“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…”

“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.

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

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

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.

“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…”

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.

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…”

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.

Even the ground under dragons wobbles.

Watched HP7.1, which, like every other HP film, diverges in feeling from its predecessors; but unlike the predecessors, that feeling is at most secondarily from technical reasons. Certainly the doubled length, the lengthy interval since reading the once-read source, or the filmmakers’ accumulation of experience contribute to the effect. But the setting is different: this is a quest into the real world, not against the backdrop of education. The characters are different: these aren’t shepherded schoolchildren, but mentorless new adults. The theme is different: this isn’t yet another progression step on the path to maturity, but with a defined endpoint visible.

“I can be alone, yeah / I can watch a sunset / On my own…”

Happiness is not needing to seek approval.

“…Make me very very happy…”

Another joyful return after a long hiatus, with a SI single into third place.

“The kisses of the sun were sweet / I didn’t blink / I let it in my eyes…”

Looking back and forward, and seeing familiar forgotten faces, who are recognizing, remembering, stating firmly and warmly: You are one of us. This is where you belong. Stay.

“…And now the night is gone / Still it goes on and on / So deep inside of me…”

Such familiar faces, with names that on the edge of recollection; such familiar names that have drifted away from the face; such familiar stories that are shared among such divergence. Everybody has a bright future ahead. Everybody speaks, everybody listens, everybody understands each other.

“…And everybody’s singing…”

For one night, everybody was the most popular kid in high school. For one night, Past and Present are balanced in joy.

“…La la la la la…”

“You'll remember me when the west wind moves…”

Misheard “I never make promises lightly” as “I never make promises I can’t keep”. Both convey the same idea, but there are underlying linguistic differences. For “can’t” is a definite binary, unlike the spectrum of capability implied by “lightly”, with a Venn diagram of promises that could be kept and promised that were. But the actual lyric is especially disappointing in the context of the following “And there have been some that I’ve broken”. For “can’t keep” modifies promise, but “lightly” modifies make. Thus what is expected to be a contrast, with an impersonal statement instead of the active subject, is instead a parallel.

“…Many years have passed since those summer days…”

I hear a different tune, and I look upon the same path.

“…When we walked in fields of gold…”

The worst Thanksgiving travel horrors are those which are self-imposed.
The best Thanksgiving travel graces are those which are gratefully given.

“If they had brought my luggage, but didn’t deliver it onto dry land- it would have been enough.”
“And if I had been picked up at the airport, but hadn’t gone to Nando’s- it would have been enough.”

“Speaking words of wisdom…”

"Take care" is unoptimistic, assuming a dreary miersable world which requires its occupants to focus lest they never see each other again, their planes not arriving properly unless they doublecheck the destination with a flight attendant. The care is wariness, not meticulousness. And yet, this also assumes a world in which occupants are in complete control over their outcomes: with enough care, anything is achievable.

Whereas "[god] be [with you, [wherever you may go]]": that has a freedom, and the opposite of determination. "[see you] later": clingy, certainly, but acknowledging a bond, by which some day the interaction will be resumed. Unlike "take care", which enjoins us with our own responsibility, these conclusions are passive, with a defined or undefined higher power in control of what will happen.

For I like being, not the overachievement of being. I do not listen to make; I hear be. Lack of control does not bother me; for there is a difference between external and internal control, and what I do not is being unable to control internals, and having to control externals. "Take care" is not my world.

“…Let it be…”

“What's your position on the Elgin Marbles controversy?”

As they say in Canada, that’s what she said.

“Some of my friends from LSE thought they could just hop a fence and wander around the Acropolis, the fools.”They might have been British.

“What are you doing? What- what- what are you doing?”

Neither the sassy nor the gay are what’s necessary for averting tragedy.