Folly to be wise?

[dclaudekatz]

Saturday night my wife and I were eating in a restaurant, and there was a couple nearby who reminded me of us when we were younger. I really don’t wish I were young again. Maybe if I were someone else. But I don’t want to relive the last 20 years. And I don’t want to be the person I was 20 years ago. I think I was happier then than I am now.

Comments

How do you think you will feel when you are 68?

[billycity]

Hi: I enjoy reading your intelligent posts. And your interest in Isobel Wren reminds me of The Blue Angel. Fassbinder's film Lola is good on this type of fascination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Werner_Fassbinder#Lola_.281981.29
I had a case of this malady once. I used to sing the song "I've Got It Bad And That Ain't Good". But thankfully now I am over it and that fever of youth has passed. Old age has it advantages one of which is the cooling of desire. Norman Mailer wrote a good book about this subject called Prisoner of Sex. I read it long ago and have forgotten it but I really like that title.

Re: How do you think you will feel when you are 68?

[dclaudekatz]

Thank you; I think you’re my first commenter. I saw part of The Blue Angel once, but it was the end, so I didn’t see how the situation was set up. The odd thing about me with Isobel is that my feelings weren’t initially sexual, and in some sense they still aren’t. As I said in one of my posts, it’s a sort of reverse sublimation. (I think my initial feelings were more paternal than sexual, and as far as her appearance goes, Isobel isn’t particularly the kind of woman to whom I would normally be attracted - in the past, anyhow, but she may have an enduring effect on my preferences). I’m not sure that old age would confer an immunity to the kind of feelings I have about Isobel, though it might change the way I experience them. The poem “I Look into my Glass” (Thomas Hardy) comes to mind.

Re: How do you think you will feel when you are 68?

[billycity]

Thanks for your response. I am retired and have lots of time on my hands so I have been watching quite a few movies via Netflix. If you have Netflix you can get Blue Angel and Lola by Fassbinder. In fact I would say be sure and watch some Fassbinder films.
Oddly I was reading a Thomas Hardy poem this morning. I graduated with an English Lit degree long ago. 1963. And have spent a lifetime reading.Thomas Mann's Death In Venice is another one that comes to mind. Instead of the young boy imagine Isobel in Venice as you watch her knowing you are dying of old age. There is no end of interesting variations.

Re: How do you think you will feel when you are 68?

[dclaudekatz]

The one that I keep thinking of is Kurosawa's Ikiru.

Now that you mentioned The Blue Angel, the song "Blue Angel" by Squirrel Nut Zippers is stuck in my head.

BTW IIRC the Death in Venice guy wasn't really dying of old age, although that may have been his intention. I think he was dying of some mysterious local plague that the authorities were trying to cover up.

The Blue Angel

[billycity]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_blaue_Engel

William Butler Yeats

[billycity]

This by Yeats spoke to me this morning:

The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water
William Butler Yeats
I heard the old, old men say,
‘Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.’
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
‘All that’s beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.’