I was watching "Daylight" some months ago and payinglittle heed to the amount of time that people held their breath while swimming through various tight spots in the movie. For the record it's actually an unexpectedly good watch, quite tense and almost fun, not like a Stallone film at all. Anyway, more recently I was watching a documentary about Harry Houdini. In one of his more disturbing performances his assistants would instruct the audience to hold their breath while he performed an underwater escape. Needless to say this heightened the tension somewhat, especially when everyone including the largest and strongest men and women ran out of breath long before the escape was over...the crowd was almost in a panic. This got me thinking about other movies I've seen like "The Poseidon Adventure", "Deep Blue Sea", "Butt Woman 2:Behind Bars" (the last one required a quick tissue stop) and considering how long, practically, you could hold your breath for. By "practically" I was thinking along the lines of carrying out your usual business - not trying to do anything really strenuous like swimming or struggling, just walking, standing about and the like. It turns out that holding your breath for any length of time is harder than I expected. Try doing things like holding your breath while you get into the car and start the engine. It's amazing how quickly you miss the simple automated act of air exchange. Sadly I haven't noticed any substantial increase in my ability to hold my breath, just my ability to deal with the panic side of it. Try it - you'll see what I mean. It may not sound like much of a hobby, but it does take my breath away, in much the same way that a crap play on words does....sigh...

Searching blindly through darkness, I awakened to a dream.
holding my breath.
waiting for autumn to drag my leaves away.
holding my hand.
standing in a field of mud, praying for a dream.


nothing

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