Friday, October 03, 2008

Poem for Friday

Not Pleasant But True
By Deborah Garrison


This afternoon when the bus turned hard by the graveyard,
the stones sugared with snow, I wanted to go there, underground.
You’re thirteen weeks old. Cold shock, as never wished before:
to die and be buried, close under the packed earth,
safe for an eternal instant from my constant, fevered fear that
you’d die. Relief warming my veins,
and you relieved forever of my looming, teary watch.
Someone take from me this crazed love,
such battering care I lost my mind—
I was going to leave you without a mother!

--------

I went to ogle at Halloween costumes and had lunch with Perkypaduan at the mall, where we arrived to find crowded parking lots and a long line of people crowding the corridors. Turns out that the WWE's Jeff Hardy was there signing autographs to promote the move of WWE Smackdown to WDCA, whose sister station WTTG brought their weather reporters to introduce him and Kelly Perine, who stars in Under One Roof. A DJ from WPGC, a station that Daniel listens to, was there too.


Jeff Hardy takes the stage with Sue Palka and Tony Perkins of WTTG.


When Hardy first got on the stage, he had his hood on, the goof.


Here are Hardy and Palka with D.J. Rico from WPGC.


Once Hardy took his hood off, we could see his awesome hair color.


The crowd was chanting various things that I assume were WWE slogans, and Hardy thanked them for sticking with Smackdown.


Before Hardy arrived, D.J. Rico revved up the crowd and showed WWE footage on the big screen.


Actor Kelly Perine came along to cheerlead for his show, which I gather will lead in to Smackdown.


Oddly, though it was the middle of a school day, there were lots of under-16s in the audience, in some cases by themselves and in many cases with parents!


After dinner, for the first time, we managed to connect my laptop successfully to the television so we could watch an AVI file on the big screen. So I have seen both parts of the season two premiere of The Sarah Jane Adventures! Which I loved. I know I've admitted this before, but I really like Sarah Jane better than Torchwood, and I don't find it any less adult or less sophisticated...in fact, in many ways I think it's more honest about adult behavior and adult emotions. Spoilers: Sure, it's got kids, but Clyde and Luke demonstrating the strategies of Bonaparte and Wellington at Waterloo using Mr. Smith is just the kind of thing O'Brien and Bashir would have done on Star Trek in the holodeck, and that scene is completely delightful even when Sarah Jane kicks them off the computer so she can find out about Goblin's Copse.

And Clyde has great lines all through the two-parter -- "Like popping a papparazo in the nose," "Baked potato from space," "I hate the woods, the city is civilization," "For the first time in my life I wish I carried a lipstick!" I'm very sad about Maria leaving, but I knew it going in, and I loved the way Sarah Jane distanced herself so coldly the same way she did when she thought Luke was someone else's son -- perfectly in character and very realistic defensiveness. She's said a lot of the same things before about nothing staying the same forever and people having to move on, but it seems pettier when she says it to Maria rather than the Doctor, and rather pathetic; even she knows it in the end, and apologizes. That and the fact that she's ready to call Unit makes me think this season will grow in all sorts of directions that make me happy -- I don't enjoy the lone genius model of the Doctor, I prefer the teamwork of Cardiff and Bannerman Road.

And may I just say I hope so much that Chrissie reappears even if Maria is gone? I had a moment of real anger when I thought the writers had done the same thing to her that they'd done to Donna Noble -- save the world and get your memory wiped for your trouble -- but Chrissie didn't buy the "it was all a dream" explanation and moreover demonstrated in action that moving on from people you love or watching them move on from you, even when painful, can also lead to new opportunities. Plus I howled when she called Sarah Jane "Calamity Jane." The story itself was more forgettable -- girl who looks like a young Katie Holmes, dad who looks like the love child of Alan Rickman and Timothy Busfield, bit of nice banter amidst the typical Klingon Sontaran "my honor shall be restored in your destruction" blather...I just like that they named a radio telescope after Tycho Brahe.

After that we watched Smallville, which suffered greatly by comparison, with the exception of Lois whom I mostly adore. I was always a bit iffy about Lois and Superman in the movies because she turned into a different person than she was with Clark and everyone else...the whole breathless "you're like a God" and the implication that that was what she really wanted, not to be clever and quick but to meet someone who was so much more so. Smallville's Lois can be impressed by Oliver and people with meteor powers without any of that wide-eyed gooiness, and her sense of humor never lets down.

Spoilers: I know some of Oliver's backstory is canon but I rolled my eyes at the Smallville Does Lost storyline, especially with Tess as damsel in distress -- I want to hear more about her past protesting whalers and saving the jellyfish! And Clark always getting so distressed when Chloe can do anything that he can do, and the bullshit science -- a shot of antivenin brings Oliver back to life when his heart has stopped? And no defibrillator on the girl at the hospital? Please -- did not impress me. But I forgave a lot when Lois said, "I may have played nurse with Oliver, but it never progressed to Doctor." Is there any good Clark/Lois/Oliver fic out there? URLs please.

I did watch the whole debate this time, and I must admit that it was in part because Palin is not at all boring to watch. I don't mean that I think she is in any way qualified for national office or an interesting politician or even a particularly skilled debater, though I am impressed at how many policy points she has apparently managed not only to memorize but to come up with clever ways to deliver in just a couple of weeks. Biden's had years and years to think of ways to sound charming. Although he did a pretty good job of staying off the attack and remembering to flash his smile, he still can't capture an audience the way Obama or Palin or Bill or Hillary or others can do, which I suppose is why he's never made it through Democratic primary season. It's very obvious that he knows his material and his values (even though I am so very irritated that everyone feels they MUST be against gay marriage to win a national election), but sadly enough, elections aren't actually about experience, policy and positions.

I kept yelling at the TV: Joe, look at the camera, not the moderator! Joe, don't sigh! Oh shit, Joe, don't roll your eyes! In terms of those little things that shouldn't mean anything but we all know can mean so much with shallow voters, I thought Palin did a good job; she was witty without sounding frivolous, she had clever lines interspersed with rote policy recitations, she bit down hard every time Biden criticized McCain and Bush instead of explaining what Obama would do in the future. Palin still doesn't know crap beyond what she has memorized, which is why she kept saying "But I want to go back to..." and then sticking with what she knows rather than actually answering questions. But she got her talking points in, she played to the camera, she was on all thrusters where Biden seemed tentative (undoubtedly because he'd been ordered not to seem at all attacking).

Considering how much more she had to lose than he did, she must be pleased with her performance. I've been watching old West Wing episodes while folding laundry of late, and I will confess: I find Sarah Palin less annoying than I found Mary Louise Parker as Amy Gardner on The West Wing, even though I agreed with Gardner on most issues and I disagree with Palin on almost everything. It's a real gift to pull off that kind of confident charm while saying "nucular" -- I say again, she was born to be on TV, and should get her own series once she loses this election. She and Tina Fey can play twins.

And on a lighter note, Stephen Colbert is running for President again -- with Spider-Man.

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