Blog of Blood

So It Goes

2007-04-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

Note: I'm posting this for Amilynne, who has lost access to blogging at school. Let it be known I think she's the greatest.

Recently I have found myself irritated when people say they’re having a love affair with books, especially in reference to a tryst with a particular writer or genre, as in, “I’m currently having a love affair with Faulkner.” Not only do I find this trite, but rather cheap and inaccurate to boot. I’m fairly certain that the winter I spent a particular amount of time reading Mr. Nabokov’s novels, Mr. Hemingway and Mr. Garcia Marquez weren’t wracked with pangs of lover’s jealousy, and I made no point of hiding my affectation from them either--boldly I displayed Pale Fire on my bedside table, while Invitation to a Beheading plainly resided on the edge of my bathtub and Lolita rode openly with me to work and school, ready in the event that I wrangled a spare moment from my day. And when I made a point to read my Complete Works of William Shakespeare cover to cover, the Green-Eyed Monster veered not its ugly head when I spied a sweet-faced high school student grappling with Macbeth at the corner coffee house. On the contrary, I find that engaging in a tête-à-tête with a particular writer at a particular time leads not to the hurtful, surreptitious behaviors of an affair, but rather to generalized feelings of good faith and good will toward the human species. It’s more like that month you find yourself with a little extra money after all your bills are paid, so you end up giving several dollars to the quadriplegic veteran in the parking lot—you have something that brings warmth and comfort to your life, and you want to do what you can to ensure that everyone you encounter has something similar to turn to at the end of the day.

*****

That said, for lack of a handier platitude, I had my love affair with Kurt Vonnegut in the late summer of 2001. I had become acquainted with Vonnegut the year before when my roommate Blake loaned me his copies of Mother Night and The Sirens of Titan. (Blake also, incidentally, introduced me to Jhumpa Lahiri, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave, and for my part I introduced him to Sifl and Olly and underage drinking—it is a deficit I fear I will never pay off.) That summer my life was lacking; my semester out of college had somehow stretched to three years, and after being fired from Barnes & Noble I worked a string of crap jobs: Waitressing at IHOP, selling knives door-to-door, working internet technical support at a call center. I found respite from the void in my life at the local library. My appetite for literature was voracious, and after working my way through the alphabetized shelves I eventually wound up with a Vonnegut novel or two every week. Incidentally, I wouldn’t be half the person I am today had it not been for the idle hours of my early twenties spent meandering the shelves of the Idaho Falls Public Library.

In Cat’s Cradle, his novel on the meaningful meaninglessness of interconnected events and lives, Vonnegut warns against finding false significance in coincidental similarities, what he (or rather, Bokonon) calls a granfalloon. And yet I couldn’t help but feel the threads of Vonnegut’s novels—incidents, characters, philosophies, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum-- intertwining with my own life, whether as part of the cosmic scheme of things or the Law of Attraction or a granfalloon or what have you. And so it was, on the morning of September 11, when the Twin Towers fell under attack while I was halfway through reading Deadeye Dick, it seemed to me a completely foreseeable, if not comprehendible, turn of events, as saturated as my mind was with Vonnegut’s world. I do not mean to imply that that day was not a tragedy, nor that I (or Vonnegut for that matter) was an insufferable cynic in the face of such massive loss of life. Merely, I wish to state that my understanding of that watershed day in American history--and all the facets of its political and cultural resonance, from the so-called “War on Terror” to the subsequent War in Iraq to the growing divide between liberals, moderates, and conservatives to that God-awful painting of the bald eagle shedding a tear as he overlooks the destruction of the Twin Towers--was unquestionably shaped by Kurt Vonnegut, for which I am eternally grateful. When people ask me where I was on September Eleventh, I can in all truth answer that I was with Rudy Waltz, pointing a Springfield rifle out the cupola window of his Midland City home.

*****

Kurt Vonnegut’s influence profoundly intertwined with my life for a second time this past week. After dealing with a Nineteenth-Century-heavy curriculum for most of the year, I’ve finally succeeded in bringing my junior English classes up to Twentieth Century American Lit, and after long consideration of which novels to include, I settled on teaching Cat’s Cradle in the hope that it will prove to be a refreshing palate cleanser as we come to the end of the semester. I began re-reading the book last week and, as I always do when creating a new literature unit, was on the lookout for supplementary material to round out my lessons, when on Thursday morning I tuned in to NPR halfway through a story on Vonnegut. At first I thought how fortuitous it was that Vonnegut was in the news just as I was preparing to teach his novel, but then I picked up on the realization that the anchor was referring to him in the past tense. My worst suspicions were founded; Kurt Vonnegut had died the evening before. I have found it difficult to express how saddened I am by his death without sounding overly sentimental, or worse, downright sappy. I wouldn’t know if this is how it feels to lose an old friend or loved one, as I have been lucky enough in my adult life not to have been through that experience. Suffice it to say that, when I entered my classroom on Thursday morning after hearing the announcement of Vonnegut’s death, and I saw the piled copies of Cat’s Cradle where I had left them the day before, in my heart I mourned for the loss of my mentor, the Postmodern prophet. Kurt Vonnegut was a great mind; he was one of us.

And I am still eternally grateful.

Amilynne's New Moment of Zen

2007-02-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

How much does Amilynne love this ad for American Express starring the brilliant Wes Anderson? I'm sure she'll tell us. It was certainly one of the brilliant reasons to watch the Oscars last night. Even though it wasn't an official part of the show.

Good World

2006-11-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

With Donald Rumsfeld out as Secretary of Defense and Harry Reid in as Senate Majority Leader, it almost feels like I'm the decider!

Happy Days Are Here Again

2006-11-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

When I was very young, I was able to make my favorite Tom and Jerry episodes show on TV if I thought really hard about them a day or two earlier. When I was an adolescent and my heart broke I made it snow six inches one late April afternoon, a near-Gothic feat of landscape. And it was because of me that the Democrats took the house and (will take) the Senate in 2006. Let me explain.

About a week and a half ago I had a dream in which I was driving to work the morning after the election and NPR reported that there had been changes to Congress, but there was no specification what those changes were. Gleaning that the Republicans were no doubt implicated in the media hush-hush, I decided to infiltrate their base to learn just what had happened. And so I jumped aboard a subway to the Republican base, a gabled white country house with manicured lawn. As I was mingling, trying to fit in, I noticed that I had spilled tomato soup down the front placket of my blouse and, knowing that my sloppy dining habits would blow my cover among hardened Republicans, I went to my suite to change. Unfortunately, I had brought no change of clothes except for the flour sack pants Alan brought me from the Philippines, which are rather transparent and quite inappropriate. The strange thing is, as I was examining the pants to see if I could somehow make them work, I was able to see myself reflected in the skin of my leg. Hmm. Having decided that the pants would do, I rejoined the Republicans, who had taken the party down to a basement chamber, where blonde women were being kept in cages with SharPei puppies and wine was being served straight from the bottle. The atmosphere heightened with anticipation as President Bush’s arrival was announced, and at last entered the Commander-in-Chief, albeit barefooted, slightly hunchbacked and gangly of limb. I was reminded of Richard III. The crowd was hushed as the President stepped forward and made his remarks: “I present to you, Haiku for a Praying Mouse,” at which point he stepped on a small gray mouse, grinding its body into wet cement.

And then I woke up.

I recognized that the dream had significance even before I had recurring dreams all that week leading up to the election in which there was a motif of choosing an appropriate outfit. Need I point out the obvious significance that choosing the right outfit = choosing the right candidate? I was further able to decipher from my dream that Nevada would swing Republican, but that nonetheless the Democrats would take the House and the Senate, although by a very slim margin. See, it’s as plain as day. It’s almost as though I need to move to Delphi.

Still, however, I have not quite figured the significance of seeing my face reflected in my leg.

Happy Election Day, Republicans Excluded

2006-11-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

We Bring Democracy to the Fish

By Donald Hall

It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other.
For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them
into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries
that exclude predators. Our care will provide
for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition.
Of course all creatures need to feel useful.
At maturity the fish will discover their purposes.

Genesis

2006-09-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

…and it was on this day in the year 1066 that William the Conqueror invaded England, giving birth to the greatest language the world would ever know.

O Cheese

2006-09-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Amilynne insinuated this evening that she would rather hear Garrison Keillor read this poem - somehow I just don't do well enough. But here is Donald Hall reading it, which must be the best way.

Requiem for Pluto

2006-08-25T08:54:00.001-07:00

Yesterday’s news carried the harrowing message that in science, as in life, there are no cardinal truths. Pluto is no longer a planet. Which leads to the question—how is such a title stripped, or even conferred for that matter? Was there a special ceremony during which certificates were revoked, sky maps were slashed, styrofoam balls were plucked from models? And who held such power to make this proclamation? According to David, it’s the International Astronomer’s Union, or IAU, which heretoforth will be known as the ICUS, or International Confederation of Uncouth Scientists. And speaking of acronyms, whose job will it be to replace My Very Elegant Mother Just Sat Upon Nine Porcupines, now that there are no longer any Porcupines upon which she can sit? You can't end a sentence with a preposition, damnitt!!

It’s lonely out is space… . <- Pluto

Haiatus

2006-06-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

This summer, Amilynne's access to the Internet promises to be intermittent at best, so for the summer I will be concentrating the other blog. We'll be back soon.

Hasta luego--

Did anyone else notice...

2006-06-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

...that today as the first named storm of the season landed in Florida Bush made a sudden departure for Baghdad? Makes you wonder whether he feels safer in the green zone than in the USA...

I Want My Two Dollars!!!

2006-06-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

So I have already written about the difficult time I had doing my taxes. And I hate the fact that I had problems computing my taxes because that meant that I was nervous (super nervous) about the possibility that after all, I wasn't really entitled to whatever deductions or exemptions or whatever I had claimed (even though I checked them ever so carefully) and you can imagine how my heart dropped down to my toes when I opened up the mailbox to find a letter from the IRS.

Seems that in my final computation, I claimed I should get $2 more than I should have.

And the IRS wanted their two dollars.

So I checked and, yes, my return was $2 less than I had anticipated, and all was well,

...except for the fact that I'll probably get audited next year or something as punishment.

aaaaaarg.

Origins

2006-05-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

“Well, it’s because you’re related by blood, isn’t it?” was Mother’s reply when I asked her if she realized why Melissa and I titled our joint project the “Blog of Blood.” Wrong, wrong, wrong! How short parents’ memories prove, for it seems Dad fails to recall the coining of the phrase “Blog of Blood” as well. And so to clear up any misconceptions by those who presume Melissa and me to be mercenary fascists or Visigoths, here is the true story behind the Blog of Blood:

It all starts with a Chevy van, the kind they made in the late 70’s-early 80’s. My family had such a van, complete with cocktail table, felt curtains in the window, and, the crowning feature of all, captain chairs. These chairs shared many aspects with Captain Kirk’s seat of command aboard the Starship Enterprise: They were gray, kind of loungey, had ashtrays in the armrests, and, best of all, they swiveled. The majority of the time the chairs were swiveled 180 degrees and positioned so that the four of us children faced each other in the back of the van, a feat no longer possible in the Windstars and SUVs of today. This was best of all for road trips—us strapped into the back of the car while Mom and Dad droned us out in the front. As our family is overflowing with creative energy, we had no need of Gameboys or DVD players to entertain us on long drives. No! We entertained ourselves, isolated from the rest of the world in the back of that van. And one of the best ways to entertain ourselves, we found, was driving our parents crazy.

I think I was the one who wrote the song initially; it seems an entirely Amilynnian thing to do. The song starts out low, and then rises in a crescendo of pitch and volume before dropping back down to return where it started. “Blog, blog, blog BLOG—of blood.” Then again from the beginning, over and over again. A masterpiece. Of course, I was about seven years old when I composed this work, the world of Inter-Net and Web-Logs and other such Non-Sense years upon years in the future, not even a possibility then, and so if asked to define a blog, I would have had to have said that it was a glob of partially-congealed liquid, like a blood clot. Hence, Blog of Blood.

The song soon became a family favorite, and it wasn’t long before any trip in the car became a venue for an improve performance, at the top of our lungs of course, punctuated frequently by Mom’s “Stop singing that awful song!” or drawn to an early finale by Dad’s “You had better quiet down before I tape your mouths shut!” The threats were real, the song was sung less and less, and it eventually became defunct.

Cue the *New Millennium*, some years later, and the creation of the modern reincarnation of the blog. I had no use for web logs, really, until Melissa started hers. Ok, so secretly I panged with jealousy every time she would post, especially since I worked myself into her blog as often as not. Melissa eventually tired of my attempts to usurp her, and when I suggested a post on Neve and Gliz she drew the line—you would think she would have grown used to my taking over her things since the Hello-Kitty Jelly-Belly incident of 1982—but because she really really is the best sister an English teacher could have, instead of saying Get Your Own Blog, she suggensted the revival of the “Blog of Blood,” a joint project. And the rest, as they say is history.

Thanks, Chevrolet!

Dead Man Rotting

2006-05-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

As I was returning home from the sushi bar last night I saw a pleasant-looking young man moving into the apartment next door, which has been vacant for about two months now. I introduced myself and found him nice enough—perhaps mentally disabled, perhaps too much cologne—and I wondered if anyone had told him about the apartment’s previous occupant (cue flashback-style harp music now)…

Old Mill was an ass and quite possibly the worst neighbor possible for a very small, very cramped studio apartment with a shared kitchen. He earned his name by repeatedly coming home drunk at 2 a.m., proceeding to the shared kitchen, and singing—yes, singing—as he poured himself yet another Old Miluake, over ice of course. You can only listen to your drunk neighbor singing “Mmmm-mmmm, Old Mill…” at 2 a.m. about twenty times or so before despising him. But this is just for starters. He left his ratty old tennis shoes to rot on the balcony for almost a year, even after I had filled them with egg flower soup in an attempt to get him to throw them away (he did eventually throw them away—into the bushes under my window). He washed his nasty underwears in –I’m assuming—his toilet and left them to dry in the kitchen. He made rude comments about my weight and after I complained to management about his harassment he proceeded to ask me out. Foul.

Enough exposition. One Sunday afternoon about two months ago I noticed a bad odor in the kitchen, sort of like rotting cabbage. It being maybe two days after St. Patrick’s Day, I figured someone had forgotten to properly refrigerate their leftover corned beef and cabbage after celebrating with a glass or two too much of Guinness. By the end of the day, the kitchen smelled like rotting cabbage and shit. By the next afternoon, the smell was getting into my apartment and I called management to complain. Maintenance came around to investigate, failed to find a cause for the odor in the kitchen, and began searching the neighboring apartments for the source of the smell. They found it. It turns out Old Mill had died in his apartment maybe ten days earlier and had been slowly rotting ever since. The police were called, the apartment was barricaded, and a hazmat team came in to vacuum up the remains, which at that point, I’ve been told, would have been well on their way to becoming soup.

Of course I called everybody, but only Melissa was clever enough to call back and say, “My name is Wolf, I solve problems.” As many times as I had hoped and prayed for Old Mill’s demise, it was a little surreal to have it actually occur, and in such a macabre fashion. Jo asked if I felt at all bad, but if I felt anything it was more like schadenfreude. The only sad thing about the entire situation was that nobody missed this human being for ten days, and that’s not sad as in too bad, that’s sad as in pathetic.

A couple of months earlier I had been complaining about my apartment situation in the faculty lounge, and my department head told me to think of it as novel fodder. Boy was she ever right—this being the best story I’ve ever had to tell in the first person, it’s for sure making it into my memoirs. And I’ve had much more peace and quiet to work on the creative process without having a drunken ass in the kitchen whistling catches of sea shanty. Needless to say, it’s been a nice couple of months.

And so I was a little torn when I saw that the apartment would once again be occupied. I don’t try to be hermit-like, but in the end neighbors rarely turn out to be anything more than a hassle here in the ghetto. Yet the young man moving in seemed so simple and earnest I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that a fat slob had lain dead and rotting on his floor not two months earlier; I’ll leave that to one of the coarser neighbors. Besides, if all goes to plan I’ll be moving out myself before the end of the summer. Thank God.

Go Away, CIA Man!

2006-05-06T02:49:00.000-07:00

Amilynne and I are the targets of domestic wiretapping, I swear. Not for any supposed terrorist links, I think, but probably because the White House wants our great ideas without paying us for them. The latest proof? Here goes:

Earlier this week, Amilynne and I were on the phone discussing why W is so unlikeable. And we found a reason that goes beyond that annoying shoulder shruggy-snigger he likes to give, his inability with the English language, idiotic remarks like "the national anthem should only be sung in English," or policy.

We concluded that W is unlikeable because he hasn't let the nation get to know his pets! Just his unlikeable daughters! For a boost in his approval ratings, he needs to bring the terriers out into the open and let us get to know them!

So I just DIED when I was listening to NPR on my way home yesterday--they were reporting on some of W's tax rhetoric, and the close of the bit went something like this: "President Bush was speaking at a Capitol Hill hardware store, where he was buying a chew toy for his dog Bowser."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!! There it is! Because you know that those reporters didn't just paparazzi-catch W talking about taxes at a hardware store. This was SO orchestrated. This was exactly the PR move Amilynne and I decided that he would need to make!

So if W's approval numbers start going up, and if the name "Bowser" seeps into public consciousness, I'm afraid that illegal domestic wiretapping is to blame, because Amilynne and I had no intention of letting W in on this one.

Books by the Bed

2006-04-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

Last night I attacked the heap of books that had accumulated next to my bed. This is a task that happens every 4-6 months. I do it when I realize that I have now read most of what was there, so back to the bookshelves with the read stuff, and then I browse the shelves and put a couple of new items on the floor. Of course I sweep first. Eventually it will be a heap again.

Some books stay. I keep two historical atlases (one world history, one medieval history) next to the bed all the time. Wild Swans is still there because I've got about 2 1/2 chapters left. So is the stack of short stories that Amilynne gave out at Christmas (what a great gift). I'm only halfway through it. There's also a study by a professor in my mom's department about how current education trends have ruined one neighborhood school in Texas. (Teaching is scary business--no one, espeically if they're in power, trusts you to know how to do your job.)

Sometimes (like this time) I find a borrowed book. A copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Italian, which one of my professors loaned me and which I really must return before the class I'm taking from her ends this summer. (Incidentally, in Italian they have translated "muggles" as "Babbani." Strange word, so's the English one.)

I put my Billy Collins books (all of them) on the shelves, but that will be shortlived, as I have ordered others from Amazon and they will be here soon, so I'll need the old ones back out to compare them with.

I could honestly not buy a new book for a year and still have more than plenty of reading material here. But that won't happen. Book shopping is fun!

Anyway, that's the report. The floor is open now, waiting for a new heap to form.

Days and Days

2006-04-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to point out that it's been, like, forever since Melissa posted. Hint hint.

Only a Teacher

2006-04-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

This morning my alarm clock went off quite suddenly and unexpectedly, and in my haze of half-sleep I thought it was a fire drill. So my first emotion of the day was exasperation with administration for not allerting us teachers beforehand. It's a life.

Amilynne on the Lam

2006-04-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

It’s true: Me, a wanted woman on the run from the law. Which I didn’t even realize I was until I went to the courthouse Friday with my proof of insurance and was told the warrant had been issued the day before. Darned courthouse employees with their contradictory information! I did the outlaw thing for the weekend (which meant I finally fit in at my apartment complex), but then I had a change of heart and today I spent the morning in court. The judge noted my sharp English-teacher-type outfit (my brown businesswoman suit in sharp contrast with the other fugitives who wore the jeans with only three types of stains), heard my grammatically-correct side of the story, and dismissed all charges. So now I’m right with the law again. It’s almost too bad…my life on the lam was pretty romantic while it lasted.

Justice for All

2006-04-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

If criminals get a state appointed lawyer to represent them, then I should get a state appointed accountant to file my taxes. I don't see why I should have to pay anyone to compute my taxes for me if people don't have to pay for lawyers when they're hauled into court. I am just as bad at crunching numbers as the average joe would be defending himself in the face of a prosecutor. I should be protected from myself at tax time.

Here's the story. Last night I was working on taxes and I was NOT happy with the result. I knew that I should get more money back than it said, but I couldn't make it work. Tonight I'm going back over it, and BAM there it is: I forgot to figure in my exemption.

What kind of an idiot forgets to figure in an exemption? It's right there on line 42. And the sad part is, I knew that something like that should be there, and I read over the form several times, and I still did not see the blank for the exemption. The IRS cannot make forms easy, no matter how hard they try, and people like me who suffer from an aversion to numbers should not have to face our worst fears by demonstrating our numeracy prowess for an IRS auditor.

Rally with me! Cry out with me! Let us make our voices heard! No taxation without representation (by an accountant)!

How Many Scotsmen Can You Fit on a Drum Set?

2006-03-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

The answer, it turns out, is three. Friday night was the Franz Ferdinand concert, and needless to say, it ROCKED. A veteran of the San Francisco punk scene, Jo strategized our assault to move into prime position. When we arrived there was nothing between us and the stage except a herd of eighth-grade girls; the stench of cheap peach and vanilla perfume was overwhelming. As we suspected, the girls knew nothing of concert protocol and we were soon able to move right up to the front. The best part of the evening (next to the show itself) was when one annoyingly persistent little girl kept asking Jo to let her up front ("Excuse me!!! I need to be with my friends!!! I paid my money for my ticket!!!"), not realizing that Jo is a half-Jewish, half-Japanese mutant with superhuman strength and sick rage. Jo turned on her with the look of death and slugged her in the sternum--"BACK OFF!!!" Needless to say, the child was petrified and she and her friend moved back, allowing Jo and I even closer access to the stage.
But the show itself! The opening band, Cribs, was pleasently forgettable (for the first half of their set I thought they were the model for Drive Shaft, Charlie's band on Lost). But they moved off the stage in good enough time and made way for Franz Ferdinand. EEEEE!!! I was spitting distance from the basist for the entire show--for best position at a concert it rivaled even being on the balcony overlooking Zia at the Dandys show in Minneapolis three years ago. It was so obvious that Franz Ferdinand loved playing and loved being there; they are probably the best live band I've seen. They played all the best--The Dark of the Matinee, Take Me Out, Do You Want To, The Fallen, then came out for an encore and played all their other best, Jacqueline and This Fire included. For the closing song, Outsiders, no less than three band members were pounding on the drumset, one of whom was using a tambourine in place of a drumstick. It was the most amazing percussion I've seen except for maybe Jo's dad Mike, a drummer in a western band, playing the washboard.
After the set we retreated to the back of the pavilion so Jo could smoke and I could buy a concert t-shirt. We decided not to fight to regain our position for the last act, Death Cab for Cutie, because they were a little too emo for my taste and, being the old ladies that we are, we didn't know if we had it in us to reform the Wall of Impenetrability--being a concert veteran has its drawbacks as well as its perks.
Have I boasted sufficiently?

Goody Amilynne

2006-03-24T23:25:00.000-08:00

Amilynne had me change the picture on her profile, but for the sake of history, here is her bonnet picture. Which I love. Colonial Williamsburg all the way, baby!

Happy Birthday Billy Collins

2006-03-22T07:34:00.002-08:00

I need two things to get me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning--how I love being a squirrel! The first, my battle scar as a veteran of the Espresso Wars, is my latte. The second is to tune in to the Writer's Almanac on NPR. [Note: Melissa believes in neither of these, the first for obvious reasons, and the second more particularly having to do with her dislike of Garrison Keillor.] Once I am properly caffeinated and Garrison has told me to Be Well, Do Good Work, and Keep in Touch, I can truly say that I does what I likes and I likes what I do. Chim-chim-cheroo! Being an English teacher rocks.
This morning Garrison Keillor had wonderful news--it is the birthday of my favorite poet Billy Collins. Hooray Billy Collins! And in giving biographical details about the Birthday Poet, Garrison quoted Billy Collins as saying that much of the problem with modern poetry is that it lacks humor, for which he blames the Romantics. Take that, William Blake! Billy Collins also credited the Romantics for taking sex out of poetry and replacing it with landscape. So there, Percy Bysshe Shelly! And so without further ado, in honor of a truly brilliant poet, I give you "Litany." [Note: Melissa is the bread and the knife.]

Litany

By Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Billy Collins, “Litany” from Nine Horses. Copyright © 2002 by Billy Collins. Reprinted with the permission of Random House, Inc.

One More Aster Image

2006-03-19T17:59:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's a snowflake with an overbite, but tell me this drawing isn't crazy fun.

Dumb Names

2006-03-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

So last week I downloaded the latest album by Coldplay (X&Y). It's quite good--the whole thing is listenable, there are a couple of songs that might be brilliant, it follows a style without being monotonous. All good things.

The problem is this: not that I truly care, but I just can't get out of my mind that whoever is the frontman for the band married Gwyneth Paltrow, and consented to have a child named Apple. Now. I honestly don't care! I couldn't pick this guy out of a lineup of celebrities, I probably couldn't pick out a Coldplay song I hadn't heard out of a lineup of songs. It's just not one of the celebrity things I care about. And yet there it is. A child is running around with the name Apple, a child who could easily become famous someday, and this guy with all his heartfelt lyrics for us to listen to and relate to didn't stop that from happening.

And I can't get this useless fact to separate itself from this otherwise nice CD.

Truly there are worse names. Chastity comes to mind. Or some of the truly insane ones I see on the rosters at school (but I won't go into that on this forum).

????

I bet if we asked real nice, Amilynne would tell us the name of Zia (Dandy Warhols) 's baby. There's the one we should care about.

Believer

2006-03-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

Melissa does not take baths. This is not to imply that she does not bathe, or rather, shower, but to her the ultimately luxurious and relaxing experience of soaking in a tub of hot water is somehow…revolting. I don’t understand it either. She tried to explain her view to me, muttering something about stewing in your own filth, to which I replied that pasta stews in its own filth, and yet she has no issue with eating pasta. She failed to make the connection, but then the women of our family have never been noted for rational thinking.

This all leads up to the fact that Melissa has no appreciation for my latest discovery—Colour-Therapy Chakra-Healing Bath-Dye. A purple bath! Who would have thought! It’s brilliant—add a capful of dye to your bathwater, along with the essential oil of your choice, and voila! an entryway to the fourth dimension via your bathtub. Ohm. My personal choice is violet dye (crown chakra) with lavender oil for activation of creative energy. Of course I had to telephone Melissa mid-bath to tell her the joy of the experience, but she persisted in her cynicism. Some people will refuse to see the light.

Each of the seven colours of the rainbow corresponds with one of the chakra zones of the body. Blue is your mouth, green in your heart, yellow is your tummy, etc. All of these may make future appearances in my bathtub. The only dye I would never use is red—the root chakra, for power energy. It would be a little too much like bathing in blood, whereas my violet dye is rather like bathing in Dimetapp, minus the stickiness. At any rate, I’m converted.

Hurt

2006-03-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

Amilynne called me last night specifically to brag that she gets to go see Franz Ferdinand next month. I guess if I wanted to see a rapper I could do so in this town. I am vastly jealous of her. What's a vastly jealous girl to do?

It's not so much that I love Neve and Gliz...

2006-02-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

It's more like, well, you know how they always end The Daily Show with the Moment of Zen, the most messed up, unexplainable, just plain wrong video of the day? Neve and Gliz are my Moment of Zen, everyday. I get to school, put my lunch in the fridger, look over my stack of things I put off from yesterday, and watch Neve and Gliz. Then I can start my day knowing, at the very least, that no matter what my students manage to pull off, it won't be the most pathetic thing I'll have seen today. Thanks, Turin!

Meet Aster

2006-02-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

I just found Aster - the mascot for the Paralympcs. I dunno. Almost preferable to Neve and Gliz--he seems more exuberant.

Neve and Gliz

2006-02-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

The Sick, Sad Justification of Neve and Gliz:

Neve and Gliz are the two official Torino 2006 mascots. Their role is to present the XX Olympic Winter Games, conveying the universal Olympic values and the spirit of Italy (Yes, sad but true, Neve and Gliz=Italy. The country that gave us Opera, High Renaissance, and the Vespa is now scraping the bottom of its collective creative barrel, and this is what it came up with).

They are born from a snowball and an ice cube (A most unnatural birth, I am sure you will agree). She has rounded forms, inspired by the snow and dressed in red; he wears blue, with squarer lines which are more typical of ice (True prototypes of Italian gender idealism—cold, hard, and completely unlovable).

The two mascots convey the Olympic values of participation, respect, friendship and loyalty. But at the same time, their spirit and personality reflect the spirit and unique nature of the Italian Olympic Games: passion, enthusiasm, culture, good taste (did you catch that?), the environment (Need I say “Ha!” [Or rather, “Ah!”]) and sport. And passion, another of the key values of the Torino 2006 Olympics, is conveyed by everything that Neve and Gliz think, feel and do. (Actually, I think Neve and Gliz rather appropriately represent Italy’s complete alienation from the natural world [Vive la industrialization!] and tendency to go for the lowest bidder [Vive la fascism! We mean, vive la commercialism! We mean—we do not know what we mean.])

The style invented by Pedro Albuquerque for the two mascots - like Neve's fluid, rounded shape, inspired by the snow - is an expression of elegance that reflects the imaginative, sensual element of Italian design, art and entertainment (It’s a sad, sad world when Italian design turns to cheap Japanese knockoffs). The angular, smooth shapes of Gliz, inspired by ice, are an expression of strength and they provide a surprising, sharp contrast with Neve's lines, complementing them perfectly.

(I am just going to stop right there.)

--for the scary cartoon, go to http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/torino/index_uk.asp