things I like this week, vol. 20

There's something about this time of year I really enjoy. The weather was perfect today; not too cold, but crisp and damp, and the clouds were thick jagged strips of cotton that partially obscured the mountains. We ate a egg and bacon croissant with fruit in a small bakery near our house; I've put up most of the Christmas decorations, with pine branches spread over the wood mantle, silver stars speckling the green, and white lights on our tree.

I have sipping chocolate and wine, and we had a rich dinner, and friends are over and we're writing with the rain dribbling down outside. And even though I still have inches left of papers to grade, I can feel the end drawing near, and it comforts me.

. . .

I love the drama of platinum hair. And her attitude about organic vs. big guns - I'm sort of similar. I'll do what's healthy/organic/responsible only up to a point. Although I'm almost contemplating following a gluten free diet for awhile and seeing what happens.

. . .

Give it your best. All anyone can ever ask for, and a perfect book inscription.

. . .

Unhate.

. . .

It's a shame that I only found out about McQueen after he died. His aesthetic is one that I adore.

. . .

Totally unconcerned.

. . .

I am in love with macabre jewelry, although I still really just want Keith Richard's skull ring.

. . .

It's a great concept, but this is the only photo whose composition I enjoyed.

. . .

Love the atmosphere of this print, and of several of his others.

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NG's picture of the day.

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My current favorite off her new album.

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Red baubles in white snow. <3

things I like this week, vol. 19

So apparently I've been saving up things for this post for the last month and a half. Not going to do it all in one post, though. That'd be crazy.

. . .

So surreal.

. . .

I don't remember who the designer or the museum was, but Andre Leon Talley curated the exhibit somewhere in the south, and I really want this dress.

. . .

Not very trashy, for a Suicide Girl. And I love her tattoo.

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The Library of the Future.

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Awesome cat.

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Love the concept, not sure about the execution.

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via Bookshelf Porn.

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Damien Hirst.

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"There are no black flowers in this world. Only flowers that appear to be black."

lying up

The other day, as a joke, I told my students I was turning 40 today.

(The little smart things that they are came back immediately with, "Really? We thought you were older." Zing.)

But it got me thinking . . . the stereotype is to lie and say you're much younger than you are, which has always seemed perfectly silly to me, especially once I realized that if people believe you, they're very likely going to think you look a little haggard for your age.

How much more intelligent to lie up instead of down? Then people think you look fantastic, and endow you with assumed wisdom and experience to boot.

I think I'm going to be turning 40 for at least the next five years.

snowy evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I'm not a big Frost fan. His poems are so often bandied about (and beaten to death in high school literature classes) that they've become cliché.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," though, has never lost its appeal to me. The simple use of repetition to create the underlying metaphor always, always resonates - and the imagery is so clear and lovely it makes me long for snow and winter.

I miss the northern part of the state very much, especially around this time of year.

love poem on a rainy evening

Madrigal Written in Winter

(English Translation)

In the depths of the deep sea,
in the night of long lists,
like a horse your silent
silent name runs past.

Lodge me at your back, oh shelter me,
appear to me in your mirror, suddenly,
upon the solitary, nocturnal pane,
sprouting from the dark behind you.

Flower of sweet total light,
bring to my call your mouth of kisses,
violent from separations,
resolute and delicate mouth.

Now then, in the long run,
from oblivion to oblivion the rails
reside with me, the cry of the rain:
what the dark night preserves.

Welcome me in the threadlike evening,
when at dusk it works upon
its wardrobe and in the sky a star
twinkles filled with wind.

Bring your substance deep down to me,
heavily, covering my eyes,
let your existence cut across me, supposing
that my heart is destroyed.

-Pablo Neruda