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OOC: Appointments
Jan. 11th, 2020 11:43 pmPlease date and tag with [action], [voice], or [video] in the subject line.
Third Stanza: [WRITTEN]
Feb. 4th, 2012 06:38 pmIt’s my birthday today. I won’t presume I have anything new to say about why we celebrate something we can’t help. A few years ago, my aunt gave a speech about celebrating the ticking of time as death approaches, then gave me a pair of her socks and wished me happy returns.
“Don’t take the socks off, Julian,” she said. “Not under any circumstances.” It’s a good pair of socks, too. I’ve had to have them darned numerous times, but perhaps the goodwill of a fellow writer worn about the feet helped to keep a Cambridge student moving. I can’t claim credit for everything.
I know it’s very silly of me to say so, but I’m relieved the socks came with me to Luceti. They’re excellent thick socks for pacing back and forth across the living room floor on cold, uneventful days, which describes most days here. Without the love and care knitted up in them, perhaps I’d have long since gone mad from sitting idle when there’s a terrible war going on at home and tyranny is about to win it. Thank God for my Aunt Virginia’s socks, which encourage one to pace and to think and not to drive oneself to lunacy sitting on the chaise and staring at the blank wall. Would that everyone had such a gift as a pair of good socks.
Since I already have everything I could possibly need, I only request two luxuries for this day commemorating my greatest accomplishment:
1. Something meaningful to do.
2. Someone to live with.
Any help in these matters would be met with utmost gratitude.
-Julian H. Bell
“Don’t take the socks off, Julian,” she said. “Not under any circumstances.” It’s a good pair of socks, too. I’ve had to have them darned numerous times, but perhaps the goodwill of a fellow writer worn about the feet helped to keep a Cambridge student moving. I can’t claim credit for everything.
I know it’s very silly of me to say so, but I’m relieved the socks came with me to Luceti. They’re excellent thick socks for pacing back and forth across the living room floor on cold, uneventful days, which describes most days here. Without the love and care knitted up in them, perhaps I’d have long since gone mad from sitting idle when there’s a terrible war going on at home and tyranny is about to win it. Thank God for my Aunt Virginia’s socks, which encourage one to pace and to think and not to drive oneself to lunacy sitting on the chaise and staring at the blank wall. Would that everyone had such a gift as a pair of good socks.
Since I already have everything I could possibly need, I only request two luxuries for this day commemorating my greatest accomplishment:
1. Something meaningful to do.
2. Someone to live with.
Any help in these matters would be met with utmost gratitude.
-Julian H. Bell
Second Stanza: [ACTION/WRITTEN/VOICE]
Jan. 23rd, 2012 06:25 pm[Sitting in the tea shop, Julian Bell is looking restless, his tea untouched and growing cold. He chews the end of his pen as his journal lies open on the table before him. All at once, he starts writing furiously.]
Expose the world, anatomize,
Strip clothes from skin, strip skin, then flesh, from bone.
Himself no surgeon, true, can sterilize,
But yet the self-infection can be shown.
Corrode and doubt; anesthetize the heart;
Morphia or curiosity drown the reviving smart.
Clear as white water in the stream we see
Shadowed the species of eternity;
The working process, self a working part:
For not one necessary fiction's grace
Can quite make mask th' observer's outward face,
Or thought one extra atom's movement start.
The moving pointer tells, and having told
Not the immediacy of hot and cold,
Nor yet the pale abstraction of a mind
(For algebra and instruments record
No immanent emergence of the Word.)
Tells solid, painful foothold all we find.
Why turn, why seek, why question for an end?
Why hope? Time flows: shows useless to defend
A cosy corner in the rising flood.
The tide is coming in: the dykes are down:
War, Terror, Poverty, swing through the town,
And the cold wind claims to be understood.
[It feels like it's been too long since he wrote. He's trying to get the juices going again, but this lazy, mind-numbing monotony of Luceti life is making it hard, so he started with something he's already written. Heck, maybe someone will give him feedback and he can better it. Some ten or fifteen minutes later, he picks up the journal and speaks.]
I think we should have a philosophy club here, or some such thing. Nothing exclusive, just a few inquisitive minds wanting intellectual stimulation. Mondays at eight in the tea shop. Any biters?
[OOC: Feel free to run into him around town as well as at the tea shop. He'll be getting groceries and checking out the library, and tonight, he'll be at Cloud Nine.
Also: the above poem was written by the actual Julian Bell and not me. No profit made from it.]
First Stanza: [Action/Written]
Jan. 9th, 2012 05:43 pm[The gentleman walking out of Community Building 1 does not live there, and in fact didn’t even walk in there in the first place. He’s dressed in a suit, tie, and trench coat and is tossing a fedora between his hands. Julian Bell walks through Luceti with a smile, as if this is nothing more than an exceptionally lucky day. He’s keen to explore and peers into every shop, sometimes actually going inside. The library holds his fascination for some time, and he’s delighted to find his own published books of poetry there (even if he’d admit it’s a faintly narcissistic pleasure).
He eventually sits down at the tea shop to read, looking for all the world like this is a vacation day and not the day after his death. That part, he’ll address once this actually sinks in.
At night, he’s at Cloud Nine, enjoying a Scotch on the rocks and a cigarette and listening to the music. For a crappy oppressed town, this place is doing very well!
Eventually, he works past an unusual (for him) nervousness and writes over the journals.]
Am I allowed to take any empty flat, or is that supposed to be assigned?
-Julian Bell
