benshi-beau
benshi-beau
benshi beau
5 posts
still and silent |||| my film photos, writing, and whatever else
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benshi-beau · 1 year ago
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From Alice's Egg Plant (1925)
In this short, the live-action Alice runs an animated industrial egg farm with Julius the Cat as her hard driving section chief wrangling the lazy hens who would rather listen to jazz than work. Around the time a very large order for 5000 eggs comes in, an Russian-looking (?) chicken named Little Red Henski appears carrying an Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) valise before removing its large beard to assume the appearance of the other hens, rallying them to demand smaller eggs and shorter hours. After the hens strike and make their demands, Alice and Julius devise a plan to set up a pizza party cockfight where entrance costs eggs. After the hens fall for this placation, Alice and Julius take off in a truck with the eggs, accidentally spilling them out as they pull away.
The 16th of the 57 Disney "Alice Comedies" made from 1923-1927, and the only one to star Dawn O'Day as Alice. Despite this excerpt, the short is about as anti-union as you would expect from Walt. After all, this is still decades away from even the era of basic animator credit. Later on, Walt Disney would testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 that his studio’s famous 1941 strike for screen credit and pay was “a Communist group trying to take over my artists.”
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benshi-beau · 1 year ago
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Man making nature to his own measure,
Making himself to his own measure,
Spun of his need
The switchboard of the telephones—
This symbol, this treasure.
If our great fragile cities were destroyed,
And the fabric of our life had to part
And we from the ground to make a fresh start,
It would be the light-flashing switchboard
My heart remembered in the void.
Trying to make corn grow
Without plow or hoe,
Trying to catch fish without hook or line,
My bare feet on sharp stones,
Not enough clothes to cover my bones,
To keep on living I could recall the time
When, if only over the telephones,
We became lights and went seeking
One another, and were answered by other lights,
And invisible people speaking.
-Haniel Long, "If Our Great Fragile Cities"
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benshi-beau · 1 year ago
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From "5 Against the House" (1955)
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benshi-beau · 1 year ago
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benshi-beau · 1 year ago
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I’m stopped and feigning I just slowed.
If I could drive out of this rut,
Heat from fire, fire from heat.
It’s with my brake lines cut.
But I’m on the side of the road.
The light has gone out, wheels won’t spin,
And you will only write “wash me”
In the dirt on my skin.
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