Here’s one by Polish Nobel-prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska. Why am I printing it here? Well, why not.

“In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself” – by Madame Szymborska. I was first introduced to her poetry in about 2001.

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.
A jackal doesn’t understand remorse.
Lions and lice don’t waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they’re right?
Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
In every other way they’re light.
On this third planet of the sun,
among the signs of bestiality
A clear conscience is Number One..

A few years ago I was having dinner with my friends Cathy and Jim Giles and had some reason for calling attention to “military intelligence,” which I referred to as an oxymoron. Gently, Cathy reprimanded and corrected me. The expression is not an oxymoron, after all. She explained why it isn’t, and she was perfectly right. I have thought back to that evening several times and now, finally, have decided to share with readers the benefit of that lesson.

An oxymoron is the deliberate joining of contradictory ideas. Wikipedia offers these examples:

a living death – sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind
a deafening silence – bitter-sweet – the bigger half
The Sounds of Silence (song title)
make haste slowly – he was conspicuous by his absence

But sometimes all we have is a funny collocation of terms – a joining of ideas that makes us smile in that it suggests incongruity.

friendly fire – airline food [army food, cafeteria food, etc.] – American culture – Apple tech support – mature male
athletic scholarship – California culture – classic rock and roll – civil strife
Just war [and civilized warfare] – Microsoft security – and the classic, example, military intelligence [and Central Intelligence Agency] – compassionate Conservative

The word “oxymoron” derives from the Greek Oxus = “sharp”, Moros = “dull” . Knowing that will put you one up on most professors and, for that reason, is worth knowing.

You can find a great collection of pseudo-oxymorons by CLICKING HERE. In among them are genuine oxymorons. Finding others is a lot more fun than finding pseudo-intellectual palindromes. These exist only to give you headaches and to prove to you that the people who discover them are smarter than you are.

And remember this: There is only one thing in life you need to remember to make your life worth living.

Not to beat around the bush, my all-time favorite doctoral dissertation title is “Theory and Practice in theory and in practice.” I can quickly think of ten persons whom I would kill in exchange for having written that one.  Not the book, just the title.

2. “Steal This book.” (Abby Hoffman)

3. “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.” (Dave Eggers)

4. “One Hundred Years of Solitude”.   (Gabe Marquez.)  And, by the same guy, “Love in the Age of Cholera”.

5. “Atlas Shrugged.” (Her Noble Potentate and Royal Highness, Ayn Somebody or other)

6. “The left hand of God” (Billy Barrett)

7.  “Our new West; records of travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean…with details of the wonderful natural scenery, agriculture, mines, business, social life, progress and prospects of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, including a full description of the Pacific railroad and of the life of the Mormons, Indians and Chinese.” ( Samuel Bowles, 1869) And included free of charge if you buy the title is a book.

8. “King Lear” (Billy S.)    What a shame that a book/play with such a majestic, noble, awe-inspiring, august, monumental, hallowed, eminent, venerable, distinguished, and stately title bespeaking so much promise, and heralding, betokening and prophesying great, matchless, peerless, redoubtable, masterly prose should be, in the final analysis

A DUD!

Synopsis:  Old geezer wants to retire but only after hearing praise from his daughters.  Two daughters oblige the schmuck but the 3rd, a pretty chick,  says, “What fer?”.   So Geezer leaves with young, pretty chick – the honest daughter.   Runs around the countryside doing nothing much of note but doing it in iambic pentameter, which wins the hearts of all who can appreciate good things….and stuff.   Everybody gets wiped out in the end thanks, in part, to the fact that Pretty, Young Chick is General of her own army.     The motto is clear.

Steal this book!

Or, if you have to read it for class purposes, DON’T!

Not a day goes by without my hearing angry complaints from some so-called “Liberal” when he is bombarded with extremely offensive language from some racist, antiSemite, or all-around misanthrope. The “Liberal” screams “bloody murder” and wants a retraction. He almost always gets it. Usually, the loony backs down, not from his position, but from what he claims is a misunderstanding of what he said: I deeply regret if my words were misconstrued so as to give offense.” Of course, it is not easy to say that when what you said initially was “I hate all niggers and want them all returned to Africa.” It’s a tough uphill battle for anyone who goes that far.

In the case of the notorious Danish cartoons that poked fun of Mohammed, the cartoonists held fast. For their troubles, radical Moslems killed them and burned down as much of the world as they safely could get away with. Interestingly enough, most American Liberals sided with the cartoonists. However, American Liberals are not consistent. They don’t like radical hate groups, even when those groups do not threaten harm. It is one thing, of course, to preach that abortionists should all lose their medical licenses and quite another thing to try to kill them. The Liberal who is up in arms against protests against abortion must be careful not to want to stifle those protests. The Liberal who doesn’t like people who call blacks, “niggers,” must be careful not to be suckered into any movement that would make such name-calling illegal.

The fact is that anti-liberal Liberals are on the rise. They fail to distinguish the offensive from the harmful. The late philosopher, Joel Feinberg argued that offensive conduct may be prohibited if it gives rise to the likelihood of a breach of the peace. But in the end he veers away from this, and argues that the law cannot permit those who are insulted by offensive remarks to vent their anger in aggressive behaviour. On the other hand, Feinberg says that if the offended person has no way to avoid the offensive conduct, then it may be prohibited. Sex on a public beach at 2 A.M when hardly no one is ever around should be tolerated; sex at 2 P.M. may be prohibited.

Feinberg assumes we all pretty much know what is offensive beyond the limits of toleration and what is not but he is wrong. In the famous case of Cohen vs. California, a young man walked around in a courthouse wearing a jacket with the words “Fuck the flag” inscribed on the back. The U.S. Supreme Court justices wrestled hard over whether this conduct was tolerable. Ultimately, the Court ruled that this was speech protected by the 1st Amendment. That was 39 years ago and I doubt the Court would be so liberal today. Worse, from my perspective, is that I am not sure the “neoLiberal” of today would find it tolerable.

Three days ago, as a comment to my post on what it is like to be a mouse, that master of transistors and much else, Al, wrote a few memorable lines from the poet Robert Burns, with a small alteration that referred to me. It is an honor to be bundled with a Burnsian mouse and I thought now would be a good time to present the whole of Bobby’s masterpiece along with a gloss that I regret I did not write.

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
[The poet assure the little mouse he will do it no harm.]

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
[Burns apologizes to the mouse for the behaviour of mankind.]

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave ‘S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!
[Burns says he knows the mouse needs to steal the odd ear of corn, and he does not really mind. He’ll get by with the remainder and never miss it.]

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
[Burns regrets the problems he has brought on the mouse, destroyed her home at a time when it is impossible to rebuild. There is no grass to build a new home and the December winds are cold and sharp.]

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ wast,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
[Where the mouse had thought that she was prepared for winter in her comfortable little nest in the ground, now she is faced with trying to survive in a most unfriendly climate, with little or no hope in sight.]

[SG: I now skip a stanza I have no use for - Burns feels sorry for himself.]

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
[In the above, we find that most famous of poetic lines concerning schemes that often go astray.]

Lastly comes the ultimate stanza, which like the antepenultimate stanza, I also choose to omit since it is only Burns’ lamentation on his own life.

It is wonderful to wake up in the morning greeted by daylight after a night of good sleep. Please take note of the fact that I did not write “after a good night of sleep.” There is a difference, you know, and it matters. The radio was on, as it always is, and the lovely announcer was saying that McDonald had issued a recall of 12 million 16 ounce commemorative glasses it sold for $2 each. I think she is lovely because she has a lovely voice. Lovely voice notwithstanding, she then said that the company was asking people to not let their children drink from these glasses. That spoiled my mood. Why did she not say that the company was asking people not to let their children drink from them? The radio station does not have a grammar czar but it should have one. I suppose the radio boss does not think that grammar matters. We have more important things to worry about. There is a terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Israelis are killing people in the Mediterranean Ocean, banks are still collapsing, people are unemployed and losing their homes, and all this is just the tip of the greenberg. Our problems are deep and many. Why, then, should we worry about split infinitives? I agree, but it is not by choice that I worry; it is by nature. The announcer continued: police in Detroit are harassing the citizens by issuing them nuisance misdemeanor tickets by the tens of thousands. For example, a man was issued a summons for using his laptop computer while sitting in a park. I do not know why this is unlawful but it is. I am sure that for every ticket a police officer issues a crime is committed because harassment is against the law. So, my grammar worry was replaced by never-ending anger at cops – the worst criminals in the land. Soon, however, the announcer said that many people are complaining that this treatment was very unfair. That remark caused me to remember that several decades ago the Green Bay Packers football star, Henry Jordan, said “Coach Lombardi is a very fair man; he treats us all like dogs.” Henry knew philosophy. If everyone is being treated badly, but in the same way, then the treatment is wrong but fair.

With all this preying on my mind, I sprang from bed, raced to the computer and there you have it – the first post of the morning. It is not as if I want to write about words and concepts at 6 A.M. I simply have no choice. It is very nice not to wake before the dawn and I am not in a grouchy mood. Before arriving at the computer, I prepared a cup of hot coffee and began my day’s work. I suppose I could have prepared a hot cup of coffee but wouldn’t I have burned my fingers? I am away winging and have to get on with my so-called life but I promise to return within two hours.

Like everyone else who ever lived, I went through a period when I wanted to be a bohemian.  I never lasted for more than half a day but I read many writers who inspired that bohemian feeling and retain a hint of it to this day.    Two women, in particular, interested me: Djuna Barnes (circa 1890 – 1980) and Ananais {Ah – nahna – ees] [roughly 1905 - 1977].   Barnes is the greater writer, by far, and has been called the greatest novelist of the 20th century by many writers who themselves are candidates for that honor.

They lived as they wished – with men or female lovers – and took crazy jobs to support themselves or mooched off friends or just staggered along on nothing at all.   They were totally unapologetic for their life styles, if you can even say they had styles.    E.E. Cummings lived next door to Barnes for awhile when she lived in Greenwich Village.  She was such a total recluse, he did not know whether she was dead or alive but every once in a while he would bang loudly at her door and call out, “Are you still alive, Djuna?” and she would mumble an affirmative response.   Carson McCullers, author The Member of the Wedding, The Heart is  a Lonely Hunter, and Reflections in a Golden Eye, used to camp at her doorstep, hoping for a chance to interview her but Djuna would only call out, “Whoever is ringing this bell, please go the hell away.”

But my interest for this post is to elicit responses from my female readers to some remarks made by Anais Nin.  Please send me a comment or two.

1. “I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.”

2. “I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

And so, dear ladies?   Your responses, s’il vous plait?  Do you have the Nin-like courage to respond?   (Men need not bother to reply.)

As I tiptoed through the bedroom that belongs to me Thursdays through Sundays, around 4 A.M., on my way to the shower, I was very glad the TV set was still on. It lighted my way and I was spared breaking my bones, which would have been the consequence of tripping over dolls and toys by the dozens.  I stopped to listen to a commercial.   The model was pushing a brand of fish oil pills and she declared, “They say that if you have your health, you have everything.”   She was right; “they” do say that.  I have heard that a million times.  There must be a grain of truth in it or why would it be said by so many people so many times?    On the surface, it seems to encapsulate as much wisdom as “They say that if you break your bones twice a year, you will be very glad.”   No one says that, so why do they say the former?

Maybe it is because, if you are very unhealthy, you can’t do any of the things you would like to do.  Maybe it is because, if you are even moderately unhealthy, you will be too stuck on yourself and will not do the many things you ought to do. Maybe it is because people are just plain dumb and say all sorts of things they haven’t carefully considered.  Maybe it is because, if you don’t say anything, people will think you are just plain dumb and, saying that, is a nifty substitute for “Nice weather today.”

I find myself stuck on wondering about things I am not sure others ever wonder about.  Yesterday, I pestered my wife to the point where she said, “Are you plain dumb?” I used to live on Oakwood Street before I got married.  There were sidewalks and houses on each side.  On each side of what?  Down the center of the whole kit and kaboodle was the part on which autos drove and/or parked.  As a kid, I used to call that “the gutter.”  It is what all my friends called it.  Well, we were wrong.   My wife explained to me that a gutter is something else and that what I called “the gutter” was more properly called “the street.”     Well, then, was I wrong to call that whole conglomerate, “Oakwood Street” a street?  Which was the street?

I got no satisfaction from dialoguing with the good woman.  She insisted “street” applied equally well to the kit and the kaboodle as well as to the portion that was for autos, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, pushcarts and stickball players.   “What about punchball players?” I asked.   “Them, too,” came the response.  I pondered.  “Is ‘them, too’ grammatical?”   She ignored me for at least 30 seconds so I pressed on.   “Waiting for the answer.”  “To what?”   “I want to know if ‘them too’ is grammatical.”

“Yes, it is grammatical.  Think of it as short for, ‘The street is for them, too.’   You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”   I told her that I don’t have a problem with anything because I have my health and therefore I have everything.

She told me I was being just plain dumb.  That sounded right, so I dropped the matter and went back to whatever I was doing.  Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what that was because I am just too damn dumb.  But wait!   Is being “just too damn dumb” different from being “just plain dumb”? As soon as I can safely raise this question – that is, not get hit with a baseball bat or a brick – I think I will ask that woman.  You know the woman I mean.  The one who shares a bed with the little girl who schemes to break my bones.

I sprung out of bed this morning to the realization that, overnight, tens of millions of brain cells had disappeared.

I have been paying closer attention to my accent.   My speech centers are collapsing.   People recognize that I am not from Michigan but they are not real sure I am from some eastern city.  Maybe I am from Shanghai.  An Eastern Michigan University student actually asked me if I had a Chinese accent.   I do not lie or jest.

I am putting the “r” sound at the end of words when they belong there.  It’s not “the yeah 2010″ but “the year 2010.”   People don’t hear my “Nooo Yawk” much any more.   I am slowly but surely hearing the differences among “I shot a bear”, “Give me a beer”  and “She was bare from the waist up”.  I am sorry my ear (not “air” ) is improving because I am not trying to reform; it’s just happening.  After 40 years in the midwest, it is long overdue.  The accent won’t go away altogether and I am glad of that but it is more moderate.

What is worrisome is that I am forgetting the mother tongue, the mamaloshen.  I am forgetting the hundreds of Yiddishisms that were part of my life.  Actually, I have been forgetting them since my mother died when I was 19 years old and my father took to speaking to me in pure English.   I wasn’t smart enough to say, “Dad, what are you doing to me?”  I marched along for the next 57 years oblivious of the changes in me.   I can’t quite get the hang of English and I am afraid that when I am 90 years old I will be mute.  I will have forgotten every word I ever knew.  I feel my mind clouding over as if victimized by Lamont Cranston.   I do not even know what the title of this post means.   What is “mamaloshen”?    Did I use the word correctly?

English doesn’t work for me.  My wife laughs at me because I am in the habit of saying, “Shall I put the coffee up?” or else I say, “Shall I put the coffee on”?  I can’t remember.  Whichever way I say it is wrong and hysterically funny.   Because I am from New York, either I get on line when I go to movie theaters or I get in line.   I don’t remember which is right, which is wrong or even which phrase  I habitually use because I have grown so self-conscious over the whole thing.

When I go down in elevators, I don’t know whether I want to go Floor #1 or the Ground Floor.  If I can’t get close to the buttons, I pray someone else will be getting off at whatever floor I am aiming for.   I’ll recognize it when I see it.

As a child, I played punchball in the gutter but for the last 40 years or so have been told I did no such thing.  It turns out I played in the street.  I am totally fermished but I no longer can tell you what that means.  I am not sure I ever knew.   Oy, veh!

Believe me, I don’t know things.   I don’t know stuff, either.  I have got to stop criticizing people who utter such sentences as “The other day and stuff I saw Joe in the grocery” because I can’t do much better myself.     The joke,  “A mind is a terrible thing to waste….on a kike” no longer strikes me as funny, partly because it no longer seems funny and partly because I no longer get it.

A student asked me if I sleep in on Sundays.  It was wintertime and I could not imagine where else I would sleep.  I chose not to reveal my stupidity and ask him what he meant.   The subtleties of language are no longer my cup of tea.

At the grocery store where I routinely buy bits and pieces of corpses, I noticed that the man behind the counter had blood all over his apron.   Politely I asked him if the backroom was a slaughterhouse.   He said he did some part-time work in an abattoir and had not yet changed into something  a little more approprié for his customers.   I don’t know whether he was mocking me. I think that once upon a time I would have understood.  I recognized him, I think, as a former distinguished professor of linguistics from M.I.T.

One evening, my wife and I went to what the unlettered call a fancy restaurant.   A man calling himself the maitre d’hotel was very helpful.  At least my wife thought so.   I thought he meant he was a busboy but my wife, discreetly whispered to me that he was much more than that.   I don’t remember, and there was no point in trying to, since I have already forgotten.

A lovely young thing in a mall, spotting me in plaid trousers, volunteered I was cool.  I was pleased, and asked her if I was hot, too.  She walked away.   Either I was taking liberties or blundering like a greenhorn.  [What is a greenhorn?  Is that good or bad?]

Yesterday I chanced upon a passage from a book by James T. Farrell – he of Studs Lonigan fame – and was shocked to find  Jimmy writing,  “Love thy neighbor if he is not a seventh-day adventist or a nigger or a greaser or a ginzo or a hunkie or a bohunk or a frog or a spik or a limey or a heinie or a mick or a chink or a jap or a dutchman or a squarehead or a mockie or a slicked-up greaseball from the Argentine….”     For just a moment, protein molecules began oscillating in my head and I actually thought I knew these words and grasped his point.   Now, that moment is gone.

I continue my series of capsule movie reviews that I began 13 months ago with Casablanca.   Except for Pale Stumblebum, the American Film Institute lists these movies as among the 100 greatest of all-time.   The proof that AFI is right is that I agree.

1. Civil War Aftermath - starring Alan Ladd as himself, Van Heflin as a farmer, Jean Arthur as Van’s wife, Walter J. Palance, as a dirty Yankee liar, Emile Meyer as the cattle baron, and Brandon de Wilde in an unsupporting leg cast.    Prologue, before curtain goes up: Homesteaders and the cattle baron dispute territorial rights.  Act I – Retired mass murderer, Alan, seeks temporary position with farmer Heflin before riding off into the fading, gorgeous sunlight.   Alan gets hired and puts on a shooting exhibition for Van’s son, Brandon.   Act II – Emile hires Walter to kill farmers but, first, makes a last ditch effort to talk sense into Van.  Offers to buy him out at a fair price and retain him as manager of all the land he can survey.  Van refuses.  While the two men negotiate, Walter and Alan size each other up in a manner that can only be described (to coin an expression)  as pregnant with meaning.  They know a showdown is inevitable.  Act III – Alan rides into town, intent on slaughtering Emile and his feeble crew but itching for that showdown with Walter.  He goads Walter into a duel by calling him a dirty, lowdown Yankee liar.   Alan slays Walter while Brandon watches.   Brandon asks Alan whether Walter was fast.  Alan replies, “Yes, he was fast.”   For clarification, in case Brandon thinks Alan meant Walter was a good runner, Alan tacks on, “Fast on the draw.”   Alan rides off into the ever-fading but glorious sunset while Brandon begs him to stay.  Alan knows he must leave because he is in love with Jean and, out of respect for Van, must surrender the field.   This film shares the prize with A Place in the Sun as the most romantic movie ever made or ever will be made.   Only dirty, lowdown NY sophisticates disagree.

Fading Sunset - starring Gary Cooper as himself, Grace Kelly as the future Serene Highness of Monaco, Katy Jurado as someone or other.  Prologue, before curtain goes up:  Katy and Grace compete for the affections of gun-slinging Gary.  Grace, best know as the younger sister of great oarsman, Jack Kelly and daughter of super, super, super oarsman John Brendan Kelly, has too much breeding for Kate and, as the opening scene begins, is preparing for her honeymoon with Gary.  The townsmen are eager for them to be on their way because bad guys are gunning for Gary.  Act II – Gary decides to stay because a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.  His request for help is politely turned down.     Act III – While Tex Ritter groans offstage “Do not forsake me, oh my darlin,” Gary dispatches the bad guys.   The movie’s title is explained by the fact that Grace was 20 years old and Gary an over-the-hill 50 at the time of filming.    Tex dies 3 years before son John makes a fortune from his money-making TV show Three’s Company.     A tragic anti-climax.

Pale Stumblebum – the pale remake of Shane.  starring Michael Moriarty as a struggling miner, Clint Eastwood as himself and Sydney Penny as the tantalizing hot 14-year old daughter of Michael.   Act I – Clint rides into town and encounters the mining king and his band of incompetents trying to chase Mike and fellow miners away from their God-given right to become capitalists.   Act II – He kills the mining king and his dull-witted band of incompetents easily and rides off into that still ever-fading sunlight.   In a cheap, lowdown imitation of Shane, Sydney is required to cry out in her best Brandon voice, “Come back, Preacher,we love you.”   Sydney is a tempting piece if ever there was one, but concerned about the law’s forbidding of sex with minors, Clint rides away.

The Unbearable -  starring Clint Eastwood as a retired mass murderer (a la Alan Ladd) who never quits being resentful, Gene Hackman as a once-upon-a-time killer, Richard Harris as a prissy fake gun-slinger and Morgan Freeman as a free-loading actor with no responsibilities.    Act I – Prostitutes hire Clint to kill a man they don’t like.   Intermezzo – While Clint is on route from 1000 miles away, Gene defrocks Richard and chases him out of town.  This is a Shakespearean comic relief interlude, having nothing to do with anything.     Act II – Clint arrives and kills people, notably Gene who whines that he deserves better.  Clint reminds Gene, just as he puts one more bullet into his brain, that in the West, in addition to doing what a man’s got to do, a man is also free to do whatever he goddam wants to do.   Postquel - For movie goers who like to watch credits, we learn that Clint has retired again to open a drygoods shop somewhere in California.     This movie is deservedly ranked # 4 among the all-time great Westerns, just behind Civil War Aftermath, Fading Sunset and [See next line.]

Mr. Trace, Keener than Most Persons – For whatever reason, Mr. Trace is also known as The Searchers and Finders (sometimes abbreviated as The Searchers) .   It stars Duke Wayne as Duke Wayne and neither has nor needs a supporting cast.      However, although not really needed, Natalie Wood is in the movie and Duke is presumably looking for her.  She is needed in order to groom her to be Marni Nixon’s understudy in the upcoming East Side, West Side starring the unforgettable Richard Beymer in this modern retelling of Shakespeare’s smash hit, Romeo and Juliet.   Whatever.       In the final scene of Mr. Trace, Keener than Most Persons, Duke walks off into the still, fading sunlight, which never gets turned off in the Hollywood backlots.   Duke is getting old and has too many saddle sores for riding away.   Duke cheats life and personal shame by dying before nephew Tommy (Duke) Morrison suffers ignominiously from HIV, putting a halt to his promising boxing career.

Now I am off to watch a Kurosawa Western because I am mad at myself.