Repetition
Skomer
by Martin Storey
in Rowan Brushed Fleece
This project began with yarn my son brought from London, was due to be a shawl but is currently acting as soft furnishing - either a rug or a cover of some sort - not sure yet. I've had the wool since Christmas and wanted a finished product before winter was out, so for the past week I've been absorbed in the 24-row repetition. One thing I can personally vouch for is abundant warmth - for the last few days especially, it was pretty much enveloping me and the sitting room couch too.
The constant repetition was like rote-learning, a line of thought which dredged up fragments out of permanent orbit of my subconscious... odd phrases, numbers, bits of songs, historical dates, hammered in until indelible ... good/better/best, bad/worse/worst over and over again... get a rhythm going - if derailed, stop, correct and go again.... Prayers too - lots of them... big breath... HAIL Mary, full of grace, blessed art though amongst women..... on and on ..... Is, was and ever shall be, world without end, AMEN. Latin grammar inserted itself via some kind of spiritual loud hailer: Know, Doubt, Consider, Tell take Accusative and Future Infinitive, it bellowed. One consequence of knowing that particular rule is I never use the expression "no doubt", without silently tacking on "consider tell take Accusative and Future Infinitive". Eight eights are sixty-four, nine eights are seventy-two... tables backwards, forwards, inside-out, upside down was possibly one thing actually worth the pain.
There are also repetitions I could happily do without though, and the currently unavoidable, everlastingly exhaustive hype for the 50 Shades of Grey movie is one. It's especially offensive alongside (by coincidence) daily reports from a horrific murder trial taking place here in Dublin, where the woman victim had a psychiatric history of self harm and masochism, and where self harm is apparently endemic these days as a form of expression in young teenagers.
People do what they do for any number of reasons - all their own business so long as all things are equal and nobody gets hurt... And right there is the first problem, especially where there's an imbalance of mental capacity or maturity...
And yes, cinema would be dull if it didn't delve into life's less wonderful aspects, but as a film maker , if sick-and-twisted is your chosen subject you can hardly affect convincing shock while simultaneously leering and acting as if all those standing ovations you orchestrated before the event were just another massive groundswell of...
..of... legions of ordinary decent sadists and masochists...?
Nah....
Doesn't work...
One repetition that does, though, is money, money, money, money, money, money, money...
It's not hard to see where I went wrong in this project. Repetition is a remarkably powerful: building up, as well as wearing down..... mistakes, amongst other things.
I did try to read the movie's precursor, which was a book (or three books, actually), but didn't get far because it was beyond moronic. I suppose I should see the movie before I make up my mind... Meanwhile though... definitely...
"Don't, don't, don't believe the hype..."
Post script -
So I went to the movie and it was more tedious than threatening, but also, albeit in a very sick way, politically correct too - don't blame the actors....what can actors do with a stupid script? It's glossily well shot and insinuates all sorts but mostly plays safe, old- style Mills & Boon... Which would be fine, but what was all that pervy hype about (besides being an awful lot to not live up to....)? The messages about what money can buy are ridiculous... exquisitely subtle it is not. Christian Grey is neither sympathetic nor menacing enough to be interesting, and Anastasia, a Cinderella type, is prone to vocal fry which is the end for me. She leaves Christian, but with a leaden hint of who knows what might happen next. Yawn.
But having yawned, it's been some decades since I was an insecure teenager who felt any need to subscribe to the latest craze which, if this logic is to be followed, will be making doormats of women and girls.
