|
|
"You can't get romantic on a subway line!"
|
|
|
|
[24 Nov 2011|01:49pm] |
I haven't been receiving comment notifications in my email since lj made the big format change in Fall of '08. I haven't been able to tweak it back to normal, and can't be bothered to do more. So if I don't get back to you right away, or at all, that's why. Typically I've been checking to see if someone made a comment back to me, but if you commented on something I posted or commented on some time ago, I'll likely miss it.
I haven't been using lj much these days, other than as a newsreader, like everyone else I've migrated to Facebook. I still read antitheism and puns, and some news and blog feeds from time to time.
|
|
|
[24 Nov 2009|01:40pm] |
|
|
|
[24 Nov 2009|01:18pm] |
|
I haven't been receiving comment notifications in my email since lj made the big format change in Fall of '08. I haven't been able to tweak it back to normal, and can't be bothered to do more. So if I don't get back to you right away, or at all, that's why. Typically I've been checking to see if someone made a comment back to me, but if you commented on something I posted or commented on some time ago, I'll likely miss it.
|
|
|
[19 Nov 2009|01:56pm] |
|
|
|
[15 Nov 2009|05:49pm] |
"Nostalgia" - Billy Collins
Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.
Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.
The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.
I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.
Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.
As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.
billy collins: Nostalgia - Billy Collins
|
|
|
[20 Sep 2009|09:39pm] |
Best quote of the night: "better fading beauty than no beauty at all."
--
Movie review: The Da Vinci Code
I was nodding off as I watched it, which is always an interesting experience, so here's my review with spoilers:
Nice rich color palette to the film. I like the bit about the sinister albino monk. I presume he's Italian. A very good Italian friend of mine is albino and I encountered a fair number of them over there. I hope that the popularity of the film does not awake any anti-albino prejudice. Pleasant to see Alfred Molina again, he was good as Diego Rivera in Frida. Few recall his small part in Raiders of the Lost Ark: "throw me the idol, I throw you the whip." Audrey Tatou is always radiant of course. Kept waking up to the bits about the plotting albino monk. Then get to the bank vault scene and start to wake up again. Watch a bit in a more lucid state. After they attack the scheming bank manager, why don't they take his gun away from him? He simply picks it up and fires at them as they drive away. Watch a bit about the cryptograph and decide to quit watching and do something else.
|
|
|
[01 Sep 2009|04:36am] |
"The Poles mobilised in seven major groups shielding their hinterland from incursions that might come from any direction along a common frontier with Germany of almost indefensible length. Mobilisation was never completed in full: their only real defence against tanks could come from a handful of field mounted anti-tank guns that lacked sufficient mobility to deal with a foe who worked in mass and at speed. Concrete fortifications might help impose delay in a few places -- particularly in the more heavily defended sectors of the Danzig Corridor -- and rivers formed useful barriers behind which fresh mobile defences might assemble. The balance of power, if it were to be restored to Poland, could only be altered by super-human bravery."
--Panzer Division: the Mailed Fist, by Major K.J. Macksey, M.C.
|
|
|
[15 Aug 2009|12:23am] |
|
|
|
[08 Aug 2009|04:06pm] |
|
|
|
[30 Jul 2009|07:55am] |
|
"There's a great British expression I love, which I wish would catch on here on our side of the pond: 'It does what it says on the tin.'" --redblog
|
|
| "meaning.....meaning.....meaning....." |
[06 Jul 2009|07:20pm] |
|
Loved Ripley's Game (2002). It's a tad rough in places, reportedly director Liliana Cavani of The Night Porter fame walked off the set and John Malkovich took over, but it's still interesting and most of all funny, in the blackest sense.
|
|
|
[01 Jul 2009|02:36am] |
|
|
|
[01 Jul 2009|01:26am] |
"The enduring legacy of Michael Jackson, who has died aged 65, will be that he elevated beer from the belief that it is a simple refresher to its true status as one of the world's great alcoholic drinks, with a long tradition and deep roots in the history and culture of many societies. Jackson was a tireless writer and lecturer. He showed to the millions who read his books, heard his talks or watched his television programmes and videos that beer comes in many styles and is often made with the addition of fruit, herbs and spices alongside malt and hops. He broke beer free from the narrow concepts of ale and lager and revealed the myriad varieties available, some - such as the lambic beers of Belgium or the sati beers of Finland - so obscure they might have disappeared but for his enthusiastic support."
Obituary: Michael Jackson | Life and style | The Guardian
|
|
|
[25 Jun 2009|04:52am] |
"Tangerine"
The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra
Male vocalist: Bob Eberly
Female vocalist: Helen O'Connell
Words by Johnny Mercer; Music by Victor Schertzinger
#1 from the week of May 9, 1942 through the week of June 13, 1942
(Male singer)
Tangerine,
She is all they claim
With her eyes of night and lips as bright as flame
Tangerine,
When she dances by
Senoritas stare and caballeros sigh
And I've seen
Toasts to Tangerine
Raised in every bar across the Argentine
Yes, she has them all on the run
But her heart belongs to just one
Her heart belongs to Tangerine
(Female singer)
Tangerine,
She is all they say
With mascara'd eye and chapeaux by Dache.
Tangerine,
With her lips of flame
If the color keeps, Louis Philippe's to blame.
And I've seen
Clothes on Tangerine
Where the label says "From Macy's Mezzanine".
Yes, she's got the guys in a whirl
But she's only fooling one girl
She's only fooling Tangerine!
Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra - Tangerine Lyrics
|
|
|
[16 Jun 2009|04:53pm] |
Typo of the day: from redbox.com
 | | Friday the 13th
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2:00
Starring: Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Terrence Stamp
|
Now that would be an interesting flick....
|
|
|
[16 Jun 2009|09:27am] |
I ran across this meter:
|
|
|
[08 Jun 2009|04:05am] |
The Clod and the Pebble
William Blake (1757-1827)
"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rakehell's journal