Elizabeth Taylor
from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by Tennessee Williams, starring Elizabeth Taylor as MAGGIE and Paul Newman as BRICK:
BRICK: (to Maggie) What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?
MAGGIE: Just staying on it I guess, long as she can.
*****
Take flight, Miss Taylor. I’ve admired you since I was a boy - for your talent, your beauty - inside and out - and most of all your tireless work for AIDS awareness and research, especially in the early 80s when you spoke out about AIDS, when no one with your stature was speaking out, least of all the President at the time, Mr. Reagan. You saved lives with your passion and your voice, with your honesty and courage. You are loved, Dame Elizabeth.
March 27th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Elizabeth has always been my favorite. I always thought your mom looked like her. Hope all is well with you and Luke.
Love you.
March 27th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Thoughts just began darting through my feeble brain. I hate this! We are the end, David. Our grandparents , their children, and now us. Will anyone value what we do? Will that matter if they don’t? Will they look at where we grew up and see all we have experienced? Or look at the hills and valleys and hear the songs? Those things cannot be put into words. Feelings like firecrackers explode and cast fleeting lights inside my mind. I see Madge and Herbert’s house, walk through the rooms and see the people from long ago in their ffrozen stances or smiles, or in tirades of invective. I see Lela Mae in the kitchen and hear her soothing voice witht he mild quiet sarcasm discussing the “Harringtons.” Such a gleam in her eyes. I see Uncle Eldon , all storm and fire and brimstone “signifing nothing.” I hear his footsteps as he came into the house. I remember the discussions that I heard from being there, on the fringe, not engaging, for I didn’t want to. they were not my voice. My voice has a different attitude, a soft quietness in the middle of the night. Quite vunerable really. I can recall voices that sounded brass and cold and ….well, mean and ugly. Voices that tortured little souls with giant dreams and a lust for life. Once tortured and dead, the cruel ones had no idea what they had done and would accept no responsibility for the death. they only spoke of their truth, but they knew nothing of Truth itself.
So what is the point of life? Born, life or try, finding a career to love,
Masters was right: we are degenerate sons and daughters and it takes life to love life. What happens when that life that was shiny and new becomes tarnished and dull —done by so called adults…because they can?