The Great Joan Didion Dead at 87; She Understood APPOINTMENTS IN SAMARRA

The great American writer and essayist Joan Didion has died, at 87. Truly it can be said, she witnessed appointments in Samarra.

"The Appointment in Samarra"

(as retold by W. Somerset Maugham [1933])

The speaker is Death

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.....k.state.edu."

Joan Didion witnessing appointments in Samarra.

"…. On December 30, 2003, while their daughter Quintana Roo Dunne lay comatose in the ICU with septic shock resulting from pneumonia, her husband suffered a fatal heart attack at the dinner table. Didion delayed his funeral arrangements for approximately three months until Quintana was well enough to attend. Visiting Los Angeles after her father's funeral, Quintana fell at the airport, hit her head on the pavement and suffered a massive hematoma, requiring six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center. After progressing toward recovery in 2004, Quintana died of acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, during Didion's New York promotion for The Year of Magical Thinking. She was 39."

Joan Didion, her husband and daughter before their appontments in Samarra

Comments

The Urination Of Nicole Kidman's Career

I went to see EYES WIDE SHUT in total awe of its Director, Stanley Kubrick, who had in his career Directed THE GREATEST Science Fiction/Cosmological film EVER- 2001, SPACE ODYSSEY, the BEST and MOST INSIGHTFUL film essay on American culture EVER- LOLITA, arguably the greatest war movie ever- PATHS OF GLORY, and one of the best film epics ever- SPARTACUS. Mr. Kubrick died SUDDENLY, before EYES WIDE SHUT was released. Everyone was so sad. Then I saw EYES WIDE SHUT, and understood exactly why Herr Director Kubrick had croaked so suddenly; he had willed himself to death before the release of the film, so that he would not have to suffer the slings and shots against his declining genius. EYES WIDE SHUT is the WORST, laughably worst, porn film ever made, EVER. It starred that larger than life couple(at the time), Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The key scene in the film was Ms. Kidman peeing. I was spending over $60.00(including tickets,parking and snacks for m...

The Crash of Flight 447: Fate, Moliere and Veronique Gaignard

In 1954 there was the film, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY about danger in the air; that was followed by the 1964 film, FATE IS THE HUNTER about a fatal airplane crash and the followup investigation; followed by the 1970 film, AIRPORT, about a bomber on a plane, starring every living star in Hollywood at the time; followed by the sequels, AIRPORT 75, AIRPORT 77, AIRPORT 79- THE CONCORDE. All that melodramatic danger in the air was laughed to death by the films AIRPLANE in 1980, followed by AIRPLANE II in 1982. Everything in air flight had been covered, both the tragedy and the comedy of air travel, until Air France Flight 447. Flight 447 was the Air France Airbus Flight from Brazil to France, which,in 2009, crashed in the South Atlantic , killing all on board,228 passengers. Airbuses fly by wire, which means they fly by computers rather than the old mechanical ways. Very up to date, except when something goes awry, then it seems it is very diff...

France- Bastille Day, July 14, 2024,....Waiting for the Generals

Bastille Day is the National Holiday of France, under Republican regimes. It celebrates the storming of a decaying prison during the French Revolution, by a frenzied mob. Emmanuel Macron is one of those specific French wunderkinds; who thinks he is more sophisticated than anyone; because, as a high school student, he attended a high school drama club and seduced the mother of a fellow student; who was supervising the club. They married in 2007. Macron is one of those specific French wunderkinds, who thinks he is smarter than History, Russian Cossacks, Prussian generals, Vietnamese guerillas and Algerian nationalists. Smarter than History itself, smarter than historical determinism, smarter than ancient enmities. He isn’t. Macron was a Socialist politician; but he broke ranks and broke the French Socialist Party by running for the Presidency, in 2017, as the candidate of a new party; which he had founded, centered around himself. He won 66% of the vote, defeating ...

Search This Blog