The Eternal Dancer

My camera is dated 1913, but the actual production year is from 1917, Rochester, N.Y. People might have used the camera for many years and might have recorded any number of lives, maybe even lives still lived today. We know, in a way, that anything the camera records is gone long ago, that everything is changed and gone for good but the image of what was. The camera itself is an image of what was. I have it in my living room a a reminder of times gone. I have it because it's beautiful. I have pictures from 1917 of my grandmother dancing. She was beautiful. The pictures I have of her might have been taken with a camera like this one.
...
No. 1A (Autographic) Kodak Jr.
[1914 - 1927]The 1A Autographic Kodak Jr. folding camera was typical of Kodak folding cameras of the time. The camera body is wooden. Folding front and removable back are metal while the external covering and bellows are leather....

It used Kodak Autographic Film which permitted a message to be written on the film between frames. The spool was wound with a layer of carbon paper between the film and thin red backing paper. After taking a photograph the user would open up the small door on the back of the camera (fig.1) and using the provided stylus inscribe a brief note. Pressure of the stylus on the backing paper transferred the carbon to the backing paper. The user then held the camera back to the light for a moment and light passing through would image the message on the film. Typical of many antique cameras, aperture settings are marked in a series of numbers....

http://www.clickondavid.com/no1a.html
I look into the view-finder but I never see my grandmother in there. It must have been a different camera after all. Nevertheless, someone has her image as fresh and alive as she was close to a hundred year ago. That would be me.
This would be W.B. Yeats, "Among Schoolchildren."

Stanza Vlll

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

-- W. B. Yeats

My grandmother would be the dancer in the photographs on my wall, the beautiful girl dancing in my memory.

The Centre Cannot Hold

In a matter of hours now we'll be out front of the city court house demonstrating in favor of free speech in Vancouver, Canada. The two posts directly below are those I would normally have handed out to passers-by. Diplomacy rules otherwise this fine day. Never mind, dear reader. Our time will come. We will be heard. We will have our hour upon the stage, and the world will tremble. Today the spotlights are on Mark Steyn and Covenant Zone, rightly so.

Wait, friend.

Our time is coming. "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

Helter Skelter, circa 1914

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Surely some revelation is at hand. Or is it only mad visionaries who think they see the future so plain and pure in scope and depth? It seems certain some revelation is at hand. Maybe it's not even the end of the world. Maybe there's a vision true: of the world in flames and Man, scorched, wading forward hip-deep in blood to the the future, just like always and ever.

"What about you, daddy? Did you exchange a walk-on role in the war for a leading role in a cage?"

"That was long ago, darling, when boiling blood burst thorough split skin of the bound, burning."

Surely some revelation is at hand. There is nothing new under the Sun.

"Helter Skelter?"

"Hush little baby, don't you cry. One of these mornings you're going to rise up singing; then you'll spread your wings, and you'll take to the sky."

There are those who say, "It ain't gonna happen." We can talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it peace, and wreck 'n' silliation. Floods and fires, volcanoes and earthquakes; disease and famine, mayhem and invasion. We can talk about it talk about talk about it. Everything ... shrugs. There is nothing new under the Sun. Surely it is revealed that there is nothing new under the Sun.

Everybody knows, everyone says. That oily men disco dancing on flowery floats, men in sequined g-string gyrate to the lusting cheers of men; that hard-packed women, lip-waxed ladies, scowl; babies like rabies ashot; that everyone smiles at the shit on their shoes and looks at the sky, blue and empty. You can hear them say: "Wish You Were Here."

Everyone knows everyone blows.

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

It's a mixed up, mumbled up, jumbled up world 'cept for Lola. One World. We are the Children.

Who you gonna turn to where you gonna run.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Surely some vision has run Helter Skelter. Surely there is nothing new under the Sun. Surely the Second Coming is at hand.