Seven green bottles standing on the wall

Seven green bottles standing on the wall
We drank wine from each of ‘em all
If another drink followed withal
There is no doubt we’d absolutely fall

Seven green bottles standing on the wall
Just a little sip had started it all
Then countless laughs and stories tall
And several moments to totally enthrall

The first green bottle stood on the wall
And camaraderie took over the hall
Guards and defenses were let to fall
The friendship element now firmly installed

Seven green bottles standing on the wall
Soon talk started to turn into a drawl
Writing looked more like a scrawl
And eyelids just couldn’t stay open after all

Seven green bottles standing on the wall
Hugs all around and bid adieu to all
And then followed an odd footfall
It’s now six green bottles standing on the wall

Adapted from Ten Green Bottles

Accidentally speaking

I’m a sucker for adventure sports and my white-water rafting trip was absolutely rapturous! The adrenaline rush, the spray of water on my face, the rhythm of the rowing, and exploring the underwater wildlife... after I’d launched myself headlong into the river!

Luckily, my brain didn’t go numb from the cold water and I held up my oar to indicate where I was. My boat-mates yanked, dragged and hauled me back on.

Most people return from a vacation or a trip with souvenirs and loads of cheerful anecdotes. I come laden with a collection of bumps, bruises and burns.

But, hey... rafting is one of those dangerous activities, right? Accidents are a part of the deal. However, when I just topple off my chair on a daily basis, these dangerous activity excuses just fall flat.[1] Especially after I have been involved in knocking my head on my computer screen, tripping over my own left foot and walking into a road sign.[2]

No wonder my friend once wrote about me:

FUN n ACCIDENT-PRONE...n if you stay around her long enough, u better have insurance!

Being outdoorsy, I always tried to participate in sports at school. At the start of the running race, when the gun was fired and most kids are seen zooming away – I slipped and fell and lay smelling the grass. And during volleyball, I invariably blocked with my face. When I’d had enough, I resigned to a more placid activity, like chess. It was nice, quiet and bruise-less, until I elegantly knocked the chessmen off the board![3]

Once in a blue moon, my adult instincts do take over and I do manage to walk around like a normal person. You know – when the left foot steps forward, the right one eventually follows. It fills me with pride and I feel no less than a super-hero! What with my ability to navigate protruding pieces of furniture successfully and to move an object from point A to point B without so much as a dent. And just as I’m marveling over my cat-like reflexes, my SO chooses to slam the door on my delicate, innocent little finger![4]

I have come to realize that I can’t even get through a meal without trying to maim myself with the spoon – and I have come to believe that I am the inspiration for Murphy’s Law.[5] And there’s no point trying to make anything fool-proof. I’m just too talented a fool!

---

[1] Only I understand the perils of an innocent looking plastic chair.

[2] One particular day I walked into a sign in the middle of the street. Funny how the sign read ‘detour’ and my feet refused to.

[3] This time it was my opponent who chose to bruise me.

[4] A gruesome incident that left one person seriously injured and another desperately apologetic.

[5] It has also been suggested that I’m just plain stupid. But, I plan to ignore such statements just as I did the road sign.

Penning away...

* Warning: This is one whacky post! But, there's more to what the eye can see. Don't miss the comments section!

After watching Adaptation and exploring the thought process of a screenwriter, I tried to verbalize my thoughts while I pen a poem...
(No, I wouldn't even dare compare myself to Kaufman... just one of my whimsical rhymes!)

Poetry is a form of art
And I’m wondering how to start
I’ll play with language and with word
At times ostensible, at others absurd
Several reasons that I could write
Reasons profound or quite trite
I could let grief take over me
And question life and mortality
At times I write of situations irate
Also, now and then, I procrastinate
Prefer rhymes that help with the flow
Maybe this time I won’t use it though
And try to write like I would prose
I might like what comes to be
Or try a different rhyming scheme
Picking my lines and my themes
But when the rhymes turn a trying task
I’ll just introduce an oxygen mask
On ambiguity I just might rely
And not make clear what I imply
If I’m somber and yet it’s funny
Would you appreciate the irony?
O please don’t answer so quick
My question was simply rhetoric
Trying to follow these lyrical rules
Hoping - I don’t come across a fool
But, if you think I’m rambling on
And this poem should be withdrawn
Let me say in my defense -
It is my right, my poetic license!

Adaptation

Adaptation (2002) - IMDB

Charlie Kaufman writes the way he lives... With Great Difficulty. His Twin Brother Donald lives the way he writes... with foolish abandon. Susan writes about life... But can't live it. John's life is a book... Waiting to be adapted. One story... Four Lives... A million ways it can end.

It’s not a story about books. It’s about creation. After getting into the mind of John Malkovich, Charlie Kaufman tries to tell the story of his own mind. His own creativity. And comes up with a movie that tells the story of its own creation.

Nicholas Cage recuperates from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin to star in Adaptation where he plays the screenwriter of the same film. What kind of a story would that be, u ask? One that’s smart, inventive and indescribable.

Anyone who has wanted to write and to express themselves on paper has felt frustration. Charlie Kaufman in this movie is such a frustrated screenwriter (He is also overweight, balding and wishes he was someone else). He is trying hard to adapt a non-fiction book... but his efforts seem to go nowhere. He thinks about the book, the writer of the book (played beautifully by Meryl Streep) and tries to delve into her mind – into her creative thought process. This leads to a non-linear story-telling process that engages and absorbs. He mocks the various clichés that screenwriters use to engage viewers and then ingeniously uses these very situations to make a movie that is anything but clichéd.

This is one movie that has made me think like no movie ever has. Among all the wrong starts, the ramblings and whacking off... there are so many subtle jokes, wise-cracks and self-references that you’re blown away by the originality and genius of Charlie Kaufman.

Sure, we’d like to be original. But, most of the time we can’t help but sensationalize the story. And play into pretensions.

Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicholas Cage): I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. The book isn't like that, and life isn't like that, it just isn't.

And when you find that that's exactly how the movie ends... don’t think that it’s a clever movie that ends in an out-of-place, silly mess. That’s the intention. The parody.

The movie weaves between fiction and reality, innovation and repetition... as Charlie Kaufman suffers from intermittent out-of-body experiences and writes himself into a script that is supposed to adapt a book that has nothing to do with him in the first place. It can only get twistier and undeniably cleverer.

The last act makes the film. Wow them in the end, and you've got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit.

Kaufman wows and how!

Aaaaaaah - the heat!

Today’s Weather:

Excessive Heat Warning
A VERY HOT AND HUMID AIRMASS WILL REMAIN IN PLACE THROUGH TODAY. ACTUAL AIR TEMPERATURES ARE FORECAST TO TOP OUT BETWEEN 95 AND 100 DEGREES, HOWEVER WITH THE ADDED HUMIDITY, HEAT INDEX VALUES WILL RISE INTO THE 105 TO 110 DEGREE RANGE.

I’m completely dehydrated, lethargic and I’m typing a lot slower. My fingers may have melted from the heat and gotten shorter! Also, my laptop refuses to cool and burns cryptic messages into my thighs! A lukewarm shower is in order. (That’s the coolest my shower goes in this weather!)

Six months of a frigid winter - I craved for June, July and August. I think the large disparity in weather conditions causes episodic memory loss. I’m sure that by the end of this year when my toes will be shorter due to frost-bite... I’ll be talking about the beautiful weather we had on Aug 3rd 2006.

As I sit among 3 fans blowing hot air onto me (and dust for good measure), I can’t help but think - we could all learn something from the weather. It is the least affected by criticism!

My creative outlet

I was always in awe of art and artists. My mom painted beautifully... and I wanted to be just like her. At age 5, I started to draw apples on a plate. The apples and the plate were so grossly disproportionate that I was forced to change the title of my work to ‘Apples in a Giant’s mouth’.

I accepted that drawing wasn’t my style. But, the urge to create remained. I reached out to paints. I proceeded to paint everything from glass to pots to the neighbor’s dog!

Luckily, my parents never discouraged me. Hoping to encourage me into making another masterpiece involving fruit and the mouths of colossal beings, they exhibited all my higgledy-piggledy dust-laden work on our mantle. (Except the dog. It kept peeing in the house and we had to let the neighbors have him back).

‘Practice makes perfect’ they said and packed me off to art class. After spending 3 weeks below C level, I had to come up for air! Conventional drawing and painting wasn’t for me!

Candle making turned out to be my calling. I made some beautiful candles - some in glass containers and others that stood proudly on their own showing off their flame. I’m sure my family was relieved to find something to replace the other atrocities taking over our living room. Didn’t matter that my house looked like something out of a Harlequin romance!

But this was only until the day the sink was clogged with all the little bits of wax that had been flowing through it. I am now extremely skilled at using a plunger and unclogging plumbing. Could that qualify as art?

And my mom had to have ‘the talk’ –
“Maybe you should direct your creative outlet elsewhere. Why don’t you focus on something more sublime? (read: easy to dispose of)”

I decided to write. Easier to store and the ones that didn’t qualify – lined the shelves in my dresser. My exhibition has now moved from my mantle to clutter up cyberspace. When I drift on to a new hobby, it will join the heap of cyber-junk created by lost passwords and orphaned web pages. Until then... I’ll subject you to it!

Major Issues

Came across Blogthings on this blog and tried one out for myself. This is what it said about me...

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk.

You should major in:

Philosophy
Music
Theology
History
Foreign language

I pondered over being a

Philosophy major: Worrying over trees falling in forests and the sounds these trees might or might not make... I don’t think so!

Music major: After listening to the sound I create, it might be better listening to trees fall!

Theology major: Does God love me or the trees? Would He love me more if I sat on a tree? I should give up now... for God’s sake!

History major: What era? Which Emperor? Whose family tree? Amnesia attacks!

Foreign language major: tree, baum, árbol, albero, árvore ... I could probably do this. As long as it’s single words.

Conclusion:

I shouldn’t believe blogthings and remain an Engineer. Although there are times I wish it was a tree that fell on Newton... not just an apple!

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