Category Archives: relationships

Letters of Import: Incompetency Revealed 10

Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Incompetency Revealed 10
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated & abstract digital art by j. kiley
First Published Tuesday March 19th 2013
Published Early Tuesday AM
Tenth Posted May 21st 2013 Tuesday, December 3rd 2007

Dear Annie,

He returned. Group went back to its repressive normal. No one got to speak except him and his favorites. The only words out of my mouth were: “I am feeling extremely anxious.” And I added, as a dig, “The group was different having a woman lead it. Annie was amazing. Everyone got to talk. We actually had interactions happening.”

He cut me off with his dumb gibberish as he stumbled over his words and mumbled them. It irritated him like Hell that his position had been challenged by me and by a novice, Annie. Let him feel intimidated. The way he tries to undermine me in our private sessions.

He is always acting as a catalyst to draw Brad out. Maybe its time he saw the way he behaved as a less than competent psychotherapist. If he was like this since he started his practice, I don’t understand how he kept his clients faithful. I suppose when you’re desperate and psychologically fucked up you want anyone who will listen. And you fear finding someone new, who might make demands that you are not ready for, and change is scary and someone different could be worse. Plus starting out again with someone new would be so exhausting. It was easier to stay put and take what I felt I deserved and maintain the limited stability I had at the time.

My mistake is I don’t want to cure my agoraphobia. Not right now. It is too fucking terrifying. I don’t want to go out into the world. It just fucks me up more being exposed to it. It is extremely dangerous. I am too sensitive. I feel everything anyone around me is filled with intense feelings. It is overwhelming. At the psych clinic, I hate walking into that place when there is anyone in the waiting room. It’s a nightmare. My brain is bombarded with a total freak out. I need to be rescued. And he is always late and too many people are waiting. I try not to make contact but usually someone wants to talk. Leave me alone. I hear the screams in my head, ‘can’t you all see that I am mad. I will blow-up if you approach me.’ Not really, but I want everyone to just leave me to my quiet. I am trying to pull myself together for my therapy session. I think and I mean: ‘What the Hell are they doing there. Don’t they want to do the same thing? Preparing to tear out their hearts and display them for their own therapists. Leave me alone to concentrate and be ready for mine.’

Annie, I wish you could have been there. He finally came out to get me. I’d say rescue me but it was more of a bother, I think to him, to have to walk all the way from his office to retrieve me so he could spend our next 45 minutes, if I was lucky to get that amount of time. He always shorted me on my time. It is technically suppose to be 50 minutes but I am lucky if I get a full 45. But I shouldn’t complain, most of the time I can’t wait for the session to be over. And he is exacting about that. He doesn’t allow you to even pull things together before he utters the words: “Time is up.” He cuts me off in mid-sentence and mid-trauma but I don’t feel he even notices it.

This particular day, I was telling him about the way I felt Angie was treating me in group. She was jumping on every word I said. I was talking about one of our very special cats dying over the day before and that I was devastated. His name was Dylan James Thomas and we raised him from the time he was about 3 1/2 weeks old. Someone had thrown him out inside a McDonald’s bag. Fortunately, someone kind had found him, they brought him to the local animal shelter. I volunteered there. That next morning the director called me and asked if I had the time and would I like to foster a very little kitten who was in great need of care. He would need special food and hand-feeding through a bottle. Without hesitation, I had “YES” out of my mouth before the director could say another word. I explained to Scottie in between talking to the director. Told him I would be right there. It was rough going with “Dylan James Thomas”. He developed an upper respiratory infection. He slept between Scottie and I. Scottie gave him extra hugs and held him all night while I slept. She told me before I picked him up that we could not keep him but she fell in love him the way I did when I first set eyes on his tiny little body and his small sounding meows. I was hooked and I knew Scottie would be taken in the way I was. I was right. It took her less than 48 hours to agree that “Dylan James Thomas” needed to be a member of our family. I, also, believe it was the long nights of loving care and healing energy that closed the deal.

Anyway, Angie was all support and I am sorry until I said that I was also really sad about the death of someone I admired and I had loved her family from the time I was a teenager. The person who had died was a famous actress that I admired. I have this sensitivity to certain people who effect my life. I may not know them personally but they have entered my heart. Her mom was one of those people that touched my life, also. I felt a closeness to her and to her family. And I was devastated when I heard of her accident and I prayed that she would pull out of her coma, with no way of knowing that it was irreversible. When her death was announced it put me into emotional shock. My mind could not get around that she was dead. I felt such pain for her whole family, her husband and two boys, and her mother and her aunt and uncle. The devastation that her mom should have to lose her daughter, so young. I felt in emotional pain. Well, Angie was a bitch. She could understand my being upset by my cat’s death but an actress that I didn’t know. She didn’t get it and casually dismissed my pain as ridiculous. That was not only insulting but a cold reaction. We were in a therapy group not in a room full of people who are suppose to judge what we feel.

As I expected. Mr. Xxx felt I should try to understand where Angie was coming from. And why should I try to understand where she is coming from when where that place is a dark hole filled with cruelty and patronizing blanket statements of judgment and a total lack of understanding and sensitivity. I am the way I am and don’t need to go to a therapy group or therapist and be told that my feelings don’t deserve to be respected and trashed instead. I should be allowed whatever emotional reactions that I feel and when I bring them up in group they don’t deserve someone’s insensitivity because they lack compassion and the ability to understand something that is different from the way they might react. They should allow the person who is upset the space to express what they are feeling and to shut the fuck up and stifle themselves from putting them down because they don’t understand why they are feeling upset. Just shut the fuck up and allow them to have their feelings and to respect them whether you understand them or not.

I don’t need to tell you much more but I want you to know that the level of Mr. Xxx’s incompetency echos through all who have him as a therapist. He should have intervened on my behalf in the group. You, as least, tried to cover for him by telling Angie that some people have strong feelings for those they admire in the arts. What Madison is feeling is quite understandable. First, she loses a cat she adores and has loved practically from his birth and moments later finds out that someone she cares about in the field of entertainment and from a favorite and famous acting family, has also died so suddenly, leaving behind a grieving mother, husband and two sons. This can be devastating. Madison is a highly sensitive person and feels deeply for everyone and to have the reaction she has is not unusual among a great many people. So, I think you should try to find some understanding for Madison and what she is going through and try to put yourself in her place.

You said all that while my therapist sits like George W. Bush did the day of September 11th, staring into space and not reacting at all while buildings were exploding from planes crashing into them. You so outshine him, it is embarrassing that he is the leader and you are the intern. I thank you for your sensitivity to recognize I was in pain and it made no difference what was causing it. In our private session, he came out in favor of Angie, as if it were a competition. He should have been giving me my therapy not denying me and giving all his support to another person not in that room with us. But I should know better than expect anything that is positive coming from him. No support. No encouragement.

I hope you are seeing and getting what I am trying to convey to you. I need a new therapist and I want that psychoanalyst to be you. When you have accomplished receiving your degrees and you are licensed, I want you to consider seriously of taking me on as one of your first clients. Please for the sake of my confidence and sanity. I really don’t know how much longer I can take seeing Mr. Xxx as my incompetent therapist.

I want you, your insight, your intelligence and intuitive nature and your gentleness to be my guide. When that day arrives I will feel like I will be reborn. I wish I could say these words directly to you. Someday, I hope that I am able to.

Regards,
Madison This 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

Annie Haskell --- Madison Tayler's Psychoanalyst's Office

Madison Tayler’s Fantasy of Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst. Not real.

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song #1 For “Letters of Import”This is a poem I would like to include in this letter. I like to leave a poem in each of the letters if I find one that I would like to share with you. Since I am not even sure if I am going to give these letters to you, I felt it is okay if I include a poem in each of these letters. And if some day, I change my mind and I hand my building collection of letters to you, then I will likely evaluate all that I have written to determine if all of the content of each letter feels acceptable to me to share openly with you. I may feel too shy to be so vulnerable. We will proceed as we have for now and see this as a way of recording the experience of getting to know you and in turn get to know how this all effects me as I record this experience in writing.Want Her Too Much
By Madison Taylor
December 1st 2007

Need too much
Want her too much
But not her’s to give
Anger rises up
Lost
No sign of the light
Highs have faded
Diving down into deepest sea
Total darkness
Will there be a drowning place for me
Are my favorites present
Virginia
Marilyn
Sylvia too
I need a guide
Help settling the end
Lost I am
As I am losing myself
Am I feeling her feelings
Or mine
Or is she sharing hers
She doesn’t seek death
Or harm
That is my desire
Cut
Bleed
Death
The final solution
Can’t handle this fast descent
Heights freak me out
Did I succeed at deserving hell
All those soul points
Angel points too
I surrender
Rejection
No more
Too crushing
Even if not intent
Let me bleed
So I cannot feel my heart breaking
Shredding into pieces
This she does to me now
I want her to take over my world
But only hope keeps that dream alive
And where is that hope?
Entering my world
To begin the dreaming
When I can finally step away
I cannot bear his re-entrance
Into my world
It may be what finally breaks me
Finishes me
Takes me to my ending
A cold sea of infinity
Unless she is able to be my savior
And take me to a place of safety
Far away from him as possible
Or it is certain he will succeed
To bring an end to me this final time.

Sympathy for the Devil — The Rolling Stones(Theme Song # 10 for Letter of Import: Incompetency Revealed 10

the labyrinth called “wandering wonderland.” it is where madison, scottie and their cats, patrick, sparky and toker love to escape to

madison’s “woods of imagination” where she takes long walks to reflect. it starts just past the labyrinth

LE CHATEAU DE ROCHER

le chateau de rocher is the home of madison and scottie & their three cats sparky toker & patrick

glass enclosed pool le chateau de rocher

QUOTATIONS from: LETTERS of IMPORT: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst

“A Dream

The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
And we are all players
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

“For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
~Michael Drayton~
(1563-1631)

“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
Christopher Marlowe for “Hero and Leander”

“A therapeutic relationship is often more psycho-emotionally intimate than a marriage, or a romantic attachment. I know things about my patients that they would never dream of revealing to their spouses or families. Why is that? One word — trust. If you do not have a connection with a therapist, you cannot trust them. If you do not have trust, you will not expose yourself, and if you do not expose your innermost being, what good is the therapy?” — unknown but ask any great therapist

“Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence…whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought…” — Edgar Allan PoeQUOTATIONS of INCOMPETENT:

“The problem with incompetence is its inability to recognize itself.”
― Orrin Woodward, L.I.F.E. Living Intentionally For Excellence

“On the roads of failure, it is not uncommon to see the tears of the talented; and in the land of success, to hear the victorious screams of the incompetent!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

DEFINITION: without adequate ability, knowledge, fitness; failing to meet requirements; incapable; unskillful. Not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. Ineptitude. Professional incompetence.

The Sessions

3 Replies

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' 636x938

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 Sessions Movie CLIP – Poem (2012) – Helen Hunt Movie HD

love poem by mark o’brien – poster by j. kiley © jennifer kiley 2013

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

Maksim Mrvica – Tonci Huljic: Passionata QUOTATIONS on INTIMACY/TOUCHING/FEELINGS:

“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

Letters of Import: Talking Privately 9

3 Replies

Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Talking Privately 9
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrat by j. kiley
© jennifer kiley 2013
First Posting March 19th 2013
Posted Weekly Early Tuesday Morning
Eighth Posting May 14th 2013 Tuesday, November 26th, 2007

Dear Annie

We had a first chance after group today to talk one on one. You gave me time for the first time. If you only knew how much talking to you privately, even for a short time, meant to me. It gave me the chance to hear your voice separate from other people listening. I like the way your voice sounds. Its so much more relaxed. At least, that is the way it sounds when you speak with me. You’re voice is so soft and delicate. I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you on how well you led the group today. I was so shy while we spoke, I forgot. It was nice and such a relief not to have Mr. Xxx there today. It was great he took another day off. Your technique for running the group is so unique. If I told you since I was a teenager I’ve been in over five professional groups. This, I hate to say it, is the worse run group I’ve ever been in. It’s not the members. It’s the leader. At least, he didn’t have a nervous breakdown in the middle of a group session. That was pretty fucking weird. He was replaced by the novice therapist who sat in the group the way that you do.

You are a natural. People listen to you and you definitely don’t try to dominate the time of the session. Everyone got to speak and they were able to get out important issues. Mr. Xxx never lets us talk about anything. He’s so afraid someone is going to be triggered. What the fuck does he expect. We’ve all been traumatized. Of course, there are issues that will set people off. That’s going to happen in a group session or private session. Talking today about trusting people and how we feel about being touched were and are extremely important issues with everyone in our group. And they are not meant to be easy to talk about, but they need to be. How else are we going to heal the wounds they caused, if we don’t open up about how they effect us.

I wrote a poem a short while ago about touch. That’s how much the group has effected me. I haven’t written anything since the Diana poem the first month I started seeing Mr. Xxx. If I get brave enough, I will include the poem at the end of this letter. That’s if I get brave enough to let you read it. I don’t let anyone read my writing, creative writing that is. But I think I will take a chance and trust you. I don’t think you would hurt me if I let myself be vulnerable by showing you the words I write creatively. I really opened up in this poem. When I’ve finished this letter I will make the decision then whether to include the poem. I am leaning toward wanting to be brave and take a chance.

But back on the subject of the group. You got my friend Kristina to open up. She hates to say anything. Mr. Xxx always forces her into the light when she just wants to listen. It’s important to listen but we all need to speak out loud. But he does it against her will. That to me seems to perpetrate what our abusers did. You got her to talk by letting her respond to something Lisa said. It had to do with loving other women in an intimate relationship. She said that she didn’t understand it. Not in a disapproving way. One of her abusers was a woman. Someone who should have been a protector. She wanted to know how she could get close to a woman. She could have been asking the same question if it were a man that Lisa was getting close to. That was sort of what Lisa said. You’re attracted to who you’re attracted to. Lisa and I are both lesbians but still find some men attractive. We just wouldn’t want to have sex with them.

With me it wouldn’t matter either way. I don’t want sex with anyone. The abusers totally fucked that up for me. Would you believe I’ve never had sex when I’ve been sober. It’s sadly true. Drug of choice was pot. I needed to start out with a joint or a full pipe and keep it coming the whole evening. There would usually be alcohol on the side. Usually beer, wine, champagne, I loved champagne most of all. Scottie was strictly the strong stuff, so I would enjoy a game where one of us would take a small mouth full of booze and you’d pass the liquor back and forth through a super-sensual kiss. That made kissing more fun. The fun stopped before I stopped the drugs and booze. Sex was becoming a problem. Without too much detail, I’m not ready for that yet, what abusers did was catching up with me fast. There lessons were effecting the way my body responded to being touched. That’s all I can tell you right now.

Emotionally, that is another subject altogether, I am really fucked up when it comes to expressing my feelings. I have no idea what they are or what they mean. If I am not depressed then I feel completely numb. I go from numb to being overly excited. Anger, anxiety and fear are the only things my brain know how to let me feel. Otherwise I am dead inside. I know who I love or at least who I want to be with. I know if I care about someone but I can’t translate that into feelings.

I, also, know if I am obsessed with someone. They are in every free thought in my head. My feelings for them are so powerful. Obsessions are all consuming. They devour my ability to think logically. I always thought that was what love felt like but that is so far from the truth. It tends to freak some people out. It had one of my therapists really freaked about. She must have had a bad experience with someone being obsessed with her. I may get obsessed but I respect boundaries. But I still freaked her a bit. Nothing I could do about that. I still don’t think I understand why I get obsessed. Do you know, what causes it in me to have that reaction but with only certain people. Why those people? Why only one person at a time? Just something to look into.

I’d like to understand that part of myself, My personality who is obsessed goes by the name Meg. She is highly emotional and was created around the time of our grandmother’s death and our obsession began with an actress/singer/writer who our grandmother told us to follow. That she would make for a great role model. We followed our grandmother’s advice. The person that we follow has had a powerful effect on us. I think we continued feeling some kind of love through her that otherwise would have been lost and we would have been lost with it.

But now I want to figure out about my nature to become obsessive. I think it is under some control but I cannot explain that now. I worry that someone else will bring me under that spell of oppression. Freudian slip there, I meant to say obsession. Maybe now I see it as oppressive. But to whom? Myself or the person who is the object of my obsessive need for them.

I think I have come to the end of my words for this letter. Now I need to decide about the poem I wrote. Let me look over it. If any or all of it feel like I can reveal the contents to you, I will include in this letter or a future letter. If I do include it I will post after the end of the letter.

Until next time.

Regards,
Madison This note is to to assure the strictest of confidence.

To Annie,

Regards,
Madison Taylor

Madison Tayler’s Fantasy of Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst. Not real.

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song #1 For “Letters of Import”

Soul’s Lamentation(Theme Song # 9 for Letter of Import: Talking Privately 9

the labyrinth called “wandering wonderland.” it is where madison, scottie and their cats, patrick, sparky and toker love to escape to

madison’s “woods of imagination” where she takes long walks to reflect. it 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

This is the poem I was telling you about. I looked through the poem I found that I needed to edit it down before I added it to this letter. Since I am not even sure if I am going to give these letters to you, I felt it is okay if I include the poem in this letter. And if some day, I change my mind and I hand my building collection of letters to you, then I will likely evaluate all that I have written to determine if all of the content of each letter feels acceptable to me to share openly with you. I may feel too shy to be so vulnerable. We will proceed as we have for now and see this as a way of recording the experience of getting to know you and in turn get to know how this all effects me as a record this experience in writing.

To Be Touched or Not To Be Touched
By Madison Taylor
November 26th 2007

To be touched or not to be touched
Never was that a question
As a child or as an adult
It was always assumed as an adult
As a child it was always forced
Only two exceptions
My grandmother who loved me
My grandfather who liked to hold my hand
Two special weeks every summer
I had them all to myself
Grandma Emily, everyday, talked to me on the phone
We created our own alphabet
Only we could read

Special dinners for the whole family
Food my grandma knew I loved
She would accidentally include carrots
I loathe cooked carrots, they make me gag
It was the Shadow Mother’s delight
To force cooked carrots on me
One of her tortures she relished secretly
No less than once a week
But often, more often
It was her Sadistic game
To force food in me I didn’t want
To deny food or nourishment
When it was needed
I was a waif as a child
Legs were like sticks
Water was what I got
To make it through the night

Til after midnight, I sat
Carrots would not go down
Or my stomach would growl
Hungry, a wild animal seeking prey
As I tried falling asleep
Before the break of day

Insomnia started back then
I was afraid of the night
Things happened in the night
Bad things
Out of my control
They haunted the dark
My sleep corrupted
I pretended sleep often
I lived on the ceiling
It came
In the darkness
If I was still
It would go away
But it always returned
The darkness
What came with the darkness

Don’t like the darkness
Now lights have to follow me
Wherever I go
Always there needs to be light
Do not want to open eyes
And just see black
Always flashlights
Always candles
Matches too
In case of a power out
I freeze in place
Until the light comes
I am only safe in the light.

“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 conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.”
― Truman Capote

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.” ― William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830

“The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“The art of true conversation consisted in the play of minds.” ― Ved Mehta, All for Love

“Weird people don’t care if they’re weird. They are the most entertaining to converse with because nothing is off-limits.” ― Donna Lynn Hope

Genius or Madness?

5 Replies

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.

marilyn monroe her famous selfish quote

Genius and madness have much in common but there are also important differences between them. Mostly these are to do with intelligence, self-insight and contact with reality. Salvador Dali said: “There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know that I am mad”. Certainly, Dali was eccentric, self-absorbed and grandiose with a flamboyant moustache and a manic stare. But he was also a skilled draftsman, who produced brilliant, imaginative artworks, which made him rich, famous and able to enjoy a life of luxury. He was not, therefore, totally mad. © Professor Glenn D Wilson 2012

Genius or Madness? The Psychology of Creativity – Professor Glenn D. Wilson. The text is close to what is on the video but if you want to see it just click on this link.

“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.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
QUOTATIONS on GENIUS:

“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

The Great Gatsby

2 Replies

The Great Gatsby
Film Review
Character Analysis
Film Trailer
Post Created by j.kiley
Posted May 10th 2013
Passages
“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more of the riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction–Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life…This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of “creative temperament”–it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such that I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No–Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it was what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elation’s of men” (Fitzgerald 6-7).

This passage, located in the first chapter, is a reflection of Nick’s feelings after the summer of 1922. The unique organization of the book placed this reflection before the actual events, so that it serves to foreshadow what will come. After his summer of parties, decadence and intrigue Nick is disgusted by the modern culture and society. After only one summer, he is prepared to return to the comfort of routine and familiarity that he associates with his home. The only person who has not diminished in his sight is Jay Gatsby, because, in spite of Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle, there was a vitality and enthusiasm about him that impressed Nick. This passage summarizes the final phase of Nick’s emotional and intellectual transformation. Nick experienced interest, involvement and finally disgust. This feeling of disgust and disillusionment with the roaring twenties is a strong sentiment throughout the book.
“They had forgotten me but Daisy glanced up and held out her hand; Gatsby didn’t know me now at all. I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together” (Fitzgerald 101-102).

This passage presents a scene in which Nick visits with Gatsby and Daisy, but is completely eclipsed by their love for each other. They see nothing beyond themselves and their own love. Nick leaves unnoticed and un-missed. This self-absorption is apparent in many of the characters throughout the book and contributes to the confusion and sorrow that ultimately occurs. Everyone is working for themselves, with little to no consideration for the feelings or needs of others. In this scene, Nick notes the vitality of the two lovers. It is Gatsby’s passion and enthusiasm for life that particularly impresses Nick, but it is this vitality that ultimately destroys his relationship with Daisy. Both these elements of passion and selfishness create an atmosphere that allows for the careless destruction of lives and people.Characters
Nick
The narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, is a self-described “tolerant” and “open-minded” man. From a wealthy and long-established midwestern family, Nick was educated at Yale and is an astute and perceptive individual. Quiet and a good listener, Nick frequently plays the role of confidante, and unwilling witness to the secrets and ambitions of his acquaintances. His own actions and ambitions are insignificant when contrasted with the observations of Gatsby and the Buchanan’s. The reader’s sense and understanding of Nick’s character comes largely from his reactions to the actions of his friends. He is not an impartial judge, and makes his sentiments known. Like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, Nick’s experiences alter his perspective on the world. He observes the actions of those around him, and is not unmoved by them. Like Scout, he finds much to repulse him and disappoint him in his fellow humans. Where Scout was repulsed by racism, Nick is sickened by the vices and excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Nick, unlike Scout, is an educated adult, but this does little to prepare him for the atmosphere of wild abandon he finds in New York society.

Daisy
Daisy Buchanan is a distant cousin of Nick’s, who enchants and attracts people with her sensual personality as well as her beauty. On the exterior, Daisy seems to have achieved complete success with her marriage to the wealthy Tom Buchanan, and her popularity within the higher social circles. In reality, Daisy is stuck in a faltering marriage with an adulterous husband, and little true enjoyment. With the arrival of Gatsby, her former love, Daisy experiences a short period of passionate happiness and feeling. This only serves to heighten her internal confusion, as she struggles to determine what type of life she wants to lead and with whom she wishes to spend that life. This struggle demonstrates Daisy’s weakness of character and her malleability. Daisy is supposedly based on Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda. Like Zelda Daisy is a winsome and attractive woman, but she has a love for the material things of life. She is fairly superficial, and her outward graces cover a love of money and position.

Tom
Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, is a domineering and determined fellow. Defined by strong and stubborn opinions and feelings that are often ill-founded, Tom’s character is a destructive one. He marches recklessly and heedlessly forward without consideration to the trouble he causes for others. Engaged in an affair, he is unfaithful in marriage and makes Daisy’s life terribly unhappy. He shares many characteristics with Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire. Both men demonstrate primitive qualities and a propensity for anger and aggression. They are physical and bestial men. Unconcerned with the destruction they create, both hurt the women that they love and offend those with whom they interact.

Gatsby
Jay Gatsby is the mysterious and wealthy neighbor who becomes the subject of Nick’s attention all summer. A self-made man from a poor background, Gatsby is brimming with life and enthusiasm. His passion and energy amaze Nick as well as his other acquaintances. He is the constant subject of speculation and gossip because of his intense nature, odd habits, and lack of established history. As Nick discovers, the driving force behind Gatsby’s actions is his love for Daisy. In his mind Gatsby has transformed Daisy into an angel, and his love for her has fueled his drive to be successful. Gatsby is much like the Rhett Butler figure in Gone with the Wind, because like Rhett, he is mysterious and constantly confounding convention. He has worked hard to establish his fortune, and his reputation has grown to extreme proportions. His love of Daisy motivates him, in much the same way that Rhett’s love of Scarlet dictates his actions. By admitting this love, both of these characters are demonstrating a vulnerability uncharacteristic of them, or at least of their reputation. Gatsby, the tragic lover, remains a mystery throughout, even when confiding in Nick.

Carey Mulligan & Leonardo Dicaprio

The Great Gatsby
A grandiose, colorful, pleasure-drenched night at the movies.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
By Dana Stevens|Posted Thursday, May 9, 2013, at 6:34 PM
Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby.

As Nick Carraway, the mild-mannered but eagle-eyed narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, observes in the book’s early pages, “Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.” So it was with a Zen mind that I tried to approach Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the book, which, intelligent debunkings aside, I really do regard as one of the great American novels of the 20th century—and probably inherently unfilmable. Literary adaptations of books in which the language is all—particularly the work of high-modern prose stylists like Fitzgerald, Proust, Nabokov, Woolf—seem doomed to either plodding literalism or airy insubstantiality. (Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita had a nasty sense of humor all its own, but the script, written by Nabokov himself, dispensed almost entirely with the narrative voice that makes the novel so perversely seductive.)

Then there was the fact that Baz Luhrmann, the Australian director of such grand-scale entertainments as Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge, and Australia, was the one who would be turning Fitzgerald’s economic tone poem of a novel into a big, glitzy 3-D spectacle. I’ve never been fond of Luhrmann’s films, and have only been able to tolerate a couple. (I think I walked out of Moulin Rouge, back when I wasn’t a film critic and could indulge in such luxuries.) His mania for heaping one visual excess atop another—look at this! No, look at this!— strikes me as a form of directorial ADD, an inability to let himself or the audience rest. And as a member of that winded audience, I sense an implicit condescension in Luhrmann’s tendency to flag and then re-flag a film’s major themes as his films go on—themes that were not introduced subtly the first time around. In Baz Luhrmann movies, ideas arrive with an ensemble.

But of course, The Great Gatsby is the story of a supremely unsubtle man given to bold gestures and flashy set pieces, so maybe Luhrmann was born to adapt it. At any rate, his Great Gatsby was nowhere near as terrible as I feared. It is, as I suspected, a gargantuan hunk of over-art-directed kitsch, but it makes for a grandiose, colorful, pleasure-drenched night at the movies. And far from betraying the spirit of Fitzgerald’s novel, Luhrmann (along with his co-screenwriter Craig Pearce) treats the book with a loving mix of straight-ahead reverence and postmodern playfulness. During the huge, highly choreographed party sequences that structure the story (this isn’t a musical, but the recurring music- and dance-heavy sequences make it feel like one), you’re more likely to hear Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lana Del Rey than you are a tinny vintage recording of “Ain’t We Got Fun?”, the flapper-age standard that figures in a scene in the novel and that played at the end of the stillborn 1974 Robert Redford version. Luhrmann’s use of contemporary pop may spring mainly from a desire to sell soundtrack albums, but the notion of using hip-hop as a backdrop for Jazz Age euphoria makes sense: With his new wealth, loud pink suit, and impossibly sweet crib, Gatsby is a rap star before his time.
Advertisement

Dance-floor playlists aside, this Gatsby unfolds in a fairly conventional period setting (though this is the ’20s as seen through a distorting kaleidoscope, everything a little bigger and louder and lusher than life). In a klutzy frame story that’s absent from the novel, we meet Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) at a sanatorium where he’s recovering from “morbid alcoholism” and assorted mental maladies. He begins to tell his story to a benevolent, Santa Claus-like shrink, who provides him with a pen and paper with which to write it down. Later Nick will trade these tools in for a typewriter; whatever writing tool he uses, the words will occasionally drift up around him on the screen, then break apart and drift around him in a cloud of floating 3-D letters. It’s a hokey device, but the Nick-as-author conceit gives us an excuse to listen some choice passages of Fitzgerald’s prose, which Maguire, giving a surprisingly quiet performance at this chaotic movie’s heart, delivers beautifully. Thematically, though, it does seem a mistake to turn The Great Gatsby into a self-referential bildungsroman about a young man’s journey to healing through authorship. When Nick finally pens in “The Great” over his manuscript’s original title Gatsby, we don’t so much feel pride in his accomplishment as annoyance at his smugness—he’s supposed to be telling us this story out of necessity, not ambition.

The story Nick has to tell is one that anyone who’s graduated high school in the United States surely knows, at least in Cliffs Notes form: The mysterious tycoon Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) owns a gaudy estate next door to Nick’s rented cottage in the fictional Long Island village of West Egg. At one of his extravagant all-night flapper blowouts, Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a meeting with Nick’s cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan), a dazzling former debutante whom Gatsby once loved and lost as a younger, poorer man. Daisy lives directly across the sound in old-money East Egg with her rich brute of a husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), and is constantly flanked by her best friend Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), an icy-cool golf champion. Over the course of a summer, Nick is drawn into the orbit of these wealthy, powerful, lost people, whom he recognizes as a “rotten crowd” only after their unthinking cruelty has already caused irreparable harm.

Every image and set piece you remember from the novel—the crumbling oculist’s billboard that looms over the action with judging eyes; Gatsby flinging his collection of custom-made shirts at an overcome, weeping Daisy (and, thanks to the 3-D format, directly at us); the hot afternoon at the Plaza Hotel when the rivalry for Daisy’s affections comes to a head—is rendered in broad, operatic gestures. There were many moments when that broadness made me cringe: Does the CGI-aided camera always have to race at jet-ski speed across the water toward the symbolic green light on Daisy’s dock? Must Gatsby’s face really be seen for the first time against a backdrop of fireworks, as the climax of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” surges on the soundtrack? And yet for every slab of processed cheese, there’s another moment whose visual inventiveness pays off. In an early scene, Luhrmann turns one image in the novel—Nick looking out the window at a party, “simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life”—into a clever Rear Window-style tableau of a Manhattan apartment building bursting with untold stories.

Leonardo DiCaprio makes as good a Jay Gatsby as any living actor I can think of—he captures the character’s fixed-in-time boyishness as well as his innocent hucksterism, and he looks like a (dubiously ethical) million bucks in the splendiferous costumes by Catherine Martin, the director’s wife (who also designed the dizzyingly lavish, champagne-and-confetti-drenched production—she must have been one tired woman by the time shooting ended). But DiCaprio’s physical presence seems almost superfluous in some key scenes, as Maguire’s voice-over narrates the idealistic striver’s actions faster than he can complete them. Our first glimpse of Gatsby, before even the Gershwin-accompanied debut described above, is a shot of his be-ringed hand reaching toward that oft-revisited green light as Nick describes watching his enigmatic neighbor … reach for a green light off a dock. Luhrmann doesn’t just gild the lily, he spray-paints it with glow-in-the-dark sparkles.

Somehow the connection that’s established between Gatsby and Nick—the charismatic gangster and the shy young banker he dubs “old sport”—feels more vital and convincing than the illicit love between Daisy and Gatsby, which, despite Carey Mulligan’s sensitive performance, remains more of a narrative conceit. Perhaps the sweet-faced Mulligan is a little too sensitive for this part—there’s a hard, narcissistic edge to Daisy that we don’t glimpse until very late in the film (which also, disappointingly given Luhrmann’s literalness, misses the chance to work in Gatsby’s observation that “her voice is full of money”). Many of the actors in smaller roles—especially Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke as Tom Buchanan’s working-class mistress and her duped mechanic husband—seem to be straining to fill their limited screen time with the most theatrical, Punch-and-Judy style performances possible. If there’s a discovery in the cast, it’s the Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki, who plays Daisy’s enabling pal Jordan. In the novel, Nick describes the implacable Jordan as looking “like a good illustration, her chin raised a little jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf.” Debicki’s cool, reserved performance captures the stillness of that description—when she’s onscreen there’s a moment of respite from the noise, a sigh of relief that there’s someone in this feverishly over-self-explaining movie we may never understand.

The Great Gatsby — Leonardo DeCaprio and Carey Mulligan QUOTATIONS on CLASS:

“Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.” ― Ann Landers

“It’s okay. We aren’t in the same class. Just don’t forget that some of us watch the sunset too.” ― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all … The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.” ― Helen Keller, Rebel Lives: Helen Keller

“History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.” ― Jeffrey D. Sachs

Letters of Import: Visions Of A Future 8

3 Replies

Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
Visions Of A Future 8
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrations & abstract digital art by j. kiley
© jennifer kiley 2013
First Posting 03.19.13
Posted Weekly Early Tuesday Morning
Eighth Posting 05.07.13 Tuesday, November 19th, 2007

Dear Annie

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,

Regards,
Madison Taylor

Madison Tayler’s Fantasy of Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst. Not real.

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song #1 For “Letters of Import”

Philip Wesley—Two Souls(1980 Theme Song # 8 for Letter of Import: Visions Of A Future 8

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”

“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

Silver Linings Playbook & the Stigma of Bipolar

2 Replies

Silver Linings Playbook & The Stigma of Bipolar
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Film Review taken from Salon
Post Created with a short comment at the end
by jk the secret keeper
Posted 05.01.13

Bradley Cooper, star of Silver Linings Playbook, an Oscar-nominated film about a man living with bipolar disorder. His recent film is making progress toward removing the stigma of mental illness. I am changing the two words to Mentally Creative or Mentally Interesting. The medical community is trying to move away from diagnosing Bipolar or other issues with the brain as “Mental Illness.” They are Brain illnesses or diseases. They are not behavior problems or mental problems. Not should they be stigmatized. When you have the flu you treat it in order to get better. When you have Bipolar you treat it so that you have a better control of what is causing the patient to exhibit the brain illness. There are a variety of ways to treat bipolar as there are people that have that brain dis-ease. I don’t use medications with the exception of one. My thoughts are that you treat bipolar the way that is best for you. I try to work on what helps me keep it under better control. I am still new at it and not very good at following the ways that work the best. But bipolar tends to make you stubborn sometimes. That I have to work on, also. But to stigmatize anyone for having something they were born with or inherited or just woke up one day and there it is bipolar or any other brain illness. You don’t back away from someone with cancer or Parkinson’s or any other physical ailment. Well, bipolar is a physical part of you that is not functioning in a manner in which makes your life easier to live. by jk the SK

Silver Linings Playbook is a film that is a personal movie for David O’Russell and when the group all came together to do the film, it became a personal movie for all of them. Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, serves as a catalyst and she’s the first person who actually sees who Pat is. Pat is played by Bradley Cooper. That’s the thing that this film has done, people around this country who have seen this film say “this film actually sees who I am” because bipolar is heavily stigmatized, its not a very treatable disease and it’s a condition that is diagnosed way too late. So hopefully, a movie like this will help it become less stigmatized in the onset. The best thing about this movie is that it will be able to reach out and make people feel included. ~ Bradley Cooper

“Silver Linings Playbook” with Bradley Copper

I watched the film last night. My reaction immediately was to think of a way to make a film, write the script for a film, where instead of the mentally creative or mentally interesting being the center and the ones stigmatized, that it wouldn’t be that way at all, instead those that are stigmatized are the folks we consider “normal,” they are the ones we feel uncomfortable around and they are the ones who are put in the outskirts of society and the ones who are stigmatized. If you think about it, those who have bipolar feel uncomfortable around people who are “normal,” those who think they are above those who have problems with the brain. Bipolar isn’t a behavior problem or a mental illness, which I find to be an offensive term. Those with bipolar have the fortunate or unfortunate DNA or the brain misfirings that cause some of the “bipolar reactions” the world has toward bipolar or any other person who is mentally interesting or mentally challenged. Why do “normal” people feel that they have any better a grasp on the truth of life on how to live it than someone who has been “blessed” with the gift of bipolar.

Bipolar is something that is extremely difficult to live with, where every moment or split second could change in your reaction to your world and the way you relate to the people around you. You can fly off the handle and lose your temper from a slight change in your environment. Is that really something to be afraid of? I don’t think so. “Normal” people have moods, also. Yes, bipolar, there are mood changes, the thoughts race around your mind because you have so many ideas firing off in your brain at any given time. Life is exciting. Creating art is a major benefit that can be quite satisfying and comes at one in a rapid firing sort of way. It can be exhilarating. But in that same split second you may find yourself triggered by something you are unaware of that pushes you close to the edge of falling into a dark hole. And most times, you aren’t going to be able to catch a hold of something that will keep you from falling in. It’s an endless fall, like in Alice In Wonderland, except she eventually reaches the bottom and there usually is light there. Bipolar, the lights have gone out.

Finding your way in the dark, when you are feeling nothing but pure tortuous emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual pain, is overwhelming and blinding. Eventually, bipolar will take you to the edge that starts the voices up that make you want to kill yourself or harm yourself. If you have found a discipline when you reach this bottom level like writing or creating art, you usually start that up immediately. And you keep writing or doing your visual arts until you create something that satisfies your opinion that you have succeeded. This may be enough to level you out temporarily and you then may be able to sleep. But even then, you turn on the Walkman with the ear buds in, so not to disturb anyone else with the loudness of your music. The loudness is so that you can only hear the sound of the music and nothing else. It doesn’t usually shut out the death march. That goes on. The thoughts haunt you but you must think them. Bipolar takes you on a journey until you fall asleep.

Hopefully by morning the feelings are under control. Of course, that sleep may take you to 15 or more hours from when you close your eyes. It’s the only way to get back on track. Most likely you haven’t had any sleep in the past day or two. The benefits are that you may not go down that road of bipolar. If you are fortunate you may go down the high one where what you create makes you feel giddy and everything is delightful and light and the demons are sleeping, which means they are leaving you alone. In that bipolar world everything is happy and you laugh and you want the classical or light music to play and you want to create the uplifting poems or stories or art. You want to keep doing projects, to keep creating. So why is the world so afraid of that.

Being mentally creative or interesting isn’t contagious and bipolar people as a rule could care less about harming anyone else except maybe themselves depending on the mood. The mentally creative have been given a stigmatic bum’s rap for the violence of those who take guns and go off on the innocent of the world. Those people are not doing that because they have a brain disease, they are doing that because they are violent individuals or groups that hate themselves and the people that are in their world. Bipolar tends to want to just take care of themselves and stay away from people that judge them. They may yell suddenly and then settle down and forget about it and may want to throw things when they get frustrated but mostly they don’t have any thoughts of hurting anyone and if they get into a down spiral it is usually themselves they are wanting to harm.

So stigma is all in the mind of those who are afraid of people being real and usually afraid of themselves being real. The “normal” people don’t want their reality being touched by anything that might resemble the actual behavior of someone who is alive in any way that might make them have to have a real thought or feeling. I don’t think “normal” people know what they are. Aren’t they usually following the latest dogmatic leader that tells them how to think and how to feel about someone they don’t like. And what about all those people that don’t want to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes because in their “normal” brains they think that it might be them someday who is rich and when they get there they don’t want to have to pay high taxes. I would say the “normal” are the ones who are a bit deluded and can’t think for themselves. And the ones who are bipolar or any other mentally creative individual are the free thinkers and the ones who don’t judge and the ones who want to help support the world and all the people in it.

Maybe it is about time to take a closer look at who the good guys are and who are the ones fucking up the world. And it’s about time to stop stigmatizing and showing people with mentally creative brains as a threat to the safety of society and to see them as contributors in the way of artists and those with original ideas who will move the society and culture forward. Yes, we may get off the path every so often but doesn’t everyone need to do a walk about now and again. Stop judging everyone and start co-existing in peace. Accept difference don’t try to make everyone identical to who you are.
by Jennifer Kiley

Silver Linings Playbook – EXTENDED FEATURETTE HD (2013)Special Features

HERE IS A REVIEW FROM SALON FOR THE FILM: SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Friday, Nov 16, 2012 01:01 PM EST
“Silver Linings Playbook” is gold
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence face love and mental illness in the rich, manic new romantic comedy
By Andrew O’Hehir

We get thrown right into the middle of Pat Solitano Jr.’s troubled life story, without any of the usual context or background. Played by Bradley Cooper in a major departure from his customary sleek pretty-boy roles, Pat is the unhinged, overly intense and not always likable protagonist of David O. Russell’s manic, inventive and rewarding “Silver Linings Playbook.” When we first meet him, he’s standing in the corner of his spartan room in a Baltimore mental hospital, talking to himself. His mom, played by the terrific Australian actress Jacki Weaver, has shown up from Philadelphia to sign him out, against doctor’s orders and without having consulted her husband. What did Pat do that got him locked up in the first place? What’s going on with this family? Why do Pat’s wife and the school where he used to teach have restraining orders against him?

Answers to those questions won’t come into focus for a while, although you may rapidly reach the conclusion that the doctors were right and Pat would be better off heavily medicated and under psychiatric care. Back in the family’s Philly neighborhood, with its slightly desperate upper-fringe-of-the-working-class feeling, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) has no idea his younger son is returning home. One of the best and unarguably funniest roles of De Niro’s recent oddball supporting career, Pat Sr. fronts as an Italian-American tough guy but is more like a barely glued together mass of neuroses, a failing bookie with a penchant for disastrous side bets and an intense OCD relationship with the Philadelphia Eagles. (His wardrobe gets better and better as the movie progresses; I can’t stand football, but I want Pat Sr.’s Eagles-green cardigan.)

As for Pat Jr., whose apparel frequently involves a shapeless gray track suit topped with a black garbage bag – so he can sweat off weight as he runs – his first item of business is studying up on the high-school English syllabus his estranged wife, Nikki, is teaching, in hopes of impressing her at some unspecified future date. (Nikki plays an important role in Pat’s story, but almost entirely through her absence.) This leads, however, to Pat flinging a copy of “A Farewell to Arms” through a closed window at 4 o’clock in the morning, and awakening his parents with a maniacal rant against Ernest Hemingway. (He refuses to apologize, blaming Hemingway. Pat Sr. says, rather mildly, “Tell Ernest Hemingway to come down here and apologize to us in person.”) I can’t help detecting a genre commentary of sorts here, whether it originates with Russell (who also wrote the script) or Matthew Quick, author of the original novel: Hemingway was writing one kind of story, which purports to depict the tragedies of the real world in the 20th century and does not demand a happy ending. This is the other kind of story.

In fact, “Silver Linings Playbook” is a romantic comedy, even if it doesn’t feel like one at first. Furthermore, it’s a rom-com that succeeds in revitalizing that discredited genre where so many others have failed, injecting it with the grit and emotion of realist drama rather than with amped-up whimsy or social satire or montages of people walking on the beach while whiny emo-pop plays on the soundtrack. As he did with the boxing movie in “The Fighter,” Russell proves that you can breathe new life into one of the hoariest forms in the Hollywood lexicon. He takes a movie where everyone in the audience knows how it will end and makes us suspend our disbelief and fall in love all over again. (After an entire decade in the indie-film wilderness following his 1999 breakthrough with “Three Kings,” Russell seems to have found himself a niche reinventing classic movie genres.)

It helps, of course, that we’ve got a dynamite couple to fall in love with. Russell has long had a flair for unexpected casting combinations, but I really didn’t expect Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence to be such a combustible duo. (Yes, in real life, there’s a significant age spread between these two: Cooper is 37 and Lawrence 22. At the risk of sounding like a total sexist pig, it doesn’t play that way on-screen.) Finally getting unleashed from his immensely lucrative “Hangover” roles and a series of tepid leading-man movies, Cooper gives a twitchy, physical, marvelously alive performance as Pat Jr., who’s barely aware how poor his impulse control is and doesn’t seem to notice that his face is often marred with mysterious scars and bruises. As for Lawrence, she’s been in so many movies lately that she’s in danger of being overexposed but I only wish her chaste and cautious performance as Katniss Everdeen had one-third of the fire she shows here as Tiffany, a grieving widow going through a spectacular meltdown of her own.

There have been dozens if not hundreds of other movies about two damaged people who find each other, and quite a few that try to wring bittersweet laughs out of the painful struggle with mental illness. But it’s always wonderfully satisfying to see a conventional or archetypal story structure handled with this level of craft and enthusiasm. “Silver Linings Playbook” never feels like a movie you’ve seen before, even if Pat and Tiffany’s ultimate destination is clear the moment they meet. It seems clear to us, of course, but not to them; Tiffany assumes he’ll just be another entry on her long list of recent sexual partners, while Pat clings like a drowning man to the idea that his marriage to the invisible Nikki – which ended in an act of disturbing violence, as we eventually learn – can still be redeemed.

During Tiffany and Pat’s disastrous first date (which Pat insists isn’t a date, because he’s getting back together with Nikki any day now) they eat Raisin Bran at a diner while she regales him with steamy tales about sleeping with all her co-workers (male and female) at her last job. Pat isn’t literally wearing his garbage bag in that scene, but he might as well be. All the crockery ends up on the floor, along with the remnants of Raisin Bran, and we’re left with the realization that these two people are falling in love but may be too screwed-up to deal with it – a phenomenon that afflicts many of us at one time or another, from you and me to David Petraeus and that lady with the upper arms.

There’s no point denying that “Silver Linings Playbook” is shameless cornpone, given that the bumpy course of Pat and Tiffany’s romance includes such elements as a ballroom dancing competition, a crucial showdown between the Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys and a parlay bet orchestrated by Pat Sr. that links the two. Not to mention a deceptive epistolary exchange straight out of classic French theater. But where most American romantic comedies are either made by talentless hacks or by Hollywood pros who can barely conceal their contempt for the material and the audience, this one was made by a leading American director at the height of his powers who’s paying attention to every emotional beat, every cut and every frame. Great cinema? Hell, I don’t know. But one of the most satisfying movies, that much is for sure.

ADDED NOTE BY jk the secret keeper: I need to watch the film again. Somewhere in the middle I thought the film was over and dropped off and came back before the film was over. So I watched the beginning and the end but missed the middle. My partner, Shawn, thought the film was great. What I saw I agree with her. Make a lot of noise in the middle of the night. So you get woken up by someone yelling and he happens to be bipolar. I don’t think that’s enough to threaten to someone that their behavior is going to get them thrown back into the institution. Only in America does one live under that threat if one is not strictly staying in between the lines. Freedom is another word for nothing left to shout about. SINCE WHEN. THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS TO SHOUT ABOUT. Why do we have to be quiet to keep ourselves from being locked away. I do realize, and I am not going to give away a spoiler, that the main character has done something that makes the law question his behavior more carefully but the extreme I think everyone takes it seems too extreme to me and especially in society those who are different in their brain and act differently. These are not the dark ages and those with brain problems don’t deserve to be treated as lesser citizens. GO RENT THIS FILM. IT IS A QUIRKY ROMANTIC COMEDY. THE ACTORS ARE BRILLIANT. JENNIFER LAWRENCE DESERVED HER ACADEMY AWARD AND IT DESERVED TO BE NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE AT THE ACADEMY AWARDS. jk the secret keeper

Whitney Houston — I Look To You
QUOTATIONS on BIPOLAR:

“If I can’t feel, if I can’t move, if I can’t think, and I can’t care, then what conceivable point is there in living?” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

“When you are mad, mad like this, you don’t know it. Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else’s reality, it’s still reality to you.” ― Marya Hornbacher, Madness: A Bipolar Life

“Creativity is closely associated with bipolar disorder. This condition is unique . Many famous historical figures and artists have had this. Yet they have led a full life and contributed so much to the society and world at large. See, you have a gift. People with bipolar disorder are very very sensitive. Much more than ordinary people. They are able to experience emotions in a very deep and intense way. It gives them a very different perspective of the world. It is not that they lose touch with reality. But the feelings of extreme intensity are manifested in creative things. They pour their emotions into either writing or whatever field they have chosen” ― Preeti Shenoy, Life is What You Make It

“It was as if my father had given me, by way of temperament, an impossibly wild, dark, and unbroken horse. It was a horse without a name, and a horse with no experience of a bit between its teeth. My mother taught me to gentle it; gave me the discipline and love to break it; and- as Alexander had known so intuitively with Bucephalus- she understood, and taught me, that the beast was best handled by turning it toward the sun.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

“Crazy isn’t a condition it’s a place and it exists somewhere between Love and Oblivion” ― Stanley Victor Paskavich

Letters of Import: We Chose Life 7

1 Reply

Letters of Import: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
We Chose Life 7
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Illustrations & abstract digital art by j. kiley
© jennifer kiley 2013
First Posting 03.19.13
Posted Weekly Early Tuesday Morning
Seventh Posting 04.30.13 Tuesday, November 12th, 2007

Dear Annie

I must bring this to your immediate attention. Last week, when I wrote to you in our usual letter, I included a poem. It was a raw and painful poem to write. I would really like to discuss some of it with you in this letter. I hope you don’t mind. It has been making me feel rather vulnerable, even though I haven’t sent you the letter yet. Someday, any day, might be when I do get brave enough and really write these letters with the direct expectation of mailing them to you or handing them to you in person. The second way would make me feel more assured that you received the letters personally and no one else touched them or might accidentally open them. I don’t think anyone at the counseling center would ever do something like that intentionally. But these are very private letters meant for your eyes only. Just thinking about discussing the poem I wrote is making me feel rather anxious. In fact, I feel like I am starting to have a panic attack. Let me take a Klonopin before we continue. After that I will post the poem and the paragraph that followed it. I want to discuss that along with the poem. I’ll be right back.

Here I am, back really quickly. It will only take about 15 minutes for the med to take effect. Well, here goes, this is the poem once again appearing in one of my letters I am writing to only you. If I ever give these letters to you, I must have your word that you will never ever show these to anyone else. No one must know what I am telling you. These have to be our secret. If you only knew how I feel inside.

How do I really feel about you Annie? Right now, I have no idea. Too afraid to go inside to find out what I truly feel. The whole of the world confounds me. It just makes me feel depressed. It just feels that I can’t hold onto the people I love. They just tend to die. It’s not like they’re even old. When you die in your twenties, I would call that dying “Forever Young.” Too many die FY. You’re not going to do that, are you Annie?

What do you think of my poem? If you read it now, how would you decipher it? I’ll play both of us. You go first, or should I? Let me pull out the first three lines. The writer, the lover, the thinker: isn’t something missing? Whose feeling anything? The lover is just sexual. You can do that without any feelings at all. The writer is mental but could be emotional with the words they are expressing. But I don’t think so. It’s cerebral. The thinker, existential separation anxiety filled with analytical theorizing until infinity gets exhausted.

Someone is missing. Someone who connects in a soulful way with people or animals. Who is that? Lets think about it. Send out feelings to find out who they are? You think a spiritualist. I thought I was one of those people. I believe in the spirit, the soul, the astral body, the separation from the physical. The soul is just carrying the weight of the body while its heart beats and air fills its lungs and the grey matter still is able to function to make the physical tissues of the body perform.

I was thinking tonight about Heaven Annie. As I made it up the stairs to bed and my cat always raced up the stairs before me. We play that game every night. I make believe I’m going to beat him tonight. It’s always the challenge. There’s no way in Hell that I can ever beat him. But he loves the game. You want to know his name? He goes by many. He has such a magnificent personality. We call him Sparky because he sparks like fireworks. It’s not his official name. That one is proper. We named him Higgins after the character in the great Broadway play Pygmalion. He responds to anything but Higgins and he rather prefers being called Sparky.

What the Hell are we talking about? Is it about making it through with some enjoyment and to try to forget about all the nightmares? Or are we suppose to face the nightmares? The soul tells me that we have to or we won’t make it. I have too many. How about you? What are your bad dreams? What tried to fuck you up? Any bad people in your dreams? You seem pretty together but anyone can put a mask on. Why do you suppose we all try to hide from everyone? We are all human. Our feelings fall somewhere into the human category. Are we afraid people will think we are crazy or too weird?

Back to the poem, the next three lines are pretty explosive. Feeling the fool for not hearing, the silence for not screaming and feelings trying to blow the whole thing wide open but being stopped somehow. What stopped me? You probably would like to know that. A good reason, how about one of the abusers threatened to kill me right at the moment I told him if he didn’t stop I would go to the police. Wrong thing to say to a nasty, mean pedophile. He tried to kill me but he stopped at just making me feel he was going to crush my head into stones like Stonehenge. He pulled back but not until he told me he would not only kill me but my whole family. Those other people who also abused me. For some reason I felt I needed to protect them. I didn’t care if he killed me. My life was ruined. They all in combination destroyed who I am. They crushed my life. I am dead. My spirit has been stolen from me. It’s like in Peter Pan, they stole my shadow, my reflection. I don’t have one any longer. I am invisible. That’s why no one can see me. Why I never get noticed except when someone wants to hurt me or make me feel more pain so that I really do want to be invisible. I just wanted to die.

The only reason I stayed alive was I loved my grandmother. The funny thing about it all, my grandma, she had an accident shortly after this and went into the hospital. She never went home again. I saw her once at the hospital. I climbed into her hospital bed with her. Under the oxygen tent, we hugged. I held her so close. Her arms used her strength, as much as she could and held me close. Then it was time to go. I gave a bunch of kisses to say goodbye to her. I didn’t know I would never see her alive again.

She died in protest. They wanted her to become one of the forgotten. She wasn’t going to let them do that to her. She told them that it was something she would never do, going to a nursing home. She stopped her breathing and her heart from beating. She left me behind. I stopped living when she stopped, too.

“The feelings trying to explode…Where was the awareness?” I was clueless on what or who to, if anyone, to talk to. I never talked to anyone back then. Words were not my companion when spoken out loud. Not something I even knew how to do. Didn’t know how. Had no practice. What would have been the right words to say anyway? I didn’t know them to say or to even write down on paper. I am only learning now how to connect my words with feeling.

“We say ‘Welcome to the surface.’ It should have been Welcome to the circus. “Now what needs to be done?” We need to find someone new that we can really talk to. Someone who will listen and really hear what we are saying. Not judge us. Try to understand. And not constantly criticize us and try to put us down. Diminish who we are. That’s been done all our life except in college. For some reason I mattered when I was in college. I felt important and wanted. The same happened when I was part of the Women’s Center when I lived in Connecticut. It’s not so much I want to feel important. I just want to feel like I matter. Everyone I think needs to feel important in some way.

“Releasing the energy ensnared for decades amongst twisted webs…” I have been so blocked. My thoughts and feelings didn’t have an outlet. And I didn’t know how to say the words. I was made my own prisoner eventually, out of fear. Demons possessed me with fear. All the demons from all the years of abuse and made to feel like I was nothing, a nobody that had no worth or purpose.

“The voice is seeking freedom but holding onto multiple secrets.” We have a central voice but we also have multiple voices. With all the alters, we have to listen to all their voices and all the needs they tell us that they have. It’s hard to keep track or remember. It is really confusing inside our head sometimes. But we were working with a woman therapist who had her moments of quality therapy but she had her problems. I have an obsessive alter who was in love with her and obsessed with her. Let’s call it quite dependent. We were attached. We needed her. She was the first therapist that figured out what was going on inside our head. She figured out the DID. I have to admit when she told us we has other personalities, it really freaked us out. Kind of went into shock and some heavy denial. No way could that be possible. She said the psychiatrist agreed with her after he tested me.

That was the big secret. We thought realizing we were Gay was enough of a shock but being MPD was more difficult. Coming out of that closet was worst. It took us a while before we could tell Scottie and we had been together for a long time at that point. Almost 15 years. When I found the courage to tell her, her reaction was: “Oh, I already knew.” I asked her why she didn’t tell me. “Because you needed to figure that out yourself.” Of course, she was right. It wasn’t easy. Like I usually do, I bought or borrowed every book I could find on the subject of MPD. I learned it all. Enough to get a degree.

There is so much more to discuss in this poem. I packed it with a great deal of exposure of my past. I need a break. I may try to answer more of the points in this letter or carry it over to the next letter.

It’s a list of some of the confusion that smashed into our life. It started when we were really little and didn’t stop. The abuse continued when we were adults. No was the word that meant nothing to anyone who wanted something from us. Our body betrayed us. We couldn’t stop anyone from forcing us. Some didn’t even realize they were forcing us but they were. If we shut down inside we became frozen. We couldn’t stop what was happening. This started when we were little and continued into our adult relationships. It was all on some degree of force. We weren’t there in our bodies. We left or went deep inside or floated on the ceiling until it was over.

It wasn’t consensual. It was a form of rape and abuse. We wanted love but not sex. We didn’t want to be sexually aroused because it would always end with us disappearing and our bodies would shut down. It was like turning the keys off in a car. The engine would stop running and so would we. Eventually we created an outside person, a human robot, who faked our life like a computer. She would accumulate data. And learned the expected behavior and that would be hos she would perform. We were safe inside while she was out there living a fake life as a fake person. A puppet represented us. She hid in plain sight. No one would find us with the puppet self having a controlled pattern of behavior, always asking questions to improve her performance do she wouldn’t be detected.

Our hiding place was discovered by this woman therapist. She saw through the facade. She was tricky and scary to us. She got to close. We started to care too much. She opened up the rawness in us. She made us need people. Specifically, she made us need her too desperately. We felt so close to her. But more like the fox in Le Petite Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. She tamed part of our wildness. She made us want to be loved by her. Being loved and wanting to love in return puts such a control on you. I began to develop an overwhelming need for her. It was driving me mad. Everything started falling apart. My life felt out of control.

Our hiding place was revealed. There was no place to go except into madness and wanting to commit suicide. Suicide has always been a part of our life. It is a part of our breathing. It is always an alternative to the divine madness. We can escape that way any time we chose. But it is not an answer we can choose. Not with all that we are responsible for. Our life needs us to be in it. Everything has changed. We are learning to begin to live. We have found a purpose. It is delicate and sometimes difficult to balance but we are giving our new life all that we are able to give it. We know and are learning what we are able to do. We are able to write. We are able to be creative. Our artistic nature is starting to blossom. We are letting it be free. It likes that. It feels like are trusted to let the muse guide us. She always seems to be when we need her. We don’t push it. We let it be a natural flow. We like, no we love where we are now. It does have its difficulties with the mentally creative activities that bombard our brain. But we work hard on that more with our doc then with Mr. Xxx. He is about as helpful as a dead skeleton. His sense of warmth and communication I’d to tell stories that do not at all relate to what I am feeling or going through. He doesn’t help me at all except to give me reasons to escape my life. He lets me run away. I know I have my weaknesses but I need to find my life before I die or I kill myself because I can’t live with the confusion any longer or the depressions or rage.

I want to say that I am here and I want to stay alive. We want to be here. We choose life.

We fought through them trying to destroy us. They didn’t succeed. We are still alive. No matter how many battles. No matter how many nights we have to fight to make it alive til morning gets here. Therapy, knowing my psychoanalyst is there is so reassuring. It means at least one person is out there in our Universe that knows we are alive. That we exist. Being alive is a higher grade than just existing. The artist that lives inside of us makes it all matter. Otherwise, nothing else matters. If I didn’t have my art, my animals, the women I love and the men who are decent that I love. A good home and family who I love and who love me. The special people who know who they are. They are part of what make this life I live matter. But that involves some major time tripping. I am having visions of a future in my life, but I must be patient and wait for that time to happen. It is a good sign that I make it to that future. Others do not.

Here in 2007 I have you Annie. I am focusing on that. Your presence is beginning to mean something more to me than I even understand at this moment. We will see where that takes us.

Until next time.

Regards,
Madison I attach this to the letters I write to you Annie to assure the strictest of confidence.

To Annie,

Regards,
Madison Taylor

Madison Tayler’s Fantasy of Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst. Not real.

Maksim — Somewhere In Time — Theme Song #1 For “Letters of Import”

Damien Rice — The Blowers Daughter — film Closer (1980 Theme Song # 7 for Letter of Import: We Chose Life 7

the labyrinth called “wandering wonderland.” it is where madison, scottie and their cats, patrick, sparky and toker love to escape to

madison’s “woods of imagination” where she takes long walks to reflect. it starts just past the labyrinth

QUOTATIONS from: LETTERS of IMPORT: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst

“A Dream

The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
And we are all players
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor

“For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
~Michael Drayton~
(1563-1631)

“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
Christopher Marlowe for “Hero and Leander”

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame…” — Jack London

“There are two kinds of people. One kind…they congealed into their final selves…you can expect no more surprises from them…the other kind keep moving, changing… They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive…” ― Gail Godwin

“Here’s Looking At You Kid”

2 Replies

“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 680x540

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

Tribute To Casablanca
Filled With Spoilers

Casablanca La Marseillaise

All About the Film “Casablanca”

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.

x-treme haiku: "desire" by j. kiley © jennifer kiley 2013 823x6441

Play It, Sam — As Time Goes By

QUOTATIONS on FILM & DESIRE:

FILM:

“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

Only Love

5 Replies

Only Love
Poem & Story by Jennifer Kiley
Videos & Photographs by Shawn MacKenzie
© Shawn Mackenzie
Extra Photographs by J. Kiley
© jennifer kiley
Created Post 04.24.13
Posted 04.25.13

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.

Only Love — Melissa Etheridge — Our Kittens b. 04.22.2012

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 960x720

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

Surprise Song — Birthday One Year Old on April 22 2013 — Poe Parker Carter

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 sily and hitting the catnip

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

It's Time For... wp.me/p1xQha-3kL...imagination 8 hours ago
Letters of Import: Incompetency Revealed 10 wp.me/p1xQha-3g5 @occultguardian problem w/ incompetence...inability 2 recognize itself....imagination 1 day ago
Letters of Import: Incompetency Revealed 10 wp.me/p1xQha-3g5...imagination 1 day ago
Nora Ephron's Lessons About Love Today She Would Be 72 wp.me/p1xQha-3kE @occultguardian “I’ll have what she is having.” WHMS Meg Billy...imagination 2 days ago
Nora Ephron's Lessons About Love: Today She Would Be 72 wp.me/p1xQha-3kE...imagination 2 days ago
On Her 72nd Birthday, 10 Things Nora Ephron Taught Us About Love huff.to/19PFap9 via @HuffPostEnt...imagination 2 days ago
The Sessions wp.me/p1xQha-3kp via @occultguardian “Fall off the edge of the earth and crash into euphoria.” — Unknown...imagination 3 days ago

Follow @occultguardian

	ontheplumtree on It’s Time For…
	Shawn MacKENZIE on It’s Time For…
	the secret keeper on Letters of Import: Incompetenc…
	the secret keeper on The Sessions
	ontheplumtree on The Sessions
	the secret keeper on Nora Ephron’s Lessons Ab…
	the secret keeper on The Sessions
	the secret keeper on Light and Cloud-Shadows
	the secret keeper on about
	the secret keeper on “Even Nothing Cannot Las…
	ontheplumtree on “Even Nothing Cannot Las…
	DivineGrace on about
	the secret keeper on “Even Nothing Cannot Las…

the secret keeper

finding truths; creativity; bipolar; love; child abuse; fantasy; art; poetry; haiku; music; films; writing; inspiration; animals; psychotherapy; secrets; news

Category Archives: relationships

Letters of Import: Incompetency Revealed 10

The Sessions

Letters of Import: Talking Privately 9

Genius or Madness?

The Great Gatsby

Silver Linings Playbook & the Stigma of Bipolar

Letters of Import: We Chose Life 7

“Here’s Looking At You Kid”

Only Love

Follow “the secret keeper”

May 2013
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Apr
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Follow “the secret keeper”