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Long ago and far away, movie going was the act and the film was the maguffin. I mean, we went to the movies, and it didn’t really matter which. They were only a quarter when I was young, and Hollywood ginned out seven or eight of them per week, and they ran from before noon down at the American and into the night, and it didn’t really matter when you walked in neither. Thus the portentous ad campaign:
NO ONE WILL BE SEATED DURING THE FINALY SUSPENSE-PACKED FIFTEEN MINUTES!
There was an expression from back before the film became an expensive extravaganza, the star of the evening: "This is where I came in."
I’m wondering if maybe life does not indeed imitate art, or at least movies.
The first scene we see is the realtor assuring the buyer he qualifies.
Sure, you don’t need income or credit, and you’ll be on your third house by the time this rate balloons, and besides the value of the property goes up with the rate! You can float away on your own equity!
So lots of the mortgages are processed like sausage into unrecognizeable pulp and shipped far away to be resold over and over. And then there is the insurance on that investment, which also can be sold over and over, and the painted ponies, they go round and round …
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the bottom falls out. The properties are now worth less than the existing mortgages. Grim foreboding is at large in the land. Evictions. Fortunes built on those housing prices lost, then jobs. All that floating electronic muck back east – poof! Somber Congress doles out billions to support the failing banks in the style to which they had become accustomed.
But, wait, the bankers are holding onto those billions, not jump starting the economy by infusing capital into the hometown mix. They buy failed businesses, of which there are many, as tax losses to hide whatever income there may be from the IRS, which means a groaning load of deficit federal spending has more of the same piled on.
The worried politicians are all in a dither. For what good to the taxpaying investor is all this largesse if it just sits in the banks? So the banks are impelled to actually do what banks are supposed to do. But these stiffs aren’t worth the risk, the banker wails. For they have no savings, no jobs, no credit!
Well, then, is the reply from on high. You’ll just have to encourage them to take the loans. Okay, says the banker.
Look, you don’t need credit nor income, you can see more investment capital for that new restaurant you’ve always dreamed of than you thought possible! Just sign here.
This is where I came in.
3 Comments
wow, circle game, what a song…..i think joni would like what you wrote, clovis. i do.
i grew up by a local theater when i was young, we would all go by ourselves, and sit in the front row. took our own snacks.
when mortgage shopping a few years ago with my former husband, you wouldn’t believe the pressure to get a variable loan, or to get a larger loan than we had already figured out that we could afford. unbelievable pressure, to the point that it led to long discussions about it. if we wouldn’t have had the pitfalls and real dangers already pounded into us i know we would have taken a smaller payment and refinance later rather than the fixed higher rate. no doubt in my mind. not everyone who took those chances were stupid, or uneducated, they make it sound like the only smart choice. and at that time, it seemed stupid to take the fixed rate. i know of three people that refinanced at that time from a fixed rate to a lower variable, money-smart people, two lost on the bet…three different mortgage brokers did it to us, acted like we couldn’t have the fixed rate we were looking for. we refused. had to take a higher fixed rate, so we did.
‘the circle’ song you quoted–live with interviews over it, but magical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOV34vsjfg
recorded-from ladies of the canyon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related
i remember hearing this song, where i was. the live version. i was obsessed with it. i was 17. my best friend played it for me, her husband had band equipment in the basement and we would sing over the speakers, real kareoke….she’s still my best friend….i wondered about my life in the span it may have. how bittersweet everything is. that that was not only inevitable, but that it was ok. i also realized i could be realistic without it turning into cynicism and still be a daydreamer at the same time. that it’s all a process. i like the way you addressed the mortgage game in the same vein.
i don’t normally listen to ‘novice’ video stuff, but this girl did a perfectly soft, full of wonder in her voice, seriously goose-bump version of it.british accent lends itself well to the song. on the same page was a link to ’song for the asking’ simon and garfunkel, wish that congress could hear that one, too, on their way home one night.
http://www.last.fm/music/Joni+…..ircle+Game
lyrics
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/j…..75378.html
This is the very favorite comment ever left under anything I’ve written, forever! I thank you for that.
Once I was newly online, and in a local group, as I recall, and someone was talking about someone else he knew, as folks will, and he reported, “…and he married a figure skater.” And I was not the first to ask if he’d bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator.
And I wondered, out loud, then and later, do you think twenty years from now lyrics of any current musicians will be so readily recognized?
No, says everybody.
I have allegories, small stories to help me see always. Sometimes they are not related, ostensibly, but I cobble them together. Like, have you seen Mulholland Dr? It’s very mysterious, and the story I tell myself to make it more accessible is …
There is an old one in the park. Across the commons is a carousel, and he watches it, all the long afternoon. He has nothing better to do, and neither do lots of folks who think they do.
He’d see the elephant come around, bouncing, and then the zebra and the horse and the lion even. And every so often, a new kid would be mounted on each. And sometimes the same kid but on a different mount.
To him, the carousel was driving simple identity. I can’t even say he’s wrong.
In the movie, if you’ve seen it, the cast of characters, a blonde, a brunette, and various others, come into camera range and the events recur and so do the characters, but in different roles. The girl in the back of the limo is the blonde. Then she’s the brunette. The waitress is not someone we know, but now she is. The girl in the bungalo is dicsovered by the blond. Then she is the blond. I think it’s a very intricate film, and I don’t think it’s meaningless, as some do, and I probably have The Circle Game to thank for allowing me to see the movie.
I looked at all your links, and I thank you. She was so very pretty as a youngster, with a clear and pretty voice as well. And the lyrics, they go round and round, and it’s someone else singing them sometimes.
Thanks for being here.
Clovis
thanks, clovis.
the local am station is playing bing crosby’s ’swingin on a star’ as i am reading your comment. hilarious. the owner plays all kinds of stuff after his morning call-in show
from ‘going my way’ ’swingin’ on a star’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXMQ0XEIG0Y
lyrics
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyri….._star.html
someone i kinda know has a carousel in her house, it doesn’t spin, it’s a smaller one, another has a carousel horse in hers. works of art. growing up, carousels gave me the creeps, like zoo animals, once i reached the age to be able to ‘projectively’ put myself in their place. i knew someone who cared for the tigers at the zoo, tried to see it from his view. verdict still out.
i don’t think the carousel was a ‘baby’ ride, it just gave me the creeps. i think it was too much stimulation maybe, lights flashing, all of the colors, things going up and down randomly. and spinning past people and things at the same time. i much preferred watching it, eating waffles, listening to the calliope, now, that was cool. and looking at it as it spun. if i rode on an animal, it was personified, an animal speared by a pole. if i just watched it, it was made out of wood and plastic.and the clamoring for who got which animal bothered me.
i think there are still artists that have a gift of imagery in their writing, but it doesn’t seem to be as many now that i think about it. or as you said, as widely recognized. but back then, we only had so many choices. or only so many that were standing out due to the structure of radio, that were heard as widely. i remember everyone hanging out when a new record was released and playing it over and over, together. but i think the following generations are still doing that in their own way. if something is clever it will last and turn up again later to inspire or to illustrate an idea. can’t stop good art. heh.
i didn’t see mulholland drive, thanks, i will. i’ll keep your comment for when i do..it is on a few lists of top fifty movies to see.
david lynch movie, that explains the many themes and plots and characters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulholland_Drive_(film)
wiki on mulholland drive
i am still catching up on movies, long story. love movies, all kinds except visually gory ones..saw ‘invincible’ the other night, mark wahlburg and greg kinnear. excellent movie. g-rated i think. simple, understated story about a guy from the south side of philadelphia, don’t want to give anything away. true story. really good.
p.s. another thing about the carousel, i had to to play fair and ride each animal, not possible to do. someone else would have to get their ‘favorite’ or they weren’t happy. guess that taught another lesson. to someone else, choosing one and calling the elephant ugly, not a problem. i would then on purpose ride the elephant. that’s why the bing song was so funny when i read what you wrote. so i guess the carousel could be used as an example of what goes on with humans in infinite ways.lol.