just like that, all the magic was gone

i once had a boyfriend who said, "you're like a siren of the sea - men see you and they just don't come back." a sentiment he not only acutely felt, but had also witnessed among other men; his own friends and acquaintances; the type of emails i'd get from ex-boyfriends.

i used to smirk whenever i recalled this statement - revelling in its truth; sometimes it seemed if i snapped my fingers in the right way i could cast a spell that would extract a man's heart from his chest and put it in the palm of my hand, to fondle or eat whole as i saw fit.

but today, i suddenly felt nothing more than human. and that power, that wily brook of magnetic pull - i felt it evaporate - sink down through the cracks of my soul and disappear into nothingness. the beguiling flame, which i probably very falsely believed i could control, could wield for better or worse, to captivate, to bewitch, has gone cold; entirely depleted, diminished to nothing more than the flat reality of my white blood cells.

in its place is a pervasive awareness that i am just like everyone/anyone else. there is no elusive allure. there is no je ne sais quoi; no mesmerizing quality. i am no enchantress. i am just another person among the flesh-and-blood populace. and a largely unextraordinary one at that.

all the while, i'm sitting on yet another runway, hitching a ride to somewhere - hoping to end up - well, maybe not another incarnation of an enchantress, but maybe, better off.

The rather fitting and Hollywood-esque photo is by Alex Prager of LA, which is the city I've just left (again).

city of hollow angels

"It's redundant to die in Los Angeles."
— Truman Capote












Oh Truman, how I concur. There's a lot of walking dead in the town that tinsels; souls that have been sold - or would like to be.

Goodbye LA... I presume that, once again, it will be a while.

The Highway Sign of Life

As seen (and taken by) Kasey in the V&A's "Museum of Childhood." She says it's her life's new mantra.

I think she may be onto something... it all looks so straightforward and clear-cut when put this way... no?

Clear View at Midnight

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

- Kahlil Gibran

Book of Stunted Beings

"It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.”

- William Somerset Maugham

The picture is Magritte's Les Mots et Les Images aka "The Words and the Images." Ha... let's just say I found it appropriate...

The Humble Elegance of Humanity

Right now, I'm gearing up to direct a short film/documentary about a farcical friend of mine whom I find enigmatically enlightened and equivocally hilarious. So in the course of my preparations and reference research for the project, I picked up the interview series First Person by acclaimed director, Errol Morris.

While I respect Morris' work, especially regarding a few select sketches (ahem, Temple Gradin), I don't recommend you go out and rent the volume. The bulk of the vignettes are pretty disturbing; morosely troubled individuals plucked from society's periphery; their stories and psyches poked at and pulled apart for our viewing abhorrence - not really my fare.

But among the freakish rough there is one sublimely poignant piece. It's about an unflinchingly brave, humbling, and awe-inspiring pilot, Dennis Fitch, who helped steer United Airlines Flight 232 to an emergency landing after the plane's hydraulics gave out. This incredible interview I insist you see for the very esteem and constitution of your soul.

Since I also just told you not to go out and rent the DVD's, I found the bits and pieces on Youtube and kindly pasted them below for your convenience (and so you really really have no excuse not to watch it.) It's about an hour in total, so make sure you can devote that much to Mr. Fitch's tale and that your setting's appropriate - it's really not the sort thing you can effectively watch at your desk in stops and starts.

And what should you expect? Expect to marvel at man's capacity to rise to the occasion. Expect to shed tears. Expect to come away with a renewed appreciation for the fragility and potential-nobility of life.

Yes, it's that good. I only aspire to deliver as much some day...

Enjoy!

Leaving the Earth by Errol Morris

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Post Election 2008 - Just a thought...

"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd President of the United States)

"Is this the promised end?"

I spied this girl intently reading King Lear next to the Globe Theatre on the edge of the Thames and thought: Could there possibly be any place more appropriate for absorbing Shakespeare than near the thespian grounds he so-frequently tread?

It seems by engaging with the playwright's timeless work in this setting, you'd inevitably hear actors of old whispering forgotten lines and their favourite verses as you silently scanned them... or, more likely, that the essence of Shakespeare himself would float past and react wryly when you reached a certain passage, or express a gentle hush of fondness for another, declaring, "ah yes, now that was a scene."

Yet, hopefully by invoking the Bard in this manner she was not unwittingly defying Shakespeare's wishes - possibly articulated in King Lear's final scene like some foreshadowed request:

"Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer."

Then again, it may simply be Shakespeare's unplanned fate to be stretched out longer and through grander homages than he ever dreamed possible.

isles of refuge

"Everywhere in the modern world there is neglect, the need to be recognized, which is not satisfied. Art is a way of recognizing oneself, which is why it will always be modern."

-Louise Bourgeois (perfectly embodying her quote in the portrait above)

Ah. The multi-edged sword of selfish-modernity. Can we overcome? Or will we find it easier to destroy ourselves?

Hmmm.

In Search of Terra Firma: Dipping into the Classics for Solace

"Hail, brother, farewell"

The Op-Ed columnists in the New York Times are all brimming with pat-answers for the wide-eyed populace's desperate woe-is-us quizzicalness about the current credit crisis; doling out pointed accusations regarding our avarice, our binging, our reckless and freewheeling ways. No doubt they all feel a little like proverbial Noahs, since these admonishments seem a good deal like heightened versions of the same sort of dispatches I've heard from them over the past few years.

Redundancy aside, I enjoyed Maureen Dowd's recent piece, primarily because a good half of it was written in a nouveau version of Latin. To me there is something rather magical (dare I say, romantic?) about Latin, it verges on art in its ability to so beautifully and succinctly convey the most complex of philosophical thoughts and sentiments. Being the dilettante that I am, I've never been able to take my study of the language beyond the level of a faux-hobby (faux since I can't rattle off much more than the common phrases and State mottoes), but I have the utmost reverence and fascination for it nonetheless.

Anyway, Dowd's article referenced Seneca, and exalted the classics for their illuminations on living the dignified good life. This stirred up memories of my own substantial brushes with "the classics" in my university studies, and in recalling some of the solid words penned by those wise men, I immediately went in search of more; forget the NY Times and their repetitious "I-told-you-so" denunciations of our government and our lives, I wanted something more substantial and meaningful to consider. What you find below is a small excerpt from Seneca's essay entitled On the Diseases of the Soul. I hope you find it a thought-provoking distraction from some of the other news headlines.

Enjoy!

"And I shall remind you once more: the diseases are hardened and chronic vices, such as greed and ambition; they have enfolded the mind in too close a grip, and have begun to be permanent evils thereof. To give a brief definition: by “disease” we mean a persistent perversion of the judgment, so that things which are mildly desirable are thought to be highly desirable. Or, if you prefer, we may define it thus: to be too zealous in striving for things which are only mildly desirable or not desirable at all, or to value highly things which ought to be valued but slightly or valued not at all. [...]

There await us, if ever we escape from these low dregs to that sublime and lofty height, peace of mind and, when all error has been driven out, perfect liberty. You ask what this freedom is? It means not fearing either men or gods; it means not craving wickedness or excess; it means possessing supreme power over oneself. And it is a priceless good to be master of oneself. Farewell."

- Seneca