a midnight post

though it is not quite midnight, after a dinner party and a couple of cocktails with some friends and an encounter between a dog and a cat that look eerily similar, you obviously reflect on what the evening brought you.

we talked about poetry...how the disconnect between the modern reader and the art of poetry can easily be solved with the inclusion of sex or war. we talked about soviet film and the importance of hidden messages, words that are spoken when they cannot be and why those words are more charged and empowering than any others echoed among literary poets and authors. how the influence of a dictator or a military regime can sometimes bring along the best poetry, the best art...art that speaks above its medium and transcends to a place we have yet to explore due to fear of the populus, the fear of the majority. 

we talked about the movies we love and why we love them...spanning from citizen kane to the princess bride. about poets of the modern day, poets in the 17th century, writers in general. after all of that we came up with one conclusion:

the story. 

story telling is the thing that makes people want to read, no matter if it is fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or young adult novels with a hint of sexual perversion and magical, evil influences. the stories make us want to hear and repeat. the story can transcend us, make us into beings we are not, souls we can never become.

the longing for a story can hurt as badly as the longing for water. you dream of it. you know that if someone in your life came along and told you, to your face, "the perfect day for bananafish," you would stop dead in your tracks and forget about your life and the problems and concerns that go along with it.

when you read a good story, no matter what medium it presents itself in, the outcome is the same.

you transcend yourself and forget about your world. you become a part of something real, something more than life can offer you.