art intimidates life

Nov 17, 2004 22:46

this is just a tribute
to my best friend and kindred spirit
i have never met anyone who i can connect with like her
she inspired me tonight
to get out of this rut
and remember to go beyond and not get frustrated with myself
we.are.ok.
i thought of this while we were talking. this is for cathy. love and miss.

i read an amazing play today
"Happy Days" by Samuel Beckett, he also wrote "Waiting for Godot" (his most famous), "Endgame", "Krapp's Last Tape", "Play" and "Not I" (which inspired the lips for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the play being entirely a womans lips behind a curtain reciting a rapid monologue.)

sorry this bio is kind of hap-hazard but whatev i dont write well:

Beckett was Irish born and claimed to have memories of being in his mother's womb. He became friends with James Joyce in Paris and adapted alot of Joyces style. In 1937 Beckett was mugged and stabbed in Paris and the knife was very close to his heart and nearly missed his lungs. A woman saw this and called for help. This woman stayed by his side all through his recoverey. They ended up marrying. Later on, Beckett visited the man who stabbed and mugged him in prison and asked why he did it. The prisoner simply replied, "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur."(I dont know, Sir.)

Beckett was facinated by languages and briefly taught the Romance languages in Belfast. He was a difficult professor and graded harshly. The students went to the Dean and complained so the Dean chastised Beckett, and he was so offended he left the school.

Beckett worked for the French resistance in WWII and at that time began to focus his writing on "the essential, the minimal, the unadorned" therefore breaking away from Joyce's philosophical works. He also wrote mostly in French, although an Irishman.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1969 and didnt even know until his wife opened a letter by chance. He would not participate and fled to Morocco. When the Nobel Prize commitee gave him the money he didnt want in the first place, he gave all of it away to charity. He died in 1989 in Paris.

There is a word in the English language created after his name, "Beckettian" meaning "bleakness"

"look for sense where possibly there is none." (Play, 1963)

I highly recommend reading the play "Happy Days" but it is not for everyone. Almost everyone in my theater study class thought it was the worst thing they have ever read. I wrote a page about its meaning.

here is what i got from it in class although there is more...

-purely symbolic, reflecting human life. Winnie is most of us, she reflects our complacency towards our focus on habit and lack of ability to question and want to break out of the routine.
-we are comfortable, surviving but not living
-afraid of change
-WE DO NOT SEE OUR CAGE
--GOLDEN CAGE-->we are possessed by possessions, she examines her possessions but not her life
-"God help you" the woman said. HELP YOURSELF

that might not make any sense whatsoever but read the play, its only 10 pages long. if you understand symbolism then you will get it. also, see The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
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