My mice are under my bed.

I am not motivated or collected enough to sit down and actually post a real entry, and it KILLS ME. I sit in class or I'm out somewhere and all I'm thinking about is coherently shaping my thoughts into a decent blog post but I just never get around to it. Instead, this time, I'm going to post some poems I wrote..a villanelle, a sonnet, and a sestina. The sestina was absolutely the most challenging, it took days to write. The structure is peculiar because the same six words have to repeat in a different yet specific order each time. My words were Rome, Watch, Red, One, Life,  Death. It was a challenge. I don't normally post poetry or prose on the internet but I figured I might. Enjoy, leave feedback? Maybe?

Shakespearean Sonnet
Old Milk

Prematurely, crass calls takes me from bed
Resigned, sleepy, I curse white morning birds
Now more. Multiplying shrill cries bring dread
Pouring cold milk ,much too early for words.

Predictable gulls bear no surprises
Dawn carries them in, while noon sees them quit
Opaque flux rivals overgrown white flies
A sniff, the truth; I move from where I sit

Faded numbers on the carton reads "bad".
Dumping old liquid, a seabreeze comes in
I look listlessly; spot last night's salad
While aves through the window chase fish and fin

The sun gleams and glares, bellies of birds full
Tulip adorned sheets call; I am not far.



VILLANELLE
Comedian

A candle goes out, life is taken, somebody knows.
Out of jaws of death, queries spring
Yet demise for us breathing creatures; natural as having ten toes.

Throat tightened, blood flowed, eyes closed, breathing slowed
Old scars collected blood like craters in rain
A candle goes out, a life is taken, somebody knows.

His enemies left roses. No wife, kids at his funeral, only friends turned foes
Cigar burning, menacing grin, "It's all a joke," he knew best
that demise for us breathing creatures; natural as having ten toes.

Each hit well calculated, each bloody, crushing, blow,
Cigar smoke smouldered, heavy bones snapped, twisted
A candle goes out, a life is taken, somebody knows.

Glass breaking, people screaming, buzzers dinging, t.v game shows
Screen flickering ,body thrown, twenty stories falling. Greeting wet pavement.
Yet demise for us breathing creatures; natural as having ten toes.

Reporters ask questions, one old wax candle still glows
Entertainer terminated amongst smoke and game shows,
A candle goes out, a life is taken, somebody knows
Yet demise for us breathing creatures; as natural as having ten toes.

(this one is vaguely based on a character from the graphic novel Watchmen..)






Sestina

Founded in brick, left in marble, if only I were there to watch!
One time capital of the world. Birthing greatness, life, war, death
Art, wine, food, chariots and love, love, love
Golden helmets adorned with feathers colored red
No doubt in any man's mind that only one
Empire, towering over all in mankind's narration- it can only be Rome.

Once golden and marble; industry, ruins, graffiti now inhabit streets of Rome
Hawaiian shirt wearing tourist halts at McDonalds. Flavian Amphitheatre can wait; checks his watch
He doesn't know the Great Fire,the Senate, nor Nero's hysterics. Simply wondering: if he were a gladiator, would he have won?
No heed paid to the Punic Wars, or Carthage, yet remembers reading in high school Ceasar's death.
Big Macs, to him romantic as the small italian eateries around the city; ketchup dribbled onto his belly leaving a stain that's red
Waddling down the Roman forum, no notice to aged, chipped Venus, goddess of love

Some creatures must value this place; history begs to be idolized, loved
Blood thirsty, never ending conquests for land; none could match the civilized brutality of Rome
Men at war, leaders power hungry, uncompromising, land stained crimson red
Blood tinged winter and summer grounds, snow and sweat, only charcoaled ravens stay to watch
Metal on metal. Breathing, clashing, burning, yelling, laughing, drinking, sleeping, choking, death.
Ink stained feathered creatures pick up the battered bloody pieces at their pleasure, one by one


Farms, cities once littered with corpses rose up when a call trimphant and shrill came at once;
Fathers, sons, men to arms. Defend the ever growing empire, sacrifice freedom,old age , love
Years pass, we all live the same lives, each and every single path ending in death.
Yet try and show me another city whose beauty no living imagination can picture, there is only Rome.
A refined she-wolf, under the burden of expectation, keeps on. Smirking, stalking, watching
Laughing at the prospect of anything but greatness, bearing white fangs and a muzzle coated red.

Love of God, not of Zeus took root ; blood dripped from a crown of thorns, thick and red
New Emperor; first of many, Constantine worshipped not many but one
Every sacrifice of blood, sheep, virgins, cattle, sodden eyes watched
as daughters, companions, gold earning posessions which garnered love
were taken for Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Diana, once guardians of Rome
now discarded for a carpenter, how bitter we now rejoice in his birth and death!

Paved streets, haunted with Roman ghosts and stories of their deaths
skin tingling, mind wandering, remembering what's been read
of gladiators, fine architecture...unhinged satisfaction in Rome.
Laughing, praising a city which raises her head under neighboring stars, anyone
can see constellations today; sky lit up, glowing in idoltry and love
My tired eyes look past conspicuous McDonalds, I take off my watch

An old ivory fountain draws me near, I like this one
with age, she remained smooth and sleek, fast food, tourists slowly fade into Roman
obscruity along with every girl who ever sat upon this same seat; Into the water, I toss my watch.

(I also had a hard time making this flow more poetically and read less like prose...but it's my fault for picking a loaded topic for a poem which structure demands simplicity. whatever.)


And just for fun:

Keira Knightley still looks better than I ever will, even with no make-up...

Keira was recently spotted at Heathrow Airport, on her way to Canada. Personally, I think she looks great with little makeup and tousled hair. I wish I could go out looking like that and not feel super gross.

It's amazing what a ton of makeup, excessive styling and photoshop can do, huh?

Regardless, I'm still madly in love with her. She's got some pretty exciting projects coming up. My Fair Lady, the remake of the classic with Audrey Hepburn brings no new real news.

The Beautiful and the Damned, in which she's set to play Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the famous author, is set for a 2010 release. I'm interested in how she'd tackle an American southern accent...Never Let Me Go, based on a novel about young people in London at a boarding school who ultimately discover they are being used for their organs(rough outline, forgive me I've had some wine this evening.) is also set for a 2010 release. It'll be nice to see her out of a period piece to silence her critics for a short while. London Boulevard, starring alongside Colin Farrel (This duo intrigues me). This role is promising for her, or at least I think so. I read a description:

"In the script the character is called Charlotte. A beautiful woman that looks thirty-five(as a result of a drug addiction) yet is only in her mid twenties suffers from addiction, exhaustion, nervous breakdowns, and is on the brink of having a fizzling career."

It'll be interesting to see her portray a character that is typical of our own time! To get into the mindset of characters so like her peers, especially some well-known ones in Hollywood.

Her last upcoming project, Last Night, has wrapped up filing. Some kind of romantic drama, the plot revolves around a married couple separated for one night while the husband takes a business trip with a colleague who he has feelings for, while the wife encounters her past love. It sounds sort of boring to me, but with any luck it can shape up to be the same kind of screwed up love freakshow that was Closer. Of course since my girls in it, I'll give it a chance. Obviously.

Just wondering...why does America still have a John Wayne complex?

I don't write in this blog nearly as much as I'd like to, but I got out of class early so I have some time to think.

I'm taking a class on United States and Cuba relations, and I can safely say I'm more than fascinated at the way our country has treated Cuba in the past, and even now. There's been this demonization of Fidel Castro, and I fear that American history textbooks in high schools only vaguely and briefly touch on the subject of our relationship with our little neighbor just ninety miles away.

Anyway, I barely talk in the class, because I'm intimidated of this professor- he might be the smartest guy I've ever encountered, and I have this fear of appearing stupid in public. He probably thinks I'm some ditzy teenager, but in reality I can't keep my mind off this stuff. We've read a ton of books so far, the most recent being The Politics of Illusion, which deals with the Bay of Pigs and operation Mongoose. I'll get back to that book in a second.

To say the least, we royally screwed up. But it wouldn't be the first time our country has taken on this "We're big, we're mean, we can do anything we want in the sake of our own national interests!" attitude. We get this notion, particularly recently, in the Bay of Pigs, that we can just go into whatever country we please and do whatever we want- in this case, overthrow Fidel and establish a government more in the 'interests of the cuban people'.(Even if we weren't using American soldiers but instead Cuban exiles-yeah, that worked out swell.) What the hell did we know about the Cuban people's interests? Zero, we had been squashing their hopes of domestic economic development ever since the Platt Amendment. Then in Vietnam, later in Afghanistan and today in Iraq, for example. But the reason why our country has this complex, the reason why Americans in the past few years can travel anywhere and be judged around the globe, is because the American people will support almost any military expenditure we go on. Because we can do it. We're America! Guns blazing, horse riding off into the sunset, with that romantically rugged cowboy drawl. Those big foam hands at football games. Yeah, we're number one. Although there will always be liberals opposing military involvement, the American public virtually always initially supports the government when it sets out to do anything. Because WE CAN DO IT.

There was an interesting passage which addresses the 'John Wayne' complex that America has had for too long now in Politics of Illusion:

"The film critic Eric Bentley claimed in 1971 that John Wayne was the most dangerous man in America because without him, and the mythology of his movies, America's tragic involvement in Vietnam was unthinkable. We are not prepared to claim quite this much for "John Wayne" and the Bay of Pigs ((Although I, myself am.)) It is worth noting, however, that there are far closer historical connections between the themes of Wayne's most successful films of the 1940's and 1950's and issues related to Cuba, rather than to Vietnam. According to popular North American myth, the United Sates had liberated Cuba in the Spanish-American War, and had taken care of it ever since. It is also worth meditating on the finding that polls then, and now, indicate that Wayne is-not was but is- America's most popular actor. The analysis of precise connections between Wayne's films and U.S Cuban relations in the Kennedy years would seem to be fertile ground awaiting a cultural critic with knowledge of both western movies and Cuba. For us, for now, we are satisfied if "John Wayne" serves as a useful shorthand for a particular set of Cold War illusions that, due to elapsed time, availability of documents, and the courage of the Musgrove participants, can just now be seen for what they were."

After reading texts from this class I feel a bit cheated - and I wish that kids learning about U.S history could know the real history behind U.S / Cuba relations. Why is Fidel seen as a 'bad guy?' He gave Cuba, his country, back to Cubans. It might be near impossible to get a can of cola for a decent price on that island, but you can bet that you'll never see anyone go hungry or be deprived of medical treatment. Unlike New York City, the economic and social powerhouse of our country and most of the world, you won't see people sleeping on the streets in Cuba. I'm not advocating socialism here, but I'm just wondering why the United States finds this way of life so offensive. Are we, as people, or our government, as our elected officials, jealous that schooling is completely free there? Of course, free speech is severely limited - people are still allowed to speak their minds in the street and their homes- but a common Cuban defensive argument when Castro declared communism was something along the lines of, 'when it comes down to it, we'd prefer a roof over our heads, food, and medical care over free speech.'

I'm kind of straying from my original point here, but I still can't wrap my head around us not learning from our own history. The CIA was severely, disgustingly misinformed during the Bay of Pigs invasion. They had barely any intelligence at all, and that can now be said about the Iraq invasion, but only years after- it's all dandy invading and getting ourselves in, but what do you do when you get there? How do you get out? The failed invasion made a mockery of one of our own institutions that we were supposed to be able to rely on. And of course, Kennedy was still beloved by the public, because it was the 'big bad CIA's fault, and of course Kennedy knew nothing about it..' although he did, it wasn't his favorite idea on the drawing board or anything. Regardless, we seem to disregard previous failures when it comes to military invasions, or nation building, or whatever is we're trying to do across the world.

We might have used to think we were the best. Maybe we used to be imperialists. John Wayne might have been the most popular actor in the country. Unfortunately, if you ask anyone younger than I am, I'm afraid a good amount of kids wouldn't know too much about him or his movies. So, as a country, we're moving on. Can we shed this tanned, leathery, tobacco stained skin?

Sorry I forgot about you, blog!

I haven't posted anything here for almost a year. I won't bore anyone reading with personal updates, because that's what I use my livejournal for. I just feel terribly guilty about not using this, because I DO need an outlet, I DO need a place to write coherent thoughts. I guess I underestimated this whole thing in general though, considering I came back to over fifteen comments on one of my posts, and I expected barely anyone to read it besides myself. So I suppose I'll embark on a journey - one that includes me writing things that other people might-gasp- yes, read! Maybe someone will read something I have to say!

It did feel great when I was published in Newsday. I'm conflicted about my future in journalism because of the lack of opportunities and everything going viral. It's a bit discouraging to me. But one of the only things that I'm decently okay at is writing- (and playing ddr, but where will that get me?) so someone suggested that I start a serious blog. I probably should write more, because the people I come in contact with on a daily basis generally have no idea what I'm talking about when I bring up directors, actors, or anything film related. They all want to see 'Notorious' while I need to see 'The Wrestler' 'Frost/ Nixon' and 'Revolutionary Road' before Oscar season, because, well, I need to see every movie in the best picture category before making a real prediction, duh! It's hard to express how isolated I feel on this subject. I want to break into film, I want to eventually include it in my career somehow, but I'm terrified it's too late for me. I'm studying Political Science instead, which I am passionate about, don't get me wrong, but I'm increasingly becoming aware of myself, and of how I might not be cut out for law school or anything of the sort. I'm just terrified, and I want someone to talk to about this...so I've become something of a night owl, prowling the web, reading scraps of information about Hunter S. Thompsons' novel, The Rum Diary's, film adaptation (which may include Keira Knightley or Scarlett Johansen..and will certainly be including Johnny Depp) instead of reading about Condelezza Rice's latest trip to a foreign country. I'm captivated by films. By book and play adaptations, by actors performances, by set designs and budgets and appealing to certain demographics and this and that and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, I FEEL LIKE none of this can get me anywhere, is it just going to have to be a hobby for me, for the rest of my life? Am I destined to sit back and let other people do all this work? This work that I want to do? When I say 'this work', I don't even know what I'm referring to! Directing, editing, acting, no no..I don't think that..I'm just so confused. Eighteen and terrified, that's what I am.




So when I mentioned something about being a film critic in casual conversation, this is what I was reminded of, this is where I was referred. And then I remembered that I already had one. I don't really know. It's not too late for me to post all my Oscar predictions or anything. But I need to see all those damn movies first. I will say that I've been to the movies more these past two months than any other person my age that I know. It's kind of fun, but kind of...not. It really does isolate me, though, when I try to start a conversation about how Kate Winslet really deserved that Golden Globe for the Reader..and the response I get would be along the lines of, 'Oh, she was in Titanic, right?'
Sigh. That's why I need the internet, so I know I'm not alone here. Good thing I'm reminded I'm not the only movie junkie out there. So...three cheers for the internet.

I found this on a facebook group. and laughed forever.



How Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs...
Top ten reasons to make gay marriage illegal

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Using the word 'anorexic' without a second thought when describing someone skinny just makes you look incompetent.

Well, it's pretty obvious how much I love Keira Knightley. And all over the internet all I really see is people bashing her for being anorexic, or being hideous, or having no acting talent. Okay, if you don't find her attractive, she's not your cup of tea, fine. Okay, you don't like her acting or movies, (even though she's been nominated for dozens of high end acting awards..) that's fine too. But when people jump to call her anorexic just because she's bony and shows it off in pictures...no. That upsets me.
Does any of you even KNOW what anorexia IS?

Keira at one of her premeires:




Yes. Bony, skinny, too thin, no chest. I'm pretty positive she REALIZES THAT when she looks in the mirror. But wait. Don't just assume she starves herself to look like that, it's really not fair. Take it from someone who eats an unhealthy amount of junk food and drinks an insane amount of soda daily- and can't show for it. Some people are just naturally thin.
Not to mention, when someone is anorexic, they should have skin kind of sagging, most notably on their shoulders. Keira does not have that. She actually has a six pack on her stomach, and anyone who knows the first thing about weight gain and loss is that if you're starving yourself, the first place your body eats away at (after the fat, of course) is the muscle, which means anorexics have virtually NO muscle on their entire bodies. Her hair and skin tone are normal, which rules out an eating disorder.
Look:


See? Okay. I rest my case.



I do NOT understand how anyone can really deny her being beautiful. To me, she is the definition of the word. She's got a face to die for.

America..following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire? Or maybe just another case against Hillary..

"…words do inspire, words do help people get involved, words do help members of Congress get into power so that they can be part of a coalition to deliver health-care reform, to deliver a bold energy policy.

...Don't discount that power." Senator Barack Obama, 1/5/08

Remember 1980? ...Well I sort of wasn't there, but I'm pretty positive that's the last time we had a President who inspired the American people. That was when Ronald Reagan changed the political agenda. Changed the way people really thought about politics. Before that it was JFK in the sixties. But the greatest example to date of that kind of power was manifested by FDR. Remember that famous line?
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Bill Clinton might have been able to use the power of words, but he never did, he did not change the conversation, the political agenda; he left the way right conservative "consensus" (the one established by Reagan) exactly the way it was, and didn't really attempt to change it. That might have been one of his failures, although there weren't many to even mention.

The argument on Saturday, January 5th, between Obama and Edwards on one side and Hillary on the other was really about the moral power and the values that a President can wield. It might be true that Hillary knows a little more about the particulars of "getting things done," but her approach and her arguments bring us back to the days of the Clinton administration, which actually in a way failed because it did not change the agenda, although there were obviously great things done...the minds of the American people were mostly made up, and there wasn't much being done to change that. Technical knowledge of the legislative process will not change minds. Hopefully.

If the US is ever going to emerge from the downward spiral Reagan set in motion, maybe such as..oh i don't know, the fall of the Roman Empire? it is not going to be with incremental improvements on a bad situation. The US needs a moral leader, one who can exhort, with a calm, reasonable voice, and who can bring people together. A uniter. Not a polarizing figure.

Those are the qualities Obama displayed during the January 5th debate and in his victory speech after winning Iowa. I honestly don't believe his whole mantra is just a blanket statement, or just..empty promises.

Barack Obama in 2008.