COMMUNICATIONS

Whatever happened to communicating?

Blame the phlegmatics. (That's a temperament, not the country south of Sweden.)

They invented movies so they wouldn't have to go to a play. They invented TV so they wouldn't have to go to the movies.

They invented blogging, which is a form of journaling. (Journaling is a form of autobiographical rambling which is of interest to no one, and blogging allows this egomaniac drivel to be shared with the world.)

And I was okay with that. (Blogging is "Art." Okay?)

So ... I am now on facebook. I didn't want to be. I didn't plan to be. However, since the majority of my friends are actors (and that should tell you something.) and actors love to talk about themselves, if I wish to occasionally wade in the shallow end of the gene pool, Facebook is the perfect place to go.

All this I mostly understand. All this is a form of communicating without being forced to actually talk to anybody.

Now we get to the part I don't understand.

I don't like cell phones. People stand beside me and talk to relatives they don't talk to when they are together.

And now they are sending text messages on their phones. Excuse me, doesn't this defeat the purpose of a telephone in the first place? I'm really confused here.

What's next?

I long for the old days, when everything was simple. I'm ready, Scotty, you can beam me up anytime you want.

LOL

jb

MORGAN!

Years ago I wrote a play about Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur's half-sister. The work had one public reading, and then I withdrew it. Not altogether sure why.




Anyway, today I was organizing - stuff, and ran across my master hard copy. Here's one of the monologues. At this point Morgan is desolate – life has no meaning. Even the stars at night cause her pain.

I once thought they be not stars, but mirrors of my soul – those myriad twinklings set apart, aloof. How alike we are, I thought, to watch as bourgeois’ kingdoms rise, gasp for life, and fall. To remain pure, chaste – unreached and unreachable – thereby avoiding the countenance of that soiled creature, God – in His perfect wisdom – permitted to begrime the earth. To live forever! To never age or … or if to die, to die purposed, a bright burning gash across the heavens.

I thought them supreme. Omnipotent! One with the creator! But with the coming of the simple morn, they depart, those stars. Frightened, no, offended by the belligerence of the sun.

I remain. I.

Take me with you! Leave me not to face the iniquities of this little life – which draw me away, which make me less like you.

They do not hear me. Or, if hearing, disdainfully ignore my supplication. And in my heart, that secret place where truth be not denied, I am pleased – grateful! For if in compassion they respond, then they be more like me than I would be like them.

And so, for a space I forgot them, moved as I was toward consuming sorrow, the pain within all too jealous for attention.

And now … now I think again we are alike, those stars and I. Distant. Untouched. Unknowing – affecting not the nature of any living thing, save as a curiosity. Existing for the mere sake of …

existing.

jb

Do You Feel Weird? I Do.

So-o-o-o …

Here’s the next question for you. Is something weird going on?

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting here innocently typing away. For no good reason I could pin down, I felt strange. A little strange. This is not a new thing for me.

I looked around. On my left was a glass of warm soda pop and my notebook. On my right, a mostly empty jar of peanuts and cookie crumbs. Everything normal.

No it wasn’t. Something was … I don’t know what. Weird.

Ever get the feeling that somebody is watching you when you know you are alone? That’s the relatively uneasy feeling I was having. Earlier I’d had a wedge of cheese and a pickle. (I enjoy a varied diet.) So I knew this feeling was not the result of a change in my eating habits. (Except for cucumbers. I love cucumber sandwiches at two in the morning. Yum! What I don’t like are the dreams that follow – being chased by 100-foot-tall dachshunds with vampire fangs.) Actually, the jury is still out where cucumber sandwiches are concerned. For one thing, I love them. For another, some of my best stories have been written the morning after …

I digress.

But maybe not. I’m presently co-authoring a science fiction … something … where the main character finds himself in another dimension that looks just like this dimension. Mostly. Sort of.

Yes! That’s how I felt – I was living in another dimension that looked just like this one. A touch creepy perhaps, but nothing compared to life with my first wife.

So I’m going along, doing fine, ya know? Going along. And one night I’m invited to see a friend of mine in a production of the play EQUUS. So there I am, watching a strange presentation being performed on a raised dance floor in the back room of a gay bar. To be honest, the play was predictable. More interesting was the person wedged in beside me. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to guess if it was a man or a woman. The highpoint of the evening was when the creature turned to me and said “I feel weird.”

Ya think?!

I let that pass. I mean …. Letting that pass is a good idea, don’t you agree?

I was standing in a department store a few days later and heard one clerk say to another, “I feel weird.” Same words. I followed the voice and saw a woman who looked quite normal. At least it looked like a woman. I hoped it was a woman. Normal.

So now I’m feeling a little anxious in addition to weird. Coincidences like this bother me. I stop eating pickles for awhile, but it doesn’t help very much.

And then – there was the evening that pushed me over the edge. I was at a Writers Group meeting … (and I’m mad crazy about this group. We don’t write anything. Sometimes we read bits of this or that. In general we gossip and eat. One night we had cucumber sandwiches. I was in hog heaven.}

Anyway, in the middle of the “meeting,” someone says “I feel weird.”

I almost dropped a cucumber.

So-o-o… here’s my question. Is there some big conspiracy going on? (No, that wasn’t the question. Here it is.)

Do you feel weird? What do you think?

(Okay. Technically that’s two questions. Sue me,)

Jb


And how was your day?

(I know. I know. Three questions. The last one doesn’t count.)