Poem for Saturday

From 'Leaves'
By Lloyd Schwartz

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it is about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself --
the trees don't die, they just pretend,
go out in style, and return in style: a new style.
You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives --
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last. You don't want it to last. You
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop.
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll
remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt,
or something you've felt that also didn't last.

--------

Early Friday morning my younger son had an orthodontist appointment, so despite still being sick I had to drag myself out of bed and take him to the dentist's office. I stopped in Borders next door to get my older son the new Redwall book, for which I had a coupon, and I wanted to get myself a copy of Days of Awe but I had forgotten my other coupon for 25% off any book and the guy would not believe I had it sitting in my inbox at home, nor was there a computer there where I could pull up my mail and print it out. So I left without it. Now I am going to buy it elsewhere as a matter of principle!

In the afternoon I wrote a review of "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", which upon scrutiny has a lot of time-travel plot holes that continued to haunt Star Trek all the way through Enterprise, but who cares, it also has Spock being jealous of the computer flirting with Kirk. In the course of writing the site columns it occurred to me that I am currently watching eight TV shows. I have never watched more than three shows at a time except when I was getting paid to review some of them, so some of these are definitely not going to last. (Well, Rome is not going to last anyway as I think they only filmed 12 episodes, and I only watched Boston Legal because we were all too lazy to shut the TV after Commander in Chief so it doesn't really count.)

We had dinner with my parents, then came home and I folded laundry while watching Threshold which continues to be entirely watchable if rather derivative of other shows/movies I've seen. This week's was very reminiscent of X-Files again without two characters with the chemistry of Mulder and Scully though I still think Caffrey and Cavanaugh should do it. Loved the artifact and the guy in the mental institution -- I wouldn't mind if he was back. Am wondering what they're going to do with all these people they round up with altered DNA. So far it's been so much Molly and the boys; I want an episode where she has meaningful interaction with a woman (no, not that kind, though actually if she did that would be fine with me too, just not necessary!)

: 4 8 15 16 23 42
1. What is the most important thing you've ever lost? Am so tempted to say "my virginity" but that would be crude. As possessions go, I guess it was my purse, though really I am sorrier I lost track of a good friend from high school who moved one too many times and I lost her trail.
2. When is the last time you lost your keys? Really lost them? Once I balanced them on a wooden jungle gym post that I didn't realize was hollow and they fell in and I suppose they're still there. If it's just misplaced, earlier this week.
3. Have you ever felt like you've lost your mind? Monthly. Often weekly. Sometimes daily.
4. Are you likely to ask for directions when lost or to continue to wander? Ask, always, unless I am in the sort of neighborhood where I am too terrified to roll down the window.
5. Numerology: reliable or just a load of bunk? Has never done a thing for me but if it works for you, great.

: Computer
1. What kind of computer do you have? (Mac, iBook, Dell, etc.) Dell desktop, and the family shares two laptops, one a Dell, one a Gateway.
2. How old is it? Are you happy with it? About a year, and very.
3. How many computers are in your household? Four that work, two that could be repaired very easily, one that is too old to be good for anything though it does work.
4. What are your favorite games/timewasters on your computer? If you're reading this on your friends list, you're looking at it. I pretty much never play computer games unless my kids insist. Otherwise it's fic, occasional vids and looking for stuff on eBay I'm not going to buy even if they have it.
5. If money were no object, what kind of computer would you like to have? Something huge that I could hook up to a TV screen and use to burn my favorite shows to DVD, I suppose.

: Name 5 reasons you want or don't want to see Serenity. But I'm ambivalent! I have to split my answer.
1. Pro: Many of my friends will be seeing it and I could go with them and it would be fun. I've only gone to the movies with once and she introduced me to Firefly, and and I are overdue for a movie date, and there are numerous other local people who I am sure are going to see it.
2. Pro: I don't NOT like Firefly, I just don't love it the way a lot of people do. That said, I would still rather see a movie based on it than a movie based on most comic book franchises, and it has to be better than Attack of the Clones and various other science fiction I've seen just because it was science fiction.
3. Con: I loathe Inara. Cannot stand the character, neither the way she is written nor the way she is played. If the part had been recast I might have had hope that there were substantial changes made but it's the same actress, same fantasy space courtesan, and I just can't stand her. Really I think my biggest problem with Firefly is that apart for Gina Torres whose character's name I can't even recall which should say something, the women seemed absolutely artificial to me. I kept waiting for Kaylee to reveal that she was secretly a Reaver or something, she felt so fake, and for all I know River IS a Reaver. It interests me that I do better with entertainment with no women at all, like Master and Commander, than I do with things with women who irritate me.
4. Con: This is a real simple straightforward one. It's a minimum $6.50 for a ticket. I could be spending it on The Corpse Bride or Flightplan or A History of Violence which, for all its violence, does not appear to be particularly more violent than Serenity.
5. Con: Oh yeah, and that's another thing -- this looks like it's at the adult end of the PG13 spectrum and I would not want to take my kids without vetting it first, so if it rains some afternoon when we're looking for something to do as a family, this isn't going to be the movie. So I guess what it comes down to is that if I get invited by a friend to a matinee I'll probably go, especially if someone has Loews passes or something, but I'm really not itching to be there. Glad I saw the series on DVD, but I think I can wait to see the movie the same way, particularly since it doesn't sound like the visuals are anything to write home about.


My Halloween Barbies for . After I took the photo I realized I had another I could have included!

Saturday younger son has a late soccer game, and afterward we might go apple picking with older son since he doesn't get to go on younger son's Hebrew school Sukkot apple-picking trip in a couple of weeks, or we might go to Oktoberfest in Germantown, or we might do a little of both.