Ashes to Ashes

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Dialogue from the film Synecdoche, New York

          "Everything is more complicated than  
          you think. You only see a tenth of 
          what is true. There are a million  
          little strings attached to every 
          choice you make; you can destroy 
          your life every time you choose. 
          But maybe you won't know for twenty  
          years. And you'll never ever trace 
          it to its source. And you only get 
          one chance to play it out. Just try  
          and figure out your own divorce. 
          And they say there is no fate, but 
          there is: it's what you create.  
          Even though the world goes on for  
          eons and eons, you are here for a  
          fraction of a fraction of a second.  
          Most of your time is spent being 
          dead or not yet born. But while  
          alive, you wait in vain, wasting 
          years, for a phone call or a letter  
          or a look from someone or something  
          to make it all right. And it never 
          comes or it seems to but doesn't 
          really. And so you spend your time 
          in vague regret or vaguer hope for 
          something good to come along.  
          Something to make you feel 
          connected, to make you feel whole, 
          to make you feel loved." 

          From Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York 

Synecdoche, New York

"This is a film with the richness of great fiction... it's not that you have to return to understand it. It's that you have to return to realize how fine it really is. The surface may daunt you. The depths enfold you. The whole reveals itself, and then you may return to it like a talisman." Roger Ebert review of Synecdoche, New York. A true gem, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman.

Review:  http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/synecdoche-new-york-2008

Trailer:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvr2wDrLRfs

Common Fears

The cold air blew outside the house,
inside we shared solitude and distance.
You sat in one corner on the chair I gave you, 
while bricks and stones between us
enhanced the reality of our isolation.

All the facts and reasonable thoughts
hung in the air; heavenly eternal.
All that we screamed at each other
now whispered, continuously, inside our mind: 
reasons, facts, doubts and lies
fused together inseparably.

As real as the cold air outside
we threw words around unconcerned, 
anguishing only to diminish the anger, 
and as sure as if it should have been: 
we, who once were unbreakable,
had already made reality
out of all the fears,
we ironically shared all those years. 

A Brick

Alone

you get to decide

where a brick goes:

you can put it here

you can put it there.

In your hands,

a brick is free

to be anything or nothing.

A poet,

from the baltic sea,

found grandiose desires

in each brick he saw,

and when he parted this life,

he had not a brick to show;

yet his structures

will outlast us all.

If you have

all that you small soul desires,

you can place a brick

behind your front door,

to prevent someone

from taking your possessions.

I wish

that bricks were free

to be anything they desire,

God,

made it eternal,                                                                                                       

and cursed man with free will 

and infinite crossroads

with no undergrowth;

only plenitude.

With so many roads ahead,

man despairs,

and in doubt,

grabs a brick

and set his roots 

here, there,

anywhere:

creates a village, meets a girl

makes other men

to sacrifice for.

Nothing makes a man prouder

than sacrificing for a new generation:

among all the species,

man is the only one

that can exude heroism

while in full retreat.

The bible

talks about man

but it says nothing about bricks:

man was created

at God’s own image;

but man perishes

in a well of uncertainty,

bricks are everywhere:

solid, determined, eternal.

At the end of his life  

every man should have one brick

to leave behind,

somewhere,

for a child to find.

Kurt Vonnegut - Life

Luna & Gabriel and the Children's Place