Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski(Roman Raymond Polański (born August 18, 1933) is one of the most controversial contemporary directors in Cinema History.His name has become synonymous with events from his personal life, which in fact have at times detracted and taken precedence from his work as a filmmaker.

Roman has created films that unnerve and horrify the viewer such as "Rosemary's baby" and "The Tenant", as well as the masterpiece "Chinatown" starring, Jack Nicholson. He also directed the comedy vampire movie "Dance of the Vampires (also known as The Fearless Vampire Killers) and the period drama "Tess" based on the novel by Thomas Hardy starring, Nastassja Kinski. Both of these films exude a haunting yet luminous beauty.

As a filmmaker he is exceptional in his ability to produce works with a disturbing mood and atmosphere of suspense that is impossible to replicate. His hallmark is to utilize seemingly everyday events and situations and then expose the undercurrent of evil that lies beneath; he explores the thin line between madness and sanity with compelling expertise and intuitive mastery


Roman Polanski was born to Polish parents in Paris 1933. They moved to Krakow, Poland, when Romanwas still a toddler. Roman grew up in a constricted communist environment; however, he had a highlycreative intellect and created his own exceptional world of fantasy. His imagination was the key that helped him overcome the horror of War in Europe.

Whenever Roman had a chance to visit the theatre he had no uncertainties that one day he would appearon centre stage or behind the camera as a director, Roman was an incredibly confident child with grandaspirations.

Roman's father owned a plastics business in Krakow, although his parents were not rich they provided Roman with everything he needed. He was a child who in his own words "wanted everything his own way".His childhood would soon be shattered as War began in Poland.
The changes to the Jewish community began slowly and unpleasantly when Roman's parents were told to wear white armbands with the Star of David stencilled on them in blue. Roman was told it was because they were Jewish, although his parents did not practice their religion and his mother was only partlyJewish.

They were forced to move home by the Krakow Municipal Authorities. Soon after moving, Roman's sisterpointed outside the window and Roman looked out to see men building a wall, he and his family werebeing imprisoned in a Jewish ghetto. During this time both his parents were taken to concentration camps, his mother was never to return. Roman always believed he would see her again as he had no knowledge of the Third Reich's 'Final Solution' and he never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her.

His father had paid a family to look after Roman and he was moved from one place to another doing anything he could to survive. There were times of play amongst the ruined buildings of Poland with other children, yet he would always be a witness to brutality and depravity as the war continued witnessing scenes of inhumanity.

At the end of the World War II he was reunited with his father and began to pursue his dreams of having a career in the film industry, he started by working on a Children's radio programme called"The Merry Gang". He soon acquired a lead role in "The Son of the Regiment" the story of a Russian peasant boy. He attended Art School and finally with the help of Andrzej Wajda the great Polish directorhe applied to and was accepted at the Lodz Film School, the world of film and fantasy and the door to his dreams. At the film school his talent was readily apparent in his first student film "Two Men and a Wardrobe". He longed to escape Poland and travel abroad to America and Paris.

The first film he made that received significant attention was "Knife in the Water" made in 1962, this was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. He then directed three films in England including "Cul de Sac" and "Repulsion" starring Catherine Deneuve as a young woman suffering from a mental illness.

He married the gentle, and talented actress Sharon Tate who starred in "The Dance of the Vampires", whowas brutally murdered in 1969. His next film "Macbeth" is notorious for it's violent and bloody adaptation of the play by the English playwright, William Shakespeare.

Relationship with Sharon Tate, Rosemary's Baby (1968), and the Manson murders


Polanski met rising actress Sharon Tate shortly before filming The Fearless Vampire Killers (she was known to producerMartin Ransohoff), and during the production the two of them began dating. On January 20, 1968, Polanski married Sharon Tate in London. In his autobiography, Polanski described his brief time with Tate as the best years of his life. During this period, he also became friends with martial-arts master and actor Bruce Lee.

Shortly after, in 1968, Polanski went to the United States, where he established his reputation as a major commercial filmmaker with the success of his first Hollywood film, Rosemary's Baby, based on the recent popular novel of the same name by Ira Levin. The film is a horror-thriller set in New York about Rosemary (Mia Farrow), an innocent young woman from Omaha, Nebraska, who is impregnated by the devil after her narcissistic actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), offersher womb to a coven of local witches in exchange for a successful career. Polanski's screenplay adaptation earned him asecond Academy Award nomination.

In April 1969, Polanski's friend and collaborator, the composer Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969), died from head injuries sustained from a skiing accident, though other accounts of the cause of his death exist. After the short Two Men and aWardrobe, he scored all of Polanski's feature films (with the exception of Repulsion), and is probably best known in the U.S. for his final collaboration with the director: the haunting soundtrack to Rosemary's Baby.

On August 9, 1969, Tate, who was eight months pregnant with the couple's first child (a boy), and four others (AbigailFolger, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent) were brutally murdered by members of Charles Manson's "Family", who entered the Polanskis' rented home at 10050 Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills intending to "kill everyone there".Previous resident Terry Melcher (son of film icon Doris Day) had angered Charles Manson because he had declined to record some of his music. Melcher and his girlfriend at the time, actress Candice Bergen, had been living at the house but moved out in February 1969. The following month, Polanski and Tate moved in.

When Manson ordered members of his group to go to the property and kill everyone, they obeyed. After Parent, Sebring,Frykowski, and Folger had been murdered, Tate pleaded for the life of her unborn son. Susan Atkins replied that she felt no pity for her and began stabbing her.
Polanski was at his house in London at the time of the murders and immediately traveled to Los Angeles, where he was questioned by police. As there were no suspects in the case, police checked on the past history of Polanski and Tate to try to determine a motive. After a period of months, Manson and his "family" were arrested on unrelated charges, which revealed evidence of what came to be known as the Tate-LaBianca murders. Polanski returned to Europe shortly afterthe killers were arrested. He later said that he gave away all his possessions as everything reminded him of Tate and was too painful for him. His greatest regret was that he was not in Los Angeles with Tate on the night of the murders.

Sex crime allegations
In 1977, Polanski, then aged 44, became embroiled in a scandal involving 13-year-old Samantha Geimer (then known as SamanthaGailey). It ultimately led to Polanski's guilty plea to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

According to Geimer, Polanski asked Geimer's mother if he could photograph the girl for the French edition of Vogue, which Polanski had been invited to guest-edit. Her mother allowed a private photo shoot. According to Geimer in a 2003 interview,"Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him." She added, "It didn't feel right, and I didn't want to go back to the second shoot."

Geimer later agreed to a second session, which took place on March 10, 1977 at the Mulholland area home of actor JackNicholson in Los Angeles. "We did photos with me drinking champagne," Geimer says. "Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite know how to get myself out of there." Geimer testified that Polanski performed various sexual acts on her, after giving her a combination of champagne and quaaludes. In the 2003 interview, Geimer says she resisted. "I said no several times, and then, well, gave up on that."

In his autobiography, Roman by Polanski,Polanski alleged that Geimer's mother had set up her daughter as part of a casting couch and blackmail scheme against him.

Charges and guilty pleaPolanski was initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor. These charges were dismissed under the terms of his plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

Imprisonment and flight

Following the plea agreement, according to the aforementioned documentary, the court ordered Polanski to report to a stateprison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay of ninety days to allow him to complete his current project.under the terms set by the court, he was permitted to travel abroad. Polanski returned to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period, and was released after 42 days.

On February 1, 1978, Polanski fled to London, where he maintained residency. A day later he traveled on to France, where he held citizenship, avoiding the risk of extradition to the U.S. by Britain. Consistent with its extradition treaty with the United States, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens. An extradition request later filed by U.S. officials was denied. The United States government can request that Polanski be prosecuted on the California charges by the French authorities.

Polanski has never returned to England, and later sold his home in absentia. The United States can still request the arrestand extradition of Polanski from other countries should he visit them, and Polanski has avoided visits to countries that are likely to extradite him (such as the UK) and mostly travels and works in France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland

Polanski and Emmanuelle Seigner
Polanski and Seigner married in 1989. They have two children, daughter Morgane and son Elvis, whom is named after Polanski's favorite singer, Elvis Presley.

Current projectsPolanski made a cameo appearance in Rush Hour 3 (2007) as a French police official. After a failed attempt to adapt Robert Harris' Pompeii,he is currently directing an adaptation of Harris' The Ghost, a novel about a writer who stumbles upon a secret while ghosting the autobiography of a former British prime minister. It will star Ewan McGregor as the writerand Pierce Brosnan as the prime minister. Filming takes place in Germany by the Babelsberg Studios

Style and themes

Most of Polanski's films are psychological suspense thrillers, notable for their deliberate pacing, carefully established mood and atmosphere, and often Gothic treatment of settings and characters.As a stylist, Polanski favors long takes,deep-focus photography, detailed mise-en-scène and wide panoramic compositions;jump cuts and montage almost never appearin his work.

A recurring theme in his films is the relationship between victim and perpetrator, and the unstable and shifting dynamics of these power relations are often resolved in sudden outbursts of senseless violence. Many of Polanski's films (especially his early works) deal with characters struggling for mastery over an intractable situation and feature a circular plot structure — i.e., the action is framed by an ironic recurrence of events or reversal of fortunes at the conclusion.
In this sense, Polanski's oeuvre — particularly, his most celebrated work from the 1950s through to the 1970s — seems to reflect a decidedly pessimistic and desolate absurdist worldview. However, Polanski's old tendency towards unremittingbleakness appears to have mellowed in recent years, with films like Death and the Maiden, The Pianist and Oliver Twist ultimately imparting a more hopeful view of human nature and admitting the possibility of redemptive action in the face ofa hostile and incomprehensible universe.

Oscar
Received his first best director Oscar for the movie The Pianist (2002) five months after the awards ceremony. His friend, Harrison Ford, flew to France to present Polanski the award, since the director would be immediately arrested and incarcerated due to outstanding warrants stemming from his fleeing the US after his 1978 statutory rape conviction to avoid imprisonment. [8 September 2003].

Won the Best Director Oscar in 2003 for The Pianist (2002) at the age of 69 years and 7 months, making him the oldest person ever to win that award to that point in time. Polanski eclipsed the record previously held by George Cukor, whowas 65 when he won for directing My Fair Lady (1964). This record was beaten in 2005 when Clint Eastwood won at the ageof 74 for Million Dollar Baby (2004).

Personal Quotes

My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instincts, but in a disciplined way.

[On filmmaking] "You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity."

[On his style of filmmaking] "I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line."

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

I never made a film which fully satisfied me

Every failure made me more confident. Because I wanted even more to achieve as revenge. To show that I could

The Tenant(Le Locataire)-1976

The Tenant (French: Le Locataire) is a 1976 psychological thriller/horror film directed by Roman Polanski based upon the 1964 novel Le locataire chimérique by Roland Topor. It is also known under the French title Le Locataire. It co-stars actress Isabelle Adjani. It is the last film in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", following Repulsion and Rosemary'sBaby. It was entered into the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.

Director Roman Polanski casts himself in the lead of the psychological thriller

The Tenant.Trelkovsky (Polanski) rents an apartment in a spooky old residential building, where his neighbors -- mostly old recluses -- eye him with suspicious contempt. Upon discovering thatthe apartment's previous tenant, a beautiful young woman, jumped from the window in a suicide attempt, Trelkovsky begins obsessing over the dead woman. Growing increasinglyparanoid, Trelkovsky convinces himself that his neighbors plan to kill him. He even comes to the conclusion that Stella (Isabel Adjani), the woman he has fallen in love with, is inon the "plot." Ultimately, Polanski assumes the identity of the suicide victim -- and inherits her self-destructive urges.

The Tenant Interview

This interview is from two very old newspaper clippings, I do not have the exact date, however it was conducted during the filming of "The Tenant" which will have been around 1975 I should think.. Here Polanski discusses the movie and also many interesting opinions on filmmaking.

Polanski in Paris By A. ALVAREZ

The unpredictable Polish director Roman Polanski once remarked that he would like to make a movie that has only one character. "The Tenant," the story he is now filming in Paris, is not quite that-the cast includes Shelley Winters, Melvyn Douglas and Isabelle Adjani, who won acclaim in Truffaut's "The. Story of Adele H."-. But the hero, a man in the grip of a peculiarly distressing, ultimately fatal paranoia, is in almost every scene. And that hero is played by Polanski himself who, as well as directing, also collaborated on the script.

Polanski is in his early 40's and looks at least 10 years younger. His hair is thick and brown, without a trace of gray, his face, boyishly unlined. He is small trim fit and self-contained, a sharply defined presence, nothing blurred about him-which means not much emotion and no indecision at all. He looks as if he lives his life as he drives his Ferrari-with skill, precision, impatience with other people's hesitations, and no room for error. When at the start of a recent interview I remarked how young he looks, be said, "Age is a state of mind," and changed the subject.

Unlike "The Tenant's" doomed protagonist, Polanski is a survivor, and he has the survivor's knack of never looking back, a knack which he developed to a fine pitch so long ago that he is no longer aware of it. After all, he has had to be self-sufficient since the age of 8, when he escaped from the Cracow ghetto and went to live with a family of peasants. His parents were less lucky: they were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz, where his mother died. His father remarried when he returned Polanski chose not to live with him. He was 12 by then..

Polanski found solace in acting, attending art school, and, finally, studying at the famous film school at Lodz. In 1958, as his senior thesis, he wrote and directed a brilliant surrealist short, "Two Men and a Wardrobe," and went on to establish himself as a major figure on the international film scene with such stunning works as "Knife in the Water," "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby." With the latter film, one of the, biggest box-office hits of 1968, Polanski graduated into the genuine big time and he seemed invulnerable: professionally, acclaimed, financially successful and married, at last to Sharon Tate, "the only girl," says his friend Kenneth Tynan, "who ever moved into his life on equal terms."

Yet within a few months he was again reaching for his survival kit: Charles Manson's butchers' repeated what Nazis had done 25 years before. It took Polanski five years and two failures "Macbeth" and "What?"-to recover his stride. Then came "Chinatown," his best movie since "Knife in the Water." And now, with "The Tenant," it is more evident than ever that Pólanski is content only with total control: starring, directing, co-scripting, arguing technicalities with the technicians, camera angles with the great Sven Nykvist, Ingrnar Bergman's cameraman-and advertising campaigns with the publicity experts. I asked him if it wasn't hard to take on all these roles at once, particularly to act and direct. "No," he said. "That's easy, because it's one less person to argue with. It's not difficult to direct while acting. The difficulty is to act while directing. You stand in front of the camera and the moment the clapperboard claps you should concentrate, disconnect yourself from what's around you. If you keep thinking about lights and other people's performances and marks on the floor, then you can't act."

As a director, Polanski is a stern perfectionist. While I was at the studio, he did 30 takes of one sequence before he was satisfied. The first 15 came at the end of what had already been a long day's shooting. Polanski was playing a scene with Isabelle Adjani in which the hero goes back to the apartment of his sensual, but none too bright, girl friend. Both of- them are drunk, at cross-purposes. He wants to air his gathering paranoia; she wants to get him to bed. They sit together at a table, talking and drinking, and then she leads him to bed and undresses him while -he maunders drunkenly on. It was a long and difficult sequence, which might have been made easier if Polanski had broken it into shorter takes. I asked him why he hadn't done so.

"It's a gamble, but long takes create an atmosphere which might be lost by stopping every two seconds. That way, you don't have any continuity in the acting. To get the best out of actors, you have to give them time to build up. You don't have to use it all, but there's a chance of a better performance."

That evening, however, there was neither atmosphere nor continuity. Isabelle Adjani can convey feeling simply by moving her hand and she has one of those mobile faces, which can express anything, like a miracle plastic. But she was having difficulty with her English pronunciation, and both she and Polansk seemed to be fighting the script. There was also some tricky business with a Couple of glasses and a tequila bottle, which kept going wrong. The tension and frustration mounted steadily. Polanski tried using real tequila instead of water, but that only made things worse. At 8:30, he gave up 'and the exhausted company adjourned to the projection room to watch the previous day's rushes. At noon the next day they started again. This time it went more smoothly, although it took another 15 takes before Polanski was satisfied. At no point did he relent. He was tough and demanding with Miss Adjani and the crew, a man not generous with his praise. Was this deliberate?

"I just want them to do the job. I don't know whether that's a fault or a virtue. A lot depends on whom you are working with; every actor is different and requires a different approach. Faye Dunaway, for instance, is very temperamental, while Jack Nicholson has no temperament at all. He is one of the easiest persons to work with I've come across, and a very good actor."
What about politics? "Knife in the Water," which was made in Poland, was highly political, and many critics found political significance in "Chinatown."

"You make a film in a certain country, and if the subject is rooted in that place, then it is inevitable that it has some kind of political implication. 'Chinatown' was about a big swindle and the hero was a detective. Naturally, there were parallels with what's been happening in America. 'The Tenant' is a psychological drama of suspense about a man who is disintegrating mentally, so it doesn't have much to do with what's happening in France now. But that doesn't mean that it's not going to be deeply French. This is the most important thing in filmmaking: when you set your story somewhere it has to happen there-very French if it happens in France, very Polish in Poland. If you set it in Transylvania you must be sure it's very Transylvanian. You must establish where it happened. If the setting is a land of fantasy, you have to know everything about that land. You have to know the life of the imaginary place and then conform to the rules. The more lies you tell, the more you have to pretend they are true. That's where a lot of movies fail: you feel all the details are wrong; you just aren't convinced."

I mentioned that I had not been much convinced by the details in the Roland topor novel on which 'The Tenant" is based. It concerns a nondescript young clerk who takes over a dreary, faintly sinister Paris apartment from a woman who has fatally injured herself by jumping out of the window. Gradually, the clerk comes to believe that the other inhabitants of the building are trying to drive him, too, to suicide and he begins to fall apart. Everywhere he sees plots, the menacing signs and symbols of malice. He tries to escape but is drawn back, despite himself. He ends by dressing up as a woman and jumping from the window. It is effective melodrama, but as a study of madness it seemed to me sub - Kafka, rather naive. But perhaps that is the rule: good films come out of indifferent novels, and vice versa. Is literary excellence an inhibition for the moviemaker?

"No. I think great literature is unfilmable because its real value lies in the way it's written and not what it's about. Faulkner, for example, is a great writer but there has never been a good film made out any of his novels. That doesn't mean it can't be done, just that it's impossible to render the real value of literature through a camera. Assuming you have no inhibitions about the masterpiece, how do you render in images what has been achieved by words? You are forced to be pictorially literal, or to use parts of the book as a commentary or as internal dialogue. But that's not the way. The most perfect writing is poetry, but how can you translate a poem by Baudelaire into film? All you can do is show the story of the poem, and that's not it at all."
There are three main ingredients in a movie-the director, the stars and the script. In "The Tenant" he has assumed responsibility for all three. Which did he think the most important?
"To me personally, the script. For the simple reason that I have no time to think to conceive and to analyse during the period of shooting So I have to, be sure that I can rely on what Is written and if I just film it the way I anticipated, I won't go wrong. I have room for improvisation only within what's written in the script.

Polanski is now an international man, constantly on the move and speaking five languages-Polish, Russian, English, French and Italian. But he has kept his Polish passport t and, since the fall of Gomulka, has again become a figure on the Polish scene The Polish people, he says are proud of 'him. I asked him if he ever considered settling down In Poland

"If I am nostalgic, it is for friends and situations more than for the place. But I don't think you can ever have them back again, 'even if you try. Going back somewhere doesn't necessarily bring back what you had, loved or admired. Quite the contrary, it's usually a disappointment. Certain things have happened and they never come back again."

Majid Majidi's"The Song of the Sparrows"

Review:Janos Gereben

There is no better way to tour Teheran than on a motorbike with a man whose ostrich ran away. One of the many charms of Majid Majidi's wonderful new film, "The Song of the Sparrow" (Avaze gonjeshk-ha), is seeing the present-day capital from the streets as Karim is winding his way through traffic.
When we first meet weather-beaten, boxer-nosed, prematurely aged Karim (Mohammad Amir Naji, Berlin Film Festival award winner), he works at an ostrich farm, but when one of his charges escapes, and he is fired.
Without a job, supporting a family of four - including a teen daughter whose hearing aid needs to be replaced - Karim rides his motorbike to the city, and before he knows, he becomes a cycle-taxi driver.
From that point on, it's a fascinating travelogue both of the city and of Karim's urban pilgrimage through sins and redemptions, petty compromises with morality and heroic attempts to make up for his missteps.
With his sure touch, Majidi - director of the superb 1997 "Children of Heaven," and the 2001 "Baran," which also starred Naji - uses non-professional cast brilliantly; the children are especially a wonder to behold.
"In the name of God" says the opening frame of the film, which is mixing gritty, hilarious, affecting reality with respectful treatment of religion, so that it may be safe from the Revolutionary Guard, whoever wins today's election there - as if there was a question about that.

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Michael Jackson's death should teach us all a money lesson

Michael Jackson's death should teach us all a money lesson

Sarah Coles

Michael Jackson dead eh, who'd have thought it?
When I heard the news last night it was so unexpected I assumed it was the build-up to a particularly bad-taste joke. It was just so unexpected.
Now this is going to sound a bit heartless, but this sad news should get us all thinking about money.
It shows us that one day, maybe when we're least expecting it, we're all going to die.
I know, not particularly cheery stuff.
We all think it's some date far off in the future, and that we're all going to have a chance long before then to sit down and think about how our family are going to cope financially after we've gone.
But as Michael found, these things can just come out of the blue.
There's no telling what state Michael's finances were in. He made a lot of money, but he also knew how to spend it. But with three young kinds on the scene you can only hope he at least did something sensible for them.
And it's important that we all do.
There are three things this should prompt us to do.

The first is to make sure you have a will. If you don't, when you die, your family will have no choice about how any money or debts are divided – it's all according to a particular set of rules. An unmarried, childless person, who may have a partner with three kids will see the bulk of their estate passed to their own parents, and their partner get nothing. So think about it.

The second thing is to think about the state of your finances. If you die with debts, this is what your family will inherit, so think of it as a problem you're saving up to dump on those you care most about, and do something constructive about your debts.

And finally, get yourself some life insurance. It's not enough just to cover the cost of the mortgage. If you have kids you'll need a sum to cover childcare or living costs if your other half has to give up work.

Think about it carefully. These things aren't to be taken lightly.
So all in all, a depressing day, but one that could make all the difference in the world to your family if you choose to act as a result of it

RIP:Michael Jackson

HIGH LIFE IN FAST LANE

"Keep on with the force don't stop

Don't stop 'til you get enough"

----Michael Jackson

A Poison Tree

A Poison Tree

--William Blake (1757 - 1827)

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.

And my foe beheld it shine.

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree

The First Jasmines by Rabindranath Tagore

Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines!

I seem to remember the first day when I filled my hands

with these jasmines, these white jasmines.

I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth;

I have heard the liquid murmur of the river

through the darkness of midnight;

Autumn sunsets have come to me at the bend of the road

in the lonely waste, like a bride raising her veil

to accept her lover.

Yet my memory is still sweet with the first white jasmines

that I held in my hands when I was a child.

Many a glad day has come in my life,

and I have laughed with merrymakers on festival nights.

On grey mornings of rain

I have crooned many an idle song.

I have worn round my neck the evening wreath of

BAKULAS woven by the hand of love.

Yet my heart is sweet with the memory of the first fresh jasmines

that filled my hands when I was a child.

Khalil Gibran Poems

Kahlil Gibran was a poet, philosopher, and artist. Kahlil Gibran was born in Lebanon, a land that has produced many prophets and is widely considered to be on the greatest Arabic prophets of our age. His writings have been translated into many languages and his fame and influence have spread far beyond the middle East. Kahlil's most famous work is his short book "The Prophet" (1923). The prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays which deal with issues such as birth and death.
In 1895 Gibran and his family moved to the US where Kahlil lived until his death in 1931

" Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love "

1.Joy and Sorrow

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

2.The Beauty of Death

Part One - The Calling

Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and

Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights;

Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and

Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body;

Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume,

And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead

Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired;

Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit;

Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.

Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for

It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests.

Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers

Raise their crowns to greet the dawn.

Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light

Between my bed and the infinite;

Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of

Her white wings

Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips.

Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers;

Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me;

Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes,

And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.

Part Two - The Ascending

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the

Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;

I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are

Hiding the hills from my eyes.

The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the

Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;

The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter

That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight

And red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams

Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;

And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity

In exact harmony with the spirit's desires.

I am cloaked in full whiteness;

I am in comfort; I am in peace.

Part Three - The Remains

Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me

With leaves of jasmine and lilies;

Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest

Upon pillows of orange blossoms.

Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy;

Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress;

Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your

Finger the symbol of Love and Joy.

Disturb not the air's tranquility with chanting and requiems,

But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;

Mourn me not with apparel of black,

But dress in color and rejoice with me;

Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close

Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore.

Place me upon clusters of leaves and

Carry my upon your friendly shoulders and

Walk slowly to the deserted forest.

Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber

Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls.

Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets

And poppies grow not in the other's shadow;

Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not

Carry my bones to the open valley;

Let my grace be wide, so that the twilight shadows

Will come and sit by me.

Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my

Mother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother's breast.

Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed

With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when they

Grow above me, and thrive on my body's element they will

Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space;

And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace;

And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer.

Leave me then, friends - leave me and depart on mute feet,

As the silence walks in the deserted valley;

Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almond

And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan's breeze.

Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there

That which Death cannot remove from you and me.

Leave with place, for what you see here is far away in meaning

From the earthly world. Leave me.

If You Forget Me--- Pablo Neruda

If You Forget Me

by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

h my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto.Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political activism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.

Famous Quotes By Osho

1. The real seeker of truth never seeks truth. On the contrary, he tries to clean himself of all that is untrue, inauthentic, insincere - and when his heart is ready, purified, the guest comes. You cannot find the guest, you cannot go after him. He comes to you; you just have to be prepared. You have to be in a right attitude.


2. Do you think the people who were trying to reach to the Everest were not full of doubts? For a hundred years, how many people tried and how many people lost their lives? Do you know how many people never came back? But, still, people come from all over the world, risking, knowing they may never return. For them it is worth it - because in the very risk something is born inside of them: the center. It is born only in the risk. That's the beauty of risk, the gift of risk.


3. Don't move the way fear makes you move.Move the way love makes you move.Move the way joy makes you move.


4. You will find meaning in life only if you create it.


5. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go and you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.


6. This is what enlightenment is all about - a deep understanding that there is no problem. Then, with no problem to solve, what will you do? Immediately you start living. You will eat, you will sleep, you will love, you will work, you will have a chit-chat, you will sing, you will dance - what else is there to do?


7. There is no need of any competition with anybody. You are yourself, and as you are, you are perfectly good. Accept yourself.


8. You can love as many people as you want - that does not mean one day you will go bankrupt, and you will have to declare, 'Now I have no love.' You cannot go bankrupt as far as love is concerned.


9. Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing. If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts disappearing. You cannot have heaven and hell together, you can have only one. It is your choice.


10. Take hold of your own life.See that the whole existence is celebrating.These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious.The rivers and the oceans are wild,and everywhere there is fun,everywhere there is joy and delight.Watch existence,listen to the existence and become part of it.


11. You cannot be truthful if you are not courageous.You cannot be loving if you are not courageous.You cannot be trusting if you are not courageous.You cannot enter into reality if you are not courageous.Hence courage comes first... and everything else follows


12. Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.


13. Relate with others, but relate with yourself also.Love others, but love yourself also.Go out! - the world is beautiful, adventurous;it is a challenge, it enriches.Go out fearlessly - there is nothing to lose,there is everything to gain.


14. Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love - now you are love.


15. Meaning is man-created. And because you constantly look for meaning, you start to feel meaninglessness.


16. Millions of people are suffering: they want to be loved but they don't know how to love. And love cannot exist as a monologue; it is a dialogue, a very harmonious dialogue.


17. The feminine is more powerful than the masculine, the soft is more powerful than the hard, the water


18. Watch the waves in the ocean. The higher the wave goes, the deeper is the wake that follows it. One moment you are the wave, another moment you are the hollow wake that follows. Enjoy both--dont get addicted to one. Dont say: I would always like to be on the peak. It is not possible. Simply see the fact: it is not possible. It has never happened and it will never happen. It is simply impossible--not in the nature of things. Then what to do? Enjoy the peak while it lasts and then enjoy the valley when it comes. What is wrong with the valley? What is wrong with being low? It is a relaxation. A peak is an excitement, and nobody can exist continuously in an excitementis more powerful than the rock.


19. You become that which you think you are. Or, it is not that you become it, but that the idea gets very deeply rooted - and that's what all conditioning is
20. You have to drop all your defenses, only then is intimacy possible. We are all hiding a thousand and on things, not only from others but from ourselves.

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty
BY Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty,
to Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me,
then-- How old is Spring, Miranda?

Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry"

Mirror--Sylvia Plath

Mirror-Sylvia Path

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.


Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, children's author, and short story author.

Kurt Vonnegut's Short Story Rules

Here are Kurt Vonnegut's excellent rules for short story writing:

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007; ) was an American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973).He was known for his humanist beliefs as well as being honorary president of the American Humanist Association

Here are Kurt Vonnegut's excellent rules for short story writing:

• Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.


• Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.


• Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.


• Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.*


• Start as close to the end as possible.


• Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.


• Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.


• Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Is Your Favourite Medicine Killing You?

by MONIRUPA SHETE

Many drugs that have been banned, withdrawn, or marketed under restrictions in other countries, continue to be sold in India.

Life, it seems, comes cheap for the health officials of our country. How else would you justify the existence of drugs withdrawn elsewhere in the world but still sold and prescribed in India?

Delayed Reactions

Doctors campaigning for the sensible use of drugs say that regulatory authorities in India have not addressed the issue of delays in withdrawing drugs. Eleven drugs - including cisapride, furazolidone, nimesulide and phenylpropanolamine - that have been banned, withdrawn, or marketed under restrictions in North America, Europe, and many Asian countries, continue to be sold in India.

Lax Officials

“Indian regulators are accused of laxity in not banning drugs,” says Dr Anant Phadke, city-based medical practitioner who has done extensive research on the issue. Dr Phadke however cautions that the belief that India has become a dumping ground for banned drugs is an issue too far stretched. “Regulations in India and US vary. In the US, drugs are not banned, they are withdrawn from the market. When a certain drug is found to have side affects, Indian regulatory authorities should also withdraw it from the market. Unfortunately that does not happen,” adds Dr Phadke.

Grey Areas

He explains that whenever a drug is banned by the Drug Controller of India, it should stop being available in the market. But there are times when a drug is banned yet continues to be sold for a few months till stock lasts. “There is a lot grey zone in the field,” says Dr Phadke. Dr Shirish Praya feels that drugs continue to be available over the counter because doctors keep prescribing it. “Till the time the drugs are not banned by regulatory authorities, no doctor can be blamed for prescribing it and as long as doctors keep prescribing, chemists will keep selling these drugs,” explains Dr Prayag.

Docs To Blame?

Many doctors, experts says, are unaware of the researches being conducted worldwide. “There have been campaigns against various drugs. Noted doctors keep themselves informed of the harmful side-effects of these drugs and do not prescribe them,” Dr Phadke argues. It is advisable to buy drugs only if prescribed by a doctor. Also, it is advisable to check out which company manufactures it from a reputed drug store. Remember, popping in some of these drugs can cause harm beyond repair.

Are you taking any of these?

ANALGIN: This is a pain-killer. Reason for ban: Bone marrow depression. Brand name: Novalgin

CISAPRIDE: For acidity, constipation. Reason for ban : irregular heartbeat Brand name : Ciza, Syspride

DROPERIDOL: An anti-depressant. Reason for ban : Irregular heartbeat. Brand name : Droperol

FURAZOLIDONE: An antidiarrhoeal. Reason for ban : Cancer. Brand name : Furoxone, Lomofen

NIMESULIDE: Painkiller, fever. Reason for ban : Liver failure. Brand name : Nise, Nimulid

NITROFURAZONE: An antibacterial cream. Reason for ban : Cancer. Brand name : Furacin

PHENOLPHTHALEIN: A laxative. Reason for ban : Cancer. Brand name : Agarol

PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE: For cold and cough. Reason for ban : stroke. Brand name : D'cold, Vicks Action-500

OXYPHENBUTAZONE: A non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Reason for ban : Bone marrow depression. Brand name : Sioril

PIPERAZINE: Anti-worms. Reason for ban : Nerve damage. Brand name : Piperazine

QUINIODOCHLOR: An Anti-diarrhoeal. Reason for ban : Damage to sight. Brand name : Enteroquinol

Placebo : Cure By Illusion

Placebo : Cure By Illusion
K V Seetharamaiah
health.indiatimes.com

The placebo effect is the measurable, observable, or felt improvement in health not attributable to treatment. This effect is believed by many people to be due to the placebo itself in some mysterious way.

A placebo (Latin for “I shall please”) is a medication or treatment believed by the administrator of the treatment to be inert or innocuous. Placebos may be sugar pills or starch pills. Even “fake” surgery and “fake” psychotherapy are considered placebos. Researchers and medical doctors sometimes give placebos to patients. Anecdotal evidence for the placebo effect is garnered in this way. Those who believe there is scientific evidence for the placebo effect point to clinical studies, many of which use a control group treated with a placebo. Why an inert substance, or a fake surgery or therapy, would be effective is not known

The Psychological Theory: It's All In Your Mind
Some believe the placebo effect is psychological, due to a belief in the treatment or to a subjective feeling of improvement. Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, believes that the effectiveness of Prozac and similar drugs may be attributed almost entirely to the placebo effect.

He and Guy Sapirstein analyzed 19 clinical trials of antidepressants and concluded that the expectation of improvement, not adjustments in brain chemistry, accounted for 75 percent of the drugs' effectiveness (Kirsch 1998).

"The critical factor," says Kirsch, "is our beliefs about what's going to happen to us. You don't have to rely on drugs to see profound transformation." In an earlier study, Sapirstein analyzed 39 studies, done between 1974 and 1995, of depressed patients treated with drugs, psychotherapy, or a combination of both. He found that 50 percent of the drug effect is due to the placebo response.

A person's beliefs and hopes about a treatment, combined with their suggestibility, may have a significant biochemical effect. Sensory experience and thoughts can affect neurochemistry. The body's neurochemical system affects and is affected by other biochemical systems, including the hormonal and immune systems. Thus, it is consistent with current knowledge that a person's hopeful attitude and beliefs may be very important to their physical well-being and recovery from injury or illness.

However, it may be that much of the placebo effect is not a matter of mind over molecules, but of mind over behavior. A part of the behavior of a "sick" person is learned. So is part of the behavior of a person in pain. In short, there is a certain amount of role-playing by ill or hurt people. Role-playing is not the same as faking or malingering.

The behavior of sick or injured persons is socially and culturally based to some extent. The placebo effect may be a measurement of changed behavior affected by a belief in the treatment. The changed behavior includes a change in attitude, in what one says about how one feels, and how one acts. It may also affect one's body chemistry.

The psychological explanation seems to be the one most commonly believed. Perhaps this is why many people are dismayed when they are told that the effective drug they are taking is a placebo. This makes them think that their problem is "all in their mind" and that there is really nothing wrong with them. Yet, there are too many studies which have found objective improvements in health from placebos to support the notion that the placebo effect is entirely psychological.

Luis Buñuel &his Viridiana

After 25 years' exile, Luis Buñuel(The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education,which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior) was invited to his native Spain to direct Viridiana -- only to have the Spanish government suppress the film on the grounds of blasphemy and obscenity. Regarded by many as Buñuel's crowning achievement, the film centers on an idealistic young nun named Viridiana It is always hard to select the most outrageous scene in any Buñuel film; our candidate in Viridiana is the devastating Last Supper tableau consisting of beggars, thieves, and degenerates. As joltingly brilliant today as on its first release, Viridiana won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival

Synopsis-Viridiana

The film focuses on a young novitiate about to take her vows named Viridiana (Silvia Pinal), who is told by her Mother Superior that she should visit her uncle, Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), her only living relative. After some time on his large country estate, he tries to seduce her, believing that she resembles his deceased wife. Hearing of his desire to marry her, Viridiana attempts to flee the house immediately, but is subdued by Jaime and drugged with the help of his servant Ramona. He takes her to her room and considers raping her in her sleep, but decides otherwise. The next morning he tells her that he took her virginity, and says that therefore she cannot return to her convent. By this means he intends to make her wish to stay, but instead she is disgusted and starts to pack. He tries to rectify the situation by telling her that he lied, hoping it would convince her to stay, but this does little to appease her. He asks for her forgiveness, but she ignores him and leaves the house. She is on the way back to the convent when the authorities stop her, telling her something terrible has happened.

Back at the house, her uncle has hanged himself. Viridiana collects the village paupers, returns to the estate, and installs them in an outbuilding. Shunning the convent, she instead devotes herself to the moral education and feeding of this exceedingly motley group.

Meanwhile, Don Jaime's son, Jorge (Francisco Rabal), moves into the house with his girlfriend, Lucia. He, like his father, lusts after Viridiana, who scorns him. A model of moral rectitude, Viridiana will soon suffer for her good deeds. When they all leave to visit a lawyer in the town, the paupers break into the house, initially just planning to look around. But, faced with such bounty, things degenerate into a drunken, riotous orgy—all to the strains of Handel's Messiah.

Posing for a photo (sans camera) around the table, the beggars resemble Da Vinci's Last Supper. This scene, in particular, earned the film the Vatican's opprobrium. The members of the household return earlier than expected to find the house in shambles. As Jorge and Viridiana walk around the house in shock, the beggars excuse themselves and leave without explaining their behaviour. Jorge continues to inspect the house upstairs and encounters a beggar who pulls a knife on him. Another beggar comes from behind and breaks a bottle over Jorge's head, knocking him out. When Viridiana arrives, she sees Jorge on the floor and runs to his side, but is then overpowered by the two beggars.

Viridiana would surely have been raped except that Jorge, who is tied up, bribes one beggar to kill the other. Viridiana is a changed woman as the film concludes: her crown of thorns is symbolically burnt. Wearing her hair loosely, she knocks on Jorge's door, but finds Ramona, with Jorge in his bedroom. With "Shake Your Cares Away" on the record player, Jorge tells Viridiana that they were only playing cards, and urges her to join them, a conclusion that is often seen as implying a ménage à trois.

Personal Quotes of Luis Buñuel

I have a soft spot for secret passageways, bookshelves that open into silence, staircases that go down into a void, and hidden safes. I even have one myself, but I won't tell you where. At the other end of the spectrum are statistics which I hate with all my heart.

[When asked why he made movies] To show that this is not the best of all possible worlds.

I've always found insects exciting.

Nothing would disgust me more morally than winning an Oscar.

Thank God, I'm an atheist.

Sex without religion is like cooking an egg without salt. Sin gives more chances to desire.
I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life.

All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence.

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.

The bar . . . is an exercise in solitude. Above all else, it must be quiet, dark, very comfortable - and, contrary to modern mores, no music of any kind, no matter how faint. In sum, there should be no more than a dozen tables, and a client that doesn't like to talk.

If someone were to prove to me right this minute that God, in all his luminousness, exists, it wouldn't change a single aspect of my behavior.

'God and Country' are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed. Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.
Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries.

A paranoiac, like a poet, is born, not made.

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

Let Us Have Madness

Let Us Have Madness

Kenneth Patchen

Let us have madness openly.

O men Of my generation.

Let us follow

The footsteps of this slaughtered age:

See it trail across Time's dim land

Into the closed house of eternity

With the noise that dying has,

With the face that dead things wear--

nor ever say

We wanted more;

we looked to find

An open door, an utter deed of love,

Transforming day's evil darkness;

but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,

and within the head

A rotting bog of lean huge graves.

Kenneth Patchen (December 13 1911 – January 8 1972) was an American poet and novelist.Though he denied any direct connection, Patchen's work and ideas regarding the role of artists paralleled those of the Dadaists and Surrealists. Patchen's ambitious body ofwork also foreshadowed literary art-forms ranging from reading poetry to jazzaccompaniment to his late experiments with visual poetry