Saturday, April 05, 2008

Poem for Saturday

For the Sake of Tiger Lilies
By C. Dale Young


In a clearing, in a swell of grasses
thick with greens and yellows, he cannot forget
the ocean miles below the jagged rift,

the afternoons not laden with orchids,
afternoons not brilliant, overwhelmed
by the croton leaves inflamed with sunlight.

The old man glares at me, his voice tremulous:
the day is underneath the day—
there is too much freewheeling,

too much banter for the sake of posture,
for the sake of tiger lilies
drooping their speckled orange heads.

"The ocean is always waiting, boy.
An islander is never far from it,
always the sound, always the salt licking the air."

--------

Not a terribly eventful Friday. Wrote a review of TNG's wonderful "Who Watches the Watchers?" and promptly got an e-mail from a reader pointing out a typo, eek. Ran out to CVS for laundry stuff, cropped some photos, texted Daniel during his visits to World of Coca-Cola, Underground Atlanta and the Spaghetti Factory in Atlanta from which he sent me picture messages. Went to Special Treasures -- the New Age store in Gaithersburg -- in search of a pewter stand for a 55mm crystal ball, but they only had plastic and gold-colored stands, nothing with goddesses or pentacles or anything decorative.

Friday Fiver: Music!
1. What song frequently gets stuck in your head?
Lately, Jonathan Coulton's "Code Monkey." Historically, "Born in the USA."
2. Choose one line from a song that sums up your life thus far. "Every second of the night, I live another life." -- Heart, "These Dreams."
3. Do you have one all-time favorite song (if so, what is it?) or do you skip around? I add to my all-time favorite list but I rarely fall out of love with a song that really rings my bells. Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" has never failed me in my entire life.
4. How do you listen to music most often (pod, radio, etc)? On the computer.
5. American Idol: fantastic show or overrated? Have never actually seen an episode; have not been impressed with the music by the winners/runners-up on the radio.

The Friday Five: Ruling the World
1. If you became ruler of the world, what three things would you do first?
Abolish all warfare everywhere, demand immediate sharing of global resources for environmental and humanitarian benefit, insist that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice reunite and write musicals together.
2. If you were a superhero, what would be your name and what powers would you have? I wouldn't care what I was called and I'd be able to see the good in everyone at all times.
3. You can ask one question to someone who knows EVERYTHING. What is it? "Would you please tell me the secret to a renewable energy source that produces no hazardous byproducts?"
4. If you were invisible for a day, what would you do? Sneak into the White House, gather incriminating material to get Bush and Cheney impeached and implicate McCain if at all possible.
5. If you saw a mythical/religious deity walking down the street, what would you do? Start laughing, probably. I mean, are we talking Zeus with thunderbolts? Or Jesus -- will I recognize him by his beard and white toga-type attire? If it was the Great Goddess, I could see her in every tree if I looked carefully...

Fannish 5: What are five things you never thought you'd see in canon?
Oh, let's do the all-shipper, all-the-time version.
1. Kira/Odo (Deep Space Nine).
2. Mulder/Scully (The X-Files).
3. Xena/Gabrielle (Xena).
4. Jack/Doug (Dawson's Creek).
5. Nikita/Michael (La Femme Nikita).


Like the Smithsonian, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia has a live butterfly exhibit with enormous atlas moths.


They also have beautiful blue morphos...


...and owl butterflies...


...and this, which may be a Red Admiral.


Here is a penguin from the "Ends of the Earth" exhibit.


A display on South American penguins...


...and a polar bear.


We had dinner with my parents and watched Battlestar Galactica, which...I don't know, I try and it's not that it jumped the shark for me a while back because I really disliked the show when it was everyone's Next Great Thing, but I've just never really fallen for it and I don't trust the writers and I wish there was one character to whom I was really attached, particularly one of the women. I don't CARE whether or not Starbuck is a Cylon -- I don't like her, I never did, and that said I couldn't stand the abused-spouse pairing with Leoben and am really disgusted with the number of people saying they hope she's a Cylon because then they should be together. I also don't particularly care what happens to Lee except that if he replaces Roslin, whom they are obviously planning to kill externally or internally...also ugh. And Baltar the Messiah would be a lot more entertaining if his followers weren't portrayed as a bunch of fanatical teenies (yet again we see how Moore,Ron feels about fans...)

At least I have the Torchwood season finale to look forward to!Saturday we may be going to see what's left of the cherry blossoms or else hiding from the rain, depending on which prevails in the morning!

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