Poem for Friday

Untitled
By W.B. Keckler

Drunken boaters who land there all summer with candles
are ruffled points of light traveling a horizon. At night
on water you look down and know the obsidian is streamlining
animal energy. After a while, you could interpret the petroglyphs
on the river islands that were airplane spirits before the war
                                        and before there were airplanes.
You are afraid to open the relevant book and see those animals
which would rather be dead. You have always known your mind was obsidian
and that mind was streamlining. However, of tomb paintings
you told him you would rather remain an amateur.
Imagine that this cold, dark water expands so wide
(which it does) that there can be no forkings.
There is a death-aria which you have never lost track
of through history, which is the experience of memory
spun wide as it falls back into everything.
It flickers in a lovely dissolution, the way an eye
is wrong when boats are navigating two bright fields of stars.

--------

I had a lovely Thursday -- went out to get gas and gifts at the mall, then had lunch with (Mexican, a day early for Cinco de Mayo but what the hell) and got to meet her little one and see her husband whom I had not seen since a Star Trek convention long ago. She lives in a house that is right near where my aunt and uncle lived when I was a child -- I recognized the street name when she said it and I recognized the neighborhood when I got there! And there is a big lake with lots of geese that almost caused a traffic accident when I was driving -- they just came marching across the road like they owned it -- it was very cute, these cars honking to suggest they get out of the way and the geese "honking" right back at them!

Younger son had soccer this evening, then we all watched Smallville. With evil!Jonathan's ghost! Why didn't they let Bo Duke play evil!Jonathan more often when he was a regular? Okay, of course it wasn't really his ghost but Professor Fine, as was obvious to everyone but Clark five seconds in, but I really enjoyed listening to both Martha and Chloe tell Clark that he was projecting a ghost telling him to kill Lionel Luthor because he wanted to so badly. When Chloe said, "Is there anything we could find that could make Clark Kent kill someone?" we all yelled, "Yeah, if he slept with my mom!" When Chloe and Clark go through his office, she warns Clark not to expect a file labeled "My Evil Scheme" but actually I could so see Lionel doing that. Lionel himself keeps using sexual metaphors to describe Lex's relationship with the erstwhile professor! "You're involved with Milton Fine," he says, and then, "Not knowing who you're in bed with could make for a very uncomfortable awakening."

Okay, you know how I said Lana/Lex would be preferable to Lana/Clark? I take it back. Lana/anyone is just awful. Even Lana talking to Lois about Lana's new bad boy thing is awful. Kristin Kreuk used to make at least a bit of effort to have more than two facial expressions; now it's like even that is too much work, so she has her pleased/bored/bland expression and her angry/disappointed/sad expression and that's as far as it goes. Lex takes her into a lab where he's altering viruses to create a super-vaccine and all she can do is look a bit concerned/annoyed that Lex has photos of the vanished spaceship and mention that Lionel told her in his trance how to stop the aliens. ("You see, Lana, there was this television show called The X-Files whose evil alien plot to take over the world has been shamelessly stolen by the pseudo-Kryptonians here. If you watch the Black Oil arc, you will soon learn...")

Now, Lex and Fine are fantastic together and if Lex can't be dating Clark, THAT is who he should be with. Fine says he chose Lex because of Lex's propensity for distrust! Lex says he won't hand over his wonder-vaccine to someone whose agenda is still up for grabs! Then Lex whips out a hunk of green kryptonite, saying he hopes it will help him get a few answers, bur Fine just smiles at it, says "Close...but I'm not one of them, I was only made by them," and turns his hand into a sword to force Lex to take him to the lab! Meanwhile Chloe figures out that Lionel was at the Kent farm the night Jonathan died and Clark summons Lionel there, throwing a tantrum about how Lionel used him and killed his father. He's throwing Lionel around and appears to be thinking seriously about killing him, but then the ghost of Jonathan blows his own plan by showing up and saying things like, "Avenge my death! Kill him!" which make it clear even to someone as dense as Clark that it's not his father. So "Jonathan" throws a tractor at Clark, and Lionel gets fuzzy-eyed and touches him, and he turns into...Milton Fine! Which leads to a nice bonding scene between Lionel and Clark in which Lionel invites Clark to come see his etchings. Err, Kryptonian babble. "I believe that what I wrote is meant for you," he says. Maybe he's the ghost of Jor-El! So does this mean Lionel can marry Clark's mother because he's sort of his father?

Lana throws a great big tantrum about Clark going through her photos, but apparently talks the minute he says that if she cares about Lex at all, she'll tell him where the lab is. Clark gets inside to find the computers blowing up and Lex unconscious on the floor just after Fine injected him with the black oil. Of course Lex doesn't thank Clark for trying to save him and humanity but instead warns Clark to stay away from Lana. "All those years we were friends, you were just waiting for me to step aside so you could swoop in?" Clark whines. "Yes, Clark, I was waiting for you to get over her so we could be together at last," replies Lex. Okay, not really, since Lana JUST WILL NOT GO AWAY and we have to listen not only to her insipid dialogue but Lex delivering lines like, "I didn't take Lana from you; you lost her all by yourself." I get that Clark is always going to do the love-you-like-a-sister thing with Chloe, but when Lois says maybe when he cracks open his piggy bank he'll find he's not saving for a bike but for a Harley, and Clark says sometimes he thinks she really knows him, how can he not wake UP? This is a really funny, smart, not self-obsessed woman. Then again Clark is intimidated as hell by that. How will he deal with Supervillain!Lex? Hide behind Lionel, maybe. Hee!

Then we watched "A Private Little War" because I need to review it tomorrow -- funny how much more dated that one feels than the others, not because of the special effects, of which there are very few (though the Mugato really does not transfer to DVD and big screens very impressively) but because of the Cold War politics-as-inevitability. (Trek news Thursday was yet more J.J. Abrams chatter, Worldcon plans to celebrate Star Trek's 40th anniversary and Anthony Montgomery promoting himself.) Now Mulholland Falls is on...the movie in which an idiot cop can't get a film projector threaded because his fingers are too big and Louise Fletcher says, "Try your dick." Hee! Not a really great mystery but a lot of really good actors.


I realized when I posted photos from the Birth of Aviation exhibit yesterday that I had never posted any photos from our trip to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the Wright Brothers actually made their first sustained powered flights on Kill Devil Hill.


The inscription around the base reads, "In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright. Conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith."


This is the bust of Wilbur on the memorial.


Here is the national park site. From atop the hill you can see the ocean.

It is so typical of The Washington Post and all local news that the new Nationals owners get as much air time/press space as the Moussaoui verdict. And hey, now that we have bought the DVDs of Lucas' modified versions of the original Star Wars films, they are releasing the originals so we can spend more money! Am thinking I will not buckle and get them, the same way I plan to resist the extended-extended LOTR edition.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!