Ellipsis Word Of The Week... Prat

 

"All slang is a metaphor, and all metaphors are poetry."

~Gilbert K. Chesterton

Hey, just sayin! 

;)

Halloween Countdown Film #22... The Blob

 

 "Beware of the Blob. It creeps and leaps, and glides and slides across the floor. Indescribable... indestructible... insatiable ! Beware of the blob... " 

 

Gee, why would I be thinking about a giant orange-red blob that rolls over everyone and sucks the life out of humanity? Sorry, this is my happy place away from politics, but many of the early horror films were related in some way to politics. The Blob was a metaphor of the mid-20th century's fear of communism, the atomic age and ignorance of science. The dialog of the film addresses it fairly pointedly...

 

Steve Andrews: How do you get people to fear things they don't believe in?

 

Lieutenant Dave: At least we got it stopped!

Steve Andrews: Yeah, as long as the arctic stays cold.

 

This film came out in 1958, so it's pretty clear that Climate Change science was an issue, I didn't grow up in that era, but I remember it being taught to me in Junior High, in the late 1970's, and pretty much everything I was told would happen, is happening! Unprecedented wildfires. Storms gradually gaining strength to horrific levels, the warming of the oceans. There's a list and I am sure you can check many boxes of the continuing devastation. We just never learn. Maybe the scariest part of The Blob, is our slowness to accept the truth, because accepting it is just too frightening to see.

 

Americans went to see this movie in 1958.

 And we didn't learn a damn thing from it.

Can you believe there are still climate deniers in 2025? 

 

 

Oh well, take all the politics out of it, The Blob, is still an awesome movie. Campy, yes, "B" movie... yes, but it's got a really fun theme song, and actually has a bigger picture involved, and that's why it's a classic! 

 

 

Working With Light

"There are darknesses in life and there are lights, 

and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights."

~Bram Stoker

Dracula

I was in a restaurant the other day and saw this pretty light. It was in the middle of the day, but the light photographed as if I had taken it in a completely dark room. I loved it. I need to experiment more with lighting I think. Anyway, the lighting situation reminds me of our current political climate. There is a light. But then everything around it seems to swallow it up and thrust it into darkness.

 A 24 hour news cycle doesn't always jive with the position of the sun... does it? It can be a hot, clear, August day, and yet when I hear about North Korea successfully launching a missile or Donald Trump's latest hateful musing, I suddenly feel a winter chill down my spine! What season will we be in, when we find ourselves on the last day of the world?

 I think about the surreal beauty of the morning of September 11th, 2001, with it's clear blue sky, and mild temperatures. It was a day that you muse to yourself that nothing bad could possibly happen. Then it did. Except it seems like we have forgotten about that day. We have gotten used to pain or maybe we have gotten good at ignoring how it felt to be an American that day. I don't know which. Truth is, it's probably different for everyone.

But...

Did the darkness swallow the light?

Did the light lie to us, when it swallowed the darkness?

Where it begins and where it ends is a mystery.

Maybe we are better off not knowing much about tomorrow. Maybe some days are like the light in the picture. There is a little light, in the middle of some darkness, but the light is shining anyway. It isn't giving up because there is darkness surrounding it. If I chose to not see the light, that's on me. I can't fault the light.

The light will shine, with, or without me.

Mood: Introspective

~Me :)

A Sweeping Metaphor

"It may be difficult, but there will be times we need to pick up our brooms and do some spiritual house cleaning. It is through this process that we find our true relationships, our true heart, our core integrity, and our life's purpose."

~Molly Friedenfeld, The Book Of Simple Human Truths: Inspiration, Love And Wisdom

While walking through the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco the other day, I happened upon this little broom, just resting on the concrete. Sometimes I can be right in the middle of a place of bold, vibrant colors and sounds, and while it's all exciting and inspiring to take in all that, sometimes  it's the subtle things that tend to hit me over the head. Sometimes the little, average things that pleases my eye the most.

There is a superstition that says when you move from one home to another, the last thing you should do is sweep the last of the moving dust out your door, and leave the broom behind. Which, of course, is symbolic of sweeping your troubles, your ghosts out of your live, and not taking them to your new home.

That works well for attitudes as well. Preconceived notions. Old boyfriends, Addictions. Fears. Bad neighbors. Almost any "ghost" that haunts you. I have done it many times. Daily I have swept up the dust of everyday life and thrown it in the garbage, but there is something about the final sweeping of the mind, regarding anything that needed letting go of, that has cleansed my life the most. I like brooms very much.

"When someone hands you a broom, get a few buckets of paint. That is how a janitor becomes an impressionist. If the 19th century French style could improve upon nature, it can make your floor look clean."

~Bauvard, The Prince Of Plungers

Mood: Happy

~Me :)