Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The Voice of the People
There have been many instances throughout history in which marriage has been defined. Two come to mind: miscegenation laws prohibiting the marriage of African-Americans and white Americans, and the Nuremberg Laws prohibiting the marriage of Jews and non-Jewish Germans. To those who rail against gay marriage: Someday people will see your views for what they are.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/index.html#ixzz1PwUmG9XU
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/index.html#ixzz1PwUmG9XU
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Although I commend Herman Cain in winning his battle with cancer, it does not necessarily make him an ideal GOP candidate. I was taken aback with his fumbling answer to whether he would have a Muslim serve in his administration. In the past, he has said he "wouldn't be comfortable" with it, in the GOP debate, he attempted to assuage his previous comment, to little avail. A week later, and he is still trying to shut down his bigotry but continues to tie Muslims to terrorism threats.
Not too long ago, African Americans were not allowed a vote, much less hold office. They battled tremendous discrimination (and this includes Native Americans, Hispanics, Catholics, Jews, Asians, women, etc), Cain is exhibiting the same type of ignorance. Religious bigotry and racial bigotry come from the same poisoned well, my friends. Our Constitution says that all men are created equal, and it's my understanding that someone who was born in this country has every right to serve in the Government, regardless of color or religious beliefs.
Good pizza though.
Not too long ago, African Americans were not allowed a vote, much less hold office. They battled tremendous discrimination (and this includes Native Americans, Hispanics, Catholics, Jews, Asians, women, etc), Cain is exhibiting the same type of ignorance. Religious bigotry and racial bigotry come from the same poisoned well, my friends. Our Constitution says that all men are created equal, and it's my understanding that someone who was born in this country has every right to serve in the Government, regardless of color or religious beliefs.
Good pizza though.
Monday, June 13, 2011
The Meeting
The woman he met. He met a woman. This woman was the woman he met. She was the woman he expected to meet to planned to meet or had carved into his head in full dress with a particular nose and eyes and lips and a very particular brain. No, this was a different woman, the one he met. When he met her he could hardly stand her because she did not fit the shape in his brain of the woman he had planned so vigorously and extensively to meet. And the non-fit was uncomfortable and made his brain hurt. Go away, woman, he said, and the woman laughed, which helped for a second. He trailed the woman for a few days saying it was because he had nothing else to do, but in truth he did have plenty to do and he did not know why he was trailing her. His brain made a lot of shouts and static about his brain's own idea of hair color and sense of humor and what animals the woman he met would like (mammals) and his brain's own idea of how to be a member of the world, and everything that was sort of like him and yet different enough and still; this woman he met was the woman he met and however you try, you cannot unmeet.
His brain was in an utter panic at changing. His brain was very pleased with its current shape and did not want to shift, not one bit. This woman like reptiles and fish. What sort of decent human being could possibly like reptiles and fish?
He said, Go away, woman. You go away, she said, shooing him with her hand. You're the one following me around all the time.
They went on a walk- or rather she went on a walk and he asked if he could join her-together over the small bridge which ran over a dry stream and looked down at rock which jutted up like teeth. She talked significantly more than he expected the woman he met to talk and so while she was talking he thought she is surely, and clearly, not the woman for me. Blabbermouth, he thought. She paused at an oak tree, and said, Did you stop listening to me? and so he started listening again and said some stuff himself, about this, about that. He liked talking to her. The woman said she did not know why she liked him, as he was being something of an irritation with all this static in his head and he said he was sorry, he liked her too, but his brain kept rejecting her and he did not know what to do about that. The woman said, Please, would you shut your brain down for five seconds and let the world participate a bit? No, said the man. I control the world. The woman's laughter bounced off the rocks below. The man laughed too but inside he still meant it.
The woman said goodbye and went to her cottage and made some spaghetti and the next day guess who was at her door. Good afternoon. How are you, how are you. The spaghetti was fine-tuned and she was beautiful in the filtered sunlight and they made love that afternoon with the green sunlight through her green curtains. Her body was new to him and he did not like the way her shoulders were so broad and he very much liked the slope of her hips and he was scared because he did not know how to navigate the curves they made together. Later, when he would become the ship's captain on the waves of the water of their bodies, it turned out that those broad shoulders were the thing he would think of with the most lust and the most tenderness. Those broad shoulders would be what he would recognize in a crowd if they all had paper bags on their heads. Those broad shoulders he could spot across an ocean.
The following day, after the green-curtain day, he was back. They ate cold spaghetti out of paper cups on the stoop. He said, I just don't know if I want to marry you. She snorted. What? He said, I'm sorry but I'm just not certain that you are my future wife. She spit some spaghetti out on the stoop in a little red clump and he thought it was gross and she was laughing again, not with, definitely at. He said, I always thought the woman I'd marry would hit me easy, in a bolt of lightning, and there is not lightning there is not even thunder there is not even rain. It all feels, well, foggy, he said. And she said, What makes you so sure I want to marry you? and he said, Oh, hmm, and she said, Why would I consider marrying a man whose brain is so bossy? I need a man with some calm, she said. He looked at her nose, thin and long and her eyes, thin and long the other direction and her hair was straight and long and shone. He had a bite of spaghetti off her fork. They sat for a while on the stoop and watched the lizards skit and scat until the mailman came by and delivered some letters- two bills and a postcard from her cousin on an island. She made faces at the bills and laughed at the postcard and scrutinized the little type in the upper left-hand corner telling her where it was and then looked at the picture on the front for longer than he had ever looked at all the postcards of his entire life.
When they made love that day it was one step closer to making sense and she brought them some wine afterward and they watched the sunset through the green curtains, naked, with deep-bellied glasses of wine. The green darkened into black. He let his hand trace each of her vertebrae and she did not say, That tickles, stop, like he thought she might. She just looked out the muted curtain and her hair swished at an angle. He moved his fingers down her whole spine, one by one by one, and during the time it took to do that, his brain remained absolutely quiet.
It is these empty spaces you have to watch out for, as they flood up with feeling before you even realize what's happened; before you find yourself, at the base of her spine, different.
His brain was in an utter panic at changing. His brain was very pleased with its current shape and did not want to shift, not one bit. This woman like reptiles and fish. What sort of decent human being could possibly like reptiles and fish?
He said, Go away, woman. You go away, she said, shooing him with her hand. You're the one following me around all the time.
They went on a walk- or rather she went on a walk and he asked if he could join her-together over the small bridge which ran over a dry stream and looked down at rock which jutted up like teeth. She talked significantly more than he expected the woman he met to talk and so while she was talking he thought she is surely, and clearly, not the woman for me. Blabbermouth, he thought. She paused at an oak tree, and said, Did you stop listening to me? and so he started listening again and said some stuff himself, about this, about that. He liked talking to her. The woman said she did not know why she liked him, as he was being something of an irritation with all this static in his head and he said he was sorry, he liked her too, but his brain kept rejecting her and he did not know what to do about that. The woman said, Please, would you shut your brain down for five seconds and let the world participate a bit? No, said the man. I control the world. The woman's laughter bounced off the rocks below. The man laughed too but inside he still meant it.
The woman said goodbye and went to her cottage and made some spaghetti and the next day guess who was at her door. Good afternoon. How are you, how are you. The spaghetti was fine-tuned and she was beautiful in the filtered sunlight and they made love that afternoon with the green sunlight through her green curtains. Her body was new to him and he did not like the way her shoulders were so broad and he very much liked the slope of her hips and he was scared because he did not know how to navigate the curves they made together. Later, when he would become the ship's captain on the waves of the water of their bodies, it turned out that those broad shoulders were the thing he would think of with the most lust and the most tenderness. Those broad shoulders would be what he would recognize in a crowd if they all had paper bags on their heads. Those broad shoulders he could spot across an ocean.
The following day, after the green-curtain day, he was back. They ate cold spaghetti out of paper cups on the stoop. He said, I just don't know if I want to marry you. She snorted. What? He said, I'm sorry but I'm just not certain that you are my future wife. She spit some spaghetti out on the stoop in a little red clump and he thought it was gross and she was laughing again, not with, definitely at. He said, I always thought the woman I'd marry would hit me easy, in a bolt of lightning, and there is not lightning there is not even thunder there is not even rain. It all feels, well, foggy, he said. And she said, What makes you so sure I want to marry you? and he said, Oh, hmm, and she said, Why would I consider marrying a man whose brain is so bossy? I need a man with some calm, she said. He looked at her nose, thin and long and her eyes, thin and long the other direction and her hair was straight and long and shone. He had a bite of spaghetti off her fork. They sat for a while on the stoop and watched the lizards skit and scat until the mailman came by and delivered some letters- two bills and a postcard from her cousin on an island. She made faces at the bills and laughed at the postcard and scrutinized the little type in the upper left-hand corner telling her where it was and then looked at the picture on the front for longer than he had ever looked at all the postcards of his entire life.
When they made love that day it was one step closer to making sense and she brought them some wine afterward and they watched the sunset through the green curtains, naked, with deep-bellied glasses of wine. The green darkened into black. He let his hand trace each of her vertebrae and she did not say, That tickles, stop, like he thought she might. She just looked out the muted curtain and her hair swished at an angle. He moved his fingers down her whole spine, one by one by one, and during the time it took to do that, his brain remained absolutely quiet.
It is these empty spaces you have to watch out for, as they flood up with feeling before you even realize what's happened; before you find yourself, at the base of her spine, different.
Friday, June 10, 2011
check it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXmY2b6Fybg&feature=related
skip to the two minute mark, if you just want a gist. she has been the rhythm to my summer. I don't know how to add videos...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK7N-cqjOjQ&feature=related
and what?!?!? Dianna Argon (Quinn) from GLEE????!! What an unlikely and dynamic duo!
skip to the two minute mark, if you just want a gist. she has been the rhythm to my summer. I don't know how to add videos...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK7N-cqjOjQ&feature=related
and what?!?!? Dianna Argon (Quinn) from GLEE????!! What an unlikely and dynamic duo!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
keen (trenchant) observations
An afternoon on the soccer fields with a FoxNews-Mother.
(a tall, morose individual, undoubtedly adolescent, blunders by our bleachers, recanting the game to a friend)
Amanda: Whoa, that guy looks awkward, tall-awkward.
Mother: (takes a long pause to accurately place him) He's the spitting-image of Joran van der Sloot.
If you don't know who Joran van der Sloot is, then...GOOD. If you do, then your mother probably floats into sweet, sweet dreams with Bill O'Reilly every night of the week.
(a tall, morose individual, undoubtedly adolescent, blunders by our bleachers, recanting the game to a friend)
Amanda: Whoa, that guy looks awkward, tall-awkward.
Mother: (takes a long pause to accurately place him) He's the spitting-image of Joran van der Sloot.
If you don't know who Joran van der Sloot is, then...GOOD. If you do, then your mother probably floats into sweet, sweet dreams with Bill O'Reilly every night of the week.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
GRE exercise #1
I'm relying on everyone's keen acumen to help me in the pedantic task of learning GRE rhetoric. I simply need to stop with the querulous attitude and be strong and brave as a bear. However, I can't help being a little rancorous; I'm just an iconoclast in the polemical face of hegemony. I feel recalcitrant when it comes to the ETS authorities, grading my intellect. Such a specious way to judge because, honestly and obviously, it can prove a spurious strategy. How about get to know me first??! Huh? Oh, well. Hopefully, studying will help to mitigate the fear I have of this gigantic test.
Monday, June 6, 2011
another convo with a 14 year old
Amanda, sitting lazily on the couch, squints skeptically at a shoebox with the name "Gotta Flurt" on it. The shoebox sits unassumingly on the coffee table in front of her. She picks up the box and cautiously opens its lid, pulling out one dazzling, sparkling off-broadway converse shoe, further dappled in shiny white sequins. Her younger sister reclines on the couch, texting with concentrated, furrowed eyebrows.
Amanda: Julia, are these shoes for dance-team or...
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Oh okay...(in a singing, mimicking way) "Gotta Flurt!"
Julia: (mumbling under her breath) You're cool.
Amanda: What'd you say?
Julia: Nothing.
Amanda: Well, you're obviously NOT cool, because these shoes are entirely hideous. And they promote illiteracy.
Julia sinks deep into the couch cushion and even deeper into her adolescent cliche.
And SCENE.
okay, i didn't really say that last part, but i wish i did. But really, how does making the word "flirt" into "flurt" sell more shoes? Who markets this shit???? REALLY??!?!? Really.
Amanda: Julia, are these shoes for dance-team or...
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Oh okay...(in a singing, mimicking way) "Gotta Flurt!"
Julia: (mumbling under her breath) You're cool.
Amanda: What'd you say?
Julia: Nothing.
Amanda: Well, you're obviously NOT cool, because these shoes are entirely hideous. And they promote illiteracy.
Julia sinks deep into the couch cushion and even deeper into her adolescent cliche.
And SCENE.
okay, i didn't really say that last part, but i wish i did. But really, how does making the word "flirt" into "flurt" sell more shoes? Who markets this shit???? REALLY??!?!? Really.
Friday, June 3, 2011
after a light-hearted long weekend, which included but was not limited to, all of the indulgences available. chess-squares, chinese buffet, horrible television, die-hard action movies starring angelina jolie, floating in a pool, good friends and good talks, even diatribes on capital punishment and planned parenthood, that's right...yet, i came to oxford, still so heavy-hearted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)