Floral but masculine

Grave stele of Parthenope the dog from Mytilene  island, in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

And he went WOW.  That’s amazing!  And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” 

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them.  I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

When you’re observing me, who do you think I’m observing?

“I wanted to challenge politically the kissing scene, which traditionally either has the surprise kiss scene thanks to a rain shower for instance, or the obvious kiss scene thanks to mustard on the corner of the lips, for instance, and it is generally carefully scripted as ‘They kiss.’ Or ‘They passionately kiss.’ And then it’s on the actors’ shoulders. It seems to rely a lot on them because it’s their bodies and fluids and interaction, but it shouldn’t be. It’s fake. It’s not about finding the magic. Actors should always be part of the elaboration of an idea, especially with intimate scenes. So I wanted to craft a scene that would embody the sexiness of consent. People who are questioning the idea of asking for consent in France, they do exist. They are brave fighters for the culture of French gallantry who say that asking for consent would not be sexy, it will break the mood. Some of the French critics thought the film lacked flesh, precisely because to them eroticism is about conflict. […] At some point I came up with the idea of them having to unveil their mouths like they would undress themselves. So I put a scarf, justified by a strong wind, pressed on their lips and thinking you would see their heavy breathing through the moving cloth.”