"Bittersweet" --- a Rondeau

"It must be nice," the serpent sighed
Unto the young and guiltless bride,
"That though your tender skin is bare
As is your mindscape, you don't care!
But don't you hate your lack of pride?

Insist that you be dignified!
For what's the use of truth untried?
So ripe and juicy, hanging there...
It must be nice."

This foul advice the snake supplied.
It made the maiden turn aside,
Away from His despairing stare,
To bittersweet, enticing fare,
And reaching for the pome, she cried,
"It must be nice."

Vampire tourism has gotten rather big out in Forks, judging by the souveniers my sister and mother brought back. A t-shirt saying "Twilight Lounge." A roadsign saying "Welcome to Forks. Population 3562 Vampires 8.5." A magnet shaped like a ruby red apple with the word Seattle emblazoned across it. Okay, perhaps that last one is actually just for Seattle and the connection is entirely coincidental. But you never know.

I tell you what, this Edward vs Jacob thing may be getting just a wee bit out of hand. You're either on Team Edward or Team Jacob. Daph came back from having visited La Push, and she called it "stinky werewolf land" on her Facebook. This, by itself, seems rather innocuous, but the rivalry is getting somewhat vicious. I can just see it. The movie theater has two separate lines so no one starts anything. Hisses and taunts fly through the air. Team Edward throws an apple. Stuff gets started.

Sure, this all sounds insane. But when it happens, remember that I foretold it.

Frustrated Rage

Rage metaphysical, rage undeniable,
Rage wracking reason through,
Rage within and rage without,
Anger, ire, neon blue.

Psyche solid, psyche silk,
Psyche slipping the mental scene,
Psyche stagnant, psyche sick,
Slick psychosis, putrid green.

Useless hues, useless dudes,
Useless yammering fellow,
Useless, unyeilding. Useless, yuck,
Yelling yawp, I vomit yellow.

Cannot crawl and cannot climb,
Cannot counter, cannot flee,
Cannot call a cad a creeper,
Cannot reconcile "he" with "me."

Rage, unravel, rend and rue.
Yellow-green-insanity-blue.

You ever have one of those totally blank moments?

I'm having one right now.

I need to post something. Anything, really. I'm only at 11 and I need 20 at least before the end of this semester. I can't just leave it when I've got a wee bit of writer's block.

So! What to talk about? Hmmmmmm...

I suppose I'll talk about "Twilight." My mother and my sister are flying out today. Guess where they're going? You'll never guess. Well, I'll give you a clue. They are flying to Seattle, Washington. Take that, add it to the Meyers vampire novel, and what do you get?

My sister and mom are visiting Forks. The little nothing town in which "Twilight" is set. I refrain from passing judgement. I will say that I am jealous because I have always wanted to see the Pacific Northwest. Oregon, mostly, though I could never tell you just why. I suppose the Redwoods are a key factor. That, or the Native Americans from that area. I love the trickster Raven. And Coyote, though he's from a different area of North America. And Loki, though he's not from America at all. And Anansi... well, you get the drift. I love trickster characters.

Which is probably why I love Bruno Walton.

If you've never read the Bruno and Boots books, I would definitely suggest you do it before you get too old to appreciate the humor.

Perhaps I Should Get More Sleep...

I walked past the rehearsals of "Antigone" yesterday. They are going to put that on in Pegasus Theatre (I'm not sure if they spell it with the "re" or the "er" ending, but does it really matter? We all just call it Pegasus.) I know a few of the people in it, working on it, doing the lighting and so on. I almost wanted to go in and snoop, but I let them do their thing uninterrupted.

I tell you what, I was on the crew for the opera UCO put on a while back, "Perichole," and seeing some of those people (my sister'll know eXACTly who I mean) brought me right back to the fun-filled days of hefting potted plants and maneuvering the houses. Oh God the houses, remember that? Well, sorry, more than likely you don't, because only the crew called them that. They were the big set pieces that looked on one side like the outside of buildings, and on the other side like the inner walls of a dungeon. We had to make a very quick set change, we only had a few minutes, where we had to turn the houses completely around and get them into position before the curtains opened. It was delicate. It was tricky. It was aggravating. And then it was beautiful, genius, like clockwork.

The people that work at Mitchell Hall are brilliant. The set designs are just unbelievable. You should have seen what they did for "Metamorphosis" a few semesters ago, when I was taking my Scene Shop class. Good Lord. They built a pool. On stage. Under a gigantic chandelier. Which we put together. Tiny little bits of wire threaded through thousands of tiny little holes in the metal rings which held all the little glass diamond chandelier bits. We spent two hours in shop. Two hours, nonstop. And I got maybe fifty little wires put in. Maybe.

And then they took it apart. Sigh.

Oooooh, bevor ich gehe! Es war sehr interessant! Gestern, vor meiner Screenwriting Kurse, ein Mann sprach im Flur mit einem Handy, und er hat DEUTSCH gesprochen! Ich liebe das! GUT Deutsch. SCHNELL Deutsch. Sehr ausgezeichnet. Sagen Sie ihm nichts! :D

A Weary Scholar's Pantoum

Such typing - typing! - all day long...
Sore dactyls worn down to the nub...
Technology's incessant song!
It can't be helped, and there's the rub...

Sore dactyls worn down to the nub...
Alas, alack, it is my fate...
It can't be helped, and there's the rub...
A poem's due, it can't be late...

Alas, alack, it is my fate...
I'm stuck in here until I'm done...
A poem's due, it can't be late...
I wish to God I had a gun...

I'm stuck in here until I'm done...
Technology's incessant song!
I wish to God I had a gun...
Such typing - typing! - all day long...

Logically Speaking...

A bunch of random thoughts (which happen to travel in a bit of a train...)

If anyone should wear pants, it should be women, and if anyone should wear skirts, it should be men. Think about it. Who has less to squish into pants, hmmm? Men seem rather masochistic to me.

It's just not fair that men can go shirtless and women can't. The same rules should apply for both, considering that nipples abound either way and women can be just as attracted to men's chests as vice versa.

Why do the rules of virginity apply more to girls than boys? This society expects the girls to remain pure until marriage but guys are somehow less guy if they don't give it up in their teens. To keep both of these rules would mean that the guys would have to only have sex with already married women, or divorcees, or widows. And wouldn't that be a cultural taboo as well?

I'm sorry, Twilight fans. Vampires drink blood. This is their sustenance. Blood comes from mammals, usually. A deer, though not a human, is most definitely not a vegetable. Thus, Edward's vegetarian comment? No.

Also, vampires can't be good at heart. They're undead. Soul, gone. This is fairly much universally agreed upon, even by the vampires.

Werewolves can be good at heart as humans, but as wolves they're just surviving.

The movie "Madagascar" is idiotic. The lion is the villain because he wants to eat meat. He's a lion. That's what they do. And how is eating a fish any less villainous? Oh my god he's gonna eat the zebra... Oh, no, okay, we're good, he's just eating stupid fish. Who cares about the fish?

I feel bad for fish. Especially salmon. They wear themselves out just trying to get to the place they can procreate, and then all they do is eject stuff into the water. No fun at all, is it?

Thank God I'm not a porcupine. Do you know about their mating dance? It's effed up.

Val Kilmer's Bruce Wayne spent his Batman life "helping strangers [he] never met." Isn't that the definition of stranger? Someone you haven't met? Come on, man.

The scene in "Top Secret" in the bookshop is fantastic, and more people ought to see it.

Spoof movies generally suck. "Top Secret" is fun. "Loaded Weapon" is fun. "Airplane" is fun. But all the others I can think of are lame. There was ONE good joke in "Epic Movie" and ONE good scene in "Superhero Movie" and let's not get to the "Scary Movie" franchise.

And I think that's enough random thoughts for now.