Friday, September 14, 2007

unlikely source

Happened upon this bit of sub-Kipling schoolboy good cheer, as writen in an autograph book:
When a bit of sunshine hits you
After passing of a cloud,
And a bit of laughter gets you
And your spine is feeling proud,
Don't forget to up and fling it
At a soul that's feeling blue,
For the moment that you sling it
It's a boomerang to you.
The author? Samuel Beckett. As biographer Anthony Cronin comments, the boy in whose book Beckett inscribed these lines "thought that they were an accurate reflection of his attitude. It is fairly safe to say that no one would ever think so again."
Hamm: Go and see is she dead.
[Clov goes to bins, raises the lid of Nell's, stoops, looks into it. Pause.]
Clov: Looks like it.
[He closes the lid, straightens up. Hamm raises his toque. Pause. He puts it on again.]
Hamm: [with his hand to his toque] And Nagg?
[Clov raises lid of Nagg's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.]
Clov: Doesn't look like it.
[He closes the lid, straightens up.]
Hamm: [letting go his toque] What's he doing?
[Clov raises lid of Nagg's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.]
Clov: He's crying.
[He closes lid, straightens up.]
Hamm: Then he's living.
Poetics of the pause.

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