09-26-2014, 02:02 AM
Hey, all--I actually need some feedback here. Skip the txt and just listen to the audio, if you would. Thanks!
Audio of me performing the piece, which is meant as a monologue:
https://soundcloud.com/christopher-youngblood/a-letter
A Letter
Dear Jane May Cynthia Marie Aster,
Everybody dies. Best wishes,
Raymond Hecht
P.S. I know this great spot to get ideas. It’s on a hill under a tree looking down on Werner Lake, which isn’t important but I thought I’d do some scene-setting for you. Anyway. It’s my good-idea spot, and I went there today because our date was good and I don’t know what to do with that, and I wanted to get a good idea about it, but there was a couple there, just my luck, a couple in my spot. Any ordinary person would’ve taken it as a sign and gone home, but I couldn’t figure out what it was a sign for. I needed a good idea about it, I needed my hill. But they were on my hill. So I decided to wait them out. But they just sat there. I guess they were waiting for the sun to go down. They were waiting for the sun to go down. But they weren’t saying anything at all, just sitting there like the devil told them to, because he hates me. So, the sun went down and the guy lights a candle, hooray for love, and I hear a cork pop. They were going to drink something with a cork. Something cork-worthy, and that meant who knows how much longer they’d be there. I felt like a creep, watching them like I cared about it at all. Except maybe it was a sign. It’s not like I wanted to see some action, I just wanted my spot so I could figure out why they were in my spot, which is ironic, I know. All the more reason I needed my spot. But they didn’t go anywhere. And I walked up to them, to ask if I could have my spot, and they got scared and I had to leave. That’s not important. But while I was standing there, for those brief, terrible seconds, I remembered: I found this little golden pill on my computer desk a couple of weeks ago. It looked like vitamin E but it was too small to be vitamin E, but I thought maybe it was that or something else I was supposed to take and that that’s why I left it there to begin with. So I thought, I kept on leaving it there for no reason, but maybe this was the reason. On my way home, I was really wishing I could have my spot so I could think about it. But I didn’t. But that’s not important. So I got home, and I went to my desk, and I took this little golden pill and I sat there at my desk, waiting for it to do something. I thought my spot was telling me that this was an idea pill, given to me by way of apology for my spot being occupied. I took it with water. Which probably isn’t important. I’ll think about it later. Anyway. I took this pill and I wrote that letter and this is all to explain why I wrote you this little morbid note for no reason after a first date. But I’m compelled to send it because forces beyond my control have conspired to convince me that I’m supposed to. Please don’t think I’m weird, though I’m very aware that this is the wrong letter for that statement. I don’t know why I’m supposed to tell you that everyone dies. I know that it’s medical fact, but I don’t know why I’m . . . No, even after ellipsis, I’m still in the dark about it. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Everybody dies! There, I wrote it with an exclamation mark. Everybody dies! I’m going to get out my ukulele and write a song about everybody dies because a little golden pill made me do it, and I guess I am a little weird. But I have to send this letter and I don’t know why and please . . . I need my spot. Please never talk to me again. Burn this and never talk to me again. Or just delete it since it’s an email. I’m going to my spot in my mind, looking down at my lake under my little tree, feeling the breeze rise up from the water, listening to the leaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I am not a man of math or science, but I know that there are some certainties in life. Everybody dies. But some do it after rolling down a hill and into a lake and thinking this is more than water and sheltered in platitudes we go home without ever really loving anybody in particular wherefore we may believe it better to be our own masters and not simply bound to the horses of chariots of which we have no control and in such manner as we do not vacate the premises we signal that there is some significance to life and striking matches we go holding our candles into the wind refusing to set fires and saying that I know glory and how great we are matters not at all in the grand scheme of things in which somebody may spot us being in love and come upon us naked and be suddenly afraid and run and trip and roll down a hill into the water and driving home soaked wish that somebody . . . somebody in the great new baptized world would understand what it meant and knock on my face and put my clothes in the dryer because what does it mean if I’m afraid of people in love but that I need it and there is some significance to life human pinballs wouldn’t need to dream of Arizona human pinballs wouldn’t stop on a dime and keep spinning while they reflect blue opium sunsets to people they want to smile at and I let go of the reigns and the horses refuse to vacate the premises and I will not whistle to them to take me where I do not want to go to the laundromat on South Hampton when north of the world the sun casts a shadow which could eat the world and me with it but I sit and they light the candle again and it’s so fantastic that I want to smile at someone who isn’t even here and I wish that you were. And I know we only went out once, but it was so great, you have five names and said you wished Mel Torme would’ve make a vampire flick and you have webbed feet and . . . I’m not crazy, I’m just . . . I am. But maybe I’m as crazy as you are. Or vice versa. And sometimes I’m a little weird. Wink, wink. Not that I’m saying weird trumps crazy. I’d put my name again, but this is still the P.S. Sleep tight.
Audio of me performing the piece, which is meant as a monologue:
https://soundcloud.com/christopher-youngblood/a-letter
A Letter
Dear Jane May Cynthia Marie Aster,
Everybody dies. Best wishes,
Raymond Hecht
P.S. I know this great spot to get ideas. It’s on a hill under a tree looking down on Werner Lake, which isn’t important but I thought I’d do some scene-setting for you. Anyway. It’s my good-idea spot, and I went there today because our date was good and I don’t know what to do with that, and I wanted to get a good idea about it, but there was a couple there, just my luck, a couple in my spot. Any ordinary person would’ve taken it as a sign and gone home, but I couldn’t figure out what it was a sign for. I needed a good idea about it, I needed my hill. But they were on my hill. So I decided to wait them out. But they just sat there. I guess they were waiting for the sun to go down. They were waiting for the sun to go down. But they weren’t saying anything at all, just sitting there like the devil told them to, because he hates me. So, the sun went down and the guy lights a candle, hooray for love, and I hear a cork pop. They were going to drink something with a cork. Something cork-worthy, and that meant who knows how much longer they’d be there. I felt like a creep, watching them like I cared about it at all. Except maybe it was a sign. It’s not like I wanted to see some action, I just wanted my spot so I could figure out why they were in my spot, which is ironic, I know. All the more reason I needed my spot. But they didn’t go anywhere. And I walked up to them, to ask if I could have my spot, and they got scared and I had to leave. That’s not important. But while I was standing there, for those brief, terrible seconds, I remembered: I found this little golden pill on my computer desk a couple of weeks ago. It looked like vitamin E but it was too small to be vitamin E, but I thought maybe it was that or something else I was supposed to take and that that’s why I left it there to begin with. So I thought, I kept on leaving it there for no reason, but maybe this was the reason. On my way home, I was really wishing I could have my spot so I could think about it. But I didn’t. But that’s not important. So I got home, and I went to my desk, and I took this little golden pill and I sat there at my desk, waiting for it to do something. I thought my spot was telling me that this was an idea pill, given to me by way of apology for my spot being occupied. I took it with water. Which probably isn’t important. I’ll think about it later. Anyway. I took this pill and I wrote that letter and this is all to explain why I wrote you this little morbid note for no reason after a first date. But I’m compelled to send it because forces beyond my control have conspired to convince me that I’m supposed to. Please don’t think I’m weird, though I’m very aware that this is the wrong letter for that statement. I don’t know why I’m supposed to tell you that everyone dies. I know that it’s medical fact, but I don’t know why I’m . . . No, even after ellipsis, I’m still in the dark about it. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Everybody dies! There, I wrote it with an exclamation mark. Everybody dies! I’m going to get out my ukulele and write a song about everybody dies because a little golden pill made me do it, and I guess I am a little weird. But I have to send this letter and I don’t know why and please . . . I need my spot. Please never talk to me again. Burn this and never talk to me again. Or just delete it since it’s an email. I’m going to my spot in my mind, looking down at my lake under my little tree, feeling the breeze rise up from the water, listening to the leaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I am not a man of math or science, but I know that there are some certainties in life. Everybody dies. But some do it after rolling down a hill and into a lake and thinking this is more than water and sheltered in platitudes we go home without ever really loving anybody in particular wherefore we may believe it better to be our own masters and not simply bound to the horses of chariots of which we have no control and in such manner as we do not vacate the premises we signal that there is some significance to life and striking matches we go holding our candles into the wind refusing to set fires and saying that I know glory and how great we are matters not at all in the grand scheme of things in which somebody may spot us being in love and come upon us naked and be suddenly afraid and run and trip and roll down a hill into the water and driving home soaked wish that somebody . . . somebody in the great new baptized world would understand what it meant and knock on my face and put my clothes in the dryer because what does it mean if I’m afraid of people in love but that I need it and there is some significance to life human pinballs wouldn’t need to dream of Arizona human pinballs wouldn’t stop on a dime and keep spinning while they reflect blue opium sunsets to people they want to smile at and I let go of the reigns and the horses refuse to vacate the premises and I will not whistle to them to take me where I do not want to go to the laundromat on South Hampton when north of the world the sun casts a shadow which could eat the world and me with it but I sit and they light the candle again and it’s so fantastic that I want to smile at someone who isn’t even here and I wish that you were. And I know we only went out once, but it was so great, you have five names and said you wished Mel Torme would’ve make a vampire flick and you have webbed feet and . . . I’m not crazy, I’m just . . . I am. But maybe I’m as crazy as you are. Or vice versa. And sometimes I’m a little weird. Wink, wink. Not that I’m saying weird trumps crazy. I’d put my name again, but this is still the P.S. Sleep tight.
A yak is normal.