Little Reviews

Poem for Saturday

2008-10-11T00:26:00.002-04:00

That Lamp That Needs No Oil
By Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

I have made the journey into Nothing.
I have lit that lamp that
Needs no oil.

I have cried great streams
Of emerald crystals
On my scarred knees, begging love

To never again let me hear from
Any world

The sound of my own name,
Even from the voice of divine thought

Or see that pen you gave me, God,
In the sun's or sky's skillful hand
Writing
Anything other than the word --
ONE.

I have made the journey into Nothing.
I have become the flame that needs
No fuel.

Beloved,
Now what need is there to ever
Call for me?

For if you did,
I would just step out
of You.

--------

No sooner had I sent off the order for the western trip photo book, 2009 calendars and holiday cards than Shutterfly provided me with a coupon for yet another free photo book! So when I wasn't writing a review of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Transfigurations" and being happy that the Connecticut Supreme Court had overturned the state's ban on gay marriage, I was working on a beach book. Can't decide whether I should stick mainly to arty photos of wildlife and landscapes or whether half the fun are the photos of Sea Shell City, Viking Golf, etc. My family wears an appalling number of tie-dyes, which go better with tacky beach attractions than the mighty mysterious ocean.

During the Colonial Fair at Mount Vernon last month, we walked out to the farm to see the animals.

The wool carded and spun by demonstrators on the grounds comes from the large flock of Hog Island sheep that lives there.

George Washington raised these sheep, but they are now quite rare.

The farm also has pigs, horses, and cattle like these.

The cows seemed to be unfazed by the weapons demonstrations, though some of the children cried from the noise.

Finished products, both food and textiles, were the main focus of the colonial market.

Among the items for sale were this moose rug...

...and more involving cats, rabbits and various other animals.

My parents had plans for the evening, so we did Shabbat dinner here (not a glamorous one, turkey sausage and macaroni & cheese), then watched a bit of the new Robot Chicken collection which the kids just got on DVD before Stargate: Atlantis and Sanctuary. Spoilers: I will risk irritating most of my friends by admitting that I liked the latter better than the former even though I fully appreciate that anyone who knows anything about the Morrigan -- oh wait, that would include me -- should have been mightily offended by its use on the later show. I really like Amanda Tapping -- clearly I haven't watched enough SG-1, since I didn't really know what was going on on SGA with the Asgard people, so I will have to track down the good Samantha episodes -- and despite the Morrigan as man-killing hot girls instead of Triple Goddess with aspects relating to fertility as well as strife, I liked that the women insisted on fighting their own battle instead of becoming pets in the sanctuary (I have some real issues with the idea of rational beings in cages for their own good).

SGA didn't make a great impression but that is in large part due to my own ignorance of the franchise mythology coupled with Way Too Much Keller. The girl working with Zelenka impressed me far more than she did, and bringing up Larrin just invites more unfavorable comparisons. Is she a know-nothing or a really competent member of the team -- make up your minds, writers! And c'mon, Ronon, you can do so much better. It goes without saying that Rodney can too, and funny that I would say that because I don't even like Rodney much, let alone his relationships with women; I should think he and Jennifer deserve each other, but apparently deep down I believe he deserves John. I loved Daniel telling him that only mentally unbalanced people talk about themselves in the third person. John was mostly terrific in this two-parter but I kept wishing that Teyla got to do more, or more specifically that we got to see Teyla doing more, instead of, you know, urgh, more scenes with Keller.

The Friday Five: Can't Live Without
1. What is the one most important thing by your side right now? My laptop.
2. Why is it so important? I use it to communicate with all you lovely people reading this.
3. Can you live without it? If I have my desktop or my phone, yes. Otherwise, no way.
4. What is the one thing you can't live without? My mobile phone.
5. Who is the one person you can't live without? I'm not choosing among my family members.

Fannish 5: List five characters you think need a hug.
1. Ned the Pie Maker, Pushing Daisies.
2. Alan Shore, Boston Legal.
3. Cameron, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
4. Martha Jones. Doctor Who.
5. Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Poem for Friday

2008-10-10T00:03:00.001-04:00

Of Distress Being Humiliated by the Classical Chinese Poets
By Hayden Carruth

Masters, the mock orange is blooming in Syracuse without
       scent, having been bred by patient horticulturalists
To make this greater display at the expense of fragrance.
But I miss the jasmine of my back-country home.
Your language has no tenses, which is why your poems can
       never be translated whole into English;
Your minds are the minds of men who feel and imagine
       without time.
The serenity of the present, the repose of my eyes in the cool
       whiteness of sterile flowers.
Even now the headsman with his great curved blade and rank
       odor is stalking the byways for some of you.
When everything happens at once, no conflicts can occur.
Reality is an impasse. Tell me again
How the white heron rises from among the reeds and flies
       forever across the nacreous river at twilight
Toward the distant islands.

--------

I had a fairly nice Yom Kippur, considering -- well, and also considering that I didn't fast -- I'm not traditionally observant the other 364 days of the year, and this holiday at my current temple could give me a migraine without crashing blood sugar levels. I hung out with the kids in the morning; Adam was designing lolcats (okay, lolpenguins), Daniel was finishing computer homework and looking up something to do with Kirby on Facebook. In the afternoon, the Wonder Jews made a return appearance during the Yom Kippur family service, with an introductory movie for those who missed the Rosh Hashanah service on the huge screen that drops down from the sanctuary ceiling. I must admit that, as much as this is effective distraction, it just feeds my ability to refuse to take seriously the commandment to fast. At least it was a nice short service, not nearly as crowded as Rosh Hashanah, with gorgeous weather for the walk back to the car up Massachusetts Avenue.

We broke the fast at the home of my parents' friends who came for Rosh Hashanah dinner last week, who also had other friends and their children and grandchildren so my kids had other kids to run around with and I got to catch up with people I've known my entire life. Plus there were bagels and lox and noodle kugel and whitefish salad and several desserts. We missed half of Smallville, so I don't have a strong opinion on the storyline, though any episode that ends up with Lois and Clark flirting gets thumbs up in my book and it seems like we've had that nearly every episode this season. Tom Welling is a different actor with Erica Durance than he was with Kristin Kreuk. I just hope I didn't miss Oliver, because I didn't notice him in the part of the episode I saw.

Kids had the opportunity to design, stuff, and take home their own scarecrow constructed of used clothing, old pillowcases, and straw at the Agricultural History Farm Park's harvest festival.

The leaves were just beginning to change when we arrived last weekend. Now, a few days later, there's much more red and gold in the trees.

There were autumn flower displays and opportunities to make tussie mussies.

Plus the park's own flowers were blooming.

Whole Foods was giving away apples from Homestead Farm, which is where we picked our apples a few weeks ago.

There was historic farm equipment on display, from 100-year-old hand-pulled plows to creaky old tractors.

Sheep waiting to be herded by a dog...

...and a boy and his goat.

With all the terrible news -- not just the collapse of the economy, but the impending extinction of dozens of species of mammals and the likelihood that Prop 8 will pass in California (and I'm really out of money to donate to any more causes, having sent it all to the Obama campaign, wildlife organizations, and Planned Parenthood, but imagine if all the wealthy closeted gay celebrities in Hollywood put their money into countering the homophobic smear campaigns) -- I did want to link to one piece of good news: Scientists have discovered that there are actually 10 genetic types of cacao, the plant from which chocolate is made!

Poem for Yom Kippur

2008-10-09T00:04:00.001-04:00

Yom Kippur
By Alicia Ostriker

we destroy we break we are broken
and this is the fast you have chosen
on Rosh Hashana it is written
on Yom Kippur it is sealed

who shall live and who shall die
which goat will have his throat cut
like an unlucky Isaac

spitting a red thread and which goat
will be sent alive to the pit where the crazies are
thread lightly tied around its neck

who will possess diamonds and pearls
and who will be killed
by an addicted lover

who shall voyage the web of the world
like an eagle, and who shall curl to sleep
over a steam grate like a worm

who shall be photographed and whose
face will disappear like smoke

--------

Trip book is finished, calendar is finished pending approval from husband, both of those and the holiday cards will be ordered once the holy day is over and shopping is permissible again. And I had a very nice lunch with both Cidercupcakes and Gblvr at the Cheesecake Factory, where I hadn't eaten in ages...their Thai peanut pasta is still delicious, and their cheesecake is too, though I only had a couple of bites since I was too full from the food. We talked about Jane Austen, sci-fi chick lit, and why none of us watch Supernatural, among other fannish topics. Afterwards, Cidercupcakes and I came back to my house and watched Futurama and the SNL parody of the Biden-Palin debate.

Here are some Great Falls photos from last month:

We had dinner with my parents, lots of food though I don't think any of us are fasting for the day -- my mother may be for the morning -- some Rosh Hashanah leftovers and some traditional Jewish food (gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, etc.). They left for Kol Nidre services and we came home to watch the really terrific PBS show Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, and the Presidency, narrated by Martin Sheen, a fairly balanced portrait (revolted by his treatment of slaves, Indians, and women's rights, impressed by his courage, political machinations, and military prowess).

But nothing is more fun than Pushing Daisies, which we watched first. Small spoilers: The opening, with Ned leaving school dressed as The Fool from the Tarot with his sack and his dog, delighted me even more than Olive naming her convent companion "Pigby" (and the swearing-in-church scene made me howl on this night of all nights). The mystery wasn't that interesting, but the mysteries are usually just background noise for the character stuff and the designers anyway -- maybe it's just that on a show with visuals like the Pie Hole and the bee place from last week, a circus just doesn't stand out all that much! I was glad the girl hadn't done anything terrible, but more worried about Ned and Chuck than anything she'd done.

I read an entertaining New York Times blog by Suzanne Vega about how she became the mother of the MP3. Oh, but I was sad to read on Space.com that Phoenix will freeze to death on Mars! At least Loreena McKennitt's new album is now available for pre-order, which makes me happy although I probably should not be reccing an album with Christmas songs on Yom Kippur. On which note, g'mar chatima tova -- may you all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year -- and have a good fast if you're observing.

Poem for Wednesday

2008-10-08T00:03:00.001-04:00

Letter to Denise
By Hayden Carruth

Remember when you put on that wig
From the grab bag and then looked at yourself
In the mirror and laughed, and we laughed together?
It was a transformation, glamorous flowing tresses.
Who knows if you might not have liked to wear
That wig permanently, but of course you
Wouldn’t. Remember when you told me how
You meditated, looking at a stone until
You knew the soul of the stone? Inwardly I
Scoffed, being the backwoods pragmatic Yankee
That I was, yet I knew what you meant. I
Called it love. No magic was needed. And we
Loved each other too, not in the way of
Romance but in the way of two poets loving
A stone, and the world that the stone signified.
Remember when we had that argument over
Pee and piss in your poem about the bear?
“Bears don’t pee, they piss,” I said. But you were
Adamant. “My bears pee.” And that was that.
Then you moved away, across the continent,
And sometimes for a year I didn’t see you.
We phoned and wrote, we kept in touch. And then
You moved again, much farther away, I don’t
Know where. No word from you now at all. But
I am faithful, my dear Denise. And I still
Love the stone, and, yes, I know its soul.

--------

I spent all morning working on my trip book. Shutterfly crashed twice -- didn't wipe out any of the work but it took me quite a while to get back in and remember where I'd been. (I've tried Snapfish, Photoworks, Imagestation, Kodak, various others...Shutterfly has consistently delivered a much better product for the money than anyone but Mpix, and the latter is just too expensive to use regularly.) I also started the calendar -- we do collage calendars of our trips, so they tend to take time to put together -- and the holiday card, which would feel ridiculous in early October if it weren't for the fact that I have a coupon that'll make it much cheaper to do now.

Younger son had Hebrew school in the afternoon, older son had lots of homework, so it was pretty quiet around here except for laundry (not yet folded) until dinner. We all watched Jurassic Park, since it has to go back to the library tomorrow -- been years since I saw it, so much fun, and the things that make it dated are more the pop culture references and the computers they use than the storyline.

Missed the beginning of the debate -- wasn't really in the mood for it, I am so ready for it to be November, especially now that Obama has a solid lead -- but watched the bulk of it, didn't feel much like a town hall meeting with Brokaw asking so many questions but I thought McCain failed to impress in the format -- the undecided audience sure didn't seem impressed, either in CNN's ticker or in the Q&As afterward -- and that's all I cared about, since I wasn't expecting any big policy revelations. It makes me happy that the audience seemed unhappy whenever McCain started to attack Obama or his policies instead of offering his own solutions.

A bluegrass band performs at the Agricultural History Farm Park's harvest festival.

One of the farmers guides a plow through a field of potatoes...

...which kids (the 6-and-under crowd first) were then welcome to come harvest and keep.

Local honey producers brought a beehive. The queen is the one with the pink dot. There were dozens of kids trying to find her.

Plus there were chestnuts roasting on an open fire. And samples, yum.

A blacksmith was demonstrating his craft making steak turners.

The ears of corn had been harvested but the stalks were still upright for a maze.

Pumpkins are always a welcome sign of impending Halloween!

I'm bummed because I'm going to have to miss out on my fall maritime fun -- Sultana is the only tall ship that will be in Baltimore for the regatta next weekend, according to Sail Baltimore, the rest are leaving on weekdays; and the ships at the Sultana Downrigging Weekend will only be open on Friday (Halloween), when I can't go; they're sailing all afternoon Saturday and Sunday. I love going to Chestertown and to see ships in Baltimore and I feel deprived!

Poem for Tuesday

2008-10-07T00:06:00.002-04:00

Forty-Five
By Hayden Carruth

When I was forty-five I lay for hours
beside a pool, the green hazy
springtime water, and watched
the salamanders coupling, how they drifted lazily,
their little hands floating before them,
aimlessly in and out of the shadows, fifteen
or twenty of them, and suddenly two
would dart together and clasp
one another belly to belly
the way we do, tender and vigorous, and then
would let go and drift away
at peace, lazily
in the green pool that was their world
and for a while was mine.

--------

Another from Poet's Choice in Sunday's Washington Post Book World. Carruth "could orchestrate a symphony from plain American speech," writes Mary Karr, who calls the poem above "one of the tender love lyrics he assembled during his late marriage to poet Joe-Anne McLaughlin Carruth." Hayden Carruth "was ours for a while, and the green world was greener for his words," she adds. The poem is from Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995.

I keep wanting to write "Poem for Wednesday" on Boston Legal night because I'm not used to it being on Mondays. I did little today besides fight with Shutterfly -- one of my photo book codes has disappeared out of my account, as has the free shipping I was supposed to have till October 15th, so I am rushing to finish my trip book before it gets any closer to that date lest my other book code should disappear as well. And I need to start thinking about making holiday cards and calendars and all the things we usually give as gifts. So except for some craft stuff with Adam and homework with Daniel, it was not an eventful afternoon.

A piglet born at the county fair wallowed in the mud during Harvest Days at the Agricultural History Farm Park.

His brother was there as well. At one point he used the smaller piggie's head to wipe his bottom.

There was also a calf near the dairy exhibition.

Sheep awaited their turn to be on display...

...in a herding exhibition by local sheepdogs.

There were also several types of goat, including this floppy-eared variety...

...and these with smaller ears and horns.

Some of the goats were in the model farm for children to practice plowing, herding, etc.

Watched Terminator and Heroes with the kids, as is going to be our Monday routine till Fox cancels the former for its blah ratings...hey, Boston Legal gets higher numbers, think they'll pick it up when ABC drops it? I'm glad we got a bit more backstory on Derek in Sarah Connor but sheesh. Spoilers: Don't any of the people in the future have a life that's worth showing beyond fighting? Couldn't we see more bonding with Kyle and less of the guns? Tired as I am of Sarah As Mom stories (which everyone seems to agree she sucks at, even though it's her job -- there is an essay in this, full-time motherhood on T:SCC as recipe for self-definition as failure), the scenes with the little boy were a nice break from the all army, all the time stuff. The Wizard of Oz parallels were well done, too, and such a happy change from the Armageddon stuff! Though I figured all along that Martin would find out about the terminators and we'd find out he was going to die saving John...yup.

Heroes is holding my interest better this season than last season but I also have moments where I think my kids shouldn't be watching it at all! Spoilers: The nastiness of Claire cutting up Peter, when the whole world knows that Hayden and Milo are supposedly dating, and he's her uncle on the show...I'm sure someone is having an orgasm over it as OMG hot incestuous bloodplay just the way they did with Peter/Nathan previously, but it really repulsed me. At least we had an antidote in sweet nerd Sylar, I mean Gabriel. And the new Niki, whose name I keep forgetting so I call her Cindy McCain. My favorite moment, though, was after Ando's passionate defense of Hiro to Angela, Hiro's proud addendum: "What he said."

But of course BL was my favorite hour of the evening, despite the extremism of Denny's pro-gun stance (I agree with Carl: Denny doesn't have Alzheimer's, he uses "Mad Cow" as an excuse to do whatever he wants. Spoilers: The episode starts with Jerry having a drink with Denny, hoping Denny will support him in becoming a partner even though Denny thinks he's a weird guy. On the way out, a mugger approaches and pulls a gun. Jerry turns over his wallet; Denny warns that the mugger doesn't really want to shoot a white big shot on the eve of Barack Obama's election, then reaches for his wallet and instead pulls his own gun, shooting the mugger in the knee and both feet. Alan is annoyed that Denny shot three times when once would have done the job, and as he's expressing this, the cops arrive to arrest Denny for carrying a concealed weapon.

Alan is ready to represent Denny, but Denny doesn't want him; as Shirley reports, he wants Angelina Jolie, but will settle for Carl representing him because Carl is less anti-gun. And Denny thinks Jerry should close. Alan doesn't have time to fret because Joanna the sexual surrogate arrives to ask for his help: her ex-husband is suing for sole custody of their 10-year-old daughter, saying that her job makes her unfit mother. The husband's lawyer, Emma, calls Joanna a disgusting pervert who has sex with strangers, while Alan counters that the daughter is doing well and tries hitting on the lawyer. Joanna witnesses this and tells Alan that his language is sexually aggressive; she thinks he's losing the ability to connect in a non-sexual way to women.

Emma testifies that mom's sex job is hurting her daughter, and when Alan objects to "sex job," saying it makes him giggle, the judge threatens to shut him up, which inspires him to ask her to spank him. The father doesn't want his daughter being told that it's okay to be sexual with people you don't know, let alone for money, though Alan argues that he should be happy to have a trained professional to counsel their daughter in an era when most parents don't talk to their kids about sexual responsibility. Joanna says that her goal is to train people in intimacy, not sex per se, since a lot of men hate women on some level. Alan takes that comment personally and orders her not to unsettle him if she wants to win. At dinner, he tells Denny about flirting with the judge and asks if they're sexist -- they objectify women incessantly -- but Denny demurs, "I'm Denny Crane, no man is my equal, let alone a woman." That said, Denny claims that they both love women, all women, even the fat ones, and women like being objectified anyway.

Meanwhile, the police testify that Denny had eight concealed weapons, including a propane device that would allow him to fart and turn his butt into a blowtorch, though the same cop is also forced to admit that if Denny had not had a gun, he would have been robbed or possibly killed during the mugging. Denny testifies that he didn't shoot to kill and jokes that if they enforce a restriction on guns, he's sure criminals will obey, but when it comes to the law, the Constitution depends on what Supreme Court says and the Supreme Court depends on President, so right now, with a VP who likes to hunt, he has a Constitutional right to shoot a bad guy in the knee. Afterward Carl tells Shirley that he thinks Denny probably rigged his own PET scan. Alan interrupts to ask Shirley if she finds him terribly sexist, which makes her laugh and ask him how he's enjoying her cheerleader outfit.

The judge in Joanna's case interviews her daughter, asking if she knows what her mother does for a living, which the daughter defines as helping people with problems with sex and trust. The daughter also says that Joanna coaches her soccer team and stops her from playing too much Guitar Hero. Emma closes by saying that she's a professional woman but doesn't have sex to get a paycheck, citing state laws that parents are supposed to see to a child's moral welfare, but Alan counters that Americans are so insanely conflicted about sexuality -- women can model Victoria's Secret clothes in a mall but not breastfeed -- that Joanna provides a necessary service. The judge interrupts to say that she's heard enough, both parents will continue to share custody; Joanna may be unconventional but she's not unfit.

Denny visits Jerry to say that lawyers who get him off tend to make partner, though he also says that if Jerry does a good job, he can insure that every American will have the security of carrying a gun. After the DA makes the expected case about the U.S. being a nation of laws that Denny broke, the fact that no Supreme Court ruling has overturned the state's right to restrict concealed weapons, and the statistics on the number of people killed by guns each year -- "Do we really need another Virginia Tech to realize this is an epidemic problem?" -- Jerry gets up and waves off the "cost in human life jingle," as he calls it. He testifies about the brilliance of the current Supreme Court, which has tossed out the first 13 words of the Second Amendment with all that pesky militia stuff: "Law serves our ideologies." Jerry adds that Denny is a real American, "flag on his lapel, gun in his pants, he shoots bad guys. Human life is simply no match for a gun." Carl is horrified that Jerry just sent Denny to jail, but Denny beams, for only an appeal to the Supreme Court will get Massachusetts' law about concealed weapons overturned.

Sadly for Denny, he is found not guilty, though he tries to appeal his acquittal. On the balcony with Alan, he says he wanted to be a martyr to the cause. Alan admits that he owns a gun, but he has problems with people owning assault weapons. When Denny says he's shocked that Alan is pro-gun because he's a liberal, Alan snaps that he doesn't see why someone must be a pinko girl if he likes guns and also favors gun control. This shocks Denny even more, since the "girl" comment is sexist. Alan agrees: he'd vote for a woman president, but part of him sees a woman as "a human mitten designed to keep my cockles warm on a winter night." Denny laughs at this, saying it's cultural, biological and fun to think that way. He thinks men go dead as they age from trying to be politically correct instead of being the animals they are. He assures Alan that when they're old, they'll sit on a park bench and say, "Look at the rack on that one," and they will never be lonely. When Alan worries that their walkers will be confiscated, Denny says, "I've got my gun."

Poem for Monday

2008-10-06T00:02:00.001-04:00

Regarding Chainsaws
By Hayden Carruth

The first chainsaw I owned was years ago,
an old yellow McCulloch that wouldn't start.
Bo Bremmer give it to me that was my friend,
though I've had enemies couldn't of done
no worse. I took it to Ward's over to Morrisville,
and no doubt they tinkered it as best they could,
but it still wouldn't start. One time later
I took it down to the last bolt and gasket
and put it together again, hoping somehow
I'd do something accidental-like that would
make it go, and then I yanked on it
450 times, as I figured afterwards,
and give myself a bursitis in the elbow
that went five years even after
Doc Arrowsmith shot it full of cortisone
and near killed me when he hit a nerve
dead on. Old Stan wanted that saw, wanted it bad.
Figured I was a greenhorn that didn't know
nothing and he could fix it. Well, I was,
you could say, being only forty at the time,
but a fair hand at tinkering. "Stan," I said,
"you're a neighbor. I like you. I wouldn't
sell that thing to nobody, except maybe
Vice-President Nixon." But Stan persisted.
He always did. One time we was loafing and
gabbing in his front dooryard, and he spied
that saw in the back of my pickup. He run
quick inside, then come out and stuck a double
sawbuck in my shirt pocket, and he grabbed
that saw and lugged it off. Next day, when I
drove past, I seen he had it snugged down tight
with a tow-chain on the bed of his old Dodge
Powerwagon, and he was yanking on it
with both hands. Two or three days after,
I asked him, "How you getting along with that
McCulloch, Stan?" "Well," he says, "I tooken
it down to scrap, and I buried it in three
separate places yonder on the upper side
of the potato piece. You can't be too careful,"
he says, "when you're disposing of a hex."
The next saw I had was a godawful ancient
Homelite that I give Dry Dryden thirty bucks for,
temperamental as a ram too, but I liked it.
It used to remind me of Dry and how he'd
clap that saw a couple times with the flat
of his double-blade axe to make it go
and how he honed the chain with a worn-down
file stuck in an old baseball. I worked
that saw for years. I put up forty-five
run them days each summer and fall to keep
my stoves het through the winter. I couldn't now.
It'd kill me. Of course they got these here
modern Swedish saws now that can take
all the worry out of it. What's the good
of that? Takes all the fun out too, don't it?
Why, I reckon. I mind when Gilles Boivin snagged
an old sap spout buried in a chunk of maple
and it tore up his mouth so bad he couldn't play
"Tea for Two" on his cornet in the town band
no more, and then when Toby Fox was holding
a beech limb that Rob Bowen was bucking up
and the saw skidded crossways and nipped off
one of Toby's fingers. Ain't that more like it?
Makes you know you're living. But mostly they wan't
dangerous, and the only thing they broke was your
back. Old Stan, he was a buller and a jammer
in his time, no two ways about that, but he
never sawed himself. Stan had the sugar
all his life, and he wan't always too careful
about his diet and the injections. He lost
all the feeling in his legs from the knees down.
One time he started up his Powerwagon
out in the barn, and his foot slipped off the clutch,
and she jumped forwards right through the wall
and into the manure pit. He just set there,
swearing like you could of heard it in St.
Johnsbury, till his wife come out and said,
"Stan, what's got into you?" "Missus," he says
"ain't nothing got into me. Can't you see?
It's me that's got into this here pile of shit."
Not much later they took away one of his
legs, and six months after that they took
the other and left him setting in his old chair
with a tank of oxygen to sip at whenever
he felt himself sinking. I remember that chair.
Stan reupholstered it with an old bearskin
that must of come down from his great-great-
grandfather and had grit in it left over
from the Civil War and a bullet-hole as big
as a yawning cat. Stan latched the pieces together
with rawhide, cross fashion, but the stitches was
always breaking and coming undone. About then
I quit stopping by to see old Stan, and I
don't feel so good about that neither. But my mother
was having her strokes then. I figured
one person coming apart was as much
as a man can stand. Then Stan was taken away
to the nursing home, and then he died. I always
remember how he planted them pieces of spooked
McCulloch up above the potatoes. One time
I went up and dug, and I took the old
sprocket, all pitted and et away, and set it
on the windowsill right there next to the
butter mold. But I'm damned if I know why.

--------

From Sunday's Poet's Choice in The Washington Post Book World. "When Hayden Carruth died this week at 87 from a series of strokes at his home in upstate New York, American letters lost another colossus," writes Mary Karr. A World War II veteran, he "came home to battle -- in prose and verse -- for causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to ecological farming. Like Robert Frost, he drew on the rural landscape and characters." The poem above "opens when the admittedly 'greenhorn' speaker is given an old chainsaw...unlike Frost's wise old country titans, these men fight with modern machinery in a climate where they, too, face becoming rusty and obsolete."

Did I mention that the theme of the Bat Mitzvah that my family attended on Saturday night was M&Ms? Well, it was, and there were huge vases full of M&Ms on the tables, and an "M&M bar" with plain, peanut, peanut butter, etc. M&Ms in giant jars with fill-your-own bags, and later make-your-own-sundaes with M&M toppings...in short, my kids probably ate 1000 M&Ms each. So I should not have been surprised when Daniel woke up with an upset stomach, thus throwing our plans for the day into disarray -- we'd been planning to go downtown, then to the Melting Pot to do more pre-Bar Mitzvah research of our own.

Instead we stayed home till the end of the first quarter of the Redskins game, since Adam needed to watch 15 minutes of football for his P.E. class -- I never got P.E. homework! As is typical when we are actually watching the Redskins this season, they promptly dropped 14 points to the Eagles. So we did the smart thing -- we stopped watching! We went hiking at Cabin John and stopped at the card store and the food store, and didn't even put the game on the radio till we were on the way home. And lo, the Redskins pulled out the game! By then older son was feeling better, so it was a successful afternoon.

We were going to watch Jurassic Park because we hadn't seen it in ages, but then younger son remembered that he'd forgotten to practice the violin all weekend, and by the time he finished that and everyone had taken showers, it was late. Instead Paul and I watched I Am Legend, which I enjoyed more than I'd been expecting. Spoilers: I'd been told that it was both very bleak and somewhat horror-movie-ish, both of which are fair criticisms, but Will Smith is really terrific and his dog should get a nomination for best performance by an animal. I'd also been warned that there was lots of religious symbolism, but it certainly isn't any worse than The Poseidon Adventure -- okay, the ending where Anna believes that God has sent her to the nice community with the church is pretty hokey, but Robert himself is the Christ figure and he's not a religious man, this isn't paralleled with theological apocalypse like The Sarah Connor Chronicles (or, from what I understand, Supernatural), so it really didn't bother me from that standpoint.

My lovely husband bought me the CVS Halloween Barbie! And I really hope it's true that Patrick Stewart may be on Doctor Who! And I got Crazy Glue all over my fingers trying to recycle a refrigerator magnet and glue it onto the back of something else, so next time please remind me to get the stick-on stuff and spare my poor abused hand from a potentially exploding tube!

Keeper

2008-10-05T12:47:00.000-04:00

SNL's version of the Biden-Palin debate, moderated by Queen Latifah.

Poem for Sunday

2008-10-05T00:41:00.001-04:00

Deuteronomy 32 (KJV)

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

Because I will proclaim the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

--------

That's the Torah portion from the Bat Mitzvah we attended on Saturday night. This will be a rushed entry as it's after midnight and I've only just finished getting the photos off my SD cards from there and from the harvest festival at the Agricultural History Farm Park in Gaithersburg, where we saw pigs, goats, sheep, a calf, a donkey, and demonstrations of sheepdog shepherding, plowing for potatoes, and scarecrow-making, plus bluegrass music and Adam finding his way through a corn maze.

The Bat Mitzvah was the daughter of an old friend, someone I haven't seen much recently but our older sons are almost exactly the same age and she was one of my first new friends when I moved back to the Washington area with a baby after living in Chicago for grad school. The service was lovely -- I like the Havdalah service in general, and after the chaos of Rosh Hashanah, it was very relaxing, much more conducive to meditation than the High Holy Day lunacy. I had a nostalgic moment when one of the grandfathers started reading with Ashkenazi pronunciation -- a lot of letters that have T sounds in Sephardic Hebrew, which is standard in Hebrew schools these days, have S sounds in Ashkenazi pronunciation, which is how my grandparents always did the major prayers and mourner's kaddish.

At the reception, which was held at an Italian restaurant, I saw a lot of people I used to see quite a bit when our children were young, but haven't kept up with recently, so that was very nice, and I met a woman who apparently graduated from high school with me but neither of us remembered ever meeting the other in school. The food was fantastic -- fruit and cheese on a table plus hot appetizers circulating, then caesar salad, then salmon with potatoes and vegetables, then chocolate cake and raspberry sorbet with ice cream -- and the kids had a good time despite knowing very few others, since they don't go to school with the Bat Mitzvah girl...Daniel talked the ear off a boy he's known since he was in preschool, Adam and some other boys inhaled helium from the balloons and talked funny.

Maryland lost, woe, and Michigan lost, heh, and Penn won, yay, and that's about all I picked up while reading today's scores off my mobile browser to my father on the way home. On Sunday, Adam is supposed to watch part of the Redskins game for P.E. homework, so I guess we will be doing that for part of the afternoon!

Poem for Saturday

2008-10-04T00:02:00.001-04:00

Election Year
By Donald Revell

A jet of mere phantom
Is a brook, as the land around
Turns rocky and hollow.
Those airplane sounds
Are the drowning of bicyclists.
Leaping, a bridesmaid leaps.
You asked for my autobiography.
Imagine the greeny clicking sound
Of hummingbirds in a dry wood,
And there you’d have it. Other birds
Pour over the walls now.
I'd never suspected: every day,
Although the nation is done for,
I find new flowers.

--------

I had a fairly quiet Friday. It was a gorgeous day, which necessitated taking a walk. I started doing the Sudoku in the paper, and then I refused to quit even though it took me half an hour. Then I started a review of "Menage a Troi", though I kept stalling because I don't like the episode very much, so I chatted with people about the debate and did lots of stupid things on Facebook (need karma, butterflies, penguins or Snapes, anyone?).

I had leftover pad see euw from Tara Thai yesterday, so lunch was good. And we had dinner with my parents, whom we will see again at a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday night. Here are the last of the photos of Huntley Meadows from last month, including dragonflies, beavers, wildflowers, and the first signs of autumn coming:

The Friday Five: Kisses
1. Who was your first kiss? The first one that I count, as it was neither a dare nor a game, was David the hot German guy from theater camp.
2. Who is the last person you kissed? My husband.
3. What is the story of your most romantic kiss? It was 1988, he took me to New York to see Phantom of the Opera and out to dinner. We also did some sightseeing -- we went to the World Trade Center.
4. What is the story of your worst kiss? A guy I dated on and off my freshman-sophomore year of college who didn't seem to realize that you win no prizes for keeping your tongue in constant motion.
5. Who do you want to kiss right now? Joe Biden.

Fannish 5: List the five most moving fictional funerals. Same rules as last week with weddings: no Great Literature allowed, this is purely fannish.
1. Izzi Creo, The Fountain. Almost disqualified because that movie is so good it should count as literature, but really peerless as a study of loss and grief.
2. Boromir, The Lord of the Rings. I think we should have gotten to hear Aragorn sing the dirge from the novel, but the scene where the boat goes over the falls while Aragorn straps on the vambraces is lovely.
3. Jonathan Kent, Smallville. Funerals of parents are always awful, and when there's guilt on the part of the child, it's even worse. See also Mitch Leery, Dawson's Creek.
4. Leo McGarry, The West Wing. Admittedly the impact is shaped by the fact that the character died because the actor who played him had died, yet he was an irreplaceable presence in the lives of nearly all the characters.
5. Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. At the time, we didn't know he was going to come back, so the scene was quite devastating.

We watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (Colbert hadn't yet seen the debate when he recorded the show but he announced that he was certain Palin had won, unless she hadn't). Then we watched Sanctuary, which I rather liked, though parts of it were predictable and parts were just silly...I like Amanda Tapping and I liked the girl playing her daughter, and it's nice to have a show where a woman's in charge and it isn't "OMG I must save my son so he can save the world." Spoilers: I was guessing that Druitt was Ashley's father from the moment Helen freaked out hearing that someone super-fast was back, and that she was a "monster," and really, couldn't they have done a better job with the prosthetic brain-sucker on Alexei if they expected us to swallow the Chernobyl explanation? But it was entertaining and I'm betting that Helen was much more involved in what happened to Will's mother than she admitted...and I'm always in favor of flashbacks to Victorian London.

Poem for Friday

2008-10-03T00:05:00.002-04:00

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.

Poem for Thursday

2008-10-02T00:02:00.001-04:00

Infidelity
By Stanley Plumly

The two-toned Olds swinging sideways out of
the drive, the bone-white gravel kicked up in
a shot, my mother in the deathseat half

out the door, the door half shut--she's being
pushed or wants to jump, I don't remember.
The Olds is two kinds of green, hand-painted,
and blows black smoke like a coal-oil fire. I'm
stunned and feel a wind, like a machine, pass
through me, through my heart and mouth; I'm standing
in a field not fifty feet away, the
wheel of the wind closing the distance.
Then suddenly the car stops and my mother
falls with nothing, nothing to break the fall . . .

One of those moments we give too much to,
like the moment of acknowledgment of
betrayal, when the one who's faithless has
nothing more to say and the silence is
terrifying since you must choose between
one or the other emptiness. I know
my mother's face was covered black with blood
and that when she rose she too said nothing.
Language is a darkness pulled out of us.
But I screamed that day she was almost killed,
whether I wept or ran or threw a stone,
or stood stone-still, choosing at last between
parents, one of whom was driving away.

--------

I did a lot of back-and-forth driving today. To Gaithersburg for lunch with at Tara Thai (where we were both disorganized and running late, though we got to talk fannish stuff and silly cat behavior). Then to the middle school to pick up Adam in the rain. Then back to Gaithersburg to get a new case for Adam's violin -- the fastener broke on the one he had, which is still a rental, and they offered us a new one while they repair the old one. Then back home to make sure Daniel didn't have to walk in the rain and get Adam ready for tennis. The lesson itself was actually a very relaxing hour -- there's free wireless in the building, so I brought the laptop, and there was a TV tuned to the Cubs pregame show, which I watched along with the tennis!

Jennifer from Reptiles Alive presents a king snake to an eager audience at Rock Creek Park Day.

Here she holds a box turtle, which are very common around here...

...a spotted turtle, which are now rare in this region due to human habitat encroachment...

...and a snapping turtle, which we've seen quite often in local streams and at Great Falls.

This is in fact not an amphibian but a toad.

Jennifer explained that the toxins produced by toads not only don't cause warts but in the case of these local animals don't harm humans.

Here is Reptiles Alive's very active king snake.

And here, just in time for Pushing Daisies' season premiere, are Rock Creek Park Nature Center's bees. (I post them alongside the reptiles in honor of Jack Aubrey, who -- upon discovering that Stephen Maturin has brought a beehive aboard his ship in Post Captain -- asks, "How many of those reptiles might there be?")

Pushing Daisies is finally back! I thought they did a nice job recapping the important backstory, though I wonder if it was too rushed for entirely new viewers who had no idea who the characters were. Spoilers: And I'm a little disappointed that after a season of what I thought were hints that Vivian and Lily were "aunts" rather than true siblings, now we're getting hints that they're heterosexual and really sisters after all. Oh well, they're still interesting and unlike other women on TV.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole convent business, though the first glimpse of Olive playing Maria in The Sound of Music is utterly hilarious, and her politely calm, indignant response to finding out her belongings will be given away -- "I like my belongings, it's why they belong to me" -- is beautifully played. I suppose these nuns aren't that much more caricatured than the nuns in The Sound of Music itself, but the idea of Lily shutting her pregnant self away to hide the fact that she slept with her sister's husband -- and who is Chuck's father who died, then, anyway, and what's with the eyepatch? -- doesn't quite ring my bells.

On the other hand, I adored the story of the week, with the honeycomb decor and the bees (yay continuity for Chuck's interests) and the villain being a nasty capitalist guy rather than the woman. The costumes, set design and lighting on this show are so much better than anything else on television, maybe ever! That scene where Chuck is "caught" in the honeycomb from the light coming through the windows when she's in the office about to be attacked by the hive is just brilliant visually. And all the main characters have such lovely chemistry -- I loved Chuck diving on Emerson for a hug -- and the whole show is so hopeful about people, even though it's about bringing people back from the dead...it's so completely different from the predominant death-and-medicine-and-lawyers stuff all over television.

Was reading about living in a cosmic bubble and all our scientific theory possibly being wrong, and Jesus possibly being labeled a magician before a messiah, and the possible fate of the Aleppo codex, and a big kitty problem, because all of these are holding my interest better than the latest reports on the economy. And aww, the Cubs lost!

Poem for Wednesday

2008-10-01T00:02:00.002-04:00

Tag
By Anne Carson

THIS

Insatiable April, trees in place,
in their scraped-out place,
their standing.
Standing way.
Their red branch areas,
green shoot areas (shock),
river, that one.
I surprised a goose and she hissed.
I walk and walk with cold hands.
Back at the house it is filled with longing,
nothing to carry longing away.
I look back over my life.
I try to find analogies.
There are none.
I have longed for people before, I have loved people before.
Not like this.
It was not this.

Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.

YOUR

("unalterable")
Actually not. Feigned leap into-
river glimpsed through bare
[waiting]
[some noun] for how thought breaks up around you not here
your clothes not wet in this deep mirror-
what Hölderlin calls die Tageszeichen, signs
scored into the soul by the god of each day
your answer scars, I still don't know-
years from now, these
notations in the address book, this frantic hand.

--------

From this week's New Yorker.

We started our Jewish new year as we have started the past many, going out to brunch at the Original Pancake House, where my parents got crepes, my kids got dessert waffles, Paul got an omelet, and I got my usual -- eggs benedict with turkey sausage instead of Canadian bacon. I also had chai to be certain that I would stay awake during the temple president's annual speech. The restaurant backs up to a courtyard with a big fountain, an art gallery, and several outdoor sculptures, so it's a pretty place to take a walk.

Then we went to the synagogue for my least favorite half-hour of the entire year, the nightmarishly overcrowded lobby before the family service, with people pushing and shoving in their high heels, pushing baby carriages they were supposed to collapse and leave by the door as they try to shove to the front of the line...by the time I get inside, I am always ready to go worship Asherah in the woods in the nearby park, alone. This service is really targeted at kids younger than mine, and this is the last year we'll go, one way or another; after younger son's Bar Mitzvah we're supposed to graduate them to the morning adult service, but I suspect we'll be looking for a congregation that's more my style.

The high point of the family service is always the story performed by the rabbis with some accessible moral for kids, which last year involved pirates and this year involved superheroes. Since the rabbis were willing to wear shorts and pumps on the bimah, I felt no guilt about sneaking my camera out of my purse, turning off the flash, and taking these:

Three rabbis and a cantor played the Wonder Jews, with the senior rabbi's wife playing a museum curator after the Book of Life was allegedly stolen.

"Iron Man" in this case carried an actual iron. The rabbi in Wonder Woman garb complained that she couldn't keep up with the others in those heels.

The moral, as explained to the fourth rabbi who was playing the "villain," was that you can't inscribe your own name in the Book of Life but have to focus on good deeds.

This is the courtyard fountain outside the pancake house in Bethesda Place Plaza, which is sometimes used for public music performances.

The fountain cycles through this basin and often attracts little birds, which pleases Adam.

I just liked the way the water looked in this photo.

Here is some of the art in the courtyard, including Ned Smyth's column mosaic made of colored glass, tile and shining metals.

And here are my kids, husband and parents!

In the evening we had dinner again with my parents -- last night's leftovers, which were still delicious. Then we came home and watched the White Sox clinch a playoff spot! Now I'm afraid that it will be a Cubs-White Sox World Series, which would give me a dilemma...well, actually it wouldn't, because when we lived in Chicago, we lived on the south side and could see Comiskey's fireworks from our 31st floor window, but nearly everyone we know will be rooting for the Cubs and I'll feel badly about having to root against them. Even so, it would be fantastic if they both won their leagues!

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Click pink, and if you're overdue, please get a mammogram!

Poem for Rosh Hashanah

2008-09-30T00:03:00.001-04:00

April Inventory
By W.D. Snodgrass

The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.
In one whole year I haven't learned
A blessed thing they pay you for.
The blossoms snow down in my hair;
The trees and I will soon be bare.

The trees have more than I to spare.
The sleek, expensive girls I teach,
Younger and pinker every year,
Bloom gradually out of reach.
The pear tree lets its petals drop
Like dandruff on a tabletop.

The girls have grown so young by now
I have to nudge myself to stare.
This year they smile and mind me how
My teeth are falling with my hair.
In thirty years I may not get
Younger, shrewder, or out of debt.

The tenth time, just a year ago,
I made myself a little list
Of all the things I'd ought to know,
Then told my parents, analyst,
And everyone who's trusted me
I'd be substantial, presently.

I haven't read one book about
A book or memorized one plot.
Or found a mind I did not doubt.
I learned one date. And then forgot.
And one by one the solid scholars
Get the degrees, the jobs, the dollars.

And smile above their starchy collars.
I taught my classes Whitehead's notions;
One lovely girl, a song of Mahler's.
Lacking a source-book or promotions,
I showed one child the colors of
A luna moth and how to love.

I taught myself to name my name,
To bark back, loosen love and crying;
To ease my woman so she came,
To ease an old man who was dying.
I have not learned how often I
Can win, can love, but choose to die.

I have not learned there is a lie
Love shall be blonder, slimmer, younger;
That my equivocating eye
Loves only by my body's hunger;
That I have forces true to feel,
Or that the lovely world is real.

While scholars speak authority
And wear their ulcers on their sleeves,
My eyes in spectacles shall see
These trees procure and spend their leaves.
There is a value underneath
The gold and silver in my teeth.

Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives,
We shall afford our costly seasons;
There is a gentleness survives
That will outspeak and has its reasons.
There is a loveliness exists,
Preserves us, not for specialists.

--------

One more from Poet's Choice in Sunday's Washington Post Book World. "There's no agreed-upon Syracuse 'school.' But all [the school's] luminaries -- however different in sensibility and style -- move me without verbal frou frou or puffed up pyrotechnics," writes Mary Karr. Of Pulitzer Prize winner Snodgrass, she adds that he "poked fun at his role in academia: 'I haven't read one book about/A book or memorized one plot./Or found a mind I did not doubt./I learned one date. And then forgot.'" The poem above is from Heart's Needle.

I had a bit of a hectic day. Didn't sleep too well because Paul had an upset stomach and kept getting up, then I woke up early to try to have a bit of time since the kids were getting home from school at lunchtime, but I spent almost all morning organizing photos on my external hard drive -- ridiculous how long it took to put all the gerbil pictures in one place -- and they arrived before I even had my leftover hummus. I took the kids out to Michael's to get various craft supplies for various planned family projects, then stopped at CVS and to get gas, and by the time we got home, it was almost time to go to my parents' for dinner. The food (some kind of chicken with cherry sauce and wild rice, carrot souffle, noodle kugel, German chocolate cake and lots of other stuff) as always was fabulous, and my parents had friends over whom I like, so it was a very nice New Year evening.

Tree of Life by SuSan Esther

We missed the beginning of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and by the end I was still confused about (spoilers) who in heck Allison is and her relationship with Cameron and whether that was "our" Cameron who killed her or a different version of the same model and why she has the memories of the person upon whom she was apparently modeled, not to mention whether Cameron had all her memories back in the end and what caused her to glitch and how come Sarah went from "DON'T TALK TO ME WITHOUT A CODE WORD!" to "oops, I'm going to be in the hospital with a pregnant woman I barely know and not worry about my son in the least" and lots of other things that might not have made sense even if I'd seen the whole episode.

Then we watched Heroes, which I didn't like as much as the premiere, though it was shorter and punchier. Spoilers: I prefer Hiro and Ando as the comic relief to the way they were written last season (super-speed girl calling Hiro "Pikachu" got a laugh out of my entire family, as did Ando saying, "I'm being awesome!"), but they also seem rather frivolous about what Hiro's late father said was the fate of the world -- and really, the more times this show conjures the end of the world, the more difficult it gets to take seriously. And are Tracy/Nikki/Jessica clones, and that's why the split personalities, or are they triplets, or is this the living Jessica retured with amnesia?

And of course we ended the evening with Boston Legal, which had three nicely balanced storylines, none of which was complete crack! Though only BL can get away with playing the near-death of a major character -- in a situation unnervingly like the circumstances under which Heath Ledger apparently died -- for laughs. Spoilers: Shirley's granddaughter comes to visit, leading Shirley immediately to ask what Marlena has done. Turns out she voted in the primary despite being 17, considering it an act of patriotism. When Denny says that she's as hot as Granny and wants to know if she's as nasty, Shirley smacks him...and Denny goes down unconscious, not breathing. Alan gives him CPR, though when Denny wakes, he hopes that it was Shirley's mouth on his. At the hospital, Alan learns that Denny has been taking over 40 prescription medications, and later he agrees to help sue the main pharmaceutical company that convinced him he needed all the drugs without advertising the interactions.

Meanwhile, Carl takes on the case of Shirley's granddaughter, who goes before Judge Brown demanding to know why she can be treated as an adult for the purpose of going to prison yet can't elect leaders. She's sick of voters making choices based on who'd be fun to have a beer with; moreover, she's old enough to become a parent but not to safeguard her abortion rights, which she calls a more important decision. The prosecutor questions her judgment since Marlena made a YouTube video encouraging other children to falsify records and vote. He offers six months probation and community service, which Shirley thinks she should accept, but Carl agrees with Marlena that the girl deserves better for caring about her future and says he'll take the case to court (with Shirley suggesting that Marlena, who believes Grandma was around to fight for women's suffrage, should leave via the window and Carl making surely/Shirley jokes).

Katie and Jerry have the toughest case, a 15-year-old girl raped in a private prison who is suing for damages. Loudmouth lawyer Melvin Palmer is representing the prison and tries to play Deal or No Deal with the girl's father, then is unable to understand why Katie finds him disgusting when he indicates that the tactics are just to prove to the family that they don't want to put the girl through a trial with a lawyer like him. The girl is calm on the stand recounting her rape by a guard who pinned her down by the neck. Melvin asks whether she had flirted with and kissed the guard, then points out that she didn't scream for help, dismissing her testimony that the guard threatened to kill her if she did. Katie is impressed by Jerry's work on the case, particularly when he attacks the prison owner on the stand -- a man whose facility brought in $350 million yet only gave their temporary guards 40 hours of training.

Marlena's prosecutor points out that children aren't allowed to have sex, drink or drive at various ages in the interests of what's best for the country. In turn, Carl scoffs at the idea that children could screw things up more than adults have with the recession, the war, the environmental damage, not to mention the failing educational system and rising costs of social security. Plus teenagers file tax returns, which is taxation without representation, a major cause of the Revolutionary War. With women still alive who were once denied the right to vote and 13% of US black men ineligible due to their criminal records, the country really is ruled by old, white and rich, adds Carl. Impressed with this and with research that coddling teenagers makes them less instead of more responsible, the judge dismisses criminal charges against Marlena, who tells Carl that she can almost see what Grandma finds attractive about him despite his age.

Melvin closes by saying that there was no negligence in the rape -- the guard had no history of assault, the prisoner contributed to her situation by leading him on, and the case shouldn't be a referendum on private prisons and their greed. Katie counters in her closing by pointing out that with millions of Americans in jail, the last thing we need is to turn the incarceration system over to organizations whose profits depend on keeping people behind bars or encouraging repeat offenses, putting money ahead of lives. She draws comparisons with Blackwater. The jury finds for the plaintiff, and Jerry and Katie win over a million dollars for the girl who was raped. Jerry claims that it was Katie's closing that won over the jury, but he's sounding far more confident and is less reliant on props, which he credits to his new therapist...I wonder whether it's going to turn out that he's on a new medicine.

Speaking of...when the pharmaceutical company lawyers threaten to sue Alan for extortion, Alan says, "sit your arrogant ass down," then tells them that last week he took on big tobacco, so he can't be intimidated. In fact, the pharmaceutical company reminds him of a tobacco company -- lobbying Congress, suppressing information, killing customers, advertising to children. In court Alan argues that pharmaceutical companies count on people buying off the internet without seeing a doctor, not knowing potential dangers from interactions because the companies conceal them; they spend more money on advertising than on testing their products, and invents phony chronic conditions so they can sell cures to people like Denny and other senior citizens. The judge agrees that the case should go to trial.

On the balcony, Alan asks Denny if he thinks about dying. Denny is more interested in Alan's assessment of him as a kisser until they turn to talking about what they'd do if they knew this was going to be their last year. Alan wants a go at Shirley, but Denny can't believe that with all the women he's loved, it was Alan whose kiss brought him back to life: "Who ever would believe that Alan Shore would be my Prince Charming?"

Poem for Monday

2008-09-29T00:07:00.002-04:00

For Rhoda
By Delmore Schwartz

Calmly we walk through this April's day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(...that time is the fire in which we burn.)

(This is the school in which we learn...)
What is the self amid this blaze?
What am I now that I was then
Which I shall suffer and act again,
The theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored all life from infancy,
The children shouting are bright as they run
(This is the school in which they learn . . .)
Ravished entirely in their passing play!
(...that time is the fire in which they burn.)

Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is my father and Eleanor?
Not where are they now, dead seven years,
But what they were then?
No more? No more?
From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not where they are now (where are they now?)
But what they were then, both beautiful;

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

--------

In Poet's Choice in The Washington Post Book World, Mary Karr writes about poets from Syracuse University poets, including Schwartz, "the youngest bard to take the Bollingen Prize." Schwartz "mentored young Lou Reed, whose band (the Velvet Underground) subsequently revolutionized rock," she adds. The poem above is one of my favorites since high school, so I welcomed the excuse to repost it.

We'd been thinking of spending Sunday at a reenactment of a Roman legion at George Mason University, which we figured Daniel would enjoy for his birthday weekend, but rain was in the forecast, so instead we went to the National Zoo where we figured we could easily duck into an indoor exhibit if it started to pour -- which it did a couple of times, but never for more than ten minutes. We went through the Asia Trail, the small mammals, the reptiles, the birds and the under-construction elephant house, where because it was neither very hot nor very cold, we saw lots of animals who seemed more active than they often are. Here, have some small mammals for Rosh Hashanah, which will have started before I post again:

A prairie dog in the outdoor exhibit near the zoo's farm.

In the Small Mammal House, a meerkat...

...a rock cavy from South America...

...an African rock hyrax or two...

...and a South American degu.

This is a male pale-headed saki. The females are much lighter color all over.

On the Asia Trail, a red panda...

...and a pair of Asian small-clawed otters.

We stopped at The Melting Pot downtown to have a look around, because we're thinking about having Adam's Bar Mitzvah reception there. We'd been thinking about taking the kids out to an expensive dinner there in honor of Daniel's birthday, but Daniel announced that he wanted to go to Cici's Pizza! Since this saved us $100 or so, we agreed, though I won't even bother to mention the quality of the food at the latter. At least they had the Redskins game on, so we got to watch Washington beat Dallas!

The kids wanted to watch the season premiere of The Simpsons when we got home, then I put on The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I'd never seen -- I missed most R-rated movies between 1996 and 2006 due to having small children and I'm still catching up. What a great film, for which I was thankfully unspoiled, and what great performances! Spoilers: In spite of everything I was rooting for Tom until the very end -- Jude Law made it impossible to like anything about Dickie, and Freddie was even worse, and Gwyneth Paltrow is always perfectly cast as a self-absorbed insincere icy bitch. And since Tom is an underdog protagonist (he's the one who makes everything happen in the movie), it's actually FUN to see him get away with it...until it becomes obvious that either Meredith or Peter is going to die, and then things just get horrible because of course Tom is going to keep on killing people to cover up, it's his modus operandi now. Peter is really the only fully likeable character in the film, too, and I feel completely culpable in his death because I was rooting for Tom!

There are two articles in the Sunday Washington Post to which I want to link: one for political reasons on what will happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned, one for personal reasons because the rabbi in this article on spiritual searching in D.C. officiated at Daniel's Bar Mitzvah (and if I'd known he was so unhappy at the synagogue, I probably would have been friendlier with him). And on that note, as I prepare myself for my least favorite holidays of the Jewish year...Happy New Year!

Poem for Sunday

2008-09-28T00:04:00.002-04:00

What Goes On
By Stephen Dunn

After the affair and the moving out,
after the destructive revivifying passion,
we watched her life quiet

into a new one, her lover more and more
on its periphery. She spent many nights
alone, happy for the narcosis

of the television. When she got cancer
she kept it to herself until she couldn't
keep it from anyone. The chemo debilitated
and saved her, and one day

her husband asked her to come back --
his wife, who after all had only fallen
in love as anyone might
who hadn't been in love in a while --

and he held her, so different now,
so thin, her hair just partially
grown back. He held her like a new woman

and what she felt
felt almost as good as love had,
and each of them called it love
because precision didn't matter anymore.

And we who'd been part of it,
often rejoicing with one
and consoling the other,

we who had seen her truly alive
and then merely alive,
what could we do but revise
our phone book, our hearts,

offer a little toast to what goes on.

--------

From Poet's Choice in The Washington Post Book World, Mary Karr's tribute to her fellow Syracuse University poets, including Pulitzer Prize winner Dunn. "In 'What Goes On,' Dunn describes a marriage coming apart, then, after the wife's illness, repairing itself," she writes. "This story of a wife's betrayal and her husband's fidelity unto death stings me with the awareness that small, unnoticed nobility endures in our midst." The poem is from Dunn's 2000 book Different Hours: Poems.

It was a warm but drippy morning after a night of pouring rain, so we weren't sure it would be worth trekking downtown to Rock Creek Park Day. But by the time Daniel got home from volunteering at Hebrew school, the clouds looked like they were breaking up, so we had eggs and turkey sausage, then took the camera and headed to the park, which had cleverly put up a couple of tents as well as the climbing wall and telescope displays. So we were undercover watching Reptiles Alive when the sky opened up again, and it had broken by the time we'd seen all the snakes. We went inside the nature center briefly to look at the displays and the beehive, then went back under the tent to see the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia's owl and hawks. It remained very humid and sticky, but we only got a bit more rain before we got home.

An adolescent Harris hawk visits Rock Creek Park on his first outing with this trainer from the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia. When it's an adult, its coloring will be more solid.

This is a broad-shouldered hawk, a smaller bird who was injured in a car accident and cannot be released.

And this is Linda, who introduced the birds to an eager audience.

Jennifer of Reptiles Alive brought a bullfrog named Jeremiah...

...a corn snake, once a common resident in Rock Creek Park, though it hasn't been spotted there recently...

...and this 12-pound snapping turtle whom she held over her head.

Adam was equally enthusiastic about this climbing wall, as were the park rangers.

And there were craft projects such as this drill using an arrowhead like the ones discovered locally.

We came home to the delightful news that Maryland had defeated Clemson, which makes four wins this season over ranked teams. Then we put on the Michigan-Wisconsin game, which was going fantastically as far as I'm concerned -- the Badgers were winning 19-0 at the half and still up at the end of the third quarter -- but things turned hideous and the Wolverines scored four times in 12 minutes. (My sister went to Wisconsin and I love Madison, where Paul's brother also lived for a while, so I always root for Wisconsin in this match-up.) After dinner we watched the rerun of the Heroes opener that we missed on Monday in favor of Boston Legal, which was actually better than I was expecting, given some of the reviews I'd seen.

Spoilers: For one thing, I'd have been happy just with some of the guest appearances by ostensibly dead characters, particularly those played by George Takei and Malcolm McDowell. And I'm also delighted that Bruce Boxleitner is on the series playing a shallow political type, which he was born to play -- I always found him vaguely insincere on B5 -- and that Jack Coleman and Ali Larter's characters aren't dead (though I'm still not clear about Nikki/Jessica, whether this is amnesia or a front or what). I don't care about Nikki so much if Micah isn't around, though, so I hope he returns! And I hope Mohinder keeps reading poetry aloud, especially Yeats. But I don't like Maya's itch for powerful dangerous men, and I don't like Elle's only coming into her own by wiping out her daddy complex...in general I have issues with the way women are often written on this series, though I still love Claire and Angela "No, Sylar, I am your mother!" Petrelli. And as dads go, Kaito Nakamura's "I told you not to open the safe!" is going to be the line of the week in my household!

RIP Paul Newman. I wasn't a huge fan of him as an actor -- liked his big movies, didn't follow his career all that closely -- but he was a terrific public figure (a volunteer with terminally ill children, a vocal supporter of gay marriage) and a great contributor to the organic food movement in the US.

Poem for Saturday

2008-09-27T00:01:00.002-04:00

After Three Chinese Poems
By David Shapiro

for Mr. Cong

One word tied to another word — that is all
You know. No cherryblossoms. In this world
The hospice workers visit the dead child.
His lack of a voice startles the sleeping words.

This world, fold upon fold.
Is there a better title for it?
Letting Go, Griefwork, Brightness Falls from the Air,
All the Angels Were There. She said it.

All night I think about my sister.
Galileo plunged into Jupiter.
O clear poetry!
No dust tonight.

--------

I had lunch today with Guy Wassertzug, whom I haven't had lunch with since the high school lunchroom -- we reconnected on Facebook, though it turns out he lives ten minutes from me and has a son about the same age as Adam. We went to Kardo Mediterranean, where I had never been before -- I always seem to end up at Lebanese Taverna when it's Middle Eastern food in Rockville -- and had very good hummus. I was going to stop at Michael's on the way home, but it started to pour, so instead I came straight home to write a review of "Sarek". Had dinner with my parents and celebrated Daniel's birthday -- he got Brisingr, the third season of Futurama, a Stephen Colbert calendar and an mp3 player, all things he wanted, while he and Adam both got the new Kirby game. Paul made him a cookie cake at his request.

Here, have some Homestead Farm goats:

The Friday Five: Books
1. Who is your favorite author? If I am limited to one, there's really no contest: William Shakespeare.
2. What is your favorite book/series? I've probably reread Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet more than any others, but Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon and its prequels are pretty close. Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series is newer to me yet my favorite-ever long reading experience.
3. Who is a book hero you most wish to be like? Leisha Camden in Nancy Kress's Beggars in Spain novels.
4. Who is a book character that you envy? Dan Brown's Robert Langdon from Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code. I'd have stayed in academia if I thought it would be like that.
5. Which book do you wished you lived in? That depends whether it's for a few hours or a few years. If it's for a few hours, anything set on an English estate where I'm one of the aristocrats. If it's for a few years, some Star Trek novel.

Fannish5: List the five best fictional weddings. (I am declaring the classics ineligible because nothing could beat the triple wedding that ends A Midsummer Night's Dream. In fact I am leaving out great books altogether and sticking to franchise film and TV.)
1. Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, Pirates of the Caribbean. "You may kiss...you may kiss...just kiss!" The wedding made up for everything I had doubts about in the relationship and redeemed every bad cliched wedding scene I ever sat through in a film.
2. Will Riker and Deanna Troi, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a long time coming, and worth it.
3. Brad Chase and Denise Bauer, Boston Legal. The priest got arrested, the bride went into labor and the wedding took place over her screams as their baby was being born, but it was lovely anyway and really indicative of their roll-with-it relationship.
4. Mitch and Gayle Leery, Dawson's Creek. They were married for nearly two decades, divorced during their mid-life crises, fell back in love and had a really delightful, imperfect, sweet reunion.
5. Benjamin Sisko and Kasidy Yates, Deep Space Nine. Not because it was glamorous or even particularly happy -- Sisko had just received a chilling prophecy that almost led him to call off the ceremony -- but because it seemed very real and they really seemed to love each other.

We gave up on debate an hour in -- McCain reciting policy papers from who knows how many decades ago and Obama repeating himself each time McCain misstated his positions (did Obama's people tell him not to sound too smart to avoid Al Gore snobbishness accusations?). So took a break and watched Stargate: Atlantis, which was worth price of admission to hear Zelenka tell Sheppard that he can't dumb the math down enough to explain it to him, only to have John figure out that they can divert the city's power to shield the gate to stop it from exploding and killing them all. "Like ten nuclear blasts," indeed! And I really got a kick out of Rodney saying he won't let Daniel die because Rodney's planning to chicken out on dying, himself, so he's going to make the thing work and Daniel might as well stick around to see it. Also, Keller is much less of a bimbo when she's with Ronon -- I still don't like her but if I must have her instead of Sam or Elizabeth, keep her and Ronon teamed please! Definitely my favorite episode this season, cliffhanger and all.

We put on the news after SGA, where the pundits seemed to agree that 1) McCain was 20+ years out of date on both the economy and foreign policy and 2) even so, no one really won the debate, which made me doubly glad I didn't stick with it. The fact that polls indicate this election will be close really makes me despair about the supposed intelligence of American voters.