Poem for Saturday

The sweet apple blushes
on the end of the bough,
the very end of the bough
which harvesters missed --
nay, not overlooked,
but far out of reach.

--Sappho

* * * * * * * *

And speaking of the Greeks, I liked this by a lot.

Okay, I DID make an effort to skew the results but if I'd come out Harry Potter I would have been distressed.


What fantasy movie are you?
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Poem for Friday

BREAK OF DAY
by John Donne

Stay, O sweet, and do not rise;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
   Stay, or else my joys will die,
   And perish in their infancy.

The Thanksgiving list, not nearly as profound as it should be. I am thankful for...

My family -- my husband, my kids, my parents, my sister and her family with whom we're spending the holiday, my in-laws. And my cats.

My friends -- like whom I've known more than half my life, like my college friends who are still just a phone call away, like our book group in Chicago whom we can see for the first time in three years and feel like we never left, like DRush and Horta1701 and so many others whom I've met through fandom.

My house, my health, my computer, all the material things that I take for granted or gripe about too often when really I should be grateful that I've got them in the first place.

My work, which I really love and need to remember how lucky I am to get paid for.

My writing, which keeps me sane and lets me touch people and puts me in touch with people and reminds me of what matters when I'm not doing a good job articulating it in my own mind.

My country, whose imperfect past may be significant today in the holiday we're celebrating, whose current leaders and many apathetic citizens drive me insane much of the time...but I never forget how much means to me and to the world that I can make such complaints right here for everyone to read.

My planet, which I and many millions of other people need to work a lot harder to keep beautiful, clean and safe, which is capable of feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing joy for all of us if we could just learn to share it.

Poem for Thanksgiving

This Kind of Grace
by Pattiann Rogers

Let's bless the body before love.
By rights we should, every detail.
We could use water, spring water
or rose, minted or bay rum. A touch
to the shoulders--bless these. A drop
behind each knee--sanctify here. A sprinkle
to the belly, yours, mine--in heartfelt
appreciation.

I could dip my fingers into oil cupped
in my palm, sweet citronella, lavender,
clove, trace your forehead, temple
to temple, the boldness of that warm
stone--so glorified--perfume the entire
declaration of your spine, neck
to tail--so hallowed.

We'd neglect nothing, ankle, knuckle,
thigh, cheek. And for the rapture
of hair, scented with sweat or the spices
of cedary sages and summer pines,
in which I hide my face--praise
to the conjoining hosts of all
radiant forests and plains.

And imagine how I'd lay my hand,
move my hand carefully on and around
and under each axil and hummock and whorl
between your legs, the magnificent maze
of those gifts--thanks to the exploding
heavens, thanks to all pulsing suns.

For these cosmic accomplishments:
this delve of your body, a narrow
crevasse leading into earth-darkness;
this assertion of your hands, light
winds lifting, parting, pressing
upon supine grasses; this rise, the tip
of a swollen moon over black hills;
this sweep of union, hawk-shadow
falling fast across the open prairie
into the horizon; for this whole blessed
body, for what we are about to receive
together tonight...truly, ardently,
ecstatically, boundlessly
grateful.

Poem for Wednesday

Prolong the Night
by Renee Vivien

Prolong the night, Goddess who sets us aflame!
Hold back from us the golden-sandalled dawn!
Already on the sea the first faint gleam
     Of day is coming on.

Sleeping under your veils, protect us yet,
Having forgotten the cruelty day may give!
The wine of darkness, wine of the stars let
     Overwhelm us with love!

Since no one knows what dawn will come,
Bearing the dismal future with its sorrows
In its hands, we tremble at full day, our dream
     Fears all tomorrows.

Oh! keeping our hands on our still-closed eyes,
Let us vainly recall the joys that take flight!
Goddess who delights in the ruin of the rose,
     Prolong the night!

Poem for Tuesday

The Black Art
by Anne Sexton

A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as if machines and galleons
and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.
Dear love, you are that man.

Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hats,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry,
the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over
to eat up all the weird abundance.

--------

Went out for really good Indian buffet for lunch with my husband yesterday -- we were supposed to be meeting to check out a book fair his company was having, but he ended up checking it out in the morning and we ended up scouting the really wonderful used bookstore around the corner from the Indian restaurant instead. Lunch dates without kids are very good things.

There's not nearly enough Sean Bean in Troubles, but despite being slow-moving in places, it was really interesting. Majestic Hotel as British Empire, slowly eroded by staying in Ireland. Not sure about all the symbolism with the sheep's heads and cat parasites and dying or sullied women but I think that perhaps I shall not think too deeply about it. I'm trying to save my remaining Sharpe episodes for when I'm in cinema withdrawal in January, since December offers a feast every weekend. Is it worth sitting through Scarlett (can't even stand the classic source material) just to see Beanie?

Gotta track down the Smallville comic book tomorrow. says that, well, Lex loves Clark, in an angsty, hopeless way, and I could use a good angst fix.

Poem for Monday

Lynx Light
by Tess Gallagher

The quilt has slipped
my shoulders. And when
you kiss the knots
in my fate like that
it's as if a lynx
co-exists with a housecat.

Give me winter for constancy
and looking back: most silent because
most decided.

Teach me how to shed
this cold devotion
by which memory
is exchanged for alertness.

Come and go with me--sickle,
black tail lashing this
transparent net of birdsong.

* * * * * * * *

Watched the first half of Troubles last night while folding laundry. Sean Bean eats a carnation. Between this and Viggo eating a dead rose in The Prophecy, I'm starting to get into a distinctly Georgia O'Keeffe frame of mind.

Poem for Sunday

In honor of last night's Andromeda, the parasitic slug episode "For Whom the Bell Tolls", because I could not stop thinking of this...

THE CONNOISSEUSE OF SLUGS
By Sharon Olds
From The Dead and the Living

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.

* * * * * * * *

From The Green Man Review, here is some gratuitous Viggo worship.

And I could do worse.


Which guy are you destined to have sex with?
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Poem for Saturday

Diving Into the Wreck
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it's a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

(From Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972, Norton 1973)


I was thinking I shouldn't post this because anyone who took any feminist theory or women's poetry in college would have read it -- even women I know who don't read poetry read Adrienne Rich. Then I realized how long it's been since I graduated from college, so there are probably enough people who've never read this that it's worth posting.


Take The Ewan McGregor Test!

On an unrelated note, this from The Onion made me howl. And this from Mad Magazine should win some kind of award.


Boromir's my fancy!
What's your fancy? Click here and tell the world!

Poem for Friday

Bitter rain in my courtyard
By Wu Tsao
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung

Bitter rain in my courtyard
In the decline of Autumn,
I only have vague poetic feelings
That I cannot bring together.
They diffuse into the dark clouds
And the red leaves.
After the yellow sunset
The cold moon rises
Out of the gloomy mist.
I will not let down the blinds
Of spotted bamboo from their silver hook.
Tonight my dreams will follow the wind,
Suffering the cold,
To the jasper tower of your beautiful flesh.

--------

Quote pointed me to, by David Duchovny in the December 1998 Playboy, interviewed by Lawrence Grobel, archived here:

"I think pornography is fine. Without getting into a discussion about how it demeans women and all that shit, I like to watch other people fuck. That's the fun part -- they're doing all the work. Something funny happened to me in Vancouver. At hotels in Canada you get full porn, unlike in America, where they cut out all the penetration and private parts, and you just get a shot of the guy from behind, which I don't need to see. When I watched porn, I'd rent three tapes and do reconnaissance work first -- I'd fast-forward to see what caught my eye and then I'd catalog it. Then I'd make my choices and go back and watch. But you can't do that in a hotel because the movie won't play again for another eight hours. So if you're masturbating and not just watching, you have to make a decision fast. I had to change my porn-watching habits and commit early. In Vancouver I learned that beyond the initial commitment to the scene where I wanted to get off, I had no control over the moment I got off. Once you go over that edge to an orgasm, you can't pull back. So you give over and then you're at the mercy of the cuts-and all of a sudden you're looking at a guy's sweaty ass and you're coming, and then you're thinking, Oh my God, I'm questioning my sexuality, because that wasn't half bad."

Dawson's Creek: I really like Eddie and I did not want to like Eddie, not because I have any desire to see Joey get back together with Dawson or Pacey -- I would like to see Joey single and independent for once -- but because Oliver Hudson is one of those Hollywood kids famous for his relatives who get far too much credit for their mediocre acting, of whom the odious Gwyneth Paltrow is the most annoying example. Except that Oliver Hudson may actually be able to act. It's hard to tell on that show, because with the exception of Joshua Jackson, I don't think there are real chops to compete with. My but I am bored with the Dawson storylines. Instead of a week with no Jen, we should get a week with no Beek. On the other hand I am anxiously awaiting information on which network will pick up the show and rerun the first season, so I can relive the moments when I first discovered Billie Myers, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Mary Beth, etc.

Ready-made for RPS...I can't believe they let this information leak. "Frodo Baggins, 'Pippin' Took and 'Merry' Brandybuck will be staying in a country house in England for New Year. The actors who play the "Lord of the Rings" hobbits, Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, are spending New Year together in Cumbria, England, though Wood would also like to take in the sights of Scotland while visiting the UK. The 21-year-old actor says, "I'm going to be spending the New Year in England at a farmhouse in Penrith. Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghue will be there. It is going to be a very hobbity New Year. It is only an hour from Scotland and I want to go there too."

And just yammering...is this a good thing?

src="http://www.quizdiva.com/gspotvibe.jpg" alt="g-spot vibe" width="67"
height="200" border="0">

You Are A G-spot Vibe!

Put in this vibe

Until the spot is just right

Ten minutes later

You'll be out for the night


What Sex
Toy Are *You*?

More Great Quizzes from Quiz
Diva

Snagged from whose page I found through some combination of links...

1. What was the first record you owned?

Personally, I think it was Billy Joel's The Stranger, or something by the Beatles. But the first one I remember filching from my parents' record collection was the West Side Story movie soundtrack. "I Go Crazy" was the first single I ever bought, followed closely by "Thicker Than Water." And now you know how old I am.

2. Is there a song that reminds you most of your childhood?

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which my sister used to sing as "Somewhere Oder Raindainbow" when she was very small; also anything by Barbra Streisand from before 1980

3. If you could spend a night with five musical artists -- three for their minds and two for their bodies -- who would they be?

1) Paul Simon, because he's one of my favorite poets
2) Paul McCartney, because I want to hear his stories
3) Joan Baez, because she's Joan Baez
4) Bono, who would be required to sing as well as talk and put out
5) Madonna, because I suspect that deep down she still knows how to have good dirty fun
And if anyone wanted to bring Sting to the party he'd be more than welcome in either capacity.

4. If your life was a movie, what song/band would play over the following:

*** Opening Credits
"After the Sunrise" -- Yanni (go ahead and laugh, I have no shame)

*** Love Scene
"Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" -- U2

*** Driving Scene that Consists Mainly of Flashbacks and Love Lost
"Ghost" -- Indigo Girls

*** Closing Credits
"The Dance" -- Garth Brooks

*** Any other scenes?
Lots and lots of women folk singers, Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Celtic New Age, and there has to be some Manilow in there

5. If applicable, name a song or concert that moved you to tears.

"One More Arrow" by Elton John; "Sand and Water" by Beth Nielsen Chapman; "Tears In Heaven" by Eric Clapton; "Full of Grace" by Sarah McLachlan; "Snow Is Lightly Falling" by Nightnoise; "The Door" by Martin Page; "Postmortem Bar" by Zane Campbell (which might not count because of its strong association with Longtime Companion)

6. What do you listen to when you're happy?

Disco, Madonna, Cher, anything I can dance to

Sad?

Sarah McLachlan, Mary Beth, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Trisha Yearwood

Upset?

Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, any protest rock

7. Name one musical artist you would like to see banished.

I am very good at changing radio stations, avoiding magazine covers and leaving stores that play terrible music, so I wouldn't banish any of them, though I won't listen to Eminem or a host of performers who say hateful things

8. Name a song you would rather never hear again.

"Dream On" -- Aerosmith

9. Name an album that is perfect all the way through - no filler, no bad stuff.

Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour; Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m.; Fleetwood Mac, Rumours; Saturday Night Fever (movie soundtrack); Dan Fogelberg, The Innocent Age; Evita (Broadway cast); Indigo Girls, Indigo Girls; Mary Chapin Carpenter, Stones in the Road; Eva Cassidy, Songbird

10. Music you like that could be considered a guilty pleasure.

Neil Diamond, John Denver, The Village People, Donna Summer...basically any schlock written in the late 1970s-early 1980s

11. If your music collection was about to go up in flames, which five CDs would you save?

My autographed copies of Bree Sharp's Cheap and Evil Girl, Mary Beth's A More Perfect World and Lisa Moscatiello's Second Avenue, plus whatever else I grabbed from #9 (I'm assuming I could replace the rest)

12. Is there a song that describes you or a situation you've been in so well that you could have written it?

"Unusual Way" from the musical Nine

13. What is your favorite soundtrack?

The Graduate

14. Best Music-Related Movie?

Amadeus, Eddie and the Cruisers, Hairspray, Nashville and This Is Spinal Tap (some of these are good while some are just good fun but I refuse to choose among them)

15. What is your all-time-favorite video?

Madonna's "Like A Prayer"

16. Current favorite radio hit?

That new Avril Lavigne song

17. Do you sing or play any musical instruments?

Sing in the shower; play piano

Poem for Thursday

Constantly
by Jane Shore

I woke, for an instant,
not knowing you.
Before touch, before

the thought of touch.
In the level darkness
I could locate

nothing of you,
no manacle of outline,
and I thought

how, each morning, the body
wakes to recognize
its shape, again

the tender landscape
given, the strangeness
of the right hand

orbiting the side,
the wrists where pulse
can quicken at a word.

And the body,
fluent in its element,
is water that the dailiness

of life runs over.
Now this, now
that; heartbeat,

the pupil widening
to light, admits
what's attended to—

a chair mimics
the woman seated,
cup's handle accepts

her hand. The body
receptive also, and birds
occupy the ear.

In darkness, the eye
shapes its constellation.
The hand

traces. Two fish
swim in their starry
perimeters, but the bird's

song's instinct,
a template in the brain.
Never let me fix you

ever, be the cloud
constantly inventing
its body like a dream

passing through your eye,
each morning dreaming
the sky a moment earlier

to light, skimming the sudden
unfamiliar coast.
And below the coast,

in the clearest water
senses can distill, here,
before love, touch returns

us to that density
silence roots the very
center of.

--------

Poem for Wednesday

Illicit Afternoon
by Edward Hirsch

When we lay down on the rocks
in the bristling heat of a weekday afternoon
23 years ago, we were a moment
of incompatibles touching on a soiled beach,

a pair of crosshatchings, a lark
and a trout coming together in the stunned
space between air and water,
a wound splayed with the salt spray of waves,

absurdity mingled with sadness
and destiny thwarted by chance, by passion,
by a joke against the fates,
a sudden mating of sorrows, a stolen joy.

--------

Another public service announcement from a couple of mailing lists: the Easter Eggs on the LOTR extended DVD!

On Disc 1, go to the Scene Selections menus, and highlight the horizontal picture of Chapter 27 (the last chapter on Disc 1). Press DOWN to highlight a Ring icon. Click on the Ring to see the MTV Movie Award version of Elrond's secret council with Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

On Disc 2, go to the Scene Selections menus, and highlight the number for Chapter 40 (last chapter on Disc 2). Press DOWN on your remote to highlight an icon of the two towers. Press ENTER to see a preview of THE TWO TOWERS that was shown in theaters last February.

On Discs 3 and 4, go to the Main Menu, and highlight the diamond-shaped icon at the bottom of the page. Click on the icon to access the DVDs' production credits.

Hallelujah:


Who's your inner gay man?
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Cool! Gacked from . I was hoping to be Derek Jarman but I guess he's not a choice. At least I'm not Justin Timberlake, who is, despite his alleged heterosexuality. She and I hung out today and she tried to convince me that the guy who stars with James Van Der Beek in Rules of Attraction is straight. If so, he's not doing a very good job of looking it. I still want Viggo.

Tuesday Morning

A local discount store. Now, however it is evening and I am late with the poem by one of my favorites.

TRUE LOVE
by Sharon Olds

In the middle of the night, when we get up
after making love, we look at each other in
complete friendship, we know so fully
what the other has been doing. Bound to each other
like mountaineers coming down from a mountain,
bound with the tie of the delivery-room,
we wander down the hall to the bathroom, I can
hardly walk, I wobble through the granular
shadowless air, I know where you are
with my eyes closed, we are bound to each other
with huge invisible threads, our sexes
muted, exhausted, crushed, the whole
body a sex- surely this
is the most blessed time of my life,
our children asleep in their beds, each fate
like a vein of abiding mineral
not discovered yet. I sit
on the toilet in the night,
you are somewhere in the room,
I open the window and snow has fallen in a
steep drift, against the pane, I
look up, into it,
a wall of cold crystals, silent
and glistening, I quietly call to you
and you come and hold my hand and I say
I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond it.

Too overcast for me to see the meteors last night. My husband got up at 5:30 a.m. and managed to see several, but I was apparently too soundly asleep to budge.



Swiped from Arabella's sig:
"Non-verbal is what Clark and Lex do. It's their mating language." -- Calysta Rose

A really boring Smallville was redeemed in an instant by the preview:

"Lex, have you ever wondered whether you were destined to be with someone?"

Ohhhh yes!

Now damned if I know where this came from:


What's your sexual appeal?
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I love sandrinedorvan.

Also I still love Sharpe. Not just because he's Sean Bean, though Bean is really amazing in Sharpe's Sword -- I agree with everyone who says the women in the later series are a real disappointment after Teresa, but Sharpe himself becomes more complex as the episodes unspool. Sword is slower-moving than many of the others, a lot less fighting, a lot more character work for Harper and the supporting cast as well, and really sad. We watched it last night while my husband ducked in and out checking to see if the meteors were visible yet.

Poem for the Morning

THE ENGLISH NOVEL
by Linda Pastan
from An Early Afterlife (Norton)

In the English Novel, where I spent my girlhood,
I used to think chilblains were a kind of biscuit,
and everything was always pearled with fog--
the moors with their purpling heather
and the beveled windows where the heroines,
my sisters, waited for heroes
who would find them eventually, after one or both
threaded their way through some kind of moral
labyrinth, shadowed and thorny. He was worth waiting for,
and anyway the slowness of the clocks was deliberate
as if minutes, like pence, had different meanings then.
There was no polyester. Everything was brocade and velvet,
even the landscapes, those hills embroidered
with flowers, though sex was hardly mentioned
it was clearly a scent in the air like the sachets
in cupboards, subtle but pervasive as the smell
of lavender or viburnum or tallow from all the smoky,
snuffed-out candles. Furniture and forests, marriages
were eternal then, and though there was always a plot
it hardly mattered. As for too much coincidence,
doesn't the moon always wander through the sky at the exact
moment the lovers are wandering through the park, even today,
even in this city with its fake Victorian faades?
And all the familiar faces we notice at the movies
Or across a restaurant, couldn't they be our half-brothers
or cousins, lost in the deep and mysterious gene pool--
descendants, some of them, of Emma and Mr. Knightley,
or the ones with Russian faces descended from Ladislaw maybe,
who could have come from a place just a few hours by carriage
from the shtetl where my great-great-grandmother
somehow acquired her blond hair and blue blue eyes?


Recommended by and she is so right, because Rose just rocks...I believe she's the same person who wrote my favorite Phantom Menace slash: Drift

And on another sappy, drippy note, this is probably true:


What's your brand of sexy?
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Romantic-Sexy.... Your fantasies involve love, not lust. You are a fantastic kisser, and for very good reason: it's your favorite thing. You are sappy as hell, and you don't care who knows it.

Lyrics and Babble

Si Buscabas
By Salvador and Katia Cardenal

Si buscabas
un cuerpo complaciente
que soltara tus amarras,
que en tus nudos desnudara
a tu animal mas innocente...

Si esperabas
un fuego tan ardiente
que encendiera tus cenizas,
que te hiciera sentir brisa
donde ya no habia fuente...

Si anorabas
un corazon de refugio
donde huir de tanta gente
que te heria y te quiera
para hacer feliz un dia...

Si sonabas
con buscar la libertad
a traves de otra persona
que librara a tus palomas
de las ansias de volar,
que luchara en tu trinchera
de traer la primavera,
la encontraste.

A friend of mine sent me a tape of a Nicaraguan group called Guardabarranco (lovely folk guitar). My Spanish is minimal so I may be overestimating this song's erotic content, but if I'm correct, it says something about how if you were looking for a willing body to loose your bonds and stoke your fires, you have found her. There's a pun on the Spanish words for "knot" and "undress."

said here that "The image of Viggo as the Devil kinda makes you not want to use the phrase 'go to hell' on just anyone...I'd tell you to go to hell as long as you returned the favor!"

GOOD REASONS TO GO TO HELL:

1) Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy
2) Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Dogma
3) Robert Beltran in El Diablo
4) Gabriel Byrne in End of Days
5) Rutger Hauer (I'm not sure if he ever actually played the devil, but you just know he's going to be there)

Also:

6) Lee Remick in Damn Yankees
7) Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled
8) Glenn Close in 101 Dalmatians (okay, she's De Vil, not the devil, but close enough
9) Anjelica Huston (didn't exactly play the devil in The Witches but she's going to be there too and I get dibs on her)
10) Louise Fletcher in Deep Space Nine (she's actually burning in the Fire Caves, not Hell, but close enough for me)

Callisto ended up in Heaven, didn't she. Drat. Is Caesar a.k.a. Karl Urban still in Hell in the Xenaverse?

Got the quote I wanted last night, my favorite line from The Prophecy -- Christopher Walken's Gabriel to Viggo Mortensen's Devil --
"Lucifer, sitting in your basement, sulking over your breakup with the boss."

I'm just back from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ohhhgod the Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape possibilities. Why didn't anyone warn me??!!!

Undead Viggo

So I've been complaining that in like every movie I've ever seen Viggo Mortensen besides the obvious (Daylight, Albino Alligator, Perfect Murder, Deception, etc.) he ends up...well, not wanting to leave any spoilers...let's just say he ends up in a condition that makes his character a less than ideal prospect for further fantasy.

So tonight, after a long afternoon of getting haircuts for the kids in a mobbed Cartoon Cuts and then my son's post-season soccer party and awarding of trophies, I needed to do something semi-adult. So we watched The Prophecy.

WHY WHY WHY did no one ever tell me that Viggo is the Devil? I mean Christ, I knew I was going to Hell already, but I did not need this kind of incentive!

I thought he was kidding in that interview where he said he had a sex scene with Christopher Walken in The Prophecy. He LICKED him! I'm sorry, I am going to be hyperventilating over that image for days. And he grabbed Elias Koteas from behind and ohhgod I can't even write about this coherently. Viggo Mortensen in wicked homoerotic scenes. Someone please explain to me why everyone in the movie did not want to go to Hell...



Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

Poem for the Day and stuff

Orchestra
by Nina Cassian
Translated from the Romanian by Dana Gioia

Climbing the scales three octaves at a time,
I search for you among the high notes where
the tender flute resides. But where are your
sweet eyelashes? Not there.

Then I descend among the sunlit brasses--
their funnels glistening like fountain tips.
I let them splash me with their streaming gold,
but I can't find your lips.

Then daring ever deeper I explore
the depths the elemental strings command.
Their bows will not create a miracle
without your stroking hand.

The orchestra is still. The score is blank.
Cold as a slide rule the brasses, strings, and flute.
Sonorous lover, when will you return?
The orchestra is mute.

--------

Poem from Life Sentence: Selected Poems, edited by William Jay Smith (Norton, 1990), swiped from Rita Dove's column in The Washington Post Book World.

Gacked from :


Which oft-overlooked LotR character are you?
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Survey du jour:
current clothes: Early morning sweatshirt and pants with holes
current mood: A little tired, rainy-day mode
current music: Enrique Iglesias (was just reading a piece of fanfic that referred to a song; otherwise no way)
current taste: Dull remains of green mouthwash
current make-up: You must be kidding
current hair: We're all going to get ours cut in an hour so it's a huge, scraggly, frizzy mess right now
current annoyance: Have to watch Andromeda tonight when I'd rather watch more Sharpe
current smell: Autumn rain, a good smell
current thing i ought to be doing: Answering e-mail from someone I've put off for too long
current desktop picture: Aragorn and Boromir from the exended edition right after Boromir grabs Aragorn by the tunic -- I could look at this all month
current favorite movie: This is a joke right? See above
current favorite tv show: Slashville, though I know in my heart of hearts that in the end West Wing will have had a more profound effect on me
current favorite actor: There is no choosing between Sean and Viggo so I'll punt and say Glenn Close, my perennial goddess
current book: Sherwood Forest by Lisa Croll DiDio, which I was supposed to have finished and reviewed by now, though I am enjoying it
current cd in cd player: Joan Osborne, Relish
current color of toenails: Perpetually clear and boring
current refreshment: Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal; would have been Frosted Mini-Wheats if the kids hadn't eaten them all up
current worry: That all the money we're saving to go to London will have to be spent to repair the roof, among many other financial concerns

Thursday

Poem for the Day: I'm in a Tennyson mood.

Ulysses
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

____________

Last night's Enterprise: sigh. Clear effort being made to deal with Real Trek Themes. Unfortunately the Berman/Braga team neither understand nor like Real Trek Themes. "I know...let's do episodes about how the Prime Directive came into existence so we can show how stupid it makes captains behave!"

http://www.treknation.com/reviews/enterprise/the_communicator.shtml

I am...

Which Fellowship Actor are YOU?

Whenever I take these Fellowship actor quizzes, they tell me that I am Viggo Mortensen and I want to do Sean Bean. I am not going to think too much about what this means.

I wonder if Viggo would be Yoda? I bet Sean, like me, would be:


:: how jedi are you? ::

Poem for the Day

Trying Magic
by Pattiann Rogers

Do you think if I looked at him hard and said
Over and over to the back of his head, "Don't be hurt,"
It would make a difference? Some people believe
In chants, the effects of memorable sound repeated.
They speak of a resonating power building inward
Under the breastbone, pressing outward simultaneously,
Gathering momentum in the form of circles radiating
Until they reach something somewhere that can make a difference.

Knowing that lead remains in ashes, I could write
In pencil, "Remember how definitely his attitude
Can be injured. Just remember that." And I could burn
The message in the light of the last sun of the equinox,
Leave the ashes in a jar at a spot designated
For those having influence.

Suppose I present him to the sky.
Suppose for three nights in a row I think of him
Spread naked against the stars. And I follow
Every line of his body with my eyes, from one foot
Up the thigh, the striations of the belly,
Throat, head, down the other side, filling in
The triangle of the groin, over and over
Thinking, "Shielded, shielded." Would it make a difference,
Like immersing him in a beneficent river,
Every pore protected?

I can believe in the energy of wishing.
How the body must engender electricity for the speech,
The chemistry of concentration in the pitch of the voice.
I could make someone notice if I sent this with great force
Sparkling into the atmosphere on a windless night--
"I wish him not to be hurt again."

Then shouldn't some bold angel somewhere hear
And help us?

--------

From The Expectations of Light, 1981.

And after the DVD, I needed more Beans.

What kind of Bean addict are you?





Last night's Smallville has stuck with me, even though I was very distracted watching it wanting to get back to my FOTR DVDs.

It was very Superman. Clark tried to save someone -- okay, for selfish reasons, he didn't want to lose a friend, but it was still a truly heroic gesture, without the usual mememememe angst overlaying it. I loved the discussion of the comic book, especially Lex's explanation of why the hero and villain eventually parted ways. Slashiness factor through the roof -- my husband and I were both joking that Ryan was going to ask Clark to kiss him as his last wish, and I was so hoping that Ryan would say something to Clark about how much Lex really loves him, but I guess I don't actually have to see those things as long as the possibilities are contained in an episode. And it was genuinely moving in the end, even if TW can't cry convincingly.

The survey my friends are passing around now...all answers subject to change in a few months:

The one who took your virginity: Star Trek

The one who seduced you and fucked you over and broke your heart in a million pieces and laughed about it: Star Trek Voyager

The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp in the sheets: Deep Space Nine

The mysterious dark gothy ones whom you used to sit up with talking until 3 a.m. at weird coffeehouses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized they really were fucking crazy: La Femme Nikita, Dark Angel

The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor, and whom you'd still really like to fuck again although you're relieved she doesn't actually live in town: The Avengers (television)

The steadies: Star Trek, Andromeda, Lord of the Rings

The mistresses: X-Files, Sentinel, Hercules, Xena, Smallville, Sharpe

The alluring stranger whom you've flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with: Buffy

The ones you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with but ultimately you're just good buddies 'cause the friendship is there but the chemistry ain't: Highlander, Farscape

The ones your friends keep introducing you to and who seem like cool guys except it's never really gone anywhere with them: Due South, Stargate SG-1

The one who's slept with all your friends, and you keep looking at her and thinking her? How the hell did she land all these cool babes?: Angel

The one your friend has fallen for like a ton of bricks and whom she keeps babbling to you about on the phone for hours, and you'd be happy for her except you just know it's going to end badly: Firefly

Howl for the day, courtesy Cybermum: Fellowship of the Peeps!

The fifteenth chapter of Chevy's "The Captain and the King" is up!

Off to sneak in a few more minutes of actors' commentary before Enterprise. Snore.

Tired but happy

Both movie discs, half of the first appendix. Too tired to do anything other than wallow right now; will attempt to post coherent thoughts and spoilers tomorrow.

Have to tell the rest of the funny story from this morning, though. I went to Toys R Us because they had Star Wars cheaper than anyone else, and I couldn't help but notice that behind me, in line, there was a really hot guy with long hair, nicely dressed. He was also buying SW. Sweet, I thought -- hot guy who's also a genre geek. Then I drove to Best Buy, which didn't open for another half an hour. A few minutes later a car pulls in next to me and who gets out? Really hot guy!

Now, I was wearing black sweats and had not even washed my hair. Nonetheless, I ask him whether he's getting the deluxe edition or just the movie, and we start talking. Turns out he's a Trekkie and even a Space: 1999 fan, which means he's likely around my age. While we're talking genre TV, I notice this woman glancing our way, also waiting for the store to open, and I think: oh, she probably wants to talk to Really Hot Guy, and being married and all I should clear the playing field. So I say hello to her, ask whether she's there to get LOTR, Really Hot Guy says hello too, and I ask her the question I asked him about whether she's getting the basic set or the bookends. Her reply? "I think I'm just going to get the movie and save my money for the DVD sets of Highlander!"

So we walk through the store talking together, discussing TV, realizing we graduated from local high schools within a year of each other and she knew my best friend from high school and all this other stuff. At some point I realize that Really Hot Guy has dropped away, which is sort of a shame but, you know, I'm married and all. The woman and I exchange phone numbers and e-mail, and as we're about to pay and leave, she asks me whether by any chance I know Really Hot Guy or how to reach him. Sorry -- nope! That was her job, I figured! Thus proving that common slash interests can override even chasing Really Hot Guys.

Personally I think she should take out one of those "You Caught My Eye" personals. "You: Long hair, buying FOTR:EE at Best Buy in Rockville. Me: The better dressed of the two women geeking out with you." Heh.

From :

What famous ancient historian are you?
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Poem for the Day

...deferred from yesterday in honor of our veterans...

Placata Venere
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
  And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
  From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start
  Of married flowers to either side outspread
  From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
Fawned on each other where they lay apart.

Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
  And their dreams watched them sink, and slid away.
Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
  Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day;
Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
  He woke, and wondered more: for there she lay.

Click here for Rossetti visual inspiration.


I know I said I was staying offline for the morning but I have just had SO much fun...

Dropped my kids off at school just before 9. Drove to Toys 'R Us, which had AOTC on sale for $9.99 for as long as they lasted. Since I was early, I sat in the car in the pouring rain for half an hour on the phone with my best friend, then got out when a line started to form and chatted with various SW fans and mothers who had been sent by their kids to get the DVD while the kids were in school. Got in when the store opened five minutes early, grabbed my DVD, paid for it and drove to Best Buy. Again, got there nearly half an hour before opening at 10. Stood in the garage chatting with a really good looking guy about DVDs (Farscape, Space: 1999, original Trek), was eventually joined by a woman who brought up Sharpe and Highlander (if one can have gaydar, can one also have slashdar?) Turns out the woman grew up around here and is just my age, so we even know people in common, though we didn't have time to compare notes before the store opened and we both spent half an hour agonizing over whether or not to get the bookends etc. Ended up deciding to save the $25 and spend it on The Making Of book. Swapped e-dresses, came home, am about to watch my DVDs. Have a big grin on my face...

Poem for the Day

Changed in honor of Veterans' Day. Okay, so it's hokey, it seemed appropriate. Also, it made me think of a certain fictional character, which put a smile on my face. This is supposedly by Mary E. Frye but there are also those who claim it was originally Irish or Native American, so I don't know whom to credit.

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

In the morning I'm going to get my LOTR DVD and be useless for the rest of the day! This made me howl and shriek. Some of my friends will know why. Others will howl and shriek anyway. And discovered by :


How Much of a Slash Fan are You?
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Plus from http://www.emmadavies.net/vampire/default.asp, my vampire identity!

The Great Archives determine you to have gone by the identity:
Goddess of The Underworld
Known in some parts of the world as:
Bitch of The Vile
The Great Archives Record:
Vile, foul, filthy and greedy: this creature knows nothing of light.

href="http://quizilla.com/users/DenialsTorture/quizzes/What%20Kind%20of%20Fantasy%20Creature%20are%20You%3F/">
What Kind of Fantasy Creature are You?
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Poem for the Day, for the Season

Spring and Fall (to a young child)

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now, no matter, child, the name:
Sorrows springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no, nor mind expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

    --Gerard Manley Hopkins

God I love :
Blow the Horn of Gondor!

Quick notes on last night's movie...

...which was Ronin, because I'd never seen it before and I was craving my biweekly Sean Bean fix. The bad news is that Sean was only in part of the movie; the good news is, he didn't die! And it was a lot of fun to see him playing a character who was all bluster, rather than one of the actual horrible killer-types he's played in so many movies. Plus it was a lot of fun to see him opposite DeNiro and an overall first-rate cast batting really excellent dialogue back and forth, as opposed to the schlock in Patriot Games and Don't Say a Word. And I'm not a car person, but that car chase was absolutely amazing.

That said...no one is ever going to make me understand any warrior code that focuses on honor, revenge and sacrifice. Honor, when one has done something that requires redemption. Sacrifice, when necessary. But focusing one's entire life on avenging a slight to one's honor, then ending one's life in the attempt to rectify it or ending one's life once it has been achieved because it has been achieved...forget it. Ugly macho delusion, and I don't care whether it's in Asian martial culture or the American frontier or in service to the Church or what. You fight the good fight and if you lose some, you stop and take stock of everything that's still good in the world. Sharpe gets this; he takes some big risks for honor but also because it's his only means of advancement, and he's not suicidal -- he wants eventually to retire to a better life.

On a completely unrelated note, I enjoyed these comments a lot from 's LJ:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=azimuth&itemid=48687

Poem for the day, one of my all-time favorites:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
     before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
     and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
     much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

    --Walt Whitman

Poem For the Day

Translated from the Japanese, from Yosano Akiko's adaptation of an 8th century "tangled hair" poem:

Everybody tells me
My hair is too long.
I leave it
As you saw it last
Disheveled by your hands.


This Week's Survey...can't remember whose page I first saw it on.

1.What's on your bedside table?

An alarm clock, a locking wooden box filled with different Tarot decks, a little wooden chest of drawers full of bead necklaces, a little shrine to Guan-Yin.

2. What's the geekiest part of your music collection?

Oh, where to start? Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond? The Village People and the Bee Gees? William Shatner's The Transformed Man? Four different Evita cast albums? The Carpenters? The Streisand boxed set? The complete oeuvre of Peter, Paul and Mary? Nearly a complete set of "Have A Nice Day," the '70s collection? I'm not sure which is the non-geekiest part!

3. What do you eat when you raid the fridge at night?

Something salty -- nuts, pretzels -- immediately followed by chocolate.

4. What is your secret guaranteed weeping film?

Field of Dreams. I am a total sucker for male weepies.

5. If you could have plastic surgery, what would you have done?

Nothing. Never.

6. Do you have a completely irrational fear?

I have nightmares about drowning -- both myself and members of my family. I wake up near-hysterical.

7. What is the little physical habit that gives away your insecure moments?

I laugh too much.

8. Do you ever have to beg?

When I'm in an irrational fan mode, I will beg frantically for screen captures, fanfic, gossip, anything. But I never beg for anything serious, except maybe in bed. :)

9. Do you have too many love interests?

Can there be too many?

10. Do you know anyone famous?

I've interviewed a number of famous people and grew up with a couple who are now mildly famous. But there's no one Entertainment Weekly would be calling me for dirt about.

11. Describe your bed.

Queen size, shared with my husband, same gray comforter we've had since before we got married, no headboard, blue or purple sheets most of the time, sometimes some stuffed manta rays tossed on the bed when the cats haven't planted themselves there, across from the little TV in our bedroom in case we want to watch something in bed which we rarely do because the kids' rooms are next door.

12. Spontaneous or plan?

On an hour to hour basis, spontaneous, but when it comes to a week or month, definitely plan -- having kids makes it impossible to be otherwise.

13. Who should play you in a movie about your life?

If Gilda Radner were alive, I'd say her. I can't think of anyone who's close to my age, my height and my personality.

14. Do you know how to play poker?
Yes. Played with my father and kids earlier. I have never played for more than pennies though.

15. What do you carry with you at all times?
My purse, which contains my wallet, a pen, sunglasses, Advil, all those little scanner thingies for the grocery store etc., business cards, my cell phone, crayons and a deck of Tarot cards that doubles as playing cards when the kids are bored.

16. How do you drive?

Nervously. I tend to be slow and cautious, especially when the kids are with me. I'd much rather someone else drive.

17. What do you miss most about being little?

Not much. Not worrying about money, I suppose, though then I worried about all the things I couldn't get because I had no money anyway. I did not enjoy the way kids treated kids, nor the way adults treated kids, and I wouldn't relive being a teenager in the '80s again for anything.

18. Are you happy with your given name?

My last name is much to common (though taking my husband's would not help matter as his is too). My first name is all right.

Not the one I'd Mary Sue myself, but passable.

19. What color is your bedroom?

My childhood bedroom was neon green. Now it's grays, blues and purples.

20. What was the last song you were listening to?

Pink Floyd, "Learning To Fly"

21. Have you ever been in a school play?

Many, starting with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in third grade. Did lots of theater but couldn't sing, so I did tech all through college and grad school.

22. Have you ever been in love?

God yes.

23. Do you like yourself and believe in yourself?

Mostly. More the former than the latter; I'm a slacker, I need to do something about that.

24. Have you ever done any illegal drugs?

Never. I'm an unreformed hippie except for that -- in terms of drugs I'm a real nerd.

25. Do you think you're cute?

Sometimes. I was cuter when I was younger and could get away with more.

26. Do you consider yourself to be a nice person?

Yes, though I can also be a terrible bitch. Someone did something horrible to my family last year that affected one of my kids, and I disovered just how awful I am capable of being -- I never before had fantasies about someone dying violently and brutally before. I don't think it's that unusual to react that strongly when one's children are involved, however. I can be very sweet, but I can also be incredibly selfish and heartless.

27. What's today's quote of the day?

"I want to be a comfort to my friends in times of tragedy, I want to celebrate with them in triumph, and all the times in between, I just want to be able to look them in the eye." -- Josh Lyman, The West Wing

Why I Am In Love With Viggo Mortensen

This is from The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy by Brian Sibley (HarperCollins 2002) -- and yes, I did spend my lunch hour in Barnes and Noble reading it and copying this down because I didn't have $30 to buy the book:

"Seeing a film is not something to be looked down on in comparison with reading a book. There can be millions of identical copies of any book, and yet the copy you hold and read is your personal doorway. It is the same when you go to the movie theater: you and the movie have a secret. It might even be a god-awful movie and you could still walk out with this little secret -- or a big secret -- inside you: a discovery that might stay with you for a day, for a month or two, even years. In those secrets we touch myth and confront universal issues, perhaps even draw new strength for our own lives."

Just such a secret may be found toward the end of The Fellowship of the Ring when, following the death of Boromir, Aragorn takes the dead man's vambraces and straps them to his own forearms. It is a gesture Viggo contributed to the scene: "They serve both as a reminder to Aragorn that he has made a pledge to Boromir and as a way of carrying Boromir's spirit with him as the remnant of the Fellowship continues its journey. In a movie, you can use such symbolism without comment: whether people consciously notice such a detail at the time or not is irrelevant. It still means something. And to the actor, that can be a powerful talisman."

Oh yeah -- the book also had a page about how the production crew had to make a full-size model of Sean Bean so they could shoot Boromir's body going down the falls. Apparently it was so lifelike that one of the production assistants wondered whether they should wake up Mr. Bean and offer him some coffee. I wonder whether it's anatomically correct, and if so, whether Peter Jackson would consider selling it... ;)

And someone on a mailing list I'm on who got to see the extended edition FOTR DVD early just posted a spoiler about the last big Aragorn/Boromir scene, right after they see Gollum, where Boromir tries to convince Aragorn to take the Ring to Minas Tirith. She said, "Aragorn will hear nothing of it, and Boromir winds up grabbing Aragorn by the tunic..." At this point I basically passed out at the mental image.

A Stephen Dunn poem for Thursday

THE SONG
BY STEPHEN DUNN

Late at night a song
breaks off, unfinished,
that rose from the street
outside your apartment,
not a cry but a song,
and something you recognize
as sadness
comes over you.
The street is empty
when you look.
The sadness, too,
is not locatable,
a referent lost somewhere
like an address book
from one of your other lives
with a page missing,
names that must
have mattered once.
A woman was singing
or perhaps a man
with the kind of voice
that has so much woman in it
you should fear for his safety.
The song was familiar,
and it strikes you now
that maybe you were dreaming
or even, yes, it was you
yourself singing.
All night long you wait
for it to start again.
There's only the sound
of cars, and, nearer,
though you can't get that near,
your heart.
You've faked so many feelings
in your time you wonder
if it could have been
the ghost of faked feelings
offering you an authentic sadness,
a gift. But you're so tired,
so on that edge
between clarity and silliness,
you might think anything.
Dawn comes with its intermittency,
its tempo that hasn't
yet lengthened into traffic.
You haven't slept, you swear it,
though you know
when it comes to that
most people are mistaken.

("The Song" reprinted from "Loosestrife" © 1996 by Stephen Dunn.)


All Over the Place...sounds about right though I wanted to be a poet. I'm definitely not a novelist, I'm blowing NaNoWriMo big time. Getting some stories done though.


What's YOUR Writing Style?
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My favorite natural feature in Utah

at Kodachrome Basin State Park. South central, near Bryce. (Photo not by me, a friend forwarded it!)

Caption contest anyone?


Which Lord of the Rings Character Do You Fancy?
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All that rugged yet unwashed manliness! I love it! Anyway, I'm Too CLexy for My Shirt:


Which Smallville 'Ship Are You?
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Last week someone offered to buy three of my Voyager press kits for a total cost of over $200. Now, I had thought I would hold on to those press kits for a good long time, 1) to remind me that I used to love Voyager and 2) in case they're worth even more money in the future. But in truth, the only Voyager souvenir I really care about is the Captain Janeway Barbie that my mother in law made me before the 12" figures came out. So I sold them, and promptly ordered a complete set of the Sharpe DVDs (I had the first four, gifts from a friend in London; she warned me that the female characters were considerably less interesting when Teresa died, but I want to see the rest anyway!) I got my DVDs today and am trying to decide whether to watch them all consecutively while I still remember the details of each or whether to spread them out over many weeks to savor.