Sometimes when the game is on the line...

Hysterical, brilliant parody of the new Star Trek movie. READ IT.

For all of my fellow Trekkie friends, new and old, if you don't already know about trek_news, you should check it out. No need to join a ton of comms to keep up with Trek fandom- let Trek News do it for you.

For any of my friends in the Cambridge/Somerville-y areas, if you don't know about The City Slicker Cafe, it really is the best place around to get pizza. The crust is fantastic beyond my ability to describe, they have an awesome selection of toppings (my favorite is the make your own, with goat cheese, green peppers, roasted garlic, and fresh basil), and they have DIVINE French Fries. And they make their own freaking ketchup. Mmm, mmm good.

Last post for National Poetry Month, and of course, I must go out with one last e.e. cummings poem.

Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and

what a gently welcoming darkestness--

now i lay me down(in a most steep
more than music)feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are)only loaned:whereas
night is given(night and death and the rain

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring

He's my favorite. I can't help myself.

look by e.e. cummings

look
my fingers,which
touched you
and your warmth and crisp
littleness
--see?do not resemble my
fingers. My wrists hands
which held carefully the soft silence
of you(and your body
smile eyes feet hands)
are different
from what they were. My arms
in which all of you lay folded
quietly,like a
leaf or some flower
newly made by Spring
Herself,are not my
arms. I do not recognise
as myself this which i find before
me in a mirror. i do
not believe
i have ever seen these things;
someone whom you love
and who is slenderer
taller than
myself has entered and become such
lips as i use to talk with,
a new person is alive and
gestures with my
or it is perhaps you who
with my voice
are
playing.

If you've heard of it at all, there's a good chance you've written it off as a cheap knock-off of CSI with a military spin; a mediocre, right-wing procedural. But this is about the furthest you can get from what NCIS actually is. It is, in fact, a funny, quirky, character driven show that was created by the same man who came up with Quantum Leap. And so:

( Ten Reasons Why You Should Watch NCIS )

As a child, I was totally obsessed with flying (which led to all sorts of accidents, and taught me many hard lessons, such as the fact that jumping off the roof with trash bags taped to one's shoulders is not a good idea). As an adult, said interest has not really lessened (and still occasionally leads to accidents- e.g. the infamous hang gliding incident in Kitty Hawk).

It's not really surprising that I have always identified with this poem.

High Flight
by John G. Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

I remember when I first encountered "The Second Coming" in high school. I'd read some Yeats before, but nothing quite so foreboding (or quite so fascinating). It very much took my breath away (and is still rather does these days, too).

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Judith Viorst is best known for her children's books, but I found this poem of hers in an anthology of love poetry, and it appeals in the same way her Alexander books do.

True Love by Judith Viorst

It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there's no one here but him,
And because
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packers
Even though I am philosophically opposed to football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.

It's true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking them and the next morning I couldn't get out of bed,
He wouldn't tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he'd save me.

It's true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I had to stay home with the painters and the exterminator and the baby who was getting the chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I wouldn't let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,
And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion,
We still feel something
We can call
True love.

A long-ish ramble and a poem.

I used to hate Emily Dickinson, mostly due to a horrible English Lit teacher I had in high school. I used to be convinced that you had to live a wild, crazy, intense life in order to be a good writer. Combine this with the fact that my horrible teacher insisted Dickinson was the greatest poet of all time (and told me I was WRONG when I told her I had a slightly different opinion), but then had us over-analyze some of the least appealing (to teens, at least) of Dickinson's poems... you can understand why I wasn't a fan.

And then I went to Syracuse University. For anyone who doesn't know, Syracuse, NY is the third snowiest city in the US. They get the oh so special "lake effect snow" from October to May. The sun does not shine during that time. Ever. I learned all about seasonal depression at Syracuse.

And so when I took a Dickinson & Frost Lit class, and came across this poem, it really, really spoke to me. And just like that, I was a Dickinson fan.

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons -
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes -

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us -
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are -

None may teach it - Any -
'Tis the Seal Despair -
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air -

When it comes, the Landscape listens -
Shadows - hold their breath -
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death -

He's my favorite poet- I certainly can't let the month go by without posting a few more cummings poems. I'm particularly in love with the first stanza of this poem- the language and imagery are just both so utterly gorgeous.

along the brittle treacherous bright streets
of memory comes my heart,singing like
an idiot,whispering like drunken man

who(at a certain corner,suddenly)meets
the tall policeman of my mind.
                                                  awake
being not asleep,elsewhere our dreams began
which now are folded:but the year completes
his life as a forgotten prisoner

-"Ici?"-"Ah non,mon chéri;il fait trop froid"-
they are gone:along these gardens moves a wind bringing
rain and leaves,filling the air with fear
and sweetness....pauses. (Halfwhispering....halfsinging

stirs the always smiling chevaux de bois)

when you were in Paris we met here

Today, another poem I found in an anthology, by Kenneth Fearing. It's ridiculous, funny, and yet still manages some moments of utter lyricism.

( Love 20¢ the First Quarter Mile )

Burroughs was known mostly for his naturalist essays, but I stumbled across this poem in an anthology once, and very much fell in love with it:

Waiting

SERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

Today, one of my all time favorite poems- "Lullaby", but W.H. Auden. A fantastic poem all around, but the first stanza is especially gorgeous.

( Lullaby )

When I was in college, my brother Jack gave me the Charles Bukowski poetry collection Love Is a Dog From Hell (best title ever). I was immediately struck with the poem "The Crunch", which to this day remains my favorite of all of Bukowski's poems.

( the crunch )

I adore William Butler Yeats, and have since I first discovered him when I was about 14. "The Second Coming" is both one of my favorites and his best known poem, and I was tempted to post that one, but instead, I'm going with "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death". This was the poem that introduced me to Yeats, and one of the ones I memorized during my super poetry obsession in high school.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
by W.B. Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

April is National Poetry month, so I have no choice but to post a few of my favorite poems throughout the month.

It's no secret that e.e.e cummings is my favorite poet, and the first poem of his that really got me into him is still one of my all time favorites today:

being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

--do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
whatever sages say and fools,all's well

General Whovian Rec List Part 2 last updated March 30, 2009.

The list was getting a bit too unwieldy, so I split it. Doctors One through Five can be found here. All of my Doctor Who rec lists can be accessed here.

Organized by Doctor's era. Adult fics are labeled as such.

( General recs part two )

It's Monday. Mondays are evil. So, I shall fight back with a picspam of Three and Sarah Jane being adorable.

( Are you going to give me away, Doctor? )