Born On This Day- July 21st... Hart Crane

Hart Crane was born & raised in Ohio. His father was the inventor of Life Savers candy & he had a mother who was an overbearing, flashy hypochondriac. The parents fought bitterly & eventually divorce, providing the young poet a very unhappy childhood.

Crane finally had enough & dropped out of high school to move to NYC in 1916. For 7 years, he split his time between Cleveland & NYC, working at his father's factory, a copy editor, & writing poems that were published in small literary magazines. He often needed to borrow money from his father to survive.

As his work was published, some praised his work, but most critics scoffed at it. Crane has often been criticized as incomprehensible; he was certainly that for me when I attempted to get through his work in a class in American poetry.

Tormented by his attraction to other men, Crane did have a rapturous love affair with a Danish sailor- Emil Opffer who was the inspiration for the epic, erotic poem-Voyages. The poem was the center piece of his first book- White Buildings, in 1926, Crane was indubitably gay, which lead to a lifetime of problems both social & personal. His failed love life was partly due to his obsession with men from the Navy. Ernest Hemingway (they share a birthday) noted: "Poor Hart Crane, always trying to pick up the wrong sailor." Booze contributed to his downfall, under the influence, he would become flirty, frequently in the wrong situations, at the wrong times.

Later in life, Crane made an attempt to play it straight to please the people in his life. Though he tried, he was miserable. Drinking & rough trade bearable, yet made his life worse & worse.

In the early 1930s Hart attempted to marry a girl, Peggy Crowley, the recently divorced wife if his good friend, writer & critic- Malcolm Crowley, but everyone knew it was a sham.

On April 26, 1932, while on board a cruise ship in the Caribbean, Crane was badly beaten after an altercation with a member of the crew that he had made a pass at. The following morning, a female friend found him sitting in his room, remote & ashen. She told him to dress for lunch & left. Shortly before noon on the 27 April, Hart Crane was seen on the deck, looking down at the water. Crane said: "Goodbye, everybody!" & jumped overboard to his death. His body was never recovered.

The most devoted of all the writers & artists who venerated Crane, Tennessee Williams, left instructions that his body be buried at sea in the Gulf of Mexico at the spot that Crane drowned. William’s family buried him in St. Louis.

His life is a truly troubled tale of a talented man trying to find where he belongs. His poetry confounds me & his life leaves me circumspect.

We make our meek adjustments,

Contented with such random consolations

As the wind deposits

In slithered & too ample pockets.

For we can still love the world, who find

A famished kitten on the step & know

Recesses for it from the fury of the street,

Or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, & to the final smirk

Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb

That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,

Facing the dull squint with what innocence

& what surprise!

& yet these fine collapses are not lies

More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;

Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.

We can evade you, & all else but the heart:

What blame to us if the heart live on.

The game enforces smirks; but we have seen

The moon in lonely alleys make

A grail of laughter of an empty ash can,

& through all sound of gaiety & quest

Have heard a kitten in the wilderness

My occasional lover- James Franco is fascinated by Crane's legendarily difficult, brilliant poetry, as well as his personal demons. We were talking about Crane just the other morning while sipping champagne in bed. Franco wrote directed, produced & starred in The Broken Tower as his Master Thesis in Film at NYU. I caught it on the Sundance Channel. The film is a bit of a mess. It's filmed in black & white, its plot can be hard to follow & its pacing is much slow, & there are many seemingly aimless silent scenes that follow the back of Franco's head while he stalks around various streetscapes.

Franco: "Crane was very comfortable with his sexuality, to the point that it intimidated, even scared, a lot of his friends in the poetry world. I wanted the film to have something of that same in-your-face quality."

The Suduction Of James Franco

Last night I had a dream that I was kissing James Franco, but it seems that sometimes James enjoys kissing himself. This is from today's NY Time Magazine's 14 Actors Acting:

I Heart James Franco

How do I love thee James Franco? Let me count the ways. I first saw him a decade ago (& he made quite the impact) on a favorite TV show- Freaks & Geeks, a show written by Judd Apatow & co-starring Seth Rogen & Jason Segel. The Husband & I thought he especially good as the title character in a Mark Rydell’s TV movie- James Dean, for which he won a Golden Globe. In just the last year, I was astounded by his good work in Milk & his hilarious turn in the stoner comedy- Pineapple Express. But, why does he seem so nutty of late?

While pursuing a degree in Columbia University’s MFA Writing program, James Franco took on the bizarre but fascinating decision to join the cast of General Hospital as a murderous artist named Franco. He says the idea came to him while preparing for a new film with Catherine Keener- Maladies, where Franco plays a former soap star. “Now, just because I’m playing a character who was formerly on a soap opera doesn’t mean I had to go on a soap opera, right?” said Franco. “So going on General Hospital isn’t directly related to Maladies. But we got to talking, like, ‘Hey, what if I really did a soap opera? That would be kind of amazing!’” He approached the producers, who of course said yes.

His only stipulation:‘I want to play an artist, and I want him to be crazy.’ And they wrote this character that was better than I could have ever asked for. It was their idea to call the character Franco. I said, ‘That’s crazy. Thank you.’” It was only after he’d signed up that he decided to bring his own crew along to film the filming, he said, “because I wanted to really have ownership over the piece.” This footage will be performance-art piece at Deitch Projects' Long Island City space later this year, & even more surreal, that show will in then be taped for a special episode of General Hospital.

His next role, as gay poet Alan Ginsberg, in Howl (co-starring Jon Hamm, Mary Louise Parker, Treat Williams, Jeff Daniels, Bob Balaban, David Strathairn, & Alessandro Nivola) was just shown at Sundance. Franco is unafraid to play gay, & if his turn in the gay indie film Blind Spot & as gay actor James Dean weren't enough, he's even directed some hardcore man X man action. His student film for Columbia featured a boy dreaming in graphic detail about the jocks on the basketball court.

Last week he appeared on 30 Rock as a demented version of himself, in love with a Japanese body pillow named Kimiko-tan. The “Franco” character carried on a fake romance with Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) in a scheme concocted by their respective agents. Again, surreal, off-kilter & very funny.When Fey told him about the role, he said, “I thought it was pretty weird at first, but then I met Kimiko & she’s so pretty & sweet. I kept her. She’s at the apartment. I haven’t been around for a while, so she’s been a little lonely.”


I would like Franco to consider playing another little mind trip of an actor exercise & do a short film where he pursues an aging former actor because he wants to discover the experience of having a “daddy”.