Orfeo or Faith

“Paul swam in a sea of theories. Everything from the morning’s headlines to the license plates of buses had hidden significance. But Paul’s torrent of interpretations had something joyous to it. Buried patterns everywhere. It sounded, sometimes, almost like musicology.” – from ORFEO by Richard Powers

Further to my teasing out of the ‘Black Swan’ syndrome below with regard to Helen-Ashleigh, I make similar hopefully justifiable patterns in my gestalt real-time book reviews (The DFL Dreamcatchers)…

I had a sudden revelation during Friday’s Big Brother final night on Channel Five. Its historic double top place for women as embodied by Ashleigh-Helen has represented – throughout the whole season – a symbol of the Black Swan / White Swan syndrome in ‘Swan Lake’ as portrayed by the film ‘Black Swan’. Everything falls into place…including the above scene’s swan shapes.

“An angel’s face with the devil’s mouth.” –  Emma Willis in interview with Helen – about Ashleigh.

“She did it, too.” – Helen (repeatedly when previously in secret room)

“So many differences, but in the end the same.”  – Ashleigh in interview with Emma about both herself and Helen.

[See also my separate view of Winston Showan and Peter Quince.]

 

7 thoughts on “Orfeo or Faith”

  1. CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER – Summer 2014

    Enough of swans, now to stags.
    Someone on CBB just asked “How’s your stag?”, followed by secret hand signals.
    Well, this is the Illuminati Stag God:
    Image
    Vaguely like the BB eye?

    Yet, having just checked, apparently the film ‘Black Swan’ was full of Illuminati symbols!!!

    Reply

  3. And I have just finished the aforementioned book I have been reading for a while (ORFEO by Richard Powers about an Avant Garde classical composer, a book longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize) where I encountered this passage about a half an hour ago:

    “And let him hold his fingers thus. The giant holds up his fingers in a sideways chink of V in front of his shining eye.
    Shut the f**k up, Richard barks. Right. And let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.
    If that may be,     the giant says, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts.”

    And, of course, the Pyramus and Thisby play was the play within a play produced by Peter Quince (Winston Showan).

    Reply
  5. Marion wrote: Dee told a couple of Royal tall tales. The one about accidentally killing the swan was best -I liked the bit about tossing the swan up into a tree so that Prince Philip wouldn’t know what she’s done.

    Des: Another swan! Was it white or black?
    Actually, rough diamond Dee is quite good at role-playing Deirdre, the Duchess of Solihull, but I continue to be confused by this huge wriggling netful of ‘celebrities’ around her. I think I have heard of Audley Harrison and the Strictly dancer, but the rest are just people strictly to by-pass in any enclosed space, hardly noticeable in this increasingly eccentric world we all inhabit. Eccentric has always been good, but ordinary is now the new eccentric. A lesson for me.

    Marion: The residents of the house are unknown to me too – celebrity sub rosa.
    As to the swan, another mystery. When the Duchess recounted the murder of the swan and tossing up into the air, Claire immediately asked where the other one was as swans always travel in pairs. The duchess changed the subject suspiciously quickly.
    Why? Did she accidentally shoot two swans and not want to admit it on the grounds that one feathered corpse was an accident but two smacks of deliberate carnage? Or is there one lone swan, a black one, hidden somewhere awaiting a chance for vengeance?

    Des: Marion, just spotted that there is a Black Dee as well as a White Dee: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/celebrity-big-brother-benefits-streets-4073622
    Cf the black swan and white swan earlier of Helen and Ashleigh!

    Reply

Leave a comment