Poem for Wednesday

Peace
By Stanley Moss

The trade of war is over, there are no more battles,
but simple murder is still in.
The No God, Time, creeps his way,
universe after universe, like a great snapping turtle
opening its mouth wagging its tongue
to look like a worm or leech
so deceived hungry fish, every living thing
swims in to feed. Quarks long for dark holes,
atoms butter up molecules, protons do unto neutrons
what they would have neutrons do unto them.
The trade of war has been over so long,
the meaning of war in the O.E.D. is now "nonsense."
In the Russian Efron Encyclopedia,
war, voina, means "dog shit";
in the Littré, guerre is "a verse form, obsolete";
in Germany, Krieg has become "a whipped-cream pastry";
Sea of Words, the Chinese dictionary,
has war, zhan zheng, as "making love in public,"
while war in Arabic and Hebrew, with the same
Semitic throat, harb and milchamah, is defined
as "anything our distant grandfathers ate
we no longer find tempting—like the eyes of sheep."
And lions eat grass.

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From this week's New Yorker.

After doing some work in the morning, I went out to lunch with Perkypaduan at the mall, where we had Qdoba pesto burrito bowls and acted like teenage girls (meaning, we went to Sephora and Hot Topic, and I actually bought Sugar Hooker body spray, which smells like Aquolina's Pink Sugar but only costs $9.95). Then I came home, downloaded a bunch of free music from iTunes, Amazon.com, and various holiday giveaways (Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney on their web sites, Sheryl Crow from Hallmark), discovered that older son was watching Armageddon since they were talking about meteors in science class and briefly got sucked in. Plus I read a delightful interview with Joanne Linville, the Romulan Commander from real Star Trek. Here are some photos of Don Juan and Miguel from the RenFaire last summer just because I was in the mood:


Miguel showed off his precious pickle before Don Juan whipped it during the Weird Show at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.


Later in the show, Don Juan prepared to whip Miguel's fingers, err, hot dogs...


...and to stab and break Miguel's balloons while blindfolded.


During the earlier show, Miguel showed off his nipples while Don Juan showed off his whip.


Then Don Juan whipped strands of spaghetti out of Miguel's hand...


...and from Miguel's lips.


Then they challenged each other to a duel...


...blindfolded!

Your rainbow is shaded violet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a creative person. You appreciate beauty and craftsmanship. You are patient and will keep trying to understand something until you've mastered it.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

In the evening we watched this week's Sarah Jane Adventures, which I am delighted to see is returning to the BBC for a third season! Part two of "The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith" was very nicely done, had my favorite Rani moments so far, and though it wasn't as hilarious in parts as its predecessor, it did have its moments. Spoilers: I don't blame Sarah Jane in the least for not being able to kill the parents she never knew -- after all, the Doctor couldn't kill Rose in "Dalek" and he only knew her slightly better at that point than Sarah Jane ever knew her mother. So although I didn't love Sarah Jane hoping for rescue by the Doctor so much, I didn't mind the explicit connection being drawn between the characters, particularly since the Doctor wasn't there (and Sarah Jane ranting, "Where is he when you need him?" then shouting at the wrong police box did make me laugh).

I liked Clyde, too, announcing that he's going to do things the way Sarah Jane would, then demanding an audience with the Graske so that Rani can accuse the alien of being the Trickster's slave. And announcing after Rani kisses him that he needs to be heroic more often, heh. I wish Rani's distress at seeing her mother as a slave had been more sharply written and performed -- compared to Sarah Jane's distress over her parents' long-ago death, Rani didn't seem nearly frantic enough about her father's absence and her mother's not knowing her. I appreciated, though, that she wasn't intimidated by the odd looks she got ("Ethnic person in the 50s, hi"), and the look on her face when Eddie asked if she was looking for Victoria Beckham was hilarious.

And there were many lovely, touching lines in the end. Luke: "They didn't abandon you, they saved you." Sarah Jane to the Trickster: "That was my mum and dad saving the world...my mum and dad defeated you." And especially Barbara: "Sometimes the heart knows things the mind can't explain." That ought to be the Doctor's motto; it would spare him a lot of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey explanations. More than makes up for the old-school TV sci-fi swirly picture special effect that switches from the distorted timeline to the proper one. At which point Clyde says that Sarah Jane is the man, and Sarah Jane says this is the life they lead -- sometimes it brings you joy and sometimes it brings you face to face with the worst things in the world. How could the Doctor have been silly enough to abandon this woman in Aberdeen?

After the kids went to bed, we watched this week's Brotherhood, which was mostly focused on relationships this week, all of which appear headed to bad places. Spoilers: Eileen fretted about wanting to be a suburban mom while her husband clung to his political ties, Cassie admitted to a single instance of cheating on Declan who proceeded to act like a complete asshole about it considering the things that he's done, and Kath and Colin spent enough time not having sex that Michael is probably going to kill them both even if they don't do anything. Yet again, great acting, but I don't know why I let myself care about what happens to these people even for the few minutes each week that I watch!

Travel safely if you're going away for Thanksgiving!