Friday

It’s been so long since I posted anything on this blog, and yet it’s always on my mind. Too many ideas to realise, they come fast and loose and what little free time I have is spent on planing to perfection. By the time I get around to the actual writing, the thrill is gone, and I need the thrill to give me the energy and focus needed to perfect a piece that I would be happy to share with others. Today is Friday, and work is done for the week. Hopefully I can get to work on a longer, more substantial piece over the weekend, if social and business calls don’t take too much time. For now, here is a spontaneous, half hour piece, inspired by a late walk home from work. Written off the cuff. Flaws and all.

He dressed in his best and left home, walking through the side streets to enter onto the main road that ran into town. It was Friday, 8pm, and the sun was starting to set behind the straight tops of houses. He had a cigarette in his fingers and a lighter in his hand. Dinner had left a craving in his abdomen that no food to cure. He wanted to sit and smoke it in a peaceful place, before meeting friends for a drink. But they hadn’t responded to the message he’d sent. The road was busy, passers by on bikes and in cars; he seemed to be the only one to walk. The sun had now sunk behind the houses, and a chill began to form. His dancing shoes clattered on the pavement as he moved with listless apathy from the tarmac to the green lawn beside the road. The cars dissipated with his approach, and the sudden silence brought his head up from its hang to view the emptiness of the long straight road on either side of him. He crossed, and went up a side street dotted with trees that climbed a hill. A vibration in his pocket. His friends couldn’t make it. He sighed, lit his cigarette and, seeing nothing else to do, turned back. The cigarette, tasteless, clung at the back of his throat. He walked home. Each gap between the houses on the opposite side of the road allowed the last rays of the day to bath him briefly in warmth. It was a rhythmic sensation, walking from warmth through shadow to warmth, the sections dividing his path into chapters; check points, golden, to alleviate the chill just long enough for him to endure the next stage of shadow. He played their game, for a while, and then grew tired. He tossed the butt of his cigarette down a sewer grate and stared at the floor. Embedded gum, a rank plaster, plastic cartons and tissues and screwed up bus tickets. Hardened footprints in the tarmac from a pair of trainers, like marks, left in the dust of a windless planet.

The Placid Flatness

There was a ponderous silence before the aged man said,

— Wait, wait, wait, wait; let me get this straight. You’re forming an expedition?

— Yes. We Flat-Grounders are sick of it.

She sighed, feeling a little sick herself from this spiralling conversation. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

— And by ‘we’ you mean ‘you’, plural.

— Well, yes — but no, it’s not just us. There’s a growing resentment in everyone.

— And, besides the fact that this is the first I’ve heard of such a resentment, you’re telling me that this resentment is towards the ‘Flat Ground’, as you call it, that we live on?

— Exactly.

— I see. Why?

— Why do we call it ‘Flat Ground’? Isn’t it obvious?

The man sighed in lament of her idiocy.

— Why the resentment?

— Oh. Well, because it’s just so plain and, well, boring.

— The resentment, you mean?

— No, not the resentment!

She was getting irritated. She continued.

— The Flat Ground, it’s just, so —

— Exact?

— Exactly.

The visitor sipped the tea the man had given her. She twirled the cup gently to make the liquid swim up the sides of the cup, thereby increasing the surface area so it could cool down quicker which would in turn allow her to drink it faster. She was thirsty, and impatient.

— Right, I see. I think I understand your contempt for Flat Ground. Though, I must admit I still don’t quite acknowledge your fascination with this — what did you call it again? Un-Flat Ground?

—That’s correct. Slopes and, well, that sort of thing.

— Right, well I don’t know what a Slope is, but I think I’m beginning to understand.

— Look, it’s quite simple. If Flat Ground exists, then Ground which is not Flat, or, Un-Flat Ground, must therefore exist as well!

— There’s certainly a logic to it, I’ll give you that. But all this is just theory. What proof do you have that this Un-Flat Ground actually exists? I can hardly join an expedition that doesn’t have proof of its destination now, can I?

— The Upper Levels, you said yourself that they exist you —

She almost called him something insulting, but desisted, continuing ahead.

— You told us about them, how you saw them in your travels. Well, they must be held up by something, right? Connected to our Level somehow, right?

— And I suppose you’re going to tell me that there connected by these, ‘Un-Flat’ Ground thingies.

— Slopes.

— Right. And you’re going to climb up them to reach the Upper Levels?

— Yes.

— So, your destination is the Upper Levels?

— Yes.

— That you’re going to reach by finding this, eh, hypothetical, ‘Un-Flat’ Ground?

She stared gravely at him, cold eyes behind the rising steam of her tea. He continued.

— So you don’t really have a destination then, do you? It’s more of a, a hopeless search to reach the unreachable. And lets just say, hypothetically speaking, that you do find these fabled ‘Slopes’, what then? You walk up them, assuming that that is at all possible, and you reach an Upper Level. Then where will you be?

Her look had turned solemn. He continued.

— Flat Ground, that’s where you’ll be. What then? Start another expedition? Find more ‘Slopes’? Round up all the contented inhabitants of the Upper Level in search of yet an even higher Flat Grounded Upper Level? What happens when there aren’t any more Upper Levels? Worse: what if you want to come back down?

— We come down the Slopes, you — git.

— What if you can’t find your way back to where these ‘Slopes’ are? Its easy to get lost out there in all that Flatness.

— Scaremongering.

She mumbled something, sipping at the tea he’d given her. Its warmth was lethargic.

— What was that?

He asked, leaning forward inquisitively.

— Eh?

— You mumbled something, what was it?

— I said, ‘not that we’ll want to come back’.

He shook his head hopelessly in response.

— You have no idea. If such glory and adventure was to be found out there, do you think I’d be sitting here, drinking tea? Why do you think I stopped travelling? Here, life is pleasant, it’s modest; consistent. You know, you can stand outside and peer out across that expansive Flat Ground and you can see forever, in all directions; you know what to expect, what’s coming to you. But travelling out there, when you’re on the move, walking across that Flatness, you can’t expect anything. Things are so far off in the distance they’re impossible to see, invisible. How do expect to find something you don’t know exists when you’re aimlessly wandering the Flatness with absolutely nothing to guide you to your destination? You’ve got to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. You know neither, and with that in mind, you can count me out.

She stared at him gravely. She understood, but there was a slight tinge in her expression that denoted a purposeful ignorance, as if she had decided in that moment to forget everything that he had just said.

— Well, if you can’t believe that Slopes exist, then so be it.

She slammed her mug of cold tea upon the table, pushed herself up off the chair and then waited politely for the man to show her out of his house where the members of her expedition waited, standing unorganised in a mob-like fashion. Friends wished them all the best, with firm handshakes and sunken smiles; family members hugged consummately, sad to see them leave. Two lovers bid each other farewell with a passionate kiss, their hands clasped. He planned to return for her once they found the Slopes. He often imagined how their reunion would make him feel, how he would lead the entire town to the Upper Level. It was the thought of returning that made him decide to leave, the same thoughts kept him travelling onwards, traversing the seemingly endless Flat Grounded yellow wasteland that lay before them. No obstructions in their way, nothing to blind them to what lay ahead but the distance itself. They marched ahead, exactness of the Flatness stretched out before them, walking across the smooth yellow ground, into the yellow yonder, each step like the last.

— I can’t take this. There’s nothing out there! We don’t know where we’re going; the destination might not even exist!

Some said, turning back, unwilling to brave the distance and the uncertainty. The others carried on.

 

Since no night existed, time was not something the travellers could conceive of. Had they felt the existence of time in this perpetual daylight, they may have understood the magnitude of the distance before them. It was not until one of them noticed something in the distance that a reference point became available, allowing them to comprehend the distance. It was the smallest of specks, so small that even after a lot of explaining and finger pointing, the spotter still couldn’t get the others to see it. It grew bigger as they approached, turning from a speck to a spot, and as they neared the spot, the spot expanded, splitting out into lots of little specks, each expanding into spots, expanding and multiplying. To think that the small speck they had originally seen was actually something much larger, just extremely far away! While some found no comfort in the obscurity of the distance, for many, this was confirmation of the existence of the Slopes; they must exist somewhere out there. Drawing ever nearer to the spots and specks, they began to make out the houses of a settlement. It was an exciting time for them, knowing that they were about to meet new people, people that may know about the existence of the Slopes!

— Nah, it looks like our settlement! We’ve just come full circle. What a pointless expedition!

But it wasn’t their home, so the speculators quietened their tongues. Figures were seen standing to face them, watching the travellers make there inevitable approach. To them, the travellers were ineffable, strange sojourners, unexpected arrivals whose presence upon the landscape became ordinary with each step that brought them closer, and as they drew nearer, the shapes and proportions of their bodies grew in size, the intricacies of their agitated movements became familiar and the features of their faces became increasingly defined. In short, the groups slowly became known to each other while remaining wholly unfamiliar at the same time. It meant that the circumstance of their physical meeting were extraordinarily peculiar. They were greeted by the town’s folk in much the same way as their loved ones had departed from them, yet they were meeting for the first time, trading strange new voices and unfamiliar personalities, albeit with a sense that they had known each other all their lives. For some, this wondrously strange and paradoxical experience of meeting new people was enough. They chose this town as their destination and would stay there for the rest of their lives. For the others, the Slopes still beckoned. Certain town’s folk were taken aback by what the expedition had to say about the Slopes and the Upper Levels and, having seen them arrive in the way they had, were encouraged to join them in their search. On leaving, it was noticed how slowly the town seemed to disappear into the distance. Those who originally set out on the expedition had failed to notice the same phenomena happened to their own home when they had departed, yet for some reason this new place had them turning their heads round to view the ever enlarging distance until the town was just an array of specks, a spot, a speck; nothing. Seeing the reversal of their arrival made them think of home and wonder if there could be any hope in finding that place again. It seemed lost, somewhere in the distance behind them. Some turned back, as some had done before, to find the town that they had left behind, wary of the distance that lay ahead. The others did as others before them had done, continue on.

 

Another speck was seen ahead. It drew itself out in a horizontal line. With curious bounds the expedition moved vicariously, treading onwards to meet the black line which thickened as they neared. It was the edge of an Upper Level. They were shocked and awed at its immensity. Underpinning the Level’s edge was an expansive shadow that, like the distance, stretched on indefinitely.

— No sign of any Slopes though.

The man’s observation was met by that impatient tea drinker, the expedition’s leader.

— It’s quite simple, people. All we need to do is follow the Upper Level’s edge. We’re bound to find a Slope coming down off of it at some point.

But some, following the Upper Level’s edge into the distance with their eyes to see it thin out to nothing but a single speck, were not convinced.

— I don’t even think the Slopes come out from the edge. I reckon the Upper Level is being held up by Slopes underneath it, in there.

He pointed into the black shadow.

The expedition was split three ways. Some took the obscurity as an admonition and turned back. Some, who chose to follow their leader along the Upper Level’s edge, found themselves travelling in circles, never knowing when one ended and the other began. Only five others decided that the Slopes must lie ahead, hidden in the obscurity of the shadow. They entered the darkened land.

 

It took them some time to adjust to the darkness and the icy temperatures, often huddling together for warmth. It was during these moments, in the sightless black, that the five walkers found themselves talking to each other. Up to this point their obsession with reaching the Slopes had meant that, for all the time they had spent walking beside each other, they barely knew one another.

— I never caught your name.

— It’s George.

— Nice.

In the sightless black, such brief conversation was comforting. Sound soon became their primary sense and as they walked, they listened to their stoical steps sounding out into the blackness, each step’s ever present echo lingered on until George, who was walking ahead of the group, disappeared suddenly. He was briefly heard slipping, presumably falling over, before screaming quietly, his voice diminishing, until only the echo was left lingering on with sounds of their aforementioned steps. The others approached cautiously on their hands and knees, crawling forwards slowly to discover the cause of his disappearance. They felt the precise perpendicular angle of the ground, where they half expected to find the edge of their Level, but following the precipice as it curved round in a circle, deduced that it must in fact be a large, neat hole in the ground. They peered into the blackness of the hole, in awe of the possibility that it contained a Lower Level, a destination that was never considered before but was now, like those visible specks on the yellow, an achievable destination. They strung ropes together to form one long rope, planning to climb down it, and, though the thought of descent was foreign to them, they understood the concept of gravity. There had to be something to support the rope while they climbed down or they would end up like George, but in a land devoid of fixtures, there was nothing to tether the rope to. They decided that the only possibility of descent was for the rope to be held by someone as the others climbed down, but that would mean that one of them would have to stay behind. They were about to begin discussing who that someone should be when Fredrick volunteered.

— I’ll stay behind. I don’t want to descend. I should never have left my lover behind. I’m going to try and find my way home. Perhaps, if I’m fortunate, I will return home and I will tell them all about our journey: the town’s folk and the unreachable Upper Level, the shadows beneath it and the entrance to a Lower Level. I’ll hold the rope. Go on ahead, and I wish you all the best.

Eliza was the first to descend, she did so slowly and, finding the ground, she tugged at the rope to signal her safety. Once Elijah and Eli had followed, the rope was let to fall lankly down into the depths. Frederick, the lonely man, was left to turn and walk back in a direction that he could only assume he had come from.

 

The others tried to see the edge of their Level that they knew lay above them, but it was lost in the obscurity. They carried on as they had always done. When Elijah saw a speck of light ahead of them, they increased their pace. The dot spread out in what they might have considered a horizon, a dawning day if ever they had known such a thing. Stepping out of the black, they craned their necks upwards to see the edge of the Level they had left behind, the one whose endless yellow they had traversed across, the one that they had lived under for such a long time in the dark, the one that was now even higher above them than anything they had ever seen before. Looking out across the distance ahead of them, nothing had changed. It was the same as it had always been. They started to wonder if it had all been worth it, just to arrive here in what looked like the very place they had started, and after a short lived depression, the kind that always accompanies such grand feats of achievement, they decided that for all they had left behind, it had been worth it for the adventure, for the sense that the three of them had been places and seen things that most other people couldn’t begin to imagine. So they vowed to carry on indefinitely, like the distance itself, not bothering to have a final destination in mind, but always searching for those small black specks that tarnished the yellow distance ahead of them.

 

Black Swan [Review & Analysis]

Black Swan is yet another imaginative outing for director Darren Aranofsky. A dark and intense portrayal of an aspiring ballet dancer who finds herself thrust into the leading role of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Finding the burden too much, she begins to suffer psychologically side effects. It is a thoroughly engaging and entertaining film, with fine performances from all its leads, a good atmosphere and a tightly woven script. The pacing has been criticised by some, stating that it drags its feet, but I feel that, due to the nature of the plot, a slower pace was necessary in order to set up a plethora of ideas which are integral to fully understanding the film. This is done impeccably, so beautifully in fact, that, despite the scripts density, the plot unfolds with simplicity, never rushing too far ahead but not dawdling either. In fact, as the film becomes more intense, the resistance against letting the pace spiral out of control exemplifies the main character’s struggle to maintain her sanity. It heightens the tension and enhances the experience of the film.

What astounded me, more than the tightly choreographed direction of the ballet scenes, more than the expressionistic lighting and the fine performances, was the scripts ability to weave so many contrasting ideas together. It is a coming of age story that, not only retells the story of Swan Lake in a contemporary setting, it does so while exploring aspects of female liberation in the genre of a psychological horror film that encompasses a Jekyll-&-Hyde-like transformation, while maintaining the conventions of a drama that re-enacts certain aspects of the story of Swan Lake. It’s no surprise the film has been recognised at the BAFTA and the Oscar award ceremonies. What makes all these contrasting styles work together? Thematic focus. What follows is a rather hastily written analysis; my immediate impressions from the film.

SPOILER WARNING

Liberation is by far the over-arching theme of the film, but duality plays an important role, as transformation is the means by which liberation is achieved. Nina (Natalie Portman) can dance the White Swan perfectly, but she lacks the passion and raw energy to dance the Black Swan. As her teacher, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), attempts to release her darker side in order to allow her to dance the Black Swan effectively, Nina begins to express a love for him, but, as an innocent ‘White Swan’, a teacher-student relationship is a no go. It is no surprise, then, that Nina becomes concious of Lily (Mila Kunis), the literal representation of Nina’s permissive alternate.  She is fully aware of Lily’s ability to steal, not only her leading role in the ballet, but also the love of her Thomas. Indeed, winning over ballet director’s love is a sure fire way of winning the lead role. If Nina is to maintain her teacher’s interest, and, by proxy, her lead role in the Swan Lake, she must learn to be a Black Swan, to break free from her moral confines and imitate the reckless attitude of Lily. She does this by transcending out of innocence to explore her sexuality, from frigidness to permissiveness. The sensations experienced cause goosebumps on her skin, a sign of her transformation into a Swan, and of her liberation from traditional moral constraints surrounding the topic of sex and sexual preference.

Towards the end, on the premier night of the production, Nina is preparing to dance the Black Swan. Confronted by Lily, who is threatening to steal that part from her, they fight. In the struggle, a mirror is broken and Lily becomes a mirror image of Nina. The original Nina kills her double with a shard of glass. The dead body turns back to into Lily. Presured to return to the stage to perform the Black Swan, she hides the body and steps back on to the stage. As she dances, we see her fully transform into a Black Swan. Exhilarated by the brilliance of her performance, she kisses Thomas passionately. Through the act of murdering her double, Lily/Herself, Nina becomes the Black Swan, reckless and impulsive. This wins the love of Thomas. But on returning to her dressing room, she discovers Lily’s body missing. Lily is shown to be alive and, incidentally, thoroughly impressed with Nina’s performance. The shard of mirror that Nina used to kill the image of herself is found in her torso. She removes it and the blood pours out, staining her white dress. The show must go on. Returning to the stage for the finale, she is once again plays the White Swan. As the White Swan, she can never have Thomas. Still bleeding out from her wound, the White Swan’s suicide at the end of ballet (motivated by her inability to win the Prince’s love) becomes a literal death for Nina.

Transforming into the swan signifies a liberation for Nina, allowing for a ‘perfect’ ballet performance and the ability to win over her desired man through her evocative dance. But ultimately, the transformation is just another limitation. In human form, Nina is a White Swan, pure, innocent and precise. Through sex, drugs and murder, she becomes a Black Swan. But she can’t be both. In betraying her true self, she, the White Swan, must die.

The themes of sex and death concerning women is never far from fairytale analysis and, in its stylistic reference to Swan Lake’s fairytale origins, the screenwriters are fully aware of this. Black Swan is a morality tale that comments on the confinements of innocence and the similar confinements and irreparable consequences of sexual liberation, namely, the loss of innocence. It could be said that this is a post-modern bite-back to the left over ideologies of the 1960′s. Truly, a modern day fairytale.

 

SPOILER END

 

Rarely does a script as bold as this get produced, and rarely does it get to have a talent like Daren Aranofsky behind it. It’s an incredibly dense film that is sure to reward repeat viewing and analysis. But most importantly, its got shocks, gore, drugs, sex and ballet with a score by Tchaikovsky; it entertains. And when a film is both artistic and entertaining, in my view, that has to be greatness.

The Nothing Canvas

Divination by dawn, lamentations by eve; she opens her eyes just before noon. Suddenly, and with great energy she spins herself on the bed to view the clock, gasps, leaps up and storms into her morning routine. Wash, dress, eat and back to my room to paint. A blank, white, bare canvas lies tilted upon the easel, resting in its cradle. Nothing Canvas, hello. She thought about recreating the dream she had awoken to but, having only faint recollections of it, was unsure where to start.

Close her eyes, help her!

Close your eyes, Ilene.

Nothing confronts her, she confronts nothing and nothingness comforts her, it leads her back to the dream, it indulges her with space, it provides possibility to create. Nothing is not so bad, and when she opens her eyes she sees the Nothing Canvas swimming in a sunglow gold that hustles up in spirals like a sallow mist in a midnight breeze. But wait, that’s a thought! Cool and calm, much better to begin in night than with the dreary verbatim hours of the day! Black, sapphire, azure, she begins at the bottom and paints to the top.

‘Arisen from the austere gaping immensity of the abyss, a Persian Midnight sky is beheld in awe of Cyan, Father Sky.’ Good stuff! Wondrous, excellent, most marvellous gift of nothing!

‘Slam’ goes the front door. Snatched from her world she looks up at her bedroom door. It is closed.

‘Ilene? You up yet?’ says a voice from down the stairs.

She doesn’t answer, turning back to the now not Nothing Canvas to find it — Black at the bottom, blue in the middle; light-blue at the top. A Nothing Canvas still it seems.

She sits upon her bed in thoughtful reflection of her work, how grand it had seemed while making it; how pathetic it was now. Waiting for the paint to dry, impatient to continue, she takes a pencil and her sketch pad, divides a page into thirds, mimicking the tricolour background, and starts scribbling possible images into foreground: a giant cracked egg leaking out golden stars and other globes of colour to hang in the sky; a jagged spear piercing the blue sea to stir it into surf; a great triangular mountain rising from the ocean to greet the sun. None of these ideas are any good. The apathetic spin of her drawing pad landed with a thud as she sat forward and propped her head up with her palms across her face, sat in the darkness of her closed eyes. Movement, rhythm and light, the ingredients were there and yet none of her ideas had worked. The voice, the one that had made it all seem so grand, was missing, and such momentum that she’s had before. That’s the problem, momentum, energy! Throwing herself onto the floor, she gets hold of her pad and, kneeling, tears out the old sheets and begins anew. Voraciously composing elongated rectangular shapes with masses of madden swirl-ious entanglements at their feet.

‘Great Pillars of Stone descend from Cyan, bestowing motion upon the seas of indolence.’

Three knocks from her door, ‘Ilene?’

‘What?’

The voice at the door took the question as an invitation to enter. She opens the door just enough to poke her head through and, upon seeing Ilene on her hands and knees bent over a sheet of paper scribbling maniacally, Penny throws the door back and, standing tall, proclaims, ‘you know, there’s a perfectly good desk by the window.’

‘I know.’

‘What are doing?’

‘Working.’

‘It’s a Saturday.’

Ilene looked up at her sister; the look on her face seemed to say ‘are you an idiot?’

‘You shouldn’t work so hard, Ilene. Come downstairs, we want to show you something.’

Begrudgingly, she got up off the floor and followed Penny down the stairs, into the kitchen.

‘Ta-da!’ exclaimed Moira, sporting a newly bought dress.

‘Isn’t it wonderful!?’ Dorothy said.

‘Hmm, it’s nice.’ Ilene stated, before adding ‘it looks very good on you’ for fear of sounding unimpressed. She hadn’t even seen the dress; all she can see is a stone pillar. That’s what her sister’s appeared to her as, stone pillars.

Moira finished twirling as she explained. ‘I have it from a reputable source that Fredrick is going to propose tomorrow night, so I decided to look extra sexy for the occasion. Wouldn’t want him changing his mind now, would we?’

‘No, we wouldn’t want that at all, absolutely not.’ Ilene said.

‘Are you feeling all right, Ilene?’ asked Dorothy.

‘Yes. Yes I’m fine. Just sleepy is all.’ She was eager to get back to work while the image was still fresh in her brain, she could feel it slipping away with each minute that passed.

‘I told you: too much work.’

‘Yes!’ agreed Moira, ‘Come out with us tonight! We’re going to see that new film with what’s-his-name in it —’

‘Cary Grant.’

‘I love Cary Grant!’

‘— and then we’re going to go gallivanting about town!’

‘Thanks, but I’d rather not.’

‘Oh, go on. They’ve got live music playing at The Break-In.’ she teased, whispering ‘Lots of handsome musicians! You know you want to.’

On the contrary, she knows she doesn’t. ‘No, really, I must get back to work.’

‘Don’t be silly, Ilene.’ Penny said, putting a hand on Ilene’s shoulder, ‘come out with us tonight, it’s been so long since we all went out together. You must come out with us tonight.’

‘I said no!’ burst Ilene, swiping Penny’s hand from off her shoulder. She probably should have explained herself, or at least apologised. In a perfect world she’d have done both, but instead she retired up the stairs in haste. Frustration and Anger hit upon her with a vile impetuosity. The painted tricolour had yet to dry but she no longer cared. She took out her paints and began to work. The stone pillars took shape with such speed they seemed to be in actual motion, not descending from Cyan as she had originally conceived, but rising upwards, out of the sea. With munificent amounts of paint she imbued the liveliest texture in the stone, the brooding reds and browns alongside the background’s blues and black gave forth a palpable atmosphere. Colour, texture and movement, they were all there. She remembered the cracking egg and started adding cracks and fractures to the stone with brilliant, searing white light radiating in blinding swirls chaotically from them like smoke; spirits from within. She went with it, adding ethereal greys that whirled around the pillars, spiralling spirits in the dark depths of the abyss.

Finished, she calmed herself, standing back to view the whole. It looked nothing like her dream, not that she could remember much of it now. Painting on top of the wet paint had caused the dark edges of the stone pillars to merge with the blues, denying them the hard, tough form that they required to stand out firm against their back drop. All that passionate anger that she had imbued them with merely seeped out into the sky, eroded by the sea. Why couldn’t she have had the clearness of mind to wait? All that energy and emotion was wasted due to impatience. But then she saw the light and the souls, it was her impatience that had given her such energy and inspiration to paint such things. Indeed, the searing white light was truly divine with its softness, blurring into the blue beautifully, ethereally, just as she had conceived it. It could not have been so had she waited for the paint to dry. She could not have both the toughness of stone and the softness of soul at once; she could add the firm edges to the stone when the paint had dried but she could not have both effects, not right now. Still, it was something. A Something Canvas. Yet looking on it further, she felt as if there was something missing, something fundamental, that she had neglected to consider during the rush of conception. Was it something from that dream she had awoken to? She sat on her bed, her emotions still calming down from the rush, and what a rush it had been! Glancing at her bedside clock, she noticed just how much time had passed since she had stormed out angrily from the kitchen. Her sisters could never understand what it was like for her: the frustration and the patience and energy and, most of all, the solitude that was required to paint passionately and with artistic sentiment. Still, she began feeling guilty about her reaction towards them. After all, they had created the anger that had inspired such wonderful light and spirit to roam so wildly beneath her seas. Taking her canvas downstairs, she decided to make amends, to apologise and explain; to ask them if she was still welcome to join them in their gallivanting. The kitchen was empty. She entered the living room but they weren’t there either. They had left without her. She stood saddened, her canvas held up in front of her, displayed for an empty room.

Birth

It’s a curious feeling, knowing that there isn’t anyone to read this as I type but myself, that there is no-one to hear my muttering but myself. What to write? First post of a blog, how to start? I guess the obvious question to ask is ‘why’. Why manage a blog? All that time and effort and who knows if anyone will even care about what I have to say. Some say that that is exactly what a blog is for: people who can’t express themselves in the real world. I think differently.

The process of blogging is oddly reminiscent of thinking. We must develop ideas to ourselves before another can listen to the vocalisations of those ideas. We do it consistently, every day of our lives, assuming we have someone to talk to, but even then some – like those homeless mad people who find on the street, poor guys – spout babble at the walls just for comfort, regardless of if anyone hears or cares, let alone understands. After all, it is a harrowing thought that, in essence, all our myriad minds are in complete isolation, confined and concealed. It should come as no surprise that we talk, telling anecdotes to strangers over a cold drink down the pub or wherever it is you choose to go to socialise during the late hours of the evening before solemnly returning to a dark room with a cold bed, or a warm bed if you happen to have a lover beside you, to sleep until the sun reaches over the horizon to nudge you into your waking world once more. In essence, we talk, not necessarily to be heard or even understood, but because we only wish to make ourselves known, even if its just to ourselves.

Yet, there has always been a slight problem with all this talk. Brevity. Just as life, the verbalisations of thoughts and ideas are nothing but fleeting forms that dissolves into distorted memories before fading away as time races onwards. We have ideas and thoughts and opinions and, even after making them known to the world outside our minds and the worlds inside other’s heads, they ultimately dissipate, as if they had never existed at all.

But wait, hold it, there’s no pessimism here (not yet at least). There is a way to make them last, not just longer than verbalisation, not even as long as you live, but after you die too, and with luck even longer still! Writing, typing, painting and sculpting and music. If one can successfully relay their individual thoughts and ideas, even opinions, into any of these mediums, one can communicate with a thousand people in any place and at any future time. It’s the romance of art and the beauty of blogging. Yes, that’s right. I consider blogging to be a form of Art!

As such, this place will contain my thoughts, my opinions and my fiction. Interpret them as you wish and leave your comments if you like. They will remain pasted in this immortal form we call ‘electronic data’, to be shared with any and all or none who care to swallow them through their gaping eyes – as I shall no doubt be doing on another’s blog, elsewhere on the net - even if the blogger in question has met an unfortunate and untimely end.

He reviewed the composition of text, before moving the cursor to where it said ‘Publish’. “Click.”