If I were a soliloquy

[Alsiony]

(I was winking with regards to the pm bit that I wrote, I was just being silly - sorry for the confusion
A x )

[Violet]

Hi Alisony,

While I appreciate your not wanting to segue from Violet's thread, discussing Geoffrey's hacking only by PM kinda defeats the purpose of a forum, where info/opinions are shared. Some of the most lively and long-lived threads are the ones that were allowed to morph. Plus V. has been known to divert a thread or two, I don't think she'd mind – would you V?

.. well, to tell you the truth, I had no idea where this thread was headed, or if it would die an early death, etc., and so it's always interesting to see which threads start to take on a life of their own somehow, since it doesn't always happen. In any case, if you start with the idea that you have in some sense an "inviolable" thread [as opposed to an "invioletable" one.. actually, that's a contrariety, since I'm pretty sure I could "violet" practically anything].. now what was -- oh.. so, if you start with this "inviolable" idea, you will [almost guaranteed] be disappointed.. so, it's best to have more of a "see what happens" sort of approach, and if a thread would seem to have something of a theme -- even one that gets temporarily derailed, as it were -- one can always return to it.. so.. no real damage done.

.. hmm.. I believe that's my comprehensive dissertation on "Thread-dom."

v. x


much later edit: again, the double ellipsis.

[Geoffrey]

If you start with the idea that you have in some sense an "inviolable" thread . . . you will (almost guaranteed) be disappointed, so it's best to have more of a "see what happens" sort of approach. And if a thread would seem to have something of a theme - even one that gets temporarily derailed, one can always return to it. I believe that's my comprehensive dissertation on "Thread-dom".

you are an educated lady. most people in here wouldn't know what a soliloquy is. i would like to apologise for addressing you as a cow when i wrote to you. i wish also to say i am sorry for saying you were a stupid-looking mare and for likening your brain a rat's labyrinth - plus any other insults i wrote to you that i have forgotten about now. i regret them all and beg forgiveness. it was just that you didn't believe me that i said i post only as Geoffrey here. michael was behind all of those other characters; it is he who caused so much havoc and quarrelling. you and i were both victims. who do you like best out of him and me? i mean, if you had to shoot one of us two otherwise you would be raped - who would you choose? remember, he is a devious person, a habitual liar and a faithless trouble-maker - as you have experienced.

[Cate]

If only you had stopped - 'who do you like best...'

[Violet]

.. Geoffrey.. could you edit your last post, and remove the insults??.. (you can just say "sorry for the unkind remarks" maybe) I mean, I'd been forgetting them.. and now.. well.. you've reminded me again.

.. as to choosing between you and his Lordship.. I really don't like the sound of this.. some sort of Sophie's Choice scenario.. (and look what happened to her!!!????)

.. anyway.. you and I are just getting to know each other, and that's a nice thing.. so maybe we can just proceed with getting to know one another, for starters.

.. does that sound like something of a plan?


much later edit: I like that I'm focusing now on the double ellipsis thing [given all that's being said here]

[Violet]

.. okay, well I've let this rather controversial post stand long enough, and assume whoever needed to see it, has seen it..

.. I still would like to know, Geoffrey, why you are treating me so poorly, given my kind attempts at friendship, etc..

[Violet]

much later edit: this post was an explanation of the removal of a prior post I had here, which no longer resonates, given the time that's now elapsed.

[Violet]

.. I don't have the copy of Hamlet I usually have with me these days.. but seeing as this is my "soliloquy" thread, maybe I should try to recount the soliloquy to end all soliloqies, as it were.. (as I've given into this morning insomnia, and see no hope of returning to sleep).. (to sleep, perchance to dream) I haven't recited this [to myself] in a long time, so I may not have all the words any longer.

.. now, while this is sometimes thought about in relation to a question of suicide, it's rather more interesting to contemplate as the question of existence vs. non-existence. [this, as per Harold Boom, whom I discuss a bit further on in this thread]

.. so here goes.. [violet.. in her more hamletesque mode]

.. to be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.

.. to die.. to sleep, no more. And by a sleep to say we end the heart ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

... to die.. to sleep.. to sleep, perchance to dream--aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come as we shuffle off this mortal coil must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calumny of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?.. [I'm so close to wanting to try to find these words on the internet, but I'll keep going.. as I sort of want to see if I can actually do this now].. the oppressor's wrong?.. the proud man's contumely?.. the law's delay?.. [there's something about love in here, and I can't believe I can't remember that part in particular].. the insolence of office.. and the [something] oh, "spurns" that patience merit [?] of the unworthy takes.. [later note: oh, dear, forgot: when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?] Who would fardels bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life?.. but that the dread of something after death.. the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.. troubles the will.. and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

.. thus [the most important part, I think].. conscience does make cowards of us all.. and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.. and enterprises of great pitch and moment, in this regard, their currents turn awry.. and lose the name of action.



.. if, as Harold Bloom states, Hamlet doesn't think too much, so much as think too well.. well.. consciousness itself is burdensome, but when in sight of all it might contain it could well be unbearable, and not at all a directive. For to act, one needs the blinders of conviction, as it were. Though, how to have conviction midst a ever expanding set of knowns, that might well be Hamlet's "conscience"?.. [as he calls consciousness]

.. so, one must put on blinders in order to act in this world.. to maybe have a "self" even.

.. as for me, I sometimes think my life only makes sense as "literature," in a way. As a book that only I, myself, have read.. (or at least very carefully) A book that I continue to write. And at least I can feel that all the folly it contains.. the hidden treasures, even.. all the absurdity.. the loveliness.. even its unwieldy "troubledness".. all are at least saved in the realm of literature. A literature left to the wind (it seems) in whispers that maybe God only hears. (who'd ever have thought of God as my best "reader"?)



.. edit.. forgot the "bare bodkin" line in the big H's big soliloquy. I guess I should now post the entire soliloquy as it should read, and see how I did.. [although I know this is no doubt only of interest to me.. and only vaguely, at that]

.. edit.. just passing through.. finding misspellings 'n things. I think I need to come back and post this soliloquy in its original form.

much later edits: ibid the double ellipsis matter. [in my defense, as I've "invented" this technique, it does take a while to get the kinks out, as it were]

[Cate]

(who'd ever have thought of God as my best "reader"??)

I like that. Perhaps a co-author as well? When you were a little girl did you ever read those 'you choose your own adventure stories' - I don't remember what they were called, but they'd tell you the first bit of a story and then you would have chose the direction of the story.
for example - will Bobbie
a) jump down the hole after her dog. (turn to page 37)
b.) run home to ask her sister for help (turn to page 19)
c.) use the magic dust found by the swamp (turn to page 67)

The perimeters where set but you where still had control of the outcome, the great thing was if you didn't like how your story ended you could backtrack and change your choices. Perhaps 'god' has written us all our own choose our adventure books.

The idea of feeling you're part of a book ... I know it's not the same, but I remember times that I felt like I was part of a film (more so when I was young) ... not that I was in a film or anything but like I was watching myself at a bit of a distance, I sometimes felt a bit removed from what was going on around me. I think in part that it was a result of feeling the need to keep certain parts of me - to me, not exactly pretending but feeling the need to blend in and be very cautious of how much of myself I exposed.

(V. I hope you see that regardless of whether or not I or we know what to say, that you and your writing and vivid imagination are a very important part of what makes the poetry forum what it is.)

x
cate

(edit note - putting back a bit that I had removed while V. was posting)

[Violet]

.. hi Cate. I like that childhood game you're talking about. Wish I'd known of it as a child, although I might never have come out of pretend land, in that case.. (although, have I come out of pretend land?).. (oh, actually, yes, I have.. it's the chapter titled: Violet Coming Out of Pretend Land, on page.. )..

.. anyway.. with movies, I think it's interesting what kind of idiosyncratic role they sometimes play in our lives. With you, just the sense of being in a movie was a way of coping, maybe.. [later note: actually, maybe that's not right at all.. maybe you meant you felt rather like you were in a movie given how uncomfortable you were.. trying to fit in.. not trying to reveal too much.. and so feeling to be "on stage" somewhat] [I hope that's closer] Meanwhile, with me.. well, I have certain early "traumas" seemingly induced by certain films.

... this particular Hitchcock flick I've posted has special significance for me, actually. As an adult, I had this memory of a part of this film (although I had no idea what film the "scene memory" was from) My memory was the most traumatic part, where the heroine finally remembers what happened to her as a child. It's a pretty creepy and violent Bruce Dern-as-a-pervert-sailor sort of memory.

.. anyway, when I was a child my mother was watching this film on television, and I saw this "original trauma" scene at a point I really shouldn't have. I mean, it sort of disturbed me. I didn't understand it, and experiencing it at that point became something of a trauma itself for me.. (as if I didn't have enough problems)

.. but I'd never seen the film again until I was a young adult. So.. one day.. (again, it was on television).. and so I was watching this Hitchcock film on t.v.. and all of a sudden, it was rather like experiencing that Hitchcock camera move (in another of his films, Vertigo) where the camera's directed down at this staircase.. and Jimmy Stewart's "vertigo" sets in. In such shots, Hitch is physically moving in with the camera while zooming out with the lens, and it creates a very disorienting feeling. In any case, that's sort of what it was like to, as an adult, encounter this "trauma" of mine in finally seeing that scene again. It was like remembering what the character was remembering--only it was me remembering "seeing" the memory on television with my mother that day.. and remembering how disturbing that was. And so, it was rather a "meta" traumatic experience.

.. I couldn't find the Bruce Dern scene on its own, but here's a pastiche of sorts, with music overlay.. (and creepy Bruce Dern tucked in there somewhere)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0WTK8geVkc
FULL SCREEN..

.. oh.. and here's that "vertigo" effect..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnpZN2HQ3OQ
FULL SCREEN..

.. oh.. and thank you Cate, for your last little note (which I only just saw).. it's nice to hear, actually.. as I do feel to be out on this treacherous limb sometimes.

much later edit: still with the double ellipsis thing.

[Cate]

I love that vertigo scene. I've never seen Marnie but it looks very interesting - edgy, I can see how it would be upsetting to a child though.
Hitchcock was a master of creating anxiety and thrill - the most frightening for me was The Birds, not more frightening then that psycho shower scene or that crazy sexy smile at the end, but as a whole more frightening because birds seem so innocent and harmless.

[Violet]

.. I know what you mean about The Birds, Cate. I mean, the fear it arouses is so strange, and yet so tangible in a way. Most of us see birds all the time, and yet, one can so easily imagine when watching this film what the horror would be if..

.. you know this puts me in mind of his Lordship. I mean, come on, my lord.. you really do need to get over this great big hang up of yours over an itsy bitsy birdie on a wire*. I mean, it's just one little harmless feathered creature.. gosh, when.. well, let's just hope these clips help to put things in better perspective for you, my lord. I mean, my God, it's really time to call it a day on this one.. (geez).. one itty bitty little birdie.. when.. well, when things could obviously be much much worse..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF-c4JkFZRo
FULL SCREEN..



*oh, for those new to this burningly crucial matter of well-informed forumati, this refers to his Lordship's abiding dislike--no, make that hatred for Leonard's (in my opinion lovely and doleful ballad, of sorts) "Bird on a Wire," which (nonetheless) is sometimes termed (at least as concerns his Lordship's conception of things).. Leonard's "Bird Dirge."

much later edit: the ellipsis matter.

[Violet]

.. as I am, yet again, removing a post of mine (although for entirely different reasons).. I think I have to take a break from here.. but thanks A. (as per your post below) just the same..

[Alsiony]

Hi V...

I would like to share some of Shakespeare's words with you here...from elsewhere in his works, from sonnet 25,
(... just 16 little words that stand oh so tall...)

'... Then happy I, that love and am belov'd
Where I may not remove nor be removed...'

A
xx

[Violet]

Hi V...

I would like to share some of Shakespeare's words with you here...from elsewhere in his works, from sonnet 25,
(... just 16 little words that stand oh so tall...)

'... Then happy I, that love and am belov'd
Where I may not remove nor be removed...'

A
xx

.. these words are very fine.. thank you, A..