Dear reader,
today after dinner we sat together for a bit longer and the talk came to cooking and recipes. My dad mentioned that we still have an old recipe book of recipes his mom collected and wrote down over 60 years ago.
My sister said that she had seen recipes, where certain kinds of dough as part of the recipe was mentioned, but without an instruction as how to make the dough. The knowledge of how to make the dough was taken for granted.
My dad then said that he heard once that for a long time, people didn't know where troy was located. There hadn't been old cards or descriptions of that. When troy existed, everybody knew it anyway. My sister first couldn't quite believe, that people of younger times first didn't know, where troy was.
As I heard them talk, I remembered the book on the gospels, which I had given my dad a couple of days ago. One problem, which we face today, when it comes to interpreting the bible texts is, that some of that knowledge was simply known and taken for granted back then. That's why the preachers and prophets didn't have to explain themselves and were able to simply use certain words and everybody understood and knew. I explained that to the others and we agreed that in all three cases, there was knowledge taken for granted and (maybe) in these days, had to be discovered again first. (My sister took care of that by writing down some basic recipes in one of her books.)
Until next blog,
sarah
Monday, 31 December 2012
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Ericksonian birthday or christmas presents
Dear reader,
Sidney Rosen has in his book "My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson" one story ("Calluses"), which is about a construction worker, who had fallen and was left totally paralysed and in pain. He asked Erickson, what he could do. Erickson said, that there's not much he could do. Develop calluses on his pain nerves, so he wouldn't feel the pain so much. Erickson suggested to him to collect comics, jokes and funny sayings and make scrapbooks out of them, which he could give to fellow workmen when they were in the hospital. That's just what the man did.
That's just what I did last year for one of my aunts with a strenuously collected collection of comics with Snoopy from the Peanuts. My aunts had a dog for many decades. Not anymore, because it's a bit easier to travel without one. I asked my dad, if he believed she'd enjoy reading comics. He had doubts. After I told him what I had in mind, he believed she'd like it for sure. So I collected and glued a thin notebook full of those comics and wrote her a card saying basically, that my dad had told me she won't read comics. But this one here was a very special one. She called me later to say thank you and that she reads one or two pages every day.
Our daily newspaper has a quote on the front page, which relates to one of the bigger articles on the page. I collected some of them over the past months for another notebook, which I had stumbled upon in our flat some time ago. No one wanted that notebook anymore, but it was small and nice and read. My friend and colleague from work likes read and quotes. The notebook is just big enough for one quote on each page and the pages are perforated, so you could rip them out. So I spent the past days now sorting the quotes fitting in such a way that one on the front the one on the back of a page were in some way or another somewhat related to each other. Yesterday I went through them one final time and cut the quotes straight. I wrote down many of them for myself, so I'd have them, too. I was up until half past two in the morning yesterday. Time passed unnoticed. I had written in german and listened to Derren Brown in english reading his book. It must have been hypnosis. Apart from the fact that time had passed so quickly, I couldn't remember consciously either which quotes I had written down or what I had heard Derren Brown say even a short time later when I was in bed. Amnesia. Trance is a natural phenomena and I don't think about it much, that I hardly can remember consciously the quotes or the audio book. It had been fun and after all the book is finally ready before christmas. That's what's really important.
I want to give the reader a warning: such notebooks, even small thin ones, need time and if you don't already have a big collection of quotes, you should plan long ahead of time for such a present. I have taken my time with those two books for that reason. I had to. The newspaper only came once a day and I couldn't use every comic or quote in it. Planing period: at best months ahead.
Until next blog,
sarah
Sidney Rosen has in his book "My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson" one story ("Calluses"), which is about a construction worker, who had fallen and was left totally paralysed and in pain. He asked Erickson, what he could do. Erickson said, that there's not much he could do. Develop calluses on his pain nerves, so he wouldn't feel the pain so much. Erickson suggested to him to collect comics, jokes and funny sayings and make scrapbooks out of them, which he could give to fellow workmen when they were in the hospital. That's just what the man did.
That's just what I did last year for one of my aunts with a strenuously collected collection of comics with Snoopy from the Peanuts. My aunts had a dog for many decades. Not anymore, because it's a bit easier to travel without one. I asked my dad, if he believed she'd enjoy reading comics. He had doubts. After I told him what I had in mind, he believed she'd like it for sure. So I collected and glued a thin notebook full of those comics and wrote her a card saying basically, that my dad had told me she won't read comics. But this one here was a very special one. She called me later to say thank you and that she reads one or two pages every day.
Our daily newspaper has a quote on the front page, which relates to one of the bigger articles on the page. I collected some of them over the past months for another notebook, which I had stumbled upon in our flat some time ago. No one wanted that notebook anymore, but it was small and nice and read. My friend and colleague from work likes read and quotes. The notebook is just big enough for one quote on each page and the pages are perforated, so you could rip them out. So I spent the past days now sorting the quotes fitting in such a way that one on the front the one on the back of a page were in some way or another somewhat related to each other. Yesterday I went through them one final time and cut the quotes straight. I wrote down many of them for myself, so I'd have them, too. I was up until half past two in the morning yesterday. Time passed unnoticed. I had written in german and listened to Derren Brown in english reading his book. It must have been hypnosis. Apart from the fact that time had passed so quickly, I couldn't remember consciously either which quotes I had written down or what I had heard Derren Brown say even a short time later when I was in bed. Amnesia. Trance is a natural phenomena and I don't think about it much, that I hardly can remember consciously the quotes or the audio book. It had been fun and after all the book is finally ready before christmas. That's what's really important.
I want to give the reader a warning: such notebooks, even small thin ones, need time and if you don't already have a big collection of quotes, you should plan long ahead of time for such a present. I have taken my time with those two books for that reason. I had to. The newspaper only came once a day and I couldn't use every comic or quote in it. Planing period: at best months ahead.
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 13 December 2012
When there's snow outside, I think...
Dear reader,
it's been snowing for a few days here now and when there's snow outside, I think of two Erickson stories:
One of those stories can be found in Sidney Rosen's book "My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson, M. D." and it's called "Walking on Glare Ice". During the war one day Erickson was on his way to work: the induction board in Detroit. On his way he saw a veteran with an artificial leg, who seemed worried that he needed to walk over glare ice. The man feared he might slip and fall on the ice. Erickson told him to stay there. He'd come over and show him how to walk on glare ice. Erickson came over and the man could see he had a limp. So he wasn't just a babbler. Erickson told the man to close his eyes and Erickson made him walk this way and that way and up and down, until the man was utterly confused. Then Erickson led him to the safe side of the ice and told him to open his eyes again. He was surprised that the ice was behind him and had no idea how he got to that other side.
Erickson told him, "You walked as if the cement was hard. When you try to walk on ice the usual tendency is to tense your muscles, preparing for a fall. You get a mental set. And you slip that way. If you put the weight of your legs down straight, the way you would on dry cement, you wouldn't slip. The slide comes because you don't put down your full weight and because you tense yourself."
The second anecdote is mentioned, among other places, in the book "Hypnotic Realities: The Induction of Clinical Hypnosis and Forms of Indirect Suggestion" by Milton H. Erickson, Ernest L. Rossi and Sheila I. Rossi. As a child Erickson liked to go to school early after it had snowed. On the way he left a crooked path. On the way home he had fun watching other students and passengers not going a straight path, although they knew there had to be a straight path. They all followed Erickson's path crooked path in the snow instead.
Until next blog,
sarah
it's been snowing for a few days here now and when there's snow outside, I think of two Erickson stories:
One of those stories can be found in Sidney Rosen's book "My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson, M. D." and it's called "Walking on Glare Ice". During the war one day Erickson was on his way to work: the induction board in Detroit. On his way he saw a veteran with an artificial leg, who seemed worried that he needed to walk over glare ice. The man feared he might slip and fall on the ice. Erickson told him to stay there. He'd come over and show him how to walk on glare ice. Erickson came over and the man could see he had a limp. So he wasn't just a babbler. Erickson told the man to close his eyes and Erickson made him walk this way and that way and up and down, until the man was utterly confused. Then Erickson led him to the safe side of the ice and told him to open his eyes again. He was surprised that the ice was behind him and had no idea how he got to that other side.
Erickson told him, "You walked as if the cement was hard. When you try to walk on ice the usual tendency is to tense your muscles, preparing for a fall. You get a mental set. And you slip that way. If you put the weight of your legs down straight, the way you would on dry cement, you wouldn't slip. The slide comes because you don't put down your full weight and because you tense yourself."
The second anecdote is mentioned, among other places, in the book "Hypnotic Realities: The Induction of Clinical Hypnosis and Forms of Indirect Suggestion" by Milton H. Erickson, Ernest L. Rossi and Sheila I. Rossi. As a child Erickson liked to go to school early after it had snowed. On the way he left a crooked path. On the way home he had fun watching other students and passengers not going a straight path, although they knew there had to be a straight path. They all followed Erickson's path crooked path in the snow instead.
Until next blog,
sarah
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
The purple wizard of the desert
Dear reader,
today is a big day. I fulfill my promise to write about Milton Erickson. He was born december, 5 1901 in Aurum, Nevada. His birthday seemed more appropriate to me to write about him than his day of death: march, 25 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Erickson was born into a farmer family with 7 sisters and only 1 brother. Erickson took his time when he started to speak as a child. His mom was fine with that though. She simply said, "When the time arrives, then he will talk." He was 4 years old when he started talking. He had a rough time at school first. He'd start reading a dictionary not at least going through it starting with the first letter of the word he was looking up, but started reading with at the letter "a", until he finally came to the letter and word he actually wanted to look up. Hence his nickname "Dictionary". He was dyslexic.
In 1919 he graduated from high school, but everyone thought this would be the end for him. Erickson got a polio infection (his first) and was completely paralysed when he overheard the doctor in the next room telling his mom that "The boy will be dead by morning." Erickson found out through much, much practice that he could control one of his eyes and make it move the way he wanted and he spent many hours getting his mom's attention and he was able to communicate to her to move the chest in his room some way. What he couldn't tell her was that the chest was blocking his view from the window and he wanted to see the sunset, before he died. Well, he only saw part of it He was unconscious for 3 days.
He needed to learn everything again. His youngest sister was just about that age where she'd start to learn how to walk, so Erickson was able to look and learn from her. This time consciously. Erickson himself said the polio infection gave him a "terrific advantage" over others. Even when he was sick in bed, unable to move, he studied his family and other people in the house. He found out that his siblings could say "yes", but mean "no" or say "no", but mean "yes". So he learned the basics of careful observation, phrasing and body language. When he was reasonably able to walk again, Erickson and one of his friends decided to go on a canoe tour. Luckily his family wasn't present at the actual time of departure, because on short notice his friend cancled the tour. I think his family wouldn't have let him go alone. When Erickson had to move the canoe, he needed help. He made an experiment out of that for the tour to never ask for help directly, but always create a situation in which others would ask him or offer help. That's how more often than not people would find him sitting learning german vocabularies for his medical studies, until someone would come along.
Even as a student he was interested in hypnosis and worked in hospitals, in psychiatric hospitals first. His boss once told him that the walking cane he needed to walk, was helpful and made him likeable for both patients and colleagues. The female patients wouldn't feel threatened by a man with a walking cane and male colleagues wouldn't see him as serious competition. In 1947 he had an unfortunate accident on his bike and although he didn't like to get vaccinations, he decided to get a tetanus vaccination this time. He got an anaphylactic shock, which he was lucky to survive and which gave him pollen allergies for the rest of his life. That was the reason for him to stop working in hospitals and move to Phoenix, where the desert climate was nicer for him with the allergies.
In 1953 he got a post-polio syndrome on top of the discomfort he already had to deal with. He worked closely with many well known therapists, among them Jay Haley, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead. John Grinder and Richard Bandler, who created neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and analysed and used Erickson's hypnotic language patterns for that. My friend John is one of those methods, as I explained in earlier posts already.
As maybe you could tell from my, this post here already, there are many stories around Erickson. Even if I spend the next posts to tell some of those, it would take some time. Erickson was a genius story teller. But he didn't just tell stories for entertainment, but to help and heal in an indirect way.
Many people then and now know Erickson from his older days when he was half paralysed in a wheel-chair, hard of hearing, had double vision and suffered from chronic pain. It's impressive to see him even in short youtube videos. Even in those you can sense he was full of lust for life and energy of life although (or maybe because?) he suffered so much. I think, his obvious physical problems made him more believeable for his patients. Who would you believe more readily, when he tells you that pain control is possible: a seemingly young, healthy, energetic doctor, or a sickly elderly man in a wheel-chair? ;-)
These are only a very few aspects of Erickson's life and work. Many stories and aspects I know and thought of as I wrote this, I left out. One single post isn't enough by far.
If you're interested in learning more about Erickson, I can warmly recommend to read Sidney Rosen's collection of Erickson stories My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. If you want to get a glimps of what Erickson was like with his students, I recommend his 5-days-seminar, which his student Jeffrey Zeig recorded. The written version of that is published under the title A Teaching Seminar With Milton H. Erickson. If you have further questions or want more suggestions, just write to me. For now this will be it about Erickson. But I'm sure this won't be the last post, where I'll mention him.
Until next blog,
sarah
today is a big day. I fulfill my promise to write about Milton Erickson. He was born december, 5 1901 in Aurum, Nevada. His birthday seemed more appropriate to me to write about him than his day of death: march, 25 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Erickson was born into a farmer family with 7 sisters and only 1 brother. Erickson took his time when he started to speak as a child. His mom was fine with that though. She simply said, "When the time arrives, then he will talk." He was 4 years old when he started talking. He had a rough time at school first. He'd start reading a dictionary not at least going through it starting with the first letter of the word he was looking up, but started reading with at the letter "a", until he finally came to the letter and word he actually wanted to look up. Hence his nickname "Dictionary". He was dyslexic.
In 1919 he graduated from high school, but everyone thought this would be the end for him. Erickson got a polio infection (his first) and was completely paralysed when he overheard the doctor in the next room telling his mom that "The boy will be dead by morning." Erickson found out through much, much practice that he could control one of his eyes and make it move the way he wanted and he spent many hours getting his mom's attention and he was able to communicate to her to move the chest in his room some way. What he couldn't tell her was that the chest was blocking his view from the window and he wanted to see the sunset, before he died. Well, he only saw part of it He was unconscious for 3 days.
He needed to learn everything again. His youngest sister was just about that age where she'd start to learn how to walk, so Erickson was able to look and learn from her. This time consciously. Erickson himself said the polio infection gave him a "terrific advantage" over others. Even when he was sick in bed, unable to move, he studied his family and other people in the house. He found out that his siblings could say "yes", but mean "no" or say "no", but mean "yes". So he learned the basics of careful observation, phrasing and body language. When he was reasonably able to walk again, Erickson and one of his friends decided to go on a canoe tour. Luckily his family wasn't present at the actual time of departure, because on short notice his friend cancled the tour. I think his family wouldn't have let him go alone. When Erickson had to move the canoe, he needed help. He made an experiment out of that for the tour to never ask for help directly, but always create a situation in which others would ask him or offer help. That's how more often than not people would find him sitting learning german vocabularies for his medical studies, until someone would come along.
Even as a student he was interested in hypnosis and worked in hospitals, in psychiatric hospitals first. His boss once told him that the walking cane he needed to walk, was helpful and made him likeable for both patients and colleagues. The female patients wouldn't feel threatened by a man with a walking cane and male colleagues wouldn't see him as serious competition. In 1947 he had an unfortunate accident on his bike and although he didn't like to get vaccinations, he decided to get a tetanus vaccination this time. He got an anaphylactic shock, which he was lucky to survive and which gave him pollen allergies for the rest of his life. That was the reason for him to stop working in hospitals and move to Phoenix, where the desert climate was nicer for him with the allergies.
In 1953 he got a post-polio syndrome on top of the discomfort he already had to deal with. He worked closely with many well known therapists, among them Jay Haley, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead. John Grinder and Richard Bandler, who created neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and analysed and used Erickson's hypnotic language patterns for that. My friend John is one of those methods, as I explained in earlier posts already.
As maybe you could tell from my, this post here already, there are many stories around Erickson. Even if I spend the next posts to tell some of those, it would take some time. Erickson was a genius story teller. But he didn't just tell stories for entertainment, but to help and heal in an indirect way.
Many people then and now know Erickson from his older days when he was half paralysed in a wheel-chair, hard of hearing, had double vision and suffered from chronic pain. It's impressive to see him even in short youtube videos. Even in those you can sense he was full of lust for life and energy of life although (or maybe because?) he suffered so much. I think, his obvious physical problems made him more believeable for his patients. Who would you believe more readily, when he tells you that pain control is possible: a seemingly young, healthy, energetic doctor, or a sickly elderly man in a wheel-chair? ;-)
These are only a very few aspects of Erickson's life and work. Many stories and aspects I know and thought of as I wrote this, I left out. One single post isn't enough by far.
If you're interested in learning more about Erickson, I can warmly recommend to read Sidney Rosen's collection of Erickson stories My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. If you want to get a glimps of what Erickson was like with his students, I recommend his 5-days-seminar, which his student Jeffrey Zeig recorded. The written version of that is published under the title A Teaching Seminar With Milton H. Erickson. If you have further questions or want more suggestions, just write to me. For now this will be it about Erickson. But I'm sure this won't be the last post, where I'll mention him.
Until next blog,
sarah
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
My friend Tim (Part 2)
Dear reader,
I forgot something yesterday. So today has a new post. Not only can I say things you don't necessarily want to read through my friend John or Tim. If my friend Tim wants to use a bunch of curse words and wants that to be well received, before he does it, he simply says he has a poem he wants to recite and pretends he has tourette syndrom or something like that. Then everything is just fine. Like in his poem "Angry (Feet)":
Watch a video of it here
Here are the lyrics:
Sometimes I get a bit angry
But you couldn't tell, no you couldn't tell
Unless you looked real closely
Sometimes I get a bit angry
But it's alright, yes it's alright
Cause I keep it out of sight
Inside, deep inside
I breast fed 'til I was nine
Which my QUACK... doctor says is fine
And he also says I'd deal with anger better
If I wrote about myself in a poem or a letter
My mother was a STUPID BITCH... caring lady
She taught me all I know
Although I was a little slow, she never gave up
She never let me Slut down
Although she spent a lot of time at the neighbour's house
When my dad was out of town
I didn't walk 'til I was seven, or talk 'til I was ten
But neither did Napoleon, according to my QUACK fucking doctor
Who has certificates in frames
To substantiate his Dodgy Fucking... claims
My father left my mother for the love of a PANTANG... nother
And I have a Bastard brother who I've never really known
Because me dad moved up to Queensland
And he doesn't have a Bullshit You Fat Cunt... telephone
In primary school I had trouble making ASHTRAYS... friends
An issue which has become somewhat of a trend
The origin of which I can not pretend does not perplex me
Although my Quack Fucking doctor says it's cool
And that loads of "Fat Prick!" "SHUT UP I'm NOT FAT"... kids at school
Have problems with communication
And that of course some medication would be wise
And combined with more honest self expression
Could help me with my issues with emotional repression
And at a hundred and eighty bucks a session
I think I'll take the Theiving Wank BASTARD chap's advice
I quite like Porn... photography
And books on GUNS... history
And I'd like to be a POLITICIAN... vet
And I feel as I get older
I'm more in control of my violent tendencies
And when I die KILL... and when I die
I'll have no regrets
And I feel that all this writing
Is really Poofy exciting
And my Quack... Quack doctor would be proud
Because I feel a lot less angry
And I'm saying stuff out loud
And I'm letting anger out
Like today in our last session
When I taught the Quack a lesson
'Cause he said I'm not progressing
Said I wasn't moving forward
So I said, "Let's see how you move without your fucking legs."
And I tied him to his chair
And I pulled out my machete
And I listened to him beg
And then I cut his fucking feet off
And while he laid there bleeding
I used his feet to kick him in the head...
Until next blog,
sarah
I forgot something yesterday. So today has a new post. Not only can I say things you don't necessarily want to read through my friend John or Tim. If my friend Tim wants to use a bunch of curse words and wants that to be well received, before he does it, he simply says he has a poem he wants to recite and pretends he has tourette syndrom or something like that. Then everything is just fine. Like in his poem "Angry (Feet)":
Watch a video of it here
Here are the lyrics:
Sometimes I get a bit angry
But you couldn't tell, no you couldn't tell
Unless you looked real closely
Sometimes I get a bit angry
But it's alright, yes it's alright
Cause I keep it out of sight
Inside, deep inside
I breast fed 'til I was nine
Which my QUACK... doctor says is fine
And he also says I'd deal with anger better
If I wrote about myself in a poem or a letter
My mother was a STUPID BITCH... caring lady
She taught me all I know
Although I was a little slow, she never gave up
She never let me Slut down
Although she spent a lot of time at the neighbour's house
When my dad was out of town
I didn't walk 'til I was seven, or talk 'til I was ten
But neither did Napoleon, according to my QUACK fucking doctor
Who has certificates in frames
To substantiate his Dodgy Fucking... claims
My father left my mother for the love of a PANTANG... nother
And I have a Bastard brother who I've never really known
Because me dad moved up to Queensland
And he doesn't have a Bullshit You Fat Cunt... telephone
In primary school I had trouble making ASHTRAYS... friends
An issue which has become somewhat of a trend
The origin of which I can not pretend does not perplex me
Although my Quack Fucking doctor says it's cool
And that loads of "Fat Prick!" "SHUT UP I'm NOT FAT"... kids at school
Have problems with communication
And that of course some medication would be wise
And combined with more honest self expression
Could help me with my issues with emotional repression
And at a hundred and eighty bucks a session
I think I'll take the Theiving Wank BASTARD chap's advice
I quite like Porn... photography
And books on GUNS... history
And I'd like to be a POLITICIAN... vet
And I feel as I get older
I'm more in control of my violent tendencies
And when I die KILL... and when I die
I'll have no regrets
And I feel that all this writing
Is really Poofy exciting
And my Quack... Quack doctor would be proud
Because I feel a lot less angry
And I'm saying stuff out loud
And I'm letting anger out
Like today in our last session
When I taught the Quack a lesson
'Cause he said I'm not progressing
Said I wasn't moving forward
So I said, "Let's see how you move without your fucking legs."
And I tied him to his chair
And I pulled out my machete
And I listened to him beg
And then I cut his fucking feet off
And while he laid there bleeding
I used his feet to kick him in the head...
Until next blog,
sarah
Monday, 19 November 2012
It wasn't me! (My friend Tim)
Dear reader,
in one of my first posts I already mentioned the my friend John method. You kind of put the blame on somebody else and can say what you want to say anyway. You won't be in trouble for what you said, because you didn't say it, but "my friend John" did.
Having said that due to recent events here a gig with Tim Minchin:
(Video link) Peace Anthem for Palestine
Here are the lyrics:
We don't eat pigs
You don't eat pigs
It seems it's been that way forever
So if you don't eat pigs
And we don't eat pigs
Why not, not eat pigs together?
Until next blog,
sarah
in one of my first posts I already mentioned the my friend John method. You kind of put the blame on somebody else and can say what you want to say anyway. You won't be in trouble for what you said, because you didn't say it, but "my friend John" did.
Having said that due to recent events here a gig with Tim Minchin:
(Video link) Peace Anthem for Palestine
Here are the lyrics:
We don't eat pigs
You don't eat pigs
It seems it's been that way forever
So if you don't eat pigs
And we don't eat pigs
Why not, not eat pigs together?
Until next blog,
sarah
Monday, 12 November 2012
My Earworm Theory
Dear reader,
I'm very certain that earworms, that's songs we have stuck in our head for some time and don't get rid of easily, do have a meaning. They're not just songs or parts of songs in the head. Usually they're lyrics and not (just) melodies, we have in our head. Pay attention once to the lyrics, you have in your head then. I believe, our unconscious wants to say something to us with those lyrics and wants to make it conscious through this unnerving loop (or worm in our ear).
Honestly I had one song in my head for one and half a year. I was able to listen to other songs and it was okay. But as soon as I didn't hear anything and something was in my head, for one and half a year it was actually only one song. I better don't tell which one it was. It was a very famous one and can fast be the earworm for many other people. But I'm going to tell you some songs I had in my head from time to time recently. They weren't earworms in a real sense for me, because they weren't totally unnerving, but they were still some lines or some words of songs in the head.
As I was in the process of moving to my own flat, every now and then I had "Settle Down" by No Doubt. The lines "Get get get in line, and settle down / Get in line, and settle down" made sense for moving to another place really. "Settle down" as in "calm down", but also as in "finding a place to live". I was finding a place to live, settling down.
Thanks to a friend of mine (you know who you are), I discovered Tim Minchin the other day. I could have "known" him earlier in fact than only a couple of weeks back. Because one or two years back another friend of mine showed me a with Axes of Awesome, a video of a gig they did at which they did their 4 Chord Song. This is a nice, funny mix of many songs, which all have the same 4 chords (or one of them anyway) and all of them are hits. Particularly this video had all interprets and songs listed in the video. Tim Minchin was also among them towards the end. If I had bothered to listen to the less known or actually unknown interprets "back then", I could have known him way earlier. In any case I know him now and spent the past several days now to watch him and listen to every thing I could get. Obviously this is dangerous for me. Some days back I woke up with one of Tim Minchin's songs in my head and it stayed there for the better part of the day. On friday I was at work and drinking chai latte ginger. It didn't surprise me the least that I had Tim Minchin's "Ginger Song" (earlier versions entitled "Taboo", now it's generally known as "Prejudices") in my head for the whole time and it was impossible for me to get it out until I was finished with the chai latte ginger. Thank you very much. This wasn't funny at all, especially since the song isn't about the plant ginger. It took me a bit of time to realise what it was about. It really wasn't funny. Saturday wasn't any much better, except that the song was different. We were all shopping together and even on the way there a melody and then the text of Tim Minchin's "Canvas Bags" started take shape in my head. And yes, we did have canvas bags with us! Which was what I told myself repeatedly, to get the song out of my head.
Friday was simply unnerving and saturday was at least a better song. I still didn't really bother much to get the songs out of my head on both days. Even though both were unnerving. If I want to get rid of a song, it helps to have another fast song in your head. Sometimes I even whisper the lyrics or hum the melody at a low volume, if the earworm is really unnerving and sticky. What helps me is "Halloween Town" from the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas". Often what I do is I start with the la-la-la-bit towards the end of it and from time to time in my head the chorus starts at one point and then some time later both Halloween Town and the earworm are out of my head. This song, especially my starting point, is fast and fast requires a certain amount of concentration. That usually helps against earworms, to find something where you need to concentrate. I think it also helps, to respect and accept the hints from our unconscious and follow them, as much as it's and if possible.
At the beginning of this year I had to go to a sort of seminar. I didn't feel like it and also was very nervous, even though I had been there the day before. So I knew where I had to go and also knew the people there more or less. I woke up with a sailer's song in my head. I don't remember anymore which it was. The text was something along the lines of "don't be afraid, my love, it'll all be well soon". After a while I would have liked to have another song in my head for a change. But still it was somewhat calming me down - and it was right. As I was there soon it was all well. So earworms are not just something unnerving and above all not meaningless.
Until next blog,
sarah
I'm very certain that earworms, that's songs we have stuck in our head for some time and don't get rid of easily, do have a meaning. They're not just songs or parts of songs in the head. Usually they're lyrics and not (just) melodies, we have in our head. Pay attention once to the lyrics, you have in your head then. I believe, our unconscious wants to say something to us with those lyrics and wants to make it conscious through this unnerving loop (or worm in our ear).
Honestly I had one song in my head for one and half a year. I was able to listen to other songs and it was okay. But as soon as I didn't hear anything and something was in my head, for one and half a year it was actually only one song. I better don't tell which one it was. It was a very famous one and can fast be the earworm for many other people. But I'm going to tell you some songs I had in my head from time to time recently. They weren't earworms in a real sense for me, because they weren't totally unnerving, but they were still some lines or some words of songs in the head.
As I was in the process of moving to my own flat, every now and then I had "Settle Down" by No Doubt. The lines "Get get get in line, and settle down / Get in line, and settle down" made sense for moving to another place really. "Settle down" as in "calm down", but also as in "finding a place to live". I was finding a place to live, settling down.
Thanks to a friend of mine (you know who you are), I discovered Tim Minchin the other day. I could have "known" him earlier in fact than only a couple of weeks back. Because one or two years back another friend of mine showed me a with Axes of Awesome, a video of a gig they did at which they did their 4 Chord Song. This is a nice, funny mix of many songs, which all have the same 4 chords (or one of them anyway) and all of them are hits. Particularly this video had all interprets and songs listed in the video. Tim Minchin was also among them towards the end. If I had bothered to listen to the less known or actually unknown interprets "back then", I could have known him way earlier. In any case I know him now and spent the past several days now to watch him and listen to every thing I could get. Obviously this is dangerous for me. Some days back I woke up with one of Tim Minchin's songs in my head and it stayed there for the better part of the day. On friday I was at work and drinking chai latte ginger. It didn't surprise me the least that I had Tim Minchin's "Ginger Song" (earlier versions entitled "Taboo", now it's generally known as "Prejudices") in my head for the whole time and it was impossible for me to get it out until I was finished with the chai latte ginger. Thank you very much. This wasn't funny at all, especially since the song isn't about the plant ginger. It took me a bit of time to realise what it was about. It really wasn't funny. Saturday wasn't any much better, except that the song was different. We were all shopping together and even on the way there a melody and then the text of Tim Minchin's "Canvas Bags" started take shape in my head. And yes, we did have canvas bags with us! Which was what I told myself repeatedly, to get the song out of my head.
Friday was simply unnerving and saturday was at least a better song. I still didn't really bother much to get the songs out of my head on both days. Even though both were unnerving. If I want to get rid of a song, it helps to have another fast song in your head. Sometimes I even whisper the lyrics or hum the melody at a low volume, if the earworm is really unnerving and sticky. What helps me is "Halloween Town" from the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas". Often what I do is I start with the la-la-la-bit towards the end of it and from time to time in my head the chorus starts at one point and then some time later both Halloween Town and the earworm are out of my head. This song, especially my starting point, is fast and fast requires a certain amount of concentration. That usually helps against earworms, to find something where you need to concentrate. I think it also helps, to respect and accept the hints from our unconscious and follow them, as much as it's and if possible.
At the beginning of this year I had to go to a sort of seminar. I didn't feel like it and also was very nervous, even though I had been there the day before. So I knew where I had to go and also knew the people there more or less. I woke up with a sailer's song in my head. I don't remember anymore which it was. The text was something along the lines of "don't be afraid, my love, it'll all be well soon". After a while I would have liked to have another song in my head for a change. But still it was somewhat calming me down - and it was right. As I was there soon it was all well. So earworms are not just something unnerving and above all not meaningless.
Until next blog,
sarah
Monday, 5 November 2012
Ventriloquial comeback
Dear reader,
I went back to work again on thursday a while back. Gaston stayed home. But the two therapy puppets Lucy and Fritzchen were still back at work, of course. When most of our guests (that's how we call those we take care of) were gone, I took Fritzchen actually. One man and his wife were still with us. The woman was excited how well I worked Fritzchen. She said to me, "How do you do that? All with hand manipulation?" Fritzchen shook his head very much. "No, no, no", he said. "Face manipulation!" At the end, before the two went, Fritzchen stuck out his tongue at the woman. Before that, when we were talking, she had asked, if he could do it once again and done that several times as we talked. So it seemed like a good way to end the day.
Yesterday night I bought me Charlie McCarthy. If any one of you would like to check him out, type the number 370676756284 on eBay. Even sales that have ended show up that way. At least for a little while. He's looking good, although he's used. On his right eyebrow he has a mark. But who knows how that looks like for real. 145 $ are quite expensive, but for a real vent figure like Charlie that's really cheap, especially since it's shipping included and he will be imported from america.
I like soft figures like Gaston and the therapy puppets, because you have your hand in their head and with the soft material, you can make more with the face. On the other hand I'm very happy not to finally have Charlie McCarthy here soon and with that really one of the classic vent figures of all, not just from the way it is made, a hard figure with headstick, but also because even among the famous figures, well it's Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen's main figure! Yay!
Yay? I will have to buy children's clothings and don't even know where there are shops for that here. Maybe the women at work can sew him some clothings. I'm sure they'll be happy to do that. At the risk of sounding totally stupid and silly: I feel a little bit like someone, who's getting a child and has to prepare for it. Charlie won't stay in my bed though! Since he's a hard figure this may not be that fitting. Gaston is more of a cuddly toy and okay. Although Charlie will be somewhat like a child, he won't be screaming in the middle of the night asking for food or something to drink and I'd have to fix some for him. I won't need to change his pants either. But buying clothings! Horror! The one question I can't avoid any longer: how to test the clothings on Charlie? I can hardly take a "doll" into the changing room. But I also don't want for everyone to see how I take off cloths of Charlie to see how new ones look on him?! What did I do buying a figure on eBay?! Man!!!
Until next blog,
sarah
I went back to work again on thursday a while back. Gaston stayed home. But the two therapy puppets Lucy and Fritzchen were still back at work, of course. When most of our guests (that's how we call those we take care of) were gone, I took Fritzchen actually. One man and his wife were still with us. The woman was excited how well I worked Fritzchen. She said to me, "How do you do that? All with hand manipulation?" Fritzchen shook his head very much. "No, no, no", he said. "Face manipulation!" At the end, before the two went, Fritzchen stuck out his tongue at the woman. Before that, when we were talking, she had asked, if he could do it once again and done that several times as we talked. So it seemed like a good way to end the day.
Yesterday night I bought me Charlie McCarthy. If any one of you would like to check him out, type the number 370676756284 on eBay. Even sales that have ended show up that way. At least for a little while. He's looking good, although he's used. On his right eyebrow he has a mark. But who knows how that looks like for real. 145 $ are quite expensive, but for a real vent figure like Charlie that's really cheap, especially since it's shipping included and he will be imported from america.
I like soft figures like Gaston and the therapy puppets, because you have your hand in their head and with the soft material, you can make more with the face. On the other hand I'm very happy not to finally have Charlie McCarthy here soon and with that really one of the classic vent figures of all, not just from the way it is made, a hard figure with headstick, but also because even among the famous figures, well it's Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen's main figure! Yay!
Yay? I will have to buy children's clothings and don't even know where there are shops for that here. Maybe the women at work can sew him some clothings. I'm sure they'll be happy to do that. At the risk of sounding totally stupid and silly: I feel a little bit like someone, who's getting a child and has to prepare for it. Charlie won't stay in my bed though! Since he's a hard figure this may not be that fitting. Gaston is more of a cuddly toy and okay. Although Charlie will be somewhat like a child, he won't be screaming in the middle of the night asking for food or something to drink and I'd have to fix some for him. I won't need to change his pants either. But buying clothings! Horror! The one question I can't avoid any longer: how to test the clothings on Charlie? I can hardly take a "doll" into the changing room. But I also don't want for everyone to see how I take off cloths of Charlie to see how new ones look on him?! What did I do buying a figure on eBay?! Man!!!
Until next blog,
sarah
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
The magician, who unleashed the world
Dear reader,
on Halloween 86 years ago, october, 31 1926, the magician and escapologist Harry Houdini died. Many people know little or nothing about that name today. Although he achieved quite big things actually, not only in the field of entertainment as a magician and escapologist. I want to take the opportunity today to write a bit about him.
What many people don't know is that Harry Houdini wasn't his real name. He was born in Budapest in 1874 as Erik Weisz. His family moved to america when he was still young, they ended up living in New York. The family changed their name to "Weiss" and Erik called himself "Ehrich". When he was 17, he started doing magic shows and used the name Harry Houdini for himself. There are different theories why it was "Harry" as a first name. On the english wikipedia-page you can read that friends already called him "Harry". On the german wikipedia-page it reads that the magician Harry Kellar was is idol and he took the first name of him because of that. The name "Houdini" came from another magician-idol: Eugène Robert-Houdin. A friend of Houdini's told him that in french when you add an "i" at the end of "Houdin", it would mean "like Houdin". That's actually not the case, but makes a nice story about how he came to the name, I think.
He worked in a circus and traveled not only in america, but also europe, including germany and also russia. He's certainly most known for his escapology. Among other things he let himself be tied up and put under water in rivers. He also once was locked up (as part of the trick, not because he had done something wrong) and tied up in the Tower of London and was able to free himself. But he also did magic in different ways and for example he wrote a book on paper magic. He describes techniques to fold things out of paper. (Essentially how to do something like origami.) I heard he was quite good and skilled with card magic, too. He's known today for his escapology though. In a documentary on Harry Houdini that I saw, they said that he did his escapology at a time when the people in america felt captivated/imprisoned. To see that he unleashed himself was more than a mere entertainment act then. It was a symbol of freedom for themselves.
Harry Houdini was a mama's boy and when she died, he was very sad. At that time there were many people, who claimed they could get contact with the dead. But Harry Houdini with his own knowledge about magic, was smart and saw through the tricks of those people. Since he knew about the pain of this loss through the death of his own mother, he spent the rest of his life debunking charlatans and to safe moaning people from con artists. Because you can very well make pretty good money that way, if you're "skilled" enough and know how to do it. But I have absolutely no respect for those people. My point of view is that they really use this pain and make money from that. It's one thing if a funeral parlour wants money for the coffin, the memorial and funeral and all that. But to say that one can talk to the dead and in reality it's all just an act, that's clearly crossing a line for me. Maybe some of those people believe, that they truly can talk to the dead. But I believe that most of them know very well that this isn't reality and that what they do is simply a disrespectful tall tale.
The american magic duo Penn & Teller have a tv series where they investigate things we take for granted and let experts talk about that. The series is called "Bullshit" and the first episode was on talking to the dead. At the beginning Penn is standing in front of a grave stone with Harry Houdini's name and dates on it and talking to him. That even after so many years and his attempts people still talk to the dead. Then he turns to the camera saying, "See? Anyone can talk to the dead. Getting an answer, that's the hard part."
Harry Houdini's death is pretty mysterious. They say this is what happened: He had some blind gut or belly problem prior to october, 31. A student came to see him october, 22 to test Houdini. He had claimed that by contracting the muscles, he could be hit by someone and feel fine and be unhurt. So this man came and hit him in the belly. It's said that Houdini later claimed the belly problems came from the hitting and he, Houdini, didn't have enough time to prepare for the hitting. The belly problems got worse after that. A doctor diagnosed him with appendicitis. Houdini did his final show october, 24, went to the hospital after that and died there october, 31, aged 52.
Houdini and his wife thought up a code word. After one of them was dead, that person would try to make contact with the one still living. That word would be the proof that the connection was genuine. The code word was "Rosabelle believe". Up until 10 years after Houdini had died, his wife held an annual séance, to get in contact with her husband. This never happened at any time though. After the final try, she commented, "ten years is long enough to wait for any man."
Until next blog,
sarah
on Halloween 86 years ago, october, 31 1926, the magician and escapologist Harry Houdini died. Many people know little or nothing about that name today. Although he achieved quite big things actually, not only in the field of entertainment as a magician and escapologist. I want to take the opportunity today to write a bit about him.
What many people don't know is that Harry Houdini wasn't his real name. He was born in Budapest in 1874 as Erik Weisz. His family moved to america when he was still young, they ended up living in New York. The family changed their name to "Weiss" and Erik called himself "Ehrich". When he was 17, he started doing magic shows and used the name Harry Houdini for himself. There are different theories why it was "Harry" as a first name. On the english wikipedia-page you can read that friends already called him "Harry". On the german wikipedia-page it reads that the magician Harry Kellar was is idol and he took the first name of him because of that. The name "Houdini" came from another magician-idol: Eugène Robert-Houdin. A friend of Houdini's told him that in french when you add an "i" at the end of "Houdin", it would mean "like Houdin". That's actually not the case, but makes a nice story about how he came to the name, I think.
He worked in a circus and traveled not only in america, but also europe, including germany and also russia. He's certainly most known for his escapology. Among other things he let himself be tied up and put under water in rivers. He also once was locked up (as part of the trick, not because he had done something wrong) and tied up in the Tower of London and was able to free himself. But he also did magic in different ways and for example he wrote a book on paper magic. He describes techniques to fold things out of paper. (Essentially how to do something like origami.) I heard he was quite good and skilled with card magic, too. He's known today for his escapology though. In a documentary on Harry Houdini that I saw, they said that he did his escapology at a time when the people in america felt captivated/imprisoned. To see that he unleashed himself was more than a mere entertainment act then. It was a symbol of freedom for themselves.
Harry Houdini was a mama's boy and when she died, he was very sad. At that time there were many people, who claimed they could get contact with the dead. But Harry Houdini with his own knowledge about magic, was smart and saw through the tricks of those people. Since he knew about the pain of this loss through the death of his own mother, he spent the rest of his life debunking charlatans and to safe moaning people from con artists. Because you can very well make pretty good money that way, if you're "skilled" enough and know how to do it. But I have absolutely no respect for those people. My point of view is that they really use this pain and make money from that. It's one thing if a funeral parlour wants money for the coffin, the memorial and funeral and all that. But to say that one can talk to the dead and in reality it's all just an act, that's clearly crossing a line for me. Maybe some of those people believe, that they truly can talk to the dead. But I believe that most of them know very well that this isn't reality and that what they do is simply a disrespectful tall tale.
The american magic duo Penn & Teller have a tv series where they investigate things we take for granted and let experts talk about that. The series is called "Bullshit" and the first episode was on talking to the dead. At the beginning Penn is standing in front of a grave stone with Harry Houdini's name and dates on it and talking to him. That even after so many years and his attempts people still talk to the dead. Then he turns to the camera saying, "See? Anyone can talk to the dead. Getting an answer, that's the hard part."
Harry Houdini's death is pretty mysterious. They say this is what happened: He had some blind gut or belly problem prior to october, 31. A student came to see him october, 22 to test Houdini. He had claimed that by contracting the muscles, he could be hit by someone and feel fine and be unhurt. So this man came and hit him in the belly. It's said that Houdini later claimed the belly problems came from the hitting and he, Houdini, didn't have enough time to prepare for the hitting. The belly problems got worse after that. A doctor diagnosed him with appendicitis. Houdini did his final show october, 24, went to the hospital after that and died there october, 31, aged 52.
Houdini and his wife thought up a code word. After one of them was dead, that person would try to make contact with the one still living. That word would be the proof that the connection was genuine. The code word was "Rosabelle believe". Up until 10 years after Houdini had died, his wife held an annual séance, to get in contact with her husband. This never happened at any time though. After the final try, she commented, "ten years is long enough to wait for any man."
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 18 October 2012
It's over
Dear reader,
on monday at about 5:30 the phone rang. At the very first moment I thought a certain friend of my parents might be calling. He wakes up early in the morning. But he wouldn't call at this hour. It could only have been the hospital and it was. My mom died.
I'm happy for her. My mom was french and had the accident when she was on holiday in france. She rode her bike a lot and had the accident on her bike. My dad was with her and a couple of good friends, too. The weather was great. apart from the shock of falling, I think, she was happy at that moment. When my dad arrived at the accident, she was already in a coma. I know, there's lot debate even among doctors, how much someone in a coma still senses. I'd like to believe that she at least didn't sense much after the accident. Her final conscious moments were happy anyway and that makes me happy for her.
Until next blog,
sarah
on monday at about 5:30 the phone rang. At the very first moment I thought a certain friend of my parents might be calling. He wakes up early in the morning. But he wouldn't call at this hour. It could only have been the hospital and it was. My mom died.
I'm happy for her. My mom was french and had the accident when she was on holiday in france. She rode her bike a lot and had the accident on her bike. My dad was with her and a couple of good friends, too. The weather was great. apart from the shock of falling, I think, she was happy at that moment. When my dad arrived at the accident, she was already in a coma. I know, there's lot debate even among doctors, how much someone in a coma still senses. I'd like to believe that she at least didn't sense much after the accident. Her final conscious moments were happy anyway and that makes me happy for her.
Until next blog,
sarah
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Darn mirror neurons!
Dear reader,
my mom will die. We went to the doctor on tuesday and got the MRI results and to make a long story short: my mom is bleeding deep in the brain on many places. Since thursday she also has fever. The doctor already told us on tuesday that an infect is about to come. There is no more hope. At least we know what's coming now and there's somewhat of an end in sight to her suffering, the suffering of all of us.
For several weeks now I've had headaches on and off. My dad told me the other day that, he too, has headaches sometimes. I think the places change for me. I don't pay much attention to it. For my dad the headache is where my mom was hit on the head. Responsible for this phenomena is what's called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons (nerves) in primates' brains, which are activated when we watch others do things. What's so special about them is that the same neurons are active both when we are (passive) watching someone and (active) actually doing something. So for the brain it doesn't matter whether we watch someone or do the activity ourselves. In both cases the same area, the same neurons are active. There's much debate going on about mirror neurons. The way I understand it, they are making us smile when we see others smile. They say when I was little and a certain friend started crying, I cried, too.
Something else is related to this, too, I think: ideomotor movents. I don't know, if this is actually true, but for me the words are made of "idea" and "motoric". The idea, which is the thought of a movement, leads to real movement. They are tiny, sort of micro-movements, but still movements. They're muscle movements then, or muscle tension, something like that and not actual visible movements. You can make "movements you thought of" visible though. Take a piece of string. Anything works. Something thin, long. On one end you put some weight on it. It doesn't have to be very heavy actually, just enough to serve as a pendulum. (Alternatively you can actually use a pendulum, too. I like to take a necklace I have with a stone hanging on it.) The pendulum needs hang in the air like that. Ideally take the string between your thumb and index finger only. You can support the elbow somewhere, but the wrist and upper arm have to be unsupported in any way. The elbow might rest on the arm of a chair and the string hanging next to the chair or use a table or something. Then concentrate on the end of the pendulum that's in the air. For starters just imagine it moving in no particular way at all, just moving. Then start playing with it: side to side, left to right, back and forth, or circle. If you want to and the pendulum is moving nicely, you can take a look at your hand now. The hand is making the movement. The string is only serving to make movement longer and more visible and the weight at the end of it, makes the movement even more visible. Many people may know the pendulum as a tool for witches, to (supposedly) communicate with spirits. In fact however there's nothing but micro-movements we thought of made visible through the pendulum. Some may be outraged or others still skeptical, but the so-called Ouija board, works the same way. (That's a board with the letters of the alphabet and you've got an arrow on which one or more people place their fingers and the arrow moves to the letters creating words as answers to questions asked). Flying tables or other objects are done with another trick, but what's called moving tables or moving glasses is done with ideomotor movements. The Ouija board only works if at least one of the persons involved knows the right answer. Derren Brown in his book "Tricks of the Mind" writes about one time when he was with friends and they wanted to communicate with one of his dead relatives. He knew about ideomotor movements at that time and deliberately didn't want to touch the arrow of the Ouija board. After the group asked for the name of the dead relative, they got a name all right, but it was not the real name of the relative and later one of the group said he had the name in his head. That's why that name came up.
Does that mean the pendulum is nothing but a cheap toy to play with ideomotor movements made visible? No. You can really communicate using a pendulum. Communicate with your unconscious. You can for example use it, if you're unsure making a decision. Either set up a movement for yes and no. (Be careful! Don't use left for yes and right for no. Make it distinct movements such as left and right for yes and circle for no.) Or you wish for any which movement may come up for yes and then ask for another movement for no. And then you can ask all kinds of questions and see what your unconscious thinks about them and shows you through movement. You could work with more than yes and no only, but I wouldn't make it more complicated than necessary. You could use diagonal for "maybe", too, or back and forth for "not sure". Something like that. You can also take a piece of paper and write a word in each corner (for example: yes, no, maybe, not sure) use the middle of the paper as a "starting point" and start swinging. The answers will be defined depending on which of the corners you end up.
The great escapologist Harry Houdini was a real mommy's boy. He was deeply hurt when his mom had died. He would have loved to be able to communicate with her. But he saw through the methods the so-called mediums used to supposedly communicate with the dead and spend much time debunking charlatan. I don't know, if it's possible to talk to the dead or not. What I do know however and wanted to describe here is that things like the pendulum or the Ouija board work entirely without "an invisible hand". And still this effect and the possibilities to really use it, fascinate me.
I once heard that our muscles already do ideomotor movements, before we do the real movements. So our body knows how we want to move next, before we actually do it. What good is our conscious then?
Until next blog,
sarah
my mom will die. We went to the doctor on tuesday and got the MRI results and to make a long story short: my mom is bleeding deep in the brain on many places. Since thursday she also has fever. The doctor already told us on tuesday that an infect is about to come. There is no more hope. At least we know what's coming now and there's somewhat of an end in sight to her suffering, the suffering of all of us.
For several weeks now I've had headaches on and off. My dad told me the other day that, he too, has headaches sometimes. I think the places change for me. I don't pay much attention to it. For my dad the headache is where my mom was hit on the head. Responsible for this phenomena is what's called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons (nerves) in primates' brains, which are activated when we watch others do things. What's so special about them is that the same neurons are active both when we are (passive) watching someone and (active) actually doing something. So for the brain it doesn't matter whether we watch someone or do the activity ourselves. In both cases the same area, the same neurons are active. There's much debate going on about mirror neurons. The way I understand it, they are making us smile when we see others smile. They say when I was little and a certain friend started crying, I cried, too.
Something else is related to this, too, I think: ideomotor movents. I don't know, if this is actually true, but for me the words are made of "idea" and "motoric". The idea, which is the thought of a movement, leads to real movement. They are tiny, sort of micro-movements, but still movements. They're muscle movements then, or muscle tension, something like that and not actual visible movements. You can make "movements you thought of" visible though. Take a piece of string. Anything works. Something thin, long. On one end you put some weight on it. It doesn't have to be very heavy actually, just enough to serve as a pendulum. (Alternatively you can actually use a pendulum, too. I like to take a necklace I have with a stone hanging on it.) The pendulum needs hang in the air like that. Ideally take the string between your thumb and index finger only. You can support the elbow somewhere, but the wrist and upper arm have to be unsupported in any way. The elbow might rest on the arm of a chair and the string hanging next to the chair or use a table or something. Then concentrate on the end of the pendulum that's in the air. For starters just imagine it moving in no particular way at all, just moving. Then start playing with it: side to side, left to right, back and forth, or circle. If you want to and the pendulum is moving nicely, you can take a look at your hand now. The hand is making the movement. The string is only serving to make movement longer and more visible and the weight at the end of it, makes the movement even more visible. Many people may know the pendulum as a tool for witches, to (supposedly) communicate with spirits. In fact however there's nothing but micro-movements we thought of made visible through the pendulum. Some may be outraged or others still skeptical, but the so-called Ouija board, works the same way. (That's a board with the letters of the alphabet and you've got an arrow on which one or more people place their fingers and the arrow moves to the letters creating words as answers to questions asked). Flying tables or other objects are done with another trick, but what's called moving tables or moving glasses is done with ideomotor movements. The Ouija board only works if at least one of the persons involved knows the right answer. Derren Brown in his book "Tricks of the Mind" writes about one time when he was with friends and they wanted to communicate with one of his dead relatives. He knew about ideomotor movements at that time and deliberately didn't want to touch the arrow of the Ouija board. After the group asked for the name of the dead relative, they got a name all right, but it was not the real name of the relative and later one of the group said he had the name in his head. That's why that name came up.
Does that mean the pendulum is nothing but a cheap toy to play with ideomotor movements made visible? No. You can really communicate using a pendulum. Communicate with your unconscious. You can for example use it, if you're unsure making a decision. Either set up a movement for yes and no. (Be careful! Don't use left for yes and right for no. Make it distinct movements such as left and right for yes and circle for no.) Or you wish for any which movement may come up for yes and then ask for another movement for no. And then you can ask all kinds of questions and see what your unconscious thinks about them and shows you through movement. You could work with more than yes and no only, but I wouldn't make it more complicated than necessary. You could use diagonal for "maybe", too, or back and forth for "not sure". Something like that. You can also take a piece of paper and write a word in each corner (for example: yes, no, maybe, not sure) use the middle of the paper as a "starting point" and start swinging. The answers will be defined depending on which of the corners you end up.
The great escapologist Harry Houdini was a real mommy's boy. He was deeply hurt when his mom had died. He would have loved to be able to communicate with her. But he saw through the methods the so-called mediums used to supposedly communicate with the dead and spend much time debunking charlatan. I don't know, if it's possible to talk to the dead or not. What I do know however and wanted to describe here is that things like the pendulum or the Ouija board work entirely without "an invisible hand". And still this effect and the possibilities to really use it, fascinate me.
I once heard that our muscles already do ideomotor movements, before we do the real movements. So our body knows how we want to move next, before we actually do it. What good is our conscious then?
Until next blog,
sarah
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Turtle
Dear reader,
it's difficult not being able to do anything but wait. It's not quite like that. We brought my mom an mp3 player yesterday with music. I wish we could do more. Others tell us repeatedly to call them, if there's anything they can do. But the biggest work my mom has to do herself now.
Today had a documentary on tv. The Top 10 of oldest animals on the earth. I first thought we'd watch that together. But then friends of my parents' wanted to come. So I didn't watch it. But I immediately thought of turtles. I heard once that the reason for them to reach such an old age is that they do everything slowly. Hectic pace, always fast and rushing damages the body.
Today and yesterday my dad seemed extremely down. Maybe my sister and I see the situation more positive than it is. Or my dad is too pessimistic, because he understands all the medical stuff and sees more of the negative because of that. Probably we'll meet somewhere in the middle of it.
Anyway, before my dad went to bed, I told him that turtles live to be so old, because they do everything slowly. I told him, "Give her time. Give yourself time." Then he went to the bathroom and I went to my room. I knew I have a soft turtle here. Someone had bought it some time ago and as I was looking for a hand puppet a while back, I found it and brought it to my room. I found it and went into the hall way. I hesitated. On the bed or on the desk? I decided on the desk in the hall way and went back into my room. Some minutes later, my dad stuck his head in and said with a very tired look, "I'll take it into bed with me." That's what I had hoped for anyway. :-)
Until next blog,
sarah
it's difficult not being able to do anything but wait. It's not quite like that. We brought my mom an mp3 player yesterday with music. I wish we could do more. Others tell us repeatedly to call them, if there's anything they can do. But the biggest work my mom has to do herself now.
Today had a documentary on tv. The Top 10 of oldest animals on the earth. I first thought we'd watch that together. But then friends of my parents' wanted to come. So I didn't watch it. But I immediately thought of turtles. I heard once that the reason for them to reach such an old age is that they do everything slowly. Hectic pace, always fast and rushing damages the body.
Today and yesterday my dad seemed extremely down. Maybe my sister and I see the situation more positive than it is. Or my dad is too pessimistic, because he understands all the medical stuff and sees more of the negative because of that. Probably we'll meet somewhere in the middle of it.
Anyway, before my dad went to bed, I told him that turtles live to be so old, because they do everything slowly. I told him, "Give her time. Give yourself time." Then he went to the bathroom and I went to my room. I knew I have a soft turtle here. Someone had bought it some time ago and as I was looking for a hand puppet a while back, I found it and brought it to my room. I found it and went into the hall way. I hesitated. On the bed or on the desk? I decided on the desk in the hall way and went back into my room. Some minutes later, my dad stuck his head in and said with a very tired look, "I'll take it into bed with me." That's what I had hoped for anyway. :-)
Until next blog,
sarah
Friday, 28 September 2012
Ventriloquism helps (part 2)
Dear reader,
we visited my mom yesterday. It was the first time for my sister and me. A friend of my parents', who also was with them on the tour, drove us. He and my dad had seen her before already in the hospital in france. I didn't say to her yet what I described in my last post, that I wanted to tel her. Although I thought about what and how to say it, in case other people would listen, too, and I wouldn't be able to say it directly the way I would if we had been alone. During the visiting hours in the hospital the doctors take some time off and go through the rooms talking to the relatives. The doctor didn't say much. We already knew the next steps and for now there's not much more we can do than just wait. When the doctor was there, she told us my mom is biting quite a bit when they're doing the oral hygiene. Understandably so. Who would like someone else "fumbling around" in our mouth and the tube to breathe certainly isn't comfortable for her. As the doctor went away, I would have liked to tell my mom what I want to tell her. Especially since the doctor had talked about biting. Not that my mom would take it as an order to bite. I didn't feel all too comfortable about it though that such words were used in her presence. I don't believe that people need to be that strict and have to watch there every word thinking three times about which ones to use, before actually saying them in her presence. After all she's still very far away and they sedated her, that's giving her tranquilizer, for the transportation to germany and the other day too, to change the tubes as well. A part of me is mean and wondering how the heck she's supposed to wake up from the coma if they sedate her again. On the other hand, of course, I see the point of doing that and that its necessary to do. We'll see. I wonder if it's possible to wake someone up by first picking up on the breathing rhythm of the other person and then taking over so to speak and leading to breathe together in such a way that would wake her up. Adjusting the breathing and then leading to breathe together in a different way is very indirect and often the other person doesn't notice, but it can be very effective and create change. That's especially important in hypnosis and relaxation and an inconspicuous, but very important thing. When we like other people in our daily life, this often happens, too. We adjust our breathing to match theirs, the tempo of how fast or slow we talk adjusts to one another and other aspects attune as well. I don't know what's possible in that aspect for my mom and me. My knowledge about hypnosis is mostly theory and otherwise limited to a little playing around with myself. apart from the two already mentioned friends where what I wanted to do didn't go too well. The situation with my mom will indeed be a test, just like the headline of my last entry read. Writing it this way has a morbid taste to it, or at least one may read it that way. Test. Like my mom is a test subject, someone to play around with. We'll see what comes out. (So much for: not giving continued details...)
I believe it was the beginning of this week when I brought my bat Gaston from Bochum back to my parents here. I wanted to have him to practise ventriloquism better with a real figure. Besides he's soft and warm and a pretty good substitute for my guinea pigs, which I often take out in the eve in front of my tv to have them on my lap. Up until two days ago my dad had some stomach problems. I gave him a big heart cushion, but he said it didn't fit that well. The other day we sat together watching tv. I had Gaston on my belly, because mine wasn't doing all too good either. My dad didn't want to have Gaston for himself. But then I wanted to get something from the kitchen. Normally I gave the guinea pigs away to my parents if I wanted something from the kitchen in the past so I wouldn't need to take them with me when I had them out on my lap. And now I did the same with Gaston somewhat casually giving him to my dad. He spread the wings, like I did and placed him on his belly. Some time later he said that the bat was really good. The wings would keep it all nice and warm. Up until the day before yesterday we took turns taking Gaston. When he had him, I took the heart. The day before yesterday he didn't want Gaston anymore. Only yesterday again I casually left him with my dad and as I walked out I saw my dad about to stick his hand into Gaston. When I was back from the kitchen with a yoghurt, Gaston said to me, "Hello. Getting hungry, aye?" I saw that my dad's lips were, quite "professionally" slightly parted, but they didn't move. We both had to grin.
Ventriloquism helps. Even if it's just by turning a figure into a hot bag for the belly. Another aspect of it is that for ventriloquism the jaws have to be relaxed. Otherwise you'll feel it in your jaws after a while. Many people when they're stressed are literally clenching their teeth so their jaws are all tense. I realised now that I'm getting more playful again and started practising ventriloquism again. It seems that I don't watch my jaws when I'm stressed. In theory ventriloquism could help against stress, since you've got to have relaxed jaws to do it. Now that my mom is closer to us again, the situation is more relaxed again for all of us. It was nice to see my dad getting a bit more playful again and seeing him play a bit with Gaston. Given that he knows nothing and only has seen some short videos with ventriloquists that I showed him, I was pleasantly surprised. Then again "Hello. Getting hungry, aye?" doesn't have difficult letters in it, for which you'd usually need to move your lips. ;-)
Until next blog,
sarah
we visited my mom yesterday. It was the first time for my sister and me. A friend of my parents', who also was with them on the tour, drove us. He and my dad had seen her before already in the hospital in france. I didn't say to her yet what I described in my last post, that I wanted to tel her. Although I thought about what and how to say it, in case other people would listen, too, and I wouldn't be able to say it directly the way I would if we had been alone. During the visiting hours in the hospital the doctors take some time off and go through the rooms talking to the relatives. The doctor didn't say much. We already knew the next steps and for now there's not much more we can do than just wait. When the doctor was there, she told us my mom is biting quite a bit when they're doing the oral hygiene. Understandably so. Who would like someone else "fumbling around" in our mouth and the tube to breathe certainly isn't comfortable for her. As the doctor went away, I would have liked to tell my mom what I want to tell her. Especially since the doctor had talked about biting. Not that my mom would take it as an order to bite. I didn't feel all too comfortable about it though that such words were used in her presence. I don't believe that people need to be that strict and have to watch there every word thinking three times about which ones to use, before actually saying them in her presence. After all she's still very far away and they sedated her, that's giving her tranquilizer, for the transportation to germany and the other day too, to change the tubes as well. A part of me is mean and wondering how the heck she's supposed to wake up from the coma if they sedate her again. On the other hand, of course, I see the point of doing that and that its necessary to do. We'll see. I wonder if it's possible to wake someone up by first picking up on the breathing rhythm of the other person and then taking over so to speak and leading to breathe together in such a way that would wake her up. Adjusting the breathing and then leading to breathe together in a different way is very indirect and often the other person doesn't notice, but it can be very effective and create change. That's especially important in hypnosis and relaxation and an inconspicuous, but very important thing. When we like other people in our daily life, this often happens, too. We adjust our breathing to match theirs, the tempo of how fast or slow we talk adjusts to one another and other aspects attune as well. I don't know what's possible in that aspect for my mom and me. My knowledge about hypnosis is mostly theory and otherwise limited to a little playing around with myself. apart from the two already mentioned friends where what I wanted to do didn't go too well. The situation with my mom will indeed be a test, just like the headline of my last entry read. Writing it this way has a morbid taste to it, or at least one may read it that way. Test. Like my mom is a test subject, someone to play around with. We'll see what comes out. (So much for: not giving continued details...)
I believe it was the beginning of this week when I brought my bat Gaston from Bochum back to my parents here. I wanted to have him to practise ventriloquism better with a real figure. Besides he's soft and warm and a pretty good substitute for my guinea pigs, which I often take out in the eve in front of my tv to have them on my lap. Up until two days ago my dad had some stomach problems. I gave him a big heart cushion, but he said it didn't fit that well. The other day we sat together watching tv. I had Gaston on my belly, because mine wasn't doing all too good either. My dad didn't want to have Gaston for himself. But then I wanted to get something from the kitchen. Normally I gave the guinea pigs away to my parents if I wanted something from the kitchen in the past so I wouldn't need to take them with me when I had them out on my lap. And now I did the same with Gaston somewhat casually giving him to my dad. He spread the wings, like I did and placed him on his belly. Some time later he said that the bat was really good. The wings would keep it all nice and warm. Up until the day before yesterday we took turns taking Gaston. When he had him, I took the heart. The day before yesterday he didn't want Gaston anymore. Only yesterday again I casually left him with my dad and as I walked out I saw my dad about to stick his hand into Gaston. When I was back from the kitchen with a yoghurt, Gaston said to me, "Hello. Getting hungry, aye?" I saw that my dad's lips were, quite "professionally" slightly parted, but they didn't move. We both had to grin.
Ventriloquism helps. Even if it's just by turning a figure into a hot bag for the belly. Another aspect of it is that for ventriloquism the jaws have to be relaxed. Otherwise you'll feel it in your jaws after a while. Many people when they're stressed are literally clenching their teeth so their jaws are all tense. I realised now that I'm getting more playful again and started practising ventriloquism again. It seems that I don't watch my jaws when I'm stressed. In theory ventriloquism could help against stress, since you've got to have relaxed jaws to do it. Now that my mom is closer to us again, the situation is more relaxed again for all of us. It was nice to see my dad getting a bit more playful again and seeing him play a bit with Gaston. Given that he knows nothing and only has seen some short videos with ventriloquists that I showed him, I was pleasantly surprised. Then again "Hello. Getting hungry, aye?" doesn't have difficult letters in it, for which you'd usually need to move your lips. ;-)
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 27 September 2012
The Test(?)
Dear reader,
three days after my birthday, September, 9 my mom had a bad bike accident. She and my dad and friends were out and she fell. At the moment she's still in an induced coma, which is normal after heavy head injuries and the usual way to go, putting her in an induced coma. I can't say much more at this moment and I also don't want to write about this at this moment now. Not because it would be bad, but to spare me the continued updating with details about her condition.
I think, in bad situations, crisis, people try to make sense of it, so that the bad situation isn't totally "senseless". The situation with my mom brought me back to hypnosis and trance. That's why the condition of my mom is worth mentioning for me here and now. Because I think that a coma is in some ways similar to a trance. (Although "trance" and "hypnosis" aren't the same, some of you may understand better if I wrote about "hypnosis" rather than "trance". I'll soon write about my favourite therapist Milton Erickson and explain more about trance, hypnosis and other related things then.) Trance and coma are in any case an altered state of consciousness. Both are states in which we filter less of what others tell us and accept it more easily than we would in a waking state.
It took some time for me to think those things that way. At first she was in france anyway, because they were doing their tour there and she only got back here to germany in a neighbour town on the night of the 17/18th. So there was hardly anything I could have done, even if I wanted to. And even now I can't quite help her the way I want to yet. I've got a cold now. Since my mom is still at the intensive care unit in the hospital, I don't want to risk infecting her.
Here is my thought: a coma is a special state of consciousness, at least in some parts similar to a trance state. Also it's very possible that doctors, nurses and now also visitors like my family and friends, may talk directly to my mom or talk among themselves in her present and use words that don't help her in the healing process. For example someone might mention the possibility of her being paralysed or something. Yes, the possibility of that is real. But in her state it's dangerous to hear something like that. Even if she doesn't sense the things around her on a conscious level, I do believe she senses them somehow in some way unconsciously still.
Therefore I'd like to tell her something I'd tell other people, who want to work with me with hypnosis and tell her something like this, "Some people say that you can't her. But you have two ears, which work well and you hear many things other people say. Either they're talking to you or among themselves in here. I want you to only keep in mind those things you think are important and true and which help you now. All the other things you can easily ignore and forget."
I think it's important to say something like that before starting to do hypnosis with someone. Because it gives the other person the opportunity, the legitimation(!), that not everything I tell that person has to be accepted. It may well happen that I unconsciously or unknowingly tell things the person doesn't like. With those few lines the person can ignore just those selected things and feel good about it, and without disregarding everything else that follows, just because a part of it didn't fit in their values and way of thinking. I therefore think it's an important protection for my mom now. Especially now. Even if she's not consciously aware of it and I may have to repeat something like that several times, as long as she's in the coma.
I don't believe in (a) god. But the thoughts I thought about those things I described here over the past days. Maybe they're some way of nudging me back to hypnosis. After I wanted to make two friends hypnotically drunk and it didn't work on one of them and only a bit on the other, I sort of gave up hypnotising other people. Even though I know this was nobody's "fault" that the experiment didn't work out well. It still made me feel bad and I unfairly blame myself and thinking many too many negative thoughts about it. Now is my new chance with my mom and to truly help her.
Until next blog,
sarah
three days after my birthday, September, 9 my mom had a bad bike accident. She and my dad and friends were out and she fell. At the moment she's still in an induced coma, which is normal after heavy head injuries and the usual way to go, putting her in an induced coma. I can't say much more at this moment and I also don't want to write about this at this moment now. Not because it would be bad, but to spare me the continued updating with details about her condition.
I think, in bad situations, crisis, people try to make sense of it, so that the bad situation isn't totally "senseless". The situation with my mom brought me back to hypnosis and trance. That's why the condition of my mom is worth mentioning for me here and now. Because I think that a coma is in some ways similar to a trance. (Although "trance" and "hypnosis" aren't the same, some of you may understand better if I wrote about "hypnosis" rather than "trance". I'll soon write about my favourite therapist Milton Erickson and explain more about trance, hypnosis and other related things then.) Trance and coma are in any case an altered state of consciousness. Both are states in which we filter less of what others tell us and accept it more easily than we would in a waking state.
It took some time for me to think those things that way. At first she was in france anyway, because they were doing their tour there and she only got back here to germany in a neighbour town on the night of the 17/18th. So there was hardly anything I could have done, even if I wanted to. And even now I can't quite help her the way I want to yet. I've got a cold now. Since my mom is still at the intensive care unit in the hospital, I don't want to risk infecting her.
Here is my thought: a coma is a special state of consciousness, at least in some parts similar to a trance state. Also it's very possible that doctors, nurses and now also visitors like my family and friends, may talk directly to my mom or talk among themselves in her present and use words that don't help her in the healing process. For example someone might mention the possibility of her being paralysed or something. Yes, the possibility of that is real. But in her state it's dangerous to hear something like that. Even if she doesn't sense the things around her on a conscious level, I do believe she senses them somehow in some way unconsciously still.
Therefore I'd like to tell her something I'd tell other people, who want to work with me with hypnosis and tell her something like this, "Some people say that you can't her. But you have two ears, which work well and you hear many things other people say. Either they're talking to you or among themselves in here. I want you to only keep in mind those things you think are important and true and which help you now. All the other things you can easily ignore and forget."
I think it's important to say something like that before starting to do hypnosis with someone. Because it gives the other person the opportunity, the legitimation(!), that not everything I tell that person has to be accepted. It may well happen that I unconsciously or unknowingly tell things the person doesn't like. With those few lines the person can ignore just those selected things and feel good about it, and without disregarding everything else that follows, just because a part of it didn't fit in their values and way of thinking. I therefore think it's an important protection for my mom now. Especially now. Even if she's not consciously aware of it and I may have to repeat something like that several times, as long as she's in the coma.
I don't believe in (a) god. But the thoughts I thought about those things I described here over the past days. Maybe they're some way of nudging me back to hypnosis. After I wanted to make two friends hypnotically drunk and it didn't work on one of them and only a bit on the other, I sort of gave up hypnotising other people. Even though I know this was nobody's "fault" that the experiment didn't work out well. It still made me feel bad and I unfairly blame myself and thinking many too many negative thoughts about it. Now is my new chance with my mom and to truly help her.
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Moving on
Dear reader,
that's it now. I moved to my new place. Sadly I made the mistake of wanting to be available fast and wanted to have a low price to save money. Instead of checking prices, I should have gone for quality. So I have internet right now, but will be out of touch again soon, like I have been when my laptop was in repair, because I will change the provider.
I was uncertain, I have slept very bad, but my decision is made now and the woman on the phone was very nice to help me get out of my contracts again. Now all I have to do is go to the new provider and get the new contracts done and give back the stuff to the shop of my old provider where I bought them just a week before. Again no internet. But I don't care. I have learned to live without it over the last couple of weeks already. It won't take too long anyway.
Anyway, the new flat is small, but nice. I don't need much space as a single person anyway. Most of the boxes are empty already now, although I've been living here for not even a whole week now.
Moving on step by step. "And why do we fall Bruce? To learn to pick ourselves up again." Thomas Wayne in "Batman Begins"
Until next blog,
sarah
that's it now. I moved to my new place. Sadly I made the mistake of wanting to be available fast and wanted to have a low price to save money. Instead of checking prices, I should have gone for quality. So I have internet right now, but will be out of touch again soon, like I have been when my laptop was in repair, because I will change the provider.
I was uncertain, I have slept very bad, but my decision is made now and the woman on the phone was very nice to help me get out of my contracts again. Now all I have to do is go to the new provider and get the new contracts done and give back the stuff to the shop of my old provider where I bought them just a week before. Again no internet. But I don't care. I have learned to live without it over the last couple of weeks already. It won't take too long anyway.
Anyway, the new flat is small, but nice. I don't need much space as a single person anyway. Most of the boxes are empty already now, although I've been living here for not even a whole week now.
Moving on step by step. "And why do we fall Bruce? To learn to pick ourselves up again." Thomas Wayne in "Batman Begins"
Until next blog,
sarah
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Pride and Prejudice
Dear reader,
I was able to see for myself how our presuppositions affect our way of thinking, if not to say forms our prejudices. Two evenings ago the movie "Blood Diamond" was on tv. I knew it already, but wanted to watch it again and really see some of the actors this time. I didn't know them before or wasn't aware of them as who they were the first time around.
I didn't remember who composed the music for the film, but "suspected" Hans Zimmer. I don't like him. His music often is big, which is fine in and for blockbusters, but the music without the film is often quite exhausting for me to listen to. I don't listen to the few soundtracks of him that I have anymore. Sometimes I listen to a remix version of the title song "Now We Are Free" from the movie "Gladiator". It's the "Now We Are Free (Juba's Mix" from "Gladiator - More Music From the Motion Picture", one of the two cd's out there. I liked to listen to that one earlier. I liked it better than the other one. On it are pieces which Hans Zimmer composed, but never "made it" into to movie. It also has a couple of parts of dialogue from the movie. Even listening to the "better" one of the two cd's, I don't get passed the first 3 tracks. I then skip all of them except the last 2 tracks. And that it's it.
It took me a long time before I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie from 2009 and Inecption, because Hans Zimmer die the score for it. I know, I'm stupid. (The score for the first Sherlock Holmes movie, by the way, is exactly what I expected of Hans Zimmer: much of other movies and much repetition. To be exact "The Third Man" and this is repeated so much that I was bored, if not to say annoyed by it, even watching the movie. A couple of times I still listened to the soundtrack alone and thought it was okay.) The second Sherlock Holmes movie from 2011, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, I didn't watch, because the story didn't interest me much. Maybe I'll watch it some time. Inception and the first Sherlock Holmes movie I really didn't watch out of protest. I had no interest at all in Hans Zimmer.
Back to Blood Diamond. So I had Hans Zimmer in my head and a couple of times when I was aware of the music, I only liked it partly. Sometimes it was pretty good, I had to admit. Overall of course, I could not possibly like it, although some was pretty good. Then the movie was over. And? "Music: James Newton Howard. Ouch. He worked with Hans Zimmer on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. James Newton Howard gave both movies the emotion of the music, which Hans Zimmer cannot, because he can only do "massive blockbuster and action". James Newton Howard's wonderfully minimalistic soundtrack to "The Village" is my favourite. So he had done the score for Blood Diamond? I'll soon listen to it without the movie.
On saturday I told my mom about the quasi confusion and how I came to like the score just now because of that. She grinned and said, "See. See how our prejudices influence us." All I could do was grin back at her and nod.
The "pride"-part of this blog entry is this: James Newton Howard composed the music for the first two Batman movies together with Hans Zimmer, like I wrote before. He didn't work on the third and last one though and Hans Zimmer did it alone. Why? The other day I accidentally came across a page on the internet which stated that James Newton Howard seemed to have expected to work on Inception with Hans Zimmer, like they did work together on the two Batman movies. Nolan however didn't ask him. I don't know if it was defiance or pride or whatever, but Howard didn't want to work on the last Batman movie then. What an ego. Sad.
Until next blog,
sarah
I was able to see for myself how our presuppositions affect our way of thinking, if not to say forms our prejudices. Two evenings ago the movie "Blood Diamond" was on tv. I knew it already, but wanted to watch it again and really see some of the actors this time. I didn't know them before or wasn't aware of them as who they were the first time around.
I didn't remember who composed the music for the film, but "suspected" Hans Zimmer. I don't like him. His music often is big, which is fine in and for blockbusters, but the music without the film is often quite exhausting for me to listen to. I don't listen to the few soundtracks of him that I have anymore. Sometimes I listen to a remix version of the title song "Now We Are Free" from the movie "Gladiator". It's the "Now We Are Free (Juba's Mix" from "Gladiator - More Music From the Motion Picture", one of the two cd's out there. I liked to listen to that one earlier. I liked it better than the other one. On it are pieces which Hans Zimmer composed, but never "made it" into to movie. It also has a couple of parts of dialogue from the movie. Even listening to the "better" one of the two cd's, I don't get passed the first 3 tracks. I then skip all of them except the last 2 tracks. And that it's it.
It took me a long time before I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie from 2009 and Inecption, because Hans Zimmer die the score for it. I know, I'm stupid. (The score for the first Sherlock Holmes movie, by the way, is exactly what I expected of Hans Zimmer: much of other movies and much repetition. To be exact "The Third Man" and this is repeated so much that I was bored, if not to say annoyed by it, even watching the movie. A couple of times I still listened to the soundtrack alone and thought it was okay.) The second Sherlock Holmes movie from 2011, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, I didn't watch, because the story didn't interest me much. Maybe I'll watch it some time. Inception and the first Sherlock Holmes movie I really didn't watch out of protest. I had no interest at all in Hans Zimmer.
Back to Blood Diamond. So I had Hans Zimmer in my head and a couple of times when I was aware of the music, I only liked it partly. Sometimes it was pretty good, I had to admit. Overall of course, I could not possibly like it, although some was pretty good. Then the movie was over. And? "Music: James Newton Howard. Ouch. He worked with Hans Zimmer on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. James Newton Howard gave both movies the emotion of the music, which Hans Zimmer cannot, because he can only do "massive blockbuster and action". James Newton Howard's wonderfully minimalistic soundtrack to "The Village" is my favourite. So he had done the score for Blood Diamond? I'll soon listen to it without the movie.
On saturday I told my mom about the quasi confusion and how I came to like the score just now because of that. She grinned and said, "See. See how our prejudices influence us." All I could do was grin back at her and nod.
The "pride"-part of this blog entry is this: James Newton Howard composed the music for the first two Batman movies together with Hans Zimmer, like I wrote before. He didn't work on the third and last one though and Hans Zimmer did it alone. Why? The other day I accidentally came across a page on the internet which stated that James Newton Howard seemed to have expected to work on Inception with Hans Zimmer, like they did work together on the two Batman movies. Nolan however didn't ask him. I don't know if it was defiance or pride or whatever, but Howard didn't want to work on the last Batman movie then. What an ego. Sad.
Until next blog,
sarah
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Home, sweet home?
Dear reader,
that's it now: I've got my own flat. The contract is signed, I've got the keys. The moving can begin.
At the moment there's no happiness yet. Too much to organise for now.
But I will buy a rocking chair soon. I wanted that when I get my own flat and now I have it.
And something else I'll get, too: a Charlie McCarthy. Sadly most of those which are sold on eBay are with a string to pull on the neck to open and close the mouth. The easy version. I at least would like the next version. That's like all professional figures of that kind with a stick to control the moving head, which goes to the back and is controlled there with just one hand. With the string you pull on the string with one hand and hold the figure with the other hand to keep it from falling from the pulling. I don't remember the seller right now, but there is one on eBay, who sells another kind of figures, too. Those are with headstick, and also control to move the eyes of the figure from left to right and with wig for hair. I hope I get one of the second version or maybe I can talk to the seller to get me a mix of the 2nd and 3rd. Because Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy didn't have moving eyes and the hair with the seller is dark brown. What it should be is red. I don't care about the moving eyes or not. But I insist on the red hair - or no hair at all, like with most figures which are sold for play for kids and such. With those the hair is made out of the same material like the rest of the head. So it's version 2. Would be fine with me for my first real figure. Although hair would be nice. Wait and see what the seller has to say. For now I would need my laptop back to begin with!
Until next blog,
sarah
that's it now: I've got my own flat. The contract is signed, I've got the keys. The moving can begin.
At the moment there's no happiness yet. Too much to organise for now.
But I will buy a rocking chair soon. I wanted that when I get my own flat and now I have it.
And something else I'll get, too: a Charlie McCarthy. Sadly most of those which are sold on eBay are with a string to pull on the neck to open and close the mouth. The easy version. I at least would like the next version. That's like all professional figures of that kind with a stick to control the moving head, which goes to the back and is controlled there with just one hand. With the string you pull on the string with one hand and hold the figure with the other hand to keep it from falling from the pulling. I don't remember the seller right now, but there is one on eBay, who sells another kind of figures, too. Those are with headstick, and also control to move the eyes of the figure from left to right and with wig for hair. I hope I get one of the second version or maybe I can talk to the seller to get me a mix of the 2nd and 3rd. Because Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy didn't have moving eyes and the hair with the seller is dark brown. What it should be is red. I don't care about the moving eyes or not. But I insist on the red hair - or no hair at all, like with most figures which are sold for play for kids and such. With those the hair is made out of the same material like the rest of the head. So it's version 2. Would be fine with me for my first real figure. Although hair would be nice. Wait and see what the seller has to say. For now I would need my laptop back to begin with!
Until next blog,
sarah
Saturday, 4 August 2012
The missing link
Dear reader,
my laptop is away for repair. I am writing a few thoughts on paper for the blog for later and limit my time on my parents' computer to the necessary: reading mails, checking Jay Johnson's blog for new entries (great, I just read that he, too, had a computer problem. After 4 hours of talking on the service phone his problem was solved. My laptop will be back in 3-4 weeks the sales woman said.) Then I also check Bob's Vlog, if there's anything new there. That's it.
Of course I could do more. But I don't want to do that on another computer, even though my parents would let me. I could, for example, typewriting the blog entries and publish them. Would be too much time on another computer for me though. But I don't mind that really. I can write on paper as well.
What I really miss above all else is listening to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarhty on their radio show. That's right. I don't miss chatting the most, not even the internet in whichever form, but an old radio show. I do have the files on my external hard drive and I could plug it to my t.v. That should work. Wouldn't be as nice as with my laptop though. I've got a few short pieces on my ipod, too. But that's getting boring with just 6 tracks of each about 5 minutes length. The shows are 30-60 minutes and I hadn't listened to half of them when I gave away my laptop for repair.
So my "missing link" is an old radio show.
Until next blog,
sarah
my laptop is away for repair. I am writing a few thoughts on paper for the blog for later and limit my time on my parents' computer to the necessary: reading mails, checking Jay Johnson's blog for new entries (great, I just read that he, too, had a computer problem. After 4 hours of talking on the service phone his problem was solved. My laptop will be back in 3-4 weeks the sales woman said.) Then I also check Bob's Vlog, if there's anything new there. That's it.
Of course I could do more. But I don't want to do that on another computer, even though my parents would let me. I could, for example, typewriting the blog entries and publish them. Would be too much time on another computer for me though. But I don't mind that really. I can write on paper as well.
What I really miss above all else is listening to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarhty on their radio show. That's right. I don't miss chatting the most, not even the internet in whichever form, but an old radio show. I do have the files on my external hard drive and I could plug it to my t.v. That should work. Wouldn't be as nice as with my laptop though. I've got a few short pieces on my ipod, too. But that's getting boring with just 6 tracks of each about 5 minutes length. The shows are 30-60 minutes and I hadn't listened to half of them when I gave away my laptop for repair.
So my "missing link" is an old radio show.
Until next blog,
sarah
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
I'm not we!
Dear reader,
with the olympic games, just like with the world series, a corporate feeling comes up again, even if it's only the corporate wish for the team your own country to win. Not "a team" needs to win, but "we" need to win. I didn't even watch the opening ceremony of the olympic games and didn't see any of the games at all. Simply because I'm not interested. But I couldn't help but notice that the german's weren't doing that good so far. (I wonder how the bad games so far will have a negative effect on those, who still have to go for it.)
The other day on the news the reporter commented on the men fencing. He said something along the lines of, "We need to get better for the women fencing." I looked at my dad, who was watching the news with me and said, "We need to be better at fencing? I cannot do fencing at all. Can you?" He said nothing to that. It wasn't necessary anyway.
Who are they speaking of, especially politicians and other people in power, when they say "the germans" or "the americans", "the..."?
When my dad is ranting about the americans, I keep telling him, "One of your best friends is an american!" But that's something else entirely. Or is it?
Until next blog,
sarah
with the olympic games, just like with the world series, a corporate feeling comes up again, even if it's only the corporate wish for the team your own country to win. Not "a team" needs to win, but "we" need to win. I didn't even watch the opening ceremony of the olympic games and didn't see any of the games at all. Simply because I'm not interested. But I couldn't help but notice that the german's weren't doing that good so far. (I wonder how the bad games so far will have a negative effect on those, who still have to go for it.)
The other day on the news the reporter commented on the men fencing. He said something along the lines of, "We need to get better for the women fencing." I looked at my dad, who was watching the news with me and said, "We need to be better at fencing? I cannot do fencing at all. Can you?" He said nothing to that. It wasn't necessary anyway.
Who are they speaking of, especially politicians and other people in power, when they say "the germans" or "the americans", "the..."?
When my dad is ranting about the americans, I keep telling him, "One of your best friends is an american!" But that's something else entirely. Or is it?
Until next blog,
sarah
Monday, 16 July 2012
My motivation room
Dear reader,
I'm currently still living with my parents. So I can't make the whole flat the way I would, if it was my own. I'm not sure what I would change if it was my own. Anyway, today I want to write about my room.
You know, I was quite happy when in 2008 "The Dark Knight" came out. I didn't rush into the cinema, like probably many others did, to see one of the last movies with Heath Ledger. I had seen the first Christopher Nolan Batman movie, "Batman Begins" already and liked that. So it was quite natural for me to go and see the second and yes, I'm going to see the third and last one, too! What made me so happy about "The Dark Knight"? The Joker posters. Not because of Heath Ledger, but because of what it read on them: "Why So Serious?" I got a poster where the Joker is on it and wrote that line in blood. I had the poster on my door for a while. Now the poster is replaced by some other lines, I'm going to describe to you in a bit. "Why so serious?" helped me a lot for some time. It served as a reminder to smile. Even if it was a forced smile for the moment. The question seemed appropriate. Why walk around looking miserable so much? I forgot who it was and actually forgot the exact words of the quote, but it's something to the extend of: "Whether you smile or look sad, time keeps ticking anyway. So you may as well smile." The Joker's line was shorter though.
Now the only thing that reminds me or anybody of TDK are the three mini-posters on my wardrobe walls. I have three doors and it seemed fitting to put one poster up on each. The one furthest on the left has Harvey Dent's face with his right hand up holding one of his "I believe in Harvey Dent" badges hiding the right side of his face. The door in the middle has Batman's face with his right hand up holding one of his bat-boomerangs, whatever you call them, those bat things he throws sometimes. That, too, covers the right side of his face. On the right side has the Joker's face with his right hand up holding a Joker playing card hiding his right side of the face. I like those posters. Harvey is my favourite, because he's the character I like best in the movie. I have one of those badges now, by the way.
So then there's my desk. It stays in such a way that I sit right across from a wall. And I have one small bookshelf right on my desk and another on the wall a bit further up. The one on the wall has several postit's notes stuck to it. One reads "It's not over until it's over. Yogi Berra", another reads: "Like my mother used to tell me - if you're good at something, never do it for free. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos: it's fair." Those three sentences are said by the Joker in the movie. I think the Joker's mom had a good advice. The other two lines are... debatable, I guess. Here's another sticker: "Who knows Master Wayne? You start pretending to have fun, you might even have a little by accident." That's a great line from "Batman Begins". Bruce Wayne's butler says it to him. Wayne is covered with bruises, because of his fights as Batman and the butler, rightly, says that Wayne would need some cover, some excuse for them. The butler suggests polo. Wayne doesn't like the idea at all. So that's when the butler says that line. He's so right. Sometimes we just need to do things, get started and it's not so bad after all.
That quote ties neatly into the movie "Love Happens". I know, it's a cheesy title, but it's really a nice movie. Not one of those stupid love-romance-flics you'd imagine it to be. And it has Aaron Eckhart in it, who played Harvey Dent in TDK. Anyway, the movie is about Burke Ryan, who lost his wife in a car accident a couple of years back. He got over his loss, or so he makes everyone believe anyway. He wrote a book about it and now does seminars to help others overcome their loss. Sometimes we hear Aaron Eckhart from the off citing lines from his book. One is this: "Devote five minutes a day to smiling, just smiling, and after a while it'll come naturally." (Funny enough at that moment we see him alone in his hotel room, sitting on the bed, staring blankly, looking very miserable.) I won't tell you what's up with him. You've got to see for yourself. There's no line from "Love Happens" at the shelf, but I love his advice and it just fits with the butler's quote. There are a couple of other quotes on those stickers, but they keep falling off on to the table. Also I'd advice you not to take my choices like that, but look for what fits for you. I picked those and some other lines, because they're special and mean something to me. I only write those for you to give you ideas of what may be working.
I wrote that my door doesn't have the Joker poster any longer. It has a couple of self-made papers. One has the first line Dracula said to Jonathan Harker as he enters the castle, although I took the liberty and changed one word for obvious reasons, here's the original line: "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will and leave some of the happiness you bring." Essentially it says that the person, who comes into my room, should bring and leave happiness. I like that idea. Sadness out, happiness in. Another paper has Charlie Chaplin sitting in front of a house on the steps, looking sad with only a dog next to him, like he's the only friend left for Charlie. I added a speech bubble with a quote from Charlie Chaplin, namely: "Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles." I think that's very important to keep in mind. We sometimes think that our troubles and problems have no end, but they do. Very important reminder. I wanted Charlie Chaplin to look sad on the picture though. Add a little bit of humor to the quote like that. (Much like Burk Ryan telling us to smile and sitting alone and sad in his hotel room.)
I have another late addition on the door. It's a german line, supposedly what a person suffering from dementia may ask. It reads: "Is it Monday or May today?" It's written in one of those old fonts, too. I just love it.
I also made a compilation of five of my favourite magicians one in each corner (among them Derren Brown and Harry Houdini, if you care to know) and the duo Penn & Teller in the middle. The line above them reads: "Hour youth income ache sad if stow watch oath ink." I think Milton Erickson would have liked that one. Hint: Read it aloud and listen to the sound of the words. If you catch me in a good mood, I may answer your message about that quote and tell you what it really means. That one's on my wall next to the bookshelves actually framed, too.
If you want some of my self-made posters, like the Charlie Chaplin one, drop me a message and I'll send it to you. I also made a compilation of lines of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight". I just don't know where to put it. It's several lines, among them those mentioned above, in different colours.
Go ahead, play with lines, stick some up at your place! I'd be happy to read your ideas and what you came up with, too! Drop me a message.
Until next blog,
sarah
I'm currently still living with my parents. So I can't make the whole flat the way I would, if it was my own. I'm not sure what I would change if it was my own. Anyway, today I want to write about my room.
You know, I was quite happy when in 2008 "The Dark Knight" came out. I didn't rush into the cinema, like probably many others did, to see one of the last movies with Heath Ledger. I had seen the first Christopher Nolan Batman movie, "Batman Begins" already and liked that. So it was quite natural for me to go and see the second and yes, I'm going to see the third and last one, too! What made me so happy about "The Dark Knight"? The Joker posters. Not because of Heath Ledger, but because of what it read on them: "Why So Serious?" I got a poster where the Joker is on it and wrote that line in blood. I had the poster on my door for a while. Now the poster is replaced by some other lines, I'm going to describe to you in a bit. "Why so serious?" helped me a lot for some time. It served as a reminder to smile. Even if it was a forced smile for the moment. The question seemed appropriate. Why walk around looking miserable so much? I forgot who it was and actually forgot the exact words of the quote, but it's something to the extend of: "Whether you smile or look sad, time keeps ticking anyway. So you may as well smile." The Joker's line was shorter though.
Now the only thing that reminds me or anybody of TDK are the three mini-posters on my wardrobe walls. I have three doors and it seemed fitting to put one poster up on each. The one furthest on the left has Harvey Dent's face with his right hand up holding one of his "I believe in Harvey Dent" badges hiding the right side of his face. The door in the middle has Batman's face with his right hand up holding one of his bat-boomerangs, whatever you call them, those bat things he throws sometimes. That, too, covers the right side of his face. On the right side has the Joker's face with his right hand up holding a Joker playing card hiding his right side of the face. I like those posters. Harvey is my favourite, because he's the character I like best in the movie. I have one of those badges now, by the way.
So then there's my desk. It stays in such a way that I sit right across from a wall. And I have one small bookshelf right on my desk and another on the wall a bit further up. The one on the wall has several postit's notes stuck to it. One reads "It's not over until it's over. Yogi Berra", another reads: "Like my mother used to tell me - if you're good at something, never do it for free. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos: it's fair." Those three sentences are said by the Joker in the movie. I think the Joker's mom had a good advice. The other two lines are... debatable, I guess. Here's another sticker: "Who knows Master Wayne? You start pretending to have fun, you might even have a little by accident." That's a great line from "Batman Begins". Bruce Wayne's butler says it to him. Wayne is covered with bruises, because of his fights as Batman and the butler, rightly, says that Wayne would need some cover, some excuse for them. The butler suggests polo. Wayne doesn't like the idea at all. So that's when the butler says that line. He's so right. Sometimes we just need to do things, get started and it's not so bad after all.
That quote ties neatly into the movie "Love Happens". I know, it's a cheesy title, but it's really a nice movie. Not one of those stupid love-romance-flics you'd imagine it to be. And it has Aaron Eckhart in it, who played Harvey Dent in TDK. Anyway, the movie is about Burke Ryan, who lost his wife in a car accident a couple of years back. He got over his loss, or so he makes everyone believe anyway. He wrote a book about it and now does seminars to help others overcome their loss. Sometimes we hear Aaron Eckhart from the off citing lines from his book. One is this: "Devote five minutes a day to smiling, just smiling, and after a while it'll come naturally." (Funny enough at that moment we see him alone in his hotel room, sitting on the bed, staring blankly, looking very miserable.) I won't tell you what's up with him. You've got to see for yourself. There's no line from "Love Happens" at the shelf, but I love his advice and it just fits with the butler's quote. There are a couple of other quotes on those stickers, but they keep falling off on to the table. Also I'd advice you not to take my choices like that, but look for what fits for you. I picked those and some other lines, because they're special and mean something to me. I only write those for you to give you ideas of what may be working.
I wrote that my door doesn't have the Joker poster any longer. It has a couple of self-made papers. One has the first line Dracula said to Jonathan Harker as he enters the castle, although I took the liberty and changed one word for obvious reasons, here's the original line: "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will and leave some of the happiness you bring." Essentially it says that the person, who comes into my room, should bring and leave happiness. I like that idea. Sadness out, happiness in. Another paper has Charlie Chaplin sitting in front of a house on the steps, looking sad with only a dog next to him, like he's the only friend left for Charlie. I added a speech bubble with a quote from Charlie Chaplin, namely: "Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles." I think that's very important to keep in mind. We sometimes think that our troubles and problems have no end, but they do. Very important reminder. I wanted Charlie Chaplin to look sad on the picture though. Add a little bit of humor to the quote like that. (Much like Burk Ryan telling us to smile and sitting alone and sad in his hotel room.)
I have another late addition on the door. It's a german line, supposedly what a person suffering from dementia may ask. It reads: "Is it Monday or May today?" It's written in one of those old fonts, too. I just love it.
I also made a compilation of five of my favourite magicians one in each corner (among them Derren Brown and Harry Houdini, if you care to know) and the duo Penn & Teller in the middle. The line above them reads: "Hour youth income ache sad if stow watch oath ink." I think Milton Erickson would have liked that one. Hint: Read it aloud and listen to the sound of the words. If you catch me in a good mood, I may answer your message about that quote and tell you what it really means. That one's on my wall next to the bookshelves actually framed, too.
If you want some of my self-made posters, like the Charlie Chaplin one, drop me a message and I'll send it to you. I also made a compilation of lines of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight". I just don't know where to put it. It's several lines, among them those mentioned above, in different colours.
Go ahead, play with lines, stick some up at your place! I'd be happy to read your ideas and what you came up with, too! Drop me a message.
Until next blog,
sarah
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Ventriloquism helps
Dear reader,
I knew for a while that the ventriloquist Paul Winchell is dead. I didn't knew it just when I wrote that post where I wrote about some known ventriloquists. But at the beginning of this week I got an idea of what those things he had written in the last chapter of his book "Ventriloquism For Fun & Profit" could mean. This entry today couldn't come close to a letter or e-mail to him. But I fear it's the only thing left to do for me now. Because as much as I would have liked to write to him, I cannot do that anymore. So all that's left for me is this blog entry here.
In the last chapter Paul Winchell argues especially for 2 things: one is bringing ventriloquism into schools to teach in classes, the other thing is using ventriloquism as a sort of speech therapy for people who stutter or lisp. His points are sharp as they are simple and logical:
We probably all were mad a lot about the seemingly meaningless topics in higher classes in school. Above all in mathematics in higher classes, which has things that are so far beyond anything we need in our daily life like nothing else. They are not totally meaningless as such, but the percentage of students who take on a job in a field that needs these kinds of math is very very low. Most people feel more like this is torture.
Paul Winchell says that it makes much more sense to teach and learn ventriloquism instead. This is because you have to use both hands at any time: one hand to bring the figure to life and the other hand for yourself at least to gesture a bit. Because you use both hands, both brain hemispheres are active, get connected and are used at the same time. It's one thing to argue that to write essays teaches you to structure and make good points. It's a totally different thing, I think, not only to entertain, but also to be creative and bring together both brain hemispheres at the same time. What really makes sense in the long run and is a true argument here?
Stuttering, according to Paul Winchell, happens with a kid, who thinks faster than he or she is able to speak their thoughts. Their thoughts come faster than the words can come out. Thus they stutter. As a ventriloquist you need to bring the figure to life for starters and also you have to think for two people at the same time: talk for yourself and at the same time think about what the figure can say in reply and when the figure is talking you need to think about what you can say to that in reply yourself. The kid has to think about many things. That slows down the many thoughts, thus the stuttering stops.
Lisping, Paul Winchell says, is a certain way of saying s-sounds in a different way than people, who don't lisp. For lisping s-sounds are substituted for th. Ventriloquism is similar. About a hand full of sounds are made with the lips. F for example is such a letter. But when you say f-sounds with a th instead, you get a pretty decent substitution. You get rid of the lisping the similar way. If a lisping child understands the sound substitution for ventriloquism and is able to do that, the child should have no problem at all using the same principle for the s-sounds and the lisping is history, as they say.
At the beginning of this week now I thought about my own handicap. When I was born my upper jaw, my upper palate and my upper lip where split in two. (Hence this handicap is called double cleft-palate.) Well, that's not the case anymore. I had surgery of course. Before the surgeries the upper palate was open and the upper lip couldn't close properly. Which means, that kids with this handicap, at least until they had surgery, couldn't use their upper lip the right way. With ventriloquism you don't need your lips at all.
I wish I had known about ventriloquism, sound substitution and sound making earlier. I think ventriloquism is also a chance for people with the handicap like mine. We make some sounds different from other people and hear ourselves making the sounds a different way than they actually sound for other people. That's why people with a handicap like mine often need to go to a speech therapist. With the sound substitution used for ventriloquism people without a handicap at least speak inarticulate or worse than usual. Unless they all learn to make perfect sound substitutions.
Paul Winchell also was the person, who wrote in his book that the tip of the tongue is at the same place on the roof of the mouth for the sounds D, N and T. I didn't read that in any other book so far and my sound making can't be taken as criteria with my handicap. So T is one of the letters that may be difficult for someone with my handicap. Paul Winchell's note was a really good one for me to know where to be with the tip of my tongue for the T.
A couple of weeks ago I recorded my voice. Just to hear what I sound like now. I had only the memory of recordings of my voice from when I was a child. I wanted to know how I sound. I needed several attempts to press the record button. I forced myself to record my voice on my computer. The first time was a failure. I had connected the plugs for the mic and the headphones the wrong way. The second time the display showed me green for sound recording. After I had spoken the 2 lines to set up the mic and recorded it, I was curious to listen to my voice right away. I deleted the recording right after I heard myself. I know many people hate their own voice. But I think I should record myself speaking a couple of lines with sound substitution. At least all people sound equally terrible that way. Ventriloquism gives the same rights for all.
As I write this post here the sadness from the beginning of this week comes back. This entry seems so meaningless to me. But what I really want, to write to Paul Winchell, is not possible anymore. I'm about 7 years too late. Paul Winchell was 82 years old when he died of natural causes in 2005 (according to wikipedia). What's left is this blog entry.
Until next blog,
sarah
I knew for a while that the ventriloquist Paul Winchell is dead. I didn't knew it just when I wrote that post where I wrote about some known ventriloquists. But at the beginning of this week I got an idea of what those things he had written in the last chapter of his book "Ventriloquism For Fun & Profit" could mean. This entry today couldn't come close to a letter or e-mail to him. But I fear it's the only thing left to do for me now. Because as much as I would have liked to write to him, I cannot do that anymore. So all that's left for me is this blog entry here.
In the last chapter Paul Winchell argues especially for 2 things: one is bringing ventriloquism into schools to teach in classes, the other thing is using ventriloquism as a sort of speech therapy for people who stutter or lisp. His points are sharp as they are simple and logical:
We probably all were mad a lot about the seemingly meaningless topics in higher classes in school. Above all in mathematics in higher classes, which has things that are so far beyond anything we need in our daily life like nothing else. They are not totally meaningless as such, but the percentage of students who take on a job in a field that needs these kinds of math is very very low. Most people feel more like this is torture.
Paul Winchell says that it makes much more sense to teach and learn ventriloquism instead. This is because you have to use both hands at any time: one hand to bring the figure to life and the other hand for yourself at least to gesture a bit. Because you use both hands, both brain hemispheres are active, get connected and are used at the same time. It's one thing to argue that to write essays teaches you to structure and make good points. It's a totally different thing, I think, not only to entertain, but also to be creative and bring together both brain hemispheres at the same time. What really makes sense in the long run and is a true argument here?
Stuttering, according to Paul Winchell, happens with a kid, who thinks faster than he or she is able to speak their thoughts. Their thoughts come faster than the words can come out. Thus they stutter. As a ventriloquist you need to bring the figure to life for starters and also you have to think for two people at the same time: talk for yourself and at the same time think about what the figure can say in reply and when the figure is talking you need to think about what you can say to that in reply yourself. The kid has to think about many things. That slows down the many thoughts, thus the stuttering stops.
Lisping, Paul Winchell says, is a certain way of saying s-sounds in a different way than people, who don't lisp. For lisping s-sounds are substituted for th. Ventriloquism is similar. About a hand full of sounds are made with the lips. F for example is such a letter. But when you say f-sounds with a th instead, you get a pretty decent substitution. You get rid of the lisping the similar way. If a lisping child understands the sound substitution for ventriloquism and is able to do that, the child should have no problem at all using the same principle for the s-sounds and the lisping is history, as they say.
At the beginning of this week now I thought about my own handicap. When I was born my upper jaw, my upper palate and my upper lip where split in two. (Hence this handicap is called double cleft-palate.) Well, that's not the case anymore. I had surgery of course. Before the surgeries the upper palate was open and the upper lip couldn't close properly. Which means, that kids with this handicap, at least until they had surgery, couldn't use their upper lip the right way. With ventriloquism you don't need your lips at all.
I wish I had known about ventriloquism, sound substitution and sound making earlier. I think ventriloquism is also a chance for people with the handicap like mine. We make some sounds different from other people and hear ourselves making the sounds a different way than they actually sound for other people. That's why people with a handicap like mine often need to go to a speech therapist. With the sound substitution used for ventriloquism people without a handicap at least speak inarticulate or worse than usual. Unless they all learn to make perfect sound substitutions.
Paul Winchell also was the person, who wrote in his book that the tip of the tongue is at the same place on the roof of the mouth for the sounds D, N and T. I didn't read that in any other book so far and my sound making can't be taken as criteria with my handicap. So T is one of the letters that may be difficult for someone with my handicap. Paul Winchell's note was a really good one for me to know where to be with the tip of my tongue for the T.
A couple of weeks ago I recorded my voice. Just to hear what I sound like now. I had only the memory of recordings of my voice from when I was a child. I wanted to know how I sound. I needed several attempts to press the record button. I forced myself to record my voice on my computer. The first time was a failure. I had connected the plugs for the mic and the headphones the wrong way. The second time the display showed me green for sound recording. After I had spoken the 2 lines to set up the mic and recorded it, I was curious to listen to my voice right away. I deleted the recording right after I heard myself. I know many people hate their own voice. But I think I should record myself speaking a couple of lines with sound substitution. At least all people sound equally terrible that way. Ventriloquism gives the same rights for all.
As I write this post here the sadness from the beginning of this week comes back. This entry seems so meaningless to me. But what I really want, to write to Paul Winchell, is not possible anymore. I'm about 7 years too late. Paul Winchell was 82 years old when he died of natural causes in 2005 (according to wikipedia). What's left is this blog entry.
Until next blog,
sarah
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Dehumanise your pets
Dear reader,
I never said this blog will be about ventriloquism only. More "on a gut level". So today I want to write something "non-ventriloquial". Although it's not that far away from ventriloquism. But more on that connection to ventriloquism later.
The other day I watched a live program "Dog - German, German - Dog" with the german "dog whisperer" Martin Rütter. He's quite well known over here. This week a magazine had him on the title page even. He's the guy you call, if you need help with your dogs.
In his live program he mentions a phenomena: we talk to our dogs as we would with other humans: in full sentences. I don't know how you talk to your pets in english, because I'm used to hear it in german all the time. So I can't exactly give you examples here. Also the english way of talking to pets may be different than german as a whole just from the language itself. But what Rütter says certainly is true for german speaking people talking with pets.
I never had dogs myself. But just the other day I realised I sat with my guinea pigs and realised I said something to them - yes, in full sentences - as if they were able to understand me. Then I thought of the humanisation and said nothing.
One of the guinea pigs has cysts on her ovaries. It means hormonal fluctuation and especial: jumping on the other female guinea pig! Of course the best time to do it is in the middle of the night... At first Nelly was quite shy. By now she became braver. Sadly so, I almost dare writing. Because the first couple of times she was quiet after I banged my hand on the frame of the bed. Shoutings like "Be quiet now!" or something like that I don't say anymore. I noticed the other day that this again would be humanisation... and it wouldn't help with her anyway. First off it's not her fault she has those hormonal fluctuations, secondly she's brave enough now that my shoutings, no matter what I'd shout, wouldn't keep her away from the other one. Parts of this wrongdoing we all do with dogs, we also do with other animals. And maybe even with animals, which couldn't react to what we say the way a dog could act to what we tell him to do. What worked quite effectively for me lately was to go to the cage and maybe nudge Nelly with one finger or at least get my hand near her. Not in a threatening way, just sticking my hand in the cage. She's not that brave to be close to Bibi then. This helps at least for a moment. (The hormone injections help, too.)
What's all of this got to do with ventriloquism now? Sometimes I have Gaston, my bat, with me in our groups at work. Just the other day I had Gaston on my hand when I opened the door for a daughter, who came to take her mother back home. As she saw Gaston she reacted with, "Oh what a cutie he is!" Others went further asking, as if it really was an animal, "What's his name?" Maybe even followed by a quick, "It's a 'he', isn't it?" No! It's an "it" and a hand puppet! Of course I never said that to any of those, who asked me. The questions about his name are more difficult. The catalogue sold him as "Gaston", my colleague at work called him "Gomes" from the start and most of the time he's not addressed by name at all. So basically he's a kind of half nameless Gaston.
This humanisation and personification also with (hand) puppets is what vents use. It's this fact that helps creating the illusion... and the misdirection of the vent, should his or her lips move a bit although the figure is "speaking". I don't quite remember where I read it, I think it was in Edgar Bergen's book, but others certainly point it out as well: if a vent is not very good at saying a certain letter or a word without moving his or her lips, you can let the figure make a distinct movement of some sorts. If the audience isn't looking at the figure already, the distinct movement of the figure will bring the whole attention away from you and to the figure.
There's an interview with Rasheda Ali and Ronn Lucas on youtube. At first he's alone, but when he has brought Buffalo Billy out of the trunk, asking questions is suddenly more difficult. Should she ask Billy directly or talk with Ronn Lucas about Billy? "Who am I talking to?", she asks at one moment. Ronn Lucas, who is used to that, takes it with humour, "That's the problem with ventriloquists."
Jay Johnson as well as Paul Winchell can tell stories about being part of a tv production acting as a ventriloquist and the sound of the puppet talking didn't record well, although the sound of the other actors recorded well. For both of them it was pure luck that they eventually found out the guy holding the mic to record the sound of the dialogue turned the mic to the puppet any time it had a line to say, instead of pointing the mic to Jay Johnson respectively Paul Winchell. This is how real an illusion can get and a vent can not hope for more, after all this illusion of bringing a inanimate figure to life is what makes a good vent. Maybe the vent should talk to the "mic guy" before filming, where he should keep his mic when the figure is "speaking". but that's what the anecdotes of Paul Winchell and Jay Johnson are for, to warn budding film and tv ventriloquist stars about possible "sound problems"... ;-)
Our pets however may be better off if we dehumanised them more. Aren't you, Nelly? Bibi?
Until next blog,
sarah
I never said this blog will be about ventriloquism only. More "on a gut level". So today I want to write something "non-ventriloquial". Although it's not that far away from ventriloquism. But more on that connection to ventriloquism later.
The other day I watched a live program "Dog - German, German - Dog" with the german "dog whisperer" Martin Rütter. He's quite well known over here. This week a magazine had him on the title page even. He's the guy you call, if you need help with your dogs.
In his live program he mentions a phenomena: we talk to our dogs as we would with other humans: in full sentences. I don't know how you talk to your pets in english, because I'm used to hear it in german all the time. So I can't exactly give you examples here. Also the english way of talking to pets may be different than german as a whole just from the language itself. But what Rütter says certainly is true for german speaking people talking with pets.
I never had dogs myself. But just the other day I realised I sat with my guinea pigs and realised I said something to them - yes, in full sentences - as if they were able to understand me. Then I thought of the humanisation and said nothing.
One of the guinea pigs has cysts on her ovaries. It means hormonal fluctuation and especial: jumping on the other female guinea pig! Of course the best time to do it is in the middle of the night... At first Nelly was quite shy. By now she became braver. Sadly so, I almost dare writing. Because the first couple of times she was quiet after I banged my hand on the frame of the bed. Shoutings like "Be quiet now!" or something like that I don't say anymore. I noticed the other day that this again would be humanisation... and it wouldn't help with her anyway. First off it's not her fault she has those hormonal fluctuations, secondly she's brave enough now that my shoutings, no matter what I'd shout, wouldn't keep her away from the other one. Parts of this wrongdoing we all do with dogs, we also do with other animals. And maybe even with animals, which couldn't react to what we say the way a dog could act to what we tell him to do. What worked quite effectively for me lately was to go to the cage and maybe nudge Nelly with one finger or at least get my hand near her. Not in a threatening way, just sticking my hand in the cage. She's not that brave to be close to Bibi then. This helps at least for a moment. (The hormone injections help, too.)
What's all of this got to do with ventriloquism now? Sometimes I have Gaston, my bat, with me in our groups at work. Just the other day I had Gaston on my hand when I opened the door for a daughter, who came to take her mother back home. As she saw Gaston she reacted with, "Oh what a cutie he is!" Others went further asking, as if it really was an animal, "What's his name?" Maybe even followed by a quick, "It's a 'he', isn't it?" No! It's an "it" and a hand puppet! Of course I never said that to any of those, who asked me. The questions about his name are more difficult. The catalogue sold him as "Gaston", my colleague at work called him "Gomes" from the start and most of the time he's not addressed by name at all. So basically he's a kind of half nameless Gaston.
This humanisation and personification also with (hand) puppets is what vents use. It's this fact that helps creating the illusion... and the misdirection of the vent, should his or her lips move a bit although the figure is "speaking". I don't quite remember where I read it, I think it was in Edgar Bergen's book, but others certainly point it out as well: if a vent is not very good at saying a certain letter or a word without moving his or her lips, you can let the figure make a distinct movement of some sorts. If the audience isn't looking at the figure already, the distinct movement of the figure will bring the whole attention away from you and to the figure.
There's an interview with Rasheda Ali and Ronn Lucas on youtube. At first he's alone, but when he has brought Buffalo Billy out of the trunk, asking questions is suddenly more difficult. Should she ask Billy directly or talk with Ronn Lucas about Billy? "Who am I talking to?", she asks at one moment. Ronn Lucas, who is used to that, takes it with humour, "That's the problem with ventriloquists."
Jay Johnson as well as Paul Winchell can tell stories about being part of a tv production acting as a ventriloquist and the sound of the puppet talking didn't record well, although the sound of the other actors recorded well. For both of them it was pure luck that they eventually found out the guy holding the mic to record the sound of the dialogue turned the mic to the puppet any time it had a line to say, instead of pointing the mic to Jay Johnson respectively Paul Winchell. This is how real an illusion can get and a vent can not hope for more, after all this illusion of bringing a inanimate figure to life is what makes a good vent. Maybe the vent should talk to the "mic guy" before filming, where he should keep his mic when the figure is "speaking". but that's what the anecdotes of Paul Winchell and Jay Johnson are for, to warn budding film and tv ventriloquist stars about possible "sound problems"... ;-)
Our pets however may be better off if we dehumanised them more. Aren't you, Nelly? Bibi?
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Muffed opportunity
Dear reader,
the dvds haven't arrived this evening. Just to let you know...
Today one of our bosses told me she'd have a task for me. Before she could show me what I had to do, we needed to wait for another colleague to give me some additional papers I'd need. As we waited my boss asked me if I on what terms I was with that colleague. Now, in english there's just "you" and that's for everyone, strangers as well as close friends and family. In german we have a formal "you" (Sie), usually used by kids to address adults or generally to talk to strangers or people you're not that close with. There's another "you" (du) for friends and family or people you're more close to. So what she asked me was if I was on "du" terms with her with first names or not. I told her we were on "du" terms. I used that opportunity to ask my boss how we should keep it between each other and suggested that maybe we could make it "du" and first names. (I didn't tell her, but I'm working there now for over a year and we both like each other.) She said she'd like to do that.
I thought about asking her for some time now, although I never really knew exactly how to ask her. In retrospect I thought the way I actually did it now was rather clumsy. But that's how I did it now anyway.
I didn't yet talk about Gaston, my bat "hand puppet"! I bought it in april since Lucy and Fritzchen, like I've told you before, aren't that good to work with for ventriloquism. More on Gaston in another post... In a flash of "comfort shopping" I had bought 4 books on ventriloquism: Edgar Bergen's "How To Become A Ventriloquist", which I forgot to mention in my blog post yesterday, Paul Winchell's book and 2 books by Ronn Lucas and Chris Clober, which I also forgot to include in yesterday's blog post. I'll tell you more about the books another time. Inspired by one of Ronn Lucas and Chris Clober's books, I got this idea that I could offer my boss the "du" through Gaston. My plan was this: My boss up until now always addressed me with "Miss Grabke", which would kind of be Gaston's "cue". He would have said, "She doesn't dare telling you directly that she would like to be called Sarah." At that moment I would have used my free hand to hold Gaston's mouth shut and say something like, "He's cheeky, but he's right. Do we want to change over to "du"?
My plan was to write to Ronn Lucas after that and proudly tell him about it. Especially more so, since the words I would have put in Gaston's mouth work nicely without moving lips. (Not so much my english translation for this blog here, but even that is not that difficult to say without moving your lips really.) In the book that inspired me to this situation, Ronn Lucas writes that he would like to see readers actually doing some of the situations he suggests. I surely couldn't have recorded it. But I wanted to be able to tell him about it in an e-mail. On tuesday already I have had the opportunity to suggest the "du" to her in a harmless situation, but very consciously didn't do it. Now I muffed the opportunity. Darn.
Until next blog,
sarah
the dvds haven't arrived this evening. Just to let you know...
Today one of our bosses told me she'd have a task for me. Before she could show me what I had to do, we needed to wait for another colleague to give me some additional papers I'd need. As we waited my boss asked me if I on what terms I was with that colleague. Now, in english there's just "you" and that's for everyone, strangers as well as close friends and family. In german we have a formal "you" (Sie), usually used by kids to address adults or generally to talk to strangers or people you're not that close with. There's another "you" (du) for friends and family or people you're more close to. So what she asked me was if I was on "du" terms with her with first names or not. I told her we were on "du" terms. I used that opportunity to ask my boss how we should keep it between each other and suggested that maybe we could make it "du" and first names. (I didn't tell her, but I'm working there now for over a year and we both like each other.) She said she'd like to do that.
I thought about asking her for some time now, although I never really knew exactly how to ask her. In retrospect I thought the way I actually did it now was rather clumsy. But that's how I did it now anyway.
I didn't yet talk about Gaston, my bat "hand puppet"! I bought it in april since Lucy and Fritzchen, like I've told you before, aren't that good to work with for ventriloquism. More on Gaston in another post... In a flash of "comfort shopping" I had bought 4 books on ventriloquism: Edgar Bergen's "How To Become A Ventriloquist", which I forgot to mention in my blog post yesterday, Paul Winchell's book and 2 books by Ronn Lucas and Chris Clober, which I also forgot to include in yesterday's blog post. I'll tell you more about the books another time. Inspired by one of Ronn Lucas and Chris Clober's books, I got this idea that I could offer my boss the "du" through Gaston. My plan was this: My boss up until now always addressed me with "Miss Grabke", which would kind of be Gaston's "cue". He would have said, "She doesn't dare telling you directly that she would like to be called Sarah." At that moment I would have used my free hand to hold Gaston's mouth shut and say something like, "He's cheeky, but he's right. Do we want to change over to "du"?
My plan was to write to Ronn Lucas after that and proudly tell him about it. Especially more so, since the words I would have put in Gaston's mouth work nicely without moving lips. (Not so much my english translation for this blog here, but even that is not that difficult to say without moving your lips really.) In the book that inspired me to this situation, Ronn Lucas writes that he would like to see readers actually doing some of the situations he suggests. I surely couldn't have recorded it. But I wanted to be able to tell him about it in an e-mail. On tuesday already I have had the opportunity to suggest the "du" to her in a harmless situation, but very consciously didn't do it. Now I muffed the opportunity. Darn.
Until next blog,
sarah
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
I've Got A Pain In My Sawdust
Dear Reader,
the title of todays blog post is the title of an old song. It was written and published in the early 20th century in america and tells the painful story of a bisque doll. I came across that song recently. I had looked up Jeff Dunham at the famous internet website imdb.com to see what other movies he had been in. I found the documentary "I'm No Dummy". Through that I came to know first Jay Johnson and now I'm waiting, yes, with pain in my sawdust, for 2 dvds with Ronn Lucas.
I want to take the opportunity today to tell you a bit about some known ventriloquist... Oh yes, the song! In 2007 Jay Johnson had a role in a CSI episode ("Living Dolls"). He played a ventriloquist (no, he doesn't always play a ventriloquist in every single role he has in a movie) and lets his puppet sing the last verse of the song in a performance he gives. If you ask me that's the best way to perform that song. True, the suffering puppet isn't a ventriloquist figure, but which other puppet could sing for itself and a puppet should in fact do the singing herself, don't you think?
Now, famous vents. What follows is a small, personal, totally incomplete selection, in no particular order:
Edgar Bergen (1903-1978): he's best known with Charlie McCarthy. Bergen's lip control was hopeless. Probably because he did a lot of radio show work where of course the lip control didn't matter. But with Charlie McCarthy he created a boy, who seemed to have his own independent small personality. That was quite something. Most people may know Charlie with his suit, top hat and monocle. But don't be fooled by his appearance! This boy didn't mince matters. apart from the radio shows Bergen and Charlie McCarthy also played parts in movies, where they often portraid themselves. Even Charlie McCarthy often got credited with "as himself" or playing "Charlie McCarthy". Although Charlie McCarthy was the main character for Edgar Bergen, he wasn't the only one he had. There's also the slow thinking, often stupid country boy Mortimer Snerd.
Some Edgar Bergen bits can be found on youtube. Short movies like "Nut Guilty" for example or "The Eyes Have It" and (at least for now) the complete movie "Letter of Introduction" in full length and one piece! I'm still checking him out myself and finding things I haven't seen yet. One other movie I can recommend to you already is "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" in which Bergen and Charlie work in a circus. The director is a miser ripping off everyone he can, including his own staff. Charlie wanted to leave him for a long time already. But when the director's daughter once visits the circus and Bergen gets a crush on her, he himself could stay for a bit longer...
Paul Winchell (1922-2005): Not only was he a vent, but also an inventor! The first construction of an artificial heart is his invention, complete with patent even! As a kid he got polio and had to spent lots of time in bed. Instead of being depressed about it, he took the opportunity and bought info on ventriloquism after reading an add in a magazine. Reminds me a bit of Milton Erickson, who too got polio when he was young and also was forced to be in bed for a long time. Paul Winchell also did the voice of Tigger for the Disney Winnie Pooh movies. As a vent he was most famous with his figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Over time he got to be a vent for kids mostly and did tv shows for and with kids. If you want to become a vent yourself and are creative and are reasonably good with handcrafts, you should get Paul Winchell's book "Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit". It's informative for beginners, entertaining to read lots of anecdotes of Paul Winchell's own life and also has a very detailed step by step description of how to build your own figure, as you wish either out of papier-mâché or wood! There are many clips with him on youtube for you to watch, too.
Jimmy Nelson: inspired and still supports young people, who want to learn ventriloquism. He got famous for his Nestle ads with Danny O'Day and the dog Farfel. He also published 2 lps showing people how they can learn ventriloquism themselves.
Jay Johnson (b. 1949): I already mentioned Jay Johnson before. Like many other vents, he started to learn this art when he was young. He's a dyslexic, which made school not very fun for him. To have a hobby where he suddenly didn't have many people to compete with him, certainly was a positive experience for him. Like I said in my previous blog post, Jay Johnson got most famous playing the role of the vent Chuck Campbell in "Soap". As a result of that Bob got famous, too, and continues to be his most famous partner. Before Bob also was Squeaky, but like Jay Johnson tells in his one-man-show "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" (for which he won a Tony, by the way!), Squeaky was too sweet for the producers to play the part of the big mouth Bob. Edgar Bergen was always with Charlie McCarthy and Paul Winchell was always with Jerry Mahoney. Now Jay Johnson couldn't be with Squeaky anymore. At first he thought, after he finished "Soap", he could go back working with Squeaky. But Bob was the figure he got famous with in "Soap". Many clips with Chuck and Bob in Soap as well as Jay Johnson with other of his partners (Darwin!!!) can be found with the corresponding key words on youtube. Because Jay Johnson will be performing his Broadway show again in september to film it for the release of the dvd, I'd like to mention a couple of pages: "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" auf youtube, where Bob will also vlog about the preparations to the show. Jay's "normal homepage" and the "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" page.
Ronn Lucas (b. 1954): I mentioned him before in my earlier post, too. It's difficult for me to really name one or two of his figures, because he has so many interesting ones I've seen already. Two of his most famous ones certainly are the cheeky cowboy Buffalo Billy and the fire-breathing dragon Scorch. Some clips with Billy and even more with Scorch can be found on youtube, including the 3 episodes of Scorch's own series (called "Scorch"). apart from Billy and Scorch Ronn Lucas also can turn a sock into a simple, but very effective sock puppet in full view of the audience. Ronn Lucas is so creative and broad as a vent that he is called "the man, who can make anything talk". That's including a microphone, which once pissed off by him, makes him speak out of sync. I personally find it refreshing that he did afternoon shows for kids in Las Vegas and still is entertaining for adults, too. I didn't yet find complete episodes of his "The Ronn Lucas Show", which he did in 1990, although youtube has bits and pieces of them. He also had guest appearances in several tv series. I personally enjoyed him most in "L.A. Law", although he was a vent with a rather sad history in that one. Watching him as his figure was raving in the court room and towards the end totally got himself down too while he is barely moving his lips at all, I can watch that again and again. Here's the link to his youtube channel with several clips and his homepage also includes an appearance with Scorch that made me get a total crush on Scorch, namely the MDA Telethon appearance. Also check out his eBay page, where he sells his toy Scorch and his two dvds. Yes, the shipping is also to europe and I got the movies I'm longing to get any day now from there.
Other vents you should have heard of:
Lynn Trefzger: on her homepage you'll find videos, among them one with the boy Noah, who had a brain tumor, who she went to see. I think it's a very nice of her to do that! Jeff Dunham made ventriloquism popular again recently for many people. Since many of you probably know him already, I won't write much about him here now. (his homepage) Another female vent I want to mention is Nina Conti, who began doing ventriloquism when she was almost 30. Of course she has her own homepage, too. Dan Horn is also known, although I don't know much about him other than his name and I've seen a few clips with him on youtube. In the documentary "Dumbstruck" they follow him and also Terry Fator, who got famous after his breakthrough through "America's Got Talent". Since there are rather few woman in this field, I'd also like to mention Carla Rhodes. I came to know her after watching her in the movie "Dummies!", which I stumbled upon on the internet the other day. Although then still a teenager, she came across as quite charming to me and judging from her homepage, she seemed to have made it actually and found her place in comedy, music and ventriloquism.
Okay, if you can make it and really keep your eyes on the lips of the vents I mentioned here, you'll probably see slightly quivering lips with all of them once or twice. Nobody is perfect, but all of the vents I mentioned in this post, I think, are all well worth watching. Like I said, Edgar Bergen is a lost case when it comes to lip control, but that doesn't make him less worth watching. All of them here are great artists, who have kept and keep this old art of ventriloquism alive. Time will tell how much I will be one of them...
Until next blog,
sarah
the title of todays blog post is the title of an old song. It was written and published in the early 20th century in america and tells the painful story of a bisque doll. I came across that song recently. I had looked up Jeff Dunham at the famous internet website imdb.com to see what other movies he had been in. I found the documentary "I'm No Dummy". Through that I came to know first Jay Johnson and now I'm waiting, yes, with pain in my sawdust, for 2 dvds with Ronn Lucas.
I want to take the opportunity today to tell you a bit about some known ventriloquist... Oh yes, the song! In 2007 Jay Johnson had a role in a CSI episode ("Living Dolls"). He played a ventriloquist (no, he doesn't always play a ventriloquist in every single role he has in a movie) and lets his puppet sing the last verse of the song in a performance he gives. If you ask me that's the best way to perform that song. True, the suffering puppet isn't a ventriloquist figure, but which other puppet could sing for itself and a puppet should in fact do the singing herself, don't you think?
Now, famous vents. What follows is a small, personal, totally incomplete selection, in no particular order:
Edgar Bergen (1903-1978): he's best known with Charlie McCarthy. Bergen's lip control was hopeless. Probably because he did a lot of radio show work where of course the lip control didn't matter. But with Charlie McCarthy he created a boy, who seemed to have his own independent small personality. That was quite something. Most people may know Charlie with his suit, top hat and monocle. But don't be fooled by his appearance! This boy didn't mince matters. apart from the radio shows Bergen and Charlie McCarthy also played parts in movies, where they often portraid themselves. Even Charlie McCarthy often got credited with "as himself" or playing "Charlie McCarthy". Although Charlie McCarthy was the main character for Edgar Bergen, he wasn't the only one he had. There's also the slow thinking, often stupid country boy Mortimer Snerd.
Some Edgar Bergen bits can be found on youtube. Short movies like "Nut Guilty" for example or "The Eyes Have It" and (at least for now) the complete movie "Letter of Introduction" in full length and one piece! I'm still checking him out myself and finding things I haven't seen yet. One other movie I can recommend to you already is "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" in which Bergen and Charlie work in a circus. The director is a miser ripping off everyone he can, including his own staff. Charlie wanted to leave him for a long time already. But when the director's daughter once visits the circus and Bergen gets a crush on her, he himself could stay for a bit longer...
Paul Winchell (1922-2005): Not only was he a vent, but also an inventor! The first construction of an artificial heart is his invention, complete with patent even! As a kid he got polio and had to spent lots of time in bed. Instead of being depressed about it, he took the opportunity and bought info on ventriloquism after reading an add in a magazine. Reminds me a bit of Milton Erickson, who too got polio when he was young and also was forced to be in bed for a long time. Paul Winchell also did the voice of Tigger for the Disney Winnie Pooh movies. As a vent he was most famous with his figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Over time he got to be a vent for kids mostly and did tv shows for and with kids. If you want to become a vent yourself and are creative and are reasonably good with handcrafts, you should get Paul Winchell's book "Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit". It's informative for beginners, entertaining to read lots of anecdotes of Paul Winchell's own life and also has a very detailed step by step description of how to build your own figure, as you wish either out of papier-mâché or wood! There are many clips with him on youtube for you to watch, too.
Jimmy Nelson: inspired and still supports young people, who want to learn ventriloquism. He got famous for his Nestle ads with Danny O'Day and the dog Farfel. He also published 2 lps showing people how they can learn ventriloquism themselves.
Jay Johnson (b. 1949): I already mentioned Jay Johnson before. Like many other vents, he started to learn this art when he was young. He's a dyslexic, which made school not very fun for him. To have a hobby where he suddenly didn't have many people to compete with him, certainly was a positive experience for him. Like I said in my previous blog post, Jay Johnson got most famous playing the role of the vent Chuck Campbell in "Soap". As a result of that Bob got famous, too, and continues to be his most famous partner. Before Bob also was Squeaky, but like Jay Johnson tells in his one-man-show "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" (for which he won a Tony, by the way!), Squeaky was too sweet for the producers to play the part of the big mouth Bob. Edgar Bergen was always with Charlie McCarthy and Paul Winchell was always with Jerry Mahoney. Now Jay Johnson couldn't be with Squeaky anymore. At first he thought, after he finished "Soap", he could go back working with Squeaky. But Bob was the figure he got famous with in "Soap". Many clips with Chuck and Bob in Soap as well as Jay Johnson with other of his partners (Darwin!!!) can be found with the corresponding key words on youtube. Because Jay Johnson will be performing his Broadway show again in september to film it for the release of the dvd, I'd like to mention a couple of pages: "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" auf youtube, where Bob will also vlog about the preparations to the show. Jay's "normal homepage" and the "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" page.
Ronn Lucas (b. 1954): I mentioned him before in my earlier post, too. It's difficult for me to really name one or two of his figures, because he has so many interesting ones I've seen already. Two of his most famous ones certainly are the cheeky cowboy Buffalo Billy and the fire-breathing dragon Scorch. Some clips with Billy and even more with Scorch can be found on youtube, including the 3 episodes of Scorch's own series (called "Scorch"). apart from Billy and Scorch Ronn Lucas also can turn a sock into a simple, but very effective sock puppet in full view of the audience. Ronn Lucas is so creative and broad as a vent that he is called "the man, who can make anything talk". That's including a microphone, which once pissed off by him, makes him speak out of sync. I personally find it refreshing that he did afternoon shows for kids in Las Vegas and still is entertaining for adults, too. I didn't yet find complete episodes of his "The Ronn Lucas Show", which he did in 1990, although youtube has bits and pieces of them. He also had guest appearances in several tv series. I personally enjoyed him most in "L.A. Law", although he was a vent with a rather sad history in that one. Watching him as his figure was raving in the court room and towards the end totally got himself down too while he is barely moving his lips at all, I can watch that again and again. Here's the link to his youtube channel with several clips and his homepage also includes an appearance with Scorch that made me get a total crush on Scorch, namely the MDA Telethon appearance. Also check out his eBay page, where he sells his toy Scorch and his two dvds. Yes, the shipping is also to europe and I got the movies I'm longing to get any day now from there.
Other vents you should have heard of:
Lynn Trefzger: on her homepage you'll find videos, among them one with the boy Noah, who had a brain tumor, who she went to see. I think it's a very nice of her to do that! Jeff Dunham made ventriloquism popular again recently for many people. Since many of you probably know him already, I won't write much about him here now. (his homepage) Another female vent I want to mention is Nina Conti, who began doing ventriloquism when she was almost 30. Of course she has her own homepage, too. Dan Horn is also known, although I don't know much about him other than his name and I've seen a few clips with him on youtube. In the documentary "Dumbstruck" they follow him and also Terry Fator, who got famous after his breakthrough through "America's Got Talent". Since there are rather few woman in this field, I'd also like to mention Carla Rhodes. I came to know her after watching her in the movie "Dummies!", which I stumbled upon on the internet the other day. Although then still a teenager, she came across as quite charming to me and judging from her homepage, she seemed to have made it actually and found her place in comedy, music and ventriloquism.
Okay, if you can make it and really keep your eyes on the lips of the vents I mentioned here, you'll probably see slightly quivering lips with all of them once or twice. Nobody is perfect, but all of the vents I mentioned in this post, I think, are all well worth watching. Like I said, Edgar Bergen is a lost case when it comes to lip control, but that doesn't make him less worth watching. All of them here are great artists, who have kept and keep this old art of ventriloquism alive. Time will tell how much I will be one of them...
Until next blog,
sarah
Sunday, 24 June 2012
so ventriloquism – have you eliminated every other possibility of employment?
Dear reader,
the headline for today's blog is what a journalist asked the ventriloquist (or short "vent") Jeff Dunham about his job decision. I read an interview with Jeff Dunham on the internet today, in which he said, "When somebody who is 9 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think that's great because it's a great hobby. ... When somebody who's 28 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think, have you eliminated every other possibility of a hobby? And I just think that it's kind of sad because really, your life's gotten to the point that you're going to pick up a doll and make it talk for other people? That's really sad dude." Jeff Dunham, you're playing with dolls yourself. And you're wrong.
My interest in ventriloquism started with Jeff Dunham. In 2008 or so I saw something with him on youtube and thought it was quite entertaining. Back then I watched it purely for entertainment. What he did there or the question of "how" never came to my mind at that time.
In spring this year I found our two therapy puppets to work with and ventriloquism was interesting for me now. I watched Jeff Dunham again. This time not for entertainment. The therapy puppet girl was the one I worked with first. It became obvious to me very fast that those kind of puppets are not quite good for the use I had in mind. You can stick one of each of your hands in either of her arms and use her hands that way. And you can stick a hand in her head to move the mouth. You can even stick a finger in her tongue to make it work: for example stick out the tongue at someone. So you really need three hands to work the puppet. I borrowed Lucy for about a week to take her home with me. At least I'd have someone to work with. Every other hand puppet of sorts I found at home didn't have a moving mouth. Where's the fun in ventriloquism with a puppet with no moving mouth? Soon after that I took the boy, Fritzchen home with me. He was somewhat different, although he works the same way Lucy does. I used him even still at work with my colleague and the intern that worked with us at that time. Both reacted to him instantly. I thought to myself, "I almost don't need to learn to talk without moving my lips! They don't look at me, they look at him!" I thought of a word used in magic: misdirection. The magician makes you look somewhere, for example using one of his hands and with the other he secretly does whatever makes the trick work. Ventriloquism is nothing else. When you're not moving your lips and next to you is a puppet moving his or her lips, the whole attention goes to the puppet.
The more I thought about it, the more things I found in common for magic, hypnosis and ventriloquism. In hypnotherapy there's a method called "my friend John technique". This method is great when you don't know how the other person will react to what you want to say, but you want to say it anyway. You tell it as a story, like something that happened to your friend "John" or someone. You can use quotes that way, too. Mark Twain once said, "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." Even if you don't agree with what Mark Twain said, you won't be angry with me. I didn't say it, Mark Twain did. I directed the possible disagreement of this statement away from me. A ventriloquist figure (that's the professional term they use for the puppets, although most people don't know that term) works just that way. Jeff Dunham can let Achmed the dead terrorist say, "Silence! I keel you!" and the audience will cheer. Let a real terrorist do that once. The figures can be nasty like nothing else and get away with it. They can say things a normal human can't say that easily, if at all.
The vent Ronn Lucas remembers a situation where a heckler was really annoying. So he let his figure heckle him back. This got to a point where the heckler stood up and lifted his fist to beat... no, not Ronn. The guy went after the figure! After all the figure had heckled him! What a nice compliment to give the vent, isn't it? For the guy the figure was real and alive.
Jay Johnson is a vent, who became famous in america in the late 1970's with the tv series "Soap". As you may have guessed, he played a vent, with his figure, Bob. The thing with Chuck and Bob was treated as a real person by almost everybody, who had something to do with him. Just from the way Bob behaved there wasn't any other way of reacting.
Jay Johnson also was in an episode (A Riddle for Puppets) of the series "Mrs. Columbo". There, too, he played a vent. In that episode he went to a children hospital to entertain the kids. As we learn over the course of this episode he was a kid when he learned about ventriloquism. Back then he was a very sad kid and had heard noises from a building. So he went in to find a puppet maker at work. He taught the boy all he knew about ventriloquism and also made the boy his own figure. The boy naturally couldn't pay with money. The man told his student to find another kid, who was just as sad as he was back then and make the child happy. That would be his way of paying him back.
Surely, a fictional story. But a very beautiful motivation for your work, I think. P. T. Barnum was a guy, who created a circus with a little bit of everything. He wanted the visitors to have fun, because they'd find at least one thing they'd really enjoy. Barnum once said, "The noblest art is that of making others happy."
That's what I want to do. I don't want to do inclusive education. For many of us it means "repairing" or "fixing" and not respecting the people for who they are the way they are. There are already clowns going into children hospitals to entertain the kids. I also heard of a group of old people doing magic for old people. I think I want to learn ventriloquism really to make other people happy. That's my plan. When I use the my friend John technique, I don't even need a qualification in hypnotherapy to tell stories with my vent figures. The positive effect to help and heal will be like magic. :-)
Until next blog,
sarah
the headline for today's blog is what a journalist asked the ventriloquist (or short "vent") Jeff Dunham about his job decision. I read an interview with Jeff Dunham on the internet today, in which he said, "When somebody who is 9 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think that's great because it's a great hobby. ... When somebody who's 28 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think, have you eliminated every other possibility of a hobby? And I just think that it's kind of sad because really, your life's gotten to the point that you're going to pick up a doll and make it talk for other people? That's really sad dude." Jeff Dunham, you're playing with dolls yourself. And you're wrong.
My interest in ventriloquism started with Jeff Dunham. In 2008 or so I saw something with him on youtube and thought it was quite entertaining. Back then I watched it purely for entertainment. What he did there or the question of "how" never came to my mind at that time.
In spring this year I found our two therapy puppets to work with and ventriloquism was interesting for me now. I watched Jeff Dunham again. This time not for entertainment. The therapy puppet girl was the one I worked with first. It became obvious to me very fast that those kind of puppets are not quite good for the use I had in mind. You can stick one of each of your hands in either of her arms and use her hands that way. And you can stick a hand in her head to move the mouth. You can even stick a finger in her tongue to make it work: for example stick out the tongue at someone. So you really need three hands to work the puppet. I borrowed Lucy for about a week to take her home with me. At least I'd have someone to work with. Every other hand puppet of sorts I found at home didn't have a moving mouth. Where's the fun in ventriloquism with a puppet with no moving mouth? Soon after that I took the boy, Fritzchen home with me. He was somewhat different, although he works the same way Lucy does. I used him even still at work with my colleague and the intern that worked with us at that time. Both reacted to him instantly. I thought to myself, "I almost don't need to learn to talk without moving my lips! They don't look at me, they look at him!" I thought of a word used in magic: misdirection. The magician makes you look somewhere, for example using one of his hands and with the other he secretly does whatever makes the trick work. Ventriloquism is nothing else. When you're not moving your lips and next to you is a puppet moving his or her lips, the whole attention goes to the puppet.
The more I thought about it, the more things I found in common for magic, hypnosis and ventriloquism. In hypnotherapy there's a method called "my friend John technique". This method is great when you don't know how the other person will react to what you want to say, but you want to say it anyway. You tell it as a story, like something that happened to your friend "John" or someone. You can use quotes that way, too. Mark Twain once said, "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." Even if you don't agree with what Mark Twain said, you won't be angry with me. I didn't say it, Mark Twain did. I directed the possible disagreement of this statement away from me. A ventriloquist figure (that's the professional term they use for the puppets, although most people don't know that term) works just that way. Jeff Dunham can let Achmed the dead terrorist say, "Silence! I keel you!" and the audience will cheer. Let a real terrorist do that once. The figures can be nasty like nothing else and get away with it. They can say things a normal human can't say that easily, if at all.
The vent Ronn Lucas remembers a situation where a heckler was really annoying. So he let his figure heckle him back. This got to a point where the heckler stood up and lifted his fist to beat... no, not Ronn. The guy went after the figure! After all the figure had heckled him! What a nice compliment to give the vent, isn't it? For the guy the figure was real and alive.
Jay Johnson is a vent, who became famous in america in the late 1970's with the tv series "Soap". As you may have guessed, he played a vent, with his figure, Bob. The thing with Chuck and Bob was treated as a real person by almost everybody, who had something to do with him. Just from the way Bob behaved there wasn't any other way of reacting.
Jay Johnson also was in an episode (A Riddle for Puppets) of the series "Mrs. Columbo". There, too, he played a vent. In that episode he went to a children hospital to entertain the kids. As we learn over the course of this episode he was a kid when he learned about ventriloquism. Back then he was a very sad kid and had heard noises from a building. So he went in to find a puppet maker at work. He taught the boy all he knew about ventriloquism and also made the boy his own figure. The boy naturally couldn't pay with money. The man told his student to find another kid, who was just as sad as he was back then and make the child happy. That would be his way of paying him back.
Surely, a fictional story. But a very beautiful motivation for your work, I think. P. T. Barnum was a guy, who created a circus with a little bit of everything. He wanted the visitors to have fun, because they'd find at least one thing they'd really enjoy. Barnum once said, "The noblest art is that of making others happy."
That's what I want to do. I don't want to do inclusive education. For many of us it means "repairing" or "fixing" and not respecting the people for who they are the way they are. There are already clowns going into children hospitals to entertain the kids. I also heard of a group of old people doing magic for old people. I think I want to learn ventriloquism really to make other people happy. That's my plan. When I use the my friend John technique, I don't even need a qualification in hypnotherapy to tell stories with my vent figures. The positive effect to help and heal will be like magic. :-)
Until next blog,
sarah
Friday, 22 June 2012
Hello world!
Dear reader,
I'm starting this blog today to share thoughts, point out interesting things I came across or just mention whatever else new discoveries.
In 1997 I started writing stories. Now I'm writing this blog here. ;-)
In 2009 I became interested in magic. I had a magic box as a kid, but nothing serious came out of that. In my studies at the university (studied inclusive education, that's helping disabled people), they talked time and again about the need to be aware of our own body language and have an "open" body language. But how exactly do you do that? Or how do I know if clients hold back information? What does it mean when they're sitting in a certain position across from me or have a specific look? We never talked about that. So I began teaching myself. Lately if you read on body language sooner or later you come across three letters: NLP. Neuro-linguistic programming. I wanted to know how others use it and what can be done with it. I don't quite remember what I typed in, because if you just type in "nlp" at youtube, you don't get what I found and which eventually lead me to magic again. Which was a video with the "psychological illusionist" (his own words) Derren Brown. The video description read this: "The heist was an experiment hosted by Derren Brown to see if he could get people to rob a bank." What the heck? To get normal people to rob a bank? Can this really be done? I had to see that! So I watched his program on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdkivIk1NiY (part 1 of 5)
What can I say? The program was interesting and I started to like Derren Brown. I saw more videos with him, and bought his book "Tricks of The Mind". In it he gives basic introductions to many of the techniques he uses for his tricks: from magic with cards and coins to tricks to remember things (mnemonic) and hypnosis.
Hypnosis. People who read on NLP will also learn about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. After all one of the people the founders of NLP studied was the psychotherapist Milton Erickson, who not only was incredibly creative, but also used hypnosis as part of his therapy. In the spring of 2011 I did a google search for online courses on hypnosis and found Stephen Brooks. On his website among other things, he also offers a free one year course in the theories and principles of Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP. Free sounds good, right? Can you trust it? Yes! Stephen Brooks is one of the leading experts and well known around the world. He didn't meet Erickson in person, but studied Erickson and his methods through and through.
Spring 2012. I'm working for an organisation offering day care for people suffering from dementia. They are brought there in the morning and go home in the late afternoon every day. I needed this whole year to realise that the 2 therapy puppets we had are never used. It became obvious for me that if they shouldn't sit around in a corner looking bored, I had to do something about it myself. Take the puppet, stick a hand in the head to operate the mouth and at the same time move your own mouth to talk for the puppets? It works. It's easy. Too easy. Why talk for the puppet, if you can let them talk for themselves? With ventriloquism. How I learned and learn it and my thoughts on that will topic of my next blog...
Until next blog,
sarah
I'm starting this blog today to share thoughts, point out interesting things I came across or just mention whatever else new discoveries.
In 1997 I started writing stories. Now I'm writing this blog here. ;-)
In 2009 I became interested in magic. I had a magic box as a kid, but nothing serious came out of that. In my studies at the university (studied inclusive education, that's helping disabled people), they talked time and again about the need to be aware of our own body language and have an "open" body language. But how exactly do you do that? Or how do I know if clients hold back information? What does it mean when they're sitting in a certain position across from me or have a specific look? We never talked about that. So I began teaching myself. Lately if you read on body language sooner or later you come across three letters: NLP. Neuro-linguistic programming. I wanted to know how others use it and what can be done with it. I don't quite remember what I typed in, because if you just type in "nlp" at youtube, you don't get what I found and which eventually lead me to magic again. Which was a video with the "psychological illusionist" (his own words) Derren Brown. The video description read this: "The heist was an experiment hosted by Derren Brown to see if he could get people to rob a bank." What the heck? To get normal people to rob a bank? Can this really be done? I had to see that! So I watched his program on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdkivIk1NiY (part 1 of 5)
What can I say? The program was interesting and I started to like Derren Brown. I saw more videos with him, and bought his book "Tricks of The Mind". In it he gives basic introductions to many of the techniques he uses for his tricks: from magic with cards and coins to tricks to remember things (mnemonic) and hypnosis.
Hypnosis. People who read on NLP will also learn about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. After all one of the people the founders of NLP studied was the psychotherapist Milton Erickson, who not only was incredibly creative, but also used hypnosis as part of his therapy. In the spring of 2011 I did a google search for online courses on hypnosis and found Stephen Brooks. On his website among other things, he also offers a free one year course in the theories and principles of Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP. Free sounds good, right? Can you trust it? Yes! Stephen Brooks is one of the leading experts and well known around the world. He didn't meet Erickson in person, but studied Erickson and his methods through and through.
Spring 2012. I'm working for an organisation offering day care for people suffering from dementia. They are brought there in the morning and go home in the late afternoon every day. I needed this whole year to realise that the 2 therapy puppets we had are never used. It became obvious for me that if they shouldn't sit around in a corner looking bored, I had to do something about it myself. Take the puppet, stick a hand in the head to operate the mouth and at the same time move your own mouth to talk for the puppets? It works. It's easy. Too easy. Why talk for the puppet, if you can let them talk for themselves? With ventriloquism. How I learned and learn it and my thoughts on that will topic of my next blog...
Until next blog,
sarah
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