Poem for the Weekend

TNC pointed me at this great Frederick Seidel poem called "October" a week or two ago:

It is time to lose your life,
Even if it isn't over.
It is time to say goodbye and try to die.
It is October.

The mellow cello
Allee of trees is almost lost in sweetness and mist
When you take off your watch at sunrise
To lose your life.

You catch the plane.
You land again.
You arrive in the place.
You speak the language.

You will live in a new house,
Even if it is old.
You will live with a new wife,
Even if she is too young.

Your slender new husband will love you.
He will walk the dog in the cold.
He will cook a meal on the stove.
He will bring you your medication in bed.

Dawn at the city flower market downtown.
The vendors have just opened.
The flowers are so fresh.
The restaurants are there to decorate their tables.

Your husband rollerblades past, whizzing,
Making a whirring sound, winged like an angel--
But stops and spins around and skates back
To buy some cut flowers in the early morning frost.

I am buying them for you.
I am buying them for your blond hair at dawn.
I am buying them for your beautiful breasts.
I am buying them for your beautiful heart.

The “Weaponization” of Classical Music

This observation by Colon Weatock made me laugh:

As a classical music lover, I’d like to believe that my favourite music has some kind of magical effect on people – that it soothes the savage breast in some unique way. I’d like to think that classical music somehow inspires nobler aspirations in the mind of the purse-snatcher, causing him to abandon his line of work for something more upstanding and socially beneficial.

But I know better. The hard, cold truth is that classical music in public places is often deliberately intended to make certain kinds of people feel unwelcome. Its use has been described as “musical bug spray,” and as the “weaponization” of classical music.

Scary Kid Facts

In a Wired discussion about if multitasking is ruining our brains, Brian Chen drops this bombshell:

Kids are indeed distracting: A British study found that for drivers, the distraction of squabbling kids can slow down brake-reaction times by 13 percent — as much as alcohol.

I do not disagree one bit.

Quote of the Day

... He saw Lola's fingers, Lola's wrists, Lola's blank eyes, he saw another Lola reflected in the quicksilver of the window, floating weightless in the skies of Paris, ... weary, sending messages from the coldest, iciest realms of passion.

- Roberto Bolano, 2666, page 182

We're In Trouble!

Little Trey just started crawling. He immediately went over to a game that Hunter was playing and wrecked havoc. The next few months are going to be an adventure!

Quote of the Day

Facts are but the Play-things of lawyers,—Tops and Hoops, forever a-spin.... Alas, the Historian may indulge no such idle Rotating. History is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers,—nor is Remembrance, for Remembrance belongs to the People. History can as little pretend to the Veracity of the one, as claim the Power of the other,—her Practitioners, to survive, must soon learn the arts of the quidnunc, spy and Taproom Wit,—that there may ever continue more than one life-line back into a Past we risk, each day, losing our forbears in forever,— not a Chain of single Links, for one broken Link could lose us All,—rather, a great disorderly Tangle of Lines, long and short, weak and strong, vanishing into the Mnemonick Deep, with only their Destination in common.

- Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, page 349

Arbitrary Movie Ratings

Movie rateings have always seemed kind of bizarre to me. This article somewhat expands upon the reasoning behind the proliferation in the PG-13 rating being the main driver behind movie decisions today:

The insidious thing about this is that movies that should be rated R are emasculated in order to get a PG-13 rating. Nudity is obscured, sex becomes implied, and no more than one "fuck" is allowed. (How dumb is that? Say "fuck" once and it’s a PG-13; say it two or three times, and it’s an R. I know that if I’m in a PG-13 movie and someone says "fuck," I can relax safe in the realization that I won’t be subjected to the word again until the movie is over.) People can be murdered, but their deaths can’t be bloody. It works the other way, too. In order to avoid a PG rating, some filmmakers intentionally add profanity, mild sexual content, and a little violence to attain a PG-13.

Now I realize that movies are an art form that involve a lot of compromise - it's the rare director that has access to the funding needed to pull together a solid movie without having to make compromises - but the items on which a director appears to be compromising here are really quite petty. And don't get me started on what kind of nudity and sexuality are allowed to be shown about women as opposed to men...