26 January 2013

Notes - work-a-day / T. Wilder / Intro + to Dead 11


        After noon. You are waiting until Carol dries her hair; then out to lunch somewhere. A variety of errands to run since you did not really leave the house yesterday. You were supposed to go to Westerville today but it was postponed. Happily as you look northeast out the bedroom window there are some clouds and blue sky rather than a thicket of cloud over yester-day.

         I am ready to write both now and later.

         Let's go to it. - Amorella

         From your Avalon folder you are going to use images: 2236, 2340, 2348, 2407 and 2547 in order for the intro to Dead 11.

         1301 hours. I had to find the folder on my backup, now a copy is place in The Dead folder where it belongs. The shots are a mix from Leeds and Warwick castles but if there was ever an Avalon in my head being there and walking the grounds and these personal photos are the inspiration.

         You will probably be running errands soon. We are ready when you have the time to place you and Merlyn in Avalon before the two tall Oak tree trunk large stones whisper (among the grove  and move and he is on the way to Elsewhere. - Amorella

         1446 hours. We had an excellent lunch at Smashburgers. We usually get veggies as a side and they ran out of carrots. The only table open we took. Also, I had to use a multi-grain bun on my smash-chicken. I told the manager on duty that I would take the veggies without the carrots as they ran out; so I got a full helping of crisped hot green beans and dip instead. That was fine with me as Carol and I both love them. Concluding our visit the manager apologized once again (they were packed, all the tables full most of the time we were there); he surprised us with 3 five-dollar coupons that he asked us to use on our next visit. I told him we were returning anyway, but we happily took them. We love Smashburgers. Carol is at Kroger's the last of our errands to be completed. The sky is still at least half blue with rather large undefined white fluffies floating east at their leisure.

         We are not campaigning for Smashburgers, boy. - Amorella (No, do not erase.)

         Sometime later in the afternoon. The groceries are put away and you are facing southeast into the woods that are a part of Pine Hill Lakes Park. You are in the far parking lot just to the east of the children's playground, less than three to four hundred yards east the earthen dam. This is a pleasant Mason city park. Below is a satellite Googled shot of it from a few thousand feet. I like parks; one of the best things modern humanity has done for the planet that serves the Living rather faithfully, or so it appears to me, Merlyn a once Bard of Scotland.


Pine Hill Lakes Park , Mason, Ohio
(the woods, two lakes, parking lot, playground and white dot water tower)

         What is this paragraph above the Google photograph? A slip of the keys? It seems this last paragraph began with you, Amorella and somehow the fingers slipped over to our character Merlyn. I can't help but think of wily ways in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". Wikipedia Offline calls this 1966 play, "an absurdist, existentialistic tragicomedy". This is a corrected quote because it says "existentialist". Perhaps it is correct as is but the added 'ic' sounds better.

         It is a Freudian slip of the fingers (the Amorella to Merlyn), orndorff. It reminds me of the 'slip' during the attempted landing in the last "Diplomatic Pouch". - Amorella

         Interesting comment.

         I aim to please the imagination, boy. - Amorella

         For which I am grateful. I think there is more here than meets the eye. (1618)

         I would imagine; if I could. I have no need of imagination as you know. - Amorella

         I am suddenly out of words. (1624)

         Carol has begun the book, American Assassin by Vince Flynn. The sun is behind a cloud and though early it feels like dusk is about to settle in. As you were writing the opening paragraph to Dead 11 you kept thinking of Thorton Wilder and his famous play, "Our Town." A week or so ago you read an interesting (to you) article about the man himself. Certain readings changed your life as you were growing up, two of them were by Wilder, and the spirits, if you will, of their words are carried from both works (the other: Bridge of San Luis Rey). Below is a selection on the man, his family and his life from Wikipedia.

            ** **
Thorton Wilder
Early years

Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a US diplomat, and Isabella Niven Wilder. All of the Wilder children spent part of their childhood in China because of their father's work.
Thornton Wilder's older brother, Amos Niven Wilder, was Hollis Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, a noted poet, and foundational to the development of the field theopoetics. Amos was also a nationally ranked tennis player who competed at the Wimbledon tennis championships in 1922. His youngest sister, Isabel Wilder, was an accomplished writer. Both of his other sisters, Charlotte Wilder, a poet, and Janet Wilder Dakin, a zoologist, attended Mount Holyoke College and were excellent students. Additionally, Wilder had a sister and a twin brother, who died at birth
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) tells the story of several unrelated people who happen to be on a bridge in Peru when it collapses, killing them. Philosophically, the book explores the problem of evil, or the question, of why unfortunate events occur to people who seem "innocent" or "undeserving". It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and in 1998 it was selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century. The book was quoted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Since then its popularity has grown enormously. The book is the progenitor of the modern disaster epic in literature and film-making, where a single disaster intertwines the victims, whose lives are then explored by means of flashbacks to events before the disaster.
Wilder was the author of Our Town, a popular play (and later film) set in fictional Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. It was inspired by his friend Gertrude Stein's novel The Making of Americans, and many elements of Stein's deconstructive style can be found throughout the work. Wilder suffered from severe writer's block while writing the final act. Our Town employs a choric narrator called the "Stage Manager" and a minimalist set to underscore the human experience. Wilder himself played the Stage Manager on Broadway for two weeks and later in summer stock productions. Following the daily lives of the Gibbs and Webb families, as well as the other inhabitants of Grover’s Corners, Wilder illustrates the importance of the universality of the simple, yet meaningful lives of all people in the world in order to demonstrate the value of appreciating life. The play won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize. . . .

Selected from: Wikipedia Offline - Thorton Wilder
** **

         "Wilder illustrates the importance of the universality of the simple, yet meaningful lives of all people in the world in order to demonstrate the value of appreciating life", is a statement I would like to make my own in these books; yet the Merlyn books are not so simply put.

         Minimalist theatre or radio dialogue, perhaps something could be made of them at a later date. - Amorella

         I cannot imagine such a thing. (1652)

         Neither can I, boy. Time for a break. Post when convenient. - Amorella

         You make things fun, Amorella. Carol is on page 52.

         2124 hours.  Here it is much later in the day. I haven't but begun Dead 11 earlier this afternoon.

         Add and post what you have. Enjoy the rest of the evening. - Amorella

***
The Dead 11 draft intro

         Merlyn sat near the theatre ruins at his sanctuary, admiring the yellow sun that has only recently been a part of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. During my recent tenure on Earth, thought Merlyn, during the time of heartanmind sharing with the identical twins Richard and Robert though Robert didn't appear to know it at the time. He did buy his brother two books on Merlyn though. Surprised Richard, yes it did. We never had rain here either until after the Second Rebellion. It began, so it's said, the Earth night after President Eisenhower's Farewell Address, televised on 17 January 1961. Those who were watching or listening at the time mostly remember it for Eisenhower's warning on too much deficit spending and on the growing military-industrial complex. Those already dead did not hear of it at the time, but many of the recent Dead in those days knew about Eisenhower. It wasn't long before word began to get around. Wars and plagues had passed many people on in the first fifty years of the twentieth century. Now days there are plenty more living but they do not make up for the loss. All the new technology and weaponry, all kinds of weaponry never dreamed of before. The Dead of many cultures got together and said to the Supervisor; "Somebody's got to go back and say some things about how it is here in this Place of the Dead.  243 words (1521)

***


          You found a few more words rolling out of your fingertips so let's include them here then call it a night. - Amorella

***
(2205) When I died in the latter seventh century I went to sleep and when I awoke I found myself in Avalon. The topography was basically the Isles. This is a refreshing scene for those who had lived there. The earlier Dead in Avalon have slightly different scenes, those from their lifetimes. People wake up where they will be most welcome and self-assured. Most assume the Supervisor, as SheanHe is titled, to understand how these things work. I haven't seen any errors but some say there have been from time to time. They are readily corrected with little harm if any done. Peoples' spirits need to feel comfortable so individuals choose out their own level of personal ease with one's self. This is all completed before arrival, most of it anyway. 131/ 374 words

         Communication among the Dead is not difficult as long as one is polite first and honest second. For some this is a difficult undertaking. You have no tongue to slip on. You are a personality with selected memory and a spirit. The words are driven from the heartanmind and in that order. If you do not connect the humor you miss half the fun of being Dead. Those who discover problems with this arrangement feel more at home in their private sanctuary. The heartansoul is more social and home is a good place to resolve these internal conflicts when they arise. 101 / 475 words (2227)

***

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