posted by steve @ 4:59 PM
the smell of canadian rain
A place to share your voices with janis so she can write them into a new play. What does Canadian rain smell like? Stars, apparently.
3.08.2007
the smell of canadian rain
A place to share your voices with janis so she can write them into a new play. What does Canadian rain smell like? Stars, apparently.
Previous Posts
- life in our solar system?
- Taking Off and Landing
- Upsidedown
- Leaving?
- thoughts anyone?
- l'aide
- 3 lines
- my thoughts for the day
- Waiting (for the stars to fall)
- Phantoms of Stars
3 Comments:
Thank you, Stiv. Thank you for reminding me of Le Petit Prince. I think he is just the inspiration the play needs right now. And so much in common! I'd read it a long time ago when I was just learning French and sadly, didn't retain much of it. I'm going to read it again now.
Who has read it? What did you think? What connection do you see between it and this play?
I'm pasting an excerpt below that Steve emailed to me. I can't believe how poignant it is to what we've been discussing and what I've been working on for the play.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Mine will follow.
***
Oh, little prince! Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life... For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset.
I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:
"I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now."
"But we must wait," I said.
"Wait? For what?"
"For the sunset. We must wait until it is time."
At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me: "I am always thinking that I am at home!"
Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France. If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like...
"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"
oh, and to translate the original postcard "one can only see well with the heart. that which is essential cannot be seen with the eyes."
the sound of stars... i would add to the above that we can hear better than we can see. we can hear with the heart and with other organs. the eyes are always playing tricks on us. the ears, well they are accustomed to echoes and music and as siwei described so long ago -- deafening silence.
that silence, i think, can be a lot like the smell of rain. it's full of so much that it's almost impossible to desribe. it's a state of being. an atmosphere. an mix of emotions. it contains the essence of being alive.
perhaps when we listen to the stars, we are listening to life instead of the clock that keeps its time.
oops. it was sinead not siwei. sorry.
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