In July 1955, Weldon Kees's car was found abandoned in a parking lot near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. There was no trace of Kees -- no body, no suicide note -- and to this day the mystery remains unsolved.

Deaths and injuries from the holiday celebrations had exceeded the wildest prophecies, he noticed,

This was the first time anybody had gathered together a critical assessment of him. I gathered together his stories. A lot of people saw that, and I think it had a snowballing effect,

Explosion after explosion followed. One looked for the buildings to topple over, to see passersby clutch at their hearts and fall over into the street. The effects of the day's celebration were wherever one looked: the street, caught in the light of the burned-out sunset, resembled some thoroughfare in Hell.

We present for you this evening a movie of death.

pioneered the promotion of avant-garde film in America.

What other hope does life hold outBut the miraculous, the skilled and patientExecution, the teamwork, all the pain and worry every miracle involves?

I look at youAcross those fires and the dark.

Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,That time may find its sound again, and cleanseWhatever it is that a wound remembersAfter the healing ends.