I am Alice

I was desperate, like any girl,

to grow up.

And staring back behind the looking glass,

I wish I had not been so sure.

Remember

I wrapped the bathrobe wrap around my neck

and pulled until I saw stars.

Not effective,

but I didn’t really want to die.

Flash forward and I’m fifteen.  I want it to stop,

and have read enough books to find something else to try:

I’ll wake up, or I won’t.

This one’s on God.

kyle next door

You had roller blades, shiny hard wheels

fresh from the factory with that new pool-plastic smell.

You had a Nintendo 64,

a computer with Rollercoaster Tycoon,

a TV in your bedroom.

We played soldier and nurse and I’d sew you back up,

tapping your arm wound with my needle fingers.

You were a latch-key kid

and you showed me the rock that was not a rock

and the way to get into your house.

You had six-inch sharks in a tank in your living room.

You had parents that were never home.

I guess you were my first kiss, when I was six.

Hiding in my dilapidated fort, you’d demand my lips

if I wanted to play with your toys.

And then that last memory of you,

inviting me up.

And then, nothing.

Silent Film: the Endangered Species

Thought to be extinct by most filmologists, one of the last remaining “silent films” was discovered in 2012, apparently descended from Parisian ancestors who migrated to Hollywood.  This strange breed was so shocking that it was given an honorary “Academy Award” simply for the fact that its kind hadn’t truly been seen in almost 80 years.  There have been talks of a possible breeding program to keep this species from going completely extinct--but if the task proves too difficult, filmologists may resort to cloning the silent film in order to preserve it for future generations--even though most attempts at cloning in other species have resulted in genre mutations, visual defects, and thematic retardation.

In all seriousness, the silent film, for many years, was thought of as a thing of the distant past--a stepping stone in cinematic history that allowed filmmakers to get closer to a more fully-realized movie, an art form at the peak of its potential, complete with sound and color.  However, with the arrival of the film The Artist and its critical success, the question must be raised, “Is silent film truly dead?”  The answer to this question is a very confidant, “Sort of.”

A distinction can be made between a “silent” film and a “film without dialogue.”  I can’t help but wonder if there was ever a truly “silent” silent film--even in the beginning, movies were almost always played with some sort of soundtrack, whether that was recorded music, an in-house symphony, or a monkey beating on a piano.  The word “silent” means “free from sound or noise” according to Merriam-Webster Online.  While a sub-definition does say “made without spoken dialogue” it would seem that the primary definition of “silent” does not limit itself to whether or not words are being spoken.  Rather, it is about whether something does or does not create any sound whatsoever.  With this definition, any movie could be a silent film--as long as one has a mute button.  For the sake of this argument, however, we will assume that “silent film” refers to “film primarily without sound except for music” (although even this definition runs into problems when we reference films like Castaway which has brief moments of dialogue).

One of the most compelling scenes in the movie Children of Men is a six-minute steadicam shot in a post-apocalyptic war-zone.  While there is shouting, gunfire, and the sounds of explosions, there is little to no direct dialogue.  Without the main character saying a word, we know exactly what he wants, and how impossibly hard it is going to be to get it.  He doesn’t have to shout, “This is really, really difficult, the odds are really against me succeeding!” for the audience to understand the stakes at play.  In Castaway we don’t need to hear Tom Hanks blather on about how lonely he is or how much the coral-cut on his thigh stings or how much he misses his fiance--we see all of that very clearly.  We see his hope of rescue embodied in a FedEx box that he refuses to open.  While the sounds of screaming and gunfire provide an auditory “completion” of the cinematic world in Children of Men and while the ocean waves and constant breeze provide a monotonous “soundtrack” to Castaway, neither is essential for audiences to understand what is happening in the scene, and to empathize with the character.  

If visuals alone are so strong, should all sound be abandoned?  Absolutely not.  While many moments in cinema pack a punch with no sound at all, many vitally depend upon it to tell the story.  Without the disembodied voice in 2001: a Space Odyssey, HAL would just be a creepy red lens-eye.  In The Hunt for Red October, the sound of the sonar pinging through an otherwise-silent submarine embodies the terror and tension that the nearby enemy sub will find and sink them.  And while Charlie Chapman was a genius at physical comedy, would slapstick Three Stooges-esque comedy have satisfied long-term?  Would it be possible to enjoy a movie like Bridesmaids, The Princess Bride, or Finding Nemo without dialogue?  Even a movie like Wall-E, which has no dialogue for the first forty-five minutes, personifies robots with humanesque chirps and warbles.  The robots are dialogue-less, but they are not silent.

So is the silent film dead?  I would posit that the truly silent film--the silent film with no dialogue, no music, no foley or effects--is, in fact, dead.  A friend of mine who saw The Artist said that the portions of the movie with absolutely no sound (not even music) took her completely out of the film because she could hear her friends swallow and rustle through their purses and cough and yawn.  The silence was so uncomfortable that she ceased to focus on the movie and could only focus on the other theater patrons around her.  The few moments of “true” silence in the film (for this specific person) did nothing to add to her experience of the film--rather, they actively took away from it.  

The Artist--the modern version of the silent film, set in the silent film era--enjoyed success more because it was a novelty--and because it appealed to the Academy’s sense of nostalgia--than because it was a deep and moving piece of cinema that spoke to the human condition.  It is not the type of movie that could be reproduced year after year with any success, no matter the content of the story.  And because the form is so tied to the content, I cannot imagine another film having mimicking it without completely stealing its plot, or butchering it in adaptation.

There is a future, however, for the dialogue-less film.  Movies like Castaway and Wall-E prove that modern movie-goers do not need to be bashed over the head with characters telling other characters (or the camera) exactly what they’re doing or feeling.  Is has been posited that as much as 93% of all human communication is non-verbal.  It is why text messages need emoticons to communicate their tone--without them, the exact same words can have almost infinite meanings.  Nonverbal communication is why audiences are able to empathize with a post-apocalyptic robot who’s speech is limited to a wavering “Waaaaaaaal-E” and “Eeeeeeeeeva.”  Wall-E’s camera eyes are so sincere, so innocent, and so expressive that we can’t help but root for him--even though he’s not human.  Wall-E is not a truly silent film, and not just because dialogue occurs halfway through the movie.  The sound-design for each of the two main robots is essential to understanding them as characters and connecting with them on an emotional level.  Just as the Jazz Singer was a novelty being the first movie with sound, so too is The Artist a novelty in an age where sound is expected.  Wall-E is the sort of “silent film” that can lead the way for other “silent” films.  It is through this dialogue-less storytelling, and not through one-offs like The Artist that the silent film will live on.

by E.R. Womelsduff

On the Other Side of Grief

In the aftermath of a traumatic event, I tend to find that I don’t want to do much of anything.  For the past week I’ve slept.  A lot.  And when I wasn’t sleeping, I was lying prone on my bed, staring at the wall, the lamp, my elbow.  It was the closest I’d ever felt to being dumb and mute and blind.  The corners of my world deflated down to the old metal frame of my bed.  

The fact that I was out of food and out of money made it easy not to eat.  When the acidy feeling in my stomach was too bad, I’d drift down to the kitchen and eat a can of corn or a frozen hashbrown.  When I ran out of butter, I stopped eating the hashbrowns.  Always, I would crawl back to bed and lie down, and eventually drift off again.

They say there are stages of grief.  The first one being disbelief, a shell-shock syndrome that protects your brain from emotional overload.  I tried to make myself cry.  But it wasn’t real yet.  There was nothing to cry about because nothing had changed -- yet.  

After a few days the anger finally began to surge through the cracks in the ice.  There were questions unanswered.  There were answers that didn’t add up.  There was a rage that ached to resolve itself in the sting of a slapped face.  There was a violence in me that hadn’t risen up since the days of my parents divorce.  A sense of betrayal that had last been manifest in my parents letting go of each other.

I had anchored on to something.  I had found something stable to rebuild with.  To plan with.  To go forward with.  And once again it was being suddenly and irrevocably ripped away, and I was once again at the mercy of someone else’s plan.  

I started to fail Latin.  I thought about leaving school.  I wanted to leave.  I was three keyboard strokes away from a train ticket to Tucson to stay with my grandmother.  But a few well-timed conversations brought me back from the edge of chaos.  My Latin professor told me just to try to show up for class, and she’d let me retake tests and midterms and assignments later.  Just show up.  

I could do that.  That’s about all I could do, but I could do that.

There’s something empowering about putting on nice clothes.  I shaved my legs and I put on a dress and heels and a bracelet and earrings and I actually blow-dried my hair and spent more than two seconds on my make up.  I am literally walking taller, in these shoes.

I still haven’t cried.  The mourning portion hasn’t even begun.  I’m still angry. I still don’t have the answers I want.  But for the first time since I got sucked into this shitty little black hole, I feel like life can go on.  I don’t have to run away.  I don’t have to start over.

I just have to show up.

And eventually, I’ll be okay again.  Eventually, I’ll be even happier than I was before.

A Song For

A lyric for the blameless

a lyric for love lost

a lyric for the stains, and everything they cost.

A lyric for the sleepless

a lyric for the dream

that chases you from scape to scape until you want to scream.

A lyric for the lovers that tear each other up.

A lyric for the gamblers who never get enough.

A lyric for the people who walk easily away

a lyric for the rest who’d give anything to stay.

A lyric for the cynics

a lyric for the kids

who thought mom and dad’s love was a thing they could trust in.

A lyric for the shameless,

a lyric for the meek

a lyric for the singer who’s got nothing left to sing.

A lyric for the wise man,

a lyric for the fool,

a lyric for the women that get thrown between the two.

A lyric for the decent,

a lyric for the damned,

a lyric then for all: every woman, every man.

A lyric for a boy,

who simply didn’t know

what he wanted from the world and life,

and so he let her go.

And last of all a lyric,

a lyric just for me,

a lyric for a girl who ran out of empathy.

parked at rosedale

So unceremonious

get out of the car

walk dry-eyed back to what you were doing before

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands

He expected something else, not your hair

on fire in the sun through the windshield.

He didn’t expect to sit above the city on the same road

where you decided to start this all so long ago.

The car door is shutting and you’re walking

and your eyes burn but you let it pass

and the car’s gone and you’re back at work.

And later when you’re alone you shake in shock

while you wash the dishes.

And later still you sit in your bed with your naked

pillow and bare mattress, waiting for the dryer

for clean clothes, waiting to put things away,

to put things in order,

to put your clothes in order so you can pull them out when you need them,

because they’re clothes,

because you need clothes.

Waiting for it to sink in.

Waiting for the sound to catch up to your ceiling fan.

So unceremonious.

Get out of the car.

Go back to what you were doing before.

With tomorrow suddenly and irrevocably different.

With tomorrow insanely the same.