We cannot equal the empty sky
that infinitely murders and annihilates us
to the last man.
I can only sadly say,
of the necessity to which I submit,
that it humanizes me,
that it give me an undeniable
dominion over things.

I can however refuse to not see this
as a sign of impotence.

-excerpt On Nietzsche, by Georges Bataille, p. 51

Last night I viewed a great film, a true story, Devotion.  The story is a tale of two Naval aviators, one white, born to privilege.  The other, Jessie Brown, a black man, the first graduate from his high school to enroll in predominately white, Ohio State University, and go on to become a Naval aviator.  Tom Hudner and Jesse become friends, learning trial and error to trust one another.  The texture of racial discrimination in the 1950s lends a unrelenting ominous ground-tone to this story.  The denouement of the story takes place in the sky over a North Korean battlefield.  The flying and combat scenes in this movie are extraordinary, but no less than the ebb and flow of the relationship between Brown and Hudner.  The story ends as every story inevitably ends.

The film was worth more than the price of admission to the theater.

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Do you have a tune for a gray and rainy Sunday?  Indeed I do.  True Devotion by The Bodeans.

True Devotion

By The Bodeans

I was lucky for a long, long time
I never felt much pain
A mess of clouds came over me
The night it finally rained
In my hand there’s a silver heart
It says you belong to me
But it’s empty and used up
I’m sailing off to sea

Going down, going down
Swallow an ocean
Going down, going down
With true devotion

When the rain started coming down
It was so hard to see
Swear I lost you in the crowd
When you were right there with me
People scattering everywhere
Trying to make it back home
And I slipped and fell on my ass
I’m going down alone

All I see is icy blue
And I don’t feel the waves
It doesn’t matter anyhow
I know I won’t be saved
Before you go to sleep tonight
Say a prayer for me, yeah
And all the other wasted souls
Drowning definitely

Lyrics by Kurt Neumann, Samuel Llanas