And God Said, “Let There Be Blood”
Lingering self-respect has oftimes preserved me — ‘gainst all temptations — from the more egregious effects of the zeitgeist of sentimentality: a modest pride holds in that I have never ever seen either It’s A Wonderful Life or The Wizard Of Oz, f’rinstance. Now, Upton Sinclair was a notable story-teller, but a Hemingwayesquely poor writer — ‘What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke ?‘ as Gore Vidal wrote of his native land — and his themes here are rather trite; bad capitalists… bad religion… exploiters… the family saga genre… so it’s rather unlikely I shall bother to watch There Will Be Blood. Having a nearly all-male crew probably clinches it — single sex movies suck as much as single sex communities… However the title is awfully good — especially considering the vast importance of titling and it’s common neglect — so I tried to find from whence it came.
The Boston Globe attributed it to Byron:
Tears Like Mist
It makes good on the film’s title, which may be taken from Lord Byron. “The king-times are fast finishing,” he said. “There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist. But the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.”
This is pretty painful stuff even for Byron, who ever veered precariously betwixt plodding doggerel and occasionally splendid fustian, and rarely hit the rocks of glorious lyricism. And as with Marx — But Hubbard’s superb record for inaccuracy of statement clouded any of his positive remarks with a fog of doubt. to quote Stewart H. Holbrook on a notable capitalist of the latter’s era — it’s not easy to ascertain the finished construct of the promised Paradise: presumably it will include peace, love, harmony, compulsory gender and racial equality, an incredible amount of daily uplift though one way communication, and a total absence of thought. Or, let us say, no class whatsoever.
Fortunately though, the probably ever-reliable China Daily gave the definitive origin:
Smite The Waters
The film’s resonantly Old Testament title comes from the seventh chapter of Exodus where God, via Moses, orders Aaron to smite the waters so that “they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt“. In the context of the film this biblical blood is oil, the contaminating element dealt in by its forceful central character.
The Bible is so beautiful…
[sarc] And God said, “Let there be Blood.” [/sarc].
***
More importantly, a link from the China Daily went on to better news; in Düsseldorf the police are equipping their dogs with shoes.
Small, Medium And Large
“All 20 of our police dogs — German and Belgian shepherds — are currently being trained to walk in these shoes,” Andre Hartwich said. “I’m not sure they like it, but they’ll have to get used to it.”
The unusual footwear is not a fashion statement, Hartwich said, but rather a necessity due to the high rate of paw injuries on duty. Especially in the city’s historical old town — famous for both its pubs and drunken revelers — the dogs often step into broken beer bottles.
“Even the street-cleaning doesn’t manage to remove all the glass pieces from between the streets’ cobble stones,” Hartwich said, adding that the dogs frequently get injured by little pieces sticking deep in their paws.
The dogs will start wearing the shoes this spring but only during operations that demand special foot protection. The shoes comes in sizes small, medium and large and were ordered in blue to match the officers uniforms, Hartwich said.
It’s rarely one sees police-dogs in Great Britain — nearly as rarely as police-horses — but I hope they institute it here: broken glass on the streets, however, is not rare at all. [ If randomly picking up shards, I've found that one hand can hold a dozen of any size, but not more; and of course, one can only fill one hand... ]
I was born in Düsseldorf, and that is why they call me Rolf…
