The Sessions
Film Review
Written By Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Created May 19th 2013
Posted May 19th 2013
poster for the film ‘the sessions’ leading roles: helen hunt – william h. macy – john hawkes
This all started with the Oscar-winning film, “Breathing Lessons,” about the life of Mark O’Brien. He contracted polio in childhood and lived life in an Iron Lung which enabled him to breath. His story in this film inspired the new movie “The Sessions,” starring William H. Macy, Helen Hunt, and John Hawkes. Mark O’Brien felt: “The two mythologies about disabled people break down to one: we can’t do anything, or two: we can do everything. But the truth is, we’re just human.” O’Brien was a frequently published journalist and poet, and he contributed to National Public Radio. He fought against illness, bureaucracy and society’s conflicting perceptions of disability for his right to lead an independent life.
william h. macy as father brendan – john hawkes as mark o’brien confessing
The film, “The Sessions” is a powerful and emotional film. You’re rooting for him as he moves through the issues of his life that challenge every moment. But it shows that he is human and has the same needs and wants that most humans want from their life. It breaks down your emotions and all the way through shows an understanding and honest and intimate portrayal of a complex, intelligent, beautiful and interesting person, who happens to be disabled.There is a poem, that Mark O’Brien wrote, that is used in the film that speaks to the soul. The words reflect his inner feelings that will melt your heart. In the poem they used , it is so descriptive of what he feels inside, and how he would express those feelings. Throughout the film, he has long, intense conversations with a new priest to his parish and within the film it is made obvious his extremely strong belief in God.
william h. macy in “the sessions”
Which at times made him question every decision he would make in order to satisfy his goals in life. One in particular, he has been feeling the strongest need to accomplish. The same kind of goal most humans want to achieve and satisfy. That goal has to do with being loved and in the expression of that love, to be able to be intimate with another human being. The Sessions is a provocative film which helps to define life. Its questions and its meaning.
The biggest question on Mark’s mind is whether he will live his entire life never knowing the sexual intimacy with another person. In his case, the love and sexual satisfaction of sharing a complete sexual experience with a women. This is where the film takes on the most caring elements ever. The performances of Helen Hunt and John Hawkes are so believable and intimate. You weren’t sure what to root for. Helen’s role is that of playing a sexual surrogate. She has a family. It is an endearing profession that she has chosen. Quite confounding and compassionate maintaining a personal life and a professional life where it is inhuman not to have natural human feelings surface, both physical and emotional, as well as spiritual.
If you want to see a film, where the characters are real, and you feel their reality as they are living it out on the screen, this is the film for you. You need to check any moralistic judgement at the door. That wasn’t a problem for me. I felt what was happening was essential, human, caring, loving and a necessary sharing for all those directly involved.
THE SESSIONS Trailer 2012 Movie – Official [HD]I don’t want to give any of the film away but it is brilliant, intimate, humourous, makes you want to cry and smile all at once. You really aren’t sure who or what you should be encouraging. You feel their feelings so tenderly. I have now seen this film, The Sessions, and took from it a feeling that one can be healed. I am not talking about his polio, but his inner being. I will not say what happens but I will recommend this film. As Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel use to say: “Two Thumbs Up.” Get this film. Buy It. Rent It. Stream It. Watch It On Demand. If you haven’t seen it in a theatre or if you have, see it again. Sometime in the near future it will become part of our collection. It is a film that has great value in seeing it more than once.
I will add it teaches you something about your own body, that if you didn’t already know, it deserves to be honoured and loved as part of your whole self. How to reach that union is something that I think many of us would like to do that have not really experienced that complete connection. I’m not saying that in the case of this film, what happens, but it does teach as well as gives the viewer a magnificent experience of looking inward. It is delightful that you get to share the joys, discussions, fears, anxieties, hopes, rejection, being ignored, having no power, being human and frail and tough and fighting to survive every minute of your life.
helen hunt as cheryl a sexual surrogate in bed with mark in ‘the sessions’
Whether we need to be in an Iron Lung most of our lives or have lived a life that has been traumatized through other means or to have lived whatever life you have lived, this film will show you the way to what being equal is all about and that having a disability does not take away your being human and having human needs, wants, desires, beliefs, dreams, imagination, satisfaction, creativity and so much more. We are in this all together. We need to support one another. If one thing, Mark O’Brien, may have been put in an Iron Lung when he was a child, but he kept on living as if that Iron Lung was just something he had to accept. His life continued with all a humans’ hopes and dreams.
After watching this film, I would say he attained so much more than most people would expect. If for just sheer curiosity, to see a film that has the issue of sex right out there on the table, that alone should peek your cat like instinctual drive, this film is AMAZING. It is more than it could be and nothing less than it should be.
helen hunt and john hawkes in ‘the sessions’
I intend to see it again some time soon. I do need to still make it through the rest of the Oscar/BAFTA nominated films. I saw “Hitchcock.” The one surrounding the making of the film “PSYCHO,” that kept people out of the shower for quite some time. I was way too young when I first saw it at the neighbor’s house across the street. The girl who lived there walked me to the middle of the street. We lived in a cul de sac, so there wasn’t any traffic.
We stood there, afraid to move from that spot. Until we decided we would count to three and go to our own houses. One. Two. Three. We tore to the kitchen doors of our houses, screaming the entire way and rushed into our houses slamming the doors behind us. Both having been too young and terrified to watch such a film as PSYCHO, alone, in the dark, watching bloody murders being committed. I still cannot watch that damned shower scene or pretty much most of the rest of the film after Janet Leigh arrives at the Bates Motel.
Helen Mirren played the role of Alfred Hitchcock’s wife opposite, the unidentifiable, Anthony Hopkins. She deserved the Oscar and I do believe she won the BAFTA, will have to check. But she played the second in command, who without her I firmly believe that Hitchcock’s genius would not have been held so firmly. She deserved credit in the film CREDITS but now everyone knows who have seen HITCHCOCK and THE GIRL. “The Girl” was made for HBO. The very British, Sienna Miller played Tippi Hedren, the actress who starred in Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and “Marnie.” Read my post on Tippi Hedren to find out more on that subject and the post, “Alfred Hitchcock: Man or Beast.” Do feel free to use the search box to locate anything related to all and anything located on “the secret keeper.”
the elements of power
So, sorry, got a bit distracted. It made me realize I need to spend more time reviewing films on “the secret keeper.”
Anyway, back on track, do see THE SESSIONS. You will never know what you have missed if you do not. And you would have missed TOO MUCH. 5 * * * * * Review by Jennifer Kiley with the Help of Jk the secret keeper
“Fall off the edge of the earth and crash into euphoria.” — Unknown
“I mean you can leave it at love and attraction, or can you can make it complicated, like most people do” — “The Sessions”
“The meaning of love. Love is a journey.” — “The Sessions”
“I never expected it. Nor did she. But that’s often how things turn out” — “The Sessions”
“Let me touch you with my words
For my hands lie limp as empty gloves
Let my words stroke your hair
Slide down your back and tickle your belly
For my hands, light and free-flying as bricks
Ignore my wishes and stubbornly refuse to carry out my quietest desires.
Let my words enter your mind, bearing torches
Admit them willingly into your being
So they may caress you gently within.”
— “The Sessions” by Mark O’Brien
“Sex makes everything complicated. As much as people want to believe sex can be carefree and casual, someone always gets attached. It’s inevitable.” — unknown
“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
Genius or Madness?
“Up/Down” Bipolar Disorder Documentary
Post Created by Jk the SK
Illustrated by j. kiley
Created May 12th 2013
Posted May 13th 2013
Original Transcript
6 November 2012
Genius or Madness?
Professor Glenn Wilson
“Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide” (John Dryden, 1681).
“There is no great genius without a tincture of madness” (Seneca, 1st Century A.D.).
dali spider of the evening
Many great artists and scientists appear to have gone slightly mad following their lofty achievements. Isaac Newton was arguably the greatest physicist of all time, introducing the concept of gravity and making major advances in optics, mechanics and mathematics. He was also intensely suspicious and distrustful of others and in later life dabbled in alchemy and sought hidden messages in the Bible. Of course, alchemy was not thought a mad pursuit in Newton’s day and he could have been afflicted with mercury poisoning as a result of his experiments.
dali the disintegration of the persistance of memory
Beethoven and Van Gogh are also said to have gone progressively mad, though the reasons are equally debatable. Beethoven’s mania may have been due to alcoholism, syphilis, or lead poisoning (apart from his profound deafness, which would distress anyone, let alone a musician). There are theories that Van Gogh’s mood swings were caused by porphyria rather than bipolar disorder, that he lost his ear in a duel with Gauguin (claiming self-injury to maintain his friendship) and that his “suicide” was an accidental shooting by two boys playing cowboys (whom he also protected).
van gogh starry night on the rhone
For others, the genius and madness appear in parallel. Nikola Tesla was a brilliant applied scientist whose inventions rivaled those of Edison. He obtained around 300 patents in radio and electricity technologies, pioneering alternating current and hydroelectric power. However, he claimed to be in communication with other planets, to have invented “death rays” and suffered from bizarre compulsions.
van gogh bridge
John Nash, the Nobel-winning mathematician who developed “game theory” for the social sciences also suffered paranoid delusions throughout his career. He was hospitalised involuntarily and had to feign sanity to be released. He still heard the voices but learned how to live with them and not to talk about them. “I wouldn’t have had such good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally” he said.
van gogh starry night
Sometimes it is a matter of chance or social milieu that determines whether an individual is deemed brilliant or crazy. To the Counter-Reformation Church leaders, Galileo was not necessarily mad (probably just heretical) but they clearly failed to appreciate his genius and subjected him to a lifetime of house arrest. In other times and places Picasso and Einstein might have been committed to an insane asylum rather than revered for their original thinking.
moby dick – jackson pollock
Many lists of creative achievers throughout history have been compiled along with mental health symptoms and diagnostic categories retrospectively assigned to them. Unfortunately, these are mostly anecdotal, speculative and lacking in proper controls for comparison. Some have argued that the connection between genius and madness has been over-egged because of a few high-profile cases such as those described above.
virginia woolf by george charles beresford 1902
The best evidence in support of the genius-madness link comes from behaviour genetics. The close relatives of creative people are more likely to be schizophrenic and vice versa (psychotics having more creative relatives). Einstein, for example, had a son who was schizophrenic, while Bertrand Russell had many schizophrenic relatives. According to Simonton (1999), “creative hits and crazy misses” are mixed within many illustrious family pedigrees, including the Darwins, Galtons and Huxleys.
virginia woolf
The first degree relatives of creative people are actually more prone to mental disorders than creatives themselves. This is because actual illness (as opposed to its genetic predisposition) is likely to impede a creative career. The exception seems to be writers, who themselves show high rates of many behavioural disorders, including psychoses, mood disorders, substance abuse and suicide.Could the environment also be involved? Traumatic events in childhood and orphan status seem more common in those who make outstanding contributions to art and science. In a study of 700 high achievers, found that three-quarters had troubled childhoods, especially loss of a parent. The “school of hard knocks” could provide motivation and inspiration (Dickens and Chaplin come to mind here) while at the same time generating psychological disorder. However, this idea is opposite to the common-sense view that parental support and encouragement is beneficial to achievement, rather than maltreatment and deprivation. Indeed, the Goetzels found that wealth was more common in the backgrounds of famous people than poverty. And of course, pathology in the parents may be genetically transmitted to their children, thus accounting for some of the associations reported.
Virginia Woolf
Similar thought processes, such as unusual and grandiose ideas, together with a determination to promote them, seem to link genius and psychosis. Certain neurotransmitters and gene loci have been cited as common to both, including the male sex hormone testosterone, a gene relating to a growth factor involved in neural development and plasticity called neuregulin 1 (NRG1 and genes modulating dopamine transmission in the brain, e.g., DARPP-32.
virginia woolf painting
Unconventional thinking is characteristic of a constitutional personality trait called Psychoticism (P). This has many facets, including tough-mindedness, lack of empathy, impulsiveness, risk-taking, adventure-seeking, bizarre thinking, and a refusal to adhere to social norms. High levels of P predispose to psychopathy and clinical psychosis, as well as to creativity, thus accounting for the overlap between them. A good deal of research over recent decades has supported this theory. A related trait is called schizotypy. An optimum number of indicators for this relates to creative achievement, rather than full-blown schizophrenia.
kurt cobain
Dopamine function (or dysfunction?) may account for the link between genius and madness. Dopamine is the chemical messenger in the meso-limbic and cortical areas of the brain concerned with approach, reward, positive mood and achievement-seeking. Genes that modulate dopamine levels are reported to affect novelty-seeking behaviour and to relate to Impulsivity and Psychoticism. Recreational drugs that are addictive and sometimes lead to delusions and hallucinations (e.g., amphetamine psychosis) tend to raise levels of dopamine in the brain. By contrast, anti-psychotic medications are usually dopamine antagonists (this being one of the reasons why compliance is difficult). Untreated schizophrenics have more D2 receptors in the striatum and lower D2 binding in the thalamus.
kurt cobain – bipolar
Genius and psychotic are both inclined to loose associations (i.e., “thinking outside the box”). This can be observed as unusual responses on a word association test or in some of Salvador Dali’s surreal images (e.g., the Lobster-Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa). Such flexibility of thought seems to be increased by dopamine.
beethoven – bipolar
Another description of the schizophrenic thinking style is that it tends to be over-inclusive, with the boundaries of relevance being set more broadly. To most people, an apple falling off a tree and the movement of planets in the solar system would appear to have nothing in common, but Newton was insightful enough to connect them under the grand unifying concept of “gravity.” Of course, not all such generalisations turn out to be that useful but many great scientific theories depend upon the ability to perceive improbable connections.
carrie fisher – bipolar
Exactly how loose associations or over-inclusive thinking promote genius is unclear. If enough crazy ideas are generated, one or two might hit the target by chance alone. This approach is deliberately harnessed in “brainstorming” sessions which use random “flashcards” as a means of generating fresh ideas. Certainly, it is difficult to be creative operating within received wisdom and some of the greatest artists and composers were the “rebels” least shackled by the traditional rules of their art. However, the “shotgun” theory smacks slightly of “monkeys on typewriters”. (It would take a long time for them come up with the complete works of Shakespeare). Outstanding advances in science, like the theories of evolution and relativity, and great works of art, such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle, cannot be generated by chance alone. Profound imagination and high-level spatial intelligence is usually required in addition.
bipolar behaviour
Application to the point of “work addiction” is also often involved. Edison reckoned that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.Most creative people are also the most productive. There is a positive correlation between quality and quantity of output, implying that each masterpiece is likely to be interspersed with much that is mediocre. (I do not ne)cessarily agree with this statement.)
marilyn monroe – bipolar
The human tendency to apophenia may be implicated in both creativity and madness. This refers to seeing meaningful patterns where they do not exist and it underlies superstition and hallucinations (e.g., seeing ghosts and hearing “voices”). This perceptual style has survival value because failing to spot a predator in the forest is a bigger (potentially fatal) mistake than seeing one where it does not exist. Exaggerated apophenia is characteristic of schizotypal individuals and is enhanced by dopamine.
ernest hemingway – bipolar
Another mental “illness” linked with creativity is bipolar mood disorder (previously called “manic-depressive psychosis”). This is characterised by extreme mood swings, occurring over a period of months, and it seems particularly to afflict artists, writers, musicians and comedians. Among highly talented people who appear to have suffered mood disorder are Peter Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Spike Milligan, Paul Merton and Stephen Fry (who presented a TV documentary on bipolar disorder detailing his experiences).
winston churchill – bipolar
Genetic analysis shows links between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Sufferers are often tortured souls, particularly when the “Black Dog” afflicts them, and their feelings may be tapped to give greater depth and sensitivity to their art. On the other hand, the “flight of ideas” experienced in the “manic” phase of the mood cycle can result in exceptional productivity. As with the trade-off between schizophrenia and genius, bipolar disorder balances troughs with peaks in a way that might account for its evolutionary survival. Treatments are available for bipolar disorder but there is a danger that, by smoothing mood, they could impede the creative forces.
bipolar wheel
Then there are the autistic spectrum disorders (such as Asperger’s syndrome) in which a deficiency in social communication is sometimes accompanied by “savant” skills in fields like music, mathematics and spatial intelligence. In the film Rain Man (1988), Dustin Hoffman plays Raymond Babbitt an autistic whose exceptional memory is exploited by his brother to count cards in Las Vegas casinos. (This was loosely based on a real-life savant called Kim Peek, who may in fact have had a chromosome disorder). The artist Louis Wain, who became famous for his surrealistic cat paintings was hospitalised for schizophrenia, but others have argued he was actually autistic.
marilyn monroe poster
These various “disorders” can all contribute to extraordinary contributions to art and science. Some tendency to psychotic traits seems to be beneficial (thus accounting for the maintenance of such genes) but too much makes the individual disorganised and is hence detrimental. It is notable that creative artists and writers have profiles similar to those of psychotic patients on clinical scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) but are less extreme – in fact, roughly half-way between normal controls and full-blown schizophrenics.
mel gibson – bipolar
What is the mechanism whereby schizophrenic genes promote survival? The clue may be in the behaviour of bower birds, the males of which make colourful and elaborate constructions in order to attract a female (the Taj Mahals of the bird world). Creativity has also been shown to promote mating success in men, as measured by number of sex partners. Since there is no such connection for women, it is not surprising that men’s productivity in art and science exceeds that of women by around ten times.(I don’t believe this statement about men exceed women by around ten times in productivity in art and science—more like opportunity and the continued imbalance in availability and acknowledgment).
medical cannabis for bipolar treatment
Obviously, it does not do to be totally and permanently “away with the fairies”; some measure of control needs to be maintained. Consider James Joyce and his daughter Lucia, who was being treated by Carl Jung for schizophrenia in 1934. Joyce doubted she could be schizophrenic because her thought patterns were so similar to his own. Jung disagreed, comparing father and daughter to two people who had arrived at the bottom of a river. According to Jung, James had dived there, whereas Lucia had fallen in.
“Up/Down” Bipolar Disorder Documentary FULL MOVIE (2011)This is a brilliantly made Documentary. Everyone who is Bipolar or knows someone who is or those in the Psychiatric profession and do counseling with anyone who is bipolar or anyone interested in bipolar and everyone who wants to have a knowledge of bipolar and find out what it is from what the myths are or how much people are misinformed about bipolar. A MUST SEE VIDEO. STOP THE STIGMA OF BIPOLAR AND ANY FORM OF MENTAL “ILLNESS” CREATIVITY.
“There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” ― Oscar Levant
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.” ― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle
“I’m a misunderstood genius.”
“What’s misunderstood?”
“Nobody thinks I’m a genius.”
― Bill Watterson
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” ― E.F. Schumacher
“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde
“The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia
QUOTATIONS on MADNESS:
“Sanity is a madness put to good uses.” ― George Santayana, Essential Santayana, The: Selected Writings
“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there’s always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.” ― Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke
“Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
“I don’t possess these thoughts I have — they possess me. I don’t possess these feelings I have — They obsess me.” ― Ashly Lorenzana
“The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.” ― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not 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 — from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the ‘light ineffable’.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora
QUOTATIONS on BIPOLAR:
“I’m the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible…” ― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one’s marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends’ faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against– you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Compared to bipolar’s magic, reality seems a raw deal. It’s not just the boredom that makes recovery so difficult, it’s the slow dawning pain that comes with sanity – the realization of illnesss, the humiliating scenes, the blown money and friendships and confidence. Depression seems almost inevitable. The pendulum swings back from transcendence in shards, a bloody, dangerous mess. Crazy high is better than crazy low. So we gamble, dump the pills, and stick it to the control freaks and doctors. They don’t understand, we say. They just don’t get it. They’ll never be artists.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
“Depression is a painfully slow, crashing death. Mania is the other extreme, a wild roller coaster run off its tracks, an eight ball of coke cut with speed. It’s fun and it’s frightening as hell. Some patients – bipolar type I – experience both extremes; other – bipolar type II – suffer depression almost exclusively. But the “mixed state,” the mercurial churning of both high and low, is the most dangerous, the most deadly. Suicide too often results from the impulsive nature and physical speed of psychotic mania coupled with depression’s paranoid self-loathing.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
“Absurdity and anti—absurdity are the two poles of creative energy.” ― Karl Lagerfeld
“Except you cannot outrun insanity, anymore than you can outrun your own shadow.” ― Alyssa Reyans, Letters from a Bipolar Mother
“Clear your energy, honor your rhythm, live your vision ” ― George Denslow, Living Out of Darkness: A Personal Journey of Embracing the Bipolar Opportunity
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
It was your first solo flight today Annie. That was the most excellent group. The best group I have ever attended. My bias is being put aside and my words are honest and direct. You brightened up that group session. Everyone spoke without having to be coaxed out of any shells. No one was hiding. The quiet ones who regularly sit there and Mr. Xxx has to be the one who says what they can’t say. Not that he really makes one want to open up or gives them a chance too. You made everyone feel your enthusiasm, even though the subject was a rough one. Talking about not wanting to be touched or barely being able to let your spouses or mates try to kiss you. Forget about sex or making love; you really brought out the toughest subject.
I know you didn’t open the session with that in mind. Lisa wanted to talk about her partner. Being a lesbian myself, it is hard to believe that being sexually abused by men when you are a child would effect so strongly an intimate relationship with another woman. You would think that would be safe. In my case, I had such mixed signals. My mother was a sadist. My grandmother, the gentlest woman I have ever known. Everything about her was soft and tender. I never felt anything threatening about her. She was pure love and generosity with me. There were no doubts with her. She loved me up until she died and even then she visited me all the time from the other side. Many dreams we would sit together with her sitting in a chair on her home’s porch and my head resting on her lap. She would always just stroke my hair. She was so tender and I felt so bonded with her. It was like she never died, I got to visit with her more often after she died than when she was alive.
I wanted her to live forever. It never entered my mind she would die. She told me that it would happen. I didn’t believe her. I told her No! That would never happen. I wanted her to always be with me. But I was so wrong. She did die. It was only a short time after that conversation. She was gone.
Her dying wasn’t my first contact with death. A five year old boy drowned. He lived across the street from our family. He was so sweet. Everyone in our neighborhood loved him. He was a little angel, so sweet and innocent. The other child with him, when it happened, left him alone, dead or drowning in the water, while he ran home and didn’t tell anyone what had happened. The search was awful. Everyone was frantic. The whole neighborhood that loved him went out on the search. It brought down a great sadness over everyone after he was found.
Nothing could be done. It was too long. Could the other boy have saved him if he ran for help? No one could answer that question. It did eventually come out about what happened. The whole truth, they were in a place that was dangerous even for adults. The little boy tried to balance as he walked across a narrow crossing and fell into the deep water new the waterfalls. Neither boy knew how to swim. The other boy didn’t want to get into trouble. Children were forbidden to go this place by the pond. When asked if he had seen this boy that drowned, he lied and told everyone No when asked.
Somehow his conscience ate at him enough to break his silence. He told the truth after hours had passed. But it was way to late. It was over. The little five year old boy was way past drowning. Shock and blaming the boy who was alive followed him around for a longtime. That boy wasn’t trusted by the people of our neighborhood. Most people were very judgmental of his entire family. They were crude and socially unacceptable and most of all they never went to church. Ours was a God fearing group except them and one other family that everyone thought were Communists. It was all rather ridiculous. It was so devastating to the boys family, especially his mother. I felt bad for them. I wasn’t that old myself and I loved the little boy who drowned. He was like a little angel. It was all very sad.
My grandmother dying, though, was a different kind of devastation. She was my protector and the only person I could communicate with. We created a special alphabet. It was secret. We could write and no one could read what we sent to the other. She was my only physical contact that was good touch. Everyone else abused me, either sexually or through physical beatings. Which was worst? Both, they overlapped in their sexual abusive nature. Subliminally, it could all be traced back to sexual submission. Whippings. Beatings. Rapes. Forced touches. Kidnapping. Bondage. Child pornography. None of these were by any choice that I made. It was all against my will.
I was a sex slave and exposed to all kinds of physical and sexual brutality, including the denial of nourishment. The greatest pain was being denied the right to express any emotions or sounds. In particular, I was beaten harder if I uttered any sound. The worst sound, that I could make and that received the worst of the punishment, was to cry. I was forbidden to cry. Crying brought out the worst wrath of the Shadow Mother. She would whip me or hit me with all sorts of objects until I would stop crying. I was filled with tears. I needed to cry. It was part of my nature to cry. I cried all the time. But she hated it. She was determined to drive it out of me. She worked on this mission for many years until she found success. My grandmother’s death was her day of success. That was the day I was told not to cry for the last time. As I wad holding my grandfather’s hand, after having just returned from looking into the coffin at what was once the warm body of my loving grandmother. I kissed her cold forehead. She wasn’t there.
My grandfather’s hands were warm. We needed contact but my uncle was a mean bastard. He helped my mother to kill her. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it like a clamp and told me not to cry and added that I was upsetting my grandfather. My grandfather was crying with me. But I listened to him. He was just echoing the rant I’d heard from his sister, the Shadow Mother, throughout my bruised childhood. I stopped crying and I did not cry after that moment ever, with this one exception, unless someone I loved deeply died suddenly. Then I would lose control. But if I just want to cry I cannot do it. The tears are trapped. What will release them naturally, I just don’t know. I’ve tried for year. Doing therapy since I was 19 years old has not been able to breakdown that barrier. Would you, Annie, like to have a go at it. Do you think you can find the secret passage inside of me where the barrier has the door closed, locked and barricaded?
The gentleness in your voice carries an echo of a hypnotic ability. I feel that you could coax someone who is so closed off from her feelings, like I am. I need someone sensitive but emotionally strong and gentle to draw out the one who holds onto the tears so tightly. I really want you to be the one who breaks through my barriers. I know they are built very strong and they are extremely thick. Behind the wall, it is dark and scary. We want to be released from where the Shadow Mother has us locked up. She holds the key. So, only someone who can perform magical and mystical feats will be able to break through and cause the blockade to crumble down and set me free. I need magic. White magic with a great deal of power.
A great many curses of the Black Arts have been cast on me. Their demons keep me closely guarded. Trust me, when I tell you that it is not madness talking. This is all quite real. The demons haunt me almost constantly. They torture me with lies. They try their damnedest to confuse my mind so that I will doubt my reality. At times, I know that what I perceive as real is false. I know when they are trying to trick me but I can’t stop it from effecting me. They take over my mind. I fight it so I still have a glimpse of the truth. It takes so much strength to not feel madness trying to take over.
I must rest. How I will be able to trust you with all of this information and hope you do not think we are certifiably mad, stark raving loony. We are not crazy. We couldn’t be more sane. But right now we need sleep. We’ll write more again soon.
You did a fantastic job being a great psychotherapist today. I can see the future and I see you helping me. I feel you are the one I need right now. You are perfect you may be a novice but you have a strong connection to the soul. Your spirit has a great power. That is one of the things we need as a weapon. That is all for right now. I must rest.
Regards,
Madison
Ps. The force is strong in you. That is good until next week.This note is 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 loves to escape to
madison’s “woods of imagination” where she takes long walks to reflect. it is starts just past the labyrinth
LE CHATEAU DE ROCHER
le chateau de rocher is the home of madison and scottie & their three cats sparky toker & patrick
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 Poe QUOTATIONS of VISION:
“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse… but surely you will see the wildness!” ― Pablo Picasso
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” ― Albert Einstein
“Writing is…. being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.” ― Mary Gaitskill
“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
I am recording a post that takes us back in time to show when the little ones Poe, Parker and Carter were climbing around barely but they are the loves of our life. This is then. I will be including in the first video I post a visit into arriving at the NOW. They were born April 22nd 2012. The second one will be a video made two days ago. Shawn made a beautiful video for their birthday. I wanted to compare the two videos together to see how they have changed. Both are on this Post and easily found. I started this on FB but decided it belonged on The Secret Keeper. I am opening up and letting you in to a precious part of our world. Our Animals.
Our Love Child is Carter, the one with the white bib, also nick-named Sparky. He is the Zen Master of our home. The most gentle of bears until yesterday when he tried to give Saki, our Amazon Parrot, a bear hug. He was swiftly removed and pointedly reprimanded for his behavior.
carter being pensive while daydreaming
Saki is a toy to him but he knows he is not allowed such freedoms of his instinctual nature to manifest itself. The three kittens will learn like our other cats, that it is unacceptable behavior at all times. Respect the Beak or Beware of the Pain. Saki has been quite good about not demonstrating what Respect The Beak really means but if she must, SHE MUST. I will not hold her back if it ever came to that.
saki
saki hanging five
Beware the Beak: Has anyone out there been bitten by an Amazon Parrot when she really means it? Trust me it is extremely painful and can go down to the bone. LOTS OF PAIN INVOLVED. Saki protects me by biting me to alert me I am in danger. Which actually, in most cases, not true. Her bites can be casual or go deep into flesh and hurt like Hell. One needs to clean out carefully and make the wound bleed if it is not already doing so. Her beak goes in so deep and the opening closes so fast. Lesson for the day. BEWARE of the BEAK. :-) We ♥ all our babies furry & especially feathery.
chin love their bliss spots
sagan aka buddha baby
willow — an extremely special chin — she is watching over us in the mist
On April 22nd 2013, their one year old Birthday. We had quite the adventure with them. A special treat: Shawn set up our playpen for our chinchillas to romp around in. The first time for the kittens Poe, Parker and Carter to witness this exciting newness. The chins had always been too small to be allowed to use it. It would have been too easily for them to slip through. They are now big enough and the kittens are old enough to experience the excitement and show respect at the same time.
carter the wise
poe parker on top carter to left
carter in his box
carter with brother poe snuggling and huggling 960×720
Of course, Parker decided he was going to jump over the top and join Sagan and Sundance as they ran around. It was momentarily okay until Parker reached out one of his paws to place on top of either Sagan or Sundance. I missed this happening. That is how quickly Shawn responded and whisked Parker out of the playpen. Now that the test trial is over with the playpen, we will have to enact the play time for both kittens and chins more often. Well, the video is a treat Shawn created that shows in stills how the kittens went from wee little creatures to almost full grown ones.
Carter is the one with the white bib and I must admit the favorite of many. But all are unique in their own forms of expression. We were blessed with being given a stray kitten herself, Gatsby, just over a year ago and a week later finding out we were going to be blessed with kittens also. They all filled a gap of many cats we lost over the years from a certain damned disease that effects so many people and only so recently a cat named Spootie-paws.
Spootiepaws Regal
She was my almost constant lap cat for many years but still too few not to miss her terribly when she had to be taken from us. We had to decide her death. And yes, the dreaded disease of Cancer took her also. Surgery didn’t help except to give us two more weeks with her. I posted the gorgeous picture of her just above and I will post one of her rather silly ones also. We love our animals so deeply. Enjoy What Shawn did with this video. She surprised me with the song she chose to cover as a soundtrack. I will hint that it is from the Broadway Show “RENT.” jk the SK
The photo of our Great and Powerful “Spootie-paws” – our most majestic of kitties, shows how regal she could be and also how she can have those silly moments, too. I wrote a poem for her after she had to be put to death. She went from touching my nose at the Animal Shelter where I picked her out as the one we wanted to take home so she could join our family. She loved Shawn and rather tolerated me but slowly we got close. A brief moment here and there on my foot stool to take a nap. Gradually, she worked her way up to my lap over the early years and eventually it was seldom that she wasn’t in my lap always, while tried to type on my laptop, my comments for FB and eventually my blog the secret keeper and of course when I was working on my creative writings, emails and dissertations about one cause or another. All my lap kitties seemed to disappear into the mist at a rather rapid pace. Now there are none.
spootie-paws rather silly and hitting the catnip in our old kitchen. now it is complete new but she never got to enjoy the new one
But something seems to be happening with Sigmund lately. He just started snuggling up close to me in bed and loves to get under the covers. He, also, runs to the bathroom when I head that way so he can get a drink of water at the faucet. I’ve taught several of our cats and kittens to enjoy drinking fresh water in that way. always the water is set just short of dripping so they do get enough water to drink
sigmund snuggling with shawn
sigmund posing in basket
Schroeder does like to snuggle next to me.
schroader after play with degues bubble and squeak
Now that we have a new couch Spike snuggles right next to my thigh or if my legs on up on the couch, Spike likes to intertwine between my ankles. It is great to have the warmth of a cat on a cold winters night.
spike’s towering during imaginary mountain climbing or maybe a tree or two
spike with soyer
this is sanji our smaller version of a totally black lion. he’s big brother and protector to all the kittens and mom gatsby
I miss altogether not having any dogs. Shawn and I had dogs from the start of our relationship up until we had to have Chaucer, our very last dog put to death. It was a difficult decision but it was the right one. Who doesn’t feel guilty when that decision has to be made. It is a fucking difficult and almost impossible decision to make. When their mental faculties are intact but their bodies are not.
chaucer our terrier looked like this when she was planning on how to teach out Amazon Parrot Saki learn how to bark. And she learned the lesson all so well. Too bloody extremely WELL
when chaucer was a puppy before she was abandoned in a state park totally on her own. but she was found and we adopted her. she was a happy cheerful escape artist of the keenly cute kind. no matter what we did with the fence. it didn’t keep her in
Anyway, as you can see I found the two photos I was thinking about that make Spootie in one look Magnificently Regal and in the other like she had been hitting the NIP far above the normal use. Catnip is a part of nature and so far they haven’t banned that and made it illegal. I suppose the government doesn’t care much if cats are stoned and out of control of their well controlled senses. As you can see Spootie-paws is on display and I found the poem that I wrote shortly before her death and dedicated to her. She was and is a part of my soul.
spootie-paws lying over computer keyboard
Spootie-paws Memory Poem
reached out and touched my soul by j. kiley (c) jennifer kiley 2013
QUOTATIONS on CATS:
“The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats…” ― Albert Schweitzer
“What greater gift than the love of a cat.” ― Charles Dickens
“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” ― Ernest Hemingway
“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.” ― Jean Cocteau
“Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.” ― Pam Brown
“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.” ― Robertson Davies
“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.” ― James Herriot, James Herriot’s Cat Storie
“I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.” ― Jules Verne
“I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.” ― Hippolyte Taine
“Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat’s chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.” ― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?” ― Henry David Thoreau
“That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.” ― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
“There are several cats smoothly moving about, which helped me greatly to relax, for I have always felt that no house is wholly bad where there are cats, and conversely, where there are several cats, a house is bound to be wonderfully charming.” ― Hans Holzer, The Ghost Hunter
“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
Deconstructing Woody:
Woody Allen Relevant as Ever
Created by jk the secret keeper
Created & Posted 04.06.13
Woody Allen invites the legendary conservative icon William Buckley on his show. Discuss the late 1960s and take questions from the audience. Quality of tape not great but visually okay. Conversations and answers are quite amusing and laugh out loud funny. Some of the discussion is actually relevant to today. jk the secret keeper
An interview of Woody Allen by a French Journalist. Some of the interview is in French (en Francais) when the interviewer is just speaking to the audience. Woody speaks English with French subtitles. Quite understandable if you only speak English. You do not miss the content of the interview. It does not interfere listening through the French. Very Enjoyable. A great many clips from Woody’s films which are entertaining and memorable, especially if you are regular viewer of his films but fun even if you haven’t seen a great many of his films. I’m an avid fan so it is fun for me to see so many of those moments from so many of his films from the past. I have watched and been a fan of Woody Allen’s since forever and have seen all of his films. I wish there was a way to see what he did before he became a film maker. That was long before my time. I found this video quite enlightening and entertaining. I feel this video and what it discusses is quite relevant to the world of today. Woody discusses pretty much everything you can think of in this interview. jk the secret keeper
I will add the comment that I support him and find that we share a great deal in common in relation to our thinking and beliefs in life and the relevancy of the views we have on life. The controversy he went through many years back I feel was blown out of proportion. What he may have done, many of those in my life feel they cannot respect him and when I mention my love for his films they reject wanting to have anything to do with him. Everyone believes what they will and likes what they will like. I believe Woody and have enjoyed him though out my life. I am also a huge fan of Mia Farrow and was greatly disappointed that their relationship had to end the way in which it did. Life has gone on. Woody is happy with his wife and their children. They are enjoying their lives together. That is what is important. I will not apologize for my belief in him.
I am fascinated with his interest in psychoanalysis and portraying it in his films. We both share that fascination. Being analyzed has been quite important in my life. To understand one’s self is quite enlightening and it helps to live one’s life more fully.
I hope you take the time to view the complete video. If not all at once. Do come back and listen as you have the time. It will be well worth your time. jk the secret keeper
QUOTATIONS on COMEDY:
“Life doesn’t make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy’s job is to point out that it doesn’t make sense, and that it doesn’t make much difference anyway.”
― Eric Idle
“My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate.” ― Chelsea Handler
“It’s like a fairy tale. . . on crack!” ― Hillary DePiano
“[Comedies], in the ancient world, were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man…. Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachments to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible.” ― Joseph Campbell
“He stares at me, and then leans back in his chair. “He’s ill, Jacob.”
I say nothing.
“He’s a paragon schnitzophonic.”
“He’s what?!”
“Paragon schnitzophonic,” repeats Uncle Al.
“You mean paranoid schizophrenic?”
“Sure. Whatever. But the bottom line is he’s mad as a hatter…”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants
“Luck is the bastard child of Fate and Destiny.” ― Carroll Bryant
“Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I’m not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we’re doing here.” ― Alan Rickman
“Recent studies have shown that approximately 40% of authors are manic depressive. The rest of us just drink.” ― Melodie Campbell
“People who try to pretend they’re superior make it so much harder for those of us who really are.” ― Hyacinth Bucket
“Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.
Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?
Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.
All mortals owe a debt to death.
There’s no one alive
who can say if he will be tomorrow.
Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.
No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.
Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!
But don’t forget Aphrodite–that’s one sweet goddess.
You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?
I think so. How about a drink.
Put on a garland. I’m sure
the happy splash of wine will cure your mood.
We’re all mortal you know. Think mortal.
Because my theory is, there’s no such thing as life,
it’s just catastrophe.”
― Anne Carson
“Some people fight fire with fire. I’ve found water to be more effective.”
― Adrianne Ambrose, Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice
“Ever since the robot was first invented, there have been people who swear up and down that this marks the first step towards the fall of man … To be fair, their arguments are backed with scientific fact taken from documentary films such as The Terminator, The Matrix, and RoboCop.” ― Weston Locher, Musings on Minutiae
“Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant “satisfaction to the thought.” This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic.” ― William Hazlitt
“At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.” ― Eric Idle
“I don’t believe in virgin sacrifice. It encourages promiscuity at an early age”
― Adrianne Ambrose, Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice
“You ever noticed how people who believe in Creationism look really un-evolved? You ever noticed that? Eyes real close together, eyebrow ridges, big furry hands and feet. “I believe God created me in one day”. Yeah, looks like He rushed it”
― Bill Hicks
“Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: ‘We don’t serve colored people here.’ “I said: ‘that’s all right, I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.” ― Dick Gregory
“To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.”
― Stephen Wright
“I live in my own little world. But its ok, they know me here.” ― Lauren Myracle
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
― Isaac Asimov
“If at first you don’t succeed then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”
― Steven Wright
“When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.” ― Lily Tomlin
“Be what you would seem to be – or, if you’d like it put more simply – never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.” ― Lewis Carroll
:-) We ♥ all our babies furry & especially feathery.
