SECRETARIAT

“If a fucking horse can tell his story why can’t I.”—Eileen Myles

The only true genre—horse movie—The Black Stallion, Au Hasard Balthazar, Herbie Goes Bananas, do I need to go on? Because old Ed-weird Muybridge invented cinema by killing it, by proclaiming let us find a thing in motion and then touch that motion by probing its constituent parts. They slow the race to a still—pop goes the camera at the finish line—and wouldn’t you know it, all four hooves are up in the air at once.

Diane Lane plays a second-waved housewife-turned-racehorse-owner whose support team includes Lafayette from True Blood, and his ‘fro, and Malkovich (Jonah Hex) whose poochy ass and pigeon-gait are so cute to me. She strides into the country club, “Um, miss, you can’t, you can’t just…” Of Big Red, she declares, “I’m his voice.” So what is he? Her heart. “Twenty-two pounds, guesses the pathologist,/eyeballing the organ at Secretariat’s autopsy./ He calls the miracle—the still, stopped heart/tenderly held in his hands— a huge,/and perfect machine.”—Noel. Lucky she came along tonight, one’s best thoughts are always in the adjacent seat.

‘At’s a boy. “Secretariat’s not afraid.” “He sees what means something to him, what’s immediate.” Frisky colt, shining coat, loll of the head, bottomless eye, unfathomable power and from that power, rip-roaring joy. His rival: Sham. Issa: “Naked/on a naked horse/in pouring rain!” Glory’s real—I can tell you what it is—it’s the opposite of taking a picture.