Abstract?

Reinvention by ~Shmedgehog on deviantART


What do you think? Acrylic and graphite on paper. My Hamlet designs are over on deviantArt now, so go check those out if you've never seen them.

Goodness me

I need someone to talk to who isn't a relation or relative.

Tonight we had people over for dinner, one of which told me Avril Lavigne's life story, one who said that he trusts Bill O'Reilly, and one who said that she loved the Bush family. Carla was there too, and she's good to be around. But really...I had to keep punching myself in the leg to stop from saying anything liberal or intelligent or sounding like a smartass. Which I think is totally unfair.

I'm tired of eating and listening to Christmas music, and now that I have a lovely new Operating System I don't know what to do on it. And I'm tired tired, too. Tomorrow I get to sleep in and ignore the phone and do nothing, and play guitar and get away from the stifling family for at least a few hours.

I'm thinking of exchanging my gift cards with money to go towards more memory for the lappy. I would just be buying things I don't need to take with me anyway.

God I feel so morbidly bored. I need to take a shower and read more Milton.

And I need to be in a place where I can be around people who think that reading Milton and not confusing Salvador Dali with Henri de Toulouse-Latrouec is important.

Boxing day blues

My family needs a break.  We've been running around putting together schedules and get-togethers and Pre and Post-Christmas festivities.  We need a day where go out to a movie and order a pizza.
I've been sprucing up the computers with OS Leopard, and while I was going through some of my old old documents, I came across this story that I wrote when I was, like, 16:

She only read the letter once. It sat unfolded on the table of the cafe, bright white from the July sun that beat down upon it.

Dear Helen,
I am writing on a sad occasion. You're friend, Joanna Hamilton, was struck by a city bus yesterday and was killed. Mrs. Hamilton has only just told me, and I feel that it is important that you know, since I remember how much you and Joanna were friends. I am sorry to have to tell you this. Please write or call, the funeral will be this week-end.
Love always,
Mother

Helen Gilman folded the letter and put it back in the envelope that it had arrived in. She sipped her water and ate her sandwich in silence. Helen had not seen or heard of Joanna Hamilton since they graduated high school. Joanna stayed home and got a job at the local soda fountain, Helen went to college fifteen hundred miles away. That had been three years ago, when the class of 1966 had taken their graduation pictures. Joanna had held onto Helen's shoulder, kindly looking into her brown eyes and talking about how they needed to write to each other to keep in touch. Joanna had sent one letter, but Helen had become so swept into the world of college that she had never opened it. The world that she had left behind meant little to her then, and Joanna had been part of it. The letter was now somewhere in Helen's desk.

Helen didn't cry, nor did she write or call her mother. She felt no need to; Joanna was dead, and that meant hardly anything in her life. Joanna Hamilton had become a worn black and white photograph in Helen's technicolor world, the loss waned in comparison to the battles Helen had fought and lost and overcame in the past three years.

She finished her lunch and stood up, throwing the letter away with the used plate and cup. She had known people to die before. Her brother had been drafted to Vietnam in 1966, two years later he came home in a coffin, a hole in the side of his head. One of Helen's friends had been beaten brutally in a riot, he died a few days later of internal bleeding. Helen had known people to die, and the death of her brother in a war and her friend protesting that same war were more significant that Joanna being struck by a bus.

Helen walked home, down the street and across the campus to her dormitory room. The sky was clear and blue, the sun heating the dark hair on Helen's head. She passed a few friends in the field, and two young men, Roger and Chris, came over to walk with her, talking about the plans that they had for the rest of the week. A man millions of miles away was scheduled to land on the moon the next day, and the entire country was buzzing with excitement. Helen shrugged at the topic, trying to wonder how a man walking on the moon was going to solve any of the world's problems. It would be a decent distraction, though, she mused. Roger chuckled and asked her to come over to his house that night; a few friends were coming over too, including Helen's roommate Melissa. Helen agreed, and the two men turned around to go back to the group in the field, Roger turning around once more to wave goodbye. Helen smiled and waved back. He did look handsome that day.

Helen's dormitory room was at the topmost floor of the building. It had been the attic, but it became a room when another dormitory building had burnt down and the students had nowhere else to go. Helen opened the window and turned on the ceiling fan. She lay on her small bed, looking up at the rafters that held up the roof of the building, before sitting up and reaching into the bottom drawer of her desk, pulling out an old, yellowed envelope with her name and address written delicately on it. She looked at it, her eyes tracing up the stems of the flowers that were printed on the paper. She tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter, which was written on matching flowered paper. She wondered if Joanna had changed, if she had avoided a correspondence with someone who might have been protesting the war and the injustices in the world at the same time as Helen had. But it took only four lines of the letter to prove these suspicions wrong, and Helen crumpled the paper in disgust, tossing it into the trash along with the envelope.

She went to sleep, and woke up when Melissa came in, home from shopping. They talked for a while, about the moon landing and the upcoming year and the war. Helen had taken part in this conversation before, and her responses were robotic, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She turned over in bed, toying with a silk scarf on the table, a birthday present from her parents. She had not gone home to see them that summer. She loved them, but never had the urge to get on a plane and go home. It was too far away, and had stopped feeling like home altogether.

Melissa shrugged at Helen's complacency and asked her if she was going to the party that night. Helen nodded, but said that she wanted to take a shower first, so she picked up a towel and went down the hall to the bathroom.

The water was warm, but the heater for it was small. Helen didn't care, though. She sat down, her back against the wall of the shower, and let the cold water fall upon her. She though back to when she was young, when her parents had taken her and her brother to Niagara falls. She remembered asking if she could stand under the waterfall, and just let it all fall down upon her. No, her father had told her. The water was cold and deep, and the pressure from the waterfall was dangerous. But for the next few weeks all that Helen could think about was the feeling of all that water rushing onto her, and she wished for the sensation that she imagined, the cool rush and relaxation of the pummeling, churning water upon her.

Her daydreams were broken by another girl from the dormitory pounding to the door, yelling for her to come out. Helen turned off the water and dried herself, then went back to her room, telling the girl at the bathroom door that she had used all of the hot water. The girl frowned and walked away to wait for the heater to fill up again.

Helen dressed, then she and Melissa walked the few blocks to the house that Roger and Chris shared. A few people were there already, sitting and eating. Helen said hi to those she knew and hello to those she was introduced to. She sat down on the couch next to Roger and looked out the window at the sunset. The darkness set in, and they lit candles, changing everyone in the room into flickering ghosts.

The conversation drifted from the war to the moon to the weather to the economy and back to the war. Helen listened mostly, interested more in what people said than the actual subject at hand. One of the other students had brought grass with him, and they rolled a few marijuana cigarettes to pass around. The smoke filled the room, and drifted into Helen's lungs as she inhaled. She and Roger shared one for themselves, and she let herself relax, let her body be closer to his as he put his arms around her slowly. Her lips trembled with anticipation as he brought his face closer to hers. They kissed, and she opened her mouth and breathed in the smoke from his. They brought each other closer and closer, until she felt herself completely intwined with him. Another one of the students laughed, chiding them. Roger looked down at Helen, and there was a silent agreement between them. Roger handed the joint to the laughing student and led Helen upstairs to his bedroom.

They fell on the bed together, tearing away the apprehension with their clothing. She was under him, Roger was nibbling her ear, he was kissing hard on her neck and chest, they were moving together, crying out in passion and revelry. The drug they had taken only heightened their senses, and each of his warm touches sent a fire through Helen that could not settle. When they had tired, Roger fell beside her with a grunt of exhaustion. She sat up in bed, breathing deeply. She looked down at him, his skin shining from the sweat of lovemaking. He smiled, and she smiled at him. They rested, and then began to talk quietly, not about the war or the moon, but about the things that lay beneath those subjects, the things that started war, the desires that sent men to the moon. But somehow, Helen was not as impassioned about these things as the man lying next to her. He started to talk about how they could change the world, how they were adults now.

And then, for no apparent reason, Helen realized it. She realized that they were not adults, they were just children, that talking about the war was just philosophical jargon that changed nothing, that landing on the moon was a waste of time, that there was no us or them, no me and you, there was only a person or all of humanity. She realized that if there was an afterlife, no one would ever know what it was, and that the earth was just one tiny speck in one giant void. She realized that love and flowers were beautiful, but that lovers left and flowers wilted and old age would bring grief and pain and memory loss. Helen saw it all flashing before her, like a deluge of water over her.

"Niagara Falls." She whispered.

Roger had fallen asleep. She smiled sadly at him, knowing that she had just learned more than he would ever know. She slipped out of the bed and dressed quietly, not even looking for Michelle as she wandered back outside.


That night, Helen Gilman went home and hung herself from a rafter in her dormitory room. It wasn't very high off the ground, all that she had to do was kick away the kitchen table chair that she was standing on. Nine hours and ten minutes later, nobody knew, because nine hours and ten minutes after Helen broke her own neck a man was stepping out of a small capsule and onto the moon. All of Helen's friends and family were watching in awe, doing their best to remember where they were so their children and grandchildren could hear about it from them.

Melissa had spent the night at Roger's, and came home later that afternoon. She gasped when she walked into the room, And called Roger immediately to help take her down. They cut the silk scarf that Helen had used to kill herself and laid her gently down on the bed. Neither of them cried, too pale and shaking from the shock. Neither had ever seen a dead body this closely. Roger ran his hand over Helen's face, closing her vacant eyes and shuddering as his fingers brushed over the now purple mark on her neck where he had kissed her the night before.

Melissa looked around the room for a note. She finally found it, sticking out of the pocket of Helen's jeans. She unfolded the note slowly and with trembling fingers. Roger read it over her shoulder.

Melissa folded the note once more and looked at her friend. the words had explained nothing. Melissa crumbled it into a ball in her fist, putting her elbows on the bed and resting her face in her hands. Roger said nothing, looking out the window at the other students on the field below, who were taking advantage of the warm, clear July afternoon.

They decided to tell Helen's parents in person. Melissa, who knew the family a little more than any of the other students, went to tell them. It was not the first time that Mrs. Gilman had opened her door to such an announcement. She invited Melissa in for tea, and held on to Melissa when she heard the news and tears ran down her cheeks, creating pale streaks in the powder that she had worn that morning when she had gone to church. Melissa cried too, feeling the pain of Helen's death five days after it happened.

Melissa went to the funeral, and Roger came too, bringing Chris with him. Roger wanted to be alone for a while, so Melissa and Chris went out for a drink. Eleven months later they were married. Chris turned out to be a severe alcoholic, and Melissa left him four years later with a bottle of gin and divorce papers to sign. They had one child, a little girl that they almost named Helen, but chose Samantha, and Helen became the girl's middle name. Melissa went on to be a history teacher, and wanted to include the story of her friend's suicide into her lectures about the sixties, but didn't quite know where it fit in. On every anniversary of Helen's death, Melissa took out the small, wrinkled piece of paper that Helen had written and wondered what the words meant. They seemed so bleak, but not so simple.

The question as to why Helen Gilman committed suicide was raised and contemplated by everyone that knew her. Some thought it was one of Helen's existential whims gone too far, others thought it was a side effect of drugs. Mrs. Gilman thought it might be caused by grief over the death of Joanna Hamilton, or maybe her brother. Roger thought that she had had a philosophical epiphany, and hung herself as a result. What the epiphany was, he could not even fathom. He wondered, too, if he had been in love with Helen, but realized that he had not. He graduated and tried his hand at studying history, writing a book on the sixties, but died in a car accident four days before it was on the stands. The death of the author helped the book become a bestseller, but it did not mention the death of Helen Gilman, since, like Melissa, Roger did not know where it belonged.

Years passed, and grass grew and died with the changing seasons over the grave of Helen Gilman, which was buried on the right of her older brother's, and later to the left of her mother's. Mr. Gilman lived to see the first few years of the new century, and one morning his nurse found him still in his bed, clutching a photograph of his family in his hand. The children in the picture were young, and they smiled and squinted in the sunlight in front of a fence where people were standing looking over the edge. Mr. Gilman was wearing his old army uniform from the second great war, though the buttons were a bit tighter on his midsection. He had burned the entire uniform in sorrow the day that he had learned of the bullet that had lodged in the head of his only son.

The nurse took the picture out of his cold, limp hand, looking at the faded smiles of the lost subjects in it. She turned the photograph over, and read the brief description:

Niagara Falls, 1957.



It's not terrible, by far. There's definitely a level of inexperience in reference to the drugs and sex, and the use of Niagara Falls as a symbol seems stilted at points. I'm glad that I've improved since then. But I was somewhat succeeding in the bleak tone that I go for sometimes. And it could have been worse.


I have a package to fill for East Anglia and then some cleaning or whatever to do. I feel congested and would much rather just lay in bed all day, warm and cozy.

Also, I'm trying to fight the post-holiday need to spend my gift cards as soon as possible...

Live and in person

Happy Christmas, blogosphere!

As I had requested, my presents were few but functional, the idea being that any money that would typically go toward a perfect Birthday/Christmas would instead go toward trips and such through England. I did, however, score pretty dang well. I'm typing this to you on my newly updated, fast, sexy, amazing Mac OS 10.5!!!! The interface is gorgeous, and it runs pretty smoothly, though I'm wondering how much it would take to convince the 'rents to help me out in getting another 1 GB of memory, which would make this thing go like lightning but cost $150. For now, though, I'm happy just to have it; I've been drooling over the system ever since it was announced earlier this year and now I can't say I can complain, though I'm sure there'll be wrinkles to smooth out eventually. But a new OS to show off to people!! Updated happy lappy!

Aside from that, the gettin' wasn't extensive, but that's how I wanted it. Here's a breakdown:

• An Herbal Tea making set
• A new leatherbound travel journal
• A travel alarm clock
• Hair sculpting wax that's 500 times better than my pomade
• A bunch of candy
• An international plug converter
• A security...wallet...belt....from....R.E.I......(also known as a fanny pack)
• 50 Pounds
• 50 Euro
• 50 Dollars
• 50 dollar gift card to Target
• 30 dollar gift card to Borders
• 10 dollar gift card to Starbucks
• Razor blades
• Carmex
• A deck of Mucha-illustrated playing cards
• A STICK calendar
• Altoids

So yeah, no clothes, but I have tons of those...and I can get them from Target.  The only thing that made me go "Umm....what?" was the fanny pack, because it was a fanny pack.  That my dad was really excited about for some reason, because he figured it would be a great way to carry money, because people never use bags? or purses? I might take off the belt (ugh) part of it and use it as a passport/important documents/stuff that is small and flat and paper and valuable carrier.

But today is Christmas.  Christmas in my house means getting up, getting excited, playing with whatever new stuff you got, then being lazy for the rest of the day.  Of course, we enjoy getting up at 8 or even 10 o'clock, usually.  But for some reason this year my dad started making coffee at 6:30.  In this part of the northern hemisphere, it's still dark at 6:30.  But did we stay asleep? Noooooo.  So now it's only 11:20, and I feel exhausted, and desperately want to take a nap.  I just might.  Christmas, as I see it, is a day of relaxing.  

Better to rule in heaven than to serve in hell! Take that, God!

Bad news, guys:

I'm two books into Paradise Lost and loving it. It's really really beautiful poetry and has fantastic mythical imagery. Yes, I will be that person, I fear. I don't find it boring. Yet. Aw, man.

Beaux Arts

Today, as one of the Brennan Family pre-Christmas outings, I went for the second time ever to the Portland Art museum. I was upset that I would be gone for the visiting Degas/Renoir/Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit, but then I remembered that I am going to be within a few hours of Musée D'Orsay in a few weeks, so no worries.

We went primarily for the Chuck Close exhibit that was about his printmaking process; halfway through the exhibit I realized: I don't like Chuck Close that much.
I will give him credit where it is due: the method must have taken years to perfect and complete. But to me it doesn't say anything more than, say, pointillism, and it's much less interesting. All he paints is faces. Over and over again. And yeah, his techniques of printmaking are admirable; but I always find it hard to appreciate something if, in order to appreciate it, you need to understand how it was made, all the grids that were used, the mathematical use of color, blending, whatever. In the end, the painting itself just doesn't sell, because the idea behind it, the inspirational part that's supposed to ring out like lightning or a big loud churchbell, is actually pretty dull. Yeah, images are made up of smaller abstract parts that form one complete form. Period.

It's funny, though. I went to the gallery with my parents and fourteen-year-old brother. Tucker didn't really say anything, but my dad was full of opinion, especially in the modern wing. We were in the Minimalism room (and yeah, it's Minimalism, so you know I can't be that crazy about it), and he was scoffing off everything. My dad has a tendency to turn into a crotchety old man at the drop of a hat, and this seemed to be the perfect time to do it. I got a bit fed up with the "Oooh, hey, it's a cube. So what?" and "Ugh, what a waste of paint" after the first ten minutes, it wasn't very nice to have it for a full hour.

But if you've never been to Portland, take a note: the museum is worth a look-through. It's not an incredible collection, by far, but the lesser-known works are still lovely. I've been looking in vain online to post them, especially Eastman Johnson's The Little Harpist, Franz von Stuck's Allegorical Figure of a Woman and Eugene Berman's Time and the Monuments. If you ever happen upon any prints or pictures of them online, let me know. Here are a few of the pieces that I could find online:



Edward Steichen, Lilac Buds; Mrs S. 1906



Joseph Stella, Factories of the Night



Kiki Smith, Saint Genevieve 1909



Vincent Van Gogh, Charrette de boeuf, 1884. This is the museum's most recent acquisition



Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman, 1909



Auguste Rodin, La défense, 1879


I'm still pretty bummed about not getting prints of those other ones; I might have to go to Powell's and see if there are any books that might feature them.

Christmas is coming up pretty fast, and I'm practically done with my shopping. All my gifts are wrapped and finished and under the tree. There are even a few small gifts under there with my name on them!

Analysis of the mundane

Here's a fantastic line from a terrible trailer for a terrible movie, P.S.: I Love You:

"He gave her the gift of a life without him."

Let that one roll over your tongue for a bit before swallowing it.

Okay, moving on:

It's Christmas Time, which means that, right now, all across the country, thousands of radio stations have switched from their usual "Golden Oldies" playlists to their "Holiday Music" playlist. Now, popular Christmas music (which is different from Traditional Christmas music, and worse by far) only consists of a selection of songs. for example:

Frosty The Snowman
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Baby
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Jingle Bell Rock
Silver Bells
Mistletoe and Holly
The Christmas Song
I'll Be Home For Christmas
White Christmas
Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

If you're lucky they'll throw in "Joy To The World" or that awful, terrible, no good very bad Barenaked Ladies rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" (I swear to god they have like seven competing rhythms in there), but mostly it's those thirteen and maybe a couple I forgot. Nonstop. For the entire month of December. And mostly Celine Dion, Dean Martin, and Diana (eww) Krall. But the song that I hate most is the last one on the list. It's a terrible song. And I will show you why, verse-by-verse.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree
at the Christmas party hop.
Mistletoe hung where you can see
ev'ry couple tries to stop.

First of all, I have never seen a Christmas Tree that you can rock "around". Christmas trees usually go in the corner of the room, where the pine needles can be contained and people don't have to walk around a large spiky thing every time they wander through the living room. Secondly, isn't a "hop" just a type of party? Isn't that redundantly repetitive? And I always got the image of couples fighting each other to get under the mistletoe, because they just don't know where else to make out.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree,
let the Christmas spirit ring.
Later we'll have some pumpkin pie
and we'll do some caroling.

You know what? Rockin' has nothing to do with caroling or eating pumpkin pie. Rockin' has to do with punching things and gettin' sexy. Unless Bing Crosby was a rock star...yeah, this sounds like the most boring "rock" event ever thought into existence.

You will get a sentimental feeling
when you hear voices singing
"Let's be jolly,
Deck the halls with boughs of holly."

No, I will get a miserable feeling when I hear people forgetting the right words to "Deck The Halls". Please don't come caroling to my house.

Rockin' around the Christmas Tree.
Have a happy holiday.
Ev'ryone dancing merrily
in the new old fashioned way.

Yes! We rock so merrily! And the "new old fashioned way"? Do you mean "retro"? The song was written in 1958. The only "old fashioned ways" that they had were the Charleston, the Waltz, and those weird Jane Austen Movie Regency dances. So is it just a weird mash-up of the three that itself is totally new? Is that the way they danced at sock hops? I've seen Grease. That didn't look like a waltz to me.

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned

Leonard Cohen is one of those artists that you love, but soon forget. I have a lot of those, but I think that he is definitely the most prominent. He's one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and is finally getting inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame this year, so it seems apropro. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, is stuffed full of beautiful, haunting, folky songs that at first seem like narratives, but soon transgress into questions of spirituality and existence. It's interesting that his two biggest themes seem to be loneliness and religion, and alludes to both of them often at the same time, as in "Suzanne" or "So Long, Marianne". The most beautiful song on the album, though, is probably "Sisters of Mercy",

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon.
Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon.
And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right,
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.

I've also been listening to Okkervil River's Down The River Of Golden Dreams, a collection of rants and raves and broken-up hopes and fears. Though this isn't their best album, and when you're in a really good mood the pessimism seems grating and annoying, but the lyrics and the music--which sounds sometimes like punk rock on mandolin and accordion--deserve all the points you can give. Will Sheff has described it as the "water record" to Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See's earth, which seems pretty fitting. Where Don't Fall In Love is rolling around in itself, trying to cling to whatever sanity or substance that might be left in the world (like a murderer's somehow sound justification in "Westfall" or a stripper trying to reconnect with her unstable mother in "Red"), River Of Golden Dreams is the letting go and floating away, letting yourself drown in insecurity, heaertbreak, or self-destruction. Like most of Okkervil's work, you could call it a narrative, this one of a post-breakup life: realization ("It Ends With A Fall"), anger ("For The Enemy, "Blanket and Crib"), disillusionment ("The War Criminal Rises and Speaks"), signs of recovery ("Dead Faces", "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion"), a relapse ("Maine Island Lovers"), independence ("Song About a Star"), regret ("Yellow"), and finally a bittersweet recovery, moving on and accepting ("Seas Too Far to Reach"). Here's a sample, the one that gets me every time:

The heart wants to feel.
The heart wants to hold.
The heart takes past Subway,
past Stop and Shop, past Beal's,
and calls it "coming home."
The heart wants a trail
away from "alone,"
so the heart turns a sale
into a well-worn milestone
towards hard-won soft furniture,
fought-for fast food,
defended end table that holds paperbacks
and back U.S. News.
The mind turns an itch
into a bruise,
and the hands start to twitch
when they're feeling ill-used.

And you're almost back now,
you can see by the signs;
from the bank you tell the temperature
and then the time, and the billboard reads some headlines.
The head wants to turn,
to avert both it's eyes,
but the mind wants to learn
of some truth that might be inside reported crimes.

So they found a lieutenant
who killed a village of kids.
After finishing off the wives, he wiped off his knife
and that's what he did.
And they're not claiming that
there's any excusing it;
that was thirty years back,
and they just get paid for the facts the way they got them in.

Now he's rising and not denying.
His hands are shaking, but he's not crying.
And he's saying
"How did I climb out of a life so boring
into that moment? Please stop ignoring
the heart inside,
oh you readers at home!
While you gasp at my bloody crimes,
please take the time to make your heart my home:
where I'm forgiven by time,
where I'm cushioned by hope,
where I'm numbed by long drives,
where I'm talked off or doped.
Does the heart wants to atone?
Oh, I believe that it's so,
because if I could climb back through time,
I'd restore their lives and then give back my own:
tens of times now it's size
on a far distant road
in a far distant time
where every night I'm still crying, entirely alone."

But the news today always fades away as you drive by,
until at dinnertime when you look into her eyes,
lit by evening sun - that, as usual, comes
from above that straight, unbroken line, the horizon -
it's rising is a given, just like your living.

Your heart's warm and kind.
Your mind is your own.
Our blood-spattered criminal is inscrutable;
don't worry, he won't
rise up behind your eyes
and take wild control.
He's not of this time, he fell out of a hole.

uh huuuuuuh

Isn't it great that the entire Bush family is one giant idiot?

It's incredible how they can take two things that I love, Scottish Terriers and Christmas, and make them seem related to a hole drilled in my skull and some Tabasco sauce.

Look out for: George poorly reciting facts, dogs being thrown glass ornaments so that they can bite them, one of the Bush girls plugging that she is engaged and thus not worthy of all the scandal that she cooked up a few years back, Laura reading from a coloring book, and Tony Blair generally disgracing himself.

The most hilarious thing about this video is the combination of the presidential family's lack of looking smart in front of a camera combined with the indifference of the dogs. Priceless.




Oh yeah, and that the most powerful man in the world calls his pets "Barney" and "Miss Beasley".

parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting

So I'd feel silly if I didn't post a blog at some point about my Decemberian excitement for the upcoming Holidays. With the exception of Kwanza, which is not a holiday, I've always had affection for the end-of year celebrations. And yes, I know that I'm not Jewish, but that includes Hannukah to an extent as well. What's better than Cindy Greenstein bringing over her leftover latkas, or getting to go over to a friend's house for a fancy, fun dinner? (I always loved the Jewish tradition of eating things to remember miracles. In Christianity, people don't eat things to remember miracles). Do you realize how much of a shocker it was for me when I learned that today, December 12, was the last night of Hannukah? I missed it! I never even knew it had started! Do you see what living away from South Florida has done to me?

But yes, Christmas. Christmas is good. As an American, to me Christmas is primarily rooted in decorating everything in sight with sparkly red, gold, green, and silver; repeating the same seven motifs over and over (Santa, Present, Tree, Deer, Bell, Snowman, Candy Cane). Preferably these decorations belong on the lamp-posts of your local mall parking lot, on the back wall of an office, or the front window of whatever drycleaning or coffee-shop establishment decides to show joy. And really, what would the holidays be without them? It's not Christmas unless I am reminded by it at every turn with the sight of shiny, gaudy, wonderful plastic and window paint.

This year Christmas will be spent with (hopefully) snow, my younger cousins, and my family. We're in a new house and a new town this year, so it's a whole new way of looking at Christmas...and, of course, at Christmas break. The overall feeling of the season is never lost, though. I'm excited for being home and warm and doted upon by dogs and cats and children and cocoa.

But then there's New Year's. Since I won't be going to any decadent parties this year (re: no friends in PDX), I'm starting to question what's so bloody great about it. Drinking? We could do that every day. Most of us do. Resolutions? As though you're going to keep them?

And they're always the ridiculous resolutions like "this year I'm going to put MYSELF first and not date any men who take advantage of me!" As though for all of 2007 you thought that was a good idea, and only a giant ball going down a pole in the middle of Manhattan can make you realize your faults. That, and the fact that most resolutions are just re-hashes of the ones you made last year, only proving that you probably won't live up to them this year. Also, there's no indication that a new year is really a clean slate; otherwise they might as well absolve me from any credit card payments I owe and stop my parents from getting angry about past offenses. Wait, that's a good idea.

I have lost friends, some by death, others by inability to read their blog

Well, the uncontrollable Virginia Woolf puppet has gone and started a Blog of her Own, which I have nothing to do with. For now I think she's just complaining about mundane things, which is what she's best at. But keep yourself tuned in, she might just say something worthwhile.

Actually, scratch that.

We here at Arts Deux headquarters (NIZA) have often described our humor as "lowbrow jokes about highbrow topics". It's sad to see that what we find most amusing would probably only appeal to a small demographic of people. I can't really go into most places and start making jokes about the surrealists, silent films, or modernism versus postmodernism in order to get attention or, say, attract some comely nymph. Such is my lot in life--the literary vaudevillian.

I don't have much else to talk about today. My head is a bit swimmy because I am a bit sick; my ears and throat feel like they're on lockdown and I really hope that I don't have to take the elevator anywhere. A week from now I'll be home, and probably cleaning something. That's a nice thought.

Chances of snow Thursday and Friday, then rain for the rest of my stay in Vancouver!! Oh DAMN.

procrastination blues

I keep taking study breaks to listen to the Spamalot cast recording. Why am I doing this? I didn't even think it was that good of a show. It was so inferior to the film. The songs weren't as good as I'd hoped, and yet.......

...Once in every show there's a song that goes like this,
It starts off soft and low, and ends up with a kiss
Oh where is the song that goes like this?
A sentimental song that casts a magic spell
They all will hum along, we'll overact like hell
Sing me the song that goes like this.
Now we can go straight into the middle eight
A bridge that is too far for me
I'll sing it in your face while we both embrace
And then we change the key!..

I don't get it, but it's like a guilty pleasure thing. Oh, and before I forget, I present to you the official mascot of Arts Deux:


It is Virginia Woolf, and she is beyond tipsy.

She will also be contributing to this blog on a regular basis, you can e-mail her at virginny.woolf@gmail.com.

I'm gonna have a talk with her about all these terrible biographies that I'm being forced to read. Good grief, it's tough. The good thing is that, after tomorrow, I can never open this stupid packet again.

Oh! And my download of The Golden Compass will be complete!

I know that I've written a lot about how much I was looking forward to the film, and now that I've seen it, I should post a general review.

First and foremost, the film had a flawless production quality; the cast, the CGI, the sets, the costumes, the atmosphere, all were created so perfectly and flawlessly that I have no qualms about it. When you're going to see a movie based on a book that you're in love with, it doesn't really matter if they get the story completely right, just that the look of the film and the faces of the characters matches what's in your mind. And everything was perfect, especially Dakota Blue Richards, the girl who "beat out" thousands of other girls to get the coveted part of Lyra. She was perfect-her voice, her movements, her reactions, every bit of her the perfect embodiment of her character. This was a big deal because she's completely unknown; we could at least have faith in the other cast members, who all have a considerable amount of well-documented acting chops (Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Nicole Kidman, Sam Elliot, Ian McKellan, and a blink-and-you-miss-him Christopher Lee). With them, of course, I have no comments. Kidman was particularly spot-on as the metallically sweet Mrs. Coulter, and since this is Kidman's first villainous role, it was especially juicy, and she stole every scene that she was in. Elliot, too, commanded the camera, proving that he is the only person in the world who could pull off a stereotypical Texan and make it seem heartwarming and genuine. Everyone else? Perfect perfect perfect. The Aletheiometer was done well, though the "going inside the machine" sequences dried out after the second time, seeming much too formulaic. But the script, as far as dialogue goes, was well written enough to get the story across, to explain the importance of dust, et. al.

The only real problem I had with the film was that obvious involvement done on the part of the New Line producers. Where they were more than happy to give Phil Jackson a three hour minimum film, The Golden Compass clocks in at barely two hours. The film, which begins at a perfect pace with Lyra's life in Oxford (the best part of the film, for anyone who's read and loved the books), picks up a faster and faster pace, using more transitional shots than conversational ones, shifting the plot without leaving time to think. His Dark Materials is a coming of age story, and what gives those strength is the in-between bits, showing the characters slowly fitting into whatever new pair of shoes or boots they have. I understand taking those parts out for the sake of time in a film, but when it's such a short time...well, it doesn't make much sense. Equally unsettling is the pointless decision to cut the last part of the film, which encompassed three chapters of the book, one of the best climaxes I've ever read and what I was really hoping for. The even put parts of the scenes in the trailers, but removed them from the film in order to save them for the beginning of The Subtle Knife, which is again a bad choice. Much of the film, especially the exposition and the stressing of Dust and a multiverse, seemed to be for setting up the second film so that they can jump right into the action, which is good; those who have read the entire trilogy will recognize the opening "portal" as the one that Will travels through from our world into Citágazze. There's rumor of a possible Director's Cut of the movie to be released to DVD, which would be a longer version and include some of the in-between scenes. Even though Philip Pullman says that saving the last part of The Golden Compass for the beginning of The Subtle Knife was a good idea, a good portion of the trilogy's fans are up in arms about the choice, so maybe that'll rub off on the studio.

So yeah, the pacing could have been better. There's a debate going on with those who have reviewed the film on BridgeToTheStars.net about whether or not the Magesterium was portrayed correctly. My thoughts? Yes and no. The depiction of London as one giant St. Peter's Cathedral and the long robes of the Magesterium's officials, as well as Fra Pavel's (Simon McBurney, as if he wasn't British enough) rosary beads constantly in his palm and his denouncement of Asriel's decision to find other words where there is no God as "Heresy". But the Magesterium is also depicted as a "big bad wolf" sort of organization, like the shadowy figures behind a terrorist cartel or the Emperor in Star Wars. This, I think, is done to prove how wrong it is, but it also takes away from its strength by pigeon-holing them as such. Some criticize that the role of the Magesterium as the Church has been downplayed; despite the fact that it is never really explained in depth as being a completely religious organization until the second book. I personally think that it was done well, though I have a few qualms about them constantly referring to the importance of "the last Aletheiometer...also known as The Golden Compass", which they probably say about seven times in the film. No one ever calls it "The Golden Compass", and the Aletheiometer is not as important as Lyra is. Her fate, of course, is not to be the person who can read the Aletheiometer, but the person who ends the Authority and stops death. Hopefully that will be more important in the next film, which I hope doesn't take three years to make.

Final verdict? 4.5/5

Now I really have to get back to work (dammit) on this Woolf final (dammit dammit) before getting to bed so I can get up for work. Whooee. Can't wait to be getting myself home, nope.

I'z havin selebrashun fr glden compas?

In recognition of the greatest movie of the season, based on one of the best works of Children's literature and, to a great extent, modern literature ever written--filled with mature, deep, and truly fantastic imagination and philosophy--I present to you the lolcats version of The Golden Compass

Frosted Windowpanes

Well, a few things have happened that truly signify the beginning of the Christmas season (the real Christmas season, not that one signified by the end of the Macy's parade; that's the Holiday season). First and I guess most important, it was my birthday yesterday, which makes me twenty. I would say that I was old, or that I feel weird, but pretty much everyone I know has already crossed that threshold, so I just feel like I've finally caught up. Anyway, I got some fantastic bottles of beer, a beautiful Neko Case record (Blacklisted), a cute self-portrait, and--the coolest thing--a dictionary of symbolism! We went out for drinks and it was wonderfully fun; there will definitely be pictures soon somewhere. Second, today is not only the first of December, but the first of Snowcember. Though technically we have already had snow this year, this is the small little fluffy snowflakes, that are covering the campus in a quiet whiteness. I'm incredibly excited for Christmas now, because it finally looks like Christmas. And finally, classes are over, and that's the most mind-blowing part. That's it? That's the semester? Just five days left? Just those five tests and then I'm off to Portland, then I'm off to England?

Well, in any case it's all wonderful. So much to look forward to!