(Twain in 1867)
HEMINGWAY:You like Mark Twain?
SCOTT FITZGERALD: I’m going to find Zelda.I don’t like the thoughtof her with that Spaniard.
GIL PENDER:May I?
HEMINGWAY:Yeah,
GIL PENDER:I’m actually a huge Mark Twain fan.I think you can even make the case that all modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn.-
Why does Woody Allen’s view of life go so well with the Book of Ecclesiastes?
Francis Schaeffer noted that King Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” No wonder Ecclesiastes is Richard Dawkins’ favorite book of the Bible and for that SAME REASON IT SHOULD BE WOODY ALLEN’S FAVORITE BOOK OF THE BIBLE!!!
(Francis Schaeffer pictured below)
In many Woody Allen’s films you see people who have deal with the oppression in the world and also a common theme is that rich evil guy comes out on top many times with “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Match Point” just being two examples.
Below are three scriptures with Schaeffer’s comments below them.
Ecclesiastes 4:1
Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them.
Between birth and death power rules. Solomon looked over his kingdom and also around the world and proclaimed that right does not rule but power rules.
Ecclesiastes 7:14-15
14 In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider—God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him. 15 I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.
Ecclesiastes 8:14
14 There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility.
We could say it in 20th century language, “The books are not balanced in this life.
Mark Twain’s comments on NEGROES
And at the fag-end of the procession was a long double file of the proudest, happiest scoundrels I saw yesterday–N word. Or perhaps I should say “them damned Nword,”which is the other name they go by now. They did all it was in their power to do, poor devils, to modify the prominence of the contrast between black and white faces which seems so hateful to their white fellow-creatures, by putting their lightest colored darkies in the front rank, then glooming down by some unaggravating and nicely graduated shades of darkness to the fell and dismal blackness of undefiled and unalloyed neggrowdomin the remote extremity of the procession. It was a fine stroke of strategy–the day was dusty and no man could tell where the white folks left off and the Nword began. The “damned naygurs”–this is another descriptive title which has been conferred upon them by a class of our fellow-citizens who persist, in the most short-sighted manner, in being on bad terms with them in the face of the fact that they have got to sing with them in heaven or scorch with them in hell some day in the most familiar and sociable way, and on a footing of most perfect equality.
– “Mark Twain on the Colored Man,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, July 1865
The idea of making negroes citizens of the United States was startling and disagreeable to me, but I have become reconciled to it; and being reconciled to it, and the ice being broken and the principle established, I am ready now for all comers. The idea of seeing a Chinaman a citizen of the United States would have been almost appalling to me a few years ago, but I suppose I can live through it now.
– “The Treaty with China,” New York Tribune, August 4, 1868, p. 1-2.
| …on every sin which a colored man commits, the just white man must make a considerable discount, because of the colored man’s antecedents. The heirs of slavery cannot with any sort of justice, be required to be as clear and straight and upright as the heirs of ancient freedom. And besides, whenever a colored man commits an unright action, upon his head is the guilt of only about one tenth of it, and upon your heads and mine and the rest of the white race lies fairly and justly the other nine tenths of the guilt. – Letter to Karl Gerhardt, May 1, 1883 reprinted in Selected Writings of an American Skeptic, Victor DoynoThe people that’s always the most anxious for to hang a Nword that hain’t done just right, is always the very ones that ain’t the most anxious to pay for him when they’ve got their satisfaction out of him. – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
Sam Clemens and John T. Lewis |
Mrs. Clemens has said a bright thing. A drop letter came to me asking me to lecture here for a Baptist church debt. I began to rage as usual over the exceedingly cool wording of the request, when Mrs. Clemens said “I think I know that church; & if so, this preacher is a colored man–he doesn’t know how to write a polished letter–how should he?”
My manner changed so suddenly & so radically that Mrs. C. said: “I will give you a motto, & it will be useful to you if you will adopt it: “Consider every man colored till he is proved white.”
It is dern good I think.
– Letter to William Dean Howells, September 17, 1884
I was a playmate to all the Nword preferring their society to that of the elect, I being a person of low-down tastes from the start, notwithstanding my high birth, and ever ready to forsake the communion of high souls if I could strike anything nearer my grade.
– “Jane Lampton Clemens”
I do not believe I would very cheerfully help a white student who would ask a benevolence of a stranger, but I do not feel so about the other color. We have ground the manhood out of them, & the shame is ours, not theirs, & we should pay for it.
– Letter to Francis Wayland, December 24, 1885
Even if the Jews have not all been geniuses, their general average of intelligence and intellectuality is far above our general average–and that is one of our reasons for wishing to drive them out of the higher forms of business and the professions. It is the swollen envy of pigmy minds–meanness, injustice. In the case of the Negro it is of course very different. The majority of us do not like his features, or his color, and we forget to notice that his heart is often a damned sight better than ours.
– quoted by Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch in My Husband Gabrilowitsch
Our Civil War was a blot on our history, but not as great a blot as the buying and selling of Negro souls.
– quoted by Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch in letter to New York Herald Tribune, November 19, 1941
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE The Abolitionists, Part One, Chapter 1
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | The Abolitionists, Part 2, Chapter 1 | PBS
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | The Abolitionists, Part 3, Chapter 1 | PBS
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This series deals with the Book of Ecclesiastes and Woody Allen films. The first post dealt with MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT and it dealt with the fact that in the Book of Ecclesiastes Solomon does contend like Hobbes and Stanley that life is “nasty, brutish and short” and as a result has no meaning UNDER THE SUN.
The movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS offers many of the same themes we see in Ecclesiastes. The second post looked at the question: WAS THERE EVER A GOLDEN AGE AND DID THE MOST TALENTED UNIVERSAL MEN OF THAT TIME FIND TRUE SATISFACTION DURING IT?
In the third post in this series we discover in Ecclesiastes that man UNDER THE SUN finds himself caught in the never ending cycle of birth and death. The SURREALISTS make a leap into the area of nonreason in order to get out of this cycle and that is why the scene in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS with Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Luis Bunuel works so well!!!! These surrealists look to the area of their dreams to find a meaning for their lives and their break with reality is only because they know that they can’t find a rational meaning in life without God in the picture.
The fourth post looks at the solution of WINE, WOMEN AND SONG and the fifth and sixth posts look at the solution T.S.Eliot found in the Christian Faith and how he left his fragmented message of pessimism behind. In the seventh post the SURREALISTS say that time and chance is all we have but how can that explain love or art and the hunger for God? The eighth post looks at the subject of DEATH both in Ecclesiastes and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. In the ninth post we look at the nihilistic worldview of Woody Allen and why he keeps putting suicides into his films.
In the tenth post I show how Woody Allen pokes fun at the brilliant thinkers of this world and how King Solomon did the same thing 3000 years ago. In the eleventh post I point out how many of Woody Allen’s liberal political views come a lack of understanding of the sinful nature of man and where it originated. In the twelfth post I look at the mannishness of man and vacuum in his heart that can only be satisfied by a relationship with God.
In the thirteenth post we look at the life of Ernest Hemingway as pictured in MIDNIGHT AND PARIS and relate it to the change of outlook he had on life as the years passed. In the fourteenth post we look at Hemingway’s idea of Paris being a movable feast. The fifteenth and sixteenth posts both compare Hemingway’s statement, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know…” with Ecclesiastes 2:18 “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” The seventeenth post looks at these words Woody Allen put into Hemingway’s mouth, “We fear death because we feel that we haven’t loved well enough or loved at all.”
In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Hemingway and Gil Pender talk about their literary idol Mark Twain and the eighteenth post is summed up nicely by Kris Hemphill‘swords, “Both Twain and [King Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes] voice questions our souls long to have answered: Where does one find enduring meaning, life purpose, and sustainable joy, and why do so few seem to find it? The nineteenth post looks at the tension felt both in the life of Gil Pender (written by Woody Allen) in the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and in Mark Twain’s life and that is when an atheist says he wants to scoff at the idea THAT WE WERE PUT HERE FOR A PURPOSE but he must stay face the reality of Ecclesiastes 3:11 that says “God has planted eternity in the heart of men…” and THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING! Therefore, the secular view that there is no such thing as love or purpose looks implausible. The twentieth post examines how Mark Twain discovered just like King Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes that there is no explanation for the suffering and injustice that occurs in life UNDER THE SUN. Solomon actually brought God back into the picture in the last chapter and he looked ABOVE THE SUN for the books to be balanced and for the tears to be wiped away.
The twenty-first post looks at the words of King Solomon, Woody Allen and Mark Twain that without God in the picture our lives UNDER THE SUN will accomplish nothing that lasts. The twenty-second post looks at King Solomon’s experiment 3000 years that proved that luxuries can’t bring satisfaction to one’s life but we have seen this proven over and over through the ages. Mark Twain lampooned the rich in his book “The Gilded Age” and he discussed get rich quick fever, but Sam Clemens loved money and the comfort and luxuries it could buy. Likewise Scott Fitzgerald was very successful in the 1920’s after his publication of THE GREAT GATSBY and lived a lavish lifestyle until his death in 1940 as a result of alcoholism.
In the twenty-third post we look at Mark Twain’s statement that people should either commit suicide or stay drunk if they are “demonstrably wise” and want to “keep their reasoning faculties.” We actually see this play out in the film MIDNIGHT IN PARIS with the character Zelda Fitzgerald. In the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth posts I look at Mark Twain and the issue of racism. In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS we see the difference between the attitudes concerning race in 1925 Paris and the rest of the world.
Josephine Baker
ZELDA FITZGERALD: I know what you’re thinking.This is boring. I agree!I’m ready to move on.Let’s do Bricktop’s!- Bricktop’s?-
SCOTT FITZGERALD: I’m bored! He’s bored! We’re all bored.We. Are. All. Bored.Let’s do Bricktop’s.Why don’t you tell Cole and Linda to come with, and…um…uh…Gil? You coming?
[Cole Porter’s”You’ve Got That Thing”]
You got that thing- You got that thing The thing that makes birds forget to sing Yes, you’ve got that thing, that certain thing You’ve got that charm,that subtle charm that makes young farmers desert the farm
[Joséphine Baker’s “LaConga Blicoti”He has lost And has it To dance And feel Yes, The world of people see In the heart Music ]
This is one of the finest establishments in Paris. They do a diamond whiskey sour.Bon soir, tous le monde! (Good evening, everyone!) Un peu tir de bourbon, s’il vous plaît .(A small shot of bourbon, please.)
SCOTT FITZGERALD: Greetings and salutations.You’ll forgive me. I’ve been mixing grain and grape.Now, this a writer. uh…Gil. Yes?- Gil…
GIL PENDER: Gil Pender.- Gil Pender.
Josephine Baker – La Conga Blicoti
Joséphine Baker – Siren of the Tropics
joséphine baker “Ahé ! la Conga” (clip du film princesse tam tam)
Chasing a Rainbow: The Life of Joséphine Baker
Joséphine Baker: The 1st Black Superstar
Josephine Baker, Zouzou, Dances With Her Shadow
Zouzou is a French film by Marc Allégret released in 1934.
Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 — April 12, 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, she became a citizen of France in 1937. Fluent in both English and French, Baker became an international musical and political icon. She was given such nicknames as the “Bronze Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, and the “Créole Goddess”.
Ms. Baker was the first African-American female to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934), to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. She was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. However, she respectfully declined thr offer.
Ms. Baker was honored for assisting the French Resistance during World War II, and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre.
As children, Zouzou and Jean are paired in a traveling circus as twins: she’s dark, he’s light. After they’ve grown, he treats her as if she were his sister, but she’s in love with him.
In Paris, he’s a music hall electrician, she’s a laundress who delivers clean underwear to the hall. She introduces him to Claire, her friend at work, and the couple fall in love. Jean conspires to get the show’s star out of town and for the theater manager to see the high-spirited Zouzou perform. When Jean’s accused of murder and Zouzou needs money to mount his defense, she pleads to go on stage. Her talents may save the show, but can anything save her dream of life with Jean? Jean Gabin: Jean, an orphan Josephine Baker: Zouzou, the orphan Pierre Larquey: Father Mélé, fairground Claire Gerard: Ms Valley, the laundress
As with all of my other posts my editing fingerprints are all over this video… including the audio tracks
for which I have taken the liberty of substituting… New Orleans Jazz Band – performing – TheCharleston.
The Original New Orleans Jazz Band was one of the first jazz bands to make recordings. Composed of mostly New Orleans musicians, the band was popular in New York City in the late 1910s.
The group included some of the first New Orleans style players to follow the Original Dixieland Jass Band’s success playing in Manhattan. Like the “ODJB”, most were veterans of Papa Jack Laine’s groups in New Orleans. Recordings of the group were issued by Gennett Records and Okeh Records. The group also reportedly recorded one or more sides for Emerson Records, which seem to have never been issued.
Jimmy Durante, the only New Yorker in the group, became well known for his showmanship and took over leadership from Frank Christian in 1920 and the group was renamed “Jimmy Durante’s Jazz Band”.
Additional Information:
Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/ZouzouAkaZ…
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zouzou_(…)
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The Life Of Mark Twain
TOM WIGGINS
Tom Wiggins was born a slave on the plantation of Wiley Edward Jones in Harris County, Georgia but became one of the nineteenth-century’s great piano virtuosos. Blind and autistic, Wiggins’s disabilities left him unable to communicate his most basic needs, no less perform typical slave labor, so he was allowed a greater degree of freedom to occupy himself otherwise. By four, Wiggins has acquired basic piano skills by ear, and by five, he had composed his first song. At age eight, Wiggins was hired out to Perry Oliver, a concert promoter who forced Wiggins to play up to four concerts a day. Wiggins’s autism left him unable to communicate beyond grunts and gestures, but he had an impressive ability to repeat anything he heard, usually upon first hearing. It was estimated that he learned 7,000 pieces of music in his lifetime.
In her The Ballad of Blind Tom, author Dierde O’Connell notes Tom’s more immediate influence on Clemens:
In January 1868, Mark Twain boarded a train from Galena to Chicago and for the first time, laid eyes on Blind Tom who was howling and whooping along to the hiss and rattle of the locomotive. Read Twain’s wonderful account of his bizarre journey with Tom.
Clemens, known for being fond of African American spirituals, eagerly attended Wiggins’s concerts whenever he had opportunity.
Blind Tom: slave piano prodigy [HD] Into The Music, ABC Radio National
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The Daily Hatch 