burns_so_brightly | Second Stanza: [ACTION/WRITTEN/VOICE]

[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Julian is at the bar. He's been enjoying the live music all evening, and when she returns, he slides his empty martini glass toward her.]

That was amazing.

[Ginia accepts his compliment with a modest smile and a bow of his head, taking his empty glass.]

You're welcome, Julian. Another, or something else?

I think I'm done drinking. Just enjoying the music, now. Is it all right if I smoke?

[An ashtray is set on the table.] Go right ahead.

Thanks. [He pulls a cigarette from a case.] It's really something, you know. Hearing live music, here. You can't hear it anywhere else.

Music is a bit of a rarity in this village, outside of personal devices and playing, so to be able to provide some entertainment, well, it's the least I can do.

It isn't just entertainment. [Lighting the cigarette.] It's music. Art isn't there just for entertainment. Something like that, it's...it's something people need. You provide. Thank you.

Music, a form of expression that transcends the written or spoken word. It has no form, no shape, and does not exist in time. Utterly unique, impossible to replicate. Music is a reflection of life.

[A chuckle as he takes a drag.] A bit trite, perhaps, but something like that. My parents and my aunt used to take me to see Wagner before I was old enough not to sleep through it. I hated it. Now I badly miss my record of Rheingold.

Music and theatre is in my blood. Everyone but my father plays something, my brother and mother performed.

Another family of artists, then! My mother paints, my father's an art critic, and my aunt and I are both published writers.

My father always joked he was the black sheep of the family. No artistic talent of his own, but he went to every opening and supported all of us through and through.

Then we both had good families as well. Although my Aunt Virginia's a bit eccentric, but everyone forgives it. Gave me a pair of socks, once. [He grins, and his voice affects a low, gruff tone.] "Whatever you do, don't take the socks off. Not under any circumstances."

[...Wait a moment. Aunt Virginia. Both published writers. Mother is a painter. Father an art critic.

......Oh. Ginia gives a tiny laugh, but at the realization of who he is as well as at his statement.]

I think everyone had someone a little eccentric in the family. But socks, maybe not bad advice. Were they comfortable socks? You can never go wrong with comfortable socks.

They're the best socks in the world. [Spoken in attempted dire tones wrapped in a grin he can't smother.]

Still wear them?

Of course. Had to have 'em darned a few times since then. It's been a couple years.

Must be good socks still. Lucky, perhaps?

Maybe. The jury's still out.

[No, definitely not. He was wearing them the day he got shrapnel in his chest.]

Whatever the case, when my Aunt Virginia gives you socks and tell you to wear 'em, you bloody well wear 'em.

Something I will keep in mind in the event I ever meet your aunt.

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