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Parting Glances: Run that by me s-l-o-w-l-y

My Toshiba TV allows me play DVDs in loop mode. (Click A at the beginning of Good Part. Click B at the end. Sit back and enjoy until eyeball fatigue or carpal tunnel syndrome sets in — whichever comes first.)
But the slow motion mode is my favorite. It allows me to board a time machine. Old newsreels and film clips when viewed second by extended second open hidden doors. With today's technology I can slow down other people's moments of fame or misfortune. I can clock details, expressions, gestures, furnishings, whatever — all from the comfort of my living room.
I search for clues. I find overlooked gems.
And so, for example, I watch entranced as a woman in a beribboned straw hat, sleeve-length jacket and long gray skirt alights from a horse-drawn trolley. I note her happy smile, her step of hesitation, the conductor's courteous touch of cap, the jerk of trolley reins, and the quiver of a tired horse's sweaty mane. Ten visual seconds of San Francisco — summer 1898 — netted like a beautiful cinematic butterfly to admire for a haunting minute.
Through today's DVD miracle I'm witness that this lovely person existed, breathed, and, hopefully, loved. I distill the poetry of what she — without so much as a thought of the centuries to follow — so graciously embodied. (Someday I too will turn a busy street corner — in Levi's and T-shirt, no doubt — and vanish out of sight. Could it be that I want to magically decelerate my remaining time?)
Among the meditative journeys I've taken I'll share two. One from 26 years ago; the other, from 70. One in living color, the other, in contrasting black and white. One LGBT related; the other, the political antithesis of everything we as gay people hold dear.
The year is 1978, November 27th. San Francisco Mayor George Mascone and Supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former fireman and fired Supervisor Dan White. A candlelit memorial march of thousands stretches for long and silent Castro blocks. (This outpouring of grief is shown in "The Times of Harvey Milk".)
In quarter-time I relive the overwhelming sorrow of people who knew Harvey, many heeding his clarion call to "come out, come out wherever you are." As face after candle-lighted face floats solemnly past, I recall an equally tragic fact then not known. Within a decade most of these young gay men will be dead. Dramatic too to watch is the City Hall rioting that follows White's seven-year "Twinkie defense" sentence. Rage in slow motion is instructive.
This time the year is 1934. Summer in Nuremberg Germany. Adolf Hitler, the dictator who will murder 13 million people — six million of them Jews — is Reichs Chancellor. The Nazi Party passes so-called Nuremberg Laws. Jews may not marry "Aryan" Germans. Jews may not practice law, medicine, or teach in schools or universities. A special office is created to deal with abortion and homosexuality. Gays are sent to concentration camps. The Church looks the other way.
In Leni Reifenstahl's "The Triumph of the Will" cheering crowds of hundreds line streets to see Hitler ride past like a demigod. They are ecstatic beyond all reason. In slow DVD motion their faces show total adoration — complete bovine surrender to a vengeful beast. Eleven years later most of these same zealots will perish.
As gay philosopher George Santayana once warned, "Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them." Frame by frame by frame. (And much faster than you think.)

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