Saturday, November 12, 2011

Poem for Saturday and Longwood Trees

Year of the Amateur
By Cathy Park Hong

        Recall the frontier when the business
of memory booms, when broadbands uncoil
        and clouds swell with sticky portals, amassing
        to a monsoon of live-streams.
        Burn your chattel to keep the cloud afloat
so its tears can freeze to snow.
        The voice flatlines in this season of pulp:
The artist makes miniature churches out of drain pulp,
The Indonesian rainforest is pulped,
the last illuminated gold leaves are pulped so we
        gather and watch an otter nom nom
sweet urchin to a pulp.
We laugh softly.

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Friday was pretty out but chilly. Except for a walk in the woods, I spent most of it indoors, posting a review of Deep Space Nine's "Captive Pursuit" and writing letters to Churchill's school principal, the school board, the PTSA, the Trevor Project, PFLAG, and various other concerned parties about PFOX distributing materials at the school. The county apparently went to court -- and lost -- to stop distributing such materials; under the Freedom of Information Act, the court said, they are obligated to make the materials available as long as they don't contain hate speech (lying about how homosexuality can be "cured" apparently does not count). So my next plan is to make sure that the next time PFOX is distributing flyers, there are also flyers from The Trevor Project or someone like that with accurate information and help.

Adam and his girlfriend were here briefly in the afternoon, then her parents picked them up and took them to Bethesda for dinner and a movie. Paul and I had dinner with my parents and watched Nikita, which I liked since I expected Michael's ex to turn out to be a villain, then Grimm which I am not loving but I knew Nana Visitor was guest starring though there wasn't nearly enough of her, then Sanctuary which dragged a bit but ended up being really sweet, though we were distracted trying to find out about the Constitution Avenue shootings which were initially reported here as "shots fired at the White House." Here are some photos of the outdoor color at Longwood Gardens last weekend, under a brilliant blue sky with bright sunshine:

















Fannish5: 5 Scariest Villians (as opposed to Favorite Villians)
I'm not a fan of horror movies and I find the banality of evil much scarier than, say, Doctor Who's weeping angels. And I'm declaring great literature off limits and sticking to movies -- plus fictional portrayals of Hitler and people like that don't count.
1. Captain Vidal, Pan's Labyrinth
2. John Halder, Good
3. Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
4. Commodus, Gladiator
5. Noah Cross. Chinatown

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