The Collection is growing...

Most days here at KSP involve too much coffee and a lot of sitting on my butt typing like a maniac.  Occasionally I drag myself up to the top of the hill to attempt to make a phone call - reception is not great here in the foothills - or maybe that's just Vodafone....

Really occasionally I go for a walk around Katherine's place.  And every time I do (3 times so far - and this is why the Australian Institute of Sport has never offered me any funding) I find something...cute yet slightly sinister... The newest addition has a hole in its mouth and makes a kind of serial killer wheeze when you squeeze it...  But look how perky he is!  And his new friends like him too - or are possibly planning on killing me in my sleep...

Speaking of which.. There is something very odd about the glass door panels here in my cottage. The privacy film they are coated in distorts any lights and makes them huge and glowy and ...to be honest..look a lot like Alien spacecraft when you wake up in the middle of the night (usually needing to wee from too much coffee) and glance out through them..  The first night that happened I actually got a bit freaked..there were four HUGE glowing diamond shaped "things" moving down the hillside towards me...Here is a photo of them:

And THAT is why no-one ever believes abductees...Crap photos! Even with a brilliant camera the light was too pale to record anything. Anyhoo upon opening the door, quite anxiously I must admit - it turned out the lights were just weak little solar path lights magnified and distorted by the privacy film on the glass.  Even so - I'm watching them....

One Tale Told Over and Over

Recognisably musically interesting parts followed by irrational resting parts and finally rational resting parts....

The Mask of the Medusa

Voice One:      And I saw it then, the face of a monster. Like looking into a mirror.  A foul gray moment as she railed and howled, beating at her face and head with closed and furious fists, white spittle frothing in the corners of her mouth, hands, demented, tearing her hair; that thick dark mane that had for so long fascinated me.  Fingers, hooked and ugly with rage, gripping her temples, hair like snakes.  Such a horrid mimicry of my own hands running reverently through those silky tresses that I loved, had loved so much.  And as I watched her beloved face transform, become my own, I was overwhelmed with a sudden shocking indifference. 

Prickly Pear Attack!

So this afternoon..inspired by KSP Treasurer John, I started looking up Prickly Pear Jam recipes..I am obviously suffering from domesticity withdrawal (stupid stupid me!) and had decided it would be so symbolic and lovely and, I don't know something probably pretentious, to make yummy Jam out of the ripening pears at Katherine's Place.  Romantic yes?  Oh How lovely I hear you say..and then she'll invite her dear friends to come over and have homemade scones and her fabulous (and no doubt soon to be Famous!) Prickly Pear Jam.  There will undoubtedly be lace tablecloths and possibly cucumber sandwiches and a high degree of genteel graciousness.  Well that was the plan.

So I start surfing the internet (and YES I have been writing today - 2000 words actually!) and came across some really lovely Jam recipes.  Admittedly the spines and nasty little bristles are a tad daunting but the internet has several helpful hints for dealing with them..including flamethrowers and napalm.  So what could possibly go wrong?!

Well lots actually..and I haven't even started to pick the little buggers yet!  So I'm happily researching Jam...jam jam jam...and then OOOH!  What's this?  A Prickly Pear Daiquiri recipe..Yum!  With a photo..OOOHH!  Lets go look at that shall we..so much more exciting than Jam!  and suddenly POW!  Virus...Crap!  abort abort abort!  Thank God for Norton is all I can say!  And why the hell would anyone think that's a good thing to stick a virus on?  I mean what sane person goes looking for a prickly pear daiquiri recipes for Gods sake????

Anyway I am still a little shaky..it was so sudden and vicious!  I think I need a Daiquiri to calm my nerves...

Prelude

The Ecstasy

“Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all”                                          Jean Genet

Cast

John Leonard (55) – A novelist & poet; distinguished & striking

Isabella Parker (45) – A Poet; a fading beauty

Marsden Parker (22) – A scriptwriter; vividly lovely

Voice One – Male

Voice Two – Female

Prelude

Music – Bartok – Solo Violin Sonata (Melodia) 3^rd movement – plays for 2 minutes & 8 seconds...then fades to a background sound.

(An old flickering slide; such as begins a silent black and white movie) –

“Fathoms”

The length of a man’s arms around the object of his affection

Voice Two:     You saw my desire.  Did it frighten you?

Voice One:      I didn’t notice.  There was luggage to arrange.  .

Voice Two:     I gasped; died a moment in the sultry air.  My face pale under the wide brimmed yellow straw.  You felt my terrible distress. (long pause)

I wrote of it in my journal.

Voice One:      The straps had fallen from one suitcase.  The bus steps were steep.

Voice Two:     Your wife; so brown and strong in her plain cotton shift.  She hated me.  I sensed her malevolence. 

Voice One:      She was unwell.  She dislikes travel.

Voice Two:     No.  Her gaze, that basilisks stare, I was stoned, pilloried, eviscerated, her razor eye sliced through the fragile armor of my chiffon frock.  I felt myself unraveling beneath her suspicion.

Voice One:      It had been a long journey and we were tired.  Do you remember how near a thing it was, our escape.  A matter of days.  We were grateful.

Voice Two:     Grateful.  You heartless bastard.

Music fades....

The Ecstacy

“Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all” 
Jean Genet



Prickly Pears outside my cottage at KSP



So what exactly am I writing up here in the foothills?  Well I'm not sure exactly ...but it is, in theory ... a Play.  Over the last few years I have become interested with the idea of betrayal... in particular the way in which great love can turn to hatred and revenge. Where passion and fire twists into something ugly and vengeful, where any lengths to punish the other seem suddenly  fair and reasonable.  It began with the purchase, on a whim, of a small $1 paperback in a local Good Sammy's "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"   After reading this I began to research the life of the Author, Elizabeth Smart ( here  and here ) and her passionate and torrid love affair with poet and novelist George Barker (here and here )  Barker wrote his own version of their love affair in a novella titled The Dead Seagull.   Theirs is a fascinating love story and one I believe has been told very well through various mediums, including a play "Memories of You" by  Canadian playwright Wendy Lill in 1989.

From there I began to wonder about love and its endings...I know that love, when it sours, can be rapacious, intractable and cruel.   And I began to see a pattern in how this plays out in our society, the way in which institutions support a kind of public horror show of the ending of a marriage or a relationship.  There is a script that is followed of vilification and accusation and such a horrendous tearing apart of all that was once loving and supportive. I have watched as a terrible puppet shows is enacted (over and over again), with  all the parts pre-destined and I have come to realise that Greek Tragedy, with all its excesses and cruelty is alive and well in our Family Court system and in the day to day suburban lives of our society.

What price is it fair to exact upon the Other for the ending of love?  For their indifference, or betrayal?  Medea, at least according to Euripides, murders her own children in revenge at Jason's betrayal.  For a modern day interpretation of this atrocity see some of the comprehensive research into Parent Alienation Syndrome.

So, that's what I am exploring up here in the foothills, modern day Greek tragedies, bohemian poets and the family court - its all terribly cheerful...  I'm thinking... a four hour liturgical musical with interpretive dance and an elephant that nobody speaks of...

As a footnote:  just when you find yourself immersed in something, you come across other projects that lie alongside, or across your own... one such project I have just discovered is 97 positions of the heart an international dance/theatre/spoken word collabaration based on the lives of Barker and Smart!

What's inspiring me today

This is the soundtrack to my play.... .... Enjoy!