Packed bags and magic

We're off too Pondicherry tonight. I do hope I don't have to edit this later to say yet again that our travel plans got cancelled due to the volatile situation in the state.

Have been meaning to mention this, so here goes -

"So if I asked you about art you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written...Michelangelo. You know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that.....If I asked you about women you'd probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. I ask you about war, and you'd probably - uh- throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love y'probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you...who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it?s like to be her angel and to have that love for her to be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sittin? up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term visiting hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. I look at you; I don't see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine and you ripped my fuckin' life apart. You're an orphan right? Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what? I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. And I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't wanna do that, do you, sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief."

~excerpt from Good Will Hunting

Not only is the content spot on, but Robin Williams' delivery is what makes this speech so powerful.

Was watching Boston Legal last night after dinner. Very similar was James Spader's (who plays an attorney called Alan Shore) closing argument. It's perhaps a bit too long to quote here, but it was a regular case where a dead man's daughter sues a tobacco company for her father's death. The defendant's argument is based upon the inconclusiveness of the plaintiff''s claim. Other equally likely causes for lung cancer are cited all of which cannot be proved conclusively. Alan Shore's point, though supported by facts is more of an emotional plea. All this might very well be the norm in cases like these. But again, the way the statement was delivered is what made it so powerful. In cases (pun not intended) like these I like to believe that an actor cannot be convincing enough unless he believes in the character he plays...and subsequently becomes the character. That is when he creates something that cannot be judged by objectivity alone, something that cannot be quantified merely by the words he speaks. And that is again when the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. And in this difference lies magic.