Dear reader,
Tuesday, a couple of weeks ago. I'm visiting a friend of mine at work. As I make my way up from the underground, I step on the first step of the escalator. It's broken. I have to walk up. Darn.
Wednesday that same week. I'm again visiting that friend of mine at work. As I make my way up from the underground, I step on the first step of the escalator. It's still broken. I have to walk up again. Stupid!
Thursday that same week. I'm again visiting that friend of mine at work. I am finally remembering that maybe the escalator is still broken. I peek around the corner to check if the lights are green. They're red. I walk on it to take the stairs. I finally learned.
Months ago I spend many days watching both the series "Sherlock" and "Elementary". As Sherlock likes to say, "You see, but you don't observe." The first step to see and observe and deduce the way Sherlock Holmes does is to actively engage in seeing things.
Last week on Thursday. I'm visiting that friend of mine at work. I peek around the corner to check the lights of the escalators. They're red. It's broken again. I wonder what all the old people at my friend's work are doing. The escalators are broken a lot of times at that underground station. As I walk alone to the stairs, I'm thinking about Sherlock Holmes, too. Thank you, Sherlock.
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 29 August 2013
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Ventriloquists good - non-ventriloquists evil
Dear reader,
granted, there are some strange ventriloquists out
there. Edgar Bergen for example in his later years gave Charlie
McCarthy his own room. Candice Bergen, the daughter of Edgar Bergen,
was certainly frustrated when she was younger and Charlie McCarthy
was called to be her big brother. Al Steven writes in his book
„Ventriloquism: Art, Craft, Profession“, that Paul Winchell had
massive problems with his mother. That went so far that he was
admitted to a psychiatric hospital at one point. He ran away from
there one night to go to the graveyard to hallucinate both his
figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff at his mother's grave.
(Stevens takes that from Paul Winchell's autobiography „Winch“,
which I haven't read though. So all I can do is repeat what Stevens
wrote.)
Al Stevens also writes, rightly so, I think, that
there is surely a certain percentage more or less crazy vents out
there. But this percentage of crazy also exists in other professions.
The thought that vents are crazy therefore is not more often or less
than with other people. The media, especially films, however like to
spread the image of this crazy vent or the murderous vent figure.
It's similar to that image of hypnotists. Many people fear
hypnotists, though for other reasons. The thing with hypnotists
though is that people believe the hypnotists totally take away their
own free will.
Chuck and Bob's first meeting with both families is also something worth watching for sure. And the scene with Bob as mindreader shows in a very beautiful way that Chuck is not alone in accepting Bob as an independent person. I just love the look Mary gives her husband Burt.
There's no video of it online, but in “Night Court, the episode “The Next Voice You Hear” (season 4, episode 1) Ronn Lucas plays a vent, who talks all right, but without moving his lips and without a figure. He refuses to talk in his normal voice. A successful act, he says, depends on the personality of the figure and the rapport between he and the ventriloquist. He has honed his skills, but he hasn't yet found the perfect other character. Until he does, he refuses to speak as himself.
He's also in the „L.A. Law“ episode „Dummy
Dearest“ (season 3, episode 6). As Kenny Petersen, who was kept in
a trunk of a car for a couple of days when he was 3 years old, he
doesn't speak himself. But he does have a figure, who speaks for him
instead. It's not more patient with him than the rest of the people
around Kenny, who think him crazy for walking around with a puppet
all the time. Again there are no scenes of that episode on the
internet to show you here.
I only mention this film here now, because even with
the clichee of the crazy ventriloquist, I still think they're quite
witty and not the typical “murderous insane”, like many others.
As a vent you're more than just an actor. You're
audience, when the figure is active, and yet at the same time you're
actor, because you're playing the figure. That's something other
actors don't get to do. Either they're in the role or not. Only vents
can be actor and audience at the same time.
I'm very fascinated with Ronn Lucas' role in „L.A.
Law“ because of that. It goes a bit further than the „usual“ 2
roles of a vent, because on one hand (no pun intended) he has to play
a depressed, intimidated vent and at the same time his figure is
totally raging against almost everybody he comes across... including
Kenny Petersen himself. One especially touching scene is at the end
of that episode as Kenny is crouched with his figure in the corner of
a room full of records and the figure is totally hitting on him how
it makes no sense anymore to speak for him and that he's a lost case.
The scene is even more beautiful (as much as such a scene can be
beautiful that is) to watch, if you keep in mind that Ronn Lucas
doesn't just have no text, but the very angry figure is speaking and
that's without twitching lips on Lucas' part or otherwise showing
that he's at the same time speaking for a very emotional figure.
Scenes like that seem simple. Someone talks and someone else does
not. In fact however they're much more complicated as they seem,
similar to a magic trick. The art of ventriloquism is that the text
of the figure are there right away. It's not something that's added
later on by someone speaking the lines. That's the true art. I miss
good ventriloquists. The films today are all animated and the actors
just speak the lines. Or you help yourself with letting the actor
speak the lines “off camera”, invisible for the camera.
As a ventriloquist you can be creative and you have a
unbelievably complex task in being two persons at the same time. Also
it gives the ventriloquist the possibility to say things which are
impossible to say otherwise (because society doesn't like them) or
things you don't dare saying (because you're shy). The figures give
you the freedom to come out, really say anything and still be shy and
withdrawn themselves. Ventriloquism is the safest way to let oneself
go and “let out some steam”. Ventriloquists aren't crazy or evil.
Crazy are only the people, who just take it all in all the time and
don't let it out. Something like that makes people ill and crazy in
the long run, I think.
Until next blog,
sarahMonday, 5 August 2013
Good morning!
Dear reader,
how many different meanings can the seemingly simple statement of "Good morning!" have?
When Bilbo Baggins wishes the wizard Gandalf that in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", instead of an expected greeting back, he gets a stream of interpretation possibilities.
"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning? Or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning? Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?"
Confusion or surprise can be one way to induce a trance. Even moreso because Bilbo didn't expect those questions. Your fault, Bilbo. Precise wording and language is very important and sometimes defining.
Bilbo, smart as he is, answers to the many questions Gandalf has, with what I would think to be the only possible answer that makes sense, "All of them at once, I suppose."
Until next blog,
sarah
how many different meanings can the seemingly simple statement of "Good morning!" have?
When Bilbo Baggins wishes the wizard Gandalf that in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", instead of an expected greeting back, he gets a stream of interpretation possibilities.
"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning? Or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning? Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?"
Confusion or surprise can be one way to induce a trance. Even moreso because Bilbo didn't expect those questions. Your fault, Bilbo. Precise wording and language is very important and sometimes defining.
Bilbo, smart as he is, answers to the many questions Gandalf has, with what I would think to be the only possible answer that makes sense, "All of them at once, I suppose."
Until next blog,
sarah
Sunday, 4 August 2013
Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story?
Dear reader,
in the episode "The Rings of Akhaten" (Season 7, Episode 7) of Doctor Who, the Doctor wants to know more about Clara, whom he has met before in previous episodes and who seems somewhat odd. In this episode now they are on a planet where a girl, Merry Galel, is about to be sacrificed to an angry god. The Doctor doesn't give up on people easily, so he is desperate to find ways to help Merry Galel, too. They prepared her for the sacrifice from when she was very small and that's why she knows all the stories and songs of her people. But when she is about to be sacrificed, the Doctor comes and tells her something, which we all should be hearing more often, especially when we are desperate:
Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many many millions of years ago in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Galel. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it's a waste!
Until next blog,
sarah
in the episode "The Rings of Akhaten" (Season 7, Episode 7) of Doctor Who, the Doctor wants to know more about Clara, whom he has met before in previous episodes and who seems somewhat odd. In this episode now they are on a planet where a girl, Merry Galel, is about to be sacrificed to an angry god. The Doctor doesn't give up on people easily, so he is desperate to find ways to help Merry Galel, too. They prepared her for the sacrifice from when she was very small and that's why she knows all the stories and songs of her people. But when she is about to be sacrificed, the Doctor comes and tells her something, which we all should be hearing more often, especially when we are desperate:
Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many many millions of years ago in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Galel. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it's a waste!
Until next blog,
sarah
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Thinner too: with savvy - weight and see
Dear reader,
you wanted to be thin and cancelled your fitness studio membership, because you don't need it anyway. Now some food for thought to add to that.
Hypnosis only works when the critical factor is levelled down. Only then are phenomenon like an immobile (cataleptic) hand possible. Of course the person can still move their hand. But at that moment the barriers of the critical factor are at least that much down so what the hypnotist is saying, that the hand is impossible to move and cataleptic, is accepted to be true. This is enhanced even further through a chain of autosuggestion (“I notice that I can't move my hand. So it must be true that I can't move it. Therefore I can't move it.”) and the hand is immobilised, although under normal circumstances, the hand would be possible to move fully and without difficulty.
The critical factor is the reason why (New Year's)
resolutions are so difficult to do and to keep doing them. The
critical factor finds many more confirmations for the old habits and
beliefs. So they are kept in the end. So for being thin you have to
use tricks like a hypnotist.
The most important of all is:
State your goals in the positive towards what you
want. Remember: if you state it in the negative with „not“,
you'll have the negative still in your head. That's not helpful in
the long run. I'm warning you, if you state in the negative, you'll
have an elephant in your head and he's so big, he'll crush all the
positive intentions.
It really does not look
healthy at all. But it gives your mind very clear images of what you
want. Only watch out, please, please, not to go just that far really.
It should only be images, with which to work on your own goal. To
have such a physique is sick and very damaging for you in the long
run! Nevertheless: overdo it with the images, which you use, be it in
your head or those you pick to remind you. (The 10th Doctor in “Doctor Who”, David Tennant, is probably more of a role
model for being thin, and very likeable, too. Although at least one
of his companions described him as “just a long streak of nothing.
You know, alien nothing.” Right she is.)
2. Find pictures
(real or in the head), which are exaggerating, to be clear on what
you want.
(Once someone wrote to me on the internet and wanted help with hypnosis so I would make her breasts bigger. I told her that when I wanted to be thinner, I was thinking about Christian Bale's role in The Machinist and advised to her to do the same. So she searched for a picture of a woman with breasts too big, printed it out and used that image then. A couple of weeks later she wrote to me and told me that her breasts actually had gotten bigger. I don't know if what she said was correct. It seemed so to me. In the end the most important thing is, that she was happy and she seemed to be to me.)
Sometimes I tricked
myself and picked a bit wider cloths to wear, which wouldn't be so
tight on my body. That gives a feeling of being thin. At least
thinner for those cloths, which with more weight would have been
tighter. Skinny jeans on the other hand sometimes are quite
comfortable and make your thighs be a bit tighter than wider jeans
would when you sit down.
Once again English seems to be even more extreme, once you start playing with words. To "lose weight" is, if you're saying it out loud, very close to "loose wait". (Not tight waiting, ey?) In English I like to ask then: Waiting for what? But even in German I don't think it's a good choice of words for the wish of “losing weight”. Nobody likes to lose something. You have to find the words that fit best for yourself. In the end all I can do is make you aware that different words also have diverse meanings that come with them.
Also don't underestimate the support from outside. If a child is big and should lose weight, it's best to make it a family project. It's not helping the child if the family keeps eating fastfood as the child is supposed to eat healthy food.
Two “tricks” I still
use now and then are the following: often we mistake thirst for
hunger and eat something. It can often help to instead first drink a
good amount. In the evening it can also help, at a certain time of
hour, to go and brush your teeth. As you know, after that you
shouldn't eat anymore. So I only drink unsweetened tea or water then.
Until next blog,
sarah
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