When I moved to Vermont in the late 80's, my father was bemused by highway signs declaring "Frost Heaves," commenting that he thought they were some sort of New England aesthetic stance.
Mending Wall (1914) is a nicely elusive poem that is usually interpreted as Frost's desire to break down walls (as chaos/nature dictates) and have us all come together as people. The short-attention-span Internet mindset remembers only the refrain "good fences make good neighbors". I'm going with the former here, at least, I'm addressing the poem assuming that was Frost's implication.
And I refute the assertion. Good fences do make good neighbors, at least on my street. I frequently hear my neighbors shouting late at night, or their dog barking all night long; I deal with unwanted intrusions in my company's computer network; I put up with neighbors demanding things of me that should rightly be asked of the (neglectful) landlord. (The Soap Strip frame comes from a scrawled note from my neighbor asking me to purchase a wet vac to suck up the water that was invading our basement from melting snow.)
So, coming together as a people? Fuck that. It's Vermont; basements get wet.
That Soap Strip frame is from Fargo (1996), the wonderful "he said he was going crazy down by the lake" scene. The man is brushing water from his driveway, but both the officer and the man are dressed as if it's minus zero. A frustrating clue to how warm it was the winter they shot the film. I was so happy with how that frame turned out.
When I moved to Vermont in the late 80's, my father was bemused by highway signs declaring "Frost Heaves," commenting that he thought they were some sort of New England aesthetic stance.
ReplyDeleteMending Wall (1914) is a nicely elusive poem that is usually interpreted as Frost's desire to break down walls (as chaos/nature dictates) and have us all come together as people. The short-attention-span Internet mindset remembers only the refrain "good fences make good neighbors". I'm going with the former here, at least, I'm addressing the poem assuming that was Frost's implication.
And I refute the assertion. Good fences do make good neighbors, at least on my street. I frequently hear my neighbors shouting late at night, or their dog barking all night long; I deal with unwanted intrusions in my company's computer network; I put up with neighbors demanding things of me that should rightly be asked of the (neglectful) landlord. (The Soap Strip frame comes from a scrawled note from my neighbor asking me to purchase a wet vac to suck up the water that was invading our basement from melting snow.)
So, coming together as a people? Fuck that. It's Vermont; basements get wet.
That Soap Strip frame is from Fargo (1996), the wonderful "he said he was going crazy down by the lake" scene. The man is brushing water from his driveway, but both the officer and the man are dressed as if it's minus zero. A frustrating clue to how warm it was the winter they shot the film. I was so happy with how that frame turned out.