Fantasia on a Formula

It's a formula you discover perhaps after the third or fourth iteration because it is done with variations in the syntax and what appears to be a storyline because of the play of pronouns (I, we, he). The formula is a tad more complex than a generation of a list (perfect by countless meme-seeders) and blends in well with the pronoun play.

Place / mixed up names / movie.

Here be some three stanzas torn out of context.

On the outskirts of Moscow we failed to distinguish clearly between Charles and Burl Ives;
Our punishment was to sit through Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II, twice.

I met a man in New York who couldn't tell the difference between George
And Zbigniew Herbert: his favourite film was Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari, which he insisted we see together.

In Cardiff I confounded Edward, Dylan, and R.S. Thomas;
To get over my embarrassment I went to a performance of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville.

from "Early to Bed, Early to Rise" by Mark Ford in Soft Sift.

And so for day 1736
14.09.2011