One would think that a black and white, silent film would be hard to make and hard to watch in the modern world, this time of 3D films and surround-sound systems, but contrary to this thought, a silent film is still great fun and possibly far more poignant that anything else out there in this present age. A couple days ago I watched "The Artist"with my family, a film I've had my eye on for a very long time.
It was fantastic, everything I hoped it would be, though rather painful; one of those movies that leave you laughing with a wound over your heart. Hard to describe, but some films get right through all of your defenses, and tragic or not, they leave a mark right in the core of you.
Somehow, this black and white, mostly silent film managed to captivate all of my siblings, who have been quite outspoken against such movies for a long time. Still, they watched entranced and terribly interested, and discussed many of the things happening in the film as they happened. That's not really something one can do while watching a "talkie"; too often something is lost in the time you speak to another and hear their reply while the characters are conversing onscreen.
It was incredible how nuanced and full of resounding symbolism and imagery "The Artist" was, tools perfectly complimented by the back drop of monochrome colors and a soundscape empty save for orchestral and piano music. It's rather amusing, "The Artist" was in itself a work of art, perfectly sculpted and woven and tied up tight.
--Sometimes I forget every-day meditations
for the ethereal allure of cocooned spiritual practice
and living
--But the idealistic future
lives no where--
except the present,
if you'll let it
II
My heart is made of galaxies
but it's also grown over,
twisted through
winding ropes of knuckle-kneaded
bread dough-
and my prayers, my meditations
are grounded in
The hugs of little children
"Goodmorning!" sung from a friend across the valley
Sunrises
Kisses
Simple poetry
Incense lit on my dresser
My native landscape
and
You
(I figure it's an experiment in storytelling, if nothing else...) In a grey stone cave some way from a road in a forest a hunter stood with his gun in wait. In the cave, looking out, sunlight poured in through cracks and holes in a side wall. A magnificent stag slowly entered, his heart exposed on the outside of his breast. It would be terrible to watch this animal die at the hands of the grizzled hunter, who seemed a bit of an ignorant hillbilly at best. Still, we thought the kill was inevitable, and the suspense was too much to bear, so we urged the hunter on. His gun was trained dead straight on the stag's heart the whole time, unwavering, but still, he waited to take the shot. The stag was outside, we could see him lay down on the grassy ground through the holes in the cave wall, and his grand horns fell from his head to the ground in a mess of stringy flesh. We thought a little triumphant that now the hunter wouldn't have to kill his prey to win his prize, but something was wrong with the stag, something was terribly wrong. Another stag, younger with smaller antlers, limped into sight, its legs bent and broken. The hunter rushed outside, concerned, and did his best to try and repair the damage on both the animals with a first-aid kit. We looked on from the cave, admiring his determination, but all the same sure that it was hopeless for the two stags.
Subject: Bridging the gaps of an evolving heart
After watching "DMT: the spirit molecule", having finished, started, and finished two crochet projects of the prettiest color. 10/10/12
This morning was lovely in so many ways, as I lay here, listening to "Secret on the moors" by David Arkenstone and remembering hanging out with Starchild and Yo at Starchild's apartment, I am happy. 10/23/12
Sledding at the cabin, underneath the full moon with my siblings. Everything so bright and beautiful and happy. December 28th 2012
Subject: The smell, sound, feel of rain. Utter bliss with siblings.
Running around the block, bare feet and socks slapping on the wet asphalt, one of my brothers took his shoes off at the start of the third black, barely in the faint orange light of the lamppost. Torthadiel, Erumeren, Hammer head and me. 4/1/13
Sigur Ros Untitiled No. 3 in my room, dark from the overcast sky outside. I am working on my bacterium story, happy to write unreigned, unrestrained. The song turned up as high as it can go, humming in my bones, sweet in my throat and loud in my ears, my heart rejoicing. 5/17/13
Subject: Contact from very dear old friends 3/28/13
Receiving an email forwarded by dad from our dear friends -- They say they have internet now and they'd like to skype with us!
Actually, I don't know what's obnoxious. That sounded like a 'guess what' question, and it was meant to be, but it's all fizzled out in my head. Whatever.
I had a lovely time painting and drawing today but it's all kinda stupid and boring and the streak turned sour in the end. I got this great idea but I completely murdered it. Completely and thoroughly butchered it. Ah well, maybe I'll figure out how to do it better at another time when I've learned a whole lot more.
What is my voice like to you?
What does this place feel like to you? Is it the same as how it feels to me?
I am so sloppy lately, I don't care to edit or try to edit or try to write well. I don't care. But still I write and some sort of beauty emerges, disfigured and fractured as it is, its voice slack, its posture bent and twisted and stooped.
I wrote a poem Wednesday that was that and more, but a couple of days later, it seemed endearing and maybe just a little bit courageous. It had built a life of its own independent from the lackluster breath i'd blown into it.
I'm feeling like multimedia today, nothing new, but now I've decided to act on it and see what rainbow tapestry of broken strings and hazy figures I can weave with no direction dictated by me consciously. And then maybe I can take that crazy-blanket from the loom and drape it around my shoulders and it will afford me a little comfort and courage.
I'm on a bit of a sentimental bent today, and I still have a streak of disgust for such things. I don't know why. Maybe because I've been such a dramatist and romantic all my life, and I never regarded it as very constructive. It tends to be blinding, sentimentality. I'm terribly sentimental, though, and I don't necessarily want to squash it from my spongy self entirely, but I seek a balance with it and whatever else there is, you know, there's a great many ways to see life.
I don't like indulging in sentimentality, I guess. Seems very self-serving and not much else. It can have it's place on my shoulder with everything else, but heaven forbid it should ever become my matrix again.
I imagine I've been reading a bit too much JD Salinger in the past few days, but I fully intend to read a deal more before this week is up.
All the same, damn his lofty-earthy ideals. I don't want to be integrated into society, I don't want to continue cleaning the kitchen every day, I don't want to see God in every horrible person on the street or over the internet, and I repeat, I don't want to clean the kitchen. I'd like to sit in the clouds, no needs at all, perfectly free to live in my own head or observe the lives of others. But whatever, that's entirely unrealistic, and probably would be boring to boot, I, who would be everyone but myself sometimes.
Still, I'd rather live in a monastery than whatever it is I think I'm going to have to bring myself to do in the next couple of years, college or career or whatever. Not so much career, though as some sort of way to support myself in between stepping stones in life.
Shall I try out a new personality now?
Yes, there is spiritual beauty in the small things in life. Serving others, taking care of oneself, paying homage to small miracles in home, the workplace, and public spaces.
You want to know of a book that sustained me and my sanity this summer? "How to cook your life:From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment".
It spoke of simple service and the beauty in it, and I needed that so bad, especially while taking care of my mother and most of the cooking for a few weeks while she was on bed rest.
Over time, gradually, I've learned that every act of kindness, every small work is a sort of prayer, a hope that things will get better, and a way to show how much I do care for my family and friends. That is no bad life, not remarkable, but how much do I really want remark-ability? I remember when I decided to cultivate talents and abilities unrecognized by the majority of this society, and half of that choosing was because I figured I wouldn't have anything or anyone else to compete against in my forum of choosing. I'm actually highly competitive, but I'm also highly understanding, and I know that there's always someone or something better if you think in that way, and therefore, can never ever win. So I chose a place in which I figured there was no winning or losing. No better nor worse, just a pathway, a few sages of my choosing, and my own strength and will. (Which isn't much, love.)
I spoke of mixed-media before. It's something that's growing in attraction to me, and right now I would give almost anything to write in my own handwriting on this thing, or leave my finger prints and doodles in thick paint all over the margins. Maybe that's part of my sloppiness lately, not caring whether or not if the mark I leave is "perfect", but instead looking for the beauty in everything in its wholeness, not just spliced and framed and edited by the ruler in me that was put there and dictated by other people. I'm not really particularly interested in that lately. But to fit under the wings of others, you must pare yourself down to their colors and specifications, and I guess I don't feel like my own wings are strong enough to hold and shelter me on their own. Still, I seem to pare myself down only to my own specifications.
Hey, did you know that a small part of yourself is revealed only after you've loved another and been loved in return? It is, in a way, fascinating, and of course, remarkable beautiful. Can you just imagine all the things we miss, though? Can you imagine all of the things all around and within us that we miss from being so frightened and blind? I read a short story today, the last in "Nine Stories", and, honestly, my favorite. Can you believe that crazy book begins and ends with a death, though? Geeze.
As it was, the short story contained a beautiful little scene that sort of goes with what I'm speaking of, missing things that go on without your presence or observation. Also a concept that came up when I was watching the sunrise last Tuesday. Mmmmm.
"He suddenly thrust his whole head out of the
porthole, kept it there a few seconds, then brought it in just long enough to report,
"Someone just dumped a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window."....
Teddy took in most of his head. "They float very nicely," he said without turning
around. "That's interesting."
"Teddy. For the last time. I'm going to count three, and then I'm-"
"I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "It's interesting that I know
about them being there. If I hadn't seen them, then I wouldn't know they were there,
and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't be able to say that they even exist.
That's a very nice, perfect example of the way--"
"Teddy," Mrs. McArdle interrupted, without visibly stirring under her top sheet. "Go
find Booper for me. Where is she? I don't want her lolling around in that sun again
today, with that bum."
"She's adequately covered. I made her wear her dungarees," Teddy said. "Some of
them are starting to sink now. In a few minutes, the only place they'll still be floating
will be inside my mind. That's quite interesting, because if you look at it a certain way,
that's where they started floating in the first place. If I'd never been standing here at all, or if somebody'd come along and sort of chopped my head off right while I was--" ....
Teddy lingered for a moment at the door, reflectively experimenting with the door
handle, turning it slowly left and right. "After I go out this door, I may only exist in the
minds of all my acquaintances," he said. "I may be an orange peel." "
(From "Teddy" in "Nine Stories" by JD Salinger)
Anyway, the last bit doesn't doesn't relate to what I've been thinking of so much, but that doesn't matter and it's an interesting lead off.
I'm crazy, sorry. I guess part of the crazy is what's lending such appeal to multi-media. Yeah. Just slapping whatever's in my head and heart all over whatever blank space presents itself at the time. I don't really care though, I explore myself just as thoroughly as anything around me. And I suppose part of that exploration is testing some of whatever's inside on the outside, seeing if any of it can hold its weight and color with so much all around it.
I think, with this post, I'm trying to see how far I can wander off the beginning course of things without losing anyone everyone who reads it, including myself. I'm still curious as whether or not if I can lead myself back to where I began and sew everything up tight and neatly.
What do you think?
What did it all feel like?
Ah, but that is an ending of no substance at all. It floats away, and that can be pretty, but I think it would be better if the ending buried itself deep in the ground rather than drifting off to ether. After all, that is what I'm attempting to do right here, whether I realized it at first or not; I am attempting to ground myself-- tie myself all over to life like a hot air balloon roped and bolted, straining from the ground.
