Flight Of The Conchords - The Humans Are Dead

Pretty much the best song ever, man.

I can't decide if my favourite part is, "affirmative: i poked one it is dead" or the binary solo....

What bullshit shall our brains feast upon today?

My, but is has been a while, hasn't it? I am still not REALLY here, as I am amazingly busy with school and home and work. But I was trying to write the proposal for my senior thesis, and one of the sites I was looking at was translated by someone associated with "Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity." I was interested in the idea--and the name, which seemed to be Nahuatl or something like it. So I went to the site and one of the many things there (http://www.tlaxcala.es/default.asp) was a set of cartoons by this guy Kalvellido. I especially liked the one I placed here in my blog.

The word bubble in the panel means, "What do they want us to believe today?"
I often feel like "the powers that be" intend for us to actually stick our heads into the television set like an oven and just broil our brains in the pixels until we have no thoughts of our own left.

Savvy child

toothpastefordinner.com

Bil’in, Ramallah: June 29, 2007: Two Israeli Demonstrators Arrested

By the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) Media Team

Many internationals and Israelis joined today the Palestinian residents of the village of Bil’in in their weekly demonstration against the Apartheid Wall and the occupation – and of course in solidarity with Iyad Bornat, who has been arrested since the previous demonstration. As usual, the peaceful demonstrators, among them many children, chanting and holding Palestinian flags, tried to reach the Wall/Fence.

As soon as the first demonstrators arrived at the point of the road where the soldiers had put barbed wire, the soldiers started to shoot tear gas canisters at them. Because of the amount of tear gas, the direction of the wind and the high temperature, the majority of the demonstrators were forced to step back. Two Palestinians, an Israeli and three Internationals managed to stay at the area despite the soldiers bombardment of teargas. A teargas canister nearly hit one of the internationals in the leg.

An Israeli demonstrator, former soldier of Golani battalion, was in the front talking for a long time to the soldiers, through a huge cloud of gas. A Palestinian member of the Popular Committee of Bil’in and an international tried to extinguish a small fire caused by the gas canisters. A few more internationals and Palestinians managed to reach the area. But finally the soldiers attacked the peaceful demonstrators with gas and sound bombs, and they arrested the Israeli demonstrator. Later we were informed that there was also an Israeli woman arrested.

The demonstrators tried several times to step forward again, but they were dispersed with teargas and rubber bullets. Palestinian residents of Bil’in, some of them children, also faced the same treatment while there were trying to collect the gas canisters.

Miss Teen USA South Carolina 2007 with Subtitles

Maybe we should just disband the United States. Kentucky could do all right on its own; we'd just have to repeal that law outlawing hemp cultivation, and we'd be back in the money as our own sovereign nation. That way we can wage war on South Carolina and kill all the stupid people. (except my family, who emigrated there. not native.)

And now for something completely the same

I am trying to cope with the extreme busy-ness of being back in school. I am happy to be here, but for right now, I cannot say anything of Spain, but only put this webcomic up... "entertain us; I feel stupid and contagious."


marriedtothesea.com

Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I loaded a few more pics, so see if you can look at these:

http://louisville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2078769&l=a8902&id=38313542

I will write more soon, but for the nonce I am having way to much fun hanging out with my family, loving on my husband, cleaning my house, and trying out my new-found Spanish cuisine on whoever will eat my cooking. I promise to reflect, in writing, veddy soon.

Las Fotos de la Vida Española, quizás.

Weeelllllll....

I am almost home, my peoples. I am extremely happy about this prospect, and am sure to write more about Spain in retrospect and in the comfort of my own home, with my American shower and my Mac iBook (baby, I missed you!) wherein I can upload many photos. In the meantime, I had had to stow a few photos on Facebook, who purports to allow public viewings of photo albums. Try it and see. Paste the links below into your browser and see if you can take a look at a few of my photos. Post a comment to let me know if it worked or not, m´kay? Each of the two links goes to a different photo album.

http://louisville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075252&l=4dbfc&id=38313542

http://louisville.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077498&l=62b95&id=38313542

Yes, you like? Jakshemesh.

La Vida Española Part 4: Barcelona is Catalán for Barcelona

So... I know I said I´d write about Salamanca in this next post, but I think I have to write about Barcelona instead. It´s pretty much the coolest. Well, no, it´s not; it´s really humid and it´s full of people and I had had enough of those 2 things after 48 hours; but the ART! Holy majoly! And, in addition, there was the coolest bookstore I´ve yet seen in Europe. It almost rivals Shakespeare´s in Madison, Wisconsin. Almost.

We--my new friend from the trip, Brittany (from Carson-Newman College in Tennessee) and myself--went to Barcelona Thursday after class (by Renfe train--woo.hoo.) and stayed till midday Sunday, when we headed "home". It´s a curious thing how relieved I was to be back in Segovia; it is home, at least temporarily. At least it´s familiar, and smaller, and friendlier.

Our first full day in Barcelona was spent first at La Sagrada Familia and later at Las Ramblas and the Egyptian Museum. La Sagrada Familia was, without a doubt, the most amazing thing I have seen in Spain, and comes close to being the coolest thing I´ve seen in Europe. It´s absolutely breathtaking. I hope it´s finished before I die so I can go see it. The place was designed by Antonio Gaudí (who is fast becoming one of my most favourite creative minds of all time), who died in a freak trolley (I think) accident shortly after being given charge of the project. The church has now been under construction for 125 years--it is Europe´s Taj Majal, fo´reals. Here are some pictures of the exterior:

This is what the finished church will look like:


Gaudí is known as the master of modernisme, and took his design inspiration from nature. So the inside of the cathedral, for instance, looks like a canopy of trees, when you look up. It´s freaking unbelievable:


We went to the top of the completed spires for an incredible view of Barcelona. Perhaps I´ll be able to post those pictures soon....

We proceeded from La Sagrada Familia to La Pedrera, another building designed by Gaudí that you will all recognize as the emblematic picture of Barcelona (and to some, Spain).

We didn´t go in, but rather continued on down Las Ramblas, which is a series of streets positively FILLED with people, vendors, stores, street performers, music and all manner of diversions. It´s an incredible strip of city. There is an incredible covered open air market popularly called "La Boquería" (Mercat Sant Josep in Catalán, properly) where I actually managed to encounter ORGANIC VEGETARIAN FOOD! Oh happy day! These Arabs ran this booth that sold crepes filled with cous cous, carrots, eggplant, olives, tahini, and every other kind of excellent Mediterranean food you can imagine. It was like being home, eating that stuff again. Ahhh... And at this market there are all these booths selling EVERYTHING, but especially fresh fruit juices (I tried, over the course of two days, Kiwi, Papaya, Mango and Coconut--all fantastic) AND fresh coconut pieces, a whole pack for only €1! It was the best dessert ever. Pretty much. Here´s a picture of the market:


The next day we went to the Parque Güell, which requires it´s own blog entry, fer real. Google-image it and see what happens. It´s freaking unbelievable, and not surprisingly therefore, also designed by Gaudí. We also went to the Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona, which was really cool. Outside was a multitdue of skateboard kids making a hel of a racket and using the front of the museum as a skate park, which I thought was pretty cool in a Bohemian kind of way. Inside the museum we only saw the permanent collection, which was inCREDible. Among the highlights were two art films, one Italian and one German, of which I did not watch in their entireties, for fear of driving Brittany out of her mind (not a "contemporary art" kind of gal, but she was very open-minded about the whole thing nonetheless). There was also an incredible slide show piece that was a series of photos from the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Well... I have more to say on Barcelona, but not much money left on my internet time. More to come folks. See you in 11 days!!!!! Woo hoo.

La Vida Española Part 3: La Granja

Soooo... I have been graciously informed by my lovely Spanish professor from UofL that gypsies are rumanas because "many of them come from Romania and their language is Romani or Romany. The theory is that they are originally from India and have migrated westward. That's all Alpha knows on the subject...."

So that´s interesting. P.S., in case you were wondering, this particular professor is
(A) "Alpha" because she is the top-dog (according to her and me and pretty much the whole universe) en cuanto a linguistics and Spanish, and I am the Alpha-in-training, because she was trying to inspire some confidence in me when I took Hispanic Linguistics and was nervous about speaking spontaneously to the class about such a technical subject. She told me to repeat to myself (inside my head) "Who´s the Alpha Dog? I am!" in order to pump myself up and such before talking in front of peeps in Spanish. It has helped, I´ll tell you! and
(B) apparently a reader of my blog (while I´m in Spain at least) which makes me a little chagrined, since I tend to use the curse-words more than a little frequently, with the assumption that the only people reading this already know I´m a pottymouth. Well, now Alpha is in the loop too.

Onwards and upwards... I went to La Granja today. It is a royal palace and gardens that look like this:
Here is a website about it for those of you who read Spanish, and for those of you who don´t, there are still some cool pictures! http://www.rurismo.com/pueblo/pueblo.asp?poblacion=8777

It was incredibly beautiful, and is only about 20 minutes by bus from Segovia--a busride which costs a mere €1.08, I´ll have you know. La Granja is gorgeous: filled with acres of hedges and flowers and statues and statuaries, not to mention the incredible palace--fully appointed--and the breathtaking mountians in the background. The place (yes, I meant place, not p-a-lace) was built in the early 18th century (that´s the 1700s, you guys) by Felipe V (which we say en español "Felipe Quinto," which sounds funny said aloud and amuses me, although not as much as Carlos Quinto. That´s just hilarious. Ah, the alliteration...). This is what his rich, sissy ass looked like:


OMG, I´m so glad the 18th century is over. Except for the gardens, of course, which were so much more amazing than the palace, as beautiful as the palace was. I think I´ll go back for a second gander in the gardens, because there is a hedge maze I didn´t get to see, and lots and lots of artwork in the forest that I didn´t have time for, either. Plus, now I have a bus schedule, so I don´t have to worry about getting stuck and having to walk 20 miles and then getting sun stroke and dying. And all because I wanted to walk in a hedge maze.

In other news, classes are fine. I love my professor (singular, because I dropped the theatre class, but that´s a story for another post), and I love the subject, and I love being able to walk in and around and on and through the subject. It´s good to be here while studying "here" as a topic. Spain has so much history, and so much culture, and it´s just amazing. My señora told me they found human remains from Roman times underneath the city when they were constructing a parking garage a few years ago. And I´m sure it´s not the first time; Spain has had people in it for like at least 4,000 years. It´s freaking amazing. The Phoenicians came here a bajillion years ago and the iberocelts were already like, "Wassup, homies? You want to grow some olives here? That´s cool. We got this whole sheep raising thing going on, but whatevs. Oh, and you have wine! That´s a neat idea. You guys can hang with us, but you have to worship bulls. Okay?" And it just got crazier from there, I tell you. It´s so cool.

Also, next time I´m writing about Salamanca, which--I have decided--is one of the coolest places I´ve ever been. Hope y´all are well. Happy July.

Putas Rumanas; or La Vida Española, Part 2

Fucking gypsies.

That´s right; you people all heard me; I got robbed! ROBBED, I tell you! What a bunch o´crap. Don´t you all worry; I´m okay.

I should back up, and tell you what transpired.

So. We arrived in Segovia yesterday (Friday) midday from Madrid, a mere hour bus ride. My señora, Amparo, picked me up at the bus station and took me to her beautiful flat near the Plaza Mayor from which one can see the Cathedral looming large. It is simply perfect. Amparo is pretty much the nicest Spanish woman ever (but then again, aren´t they all?); she lives alone with one very friendly cat named Boni (like as in pretty); she has one son who is in his twenties and lives in London (or Londres, as they say in español). She works in a travel agency and she is just so nice. And she makes great food. For lunch (el comer) she made a salad with just iceberg lettuce and tomato, but then she added little slivers of watermelon, and then salt and olive oil. It was so awesomely awesome.

Aaaaaaanyway, after we ate, I took a little siesta, having had almost no sleep the night before (it´s almost impossible to sleep without my husband). I woke up with the breeze coming in my window, the cat staring at me from my desk, and all seemed right with the world. So I went out and walked down to the aqueduct where I met up with the rest of the group. My professors gave us a great tour of Segovia, from the Alcázar (the castle where Isabel and Ferdinand lived and the real inspiration for Walt Disney´s princess castle--contrary to the popular legend that his castle was inspired by Neuschwannstein (dunno if I spelled that correctly) in Germany) to the aqueduct. It was extremely hot, but in Spain one just sort of ignores the heat in favor of more alluring foci of attention, like refrescos, and frescoes, and old buildings, and synogogues, and churches, and shops, and chocolate, and coffee (which my señora has in abundance, thanks be to God!), and all that.

After the tour, some of the other chicas on the trip that I am becoming friends with and I decided to take a little break and sit in a café. I split a chocolate ice cream with my friend, Brittney, and we just chilled, about 8 of us.

After the tasty break, we took a stroll past this feria de libros, or open air book fair. I was really jazzed because I thought I might find some cheaper books there (books are expensive in Spain, by and large). I was at the booth of this woman who was selling children´s books, mostly. I was asking her a question when this little girl, no more than 13 years old, kind of sidled up to me and bumped into me, trying to look at some teeny-bopper looking shit in the booth. I looked at her when she brushed me, and she turned away. I continued asking my question to the dueña (shopkeeper).

Aaaaanyway, not more than two minutes later, I had turned away from the booth and we were walking back towards the aqueduct. All of a sudden I noticed that my little purse was sticking out a little bit from the top of my bigger purse, and I suddenly had this drop in my stomach with the sudden knowledge that someone had been in my purse. And I checked to see that my wallet was still there and--big surprise--that little gypsy punk girl had stolen it right out of my zipped purse. She had tried to take the other little purse in there too (containing only incidentals--toiletries and the like), but hadn´t been able to fit it through the little opening she had made when she managed to wheedle my zipper open a little. ¡Puta verdadera! In Segovia they call these girls rumanos; I´m not sure exactly why, but it means gypsy/transient. Anyway, all she got was some Listerine breathmints, about €25 cash, my ATM Fifth-Third card, my driver´s license (which is about to expire anyway), my student ID card from UofL as well as the International one. So I borrowed some money from one of the other girls, went to this internet café, found the number of the bank, called the bank, cancelled the ATM card, went back online to get the PIN number for my other (UofL) card, went to the ATM and got out more cash with my UofL debit card. Fortunately, my passport was back at home with my extra credit cards. The only thing truly lost was my international student ID card. So no more museum discounts. Boo. And I´ll have to get a new UofL student ID, which costs $3 or something. And I had to get a new driver´s license anyway, so whatevs.

Anyway. Thus concludes the tale of my first 9 hours in Segovia. How ironic it is that I spent all week in Madrid (gigantic city with more people, crime, danger, whatever) without any problem, and as soon as I get to Segovia, I get my sorry ass robbed. Sonuvabitch. Furthermore, how many freaking countries have I been to, with nary a problem? I guess it was just my time. It could´ve been worse. I´m glad I didn´t lose my passport. Qué será, será, and all that.

Well. Since then, everything has been uphill. (This is funny if you know Segovia, wherein everything literally is either uphill or downhill--great for the gams and thighs, eh? Not to mention the glutes.) As I said, my señora is really wonderful and is going to try to find Brittney (remember: ice cream friend) and me a cheap hostel that is nice and safe in Barcelona when we go on our long weekend right before my birthday (our free travel weekend is July 19-23). Since she´s a travel agent, Amparo has a nice hook-up in Barcelona who can help us out, hopefully. And she likes me a lot because my Spanish is good and she can tell I´m smart. And I like her because I can tell she is smart, and elegant, and motherly. She gave me an umbrella to use today because it rained! How thoughtful. Which was awesome because it was stiflingly hot earlier. I went out with two other friends, Vanessa (from Cincinnati!) and Andrea, at 10 am and we walked all the way around Segovia like three times. At about noon, noon-thirty we stopped to have a Coke in the Plaza Mayor, and it was SO BRIGHT. And HOT. We returned to our homes in time for lunch at 2:30 (I went home a little early) and right after I got home it started pouring rain. The wind was pretty fierce too, and Amparo was late getting home because she got stuck in a store during the downpour. When we did eat at about 3:15, we had these awesome grilled-cheese-sandwiches-crossed-with-french-toast kind of things. I´m totally making them when I get home.

We will have dinner at 9:30, which is actually kind of early for Spaniards. But Amparo likes to go out for long walks at night, so maybe I´ll go with her tonight. Or maybe I´ll stay in and do the copious amounts of homework that I still have. Hmm...

I miss you all so much. I hope you are doing well. I will try to figure out if I can upload pictures at this internet café, so you can see what Segovia looks like.

La Vida Espanola parte 1

Hola de Espana! Forgive me; I'm using a PC laptop from one of the other students and I don't know how to make it do tildes or accents or upside down exclamation points. So, ghetto Spanish.

So here I am. After one painful, coffee-deprived day of jet-lag, we had our first day of classes yesterday (Monday), and they went really well. I think I will like my classes a LOT. I get to do a project, for example, on a photography exhibition at La Academia de las Bellas Artes the theme of which is the transition from fascism to democracy in Spain in the 1970s during the fall of Franco and the restoration of the crown. Yay! I also get to do a presentation on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) on the smoking ban in Madrid that recently took effect. You'd never know it, though; EVERYONE smokes in cafes, bars, restaurants, the subway, EVERYWHERE.

And as far as Madrid goes, we're here until Friday, when we go to Segovia to meet our host families and begin the second, "Segovia" part of our trip. I'm looking forward to it, because I can really profundizar (deepen) relationships with Spaniards, whereas in the colegio (boarding school) where we are staying this week in Madrid, there isn't enough time or peace to get to know any other the other kids really well. In fact, the students here are really friendly, and there are all kinds of camps going on, in addition to normal classes. There are high school students who live here normally, plus little little kids age 6 to 10, middle school age kids, and then us, Americna college students. I haven't figured out exactly who is in charge, because while there are lots of programs going on, lots of kids, and college-age counselors directing them, there aren't really any 'adults,' you know? It's sort of like Lord of the Flies, if they had managed to develop some kind of stable society instead of killing Piggy. ("Sucks to your asmar.") The camps are for kids to either learn Spanish or English, and they are boisterous, noisy bunches of kiddoes. But that makes it more like home. They are kind of afraid of us KIIS students when we try to talk to them, though, so I stopped trying. The counselors are really friendly, though. There are these two girls I've made friends with, Ana and Consuelo, and they are supernice and cool. They have given us help with our Spanish and recommendations on what to see in Madrid. It's pretty cool.

Meanwhile, I am also slowly getting to know (and like) the people in my KIIS group a bit better; but unsurprisingly, the people I like best in our group are the professors. They are really nice and funny and they like me because my Spanish is good and I am a good student (unlike most everybody else here who is pretty lazy, in my opinion, and VERY American--in a bad way--about a lot of things... how to act in public being at the top of my list, their complaints about the food, their persistence in speaking English, being a few more...). And since I have been able to talk to a lot of the students at the colegio, I am gaining more confidence every day in my Spanish skills. I was talking to one student last night for a few minutes who thought I was Spanish--and it wasn't the first time. I've been asked by various Spaniards if I am Irish, Belgian, Puerto Rican or Spanish, but I haven't yet been asked if I'm American. No one assumes this of me. I consider it a success. :) I understand about 85 - 95% of everything said to me, so I'm feeling pretty good about things right now. And I really like my classes, although there is a LOT of homework.

So. I'll have more to say when I have more time and energy, but right now I have lots o' homework, and only about 8 hours in which to do it. :) I miss you all, and yes, I'm alive, so don't worry. I'm walking a lot, too, which feels GREAT! At least 3 or 4 miles a day so far. Woo hoo!

Required Summer Reading

Just for shits and giggles (and it does make me giggle a fair amount, I'll tell you):


Sooooo... It's been awhile since I posted. I've been busy working, and spending lots o'time with my husband and kiddoes, and visiting my mommy et al out of town, and participating in Emily's wedding (pics to come--I think). I'm leaving for Spain SOON, and I'm kind of freaking out about it, if you want to know the truth (to quote H. Caulfield). I have also been trying to get a bit of reading in before I leave, and I finished the Philip Pullman trilogy last week. I cried all through the end of the book. It's an amazing story, and you don't know where it's going about 90% of the time (unusual for me + young adult fiction), and it's really really good to read. And then you get to the end, many things click into place, and it's just HEART-wrenchingly awesome and painful. I am still processing many things about the book, but I'll tell you this: it is in the running to be one of my top-ten all time favourite books. Ever. I mean, if you take the three together as one work, that is. Because they're like Lay's potato chips: you can't eat just one. (Was that Lay's? Or Pringles? I can never remember.) I really am loathe to talk much about the books, though, because one cannot summarize without spoiling parts of the plot and some important thematic elements. I suppose the most important thing to tell you is that the book is a sort of spiritual/philosophical treatise, told through the story of this girl called Lyra. There are several other main characters, but some of them don't come in till the second book, so I wouldn't want to give away which characters become important and which ones are less so. Suffice it to say that the books are a refutation of the fatalism of the religions with which we are familiar in this world, and instead the trilogy seeks to offer an alternative cosmology and dogma. In fact, I feel that the Pullman trilogy is a parable which represents most of my religious/spiritual beliefs. It's just SO GOOD. Go read it. Right now. Please.

I have also started reading a comic (oh, 'scuse me, ahem... 'Graphic Novel') called Castle Waiting by Linda Medley. It is so great. My husband--who knows my tastes to a tea, and indulges them so generously--recommended it to me, and bought me my very own hardback of the first collection (which is all the story that's been published so far). It is sort of a reworking of many popular fairy tales and childhood stories that we in the European-influenced world are familiar with. It uses some of the most popular myths as a backdrop for fleshing out this world and this story in which a castle (Sleeping Beauty's castle) is sort of "left behind"--abandoned. But the servants wait on. Meanwhile, this pregnant woman on her own seeks out the castle as the place to birth and raise her child. We don't know what she's running from, but we presume it's the father of the baby, right? Anyway, the whole story is just hilarious, and full of good witches and bad witches and wisewomen, and storks and bears who talk, and demons and princes and blacksmiths and ladies-in-waiting et al. Linda Medley draws beautifully clearly and with a lot of whimsy, adding to the overall cleverness and fun of the unexpected tales she turns.

So go read. And wish me luck as I "Vaya con Dios" to España. ¡Oy!

Possibly the best one

I promise this is the last one. (Maybe.)

Again with the bustedtees.com

Puns and off-colour allusions are better than work

From the website bustedtees.com:

Blood for Oil--Literally

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- American Red Cross officials are offering the chance to win free gasoline as an incentive to get more people to donate blood.

This summer, each donor will automatically be entered in a drawing to win 35-hundred dollars' worth of gasoline. Entries for the first drawing, July 23rd, are already being accepted. An identical raffle will start July 23rd and run through September 16th.

Every day, the Red Cross also will award a 25-dollar gas card to a randomly selected donor.

The Red Cross chapter runs about 25 blood drives each day throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey. During summers, it struggles to get blood donations.

Allright, everyone.... How much do you love your SUV? Bleed for it, bitches!

Patron Saint of Mediocrity: NOT Buckle

Thomas is reading this book from the late 1890s called The History of Civilization in England by Henry Thomas Buckle. It is a thick tome which covers a variety of topics and the classification of which I can only identify as anthropology. Now, British anthropology of the 1800s varies widely from that which we would consider sound today, but what Thomas has read to me has struck me by its breadth of consideration as causalities in the course of human events.

This morning, Thomas read these excerpts to me. They refer to King George III. Perhaps you can see a parallel to another 'King' George we all know so well... (When reading, substitute "Americans" for "Iraqis.")

"The determination of the king to oppress the Americans was so notorious that, when the war actually broke out, it was called the 'King's War,' and those who opposed it were regarded as the personal enemies of their sovereign." Footnote continuation by Nicholls: "The war was considered as the war of the king personally. Those who supported it were called the king's friends; while those who wished the country to pause, and reconsider the propriety of persevering in the contest, were branded as disloyal." (465)

"His reign, indeed, was the golden age of successful mediocrity; an age in which little men were favoured, and great men depressed...." (466-467) *Ahem* C student at Yale *ahem*...

Mediocrity is a theme Buckle returns to time and again in his book; this of course puts me in mind of Salieri, the tragic character in the movie Amadeus. My sister and I, inspired by how much the knowledge of the limitations of one's own talent can drive one insane and make oneself evil, used to muse about Salieri in his drowning mediocrity. He hated himself for not having Mozart's abilities, and he hated Mozart for not appreciating his own.

While this is a creative interpretation of real, historical people, and who really knows what Salieri thought of Mozart, I think Buckle would have appreciated Salieri's internal torment. At least Salieri knew he was mediocre, and wished to be great. In our age, people revel in their mediocrity and call it "individuality," inspired by nothing and striving for nothing, complacent and lazy, while more industrious people and nations pull their puppet strings without them even seeing.

And one last, parting thought from Mr. Buckle. Here he refers to Burke, an important member of Parliament during the time of George III. He wanted, late in his life, to wage utter war on France, and detroy it completely. Below is Buckle's reaction to Burke's evil intentions. And with regard to the end of his quote, can you think of "any other man"? I can think of at least one, and more if you count his war hawks...

"It was to be a war to force a great people to change their government. It was to be a war carried on for the purpose of punishment. It was also to be a religious war. Finally, it was to be a long war. Was there ever any other man who wished to afflict the human race with such extensive, searching, and protracted calamities?" (475)

Reclusion is SO a word. Is not! Is so. Is not! Is so. Is n--

I changed my blog template--again. I hope you all don't mind. I liked the other layout (it featured a picture of what I am pretty sure was a plaza in Buenos Aires); however, the columns were too narrow and it frustrated me. So. Hopefully this will allow better formatting of pictures and text.

I will write more soon; I am a little bit down today, and a LOT tired, and mostly thirsty and just wanting to read. I am in intellectual reclusion.

recluse |ˈrekˌloōs; riˈkloōs; ˈrekˌloōz| noun a person who lives a solitary life and tends to avoid other people. adjective archaic favoring a solitary life. DERIVATIVES reclusion |riˈkloō zh ən| noun ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French reclus, past participle of reclure, from Latin recludere ‘enclose,’ from re- ‘again’ + claudere ‘to shut.’

For Your Consideration

And may I suggest the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman? I just (literally) finished reading Book One called Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in America). It is inTENSE. It is a book not easily described, either; to even attempt to explain the plot is difficult. I'll say this, though: it is much more subtle and intricate than anything J.K. Rowling has written, although I think it is meant to speak to the same audiences--firstly, that age group of 10 - 13ish. Nevertheless, any adult reader will be captivated by it. It revolves around the character of Lyra, a semi-orphan who was raised in Oxford at Jordan College by no one in particular and everyone in general. She becomes embroiled in some very secret experiments that challenge the prevailing cosmology and dogma of the Church. P.S. This is in an imagined world, much like our own, but not it. For example, while there is Christianity and Oxford and boats and cars, there are also dæmons, which are like a person's soul and their best friend in one. All humans have one, and they take the form of an animal, and one which reflects the true personality of a person. Childrens' dæmons change with regard to situation and emotion, whereas at the age of puberty, dæmons become fixed.

...But I've said too much already! Anyway, this book is fantastic and compelling, complete with armored bears and a total world of children. In fact, I've never seen a story in which children's thinking and interaction and motivations and desires and repulsions are displayed so accurately. In Pullman's novel, children have agency, and their own code of ethics, and their own logic. These are real rules, too; true of children in our universe and not just invented for Pullman's fiction. The novel shows children as they really are, not as we adults sometimes like to think they are. Children are clever, cruel, brave, capable, and free in ways that we forget as we age. Philip Pullman invests the children in his book with a wholeness one cannot find in the Harry Potter books, or the Lemony Snicket series, or even The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. He never reduces them to a single motive, and never underestimates or undermines their ability to be actors in their own story. This is an important lesson for any adult reader to take from the book and be reminded of in her own interactions with children in her own life.

In short, go read it. It's the bee's knees. And the movie of the first book (of which I speak) is coming out in December of 2007. http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

And P.S. Thanks to Luke and Kelly for introducing me to His Dark Materials by buying me the (British edition! of the) trilogy for my birthday.

And now for some random Aurora Borealis: