Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Poem for Tuesday

The Butterfly
By Pavel Friedman
Translated by Hana Volavkova


The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
      against a white stone....

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure
because it wished
      to kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
      in the ghetto.

--------

I had a lovely day with DementorDelta despite rainy, chilly, generally icky weather. We went to Lebanese Taverna for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon watching Slings & Arrows -- the Canadian series about the trials and tribulations of a Shakespeare festival that must be based in part on the Stratford Festival, though my experiences at Stratford have been that it's more sophisticated and less cliquish (at least from the audience) than anything at the "New Burbage Festival." I have never seen Due South, so I finally see what everyone sees in Paul Gross! We watched half of the first season and I can't wait to see the rest...I just discovered that Deep Discount DVD has the full series for under $30, hee.

In the late afternoon I took Adam to tennis -- there are only three kids in the class this session, so even though it's taught by the screaming Russian pro who he doesn't like as much as the mellow Chinese-American pro, he got lots of attention and lots of exercise. Then I had to attend to a whole bunch of Bar Mitzvah-related stuff (brace yourselves for hearing that phrase nearly every day for the next month and a half), and finally we watched Heroes, which was so over-the-top as to be utterly entertaining -- I was delighted to see Ellen Greene again, but Sylar turning into his mother a la Norman Bates is just so completely screwed up that I don't see how I'll ever look at him without snickering again no matter what horrible thing he does next!


Here are some more photos from Privateer Day last Saturday in Baltimore, since Stephen Colbert is obsessing about pirates and since people seemed to enjoy the last batch of pirate photos.


The serious reenactors were encamped at Fells Point's Bond Street Wharf, where there were occasional historical music...


...while the more raucous sailor songs and costume contests were on the elevated stage in Broadway Square.


The traveling HMS Hellion has a little skeleton captain and pirate flag on the top "deck."


The small collection of pirate cannon were aimed out at the harbor rather than at the Lady Maryland (masts on left) and Pride of Baltimore (masts on right).


The lovely Lioness was flying the Union Jack.


Naturally, there were weapons on display and for sale.


And what's a pirate festival without parrots? These are rescue birds from an organization taking photos of people with them to raise money to rescue others.


I am attempting to crosspost this from Dreamwidth to LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, DeadJournal, and JournalFen. For all my complaining about the hype for the Imminent Mass Migration of All True Fans, I must say that the people working on the site have been friendly, helpful, and far more realistic about their goals than a lot of the people I've seen posting about Dreamwidth, though I maintain the same concerns I've always had about a site that plans to remain invitation- or fee-only. (And no, I don't have any codes to give out -- sorry.) I am, at least, more excited at this moment about Dreamwidth than Twitter, where I have had to stop following several people because they did too much retweeting of celebrity comments I don't care about...and I'd think anyone who did would be following the celebrities!

ETA: EPIC FAIL: None of my cut tags conveyed and I almost spoiled Heroes for a lot of people! Back to Semagic tomorrow!

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