By John Ashbery
Does it mean one thing with work,
one with age, and so on?
Or are the two opposing doors
irrevocably closed? The song that started
in the middle, did that close down too?
Just because it says here I like tomatoes,
is that a reason to call off victory? Yet it says,
in such an understated way, that this is a small museum
of tints. I'm barely twenty-six, have been on "Oprah"
and such. The almost invisible blight
of the present bursts in on us. We walk
a little farther into the closeness we owned:
Surely that isn't snow? The leaves are still on the trees,
but they look wild suddenly.
I get up. I guess I must be going.
Not by a long shot in America. Tell us, Princess A-Line,
tell us if you must, why is everything territorial?
It's O.K., I don't mind. I never did. In a hundred years,
when today's modern buildings look inviting
again, like abstract bric-a-brac, we'll look back
at how we were cheated, pull up our socks, zip
our pants, then smile for the camera, watch
the birdie as he watches us all day.
His thematically undistinguished narrative gives no
cause for complaints, does one no favors.
At night we crept back in, certain of acquittal
if not absolution, in God's good time, whose scalpel redeems us
even as the blip in His narrative makes us whole again.
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I have a new dryer! I feel absurdly happy to to be doing laundry. Lots of laundry -- it's going to take days -- but at least it doesn't have to dry over furniture. Gblvr came over and brought me sushi and we watched some Doctor Who ("The Doctor's Daughter" and "The Unicorn and the Wasp"). I wrote a not-very-inspired review of Next Gen's not-very-inspired "Clues". The kids came home and had friends over so it was noisy.
The clock outside the B&O Railroad Museum in Ellicott City, just before the road crosses the river.
This is the front of the railroad museum.
This is a model of the building and freight house from when it was a working station, seen displayed at the Ellicott City Scale Model Railroad Association show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.
The facade of the Forget Me Not Factory, housed in a historic building in the historic district.
One of the owners is often out front blowing soap bubbles.
Despite the historic nature of the city, there are lots of whimsical decorations.
A painting reminds shoppers that there are antique and craft stores off as well as on Main Street.
From this parking lot you can really see how elevated the buildings on the bedrock across the river look from the other side.
The Friday Five: Hodge Podge!
1. What activity can you not believe you survived in your childhood? Riding a bike without a helmet.
2. What activity can you not believe kids get away with today? Some of the skateboard stunts I see.
3. If you could be anyone else in the world live or dead, who would you choose to be? No one -- no one ever knows what it's like to walk in anyone else's shoes.
4. A lot of people think they've been in love at 15 or 16 years old, do you think you now look back and think you were a stupid kid or do you believe that you were old enough to know what love is? I believe I was old enough, but I wasn't in love at 15 or 16.
5. Do you think it is possible to remain in love with someone you once loved, but haven't seen in a year? Of course. It's possible to remain in love with someone you haven't seen in a decade.
Fannish 5: Name 5 characters you would not want to trade lives with.
I am totally not cut out to be a hero. Unless it's someone like Lizzie Bennet who only has to make the great sacrifice of marrying the rich snob, or someone like Lily Potter who only has to make the non-decision to die for her child.
1. Severus Snape, Harry Potter.
2. Frodo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings.
3. Dana Scully, The X-Files.
2. Teresa Moreno, Sharpe.
5. Saul Tigh, Battlestar Galactica.
We had dinner with my parents, then went to drop off the minivan for service. When we got home, the kids wanted to watch Battlestar Galactica even though I didn't, and I couldn't completely ignore it since my computer is in the same room, though I really tried not to pay attention. And even though I stand by my belief that "Clues" is not very inspired, maybe I was too hard on it, because comparing BSG...what a bunch of crap.
Spoilers: I see that MooreRon has fallen back on the lazy endgame approach, namely: when you can't think how to resolve certain character arcs, kill the characters off and just don't worry about the previous wild inconsistencies. Everyone else will have lots on their minds and won't ever worry about them again anyway. DS9 did quite a bit of it during its final run, killing some and sending others off in some wild new direction, but the characters to that point had been so consistent that I let most of it slide until the finale. Here we're getting blood and gore instead of getting inside characters -- their heads, I mean. At least Moore is not a politician, because I feel certain he'd support coups and executions rather than the long, hard hours it takes to craft workable resolutions.
I don't like being encouraged to root for some people to get murdered on the principle that they deserve it, or it'll be good for some other people. I particularly don't like it when I am then going to be shown every single bloody consequence in graphic detail -- I don't think I've ever seen a TV show this bloody and that's including the episode I turned off of CSI the last time I tried to watch. I just don't buy that all human beings are at the core selfish, scheming and murderous -- again, that's sloppy writing. But I do get why Richard Hatch had to play the villain of this particular piece of endgame. At least the show's own private Oedipus complex has come to a proper end, or perhaps the comparison should be to Cronos, Zeus and Apollo. The favorite son of the former father has been made despicable, then killed off. Now Lee Adama is the only Apollo left standing.
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