why a cowboy?
“why a cowboy?” i asked her.
she pretended she didn’t understand the question,
giving me her
excuse-me-what-language-are-you-speaking?
look, designed and performed to make me feel
the world’s stupidest person.
this time, it didn’t work,
not with her beat-up straw cowboy hat
and the old, scruffy boots sitting next to her bare feet.
she squinted up at me–
i could see the scrunching of her eyes and nose
behind sunglasses;
for a moment
i wanted her to toss me aside,
use my dismissal to underscore how much
cooler she was than i ever would be —
tilting her head slightly.
ash blond curls scattered out from under the hat
in any direction they could manage.
she yanked her mouth to the same downward side,
tenderly biting the inside of her bottom lip.
i sensed in that moment
i mattered too little to her
for this glance to be anything more
than the moment’s pause before
i ceased to exist again.
i did not merit even stupid-person status,
just another guy trying too hard.
“o, that’s right. i forgot. you’re from Texas.
it’s your national costume, and you’re being patriotic.”
i think at that point she really did want to laugh,
but sometimes mere desire is not enough.
Aug 2003/Dec 2009
Happy Man-on-the-Moon Day
i was twelve on that July day,
the human race's most amazing
technological achievement.
i watched in grainy black-&-white
that was appropriately beautiful
for an actual miracle.
then Armstrong botched
his big line! how appropriately human.
of the two big events of 1969,
the one built on dreams
of the infinitely possible
has been set aside for lack of funding.
we give endlessly,
money and blood,
to the other,
the pursuit of wars
like the one that killed
thousands that same year in Vietnam.
we are a people of immense skills
and tiny hearts.
we do not belong on the path
to the stars.
July 20, 2009
simplicity
there is a simplicity
to the first line of a poem,
the opening notes of a song,
the first time you see each other.
life complicates
all that follows
the way a Kansas tornado
complicates morning chores.
but if you can find your way through
the noise and the displacement
of all you took for granted,
you may still have
a terrible mess to clean up
but you will also have
a true understanding
of what can be lost,
what can be gained,
and how fragile
the simplest,
most lovely
things
are.
Green Flash at Sunset
Jimmy Buffett, from the "Don't Stop the Carnival" cd
Whedon & Davis vs. a nation of crap tv
TV is a big deal in the world, in many ways. "Shows" — sitcoms and dramas — are, for good or ill, an important part of people's lives. They entertain, they divert, they even teach at times. There are so many different shows, so many options; there are enough for everyone to have a few favorites, to have shows they watch when something better isn't on. To pass the time. To fill the spaces. But no matter the reason for a show, those who create them have one responsibility (besides making money for the network and the sponsors): do not broadcast crap.
Yet they do. Most tv is crap, and for a simple reason: The writing is crap. That's why the work of those who do not produce crap is so valued, even if it isn't always rewarded with multiple seasons and big audiences. Yet we know when we are watching crap and when we're watching quality — if we choose to pay attention, which, of course, few do.
Whedon's back ... sort of
"Quality television" is not automatically an oxymoron. The foremost exception to that near-universal rule is Joss Whedon. "Buffy" and "Firefly" were, and remain, exemplars of what television can be, and their quality — excellence — stems from a single source: Joss Wheden's writing. Between his way with a twist in the story to a twist in the heart, few have ever accomplished what he's managed to do in a relatively brief tv career.
And now we have "Dollhouse." I managed to avoid almost every teaser — for me, they are all spoilers — but I did catch one warning about the show that I now bear in mind having seen the first episode: This may take a while. If I had watched the first episode cold and then been asked who was behind it, I doubt I would have said Whedon. It was not typical television writing, but it wasn't that far from it. There's little in it that I would call Whedonesque, no head-snapping lines, no punch-to-the-gut plot quirks. What there was was an hour's worth of set-up (ok; forty-some minutes): Who Echo is, what the Dollhouse is, who the players are that will be making the story happen. And we had a number of examples of what the Actives could do. Obviously, the show needed a 2-hour premiere, but frakkin Fox wasn't even able to get it on the air until the middle of February. Viewers will need time to get into the story and what promises to be a multi-layered story arc; I'm not sure we'll get the chance.
Perhaps Whedon is already writing the movie that will show what "Dollhouse" could be if given the chance "Firefly" was not.
The City: a new tale spanning milennia (and we'll see what becomes of it)
At the height of its glory, the City was everywhere and everything. All that was, was the City. For a hundred brilliant centuries, the City defined and explained the human race. Those who came from other stars to visit the only naturally habitated planet of the system within which the City's planet revolved were unanimous in their judgment: Few glories in any galaxy could match the accomplishment of those who had created and now sustained the City.
And when, after ten thousand years of undiminished splendour, the City's greatness declined, it was no failing in itself or its citizens but merely the next stage in the planet's evolution. The human race, after millenia of contact with beings from light years' distance, began to understand their being and possibility in terms other than the City. The totality of the City's dominance of all things human had gone unchallenged for thousands of years. Humans had forgotten that once they were separate from anything like a city, much less the City. But in time, the realization reappeared, and almost instantaneously, the City began to diminish, not lessened in its splendour but only as the essential defining aspect of life on Earth.
Humans began to realize: the City was no longer everywhere and everything. There was more.
But, some fifteen thousand years before humans came to this realization, all that Monica and Alfred thought about was if they would be caught before they were done fuckng. The corner in which they stood, bodies pumping at each other excitedly, hurriedly, was dark and secluded, but people still came by occassionally. They had been walking by in that way when she had grabbed his hand and pulled him into that shadow, lifting her dress to leave no doubt what she desired.
Muffling her half-shout into his shoulder, Monica came with a series of shudders; a few thrusts more, and in silence, she felt Alfred spasm with his own orgasm. As he withdrew from her, she clung tight to him, arms around his neck, not in adoration but simply out of momentary exhaustion.
She did not love Alfred; she did not even know his name. They had been passing each other, walking in opposite directions, when they arrived at that secluded corner and she had grabbed his hand, dragged him deeper into the dark for a fast, furious, anonymous fuck. That was always the first risk: Finding the right partner. Mistake the look in someone's eye, they way they walked or dressed or glanced covertly at you, and you'd not merely end up in jail but medicated, mind-swept and desexed.
The thrill of the hunt was almost as ecstatic as the culmination of the sex. Either one could destroy your life, yet both gave pleasures and joys that made the rest of life in the grey world of the 22nd Century worth tolerating.
“If I couldn't fuck,” she whispered into Alfred's neck, “I would kill myself.”
Louisa
a little bird
picked me up
and carried me away
to a land i had dreamed of
for so long
i could not see,
clear though it was,
the danger
into which we flew,
she and i.
a little bird
exchanged with me
soft songs of love
and guesses of forever
but those are always
the stupidest dreams
unless one of you
is awake enough
to be aware of the danger,
clear as it is,
and turns aside
while tomorrow
is something better
than a regret.
BSG finale - but not quite
Ok, I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Episode 10 of Season 4 is the end of the series. That's a half-season finale; I forgot they do that on BSG. It would have made an interesting conclusion to the series, but now that I realize it's only half-way, I see a few things I was missing.
(Perhaps part of my problem is watching via bittorrent. I don't necessarily follow some of the meta-info that I would get watching SciFi, where they would also announce the second, etc. I'm paying for my pirating sins.)
(spoilers follow the jump)