The Undiscovered Bedrooms of Manhattan

I stumbled upon a fantastic blog entry today that appealed to my dreamy, whimsical side. Here's a snippet:

"A friend of mine once told me about the "typical dream of a New Yorker," as he described it, wherein a homeowner pushes aside some coats and sweaters in the upstairs closet... only to reveal a door, and, behind that, another room, and, beyond that, perhaps even a whole new wing secretly attached to the back of the house..."

I found the entry very inspiring. Read the rest here.

Rarities

I hear the reverberations of a distant self, shouting back at me, telling me to follow the questions that form the stem of a trail into nothingness.

Shutter Island

Shutter Island was and was not what I expected. It may have been predictable, but that didn't stop it from leaving an unsettling impression. I've enjoyed Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio pairings in the past, but something was lost in this attempt. Scorsese managed to build up the mystery and characters with intensity, but when the ending was finally revealed, it seemed to fall flat.

Visually, the movie was stunning. I could see myself buying it, if only to dive into the imagery. Bold bloody reds, stark contrasting light, a lovely excess of dreamy hallucinations. It carried such great potential, but it had a hard time living up to the conclusion it promised.

The thing that I really enjoyed about the movie was the way Scorsese portrayed the different variations of "insanity." I'm fascinated with the idea of mental hospitals. I wouldn't want to be stuck in one, and I'm utterly frightened by the idea of being admitted by force, (imagine the the feeling of helplessness!), but sometimes I feel like there's a moment in which people choose to tip the balance. Some of the patients in the movie were so convinced by their intricate personal realities that it almost seemed a shame to treat them.

On a larger level, it's easy to infer that all of us, in essence, are crazy. Isn't it human nature to judge the world based on perception, (or perceive the world based on judgment)? It can be an ongoing hostile environment, or a white picket fence fantasy, but it's not impossible--nor is it rare--that the same story can sound completely different when given from two separate perspectives. So when does a person's perspective peel away from the norm? When does the scale tip, and cause someone's world to differ so much from our own that we consider them insane? The idea that we are capable of existing solely in our mind is as exhilarating as it is frightening.

Theories aside, I would watch the movie again. The ending may have rubbed me the wrong way, but I don't necessarily blame the direction or the acting. I think Scorsese did the best he could with what he had. And considering it was based on a novel, perhaps it was the best screen translation possible.

On a side note, considering I've enjoyed DiCaprio's past performances, but never really found him romantically appealing, I was pretty surprised at how intensely attracted to him I was in this movie. It was like realizing you have a crush on a best friend...Where did that come from?

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

"A grim picture. Not all marriages are like that...What did I know? I wanted "total mutuality," "companionship," "equality." Did I know about how men sit there glued to the paper while you clear the table? How they pretend to be all thumbs when you ask them to mix the frozen orange juice? How they bring friends home and expect you to wait on them and yet feel entitled to sulk and go off into another room if you bring friends home? What idealistic adolescent girl could imagine all that as she sat reading Shaw and Virginia Woolf and the Webbs?

I know some good marriages. Second marriages mostly. Marriages where both people have outgrown the bullshit of me-Tarzan, you-Jane and are just trying to get through their days by helping each other, being good to each other, doing the chores as they come up and not worrying too much about who does what. Some men reach that delightfully relaxed state of affairs about age forty or after a couple of divorces. Maybe marriages are best in middle age. When all the nonsense falls away and you realize you have to love one another because you're going to die anyway."

Pardon the Personal Territory

He's not thinking of me today. The clasp on my necklace stays high up on my neck, unflinching. It never swivels down towards my chest--the surest sign that someone, somewhere is thinking of you. I always attribute the superstition to my lover.

I suppose it's understandable this afternoon. Why would he want to think of my dismal, moping attitude? He is highly opposed to depression, being that he is a constantly optimistic Sagittarius--one who, no matter how many times he's let down, will still have something to look forward to. I wish I could adopt a similar attitude. Today, I've adopted the defense mechanism of locking up. I refuse to blame or want or fight. I can't say I haven't cried. I can't say that I haven't gone through at least a thousand versions of the same conversation in my head...every outcome undesirable, some to the extent that my stomach cramps up with anxiety and fear for the future.

I keep picturing him out and about, flirting, conversing, pretending, (or maybe convincingly pretending,) that our unsettling conversation this morning is not pressing against the back of his neck. Tightening, a series of muscles. A highway of brain stem matter and stress. I can imagine such a headache, I have one on a monthly basis, sometimes stretching for days. My biggest gripe for the here and now is my drowsiness. An all-consuming desire to sleep away the desire to stay awake and analyze.

What an unfortunate mess. An optimistic Sagittarius that has no desire to explore. Europe? Too dirty. Besides,he was born in Germany. What does it matter that relatives exist on the coasts of the United Kingdom? What could possibly be interesting about Hartlepool? The Outback, now there's a place he'd like to see. Perhaps. But the sprawling dust of Fort Davis? "Can I fish there? What's in it for me? Besides, well, I've any number of excuses. The landscapers, money, oh and by the way, the 4th of July has always been my, you know, party holiday."

Thus, my desire to mope. The overwhelming burden of uncommon ground. It's symptoms are infinite and merciless. When asked my plans for the weekend, I simply say, "To sulk." Nothing else seems as simple or as natural as a dive into that warm familiar bath. Perhaps I can pretend, convincingly, that all is well and good. And perhaps it will be so. But it will surely be hours after the water has turned cold, and my fingers are as wrinkled as old prunes.

A daydream

I wish I lived in a forest at the beginning of autumn. Constantly. A quaint house made of stone, with a chimney spouting smoke. Always. My bedroom would be sage green; fresh herbs sprouting on the window sill. The subtle scent of basil, oregano, and rosemary. Tiny textured vases; deep rich soil...the look of coffee grounds. I'd have a wall of books: rows of encyclopedias, science and philosophy, dreams and spells. Thumbed through, but not worn. Some read, some halfway understood; only a handful put into practice.

In the mornings, the sun would filter in through leaves and needles. Arousing and quiet. Shadows cast on milk-white skin. I can imagine rising, slowly, effortlessly. Bathing in a porcelain tub, lions feet delicately poised on tile, maybe linoleum, hopefully wood. The slow drip of fresh water. The song of a hundred birds.

Footprints puttering down the hall. The aroma of fresh bacon, the sizzling of eggs. His back turned away from me, silent, but both of us aware of the knowledge that we are content. Happy and full. He wears no shirt, no shoes, no mask of any kind. Only the cast iron calm of honesty. We share a smile the way friends share a hug. I watch my coffee steam. I watch his hands butter toast, methodically, gracefully. I can imagine the delicate tink of silverware on china. The surge of potential and hope. The validity of matter and breath. Creation echoing in a finely tuned ear. An imagined ear. A state of being.

Ayn Rand

From Atlas Shrugged:

"Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values-that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others- that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human-that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay-that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live-that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road-that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up-that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction."