By David Elliott
Tell their story,
sweet and old.
It begins in clover;
it ends with gold.
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One more from "Pages Aflame with Poetry", the column for young readers in the April 20th Washington Post Book World. In David Elliott's On the Farm, "The concept couldn't be simpler...after an opening panorama showing an old-fashioned farmhouse with outbuildings and assorted farm-dwelling animals dotted about, each double-page spread zooms in on a particular beast, bird or bug, allotting them a portrait and a quirky poem apiece," explains Elizabeth Ward. [Illustrator Holly Meade]'s big, bold woodcut prints are the attention-grabbers, but Elliott's little verses pack a deceptive punch. "The Bees" is summer in a quatrain."
I had something of a Trekkie day, even though a lot of it was part of the process of divesting my Trek stuff. Did a whole bunch of book rearranging and yanking more Star Trek book miniseries, including some I didn't remember having. Had cats underfoot the entire time. Then wrote a review of "Deja Q", a terrific Q and an even better Data episode, plus it's genuinely funny.
And frack, I rounded out the day with Battlestar Galactica. I must remember that MooreRon cannot be trusted, that he ruins relationships for sport and pretends it's in the name of drama, that Laura/Bill is going to end even more tragically than Kira/Odo...at this point, Laura's cancer is like Chekhov's Gun onstage, and if it doesn't kill her after five TV seasons, it will seem like cheating, even though I want to break my No Miraculous Salvations rule and have her and Bill live forever. I just typed "love forever," eek! And, okay: this show is not boring. Stupid and infuriating at times, but never boring this season, and "boring" was my original objection to the relaunch way back first season. Plus Lucy Lawless could get me to watch anything.
Spoilers: So I'm still confused how Cylons work, exactly -- all the ones that currently exist are now cut off and will age and die the way humans do? (And have babies with each other as well as with humans, if Tigh/Six is any indication!) That's just as well because the Eights all downloading and stalking Athena out of envy of her love and baby just creeps me out...why would the Cylons have produced a clingy lovelorn woman model? ("Boomer's my pet Eight." "That's till she sees something shiny." Hee...oh I've missed Three!) Then there's the Hybrid. "The Six that went among the Makers is no longer" -- can the Hybrid actually feel that, or is this mystical prediction mumbo-jumbo? She can sure feel when the Three comes online, though she doesn't say anything that sounds like a prediction of it beforehand.
I'm not at all crazy about Laura's conscience being a woman of color who has to guide her to her Happy Place, but otherwise this is a terrific Laura episode. The first argument with Gaius about how to handle a Hybrid that sends Gaius running off to debate theology with a non-responsive metal-head, who then very nearly kills Gaius as he dies, and then a drug-crazed (or maybe just crazed) Gaius blathering about how oh, I'm responsible for the Cylons wiping out Caprica, but God loves me and I'm perfect...I am very disappointed that she did not let him die. That subconscious blather about not having the right to make such a choice just infuriated me; the idea that she knows him, that he mattered to her as a person once, would have been a much better argument. Instead we get something akin to the idea that the Jews should have saved Hitler because to kill him would have made them just like him...give me a goddamn break.
But I'll take any Gaius ex machina or blathering politically correct subconscious that gets us the scene with Adama at the end. (I figured that since we heard D'Anna tell Laura that she was a Cylon in the previews, it wasn't true.) That fantasy death scene, with Adama kissing her and putting his wedding ring on her finger... *sob* And then saving Baltar, bantering with D'Anna ("I'm not giving you any names because information is all I've got, sweetie...I'm mortal now") and finally the love scene that we NEVER GOT for Janeway/Chakotay...oh god, do not let me feel good about this, it is going to end in disaster, we all know it! *basks for one second, then shoves it out of mind*
Friday Fiver: That's where we meet
1. What's your weather? Insanely hot. Heat index over 100 and supposed to be just as bad all weekend.
2. Where are you on your way to? Baltimore, tomorrow, to see the penguins.
3. Are you good with directions? Terrible. Just ask anyone who has ever driven with me.
4. Do you know your neighbors? Yes, though I haven't met the wife of the family that just moved in this week two doors down.
5. What do you smell? Hello Sugar body spray. Yay!
The Friday Five: Randomosity
1. if you had to participate in one olympic event what would it be and why? There is no Olympic event in which I am remotely qualified to compete. If I were to magically acquire athletic skill, then ice skating.
2. what is the one song you always sing along to? "Y.M.C.A." Also "Can't Smile Without You."
3. do you wear a seatbelt in the car? Yes.
4. car, suv or truck and why? Minivan. Two, actually, since the station wagon we inherited from my in-laws died and we were still in the soccer carpool stage of life.
5. are you a good/bad driver? explain I'm a cautious driver who assumes everyone else is trying to kill me, so I stop short and curse a lot.
Fannish 5: Name your five favorite fictional apocalypses (or near misses). I'm assuming this means in an end-of-the-world sense rather than a Revelation sense.
1. On the Beach, the devastating end of the world after a nuclear war. And Testament, a more recent take on that same awful theme.
2. Children of Men, in which humans are becoming extinct.
3. Dark Angel, in which the world survived the Pulse, but not too well.
4. Star Wars, the destruction of Alderaan. Which is the prototype for Battlestar Galactica's destruction of Caprica and lots of others.
5. Hercules, the Legendary Journeys, because the Archangel Michael (and by extension the God for whom he works) is the bad guy. The Rapture has the same theme, heh.
Above, Brookside reptiles from a nice cool weekend. On Saturday we get a private tour of the penguin facility at the Maryland Zoo that we won in a silent auction! But it is supposed to be 100 degrees...I hope we don't melt on the way!
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