kkdalloway

I need to get my blonde on.

 

What do you need?

unfortunately I havent

 

They're amazing. If you like scifi and fantasy and have any interest in Celtic and Irish mythology then you will love them!! The series is called The Keltiad, Fantastic books! The Celtic mythology aspect is so well done! She uses so many Gaelic words and phrases in the story that there's a glossary in the back of the books so you can follow. I absolutely adored them!! Found the Gaelic stuff so fascinating that I bought a set of language tapes and tried to teach myself conversational Gaelic.

Anyone else read Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's amazing scifi/fantasy books?

I do think it's a bit lame to write off entire genres though, there's plenty of fantasy out there which would appeal to someone who isnt a big LOTR fan

 

people like ursula k le guin, michael moorcock, etc know how to write fantasy that non-fantasy fans can enjoy

 

Good on you for throwing Michael Moorcock in there! He's great!

from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Act V, Scene 1

 

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended -

That you have but slumb'red here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding than a dream.

Gentles, do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

 

-- William Shakespeare

 

One of my favorites of Shakespeare's. Incidentally, some of you might remember that the character Neal performs this soliloquy during a performance of the play in the movie Dead Poet's Society.

 

O Captain! My Captain!

 

Walt Whitman

 

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

 

 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

 

 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

 

Well done!!

from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Act V, Scene 1

 

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended -

That you have but slumb'red here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding than a dream.

Gentles, do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

 

-- William Shakespeare

 

One of my favorites of Shakespeare's. Incidentally, some of you might remember that the character Neal performs this soliloquy during a performance of the play in the movie Dead Poet's Society.

excerpt from

Ode: Intimations of Immortality

 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises with us our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

 

-- William Wordsworth

Song

 

She sat and sang alway

By the green margin of a stream

Watching the fishes leap and play

Beneath the glad sunbeam.

 

I sat and wept away

Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam,

Watching the blossoms of the May

Weap leaves into the stream.

 

I wept for memory

She sang for hop that is so fair:

My tears were swallowed by the sea;

Her songs died on the air.

 

-- Christina Rosetti

Stromboli. So good! I ordered a small and it's still as big as a house. I'll be eating it for lunch all week long.

http://newshour.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/2012/11/14/Lincoln-Movie-Poster-1536x2048_extra_big.jpg

Beer Shepherd.

 

Righteous!!

Heck yeah! After all, you do have "shepherd" on your resume, right? ;)

Favorite IPA is probably Bell's Two Heated Ale.

 

I've tried so many, all of them great. One favorite was New River Pale Ale brewed by Old Dominion.

 

Right now, I have a Dogfish Head 60 and 90 minute IPA in my fridge so I can make an Alehouse 75 Minute IPA. And it will match my new amp!

 

 

Holy cow, IPA connoisseur!! I'm taking your list with me to the beer store next time I go. Cool that you have the Dogfish Head in the fridge. Will def. pair very nicely with the Reverb. Whoo!

That is certainly respectable. Highly respectable. I have bought that several times, myself.

 

Dogfish Head is good too. What's your favorite?

Sierra Nevada Torpedo is prolly my favorite.

Next up: Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.

 

I know a guy at work who drinks that. He's gay.

 

 

Eh, it was left over from Thanksgiving. It's kind of pretty awful, actually. I ran out of the IPA I had. Maybe I'll do some Scotch rocks instead!

 

<--------- LOVE this stuff!

 

Wait... You like IPA's?

 

Tell me about it.

 

Yep, India Pale Ale. Hoppy! You too?

Next up: Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.

 

I know a guy at work who drinks that. He's gay.

 

 

Eh, it was left over from Thanksgiving. It's kind of pretty awful, actually. I ran out of the IPA I had. Maybe I'll do some Scotch rocks instead!

 

<--------- LOVE this stuff!

Next up: Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.

Manhattan, rocks, two cherries.

It's long but it's worth every minute.

 

 

Sunday Morning

 

 

1

 

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

As a calm darkens among water-lights.

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Winding across wide water, without sound.

The day is like wide water, without sound,

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

 

2

 

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measure destined for her soul.

 

3

 

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.

No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave

Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.

He moved among us, as a muttering king,

Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

Until our blood, commingling, virginal,

With heaven, brought such requital to desire

The very hinds discerned it, in a star.

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be

The blood of paradise? And shall the earth

Seem all of paradise that we shall know?

The sky will be much friendlier then than now,

A part of labor and a part of pain,

And next in glory to enduring love,

Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

 

4

 

She says, 'I am content when wakened birds,

Before they fly, test the reality

Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;

But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields

Return no more, where, then, is paradise?'

There is not any haunt of prophecy,

Nor any old chimera of the grave,

Neither the golden underground, nor isle

Melodious, where spirits gat them home,

Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm

Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured

As April's green endures; or will endure

Like her remembrance of awakened birds,

Or her desire for June and evening, tipped

By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

 

5

 

She says, 'But in contentment I still feel

The need of some imperishable bliss.'

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams

And our desires. Although she strews the leaves

Of sure obliteration on our paths,

The path sick sorrow took, the many paths

Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love

Whispered a little out of tenderness,

She makes the willow shiver in the sun

For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze

Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.

She causes boys to pile new plums and pears

On disregarded plate. The maidens taste

And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

 

6

 

Is there no change of death in paradise?

Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs

Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,

Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,

With rivers like our own that seek for seas

They never find, the same receding shores

That never touch with inarticulate pang?

Why set pear upon those river-banks

Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?

Alas, that they should wear our colors there,

The silken weavings of our afternoons,

And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!

Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,

Within whose burning bosom we devise

Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

 

7

 

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men

Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn

Their boisterous devotion to the sun,

Not as a god, but as a god might be,

Naked among them, like a savage source.

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,

Out of their blood, returning to the sky;

And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,

The windy lake wherein their lord delights,

The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,

That choir among themselves long afterward.

They shall know well the heavenly fellowship

Of men that perish and of summer morn.

And whence they came and whither they shall go

The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

 

8

 

She hears, upon that water without sound,

A voice that cries, 'The tomb in Palestine

Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.'

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable.

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail

Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;

Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

 

-- Wallace Stevens

I'm there on the Goodreads.but lately I keep forgetting to update it when I read something new. I don't like the rating thing either. 5 stars is not a wide enough span to rate something as many faceted as a written work.

Uh... okay, I apologize in advance for grossing anyone out.. but tonight I had Kraft Dinner and fried Spam, with ketchup on everything. And, I actually finished it... now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the outhouse.

 

The ketchup ruined it. I might have been okay with just the box 'o mac and the Spam....

Had a cheesesteak, jack and blue bites (Monterey jack cheese dipped in a buffalo wing batter and deep fried -- they are ADDICTIVE.....like mozzarella sticks only 10,000 times better!) and two Blue Moon drafts. A nirvana of a meal.

The Indigo Bunting

 

I go to the door often.

Night and summer. Crickets

lift their cries.

I know you are out.

You are driving

late through the summer night.

 

I do not know what will happen,

I have no claim on you.

I am one star

you have as guide; others

love you, the night

so dark over the Azores.

 

You have been working outdoors,

gone all week. I feel you

in this lamp lit

so late. As I reach for it

I feel myself

driving through the night.

 

I love a firmness in you

that disdains the trivial

and regains the difficult.

You become part then

of the firmness of night,

the granite holding up walls.

 

There were women in Egypt who

supported with their firmness the stars

as they revolved,

hardly aware

of the passage from night

to day and back to night.

 

I love you where you go

through the night, not swerving,

clear as the indigo

bunting in her flight,

passing over two

thousand miles of ocean.

 

-- Robert Bly

 

LOVE this poem. LOVE this poet. Every single word he has ever written astonishes me.

Stars Over the Dordogne

 

Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy

Picket of trees whose silhouette is darker

Than the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.

The woods are a well. The stars drop silently.

They seem large, yet they drop, and no gap is visible.

Nor do they send up fires where they fall

Or any signal of distress or anxiousness.

They are eaten immediately by the pines.

 

Where I am at home, only the sparsest stars

Arrive at twilight, and then after some effort.

And they are wan, dulled by much travelling.

The smaller and more timid never arrive at all

But stay, sitting far out, in their own dust.

They are orphans. I cannot see them. They are lost.

But tonight they have discovered this river with no trouble,

They are scrubbed and self-assured as the great planets.

 

The Big Dipper is my only familiar.

I miss Orion and Cassiopeia's Chair. Maybe they are

Hanging shyly under the studded horizon

Like a child's too-simple mathematical problem.

Infinite number seems to be the issue up there.

Or else they are present, and their disguise so bright

I am overlooking them by looking too hard.

Perhaps it is the season that is not right.

 

And what if the sky here is no different,

And it is my eyes that have been sharpening themselves?

Such a luxury of stars would embarrass me.

The few I am used to are plain and durable;

I think they would not wish for this dressy backcloth

Or much company, or the mildness of the south.

They are too puritan and solitary for that—

When one of them falls it leaves a space,

 

A sense of absence in its old shining place.

And where I lie now, back to my own dark star,

I see those constellations in my head,

Unwarmed by the sweet air of this peach orchard.

There is too much ease here; these stars treat me too well.

On this hill, with its view of lit castles, each swung bell

Is accounting for its cow. I shut my eyes

And drink the small night chill like news of home.

 

-- Sylvia Plath