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Thursday, 25 December 2008

Mitchell's 'In Praise of Sailors' - 8

Sailors seem glamorous but the job they do is not.
To face the dangers and create an effective fighting unit,
considerable discipline is required (30)
.

(30)

Much of it will seem pointless and repetitive to the servicemen 
but the comradeship and fun is real and good (31)
.
(31)

But there are long nights at sea to be endured (32)

(32)

Alone in a strange port (33) the roving life may not seem that great.

(33)

And sexual relief may require an unglamorous, seedy transaction (34)

(34)

Around these strange contrasting facets of the sailors life a fabulous gay iconography has evolved which we will look at in the next installment.

Read this series from episode 1

2 comments:

  1. Hey, do you have a source reference for image 34, of the longshoreman lighting the sailors cigarette ?, do you know the photographer? thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. sorry I don't know where this came from

    Mitchell

    ReplyDelete