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The foundation for film acting is stage acting.

quote by James Lipton
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Rosciad

Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.

Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player
Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume;
In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bled in every scar.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay:
Those who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
What can an actor give? In every age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player,
Appear as often as their image there:
They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon,
And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more,
Though for each million he had brought home four?
Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.
The town divided, each runs several ways,
As passion, humour, interest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.
From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll.
Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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Girls On Film (Night Version)

See them walking hand in hand
Across the bridge at midnight
Heads turning as the lights flashing out
Are so bright
And walk right out to the four line track
There's a camera rolling on her back
On her back
And I sense a rhythm humming in a frenzy
All the way down her spine
Girls on Film
Girls on Film
Girls on Film
Girls on Film
Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling
And miles of sharp blue water coming in
Where she lies
The diving man's coming up for air
'Cause the crowd all love pulling Dolly by the hair
By the hair
And she wonders how she ever got here
As she goes under again
Girls on Film (Two minutes later)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (Got your picture)
Girls on Film
Wider, baby, smile and you've just made a million
Fuses pumping live heat twisting out on a wire
Take one last glimpse into the night
I'm touching close
I'm holding bright, holding tight
Give me shudders in a whisper,
Take me up til I'm shooting a star
Girls on Film (she's more than a lady)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (Two minutes later)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (see you together)
Girls on Film
Girls on Film (see you later)
Girls on Film

song performed by Duran Duran
Added by Lucian Velea
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This House

(nile rodgers)
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
Our toys are in the attic baby
Pictures on the wall
We can see our memories
From the days past in the mirror
Down the hall, oh yeah
Our love will survive in our own little paradise
So inspired, so inspired
Palatial it may not be
But its a home and a castle to me
A dream from a magazine
And well never give it up cause
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
Ill try to comfort you baby
You try to comfort me yeah
I know you love me
With all your heart, oh yeah
cause you say you do
You know that when you are sad
Ill be there in a flash
At the drop of a hat, oh yeah
cause I want you to feel love
And you dont have to say a thing
You dont have to ask, cause baby
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
Maybe well strike it rich
One day really make it big
And I know because our love is so strong
Well always have a home
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built
On a foundation of love
This house is built

[...] Read more

song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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Girls On Film

See them walking hand in hand across the bridge at midnight
Heads turning as the lights flashing out are so bright
Then walk right out to the fourline track
Theres a camera rolling on her back on her back
And I sense the rhythms humming in a frenzy
All the way down her spine
Girls on film
Girls on film
Girls on film
Girls on film
Lipstick cherry all over the lens as shes falling
In miles of sharp blue water coming in where she lies
The diving mans coming up for air
Cause the crowd all love pulling dolly by the hair, by the hair
And she wonders how she ever got here
As she goes under again
Girls on film (two minutes later)
Girls on film
Girls on film (got your picture)
Girls on film
Wider baby smiling youve just made a million
Fuses pumping live heat twisting out on a wire
Take one last glimpse into the night
Im touching close Im holding bright, holding tight
Give me shudders with a whisper take me high
Till I Im shooting a star
Girls on film (shes more than a lady)
Girls on film
Girls on film (see you together)
Girls on film
Girls on film (see you later)
Girls on film
Girls on film (two minutes later)

song performed by Duran Duran
Added by Lucian Velea
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Get Off The Stage

Oh, you silly old man
You silly old man
Youre making a fool of yourself
So get off the stage
You silly old man
In your misguided trousers
With your mascara and your fender guitar
And you think you can arouse us ?
But the song that you just sang
It sounds exactly like the last one
And the next one
I bet you it will sound
Like this one
Downstage, and offstage
Dont you feel all run in ?
And do you wonder when they will take it away ?
This is your final fling
But then applause ran high
But for the patience of the ones behind you
As a verse drags on like a month drags on
Its very short, but it seems very long
And the song that you just sang
It sounds exactly like the last one
And the next one
I bet you it will sound
Like this one
So, get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
And when we get down off of the stage
Please stay off the stage - all day !
Get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
And when weve had our money back
Then Id like your back in plaster
Oh, I know that you say
How age has no meaning
Oh, but here is your audience now
And theyre screaming :
Get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
Because Ive given you enough of my time
And the money that wasnt even mine
Have you seen yourself recently ?
Oh, get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
For whom, oh ...
For whom, oh ...
For whom, oh ...
For whom, oh ...
Get off the stage

[...] Read more

song performed by Morrissey
Added by Lucian Velea
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Experimental Film

The color of infinity
Inside an empty glass
I'm squinting my eye
And turning off and on and on
and off the light
It's for this experimental film
Which nobody knows about and which
I'm still figuring out what's going to go
In my experimental film
Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's
I already know the ending
It's the part that makes your face implode
I don't know what makes your face implode
But that's the way the movie ends
And in my experimental film
Which nobody knows about but which
I'm still figuring out your face implodes
At my experimental film
Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it--
Even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's
The color of infinity
Inside an empty glass
It's for this experimental film
Which nobody knows about and which
I'm still figuring out what's going to go
In my experimental film
Yeah, you're all gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's gonna--
Yeah, you're gonna be in this experimental film
And even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it--
Even though I can't explain it
I already know how great it's

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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Child Molester

Note- I wanted to write something something darker and deeper then what I currently have been.

This is what came out.

Dark Rewrite of Britney Spear's Womanizer

Storyline-One woman takes the stand that no one else will to save her street from the unthinkable

Perverted neighbor
I know where you're from
I think it's best you get your twisted... going
Got more then just a clue what you're up to
You can play squeaky clean tp all the others gathered here
But I know what you really are, what you really are sickie

Look at you
Tryin' to act so on the up and up
Sickie, you
Got everyone else here fooled
But not me, oh no, not me
Fakin' like deep down you're a good one
Let's just lay our cards out on the table
Get it all out now
Call 'em like we both know 'em

Child molester, child-child molester
You're a child molester
Oh, child molester, oh you're a child molester, sickie
You-you know-you know you are
You-you know-you know you are
Child molester, child molester, child molester

Sicko, don't try stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
Sicko, don't try to stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
(Spoken) You got some kind of twisted game goin'
You got them all believin' you're so charmin'
But I won't let you keep on doin' it
You child molester

Sicko, don't try stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
Sicko, don't try to stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
(Spoken) You say I'm crazy

[...] Read more

poem by Ramona Thompson
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The Film Of My Love

Co-starring you
And co-starring me
Starring us both together
The film of my love
Will travel the world
Forever and ever and ever
A back lot romance
A scripted affair
The screenplay a blessing from heaven
Were gone with the wind
On the orient express
To join the magnificent seven
The film of my love
Will travel the world
And travel the whole world over
The film of my love
Will travel the world
Over and over and over
The film of my love
Will travel the world
Over and over and over
Over and over and over again
Over and over and over
A close-up of yours
A long shot of mine
Superimposed together
Ill zoom in on you
With a love that is true
In cinemascope forever
A clapper board kiss
Theres an oscar in this
A hit or a miss whatever
A box office wedding
A premier for two
Well be on location forever
When pathe recall
The thrill of it all
Theyll edit us both together
A legend a classic
An epic of love
Captured on film forever
A lasting embrace
That time cant erase
Let them censor the wind
Or the weather
The film of my love
Will conquer the world
Forever and ever and ever
The film of my love
Will travel the world

[...] Read more

song performed by 10 Cc
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sally Simpson

Outside the house mr. simpson announced
Outside the house mr. simpson announced
That sally couldnt go to the meeting.
That sally couldnt go to the meeting.
He went on cleaning his blue rolls royce
He went on cleaning his blue rolls royce
And she ran inside weeping.
And she ran inside weeping.
She got to her room and tears splashed the picture
She got to her room and tears splashed the picture
Of the new messiah.
Of the new messiah.
She picked up a book of her fathers life
She picked up a book of her fathers life
And threw it on the fire!
And threw it on the fire!
She knew from the start
She knew from the start
Deep down in her heart
Deep down in her heart
That she and tommy were worlds apart,
That she and tommy were worlds apart,
But her mother said never mind your part...
But her mother said never mind your part...
Is to be what youll be.
Is to be what youll be.
The theme of the sermon was come unto me,
The theme of the sermon was come unto me,
Love will find a way,
Love will find a way,
So sally decided to ignore her dad,
So sally decided to ignore her dad,
And sneak out anyway!
And sneak out anyway!
She spent all afternoon getting ready,
She spent all afternoon getting ready,
And decided shed try to touch him,
And decided shed try to touch him,
Maybe hed see that she was free
Maybe hed see that she was free
And talk to her this sunday.
And talk to her this sunday.
She knew from the start
She knew from the start
Deep down in her heart
Deep down in her heart
That she and tommy were worlds apart,
That she and tommy were worlds apart,
But her mother said never mind your part...
But her mother said never mind your part...

[...] Read more

song performed by Who
Added by Lucian Velea
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Maybe I'm crazy

I am not Emo
I’m not a Goth
I’m perfectly normal
But I know what it feels to be lost
Stuck in the crowd
Can’t hear a sound
Feels like I’m pushed back in the distance
Can’t come out
Do people see?
Do they believe?
Or am I just crazy from being lonely?

The words burst from my lips as I scream
But the people around me don’t seem to hear a thing
Am I invisible? Am I going crazy?
The world is acting like they don’t know about me
Am I forgotten? Am I just crazy?
Am I just lost? Am I just lonely?
Somebody hear me
Somebody save me

I check my phone, nobody calls
I can’t help, but feeling so forgot
I put on a show, nobody knows
Where did all the people I used to love, go?
I see a face, forgot its name
But they don’t seem to recognize me, anyway
All of my friends are with somebody else
And now I’m sitting here all by myself
(All by myself)

The words burst from my lips as I scream
(From my lips, as I scream)
But the people around me don’t seem to hear a thing
(But the people, don’t hear a thing)
Am I invisible? Am I going crazy?
(Am I invisible? Am I going crazy?)
The world is acting like they don’t know about me
(Acting like, don’t know about me)
Am I forgotten? Am I going crazy?
(Am I forgotten? Am I going crazy?)
Am I just lost? Am I just lonely?
(Am I just lost, maybe I’m lonely)
Somebody hear me
(Somebody near me)
Somebody save me
(Somebody save me)
Or am I just crazy?
Or am I just crazy?

[...] Read more

poem by Sugar Bear
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Working In The Building

Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Working On The Building

(words & music by hoyle - boulas)
Im working on the building
Its a true foundation
Im holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
Im going up to heaven to get my reward
Im working on the building
Its a true foundation
Im holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
Im going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
Its a true foundation
Im holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
Im going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
Its a true foundation
Im holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
Im going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
Its a true foundation
Im holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
Im going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Find It Hard To Believe

I find it hard to believe
I find it hard to believe
That Im embarassed at me
For being upset
Over acting so contemptuously (I find it hard to believe)
Acting so contemptuously (I find it hard to believe)
Acting so contemptuously (that Im embarassed at me)
Acting so contemptuously (that Im embarassed at me)
(for being upset over acting so contemptuously)
Acting so contemptuously (acting so contemptuously)
Acting so contemptuously (on me)
I find it hard to believe

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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King Is White & In The Crowd

Talking by the pool of light, language from america.
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
They are not a melting pot, say no, say no tapestry
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
She takes his hand and she says youll stay
Shes lost in the crowd
King
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Lovers run camp africa, bars in town are civilised
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Panorama, citylife
Youths dance proud from the waist down
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Shot from where the action is, a rhapsody in black and blue
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Love lies under western eyes, powerful yet transient
She puts on the film of him, king is white and in the crowd
Words & music : simple minds (c) emi publishing ltd reproduced without permission

song performed by Simple Minds
Added by Lucian Velea
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King Is White And In The Crowd

Talking by the pool of light, language from Americ.
a
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
They are not a melting pot, say no, say no tapestry
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
She takes his hand and she says you'll stay
She's lost in the crowd
King
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Wire them up, fire them up
The life and times, the art and talk
Lovers run camp Africa, Bars in town are civilised
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
Panorama, Citylife
Youth's dance proud from the waist down
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
Shot from where the action is, a rhapsody in black and blue
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd
Love lies under western eyes, powerful yet transient
She puts on the film of him, King is white and in the crowd

song performed by Simple Minds
Added by Lucian Velea
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This be the last time we use the phrase 'Slumdog

We, as Indians, have reasons
To be proud of having
Created history by the film
“Slumdog Millionaire”
At the same time, we, as human beings,
Have to have hung our heads for
Having created slums

Slum, as it means
An overcrowded area of a city,
Where the housing is in a very bad condition
And people live in unhygienic conditions
With no basic facilities

And who created slums,
Not the people residing there
But those whose greed has brought
These slum dwellers into these
Unfit-for-living conditions

The technicalities employed in
Filming this movie deserve all praise
While the different ways of living
Of the slum dwellers equally deserve attention
Of the entire human race
For correction and improvement

The film was declared to be
The best-directed
While the slum tribes have no directions
And they have no one to direct

The film was declared to be
The best film
While the slum where the film was shot
Is the worst place
For any human being

Let the recognition of the film
Bring to light the plight of slumdogs
To the fore
And let the human race do everything
Possible to move these people
Out of the slums, wherever they are,
And to help them live a decent, if not better, living

We shall be doing a great service
If this becomes the last ever time
We use this phrase “Slumdog”

poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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Girl And Gun

“All that you need is a girl and a gun
if you making a film, ” said Jean-Luc Godard.
In the dark with a girl you can have as much fun
as a guy who’s been laid in a film that is noir,
but if, when you switch on the light, you discover
the girl isn’t loaded, walk out of the trailer,
and if she complains that you’ve been a bad lover,
take out a revolver with which you can nail her.

Inspired by Manohla Dargis’s review of Gustav Deutsch’s “Film 1st, a Girl & an Gun” in the December 2,2009 NYT (“The Old Clips, A Paradise Found and Lost”) :
“To make a film, ” Jean-Luc Godard once memorably said, “all you need is a girl and a gun.” (A little money helps.) In “Film Ist. a Girl & a Gun, ” the Austrian director Gustav Deutsch complicates this witty, deceptively simple formula with a wealth of found footage (material shot by others for other purposes) borrowed from film archives from around the world. As the title suggests, there are girls (voluptuous, ecstatic, threatened) and there are guns (hard, phallic, threatening) along with something of a narrative. If the narrative that Mr. Deutsch has created is rather less thrilling than his mostly silent and often glorious images, this is nonetheless a story well worth considering, and watching. Using material gathered from the likes of the Imperial War Museum (in Britain) and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction (at Indiana University) , he has fashioned something of an origin story about cinema itself. It’s a tale that begins with an unidentified image of a woman in buckskin shooting at some targets and ends with a cowboy bandit pointing his gun at the camera, an image appropriated from Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 short, “The Great Train Robbery, ” one of the most famous in cinema history. Tucked between these loaded images, as it were, is a vision of cinematic paradise, found and lost.
Tumult of a kind pursues the shooting woman (nothing new there) in the form of a mesmerizing, mysterious shot of what looks like an archery target in flames and some text (“at the first Chaos came to be”) from “Theogony, ” an epic Greek poem by Hesiod about the origin of the world. The archery target gives way to fiery orange images of billowing smoke and some electronic thrumming. (The intermittent score tends to underscore the obvious.) The thrumming turns to droning, the smoke turns to lava, followed by more Hesiod (“wide-bosomed earth”) , a woman with bountiful breasts, “Paradeisos” (Greek for paradise) and naked beachfront frolickers…
Women turn out to be the fly in the ointment in “a Girl & a Gun.” (“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor” or so it says in Ecclesiastes.) Among the many images that follow, many beautifully and floridly tinted, are sleeping, dreaming and fornicating clothed and unclothed women. In one early section, a woman drowsing in a steam room seems to dream of both an undulating jellyfish and a swimming man. In another section, a woman watches a man spin four strange dials hidden behind a cabinet, as if he were initiating her into a secret world. (On the soundtrack, you hear “she dies.”) A world, a subsequent shot suggests — of a woman reading a newspaper with the headline “Cine Monde” — that has been made from images…With “a Girl & a Gun, ” Mr. Deutsch brings in Eros and Thanatos to a seductive if familiar end.

12/2/09

poem by Gershon Hepner
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The Apology

ADDRESSED TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS.

Tristitiam et Metus.--HORACE.

Laughs not the heart when giants, big with pride,
Assume the pompous port, the martial stride;
O'er arm Herculean heave the enormous shield,
Vast as a weaver's beam the javelin wield;
With the loud voice of thundering Jove defy,
And dare to single combat--what?--A fly!
And laugh we less when giant names, which shine
Establish'd, as it were, by right divine;
Critics, whom every captive art adores,
To whom glad Science pours forth all her stores;
Who high in letter'd reputation sit,
And hold, Astraea-like, the scales of wit,
With partial rage rush forth--oh! shame to tell!--
To crush a bard just bursting from the shell?
Great are his perils in this stormy time
Who rashly ventures on a sea of rhyme:
Around vast surges roll, winds envious blow,
And jealous rocks and quicksands lurk below:
Greatly his foes he dreads, but more his friends;
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.
Look through the world--in every other trade
The same employment's cause of kindness made,
At least appearance of good will creates,
And every fool puffs off the fool he hates:
Cobblers with cobblers smoke away the night,
And in the common cause e'en players unite;
Authors alone, with more than savage rage,
Unnatural war with brother authors wage.
The pride of Nature would as soon admit
Competitors in empire as in wit;
Onward they rush, at Fame's imperious call,
And, less than greatest, would not be at all.
Smit with the love of honour,--or the pence,--
O'errun with wit, and destitute of sense,
Should any novice in the rhyming trade
With lawless pen the realms of verse invade,
Forth from the court, where sceptred sages sit,
Abused with praise, and flatter'd into wit,
Where in lethargic majesty they reign,
And what they won by dulness, still maintain,
Legions of factious authors throng at once,
Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.
To 'Hamilton's the ready lies repair--
Ne'er was lie made which was not welcome there--
Thence, on maturer judgment's anvil wrought,
The polish'd falsehood's into public brought.

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poem by Charles Churchill
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X-ray inferno

They called me to be an extra
They did not know I had a camera in my soul
For some all the worlds a stage
For some all the stage is the world
Wonder if the great one knew this
When he shook his spears
I was in between
Neither the real actor nor the real lifer
Perhaps this was each interpretation gave up
The stage I was standing on
I could not grasp the text even though I got it in time
Perhaps it was quite enough for a stage
Certainly not for a life

Act 1 and its main character

He had a face unto which
An invisible hand of law left the visible scars
A quite sufficient number of them for a drama
He had those eyes hesitating between comedy and tragedy
There was laughter in one eye and tears in another
He laughed the way the dramaturge ordered him to do
But he cried quite independently
He had those arms destroyed by uncreation
He never knew the text as he had no camera in his soul
Great words of great minds so frequently he stammered
Little did he understand even less did he rehearse
He was a great actor but on this stage
Under the spotlight all he did was stand frozen

Act 2 The Prompter

He was in collusion with the sky
The Hermes of a contemporary theatre
He flattered all the laws of life
He knew exactly how low to go down into his box
So as to avoid the knocks from the stage
He knew exactly what and when
To whisper the texts into whose ears
He had known the text by heart
Even before it was written
Great words of great minds he recited out of his underground darkness
And he always knew the right moment
Because he knew everything about time
He never acted but he was a real lifer
He made more than art out of whispering
And put enormous effort into his role
Up to the point of having vocal cords damaged

Act 3 Dramaturge

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poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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