barry lyndon – Lee Duigon

Image result for images of gone with the wind

Well, here we go again with the “pro-choice” crowd taking away your choices. This time it’s the management of the Orpheum Theater in Memphis, Tennessee, dropping the corny classic Gone With the Wind from its summer movies series because it’s supposedly “insensitive to a large segment of the population.” (http://wreg.com/2017/08/25/orpheum-theater-wont-show-gone-with-the-wind-calling-film-insensitive/)

Remember, “pro-choice” means “no choice.”

Most of the people living in Memphis are black. So what? This movie has been shown at this theater for many years, decades, even, without anyone complaining. Now all of a sudden it’s a problem? Now it’s offensive? Why now, and not twenty years ago, or ten, or five?

I’ve seen Gone with the Wind. It’s gorgeously filmed schlock, with an ending ripped off of Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon, published in 1844. Why anyone should be prevented from seeing it is beyond me. But liberals just love making our decisions for us. They’d like to make ’em all.

As Christians we have no king but Christ. As pitiable worldlings they have no king but Caesar. If Caesar says the movie’s okay for them to watch, they flock to it in droves. If he says it’s not okay, they won’t let anybody watch it.

And who, exactly, is their Caesar?

I think we can figure that out, don’t you?

That catchy tune in the video, to which the redcoats marched in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, is an old Irish melody called Lillibulero. First published in 1661, Lillibulero gained a kind of immortality thanks to author and clergyman, and proto-Abolitionist, Laurence Sterne.

In his utterly wild and wacky novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, whenever things get confusing, which is most of the time, two of his characters, Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, have a habit of whistling Lillibulero.

I had to read this book in college. I enjoyed it, but I was young then and I strongly suspect I would enjoy it even more if I read it now. Maybe I will get a copy of it for Christmas. I’m just dying to read it again. It was first published in 1759, but don’t let that throw you. This book is just plain funny!

All those years, though, I had no idea what Lillibulero sounded like. I realize now that I must have heard that melody dozens of times without knowing it was Lillibulero.

And here’s something else that’s funny. My wife found me listening to the tune on the computer, and asked me what it was. She has never read Tristram Shandy, and so never heard of Lillibulero.

And then, just before bedtime, she was leafing through a Daphne DuMaurier story when a reference to Lillibulero jumped out at her. “That’s twice tonight!” she said. “You know what? That’s weird!”

It’s with real pleasure that I look back on those ineffectual, benign, and profoundly harmless characters, Uncle Toby and his faithful batman, Corporal Trim–not to mention Tristram’s hopeless and constantly losing battle to organize the story of his life.

Yes, I’ve got to get back to Shandy Hall. But in the meantime, at least I can now whistle Lillibulero.