Krista (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kristajhl) wrote,@ 2009-01-14 18:20:00 |
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Meet Me in St. Louis
Although that's the city, rather than the show.
Yep, out and about.
In St. Louis for a production of Miracle Worker, playing Helen Keller's mother, Kate Adams Keller.
Profoundly inspiring story and it's been fascinating to reacquaint myself with the historical facts of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan's life. Absolutely extraordinary individuals.
To date, what's most caught my imagination is how deeply intimate her relationship to language was.
Of course, more radically than for most, language was her entry to the world.
For all you writers out there, two quotes from Helen Keller's first book (she wrote four!), The Story of My Life. Fascinating read, by the way.
Here, Helen's trying to explain how an early unintentional plagiarism came about,("The Frost King" incident.) She was only 11 at the time (!), but horrified when she found out. Unintentional plagiarism aside...
I think what she says here speaks beautifully to the glorious problem of writing:
In the second, Annie Sullivan (in a letter) describes one of their lessons. Again, Helen was only 11 at the time.
Clearly, Annie was not a materialist, you philosophers. But still. I think you writers will appreciate what Helen said:
Oh and holler if you want to meet me in St. Louis. ;)
Toasted ravioli anyone?
Although that's the city, rather than the show.
Yep, out and about.
In St. Louis for a production of Miracle Worker, playing Helen Keller's mother, Kate Adams Keller.
Profoundly inspiring story and it's been fascinating to reacquaint myself with the historical facts of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan's life. Absolutely extraordinary individuals.
To date, what's most caught my imagination is how deeply intimate her relationship to language was.
Of course, more radically than for most, language was her entry to the world.
For all you writers out there, two quotes from Helen Keller's first book (she wrote four!), The Story of My Life. Fascinating read, by the way.
Here, Helen's trying to explain how an early unintentional plagiarism came about,("The Frost King" incident.) She was only 11 at the time (!), but horrified when she found out. Unintentional plagiarism aside...
I think what she says here speaks beautifully to the glorious problem of writing:
It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I read, because what I read become the very substance and texture of my mind...It seems to me that the great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half thoughts, when we are little more than bundles of instinctive tendencies. Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design. But we keep on trying because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not willing to acknowledge defeat.
In the second, Annie Sullivan (in a letter) describes one of their lessons. Again, Helen was only 11 at the time.
Clearly, Annie was not a materialist, you philosophers. But still. I think you writers will appreciate what Helen said:
At another time she asked, "What is the soul?"
"No one knows what the soul is like,"I replied; "but we know that it is not the body, and it is that part of us which thinks and loves and hopes..."
I explained to her that the soul, too, is invisible...
"But if I write what my soul thinks," she said, 'then it will be visible, and the words will be its body."
"No one knows what the soul is like,"I replied; "but we know that it is not the body, and it is that part of us which thinks and loves and hopes..."
I explained to her that the soul, too, is invisible...
"But if I write what my soul thinks," she said, 'then it will be visible, and the words will be its body."
Oh and holler if you want to meet me in St. Louis. ;)
Toasted ravioli anyone?
