The Butterfly
By Pavel Friedman
Translated by Hana Volavkova
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone. . . .
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
in the ghetto.
--------
By request, the title poem of I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a collection of poems and drawings by the children of Terezin Concentration Camp. 15,000 children passed through Terezin between 1942 and 1944. Less than 100 survived. This poet died in Auschwitz in 1944.
I've no idea where Friday went. Despite not getting any work done, I didn't leave the house till three, at which point I had to run around all over the place to pick up one son, get the other to a birthday party, take the first out to dinner before coming home to review Enterprise, and I wanted to be here an hour early so we could watch "Journey To Babel" before "Babel One" so the comparisons would be fresh. I must say that this week's original series derivation worked a thousand times better for me than last week's, and ten times better than the week before. This is in part because of Jeffrey Combs and Shran's awesome antennae, and in part because of the slashy-subtext moment of the season so far, in which Trip laments that there's nothing between himself and T'Pol in case Malcolm wants to make his move on her, and Malcolm insists that it's not that he's interested in T'Pol at all, honest! I wish I dared to write in a review that T'Pol should really be with Archer, who is so much better suited to her and vice versa in so many ways, and then maybe Tucker could make Reed the happiest boy in Starfleet.
Stupid thought: Archer/T'Pol reminds me of Harry/Hermione. Tucker/T'Pol reminds me of Ron/Hermione. In both cases I prefer Couple #1 to Couple #2. Now must figure out exactly who it is I identify with...in both cases I think the women are smarter than the men, but less so in in Couples #1 to Couples #2, and I also find nothing personally sexy about the guys in Couples #2 even though I think they're both nice enough guys...just not interesting to me that way at all. And I do suppose it's stupid to be drawing analogies between HP and anything ST, anyway. But it leads into a nice segue for the first of the Friday memes:
I really do not like crossovers, almost never read them, and -- with the exception of one absolutely brilliant X-Files/The West Wing crossover fic where Bartlet has to figure out what to do about Mulder officially being dead -- really haven't saved any. But if I did:
1. X-Files/VR5. It seems so obvious that Mulder and Scully should have figured out what happened to Sydney and brought her back. Also, X-Files/La Femme Nikita, because it also seems obvious that Mulder and Scully should know what that particular world government conspiracy is up to.
2. The Prophecy/Harry Potter. Because I have a very fucked-up desire to see Viggo Mortensen's Lucifer getting it on with Jason Isaacs' Lucius Malfoy. Now stop laughing, it would be SO EFFING HOT.
3. Sharpe/Master and Commander. This is really a no-brainer, isn't it? Jack Aubrey has to transport Sharpe and the Chosen men somewhere. Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany and Sean Bean all get naked and go swimming. Oh, and there should probably be some kind of Napoleonic war plot, too.
4. Mission: Impossible/Space: 1999. And another no-brainer. Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter (Martin Landau and Barbara Bain) get fed up with being secret government agents, enroll in the space program and become John Koenig and Helena Russell (also Martin Landau and Barbara Bain). Bonus points if you can work Buffy's Drusilla (Juliet Landau) in as their daughter.
5. Voyager/Space: 1999. This is fan artist Yul Tolbert's fault. You know the episode where Chakotay keeps seeing the reflection of the moon to tell him that he's dreaming? He drew a cartoon where the Moonbase Alpha crew kept seeing Voyager to tell them that they were dreaming. It's a perfect concept, heh, and just silly enough that it does not hit my serious crossover squick.
1. Do you use profanity?
Hell yes!
2. What are your favorite words of frustration?
Fuck, Shit, or, if the kids are right there, Giant Penis (this never fails to get a laugh).
3. Did your parents ever swear in front of you?
My mother, pretty much never. My father, regularly. My grandfather, in Yiddish.
4. Do you think that films should be rated based on the language they use?
I think racial epithets and misgynistic language should be rated more strongly than the F word, which every second grader has heard. The fact that a film can get an R rating because of repeated use of the F word when violence is rarely a factor in bumping up a PG-13 to an R seems quite ridiculous to me. I would never rate a movie NC-17 based on language, though; it should be up to parents rather than the MPAA what children can hear.
5. If you could curse out someone right now, who would it be?
Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, whose columns piss me off so often that I can't figure out why I ever read that paper's editorial page. Know your enemies, I guess.
1. What blood group are you?
O+, the most common.
2. Do you give blood? Why/why not?
I have in the past. Last time I passed out for a good long while, and now am being chicken.
3. Are you listed as an organ donor? Again, why/why not?
I am.
4. Would you donate an organ or other part of your body (eg bone marrow) while still alive?
I've been tested to be a marrow donor and my sister actually gave marrow. I've never been called.
5. Would you consider leaving your body to medical science? Or maybe just parts of your body?
I don't want to be a medical student's cadaver. I'd be happy for my organs to be recycled.
I so, so knew this about
They're saying right now on the news that Sammy Sosa is going to be on the Orioles next year if he passes his physical! Whoo! I've been a Sosa fan since we lived in Chicago before our older son was born, having seen him on both the White Sox and Cubs.
I owe raves on swans, Baltimore, Penn vs. Penn State and outdoor activities in the DC area but those must wait till tomorrow as I am about to drop and have to rewrite an article tomorrow that I lost tonight when my computer insisted on rebooting without the familiar "Do you want to save your work first?" box.
Comments on this entry are in the locked entry before as there is discussion of stuff there I no longer wish to remain public.
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