Poem for Tuesday

Landscape
By Pak Chaesam
Translated by David R. McCann and Jiwon Shin

The winds pass over the grassy field;
sunlight passes across the southern sea.

As two or three gulls
have risen at the end
of their indifference, a sailboat
has gone far and farther away,
as if bound for some dim and distant land.

How pitiable,
these, and these white things,
gone only so far and tiring;
and tiring, turning to come back.

For a moment the wind
finds refuge in the shadow
of the falling flower.
Beneath the wing,
or under the sail,
for a brief moment
the sunlight finds refuge.

Where do you suppose this
and the next world divide?

Winds cross the grassy fields
as sunlight passes over the southern sea.

--------

The kids had no school due to teacher's meetings (which started two hours late due to snow), so we had a quiet day at home...or maybe I should say we had a loud day, since younger son's friend came over and there was a great deal of shouting whenever they had not been ordered outside to play in the snow. informed me that my desire to lie around and avoid driving in snow might be because it's Blue Monday -- the most miserable day of the year. A Cardiff psychologist apparently came up with a formula that factors in weather, Christmas debts, New Year's resolutions and low motivation levels and came up with January 22nd as our common lowest point. At least it's over! I didn't accomplish a great deal other than posting TrekToday articles and printing out some fabulous Book of Shadows pages I got from the Ecorebbe (am trying to figure out how to convert .docs to uncomplicated .html for ).

I did watch Equilibrium with older son, which was partly because he read 1984 for school and we were discussing dystopias, partly because asked for fic in ' AnonyMeme. I realize that this movie rips off everything from Orwell's book to Michael Radford's film of it to Brave New World to We to The Matrix to Brazil, but that doesn't particularly diminish the pleasure of watching it. Bale, Watson and Bean are all terrific (Fichtner and Diggs suffer from some of the worst dialogue but their cheekbones are equally delightful) and it's beautifully filmed...the scene where Preston first hears Beethoven, when he's holding the Eiffel Tower snow globe and the focus moves from the snow in the glass to his eye as the music rises...guh. Also we all watched Heroes, which I thought might be a letdown after so many weeks away but was really very enjoyable.

So my son and I are confused: can Claire's father block other people's powers like he did with Sarah, thus making him special like her, or can he only do it when the Haitian guy who makes people forget things is around? And can he only block the effects of those powers on himself or can he shut people down, period? In which case he could stop Claire from being immortal or Peter from blowing up. I haven't been a big Petrellicest fan but Nathan was so sweet this time out -- "I love you, man" and going to seek out the artist, with Hiro calling him Flying Man, hee. Of course I love Hiro in general...I don't know Japanese legendary history, I need to look up that Japanese King Arthur myth, as it sounded to me. The American Museum of Natural History sure is having a great few weeks...first Night at the Museum, now this, though now that Hiro knows he doesn't actually need the sword to get the sword, I wasn't sure he'd even take the sword. Otherwise, Santiago Cabrera is still stunningly hot (gratuitous shirtless scene ohhthankyou), Claire recruiting Zack again exactly the same way is very sweet, and Ali Larter did a nice job playing schizophrenic...I tend to remember her from Dawson's Creek and the previews for Final Destination 2 which ran endlessly before one of the Lord of the Rings movies so it is always a delightful surprise that she can act so well.


The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (also known as the Old Executive Office Building) with the Winged American Expeditionary Forces monument...


...and that other executive building, which will get more than enough press during the State of the Union address so I will merely note that it was nice to have had a January day last weekend warm enough for the Pennsylvania Avenue fountains to be on. Am so annoyed there's no Boston Legal this week, even if I am looking forward to seeing Nancy Pelosi sitting up there.

Discovered earlier that Tamrac makes a slightly larger version of the camera bag I bought yesterday, so I ordered that one instead. Don't need one that can hold a laptop as has his own laptop bag (and therefore does the carrying!) but I need one that can hold a wallet, cell phone, keys, kids' stuff etc. as well as a camera, lenses, filters, etc. so would rather err on the side of grandeur than compactness!