“Even Nothing Cannot Last Forever”
Quote by Neil Gaiman
Post Created Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created on May 18th 2013
Posted May 18th 2013
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” ― Dr. Seuss
“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” ― Lloyd Alexander
“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” ― Terry Pratchett
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
“When I was your age, television was called books.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride
“It’s so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” ― Albert Einstein
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” ― Dr. Seuss
Genius or Madness?
“Up/Down” Bipolar Disorder Documentary
Post Created by Jk the SK
Illustrated by j. kiley
Created May 12th 2013
Posted May 13th 2013
Original Transcript
6 November 2012
Genius or Madness?
Professor Glenn Wilson
“Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide” (John Dryden, 1681).
“There is no great genius without a tincture of madness” (Seneca, 1st Century A.D.).
dali spider of the evening
Many great artists and scientists appear to have gone slightly mad following their lofty achievements. Isaac Newton was arguably the greatest physicist of all time, introducing the concept of gravity and making major advances in optics, mechanics and mathematics. He was also intensely suspicious and distrustful of others and in later life dabbled in alchemy and sought hidden messages in the Bible. Of course, alchemy was not thought a mad pursuit in Newton’s day and he could have been afflicted with mercury poisoning as a result of his experiments.
dali the disintegration of the persistance of memory
Beethoven and Van Gogh are also said to have gone progressively mad, though the reasons are equally debatable. Beethoven’s mania may have been due to alcoholism, syphilis, or lead poisoning (apart from his profound deafness, which would distress anyone, let alone a musician). There are theories that Van Gogh’s mood swings were caused by porphyria rather than bipolar disorder, that he lost his ear in a duel with Gauguin (claiming self-injury to maintain his friendship) and that his “suicide” was an accidental shooting by two boys playing cowboys (whom he also protected).
van gogh starry night on the rhone
For others, the genius and madness appear in parallel. Nikola Tesla was a brilliant applied scientist whose inventions rivaled those of Edison. He obtained around 300 patents in radio and electricity technologies, pioneering alternating current and hydroelectric power. However, he claimed to be in communication with other planets, to have invented “death rays” and suffered from bizarre compulsions.
van gogh bridge
John Nash, the Nobel-winning mathematician who developed “game theory” for the social sciences also suffered paranoid delusions throughout his career. He was hospitalised involuntarily and had to feign sanity to be released. He still heard the voices but learned how to live with them and not to talk about them. “I wouldn’t have had such good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally” he said.
van gogh starry night
Sometimes it is a matter of chance or social milieu that determines whether an individual is deemed brilliant or crazy. To the Counter-Reformation Church leaders, Galileo was not necessarily mad (probably just heretical) but they clearly failed to appreciate his genius and subjected him to a lifetime of house arrest. In other times and places Picasso and Einstein might have been committed to an insane asylum rather than revered for their original thinking.
moby dick – jackson pollock
Many lists of creative achievers throughout history have been compiled along with mental health symptoms and diagnostic categories retrospectively assigned to them. Unfortunately, these are mostly anecdotal, speculative and lacking in proper controls for comparison. Some have argued that the connection between genius and madness has been over-egged because of a few high-profile cases such as those described above.
virginia woolf by george charles beresford 1902
The best evidence in support of the genius-madness link comes from behaviour genetics. The close relatives of creative people are more likely to be schizophrenic and vice versa (psychotics having more creative relatives). Einstein, for example, had a son who was schizophrenic, while Bertrand Russell had many schizophrenic relatives. According to Simonton (1999), “creative hits and crazy misses” are mixed within many illustrious family pedigrees, including the Darwins, Galtons and Huxleys.
virginia woolf
The first degree relatives of creative people are actually more prone to mental disorders than creatives themselves. This is because actual illness (as opposed to its genetic predisposition) is likely to impede a creative career. The exception seems to be writers, who themselves show high rates of many behavioural disorders, including psychoses, mood disorders, substance abuse and suicide.Could the environment also be involved? Traumatic events in childhood and orphan status seem more common in those who make outstanding contributions to art and science. In a study of 700 high achievers, found that three-quarters had troubled childhoods, especially loss of a parent. The “school of hard knocks” could provide motivation and inspiration (Dickens and Chaplin come to mind here) while at the same time generating psychological disorder. However, this idea is opposite to the common-sense view that parental support and encouragement is beneficial to achievement, rather than maltreatment and deprivation. Indeed, the Goetzels found that wealth was more common in the backgrounds of famous people than poverty. And of course, pathology in the parents may be genetically transmitted to their children, thus accounting for some of the associations reported.
Virginia Woolf
Similar thought processes, such as unusual and grandiose ideas, together with a determination to promote them, seem to link genius and psychosis. Certain neurotransmitters and gene loci have been cited as common to both, including the male sex hormone testosterone, a gene relating to a growth factor involved in neural development and plasticity called neuregulin 1 (NRG1 and genes modulating dopamine transmission in the brain, e.g., DARPP-32.
virginia woolf painting
Unconventional thinking is characteristic of a constitutional personality trait called Psychoticism (P). This has many facets, including tough-mindedness, lack of empathy, impulsiveness, risk-taking, adventure-seeking, bizarre thinking, and a refusal to adhere to social norms. High levels of P predispose to psychopathy and clinical psychosis, as well as to creativity, thus accounting for the overlap between them. A good deal of research over recent decades has supported this theory. A related trait is called schizotypy. An optimum number of indicators for this relates to creative achievement, rather than full-blown schizophrenia.
kurt cobain
Dopamine function (or dysfunction?) may account for the link between genius and madness. Dopamine is the chemical messenger in the meso-limbic and cortical areas of the brain concerned with approach, reward, positive mood and achievement-seeking. Genes that modulate dopamine levels are reported to affect novelty-seeking behaviour and to relate to Impulsivity and Psychoticism. Recreational drugs that are addictive and sometimes lead to delusions and hallucinations (e.g., amphetamine psychosis) tend to raise levels of dopamine in the brain. By contrast, anti-psychotic medications are usually dopamine antagonists (this being one of the reasons why compliance is difficult). Untreated schizophrenics have more D2 receptors in the striatum and lower D2 binding in the thalamus.
kurt cobain – bipolar
Genius and psychotic are both inclined to loose associations (i.e., “thinking outside the box”). This can be observed as unusual responses on a word association test or in some of Salvador Dali’s surreal images (e.g., the Lobster-Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa). Such flexibility of thought seems to be increased by dopamine.
beethoven – bipolar
Another description of the schizophrenic thinking style is that it tends to be over-inclusive, with the boundaries of relevance being set more broadly. To most people, an apple falling off a tree and the movement of planets in the solar system would appear to have nothing in common, but Newton was insightful enough to connect them under the grand unifying concept of “gravity.” Of course, not all such generalisations turn out to be that useful but many great scientific theories depend upon the ability to perceive improbable connections.
carrie fisher – bipolar
Exactly how loose associations or over-inclusive thinking promote genius is unclear. If enough crazy ideas are generated, one or two might hit the target by chance alone. This approach is deliberately harnessed in “brainstorming” sessions which use random “flashcards” as a means of generating fresh ideas. Certainly, it is difficult to be creative operating within received wisdom and some of the greatest artists and composers were the “rebels” least shackled by the traditional rules of their art. However, the “shotgun” theory smacks slightly of “monkeys on typewriters”. (It would take a long time for them come up with the complete works of Shakespeare). Outstanding advances in science, like the theories of evolution and relativity, and great works of art, such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle, cannot be generated by chance alone. Profound imagination and high-level spatial intelligence is usually required in addition.
bipolar behaviour
Application to the point of “work addiction” is also often involved. Edison reckoned that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.Most creative people are also the most productive. There is a positive correlation between quality and quantity of output, implying that each masterpiece is likely to be interspersed with much that is mediocre. (I do not ne)cessarily agree with this statement.)
marilyn monroe – bipolar
The human tendency to apophenia may be implicated in both creativity and madness. This refers to seeing meaningful patterns where they do not exist and it underlies superstition and hallucinations (e.g., seeing ghosts and hearing “voices”). This perceptual style has survival value because failing to spot a predator in the forest is a bigger (potentially fatal) mistake than seeing one where it does not exist. Exaggerated apophenia is characteristic of schizotypal individuals and is enhanced by dopamine.
ernest hemingway – bipolar
Another mental “illness” linked with creativity is bipolar mood disorder (previously called “manic-depressive psychosis”). This is characterised by extreme mood swings, occurring over a period of months, and it seems particularly to afflict artists, writers, musicians and comedians. Among highly talented people who appear to have suffered mood disorder are Peter Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Spike Milligan, Paul Merton and Stephen Fry (who presented a TV documentary on bipolar disorder detailing his experiences).
winston churchill – bipolar
Genetic analysis shows links between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Sufferers are often tortured souls, particularly when the “Black Dog” afflicts them, and their feelings may be tapped to give greater depth and sensitivity to their art. On the other hand, the “flight of ideas” experienced in the “manic” phase of the mood cycle can result in exceptional productivity. As with the trade-off between schizophrenia and genius, bipolar disorder balances troughs with peaks in a way that might account for its evolutionary survival. Treatments are available for bipolar disorder but there is a danger that, by smoothing mood, they could impede the creative forces.
bipolar wheel
Then there are the autistic spectrum disorders (such as Asperger’s syndrome) in which a deficiency in social communication is sometimes accompanied by “savant” skills in fields like music, mathematics and spatial intelligence. In the film Rain Man (1988), Dustin Hoffman plays Raymond Babbitt an autistic whose exceptional memory is exploited by his brother to count cards in Las Vegas casinos. (This was loosely based on a real-life savant called Kim Peek, who may in fact have had a chromosome disorder). The artist Louis Wain, who became famous for his surrealistic cat paintings was hospitalised for schizophrenia, but others have argued he was actually autistic.
marilyn monroe poster
These various “disorders” can all contribute to extraordinary contributions to art and science. Some tendency to psychotic traits seems to be beneficial (thus accounting for the maintenance of such genes) but too much makes the individual disorganised and is hence detrimental. It is notable that creative artists and writers have profiles similar to those of psychotic patients on clinical scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) but are less extreme – in fact, roughly half-way between normal controls and full-blown schizophrenics.
mel gibson – bipolar
What is the mechanism whereby schizophrenic genes promote survival? The clue may be in the behaviour of bower birds, the males of which make colourful and elaborate constructions in order to attract a female (the Taj Mahals of the bird world). Creativity has also been shown to promote mating success in men, as measured by number of sex partners. Since there is no such connection for women, it is not surprising that men’s productivity in art and science exceeds that of women by around ten times.(I don’t believe this statement about men exceed women by around ten times in productivity in art and science—more like opportunity and the continued imbalance in availability and acknowledgment).
medical cannabis for bipolar treatment
Obviously, it does not do to be totally and permanently “away with the fairies”; some measure of control needs to be maintained. Consider James Joyce and his daughter Lucia, who was being treated by Carl Jung for schizophrenia in 1934. Joyce doubted she could be schizophrenic because her thought patterns were so similar to his own. Jung disagreed, comparing father and daughter to two people who had arrived at the bottom of a river. According to Jung, James had dived there, whereas Lucia had fallen in.
“Up/Down” Bipolar Disorder Documentary FULL MOVIE (2011)This is a brilliantly made Documentary. Everyone who is Bipolar or knows someone who is or those in the Psychiatric profession and do counseling with anyone who is bipolar or anyone interested in bipolar and everyone who wants to have a knowledge of bipolar and find out what it is from what the myths are or how much people are misinformed about bipolar. A MUST SEE VIDEO. STOP THE STIGMA OF BIPOLAR AND ANY FORM OF MENTAL “ILLNESS” CREATIVITY.
“There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” ― Oscar Levant
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.” ― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle
“I’m a misunderstood genius.”
“What’s misunderstood?”
“Nobody thinks I’m a genius.”
― Bill Watterson
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” ― E.F. Schumacher
“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde
“The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia
QUOTATIONS on MADNESS:
“Sanity is a madness put to good uses.” ― George Santayana, Essential Santayana, The: Selected Writings
“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there’s always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.” ― Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke
“Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
“I don’t possess these thoughts I have — they possess me. I don’t possess these feelings I have — They obsess me.” ― Ashly Lorenzana
“The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.” ― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does not spring from disease of thought — from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the ‘light ineffable’.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora
QUOTATIONS on BIPOLAR:
“I’m the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible…” ― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one’s marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends’ faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against– you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Compared to bipolar’s magic, reality seems a raw deal. It’s not just the boredom that makes recovery so difficult, it’s the slow dawning pain that comes with sanity – the realization of illnesss, the humiliating scenes, the blown money and friendships and confidence. Depression seems almost inevitable. The pendulum swings back from transcendence in shards, a bloody, dangerous mess. Crazy high is better than crazy low. So we gamble, dump the pills, and stick it to the control freaks and doctors. They don’t understand, we say. They just don’t get it. They’ll never be artists.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
“Depression is a painfully slow, crashing death. Mania is the other extreme, a wild roller coaster run off its tracks, an eight ball of coke cut with speed. It’s fun and it’s frightening as hell. Some patients – bipolar type I – experience both extremes; other – bipolar type II – suffer depression almost exclusively. But the “mixed state,” the mercurial churning of both high and low, is the most dangerous, the most deadly. Suicide too often results from the impulsive nature and physical speed of psychotic mania coupled with depression’s paranoid self-loathing.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
“Absurdity and anti—absurdity are the two poles of creative energy.” ― Karl Lagerfeld
“Except you cannot outrun insanity, anymore than you can outrun your own shadow.” ― Alyssa Reyans, Letters from a Bipolar Mother
“Clear your energy, honor your rhythm, live your vision ” ― George Denslow, Living Out of Darkness: A Personal Journey of Embracing the Bipolar Opportunity
It is my great pleasure to welcome Uncle Tree. He should feel quite at home here as he has great sympathy with roots and branches! The root of his post on the Wednesday Corner is his appreciation of the work of D.H. Lawrence - the branches of which, reach into Heaven itself. Many thanks, Uncle Tree aka Keith Alan Watson…
Niamh Clune presenting The Wednesday Corner with Uncle Tree. A brilliant choice. aka Keith Alan Watson brings us into the world of D.H. Lawrence and his poem "The Shadow." Here is the first verse that I am going to post. To read the post and the rest of the poem follow the reblog back to On The Plum Tree. The poem:
“Shadows” by D.H. Lawrence
if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
Jk the secret keeper. PS. Well done!
Why Lists Appeal To Us
Inspired by Susan Sontag
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Created May Day 05.01.13
Posted 05.02.13
Quite Busy — abstract digital art
WHY LISTS APPEAL TO US
Whenever I am online and come across the top (fill in with random number) list, I cannot resist finding out who or what made that list. I am, especially, interested in lists that would contain films, books, actors, food, who died and how, famous scandals, famous or infamous murders. I am sure there are many other curiosities I’d want to add to this list.
Umberto Eco stated: “The list is the origin of culture.” It is a currency of culture, unfortunately, also.
Susan Sontag had the clout. When she made a list it meant something because she was somebody. I think to our own self our lists would mean something. It would record our opinion for this period of time what we lied or disliked. It would also be a fun game to play with friends or friendly acquaintances. We could make our list fun. Make up our own. Do some research and find out interesting details and make lists out of them. That is what I am going to try to do with this post. Make a fun group of lists. Adding some illustrations. Make it a fun and possibly inspiring post that might set off the spirit in you, the reader, and possibly fellow artist, to make your own lists.
Oh, and I just want to make it clear this has nothing to do with making lists of things to do for chores. I, personally, hate to do those lists. If I need to absolutely have a number of things that need doing, I will tell Shawn, my partner, and hope she will remember. With my writing I make outlines for a screenplay. For a post for my blog, I will set up a new edit page and copy & paste the beginnings of the post and add to it as I build to prepare post. For writing a poem, if it is for an X-treme Haiku poem, I collect and research the words and definitions I might want to use. First though I choose the main word. The center of the poem from which I am to build the complete structure. In a technical way, these are a kind of list but in this post I really am thinking more in the line of specific likes and dislikes and lists of the top ten or twenty of something specifically related. Enough of that as an explanation.
A list is like an unordered stream of consciousness of likes and dislikes flowing from ones mind like a meditation forming it self into a creative poetic form. THESE ARE NOT NECESSARILY IN THE ORDER OF REFERENCE BUT JUST HAPPEN TO BE IN THE ORDER OF HOW MY MIND DELIVERED THEM TO MY BRAIN:
Things I Like: cats, techno gadgets, sound of the ocean, love, lily, metaphysical books, metaphysical passionate poetry, writing, writing love poems, great poems, e.e. cummings, dreams, white horse in dreams, philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, editing manuscript, rewriting manuscript, illustrating manuscript’s rewrites, posting on the secret keeper, love reading great poems & books by Niamh Clune, living with Shawn, our family of animals, saki our amazon parrot, my body naked, reading, water, streams, rivers, lakes, coke(drinking kind), mescaline, mysteries, British TV, marijuana, panthers, wild cats, horses, massages, being warm, music, having money to help other people, swimming pools, horseback riding, walks on the beach, classic films, understanding, wisdom, knowledge, libraries, lesbians, gay people, psychotherapist, friends, emails, lottery, winning lottery, fantasies, day dreaming, great/good dreams, angels, black, white, rainbows, good crying, feeling good, delicious food, freshly baked bread, chocolate, eclairs, coconuts, orange juice, music mp3, great documentaries, dvds, dvrs, laptop computers, tablets, cell phones, text messages,
Things I Dislike: spiders, snakes, lizards, republicans, tea party jackasses, nightmares, clutter, pain, site of blood, animals bites, parrot bites, liars, interloper, covet, floods, feeling cold, mean people, classism, 1%, car accidents, awful music, loud noises, pain in back, pain in whole body, starvation, droughts, hungry children, homelessness, bugs except fireflies butterflies and lady bugs, demons, black magic, curses, evil, guns, killing, bombs, hatred, pedophiles, spanking children,
Things I Like: furry animals, great films, great actors, smoking good weed, high naturally, good hypomania, tablet, sleep when ready, being awake, working on creative projects, ear buds with music at the other end, great art, abstract digital art, Jackson Pollock dropping phase, Walkman, comedy, plays, theatre, good erotica, women with character, hugging the right person, British accent(the one Henry Higgins taught Eliza Doolittle, Julie Andrews, Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, Maggie Smith, British Actors, Nicole Kidman, Virginia Woolf, Veggie Cheeseburgers, rain, sound of rain, laughing, truth, honesty, peace, writing screenplays, film making, creating abstract digital art, making collages, making posters, using my laptop, creating stories, writing books, writing poetry, writing letters to those I love, making my friends smile, creating blog posts, swearing when necessary, tickling, blueberry pie, cupcakes with white frosting, my niece Christa, my great nephew Luke, my brother AL, Carl G. Jung, playwrights, screenplays, short stories, reading about psychology, being on the internet, skyping with someone I care about, chatting online, posting my poems, creating ideas for blog, working on posts for blog, getting high naturally, hypomania when in control, trusting, trust
Things I Dislike: reality tv, tv where women are brutally murdered, cigarette smoke, racist sexist white males, homophobia, Westboro Baptist Church, Survivalists, terrorists(homegrown & worldly), people who seek to be presidents should not be, women who don’t support other women’s rights, dogmatic individuals, messianic lunatics, fundamentalists, Taliban, censorship, prudes, homophobes, religious right, war, the shadow mother, abusive people, people who harm children, murderers, people who don’t try to be understanding, bigots, depression, delusions, suicide, bullying, physical abuse, sexual abuse, child abuse, stupidity, ignorance, close mindedness, domestic violence, drunkedness, father’s who abuse, mother’s who abuse, none responsive to your children, beating children,
TOP 25 FILMS ACCORDING TO IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base)
Rank Rating Title Votes
1. 9.2 The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 959,986
2. 9.2 The Godfather (1972) 684,463
3. 9.0 The Godfather: Part II (1974) 441,880
4. 8.9 Pulp Fiction (1994) 747,062
5. 8.9 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) 291,444
6. 8.9 12 Angry Men (1957) 236,037
7. 8.9 The Dark Knight (2008) 933,988
8. 8.9 Schindler’s List (1993) 492,471
9. 8.8 The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King (2003) 685,775
10. 8.8 Fight Club (1999) 730,858
11. 8.8 Star Wars: Episode V -
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 470,576
12. 8.8 The Lord of the Rings:
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 710,646
13. 8.8 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) 401,249
14. 8.7 Inception (2010) 749,430
15. 8.7 Goodfellas (1990) 418,847
16. 8.7 Star Wars (1977) 527,265
17. 8.7 Seven Samurai (1954) 148,699
18. 8.7 Forrest Gump (1994) 631,307
19. 8.7 The Matrix (1999) 692,586
20. 8.7 The Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers (2002) 615,729
21. 8.7 City of God (2002) 315,150
22. 8.6 Se7en (1995) 558,811
23. 8.6 The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 469,175
24. 8.6 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) 131,741
25. 8.6 Casablanca (1942) 255,926 25 BEST NOVELS
1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara
23. U.S.A.(trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster TOP 63 TV SHOWS OF ALL TIME
1. Dexter (2006 TV Series)
2. Game of Thrones (2011 TV Series)
3. Breaking Bad (2008 TV Series)
4. Lost (2004 TV Series)
5. Sherlock (2010 TV Series)
6. Louie (2010 TV Series)
7. House M.D. (2004 TV Series)
8. Doctor Who (2005 TV Series)
9. The Sopranos (1999 TV Series)
10. The Wire (2002 TV Series)
11. Futurama (1999 TV Series)
12. Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV Series)
13. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005 TV Series)
14. The X-Files (1993 TV Series)
15. Arrested Development (2003 TV Series)
16. How I Met Your Mother (2005 TV Series)
17. Mad Men (2007 TV Series)
18. Friends (1994 TV Series)
19. Firefly (2002 TV Series)
20. Six Feet Under (2001 TV Series)
21. The Simpsons (1989 TV Series)
22. Spartacus: War of the Damned (2010 TV Series)
23. Deadwood (2004 TV Series)
24. 24 (2001 TV Series)
25. The Big Bang Theory (2007 TV Series)
26. Oz (1997 TV Series)
27. The Walking Dead (2010 TV Series)
28. Modern Family (2009 TV Series)
29. South Park (1997 TV Series)
30. Monk (2002 TV Series)
31. Fringe (2008 TV Series)
32. Death Note (2006 TV Series)
33. Family Guy (1999 TV Series)
34. Band of Brothers (2001 Mini-Series)
35. Criminal Minds (2005 TV Series)
36. Seinfeld (1990 TV Series)
37. True Blood (2008 TV Series)
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000 TV Series)
39. Scrubs (2001 TV Series)
40. Twilight Zone (1959 TV Series)
41. Prison Break (2005 TV Series)
42. The Office (2005 TV Series)
43. The West Wing (1999 TV Series)
44. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000 TV Series)
45. Sons of Anarchy (2008 TV Series)
46. Supernatural (2005 TV Series)
47. Psych (2006 TV Series)
48. The 4400 (2004 TV Series)
49. The Shield (2002 TV Series)
50. Married with Children (1987 TV Series)
51. Boardwalk Empire (2010 TV Series)
52. Mr. Bean (1990 TV Series)
53. Entourage (2004 TV Series)
54. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 TV Series)
55. Rome (2005 TV Series)
56. Weeds (2005 TV Series)
57. Twin Peaks (1990 TV Series)
58. Coupling (2000 TV Series)
59. Homeland (2011 TV Series)
60. Freaks and Geeks (1999 TV Series)
61. Heroes (2006 TV Series)
62. White Collar (2009 TV Series)
63. Castle (2009 TV Series)
Rank Name Cumulative Top Currency Stars
Score Profession(s) Age
1 Will Smith 10.00 Actor, Composer, Director, Producer, Rapper, Writer 44
2 Johnny Depp 9.89 Actor, Director, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 49
2 Leonardo DiCaprio 9.89 Actor, Producer, Writer 38
2 Angelina Jolie 9.89 Actress, Director, Producer, Singer (Cameo) 37
2 Brad Pitt 9.89 Actor, Producer 49
6 Tom Hanks 9.87 Actor, Director, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 56
7 George Clooney 9.81 Actor, Director, Producer, Writer 51
8 Denzel Washington 9.76 Actor 58
9 Matt Damon 9.69 Actor, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 42
10 Jack Nicholson 9.68 Actor, Director, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 76
11 Julia Roberts 9.65 Actress, Producer 45
12 Adam Sandler 9.61 Actor, Composer, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 46
13 Tom Cruise 9.60 Actor, Director, Producer, Writer 50
14 Russell Crowe 9.57 Actor, Director, Musician, Producer, Singer, Writer 49
15 Will Ferrell 9.56 Actor, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 45
16 Meryl Streep 9.55 Actress, Singer 63
17 Robert De Niro 9.54 Actor, Director, Producer 69
18 Ben Stiller 9.50 Actor, Director, Producer, Writer 47
19 Jim Carrey 9.42 Actor, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 51
20 Clint Eastwood 9.33 Actor, Composer, Director, Producer, Writer 82
21 Robert Downey 9.29 Actor, Producer, Singer (Cameo), Writer 48
22 Nicole Kidman 9.27 Actress, Producer, Singer (Cameo) 45
23 Bruce Willis 9.16 Actor, Director, Musician, Producer 58
24 Nicolas Cage 9.02 Actor, Director, Producer, Singer (Cameo) 49
25 Al Pacino 9.00 Actor, Director, Producer, Writer 73
“The list could surely go on, and there is nothing more wonderful than a list, instrument of wondrous hypotyposis.” ― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
“I love the ritual of drawing up lists, and there’s something wonderfully satisfying about ticking tasks off.” ― Shaida Kazie Ali
“In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven’t Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn’t Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You’ll Wait Till They’re Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out:
the Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages,
the Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success,
the Books Dealing With Something You’re Working On At The Moment,
the Books You Want To Own So They’ll Be Handy Just In Case,
the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer,
the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves,
the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified,
Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time To Reread and the Books You’ve Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It’s Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them.”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
I must bring this to your immediate attention. Last week, when I wrote to you in our usual letter, I included a poem. It was a raw and painful poem to write. I would really like to discuss some of it with you in this letter. I hope you don’t mind. It has been making me feel rather vulnerable, even though I haven’t sent you the letter yet. Someday, any day, might be when I do get brave enough and really write these letters with the direct expectation of mailing them to you or handing them to you in person. The second way would make me feel more assured that you received the letters personally and no one else touched them or might accidentally open them. I don’t think anyone at the counseling center would ever do something like that intentionally. But these are very private letters meant for your eyes only. Just thinking about discussing the poem I wrote is making me feel rather anxious. In fact, I feel like I am starting to have a panic attack. Let me take a Klonopin before we continue. After that I will post the poem and the paragraph that followed it. I want to discuss that along with the poem. I’ll be right back.
Here I am, back really quickly. It will only take about 15 minutes for the med to take effect. Well, here goes, this is the poem once again appearing in one of my letters I am writing to only you. If I ever give these letters to you, I must have your word that you will never ever show these to anyone else. No one must know what I am telling you. These have to be our secret. If you only knew how I feel inside.
How do I really feel about you Annie? Right now, I have no idea. Too afraid to go inside to find out what I truly feel. The whole of the world confounds me. It just makes me feel depressed. It just feels that I can’t hold onto the people I love. They just tend to die. It’s not like they’re even old. When you die in your twenties, I would call that dying “Forever Young.” Too many die FY. You’re not going to do that, are you Annie?
What do you think of my poem? If you read it now, how would you decipher it? I’ll play both of us. You go first, or should I? Let me pull out the first three lines. The writer, the lover, the thinker: isn’t something missing? Whose feeling anything? The lover is just sexual. You can do that without any feelings at all. The writer is mental but could be emotional with the words they are expressing. But I don’t think so. It’s cerebral. The thinker, existential separation anxiety filled with analytical theorizing until infinity gets exhausted.
Someone is missing. Someone who connects in a soulful way with people or animals. Who is that? Lets think about it. Send out feelings to find out who they are? You think a spiritualist. I thought I was one of those people. I believe in the spirit, the soul, the astral body, the separation from the physical. The soul is just carrying the weight of the body while its heart beats and air fills its lungs and the grey matter still is able to function to make the physical tissues of the body perform.
I was thinking tonight about Heaven Annie. As I made it up the stairs to bed and my cat always raced up the stairs before me. We play that game every night. I make believe I’m going to beat him tonight. It’s always the challenge. There’s no way in Hell that I can ever beat him. But he loves the game. You want to know his name? He goes by many. He has such a magnificent personality. We call him Sparky because he sparks like fireworks. It’s not his official name. That one is proper. We named him Higgins after the character in the great Broadway play Pygmalion. He responds to anything but Higgins and he rather prefers being called Sparky.
What the Hell are we talking about? Is it about making it through with some enjoyment and to try to forget about all the nightmares? Or are we suppose to face the nightmares? The soul tells me that we have to or we won’t make it. I have too many. How about you? What are your bad dreams? What tried to fuck you up? Any bad people in your dreams? You seem pretty together but anyone can put a mask on. Why do you suppose we all try to hide from everyone? We are all human. Our feelings fall somewhere into the human category. Are we afraid people will think we are crazy or too weird?
Back to the poem, the next three lines are pretty explosive. Feeling the fool for not hearing, the silence for not screaming and feelings trying to blow the whole thing wide open but being stopped somehow. What stopped me? You probably would like to know that. A good reason, how about one of the abusers threatened to kill me right at the moment I told him if he didn’t stop I would go to the police. Wrong thing to say to a nasty, mean pedophile. He tried to kill me but he stopped at just making me feel he was going to crush my head into stones like Stonehenge. He pulled back but not until he told me he would not only kill me but my whole family. Those other people who also abused me. For some reason I felt I needed to protect them. I didn’t care if he killed me. My life was ruined. They all in combination destroyed who I am. They crushed my life. I am dead. My spirit has been stolen from me. It’s like in Peter Pan, they stole my shadow, my reflection. I don’t have one any longer. I am invisible. That’s why no one can see me. Why I never get noticed except when someone wants to hurt me or make me feel more pain so that I really do want to be invisible. I just wanted to die.
The only reason I stayed alive was I loved my grandmother. The funny thing about it all, my grandma, she had an accident shortly after this and went into the hospital. She never went home again. I saw her once at the hospital. I climbed into her hospital bed with her. Under the oxygen tent, we hugged. I held her so close. Her arms used her strength, as much as she could and held me close. Then it was time to go. I gave a bunch of kisses to say goodbye to her. I didn’t know I would never see her alive again.
She died in protest. They wanted her to become one of the forgotten. She wasn’t going to let them do that to her. She told them that it was something she would never do, going to a nursing home. She stopped her breathing and her heart from beating. She left me behind. I stopped living when she stopped, too.
“The feelings trying to explode…Where was the awareness?” I was clueless on what or who to, if anyone, to talk to. I never talked to anyone back then. Words were not my companion when spoken out loud. Not something I even knew how to do. Didn’t know how. Had no practice. What would have been the right words to say anyway? I didn’t know them to say or to even write down on paper. I am only learning now how to connect my words with feeling.
“We say ‘Welcome to the surface.’ It should have been Welcome to the circus. “Now what needs to be done?” We need to find someone new that we can really talk to. Someone who will listen and really hear what we are saying. Not judge us. Try to understand. And not constantly criticize us and try to put us down. Diminish who we are. That’s been done all our life except in college. For some reason I mattered when I was in college. I felt important and wanted. The same happened when I was part of the Women’s Center when I lived in Connecticut. It’s not so much I want to feel important. I just want to feel like I matter. Everyone I think needs to feel important in some way.
“Releasing the energy ensnared for decades amongst twisted webs…” I have been so blocked. My thoughts and feelings didn’t have an outlet. And I didn’t know how to say the words. I was made my own prisoner eventually, out of fear. Demons possessed me with fear. All the demons from all the years of abuse and made to feel like I was nothing, a nobody that had no worth or purpose.
“The voice is seeking freedom but holding onto multiple secrets.” We have a central voice but we also have multiple voices. With all the alters, we have to listen to all their voices and all the needs they tell us that they have. It’s hard to keep track or remember. It is really confusing inside our head sometimes. But we were working with a woman therapist who had her moments of quality therapy but she had her problems. I have an obsessive alter who was in love with her and obsessed with her. Let’s call it quite dependent. We were attached. We needed her. She was the first therapist that figured out what was going on inside our head. She figured out the DID. I have to admit when she told us we has other personalities, it really freaked us out. Kind of went into shock and some heavy denial. No way could that be possible. She said the psychiatrist agreed with her after he tested me.
That was the big secret. We thought realizing we were Gay was enough of a shock but being MPD was more difficult. Coming out of that closet was worst. It took us a while before we could tell Scottie and we had been together for a long time at that point. Almost 15 years. When I found the courage to tell her, her reaction was: “Oh, I already knew.” I asked her why she didn’t tell me. “Because you needed to figure that out yourself.” Of course, she was right. It wasn’t easy. Like I usually do, I bought or borrowed every book I could find on the subject of MPD. I learned it all. Enough to get a degree.
There is so much more to discuss in this poem. I packed it with a great deal of exposure of my past. I need a break. I may try to answer more of the points in this letter or carry it over to the next letter.
It’s a list of some of the confusion that smashed into our life. It started when we were really little and didn’t stop. The abuse continued when we were adults. No was the word that meant nothing to anyone who wanted something from us. Our body betrayed us. We couldn’t stop anyone from forcing us. Some didn’t even realize they were forcing us but they were. If we shut down inside we became frozen. We couldn’t stop what was happening. This started when we were little and continued into our adult relationships. It was all on some degree of force. We weren’t there in our bodies. We left or went deep inside or floated on the ceiling until it was over.
It wasn’t consensual. It was a form of rape and abuse. We wanted love but not sex. We didn’t want to be sexually aroused because it would always end with us disappearing and our bodies would shut down. It was like turning the keys off in a car. The engine would stop running and so would we. Eventually we created an outside person, a human robot, who faked our life like a computer. She would accumulate data. And learned the expected behavior and that would be hos she would perform. We were safe inside while she was out there living a fake life as a fake person. A puppet represented us. She hid in plain sight. No one would find us with the puppet self having a controlled pattern of behavior, always asking questions to improve her performance do she wouldn’t be detected.
Our hiding place was discovered by this woman therapist. She saw through the facade. She was tricky and scary to us. She got to close. We started to care too much. She opened up the rawness in us. She made us need people. Specifically, she made us need her too desperately. We felt so close to her. But more like the fox in Le Petite Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. She tamed part of our wildness. She made us want to be loved by her. Being loved and wanting to love in return puts such a control on you. I began to develop an overwhelming need for her. It was driving me mad. Everything started falling apart. My life felt out of control.
Our hiding place was revealed. There was no place to go except into madness and wanting to commit suicide. Suicide has always been a part of our life. It is a part of our breathing. It is always an alternative to the divine madness. We can escape that way any time we chose. But it is not an answer we can choose. Not with all that we are responsible for. Our life needs us to be in it. Everything has changed. We are learning to begin to live. We have found a purpose. It is delicate and sometimes difficult to balance but we are giving our new life all that we are able to give it. We know and are learning what we are able to do. We are able to write. We are able to be creative. Our artistic nature is starting to blossom. We are letting it be free. It likes that. It feels like are trusted to let the muse guide us. She always seems to be when we need her. We don’t push it. We let it be a natural flow. We like, no we love where we are now. It does have its difficulties with the mentally creative activities that bombard our brain. But we work hard on that more with our doc then with Mr. Xxx. He is about as helpful as a dead skeleton. His sense of warmth and communication I’d to tell stories that do not at all relate to what I am feeling or going through. He doesn’t help me at all except to give me reasons to escape my life. He lets me run away. I know I have my weaknesses but I need to find my life before I die or I kill myself because I can’t live with the confusion any longer or the depressions or rage.
I want to say that I am here and I want to stay alive. We want to be here. We choose life.
We fought through them trying to destroy us. They didn’t succeed. We are still alive. No matter how many battles. No matter how many nights we have to fight to make it alive til morning gets here. Therapy, knowing my psychoanalyst is there is so reassuring. It means at least one person is out there in our Universe that knows we are alive. That we exist. Being alive is a higher grade than just existing. The artist that lives inside of us makes it all matter. Otherwise, nothing else matters. If I didn’t have my art, my animals, the women I love and the men who are decent that I love. A good home and family who I love and who love me. The special people who know who they are. They are part of what make this life I live matter. But that involves some major time tripping. I am having visions of a future in my life, but I must be patient and wait for that time to happen. It is a good sign that I make it to that future. Others do not.
Here in 2007 I have you Annie. I am focusing on that. Your presence is beginning to mean something more to me than I even understand at this moment. We will see where that takes us.
Until next time.
Regards,
MadisonI attach this to the letters I write to you Annie to assure the strictest of confidence.
To Annie,
At this moment I am not trying to be a coward, but I feel if I hold back now or never send this to you, then I am freeing myself up to write whatever I wish without need of censorship. Maybe someday, when I am feeling more familiar with just who you are and what you might mean to me, this parameter will be altered and a copy of this and future letters will be relayed to you. For now I want to maintain secrecy, to protect you, Annie, and to protect myself from over testing the boundaries between us and to record the development of our relationship.
I want Annie Haskell to trust me. I want you to know I am trying to protect you and also myself from any humiliation. Writing to you in this way frees up my words as I speak them onto the page. Some future date, if I feel trusting enough, I will release to you what I have written in honesty. Right now, I will keep my words confidential. On my honour, no others shall see these pages, I promise you that.
Regards,
Madison Taylor
Madison Tayler’s Fantasy of Annie Haskell’s Office as a Psychoanalyst. Not real.
the labyrinth called “wandering wonderland.” it is where madison, scottie and their cats, patrick, sparky and toker love to escape to
madison’s “woods of imagination” where she takes long walks to reflect. it starts just past the labyrinth
QUOTATIONS from: LETTERS of IMPORT: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
And we are all players
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor
“For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
~Michael Drayton~
(1563-1631)
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
Christopher Marlowe for “Hero and Leander”
“A therapeutic relationship is often more psycho-emotionally intimate than a marriage, or a romantic attachment. I know things about my patients that they would never dream of revealing to their spouses or families. Why is that? One word — trust. If you do not have a connection with a therapist, you cannot trust them. If you do not have trust, you will not expose yourself, and if you do not expose your innermost being, what good is the therapy?” — unknown but ask any great therapist
“Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence…whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought…” — Edgar Allan PoeQUOTATIONS on LIVING:
“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame…” — Jack London
“There are two kinds of people. One kind…they congealed into their final selves…you can expect no more surprises from them…the other kind keep moving, changing… They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive…” ― Gail Godwin
“Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.” .... Sir William Osler, M.D., C.M.
Last night I was watching the cats play with the chinchillas (a special birthday treat for the kittens). Claws sheathed, eyes wide, ears forward, whiskers twitching, and mouths open to taste the air, they were totally in the now, absorbing the experience with every sense at their disposal.
Editor's Corner: 101.6 A most Brilliant and educational post about how to write by using the five senses. A worthy post happening every Tuesday on Plum Tree Books Facebook Page, Here on the Secret Keeper when I reblog it and on MacKenzie's Dragon's Nest and On the Plum Tree as a reblog and many other assorted places that also reblog it. But for now I have the link here on the secret keeper, so if you want to learn more of what Shawn has written and also to check out all things Dragon do pay a visit. jk the secret keeper *****(my comment from MacKenzie's Dragon's Nest)*****All the “five” senses but I count six. I feel aware of that one, also. When writing it takes great effort to incorporate all that surrounds you in an imaginary story. You have to see, hear, taste, touch and feel all that is happening in an environment that strictly speaking is entirely in your imagination which can be located in so many different places but mostly it allows you to speak with it through your mind or heart or body or soul. So, what I am saying is that the imagination needs to be tuned into all the senses to feed their awareness back to your consciousness in order to record the messages that are being translated or transported. Your post this week on Editor’s Corner is brilliant. In fact, each week they excel to even a higher bar each week as you write and present them. It was a divine scene with the little ones as an inspiration. That was quite the treat. The muse helped you out a bit with that one. Animals can be so inspirational when they want to be and will cooperate. Great post Shawn. jk the SK.
“If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life; it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.” ― Mitsugi Saotome
“When you lost sight of your path, listen for the destination in your heart.” ― Katsura Hoshino
“The magic of purpose and of love in its purest form. Not televison love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess, but just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.” ― Deb Caletti
“Those who have failed to work toward the truth have missed the purpose of living.” ― Gautama Buddha
“It’s funny. No matter how hard you try, you can’t close your heart forever. And the minute you open it up, you never know what’s going to come in. But when it does, you just have to go for it! Because if you don’t, there’s not point in being here.” ― Kirstie Alley
“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“In spite of where we were, how we had gotten here and why we had come, I felt that at this moment of our lives, this place was exactly where we belonged. We were not drifting but rising, rising toward something right and of significance.” ― Dean Koontz
“Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.” ― Brené Brown
“There are so many stupid things that steal that purpose from us. The stupid things that you believe a lie that we ‘re not as important as we really are. That our life isn’t as important as it really is. It’s important to the people that you love, it’s important to the people that you will love in the future, it’s important to the world around you and it’s so important that you fulfill the purpose that only you can fulfill the way that you can fulfill that.” ― Lacey Mosley
“I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth…
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own;
the cars….the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
So think about this long and hard…
are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left.
(You could be at “dash midrange.”)
If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real,
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger,
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect,
and more often wear a smile…
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy’s being read
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they
say about how you spend your dash?”
― Linda Ellis, The Dash Making A Difference With Your Life
“The great essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.” ― Joseph Addison
“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don’t see a different purpose for it now.” ― Dorothea Tanning
this is my purpose. this is what makes my life have meaning.
More than one in ten people suffer from chronic loneliness...
Our cultures do little to recognise this alarmingly growing trend. In fact, chronic loneliness can become a disease that eats into the soul causing depression and deep psychological change. The chronically lonely person asks, "What's wrong with me?" Why don't I fit in? Why am I the odd one out?"
All The Lonely People is an Anthology, a collection of words, art, writing, prose, poems, meaningful sentiments about loneliness, photography, pain, fear, feelings, sharing similarities and differences at where our lives are now, where they came from and where they are headed. Niamh Clune had a brilliant idea to bring together the works of artists in various fields with herself included, for she is also a brilliant artist with multiple talents, and had us write about, paint, take photographs in order to present our inner thoughts and feelings about loneliness and also aloneness or solitude. Dr. Clune gathered all the multitude of submissions and selected what she felt worked and put the Anthology together herself, a daunting job, in the least. We all thank her for her strength and sensitivity for doing such a remarkable task. Personally, when I thought about writing a poem or poems, I wasn't sure whether I felt loneliness or understood it. I want to say that it was a difficult struggle to come to terms with the feelings that surround these two states of being as I was writing what ended up being two poems. I threw away my first attempt. I had no idea what it was that I was even writing about. I was confused and debated with my partner what exactly was loneliness. I didn't understand. I rejected the idea that I felt Loneliness. I didn't want to accept that I could possibly feel lonely. The thought made me feel uncomfortable and if it were true then shame accompanied the acceptance of feeling this state. By the time I completed my two poems, I discovered deep inside a place that was quite dark and I found that state of loneliness. It felt awful and I felt so isolated and I couldn't handle how it made me feel. You will understand when and if you read my poems or any of the other poems or prose or look upon the paintings and photographs and just absorb the words of the other writers and you may understand. I put that in my poem on Loneliness, what it made me feel like and how I felt I needed to handle it. And at the last moment, near deadline, I finally think I understood what it really meant to feel Aloneness, a completely different state. As I struggled, I can see from what I read that I believe it is and was a struggle for all of us to experience the state of loneliness at all stages in our lives. This Anthology "All The Lonely People" is something everyone should look at and read. It may help you to understand what it is to be lonely. If you are lonely, it may help you to understand what it is you are experiencing. If you know someone who is lonely, it may help you to reach out to them, to offer a hand to lead them away from their loneliness. For whatever reason, seriously consider downloading this Anthology. It is available for Free right now. I downloaded it and I am amazed at the honesty and the feelings and fear that people see or have experienced or are experiencing. The introduction helps to explain a great deal about chronic loneliness. If you follow this reblogged post back to its origin you will find the complete Introduction there and also the link to where you will be able to download "All The Lonely People" for Free. If the title sounds familiar to some, it is from the lyrics of the Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby." "Ah, look at all the lonely people." Please learn about Loneliness. It is of utmost importance to find an understanding of how devastating a condition this can be. Loneliness eats at your soul. Take a chance by downloading "All The Lonely People." Thank you. Here is a caption from the Introduction that struck me all too closely: "There is the loneliness of those abandoned by the loss or death of a loved one...suddenly vulnerable, forced to begin anew, shifted from the comfort of knowing and loving someone to being surrounded by strangers again." Jennifer Kiley...jk the secret keeper
Best Film Critic Ever Dies—04.04.13
Tribute to Roger Ebert
June 18th, 1942 — April 4th, 2013
Post Created by jk the secret keeper
Created 04.04.13
Posted 04.05.13
Roger Ebert 1942 — 2013
A Few Words About Roger Ebert
By Jennifer Kiley
04.04.13
I am too speechless to say anything but I will try. Roger Ebert’s death took me by surprise Thursday. That the cancer had returned and he was going for further treatment was the last thing I knew. And that he would write about his favorite films in the future. Others would take over the watching and reviewing of the majority of the films in the near future. Roger would return. But now he will never return with his brilliant words and observations about films and life. Whenever I wasn’t sure about watching a film, I would look to Roger for his guidance by scanning his reviews of the film in question. He was always fair, direct and honest about the way he evaluated a film. Some films that others turned away from Roger did not.
I was grateful to discover a great film many times because I trusted Roger and doubted those who dismissed the films in question so easily. Roger would go into great depth as to the reasons he felt a film was worth the time to view it. He always came up right in his recommendations. I have fallen in love with films that other people have shunned as boring or unwatchable and Roger praised as brilliant. I must admit that I favoured Gene Siskel when the two worked together. And like Gene and Roger, my partner and I would have the same debates over the same films. She would favour Roger’s views and I , Gene’s. But all that changed when Gene died so suddenly.
Roger gained my focus but there wasn’t anyone who could replace Gene. I started listening more to Roger. I started following him online by reading his reviews at the Sun Times and also reading his journal. Also, I loved following him on Twitter. He always left the most amusing comments and leads to fantastic reading material. Then he moved over to Facebook and I followed him there and continued to follow him on Twitter. I was hopeful when he tried to resurrect the PBS Review show after he had his cancer surgery and couldn’t speak except through a computerized voice and do a special review. I was so pleased but then it went away so suddenly, also.
Only a week ago, I wondered about whether I wanted to watch a film. It had received negative reviews by many reviewers. Then I thought of Roger. What would he say about this film. I never did find out but I am going to watch it because someone that had the spirit of Roger in her words recommended it as a film that stood out for its difference and how it treated life and women. I used that reviewer’s words in the post on that film and I definitely want to see it. I think Roger Ebert would approve. The mantle unfortunately has been reluctantly and unfortunately relinquished. I won’t be able to turn to Roger on any future films that come out but I will still be able to refer to the ones that he had already reviewed. He left a great legacy for all of us. I say Good-bye Roger. You were a great gift to us. Now it is time for you to be out of pain and to R.I.P. and look for your old partner Gene Siskel. Tell him you kept his secret to the end.
A statement from Chaz Ebert on April 4, 2013
Chaz Ebert issued the following statement Thursday about the passing of her husband, Roger Ebert, a day after he celebrated 46 years as a film critic:
“I am devastated by the loss of my love, Roger — my husband, my friend, my confidante and oh-so-brilliant partner of over 20 years. He fought a courageous fight. I’ve lost the love of my life and the world has lost a visionary and a creative and generous spirit who touched so many people all over the world. We had a lovely, lovely life together, more beautiful and epic than a movie. It had its highs and the lows, but was always experienced with good humor, grace and a deep abiding love for each other.
“Roger was a beloved husband, stepfather to Sonia and Jay, and grandfather to Raven, Emil, Mark and Joseph. Just yesterday he was saying how his grandchildren were “the best things in my life.” He was happy and radiating satisfaction over the outpouring of responses to his blog about his 46th year as a film critic. But he was also getting tired of his fight with cancer, and said if this takes him, he has lived a great and full life.
“We were getting ready to go home today for hospice care, when he looked at us, smiled, and passed away. No struggle, no pain, just a quiet, dignified transition.
“We are touched by all the kindness and the outpouring of love we’ve received. And I want to echo what Roger said in his last blog, thank you for going on this journey with us.”
Roger Ebert Dies at 70 After Battle with Cancer
BY NEIL STEINBERG
nsteinberg@suntimes.com
April 4, 2013
Roger Ebert loved movies.
Except for those he hated.
For a film with a daring director, a talented cast, a captivating plot or, ideally, all three, there could be no better advocate than Roger Ebert, who passionately celebrated and promoted excellence in film while deflating the awful, the derivative or the merely mediocre with an observant eye, a sharp wit and a depth of knowledge that delighted his millions of readers and viewers.
“No good film is too long,” he once wrote, a sentiment he felt strongly enough about to have engraved on pens. “No bad movie is short enough.”
Ebert, 70, who reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31 years, and who was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic, died Thursday in Chicago.
Roger Ebert’s Journal
A Leave of Presence
By Roger Ebert on April 2, 2013 9:37 PM
Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and columns and even written to me since that time. Others were introduced to my film criticism through the television show, my books, the website, the film festival, or the Ebert Club and newsletter. However you came to know me, I’m glad you did and thank you for being the best readers any film critic could ask for.
Typically, I write over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times that are carried by Universal Press Syndicate in some 200 newspapers. Last year, I wrote the most of my career, including 306 movie reviews, a blog post or two a week, and assorted other articles. I must slow down now, which is why I’m taking what I like to call “a leave of presence.”
What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What’s more, I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.
At the same time, I am re-launching the new and improved Rogerebert.com and taking ownership of the site under a separate entity, Ebert Digital, run by me, my beloved wife, Chaz, and our brilliant friend, Josh Golden of Table XI. Stepping away from the day-to-day grind will enable me to continue as a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and roll out other projects under the Ebert brand in the coming year.
Ebertfest, my annual film festival, celebrating its 15th year, will continue at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, my alma mater and home town, April 17-21. In response to your repeated requests to bring back the TV show “At the Movies,” I am launching a fundraising campaign via Kickstarter in the next couple of weeks. And gamers beware, I am even thinking about a movie version of a video game or mobile app. Once completed, you can engage me in debate on whether you think it is art.
And I continue to cooperate with the talented filmmaker Steve James on the bio-documentary he, Steve Zaillian and Martin Scorsese are making about my life. I am humbled that anyone would even think to do it, but I am also grateful.
Of course, there will be some changes. The immediate reason for my “leave of presence” is my health. The “painful fracture” that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer. It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to. I have been watching more of them on screener copies that the studios have been kind enough to send to me. My friend and colleague Richard Roeper and other critics have stepped up and kept the newspaper and website current with reviews of all the major releases. So we have and will continue to go on.
At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.
I’ll also be able to review classics for my “Great Movies” collection, which has produced three books and could justify a fourth.
For now, I am throwing myself into Ebert Digital and the redesigned, highly interactive and searchable Rogerebert.com. You’ll learn more about its exciting new features on April 9 when the site is launched. In addition to housing an archive of more than 10,000 of my reviews dating back to 1967 we will also feature reviews written by other critics. You may disagree with them like you have with me, but will nonetheless appreciate what they bring to the party. Some I recruited from the ranks of my Far Flung Correspondents, an inspiration I had four years ago when I noticed how many of the comments on my blog came from foreign lands and how knowledgeable they were about cinema.
We’ll be recruiting more critics and it is my hope that some of the writers I have admired over the years will be among them. We’ll offer many more reviews of Indie, foreign, documentary and restored classic revivals. As the space between broadcast television, cable and the internet morph into a hybrid of content, we will continue to spotlight the musings of Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic Tom Shales, as well as the blog “Scanners” by Jim Emerson, who I first met at Microsoft when he edited Cinemania. The Ebert Club newsletter, under editor Marie Haws of Vancouver, will be expanded to give its thousands of subscribers even bigger and better benefits.
For years I devoutly took every one of my tear sheets, folded them and added them to a pile on my desk. The photo above shows the height of that pile in 1985 as it appeared on the cover of my first book about the movies published by my old friends John McMeel and Donna Martin of Andrews & McMeel. Today, because of technology, the opportunities to become bigger, better and reach more people are piling up too. The fact that we’re re-launching the site now, in the midst of other challenges, should give you an idea how important Rogerebert.com and Ebert Digital are to Chaz and me. I hope you’ll stop by, and look for me. I’ll be there.
So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.
QUOTATIONS by Roger Ebert: FILM CRITIC & Much More
“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.”
Roger Ebert
“Every great film should seem new every time you see it.”
Roger Ebert
“If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.”
Roger Ebert
“No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.”
Roger Ebert
“No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out.”
― Roger Ebert
“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”
― Roger Ebert
“Every scene should be able to answer three questions: “Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don’t get it? Why now?” ― David Mamet
“I don’t believe in learning from other peoples pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.” ― Orson Welles
“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
“Well anything thats interesting in a film, or in a character (all your passion, your sex, your anger, your rage, all that) comes from that part of you that you want to hide and push away, and you want to deny all those things most. So if you can sort of visualize a version of your shadow. And if you sort of invite him or her to the party. And if you can really understand that this is where you’re going to let that shadow come out (this is where its home) Its really just understanding that its your job to get vulnerable.
And most people who have the exact opposite; most people go through life and they try all their time not to feel all those dark things. We have to go feel them, but its an opportunity too. I think to think of it that way, that just gets you into flow and that unclocks your subconscious, so you get out of your head and into your heart. Thats what I do, I just try to remember that the part of you thats going to do a good job is the part of you you want to most deny.” ― John Cusack
“It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.” ― David Gilmour
“I think that is what film and art and music do; they can work as a map of sorts for your feelings.” ― Bruce Springsteen
“I want to thank anyone who spends a part of their day creating, I don’t care if it’s a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music – anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us – I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.” ― Steven Soderbergher
“I’m lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don’t need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That’s an enormous privilege. That’s the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.” ― Michael Haneke
