Undecided
between the Metamorphoses,
the Pentateuch, and the Puranas,
Mr Honk pondered the reason
for his existence.
But whether it was divine
indifference, human boredom,
or generative model
hallucinations, he knew
he was nothing but
a by-product.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I’ve never considered Shirley MacLaine a great actress—decent, yes, but calling her great would be a stretch. Even in my favourite of her films, The Apartment, the real tour de force is Jack Lemmon. To be frank, if it weren’t for that tomboyish, girl-next-door charm, I might not have noticed her at all.
Audrey Hepburn, on the other hand, occasionally approached greatness, so I always looked forward to her films. You can imagine my excitement, then, at the prospect of seeing them together—especially in a picture highly rated on IMDb (7.8 out of 10, while The Apartment sits at 8.3).
What a disappointment The Children’s Hour turned out to be. It had all the ingredients for a powerful film: a controversial theme (for the time), a talented cast, a prized source play by Lillian Hellman, and a skilled director in William Wyler. Yet the result feels strangely inert.
The script tiptoes around its subject matter, and in striving to be tasteful and ‘serious’, it ends up emotionally muffled. Even Hepburn, with her quiet dignity, couldn’t save it. As for MacLaine—her bleached appearance and school-play emotionalism were the final straw. The film has neither aesthetic weight nor psychological depth, and I genuinely can’t understand what it’s praised for.
Someone once called it a ‘prestige picture’—a film that feels important rather than actually being important, the kind that gets praised for tackling difficult subjects while failing to do so with any real conviction or insight—and I couldn’t agree more.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
With the linden tree within reach,
if it weren’t for the glass,
Mr Honk appreciated the humility
of sitting by the window,
where he could read in peace,
stretched out on a folding garden chair—
a rather unusual piece of furniture
for a living room—
and even the sun rays, here and there
breaking through the branches,
were not too intrusive,
but he would never have admitted
that he was actually looking forward
to the arrival of July, so that he could fill
the marginalia with linden blossoms
and bumblebees buzzing amongst
the words.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
When destiny is the most you can bear,
personal extinction is not a threat;
it’s an escape route from the horror of choice,
yet just saying that makes it sound trivial,
like a barking dog’s obligations: a scheduled comfort
or love amongst the travellers.
But you don’t have to be upset to be kind,
even if nature does make fun of us
and it feels ridiculous to be hunted
by literary characters we killed—
as if we didn’t care, except we do—
instead of letting them run their course.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I can’t remember if I ever wanted to say something in particular, if my words had any intended purpose, at least not since the very beginning, when the first verse coincided with the end of puberty and was meant to impress a girl. It did not. I wonder what she’d say now—not that it would matter, and her face has been lost to the mists of time anyway. Perhaps that’s what always drew me to what Socrates said about poets in the ‘Apology’. At least, after more than three decades, my writing—although not a perpetuum mobile—is as close to self-perpetuating as one gets.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Once upon a time, as a young journalist in post-communist Poland, I regarded the BBC as the golden standard of journalistic independence and professionalism. So you can imagine my disappointment when, after emigrating to the UK and making Scotland my new home, I realised that nothing could be further from the truth—the emperor-is-naked moment being the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. For that reason, among others, I don’t have a telly, and I don’t need a TV licence. And yet that wretched body keeps nagging me over and over again to buy one. There’s no way in hell I’ll ever do that, so stop distracting me from reading Lytton Strachey by the window. Actually, here is a thought: why not invent a licence for the window view? But know that—though for some reason I am eagerly awaiting the linden tree to bloom, as if the scent of the blossoms could exorcise the exhaust fumes—I’d rather draw the curtains than pay you a penny. Of course, you could always make bookshelves taxable by length or, better yet, charge a word fee, though in that case, I’m not so concerned: I don’t talk much, and my writing is usually concise.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
The thunderstorm season, with its usual titillations
and occasional remarks on lost virginity, had begun
with a rumbling on the windowsill and a heavenly groan
that woke him in the morning to a fundamental question:
Can one read the Great Romantics in sweatpants
or the Modernists in a tailcoat? Apparently,
even atheists like Mr Honk have their grave Sunday
dilemmas.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
With a touch of disbelief,
Mr Honk listened
to a Gershwin-in-black-and-white,
a fidgeted-with idiosyncrasy
spiced up with corduroy—
the poor man’s velvet—
on the presenescent
intellectual’s back.
So there it was: incident,
emotion, crisis, suspense, climax,
dénouement, and conclusion,
all in the first four minutes.
No wonder the rest of the film
turned soporific.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Like the dandelions and linden flowers,
Mr Honk was used to being seated below the salt;
in fact, he preferred the less exposed accommodation—
though still in the vicinity of the sangfroid suavity of people
of intellect, individuals of all genders and none—
where he could freely nibble the refined exchange
of Latin binomials between Equus monocerus
and Musca domestica.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
hidden pilcrow 