Saturday, March 08, 2008

Poem for Saturday

Never-ending Birds
By David Baker


That's us pointing to the clouds. Those are clouds
of birds, now we see, one whole cloud of birds.

There we are, pointing out the car windows.
October. Gray-blue-white olio of birds.

Never-ending birds, you called the first time--
years we say it, the three of us, any

two of us, one of those just endearments.
Apt clarities. Kiss on the lips of hope.

I have another house. Now you have two.
That's us pointing with our delible whorls

into the faraway, the true-born blue-
white unfeathering cloud of another year.

Another sheet of their never ending.
There's your mother wetting back your wild curl.

I'm your father. That's us three, pointing up.
Dear girl. They will not--it's we who do--end.

--------

I have only domestic stuff to report from my Friday -- after-school stuff with kids, dinner with parents, planning for weekend when mother's birthday coincides with the all-important release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- so this will be a media-heavy entry. Wrote a review of Next Gen's "Evolution", started watching Torchwood's "Something Borrowed" but never managed to finish it due to phone calls and kids arriving, was sent a link to Virtual Therapy for the Soul from Rabbi Gershon for my feel-good moment of the day. It rained throughout and I had to pick younger son up in a miserable storm, but any day without a migraine must be counted as a good one; I hoped it would break when the weather did and I got lucky.

The Friday Five: Mystic Crystal Revelations
1. What song would you sing to your newborn child? (OR if you already had a child, which song did you sing to him/her?)
Lots of silly made-up songs, Muppet songs, "Mockingbird" only with different lyrics, "The Lullabye Song" only with different lyrics.
2. How do you think animals think? (i.e. in animal language, human language, etc.) Certainly not in human language. I'm sure it's different for different animals; fish need to communicate about water currents, birds need to communicate about winds, gerbils need to communicate about who gets to gnaw the toilet paper roll first.
3. As a child, did you have a dream to make a difference in the world? Can you describe your dream? I wanted to be in the Senate and feed the hungry all over the world, until I realized how much of politics is about compromise and pork and fashion shows rather than actually trying to improve people's lives.
4. Do you believe in God/a Higher Being? Yes. I resist the word "god" because it has so many implications that I don't believe, but I certainly believe there are intelligences in the universe that we can't fully comprehend.
5. Do you believe in aliens? If you mean life on other planets in the universe, yes. If you mean entering human consciousness or sneaking around on Earth in disguise, no.

Fannish 5: What five things are you afraid will happen in canon? Or, for a closed canon, what five things are you glad never happened in canon?
1. Boston Legal
, that Alan will get a serious girlfriend or that Denny will develop a serious case of Alz...er, Mad Cow. (Or that the show won't be back next season.)
2. Smallville, that they will follow comic canon and turn Lex into a stupid supervillain, but they won't follow comic canon and get Clark with Lois instead of Lana.
3. Doctor Who, any more stupid Me-God/You-Apostle stuff with the Doctor and his past or present Companions.
4. Battlestar Galactica, what they're obviously going to do to Laura Roslin, because women with too much power always must be killed off in MooreRon's universes, apparently.
5. Pushing Daisies, just that it won't stay as completely awesome as it is.


Nam June Paik's neon interactive map of the United States has a room of its own at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum.


Some of George Catlin's hundreds of paintings of Native Americans are displayed above a stairwell.


A corner of the Renwick Gallery in tribute to George Washington and early America (including ship paintings).


The connected National Portrait Gallery has a collection of early American historic paintings.


Two religious-themed Great War-era Red Cross posters in last winter's special exhibit.


Paul Klee's "Cathedral" at the Phillips Collection.


And Renoir's "The Boating Party," also at the Phillips Collection, where it has its own room.


Watched SGA's season finale, which I found highly enjoyable except for the gooey romance which surprised me because I didn't think I cared; it led to a completely different cliffhanger than I was expecting, but I guess that's how it goes. Rodney McKay still rubs me completely the wrong way in a whole spectrum of issues but David Hewlett gave a terrific performance. For that matter, so did Joe Flanagan. And since it's their show at the core, I guess I can't complain that everyone else's parts were so small. Big Honking Spoilers: I have to get this out of my system! I hate McKay/Keller on more levels than I ever guessed I cared. Part of it's purely that I was enamored of Ronon/Keller from the few minutes of tease we got a few weeks back, but more of it's Rodney the Super-Genius and the brilliant beautiful young doctor thing whom I can only hope he condescended to less than Katie after their bonding over the decline of Atlantis but I have trouble believing it after the way he treated her and Sam just a couple weeks ago.

That said, I adored Sheppard in this from his first moments of experiencing global warming to his potential last words wanting to know who won 25 years' worth of Super Bowls right on through to furiously telling Carter that he was not a clone. I love him muttering that the empty station must be the most elaborate practical joke of all time, and how he deals with lovely sensitive Rodney giving him orders but no explanations ("the ocean's gone...you know, the big blue thing out the window"), his comment that surfing a 30 foot wave is cool, dating a supermodel is cool, but this is not cool...I'm sorry, I just adore John and think he deserves better than Rodney so I suppose I should be happy to have Rodney with Keller but I'm not. And John's total freakout at possibly being the last human. And John's trying not to freak out hearing about his funeral. And John's reaction hearing Michael killed Teyla...Michael better watch out. And John's wanting to hear about Ronon...waah.

I must note my that even though Rodney thinks Sam lost the ability to transport off her ship, she so deliberately stayed up there to blow up those three hive ships. Sam rocks (I loved her on the SG1 episode they ran later, too, even though I get so confused about the ZPM stuff because I have seen so little of both series) -- "You have to admit this is a pretty wild story even for this place," hee. And Woolsey is such a schmuck! (And I must note, even as a non-shipper, that Rodney may be kissing Jennifer but he doesn't want to TOUCH her let alone hug her when he kisses her, and I love that he gets his "Save the cheerleader, save the universe" idea about John when he's losing her because John is what he really wants to set right. Of course he told Rodney that Rodney is going to lose his hair so Rodney will think of Keller as out of reach. Oops I did not say that. Ooh but I will say chubby General Lorne is totally adorable! And, okay, I am blathering and I'm not even in this fandom so I will stop!

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