Canyons of Mistrust
The superintendent of state struggling to meet winter, raising a circle out of oblongs, was struck to the head with future dread. Bread returned to its silent pile, but rarely with as much gravitas as in Dusks of the Illiberal Liberal Empire. This film is disintegrating in its own ancient nitrate content — patiently losing narrative from its spliced frames.
Imagine a leader at an icy seaside brothel testing flumes and ratcheting loose crampons — independent clauses flying this way and that. Imagine his speech — his friable ideas — crumbling in the wake of his hubris.
Insert cracking rivers, dust-storming praries, swamping of coasts here.
His country grieving, begging to check his speeches and seeking penance for his cowardice. Nary a redemptive arc in sight. Insight to nothing. Cataclysmic auguries in situ — the site of postwar torn sock battles, ripped silences and diminished mental acuities. I’ll cite this alone:
We are allergic to palliatives, and the downward spiral that ensues, emblazoned with a flurry of exclamatory sins — this is the bleakest of moments before the fall.
What I’m Reading:
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go thou, my incense, upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
— Henry David Thoreau / “Smoke”
