Posts (page 2)
Quite a few years ago, during my first go-around with the university, I was having lunch with friends in my dorm. I was talking some crap, as usual, and this guy Brad said, "Oh honey! You ain't nothin' but a cotton-topped crow!" After thinking about it, I had to ask, "Did you say cotton-topped crow?" I should have just let it go. I would have saved myself years and years and years of mental anguish.
Here's Brad's explanation. It still sends my mind spinning, so many years later, for so very, very, very many reasons.
"Yeah, honey! You know that episode of Bewitched where Samantha turns Mr. Tate into a crow? He's sitting at the table, she wiggles her nose, and then there's a crow with a little patch of white hair on its head, where Mr. Tate had been sitting. But the thing is, you know she didn't really turn him into a crow! They just got some crow and stuck a piece of cotton on its head for the TV show. [Dramatic pause while Brad surveys the reaction of everyone at the table.] I mean, there's a reason they called that show Beeee-WITCHED!"
What the fuck? I mean really? What the fuck?
By the way, Brad was a really, really handsome guy. I remember riding on the bus behind some girls turning around in their seats looking out the window at Brad walking down the street. They were saying, "That guy is so hot!" What they didn't know was that as soon as he opened his mouth he sounded just like Rue McClanahan as Blanche in an episode of The Golden Girls. But what do I know? I ain't nothin' but a cotton-topped crow.
Who was it who said,
Now we're fighting in our hearts.
Fighting in the streets.
Won't somebody help me?
War, war is stupid, and people are stupid, and love means nothing in some strange quarters.
War, war is stupid, and people are stupid, and I heard them banging on hearts and fingers.
?
I just love Yaz.
First up, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. This is for my non-fiction writing class. Last night, first class, the professor lectured about how Capote's novel was the beginning of a new kind of non-fiction writing that is as much a novel as an historical account. This has become known as "creative non-fiction," but we don't think even think of it this way so much anymore because it's so commonplace now. I had no idea Capote's novel was groundbreaking in a literary sense. I thought it was much more the subject matter and the phenomenon of Capote, and his attraction to the killers, that made the novel so known.
I've never read any Capote before, nor seen the movie "In Cold Blood," nor any of the biographical films of his life. Living in Kansas, In Cold Blood is as much a part of the culture as Quantrill's Raid, and it's high time I read the novel. I love having so little knowledge of Capote and the events of the novel. I'll read everything virtually fresh, with few pre-conceived notions. It's always lucky to read classics from this pure perspective. (I guess I'm saying it can be advantageous to be under-educated.) The only time I've directly exposed myself to Capote (ha ha) is watching the campy Agatha Christie spoof "Murder By Death." He was hysterical, though I'm not sure if it was intentional.
So, Kansas snow and Kansas murder. Happy weekend to you all.
P.S. Oh...the title. I was born and raised in Nebraska where Charles Starkweather's shooting spree is the famed murder-history. Also something I've never taken the time to truly learn about. The whole historical murder novelization and film making thing has never registered on my radar, at least as something interesting. I did a bit of research on Manson for what was probably my best Halloween costume, and theme party, ever. Depending on my mood I'm either ashamed or gleefully irreverent about that one. Don't think I'd do it again, but the Manson jack-o-lanterns were a big hit. At least with the people who weren't so offended they stomped out. Those Ren-Festers, so self righteous. The Society for Creative Anachronism can mimic the grand days of yore when women were completely subservient to men and peasants were enslaved, raped, and murdered by the elite, but throw a Manson Family Halloween party and they're offended. Okay, just these few in particular.
Argo and Morpheus have decided to fight today, disrupting my quiet, easy going Sunday morning. I just want to read and sip my coffee, but I'm running around the house as they pounce on, dig their claws in, and bite each other all the while emitting these high-pitched cat SCREAMS! I just found myself yelling "NO MORE CRAP! IT'S SUNDAY GODDAMMIT," at my cats. Jeez. Why can't they find hobbies?
Albums and albums later, she's still making great rock-n-roll and hasn't sprinkled pop dust over her music once. Last year's White Chalk was bare, mostly PJ & piano, and...um...rockin'.
Here's a YouTube link to her fantastic cover of Satisfaction with Bjork, live.
I miss my Doc Martens. Unfortunately, now they mean you're racist. I wonder what they'll appropriate next? Wouldn't it be funny if it was drag? You'd know someone was a neo-Nazi racist skinhead because they were dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, Cher, or Madonna. The more creative ones would come up with their own personas. Miss Creant.
At least, aside from statistics, my courses this semester are upper-level and interesting. (Upper lever = older students who just may have something to say that I like hearing, and learn from. Interesting = not boring.)
My mantra? It's all for Portland. Om.
Glass House January Edition:
Me to Larry: Are you still excited about moving to Portland?
Larry: [raising fist over head] PORTLAND! PORTLAND! YEA PORTLAND!
Indeed.
I think, for the next year, I'll just consider that Iive really far out in the southeast quadrant.
Okay. Now that I've had a day to chill, I've been thinking about marriage and life-partnerings and all the cool things about these love-based union thingies. Now that I've been with Larry for ten and a half years, I can honestly say it just gets better and better. I think the first several years for any relationship are kind of touch-and-go, figuring out the dynamics, where you're willing to compromise, if you're going to work it out, jealousy, trust, mistrust, all that rot. At this point, all that's a thing of the past. If you make it, you wind up with your best friend and life partner. It's just so awesome to know that no matter what (well, almost no matter what) by best friend will be there with and for me, he will help me and I him. It's cliche to talk about the passion waning, and really not true. What's more accurate is to acknowledge love deepening.
I was pretty shocked to learn of Oregon's challenge to legal recognition of domestic partnerships, but with some thought I really shouldn't be too surprised. Oregon is not a particularly liberal state. Portland, a wildly liberal and progressive city, is not the state of Oregon. Similar to Kansas. Lawrence is the l'il safe-haven in one great big sea of red. (Red. Symbolic conservatism or the blood of gays running in the streets? Both? Whatever works for you, darlin'.)
I guess, at least, the prospect of legalization of marriage and/or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples is being openly discussed, brought up and shot-down on state and federal levels, and in the collective conscience in a way never before. Did I really think there'd be some drastic turn-around so quickly? I guess I just hoped. Now I'll have to keep hoping for the future, and get plenty pissed off in the meantime.
Oh, one more thing. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
