told him the Russian proverb, A bad workman blames his tools, and he chuckled lightly. Somewhere there was a label with a pseudo-Italian name, with two impossible diacritic marks.

Last night I revisited Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, through which one motif is a haunting vision of an armored demon who threatens first the martial artist, and at the end, his son Brandon. My dream last night was nothing so dire, of course. It was gentle, pastoral, familial. Even the irresolvable elements were not at all elements of tension.

The score was written by Randy Edelman (born in Paterson, NJ), and the article in Wikipedia suggests that the "Bruce and Linda love theme" has been recycled and echoed numerous times in other films. I've not seen the other films mentioned, so I cannot confirm. But in the character of the music — I could see it.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

What a lovely read this was, Karl!! (Empty effusion is OK, here, isn't it?)

Karl Henning said...

Cheersissimo, Michael!