12/31/10

“Wide-eyed, grinning in the darkened room…”
Every night as I go to sleep I realize what I need to do.
“…Coming in the morning in the afternoon / Forgetting…”
Every morning I’ve forgotten it.
“…Fully dead already but forever young…”
If I could change anything it would be their inability to change.
“…There's some things that I'm regretting…”
Don’t berate yourself. That was the best mere thought ever had.
“…A gypsy told my fortune then I told her hers…”
I like that about you. Most people get ethically elitist.
“…You'll be looking for your lover in the midnight sun / And you'll perish for your lover when the frost has begun…”
I have a philosophical objection to dichotomy.
“…Why love one thing and not the other…”
You have to like the person you are or be the person you want.
“…I am destroyer / I am lover…”

12/30/10

The poor Cyclops, intention never known, who has no control over whether he is perceived to be blinking or winking.

I don’t think we understood each other or ourselves.

12/29/10

Alcoholics are like pessimists, except instead of always having a half-empty glass, they always have an empty glass.

“…Alcohol, I still drink to your health…”

12/28/10

That's why I'm asking: I'd never do something like that without your okay, or at least your meh.

It's more a thought than a potential action.

12/27/10

Another SI single, from comparing too easy to pick on Washington institutions: the Redskins and the Democrats.

12/26/10

Clue: Museum Caper removes the elegantly simple gameplay of the original but adds a necessary component for mystery, trading the element of whodunit for the thrill of perpetration. Clue players may as well be third person inspectors far removed from the incident. Clue: Museum Caper players must identify with their pawns.

12/25/10

Things have changed.
Foremost, I have settled in a place where I am content with my past and present. For that I have obtained some new things, prominent among which is a netbook, the ubiquitous Bleem. Which, being ideal for my daily commutes, allows new opportunities for communicating just when I have so much I want to relate. So, appropriately enough, it is time to proceed with what I have begun.

12/24/10

You know how they always say, never trust wikipedia, but you do, because, I mean, really, okay, it's true theoretically that something could be wrong, but, c'mon, it's wikipedia? And, I mean, if there were an inaccuracy, you'd expect it to be something really esoteric and not immediately verifiable, by, say, a 7th grader with a budget of $2.25?
“Wikipedia teaches me things. But I can't ever let anyone know. I have to pretend I found the facts in a peer-reviewed journal.”
Now wikipedia has taught you the greatest lesson of all.


Something wiki this way comes.

12/23/10

12/22/10

Fishing for compliments, but just the remarks are biting.

“You never say hi any more.”
Works both ways. The Commutative Property of Saying Hi to People in the Office

12/21/10

Every single time I sneak back to my past, my wit is found. Back from STL, with a third-place SI!

12/20/10

“That rainbow looks symbolic.”
<5 minutes later> The Senate just repealed DADT.

12/19/10

Two Watchers were killed. Whodunit?

As Cinder, oldest and wisest of the Fae, I found Oberon was distracted, Titania flighty, and the soulless Vampyrs everywhere. Puck was causing mischief with Arthur, and by the time I had an eye on him, Watcher #3 was killed. I tasked Puck and his sister Nineve with protecting the other Watchers, keeping the latter safe, the former [mostly] out of trouble, and working together we secured one of the weapons: a wand. Then a Vampyr keeled over: but a few minutes later he was up and about again. Still, since too many knew about the wand, I secretly entrusted it to the Fae assassin, Bounty, with orders to use it only by command of myself or Lord Oberon, who was the only other I told. Unfortunately, I then discovered the reason for Oberon’s distraction: a preoccupation over a vendetta with Merlin over his harassment of Nineve. It was a risk, but I took the wand back for myself, not sure if Oberon’s judgment would be unbiased enough.

Investigations indicated that the Court held a murderer. A Watcher’s spell cleared Morganna. A Vampyress tried to manipulate me against Guinevere, but it was clear she was innocent. I cornered Arthur alone in a back hallway, and brandishing the wand, compelled him to tell me what he knew; it was clear the lad was rash, but no murderer. With time almost up, and for Oberon’s sake- I returned the wand to Bounty, and unleashed her on the last possibilitiy: Merlin.

My crime was hardly concealable: even if the manner of Bounty weren’t known and Oberon’s motive not public knowledge, the Vampyress, Arthur, and the Watchers all knew that I had murder weapon, and my alibi wouldn’t stand up. So be it.

The Inquisitor revealed the truth. I had killed Merlin. Merlin had killed one of the Watchers- but only one, the third victim. For Merlin had deduced that that Watcher had gone rogue, and in fact the murderer of the first 2 slain Watchers!

12/18/10

The best present is being present.
The best thank you note is an available couch.

12/17/10

Facebook e-mail accounts: for those people who like the convenience and features of normal e-mail, but wished Mark Zuckerberg could read it over their shoulder.

I’m like-button phobic.

12/16/10

"What Holds the Heart" offers a challenge: are its lapses due to acting, directing, writing, producing, or which combination thereof? This perplexing question often is more captivating that the actual performance. But as much could be said about those flaws, that was not why the play was seen: quality is not the only quality.

And yet there a few scenes where what transpires on stage, especially despite the obstacles, lets something transcendent slip through, moments when the audience can feel their breath held.

12/15/10

“Blah, blah, blah…”

A 25 year old acting like a 17 year old acting like a 25 year old; half a joke (about nonstandardized spelling?), half an operatic tragedy. The entire nation one day will wake up and stumble slowly home, shamefully realizing that they did Ke$ha.

12/14/10

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUGS

12/13/10

“Nonce words ending in -ed ('provided with') may produce other rhymeless words, such as be-fezzed (wearing a fez) and aitched (full of H's). However, these are not always certain (rached, a horse with a white streak down its face?).”

Zeugma Appreciation Society, Chicago chapter.

“So I'm still wondering, are we anti-rhyme or pro-rhyme?”
We're anti-rhyme, except in cases of rape or incest.

12/12/10

“I got my sights set…”

People, pages, plays, packages.
I wish I didn’t have to look back.
I wish I didn’t have to look forward.

“…I can’t wait to see you again…”

12/11/10

“Water Engine” is a different play having been seen as well as heard. The sounds heard are spatial, not lineat. The props only exist in the mind, except for the messages: scripts, letters, points of light. The characters skip into and out of the narration. But it also becomes a different play from the intervening time feauring an alleged persecution over released information.

12/10/10

Whatever’s left.
[My white elephant is a white elephant.]

12/9/10

Again saw Black Swan, recognizing what had already been seen.

12/8/10

I have one last candle flickering; not a candle any more, just a flame, sitting on my menorah, dangling it's legs over the rim of the candleseat. The candle is gone, but the flame is all, “It's a beautiful night, I'm not yet ready to turn in. You all go ahead without me; I'll catch up later.”. And then he just sits and watches and smiles warmly.

Those who do not understand why I still use the menorah I made in preschool, and not an expensive “nice” menorah I’d have been bought or been given or had made more impressively, they are looking for a work of art, judging everything by a standard they don’t even understand. They don’t see that I see something I created, something that resonates with me, something I’ve used. Where I see a cross-section of tree rings, they see wax needing to be scraped off, evidence of use obscuring bare utility, residue obscuring shine. They don’t understand that residue can be beautiful. Or they only understand selfishly, conflating their opinion about their own residue with universal truth, and ignoring as ugly what another perceives as beauty.

You’re feeling poetic.
I’m feeling poetically.

12/7/10

“Come inside my love and join me / I’m your worst nightmare…”

Creature of the night, or at least not daylight.

“…Tonight I’ll spread my wings…”

12/6/10

Black Swan is a glimpse into a world where everything is strictly black and white: the rigidity of dance, the institution of a performance troupe, the brusque NYC, the stark white and black color schemes. There is no comprehension of emotion, no place for red in this world collapsing into itself with the realization of monochromatism.

But there is a meta pleasure, in viewing a committed vision into a narrow, tragic (indeed, tragically narrow) world. Like the realization that which color is irrelevant in a world where the revelant fact is the realizing the schismatic nature of the world, the film is simultaneously a part of and a culmination of the prior elements in Aronofsky’s canon.

12/5/10

The extra unused stove/oven sitting in the corner of the laundry room has been transfigured into an abandoned mini toaster oven in the opposite corner.
“I’ll be in the corner reading poetry and prose…”

Because it's 2am and I'm sufficiently impressed and before you go into hiding, I should probably tell you that “stop doing that” is said loudest and most often in first person, and thank you.

“…You can’t force a dance party…”

12/3/10

Diplomats and spies have motive and means to kill, yet the agency of demise is a crime of passion. The only elements missing are Assange’s corpse and Christie’s pen.

12/2/10

Even the ground under dragons wobbles.