Summer's Gone

Dionysus has remained an inspiration to artists, philosophers and writers into the modern era. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed that a tension between Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetic principles underlay the development of Greek tragedy; Dionysus represented what was unrestrained chaotic and irrational, while Apollo represented the rational and ordered.Nietzsche claimed that the oldest forms of Greek Tragedy were entirely based on suffering of Dionysus. In Nietzsche's 1886 work. Beyond Good and Evil, and later works The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist and Ecce Homo, Dionysus is conceived as the embodiment of the unrestrained will to power (Wikipedia).

The pic is of Jim Morrison in the short film of their song "Summer's Almost Gone."  It was made a decade and change before MTV so I think it incorrect to call it a music video. Morrison was a film school drop-out, but a world-class poet. Genius takes many forms and indeed he was one. I had the opportunity to watch the Oliver Stone film "The Doors" on Netflix the other night. Made in the early 90's, it just took me 20 years to see it. It was essentially the story of the rise and fall of Jim Morrison with the other band members playing supporting roles. Morrison bursts on the scene, flames out, and dies in a bathtub in a Flat in Paris. He was a modern day Dionysus, the god of wine and chaos. Although the other members of the Doors, especially Manzarek, disavowed the portrayal of Morrison in the film, it seemed to ring essentially true. Dionysus, down the drain, 

I thought of the song today as I reflected on the turning of the seasons here in Central Pa. Yesterday, I took out the Air Conditioner from my bedroom window. It is sort of the reversal of the groundhog seeing its shadow or not for winter longevity. When the A.C. comes out, Winter is setting in; I have no idea why taking out the A.C. seems so difficult. I have to think it is somewhat existential. Soon, we will be freezing our arses' off. I also moved my lawn mower to the basement and put in the storm windows in the front door. Winterization, as it were. Last year I left my former mower in the shed outside and I forgot that we have been North Pole Lite the last couple of Winter's. It froze like a mechanical Wooly Mammoth, never to awaken from its Siberian Slumber. I pulled and pulled that rope. Nothing.  

I actually like Winter. Summer can to tough with the sweat and humidity. Fall comes and things cool. We go down into the depths of the thermometer and then Spring comes, like Resurrection. God has ordered the seasons and it is sweet and poignant to live in a part of the world where its lessons of Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring are more or less quarters of the year.