In Iowa
By Seamus Heaney
In Iowa once, among the Mennonites
In a slathering blizzard, conveyed all afternoon
Through sleet-glit pelting hard against the windscreen
And a wiper's strong absolving slumps and flits,
I saw, abandoned in the open gap
Of a field where wilted corn stalks flagged the snow,
A mowing machine. Snow brimmed its iron seat,
Heaped each spoked wheel with a thick white brow,
And took the shine off oil in the black-toothed gears.
Verily I came forth from that wilderness
As one unbaptized who had known darkness
At the third hour and the veil in tatters.
In Iowa once. In the slush and rush and hiss
Not of parted but as of rising waters.
--------
Another from this week's Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World, on poetry about seasons. The column begins with Pinsky discussing haiku such as Yosa Buson's: "'White blossoms of the pear / and a woman in moonlight / reading a letter.'" Heaney, says Pinsky, exemplifies "what may be a universal gesture of poetry, registering a season with details that also present a feeling...in a harsh wintry image from his recent book, District & Circle, the Irish poet...perceives a relic of both harvest and obliteration, a machine that in its seasonal setting embodies the frailty and stubborn courage of human resources."
After younger son's first lesson with his new violin teacher, whom he seems to like but she expects a lot of practicing so we'll see how it goes, my father took the kids to the pool for a couple of hours while
The Rousseau exhibit is fantastic -- so many of his big jungle canvases in the same place, but also photos, magazine covers and exhibits from the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes and World's Fair that inspired him. I did not realize that Rousseau never left France and studied "jungles" at the botanical gardens and the zoo! There were two sculptures from Paris, one of a woman being carried off by a gorilla, another of a hunter being mauled by a bear, that were pretty evident influences on specific paintings of Rousseau's, as well as a taxidermist's display of a lion attacking an antelope that he painted pretty precisely in The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope, but I found it interesting that while the display card went on about how the statue of the woman being dragged off the by gorilla was erotically suggestive, the one on the statue of the male hunter and the bear didn't mention that the man was naked from the waist down (pretty stupid way to hunt for bear cubs!) and the statue looks like nothing so much as a Greek representation of a god carrying off one of the numerous mortal women raped in mythology. It's oddly refreshing to see Rousseau's unromantic view of Paris and the weirdly innocent brutality of his natural world.
...and Frank Stella's La scienza della fiacca.
In the late afternoon we decided it would still be too hot and disgusting out to want to sit in the sun at 6 p.m. even to listen to Lisa Moscatiello, so we retrieved the kids and my father and all went out to Tara Thai, where we ate a very great deal of spicy food. Then we dropped father off, came home and watched Brotherhood (as well as it could be watched with older son finding a hundred ways to stall going to bed, considering that the F word is spoken about every twenty seconds on that show). So many horrible things happen on that series every week -- many perpetrated by Jason Isaacs' character -- that I wonder whether it's worth sticking with it, but there is also some wonderful dialogue and interaction that makes it worthwhile.
I am not at all pleased with Michael, who is in serious need of some anger management (okay, some serious time behind bars, which also won't rehabilitate him given the insanity from which he comes), but it is so compelling to watch Jason in scenes like the one where he gets a guy he's planning to kill drunk while never touching his own drink, with a really scary expression on his face. I still find it hard to root for Tommy even though he should be so much more likeable, trying so hard to be a good son and husband and brother and keeping his head up when the Speaker of the House makes him recite Kipling's "If" at a dinner with other politicians (I used to be able to recite that poem, too, more verses than he knows...remind me to post it sometime if I never have). Though I think the best dialogue belongs to Tommy's would-be political mentor, who tells Tommy that he's like a wounded animal alone in the savannah in need of a pack, and when Tommy asks whether that means he has to kiss the Speaker's ass, replies, "I'm a gorilla. I live in the jungle. It doesn't matter to me what happens in the savannah."
Star Trek news today was William Shatner conducting the Boston Pops in Cape Cod! What will that man decide he can do next?
Monday, July 31, 2006
Poem for Monday
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Poem for Sunday
Say Summer/ For My Mother
By Stanley Plumly
I could give it back to you, perhaps in a season,
say summer. I could give you leaf back, green
grass, sky full of rain, root
that won't dig deeper, the names called out
just before sundown: Linda back, Susy back,
Carolyn.
I could give you back supper
on the porch or the room without a breath
of fresh air, back the little tears in the heat,
the hot sleep on the kitchen floor,
back the talk in the great dark,
the voices low on the lawn
so the children can't hear,
say summer, say father, say mother:
Ruth and Mary and Esther, names in a book,
names I remember -- I could give you back this name,
and back the breath to say it with --
we all know we'll die of our children --
back the tree bent over the water,
back the sun burning down,
back the witness back each morning.
--------
From Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World. "Reading even a little Japanese poetry in translation reminds us of the cultural importance of the seasons. Evoking an exact time of year and an associated emotion, in a way that makes the tradition fresh, is the poet's goal," writes Pinsky, citing haiku writers: "For example, the 18th-century writer known as Issa indicates the craving for shelter and companionship as winter comes on: 'Deer licking / first frost / from each other's coats.'" Plumly's poem in a similar tradition "refers to a world of American summers and a world of losses, with the word 'say' meaning both 'for example' and the act of naming."
It has been a very long but entirely satisfying Saturday, starting at the outrageously early hour of 6:45 a.m. so we could get to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore in time for Breakfast With the Penguins, which we had promised younger son that we would do as part of his birthday present (he also adopted one of the penguins and got a photo, certificate, fact sheet and stuffed penguin, which were delivered at the breakfast). They had set up tables near the penguin enclosure and brought out two "ambassador penguins" -- an adolescent and a young adult -- plus feathers, a preserved skull and things like that so they could talk about penguin biology and habitat while we ate eggs, sausage, pancakes, pastries, etc. Then they took small groups, gave everyone disposable gloves and let each person throw a fish to the swimming penguin population. Son was extremely pleased, and after the breakfast we had the zoo to ourselves for a little while before it opened to the public and got to see very active chimpanzees, roaring lions, fighting rhinos and other animals in the Africa region before going to the Parakeet Landing so budgies could poop land on our arms.
A crowd of adolescent penguins on the wall watches a crowd of adult penguins swimming in the enclosure. The self-chosen segregation amused us.
To raise money for a group in South Africa that rescues and rehabilitates African penguins, the Maryland Zoo penguins created paintings with their feet which were auctioned off. Here is a poster of the penguins hard at work. (Apparently their favorite part of this activity was knocking the paint containers over and watching them roll around.)
Happy breakfasters throwing fish to the penguins!
The penguins were very happy about this and swam around, fighting with the cormorants to get the fish!
But as the temperature climbed, they wanted to go back into their air-conditioned enclosure, and upon discovering that they were locked out for the duration of the breakfast, they started lining up to get in.
Since it was nearly a hundred degrees, we only stayed at the zoo for a few hours, then went to Harborplace for lunch (crab cakes, fish and chips, naturally), then the National Aquarium where it was cooler even in the rainforest and Australia exhibits than outside. There were several animals on display that weren't the last time we saw the new Australia wing: flying foxes, kookaburras, several species of birds and a python, to name a few. We also went to see the dolphins, though not the show -- they were only doing it once in the afternoon to let the new baby rest, so we just watched them in their big pools -- and went fairly rapidly through the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic sections so we could go see the puffins, the rainforest (where we saw the golden lion tamarins, the sloth, the iguana and several turtles in addition to the wide variety of birds and fish there), the Atlantic reef and the shark and ray tanks.
On the way to Camden Yards we visited the USS Constellation long enough to see the newly restored wardroom and officers' quarters, which had been closed off ever since we started visiting the ship (one of the nice things about membership is that we can stop for 15 minutes every time we're in Baltimore instead of trying to do the full three-hour tour with restless kids once a year). Then we went to the Orioles game, where we saw the Orioles demonstrate such skills as stranding men on base, hitting into double plays, pitching home-run balls to consecutive batters and failing to signal effectively that the player on second needed to run to third because the player on first was already 3/4 of the way to second. The White Sox at times played nearly as badly as the Orioles but they were still ahead by several points when we left, and though the Orioles tried valiantly to come back several times, it was never quite enough. Ah well, our seats were in the shade and there was frozen lemonade and Frank Thomas is no longer on the White Sox so I had no dilemma about who to root for (the losers, hah), and my father-in-law met us with a friend of his since my mother-in-law is still recovering from bronchitis.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Poem for Saturday
The Connoisseuse of Slugs
By Sharon Olds
When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those gold bodies,
translucent strangers glistening along the
stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Mostly made of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the
odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the ends,
delicate and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.
--------
I've posted this one before but it was in 2003, and I learned today that there are some people who have not read Olds, who along with Pattiann Rogers is the living poet who has most influenced me, so clearly I need to post more of her work.
I had no cable all morning, which I couldn't do anything about after the second furious phone call to Comcast, so I went out to lunch with
Then I came home and wrote a review of "Assignment: Earth", which wasn't easy because it isn't a good episode exactly but it's a really fun episode despite the fact that Kirk and Spock have to be kind of silly and passive so Gary Seven can set his plans in motion. But, I mean, it has Kirk smirking at Spock who can't stop petting a cat, and Teri Garr in what has to be the worst outfit ever seen on television even counting Shahna's gold bikini-thing from "The Gamesters of Triskelion"! Such was the extent of my Trekkie mood that tonight we watched "Cause and Effect" from the Time Travel DVD set. I love Beverly Crusher-centered episodes that are not "Sub Rosa" or "Attached." Oh, and someone at the IMDb has posted that Damon and Affleck are going to play Kirk and Spock in Star Trek XI. This is unquestionably not true, but given that the script is being written by Kurtzman and Orci who wrote such lovely slashy stuff on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, it would not make me cry if it was; I can handle a mediocre campy Star Trek revival but not a mediocre serious one.
1. Do you smoke? Never, not a single cigarette.
2. Are you more likely to be caught humming, whistling or singing to yourself? Singing.
3. Have you ever been to New Orleans? Sadly, no.
4. When is the last time you saw the sun rise? Over Denver a year ago when we got caught overnight after a cancelled flight.
5. Can you swim? Yes.
1. Are you named after anyone? If so, explain. My mother's father, who died many years before I was born; our first and Hebrew names start with the same letter.
2. Do you have your children's names picked out already? If so, is there any significance? My older son is named after (middle name, first in Hebrew) my father's father and (first name, middle in Hebrew) my husband's father's father; my younger son is named after (first name, same in Hebrew) my mother's mother, (middle name, same in Hebrew) my mother's mother's father, my father's father's father (both of whom had the same name) and my husband's mother's father (whose name started with the same letter).
3. If you were born a member of the opposite sex what would your name have been? A name very close to my own but not the most direct derivation as that is my uncle's name.
4. If you could re-name yourself what name would you pick and why? I have had many opportunities to rename myself and have never done so, not even to get other people with my name off my credit report, so I guess I am not really tempted.
5. Are there any mispronunciations/typos that people do w/ your name constantly? They add Es to my last name and sometimes take an L out of my first name.
1. Kai Winn from Deep Space Nine, who is one of the toughest, most complex, most interesting women on Star Trek.
2. The Marquise de Merteuil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, who is corrupt and selfish and venal and clever and incredibly sexy.
3. The White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia, whom I always rooted for a little bit even before I had the allegory slammed over my head.
4. Hans Gruber from Die Hard, who is the real protagonist of the film -- everything John McClane does is reactive, it's Gruber who drives the story and until the very end kicks everyone's ass.
5. Lionel Luthor from Smallville, who is the only thing that has kept the program at all lively by providing sharp, witty antagonism for absolutely everyone.
And I must give an honorable mention to KHAN! Who nearly singlehandedly saved the Trek franchise by being such a marvelous balance for Kirk and Spock.
This always seems to happen...no sooner did the cable come back on than my husband called from work at the end of the day to tell me that his battery was dead. He managed to get it jumped but we are not sure whether it will start again Saturday...not that this matters Saturday since we are taking the bigger van to Baltimore from 7 a.m. for Breakfast with the Penguins at the zoo as part of younger son's birthday celebration, then parking at the Inner Harbor to see the aquarium, the USS Constellation which finally has a restored wardroom and the Orioles-White Sox game with my in-laws. So I will not be around much to catch up on things!
My mother-in-law made this pillowcase and comforter with penguins on them for son's birthday.
She had also knitted him a penguin in the past, and I couldn't remember posting it here before, so there.
Rosie, however, was far more impressed by the wrapping paper and bags than she was by any presents.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Get Critical Update
TV Review: Star Trek's "Assignment: Earth"
TV Review: Star Trek's "Bread and Circuses"
Poem for Friday
Take the I Out
By Sharon Olds
But I love the I, steel I-beam
that my father sold. They poured the pig iron
into the mold, and it fed out slowly,
a bending jelly in the bath, and it hardened,
Bessemer, blister, crucible, alloy, and he
marketed it, and bought bourbon, and Cream
of Wheat, its curl of butter right
in the middle of its forehead, he paid for our dresses
with his metal sweat, sweet in the morning
and sour in the evening. I love the I,
frail between its flitches, its hard ground
and hard sky, it soars between them
like the soul that rushes, back and forth,
between the mother and father. What if they had loved each other,
how would it have felt to be the strut
joining the floor and roof of the truss?
I have seen, on his shirt-cardboard, years
in her desk, the night they made me, the penciled
slope of her temperature rising, and on
the peak of the hill, first soldier to reach
the crest, the Roman numeral I--
I, I, I, I,
girders of identity, head on,
embedded in the poem. I love the I
for its premise of existence--our I--when I was
born, part gelid, I lay with you
on the cooling table, we were all there, a
forest of felled iron. The I is a pine,
resinous, flammable root to crown,
which throws its cones as far as it can in a fire.
--------
Last weekend it was no mail, and today it's been no cable -- I'm signed on to AOL over the phone line to post this, hence only the one photo. My day involved lots of replanning anyway --
We also watched "Assignment: Earth" so I can retro-review it; I'd put off this last episode of the original series' second season because I didn't have the third season and was somewhat in limbo about whether my editor was sending it to me or what, so I finally just asked him whether he wanted me to buy it myself and put it on my next invoice which he said was fine. Amazon.com delivered it in two days even though I didn't pay for rush shipping, so now I have all three seasons of classic Trek, on the very same day The Digital Bits announced that Paramount hinted at Comic-Con that they would be remastering and rereleasing both the original series and all the original movies in HD. I don't really care, though: I never bought them on VHS, was content with my six-episodes-to-a-tape homemade tapes for decades, and I am just delighted to have them on DVD at all considering that no amount of remastering is going to make the matte paintings and static shots of rockets look any more real. Somehow it seems fitting for there to be static around the Earth the Enterprise is orbiting in 1968. We also watched some of the special features -- the Red Shirt Diaries are great -- and I put on my aging and decrepit videotape of the first and second season blooper reels for the kids, with such classic moments as McCoy trying to kiss Kirk on the bridge and Nimoy staying in character and raising his eyebrow every time before cracking up.
One of my favorite things for sale at the Smithsonian, in honor of both the rocks and minerals collection and the insect zoo in the Museum of Natural History, is "InsectNside" Amber Candy, in which hard candy encloses actual dead bugs. Cockroach Cluster anyone?
Hopefully Friday morning I will have my cable back and will be able to read and answer comments and stuff -- I can't even e-mail because AOL won't let me use my own smtp and I don't want my AOL screen name attached to all my mail.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Poem for Thursday
In Memory of M.B.
By Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz
Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.
Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,
I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.
--------
Had a quiet day returning a million phone calls, but it was productive: I found younger son a violin teacher for the fall, I made appointments that have to be taken care of before school starts, I booked a DJ for older son's Bar Mitzvah after discovering that his vehement refusal had stemmed not from not wanting music -- he does want music, and has a great many opinions about what should be played -- but because he is afraid that his grandmother will force him to dance the hora in front of everyone if there is a DJ, which we assured him will not happen and we will in fact instruct the DJ to leave "Hava Nagila" home. (None of his friends know how to dance a hora and very few of my friends know how to dance a hora, so my mother's repeated insistence that this is an absolutely necessary part of a Bar Mitzvah really only includes her friends, so they can go dance one in the hallway if they feel that strongly about it! I remember being convinced that my father's brother was going to tip me out of the chair and I was going to break my arm both at my Bat Mitzvah and my wedding so I am very sympathetic to this, particularly since aforementioned uncle is flying out from California for the celebration.)
Son had his second meeting with the rabbi, who was very impressed with his Torah portion -- wants it memorized by next week, but I have no doubt son can do this if he practices more than the five minutes a day he did this week -- and warned us that if we wanted to take family photos in the sanctuary, we needed to make an appointment to do it sometime other than the morning of the Bar Mitzvah so that is the phone call for tomorrow. Plus lunch with
In the evening we all watched Proof (the Anthony Hopkins-Gwyneth Paltrow-Jake Gyllenhaal one, not the Russell Crowe-Hugo Weaving one, though I highly recommend that one too). I had thought just I would watch it, since
I'm not sure the metaphor of existential proof versus mathematical proofs really works, and it's always weird watching a movie about something literally incomprehensible to me -- I had to ask older son whether he'd heard of one of the theorems being discussed, because if I ever did, I've forgotten. Still, it has one feature that absolutely sold me on it: it's set at the University of Chicago, and was actually filmed in Hyde Park, and there are many scenes sitting on the Point and driving up Lake Shore Drive and walking on the campus that made me so nostalgic. Jake is very good, Hopkins is excellent as he nearly always is, and Gwyneth reminded me a bit of the character she played in Possession (who didn't remind me much of the same character in the novel Possession, but wasn't heinous on the Gwyneth scale) so Proof didn't do much to convince me that she has any range but she was fine in the role.
An Apollo Lunar Sample Return Container, or ALSRC, used to transport moon rocks back to earth without threat of damage or contamination. This one never actually went to the moon but was used for training.
Prince's Yellow Cloud guitar, custom-made in Minneapolis during the period when he was The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, or represented by the symbol between the frets.
As you can see from the marker, these are pieces of the Hindenburg, which exploded and burned so famously.
Am still pleased by the entertainment news but as
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Poem for Wednesday
Flounder
By Natasha Trethewey
Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
you 'bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,
circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.
This is how you hold the pole
to cast the line out straight.
Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.
She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up
reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
'cause one of its sides is black.
The other is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,
switch sides with every jump.
--------
My entire day was overshadowed by repeated phone-tagging about a meeting set up yesterday about centerpieces for son's Bar Mitzvah. Naturally, since I said three o'clock and she agreed, my mother had to call me (on the cell phone while I was driving to lunch with
I have concluded that my mother has one of three plans: 1) Attempt to turn me into the sort of suburban socialite I resisted becoming in high school when she last pushed this hard for it, 2) Drive me insane so I'll be in a mental institution for the next several months or 3) Convince me to give up Judaism entirely and become a fully-practicing Pagan. If either of the latter is her goal, she's succeeding admirably...but wait, if she wanted me to give up Judaism she could just say so, and explaining that her daughter is in a mental institution would surely impact her social status almost as much as having a daughter who insists that people have been becoming Bar Mitzvahs for centuries without paying for a big freakin' background for the cake during the candle-lighting ceremony with the celebrant's name in big poofy letters matching the lettering on the little cards with table numbers. So yes, I am reliving my own childhood hell all over again! Because neither my son nor I care whether the electronic games are set up in the hallway near the bar or in the main party room, but apparently the success of the entire evening depends upon whether there will be a sign announcing this fact that matches the centerpieces! I told the husband that he was dealing with her from now on, as he can get away with a straightforward "No, it costs too much," whereas if I say that 1) I get guilt about how NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MY SON'S HAPPINESS and 2) she just does an end-run around me and asks my husband anyway.
My redemption this evening was the discovery that Field of Dreams was on HBO Signature. I don't care what Kevin Costner says or does, I adore that movie and have since the first time I saw it when it made me cry. I know it's reputed to be a wussy male weepie (Time or People or one of those said so when it opened) and I think they're on crack. Scenes like the one at the end of this movie are why I love baseball movies even more than any given baseball game. We are going this weekend to see the Orioles play the White Sox after a long day in Baltimore -- 8:30 a.m. Breakfast with the Penguins at the zoo for son's birthday, then aquarium and science center before the ball game -- so I may need a reminder of why I love baseball by late afternoon! *g*
Bear claw necklace worn by Native Americans with whom Lewis negotiated as the expedition neared the west coast. He reported that killing a bear was considered an act of equal valor as killing an enemy.
Lewis brought fourteen brass kettles to trade with the Native Americans, reporting that brass was preferred to iron.
Out of money and food, Clark played tricks with this compass using a magnet to impress people by performing magic.
Trek news was all TNG Tuesday...Patrick Stewart once again saying that Star Trek to him is like a long-dead love affair and he doubts he'll be back unless lots and lots of money is involved because he is Alexander Dane from Galaxy Quest only not as hot (actually I made that last part up but he really is), and the writer of "The Inner Light" explaining what he wanted vs. what the producers wanted.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Poem for Tuesday
Baby's Foot on My Brow
By Pak Chaesam
Translated by David R. McCann and Jiwon Shin
Two-year-old Sang-gyu,
asleep now
after toddling perilously about
the alleyway and courtyard
all day; your pretty feet
that crossed over the huge sun
beneath their soles:
Here, just once try a step
on your father's forehead,
steeper even than the gravel road.
Such soft, undirtied feet.
--------
One more from Sunday's Poet's Choice in The Washington Post Book World by Robert Pinsky, who says Chaesam's "kind of brevity suggests lenses for observing the details of galaxies or the mysteries of a cell. Or it can resemble the fine point of an engraver's tool, etching memory."
I don't have a lot of news to report from the day. The kids started camp, they seem to have had a great time -- it's mostly a sports camp with chess, art and science plus their favorite things: video game consoles that can be played at lunch and at the end of the day. They did mostly soccer and older son won candy in a chess tournament so they came home tired and happy. They were in no hurry to leave when I came to pick them up, which never happens at school!
Tonight I noticed that Serenity was on cable and decided it was time to give it a chance, after being apathetic about Firefly, which I sort of liked with some notable exceptions -- I find Whedon's aren't-I-clever dialogue rather cloying, and I can't stand Inara, neither the concept of her (phoniest prostitute in the entire sci-fi hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold genre and that's saying something after the Bajoran "comfort women" on Deep Space Nine) nor the casting (played by an actress with no chemistry with the man who supposedly would cross a galaxy for her). But I'd heard that her role had been minimized in the movie and even non-Firefly fan friends who are as bored by new BSG as I am liked it, so I figured I owed it to myself to watch it. The whole family ended up in the room, and although for the first 3/4 of an hour or so I remained unimpressed -- same issues with the clonking dialogue and still hiding my eyes from all the women but Gina Torres -- but then the storyline really got going and the movie moved away from reintroducing all the characters' carefully constructed quirks and the film absolutely rocked! I was pretty spoiled, but even knowing the secret of Miranda, totally riveted by how everything played out, and Fillion and Glau in particular gave much stronger performances than I ever saw from them on Firefly. So that was totally enjoyable, and everyone who told me to watch it was right, thank you, and we will all definitely watch that one again.
What really set this off, though, was trying to get myself kicked off the TrekBBS -- well, not really, but it did occur to me that I might. *G* I had surfed into a thread on Lady in the Water hoping to be spoiled enough to decide whether I wanted to see the movie in the theater -- am up and down on Shyamalan, thought The Sixth Sense was brilliant even though I knew the twist by the restaurant scene, and was spoiled for the gimmick in The Village but thought it was a much better movie than most reviewers did, but I never saw Signs because I don't like the cast and I didn't think Unbreakable was all that clever. Plus my husband's brother just catered Bryce Dallas Howard's vegan wedding on Ron Howard's estate in Connecticut -- she eats at his restaurant a lot and he knows her reasonably well -- so since she seems like a good egg, I am happy to support her work, and Paul Giamatti is Bart Giamatti of Yale's son so again he's easy for me to like even if I hated Sideways. Anyway, someone had made the comment that Lady... hadn't done all that well its first weekend, and someone else said not to worry, if it sold well on DVD then there still might be a sequel, and a moderator warned the second person for harrassing Serenity fans! I wouldn't even have connected the statement to Serenity without that comment -- it's sure not the only film greenlit after a boffo DVD success. I have long thought that Whedon was a whiny brat for going on and on about how the world clearly wasn't ready for his brilliance with Firefly but are his fans really such mewling prats that people can't make factual statements about his film's receipts? Sheesh!
The other fun conversation on the BBS was this one, in which some people with far too much time on their hands try to analyze the meaning of the balance of colors in the Star Trek XI poster -- what does it mean that there's more blue than gold and no red, does it mean no Scotty, does it mean "The Cage"-era uniforms, does it mean McCoy and Spock play major roles? And I could not resist, and said that since the blue comes down beneath the insignia at sort of an angle, kind of like a slash, it must be indicative that J.J. Abrams is planning the Kirk/Spock love story we've all been waiting for. And, you know, I must say something else: I may have qualms about Abrams running the franchise, but at least it didn't go to Whedon.
William Clark was only a lieutenant when he set out and only entitled to wear a single epaulette on the expedition, but this is one of a pair he bought as a brigadier general of the Louisiana Territorial Militia in 1808.
The watch Lewis initially took on the journey had a double case and a second hand, but it filled with sand in the Dakotas and stopped working. This one is circa 1796-7. I love getting to see stuff like this firsthand.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Poem for Monday
From the Song of a Celebrated Singer
By Pak Chaesam
Translated by David R. McCann and Jiwon Shin
Wind that moves among the pine branches;
with such a gentle stirring, my love,
I wish I could go to you.
But this is a dream
that eighty years of practice will not bring.
So it is. With this flesh-stained,
blood-stained voice, my one, sole possession,
torn from the field that I
cultivate, ripped root, branch and trunk
from my innermost body
shaken to its core, I sing you
this song.
--------
Another by the poet from Sunday's Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World. "A poem's brevity can give excitement and pleasure," writes Pinsky, who did not talk about the above poem, which I found elsewhere while looking for more work by Korean poet Chaesam because it's lovely and I didn't want to cheat anyone of their daily dose of poetry by posting a poem of only four lines. Pinsky calls Chaesam's sequence of four-line poems "good-humored and delicate" and analyzes this one:
Four-Line Poems 3: Place
As you play the delightful melody,
your fingers trace between where strings are or not.
At this very moment there is no tracing
if my mind is here or not.
--------
"The minute negative space traced by the musician's fingers, a graceful code of absences and presences, provides a revealing, intricate comparison for the alternately mindful or self-forgetful state of the mind in pleasure," notes Pinsky, "a dance of consciousness and unconsciousness as rapid and intricate as the movement of fingertips over frets and strings." The second poem is appropriate anyway, since my major activity for the day was going to hear live Celtic music.
We had a relatively quiet Sunday morning. I had a bit of work to catch up on -- editing and coding a long article about upcoming Star Trek Pocket Books for 2007, and the inevitable "OMG PARAMOUNT MADE A TREK XI POSTER!" brief article with which I could not include an image of said poster, distributed at San Diego Comic-Con and online, because TrekToday's FTP was down, the site owner is somewhere on a film shoot and the tech guy from England is on vacation somewhere in the US. I am torn looking at it between being thrilled at the indication that we're returning to Kirk's era and being paralyzed with fear about what J.J. Abrams and his buddies are going to do with it. Kurtzman and Orci wrote great crack on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys but they would not have been my first choice to reinvent Star Trek.
In the afternoon we tried to buy younger son shoes, but our favorite shoe store in the local mall was, to our astonishment, closed! So we wandered around in the toy store for a bit, then went once again to McLean Community Park...this time to hear IONA, the superb Celtic traditional group from the DC area whom we last saw at the Potomac Celtic Festival two years ago. They are really amazing musicians -- Barbara, the lead singer, also plays guitar, bodhrán, bouzouki and some kind of foot drum, and they have a superb bass player (carries most of the melodies since the guitar is used more for percussion, lovely voice, good sense of humor) and a fiddle player just back from placing second in the National Scottish Fiddle Championships. They were having a launch party for their new CD, A Celebration of Twenty, which is one disc of music they've played for two decades and another of music they recorded for the first time. Unlike last week when we saw Ocean Orchestra, the temperature was tolerable and we sat in the shade!
Argent, Chuck Lawhorn, Barbara Ryan and Andrew Dodds performing in the gazebo.
Look familiar? It's a great spot for summer concerts.
Brotherhood continues to be not really my sort of show -- I have to turn down the volume because the kids are generally not asleep by 10 and the amount of swearing and ethnic slurring is exhorbitant though likely realistic, there's far more violence than I want to see and I still find the supposedly virtuous characters harder to swallow than the ones who know how bad they are. Nonetheless, I'd watch for Jason Isaacs and Annabeth Gish even if I didn't like the rest of the cast, which is uniformly excellent. I am kind of astonished the city of Providence cooperated with the filming of this series, because they've certainly convinced me that I'd never want to live anywhere so dirty, corrupt, unsafe for children and fostering so many prejudices!
The kids start camp tomorrow! Don't take this the wrong way because I adore them and all, but yaaay I think we all need this! *g*
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Poem for Sunday
After an Illness
By Pak Chaesam
Translated by David R. McCann and Jiwon Shin
Spring is coming.
Like hair just untied.
Savor of garlic greens
that clean the palate.
The blood has cooled, now,
and will flow as it should.
Notice the buds, small steeples,
where the earth, sensitive as skin,
breaks just open
to a dull pain
mixed with delight.
Generous bounty makes all living things
seem like an elder brother.
Earth-rooted life,
sky-reaching to play or rest
with sunlight and wind,
great heaven and tiny earth, your
brilliant gesture that cannot be
stopped.
--------
From Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World. "Compactness may be one strength of the art [of poetry]," he writes, citing Chaesam, who died in 1997, as a practitioner at the level of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, who also wrote short poems. "Sharply observed, small details open out into large emotions in 'After an Illness.' The steeple-buds, the living skin of soil, the unbound hair, the garlic greens: These details link the 'tiny earth' of the poet's recuperation with the seasonal process of the natural world, 'earth-rooted' but 'sky-reaching.'"
Saturday morning my in-laws came from Pennsylvania to celebrate younger son's birthday.
Younger son couldn't decide what he was in the mood for for dinner and in-laws were on a tight schedule -- they had to get home to their aging, ailing dog -- so we just ended up at the mall food court, where some people had Italian, some people had Chinese and some people (all right, only the birthday boy) had McDonald's. Then we came back, had some of the cookie cake
There was a tent set up because there had been a Living Green Energy Fair earlier in the day, and several of us crammed under it while Peter and Laurie kept on singing through the storm, taking requests (they played "Anchor" and "All Around the World," my two favorites of their songs). By the time we left there was no one else there but people who worked for the park! It was cooler and the air was electrified and I felt great. Give me soaking-wet-in-thunderstorm over dry-in-murderous-heat any time.
As you can see, electronics are solar-powered at this park.
It was a perfectly calm, lovely evening marred only by the noise from planes overhead going to nearby National Airport.
Kids were chasing bubbles on the grass.
And here is the view twenty minutes later from beneath the canopy, the nearly empty grass and stage through the pouring rain.
My e-mail is working again, but mail from the past three days is still trickling in slowly in no apparent order, so I am very behind! And I got no work done today though once my e-mail came unstuck I got a bunch about a new Star Trek movie poster...sheesh, one minute Abrams is signing a gazillion-dollar contract and the next they're hyping a film that's not even properly in pre-production. I hope I like it better than I like Lost.
And incidentally,
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Poem for Saturday
South Wind
By Siegfried Sassoon
Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,—
With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow,
Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket?
Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley;
Your ruffian haste shook the young, blossoming orchards;
You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney,
And white your pennons streamed along the river.
You have robbed the bee, South Wind, in your adventure,
Blustering with gentle flowers; but I forgave you
When you stole to me shyly with scent of hawthorn.
--------
MY E-MAIL IS STILL DOWN. Hostway says it's back, but I have only received two pieces of e-mail in the past 24 hours, and I know I received nearly 40 LJ comments in that time that haven't arrived yet, so I can only imagine how many e-mails have not been delivered. If I owe you a tag or a comment to your comment or anything, I apologize. Please if you want to get ahold of me for anything, write to me at my user name here @ gmail!
It was mostly a quiet Friday, since we're doing lots of stuff this weekend and I've had to take headache medicine every day this week, including Excedrin with a chaser of Imitrex last night. My father took the kids swimming in the afternoon, and our original plan was to eat dinner early and then go see a free production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Laurel outdoors on the grounds of the Montpelier Mansion, but it was still 90 degrees at 6:30, the traffic reports weren't promising, the kids don't know the play at all -- they are far more attentive when they're somewhat familiar with the source material, like Midsummer Night's Dream or Much Ado or Macbeth which we are going to see at Blackfriars in a few weeks -- so instead we went to Toys R Us and another store to look for stuff younger son might want with his birthday money (and POTC action figures I might want but refrained from buying...well, okay, not completely, I did order an Elizabeth in boy's clothes off eBay because I just cannot resist).
The other thing younger son wanted for his birthday was a compilation CD, with some songs that were on his compilation CD from his birthday last year ("Pain", "Donkey Riding"), some songs I like ("Somebody Told Me", "The Kraken" from the POTC:DMC soundtrack), and then the nightmare that began when he said, "I want that Numa Numa song." Looking it up on iTunes initially turned up a bunch of Latino singers but not the right song, so we did some investigating and discovered that it was the electronic dance horror "Mi Ya Hi" that he wanted (and then we had to figure out whether it was the club mix, the Valentine mix, the Italian version or the freakin' original Romanian version which proved to be the right one).
I know there are lots of people on my flist right now shrieking in revulsion and possibly unfriending me, as I have just demonstrated beyond hope of redemption that I am a part of the ultra-uncool Parental Generation! But this song sets a new standard for songs that get stuck in your head until you want to claw out your brain...a position previously occupied by Boston's "Amanda", Springsteen's "Born in the USA", No Mercy's version of "Where Do You Go" from the Night at the Roxbury soundtrack and most recently Great Big Sea's "Captain Kidd", all of which now seem not only harmless but quite desirable by comparison.
Frog hiding from the heat under a bush.
1. What don't you understand? Trigonometry. Faith vs. free will. Why the cat lies on her back looking like she desperately wants her belly rubbed but then sits up and gets all snarky when her belly is in fact rubbed.
2. Name someone in your life with blue eyes: My husband.
3. When is a lie not really a lie? When the person asking whether the dress makes her look fat clearly does not really want to know.
4. When is the last time you got really dirty? Yesterday when my son managed to get his ice cream all over the back of my silver cotton dress. Graaar.
5. Are you a lefty or a righty? Righty.
Name the last person you...
1. Hugged: My older son when he was on the way to bed.
2. Smiled at: Probably the same.
3. Deceived: My mother, when I told her I would take 50 things she wants at the Bar Mitzvah into account.
4. Glared at: My cat, but she started it.
5. Lusted after:
1. What talent(s) do you have that could make you famous? I'm a famous historian! No wait, that's
2. If you could be famous for one day, what would you do? Hide.
3. If you were so famous that money was no object, where would you live? In a castle with a moat in Scotland...no wait, already been done. In a tasteful not very big house on the Atlantic Ocean.
4. If you could meet any famous person, who would it be? George Bush so I could give him a piece of my mind. I've met a lot of the famous people I really admire and it was nearly always a letdown...Glenn Close and Louise Fletcher (whose birthday is tomorrow) being important exceptions.
5. What would be your famous catch phrase/quote/motto/last words? Making no compromises with the public taste. (Which is already my web site catch phrase but I can't take credit for it -- it belongs to The Little Review and Margaret Anderson.)
1. What about you makes you unique? I have a very screwy personal theological system.
2. What aspect of your physical appearance do you think makes you stick out from the crowd? I'm 4'10" so if I am with anyone over age 10, I am short by comparison.
3. What do you always have with you while out in public? (for example, earrings, purse, wallet, watch, etc.) My MDA.
4. Is there anything about your body that you think isn't normal? Other than the being short thing, not really.
5. What are you complimented on (looks, smarts, anything) the most? Why do you think that's the case? Quick wit. Which is not to be confused with true smarts, but I went a long way on it in college.
Happy Birthday Louise Fletcher!
Friday, July 21, 2006
Arrrrrrrgggggggh
We regret to inform you that we have been experiencing a long delay in resolving a problem with our Email system. The storage array that maintains your emails is in the process of checking itself, but the process is taking inordinately long due to the sheer size and complexity of the array. Please note that throughout the duration of the problem, emails sent to you are waiting in queue and should be delivered to you later today. However, please be patient as there are hundreds of thousands of emails in queue. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Rest assured, we are devoting every available resource to expedite the resolution.
So, yeah, if I owe you a note or a comment or an RP tag? Please write to me at my username at gmail!!!In other news, who do I have to sleep with to get a Vox invite? Anyone got one they can spare? *G*
Poem for Friday
Nature: LXXII
By Emily Dickinson
The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.
The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.
--------
Since it was younger son's birthday I told him we could do whatever he wanted within reason, which means he played video games all morning and then asked to be taken to Burger King to use his free meal coupon. Older son hates Burger King with a passion (for reasons I do not understand, as he likes McDonald's) and managed to stall younger son long enough that they decided they wanted frozen chicken nuggets and then to go see Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties again, knowing that I would agree to this because it's set at Castle Howard. So off we went to the only theater in Maryland that still appears to be showing the film, which was actually more enjoyable than I was expecting -- much funnier than the first one, with less Jennifer Love Hewitt which is all to the good (few people in general except for a very funny Billy Connolly as the villain, and Bob Hoskins and Tim Curry did the major animal voices besides Garfield which is also all to the good). There are many gorgeous exterior shots of Yorkshire and a typical movie postcard-of-London montage, which I always like whether it's Match Point or Wimbledon or this.
We had dinner with my parents, who got younger son some books and the newest Bionicle DVD and some Legos; we got him the POTC version of The Game of Life, a couple of Nintendo games, a penguin CD holder and some more books, plus we're taking him next month to meet a penguin at Mystic Aquarium, staying with my sister in New York and taking some portion of her family with us (her youngest is too young to go to the penguin event and has fits if she is denied anything her older sisters get to do). We had teriyaki chicken and lo mein -- his choice -- and 
...on the birthday cake...
And a penguin CD case!
24
7th Heaven
Adam-12
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alias
Alien Nation
American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol/etc.
America's Next Top Model/Germany's Next Top Model
Angel
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boy Meets World
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Chappelle's Show
Charlie's Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci's Inquest
Dawson's Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadliest Catch
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Different Strokes
Doctor Who
Dragnet
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly
Frasier
Friends
Futurama
Get Smart
Gilligan's Island
Gilmore Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey's Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hogan's Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell's Kitchen
JAG
Jackass
Joey
John Doe
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married... With Children
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
Mission: Impossible
Monk
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psyche
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (British)
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Rescue Me
Road Rules
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
So Weird
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70's Show
That's So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Andy Griffith Show
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Bionic Woman
The Brady Bunch
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls
The Honeymooners
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Man from UNCLE
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters
The Mythbusters
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
The Pretender
The Real World
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Twilight Zone
The Waltons
The West Wing
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Third Watch
Three's Company
Top Gear
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Veronica Mars
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Xena: Warrior Princess
But where are All in the Family and Space: 1999 and VR5 and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Andromeda and Relic Hunter and Freakylinks and Prey, and that most important SF classic, Quark?
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Louise Fletcher Appreciation Page Update
Louise is working on a new film, The Last Sin Eater, with Henry Thomas and Peter Wingfield.
Updated the filmography page.
Happy birthday to Louise on Saturday, July 22!
Poem for Thursday
Stone Trees
By John Freeman
Last night a sword-light in the sky
Flashed a swift terror on the dark.
In that sharp light the fields did lie
Naked and stone-like; each tree stood
Like a tranced woman, bound and stark.
Far off the wood
With darkness ridged the riven dark.
And cows astonished stared with fear,
And sheep crept to the knees of cows,
And conies to their burrows slid,
And rooks were still in rigid boughs,
And all things else were still or hid.
From all the wood
Came but the owl's hoot, ghostly, clear.
In that cold trance the earth was held
It seemed an age, or time was nought.
Sure never from that stone-like field
Sprang golden corn, nor from those chill
Grey granite trees was music wrought.
In all the wood
Even the tall poplar hung stone still.
It seemed an age, or time was none...
Slowly the earth heaved out of sleep
And shivered, and the trees of stone
Bent and sighed in the gusty wind,
And rain swept as birds flocking sweep.
Far off the wood
Rolled the slow thunders on the wind.
From all the wood came no brave bird,
No song broke through the close-fall'n night,
Nor any sound from cowering herd:
Only a dog's long lonely howl
When from the window poured pale light.
And from the wood
The hoot came ghostly of the owl.
--------
I was in the mood for a sword poem because younger son and I watched The Man in the Iron Mask, which I had managed never to see before for reasons that utterly elude me. My two young second cousins (young in the sense that one is now a sophomore at Tufts and the other a senior in high school) were obsessed with the film when it was new, and at some family gathering or other they sang its praises to me so highly that I swore not to see it -- in my defense they were later obsessed with Eminem, and after that we agreed that they could have Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen if I could have Sean Bean (by the time the Harry Potter movies rolled around there was not even a quarrel, as they had declared Alan Rickman and Jason Isaacs hopelessly too old and only wanted the boys who are way too young to be of interest to me). To make a long story short, at some point in the past year it came to my attention that not only had Total Eclipse cured me of my DiCaprio aversion, but that the film also stars Jeremy Irons, John Malkovitch, Gerard Depardieu and Gabriel Byrne, any one of whom would be a good enough reason for me to see most movies. Plus young Peter Sarsgaard as Malkovitch's son -- a dead ringer, it's amazing! -- and Hugh Laurie, whose show I don't even watch, as a very hot royal advisor, and Anne Parillaud of the original La Femme Nikita as the Queen Mother...yeah, I was a dope not to watch this sooner.
Anyway, younger son (whose birthday it is on Thursday) and I greatly enjoyed the film...I like the costumes, the palace decorations with all their secret passages, the grumpy old Musketeers, Irons yet again as a priest who makes rather unorthodox use of his position, Depardieu and his multiple women and his venereal complaints, Malkovitch being heartbreaking after Athos' tragedies (I wondered whether he didn't like working with Leo, because he pulled out of Total Eclipse after River Phoenix died and they recast with DiCaprio, thus paving the way for David Thewlis in the hottest scenes ever), Byrne being noble, Laurie looking good enough to eat and the guilty-pleasure royalty in which it's okay to like a King so long as he's not only an impostor but also illegitimate.
The rest of the day was taken up first with taking younger son to the orthodontist, who read him the riot act about brushing more often -- told me loudly in his presence that he was going to have stained, ugly teeth -- and then meeting with the rabbi about older son's Bar Mitzvah, our first family meeting, in which we discovered just how much of a fight we are going to have with the synagogue if we want my (practicing Christian) in-laws on the bimah and my (agnostic thus not formal convert) husband reading the blessings; this rabbi is entirely sympathetic, coming from an interfaith household (this explains a lot about how a Jewish boy got to be 6'6") but we are going to have to quarrel about policy with the head rabbi. Am planning to bring my mother the Hebrew school teacher in if necessary, since we just invited everyone she knows to the reception!
In honor of younger son's birthday, Stanley the Penguin at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh during our trip earlier this summer.
Happy anniversary of the moon landing, something I am unlikely ever to forget due to the day it's on!
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Poem for Wednesday
Dead Man, Thinking
By Bruce Weigl
i.
Snow geese in the light of morning sky,
exactly at the start of spring. I was
looking through the cracks of the blinds at my future which seemed
absent of parades, for which I was grateful,
and only yesterday
I watched what an April wind could do
to a body wrapped in silk,
though I turned my eyes away,
the way the teacher says,
once the beauty was revealed.
ii.
How long it takes to die, in the fifty-fifth year
is what I thought about today.
I told some truths so large, no one could bear to hear them.
I bow down to those who could not hear the truth.
They could not hear the truth because they were afraid
that it would open a veil into nothing.
I bow down to that nothing. I bow down to a single red planet
I saw in the other world’s sky,
spinning,
as if towards some
fleshy inevitability.
I bow down to the red planet. I bow down
to the noisy birds, indigenous to this region.
Only sorrow can bend you in half
like you’ve seen on those whose loves have gone away.
I bow down to those loves.
--------
I am officially sick of this heat wave. Not only have I had a headache every day since I got back from the beach -- not one long consistent headache, thankfully, but every evening after spending as little time out of doors as possible I've still ended up with one -- but the kids are completely stir-crazy, not in camp till next week and I can't even order them to go outside and run around between 10 and 4.
Today, since the van was in being repaired in the morning, we went out for California Tortilla for a late lunch and then upon discovering that Over the Hedge is no longer playing anywhere near here, went to see POTC:DMC again. The kids asked for it, honestly! I must admit that I have a new favorite line and a new favorite hilarious moment this time around, now that I caught the details:
Once it realized we knew it was there, it took off to eat grass in a nearby ditch.
Had minor crisis with parents regarding last-minute Bar Mitzvah invitations. Ran into friends of theirs at the movies, people
Let's see. I could talk about Israel but pretty much all coverage except Tikkun's makes me cry for one reason or another. I could talk about -- surprise! -- the discovery that federal funds for crisis pregnancy centers are being used to tell women who choose to terminate pregnancies that they're going to die of breast cancer if they don't kill themselves first from "post-abortion syndrome." But, you know, I think I'd rather think about pirates.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Poem for Tuesday
Chateau If
By Peter Gizzi
If love if then if now if the flowers of if the conditional
if of arrows the condition of if
if to say light to inhabit light if to speak if to live, so
if to say it is you if love is if your form is if your waist that
pictures the fluted stem if lavender
if in this field
if I were to say hummingbird it might behave as an
adjective here
if not if the heart’s a flutter if nerves map a city if a city
on fire
if I say myself am I saying myself (if in this instant) as if
the object of your gaze if in a sentence about love you might
write if one day if you would, so
if to say myself if in this instance if to speak as
another—
if only to render if in time and accept if to live now as if
disembodied from the actual handwritten letters m-y-s-e-l-f
if a creature if what you say if only to embroider—a
city that overtakes the city I write.
--------
The weather continued hot and miserable so my big excitement for the day was taking the kids to Target. I also tried to catch up on Star Trek news, only to discover I didn't miss much! Other than the annual Emmy nomination round-up article, which I had assumed someone else would get posted (I think now I'll wait till the morning of the Emmys to talk about who's up for what), there isn't much on other genre sites that we're way behind in covering. Covering the news was mostly reading about J.J. Abrams' new contract -- which just makes me think he is a greedy jerk, and considering I'm not even a Lost fan, does nothing to excite me -- plus discovering that Jeri Ryan is getting married again, probably too late to save Jack's career in Illinois politics though. *snerk*
I know the Emmy nomination system changed this year because people felt the old system favored the big networks too much, but I see that the WB didn't fare any better in its final season of existence, and there are a lot of inexplicable omissions -- Felicity Huffman and Patricia Arquette both went from winning last year to not even getting nominated this year? And I'm happy Shatner got a nod, but why did Spader not get one too when he carries the emotional weight of Boston Legal? It's just silly. Ah well, I gather that Patrick Stewart did get a nomination for some HBO guest appearance.
...swim after a paddleboat in the lake at Rio.
Watched the first POTC with the kids in the evening because we were all in the mood for it and it is always good, not a film that ever gets old. In the morning the van is going in to be fixed -- one of the rear seats is stuck and won't come up, and we need the tire looked at -- so I will be home with boys without transportation. I may make hubby come home for lunch so we can drop him off at work and go see Over the Hedge or something and then pick him up at the end of the day.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Poem for Monday
Epitaph on a Hare
By William Cowper
Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,
Nor swiftewd greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo',
Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nurs'd with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confin'd,
Was still a wild Jack-hare.
Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance ev'ry night,
He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.
His diet was of wheaten bread,
And milk, and oats, and straw,
Thistles, or lettuces instead,
With sand to scour his maw.
On twigs of hawthorn he regal'd,
On pippins' russet peel;
And, when his juicy salads fail'd,
Slic'd carrot pleas'd him well.
A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he lov'd to bound,
To skip and gambol like a fawn,
And swing his rump around.
His frisking wa at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear;
But most before approaching show'rs,
Or when a storm drew near.
Eight years and five round rolling moons
He thus saw steal away,
Dozing out all his idle noons,
And ev'ry night at play.
I kept him for his humour's sake,
For he would oft beguile
My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile.
But now, beneath this walnut-shade
He finds his long, last home,
And waits inn snug concealment laid,
‘Till gentler puss shall come.
He, still more aged, feels the shocks
From which no care can save,
And, partner once of Tiney's box,
Must soon partake his grave.
--------
Another from Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World. "The 18th-century Englishman William Cowper (1731-1800) closely observes the psychology and behavior of his pet rabbits," he writes. "Cowper's 'Epitaph on a Hare' includes these memorable lines on a loved, though less than perfectly lovable, creature...in the elegiac conclusion, Cowper reflects on his motives for keeping a pet and, by implication, on his own mortality. Cowper, a tormented man best known for his 'Lines Written During a Period of Insanity,' in this droll, sensitive account of Tiney and gentler Puss tells something about himself."
Sorry I'm late -- after a week at the beach with careful sun protection, I went to an outdoor concert yesterday in the late afternoon and apparently gave myself sunstroke. I had a murderous headache last night that would not respond to the migraine medicine that has never failed me and it took more drugs than were probably safe for me to take at once just to stop the nausea enough that I could fall asleep. The concert itself was very nice -- Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Orchestra played pretty much the same set they had played at the Washington Folk Festival, Steve Winick even came and sang in French with them, so although it was nearly a hundred degrees even in the partial shade where I was sitting (foolishly assuming that tree would prevent my arms from getting sunburned) it was fun to be at McLean Community Park, where we had previously seen just Lisa (ahaha, two years ago and I was babbling about Jason Isaacs in that entry too).
Fortunately the blinding pain didn't hit full-force until after the pilot and second episode of Brotherhood, which is definitely going to be my new guilty pleasure.
So even though I have never seen an episode of The Sopranos and I've only sat through Viggo Mortensen's mobster films because they had Viggo Mortensen, I did watch Brotherhood. And I totally loved it. The staggeringly high sibling-slash factor even in Showtime's previews, which can all be watched on Showtime's web site (and they have podcasts here including an interview with Isaacs), includes this gem from Jason Clarke on his character: "I'm married to a lot of things. I'm married to my career. I'm married to my wife. I'm married to my brother. You know, good, bad, hell or high water, we're married to each other." There's also a clip where his character's wife, played by Annabeth Gish who is wonderful as always, says to him in bed, "You know, you're allowed to hate him," and he's all sulky and brooding and says, "I don't." Guh.
Anyway, if Jason Isaacs weren't in this I probably would not have watched the second episode -- it's quite violent and pretty nasty and goes out of its way to focus on all the characters' flaws and very little on their good points -- I expected shades of gray in good politician brother Tommy but he's basically the same as bad brother Michael, corrupt and selfish in very similar ways and much more high-and-mighty about his motives, while Eileen spends the first two episodes being miserable, falling apart and faking smiles, so that it's really hard to tell what would make her happy. The mother, Rose, is clearly pulling everyone's strings, which I like, and I am counting on her to keep my boys from getting killed (this seems like the kind of show where they're more likely to kill off the good brother than the bad one anyway!) So yeah, I'm happy, though overall on cable I'm not sure the gratuitous penises make up for the cutting off of ears and stuff.
Ocean Orchestra in the gazebo at McLean Community Park.
Trying to figure out what chores need to be done today since the van must go in for service tomorrow and we probably will have to replace the tire we got patched later in the week, too. The TrekToday site owner is not around and everything I posted yesterday created a headline without actually showing up on the site...I don't know what I am supposed to do about this! Can't really bear to talk about politics but maybe we should try this to drive Osama Bin Laden out of hiding. Also, for anyone else who's a fan of Kris Waldherr's art or Tarot work, she has revamped the Goddess Site.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Very Quick Thoughts on POTC:DMC
...which I loved, written in the car en route to a concert in Virginia.
1) Oh how I love Elizabeth. If I had Jack, Will and James around, I couldn't make up my mind either. Of any of them, she's the one whose morality I relate to the best: Will's too innately noble -- poor Orlando Bloom, saddled with yet another character who's written as too good to be true -- James is too selfish and caught up in his own ambitions and Jack is...well, Jack. I really thought Elizabeth meant all those things she said to Jack at the end right until she helped him do the right thing by chaining him up. (I foresee much bondage among her, Jack and Will once Jack is back, and James too because he should by all means be invited to work out his Jack Sparrow obsession). Jack so has Elizabeth's number: she ran away to sea because she wanted to as much as to find Will. I love that none of the men want her to be a proper lady and don't even pay attention anymore when she fake-faints.
2) My favorite line in the movie was probably Will's reiteration to Jack the phony story about his escape via sea turtles. Though I also loved all the eunuch jokes in various (fake) languages. I must admit that much as I adore Jack, Will's the one I'd marry; wouldn't want to BE him, but what a family man he is, without losing that fun edge that doesn't mind teaching his wife to be as good with a sword as he is and admiring her for dressing up as a boy so she can go to sea.
3) Speaking of which, I probably should have been as offended here as in King Kong about the crazy-stupid cannibalistic people of color, but all serious thought went out the window with the giant hamster ball of doom. I laughed so hard it hurt. Also, near the end, the giant gerbil wheel of doom with the three men...priceless, and I really hope there's something on the extras showing how they green-screened and filmed those stunts. This movie is playing with stereotypes about pirates, islanders and greedy East India Company Brits (and having a grand time doing so) rather than reinforcing them as thoughtlessly as King Kong did.
4) The SHIPS! When I saw the first POTC I was a little baffled why so many people were so impressed initially; it took me three viewings in the theater to really appreciate it, and my affection only grew with every DVD viewing (it helped that Curse of the Black Pearl is one of the best-packaged DVDs I've ever seen, with all those extras about filming and hilarious cast interviews and several wonderful documentaries about historical pirates and piracy). But I wasn't a full fledged ship geek then -- it was months before Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World converted me -- and I didn't appreciate either the things that were historically accurate and charming or the things that were fanciful and purely mythological. This time I was really noticing the ships and how they moved and how people moved on them...so much fun.
More later...I am going now to see Ocean Orchestra at a park in McLean. I know I am behind on comments and tags, shall endeavor to catch up tonight.
Poem for Sunday
OK, Tucker
By Robin Becker
You win. My arm got tired of throwing the ball
before you got tired of scrambling up the river-
bank to fetch it. OK, Tucker, you can come, too.
Since you open the door with your clever snout
I'm not about to shove you back in. You win
the beauty contest, the most finicky eater award,
and the like-a-dog-with-a-bone prize; you win
the first-one-in-the-car sweepstakes. Look,
Tucker, we had no choice when we squared off
in your adolescence, we had to get along, it was a live-
and-let-live situation, both of us in love with her.
OK, I bribed you with biscuits and rides;
you conned me with a handshake and a smile.
Remember hide-and-seek in the cornfield,
the jack-in-the pulpit, the lady slipper?
That week at the beach with smelly gulls
wrapped in slime and tangled lines of seaweed?
And a pen of chickens? You had it made, but no!
Old girl, you chased the phantom squirrel
up the slope again and again, returned
slack-jawed, refused to come off the porch,
stood your ground in freezing November rain,
showed your dog's teeth when I showed my human
fear and for good measure ran circles around me--
when I was her woman, but you were her dog.
--------
From Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World: "Homer gives Odysseus a loyal dog, and Catullus laments for his Lesbia's sparrow...in a comparable way, the contemporary poet Robin Becker in her new book, Domain of Perfect Affection, tells about love and tension between two people by paying careful attention to a pet. Becker's comic timing, her ultimate sincerity and, above all, her respectful, close attention make her poem...a winning demonstration of how to express feeling through elements of a life that isn't literally or exactly one's own."
There were a bunch of places we wanted to visit Saturday in Delaware before going home, like the Treasures of the Sea exhibit at Delaware Technical and Community College on the discovery of Nuestra Senora de Atocha and its sister ship Santa Margarita, which has a film and many artifacts from the Atocha donated by one of discoverer Mel Fisher's backers, a Delaware resident. There were coral-encrusted swords, a Swiss army knife of sorts consisting of a bosun's whistle containing a fold-out blade, toothpick and earwax-remover, quite a bit of lovely emerald jewelry and several big cannons.
We had intended to see historic Wye Mill as well, which has grinding demonstrations the third Saturday of each month (which this was), but we got a flat tire on the route out from Bethany and lost some time getting it repaired. Fortunately, there was a tire place right across from the gas station where we stopped to figure out what was wrong! We got home mid-afternoon to the usual post-trip laundries and shopping. Younger son's best friend had just returned from his own family's penguin tour, which included Niagara Falls, so they spent quite a bit of time catching up!
Seagulls and cormorants nest and rest in the metal struts.
On the drive home, we stopped in Georgetown, Delaware to see an exhibit on the Nuestra Senora de Atocha shipwreck, including big silver bars, cannons and swords. Sea Shell City also had had a few pieces of jewelry from the wreck, but nothing like Delaware Technical College's collection and history of the salvage operation.
Can't deal with talking about world events right now, and I haven't managed to watch Brotherhood (Showtime is rerunning the pilot tonight with the second episode, yay!) I did manage to see the last ten minutes of the Doctor Who season two finale in the course of downloading it, so now I can 1) cry and 2) watch the rest of the second season. And back to the poem, speaking of animals, I am going to go collapse with my cats!
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Poem for Saturday
A Few Moments
By Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robert Bly
The dwarf pine on marsh grounds holds its head up: a dark rag.
But what you see is nothing compared to the roots,
the widening, secretly groping, deathless or half-
deathless root system.
I you she he also put roots out.
Outside our common will.
Outside the City.
Rain drifts from the summer sky that's pale as milk.
It is as if my five senses were hooked up to some other creature
that moves with the same stubborn flow
as the runners in white circling the track as the night comes misting in.
--------
It rained Friday morning, so after a big breakfast we planned to go to the museums in Lewes, at which point my parents opted out. Halfway there the sun came out and we diverted our course to Cape Henlopen State Park, since we hadn't been there, figuring maybe we'd take a quick look at the observation tower and nature center if the weather got bad again. It remained beautiful, so we went up the watchtower and walked to Fort Miles, which defended the Delaware River from potential German invasion of Wilmington, Philadelphia, etc. and has a little World War II museum, many standing guns and Battery 519 as well as an exhibit on a German U-boat that actually did surrender offshore near here. It's also a gorgeous nature park at high elevation -- a desert with lizards and cacti. On the way back toward Lewes we passed the Cape May ferry and could see the Kalmar Nyckel sailing just offshore.
Cacti on the Great Dune in Cape Henlopen State Park, the largest sand hill between Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
There is a desert climate so high up, despite being only a few hundred yards from the Atlantic.
Fort Miles from a trail near where the Cape Henlopen lighthouse used to stand before it collapsed down the bank. You can see two World War II observation towers, though.
Here's the fort and two of its guns with a tower in the background.
Yet another tower and a little coastal lighthouse from the top of the observation tower.
From above Fort Miles looking down on the ocean.
The ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey cruising toward the Kalmar Nyckel, which docks to pick up passengers near the ferry landing.
We had promised younger son that we would go to McDonald's at some point on the trip so he could get one of those inflatable Happy Meal Pirates of the Caribbean swords, so we did (and now I have a little stuffed Jack Sparrow to sleep with *whistles*). My parents, who had gone to the Rehoboth outlets, vetoed the idea of meeting us at McDonald's so we met them back at the condo and, since the weather remained beautiful, went to the beach, where it was somewhat misty and overcast but the water was warm and the waves relatively calm. After a last afternoon of swimming, building sand forts, finding sand crabs, etc., we came back and were ready to go out to dinner but the kids weren't really hungry and none of us could decide what we wanted so we ended up eating leftovers and going out for dessert instead on the Bethany boardwalk.
Saturday we have to be out by 10 a.m., so the evening was packing. There are a bunch of places we want to visit in Delaware before going home!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Poem for Friday
Wind on the Island
By Pablo Neruda
The wind is a horse:
hear how he runs
through the sea, through the sky.
He wants to take me: listen
how he roves the world
to take me far away.
Hide me in your arms
just for this night,
while the rain breaks
against sea and earth
its innumerable mouth.
Listen how the wind
calls to me galloping
to take me far away.
With your brow on my brow,
with your mouth on my mouth,
our bodies tied
to the love that consumes us,
let the wind pass
and not take me away.
Let the wind rush
crowned with foam,
let it call to me and seek me
galloping in the shadow,
while I, sunk
beneath your big eyes,
just for this night
shall rest, my love.
--------
I'm sure I've posted that one before but being on the beach puts me in a Neruda mood, and "the wind is a horse" is a very Assateague sentiment.
Thursday our original plan was to go to Cape May via the ferry from Lewes, but everyone was feeling sort of lazy and uncertain about the weather, so an all-day trip was ruled out and we had a beach vacation morning. My father took my older son fishing again, and they claim they caught a reaaaaaallly big fish that they threw back in (of course no one was there with a camera, and the bait mysteriously fell overboard). Then everyone went to the beach where the air was cooler but the water was warmer than previous days and the breakers were quite swimmable despite reports of impending wind and rain.
Neither of those ever arrived: there were a few minutes of drizzle, but after a morning at the beach and then the pool, we started for Rehoboth, figuring we'd go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, only to discover that the 4 p.m. movie was sold out and the sun had come out. So we went to the Rehoboth boardwalk, where we played in the arcade for awhile (boys won stuffed parrots with their tickets) and wandered into the tourist trap shops, then went to Nicola Pizza on the early side since the wait for Nic-o-bolis tends to get exponentially longer the later it gets. We had bought Davy Jones' Curse pirate cards and although I got a very cool sea monster and Davy Jones himself, I agreed to trade the pack to younger son in exchange for some French ships because he desperately wanted them.
After dinner (Me: chicken Nic-o-boli, 
Slots and noise vs. sun and heat are the choices looking out the doorway to Rehoboth's boardwalk arcade.
A father and son play a giant chess game outside the game store.
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant: the train going around the ceiling, the Tiffany lamps, the memorabilia and testimonials on the walls of Nicola Pizza.
Rehoboth's boardwalk has the perpetual sight of gulls on the dunes and sunbathers on the sand.
Bethany Beach rules: do not feed the gulls!
Yet off the Bethany boardwalk, gulls and a surfer.
Sunset behind the Bethany Surf Shop.
I only saw the news from the Middle East in fits and starts, which is probably just as well as I can't do a damn thing about it from here, and we missed Meerkat Manor so I don't even know what's going on there. It's going to be a long catching-up when we get home. Friday we may go to Lewes or go miniature golfing or go to the movies or all of the above, depending on the weather. Happy Bastille Day!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Poem for Thursday
About the Moth
By Michael Collier
If you think the dead understand silence,
then why do they light their hems
and burn in dresses? Why do they fan their wings
against screens and windows as if they wanted in?
Why do they show their wiry contraptions
dusty with age and almost useless?
They only want to wake us with their light
unraveled from upper darkness.
They only want to hear us speak our reassurances.
Love will conquer, the heart endures.
And when they’ve left — flames, dust —
and frantic — we want them back,
not the friends and parents they once had been
but their new presences, sharp, unequivocal,
buoyant in their crossing back and forth,
inhabiting the condition they’ve become.
--------
Wednesday morning my father took older son fishing. There were a few complications (such as the fact that he didn't realize there was no hook on the line), so they didn't catch anything, but older son was amused enough to go back and demonstrate for the rest of us and I got some nice pictures of dragonflies by the pond, though the only fish I saw was spotted by younger son swimming disinterestedly near the dock. It was quite warm, and parents had already suggested taking the kids to the pool, so they did that, and by the time they all got back it was lunchtime.
None of us wanted to go to the beach in the midday heat, so
In the late afternoon we went to the shore, which was magnificent -- air temperature in the high 70s, water chilly but not as cold as yesterday and quite rough, just the way I like it...the kids built sand castles and dug for creatures at the water's edge while I went in deeper, since I really love big breakers and there were not a lot of people in the ocean. My father came and met us there since my mother had gone shopping. In the evening an Elvis impersonator, Jesse Garron (Elvis' dead twin), was playing on the Ocean City boardwalk. My father's leg was bothering him and my mother had heard that there was a chance of rain, so they decided not to go with us and stayed back to watch Rent.
I will skip today's rant about the relatives, as it is just more of same -- manipulating the kids into doing what parents want instead of what we and the kids originally wanted, refusing to give me any privacy despite vanishing for an hour to go to a furniture store and then being annoyed that we didn't wait for them to go to the beach, etc. We took the kids to hear Elvis in the sand and they built a giant sand turtle during the concert. We also walked up to see the religious sand art that's always by the Ocean City boardwalk and got ice cream. Then, after a couple of stops in hippie clothing stores, we came back to Sea Colony and went for a walk on the beach with flashlights to see ghost crabs, of which we found many!
Elvis impersonator Jesse Garron and his backup girls performed at the bandstand on the beach by the Ocean City Boardwalk.
After seeing the Bible sand art, this is the sea turtle my kids sculpted out of dry sand while listening to "Elvis."
The lower level of Sea Shell City in Fenwick Island is a fabulous kitschy beach store and sea shell emporium...
...while the upstairs is a shipwreck museum with information about local wrecks, pirates, ships, superstitions, etc. Here for instance are bottles brought up a 1700s wreck, 18 of which still had rum inside.
And one learns useful things like this.
A ghost crab peeks out of its hole...
...and scuttles along the sand well after dark. We brought flashlights so we could look for them on the dunes at 10 p.m.
Thursday the forecast is for rain at some point. We are planning to go to Nicola's Pizza in Rehoboth for dinner for Nic-o-bolis, and hopefully it will be nice enough to walk on the boardwalk a bit. If it rains during the day we might see POTC:DMC!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Poem for Wednesday
Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening
By Rupert Brooke
I'd watched the sorrow of the evening sky,
And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover,
And heard the waves, and the seagull’s mocking cry.
And in them all was only the old cry,
That song they always sing — "The best is over!
You may remember now, and think, and sigh,
O silly lover!"
And I was tired and sick that all was over,
And because I,
For all my thinking, never could recover
One moment of the good hours that were over.
And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.
Then from the sad west turning wearily,
I saw the pines against the white north sky,
Very beautiful, and still, and bending over
Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.
And there was peace in them; and I
Was happy, and forgot to play the lover,
And laughed, and did no longer wish to die;
Being glad of you, O pine-trees and the sky!
--------
Tuesday we went to Assateague Island National Seashore -- I had wanted to go to Chincoteague, but was outvoted by people who thought it was too long a ride (and since our van's back seat is stuck so we can't volunteer to drive everyone I had no leverage to protest). It was warmer and muggier than previous days, but there was a nice breeze by the water. We went to the visitor's center with its touch tank and aquarium with local fish and shellfish, including flounder, sea horses, horseshoe crabs and whelks; then we walked to the National Aquarium's wildlife rescue exhibit, and then drove over to the island.
Unlike last year, when we had to observe the ponies from a distance, this time they were right up by visitors, grazing and crossing the roads and all over the place near the old boat house. It is against the law to feed or touch the horses but they came within a couple of feet of tourists with cameras. There were also sika -- the little Japanese deer released on the island earlier this century which now wander and eat the brush -- and white-tail deer right near the bridge to and from the island, where the park police were shooing people trying to stop traffic to take photos. We walked out on the boardwalk to the dock where people drop crab traps -- there are egrets, assorted gulls and red-winged blackbirds in the marshes and we saw a couple of crabs scuttling in the muddy bay water. Then, after driving off the island to go find lunch, we came back to see the shipwreck and the Atlantic shore, though we couldn't get a spot in the parking lot so we didn't stay there, just took more photos of the wildlife.
...grazing at roadside and crossing the streets to get to and from the shore.
They were entirely unconcerned about traffic...
...and not the least worried about street signs.
There were also sika deer grazing in the grass.
A seagull gets lucky finding lunch...the bait left for a crab trap.
The remains of a coastal shipwreck.
The creature inside the whelk's shell.
By the time we got back to Bethany in the late afternoon, the temperature had dropped as the clouds moved in, so we went to a lovely cool beach for awhile to wade in the surf. Then my father took the kids to the heated outdoor pool, where there was a concert going on, while
Because what would a vacation day be without stupidity, my parents have had this ongoing thing about taking the boys fishing -- my father had said the first day of the trip that that might be a nice thing to do, and my mother had seen various families fishing over the docks by the ponds in the development and concluded that this might be a nice thing to do. So she had been on a crusade to rent or buy fishing poles, even though no one in my family knows the first thing about fishing and my father has said repeatedly no, really, it's not necessary. Today when she ran out to get milk while the rest of us were at the beach, she bought fishing poles and bait. Now, naturally, younger son refuses to go because he's afraid of killing the fish trying to get them off the hooks to throw them back in, older son couldn't care, and parents are in an argument about whose fault this fiasco is. Don't worry, it will be blamed on me!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Poem for Tuesday
The Ballad of the Boat
By Richard Garnett
The stream was smooth as glass, we said: “Arise and let’s away;”
The Siren sang beside the boat that in the rushes lay;
And spread the sail, and strong the oar, we gaily took our way.
When shall the sandy bar be cross’d? When shall we find the bay?
The broadening flood swells slowly out o’er cattle-dotted plains,
The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy rains,
The laborer looks up to see our shallop speed away.
When shall the sandy bar be cross’d? When shall we find the bay?
Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun, superbly large,
Slow as an oak to woodman’s stroke sinks flaming at their marge.
The waves are bright with mirror’d light as jacinths on our way.
When shall the sandy bar be cross’d? When shall we find the bay?
The moon is high up in the sky, and now no more we see
The spreading river’s either bank, and surging distantly
There booms a sullen thunder as of breakers far away.
Now shall the sandy bar be cross’d, now shall we find the bay!
The seagull shrieks high overhead, and dimly to our sight
The moonlit crests of foaming waves gleam towering through the night.
We ’ll steal upon the mermaid soon, and start her from her lay,
When once the sandy bar is cross’d, and we are in the bay.
What rises white and awful as a shroud enfolded ghost?
What roar of rampant tumult bursts in clangor on the coast?
Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away.
O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay?
--------
Monday we went to the beach early, and found that while the air was warmer, the water was colder, or at least felt colder, though it was less rough than the day before. We found many mole crabs and little burrowing coquina clams, but older son did not last long in the water because it was so chilly, and eventually younger son too wanted to go to the heated swimming pool. So we left the shore and swam for awhile in the big pool-gym complex, then came back for lunch.
In the afternoon we went to Ocean City to play miniature golf at one of several themed Old Pro Golf places in the area -- this one has dinosaurs outside and, in the only indoor mini-golf in this region, an undersea-themed course with a recreated submarine, pirate ship, cave with waterfall, etc. They also have a medieval castle miniature golf place that we want to play, and I'd say the odds are good since
We had dinner at Big Fish Grill in Rehoboth, which is not terribly glamorous but has excellent seafood -- I had pecan-crusted halibut, father had grilled yellowfin tuna, one son had crab cakes and the other had flounder. Then, since we were already in Rehoboth, we went for a walk on the boardwalk there. Younger son won a stuffed penguin at an arcade and was the happiest boy on the beach. We got the kids ice cream and wandered into a couple of the beach stores, where I restrained myself from buying tie-dyes.
Near sunset, crowds of people and gulls gather where the main road intersects the boardwalk in front of Dolle's Salt Water Taffy.
The very necessary Whac-a-Mole arcade game.
One of the ever-popular iron-on t-shirt shops by the beach.
Because what is a seashore holiday without playing miniature golf?
Sharks approach the sunken pirate ship with its skeletal captain.
The outside course has colorful dinosaurs, a steaming volcano and bright blue fountains!
Monday, July 10, 2006
Poem for Monday
In a Poem
By Robert Frost
The sentencing goes blithely on its way,
And takes the playfully objected rhyme
As surely as it takes the stroke and time
In having its undeviable say.
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Another from Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in this week's The Washington Post Book World. "Maybe it's easier to show examples of the poetic line than to define it," Pinsky writes. "As with measures in music, all lines are not alike. Some are slow and some are fast, and in some the sound of the sentence stops at the end, and in some it blithely keeps going right over the line, just as this little poem by Robert Frost says...Frost is partly showing off by giving a brilliant example of how what he describes should be done. All four of his lines follow the same pattern, and no two of them follow it in the same way. Like a jazz solo, the poem combines striking variations in movement with a rhythm that is "undeviable." The poem offers good advice about how to hear poetry, and it also enjoys its own virtuosity."
Sunday we had mostly a beach day. My father played tennis in the morning, then we all went to the shore -- me, 
Pelicans over the water.
A frog in one of the swamps.
Swans in one of the ponds.
The Atlantic surf wasn't terribly rough but more so than in North Carolina the week before.
A much emptier beach, near sunset.
(Waah! This cannot be true! *g* "As Cho Chang, you are pretty, popular and intelligent, but quite sensitive and vain.")
In the late afternoon, after watching Italy win the World Cup, my hubby, my mother and I went to the Seaside Country Store in Fenwick Island to get crab nuts, fudge and other gourmet necessities, then to the brand new Super Giant while my father took the boys to one of the complex's indoor pools. (We are staying here in large part because my parents love the pools and tennis courts.) Younger son and I took a walk to look for frogs in the local swamp before dinner. In the evening we watched True Caribbean Pirates, which was on the History Channel in honor of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men's Chest being in the theaters. We're hoping to get to it before the week is out.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Poem for Sunday
My Picture Left in Scotland
By Ben Jonson
I now think love is rather deaf, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I'm sure my language was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet
As hath the youngest he,
That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.
Oh, but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundreds of gray hairs,
Told seven and forty years,
Read so much waist, as she cannot embrace
My mountain belly and my rocky face,
And all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears.
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From Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in The Washington Post Book World. "What is a line? In screenwriting, IT IS something someone says. In poetry, too; but a line is also a unit of rhythm, represented on a page by a return to the left margin, somewhat the way sheet music represents measures with vertical lines," Pinsky writes. "Jonson (1572-1637) shows what he can do, flamboyantly -- like a dancer leaping -- in order to chide a woman who has disrespected his picture. Poor Jonson sounded better than he looked. Cupid, the god of love, is supposed to be blind -- but in this case...the varying line lengths let Jonson demonstrate how gracefully he can move the 'subtle feet' of his verses through such an attractive dance. The lady he addresses apparently was better at appraising Jonson's build and complexion than at appreciating the sweetness of his verses."
Saturday we packed up and drove to Bethany by way of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels. We had lunch at the Crab Claw, a very good seafood restaurant right next to the museum, inexplicably decorated with hunting trophies but with very good crab soup, crab balls, crab dip, crab cakes...are you noticing a theme? Then we toured the museum itself, going inside the 1879 screwpile lighthouse, watching the boats being built in the skipjack restoration buildings and walked out on the wharf where there are crab and eel traps so people can see how they are collected, cleaned and shipped. There is also a big boathouse with more than a dozen locally built boats, an indoor oysterboat and model restaurant because oysters are so important to the region, an indoor historical museum on yachting in the Bay and a building entirely with paintings and models of historical ships and local military history. We had wanted to stop in part because a replica of John Smith's shallop was on display.
Old Point and Lady Katie docked by the museum.
A small-scale model of a skipjack for kids to explore.
The reproduction of John Smith's shallop, in which he explored the Chesapeake in 1608 -- one of a great many exhibits in anticipation of the anniversary of the founding of Jamestown in 1607.
A backstaff and a quadrant on an illustration of the Godspeed, Susan Constant and Discovery landing at Jamestown.
This boat, being prepared to be taken into the water, is here for Master and Commander fans because of the name!
And because what would a trip be without one...a penguin! That was the name for this little boat, the Judy, the first of about 9800 Penguin class dinghies, built in 1939 to be raced in icy water, hence the name.
Crossing over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that connects Maryland's eastern shore with the rest of the state.
Then we drove to Bethany, where my parents had already arrived and retrieved keys, parking passes, etc. for the condo where we are staying -- same as last year, three bedrooms and three bathrooms which is a lifesaver, big living room, father brought his iPod with speakers and lots of music, and now there is wireless so we each have our own computers! We went out for pizza at the local Armand's and ate at one of the outdoor tables because it was a gorgeous low-80s evening, then walked to the beach, where it was a bit too dark for wading but a bit too light for ghost crabs...still, mostly empty and pretty and smelled wonderful. And then we came back here to get the kids to bed and I cropped photos from earlier and chilled out!
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Poem for Saturday
Coastal Plain
By Kathryn Stripling Byer
The only clouds
forming are crow clouds,
the only shade, oaks
bound together in a tangle of oak
limbs that signal the wind
coming, if there is any wind
stroking the flat
fields, the flat
swatch of corn.
Far as anyone’s eye can see, corn’s
dying under the sky
that repeats itself either as sky
or as water
that won’t remain water
for long on the highway: its shimmer
is merely the shimmer
of one more illusion that yields
to our crossing as we ourselves yield
to our lives, to the roots
of our landscape. Pull up the roots
and what do we see but the night
soil of dream, the night
soil of what we call
home. Home that calls
and calls
and calls.
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Last laundry isn't folded yet but most of the other chores are done. Kids played with older son's friend Omar, who is leaving for England and then Bangladesh for a month in the morning; I tried to keep my head up, as whatever is going on with my lymph nodes hasn't gone down and I'm tired and stiff and sore and really hoping this is all stress and I'm not coming down with anything. Had dinner with parents, finalized lists of who's bringing what. Half-watched Animal Planet to which the kids got addicted while traveling; this time it was the San Francisco animal patrol and Meerkat Manor.
Something I hope to see lots of in coming days...a laughing gull hanging out in the water.
Saturday on the way east we are stopping at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels to see the replica of John Smith's shallop. Then it's on to Bethany!
Friday, July 07, 2006
Poem for Friday
Wallace Stevens
By Honor Moore
The great poet came to me in a dream, walking toward me in a house
drenched with August light. It was late afternoon and he was old,
past a hundred, but virile, fit,leonine. I loved that my seducer
had lived more than a century and a quarter. What difference
does age make? We began to talk about the making of poems, how
I craved his green cockatoo when I was young, named my Key West
after his, like a parent naming a child "George Washington." He was
not wearing the business suit I'd expected, nor did he have the bored
Rushmore countenance of the familiar portrait. His white tee shirt
was snug over robust chest and belly, his golden hair long, his beard
full as a biker's. How many great poets ride a motorcycle? We
were discussing the limits of image, how impossible for word
to personate entirely thing: "sea," ocean an August afternoon; "elm,"
heartbreak of American boulevards after the slaughter
of sick old beautiful trees. "I have given up language," he said.
The room was crowded and noisy, so I thought I'd misheard.
"Given up words?" "Yes, but not poems," he said, whereupon
he turned away, walking into darkness. Then it was cooler, and
we were alone in the gold room. "Here is a poem," he said, proffering
a dry precisely formed leaf, on it two dead insects I recognized
as termites, next to them a tiny flag of scarlet silk no larger than
the price sticker on an antique brooch. Dusky red, though once
bright, frayed but vivid. Minute replica of a matador's provocation?
Since he could read my spin of association, he was smiling, the glee
of genius. "Yes," he said, "that is the poem." A dead leaf? His grin was
implacable. Dead, my spinner brain continued, but beautiful. Edge
curling, carp-shaped, color of bronze or verdigris. Not one, but two
termites—dead. To the pleasures of dining on sill or floor joist, of
eating a house, and I have sold my house. I think of my friend finding
termites when she reached, shelf suddenly dust on her fingers,
library tumbling, the exterminator's bill. Rapacious bugs devour,
a red flag calls up the poem: Blood. Zinnia. Emergency. Blackbird's
vermillion epaulet. Crimson of manicure. Large red man reading,
handkerchief red as a clitoris peeking from his deep tweed pocket—
Suddenly he was gone, gold draining from the walls, but the leaf,
the leaf was in my hand, and in the silence I heard an engine howl,
and through the night that darkened behind the window, I saw
light bolt forward, the tail of a comet smudge black winter sky.
--------
I did lots of running around today but at least most of it was productive. Got all the Bar Mitzvah invitations stuffed, stamped and mailed except the one going to
We had thought about going to see Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Orchestra which was performing for free outdoors in Silver Spring, but 
In one of the flight rooms at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. The birds are not shy and are happy to sit on railings and posts as well as in the trees.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Poem for Thursday
There Were Three Jovial Huntsmen
By Mother Goose
There were three jovial huntsmen,
As I have heard them say,
And they would go a-hunting
All on a summer's day.
All the day they hunted,
And nothing could they find
But a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing with the wind.
One said it was a ship,
The other he said nay;
The third said it was a house
With the chimney blown away.
And all the night they hunted,
And nothing could they find
But the moon a-gliding,
A-gliding with the wind.
One said it was the moon,
The other he said nay;
The third said it was a cheese,
And half o't cut away.
--------
Beware, as mostly griping ensues. Today I went to get labels printed for the Bar Mitzvah invitations, something I expected to take maybe an hour or two even if some great crisis arose like Staples being out of clear labels and Kinko's not having the right templates installed...ended up at Office Depot, after having lunch with
Anyway, I'm not feeling well physically and have SO much to do -- I don't know how much is caused by stress and weird eating patterns. The cable was back tonight, thank all higher powers, but I didn't make a dent in mail, comments, etc. piled up from previous days and now I'm totally zotzed. Tomorrow mother is taking older son to be measured for a suit while I get all the invitations stamped and mailed, along with all the other mail I owe (yes, 
Interactive exhibit on Colonel Washington and the soldiers of the war.
The covered wagon at what is now Mount Washington Tavern, but was a working inn on the road beneath which before it had that name.
Cannons at Fort Pitt outside the exhibit building.
The outline of Fort Duquesne in bricks where it stood in what is now the middle of Pittsburgh.
In the mood for these because we were watching The Revolution on The History Channel. I love stuff about Washington.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Poem for Wednesday
Ox Cart Man
By Donald Hall
In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar's portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart's floor.
He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge's fire.
He walks by his ox's head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.
When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year's coin for salt and taxes,
and at home by fire's light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year's ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.
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Belatedly, a poem from Poet's Choice by Robert Pinsky in last Sunday's Washington Post Book World. Pinsky writes, "Imagination loves borderlands: the uncertain terrain between myth and report, the dark trails where Sasquatch roams, the misty surface of Loch Ness." He discusses the appeal "in using humble detail to fill in an abstract formula...the place where fable meets everyday material, the similar place where pattern meets particular details." These characterize for him Hall's poem, in which "lovingly specific details fill in a methodical pattern of Yankee shrewdness...he presents the details with such precision that a reader may scarcely notice the ritual element of formula, or the sly country element of an admirable, possibly hyperbolic yarn-spinning."
My July 4th was much taken up with laundry and thunderstorms. I got a taste of what people here have been living with for weeks, though thankfully a very small one -- my cable has been out since early afternoon, I've had to change my settings to sign on with AOL again; I swear some higher power is trying to talk me into not dropping it...one of my first plans upon getting home was going to be looking into alternate dial-up options for times and places where I can't get a wireless or cable connection. Because of this I am very, very, very behind on comments and everything else that requires me to be online. But I am not complaining, because we did not lose power, and given the number of hours that I had the washer and dryer going, this is a great blessing. It took six full loads but the trip laundry is done! Now everything goes back into piles to be packed for the beach this weekend!
And the rest of my time will be taken up with Bar Mitzvah stuff. The invitations arrived -- they look lovely -- but I have to get the addresses printed and the envelopes mailed before we leave, and what I thought would be a reasonably easy thing to do at Kinko's is apparently more complicated than I thought. (We gave up on calligraphy, not only because of the expense but because of the time...and if we print labels, we can print them again for thank you notes, and I'd rather have my son spend more time on the notes and less on the addressing.) We have to work out flowers and centerpieces and a bunch of stuff with the shul...I do not want to get an ulcer over what is supposed to be a celebration! At least parents were civil...I got the expected irritation at my lack of gratitude and irritation at having my house invaded and redecorated, but since the kids were obviously sincerely distressed over the comforter issue when my parents took them to the pool, it stayed at a certain level, and everyone is trying to behave since we all have to live in the same five-room beach condo for a week.
We all had dinner together after I folded most of the laundry while watching two episodes of Brideshead Revisited (am determined to finish before we go to the beach; have two episodes left). I don't actually much like Charles, I realize, I find Sebastian and Julia both more interesting and more sympathetic, am sort of amused by Charles' continual displacement of his feelings (marrying a peer of Julia's because she vaguely reminds him of Julia who in turn reminds him of Sebastian, being contemptuous of and considering himself so unlike those "pansies" who acknowledge that they prefer men and choose to live as passionate deviant outsiders). I really must read the book because there's fascinating insider-outsider stuff going on with no woman really passing muster, certainly not Julia or Cordelia who both suffer from being Catholic, not Lord Marchpane's foreign mistress and not Charles' unreasonably detested wife either. But first I need to watch the ending. We half-watched the DC fireworks on TV with the sound turned off -- between Elmo and Michael Bolton appearing at the concert, we could take no more -- and read some more of Greenwitch. Older son wants to read on ahead alone, but I won't let him; he'll only spoil it for
Since I have no July 4th fireworks to share, here are some post-game fireworks from the Frederick Keys game we attended last month...
Wish I were feeling more patriotic but the current administration is really killing most patriotic feeling in me. I remember when I was a kid, I thrilled to July 4th. I want my country back.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Poem for Tuesday
Post-Vacation Tristesse
By Charles Harper Webb
The Jumbo Jet has barely shuddered off
The ground, and I'm depressed. My scuba mask
And fins, my fly rod and beach hat
Crush each other in an overhead locker
Dark as the bedroom closet they're returning to.
Already the week's good times melt
Together like caramels in a hot car.
My vow to "Do this more often!" recedes
With the jade palms and sun-stroked beaches
I can barely see through my scratched window
As the pilot thanks us for "flying
United," and climbs through ectoplasmic
Clouds into the jet stream that circles
Earth's head like a tedious tune,
And like a kick in the rear, hustles us
Homeward through a sky which, though it looks
blue enough to house heaven, is colorless
As life without you, and just goes on and on.
--------
We're home. Had a pretty good drive -- LONG wait for lunch since hubby only wanted to stop somewhere within a mile of the highway and through much of NC, there aren't any places within a mile of I-95, but no traffic to speak of and the weather was good. We watched Eight Below (which upset younger son for awhile as some of the doggies suffer greatly, but had a lovely happy ending like March of the Penguins) and read the end of The Dark Is Rising and most of the first half of Greenwitch. Had Subway for lunch when we finally stopped (by then it was nearly 2 p.m. and I needed Excedrin, as I had not eaten since 9 a.m. and then all carbs because there were 100 people for breakfast in a lobby designed to seat 20).
Got home to what I can only describe as a mixed reception. Mother is going to describe me and family as filthy screaming ingrates so I may as well begin with that. At some point between the time
My mother has already announced that we must spend time at the beach planning the table decorations etc. for son's Bar Mitzvah. Once again I am thisclose to accepting Kali as my personal Destroyer just to get away from all this bullshit. I don't even want to go to the beach, and that is really saying something...am wondering whether I will be stricken with appendicitis if I think about faking appendicitis just to get out of going, and have to remind myself that that is the God my mother believes in and made puh-puh-puh noises in fear of all my life who does things like that, not the one I believe in. I cannot believe I feel this oppressed in my own HOUSE within hours of returning from vacation.
A chipmunk at the Pittsburgh Zoo, because chipmunks always make me feel better.
I am told I missed a huge amount of fannish wank while I was gone! Huzzah! Hope I never find out exactly what it was all about. *g*
Monday, July 03, 2006
Poem for Monday
From Dewy Dreams
By James Joyce
From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From love's deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the treees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.
Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.
While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.
--------
Sunday was a somewhat chaotic, though enjoyable, day. After breakfast we parked in a satellite lot and took a shuttle into Beaufort for the America's Sail festival. While we were on the bus we met people who had had tickets for the day before but couldn't even get on the docks, there were so many people. While one had to have tickets to board the ships, there was no sort of entry to visit the piers, so there were hundreds of people who'd paid hundreds of dollars and couldn't even get near the ships since the police kept shutting down the area due to overcrowding. So we went to see just the ships docked in Beaufort -- all of which were closed to visitors -- but the Morehead City State Ports were closed completely and the old Beaufort Seaport was only open intermittently. Rumor has it that ticket prices would be refunded for people who couldn't get to the ships, so we're hoping this is true.
Since we couldn't board the ships, we looked at the skipjack Ada Mae, schooners Compass Rose and Serenity and ketch Three Belles and visited the North Carolina Maritime Museum in downtown Beaufort, which has exhibits on southern coastal maritime history, local marine wildlife and Blackbeard's connection to the region, including exhibits and artifacts the wreck of a ship believed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge. We also saw most of a film about a voyage around Cape Horn in the 1930s. There was a "Pirate Encampment" in the middle of historic Beaufort (home to Civil War leaders and the like) with reenactors in pirate costume and cannons and such. We had lunch, then decided we were too overheated to wait another two hours to see if the docks reopened and took the shuttles back to the van.
We had plans to meet up with
We went to Emerald Isle to meet our friends and went to the beach. My first venture into the Atlantic for the season was entirely successful: we caught and released sandcrabs and little burrowing clams, found scallop shells and came back to 
The Compass Rose at the downtown dock, where ships could be seen but not boarded.
The 1831 Fuller House in downtown Beaufort, one of several historic houses there.
Inside the maritime museum, artifacts brought up from a ship believed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge. This area claims Blackbeard as a hero of sorts.
At the pirate encampment in downtown Beaufort.
A fiddler crab in the salt marsh at Pine Knoll Aquarium...
...and an egret in the marsh.
A fish swims in front of a shipwreck exhibit.
We're in an utter piece of shit Best Western -- the cheapest rat-hole within an hour -- so I am dialed into an AOL connection that keeps crapping out and can't open half the pages on the web. Will get comments when I am home, assuming my internet connection there works since I hear it was crapping out last week as well!
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Things I Want (Gratuitous Greed Post)
Seen at the Biltmore Estate's historic toy shop:
-- Tara's Trunk Porcelain 11 Inch Doll with Trunk
-- Trudy Traveler Doll and Trunk by Showstoppers
-- Cinderella Doll and Trunk by Showstoppers
Also, if anyone ever wanted to get me the Franklin Mint Galadriel or Eva Peron doll or Madame Alexander's less realistic but still pretty Eva Peron doll, I would be grateful beyond words. I remember seeing an ad for Galadriel when the doll was first manufactured; it cost nearly $200 then so was never a real possibility. Alexander's Evita sometimes shows up on eBay for under $75 but I always miss her!
 |  |  |
Showstoppers | Showstoppers | Showstoppers |
 |  |  |
Franklin Mint | Madame Alexander | Franklin Mint |
As for Barbies...I would love the 2001 Tales of the Arabian Nights Barbie & Ken set, the 2001 Munsters Barbie & Ken set, the 1997 Olympic Skater Barbie & Ken set, the 2003 James Bond Barbie & Ken set, the 1999 Grand Ole Opry Barbie & Ken set and especially the 1998 Phantom of the Opera Barbie & Ken set! I also love all three Barbies in the Celestial Collection, the Essence of Nature collection and however many there are in the Birds of Paradise set that included the Swan, the Peacock and the Flamingo. Whoo!
Poem for Sunday
And I Lounged and Lay on Their Beds
By Constantine Cavafy
When I went to that house of pleasure
I didn't stay in the front rooms where they celebrate,
with some decorum, the accepted modes of love.
I went into the secret rooms
and lounged and lay on their beds.
I went into the secret rooms
considered shameful even to name.
But not shameful to me -because if they were,
what kind of poet, what kind of artist would I be?
I'd rather be an ascetic. That would be more in keeping,
much more in keeping with my poetry,
than for me to find pleasure in the commonplace rooms.
--------
We went to the Biltmore Estate on Saturday, billed as the largest home in America -- more than 250 rooms in the mansion, 43 bathrooms! The grounds are magnificent -- the house is at the top of a hill surrounded by woods, which is in turn surrounded by the mountains -- and the mansion is almost beyond belief. The first floor felt very British to me -- a lot of the decorations were brought from Europe and are older than those in Castle Howard, including medieval tapestries and wall panels. (I somehow never put it together before that the Cecil who married a Vanderbilt was a descendant of Lord Burleigh and the English Cecils.) George Vanderbilt also apparently had a French Revolution and Napoleon fetish -- he has a chess set that belonged to him, several paintings and prints and rooms decorated in various French styles.
I must admit that I found the servants' rooms on the very upper and lower floors more interesting in some ways than the huge magnificent living rooms that dominate each of the first three floors or the canopied Vanderbilt bedrooms; they are plain, though not outrageously small, but surrounded by big alarm-type bells so that people can be woken at all hours of the night. It looks like for all the bathrooms in the house there was only one for every ten servants, so everyone had bedpans and pitchers in their rooms. The kids were getting bored by the time we reached the bowling alley and swimming pool and were quite disinterested by the time we got to the numerous pantries and kitchens in the basement, so we rushed through those, but we got a good look at all the Sargent and Renoir paintings and the amazing interior decorating.
We had lunch in the courtyard -- we had brought sandwiches, but we got drinks and chocolate from the stores there -- then walked to the conservatory, which has lilies and orchids in the hothouse, plus hundreds of flowers in several outdoor gardens both formal and wild, the landscape designed by Olmsted and featuring several ponds and the creeks that run through the property. Then we drove to the winery a few miles from the mansion, which has a little tour -- the buildings were a dairy until a few decades ago, and have been converted for fermentation, storage and sale of a variety of wines which can be tasted in a massive wine bar. There are also samples of fruit juice, salad dressing, cheese and other local products, and more excellent chocolate. We had to hurry to drive over 300 miles so we didn't have time to see the inn, the stables, the whitewater rafting or any of the numerous other things to see and do on the estate -- there's several days' worth of things to do there.
In keeping with our *ahem* tradition from last year trapped in the Denver airport, we had our anniversary dinner at McDonald's! We were en route from Asheville to Jacksonville, somewhere outside of Raleigh -- we went by the exits for Wake Forest, Duke and Chapel Hill but couldn't stop to see either, and now we are five minutes from Camp Lejeune which we saw from several angles while lost for an hour trying to find the hotel amidst various military installations. The dinner McDonald's had a McCafe -- an attempt to move in on the Starbucks market -- that had wireless internet, which was a revelation to me! And the chocolate muffins looked about as good as Starbucks', which is to say not the best but good enough for a fix.
When we finally made it to the hotel it was too late to swim, so we watched a special on leopard seals on Animal Planet which had lots of penguins but things ended badly for many of them so younger son was quite unhappy. He was already in a bad mood because he had just finished the last of the ten Warrior Cats books (which ended on a cliffhanger) and must wait till September for the next sequel. Reading Susan Cooper was only small consolation.
The flowers are spectacular.
The house is ringed by statues of knights, heroes...
...and fabulous gargoyles.
Here is the house from the overlook coming from the parking lot.
No photos are allowed inside but one is allowed to take pictures from the balconies.
The mansion is surrounded by gardens, woods, and beyond, the Great Smoky Mountains.
...and here are flowers in the hothouse.
Sunday we are going to the Tall Ship Festival in Beaufort and hopefully to the maritime museum, and then maybe the beach!
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Animal Planet Question
Did anyone happen to see this show? Could you tell us what happened to the ducklings? It would be most appreciated!
Poem for Saturday
Sa nuit d'ete (This Night of Summer)
By Ranier Maria Rilke
Translated by Byron Adams
Si je pourrais avec mes mains brûlantes
fondre ton corps autour ton coeur d'amante,
ah que la nuit deviendrait transparente
le prenant pour un astre attardé
qui toujours dès le premier temps des mondes
était perdu et qui commence sa ronde
en tâtonnant de sa lumière blonde
sa première nuit, sa nuit, sa nuit d'été.
If, with my burning hands, I could melt
the body surrounding your lover's heart,
ah! how the night would become translucent,
taking it for a late star,
which, from the first moments of the world,
was forever lost, and which begins its course
with its blonde light, trying to reach out towards
its first night, its night, its summer night.
--------
One last poem from
Friday morning we drove from Nashville to Knoxville, losing an hour in the process. We therefore had to wake up very early to get to the Nashville Zoo in time for the penguin feeding and meet-the-keepers. Knoxville has African penguins -- seven on display and several more not out in public, including the oldest penguin in captivity at 42 years. There is also a lion cub no longer with its mother because it wasn't nursing sufficiently, so it's in the mole rat exhibit in a cubbyhole with stuffed animals and blankies, a very active tree sloth that was climbing all around the bars of its cage and a trio of squawking macaws that could be heard as far away as the zebras.
We had a picnic at the zoo and then drove through the Great Smoky Mountains into North Carolina, stopping to take photos at a welcome center. Then we went to Asheville, where we visited the Basilica of St. Lawrence, a 1909 Catholic church with a magnificently decorated altar and pulpit, the life of Christ in stained glass in a circle around the sanctuary, and the largest freestanding elliptical dome in North America. (I love beautiful old churches of any denomination.) Then we met 
Singing spoonbills in the waterfowl exhibit.
One final penguin photo for the trip -- a mated pair and their reflections (all my photos from this zoo had glare from the glass, sorry!)
A bridge at the visitor center in North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains.
St. Lawrence Basilica in Asheville.
The altar of the basilica, with a bas-relief Last Supper between the Alpha and Omega in the front.
The semicircle windows depict the life of Christ all around the sanctuary, with several larger ones and statues set into the walls.
The church and gardens from the rear.
Saturday is my 16th wedding anniversary. We are visiting Asheville's Biltmore Estate -- having skipped the Breakers Mansion when we were in New England, we figure we should visit at least one Vanderbilt mansion! Then we are driving through Raleigh to Jacksonville so we can be in Beaufort on Sunday.
