By Eugenio Montejo
Translated by Peter Boyle
The earth turned to bring us closer,
it spun on itself and within us,
and finally joined us together in this dream
as written in the Symposium.
Nights passed by, snowfalls and solstices;
time passed in minutes and millennia.
An ox cart that was on its way to Nineveh
arrived in Nebraska.
A rooster was singing some distance from the world,
in one of the thousand pre–lives of our fathers.
The earth was spinning with its music
carrying us on board;
it didn't stop turning a single moment
as if so much love, so much that's miraculous
was only an adagio written long ago
in the Symposium's score.
La Tierra Giró para Acercarnos
La tierra giró para acercarnos,
giró sobre sí misma y en nosotros,
hasta juntarnos por fin en este sueño,
como fue escrito en el Simposio.
Pasaron noches, nieves y solsticios;
pasó el tiempo en minutos y milenios.
Una carreta que iba para Nínive
llegó a Nebraska.
Un gallo cantó lejos del mundo,
en la previda a menos mil de nuestros padres.
La tierra giró musicalmente
llevándonos a bordo;
no cesó de girar un solo instante,
como si tanto amor, tanto milagro
sólo fuera un adagio hace mucho ya escrito
entre las partituras del Simposio.
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I had a nice calm-before-the-storm Friday, necessary because our weekend plans are up in the air depending on where Tropical Storm Hanna hits and how powerful it is when it arrives. Right now it's just drizzle after a gorgeous, hot September day -- Thursday set a record high, but thankfully it wasn't that hot on Friday. I met Vertigo66 for lunch at The Corner Bakery, then stopped in Target for detergent and other necessities; I found the new Fashion Spell Barbie, a witch with black-and-pink hair, to add to my Halloween Barbie collection, and Target also has owl and black cat socks for $2.99 -- naturally I had to have those.
Came home, finished my review of "Tin Man", dropped Adam off at a Hebrew school beginning-of-year sleepover for the Bar Mitzvah class, went to my parents for dinner, watched Jon Stewart with them -- apparently I cannot see enough clips showing Republican Party hypocrisy, because I'm still snickering -- ran by the Hebrew school because we'd forgotten about Adam's antibiotic eardrops, came home and watched SGA which had the delightful surprise of Nicole DeBoer as guest star! I've really liked her since she played Ezri Dax at a time when I didn't think I'd forgive anyone for replacing Jadzia till she persuaded me otherwise. And I always like seeing Carson, though this wasn't really my type of episode; I'm surprised they didn't save it for closer to Halloween, it was very haunted house without adding much to the series mythology. John had some good lines, at least.
The Friday Five: School
1. Are you going to school this fall? If not, what was the most recent year of school you completed? I wish. I dropped out of the University of Chicago PhD program in English literature in 1993; have no desire to return to that, but I'd love to study a different field entirely.
2. If yes, what kind of schooling are you doing (middle school, high school, undergraduate, graduate, etc.)? See above. B&N University was the last "school" I attended.
3. Are you someone who enjoys/enjoyed going back to school? Not so much before high school, but after that, very much.
4. Do/did you like back-to-school shopping? Why or why not? I like shopping for school supplies and I adore shopping for books. Clothes, not much.
5. Are/were you a good student? I was an excellent student in subjects that interested me. I wasn't a terrible student in math and science, but I didn't work nearly as hard as I could have.
Fannish 5: Five favorite (or most memorable) lines of dialogue.
1. "Not in front of the Klingons." Spock to Kirk, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
2. "It costs extra to carve 'shmuck' on a tombstone, but you would be worth the expense." Greta Vandemann to Andrew Erskine, The Competition.
3. "America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time." Terence Mann to Ray Kinsella, Field of Dreams.
4. "There's no Messiah in here! There's a mess, all right, but no Messiah!" Mrs. Cohen to the mob, Life of Brian.
5. "Little Tommy Daggett. How I loved listening to your sweet prayers. Then you would hop into bed, afraid that I was hiding under it. And I was!" Lucifer to Thomas Daggett, The Prophecy.
Here's hoping Hanna is kinder to the northeast than Isabel was!
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