Hillary G. Bailey, “The Last Chord” (ca. 1935)
da capo
I remember the songs you taught me
by heart
and I can still see your hands on the keys —
graceful and intuitive
and the old upright still reverberates your memory
through the light and dust
and the years
— J.S.
Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide Magazine, 1961
a gift
you held me and sang
come fly with me,
said the little red sled
and you gave me the wings of a bird
— J.S.
cf. Tom Hubbard, “Fountain Square…” (June, 1973)
behind the camera
as you were focusing
on your friend
smiling in his summer suit
next to the fountain
on that hot june afternoon in 1973
her heart was breaking
he had lost his way
fate and destiny
enkindled and unsettled
set in motion
held alone by gossamer threads
and if you look closely
someplace far away
I’m on my bicycle
riding as fast as I can
— J.S.
Jack Corn, “Children During Recess…” (1974)
tempus fugit
nowadays
jobs
wives, husbands
houses
children
but I —
I was there
in that bright autumn dawn
on the playground
when we sparkled
and our dreams were the morning stars
still in the sky
— J.S.
A great dog.
Oh, how I wish we were back on the road again…
“Me And You And A Dog Named Boo” by Lobo
Léonard Misonne, “By The Mill” (ca. 1905)
And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “My Lost Youth” (excerpt)
“Yesterday Once More” – Carpenters
Jack Corn, “The Cool Morning Air Condenses a Boy’s Breath as He Walks Along a Coal Car on His Way to School…” (1974)
“Nay, if I mistake not, unity itself divided by zero equals infinity.”
—Thomas Carlyle
Time, they say, is water from the river Lethe…
How long had Joachim actually lived up here with him, whether measured until his wild departure or taken as a whole? What had been the date on the calendar of his first defiant departure? How long had he been gone, when had he returned, and how long had Hans Castorp himself been here when he did return and then took leave of time? How long, to set Joachim aside for now, had Frau Chauchat not been present? How long, purely in terms of years, was it now since she was back again (because she was back again); and how much earthly time had Hans Castorp spent at the Berghof until the day she came back? In response to all such questions—assuming someone had posed them to him, which, however, no one did, not even he to himself, for he was probably afraid of posing them—Hans Castorp would have drummed his fingertips on his brow and most assuredly known no definite answer: a phenomenon no less disquieting than the temporary inability to tell Herr Settembrini his own age on his first evening here; indeed, it represented a worsening of that incapacity, for he now seriously no longer knew at any time just how old he was…
—Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Flip Schulke, “Youths Congregate Around the Front Steps of a Home…” (ca. 1975);
Patricia D. Duncan, “…Schoolhouse…” (1974);
David Rees, “Students Arriving by School bus at Senior High School…” (1974);
William Strode, “The Ohio River” (1972)
Lons Ramsdell, “School’s Out” (Home Movies Magazine, 1950)
David Falconer, “School Children…” (1974)
And Bellerophon put his faith in the child, who had seen the image of Pegasus in the water, and in the maiden, who had heard him neigh so melodiously, rather than in the middle-aged clown, who believed only in cart-horses, or in the old man who had forgotten the beautiful things of his youth…
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Chimaera
You better believe it
You know my dream’s still alive
You can love it or leave it
But I’m never gonna be 35…
State Archives of North Carolina, “…Duplin County Schools” (ca.1949)
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.”
—Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
F. J. Bandholtz, “Rock Island…” (detail) (ca. 1907)
Anna Curtis Chandler & Irene F. Cypher, “Audio-Visual Techniques For Enrichment Of The Curriculum” (1948)
Kinderszenen
after school
I finished my Yodel and the telephone rang
unable to contain my excitement
I ran through backyards
until I reached her house
she lowered the tone arm
and I fell in love
–J.S.
Last Train To Clarksville by The Monkees
Anna Curtis Chandler & Irene F. Cypher, “Audio-visual techniques for enrichment of the curriculum” (1948)
Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun…
—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Tom Hubbard, August Brings the “D’aug Days” to Fountain Square… (1973)
And that was the end of the attempt by the flatlands to reclaim Hans Castorp. The young man admitted quite openly to himself that such total failure, which he had seen coming, was of decisive importance for his relationship to the people down there. For the flatlands it meant a final shrug, the abandonment of any claim; for him, however, it meant freedom finally won, and by now his heart no longer fluttered at the thought.
–Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Source: Young John – arrisgracehodge / Saatchi Art: Young John Painting by Arris Grace Hodge
Arris Grace Hodge | Saatchi Art
Arris Grace Hodge, “Young John” (Oil on Canvas, 18 H x 24 W x 2 in)
Historic American Buildings Survey, Side and front entrance, facing west – Sears Department Store…
My family arrived early.
The Christmas decorations were already up and large strands of gold were wreathed between the lamp poles in the parking lot.
The crisp December air was muted by the extravagant winter coat I was wearing.
My father put me on his shoulders.
The helicopter came into view – hovering and then slowly descending.
Through the cockpit glass I could see that something was wrong.
Murmurs ran through the crowd.
When the cabin door finally opened Santa looked very pale.
In an instant my parents and I were running wildly for our car.
As we pulled away I saw the helicopter receding into the night.
–J.S., “Santa Agonistes” (A True Story)
I was still there
in the same place
right where I left me
when I looked up
the grass was greener
and I had a magical feeling
it was all in front of me
I turned around
I looked back and waved
and got in my car
–John Sapiro, “on revisiting my school playground”
Michael Philip Manheim, Neighborhood Youngsters in the Playground… (1973)
Peter Ilsted, Mother and Child in an Interior (1898)
George Laur, Students on Their Way to Senior High School… (ca. 1975)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
–Delmore Schwartz, Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day (excerpt)
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight…
cf. Clarence H. White, The Bubble (1898)
John Vachon, A small town in Augusta County… (1941)
Last night a man on the radio,
a still young man, said the business district
of his hometown had been plowed under.
The town was in North Dakota…
I don’t know
if the man from North Dakota has
some music that brings back
his town to him, but something does,
and whatever he remembers
is durable and instantly
retrievable and lit
by a sky or streetlight
which does not change…
–Lisel Mueller, “Place and Time” (excerpt)
Sometimes even now when I’m feeling lonely and beat
I drift back in time and I find my feet
Down on Mainstreet…
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
–A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
“A sound of a distant horn
O’er shadowed lake is borne
—my father’s song.”
Charles Ives
John Sapiro 