Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
| Blogs > alteridalterego > Sensual Symphony |
|
Ice Cream & Existentialism What’s better on a hot August night than ice cream and Existentialism? Here’s a masterpiece of a poem by Delmore Schwartz. He was part of the group of moralists in the 50s warning our society was becoming too materialistic. Stanley Kubrick is also part of that group. I’ve analyzed this poem in the greatest detail simply because I liked the image at the ice cream shop and the flavors Schwartz produced throughout the poem. In some ways I am the little boy in the ice cream shop; in others, I’m in a very different place altogether. The True Blue American Jeremiah Dickson was a true-blue American, For he was a little boy who understood America, for he felt that he must Think about everything; because that’s all there is to think about, Knowing immediately the intimacy of truth and comedy, Knowing intuitively how a sense of humor was a necessity For one and for all who live in America. Thus, natively, and Naturally when on an April Sunday in an ice cream parlor Jeremiah Was requested to choose between a chocolate sundae and a banana split He answered unhesitatingly, having no need to think of it Being a true-blue American, determined to continue as he began: Rejected the either-or of Kierkegaard, and many another European; Refusing to accept alternatives, refusing to believe the choice of between; Rejecting selection; denying dilemma; electing absolute affirmation: knowing in his breast The infinite and the gold Of the endless frontier, the deathless West. “Both: I will have them both!” declared this true-blue American In Cambridge, Massachusetts, on an April Sunday, instructed By the great department stores, by the Five-and-Ten, Taught by Christmas, by the circus, by the vulgarity and grandeur of Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, Tutored by the grandeur, vulgarity, and infinite appetite gratified and Shining in the darkness, of the moonlight On Saturdays at the double bills of the pictures, The consummation of the advertisements of the imagination of the light Which is as it was—the infinite belief in infinite hope—of Columbus, Barnum, Edison, and Jeremiah Dickson. _____________________________________________ I would’ve wanted the banana split and the chocolate sundae as well! See, I believe “All things in moderation,” including moderation. That keeps everything in perfect balance! Ice cream anyone?  |
|||
|
Thank you rose! Lemon and mango sorbet it is for you! One scoop or two? We can't forget about your neighbors though. We also have gelato from the northern Italians and glace introduced to France by Catherine de'Medici of Florence. Ciao!
|
 |
 |
 |
| Become a member to comment on this blog | ||
 |
×
×