I think I have found my director. we studied theatre together. like a century ago

 I could have guessed yours would be from Cabaret

Electra’s dictionary; Vampires in the Noir Part 2/the Power of Knowing[the scene is the last conversation as it continues](edjmmusechron)

 

“…. ‘when’ in the grand scheme of things—what did you say?—“

“‘in the grand scheme of it all when exactly did you first stumble across me….’” I say now

“Ahhh….” Jörn’s expression becomes thoughtful and after a slight pause…. “and, you mean because you know about the secretary’s key I found in that box of yours among your diaries —which you tossed into the dumpster behind that old  apartment building you lived in—Cedarhurst, I think— with your first husband—“ and shakes his head at me “tsk tsk…. careless key toss, duva, how lucky I found it— which was —when? I believe that was 2002— but that was not when I first stumbled across you ….hmm, so you want to know….” and then after he considers, with an  awkward motion, wherein he turns his head as if to crack the tension from his neck along with an odd shrug, “so— then…. I would say it was …. around the time when I first joined the intelligence—uh—became an international intelligence agent—so that is when I came across ‘something’ ….and …. so …. actually that would have been my first case with Willem. How we met— it was our first case together.”

“So, what did you come across?”

“It was something connected to your legal father— as I was investigating a current case of the time—it was having to do with a sensitive operation we were all working on, connected with several other countries, as a matter of fact, but mostly European. It was when I was cross referencing some old documents….” he says vaguely 

So I think about what Willem had started to say that time 

“And so what was this to do with me?” I say looking at his eyes to try and read them

For a moment he is pensive but guarded. After a quick deep inhale and exhale he looks at me decisively and says,

“duva—it was a picture of you….” he studies my eyes and seems to measure his words carefully as he stares into my eyes, “I felt like I knew you—“ he seems to force a laugh and shakes his head, “that sense, as though I could not place where I knew you from ….but —I knew in this way …. it was just like this strong gut sense— I felt I knew you from —somewhere….” and here he stops talking and stands up and walks across the room. 

He goes to the window and looks out into the darkened blackness but where the sound of the ocean brings the mind to see in inferred  

….those timeless, infinite ocean waves …. 

I watch his silhouette as he stares into blackness as he looks towards the sea into the darkness …. I feel such a weird sense now by how he stands there, I have seen such a scene like this before…. how his shoulders are set, the tension in his stance; I see someone else standing there …. that I have seen before…. And it makes me wonder now; is he somewhere else at sea …. and maybe too, lost in time 

After a moment he turns away and walks towards the bed, he hesitates before he says, 

“….Duva, you see, I never used to dream —or maybe I just never remembered that I did —but it was right after I saw that photo that it seemed, it was —every night—the same dream—or versions of it —and with it too was the most horrific —horror….” he shakes his head as he recalls this now and rubs his eyes and quickly looks away for a long moment. His expressions pass like secrets across his well groomed, top-secret mask ….

Now he looks at me,

“duva—it was your face…. you understand? —the photo; it was a copy of your passport photo and I ….became curious, it is true…. it was, at first, such a gradual —like a fascination, it was—a slow nagging kind of mystery that just seemed to elude me…. And then ….well—now suddenly always dreaming this same series of events that seemed like from some dark age  time and ….all with your face —and …. often violent things happening —her death …. which I would wake up from dripping in sweat and shivering ….that one repeated the most at first…. and  …. seeing her dead —the pain of it, I could never go back to sleep …. it is how the first bars of my opera came from …. you know, just to express—to get it out this…. overwhelming emotion …. for me it has always been my music where I can release emotions…. and watching her die ….again ….and again in my dreams…. the brightness of the blood on the white hides …. I know I haven’t shared this before…. it was never the right time to speak of all this—when do you speak of such things? And I admit that I avoid emotional scenes usually —so….you could imagine what an impact it left —I mean, duva, from just seeing a photo of  a person’s face —you think you recognize but know you have never met….and it was this knowing like—I —knew— and you know it was not that I knew you ….—now—“ he leans his head into his hand a moment and sighs “….but I guess I just felt crazy because I did not know —how—that could be….” he shakes his head and whispers, “of course, I still don’t know —but…. “ stops himself as if suddenly remembering something, and almost to himself he says, “I always knew —and felt as if I was waiting until ….we would meet….”

But I am not sure if he means —he always knew he would meet the person in the dream or ….the photo …. ? —or?

“If it is not something that can be physically grasped, touched, prodded and analyzed in a lab it can’t be real?” I ask

“I think from conversations we have had, you would know I am more willing to be open minded about the possibilities of …. I am willing to believe there is more than just this existence —but no, I just never expected to have to encounter something unexplained myself, I guess…. I sometimes feared I was losing my mind or possessed because it seemed to always be at the back of my mind but….” he stops and thinks a moment “you know, duva, I may not say ….but there are things I feel and —I have said it before…. about you, it is strange that I seem to always sense —somehow know—if you are in trouble, I feel it here — it is like I know what you are thinking —I can feel it, it is something so strange, I noticed right away after we first met and, you know…. it has never been this way with anyone else —so—now I have answered your question,” he says this walking back towards the bed and now stops to drape himself on the bedside beside me, “….and more —so now answer mine duva, why do you stay? —you know what I’m asking….” but he plays with my hair, drawing it away from my neck where he presses his mouth and says, “it was right after we first met that the rest of the music for the opera came to me…. do you know why I call you ‘duva’?”

“You said it was to do with the dream—there was a dove that you said foretold an angel would come,” I say

“Well not an angel exactly—and yes it’s to do with the dream because right before every time she appears, a turtle dove appears first—and you doubt my intentions?”

“It was not that.”

“Then what?”

“You are right—I mean about trust…. only do you trust me?”

“Duva, you are the only partner I ever have had who knows what I actually do—considering my line of work, is that adequate proof for you?”

I’d never thought of this before. And dully, I realize this is the first time I ever heard him refer to me this way….it seems to signify

I say,

“no, it was just my excuse….”

“I know….” he says and goes back to playing with my hair. He runs his finger tips lightly down my neck and follows with his mouth to bite, then says, “tell me why you stay,” blowing into my ear 

I say, 

“du vet varför.”

“Du vet varför!” he says correcting how I said it

“Yes,” I say, “ja…. du vet varför….”

“Du vet varför,” he repeats anyway and begins to do something I thought he forgot I liked; which confuses me and when he says the phrase again so I should correct myself, I automatically repeat it back because he is too good at what he is doing. I forget the purpose of resisting. and so, maybe that is why I do weaken, 

“Du vet varför”

“Du vet varför!”

“Du vet varför,” and feel myself forgetting to keep up the guard but not wanting to care somehow

and when he says, 

“why do you stay?….tell me….”

“Du vet varför…. because…. jag älskar dig.”

“Jag vet varför.”

but it is only after a moment that I realize what I said. and what he said 

but then he says,

“and I know what Stina is asking you to do.”

“You know?”

“She wants you to be my watchdog,” he says, “say you’ll do it.” and said all the while not missing a beat while still adeptly at his task 

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking you to. Is she offering you some kind of payment or bribe?”

“Both.”

He thinks a moment. Then says,

“she wants me back over there—they do….”

“That’s part of it. She mentioned my sister and a will and —that you’re planning on ….going after Retnuh.”

“Hmm, then again it would mean getting under her clutches —does she know about your project?” he sees my reaction and becomes more serious a moment. He thinks. 

“Jörn….about what I said—“

“Jag vet varför.”

Thoughts of the Electra project

 

was just thinking it would be such a cool idea to shoot the scenes of Electra’s dictionary inside a performing arts theatre. I was imagining making the sets so real that it looks like realistic interiors. So the opening shot could start with someone stepping up with a camera or some kind of movie lens that would go from outside the street into the theatre and then you enter the theatre of Electra’s world where it looks Hitchcock film noir and the music would be Beethoven 

I thought that each inner theatre of the building would hold different settings 

and then those reflective moments would be sat outside this theatre and without reference to why, it suggests the narrators thoughts behind the scenes within her world; contained inside this theatre ….while writing into the phone these thoughts on the search for life’s answers 

well—it’s an interesting concept to me as I’d not thought of it till just now but, that could work —especially to portray symbolic themes 

Of dreams everlasting & vampires in the Noir night Part 1 (edjmmusechron)

 

“What time is it?” I ask him feeling confused about what he is doing here and —what is going on

He reaches for his watch that is next to the lamp beside the bed,

“it is just going on three now,” he says

I rub my eyes and look at him in the shadows of the dark room. He watches me. 

“Were you here all night?” I ask him as…. I still cannot be sure what or how much was real

It is an oddly slow reaction I see cross his face as he still just watches me with the most pensive look

He says,

“I came up after the meeting ended….” and still watches me. He reaches to draw away a mass of hair that falls heavy over my face and holds my face steady, pulling it up to look at him. And with an oddly peculiar tenderness, he strokes his thumb across my cheek and then says in a very low tone, “you were asleep when I came in….” and still he holds my face and studies me with ….such an unfathomable expression. I don’t know this one of his at all as I have never seen that look

“So….” I struggle to think as my mind is distracted by his touch and the look in his eyes

“Jörn….” I say and start to move from his hold, but he does not let go and keeps me there

“You were dreaming,” he says in the same thoughtful tone but now it is curious, “what were you dreaming, duva?”

“I was…. did we—? I mean, did you….? Or…. did I dream that?”

“Were you dreaming about me?” now he lightly chuckles  as his hand releases my face then to comb with his fingers through my hair…. and then I realize that he is teasing me —and so, now figure out he must also know what I’m wondering too—which answers the question …. I suppose

….and as I look at him now, I become aware of that internal bruised feeling and the other areas of soreness as proof of that indisputable knowledge it was not all the dream —which now sharply brings back parts of the moment in a sudden flash that burns my face 

He asks,

“so, was it a good dream, min lilla duva?” and hardly gives himself away if not for the smallest clue of a smile in the grooves at the corners of his mouth and…. it makes me think back to our conversation on the pier but then, consciously avoid thoughts of Stina’s 

I look up at him as parts of the dreams come back to me. There were two dreams together —no…. three…. strangely overlaid and seeming to run in parallels ….danger, fear, and sense of a deep —heartbreak ….with violence and I wonder now too about what I might have said 

“Jörn—please, I must ask you —is this your property?”

Now he does smile and glances away to hide a guilty expression but not before I see it; his poker face must be slipping 

 But so like him —he does not bother to answer the question—I suppose because it is obvious 

Instead he says,

“Do you remember when I asked you awhile back—?—why you stay….” and again surprises me with a gesture rather uncharacteristic to him; he runs his hand with such a kind of shocking tenderness along the side of my face. 

“Why do you stay, duva….?” he asks me now as he caresses my cheek and stares deeply into my eyes

But it seems slowly does his question come to me, and it is something like a delayed moment before any comprehension, caught inside his stare, it seems to dull my mind and so he says,

“I mean, I know at first —but then things happened between us, maybe because I was not straight with you about my work —but duva…. if there had been no assassin, and no pandemic ….would you have stayed?”

“would I have?” I repeat back at him only half aware of the question —still distracted by something else 

“Please, duva, answer me,” he says in a low voice 

but I lower my eyes from his and say it in a whisper, 

“….yes.”

“Tell me why,” he asks softly

“Why?”

“Why….”

“Jörn, what did you not tell me? About that —thing— of my mother’s you said you found in the compartment in the secretary? Why did you say that strange remark about that it requires I trust you?”

He shakes his head and closes his eyes and reaches to grip hold of me by the back of my head and pulls me to him,

“—snälla du! snälla svara på min fråga!” and makes a frustrated sound and in an almost painful grip, he pulls me tight against him and pressing his forehead to mine, says into my ear, “I want to know why you stayed.”

but then I ask, 

“did you want me to go?” 

I feel the tug of my hair as he angles my head to look at him with an emphatic pull —so I look up and into his piercing gaze ….then instantly feel that strange seasick feeling, recalling the memory of a boat and the brilliance of such eyes 

I say,

“du vet varför….” and look directly back at those eyes

and he just stares back at me a long moment, but then slowly shakes his head and with narrowed eyes, inclines his head 

I take a deep breath and hesitating begin to say,

“I know you came back…. and for the record…. no, I never thought your opera was just part of your spy cover…. it’s too beautiful to just be some contrived and meaningless think tank cover, I thought you knew how I felt about ….your work—don’t you? I thought you knew …. you need to finish it, it needs to be performed….”

“Well,” he shrugs with a self deprecating chuckle but shakes his head, “and our ….shared….dreams, duva?—you think I made all that up—and when we went to see your friend Gerald—what about that?”

“I don’t think I ever said I believed you made that up!”

“Well, no, not exactly. Only that you have suggested you feel a great deal of doubt about my —my…. well—intentions—“

“Intentions,” I repeat slightly amused then I say, “since we are asking questions here…. Jörn, I have one I’m still trying to get the answer to— so, going way, way back to before we first ~’bumped into’~ each other in the lobby that day claiming that you kept getting my mail —which I’d love to know how you contrived— don’t tell me, is the Swedish government infiltrated in the postal service here-?-so, anyway, this I have been wanting to know: when exactly in the grand scheme of it all—did you actually first stumble across me? Because, it seems it had to have been long —long— before my convenient presence at the Manhattan penthouse…. and—actually too—how perfectly convenient you happen to also live there —I mean, never mind also getting my mail—which, have you ever explained any of this to me?” 

only he smiles like he finds this all amusing and shakes his head, 

“don’t think you can squirm out of the question, it is still your turn but —I’ll indulge you and oblige you—since you ask….”

apology

 

Mae'n ddrwg gen i.  na.  Dydw i ddim yn iawn.  Rhaid imi erfyn ar eich pardwn.  Mae'n rhaid i mi gau fy hun i ffwrdd a dod o hyd i heddwch

notes from behind a screen

 (work prep notes&selfpsycho-therapy….)

The life is the work and the art bears it’s reflection; this is why I put my footnotes across the story

it tells another layer to the story, does it not?

Like Boccaccio’s Decameron with layers of stories within stories and since the purpose of the work is meant to grow with the artist as she grows, the work is colored by the new experience 

I once tried to tell this to MM years ago at first I said to think of it as a mobile with various universes dangling together …. and within each to cut a cross section ….and each holds meanings to life —told in a drama; that was the documentation of the artist narrating the study of a story to search for what is ‘our purpose’ and the meanings of life…. and for the purpose of the study using a form of scientific method, use myself as example on a guided tour of my inner world 

told ….

through my codes

This deep morass 

~how much is real and how much fiction …. ? of course the surprise would be how much is not fiction; not to announce my life story~

Dwi angen ti.  Nid wyf yn iawn

llongddrylliad emosiynol

a gwrando ar y ddwy gân ABBA newydd…. pam ydw i'n crio mor galed?

 

roedd fel taflu arian ataf yn ffordd i'm calon.  fel dwi'n rhyw fath o fachwr….  Yn y canlyniad….  Rwy'n prosesu'r tonnau sioc….  Dwi angen dip mewn datrysiad glanhau llwyr i ddod oddi ar y teimlad….  socian, rinsio, ailadrodd

Electra’s dictionary and film noir notes of strangers (jmmusechron,ed)

 

The chill air with wet hair bites at the nerves. We watch the sky. The sea and the fire…. and the feel of hands. They weave through my hair ….and this time in the night as I watch the shadows on the wall move in tune to the music that pounds upon the piano keys …. I forget who I am, where I am —I forget time and place

…. and disperse into the nonsense of senses to the rhythm of the Long Island ocean waves. It adds skewed dimension to dreams, such as warping images 

They melt into the fabric on the static, and senseless like shadows across the wall

there is only this. Yes, it is this. This sense that it does connect somewhere ….and …. I do hope it will find its way to me and within such lucid dreams, I feel into the great chasm beyond those leaps of faith and —know that here I do trust. Yes. Here I do. It is here— because here —I know…. without question 

and just grip so tight onto it; and with it, it comes like the warmth that spreads with the scent of cedar and sandalwood, and the silk of his hair —and without need to reflect, give up and wrap around pressing in to me, unconsciously awake, and like so many times we have once long before done this so like this, we move and join to each other in that age old embrace and where somewhere in consciousness and time, and wrap around him 

 under that big mysterious sky of characters  the waves crash

and take him upon the shore

****

It seems awhile that I stare into those waves. And the waves it seems I watch ….and the foam ….mix with cloudy images ….like thoughts…. like memories, water and waves and sky and foam ….that reflect like clouds in the stillness 

And I see his face …. I see another face ….beside his face ….I see another time 

and no he is not the pirate here nor the spy but another time …. he is younger but it is the same eyes ….and it is somewhere cold and …. the gold of his hair in the light —but he wears a black Cossack shirt —why should I see this now? ….I wonder looking at him, from —across the wide circle because ….

“Duva!”

I wake up

 

  he pulls me up from sleep with his hands under my arm pits with a slight jostle and stares at me —the same way as the dream and ….for a long moment I am frozen in mind; my thoughts  seem somehow misfired; mis-wired between unconscious worlds ….still within 

I stare at him. And touch his face. I trace his eyes with my finger tips staring into them …. with my eyes burning; I touch his mouth ….and then the bridge of his nose and mold my fingers across his face up to his cheek bones seeing ….so many ….many ….memories 

 but he stares at me intensely,

“duva….?” 

It is kind of a fraction more of moment where I feel myself reeled back into the present moment —by him 

He says,

“It was happening again—you were screaming.”

“Was I?” but all I remember is ….watching the water and—oh, yes, the dream when I saw —him?

“What’s wrong?” he asks me

Only does it occur to me that it is the middle of the night —and we are in the Spanish pirate’s giant bed —together…. so, what part was the dream that was so…. familiar

“Is something going on you’re not telling me, duva? What were you dreaming?”

“Why?” I ask him and—staring at how the moonlight’s shadows fall ….in hollows of his face which —distract and mesmerize me but wondering why he’d ask this, “something going on?”

But …. why is it that he just looks at me so oddly?

 🎂