lake bit (test) now reproofed!
Nov. 29th, 2011 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wytchcroftWhat do I remember? Twilight on the frozen lake – a frost formed sculpture park and my lover with his warm hands - no – no it was my hands, that's right, even then his were slight and chilled, and I was watching his breath gasp out in tetchy wheezes.
“But, damn it, this place is meant to be alive, liquid, living motion. Not this frozen –"
And the lights then, dazzling, a constellation brought to earth and he of all of us suddenly entranced, suddenly charmed, whisking me around in waltz time. “Oh maybe,” laughing, “I don’t know, perhaps a world of ice instead, eh?”
“Well, or a thaw soon,” I answer and from the heat inside me, “things will – warm up!”
Yes, I was giddy and we were playing out for the last time our version of Bergman, our Summer with Monica.
He visited once, Bergman did, oh yes, staying with the family in the ramshackle and miraculous country house. We had to disguise it as a studio, and it became that joke, you know, of the sleeper that comes to believe the cover story; an old bourgeois farm house deluding itself into being. Oh but it had to be so, it was essential – we could not be cut from it, no – it was the core, if you want to understand, the family home. And he with his dreams.
But Bergman – I think we were frightened, such a big man but, like my lover, like so many men in fact, weak, always coughing, such drama – and deadly jealous of our house and vowing to have something like it of his own. I am told he lives alone now on an island. Well so it is.
If you notice, the house – it is in every film.
Of course, I am not – but I have seen all of them, watched them in the dark, in the cinema alongside everyone else. Yes, like everyone, in rapture. I am sure he knew.
So, then, back to the lake and watching the icy fog drifting like vaporous ghosts, like memories struggling to find a shape, to find a form. He was poking a stick into the ice to make holes for the fish; a miracle that they could live but somehow they managed it, their colours wavering and way down in the cold water.
“Like dreams, the cold dreams of an astronaut.”
I remember him saying that – and of course in the film there it is, the crew sleep and the fish flicker through the screen and between the stars.
People often have asked me about this; The Fish, the whole concept. “Why 'Oceanic'? What – is it an analogy, a metaphor, what, allegory?”
I nod and feel sympathy.
Again they ask also; “And really, all this “the cold dreams of an astronaut”, did he – did you, really speak like THAT?” and they laugh.
I am offended. “Of course we did! We were intense! We were artists! We were pretentious, perhaps, or yes, OK - but we were… young.”
But what do I remember?
………………….
“But, damn it, this place is meant to be alive, liquid, living motion. Not this frozen –"
And the lights then, dazzling, a constellation brought to earth and he of all of us suddenly entranced, suddenly charmed, whisking me around in waltz time. “Oh maybe,” laughing, “I don’t know, perhaps a world of ice instead, eh?”
“Well, or a thaw soon,” I answer and from the heat inside me, “things will – warm up!”
Yes, I was giddy and we were playing out for the last time our version of Bergman, our Summer with Monica.
He visited once, Bergman did, oh yes, staying with the family in the ramshackle and miraculous country house. We had to disguise it as a studio, and it became that joke, you know, of the sleeper that comes to believe the cover story; an old bourgeois farm house deluding itself into being. Oh but it had to be so, it was essential – we could not be cut from it, no – it was the core, if you want to understand, the family home. And he with his dreams.
But Bergman – I think we were frightened, such a big man but, like my lover, like so many men in fact, weak, always coughing, such drama – and deadly jealous of our house and vowing to have something like it of his own. I am told he lives alone now on an island. Well so it is.
If you notice, the house – it is in every film.
Of course, I am not – but I have seen all of them, watched them in the dark, in the cinema alongside everyone else. Yes, like everyone, in rapture. I am sure he knew.
So, then, back to the lake and watching the icy fog drifting like vaporous ghosts, like memories struggling to find a shape, to find a form. He was poking a stick into the ice to make holes for the fish; a miracle that they could live but somehow they managed it, their colours wavering and way down in the cold water.
“Like dreams, the cold dreams of an astronaut.”
I remember him saying that – and of course in the film there it is, the crew sleep and the fish flicker through the screen and between the stars.
People often have asked me about this; The Fish, the whole concept. “Why 'Oceanic'? What – is it an analogy, a metaphor, what, allegory?”
I nod and feel sympathy.
Again they ask also; “And really, all this “the cold dreams of an astronaut”, did he – did you, really speak like THAT?” and they laugh.
I am offended. “Of course we did! We were intense! We were artists! We were pretentious, perhaps, or yes, OK - but we were… young.”
But what do I remember?
………………….
no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 12:37 pm (UTC)Stick with it! :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 05:15 pm (UTC)i will respond more coherently after a small coma!
need to crash now after last night's writing splurge.
oh yes, i knew you would pick up on the dylan line, ha ha, 'frozen lake' is actually a nano prompt over at 'stay in the room' here on dw.
power to your elbow m'dear :))