Love.

A few weeks later on the Saturday he threw all Stoutamire's dirty horse blankets into the back of his pickup and took them down to the Quik Stop Car Wash to turn the high-pressure spray on them. When the wet clean blankets were stowed in the truck bed he stepped into Higgins's gift shop and busied himself with the postcard rack.
"Ennis, what are you lookin for rootin through them postcards?" said Linda Higgins, throwing a sopping brown coffee filter into the garbage can.
"Scene a Brokeback Mountain."
"Over in Fremont County?"
"No, north a here."
"I didn't order none a them. Let me get the order list. They got it I can get you a hunderd. I got a order some more cards anyway."
"One's enough," said Ennis.
When it came -- thirty cents -- he pinned it up in his trailer, brassheaded tack in each corner. Below it he drove a nail and on the nail he hung the wire hanger and the two old shirts suspended from it. He stepped back and looked at the ensemble through a few stinging tears.
"Jack, I swear -- " he said, though Jack had never asked him to swear anything and was himself not the swearing kind.

Around that time Jack began to appear in his dreams, Jack as he had first seen him, curly-headed and smiling and bucktoothed, talking about getting up off his pockets and into the control zone, but the can of beans with the spoon handle jutting out and balanced on the log was there as well, in a cartoon shape and lurid colors that gave the dreams a flavor of comic obscenity. The spoon handle was the kind that could be used as a tire iron. And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release; the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets.
There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it. (Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx).

I'm sorry, but it's been hard to forget it

"Matilda is adorable, and beautifully observant and wise. Becoming a father exceeds all my expectations. It's the most remarkable experience I've ever had - it's marvelous."

"Most of the time you don't even know they're there. Now, that's the scary thing. It's really strange and invading, but I'm still working it all out. I try to not let it bother me. I really try and find the humour in all of it. And if I want to swim naked in my pool, I'm still going to do it. I certainly don't want to feel that I have to change everything in my life that I do to cater to them. I just won't let it happen." (on the paparazzi)

"She's my soul mate and we couldn't love each other any more than we do already. We're like two peas in a pod."

I will keep words only to myself this time, as these images speak for themselves, although I'm not feeling any better than yesterday besides the fact life has continued, busier than ever. And as I'm not in the mood for fresh posts, I'll use the fact I have three days to prepare myself for a danish proficiency mini test whereas students out there have normally three weeks or more; as an excuse for not posting. I might be back on monday or tuesday, or whenever my PC is healthy again (yes, it's been infected, and I have no idea how to get rid of it - btw, I'm posting from John's laptop). In the meanwhile, the current weather sucks more than ever: rain, rain and rain. Ah, if at least it snowed.... (Some could start a cheap poem from here).

He's Gone. Just Like That.

"I only do this because I'm having fun. The day I stop having fun, I'll just walk away. (...) I don't want to do this for the rest of my life....I don't want to spend the rest of my youth doing this in this industry. There's so much I want to discover." (Heath Ledger, 2000)

It's true, he's dead. A 28-year old guy with a wide future right in front of him and a little girl to look after. When I first heard of the news, I could go for the Hollywood cliche and believe it had something to do with drugs. But, drugs? I'm not into reading about celebs' personal lives and scandals, so if it has ever been something of the sort related to drugs and Ledger in the past, I have never really heard of it. So, then I thought, "it could have been a murder, couldn't it?". Desperate for news, I left the comfort of my warm bed and turned on my computer at 01:30am: so there it was, some sort of "medicational" drugs lyed down around the unconscious body. Should I finally conclude everyone famous, from rock stars to movie stars are doing some sort of drugs in at least one point of their lives or during all of it? The difference is there are those we're pretty aware of what they do (Think of Lindsay, and think how her career could be a lot better as well) and those we just don't have a clear idea or any idea at all. Why can't most of them (at least the talented and promising ones) behave like... Natalie Portman? Is Hollywood a playground of drugs and free booze that it makes it impossible for starlets and young actors to refuse it?

In Ledger's case, it seems like it was something given by his doctor (just like it was with Marilyn Monroe), therefore it's even weirder for me to realize he was going through a troubled or depressed phase? It just didn't look like. I saw him twice in the movie theaters last year, first in Candy and more recently in Bob Dylan's unconventional biopic I'm Not There. And for Christ's sake, wasn't he in a new Batman movie that is opening sometime in 2008, as The Joker? I shouldn't be this naive, as times are so different. We're not in the early 1960s, Hollywood makes us no longer believe in beautiful, endless young and nevertheless, perfect stars that live perfect lives doing perfect things. Star System is forever dead, and that's not news. For more shocking Ledger's death may represent to me, I can only image how harsh it was for movie fans, cinefiles and general people at those times, when the tragic death of James Dean and later on, Marilyn Monroe was announced.

I guess my shock has to do with a River Phoenix (1970-1993) sort of shock, who died from an overdose in a LA night club runned by Johnny Depp, my fav actor and who was also a long term drug user in the past. The question is... Why? At the moment everyone is speculating about it. I don't even wanna think in a suicide possibility, but then, an accident. And even so, wasn't it possible dialing 911, fighting back? Did he just give up, closed his eyes and surrended? Heath Ledger made me weep as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, he made me remind of a young Brando in this actor's best times and he also made me believe of a bright movie career ahead. I have never felt sorry at all over the death of old artists, especially those who no longer work and who dedicated their entire lives to their art; and I can't avoid thinking how ridiculous it is for people who mourn over such deaths, sometimes artists who they barely knew as concerning the artist's work (!!!).

Not every death is supposed to be bad, though all deaths are still hard for the ones who suffer the loss (And trust me, I'm not just saying it, I've been there). A parent who loses a child will suffer differently from a child who loses a parent. The death of Ingmar Bergman (to name one that also died recently) can't be compared to this present case right here. First of all, this is a guy I truly know, I've seen his films from teenager romantic comedies to the most recent ones, I've followed his bad flicks, the great ones, the disposable actings and the breathtaking ones. And the fact he's abruptly gone... Oh jeez. I can't even say R.I.P. However, I envy those who truly can.

Photo: Ledger as one of the countless Bob Dylan's personalities in I'm Not There.