It's our fault but we don't care.
Or so Dubya seems to be saying as a response to a national report in which, according to the NY Times, the administration for the first time mostly blames human actions for recent global warming. It says the main culprit is the burning of fossil fuels that send heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
See b!X's post on this issue for the big absurd picture of the new ugly American: .......here they are (not that their self-interested hypocrisy should come as any surprise at this point) responding to the rest of the world's pleas for the U.S. to get with the program and protect the entire globe from the threat of global warming by telling them to go to man-made Hell.
Monday, June 03, 2002
Sunday, June 02, 2002
Amused by the Muse
When a wolf shows up, it is time to breathe new life into your life rituals. Find a new path, take a new journey, take control of your life. You are the governor of your life. You create it and direct it. Do so with harmony and discipline, and then you will know the true spirit of freedom.
RageBoy wanders back alleys in search of his wolf and turns around to find his Muse instead. Except that she's it. She's she -- the wolf in muse clothing. Like dreams, muses sometimes play with misdirection, take the words we know so well and turn them inside out. And then maybe we notice that the muse is hiding behind a mirror etched with the eyes of a wolf. And we look into those eyes and know.
Writers are always in search of their muse. Jennifer Balderama, off to Paris and beyond, is figuring that she needs to re-acquaint herself with hers. Needs to re-think how she writes fiction. Needs to get less structured, more sloppy. Her mirror image, maybe. I wonder if she's going to be out of the country -- and without her laptop, too -- when Frank Paynter's interview with Denise Howell hits Blogaria. Maybe he can reveal Jennifer next.
I haven't written any poetry for a long while. That muse seems to have gone on an extended vacation. Maybe Jennifer will run into her in Paris. Instead, a blogging muse has taken her place. She looks like a faerie and needs lots of attention.
When a wolf shows up, it is time to breathe new life into your life rituals. Find a new path, take a new journey, take control of your life. You are the governor of your life. You create it and direct it. Do so with harmony and discipline, and then you will know the true spirit of freedom.
RageBoy wanders back alleys in search of his wolf and turns around to find his Muse instead. Except that she's it. She's she -- the wolf in muse clothing. Like dreams, muses sometimes play with misdirection, take the words we know so well and turn them inside out. And then maybe we notice that the muse is hiding behind a mirror etched with the eyes of a wolf. And we look into those eyes and know.
Writers are always in search of their muse. Jennifer Balderama, off to Paris and beyond, is figuring that she needs to re-acquaint herself with hers. Needs to re-think how she writes fiction. Needs to get less structured, more sloppy. Her mirror image, maybe. I wonder if she's going to be out of the country -- and without her laptop, too -- when Frank Paynter's interview with Denise Howell hits Blogaria. Maybe he can reveal Jennifer next.
I haven't written any poetry for a long while. That muse seems to have gone on an extended vacation. Maybe Jennifer will run into her in Paris. Instead, a blogging muse has taken her place. She looks like a faerie and needs lots of attention.
let it rain, rain, rain
save me from myself again
wash away my ugly sins
opposing thumb, dorsal fin
that monkey died for my grin
bring my happy back again
let it rain, rain, rain
bring my happy back again
--- REM, "Lotus"
I dreamed last night that I lost my thumb.
It was the thumb on my right hand, and I didn't lose it; it broke off somehow but I never felt it happen. All of a sudden I looked at my hand and the joint where my thumb would have been attached looked like a chicken joint looks when you cut off the appendage. It didn't hurt, but seeing it missing triggered such a wave of panic and sadness and loss that I started crying uncontrollably (in my deam, that is). In the dream, my mother was there and tried to console me, but she was powerless to do so. And it was not her comfort that I wanted. Someone else's. Whose?
I moved out of the REM sleep, waking up to thoughts of Sissy Hankshow in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (great novel, btw; terrible movie). The benefits of the opposable thumb.
I told my mother about the dream, and, in typical good-Catholic-with-leftover-old-country-superstitions, she immediately went to consult an expert, to find out what the accepted "dogma" is. In this case, she consulted her book on The Classic 1000 Dreams, which said: To dream that you have injured your thumb indicates that you will shortly be in a serious quandary. You will have to choose between giving offence to someone whom it would pay you to please, and making yourself look ridiculous in the eyes of your acquaintances. Hmmm.
bIX once posted (long ago, in some other weblog at some other point in his life when he was actually posting) that dreams are the garbage dump of the brain. But I think dreams are important messages from our unconsious, from the oracles of our spirits: "pay attention, think about this" they say in their language of misdirection. But there is a message here somewhere in my missing thumb. I'm still trying to figure it out.
it's not that the transparency
of her earlier incarnations
now looked back on, weren't rich
and loaded with beautiful vulnerability
and now she knows.
now is greater
and she knows that
she just wants to be somewhere
she just wants to be
She just wants to be somewhere
she just wants to be
---- REM, "She Just Wants to Be"
save me from myself again
wash away my ugly sins
opposing thumb, dorsal fin
that monkey died for my grin
bring my happy back again
let it rain, rain, rain
bring my happy back again
--- REM, "Lotus"
I dreamed last night that I lost my thumb.
It was the thumb on my right hand, and I didn't lose it; it broke off somehow but I never felt it happen. All of a sudden I looked at my hand and the joint where my thumb would have been attached looked like a chicken joint looks when you cut off the appendage. It didn't hurt, but seeing it missing triggered such a wave of panic and sadness and loss that I started crying uncontrollably (in my deam, that is). In the dream, my mother was there and tried to console me, but she was powerless to do so. And it was not her comfort that I wanted. Someone else's. Whose?
I moved out of the REM sleep, waking up to thoughts of Sissy Hankshow in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (great novel, btw; terrible movie). The benefits of the opposable thumb.
I told my mother about the dream, and, in typical good-Catholic-with-leftover-old-country-superstitions, she immediately went to consult an expert, to find out what the accepted "dogma" is. In this case, she consulted her book on The Classic 1000 Dreams, which said: To dream that you have injured your thumb indicates that you will shortly be in a serious quandary. You will have to choose between giving offence to someone whom it would pay you to please, and making yourself look ridiculous in the eyes of your acquaintances. Hmmm.
bIX once posted (long ago, in some other weblog at some other point in his life when he was actually posting) that dreams are the garbage dump of the brain. But I think dreams are important messages from our unconsious, from the oracles of our spirits: "pay attention, think about this" they say in their language of misdirection. But there is a message here somewhere in my missing thumb. I'm still trying to figure it out.
it's not that the transparency
of her earlier incarnations
now looked back on, weren't rich
and loaded with beautiful vulnerability
and now she knows.
now is greater
and she knows that
she just wants to be somewhere
she just wants to be
She just wants to be somewhere
she just wants to be
---- REM, "She Just Wants to Be"
Saturday, June 01, 2002
Oh ye of little faith....
Some things take time -- love, tomatoes, grandsons, magic. Some things take a special space -- same list. Halley surfaced on her blog last night long enough to remind us that "it ain't over 'til it's over." So please remember that about RageBoy's silence as well.
So, it seems that you can be sure that Blog Sisters will be the place to be this summer. Halley has explained why she's vowing to keep the cauldron stirred over there. Jennifer Balderama just officially joined the BSisterhood with her first post. We've got Andrea and Anita and Sheri E and Mare and Tish and Esta and Gina -- and growing numbers (close to 100) of other incredibly savvy Sisters -- voicing, voicing, voicing; and, of course, Denise -- who is Frank Paynter's next interviewee -- is one of the earliest and dearest of them all. And Jeneane and I -- well, heh, we just never shut down or shut up.
Now, as far as you men are concerned, while you're not allowed into the inner sanctum, if you're brave and pure and loving (like Marek J.), you can Comment.
And, just to reassure Halley and anyone else who is still wondering, if I am a witch (which I have never said I am), I'M A GOOD WITCH. GOOD. GOOD. MMMMM MMMMM GOOD.
If you believe in faeries, clap. Keep Tinkerbell alive.
Some things take time -- love, tomatoes, grandsons, magic. Some things take a special space -- same list. Halley surfaced on her blog last night long enough to remind us that "it ain't over 'til it's over." So please remember that about RageBoy's silence as well.
So, it seems that you can be sure that Blog Sisters will be the place to be this summer. Halley has explained why she's vowing to keep the cauldron stirred over there. Jennifer Balderama just officially joined the BSisterhood with her first post. We've got Andrea and Anita and Sheri E and Mare and Tish and Esta and Gina -- and growing numbers (close to 100) of other incredibly savvy Sisters -- voicing, voicing, voicing; and, of course, Denise -- who is Frank Paynter's next interviewee -- is one of the earliest and dearest of them all. And Jeneane and I -- well, heh, we just never shut down or shut up.
Now, as far as you men are concerned, while you're not allowed into the inner sanctum, if you're brave and pure and loving (like Marek J.), you can Comment.
And, just to reassure Halley and anyone else who is still wondering, if I am a witch (which I have never said I am), I'M A GOOD WITCH. GOOD. GOOD. MMMMM MMMMM GOOD.
If you believe in faeries, clap. Keep Tinkerbell alive.
Friends
There is a group of women with whom I've been friends for more than a decade. On Tuesday, I will be attending an event at the offices of the New York State Bar Association in recognition of one of them, a lawyer who is receiving an Award for Excellence in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare.
I met Joan Byalin when she was dating one of my ex-boyfriends. They broke up but we became good friends because we had so much in common. (Of course, that makes sense. He liked the same qualities in both of us.) Not only is she a great lawyer, but she's an amazing quilter, who -- until very recently when she finally bought a sewing machine -- constructed her quilts by hand. Her designs are built around vibrant Mexican colors and original, non-traditional patterns that sort of evolve as she goes. She is making a quilt for my soon-to-be grandson, and I can't wait to see it.
Among the other women in my group are an accountant who gardens, a parole officer who sings, a mail carrier who's a psychic, and an environmental specialist who does Fung Shui. Add Joan the lawyer-quilter and me the educator-blogger, and we've always figured that if they would just let us run the country, we would have just about every public sphere covered and do a better job than the people who are doing it now. Plus, we all collaborate very easily, share information readily, and know how to do rituals to bend the universe. (heh)
There is a group of women with whom I've been friends for more than a decade. On Tuesday, I will be attending an event at the offices of the New York State Bar Association in recognition of one of them, a lawyer who is receiving an Award for Excellence in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare.
I met Joan Byalin when she was dating one of my ex-boyfriends. They broke up but we became good friends because we had so much in common. (Of course, that makes sense. He liked the same qualities in both of us.) Not only is she a great lawyer, but she's an amazing quilter, who -- until very recently when she finally bought a sewing machine -- constructed her quilts by hand. Her designs are built around vibrant Mexican colors and original, non-traditional patterns that sort of evolve as she goes. She is making a quilt for my soon-to-be grandson, and I can't wait to see it.
Among the other women in my group are an accountant who gardens, a parole officer who sings, a mail carrier who's a psychic, and an environmental specialist who does Fung Shui. Add Joan the lawyer-quilter and me the educator-blogger, and we've always figured that if they would just let us run the country, we would have just about every public sphere covered and do a better job than the people who are doing it now. Plus, we all collaborate very easily, share information readily, and know how to do rituals to bend the universe. (heh)
Friday, May 31, 2002
Now there are three
Last fall, I started noticing a lone blue heron, standing watch in the evenings along the edge of a pond adjacent to the building where I live. He was always alone, holding his own on the shadowy water's edge. (Somehow I thought of the heron as a "he," although he could just as well have been a she.) Our eyes would follow each other as I slowed my usual brisk pace, and he willed himself even more invisible among the reeds. Once I must have done something to make him feel threatened, because suddenly he took low flight over the still pond and disappeared into the dense brush. I haven't seen him since.
Several weeks ago, instead, a lone turtle sunned herself on the partially submerged log where the heron used to stand. The other day, there were three. Three turtles, the color of murky earth, all facing east, waiting. They are there every day now, at least they are when the geese take themselves over to pond on the other side of the building.
My mother marvels at the strong goose-sense of family. I watch them, too, the six fuzzy goslings and their ever-watchful parents. When they walk, one parent is always in front and the other behind; when they rest, the adult geese bookend their offspring, watching sternly while the little ones sleep. "We could learn a lot from watching animals," my mother says.
I recently finished reading a lovely little book, Any Small Thing Can Save You: A Bestiary. As I learned on amazon.com's review, "Medieval bestiaries were compendiums of animal lore particularly descriptions of exotic and fantastic beasts as well as anthologies of moral instruction." This anthology of 26 vignettes, one for each letter of the alphabet, is a series of eloquent snapshots of the appearance of animals at subtly relevant times in the lives of various humans. It's like my witnessing the appearance of the three turtles just after Jeneane Sessum, Halley Suitt, and I held virtual hands and tried to bend the universe for RageBoy.
There is great significance to the number three, which is filled with magic and power. Triple spirals ..... are interdimensional symbols capable of parting time from space and allowing us to venture into other worlds and dimensions. Brigit, goddess of the fire and home hearth, is also the triple goddess. " Third time lucky," is a phrase well known even in our modern, western society.
And as for turtles, in Iroquois mythology, the turtle holds the earth up while sky woman rides safely on the turtle's back; the turtle has been a symbol for Mother Earth, for longevity, and for the awakening of heightened sensibilities.
Three turtles facing east. Three Wyrd (Blog) Sisters living in the east. Toil and trouble. And magic.
Last fall, I started noticing a lone blue heron, standing watch in the evenings along the edge of a pond adjacent to the building where I live. He was always alone, holding his own on the shadowy water's edge. (Somehow I thought of the heron as a "he," although he could just as well have been a she.) Our eyes would follow each other as I slowed my usual brisk pace, and he willed himself even more invisible among the reeds. Once I must have done something to make him feel threatened, because suddenly he took low flight over the still pond and disappeared into the dense brush. I haven't seen him since.
Several weeks ago, instead, a lone turtle sunned herself on the partially submerged log where the heron used to stand. The other day, there were three. Three turtles, the color of murky earth, all facing east, waiting. They are there every day now, at least they are when the geese take themselves over to pond on the other side of the building.
My mother marvels at the strong goose-sense of family. I watch them, too, the six fuzzy goslings and their ever-watchful parents. When they walk, one parent is always in front and the other behind; when they rest, the adult geese bookend their offspring, watching sternly while the little ones sleep. "We could learn a lot from watching animals," my mother says.
I recently finished reading a lovely little book, Any Small Thing Can Save You: A Bestiary. As I learned on amazon.com's review, "Medieval bestiaries were compendiums of animal lore particularly descriptions of exotic and fantastic beasts as well as anthologies of moral instruction." This anthology of 26 vignettes, one for each letter of the alphabet, is a series of eloquent snapshots of the appearance of animals at subtly relevant times in the lives of various humans. It's like my witnessing the appearance of the three turtles just after Jeneane Sessum, Halley Suitt, and I held virtual hands and tried to bend the universe for RageBoy.
There is great significance to the number three, which is filled with magic and power. Triple spirals ..... are interdimensional symbols capable of parting time from space and allowing us to venture into other worlds and dimensions. Brigit, goddess of the fire and home hearth, is also the triple goddess. " Third time lucky," is a phrase well known even in our modern, western society.
And as for turtles, in Iroquois mythology, the turtle holds the earth up while sky woman rides safely on the turtle's back; the turtle has been a symbol for Mother Earth, for longevity, and for the awakening of heightened sensibilities.
Three turtles facing east. Three Wyrd (Blog) Sisters living in the east. Toil and trouble. And magic.
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Braz-Valentine's Open Letter is really a poem!
She responded to an email I sent her with the text of the actual poem, so you can go to Blog Sisters and read the correct version. I don't think it's recorded correctly anywhere else on the net, at least not that I could find. Ah. Another "first" for Blog Sisters.
She responded to an email I sent her with the text of the actual poem, so you can go to Blog Sisters and read the correct version. I don't think it's recorded correctly anywhere else on the net, at least not that I could find. Ah. Another "first" for Blog Sisters.
The Boob in the Hall of Justice
Thanks to Esta, who posted info about this on BlogSisters.
Remember the drape that Ashcroft had put over the naked breasts of Justice? Read here an absolutely perfect open letter to Ashcroft by an amazing crone -- poet, playwright, and journalist Claire Braz-Valentine -- that she presented at this year's In Celebration of the Muse, Cabrillo College. You also can see her and hear her read it.
As I post this, in the background on my television, Ground Zero, the Last Day plays out with sad ceremony. It sit here feeling the incredible schizoid nature of this country. We are a people of great heart and open soul. And yet so many of our leaders are such boobs.
Thanks to Esta, who posted info about this on BlogSisters.
Remember the drape that Ashcroft had put over the naked breasts of Justice? Read here an absolutely perfect open letter to Ashcroft by an amazing crone -- poet, playwright, and journalist Claire Braz-Valentine -- that she presented at this year's In Celebration of the Muse, Cabrillo College. You also can see her and hear her read it.
As I post this, in the background on my television, Ground Zero, the Last Day plays out with sad ceremony. It sit here feeling the incredible schizoid nature of this country. We are a people of great heart and open soul. And yet so many of our leaders are such boobs.
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Getting to Forgiveness
It’s not that I’m obsessed with AKMA, but he never fails to blog good stuff, and other articulate bloggers invariably pick up and run with his themes way before they start to gel in my own head. But I catch up, eventually.
“Forgiveness” is the current theme du jour.
Now, I don’t take issue with any of the thoughtful thoughts on this issue presented, for example, by David Weinberger or Halley Suitt or Marek.
But they all left out one step on the road that I need to take to get to Forgiveness so that I don’t simply suppress or repress my hurt and anger and then unwittingly find myself at the mercy of what happens when those feelings erupt and displace at some time in my (and probably some other innocent person's) future. I need catharsis. I need to purge the bad feelings. I need to vent. Let me give you an example. And this is the goddesses'-honest truth:
Several years ago, as I was ending a relationship with a man I had been living with for only a year, I realized that he had already begun seeing (and probably sleeping with) another woman before I even moved out. He didn’t even wait until, as they say, “the body was cold.” Even though I knew it was over between us, I was still devastated. Hell, I was mad. Furious. I mean, how would you feel?
But I knew that I needed to move on, forgive, put it all behind me – not repress it or harbor seething rage. I had put an awful lot of myself into trying to make the relationship work; I even spent a great deal of my own creative energies editing and re-writing the first mystery novel that he had ever tried to write. His total disregard of my feelings after all of that truly hit a nerve. I was hurt. I was mad. I felt betrayed. How was I going to get to Forgiveness? Hee hee, as the Crone says.
This is what I did after I moved out: I made a clay figure that looked pretty much like him. (This stuff called Fimo is great for this purpose because you use your toaster oven to harden it.) I took a tin box and decorated it so that it looked like a miniature sarcophagus and painted it with female power symbols. I invited my women friends over on the night of a full moon (they were used to my doing weird stuff like this, so they came) and had them help me tear up various photos of us, cards, notes he had written me etc. and put them in the box, along with the figure. I wrote a chant, which basically said that I take back all that I had given him, all the creative energies I brought into his life, and I leave him as he was before I met him – non-existent in my awareness. We lit some candles, burned some incense, I did my chant and then I put the piece of paper with the chant on it into the box and sealed it up. And then we all sat down and had some decaf coffee and tea and Pepperidge Farm cookies and spent some time venting a whole lot of other stuff that bothered us.
After they left, at midnight I drove over to his house and left the box on his porch. Yes, I could have gotten arrested for trespassing, I suppose. But I didn’t.
With the delivery of that box, not only was my anger gone, but I no longer felt victimized, and that alone was worth the risk of getting caught trespassing. After that, it was easy to forget and forgive.
Maybe that’s not the accepted way to find Forgiveness as far as traditional religions and spiritualities are concerned, but boy, did it feel good. And the strange thing is, he called me some time after, and we talked about the incident and the experience. He knew he did something wrong, and my little ritual somehow expunged his guilt as well as my anger. And now, when we run into each other, there’s no anger, no guilt, a little nostalgia, a few laughs, and all in a zone of comfort that we never would have had without the shared catharsis.
So, for me, Forgiveness is not a place I can get to from here without taking a little detour. Does the end justify the means? Works for me.
It’s not that I’m obsessed with AKMA, but he never fails to blog good stuff, and other articulate bloggers invariably pick up and run with his themes way before they start to gel in my own head. But I catch up, eventually.
“Forgiveness” is the current theme du jour.
Now, I don’t take issue with any of the thoughtful thoughts on this issue presented, for example, by David Weinberger or Halley Suitt or Marek.
But they all left out one step on the road that I need to take to get to Forgiveness so that I don’t simply suppress or repress my hurt and anger and then unwittingly find myself at the mercy of what happens when those feelings erupt and displace at some time in my (and probably some other innocent person's) future. I need catharsis. I need to purge the bad feelings. I need to vent. Let me give you an example. And this is the goddesses'-honest truth:
Several years ago, as I was ending a relationship with a man I had been living with for only a year, I realized that he had already begun seeing (and probably sleeping with) another woman before I even moved out. He didn’t even wait until, as they say, “the body was cold.” Even though I knew it was over between us, I was still devastated. Hell, I was mad. Furious. I mean, how would you feel?
But I knew that I needed to move on, forgive, put it all behind me – not repress it or harbor seething rage. I had put an awful lot of myself into trying to make the relationship work; I even spent a great deal of my own creative energies editing and re-writing the first mystery novel that he had ever tried to write. His total disregard of my feelings after all of that truly hit a nerve. I was hurt. I was mad. I felt betrayed. How was I going to get to Forgiveness? Hee hee, as the Crone says.
This is what I did after I moved out: I made a clay figure that looked pretty much like him. (This stuff called Fimo is great for this purpose because you use your toaster oven to harden it.) I took a tin box and decorated it so that it looked like a miniature sarcophagus and painted it with female power symbols. I invited my women friends over on the night of a full moon (they were used to my doing weird stuff like this, so they came) and had them help me tear up various photos of us, cards, notes he had written me etc. and put them in the box, along with the figure. I wrote a chant, which basically said that I take back all that I had given him, all the creative energies I brought into his life, and I leave him as he was before I met him – non-existent in my awareness. We lit some candles, burned some incense, I did my chant and then I put the piece of paper with the chant on it into the box and sealed it up. And then we all sat down and had some decaf coffee and tea and Pepperidge Farm cookies and spent some time venting a whole lot of other stuff that bothered us.
After they left, at midnight I drove over to his house and left the box on his porch. Yes, I could have gotten arrested for trespassing, I suppose. But I didn’t.
With the delivery of that box, not only was my anger gone, but I no longer felt victimized, and that alone was worth the risk of getting caught trespassing. After that, it was easy to forget and forgive.
Maybe that’s not the accepted way to find Forgiveness as far as traditional religions and spiritualities are concerned, but boy, did it feel good. And the strange thing is, he called me some time after, and we talked about the incident and the experience. He knew he did something wrong, and my little ritual somehow expunged his guilt as well as my anger. And now, when we run into each other, there’s no anger, no guilt, a little nostalgia, a few laughs, and all in a zone of comfort that we never would have had without the shared catharsis.
So, for me, Forgiveness is not a place I can get to from here without taking a little detour. Does the end justify the means? Works for me.
La Rouge et La Blonde
No, this is not a mis-remembering the titleof Stendhal’s classic.
Unlike AKMA*, who watched Moulin Rouge because others in his family wanted to and then didn’t like it although they did, I loved it. And so did my kids. Of course, we also loved Buffy: The Musical. Probably for the same reasons. It has something to do with moving beyond the accepted and expected, playing with anachronisms and somehow making them “play.” It has something to do with shuffling together assumedly dissimilar approaches to performance and coming up with a new genre. Moulin Rouge is also gaudy and baudy. I guess that’s another reason why I like it.
Legally Blonde is another movie I just rented and liked a lot – and not because I’ve opted for blondeness. Our society has a tendency to force women into narrow categories: beautiful and dumb or smart and plain, mother or mistress, good girl or slut, attractive woman or old lady. Any female can be any or all of these things at various times. It’s good to be reminded that sometimes she can be beautiful, smart, sexy, ethical, moral, assertive, free-spirited – in the parlance of the ‘40s and '50s movies (as Tom Shurgart reminds me), a real “stand-up broad.” And that’s a fine and fabulous thing to be as far as I’m concerned.
*I couldn't find the exact citation for AKMA' blog about Moulin Rouge, so if anyone knows what it is, would you please leave it in the Comments? Thanks.
No, this is not a mis-remembering the titleof Stendhal’s classic.
Unlike AKMA*, who watched Moulin Rouge because others in his family wanted to and then didn’t like it although they did, I loved it. And so did my kids. Of course, we also loved Buffy: The Musical. Probably for the same reasons. It has something to do with moving beyond the accepted and expected, playing with anachronisms and somehow making them “play.” It has something to do with shuffling together assumedly dissimilar approaches to performance and coming up with a new genre. Moulin Rouge is also gaudy and baudy. I guess that’s another reason why I like it.
Legally Blonde is another movie I just rented and liked a lot – and not because I’ve opted for blondeness. Our society has a tendency to force women into narrow categories: beautiful and dumb or smart and plain, mother or mistress, good girl or slut, attractive woman or old lady. Any female can be any or all of these things at various times. It’s good to be reminded that sometimes she can be beautiful, smart, sexy, ethical, moral, assertive, free-spirited – in the parlance of the ‘40s and '50s movies (as Tom Shurgart reminds me), a real “stand-up broad.” And that’s a fine and fabulous thing to be as far as I’m concerned.
*I couldn't find the exact citation for AKMA' blog about Moulin Rouge, so if anyone knows what it is, would you please leave it in the Comments? Thanks.
So, Am I Brave or Just Plain Stupid?
I had such fun answering Frank Paynter's interview questions about how I got be be "Resident Crone of Blogdom" that I just kept on e-mailing him the stories of my life, including things some of my closest friends don't know. Well, now they know. Now everyone knows.
I had such fun answering Frank Paynter's interview questions about how I got be be "Resident Crone of Blogdom" that I just kept on e-mailing him the stories of my life, including things some of my closest friends don't know. Well, now they know. Now everyone knows.
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
I am totally "Older Than Dirt."
Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember -- not the ones you were told about! Ratings at the bottom.
1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottle
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P. F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive - 6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's.
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packard's
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered
0- 05 = You're still young
6-10 = You are getting older
11-15 = Don't tell your age,
16-25 = You're older than dirt!
Heh. I even have the distinction of having been on one of the earliest Howdy Doody shows as one of the kids in the Peanut Gallery. I remember being absolutely disillusioned by the fact that Clarabelle's breath smelled like whiskey and he was mean to us. Yes, I learned early the difference between fantasy and reality.
Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember -- not the ones you were told about! Ratings at the bottom.
1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottle
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P. F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive - 6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's.
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packard's
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered
0- 05 = You're still young
6-10 = You are getting older
11-15 = Don't tell your age,
16-25 = You're older than dirt!
Heh. I even have the distinction of having been on one of the earliest Howdy Doody shows as one of the kids in the Peanut Gallery. I remember being absolutely disillusioned by the fact that Clarabelle's breath smelled like whiskey and he was mean to us. Yes, I learned early the difference between fantasy and reality.
Damn YACCS
OK, so Ev went to another version of ProBlogger and it messed up my YACCS comments. So much for improvements. Now remember, I don't know how to do codes so I don't know how to fix mine. Can someone just give me the whole YACCS code that I now should put in to replace what I have now so that my comments will work in the new ProBlogger version? Dammit.
P.S., Addendum, Whatever
It pays to cultivate smart and helpful friends!! Thanks to Gary Turner, who told me what to do, my Comments are back. And my deepest apologies for thinking that Sean Connery was Welsh (where the hell did I get that?). He's Scottish. Of course, No wonder! Thanks, Gary.
OK, so Ev went to another version of ProBlogger and it messed up my YACCS comments. So much for improvements. Now remember, I don't know how to do codes so I don't know how to fix mine. Can someone just give me the whole YACCS code that I now should put in to replace what I have now so that my comments will work in the new ProBlogger version? Dammit.
P.S., Addendum, Whatever
It pays to cultivate smart and helpful friends!! Thanks to Gary Turner, who told me what to do, my Comments are back. And my deepest apologies for thinking that Sean Connery was Welsh (where the hell did I get that?). He's Scottish. Of course, No wonder! Thanks, Gary.
Hands Across the Ocean...
---or rather voices across the ocean. Gary Turner in the UK is making a hobby of collecting the voices of bloggers leaving actual voice messages on his voice mail. So, not wanting to be left behind, I added my message to his collection, which you can hear, in all my allergic nasality, by linking from his blog. (I don't think I sound as dorky as I thought I would sound -- *sigh of relief*.) You can hear Jeneane, Sharon, Shelley and Marek if you go here. See if you don't just love Gary's Scottish brogue -- sounds a little like Sean Connery, who's Welsh, I know, but still....it's the same rolling rrrrs, resonant tone. mmmm.
---or rather voices across the ocean. Gary Turner in the UK is making a hobby of collecting the voices of bloggers leaving actual voice messages on his voice mail. So, not wanting to be left behind, I added my message to his collection, which you can hear, in all my allergic nasality, by linking from his blog. (I don't think I sound as dorky as I thought I would sound -- *sigh of relief*.) You can hear Jeneane, Sharon, Shelley and Marek if you go here. See if you don't just love Gary's Scottish brogue -- sounds a little like Sean Connery, who's Welsh, I know, but still....it's the same rolling rrrrs, resonant tone. mmmm.
Monday, May 27, 2002
And for my next trick…..
So, now that the RageBoy ritual seems to have accomplished what it was intended to, my celebrity status is catching on. (No, that’s not what was intended.) Andrea is asking for my help winning the Mojo Jojo electric guitar so that she can achieve her rock star status dream.
Now, Andrea, the way Crone magic works is that we have to ask for what is “best” for you. I know that you promised that, if you get it, you
won't participate in or be the origin of any drug-ridden orgies that destroy hotel rooms. I will also give money to charity and be kind to small children. And I will go to church twice on Sunday and not swear when drivers cut me off on the freeway.
Well, we all know where good intentions lead.
However, since you write such great poetry and are such a model Geek Icon as well as a member of GEEK Force, and since you’re a BlogSister who actually posts on that weblog and also leaves nice Comments on mine, I will give it my best shot. Now, you gave me a very tight time frame – May 31. No time to find magical feathers and string beads and dig through my assorted paraphernalia for the other doodads that one needs in such situations. And not even a full moon to count on! This is going to be a tough one, so don’t get your hopes up too high. And, in the meanwhile, you’d better line up as many e-mail addresses as you can and make sure you play WinBall every day from each address. (Hey, I practice very practical magic.) And, while you're at it, make sure that you have your fave Sheryl Crowe (or other female guitar player of your choice) playing loud enough to disturb your neighbors. Oh, and buy a new guitar pick, drill a hole in it, and wear it around your neck for the rest of the week. Even better if you buy two and make them into earrings.
If you win it, of course, that was my doing. If you don’t, then I guess you just didn’t play enough WinBall. :-)
So, now that the RageBoy ritual seems to have accomplished what it was intended to, my celebrity status is catching on. (No, that’s not what was intended.) Andrea is asking for my help winning the Mojo Jojo electric guitar so that she can achieve her rock star status dream.
Now, Andrea, the way Crone magic works is that we have to ask for what is “best” for you. I know that you promised that, if you get it, you
won't participate in or be the origin of any drug-ridden orgies that destroy hotel rooms. I will also give money to charity and be kind to small children. And I will go to church twice on Sunday and not swear when drivers cut me off on the freeway.
Well, we all know where good intentions lead.
However, since you write such great poetry and are such a model Geek Icon as well as a member of GEEK Force, and since you’re a BlogSister who actually posts on that weblog and also leaves nice Comments on mine, I will give it my best shot. Now, you gave me a very tight time frame – May 31. No time to find magical feathers and string beads and dig through my assorted paraphernalia for the other doodads that one needs in such situations. And not even a full moon to count on! This is going to be a tough one, so don’t get your hopes up too high. And, in the meanwhile, you’d better line up as many e-mail addresses as you can and make sure you play WinBall every day from each address. (Hey, I practice very practical magic.) And, while you're at it, make sure that you have your fave Sheryl Crowe (or other female guitar player of your choice) playing loud enough to disturb your neighbors. Oh, and buy a new guitar pick, drill a hole in it, and wear it around your neck for the rest of the week. Even better if you buy two and make them into earrings.
If you win it, of course, that was my doing. If you don’t, then I guess you just didn’t play enough WinBall. :-)
It's so good to hear your voice.
One would tend to think that, since it's so easy to communicate online these days, we wouldn't bother using a telephone to talk with other bloggers. But that's not so. Maybe we just get to the point where we want to match a voice to the "voice." Whatever it is, there have been a lot of phone calls going on lately. I even wound up leaving Gary Turner a voice mail message on his work phone. (Well, he DID invite us to do so on his weblog.) And, after all, Jeneane and Sharon and Shelley already got to Gary's voice mail before me, and I can't stand being left behind. Of course, I forgot that Gary makes our voice messages available to the world at large, and I'm sure that I sounded like a real dork. I knew that I should have written out what I wanted to say first!!
I also called Jeneane today because she's even got a worse sinus problem that I have right now (although I'm going to need surgery, so maybe mine really is worse; but she certainly sounds and feels worse). I guess our intra-national ritual took its toll on the poor thing. Not so with RageBoy, who sounded rather chipper on the telephone. (hee hee cackle cackle says the Crone). And then Marek J called me the other day, and we had just the kind of energizing conversation that one might expect to have with Marek.
The next step has to be some sort of face to face. Too bad we can't videoconference. Nah. We need to figure out how to all get together for a real messy group hug. :-)
One would tend to think that, since it's so easy to communicate online these days, we wouldn't bother using a telephone to talk with other bloggers. But that's not so. Maybe we just get to the point where we want to match a voice to the "voice." Whatever it is, there have been a lot of phone calls going on lately. I even wound up leaving Gary Turner a voice mail message on his work phone. (Well, he DID invite us to do so on his weblog.) And, after all, Jeneane and Sharon and Shelley already got to Gary's voice mail before me, and I can't stand being left behind. Of course, I forgot that Gary makes our voice messages available to the world at large, and I'm sure that I sounded like a real dork. I knew that I should have written out what I wanted to say first!!
I also called Jeneane today because she's even got a worse sinus problem that I have right now (although I'm going to need surgery, so maybe mine really is worse; but she certainly sounds and feels worse). I guess our intra-national ritual took its toll on the poor thing. Not so with RageBoy, who sounded rather chipper on the telephone. (hee hee cackle cackle says the Crone). And then Marek J called me the other day, and we had just the kind of energizing conversation that one might expect to have with Marek.
The next step has to be some sort of face to face. Too bad we can't videoconference. Nah. We need to figure out how to all get together for a real messy group hug. :-)
Sunday, May 26, 2002
Let’s hear it for the grrrls.
Jeneane, Halley, and me stirring it up on the East Coast; Denise reflecting it back on the West Coast; RB center stage absorbing it all and finding himself buying a copy of Eve Ensler. Now try to tell me something hasn’t begun shifting in the universe!
The moon hid from my view last night, but she couldn’t hide her secrets. Denise saw a ring-‘round-the-moon. A portent if ever there was one. Jeneane and RB, ever in sync, paused to share the lucid moonlight.
This morning at about 8 a.m., which is when the moon was said to be most full-faced out this way, a brief, thunderous, and lightening-lit rainstorm. A little cosmic applause for the grrrls, Blogaria’s revisionist ladies of the nethernight.
Our part is over. But the rest isn’t.
If you believe in faeries, clap your hands.
Jeneane, Halley, and me stirring it up on the East Coast; Denise reflecting it back on the West Coast; RB center stage absorbing it all and finding himself buying a copy of Eve Ensler. Now try to tell me something hasn’t begun shifting in the universe!
The moon hid from my view last night, but she couldn’t hide her secrets. Denise saw a ring-‘round-the-moon. A portent if ever there was one. Jeneane and RB, ever in sync, paused to share the lucid moonlight.
This morning at about 8 a.m., which is when the moon was said to be most full-faced out this way, a brief, thunderous, and lightening-lit rainstorm. A little cosmic applause for the grrrls, Blogaria’s revisionist ladies of the nethernight.
Our part is over. But the rest isn’t.
If you believe in faeries, clap your hands.
Saturday, May 25, 2002
Entredeux
Being between -- between two places, two worlds, two people, two states of consciousness, two hearts, two minds. Betweentwo. Betweentwo.
As Jeneane says Helene Cixous says:
Human beings are equipped for daily life, with its rites, with its closure, its commodities, its furniture. When an event arrives which evicts us from ourselves, we do not know how to 'live.' But we must. Thus, we are launched into a space-time whose coordinates are all different from those we have always been accustomed to.
Aha! Aha! Ahas happen because of entredeux journeys.
Rituals are meant to be catalysts for certain kinds of entredeux – to evict us, launch us – force us to alter our perceptions, perspectives, permissions. To force Ahas.
Soon, soon.
I am surprised that no one has emailed me and said, What are you weird? You don’t really believe that magic ritual stuff do you? Well, almost no one. Frank Paynter asked me. He asked me some other questions, too, and I wound up writing “The Story of My Life in 5 E-mails.” If he shares any of that on his blog, you will know if I believe in magic.
Meanwhile, I will share with you one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite magical novelists, Alice Hoffman. It’s from Turtle Moon.
Every May, when the sea turtles begin their migration across West Main Street, mistaking the glow of streetlights for the moon, people go a little bit crazy. At least one teenage boy comes close to slamming his car right into the gumbo-limbo tree that grows beside the Burger King. Girls run away from home, babies cry all night, ficus hedges explode into flame, and during one particularly awful May, half a dozen rattlesnakes set themselves up in the phone booth outside the 7-Eleven and refused to budge until June.
Magic is a way to view the world.
In another hour, I will leave and go outside, where three fir trees form a perfect triangle, where the roof of a strip of garages blocks the view of those trees from the windows of my elderly frightened neighbors, who, no doubt will call the cops if they see the flicker of candlelight, if they notice the subtle whirl of shadow and sage smoke.
The clouds obscure the gleam of the full moon, but I know where it is. The same moon that nestles above the cloud cover here in upstate NY is the same moon that watches over Boulder. The moon is entredeux.
Being between -- between two places, two worlds, two people, two states of consciousness, two hearts, two minds. Betweentwo. Betweentwo.
As Jeneane says Helene Cixous says:
Human beings are equipped for daily life, with its rites, with its closure, its commodities, its furniture. When an event arrives which evicts us from ourselves, we do not know how to 'live.' But we must. Thus, we are launched into a space-time whose coordinates are all different from those we have always been accustomed to.
Aha! Aha! Ahas happen because of entredeux journeys.
Rituals are meant to be catalysts for certain kinds of entredeux – to evict us, launch us – force us to alter our perceptions, perspectives, permissions. To force Ahas.
Soon, soon.
I am surprised that no one has emailed me and said, What are you weird? You don’t really believe that magic ritual stuff do you? Well, almost no one. Frank Paynter asked me. He asked me some other questions, too, and I wound up writing “The Story of My Life in 5 E-mails.” If he shares any of that on his blog, you will know if I believe in magic.
Meanwhile, I will share with you one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite magical novelists, Alice Hoffman. It’s from Turtle Moon.
Every May, when the sea turtles begin their migration across West Main Street, mistaking the glow of streetlights for the moon, people go a little bit crazy. At least one teenage boy comes close to slamming his car right into the gumbo-limbo tree that grows beside the Burger King. Girls run away from home, babies cry all night, ficus hedges explode into flame, and during one particularly awful May, half a dozen rattlesnakes set themselves up in the phone booth outside the 7-Eleven and refused to budge until June.
Magic is a way to view the world.
In another hour, I will leave and go outside, where three fir trees form a perfect triangle, where the roof of a strip of garages blocks the view of those trees from the windows of my elderly frightened neighbors, who, no doubt will call the cops if they see the flicker of candlelight, if they notice the subtle whirl of shadow and sage smoke.
The clouds obscure the gleam of the full moon, but I know where it is. The same moon that nestles above the cloud cover here in upstate NY is the same moon that watches over Boulder. The moon is entredeux.
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