Jim Morrison drawing by Ane Rainey

This is an amazing drawing by my huge friend Ane. I want to thank her for this masterpiece and for let me share this with the world =)

You can see more from Ane on

Ane Rainey's Channel on DeviantArt

Ane's blog - Além do Mesmo Mais (Portuguese)

Jim Morrison's Drawing - from High School until his death

I've  seen some sketches of figures made by Jim on the book The Doors by The Doors and I've kept myself asking if Jim used to draw, as a hobby. So, yesterday, by the morning, I googled some words seeking for Jim's drawings and I've found a few things that I want to share with you...

On the site I've found it they said that the drawings were  "sketches of macabre figures that dealt with violence, pedophilia, sexually, etc". 

Then I've found it: The Jim Morrison Limited Edition Lithograph Sets and I keep myself asking about the authenticity of this material. I don't really know if we can trust on this, but it seems kinda... True. I don't really know what think about that, but I'll leave it for you to see:

How to Draw Jim Morrison - Step by step

I've find out this and I decided to share with you all! <3

THIS IS JUST A REPRODUCTION FROM: DragoArt

STEP 1: Let's start out with a basic oval. See if you can stay close to the shape. Sketch in your guidelines. First line is at the top left eyelid, and the second line is at bottom of the nose. This divides the face into thirds, which helps with accurate placement of the facial features.

STEP 2: All those out there that get impatient with your drawings, please wave your hands! Because this start with Jim's features doesn't look like him at all. Looks like a child's scribble. Stick with this. Get his strange eyebrow shadow placements, eyes and pupils, bottom of nose and nostrils, and his mouth. The next couple of steps will help you with proportions.

STEP 3: Here's the five-eye game! They are the size of one of Jim's eyes. The bridge of his nose is one eye, his eyes count for two more, and there are two more eyes at either sides of his face. It looks like those eyes are one half, but the ears (hidden) make up for the other half of those eyes at the end. Now you need to size the width of those lips. Take a line at the end of his mouth on both sides and extend it to his eyes above. See how the sides of his mouth parallel at the imaginary irises of his eyes. This is how you can get a more accurate drawing from your picture reference.

STEP 4: You can sketch lightly these guidelines to erase later. Look at the picture for this step. Jim's face is divided by thirds this way. First line is at the top of his head/hairline. Second line is right above his top eyelid. Third line is at the bottom of his nose. Fourth line is at his chin. The width is the same between these lines. You will be shading, highlighting, and blending from here on. But first here are a couple of steps to help with those techniques.

STEP 5: Here's my famous menu for hair and supplies! In the picture you can see some twists and curls with shading. Follow the direction of the arrows when you shade the curls of the hair. Hint: Start at the dark area within the hair strand area. Stroke a little harder in that area then lighten up at the end of the stroke, like you're brushing something. There's a detailed cropped area of Jim's hair I drew beside the clump of sketched hair. Now I used a mechanical pencil, pencil graphite sticks 9B (really soft and dark), and a No.2 pencil. Kneaded eraser is a must have in my book. Blending tools like tissue, blending stump, Q-tip can make your picture look more realistic. Big tip: I used acrylic paint--titanium white with a really small paint brush to add more white highlights to Jim's hair.  

STEP 6: You can use your rubber kneaded eraser for reflective lights on the side of Jim's cheek, within his pupil for catch lights, or to stroke those highlights in on his hair. Remember that the reflective light area isn't pure white--it is at middle tone. Your blending tools add a smoother tone to your drawing...tissue or toilet paper adds even tones to large areas and lightens or picks up a lot of the pencil work. Blending stumps or tortillons blend smaller areas. And if you have enough graphite on them, you can render textures, lines, or small shaded areas. Cool, right? Yeah! We're rockin' and rollin' now! Let's get it on with the next step.

STEP 7: Jim is looking more like himself. You can erase those guidelines and continue with defining him more. Drawing in that reflective light on the right side of his jaw. Adding more hair curls, shading, and texture.

STEP 8: If you make a mistake or mistakes, that kneaded rubber eraser helps a lot. As you dab with it, it can pick up unwanted pencil marks. If you want to use small circles with your pencil to shade in his skin, that's a good idea. For hair, use long sweeping strokes in the direction of the curl. Here's a good place to practice what you've learned from hair tutorials. Remember to draw in his beads.  

STEP 9: Continue to work in those shadows, spread the shading and let it disappear into the lighter area. Don't use harsh lines to separate light from dark. Gently caress your picture with loving strokes. Be patient, take your time, look closely at your reference and keep going to accomplish your masterpiece. Look! All your hard work has paid off. Now let me know how your fared through this tutorial. I love to see how my peeps do. ROCK ON!

A The Doors' Merry Christmas for you!

Camon, baby, light my... CHRISTMAS <3 I am coming just to say "merry christmas" to you all and I'll give some Doors' gifts for you;

Final 24: Jim Morrison's Last Hours

I've found out the full documentary about Jim's death via Jim Morrison Project who gently shared it with us on Facebook. I've watched it and I think it's a great documentary, 'cause it doesn't focus just on Jim's death, but they also explore the whole way towards it. It's a little bit shocking 'cause they explored Jim's vices - like drugs and alcohol. I felt so sad when I saw Pamela De Barres describing Jim drunk lying on the door of the Whiskey a Go Go... But I know it's a side of Jim we can't deny. And they also bought  some precious information about Jim's relation with his family. There are beautiful and rare pictures of Jim during the documentary. Anyway, it's worth of watching!


Eu achei o documentário completo sobre a morte de Jim via Jim Morrison Project que gentilmemente compartilhou isto conosco no Facebook. Eu assisti e eu acho que é um documentário incrível, pois que não foca só na morte de Jim, mas eles também exploram tudo o que levou ao fim culminante. É um pouco chocante pois eles exploraram os vícios de Jim de uma forma crua - como drogas e álcool. Eu me senti tão triste quando vi Pamela De Barres descrevendo o Jim bêbado deitado na porta do Whiskey a Go Go... Mas eu sei que é um lado de Jim que nós não podemos negar. E eles também trouxeram algumas informações preciosas sobre a relação de Jim com a família dele. Há fotos lindas e raras de Jim durante o documentário. De qualquer maneira, vale a pena assistir!

My Little Jim

I've a two years-old nephew called Eiji (His name is the same name of my father, his grandfather, who is Japanese and that's why the baby has this strange and ugly name). He's really a "pants-on-fire" baby! Ya know, he just loves to be crazy and funny as most of kids are when they are at this age.

And you should me ask why I am posting this about my nephew: It's simple, he has been born in the same day than Jim Morrison. And on little Eiji's birthday, I just gave him a The Doors Baby T-Shirt! <3

There are the pictures:

The Doors - Studio Session

This is the Studio Session at Europe in 1968. The Unknown Soldier was released at this presentation.

Tracklist:

1-Alabama Song
2-Back door man
3-Love me two times
4-When the Music's Over
5-The Unknown Soldier

The Doors - Live at the Hollywood Bowl - FULL Show

Just sharing this timeless treasure w/ all Jim's lovers <3

Tracklist
1-Wake Up
2-Light My Fire
3-The Unknown Soldier
4-A Little Game
5-The Hills Dwellers
6-Spanish Caravan
7-Light My Fire (Edited version)

The tracks 1, 4 and 5 are from Jim's poems The Celebration of the Lizard

Jim Morrison's Birthday ~ The Hours

Today is Jim's birthday - and it's also the bithday of two years-old nephew called Eiji that I call my little Jim. If he was alive today, he'd be a 68 years-old man.

But Jim was taken from us when he was 27, everybody knows the history.

I just wanted to make something different and tell you what Jim Morrison means in my life.

The picture above shows the very first The Doors CD I've ever heard in my whole life. I didn't buy it, a daddy's friend gave to me when I was a 13 years-old girl. I remember I came back in the car w/ mommy and daddy listening to The Doors and mommy said that it was "cool, you could even dance it".

Jim and The Doors returned to my life when I was 14 years-old and my daddy left home. I was listening to Roadhouse Blues. Jim's voice just seemed to hold me up. Jim hugged me and I didn't fall 'cause of him.

But my deep love for Jim just began in the past year when I read a little book about him. I fell in love w/ the man and the rich world surrounding his life and legend.

I can't even say in which moments Doors and Jim were on my life. My dog's death, my first love, the nights dancing The Doors w/ my children, reading Jim's poetry w/ my cat, breaking hearts w/ L.A. Woman as soundtrack...

So Jim, happy birthday. Thank you for being here and being you.

Thank you for all. Thank you forever.

The picture above is Clara Morrison holding her son, the little James Douglas Morrison. I've done a video in honor to Jim:

My Wild Love

I just saw this picture of Florence Welch and tought about the song in the same moment! So I'm joining both:

My wild love went riding

She rode all the day

She wrote to the devil

And asked him to pay

The devil was wiser

It's time to repent

He asked her to give back

The money she spent

My wild love went ridin'

She rode to the sea

She gathered together

Some shells for her head

She rode and she rode on

She rode for a while

Then stopped for an evening

And lay her head down

She rode on to Christmas

She rode to the farm

She rode to Japan

And we entered a town

By this time the river

Had changed one degree

She asked for the people

To let her go free

My wild love is crazy

She screams like a bird

She moans like a cat

When she wants to be heard

My wild love went ridin'

She rode for an hour

She rode and she rested

And then she rode on

Ride, c'mon

Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson ~ The Hours

"Always the years between us/ Always the years/ Always the love/ Always the Hours" - The Hours

Nirvana - The End (The Doors Cover)

I am amazed by this video. Initially, I thought it was fake... But it's not. It's amazing to see how Cobain and this song are perfect one for the other.

Esse vídeo é incrível. Me impressiona ver como Cobain e essa música são feitos um para o outro.

Interview with Jim Morrison's sister and father

This is from When you're strange DVD bonus, hope you all like it!

Isso é dos extras do DVD de When You're Strange. Espero que todos gostem!

Jim Morrison e o Simbolismo

Esse é um rascunho de algo que estou desenvolvendo e que talvez  seja a semente do meu TCC

Introdução

Os poetas-xamãs

“Um poeta torna-se um sonhador através de um longo, ilimitado e sistemático desregramento de todos os sentidos. Todas as formas de amor, de sofrimento, de loucura; investiga-se a si próprio, consome dentro de si todos os venenos e preserva as suas quintessências. Um tormento indescritível, onde irá encontrar a maior fé, uma força sobre-humana, com que se torna, de entre todos os homens, o grande inválido, o grande maldito – e o Supremo Cientista! Pois alcança o desconhecido! E que interessa se for destruído no seu vôo extático por coisas inauditas e inomináveis...”.
Arthur Rimbaud (extraído de “História, Performance e Poesia: Jim Morrison, o xamã da década de 1960.”. de Rosângela Patriota.).

“Xamã é o sacerdote ou sacerdotisa do xamanismo que entra em transe durante rituais xamânicos, manifestando poderes sobrenaturais e invocando espíritos da natureza, chamando-os a si e incorporando-os em si. Este contato em êxtase permite a recepção de orientações e ajudas dos espíritos para resolver ou superar situações que desafiem as pessoas e seus grupos sociais.”.
(extraído de Wikipédia)

Na França do final do século XIX nasceu uma geração artística que, indo na contramão da modernidade de seu tempo, buscava o infinito e o abstrato através de artifícios como o apelo aos sentidos, a musicalidade de uma rima exótica e trabalhada e ainda palavras que abandonavam o mero status de signo para adquirirem a condição de símbolo.

Didaticamente essa expressão da Arte ficou conhecida como Simbolismo, vertente literariamente nascida na França e encontrando sua semente em Charles Baudelaire com a polêmica obra “As flores do mal.”. Com uma poética marcante e de uma maestria pouco vista até então na Arte mundial, os representantes do Simbolismo propuseram-se a abrir ao público as “portas da percepção” com sua expressão onírica tão incomum para uma época seca, absolutamente fascinada com a tecnologia crescente.

Foram imortalizados para o bastião da história humana nomes desse movimento como Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine e Stéphane Mallarmé.

Em um cenário não menos caótico e divergente um século depois nasce o vocalista da banda The Doors, James Douglas Morrison, no dia 08 de dezembro de 1943 em Melbourne, Flórida. Filho de pais conservadores teve sua juventude marcada pela leitura de grandes pensadores e artistas, o que avultou-lhe desde cedo uma inspiração atípica para a maioria dos jovens de sua idade. Dentre essas inspirações estão os próprios simbolistas.

 

Jim Morrison lia, principalmente, Rimbaud e a evidência da influência dele refletiu na produção musical e literária do vocalista do Doors. Até nos palcos isso é perceptível, num momento onde a convenção da apresentação pregava que os cantores, fossem integrantes de bandas ou de carreira solo, seguissem a etiqueta do showman, Jim alterou – como os simbolistas haviam feito séculos antes ao inovar desafiando as convenções poéticas – o quadro trazendo um comportamento desregrado e imprevisível para os espetáculos dos Doors. Ele não agia só como o integrante de uma banda, ele propunha-se a desempenhar o sacerdote nas libações a Dionísio ou então tentava representar o grande mágico das tribos primitivas, o xamã.

O mesmo xamã que enfrentava o “longo, ilimitado e sistemático desregramento de todos os sentidos” que Rimbaud pensou, um feiticeiro cujo delirante êxtase é tão poético quanto os infinitos sonhados nas pinturas de William Blake e de uma loucura tão possessa quanto a de Jim. Assim convergindo do misticismo antigo, passando pela poesia do século XIX e acabando no rock and roll dos anos 60, a natureza da experiência transcendental que o xamã encarnava pela tribo é similar a produção poética dotada de impossível sinestesia do Simbolismo e ao psicodélico trabalho artístico dos Doors e de Jim Morrison, e no trabalho que aqui segue a proposta é explorar essa temática. 

The Doors and Jim Morrison's Rarities

I've found some amazing  rare stuff about Doors and Jim w/ the help of some friends on Facebook (thanks to Monalyza and Beatriz), so I've to share with you:

Encontrei algumas raridades incríveis relacionadas a Doors e Jim com a ajuda de alguns amigos do Facebook (Agradeço a Monalyza e Beatriz). Então, vou postá-las aqui:

Love Me Tender (Elvis Presley) - cover by Jim Morrison



Jimi Hendrix (feat Jim Morrison) - Bleeding Heart (Live)
Go insane (Demo) - The Doors




The Doors' First Presentation on TV

Jim Morrison's Last Perfomance - 1971


Jim Morrison - Woman in the Window

Hyacinth House - o canto do cisne

 O canto do cisne

Vou escrever em Português por que é minha língua mãe e a amo bastante, embora eu realmente adore o Inglês com toda minha alma (e preciso amar mesmo, já que vou trabalhar com isso). Mas a idéia de fazer essa análise dessa música surgiu tão subitamente - agora, para ser exata - que eu não quero perdê-la - e escrever em inglês me requer certa elaboração em termos de pensamento.

Bom, acabei de ouvir o L.A. Woman completo pela primeira vez. Eu nunca tinha ouvido tudo, apenas o single. Na verdade, isso é o fruto de um bloqueio com o álbum derivado da idéia de que o álbum seria um prelúdio da morte do Jim. Isso me entristecia muito.

Mas é claro que Doors é Doors e o álbum é simplesmente uma pérola preciosa. É uma obra-prima! É genial, sexual, sensual, metafórico/alegórico e intimista. Amei todas as músicas.

É engraçado como a mudança na voz de Jim - causada provavelmente por drogas, álcool e a própria idade - não me desagradou. Ao contrário, me encantou. Jim está com uma voz masculina e madura, a voz perfeita para um cantor de blues.

Aliás, é a batida do blues que predomina no álbum, unanimamente. É encantador, deu uma certa liberdade aos vocais do Jim, embora tenha uniformizado os meninos (Robby, Ray e John), por permanecer no mesmo ritmo.

Entre todas as faixas, Hyacinth House me encantou. Com meu entendimento de inglês - que gosto de acreditar é algo medianamente bom - eu logo percebi o caráter confessional e triste da canção. É uma música de letra relativamente simples, mas extremamente bela. Você sente que é algo tirado da alma.

O começo - com a voz melódica, mas infinitamente triste de Jim - é assim:

What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?

What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?

To please the lions in this day

 

 

Essas linhas são muito metafóricas. Soa como se o eu-lírico (Morrison) estivesse deslocado, isolado de algo (What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?). A casa de Hyacinth seria o lugar onde a vida pulsa, onde ela se concentra, mas mais do que isso é um lugar que exige sacríficios para que se possa viver nele (To please the lions in this day).

 

 

I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me

I need a brand new friend who doesn't trouble me

I need someone and who doesn't need me

 

 

 

Eu não sei se foi o Jim quem compôs essa música, mas sinto que sim. Posso estar errada. Mas esses versos soam claramente como dois pontos na vida dele; o desentendimento com a banda (I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me) já que desde o The Soft Parade (1969) os integrantes tinham divergência. O segundo ponto parece falar sobre as companhias que eram viciadas em drogas e que tinham alguma influência no uso de Jim  - Pamela Courson, dentre essas pessoas - "I need a brand new friend who doesn't trouble me".

 

 

 

I see the bathroom is clear

I think that somebody's near

I'm sure that someone is following me, oh yeah

 

 

 

Aqui parece que o eu-lírico adentrou a casa de Hyacinth, escondido, parando para observar os detalhes efemêros que constituem qualquer morada (I see the bathroom is clear/I think that somebody's near). O verso "I'm sure that someone is following me" é ambiguo - para mim, pelo menos.  Pode indicar que alguém o está seguindo dentro da casa, mas parece ter um sentido mais profundo. O ano de 1971 foi o ano de morte de Jim. Como um dos poemas dele - Bird of Prey - me fez suspeitar que o Jim suspeitou da chegada da própria morte. Na verdade, o Jim tinha um certo fatalismo inerente a essas almas intensas, cheias de demônios próprios e sensíveis para quem a existência parece por demais limitada, fazendo-as assim sempre procurar atravessar o véu da matéria, que nós, sãos e covardes, tememos.

Segue a música:

 

 

 

Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away?
Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away?
It was the only card in the deck that I had left to play

 

 

 

Essa parte é extremamente simbólica! Ao pesquisar o significado do Jack of Hearts, carta do tarô, que equivale em português ao Valete de Copas, descobri que ele indica "amor" e "romantismo", mas de uma forma ligada a "obsessão", "crises emocionais" e "relacionamentos íntimos". Ou seja, é uma carta sensualista, uma carta intimamente ligada a vida. Na música o eu-lírico diz "Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away?/ It was the only card in the deck that I had left to play", indicando que tudo o que lhe restava, após uma longa jornada, era um fiapo vida para jogar (left to play).Isso combina perfeitamente com a vida de Jim; que fora perseguido pela justiça dos EUA ante da gravação de L.A. Woman e decidiu se auto-exilar em Paris, para morrer lá em julho de 1971. Esse trecho pra mim é a parte mais melancólica da música, a grande e subliminar despedida de Jim de sua vida como rockstar e vocalista do The Doors.

 

 

 

And I'll say it again, I need a brand new friend
And I'll say it again, I need a brand new friend
And I'll say it again, I need a brand new friend, the end

O canto do cisne se encerra com o clamor contínuo de alguém que precisa ser entendido. De alguém que precisa de amigos novos. De alguém que sabia que o Valete de Copas estava fora do baralho dessa cigana nomâde chamada Vida.

God bless ya, Jim.

 

Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe - Compared Texts

Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe – Compared texts
Words revealing two tortured souls

I
Introduction

Since the very first moments of Humanity, Art is a tool to express the deepest impressions of our perception. The draws of our ancestral in the caves are the proof of this.
Moving forward in History, we’ll find out Literary Schools where the poems is just a way to reach the other side – the other side of mind, that stays beyond the bounds of reality – like the Symbolism.

Looking to the poets themselves, we can see tormented people, anxious for express their thoughts. Many of them had a hard life. The Greek Mythology brings to us Orpheus as the Father of Poetry. Orpheus’ Art was his greatest power, such as his worst curse, ‘cause it gave him the opportunity of transcending Death to meet Eurydice, but it was just a moment – he had lost her again, then experiencing a pain greater than before.

On this text we’ll see how two icons of American Culture – Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe – can be understood through their Poetry. So you’d ask me why are they related and how their written production are linked. I’ll explain that.

Morrison and Monroe were both of them seeking for freedom and love. Just like Orpheus, both lived a journey of glory and decay, living joys and pains that were experienced by a few people. They were in the Tartarus to rescue what they thought they couldn’t live without, but they’ve lost their desires. The true freedom to Marilyn and Jim was their nemesis – death came to built up Legends where there were before a singer with the soul of a poet and an actress damned by her own sensibility. They had the same fate through different ways.

Although the comparison we’re doing is carefully elaborated, we’ve to consider some points; Monroe’s texts were all informal (they’re from Marilyn Monroe – Fragments released last year), but Jim’s texts were published as poetry. In this personal study, we should put their works on the same level ‘cause we’re not searching for technical evaluation but for the analysis of their hearts through their words.

In the same way, we should consider that they were very different. Marilyn was playing with the world while Jim let the world play around him. Marilyn was addicted to glory and fame (perhaps a valve to supply her personal missing) while Jim was addicted to shocking people – as we can see in the whole Miami Incident (1969). These points are well registered on their lines.

II

Personalities

            In Monroe’s more existentialist poem, we could see how complex was the Star’s mind:

I stood beneath your limbs

And you flowered and finally

Clung to me

And when the wind struck with the earth

And sand – you clung to me

Thinner than a cobweb I,

Sheerer than any –

But it did attach itself

And held fast in strong winds

Life – of which at singular times

I am both of your directions –

Somehow I remain hanging downward the most

As both of your directions pull me

Marilyn saw herself as a “cobweb”, what means that she was delicate and fragile (weak, at all). When she wrote “I stood beneath your limbs”, what we can notice is a very dependent woman who sought for true love during all her life – she married three times, her first husband was Jim Dougherty, then there was Joe Dimmagio and the third was Arthur Miller, but she failed on her trials – she seems to express that on the sad line “somehow I remain hanging downward the most”.

In Morrison’s turn, we have a complete different view of life; as we can see in a poem titled “Power”, from Wilderness:

I can make the earth stop in

Its track. I made the

Blue cars go away

I can make myself invisible or small

I can become gigant & reach the

Farthest things. I can change

 The course of nature

I can place myself anywhere in

Space or time

I can summon the dead

I can perceive events on other world

In my deepest inner mind

& in the minds of others

I can

I am

When you ignore the shamanic references on Jim’s line, you can see a man very proud of himself, a man believing in his personal power (“I can become gigant & reach the farthest things.”) – the fact that Jim was a lover of Nietzche’s work fits pretty good w/ the spirit of this poem. Jim’s alter ego called the Lizard King fits with Nietzche’s concept called Will to Power (the will to power – on Nietzche Philosophy – is the force that drives the man through all his life).

By these poems we are facing two different egos – the female one near to hell and the male one near to heaven; Marilyn recognized herself and her faults, as Jim recognized himself and his own power as showman. Of course, Marilyn had such power as a Hollywood Diva, but it did not change her inner opinion about herself. Jim incorporated the public’s devotion, building a safe zone to his ego. Marilyn – who had a disturbed childhood –   saw all this love and devotion as one more way to suffocate her.

II

Sex, love, relationships

If personally they were so different, there was one point where the Lizard King and the modern Giradoux’s Ondine: the way of loving and their relationships with their lovers.

In a poem from Wildnerss Jim describes brilliantly a relationship:

And I came to you

       For peace

And I came to you

For lies

And you gave me fever

& wisdom

& cries

Of sorrow

& we’ll be here

The next day

The next day

&

Tomorrow

The lines show basically the story of relationship, mostly marked by sadness. Jim wrote about the exchange between lovers (goods and bad things –  “fever”, “wisdom” and “cries/of sorrow”).

Marilyn could understand Jim if they meet, as we can see by a untitled poem from 1956 when she was married with Arthur Miller;

Where his eyes rest with pleasure – I

Want to still be – but time has changed

The hold of that glance.

Alas how will I cope when I am even less youthful –

I seek joy but it is clothed

With pain –

Take heart as in my youth

Sleep and rest my heavy head

On his breast – for still my love

Sleeps beside me

Marilyn’s poem is more specific and descriptive about an evanescent relationship. We can surely see these words as a confession about her marriage.

When analyzed together, – in despite of their specific characteristics – these poems compose a completive figure; especially in the second part of each poem:

And I came to you

For lies

And you gave me fever

& wisdom

& cries

Of sorrow

While in Marilyn’s turn:

Alas how will I cope when I am

Even less youthful –

I seek for joy but is clothed

With pain –

Both of them compare and reflect about the two sides of an unique relationship, “you gave me fever/ & wisdom/ & cries/of sorrow” and “I seek joy but it is clothed with pain” show exactly that the love was a two-faced experience for both writers, mainly focused on the hard moments.

Jim and Marilyn were notorious by their sexual/romantic life, being classified as “promiscuous” by the American society. Many people suppose that Jim’s love was Pamela Courson, but he had a long list of affairs, just like Marilyn had many lovers.

Jim and Marilyn were always surrounded by lovers who probably adore them, but when you read their words, you just feel that it was like if they’re alone all the time. Their souls were a vortex of pain, and the loneliness seemed to never leave them.  

III

Allegoric poems

That silent river which stirs

And swells itself with whatever passes over it

Wind, rain, great ships

I love the river – never unmoored

By anything

It’s quiet now

And the silence is alone

Except for the rumbling of things unknown

Distant drums very present

But for the piercing of screams

And the whispers of things

Sharp sounds and then suddenly hushed

To moans beyond sadness – terror beyond

Fear

The cry of things dim and too young to be known yet

The sobs of life itself

You must suffer –

To loose you dark golden

When you covering of

Even dead leaves leave you

Strong and naked

You must be –

Alive – when looking dead

Straight though bent

With wind

And bear the pain & the joy

Of newness on your limbs

Loneliness – be still

The piece is a rich poem from Marilyn Monroe, where the river sounds like an allegory. He seems to be calm (“It’s quiet now/And the silence is alone”), but it’s just an impression, ‘cause beyond the silence there are lots of thing expressing themselves (“excepts for the thunderous rumbling of things unknown/distant drums very present”). It could be a metaphor for Marilyn’s state of soul, ‘cause everyone saw the amazing blond bombshell but no one could see the sensible soul laying down this mask. This inner torture is suggested by the lines “Sharp sounds and then suddenly hushed/To moans beyond sadness – terror beyond/Fear”.

In the next part, she seems to be trying to understand the cause of her suffering “You must suffer – to loose you dark golden”. Perhaps if Marilyn could understand why she was damned, she could try to fix it.

Morrison’s poem fits w/ Marilyn’s research for meaning of the suffering:

Mouth fills with taste of copper

Chinese paper. Foreign money. Old posters.

Gyro on a string, a table

A coin spins. The faces.

There is an audience to our drama

Magic shade mask

Like the hero of a dream, he works for us,

In our behalf

How close is this to a final cut?

I fall. Sweet blackness

Strange world that waits and watches

Ancient dread of non-existence

If it’s no problem, why mention it.

Everything spoken means that,

Its opposite & everything else.

I’m alive. I’m dying.

            Just like Marilyn, Jim work with things beneath the material reality. He used the dreamlike to express what’s beyond the obvious. The first part of the poem seems to be a hallucinogenic vision. Then there’s the part that bought to us the same feeling of suffering we’ve got in Marilyn’s poem: “There’s an audience to our drama/ Magic shade mask/ Like the hero of a dream, he works for us/ in our behalf”; Jim should be conscious about all the attention he had got from media & public (“There is an audience to our drama”) and what they think about him, which picture of Jim Morrison was drawn in the collective brain of America (“Magic shade mask/ Like the hero of a dream, he works for us/ in our behalf”). It resembles a lot Marilyn’s line who seemed to express the storm inside her soul (“sharp sounds and then suddenly hushed to/moans beyond fear”).

            The last part resembles a prophecy. The prophecy of Jim’s end, the expression of his sadness on the Paris days at 1971: “I fall. Sweet blackness/ Strange world that waits and watches/ Ancient dread of non-existence/ (…)/ I’m alive. I’m dying.”. This last line “I’m alive. I’m dying.” Expresses a two-faced condition that is also present on Marilyn’s lines: “When you covering of/ even dead leaves leave you/ strong and naked/ you must be –/ alive – when looking dead/ straight though bent/ with wind”; Marilyn felt the same thing: Dying even being alive, both of them killed by the glory who surrounded them.

            Stronger than any argument is the end of these two iconic artists: Marilyn died in strange conditions at 1962 followed by Jim in 1971, in equal mysterious situation. Even at their death, they were watched, ‘cause, as Jim wrote: “There is an audience to our drama”.

            They found their final rest running away from the fame, finally achieving the so desired nemesis.

Yasmim Deschain

*Sorry for the mistakes on the English Language, I'm Brazilian*