Sunday, November 20, 2011

November, 1975

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman
offered by Tess on her Mag 92 posting

Wiki says:
"Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman. She is perhaps best known for her Academy Award winning role in The Three Faces of Eve (1957)."

"Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money and eight other nominations, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.

"With writer A.E. Hotchner, Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982. Newman's Own donates all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of July 2011, these donations exceeded $300 million.

"Newman was married to Jackie Witte from 1949 to 1957. Newman met actress Joanne Woodward in 1953. Shortly after filming The Long, Hot Summer, in which he starred with Woodward, in 1957 he divorced Witte. He married Woodward early in 1958. They remained married for fifty years until his death in 2008."

Newman died of cancer most probably. He kept his last years and especially the state of his health quite private and so we only know obliquely.

I greatly admire Newman for his constancy with women and his willingness for philanthropy with his life partner Woodward. I use Newman's Own lemonade regularly.

November, 1975

When I married you
I nearly died from my fear
of commitment. Life
seems too long for me
to think of, souls spot welded
then full strength full depth
penetration joins
all along the edge of me
and you no matter
what, not even that,
the shore of land and ocean,
lines of ground and air.

When I married you
I got so drunk, stupid grin
on swollen wet face,
a sure harbinger
I did not then heed at all
though you might have known
and you married me
anyway.

That's ironic,
inevitable.

November 20, 2011 11:30AM

I was married until the summer of 1997. The ending of our marriage was a nightmare but not the usual sort. We did not hate each other nor were we in conflict in the usual way. She was at the last severely physically, financially and mentally ill. Divorce was her solution to our life dilemma but we mutually supported the action. I no longer had heart for our union. It seemed to us both that staying together longer was lethal. She retained a lawyer to guarantee the paperwork but we had no quarrels at all over property. I had an interview with a lawyer but was so turned off by the idea that I walked away and trusted my wife and her lawyer to do the right thing. They did. I continue grateful that our divorce turned out that way. I have not married again.

21 comments:

  1. I enjoyed your Magpie .. and the postscript which reminded me that I don't usually revisit my divorce from so long ago. We ended up using my attorney as well. Former husband 'had it' with his. Today we are the best of friends. I have not remarried. He has.

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  2. Thanks for sharing, Helen. I am happy to hear that others get out peacefully. My friends recently are beset with ugliness and it saddens me.

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  3. The notion of souls spot welded is brilliant...

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  4. the info about the subject of the photo is informative. as always sir, love it.

    the poem in the middle was awesome.

    and your story at the end, kind of sad for me but as it all end well, i guess, gave me back my smile.

    in total, i love it!

    have a great week ahead!

    JJRod'z

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  5. you married me anyway...i think love and certainly that commitment is to see beyond many things...a touch of sadness for sure at the end there...i am glad that you ended amicably

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  6. Unique approach. Enjoyed it all, including the background on both Paul and Joanne. In your personal life, you were one of the lucky ones...there are too many of us who have had crippling divorces where hate is the only result. I applaud you for your candidness. Well done.

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  7. Thank you, Tess. "full strength, full depth penetration" is also a welding directive. In general, welds are actually stronger than the parent materials, except care must be taken because the heat affected zone right beside the weld can become quite fragile.

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  8. JJ and Brian, it didn't really end that well. I just didn't share the rest of the story this time. The part where we cared for each other til the end stayed the truth. My former wife died early, in 2001.

    Thank you, C Hummel, for calling my approach unique.

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  9. I echo Tess.........

    When I was little my Uncle WHitey would 'make' me welding splatters to play with. I imagine the 'spots' are quite like that........

    Lovely! :)

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  10. Mimi, they are more controlled, they do not splatter. They are utilitarian. They may be all that's needed. Next in line are the skip welds that have length and regular gaps between them, then the continuous welds, the full strength and full depth welds being the top end of the series of welds that can happen. You can do more but then the build up is a waste.

    In a different direction, you can change things by changing the shape of the edges of the materials to be joined to make stronger or weaker welds.

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  11. Divorce need not be disaater - staying married can be...

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  12. I want to respond to this with a personal story, but it's too fresh. I keep deleting what I write because I know it's not only my story to share, and the other person would not want it shared here. (((Christopher)))

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  13. Oh, and I love this part best. It is beyond brilliant.
    Life
    seems too long for me
    to think of, souls spot welded
    then full strength full depth
    penetration joins
    all along the edge of me
    and you no matter
    what, not even that,
    the shore of land and ocean,
    lines of ground and air.

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  14. (((Rachel))), you can email me, of course.

    The passage you say is beyond brilliant is also not decipherable unless you know something of welding. You don't have to know much, but "full strength, full depth penetration" "joins" and "spot" are technical terms.

    That is of course similar to poets who expect that you know your Shakespeare or whatever.

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  15. I know most of the terminology from my lessons in silversmithing; like any good poetry, though, I think it has its own rich meaning even if one doesn't know the lingo. It's sort of like when I throw in botanical terms that not everyone would know. Either way, it's beautiful.

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  16. Love the 'spot welding' descriptive as well as many others. Yes, this one feels.

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  17. Newman allegedly commented on his fidellity to Joanne Woodward as follows - "Why go out for a hamburger when there's steak at home." Ahhh . . that's nice.

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  18. Good to read a Magpie that tells it like it is.

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  19. Rachel, it is as you say as long as the terms are easy to locate ("ah, she is using botanical terms") but I am not so sure that people can recognize the welding terms as technical since they really are ordinary words used in non ordinary ways. I will give you the other point only saying I hoped the terms went the right places as ordinary words anyway. "Full strength, full depth penetration welds" is a directive on many of my engineering drawings. If I say so and a part fails due to a poor weld, then it is not our fault as "owner" and the repair devolves back on the contractor.

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  20. Catfish, Jinsky, I read my poem and afterwords again and tried to figure the male perspective in it. It seemed to me that if I had switched stuff around just a little and put it on a blog run by a woman persona readers would not have had much trouble with gender. Maybe I am more masculine than I thought.

    What is certain is the alcoholic perspective.

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  21. couples who are forever are so lucky

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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