It is December 2009 and unbelievably we've been working on this film for more than five years. I could say a lot about the pains, delays and false hope that this project has weathered, but in this season of hope I'd rather think about the coming year. With determined effort we are making progress. I can pretty confidently say that one way or another, the film will be finished in 2010, screened and hopefully broadcast.
I happened on a classic photo of Sandburg and his brother-in-law Edward Steichen by Len Stechler and it beautifully captures the optimism they shared. Well into their eighties they were creating, dreaming and still working toward ideas that were not selfish. Ideas of understanding, like The Family of Man exhibit that took these two icons to what was then the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War. There they talked, they sang, they shared the ideas of common brotherhood of man.
Where are the Sandburgs and Steichens today? Who are the American icons of thought and courage in this time of global and national crisis to go beyond themselves?
I believe in this film and I believe that we must look to the past for some guidance through the storms of today. I wish you all the best this December and the courage to press on.
4 comments:
Connemara
He knew, perhaps, we might come
to wonder, that our fingers might arc
with impulses along the spines of his books.
And he would have forgiven me, if, say,
when the guide looked away, when she turned
to point at his walking sticks or the death mask,
were I to reach across and touch the rim
of his old felt hat, wouldn't he? Maybe
he would have even thought it winsome,
written a song about it up in the dizzy corner,
sung it to Margaret come morning, to the fog.
Or the goats. Maybe just to himself. Yes.
The rooms keep a silence my hand keeps still.
It was there in their hush I came to wonder:
is this the quiet of a poem, of a poet, ended?
--J Brian Long
Very nice Brian. Being there makes you want to surround yourself with books and write.
Thank you!
Great energy in that place.
I am looking truly forward to your film.
--J Brian Long
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