"The Sunset Limited:" Reality Might Be Relative

Cormac McCarthy entitled the play as The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Fashion. According to the artistic director of the original production, Martha Levy, the choice to use "the stage as a venue for this conversation suggests he sees the drama of The Sunset Limited as one best unmediated by the narrative voice..." A very interesting thought. McCarthy is handing over the controls to someone else. How the story unfolds is up to the conversation between two men. The story is not dictated by a single point of view. The story is dictated by a conversation, by what these two men say.

I'm not sure that this is a completely formed thought, but here we are. It is interesting to think about the power of the point of view. As human beings, our point of view determines everything about our lives. It is how we see the world and the people in it. It informs every choice we make, whether good or evil. (Good intentions or not) That's a pretty big deal. It also informs much of the our two characters in The Sunset Limited. They have two completely different points of view and not surprisingly, butt-heads all through the show. Fortunately, it is left up to us to decide who was right. Unfortunately, who we decide is informed by our point of view. You can't get away from it.

Neither of these are fully formed thoughts at the moment because my mind is still blowing up thinking of these two things in this way. For a novelist to write a novel without a narrative voice is, at least for me, unheard of. To give up at least some of the control of his work is headache inducing. To really think about our point of view causes some pretty late nights and heady thinking. It brings questions to mind about the nature of reality. For that matter, in what reality do we, as individuals on the same plane, live in? Do we even live in the same plane? Who knows.

The Sunset Limitied by Cormac McCarthy

I was walking back from performing in Spring Awakening and thinking about what I was going to write for this blog post tonight. One thought kept coming back into my mind, "does God exist?" This thought was only multiplied by Black's words at the end of the play: "I don't understand what you sent me down there for. I don't understand it. If you wanted me to help him how come you didn't give me the words? You give em to him. What about me?"



Why does God, in all his infinite mercy and wisdom, sometimes give the short end of the stick to good people? Why did he create us? Why are there so many rules to living a virtuous life? Are we really just some big science experiment in salvation? I guess all of these questions could be answered by the age old adage, "God works in mysterious ways." But, when do the mysterious become the ridiculous? How are we lowly and unworthy creatures suppose to know when God wants us to do good? None of these questions have easy or satisfactory answers. I do believe that it is all chalked up to faith, on whether you believe or not. Just on a personal note, I do not believe that I am some kind of cosmic science experiment. I can not bring myself to believe that God who loves us so much could be filled with as much hate as people chalk him up to be. Sometimes, and often, it does not add up for me. I gave up on trying to figure out why I was put here, why I was "made." So many people waste their lives on why they are on the Earth and they forget to live. It is a shame. Why I am on this Earth is the least of my worries. I am more concerned with why I do things and the experience of life. In theory, I only have one life. I really don't want to waste it.



What The Sunset Limited does is raise these questions, but it does not answer them. It presents both sides and let's them battle it out. However, just like every time these two sides enter in battle, they end up in a draw, at least for the audience. Just like in life, every member of the audience is meant to hash out these issues for themselves.

A Cheated Haiku.

It started out calm. 

 

Now, cacophonic, chaotic,

maybe it will return.

Pablo Picasso-Guernica

Andrea Gibson: The Left and Right Sides of The Brain

When talking about the relationship of the left and right brain, how the brain thinks in images, and how our experiences shape our reality, I couldn't help but think about my favorite poet, Andrea Gibson. I suddenly realized that what made her so good is how she very skillfully combines the two sides of the brain in her own poetry. (I also had a thought that this is what a lot of my favorite poetry does) I thought I would share my top three favorite poems to illustrate what I mean, and, mostly, I'll just let them speak for themselves:

The first is entitled "Letter To A Playground Bully From Andrea (Age 8)"

 

 

The second is, "How It Ends"





 

I think this one illustrates what makes Andrea Gibson a wonderful poet. It is about soldiers, and civilians, who were tortured and killed by being set of fire because they were gay. Here is, "Ashes:"

 

 



 

 

 

What Gibson manages to accomplish with her word play and metaphors is really quite astounding. She has a wonderful mix of analysis, imagery, and wordplay that mix the two together in her poems that serve her point and tone very well. On a personal note, I love the honesty in her poems. They are presented matter-of-factly, they are not "glittered over" with fluff. However, she also has a wonderful sense of hope that it will all be ok.

  

"Birthday, for Jenn"

"Sex Without Love" by Sharon Olds



A very literal use of "Unsuffer Me" by Lucinda Willams

 

Sex Without Love Responses

 

"Meditative Rose" by Salvador Dali

If it isn’t “making love” all the time, then change the name.
If it is possible to “make love” without love,

Then it’s kind of a misnomer, don’t you think?

I’ve never had sex without love.

Because when our hand as skating over each other’s bodies

Like rain drops gliding over a leaf or snow gently floating to kiss the land

We look into each other’s eyes and see a truth that is seldom found anywhere else.

That truth is profound as God.

We may fuck and suck only for one night, and hell, I might not even like you personally tomorrow.

But, there is one thing that is constant.

It may be that memory will serve as the only record, and it might be that it was only for that moment,

But I loved you forever.






"The Hug" by Schiele Egon

 It’s never without love.

It might only be for one night.

It’s in one night we have a connection.

We are as beautiful as dancers.

We dance together.
 
We find passion together.

What is found is purity.

What happens is profound as snow falling on Jesus’ head.

 

What we know is each other.

I pleasure him.

I know he pleasures me.

I see him as the world cannot.

He sees me as the world cannot.

Really, even if for one night, how can it not be love?



"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke

My Papa's Waltz

In talking about word selection in poetry, I thought this was a wonderful poem in it's word choice because it evokes more than just cathartic emotion, it captures a feeling. If that sound pretentious, please just stick around a little longer and I'll try to explain myself.

Let's look at the first stanza:

"The whiskey on you breath
 Could make a small boy dizzy;
 But I hung on like death:
 Such waltzing was not easy."

Roethke really captures a feeling of looseness and a sense of being drunk incredibly well. You get a sense of the father being tipsy enough, but still slightly alert. It also creates an idyllic world to live in filled with dancing and it sounds fun.

There is also a distinct shift in tone, at least for me, in the last stanza:

"You beat time on my head
 With a palm caked hard by dirt.
 Then waltzed me off to bed
 Still clinging to your shirt."

I think this is the reality of the world creeping in, the world is still fun and carefree but there is a reminder of the world outside hard and dirty. We also see this in the third stanza with, "the hand that held my wrist/ was battered on one knuckle..." But, at least, in this moment it does not matter and all is well.

 

A Poem About Family. (In Response to "Begotten" by Andrew Hudgins)

I don’t believe that family is determined by genes.

It’s not the people speak like you, or look like you,

Or the people you used to see at family reunions.

After all,

There are people whose families throw you out for who you love

Or the grades you got,

Or the tattoo you got when they weren’t looking.

 There are families that touch you in places that, one day, will have to be shown on a doll,

Families that leave bruises on your body,

And, even worse, on your mind.

Sometimes, there are people you just straight up can’t bring yourself to like

Let alone, love or call relation.

I have friends whose friends are more a family then their blood will ever be.

They say that blood is thicker than water.

Well, maple syrup is thicker than blood,

And I’ve shared some pretty good pancakes with people other than my family.

See, we don’t get to choose our family.

But, we get to choose who treats us like a family.

We get to pick who brings us back down to earth,

Who tells us when we are just like that one star in the night sky,

Who holds our hair when we are too drunk to do it ourselves,

Who risks the flu to bring us chicken soup,

Who forgives us when we call them a “scum-sucking road whore.”

  Hopefully.

Who we forgive when tell us our point of view is “up our ass.”

Who tell us we are good enough.

Pancakes, stars, soup, “scum-sucking road whores,” and asses.

They are the people who make it all worth it.

That’s what family is made of.

Sonny's Blues

I'm not sure that I have ever read a story quite like James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues. I have to be honest, I was not impressed with the first two paragraphs and was quick to judge the writing style as it reminded me of the ever popular Twilight, which I was not a fan of. However, that all quickly changed. I can say that I've never has a story emotionally effect in the way that this story has.

The basic plot concerns a school teacher living in Harlem finds out his estranged brother, Sonny, has been arrested for "peddling and using heroin." The brother after getting out of rehab stays with his brother for a while and they end up going to a jazz club where we hear Sonny play for the first time in a couple of years.

 

 

Honestly, what makes this story so wonderfully written is the way the author revels the back-story of the characters, and the characters themselves. We get everything we need at the right time and the inner turmoil of each is clearly defined and it is so honestly shown it can't be anything but relatable. What is remarkable about this piece is that it manages to be a remarkably moving story of brothers and a wonderfully beautiful metaphor for blues music as a whole. After reading the story I felt as if I had just listened to a good blues song. The Blues is all about experiencing pure emotions at their core. It is about longing and lust. It is about being at rock bottom, lost, confused, sad, happy, everything. It’s about exercising demons. The story ends up being a wonderful story of the power of music and emotion. It is a story on how music, the product and the composer, is a force of nature; that can heal just as well as destroy, for all involved.

Lucinda Williams-Essence