In This Still Life
Yesterday the count had been 2. Now there are now 3 movies I have found myself unable to watch until the bitter end.
In chronological order of difficulty:
1. A Clockwork Orange. I have tried watching this movie 3 times. Each time, I get to the part where McDowell's character scissor cuts the jumpsuit fabric from both breasts of a female victim. Whoa. Click... fade to black.
2. Requiem for a Dream. Drug induced mania is impossible for me to watch.
3. Brand new to the list: Straw Dogs. As recommended by Ack, the ex-husband/ dubious best friend.
Gratituitous, nay pornographic, in its depiction of violence. The worst editing job I've ever born witness to. The most confusing central characters who felt more schizephrenic than "complex", as I'm sure drunken, sicko Peckenpaw had originally envisioned.
You take the good,
You take the bad,
You take them both
And then you have
The Facts of Life.
As I don't watch television anymore, I wonder, has that desperate, famed-starved Tootie had any has-been reality show offers yet?
Bad's been covered.
Now for the good.
You know those rare moments in life where sometimes a thing hits you so hard, and by hitting I mean a harmonising resonation of the kind of orchestral magnitude that conductors must feel when keeping time to Beethoven's 9th? Being in the eye of a symphonic storm must certainly be one of the greatest places on Earth. I'm not talking about music, though, this time. Sometimes literature does this; the hit straight to one's core. There are so many ways to write and infinitely more ways to interpret the writing. Who knows if we get it in the way it was intended? Fatty, my magi of card tricks, always says the magic is sealed in the imagination of the one who is having the "trick" performed for him/her.
Sometimes, even rarer, there are objects, circumstances, situations or people that effect us so profoundly we can't help but think that thing was not just meant for us, but made for us.
Still Life with Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins.
It was given to me by my darling friend, Ryan. Thank you Ryan. He gave it to me saying, "You really need to read this book. You would really love it." It was the kind of book that I held off opening until I got all of my chores done first. It was something I was saving to savour. It was like coming home. It was like having the best bedtime story read to me, though this case, this bedtime story was like an onion; a story within a story, within a story that in the end made me burst into tears. The last time I felt this connected to a book was with A Catcher in the Rye. Salinger made me want to protect Holden. To shield him. Robbins, on the other hand, protected me. This book was like a salve; a balm. It was a soulmate. It was magic realism at its best.
In the beginning:
"There is only one serious question. And that is: How do you make love stay?"
It really is the only serious question.
Something I'd wondered the whole of my life. The answers he gives makes all the sense in the world.
In the end, he was certain of only 2 things:
1. Everything is part of it. Something that has made sense to me for years.
2. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. This made me burst into tears.
I'm really going to try to take the kid out more.
In chronological order of difficulty:
1. A Clockwork Orange. I have tried watching this movie 3 times. Each time, I get to the part where McDowell's character scissor cuts the jumpsuit fabric from both breasts of a female victim. Whoa. Click... fade to black.
2. Requiem for a Dream. Drug induced mania is impossible for me to watch.
3. Brand new to the list: Straw Dogs. As recommended by Ack, the ex-husband/ dubious best friend.
Gratituitous, nay pornographic, in its depiction of violence. The worst editing job I've ever born witness to. The most confusing central characters who felt more schizephrenic than "complex", as I'm sure drunken, sicko Peckenpaw had originally envisioned.
You take the good,
You take the bad,
You take them both
And then you have
The Facts of Life.
As I don't watch television anymore, I wonder, has that desperate, famed-starved Tootie had any has-been reality show offers yet?
Bad's been covered.
Now for the good.
You know those rare moments in life where sometimes a thing hits you so hard, and by hitting I mean a harmonising resonation of the kind of orchestral magnitude that conductors must feel when keeping time to Beethoven's 9th? Being in the eye of a symphonic storm must certainly be one of the greatest places on Earth. I'm not talking about music, though, this time. Sometimes literature does this; the hit straight to one's core. There are so many ways to write and infinitely more ways to interpret the writing. Who knows if we get it in the way it was intended? Fatty, my magi of card tricks, always says the magic is sealed in the imagination of the one who is having the "trick" performed for him/her.
Sometimes, even rarer, there are objects, circumstances, situations or people that effect us so profoundly we can't help but think that thing was not just meant for us, but made for us.
Still Life with Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins.
It was given to me by my darling friend, Ryan. Thank you Ryan. He gave it to me saying, "You really need to read this book. You would really love it." It was the kind of book that I held off opening until I got all of my chores done first. It was something I was saving to savour. It was like coming home. It was like having the best bedtime story read to me, though this case, this bedtime story was like an onion; a story within a story, within a story that in the end made me burst into tears. The last time I felt this connected to a book was with A Catcher in the Rye. Salinger made me want to protect Holden. To shield him. Robbins, on the other hand, protected me. This book was like a salve; a balm. It was a soulmate. It was magic realism at its best.
In the beginning:
"There is only one serious question. And that is: How do you make love stay?"
It really is the only serious question.
Something I'd wondered the whole of my life. The answers he gives makes all the sense in the world.
In the end, he was certain of only 2 things:
1. Everything is part of it. Something that has made sense to me for years.
2. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. This made me burst into tears.
I'm really going to try to take the kid out more.
posted by Comrade Chicken at
4:18 p.m.
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