may day
The Verdict
And the juror, once a fishwife in the market, springs to her feet.
THE FISHWIFE
So, after all
You've found a penny in those
Bloody hands? And the robber is bribing
The court with his spoils?
THE TEACHER
One cherry tree! He could have made
That conquest with
One man only! Instead he has sent
80,000 down here!
THE BAKER
How much
Do they have to pay up there
For a glass of wine and a roll?
THE COURTESAN
Will they always have to sell their skins
When they want to lie with a woman? Sent him to nothing-
ness!
THE FISHWIFE
Yes, to nothingness!
THE TEACHER
Yes, to nothingness!
THE BAKER
Yes, to nothingness!
THE SPEAKER
And they look at the farmer
The praiser of the cherry tree.
What do you say, farmer?
(Silence)
THE FARMER
80,000 for a cherry tree!
Yes, to nothingness!
THE JUDGE
Yes, to nothingness! For
With all the violence and conquest
Only one realm increases:
The realm of the shades.
THE JURORS
And our gray world below
Is already full
Of half-lived lives. Yet here
We have no plows for sinewy arms, or
Hungry mouths, of which up there
You have so many! What but dust
Could we heap upon
The 80,000 slaughtered ones! And you
Up there need houses! How often
Shall we meet them on our
Paths that lead nowhere and hear them asking their eager
Terrible questions, what
The summer of years is like, and the autumn
And the winter?
THE SPEAKER
And the legionaries on the frieze of the dad
Move and cry out:
THE LEGIONARIES
Yes, send him to nothingness! What province
Tips the scales against
Our unlived years that held so much?
THE SPEAKER
And the slaves, haulers of the frieze
Move and cry out:
THE SLAVES
Yes, to nothingness! How long
Will they sit, he and his
Inhuman kind, over men and lift
Lazy hands and hurl the peoples
Into bloody wars against each other?
How long shall we
Endure them and our kind endure them?
ALL
Yes, to nothingness
With him and all his kind!
THE SPEAKER
And from high bench rise
The spokesman of a posterity
Many-handed for taking
Many-mouthed for eating
Eagerly reaping
Rejoicing in life.
The Condemnation of Lucullus
Die Verurteilung des Lukullus, 1951
Libretto: Bertolt Brecht and Paul Dessau
People's Health Tribunal, San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala, against Goldcorp Inc.
of morality rules. In this period, the
atomic bomb made more victims
than the revolution of 1917. The pres-
ervation of this society such as it is,
yesterday in attempts at Fascist pres-
ervation, today in a bid for American
preservation, this preservation alone
costs much more in blood, in men
and in freedom than the establish-
ment of a new world. Why hesitate?
Elio Vittorini, 1946
*
This dedication to Danièle Huillet is also in memory of filmmaker and editor Patrícia Saramago (1975-2025) who suddenly passed away last October. Among the many films she gave her all to, it must be said that without her work as an editor there would be no Where Lies Yours Hidden Smile? (Où gît votre sourire enfoui?, 2001, Pedro Costa), "the best film ever made about editing" (Godard) . It was Patrícia who solved the film's inherent technical (nigh existential) problems and did the grueling work of its impossible synchronization and formal unity, thus we have not only the Straubs' behavior, their rapport, their parting and rejoining, amplified, but also the operation of the montage magnified––the film material and evidence on the Moviola screen as they cut a new version of Sicilia! down to decisive half-frames––all as a colossal and infinitesimal one. Pedro Costa has said Patrícia saved the film. And this is how he reverentially introduced me to Patrícia 16 years ago, in Lisbon, in the old OPTEC office on Rua 1 de Dezembro: "She did the one. Yes, that one...," as he stepped aside to give me plenty of space to bow and kiss her.
In the weeks before her death, I worked closely with Patrícia on the English subtitles of her first film as a director, Dois e Um Gato (Two and a Cat––which will premiere in Lisbon on May 3rd, 2026). She not only finished this film just before departing, she made a bold and necessary film, a vigorous and uneasy balancing act of heavy and light tones, humor and indignation, about housing problems and living conditions––a young couple and a cat struggling to live together in a tiny room in Lisbon from which they're about to be evicted. A film made with all the youth, outrage, and tenderness of a young first-time director, and all the precision and formal strength of an artisan who worked her craft as an editor for 25 years. Nothing terminal about it, in fact, the opposite: a ripe confection––against everything, everything one must be against. A pastel opening out of freedom from under the idiotic tyranny of landlords.
Patrícia, gone seven days shy
of your 50th birthday
We will miss you –– !
*
Past May Day Dedications on Kino Slang
2007 - Examine Caesars
2008 - Song of Two Humans, But...!
2009 - This Land is Mine
2010 - Men Without Women
2011 - Freedom
2012 - Small Grasses
2013 - That's Just What We Intend
2014 - The Lizards
2015 - (no post – misery)
2017 - Venez m'aider! (plus Duras on Othon)
2018 - Straub/Huillet/Talking (interview)
2019 - Born May 1st. . .
2018 - Straub/Huillet/Talking (interview)
2019 - Born May 1st. . .
2020 - We Caught a Political Conscience like One Catches Chickenpox
2021 - May Night
2022 - "...progress / away from / the bulk of humanity..."
2023 - Dialectical at Every Second: Unpublished Interview with Straub/Huillet by J. Hughes, B. Krohn (1975)
2024 - No Appeasement / Palestine / Eyes Do Not Want to Close At All Times
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