“Even Nothing Cannot Last Forever”
Quote by Neil Gaiman
Post Created Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created on May 18th 2013
Posted May 18th 2013
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” ― Dr. Seuss
“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” ― Lloyd Alexander
“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” ― Terry Pratchett
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
“When I was your age, television was called books.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride
“It’s so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” ― Albert Einstein
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” ― Dr. Seuss
“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?” ― John Lennon
“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” ― Frida Kahlo
“I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares.” ― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
“There are many who don’t wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don’t wish to wake for the same fear.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
“You learned to run from what you feel, and that’s why you have nightmares. To deny is to invite madness. To accept is to control.” ― Megan Chance, The Spiritualist
“My sleep wasn’t peaceful, though. I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places where I traveled alone.” ― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
QUOTATIONS on DREAMS:
“I like the night. Without the dark, we’d never see the stars.” ― Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.” ― Neil Gaiman
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” ― Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O’Shaughnessy
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” ― John Lennon
“You know that place between sleeping and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always think of you.” ― J.M. Barrie
Reflections of Freedom
By Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Written 5.09.13
Created May 10th 2013
Posted May 11th 2013
Reflections of Freedom
By Jennifer Kiley
5.10.13
Reflections,
Clouds of darkness block my vision.
Remembrance of wilder moments come to mind.
Being told no, pushed the rebelliousness of my true nature.
Running away nullified permission,
When done in the passionate way I felt,
Carried me beyond their threat.
I dismissed them from my mind,
As though they never existed..
The tears were flowing as I ran
To escape was necessary,
It was blaring loudly in my head
Run, let your bare feet carry you over the fences,
Across the open fields, past the horses,
Enjoying the sour fruits of the apple trees,
Along the stone fences where they grew,
But were not high enough to keep me out,
As I flew over them as though I were a gazelle.
My friend eventually would find his moment for escape.
We would then meet in the woods to plan that day’s adventure.
Our parents couldn’t keep us apart.
The magnetic pull to be together,
Was stronger than their punishment,
To keep us bound, even though mine was severe,
We rejected their threats.
We needed to be comrades together in our escape,
Pretending in our minds we were searching the woods,
Feeling we would discover that bag of hidden treasure,
Left behind by someone running from the mob.
Being rich enough, we could really run away for good,
Beyond the limits where our parents would ever find us.
We would disappear forever,
Into Wonderland or Neverland,
Whichever one could find us.
No one could touch us again,
Far beyond them we would be,
Together friends forever,
Who dared defy authorities blank and powerless voices.
Winning and free at long last,
Never to be hurt again,
By any one of them.
No more pain.
No more abuse.
Just the love and support of our friendship,
Forever and ever more.
a secret entrance way behind the waterfalls. first, one needs to find this location.
QUOTATIONS on ESCAPE/RUNNING AWAY
“I do know this. It’s the things we run from that hurt us the most.” –Brad Sturdevant” ― Norma Johnston
“If you want to disappear, Emily, you can do it most anywhere.” ― Barbara Delinsky, Escape
“Sometimes I wish I was in the movies…Not to be famous or nothing. I just wish I was made of light. Then nobody’d know me except for what they saw up on that screen. I’d just be light up on the silver screen…” ― Alan Heathcock, Volt
“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ” ― William S. Burroughs
“Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of “the woods” was my favorite place to go…I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another.” ― Amy Plum, Die for Me
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” ― Graham Greene, Ways Of Escape
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” ― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” ― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Talking won’t change it. But sometimes it was what she wanted most, to tell someone; often, though, she just wanted to escape those horrid feelings, to escape herself, so there was no pain, no fear, no ugliness.” ― Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange
“I choose to write because it’s perfect for me. It’s an escape, a place I can go to hide. It’s a friend, when I feel out casted from everyone else. It’s a journal, when the only story I can tell is my own. It’s a book, when I need to be somewhere else. It’s control, when I feel so out of control. It’s healing, when everything seems pretty messed up. And it’s fun, when life is just flat-out boring.” ― Alysha Speer
“I spent the rest of the day in someone else’s story. The rare moments that I put the book down, my own pain returned in burning stabs.” ― Amy Plum, Die for Me
Related Article: Artistic License The Anatomy of a Cover
The Anatomy of a Cover – artist Masloski Carmen – author: Artistic License by Emerian Rich
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” ― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Kennedy
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” ― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay
“Time is what we want most,but what we use worst.” ― William Penn
“Time is an illusion.” ― Albert Einstein
“You may delay, but time will not.” ― Benjamin Franklin
“Time is a game played beautifully by children.” ― Heraclitus, Fragments
I must bring this to your immediate attention. Last week, when I wrote to you in our usual letter, I included a poem. It was a raw and painful poem to write. I would really like to discuss some of it with you in this letter. I hope you don’t mind. It has been making me feel rather vulnerable, even though I haven’t sent you the letter yet. Someday, any day, might be when I do get brave enough and really write these letters with the direct expectation of mailing them to you or handing them to you in person. The second way would make me feel more assured that you received the letters personally and no one else touched them or might accidentally open them. I don’t think anyone at the counseling center would ever do something like that intentionally. But these are very private letters meant for your eyes only. Just thinking about discussing the poem I wrote is making me feel rather anxious. In fact, I feel like I am starting to have a panic attack. Let me take a Klonopin before we continue. After that I will post the poem and the paragraph that followed it. I want to discuss that along with the poem. I’ll be right back.
Here I am, back really quickly. It will only take about 15 minutes for the med to take effect. Well, here goes, this is the poem once again appearing in one of my letters I am writing to only you. If I ever give these letters to you, I must have your word that you will never ever show these to anyone else. No one must know what I am telling you. These have to be our secret. If you only knew how I feel inside.
How do I really feel about you Annie? Right now, I have no idea. Too afraid to go inside to find out what I truly feel. The whole of the world confounds me. It just makes me feel depressed. It just feels that I can’t hold onto the people I love. They just tend to die. It’s not like they’re even old. When you die in your twenties, I would call that dying “Forever Young.” Too many die FY. You’re not going to do that, are you Annie?
What do you think of my poem? If you read it now, how would you decipher it? I’ll play both of us. You go first, or should I? Let me pull out the first three lines. The writer, the lover, the thinker: isn’t something missing? Whose feeling anything? The lover is just sexual. You can do that without any feelings at all. The writer is mental but could be emotional with the words they are expressing. But I don’t think so. It’s cerebral. The thinker, existential separation anxiety filled with analytical theorizing until infinity gets exhausted.
Someone is missing. Someone who connects in a soulful way with people or animals. Who is that? Lets think about it. Send out feelings to find out who they are? You think a spiritualist. I thought I was one of those people. I believe in the spirit, the soul, the astral body, the separation from the physical. The soul is just carrying the weight of the body while its heart beats and air fills its lungs and the grey matter still is able to function to make the physical tissues of the body perform.
I was thinking tonight about Heaven Annie. As I made it up the stairs to bed and my cat always raced up the stairs before me. We play that game every night. I make believe I’m going to beat him tonight. It’s always the challenge. There’s no way in Hell that I can ever beat him. But he loves the game. You want to know his name? He goes by many. He has such a magnificent personality. We call him Sparky because he sparks like fireworks. It’s not his official name. That one is proper. We named him Higgins after the character in the great Broadway play Pygmalion. He responds to anything but Higgins and he rather prefers being called Sparky.
What the Hell are we talking about? Is it about making it through with some enjoyment and to try to forget about all the nightmares? Or are we suppose to face the nightmares? The soul tells me that we have to or we won’t make it. I have too many. How about you? What are your bad dreams? What tried to fuck you up? Any bad people in your dreams? You seem pretty together but anyone can put a mask on. Why do you suppose we all try to hide from everyone? We are all human. Our feelings fall somewhere into the human category. Are we afraid people will think we are crazy or too weird?
Back to the poem, the next three lines are pretty explosive. Feeling the fool for not hearing, the silence for not screaming and feelings trying to blow the whole thing wide open but being stopped somehow. What stopped me? You probably would like to know that. A good reason, how about one of the abusers threatened to kill me right at the moment I told him if he didn’t stop I would go to the police. Wrong thing to say to a nasty, mean pedophile. He tried to kill me but he stopped at just making me feel he was going to crush my head into stones like Stonehenge. He pulled back but not until he told me he would not only kill me but my whole family. Those other people who also abused me. For some reason I felt I needed to protect them. I didn’t care if he killed me. My life was ruined. They all in combination destroyed who I am. They crushed my life. I am dead. My spirit has been stolen from me. It’s like in Peter Pan, they stole my shadow, my reflection. I don’t have one any longer. I am invisible. That’s why no one can see me. Why I never get noticed except when someone wants to hurt me or make me feel more pain so that I really do want to be invisible. I just wanted to die.
The only reason I stayed alive was I loved my grandmother. The funny thing about it all, my grandma, she had an accident shortly after this and went into the hospital. She never went home again. I saw her once at the hospital. I climbed into her hospital bed with her. Under the oxygen tent, we hugged. I held her so close. Her arms used her strength, as much as she could and held me close. Then it was time to go. I gave a bunch of kisses to say goodbye to her. I didn’t know I would never see her alive again.
She died in protest. They wanted her to become one of the forgotten. She wasn’t going to let them do that to her. She told them that it was something she would never do, going to a nursing home. She stopped her breathing and her heart from beating. She left me behind. I stopped living when she stopped, too.
“The feelings trying to explode…Where was the awareness?” I was clueless on what or who to, if anyone, to talk to. I never talked to anyone back then. Words were not my companion when spoken out loud. Not something I even knew how to do. Didn’t know how. Had no practice. What would have been the right words to say anyway? I didn’t know them to say or to even write down on paper. I am only learning now how to connect my words with feeling.
“We say ‘Welcome to the surface.’ It should have been Welcome to the circus. “Now what needs to be done?” We need to find someone new that we can really talk to. Someone who will listen and really hear what we are saying. Not judge us. Try to understand. And not constantly criticize us and try to put us down. Diminish who we are. That’s been done all our life except in college. For some reason I mattered when I was in college. I felt important and wanted. The same happened when I was part of the Women’s Center when I lived in Connecticut. It’s not so much I want to feel important. I just want to feel like I matter. Everyone I think needs to feel important in some way.
“Releasing the energy ensnared for decades amongst twisted webs…” I have been so blocked. My thoughts and feelings didn’t have an outlet. And I didn’t know how to say the words. I was made my own prisoner eventually, out of fear. Demons possessed me with fear. All the demons from all the years of abuse and made to feel like I was nothing, a nobody that had no worth or purpose.
“The voice is seeking freedom but holding onto multiple secrets.” We have a central voice but we also have multiple voices. With all the alters, we have to listen to all their voices and all the needs they tell us that they have. It’s hard to keep track or remember. It is really confusing inside our head sometimes. But we were working with a woman therapist who had her moments of quality therapy but she had her problems. I have an obsessive alter who was in love with her and obsessed with her. Let’s call it quite dependent. We were attached. We needed her. She was the first therapist that figured out what was going on inside our head. She figured out the DID. I have to admit when she told us we has other personalities, it really freaked us out. Kind of went into shock and some heavy denial. No way could that be possible. She said the psychiatrist agreed with her after he tested me.
That was the big secret. We thought realizing we were Gay was enough of a shock but being MPD was more difficult. Coming out of that closet was worst. It took us a while before we could tell Scottie and we had been together for a long time at that point. Almost 15 years. When I found the courage to tell her, her reaction was: “Oh, I already knew.” I asked her why she didn’t tell me. “Because you needed to figure that out yourself.” Of course, she was right. It wasn’t easy. Like I usually do, I bought or borrowed every book I could find on the subject of MPD. I learned it all. Enough to get a degree.
There is so much more to discuss in this poem. I packed it with a great deal of exposure of my past. I need a break. I may try to answer more of the points in this letter or carry it over to the next letter.
It’s a list of some of the confusion that smashed into our life. It started when we were really little and didn’t stop. The abuse continued when we were adults. No was the word that meant nothing to anyone who wanted something from us. Our body betrayed us. We couldn’t stop anyone from forcing us. Some didn’t even realize they were forcing us but they were. If we shut down inside we became frozen. We couldn’t stop what was happening. This started when we were little and continued into our adult relationships. It was all on some degree of force. We weren’t there in our bodies. We left or went deep inside or floated on the ceiling until it was over.
It wasn’t consensual. It was a form of rape and abuse. We wanted love but not sex. We didn’t want to be sexually aroused because it would always end with us disappearing and our bodies would shut down. It was like turning the keys off in a car. The engine would stop running and so would we. Eventually we created an outside person, a human robot, who faked our life like a computer. She would accumulate data. And learned the expected behavior and that would be hos she would perform. We were safe inside while she was out there living a fake life as a fake person. A puppet represented us. She hid in plain sight. No one would find us with the puppet self having a controlled pattern of behavior, always asking questions to improve her performance do she wouldn’t be detected.
Our hiding place was discovered by this woman therapist. She saw through the facade. She was tricky and scary to us. She got to close. We started to care too much. She opened up the rawness in us. She made us need people. Specifically, she made us need her too desperately. We felt so close to her. But more like the fox in Le Petite Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. She tamed part of our wildness. She made us want to be loved by her. Being loved and wanting to love in return puts such a control on you. I began to develop an overwhelming need for her. It was driving me mad. Everything started falling apart. My life felt out of control.
Our hiding place was revealed. There was no place to go except into madness and wanting to commit suicide. Suicide has always been a part of our life. It is a part of our breathing. It is always an alternative to the divine madness. We can escape that way any time we chose. But it is not an answer we can choose. Not with all that we are responsible for. Our life needs us to be in it. Everything has changed. We are learning to begin to live. We have found a purpose. It is delicate and sometimes difficult to balance but we are giving our new life all that we are able to give it. We know and are learning what we are able to do. We are able to write. We are able to be creative. Our artistic nature is starting to blossom. We are letting it be free. It likes that. It feels like are trusted to let the muse guide us. She always seems to be when we need her. We don’t push it. We let it be a natural flow. We like, no we love where we are now. It does have its difficulties with the mentally creative activities that bombard our brain. But we work hard on that more with our doc then with Mr. Xxx. He is about as helpful as a dead skeleton. His sense of warmth and communication I’d to tell stories that do not at all relate to what I am feeling or going through. He doesn’t help me at all except to give me reasons to escape my life. He lets me run away. I know I have my weaknesses but I need to find my life before I die or I kill myself because I can’t live with the confusion any longer or the depressions or rage.
I want to say that I am here and I want to stay alive. We want to be here. We choose life.
We fought through them trying to destroy us. They didn’t succeed. We are still alive. No matter how many battles. No matter how many nights we have to fight to make it alive til morning gets here. Therapy, knowing my psychoanalyst is there is so reassuring. It means at least one person is out there in our Universe that knows we are alive. That we exist. Being alive is a higher grade than just existing. The artist that lives inside of us makes it all matter. Otherwise, nothing else matters. If I didn’t have my art, my animals, the women I love and the men who are decent that I love. A good home and family who I love and who love me. The special people who know who they are. They are part of what make this life I live matter. But that involves some major time tripping. I am having visions of a future in my life, but I must be patient and wait for that time to happen. It is a good sign that I make it to that future. Others do not.
Here in 2007 I have you Annie. I am focusing on that. Your presence is beginning to mean something more to me than I even understand at this moment. We will see where that takes us.
Until next time.
Regards,
MadisonI attach this to the letters I write to you Annie to assure the strictest of confidence.
To Annie,
At this moment I am not trying to be a coward, but I feel if I hold back now or never send this to you, then I am freeing myself up to write whatever I wish without need of censorship. Maybe someday, when I am feeling more familiar with just who you are and what you might mean to me, this parameter will be altered and a copy of this and future letters will be relayed to you. For now I want to maintain secrecy, to protect you, Annie, and to protect myself from over testing the boundaries between us and to record the development of our relationship.
I want Annie Haskell to trust me. I want you to know I am trying to protect you and also myself from any humiliation. Writing to you in this way frees up my words as I speak them onto the page. Some future date, if I feel trusting enough, I will release to you what I have written in honesty. Right now, I will keep my words confidential. On my honour, no others shall see these pages, I promise you that.
Regards,
Madison Taylor
Madison Tayler’s Fantasy of Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst. Not real.
the labyrinth called “wandering wonderland.” it is where madison, scottie and their cats, patrick, sparky and toker love to escape to
madison’s “woods of imagination” where she takes long walks to reflect. it starts just past the labyrinth
QUOTATIONS from: LETTERS of IMPORT: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
And we are all players
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor
“For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
~Michael Drayton~
(1563-1631)
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
Christopher Marlowe for “Hero and Leander”
“A therapeutic relationship is often more psycho-emotionally intimate than a marriage, or a romantic attachment. I know things about my patients that they would never dream of revealing to their spouses or families. Why is that? One word — trust. If you do not have a connection with a therapist, you cannot trust them. If you do not have trust, you will not expose yourself, and if you do not expose your innermost being, what good is the therapy?” — unknown but ask any great therapist
“Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence…whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought…” — Edgar Allan PoeQUOTATIONS on LIVING:
“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame…” — Jack London
“There are two kinds of people. One kind…they congealed into their final selves…you can expect no more surprises from them…the other kind keep moving, changing… They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive…” ― Gail Godwin
“Here’s Looking At You Kid.”
Film: Casablanca
Starring Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman
Playing Roles of Rick Blaine & Ilsa Lund
Created by jk the secret keeper
Posted 04.28.13
Casablanca: Rick Blaine & Ilsa Lund “Here’s Looking At You Kid.”
Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you’re getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I… I…
Rick: Now, you’ve got to listen to me! You have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we’d both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn’t that true, Louie?
Captain Renault: I’m afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You’re saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You’re part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.
[Ilsa lowers her head and begins to cry]
Rick: Now, now…
[Rick gently places his hand under her chin and raises it so their eyes meet]
Rick: Here’s looking at you kid.
casablanca 1947
casablanca: rick blaine & ilsa lund in paris cafe 680×540
casablanca: rick hanging out with sam
casablanca: ilsa role played by ingrid berman
FILM REVIEW of CASABLANCA
“Here’s looking at you kid.”
There are so many memorable lines and scenes in the film “Casablanca.”
Casablanca (1942) Directed by Michael Curtiz: Starring Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine; Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund; Peter Lorre as Ugarte; Claude Raines as Louie (Head of Police/Rick’s Friend); Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo; Sydney Greenstreet as Ferrari, proprietor of the night club The Blue Parrot.
Just one of the fifty films a studio would make each year back in the day. Casablanca was just one of those films thrown into that collection. Who knew it would spring forth and become the success that it is. Today, it is considered one of the top romantic films of all time.
Won for Best Picture 1942 Oscar. One of the most universally admired films ever made. On most lists of the greatest films of all times. Even people who don’t like old films or black and white films love Casablanca. Roger Ebert said he doesn’t think he’s heard of any negative reviews of this film ever. All the characters are all good except the Nazis. Vichy are the French who collaborate with the Nazis.
Rick’s Cafe Americain in Casablanca in French Morocco, where everyone went for entertainment or to hang out for a drink or to go to the back room where there is gambling going on. Here, in Casablanca, some may obtain exit visas but others may wait and wait and wait. At the beginning of the film, you find out that some couriers were killed in the desert and robbed of exit visas. Officials wanting to see a man’s papers, causes the man to freak out, his papers are not in order, so he runs and is shot and killed because he didn’t halt when ordered to. Life is meaningless.
When Louie, the head of the police, is asked by Major Strasser, what is being done about the murder of the couriers, his answer is: “We’ve rounded up the usual suspects.” No one likes Nazis and the head of the Nazis in this movie doesn’t make them any more popular and maybe makes them even less popular. The Marseillaise is the present day French National Anthem. Remember that when you watch Casablanca.
Ugarte shows up and talks to Rick. Wants to have a drink with Rick but as a rule he doesn’t drink with any of the guests of his night club. Ugarte likes to brag to Rick. He just is looking for Rick’s approval but knows that Rick despises him but he is the only person that Ugarte trusts. Rick does finally seem impressed with him. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out why.
Ferrari wants Rick’s place. He is always trying to buy it. It’s the best place in town. Sasha hangs out there and is sort of Rick’s girl friend and is a bit of an alcoholic. It’s understandable she wants to drink the times are during the 2nd World War and it is making everyone edgy and the French are being ruled by the Germans.
Louie and Rick get involved in a conversation and Louie asks why Rick came to such a God Forsaken place like Casablanca. Rick’s a smart ass and says: “It’s for the water.” But, of course, it is a desert. Rick’s is permitted to stay open because he just doesn’t want to get involved. But he has in his hands something that a lot of people are looking for but no one has any idea what that is. Louie tells Rick there is a famous patriot of the war headed for Casablanca. A member of the Gestapo, Major Strasser, is expected at the club. He is a thoroughly disagreeable Nazis but then what Nazi isn’t. That I may say often.
A major happening occurs at Rick’s but he reassures everyone to settle down and get back into enjoying themselves. Rick actually sits down with the Nazis. The Nazis make mention about invading New York. Rick warns them about staying away from certain sections of New York. They may not be safe. They start in talking about Victor Lazslo being on his way. Rick assuring them that he doesn’t plan on getting involved.
Victor Laszlo and Ilsa Lund eventually show up as expected and walk through the cafe and take a seat in the night club. Expect that many will be approaching Victor fairly often because of his importance and how nervous they make the Nazis. Ilsa starts asking about the piano player and who owns the Night Club. Louie tells her it is a man named Rick. Major Strasser is introduced and acts like the ass that he is. Starts applying his power over Laszlo.
It is evident that Ilsa and Victor are close but at this time we know nothing of their relationship other then they are traveling together. Victor leaves her at table to meet a man at the bar and finds out about Ugarte.
Ilsa wants to speak to the piano player. His name is Sam and she asks him to play some of the old songs. There is a sadness between Sam regarding Rick. She wants him to play a the song “As Time Goes By.” Sam sings the song for her. Out comes Rick telling Sam he’s not suppose to play that song. Rick sees Ilsa sitting at her table. The last time Rick saw Ilsa was in Paris when the Germans marched in to take over the city. He was unnerved seeing her again. He was so not himself that he actually had a drink with all at the table breaking his precedent of not drinking with guests of the night club The Americain.
Later back in his rooms, Rick has a bottle, and tells Sam he is not planning on going to bed. He thinks Ilsa is going to show up. Sam isn’t going to leave his boss alone. He starts getting maudlin. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, she walks into mine.” He wants Sam to play “As Time Goes By.” Sam doesn’t want to open the wounds.
Flashback: Paris with Rick and Ilsa driving around in a convertible. then down by the Seine. In the hotel drinking champagne. “Who are you really and what were you before and what did you think?” Ricks asks. Ilsa’s response: “We said no questions.” All the best lines in these scenes. So many to write down and remember. She reveals an answer without the question. Watch the movie to find out what she told Rick.
Outside, newspapers are being passed around. The Germans are coming I believe are the headlines and what they are saying in French over the microphones. There is a lot of action going on out in the streets.
The most famous line is spoken by Rick toasting champagne with Sam and Ilsa: “Here’s looking at you kid.” Everything is falling apart. “Where were you ten years ago?” Rick said he was looking for a job. For some reason there is a price on Rick’s head but no one knows why. It’s time for everyone to leave Paris. Their suppose to meet at the train station from where they will be leaving. Ilsa loves him so much and the war, she hates that in just the opposite emotion. She thinks that they will be taken apart. “Kiss me as if it is the last time.”
It’s raining at the train station. With three minutes until last train leaves. No Ilsa but Sam and Rick are waiting. There is a note from the Hotel. Fade Out Paris Train Station as you watch the rain wash the ink off of the note in Rick’s hand.
Fade In: Rick’s Rooms enter Ilsa. She wants to talk to him, to tell him a story. It’s about a girl who meets a man, a very courageous man. She looked up to him. She thought it was love. Who did she leave him for? Laszlo or others in between?
Victor and Ilsa meet Strasser at Police station. Strasser guarantees Laszlo will never receive an exit visa. His only way to leave is to be a traitor to his people. Do you really think he is the type of man to be a traitor. Nazis have no sense of integrity so they do not understand an enigma like Victor Laszlo. An important person to their leaving has been reported to be dead.
Rick visits The Blue Parrot and talks with Ferrari, who wants the letters of transit. He tells Rick he thinks he knows where the letters are. Rick purposely left his club so the police would have a chance to ransack it. Louie’s men were impressively destructive at Rick’s Place in order to win points with Major Strasser. Louie blows with the wind. He is with the Vichy. The Vichy being the French who go along and reluctantly support the French. The French who are loyal to their own country feel betrayed by the Vichy.
A young woman comes to Rick to plead for some help. She will have to sleep with Louie if her husband doesn’t win enough money so they can afford a visa. If they use only the money they have there would be nothing left. Louise fully expects her to have sex with him if the money isn’t won. Louie sees that the young woman and Rick are being obvious about conspiring. They are all in the backroom where the gambling goes on. Louie is an odd duck. Louie accuses Rick of being a rank sentimentalist.
Victor has a visit with Rick. The Underground tell Victor all sorts of very impressive things about activities that Rick was involved in during the war.
In Rick’s Cafe, the Nazis are singing about the Fatherland. It is so despicable to the French in the club that they have a singing competition. Guess who wins. Strasser is not very satisfied. He tells Louie to find an excuse to close Rick’s. He tells Rick the reason is because he is shocked that gambling is going on in his club.
Strasser just keeps getting creepier. Threatens Ilsa.
Later Ilsa and Victor speak about the letters of transit and what Rick said about asking his wife why he won’t give up the letters.
Ilsa goes to Rick’s rooms and tries to get letters from him. She wants to tell him what really happened in Paris. The feelings between them, have they been buried or are they gone? The truth comes out. She had no hope that Victor was alive when she was in Paris with Rick.
Victor and Rick talk. They are not that far apart in what they believe.
Louie and Rick talk about letters. Louie doesn’t like Strasser.
Approaching the final few scenes of the film. Cafe Americain is still closed by order of the Prefect of Police. Ferrari has taken over the Cafe. Louie thinks he is at Cafe to arrest Laszlo but Rick surprises him and makes him call the airport to tell them that there is to be no trouble about two letters of transit. Everything is building up to the excitement of what is all going to culminate in some of the biggest surprises yet in the film.
Best closing scenes in any movie and best closing lines. Memorable til the final line.
For the rest of the film and to fill in all the spaces that I have left out, you will need to find a copy of this film on DVD or streaming from online or whatever source you are able to find to watch the whole thing and to see how it ends. It is a thoroughly amazing film to watch. It seems the perfect film in detail, dialogue, scenes, settings, storyline, acting and durability. It has all the perfect elements and the best acting. Filled with sentiment and sacrifice. I first saw this film when I was in my 20s. It was such a surprise that I did not see it when I was a kid. It is understandable for older children and a fascinating film for all adults.
The following videos do have SPOILERS so watch them if you have seen the film already or if you don’t mind seeing scenes before seeing the film. I am sure a great many of you have watched this film. But if you haven’t, it should be on everyone’s’ film list as a must see. The sheer acting alone and the love story and the screenplay is brilliant. The cast is to die for. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman play the leads. They are two of the finest actors of all times. Worthy of anyone’s time to find out how great they are in Casablanca. No one had any idea what a remarkable film this was going to turn out to be. The special benefit if this film is you get to hate the Nazis and you get to curse them out without impunity. It has the most classic lines of almost any film ever made. Enjoy the videos and seriously consider locating this film if you haven’t seen it and find it so you can watch it again. “Here’s Looking At You Kid.” jk the SK
The relationship between Rick and Ilsa was filled with Desire. I am going to write a poem about Desire in my new form of Haiku. I refer to it as X-treme Haiku. I use an altered form of Haiku with the onji (lines) in the 5 – 7 – 7. I do as few or as many verses as I feel will tell the story that I am writing. Sometimes the story will more often be a touch abstract and other times it may be a philosophical exploration, or a story that may have the appearance of something that may b close in resemblance to a fable. With X-treme Haiku I want to allow myself the freedom to write about what I want but to also include restriction which will encourage restraint on my part so that I will write more concisely with the use of fewer words that will contain an understanding and a discipline toward accuracy. I have been using this style of X-treme Haiku for a short while now and find it makes me more disciplined. It involves research and a greater understanding of the words I use. Being precise about definitions of the language I am using. There is a cleanness to the design. The other rules are for myself and they include the use of words. I do not or try not to repeat a word within the same verse or if possible within the same poem unless absolutely necessary. I like mystery in my poems so I do have the tendency to be a touch cryptic and/or abstract. I like analyzing what it is I am writing about. I am honest about whatever it is I have chosen to write about. I believe in going into the depths of what I mean in what I write. Truth is essential. Directness is essential. Abstraction is often essential. I believe in creating a puzzle that must be deciphered. I do not often hand out the simplicity of a matter. A specific reason for that is when I am writing I am also trying to interpret and examine in depth what subject is I am writing on and usually for the purpose of trying to understand what is within or what it is about that I am writing. Now to the poem.
“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.” ― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“It starts so young, and I’m angry about that. The garbage we’re taught. About love, about what’s “romantic.” Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys–depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We dont know anything about him, other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.” ― Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming
“Only the gentle are ever really strong.” ― James Dean
“Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you. And that’s why we’re all interested in movies- those ones that make you feel, you still think about. Because it gave you such an emotional response, it’s actually part of your emotional make-up, in a way.” ― Tim Burton, Burton on Burton
“Ezekiel 25:17. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.” I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice. Now I’m thinkin’: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. .45 here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd. — he became the shepherd instead of the vengeance.” ― Quentin Tarantino
“A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense. Sitting there alone or painfully alone because those with you do not react as you do, you know there must be others perhaps in this very theatre or in this city, surely in other theatres in other cities, now, in the past or future, who react as you do. And because movies are the most total and encompassing art form we have, these reactions can seem the most personal and, maybe the most important, imaginable. The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you’ve seen. You do meet them, of course, and you know each other at once because you talk less about good movies than about what you love in bad movies.” ― Pauline Kael, For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies
“Books and movies, they are not mere entertainment. They sustain me and help me cope with my real life.” ― Arlaina Tibensky
DESIRE:
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ― Epicurus
“Things are sweeter when they’re lost. I know–because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
“She leaned forward and caught at his hand, pressing it between her own. The touch was like white fire through his veins. He could not feel her skin only the cloth of her gloves, and yet it did not matter. You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer.” ― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
“Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—really want him—it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“I desire to be with you. I miss you. I feel lonely when I can’t see you. I am obsessed with you, fascinated by you, infatuated with you. I hunger for your taste, your smell, the feel of your soul touching mine.” ― Jack Llawayllynn, Indulgence
“Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.” ― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
“To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing — the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.” ― Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” ― Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma
“I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin. — I want.” ― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants
“Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.” ― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
“But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.”
― Kahlil Gibran
“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
“Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset, to touch the one you love, to try again. “Hell would be waking up and wanting nothing.” ― Karen Marie Moning, Shadowfever
“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.” ― Roland Barthes
“I have outlasted all desire,
My dreams and I have grown apart;
My grief alone is left entire,
The gleamings of an empty heart.
The storms of ruthless dispensation
Have struck my flowery garland numb,
I live in lonely desolation
And wonder when my end will come.
Thus on a naked tree-limb, blasted
By tardy winter’s whistling chill,
A single leaf which has outlasted
Its season will be trembling still.”
― Alexander Pushkin
“There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Dart
“Please, touch me, I pray.” ― Jess C. Scott, The Intern
“Oh to have you with me, to have you here, not to be alone, but to be with you, my beauty, you of all souls! You.” ― Anne Rice, Pandora
“I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you. For me, imagination and desire are very close.” ― Jeanette Winterson
“….love and desire enjoy a symbiotic relationship, meaning that one cannot exist without the other. Desire is an enemy to contentment; desire is illness, a feverish brain. Who can be considered healthy who wants? The very word want suggests a lack, an impoverishment, and that is what desire is: an impoverishment of the brain, a flaw, a mistake.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
“When you were a wandering desire in the mist, I too was there, a wandering desire. Then we sought one another, and out of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time limitless, and dreams were space without measure.” ― Kahlil Gibran
“Her cheeks were flushed. She caught hold of the Savage’s arm and pressed it, limp, against her side. He looked down at her for a moment, pale, pained, desiring, and ashamed of his desire. He was not worthy, not… Their eyes for a moment met. What treasures hers promised! A queen’s ransom of temperament. Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned arm. He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.” ― John Berger
“Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known.” ― Mark Epstein, Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life – Insights from Buddhism and Psychotherapy
“Because life is short. I feel we’re made of a hunger, a desire for life – if that can be described as a material. As I get older, I’m trying to open that channel more. If you don’t, if you close off desire and get complacent, life loses its freshness and sweetness, and that’s what I crave. That’s my bliss.” ― Sarah Slean
“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you–haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe–I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always–take any form–drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.” ― Neil Gaiman, M is for Magic
“Heaven is comfort, but it’s still not living.” ― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
“The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.” ― Philip K. Dick, VALIS
“Each leaf that brushed his face deepened his sadness and dread. Each leaf he passed he’d never pass again. They rode over his face like veils, already some yellow, their veins like slender bones where the sun shone through them. He had resolved himself to ride on for he could not turn back and the world that day was as lovely as any day that ever was and he was riding to his death.” ― Cormac McCarthy, Child of God
“Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, and it would be an insensitive man who did not know it.” ― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
“The popular notion that ghosts are likely to be seen in a graveyard is not borne out by psychical research… A haunting ghost usually haunts a place that a person lived in or frequented while alive… Only a gravedigger’s ghost would be likely to haunt a graveyard.” ― John H. Alexander, Ghosts! Washington Revisited: The Ghostlore of the Nation’s Capitol
“A scene should be selected by the writer for haunted-ness-of-mind interest. If you’re not haunted by something, as by a dream, a vision, or a memory, which are involuntary, you’re not interested or even involved.” ― Jack Kerouac, Book of Sketches
“Libraries are full of ghosts, books being the most haunted things of all.” ― Maya Panika
“Ghosts don’t haunt us. That’s not how it works. They’re present among us because we won’t let go of them.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said, faintly.
“Some people can’t see the color red. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” she replied.”
― Sue Grafton, M Is for Malice
“Here and there and not just in books we catch glimpses of a world of once upon a time and they lived happily ever after, of a world where there is a wizard to give courage and a heart, an angel with a white stone that has written on it our true and secret name, and it is so easy to dismiss it all that it is hardly worth bothering to do. … But if the world of the fairy tale and our glimpses of it here and there are only a dream, they are one of the most haunting and powerful dreams that the world has ever dreamed…” ― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
Happy 4/20 Legalize It!
FREE MEDICINAL CANNABIS / MARIJUANA TREATMENTS
Created by jk the secret keeper
Created & 04/20/2013
California Time Posted 4/20/13
EDT Posted 4.21.13
“Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.” ― Bob Marley
“When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.” ― Bob Marley
“Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.” Thomas Jefferson
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” ― Bill Hicks
“We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless.” ― Russell Brand, My Booky Wook
“Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.” — Richard M. Nixon
