Xmas list.

Ha! it's been a while. Therefore, I have decided it is time for the Xmas list! Of course everything I didn't get last year is still on the list :D


Socks.

Photoshop CS4 -- I'm a student! it's only 200 rather than 1000, I think that's a great deal for you!!!
Nikon d90
Peleng 8mm or Nikon 10.5 fisheye lens
ski bindings
Books
ski boots
music
Harold Evan's book My Paper Chase
A Palm Pre
Inspiration
A Hockey Stick
Boondock Saints
Schindler's List
Chariots of Fire and/or Prefontaine
A netflix subscription ha!
The Sound of Music
The Radium Watch Dial Painters - Dan Butterworth
A Curling Hat
a bed spread
vegetables
socks
cherry pie
snowboarding gloves
sleep

A Wii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
haha score!
A Decade of Excellence... oh and id like the DVD too :P
Assurance
Zag paraphernalia -- sweatshirt, sweats, car window thing... whatevs :D
AK 100
socks
piano lessons
Ak-47
a tall bookshelf
graduation invitations
James Herriot books
A Light Box

Hairspray






ok. more to come. of course.

Goooogle

Finally!!!!!!!!!! Now if they only had a road/weather conditions.... Hmmmm...

Google Maps Adds Traffic Conditions

Walter Cronkite

I was sad to hear that Walter Cronkite had died. It didn't really come as a surprise as he was rather advanced in years and had become clear that his last days were at hand, however, the death of such American icons is always something to reflect on. It seems that there have been many deaths lately, not that I suppose there has been a spike in death, that, at least, seems always a sort of constant. Of course, Walter Cronkite was not of my generation, but I remember hearing of him from my parents and grandmother. "Most trusted man in America..." That is something special, and I wonder if anyone could live up to that sort of praise in today's twisted and shallow new reporting. I stopped watching the news years ago, literally, in a very deliberate way, because it is everything but accurate. I realize any time something is told or reported it can get lost in translation, spun from different view points, and exaggerated/downplayed, however, I find the deliberate dumbing down and obvious buffoonery of the American people to be sickening and more depressing than anything they could ever show in the news cast. Take this recent obsession with Michael Jackson, when the same week something like the number of Swine Flu cases in the UK was doubling each week, with an outlook for almost the entire population being infected by the end of the summer. You know, you expect stupid news sites, like Yahoo, MSN etc... the ones that just have anything and everything, to be obsessed with Jackson -- its all very mainstream, popular, hit generating -- but CNN, the BBC, the Times, even (but not as much) NPR and other more "serious" newsies were exactly the same. Well, it is bound to happen, I suppose. Perhaps it is too much to ask of people to pay attention to whats going on and to want more than networks telling them whatever they wish to spin. Anywho! Back to Cronkite: I like this article that was in the Times, which has quotes from readers concerning the death of Cronkite.

On a happier note, and completely unrelated, except by era, I have been entirely obsessed with Herman's Hermits lately :) So, for your general amusement, here are some Herman's Hermits vids :) Peter Noone makes me smile, but you can call him Herman if you like :)

Silhouettes:





Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter:

Hide-and- Call the Cops?

There was a funny story on MSN today about a little girl who was playing hide and seek:

"Two-year-old Natalie Jasmer was playing the game with her siblings Tuesday in their Pymatuning Township home. When the family couldn't find her, parents Dennis and Michelle Jasmer called authorities. Emergency crews and friends frantically searched the neighborhood about 70 miles northwest of Pittsburgh for about an hour. The family's dog, Copper, finally sniffed her out. She had fallen asleep in a drawer underneath the family's washing machine. The little girl told her family she was sorry. Hide-and-seek is now banned in the Jasmer household...."

I think banning Hide and Seek was a little over the top! Ha!

We used to play Hide and Seek all the time as kids, but only in the house if my parents were gone. My brother's tutor used to babysit us sometimes and we would turn off all the lights in the house and play hide-and-seek. Grant it, this was an 100 yr old Victorian home, and it was SCARY with the lights out! Especially to a four year old! The scariest part was running away from him up the stairs -- his three steps to our one. Our favorite hiding place was the dryer! -- We definitely weren't allowed in there, but honestly it's the best hiding place ever!
I still like Hide and Seek, dang it, except I can't fit into dryers anymore...

LOL sounds like our plans every weekend

Click to enlarge....

Public Enemies

I went to see Public Enemies, a film about J. Dillinger (I keep saying Salinger...) last night, on a whim. I'm a big fan of good gangster movies, and one can generally assume a movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale is going to be good. While the film itself was slightly inaccurate, they did a pretty good job, well excellent really, on certain aspects -- the capture and death scene at the Biograph, Dillinger's Robin Hood persona, etc.

The movie was almost entirely filmed with a shaky cam, which I found rather annoying. This is not because I dislike shaky cam (thought it was good in The Bourne Ultimatum and Cloverfield), but I felt in this movie, with all the violence and action already, it took away from the depth of character. Generally, one of the points of covering a famous story in film is really getting to the heart of a character or portraying him in a different light. Lucky then to have Johnny Depp, because I think the shaky cam took away from this. On top of this, where was the script for character development. It seems Bale's character, Pervis, gets more of a chance for development, while Dillinger is almost a flat character through 3/4 of the movie. This is Michael Mann we are talking about here though, even though he as done great biographical movies - The Aviator, Ali, Last of the Mohicans (not a biography, but arguably a set character nonetheless). I go back and forth.

Furthermore, this could have been a really beautiful film, but, again, this is disallowed for the most part by the filming method. There are, however, some great colours and shots near the end, sans shaky cam. I was especially pleased by Depp walking through the Chicago Police Dept. in rose colored glasses, and Bale in the white suit at the Biograph. Irony sells! (or is that sex sells... I can't remember...) If this were filmed in black and white, I'm not sure Mann could have redeemed himself. On a side note, it would have been interesting to see how it was filmed in black and white, light representing good and dark, evil. If I remember correctly, both Dillinger and Pervis are wearing white in the final scene together. I keep thinking about how much better this could have been with someone like Spielberg (think Schindler's List).

Finally, I don't know if I was just more deaf than usual, but I had the hardest time hearing the script? Anyone else? Strange.

On a pleasant note, Johnny Depp is really a phenomenal actor (and much better looking than J. Dillinger, but that is neither here nor there... :P) and they were lucky to have him for this part. I am unsure another actor could have done so much with so little. Speaking about the movie Depp said
"When I was about nine or ten years old, I had a fascination with John Dillinger - probably not a healthy one - but I think it was something about the twinkle in his eye. There was something mischievous about him and it intrigued me...
In terms of taking on the role - the guy was 'Public Enemy Number One' but if you think about it, he was never an enemy of the public, ever, so that intrigued and challenged me..."

Depp also revealed that the character's Indiana roots helped him find a voice for an infamous American of whom no audio recordings exist.

He added: "With a guy like John Dillinger and where we were in 1933 - which is not unlike where we are now - the banks were sort of the enemies and were taking the knees out from everyone, people's lives were being ripped from them.
"And John Dillinger arrives as someone who's spent ten years in prison for some youthful, drunken, ignorant crime and arrives in the ultimate existential arena and says: 'I'm gonna stand up against these people'....I think for me what's fascinating is the guy who says: 'I ain't taking it. I don't care who you are, I ain't gonna take it'."...

Here's a random piece of trivia: I read somewhere that Depp actually got to wear the trousers that Dillinger was wearing the night he was shot... nice.

I will have to see it again of course. Over all, I think it was worth seeing, despite my whining :) And hopefully I will be able to find some more screen shots once more people have seen it :)

Blah.

Apparently it only takes one man to bring down the internet. Who woulda thunk.
People are idiots. But then, when haven't we been, and I only add fuel to the fire with this post.

Reflection

I mentioned it earlier, however the link did not work at that time, so I figured I would re-post this. I was lucky enough to have a poem printed in Gonzaga's journal "Reflection". It is Gonzaga's Journal of art and literature, and they are always eager to receive "anything interesting" from students, etc. You can find it here on Gonzaga's website. There is some really great stuff in here and in past issues, so be sure to take a look if you're at all curious (I personally like last semester's issue better) :)
Support student work! :)

Cloudy ~ Paul Simon

The sky is gray and white and cloudy,
Sometimes I think it's hanging down on me.
And it's a hitchhike a hundred miles.
I'm a rag-a-muffin child.
Pointed finger-painted smile.
I left my shadow waiting down the road for me a while.

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy,
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell.
Down from Berkeley to Carmel.
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill.

Hey sunshine
I haven't seen you in a long time.
Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?
These clouds stick to the sky
Like floating questions, why?
And they linger there to die.
They don't know where they are going, and, my friend, neither do I.

Cloudy,
Cloudy.

Car Talk

Sorry, don't now what my obsession is with XKCD lately. They make me laugh, and so does Car Talk, so there you go :) I love NPR, yes that makes me a nerd, or an old person or whatever, but hey, I happen to like to know what's going on in the world at least a little bit... We live in a world and a society, it's not just all about your little individual world. Anyways :)

Here is a random vid for today. A little Flute, a little beatbox... Enjoy :)

Research Yay.

I am absolutely exhausted, so I thought I'd take a break from this paper to write a bit, randomly of course :) I've been writing a paper since 6:30 this morning, breaking only at 5 to go take a History final. Now I'm back again to try and finish this "loose baggy monster". It's not that long, only ten pages, but the research was kind of intense and all over the place. Basically I'm positing that Melville's Moby Dick can be considered a continuation of the Romantic Movement. That is, the British Romantic Movement, none of this American Romance novel -- although that would have been interesting since I happen to love Hawthorne, but I feel more at ease speaking about the Romantic Poets and quoting them than I do Hawthorne and other Americans. I am including Emerson in the group though, because his "Nature" and "Self Reliance" fit well. Unfortunately I had to exclude Johnny Keats, which is sad because he's my favorite. But really, I can't go writing a book here! It has the works, from commentary on the inefficiency of language to the Byronic hero, so if I can just get it all on paper in some coherent manner, I may just get a respectable paper out of it. Anyhow, it is going rather swimmingly besides me having trouble focussing. Obviously.
My original research project was about how technology drives the American novel/ life/ ideal/ something... not a very well thought out thesis apparently. It makes sense in my head though. I was going to use the daguerrotype in The House of the Seven Gables and fingerprinting in Pudd'n head Wilson and then something in Moby Dick but I couldn't find ANY sources or work on that subject. Seems ridiculous to me! It seems kind of an obvious connection... I did look up some stuff about the automobile and American Literature, but most of the works referenced were post 1940's. So yeah I scratched that yesterday, which left me one day for the new thesis. Yay.
Well, blah blah blah :) Back to tedium :D

And now, for your general amusement :

Halelujah!

(Just quickly because I have to leave for class)

Today is the last day of classes! I am beyond excited! I still have finals, and a ridiculous amount of papers to finish by Wednesday, but other than that Im good for the summer. Yay! Also I got my job for the summer all set. Things are looking up for now :) Hopefully Ill finally have some time to post, instead of making drafts and then never publishing them.

Also, I read today that Carol Ann Duffy was chosen as Poet Laureate of the UK. 341 years of the Poet Laureate and finally a female poet -- good deal :)

Oh yeah, one more thing :) I had one of my poems published in Gonzaga's Reflection. Print. yay! Finally :)

Well, off to Metaphysics and Central Europe for one last time!

XKCD :) lol I've honestly wondered about this before...

Ctrl+z for Email. Yay! :)

I just might have to switch to Gmail solely because of this feature : Undo Send. Honestly, how many times have you sent a message and then wanted to kick yourself -- like forgetting to add an attachment, or hitting the send button on accident, or just having second thoughts. Another big mistake I have made is CCing to someone instead of BCing. Oops. In Gmail with a little feature from Google Labs you have five seconds to undo a sent email. Awesome!

Also this little feature from Google Labs, called Mail Goggles, made me laugh. Jerry Maguire, anyone? I wonder though, what if you're absolutely horrific at math? Could get sketchy! :)

TEDTalks... Yes another one :)

And, since I've been adding Education blogs to my blog list lately, i thought this was rather timely :) Its a talk give by Sir Ken Robinson about education and about how schools kill creativity. Rather entertaining, and very insightful.

The Chair Made Him Do It!!!!

Thanks to Rhea for this one :) Rofl.

Sustainability

Fascinating stuff yet oh so logical.

Apples to Apples

I thought this was well done, and slightly fascinating. I love simplicity :) Also, having lived on an Apple Orchard, this lil vid holds a special place in my heart. Enjoy :)



The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

A Type of Fire

I read today with sadness that Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, had committed suicide. What he must have gone through. You can read the story in the NYTimes or on MSN. I like the MSN article better because it speaks about Mr. Hughes, not just his parents. Anyhow, any suicide is a tragedy, no matter who it is. It reminded me of this poem by Taylor Mali :

Edit: Thanks to JH for posting this article My Friend Nick

Google Tools

Search Google Images by Color

*edit* Google has now added a little box on their Image Search in order to search by color! lol so much for my little hack secret!!! :)



















Also:


Search Google Images by Dimension
This is really great when you're looking for wallpaper of high quality images.

Color

Here are two videos from Sony Bravia... The first I love the song, and the video had me hunched over like a five year old, smiling ear to ear. Sheer Joy :) The second is great in its own right, I love the inside shots, and always the red :) Color. John Ruskin said "The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most" Sony must have some children working for them :) It reminds me of a few Chesterton excerpts ...



"Rich colours actually look more luminous on a grey day, because they are seen against a dark background, and seem to be burning with a lustre of their own. Against a dim sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange about them at once vivid and secret, like flowers traced in fire in the grim garden of a witch. A bright blue sky is necessarily the high light in the picture, and its brightness kills all the bright blue flowers. But on a grey day the larkspur looks like fallen heaven; the red daisies are really the lost-red eyes of day, and the sun-flower is the vice-regent of the sun. Lastly, there is this value about the colour that men call colourless that it suggests in some way the mixed and troubled average of existence, especially in its quality of strife and expectation and promise. Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to some other colour; of brightening into blue, or blanching into white or breaking into green or gold. So we may be perpetually reminded of the indefinite hope that is in doubt itself; and when there is grey weather on our hills or grey hair on our heads perhaps they may still remind us of the morning." (From "Daily News")



"I do not know if other people are made like me in this matter; but to me it is always dreary weather, what may be called useless weather, that slings into life a sense of action and romance. On bright blue days I do not want anything to happen; the world is complete and beautiful, a thing for contemplation. I no more ask for adventures under that turquoise dome than I ask for
adventures in church. But when the background of man's life is a grey background, then, in the name of man's sacred supremacy,I desire to paint on it in fire and gore." (From "Tremendous Trifles")

On a side note, you can watch the Making Of in this video, which leads me to say how much I love advertising -- you know, its about the product, a very practical matter, and its also about humanity. The really good advertising is the one that can connect on a human level. I suppose if I had gone into Graphic Design like I originally intended, I might have ended up in advertising -- technical and creative, good stuff :)

Impossible Dream

Brought to you courtesy of XKCD: A Webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language. Perfect :)

Baaaaa-studs

Baaahahahhaaa!!!!!! Awesome on so many levels lol.

The Life and Opinions of Moby Dick, Whale, Mon.

The strangest thing happened today. Well, ok, so it wasn't that strange, but I just love when this happens, and it fascinates me every time. Maybe I can turn it into a research paper... Anyhow, so there I was checking Recently Banned Literature for anything new, and generally if I have a bit of time Ill pick a blog link at random and check it out. Tristram Shandy caught my eye, and I moseyed on over there to check it out. (Btw, did you know that "mosey" either means to stray leisurely or to leave quickly... love words like that, especially since in this case, being the internet and all, it works perfectly both ways! Anyway, back to the happening...) So, I read a bit, skip around, not really familiar with this work, but I know Defoe so I have a general idea of time frame and all that, checked out William's poem, dusted off a place for it in my mental library-- trying to pseudo familiarize myself with the work. After all if it's "most hated", I'm bound to run across it at some point. So you're probably wondering what is so awesome about this -- well, nothing yet because I realized mid-mosey that I have a paper on Melville due soon and I should probably be thinking about it. So off I go (no wonder I never get anything done...) So off I go to Melville's Marginalia, which my prof. told us about the other day in class. I'm thinking about doing my Moby Dick paper on Moby Dick and Pop Culture (don't ask, I really have no idea yet, except the little nugget of knowledge that Starbucks company name comes from Moby Dick...I'm nervous about that getting me ten or so pages though). Anyway, this Marginalia is awesome! Basically it's a catalogue of books borrowed and owned by Melville, and his inscriptions/marginalia. So obviously I can't search current pop culture for marginalia within Moby Dick as that would be backwards and wouldn't garner any results. So randomly I just type in "music" into the keyword search. Wouldn't hurt to see what Melville knows about music, plus it could always make a nice paper topic if I happened to find any music connections in Moby Dick. (Don't worry, I'm almost to the awesome part...) So I'm reading through the works that Melville owned or borrowed with music in the title or something like that. Most of them are books his father-in-law borrowed while Melville was visiting --hmmm, I wonder what Melville's father-in-law was so interested in music for. So I quickly scroll to the bottom, because by this time I'm remembering that I have a midterm History exam this afternoon, and I should probably go study. There at the bottom of the page what do you think I find?! Sterne, Laurence, 1713-1768 "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent."

The very last entry. Weird! I mean of course it makes perfect sense that Melville would have read/owned this book since it was pretty popular. But really, how random that I run across it today and while searching a keyword like music. Now how cool (and anticlimactic) is that!!!! :)

craigslist and a random find

Ok, now how cool is this? Craigslist is great when you need to find things -- whether you need them cheap, or fast, or like the keep money in the area, or like to barter, or are looking for something unusual, or free ...you name it :) I really like Craigslist, but I'm not gonna lie, I find their search tools inadequate at best, annoying to say the least and really, just not aestetically pleasing. Well today I ran across the CraigsList Reader over at Lifehacker.
Simple program, with a pretty nice interface that makes Craigslist more efficient and better looking. And of course, its free! I love it :D Of course, I havent tried it out yet, so we'll see :)


Also this has nothing to do with the above, but i ran across this weird yet strangely intriguing website today : ManBabies... That is weird.

And finally, I love Passive-Agressive Notes and this one on the Vending Machine made me kill myself laughing today:

Venting Machine :



Also, this one is genius: Broken Glass

Rives on TED

TED.. Watch it. Learn it. Live it.

V for villian

Dr. Faustus - Chistopher Marlowe...
So I'm reading this play for Renaissance Lit. I studied it already in tenth grade, and its funny to use my old book because I have comments in the margin such as one in a passage about waxen wings that very eruditely states "like the greek guy, Icarius [sic]", which I don't even know why I wrote that, because there is a note explaining that it is in fact referring to Icarus... maybe those were the days when I was resistant to foot notes. Who knows! Anyhow, my professor is driving me crazy because she is trying to force me to find some kind of subversive meaning to the play. Now, don't get me wrong, I love subversiveness and will be the first one to jump on it, and perhaps there is an element of it to be found in Christopher Marlowe. However, I think there is something more important going on here. This is a renaissance text, and supposedly a commentary on humanist thinking. R.M. Dawkins is famously quoted as saying that Dr.F is the story of a Renaissance man who payed the medieval price for being one. Sure this is a completely orthodox reading, but I think one cannot throw it out completely, even if you think there is some kind of subversiveness going on here.
So Faustus is basically after knowledge, and sells his soul to get it. Fast forward 24 yrs and Dr. F gets dragged off to hell. Poor S.O.B. that he is. But what if Faustus' downfall is not so much his yearning for knowledge as it is his intellectual dishonesty? What if Marlowe's play is not making a hero out of Faustus as the quintessential Renaissance man, but rather condemning him for not being a good enough Renaissance man? Herein lies the subversiveness as far as I can tell. I don't think that Marlowe is reduced to either writing an medieval end for Faust in order to hide his subversive ideas regarding knowledge and heroism, nor do I think that Marlowe's purpose is to merely tell the story of the Renaissance man who pays the medieval price. I like to give Marlowe more credit than that. I mean come on, the man is rumored to have been a spy among other things and the English father of blank verse; gotta give him extra credit, right? Well, I do anyhow.
So you might ask what else is there then for Marlowe to be doing here. Well, let me compare it to Utopia, by St. Thomas More, another Renaissance man. Now Utopia is one of those books that people read and think its some kind of early socialist manifesto or something. There are some, however, myself included, who believe it to be rather a picture of a dystopia. A place where humanist and renaissance thinking, taken to its logical and full extent can only end in an idealized place that discounts human frailty, human individuality and essentially human nature. It is the ideal of Aristotle -- if a man but know the good then he will choose the good. Herein lies the Humanist downfall -- intellectual dishonesty. If More's contemporaries take their theories to their inevitable end, they cannot help but fall into the pitfalls of Utopia, no matter how good it sounds on paper. I think the same thing is going on in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus.
Here we have Faustus, a learned man, and more, the most learned, and yet he lies to himself. He possesses all the knowledge worth possessing (the bounded knowledge of the classical texts was to the Renaissance man, the foundation for all other knowledge, scientific or otherwise), and yet he convinces himself that its not enough and that there is more... So again we have a renaissance man who is being intellectually dishonest. By placing knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge above wisdom, the renaissance man lies to himself. If Faust truly knows all there is to know, and thus, the good, should he not then be able to choose the good and to know that he possesses all the knowledge worth knowing, the foundation of all other knowledge?
Truth be told, I'm supposed to be writing a paper about this at the moment. So I suppose I ought to go do that. Boo.

Keyboard Education

Ok so this probably marks me for life as a nerd, but I actually got excited reading this post over at LifeHacker. It's mainly about keyboard shortcuts in Firefox (which if you're not using, you should be :)), which is awesome because I'm one of those people who would rather not use the mouse if I didn't have to. Also, using the touch pad on a laptop is rather annoying, and every time I reach, claw-like, for my cellphone, I really think its time to stop using a mouse :P. So, Keyboard shortcuts become intriguing and useful :). On top of it, I have a theory: Keyboard shortcuts improve memory in an era of technology that allows you to let memory shrink into oblivion. Furthermore, I think using keyboard shortcuts foster creativity and logical processes. Now, I know that seems a bit at odds, but I assure you its not :) Just try using them, you'll see. I know its difficult at first, but after a while it gets faster and makes perfect sense. Sort of like learning to type; you think you do just fine, and even well, and learning to type seems tedious and in fact pointless, but eventually, with some persistence and practice you have the epiphany. Start with the easy ones:
New Tab: Ctrl+t
Switch Tabs (1-9): Ctrl+(1-9)
Search Bar: Ctrl+K
You'll find them making your time on a browser just a wee bit more productive :) And if you're anything like me, someone who multi-tasks like the devil, this will be a wonderful thing.
Alright, alright, I'm finished :) But really check it out :) Even you Katie!!!!! :P

"Death will dance for him, they say..."

I'm wading my way through this piece of work: Henry James' Midnight Song by Carol de Chellis Hill, and what a piece of work it is. It's not really a difficult read, but its fragmented style doesn't exactly make for quick reading. Anyhow, I am, inevitably, behind, and trying desperately to catch up (thus the logic of blogging instead of reading...well the book is open next to me and I'm in the library -- it's a start...). The number of main characters in this book is a bit head swirling, but the historical aspect helps a bit as far as keeping them straight. (Freud and co., James, Wharton, Klimt, Fleiss, Jung, Dreyfus... just to name a few) On the other hand the historical aspect confuses things because I'm never sure how much I can rely on my historical knowledge to really link things together and explain motivations for characters, spacial ambiguities, and general thematic situation. I know, big words that have little meaning. But sometimes that's how this book makes me feel! Furthermore, thats just counterintuitive to me, history being a rather important part of my schema.
Also, this book relies heavily on Freudian theory. Now, we all know at least some Freudian theory, since, after all, our society and American thought has been inundated with Freud for the last century or so without much of a check. I find that slightly handicapping because familiarity without authority often leads to false conceptions. So here I am reading along, and the very thought of Freud being a main character leads me to basically psychoanalyze everything! Again, this does not lend itself to quick reading, nor to very brilliant side notes... Now I just know when I get to the end it will all make sense, but in the mean time, I'm busy reading into things that may or may not be pivotal, writing things in the margin like "it was sheer coincidence... or was it...???", and blogging about nothing in particular except that I should be reading and not writing.
Bravo, Carol de Chellis Hill, I have now been drawn in... after all this is a song, and midnight, and Henry bloody James, for god's sake.

Excommunications to be lifted tomorrow!

Deo Gratias! I haven't time to post, so Ill just put up the link