Dr. Metablog

Amnesia on Film: The Scarf (1951)

The Scarf is a most curious, eccentric film. Something of its oddity is conveyed by TCM's one-sentence plot summary: "An asylum escapee meets a waitress and hides on a turkey farm; supposedly he killed someone." The film was written and directed by E. A. (Ewald Andre) Dupont, one of the many German refugees working in Hollywood during and after the war, and features a splendid cast including John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, Emlyn Williams and especially James Barton, in a rather brilliant performance as a good-hearted, grizzled, hermit farmer whose flock of turkeys serves as source of income and as watchdog and possibly as metaphor.

John Howard Barrington escapes from an institution for the criminally insane. It seems that he's been incarcerated for a murder that he can't remember committing. Some sort of stress amnesia, the audience is expected to believe. He falls in with Connie Carter, a forthright waitress-singer-floozy: she introduces herself succinctly: "I'm no lily, not at all.  But my morals have no zipper. Let it go at that."  Connie wears an unusual scarf; when Barrington notices it he regains a smidgen of memory. It's going to be the clue to resolving his amnesia.  After many an adventure and some good photography, it is revealed that judge, jury and Barrington himself have been deceived. Barrington is innocent and the real murderer and villain is Dr. David Dunbar, an effete confidence man/psychologist who has hidden his own psychopathic past. At the climax, all is revealed (with the help of the scarf) and turns out for the best --  Barrington gets the girl, regains his memory and his innocence, and takes up the serious business of farming turkeys.

I found The Scarf absolutely riveting although I had to suspend disbelief over the many holes in the plot and some occasional crazy continuity problems. But amnesia movies can be mighty flexible about such details.

And there's a subtext of theatrical repetition-compulsion:  Emlyn Williams, who plays the maniac-murderer David Dunbar, "became an overnight star in 1935, with his thriller Night Must Fall, which he wrote and also played the lead role of a psychopathic murderer." 

Gender-blind Casting?

Last Saturday, we hiked to the multiplex to hear and watch the Met's HD performance of Idomeneo. Once again, the opera did not disappoint. Early Mozart and glorious, especially the rousing choruses, while soprano Nadine Sierra was a luminous Illia. A silly story, of course, but for once there was a happy ending--a young man and a young woman, of different heritages, were allowed to marry--hurrah. Not without the forgiveness of a god--in this case, Neptune, who could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he had been quicker to act but unfortunately didn't bother to theophanize until the passing of four hours (including extended intermissions) and three long acts of melodic anguish and dread.  

Nevertheless, I was troubled. "And what was it this time, Mr. Malcontent," you ask.  

It was the "trouser" role. The "hero" of the opera, Idamante, the guy who gets the girl, was played by Alice Coote, a soprano, a middle-aged woman not at all "boyish," but full-figured, prominently bosomed, and generously hipped. She was costumed as an ancient Cretan soldier, with an ineffective corset under her corselet and with a circle of what looked like old-fashioned elongated leather shaving strops or giant bookmarks hanging from waist to ankle. But her outfit did not fool me, even though I'm very good at suspending disbelief. Trust me, I can suspend like crazy.    

And I know that there's no point going to the opera if you can't suspend disbelief. One would think that once you accept the idea that the performers are going to aria at each other whenever they are together and aria at the audience when they are alone, and that they are followed wherever they go by a 100-piece orchestra, you can believe anything at all. But I have to admit that I boggled at Coote/Idamante and that I was sufficiently distracted that my pleasure in the opera was compromised, diminished. At the climax, I thought, "oh no, don't let them kiss." (They didn't, when they should have, and would have, if Idamante had been not a soprano but a tenor or baritone -- is it possible that the director was as squeamish as I.)

Idamante is customarily (but not always) played by a soprano because the part was originally written for a castrato, in this case Signor Vincenzo del Prato (no doubt known to his buddies as del Prato the castrato, or perhaps, as gli italiani would say, del Prato il castrato). I suppose that it is considered "authentic" to sing the part in the register in which it was composed. But why not transpose it down an octave and give it to a handsome tenor. Yes, it would be different, but to my eyes, much better. After all, authenticity has already been compromised --  Alice Coote is no Vincenzo del Prato. Nor do I hear even the most enthusiastic supporters of "period" performances call for a restoration of castrati.  

Shakespeare's women were played by boys. But even the new Globe, with its fetish for ancient ways, does not insist on a boy Cleopatra or a boy Juliet. And all to the good, in my opinion.  

Chalaza

If you asked me to guess what the word "chalaza" means, I'd say, from its sound, that it would have to be an odd cactus-y looking plant that grows only in the Atacama desert and flowers once a decade, or an extinct language formerly spoken in the southern Caucasus mountains, or perhaps some sort of Levantine breadstick. It's a strange exotic word. But if then I told you that you've seen thousands, perhaps many thousands of chalazas (or chalazae) with your own eyes, and eaten as many, you'd be perplexed, even startled. Because you have eaten them.

Anyone who's cracked an egg has noticed two ropey white bands that extend from the yolk and are rooted in the transparent albumen.  

Here's some more information about chalazae which I quote from Tim Birkhead's The Most Perfect Thing (2016), a detailed and most enthusiastic book all about eggs.  "The role of the chalazae is to suspend the yolk within the albumen.... One end of each chalaza is attached to the ovum itself... and the other is firmly lodged in the layer of dense viscous albumen, which itself is attached to the shell membranes at the pointed and blunt ends of the egg. The chalazae allow the yolk to rotate when the egg is turned so that the embryo always remains on top of the yolk and within the inner liquid albumen layers. This self-righting ability is [necessary] because the embryo develops on the least dense side of the yolk. Keeping the embryo uppermost ensures that it is always closest to the parent's brood patch for maximum warmth, but also closest to the inner surface of the shell for maximum access to oxygen."

No chalazae, no chicks.

I'm astonished that although I have scrambled thousands of eggs, and certainly noticed the "ropey strands," I never gave them the slightest thought. How incurious of me! 

Birkhead's book is a revelation. He is the egg man of our times. Occasionally he gets so carried away with his joy in the egg that he veers into unconscious comedy. I adore the phrase, "a renaissance in the study of eggshell pigmentation."  Or, "guillemots are not quite unique in incubating shit-covered eggs."  Or, "tinamous lay the most extraordinary and beautiful eggs."  Or, "there is something sensual about eggs."

About the word chalaza: it's from the Greek meaning "small knot." Nor is it new: it entered the language (in Latinized form) in 1704.

Some practical information: the more prominent the chalazae, the fresher the egg.

The Mall of Me

I had to go to the huge shopping mall the other day and let me tell you, what a colossal waste of effort! There was nothing for me. Lots of jewelry, fancy duds, shoes. There must have been ten shoe stores for the ladies and almost as many for the guys. But I've already stocked up on shoes: I buy multiple pairs of a design that works for me, stow them deep in the closet, and pull out a new pair when the one in use springs a leak. Same thing with pants: multiple copies of Lee Regular Fit jeans in a variety of colors, bought online or if I'm in a sociable mood at a shop around the corner. The big malls, with their sun glass huts and perfume counters and candle stores and  knick-knacks, doo-dads, and tschokes interest me not all. Nor their food courts -- gag. Or their muzak music, programmed to make you want to spend, spend and spend again.

I can, however, imagine a shopping mall designed for my particular and personal satisfaction. It would be called "The Mall of Me."

Anchoring one end of the Mall of Me is a large book store, carrying both new and used, but stocked with volumes of history, fine arts, crafts, popular science, biography, travel, fiction, gardening and what used to be called "natural history", with lots of room to browse and sit and read. Proviso: the "bookstore of me" carries zero books on Spirituality, Self-Improvement, Soul Regression, Tarot, Alternative Therapies, or Healing Arts. No books written by TV pastors or repentant politicians recently released from prison or by instant millionaires. No celebrity autobiographies. At the other end of the Mall of Me, there's a shop selling music cds which  specializes in the great age of middle European music from 1685 (birth of Bach) to 1911 (death of Mahler), but also features a treasury of classic blues, bluegrass, American roots, popular song, rock and roll, and gospel of the golden age. No New Age, No Rap, no Electronic. Between my two "anchors," there will be a good garden store featuring expensive, elegant, heavy-in-the-hand garden tools. No power mowers or power tools, but when appropriate to the season, racks of seeds, preferably of heirloom and antique vegetables. Next to it, a movie memorabilia and poster store, with large collections from the earliest days of cinema right through 1950, especially Shakespeare movies. And then I'd like a high-end antique store displaying walls and shelves of classical and Asian works of art. Unfortunately, because of budgetary constraints, I won't be doing any purchasing in this particular shop, but I'll be pleased to browse in it, at least weekly, perhaps oftener. Also, a cafe where a guy could purchase a hot chocolate and an almond croissant. I would also like a store that specializes in 19th and early 20th century Caucasian rugs and wall-hangings though here, once again -- it would be more for appreciating than for actual buying. Subject to the same constraints, a baseball memorabilia shop -- National League only. A high end crafts store. And as for restaurants: a Jewish deli, modeled after the now defunct Second Avenue Delicatessen. An imaginative Asian fusion restaurant. A bagel bakery. No fish, and certainly no sushi. Perhaps a hole-in-the-wall one-person walk-in shop where a guy or gal could help me with computer and cell phone anomalies and failures -- someone who speaks in traditional English, not in acronyms. And then there will be buskers: at one end of the mall, a string quartet; at the other end, a bluegrass band. No fire-eaters, contortionists, or drummers banging on pots and pans. All performers personally vetted by me. No panhandlers or noble solicitors with their dread clipboards.

And of course, some intelligently-designed play areas for infants, new walkers and small children. And some comfortable chairs for their parents (and me) to sit and watch the kiddies frolic.

Yes, I think that will do it.  It's the Mall of Me.

Now that I think of it, everyone should have their own mall. Instead of vast mall installations, let's have targeted malls. Individually designed and executed.

Merchandising genius!! 

Birthday Gifts for Me Me Me

A few years ago I posted, right here on this blague, pictures of some handsome objects that would make good birthday presents for yours truly. But one March 11 after another March 11 has come and gone, and -- nothing. Not a single reader, acquaintance, friend, or relative has embraced the opportunity. There has not been so much as a serious inquiry, even though my suggestions were eminently sensible.  

I'm going to try once again this year. After all, unemployment is down, the stock market is up, and there's more loose change out there. (And perhaps more escapism.) Moreover, there won't be many more birthdays for me -- I'm getting up there in years. It's now or never.

So -- fans of Vivian de St. Vrain, and Vrainites everywhere, seize the day.

OK, steady now. What about a castle in Ireland? I would really enjoy a castle. There are many on the market this year, and they're quite reasonably priced, as castles go.

For example, here's Ballindooley, a starter Castle in Galway.

Even though it's small, it has undeniable "curb appeal." The realtor claims that it was built toward the end of the 15th century in the Norman style and probably for the DeBurgo family. The realtor also notes that there's "a new stone parapet and that there have been recent repairs to the machicolations." 

Inasmuch as I wouldn't dream of owning a castle where the machicolations were all busted up, I'm happy for the reassurance. The price: a bargain at a mere 950,000 euros. 

Though I wouldn't turn up my nose at Ballindooley, I would certainly prefer Killaghy Castle at Mullinahone in Tipperary.  

It's a better value. The original castle was built, the realtor claims (I haven't seen the documentation) in the first decade of the 13th century. A "long house" was added during Tudor times, and two more buildings were attached during the 18th century -- so it's already been updated. Plus there are two walled gardens with "excellent mature specimen trees."  An ominous note though: "price upon request."

So, loyal readers, it's time for you to chip in your pennies and farthings and join together for one big happy birthday celebration for me.

And please, don't forget that in order for me to care for your gift properly, I'm going to need a bit of an endowment --  which I do not see as much of a problem. Plus furnishings.

And by the way, for those of you who are not "in the know" about castles, a "machicolation" is a "projecting gallery at the top of a castle wall, supported by a row of corbeled arches and having openings in the floor through which stones and boiling liquids could be dropped on attackers." 

I like a castle that says, "all welcome." 

You Can Count on Me Again and Again

All my movie-loving friends told me that I must watch Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester-by-the-Sea (2016). That was before the film won all those awards. So I crashed the Netflix line and there it was in my mailbox the first day that it was released on disk. And indeed it's a fine film. No car chases, no special effects, just real people wrestling their way through his world of woe. Good dialogue. Excellent camera work, excellent editing, splendid acting. 

But half way through the film, I began to experience disappointment. An unavoidable sense of dejavuitude. Wait, haven't I seen this before? And then I remembered Lonergan's earlier film, You Can Count on Me (2000). Hmmm.

In YCCoM, 20ish small-town boy Terry Prescott is unsteady and unfocused because he has lost his parents in an automobile accident. in MbtS, 30ish small-town boy Lee Chandler is sullen and isolated because he has lost his children in a house fire. In YCCoM,  Terry Prescott has a nephew, son of his much more grounded sister, with whom he tries to connect. In MBtS, Lee Chandler has a nephew, son of his brother, with whom he tries to connect. In YCCoM, Terry Prescott gets into a fight with a guy he used to know very well. In MbtS, Lee Chandler gets into a bar fight with a guy he's never met.  In YCCoM, Terry Prescott can't stay put, has to be on the road; in MbtS, Lee Chandler is stuck at home, can't get out of his rut. 

The details are different, but it's unquestionably the same story, inverted. It can almost be thought of as a sequel, with Casey Affleck recapitulating the role created by Mark Ruffalo. 

They're both excellent films -- just a trifle redundant. As a would-be enthusiast of the later effort, I felt just a little cheated.  

All writers, even the best, repeat themselves. Nevertheless, I'm hoping that Kenneth Lonergan's next picture, to which I'm looking forward with great anticipation, breaks out of the box, tries something entirely new.

"Maestro to the Pit"

Several times a year, we attend the opera -- that is, we wander over to the Metropolitan Opera widescreen HD broadcasts at our local movie theater. Last week, it was Dvorak's Rusalka --overproduced, over-costumed, a mighty silly story, but nevertheless glorious. Sung in Czech. Of course, I didn't understand a word, but then I never do expect to do so, even when the opera is sung in a language with which I'm supposed to be on speaking terms. But it's not the libretto which we savor, it's the music. 

Nevertheless at each performance there's a solemn  moment when language moves front and center. It comes after the preliminary fol-de-rol and acknowledgements and interviews and trailers-for-next-month's performance are finally dispensed with. Now, at long last, the camera locates the head-setted director, who sits at huge intimidating console of buttons and knobs and switches and lights. And now here they come, the words of magic and enchantment: "maestro to the pit."

In that pithy, incantatory sentence is encapsulated all the ritual power of language. It's a hieratic moment. After such a magnificent statement, everything else is anticlimax (linguistically speaking).

Freed by these words, the shamanic conductor heretofore invisible, steps up, turns his back to the audience and faces the orchestra, brandishes his baton, and initiates the business of the day. 

"Maestro to the pit."  I love the idea that the generic term for conductor is "maestro." I love the quasi-oxymoronic juxtaposition of "maestro" and "pit."  In fact, I love the word "pit" in this context. Not a hole in the ground, nor the pit of hell, nor a place in which to chuck pieces of dismembered bodies. No, an orchestra pit, which is a horse of an entirely different color. Good thing it's not the custom to say "conductor to the podium." How flat, how banal, how unsacral. No dignity, no grandeur, no poetry.

No, it's "maestro to the pit." And let it always be so.

And by the way, I make a pretty good barbecue sauce, and I'm proud to say that my spare ribs are semi-famous. Let the word go forth, that now and forever, whenever I'm called to the grill, it's going to be "maestro to the pit."

Chinatown -- Odd Man Out

At the Vivian de St. Vrain Theater, also known as the bedroom, pleasurably supine on what Italians call the letto matrimoniale, we watch films from all decades of cinema history. The new technologies deluge us with riches. Films arrive by mail, by download, and on TCM and MGM and Encore Classics. It's all so remarkably easy.

We especially enjoy unplanned, spontaneous juxtapositions. Two nights ago, for example, we re-re-re-rewatched, on Encore, a film that must be on everyone's top ten list, the great noir classic Chinatown. Dazzled we were, once again. And then, last night, courtesy of the U. S. Post Office and Netflix, along came Carol Reed's masterpiece, Odd Man Out. There was, trust me, no plan to follow the one with the other -- but what a stroke of good fortune!!  

Chinatown (1974) gives us a fully-realized Los Angeles in the 1930s. The plot is complicated but not confusing. J. J. Gittes, a bored, compromised detective, is smart enough to unravel the plan to steal the water and smart enough to identify the murderer but nevertheless too innocent to grasp the unspeakable corruption at the heart of the of Mulwray-Cross family. Odd Man Out (1947), which also manages to make its Belfast setting as real as real, offers only the slightest plot -- Johnny McQueen's desperate attempt to escape his city. Yet what a remarkable story and how ably peopled with a variety of characters. It becomes almost picaresque in organization as Johnny reels from adventure to adventure, encountering Irish samaritans good, bad, and traitorous. On the surface the films are miles apart --Los Angeles all bright colors and fancy clothes, awash with prosperity, Belfast dark dark dark and gloomy. And yet the two films seemed oddly similar.

The overlaps and echoes were such that we decided to investigate. Here's what we discovered, via the wikipedia entry on Chinatown. "Filmmaker Roman Polanski (the director of Chinatown) has repeatedly cited Odd Man Out as his favorite film. 'I still consider it to be one of the best movies I've ever seen and a film which made me want to pursue this career more than anything else....  I always dreamed of doing things of this sort or that style.  To a certain extent I must say that I somehow perpetuate the ideas of that movie in what I do.'"  So our speculation about the similarities was validated. Unquestionably, Polanski had Carol Reed in mind while making Chinatown.

Let us cut to the chase and (spoilers coming, so watch out!) concentrate on the two films' last scenes. Johnny McQueen, badly wounded, is trying to make it down to the docks to get himself out of Belfast. He's helped by his girlfriend Kathleen Ryan. For a hopeful second, it appears that he's going to escape, but the police surround him. He can no longer see, but he asks Kathleen, "Is it far?"  Kathleen replies (and you have to be made of stone not to drop a tear), "It's a long way, Johnny, but I'm coming with you." She shoots at the police and they respond with "deadly force." It's suicide by cop -- a sad emotional love-death Romeo and Juliet ending. The ending of Chinatown is much more hopeless. Evelyn Mulwray tries to escape her father, corrupt and powerful Noah Cross. She drives away with her daughter but a fusillade of police bullets kills her. Evil, malevolent Cross wins everything -- the money, the land, the water, the child. (Polanski even altered the original ending to make it darker, more like Odd Man Out.) "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" --  i.e. inexplicable, impenetrable.

More on Polanski here.

My Teachers: James Hutton (1902-1980)

The most erudite man that I ever encountered in my own person was James Hutton, a professor of classics when I was an undergraduate at Cornell back there in the 1950s. Professor Hutton bristled with knowledge -- nor is this my opinion only, but one that is well attested by his international reputation and by the list of his writings. Hutton wrote two enormous books (800 pages each!!) that won him his scholarly spurs: The Greek Anthology in Italy (1935) and The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin Writers of the Netherlands to the Year 1800 (1946). I encountered Professor Hutton in 1958 when, callow and poorly educated, I enrolled in a Latin course called "Terence and Catullus" (of which more later). But first, for those curious readers out there in bloglandia who are on tenterhooks, painfully stretched like new wool and are wondering what the heck is the "Greek Anthology" about which James Hutton composed his pair of magna opera and around which his life centered -- turn we now to the pages of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

In brief, the Anthologia Graeca is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that had a complicated ancient history, but originated perhaps with an anthology complied by Meleager of Gadara in the first century BCE, which brought together works by many ancients including Archilochus, Alcaeus, Anacreon and Simonides (all big names in their time). There were a series of early editions that do not survive but an authoritative version was made by Constantine Cephalas in the 10th century. "Cephalas appended a number of other collections: homoerotic verse collected by Straton of Sardis in the 2nd century AD; a collection of  Christian epigrams found in churches; a collection of satirical and convivial epigrams collected by Diogenianus as well as Christodorus's description of statues in the Byzantine gymnasium of Zeuxippos; and a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus." And then in 1300 or thereabouts Maximus Planudes brought together an edition which became standard, which, while adding some poems, also deleted or bowdlerized many of those that offended his puritanical Christian sensibilities. Planudes' anthology was the only one known to Western Europe for many centuries; manuscript transmission was superseded when an edition based on his work was printed in 1494.

There's a lot more but that's enough information for us to understand the area which James Hutton worked. Professor Hutton knew the anthology backwards and forwards and made it his business to trace its considerable influence through the Latin and vernacular poetry of late antiquity and the medieval and renaissance worlds. Quite an endeavor, in my opinion.  

Hutton was a Scotsman, born in Airth, son of a sea captain, though from where I sat (in a small seminar room in Goldwin Smith Hall!!), it was impossible to imagine that he had ever been a child or even a young man. He came to the US early in life and there was not a trace of Scotland in his speech. Hutton entered Cornell as a freshman in 1920, received three degrees there, stayed on to teach, and retired in 1973. According to his Cornell obituary, he was a life-long bachelor. For most of his adulthood, he lived with his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Hutton, and he shared a house for many years with Professor Lane Cooper, his teacher and another bachelor Cornell classicist. After the death of his mother and of Cooper, he continued to live at 123 Roberts Place with his cousin/housekeeper, Mrs. Margaret Green. Perhaps he was a delightful presence among his friends, but to my eyes he was a pale, tall, gaunt, dry-as-a stick, bony man devoid of humor or juice. Born only two years before my own father, he seemed to be generations older.  

Now a few words about Terence and Catullus, the twin subjects of my 1958 Latin classroom experience. 

Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) was Roman playwright possibly of Berber origin but certainly originally a north African slave. Brought to Rome and freed, he wrote six comedies, adapted from Greek originals, of which we students of Professor Hutton plowed through three: Andria (166 BC); The Self-Tormentor (163 BC) and the Adelphi (160 BC). Terence drowned on a trip to Greece, age 25. His must have been a marvelously romantic life, even though much curtailed. Too bad we know only its barest outline.

Here's the title page to the first "modern" edition of Terence's works (1496)

In Terence's plays, young noblemen dally with prostitutes or mistresses even as their fathers insist that they marry more respectable ladies. Plots, often contrived by the dull hero's wily slave, fail to come to fruition because the conspirators are carelessly overheard. Sometimes apparently unrelated women (one rich, the other poor), turn out to be sisters. Sham marriages and double-dealing are frequent. It is not uncommon that sons discover by accident, in the last scene of the play, the identities of their biological fathers. When there are plans to destroy female infants, the girls are rescued and raised secretly, only to come forward as beauties at a critical juncture of the plot. Young noblemen are prone to breaking into the houses of pimps to carry off the girls they love. Generally, plays end with multiple and suitable marriages, the old folks outwitted and the youngsters carrying the day. Slaves are freed.

Meanwhile, characters coin memorable aphorisms in succinct, elegant Latin. Everyone knows "Homo sum, nihil a me alienum puto"  -- I am a man, nothing human is alien to me.  But also quot homines tot sententiae: suus cuique mos -- So many men, as many opinions; to each his own way. And "fortis fortuna adiuvat" --  fortune favors the brave.  And "nullumst iam dictum quod nos dictum sit prius" --nothing new is said that has not been said before. And "amantium irae amoris integratio est" -- lover's quarrels are the renewal of love.

But with all these comic goings-on and witty sayings, there was not one moment that I can remember when Professor James Hutton laughed or smiled or indicated in the least that the plays were clever or amusing. Instead, we discussed grammatical questions with much emphasis on the differences between second century and first century Latin. Dry as dust, it was. The opportunity to find the common humanity of ancient Romans and 1950s Cornellians was missed, even shirked.

Terence's louche and lively plots must have posed a problem for Professor Hutton; Catullus of Verona, a poet of love and sex and bawdy, could only have caused even more of a difficulty. In the edition in which we read Catullus, a drab gray book which must have dated from the early part of the century, certain of the more scabrous poems were omitted but, in a moment of confused prudery, printed -- in a smaller font --in an appendix. I suspect that they were also bowdlerized. Some of the words that Catullus used in his freer verse were not to be found in our dictionary, which had also been cleansed. And in a translation that I consulted (was it the Loeb?) the offending poems did appear, but only in Italian. Was the idea that if anyone could read Italian he must be sophisticated enough to deal with Catullan pornography. Perhaps my readers think that I'm fantasizing or imagining this half-hearted censorship, but it's as true as true. Swear.

Even after all these years, two of Catullus's poems stay in my mind. The best, the most frequently republished and the most influential is known to classicists as Catullus 5. It's a remarkable poem. Here's the Latin, which is not difficult.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus

Rumoresque senum severiorum

omnes unius aestimemus assis.

Soles occidere et redire possunt;

nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux

Nox est perpetua una dormienda

da mi basia mille, deinde centum

dein mille altera, dein secunda centum

deinde com milia multa fecerimus

conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, 

aut ne quis malus invidere possitor

cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

And here's a translation. "Let us live, my Lesbia, and love. The gossipings of stern old men let us value at just one penny.  Suns may set and rise again, but us, when once the brief light has set, night is one perpetual sleep. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred, then when we have counted up many thousands, let us shake [the abacus] lest some evil man be envious when he knows how many kisses there were." That is to say, Let us keep on making love no matter what the old envious guys think. (Lesbia has nothing to do with lesbians; it's just code for the name of the married woman with whom Catullus was sleeping.)  

I have no recollection of any discussion of this peach of a poem in 1958. Perhaps we talked about the ingenious lux/Nox juxtaposition, but I am sure we didn't touch on either the boasted adultery or the joys of sex. We were still in the last gasp of Victoriana. We were pre-Beatles, pre-Kennedy, pre-readily available contraceptives. Some things were not to be discussed. 

The other poem that stands in my memory is Catullus 61, a joyous epithalamion (or marriage song) which celebrates, with great gusto, the wedding of Vinia and Manlius. It is sensual and almost hypnotic. It's frankness about sexual pleasure pleased me in 1958, when such things were rare. Still pleases me.

But what about the omitted poems, the ones too "coarse" for our tender eyes and ears?  How would James Hutton have dealt with them. Not at all, of course. But now, censorship and self-censorship and propriety eased, we can read the poem that begins Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo. which I can now translate as "I will fuck you in the ass and then fuck you in the face." And goes on from there. Not part of the 1958 curriculum. In Professor Hutton's class, we were more comfortable discussing a synezis of the genitive than any exercise of the genitalia.

But I wonder, now, about, James Hutton, at home after a hard day of declining and conjugating, at dinner with his mother and his bachelor roommate. What did Professor Hutton think about Catullus's "paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo".

This I know: whether repelled or offended or secretly sympathetic, he certainly did not share his feelings with his students.