God Lives in the Sun

            There was snow all over the sidewalks, the Dollarama parking lot and the tops of the passing cars when I got up on Friday morning, but not much on the street. It looked pretty wet and slushy in places but by the early afternoon most of the snow was gone.

            I usually stay awake until after lunch but I felt tired at around 12:30 and took an early ninety-minute siesta.

            I stayed in all day and spent a couple of hours on my essay. I added an extra half a page and added to the part that looks at William Blake’s symbolism of the sun.

            In Blake's poetry god lives in the sun and its rays are like tendrils of warm and luminous love that make the skies happy and bring comfort and joy to all living things.  The sun represents the inner warmth and light to which all good people aspire. The happy activity of children on the echoing green begins with sunrise; and the sun presides over their play, which ends with sunset, as does the poem. But even indirect sunlight is a blessing on the merriment of children as in The Nurse’s Song they are allowed to continue their sport between the golden and the blue hours of twilight till the light fades away. The sun persists beyond the physical and still shines on the spirits of those liberated from their bodies, at least in the dream of a young chimneysweeper that lives without the sun. Wherever there is sun in harmony with rain then poverty and hunger cannot exist. Blake believes that humanity should be consciously drawn to the solar rays, as he indicates in his poem “Ah! Sunflower". As the sun's light and warmth is mankind’s source it must also be our place of return. The absence of the sun induces sleep, but poetically it is sleep that induces the absence of the sun. To not pursue the light of the sun is equated with death and to illustrate this Blake describes two figures. One is a pining youth in a grave of inactive sexual yearning and the other is a snow-shrouded virgin that is frigidly holding passion at bay. Blake shows this young man and woman rising from their respective places of burial to the natural life of seeking the warmth and light of the sun in each other.

            I read Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry" in which he says the best part of anything is the poetry in it.

            I had roast beef, a potato and gravy for dinner and watched Peter Gunn. This story begins with a man in a suit whose face we can’t see removing a weighted body from a trunk, dragging it to the pier and throwing it in the water. Later a nervous antique storeowner named Quimby hires Gunn to locate some missing jewels. He explains that he didn’t report the theft because they jewels were under consignment and he was hoping Gunn could recover them so he wouldn’t have to make an accounting to the owner, Philip Lasdown. Also missing is the night watchman, Arthur Block. While Gunn is there, Lasdown shows up. He’s a very snooty and condescending man with a British accent. He asks for his Buddha with the ruby in its forehead back because he’s decided not to sell it. Gunn goes to Block’s rooming house where the only woman in this story is a very flirtatious older landlady. Gunn gives her $5 to let him look at Block’s room but finds nothing. He goes to ask Lieutenant Jacoby if he’s heard of Block and he finds out Block is dead and was killed with a 120 year old gun. Gunn goes to see Lasdown, and has to hold his foot in the door to get him to answer any questions. He’s insulted that Gunn would ask him if he knows a night watchman. As Gunn is leaving a cab arrives and Gunn gives him a bill of unknown denomination find out that he's going to take Lasdown’s luggage to the airport for a flight that leaves at midnight. When the cabby takes the two big suitcases out of the house, Lasdown gives him a quarter and tells him to be careful. After Lasdown goes back inside the cabby kicks one of the suitcases down the stairs. A few minutes later Lasdown notices that his Buddha has been moved and then encounters an unknown prowler in his house, who escapes. He calls the police and Jacoby comes with Gunn. Lasdown keeps called Jacoby “Sergeant”. Gunn wonders what is special about the Buddha, since all the thief would have to do is take the ruby and not bother with the statue. Lasdown says that pushing the ruby opens a secret compartment in the Buddha. Gunn pushes it and a drawer opens in which there is an antique gun. Lasdown has never seen it. Lasdown goes to confront Quimby, who pulls a gun just as Gunn and Jacoby break in. There’s a mild shootout in which Quimby gets a leg would. He admits that he shot Block when he caught him trying to steal the jewels.

            The landlady was played by Hope Summers who played Aunt Bee’s friend on Andy Griffith, a Satanist in Rosemary’s Baby and she was the voice of the animated maple syrup bottle in the Mrs. Butterworth commercials. She was already over fifty when she started working in films and television.