I like talking to a brick wall—it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me
Oscar Wilde
Friday July 8th 2022
18.30 Northwest Regional Psychotherapy
Association
https://www.nwrpa.org.uk
Talking to Brick Walls
or
the joys and necessities of not hearing
and misunderstandings
a contemporary meme:
joyReactor & public domain
public domain: Pyramus, Thisbe, and Wall by Riverside Shakespeare Company 1978
the mechanicals perform a tragic play within a play about a dream
BOTTOM
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and
Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must
draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies
cannot abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT
By’r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING
I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.
BOTTOM
Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to
say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that
Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more
better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them
out of fear.
QUINCE
Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be
written in eight and six.
BOTTOM
No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
SNOUT
Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STARVELING
I fear it, I promise you.
BOTTOM
Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to
bring in–God shield us!–a lion among ladies, is a
most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful
wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to
look to ‘t.
SNOUT
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
BOTTOM
Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must
be seen through the lion’s neck: and he himself
must speak through, saying thus, or to the same
defect,–‘Ladies,’–or ‘Fair-ladies–I would wish
You,’–or ‘I would request you,’–or ‘I would
entreat you,–not to fear, not to tremble: my life
for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it
were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a
man as other men are;’ and there indeed let him name
his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
QUINCE
Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;
that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,
you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.
SNOUT
Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
BOTTOM
A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find
out moonshine, find out moonshine.
QUINCE
Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOTTOM
Why, then may you leave a casement of the great
chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon
may shine in at the casement.
QUINCE
Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns
and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to
present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is
another thing: we must have a wall in the great
chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did
talk through the chink of a wall.
SNOUT
You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
BOTTOM
Some man or other must present Wall: and let him
have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast
about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his
fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus
and Thisby whisper.
emphases added by msf.
The Staffordshire Moorlands Pan
The text reads
MAISCOGGABATUXELODUNUMCAMMOGLANNARIGOREVALIAELIDRACONIS
Sir Winston Churchill building a wall
public domain: Australian bricklayers recruitment site
Some Reading & Viewing
Wim Wender Wings of Desire 4K Restoration 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iAzYofuItM&t=95s
Ted Hughes Pyramus and Thisbe in Tales from Ovid 1997
RSC Faerie Abduction: The Mechanicals' Untold Story Video undated.
https://www.rsc.org.uk/midsummer-festival/faerie-abduction-the-mechanicals-untold-story
BBC revision guides on : metaphor, simile, analogy etc
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zfkk7ty/articles/zxk7kty
Four Walls is a suite of vocal and piano music by John Cage commissioned by the choreographer Merce Cunnigham in1943/4. The form was hybrid; the production required music, dance, spoken word and stage action. In 2022 a new recording appeared.
Talking to a brick wall Meme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5jq7iQsxQg
Jacques Lacan: Lecture On the Bo
dy. Yale University 1975.
Here Lacan produces a knot with four rings. Three rings represent the individual's Symbolic, Imaginary, and Real worlds. The fourth ring becomes the symptom your clients are trying to express or complain about in their own words, narratives, gesticulations, writings, or songs.
