in which i explore two passions at once.

Meditation on the Medium:
(Little Play #4)

A picture can tell a different story from reality.
Heightened.
(Did it really happen like that?)
It takes you on a journey,
THE Journey,
A perfect quest,
A scene already written.
A frame can hold intensity,
Its borders denote limitations:
The left side, just as we are taught to read,
Signals a beginning,
A past:
We are already running to catch up.
The top and bottom are like arrows
Guiding our vision across the image.
Movement.
That is the image itself;
We are thrown into a world in motion,
An action,
Life caught candidly,
A story so full of direction,
Of purpose,
It has no choice but to help us along.
A photograph understands its audience,
Just like a novel,
Or a play,
There is narration:
Your eyes are drawn Here
Now off, around;
A hand guides you by the eyes,
Never letting you leave the frame
But forcing you through it
Until you reach the end:
A wall
(What comes next?)
But a picture doesn’t end
(It can’t!) it’s caught,
Stuck in its movement,
A morsel of the whole.
It teases you.
Your eyes want more
(There must be more!)
That right wall of the frame becomes a gutter,
A Question,
That lingers on your lips,
And vibrates off the skin of your ears.
A Question that will drive you mad if you think too long;
A Question that can never be answered
Yet always comes up:
(What happens next?)


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To accompany the above (as it was born from the memory of these pictures) this link will redirect you to a photoset on my Flickr! account [because I cannot create a photoset on blogger and, alas, cannot blog (effectively) on Flickr!]. (clicking the image below will also take you there)

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As I've pretty well picked apart the rest of that old university blog o' mine for more Little Plays, it seems at one point I completely changed my blogging style and, really, it became unintelligible dribble very closely resembling a facebook wall. As there are no more unsuspecting Little Plays to be had from the old old strip mines, and because I rather enjoy the thought of the Little Plays, from this day forward I'll be adding to this title by making new ones. As before, they come in all shapes and forms. Meditation on the Medium seems a perfect fit. 

And now I've written this I'm rather excited to start writing more.

Stay tuned!

Little Play #3 (March 9th, 2006):

Here's a third performance I found hidden in my old university blog.
This one's more of a meditation ~ a soliloquy without context.
It raises, I find, questions as to where it could come from. 
Maybe a spring-board to something else entirely.


Cart-Horse
Every time you think you've got It
It turns around and gives you a black eye
Then you're left wondering:
Why can't It stop, why can't It just stay predictable, just for a minute?
And if you're lucky It will,
It will, because if It puts you through so much,
You will finally be able to take the reins for once,
And put It through hell. 
But... in order to do this... we must understand. 
I do not.

Little Play #2 (November 21st, 2005)

A struggle for everyone to join.

Pressure point 126.4... a lack of time... otherwise known as: a due date.

I work so much better when a wall is coming at me in the distance.

As it draws nearer I tend to get my best ideas.

Little by little I am able to chip away at this wall.

Eventually I find a way to dissolve the mortar and make its foundations shatter.

As it approaches me, I see it is no more than a pile of rubble.

Sometimes, however, I cannot find the solution.

Alternatives are key.

The construction of a door is useful; 
when the wall draws near I am able to step through unscathed.

But the wall is still there.

That means I must work extra hard to topple it 
because another one has appeared in the distance.

Trapped by two walls.
If I do not bring them down, I will eventually be trapped.

Sometimes the pressure is there.

Sometimes it's all in my head.

Always there is a solution.

stumbled upon an old blog of mine...

...and, mostly, it's a collection of inane sputterings that act as a rather complex slice of life as I traversed the second and third year terrain at York trying to figure out who I am (something, I realise, is never-ending). But the thing that caught my attention is buried between posts I have unconsciously created a few "little plays," or online performances. I`m going to try and find them all and repost them to see how they stand independently.

From November 15th, 2005:

Little Play #1:

Turning a man into a woman has never been so easy!

Attention!

I hear groups of friends in other rooms, laughing and having a good time.

The smell of popcorn fills my nose.

And I wonder 'how the hell do they have time for this?'

And then I think, what if I just said 'fuck it'... what would happen?

It feels good to say it in my head...

but then I think about how it would translate in reality...

My hands are all wrinkled and rough.

I've found a release in... doing the dishes?

Yeah, you heard me.

Left! Left!

I think I'm going to need glasses after this week...

redundancy is key... redundancy is key... redundancy is key... redundancy is...

...what if?