Sunday 28 April 2013

My Life on Trains, starring Buster Keaton



Buster Keaton in The General

This is a reasonable allegorical representation of my life in the last ten days and probably the next ten days too. Buster Keaton plays an itinerant poet. The action consists chiefly of running around trains. A train dashes through countryside. I am struggling to put on some decent clothes. The train is delayed through some fault on the line, generally signals. And so on. General Parker advances. People in the real world do important things. There seems to be a young woman bound up in some way. I forget who she is. You can make up the rest. 

Tomorrow Brighton, Tuesday London, Wednesday London, etc.

You can have it with jazz too. In fact you do. Once my brain is back in order I will write more sensible blogs. 



7 comments:

Dafydd John said...

Have a good journey, George.

We had a large blaze at the National Library on Friday. Thankfully, no one was hurt and there don't seem to be any major losses as far as the collections are concerned - though there will be damage because of the volume of water required to put out the blaze.

I don't know if you'd heard about this; the British press and media seemed not to think it an important story.

A dedicated group of staff over the past couple of days did, indeed, some important things.

George S said...

Sorry to hear about the National Library, Dafydd but glad much has been saved. The same thing happened in Norwich about nineteen years ago. A great deal was destroyed, some by fire, some by water. Now there is an entirely new library - the Millennium Library - in a new place.

It is, as you strongly imply, a shame I did not read about it.

Gwil W said...

On Sunday there was a blaze at the Danish Museum of Resistance.

Gwil W said...

Buster Keaton is my favourite silent movie star. Pity about the horrendous music.

NicoleS said...

Gwil, I agree. Buster Keaton was extraordinary, with that beautiful deadpan face, those brilliantly choreographed gags and the amazing tumbling skills he learned as the child of vaudeville parents. Orson Welles once said The General was "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made," so thank you for the clip, George, it is a treat.

Dafydd John said...

I see congratulations are in order, George!

George S said...

Thank you, Dafydd. It has been a hell of a time for travelling and deadlines so have only just got on to the blog page.