Degelle

When I first went to the movies they sat in their seats straight and leaned forward. Now they slump down, with their heads back or eat candy and popcorn. I want them to sit up straight again.

"We no longer have the passion for movies among young people in our country today; I was stunned to find in my last few years of teaching before I retired as a professor emeritus in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University in 2024 that many of my students didn’t bother going to new movies, let alone watching classic films. They would respond positively when I showed and taught them Ford, Welles, Lubitsch, Renoir, Truffaut, and other directors, but few students sought out those films on their own. Mostly, I gather, they watch TV series or short films on YouTube... What has happened over the last few decades to the art form I loved—in this country it’s been turned largely into moronic fodder for the adolescent male audience—is extremely disheartening. It makes me beyond sad."

The greatest gift of life on the mountain is time. Time to think or not think, read or not read, scribble or not scribble– to sleep and cook and walk in the woods, to sit and stare at the shapes of the hills. I produce nothing but words; I consume nothing but food, a little propane, a little firewood. By being utterly useless in the calculations of the culture at large I become useful, at last, to myself.