Beba Adventurosa Du Marier

Because talking is simply a thing of the past.

http://www.inetself.com/

It preserves your spirit VIRTUALLY for successive generations...

Ugh modern life, modern nausea.

"My Handwriting" Yevgeny Yevtushenko

My handwriting is not calligraphic.
Not following the rules of beauty,
words stagger about,
reeling,
as if clobbered on the jaw.

But you, the descendant, my textual critic,
following on the heels of the past,
take stock of those gales
your ancestor got caught in.

He walked on a pugnacious coastal freighter,
a bit arrogant,
but you
should see beyond the pitched handwriting
not only the author’s traits.

Your ancestor wrote while tossed about,
not kept too warm by squalls,
habitually,
like having a pack
of his usual cigarettes.

Of course, far off we made our way courageously,
but it’s hard to write a line,
when your head is smashed with relish
against the bulkhead.

Risking skin and bones,
it’s tough to sing acclaim,
when what you see compels you
not to praise, but only to throw up.

When churning water strangles motors
and a wave’s curl is aimed at your forehead,
then smudges are better than flourishes.
They’re black--but true.

Here--
fingers simply grew numb.
Here--
the swell slyly tormented.
Here--
the pen jerked with uncertainty
away from some mean shoal.

But if through all the clumsiness,
through the clutches of awkwardness,
an idea breaks through the way a freighter on
the Lena
breaks through to the arctic shore--

then, descendant, be slow to curse the style,
don’t judge an ancestor severely,
and even in the handwriting of the poet
find a solution to the enigma of time.

1967
Translated by Albert C. Todd

I have a deadly and chronic addiction to dreams and escape, dreams of escape, and escaping into my dreams (if they are not all one in the same).

Having never previously made a conscious effort to read 50 books per year, this year I decided that in the last two weeks of December I would at least reach the half-mark and arrive at 25. I decided this after compiling a list of all the books I REMEMBER reading this past year, it came out to 21, most of which were required; then again, if I'd read all the books required of me this year (sorry Craig) I would have been past 30: C'est la vie.
Anyway, because I am self-righteous I feel it is necessary to list them here and also to note that I am not including the seemingly countless essays, short stories, and of course poems I have read this year, which probably amounts to somewhere around 500 pages--but no, I'm not including them, that would be cheating.

( In no particular order, the majestic, impressive, mediocre and grating 25 )

Now I will drive to Charlotte and have festivities with that horrible Romanian (I love you), her boyfriend (maybe not you though), and god knows who else.

Make a positive and reasonable resolution,
or at least a funny one.

Today
class
this
(will be our topic).

I LOVE my minor.

(Didn't even bother reading this chapter, i.e. my confidence makes me a jerk.)

If you look at the famous study of intellectual self-esteem over a fifteen-year continuum of young women and young men who had been at the top of their high school class, you see that women's intellectual self-esteem tends to go down with every year of higher education, whereas men's stays the same or goes slightly up. Because what women are often learning is that everybody who accomplished something in the world didn't look like them.

Now that is greatly remedied by taking Women's Studies, of course, but not everybody takes Women's Studies. It's part of the reason we need to make courses in both race and sex stereotyping entry-level courses that everybody takes, so that men are also released to do what they want to do that maybe doesn't fit the masculine stereotype, and that we understand the racial politics as well. And in a way the Women's Studies, African-American Studies, Native American Studies, Appalachian Studies are all remedial studies. They should be part of everybody's history.

"Someone Great" by LCD Soundsystem (off their new album Sound of Silver) is a beautiful song with a gorgeous video to match, really simple technical concept that makes it, in my opinion, even more relatable than it already is, to me.
If you watch it, you'll understand, hopefully.

Consequentially, embedding is forbidden from youtube, but that's just as well because it needs to be appreciated on a full screen.

Meanwhile,

"Eternal Youth" by Ben Gleib

Global Warming has ruined my favorite Christmas song.
I guess we could always change it to, "Baby, It's Unusually Warm for December Outside."
UGH

Jennifer Jason Leigh's mother wrote the script for Pollock
and her father was killed because of a stunt gone awry on The Twilight Zone.

I love her even more now.

If you've never seen any of her movies... get on it.
I suggest Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle
Georgia
Dolores Claiborne
Bastard Out of Carolina
and
Fast Times at Ridgemont High!

Ha, I went to put Hayao Miyazaki on my interests and he was already there.
:)

We're gonna make it through these two weeks.

when I was little I had a really white plastic horse
upon receiving it I of course wanted to name it
and I wanted to name it 'Virgin' because of the color.
My mom said,
"Oh don't name it that, Mom will have nightmares."
So I named it something stupid I can't even remember.

On a more constructive note,
buy a pair of these

(or whatever other color/pattern)
so a kid in an underdeveloped country can have a pair too!
I'm not kidding.
http://www.tomsshoes.com/

DO IT!!
or
I'll EAT YOUR FACE OFF WITH A SPOON!!!

Oh, Jeremy Irons--how many people can say they are typecasted as the older sophisticated male who just can't control his lust for younger seductresses?
Hello, Dominique Swain, Juliette Binoche.
Two actresses who play some fairly quirky roles as well.

Absolutely nothing else.

Holy crap there are so many Saggitarians on my friends page!

Another cool thing:
The history of Los Dias de los Muertos which you can read about here
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/history/

I come up the stairs to my room,
next-door neighbor boys,
"I JUST ATE REESES PUFFS DRY!! I AM A CRAZY MUTHAFUCKA!"
If only this was a scheduled occurrence and they did not have just glamorous antics at 1 am on weekdays as well,
I'm old.

Also, fuck this weather.