Lessons in life

"Old age and treachery will triumph over youth and skill every time."

Blinded by Venetian Love

Spent Saturday evening with close friends watching the film Casanova. Normally, I am repulsed by anything farcical, but shock horror: lurking beneath a veil of silliness and romantic misconceptions lies a beautiful love story not unlike Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Who knew?

The auburn-haired Sienna Miller is breathtakingly gorgeous, Heath Ledger is dashing and mesmerising, the costumes shimmer throughout, and the city of Venice comes to 18th century life in glorious colour. Director Lasse Hallström (who, incidentally, directed ABBA-The Movie) creates an intensely romantic comedy celebrating the passionate life of a legendary lover. One of the loveliest movies I have seen in a long while.
I guess I know what I want for Xmas now. Well, besides that.

I Wonder (Departure)

I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

There Comes the Strangest Moment

There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free--
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.

Skin's gone pale, your brain is shedding cells;
you question every tenet you set down;
obedient thoughts have turned to infidels
and every verb desires to be a noun.

I want--my want. I love--my love. I'll staywith you.
I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what's here to never go away.
I'll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast…

Your heart's in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You'd have sworn no one knew you more than you.

How many people thought you'd never change?
But here you have. It's beautiful. It's strange.

-From the book Open Slowly, by poet and classical musician Kate Light.

Irish Philosophy

Never Give All the Heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

W. B. Yeats.

Get Happy

Suggestions for a more blissful life:

1. Stop watching the news
2. Stop reading the newspapers
3. Buy food which requires no cooking
4. Drink alcohol frequently
5. Take as many pills as Marilyn
6. Go for a massage as often as possible
7. Pretend you have no debt
8. Trust nobody
9. Stop reading fiction
10.Remember you're a Womble

And then my heart with pleasure fills

From "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey...":

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:--feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.

William Wordsworth

I'm sailing away, now I'm on my own...

"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. "

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Brand new Supernatural episode tonight

The new Supernatural episode "Simon Said," will air tonight on the CW Network and City TV in Vancouver, for those following the progress of the dreamy Padalecki's transition into the legendary Lou Ferrigno.

;-)

Immortality

Extract from the final interview:

Apparently you decided against appearing as the Doctor in a film version while you were playing the Doctor on TV, why?

Never heard of it. God knows where you got that story. They write extroardinary things in these magazines. If you read about all the things that were said when Doctor Who was going to be made into a film in Britain from about ten years ago and all the people that were supposed to be playing it. I have been playing it four times - Doctor Who in this new film. A woman from The Evening News rang me up and said"congratulations." I said 'on what?' "You're playing Doctor Who in the new film" she said. And I said 'am I? Thanks so much for telling me.' And she said "don't you know anything about it?" And I said 'I've never heard of it. Actually the fellow from Monty Python, Eric Idle, is playing it'. She said "oh, no he's not". And I said 'yes, he is. It was in the papers yesterday.' And she said "I've rung him up today and he says he's never heard of it." You don't want to believe what you read in the fanzines. "

Please refer to the complete Final Interview of the immortal Jon Pertwee for more details.

Bridget

Afterglow

Blight

Hard seeds of hate I planted
That should by now be grown,—
Rough stalks, and from thick stamens
A poisonous pollen blown,
And odors rank, unbreathable,
From dark corollas thrown!

At dawn from my damp garden
I shook the chilly dew;
The thin boughs locked behind me
That sprang to let me through;
The blossoms slept,—I sought a place
Where nothing lovely grew.

And there, when day was breaking,
I knelt and looked around:
The light was near, the silence
Was palpitant with sound;
I drew my hate from out my breast
And thrust it in the ground.

Oh, ye so fiercely tended,
Ye little seeds of hate!
I bent above your growing
Early and noon and late,
Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,—
I cannot rear ye straight!

The sun seeks out my garden,
No nook is left in shade,
No mist nor mold nor mildew
Endures on any blade,
Sweet rain slants under every bough:
Ye falter, and ye fade.

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The next chapter...

And then their eyes locked. And Christian knew that no matter what the circumstances were, Aaron did not, would not want him to ever go. He slowly reached up to caress Aaron's cheekbone with his thumb. Their faces moved closer. Their noses, then their lips touched. The world stopped, and Christian again experienced the sense of being floated inside a prism, a prism filled only with their breath, and their racing hearts, and their kiss. It was like the room was circling them, as if the entire Universe had broken apart and heaven had been laid wide open...

From the book Latter Days, adapted from the screenplay.

If only I could write as beautifully as this.

"Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye..."

There is a well into whose bottomless eye,
Though I were flayed, I dare not lean and look,
Sweet once with mountain water, now gone dry,
Miraculously abandoned by the brook
Wherewith for years miraculously fed
It kept a constant level cold and bright,
Though summer parched the rivers in their bed;
Withdrawn these waters, vanished overnight.
There is a word I dare not speak again,
A face I never again must call to mind;
I was not craven ever nor blenched at pain,
But pain to such degree and of such kind
As I must suffer if I think of you,
Not in my senses will I undergo.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Supernatural Hunk Signs on as Incredible Hulk!

In an amazing scoop, we can exclusively reveal that Jared Padalecki (left), one of the two hotties currently lighting up Thursday night television screens on the hit show Supernatural , is set to play the coveted role of Lou Ferrigno in a biopic of The Incredible Hulk. Sources say there is no other explanation as to why the formerly slim and beautiful Padalecki, one time babe of prime time television, now closely resembles the green-skinned Marvel monster. Insiders have speculated that Mr. Padalecki may be unaware of his gargantuan metamorphosis, and it is thought that boatloads of fan mail from devoted Jaredites, in which hysterical teenage girls and demented middle-aged men protest his superhero transformation, are being secretly stored at an undisclosed location. Padalecki's agent is quoted as saying that Mr. Padalecki "got carried away with his fitness regime at the gym, and even bulked up on containers of gummy bears." Padalecki's co-star, the trim and handsome Jensen Ackles, was not available for comment. More news as it happens.

Now by the path I climbed, I journey back...

"I would have sworn, indeed I swore it:
The hills may shift, the waters may decline,
Winter may twist the stem from the twig that bore it,
But never your love from me, your hand from mine."

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Sonnet of the Week - October 20

The heart once broken is a heart no more,
And is absolved from all a heart must be;
All that it signed or chartered heretofore
Is cancelled now, the bankrupt heart is free;
So much of duty as you may require
Of shards and dust, this and no more of pain,
This and no more of hope, remorse, desire,
The heart once broken need support again.
How simple 'tis, and what a little sound
It makes in breaking, let the world attest:
It struggles, and it fails; the world goes round,
And the moon follows it. Heart in my breast,
'Tis half a year now since you broke in two;
The world's forgotten well; if the world knew.

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The most beautiful woman on the planet

The ever-gorgeous and pulchritudinous Frida, at the glorious age of 60, brought beauty and glamour to the Moscow premiere of Mamma Mia! on Tuesday evening. She is the epitome of class and elegance, as always. Bjorn also attended the premiere, but he is less pulchritudinous.

Fleeting Glimpse

Storms

Every night that goes between
I feel a little less
As you slowly go away from me
This is only another test

Every night you do not call
Your softness fades away
Did I ever really care that much
Is there anything left to say

Every hour of fear I spend
My body tries to cry
Living through each empty night
A deadly call inside

I haven't felt this way I feel
Since many a year ago
But in those years and the lifetimes past
I did not deal with the road

And I did not deal with you I know
Though the love has always been
So I search to find an answer there
So I can truly win

Every hour of fear I spend
My body tried to cry
Living through each empty night
A deadly call inside

So I try to say goodbye my friend
I'd like to leave you with something warm
But never have I been a blue calm sea
I have always been a storm

Always been a storm
Ooo...always been a storm
I have always been a storm

We were frail
She said "Everynight he will break your heart"
I should have known from the first I'd be the broken hearted
But I loved you from the start

Save us...
And not all the prayers in the world-could save us

Recorded by Fleetwood Mac.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

Fresh new episode of Supernatural tonight, according to City TV:

Dean and Sam investigate the murder of a college student who has come back from the dead seeking revenge on those who mistreated her while she was alive. When confronted, the ghost savagely attacks Sam, leaving him injured. While in town, the brothers visit their mother's grave to pass along something from their father. (HD)

My advice: turn the lights off and scare the hell out of yourself. You could be dead tomorrow.

Why Purdey will always be the ultimate Avengers girl

Purdey. Mmmmm...

Motivated by Joanna Lumley's recent appearance on the Kumars at No. 42 show, visions of the lovely Purdey in The New Avengers overwhelmed me. She was ultra feminine, she could karate kick Cybernauts, she wore exquisite designer clothes, she could scale tall buildings in stockings, she created the "Purdey bob" phenomenon in the UK, she could outrun any man whilst wearing kick-ass stillettos, she was strong, she drove the coolest of sports cars, she was sarcastic, she was sexy, she was naughty, she was divine. And she was beautiful. No wonder so many little boys wanted to be her, I mean meet her. She'll always be my number one Avengers girl. Sorry Emma.

And clearly, the wondrous Lumley also has a wicked sense of humour, as shown by her turn in Absolutely Fabulous as Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia 'Patsy' Cocteau Stone.

"Such songs have power to quiet..."

Found a contemporary biography of Longfellow (the second greatest US poet of all time, in my view) whilst on Alexander Street in San Francisco this week. So far, it's a brilliant read. He's so very Wordsworthian, and my poetess Millay was so Wordsworthian, and Hardy and Eliot both emulated the 'nature aspect' of Wordsworth's writings...do we sense a common thread here? Perhaps I am simply most affected by those who also felt the mighty heart of the Lake Poet pounding through their beings. Or maybe I'm just affected generally.

"The Day is Done" (1845)

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The fattening fallacies of follicles

Forty-four more hairs were reported lost down the sink hole of a plump Scotsman this morning, sources say. This is devastating news to people clinging desperately to what is left of their youth, and particularly those who have spent decades doing everything possible to prevent any resemblance to Phil Collins. The unidentified fat guy, who even attempted to replant his fallen hairs whilst in the shower, allegedly hates male pattern baldness, loathes combovers of any kind, and detests toupees, hence his unresolved issues about Elton John. Fatty, as his friends call him, is in hiding from the press and hangs out with the ghost of Greta Garbo talking in mangled Swedish. He is currently seeking alternate options to stop the spread of ugliness across the rest of his corpulent corpse, but recently gained 10 more pounds thanks to a steady diet of roast chicken crisps, Mars bars and ice cream floats. Concerned neighbours have put St. Paul's on stand-by. More news at 11.

Memoirs of a Geisha

One word: BORING.

Beautifully blunt

One of my dearest friends in the world recently introduced me to the magic of James Blunt, a sensitive British rock dude. His song "You're Beautiful" is annoying and repetitive, but nothing could have prepared me for one of his lesser known ballads.

Celestial Chilean prophecy?

"Those tangled
hours, filled
with serpents,
when
my heart stopped and I stifled,
you would come along...

I did not suffer looking for you,
I knew that you would come,
a new woman with what I adore
out of the one that I did not adore,
with your eyes, your hands, and your mouth
but with another heart,
who was beside me at dawn
as if she had always been there
to go on with me forever."

Pablo Neruda, "You Would Come" from The Captain's Verses : The Love Poems.

The Gods may throw a dice, their minds as cold as ice...

"Remember, that which doesn't kill us sometimes leaves us maimed for life. But the only way to find out is to face it head-on."

"Guilt distracts us from a greater truth - that we have an inherent ability to heal. We seem intent on living through even the worst heartbreak."

Lila Montagne, from the book Latter Days, adapted from the screenplay.

Emma Peel's Parting Words of Wisdom

"Always keep your bowler on in times of stress, and watch out for diabolical masterminds."

California, Here I Come...

Away until Oct. 18th. Please check www.airdisaster.com for updates.

From beyond the grave...

The woman's been dead since 1950. And yet, somehow she still manages to say in a few words what I would spend ten years trying to come up with:

Not dead of wounds, not borne
Home to the village on a litter of branches, torn
By splendid claws and the talk all night of the villagers,
But stung to death by gnats
Lies Love.

What swamp I sweated through for all these years
Is at length plain to me.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I Let The E-mail Speak

I copy for your reading pleasure, an e-mail I just dispatched to a luckless reviewer. I will let my response to his review speak for itself.

Dear Mr Lebrecht:

You clearly missed the whole point of this cd by Anne Sofie Von Otter in your recent online review.

Ms Von Otter is paying homage to the remarkable musical genius of Benny Andersson, one quarter of the former pop group ABBA and the most respected songwriter in Sweden. You don't like ABBA, fine, we can all enjoy your bizarre protests about their music. Von Otter did not make this album for profit; if you had bothered to watch the press pack dvd interviews, you would have witnessed that she is as moved by Andersson's music as she is Schubert or Bach. Many of us feel that way about Andersson's music, both post-ABBA and during ABBA. I am sick and tired of American reviewers (I can only assume you are American, given your slight against ABBA) defaming ABBA. Why is it so hard for those in the States to appreciate ABBA's iconic status and creative brilliance? The rest of the world realised their legacy years ago and this is why their records continue to sell prodigiously and why Mamma Mia! is the most popular musical in the world. Von Otter's cd is nothing more than a beautiful tribute to a man whose music has touched her heart.

ABBA is the second largest selling group in history, and the four former members, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltksog, are respected by many in the music industry. In case you missed it, ABBA's music has had a critical reappraisal in recent years. Guess what? The songs never were bubblegum, or crass. The majority of ABBA's songs are masterpieces, and I suggest you listen to The Visitors, their final studio album to understand why. On there, you will find mature, adult songs of polished perfection. Here, one can freely roam through the heartbreaking terrain of post-divorce emptiness, feel the terror pulsating through a discovered dissident of the Soviet Union, or be swept up in the majesty of an ABBA libretto. Yes, ABBA. These songs are waiting to be discovered by those who dismiss ABBA as a '70s disco band.

Before making any further egregious comments about the "cabaret loot" of ABBA, I urge you to listen to more of their repertoire. And, for the record, Andersson and Ulvaeus are indeed in the process of bringing the Kristina musical to Broadway. It is currently in workshop, but they have yet to find an American vocalist as talented or as exceptional as Helen Sjoholm to play the lead role.

I hope when the musical does hit Broadway that it knocks your socks off and allows you to hear what you have been missing. Maybe then you will come to appreciate the complex, melancholic beauty of Mr. Andersson's songs. Genius is never recognised in its time.

Yours sincerely,
XXX
Vancouver, Canada

Sometimes When I'm Dreaming of Steepletop

Seems I'm not alone. Some enthusiasts even have entire websites devoted to the most divine poetess to ever grace the planet:

http://math.bu.edu/people/kea/webpage.html#shrine

I've also confirmed plans to visit Steepletop in 2007. This will be a dream come true. Read more about my destination on the Friends of Millay homepage:

http://www.millay.org/

Sonnet of the Week

VI. Sonnet

Time, that renews the tissues of this frame,
That built the child and hardened the soft bone,
Taught him to wail, to blink, to walk alone,
Stare, question, wonder, give the world a name,
Forget the watery darkness whence he came,
Attends no less the boy to manhood grown,
Brings him new raiment, strips him of his own:
All skins are shed at length, remorse, even shame.
Such hope is mine, if this indeed be true,
I dread no more the first white in my hair,
Or even age itself, the easy shoe,
The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair:
Time, doing this to me, may alter too
My anguish, into something I can bear.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Adopting the Agnetha Fältskog philosophy

The woman has a point. She has been criticized for twenty years, for her decision to hide away on her farm, seldom going out into the world. I now see what she's on about. It's wonderful to be left alone, to stay in one's pajamas all day long, keep the curtains closed, play movies all day, read on a comfy chair, eat gelato, turn off the phone, take pills, nap, consume alcohol, play music loud to annoy the neighbours who play music loud to annoy me, and hoover to my heart's content. Don't know why I didn't think of it before. Agorophobia, or Agnetharophobia as I like to call it, is the perfect solution to life's problems. Who knew that simply turning off the phone and deliberately *not* making plans with friends would be so incredibly satisfying? Solitude is the light and source of all my being. I vant to be alone.

"For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude."

William Wordsworth.

To sleep perchance to sleep

Dreams seldom happen if you're not asleep.

Do any of you have any idea what it's like to suffer chronic insomnia? You do? Fabulous! Now we can call each other at 4 in the morning when we're lying there in the dark with nothing to do but wait for the numbness of sleep to eventually come. Personally, those who do sleep make me want to scream and rip their heads off. Sleep would be a little difficult after that, no? Well, welcome to my world. It takes several pills now to keep me asleep. This morning, the pipes in the wall woke me up. This often happens, yet when my landlord came to listen, naturally there was no clicking sound. It happens all day long, 24-7, but obviously *not* when others come to visit. So, no surprise, even with earplugs, that I was wide awake this morning, and threatening Marilyn-like endings. She said it would have been kind of good to be finished, and she was dead within a few days of that suggestion. God only knows where she is now, but hopefully far from the poisons of any Kennedy.

In the meantime, I shall continue the intake of pills and adjust them to suit my limited sleeping time. And don't worry, I shall remove any tumblers by my bedside AND ensure the washing machine is on the rinse cycle so that no one will think I've done the deed myself. Sweet dreams!

Time and Relative Dimensions in Space

Series Two of Doctor Who premieres Monday, Oct 9 (Thanksgiving Monday) at 8:00pm on CBC, therefore making it a Thanksgiving to remember.

"Other places only make me love you best"

This time next week I shall be ensconced in the beauty of San Francisco preparing to be best man at my best mate's wedding. Technically, the wedding is in Palo Alto, near Stanford University (I wonder how many antiquarian book shops I can squeeze in as the happy couple pose for the photographer?), but it's close enough for me. I'll be in California for a week nearly, and am looking forward to performing various best man duties and attempting two flights within a week, all without the calming tranquillity of ativan. My suggestion to the airline is to warn every passenger boarding the plane that sitting next to me might be exceedingly hazardous to the health of everyone on board the aircraft. You've heard of Snakes on Planes? This is immeasurably more dangerous. Thank heavens I learned how to say "deep breaths" in Swedish.

To determine if I'm still alive, please visit the Air Disaster website. I do, regularly.

Does anybody actually love clowns?

Last night's new Supernatural episode found our hunky heroes Sam & Dean grappling with a demented clown, and coming to terms with their father's mysterious death. The scene where the little girl looks out of her bedroom window and sees the forlorn clown staring up at her from the dark shadows of the moonlit garden sent chills down my spine and brought me out in goosebumps. I hope never to come face to face with a clown, vengeful or not, again. And believe me, I've known some clowns in my life.

You're In My Heart: The Final Acclaim

Apologies to Rod Stewart.

If you could come back as a character from a movie in your next life, who would you be? It's a tough one. There are so many to choose from, but which one would be the one closest to your heart? For me, there are several: Mr Darcy, Palmer Joss, Francesca Johnson, Sugar Kane, Neo, Ennis Del Mar, Lassie, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, to name only a few. But there's really no contest. I would return as...

The Tin Man. What a marvellous life he would lead. No heart to disrupt the steady flow of life, and no heart to beat quietly in the "the dark room." Lord only knows why he was so determined to gain one.

"And there it was, this human heart, you know? This human heart. You think about it beating and all, but it's more of a dance. And I couldn't get over that that's all that tethers us to this planet - this one fragile muscle. And how it's so tiny, really, in the big scheme of things. And when you think about all the things that can stop it... Well you just figure that there's got to be something else, something miraculous that keeps that valiant little muscle dancing." From Latter Days.

Back in the R.S.S.: You Don't Know How Lucky You Are

For those unclear on exactly what R.S.S. feeds are (ie. me), the BBC have kindly produced an R.S.S. information page to bring everybody up to speed. Now you too can impress your friends at dinner parties by incorporating the phrase Really Simple Syndication into conversation while you pass the turnips.

Transition: Beyond Dorothy Parker

At this point in my life, I am still in a time of transition, physically, emotionally and psychologically. There are many questions unanswered, and I find it enormously gratifying to use this time wisely, to help discover what else is out there that I may not have known or accepted before. As a practising Anglican for the past ten years, I have given myself room for growth and spiritual reflection. I now find myself reading a lot about other faiths and beliefs, some of which I am drawn to, and some I am not. It is all part of the motion of change, for everything has its season:

"Like the sunrise in the morning, life is dawning, move on,
How I treasure every minute, being part of, being in it,
With the urge to move on..." (Andersson/Anderson/Ulvaeus)

Some readers will already know that I am presently absorbed in the Book of Mormon, a "volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible." It is fascinating, and I was captivated by Prophet Joseph Smith's visions. I have also ordered a copy of Mormonism for Dummies and am looking forward to reading that. I'm not saying I'm joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints tomorrow (how would missionaries deal with the ABBA thing for starters?), but I am interested enough in their scriptures to want to know more about the faith and their teachings. In the meantime, I am merely broadening my horizons in order to find serenity and contentment in my daily life. It is wonderful to have this time for reflection and evaluation. The Universe is made up of so many zillions of things, and I am still searching to understand the purpose of my life.

For more on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, visit http://www.lds.org/

Dorothy Parker to the rescue!

Transition

Too long and quickly have I lived to vow
The woe that stretches me shall never wane,
Too often seen the end of endless pain
To swear that peace no more shall cool my brow.
I know, I know- again the shriveled bough
Will burgeon sweetly in the gentle rain,
And these hard lands be quivering with grain-
I tell you only: it is Winter now.
What if I know, before the Summer goes
Where dwelt this bitter frenzy shall be rest?
What is it now, that June shall surely bring
New promise, with the swallow and the rose?
My heart is water, that I first must breast
The terrible, slow loveliness of Spring.

Dorothy Parker

Another strike against sectarianism in Scotland

In Scotland today, The Herald reports that Glasgow Rangers have taken another positive step towards quelling sectarianism and violence in Scottish football. Following up on their three year Pride Over Prejudice campaign, officials from Rangers have issued documents for model football behaviour, not only in Glasgow, but around Scotland:

"Officials from the Ibrox club have sent out a blueprint for a nationwide scheme to deal with sectarianism, racism, and other forms of antisocial behaviour. They want every club in the country to be forced to play a part by ranking clubs on their efforts."

It is always encouraging to see officials from either Old Firm team initiate anti-bigotry campaigns, and hopefully this will result in a drop in regrettable incidents at the next Celtic v. Rangers match. Now if I could only dig up my thoroughly researched term paper for Irish Studies on the subject I'd be a happy man.

The full article can be read here: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/71305.html

Let Our Angel Live

Former Charlie's Angel's star Farrah Fawcett is battling terminal cancer. The 59 year old actress was diagnosed this week with cancer of the intestine, and is currently undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. A mere 5 weeks ago, the actress was reunited on stage with her former co-stars and original Angels Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith to honour Aaron Spelling at the Emmy Awards. Their appearance together brought the house down, despite the fact Ms. Cheryl Ladd had not been invited to participate. (One deduces therefore that she and Ms. Jackson have yet to reconcile their differences.)

This news clearly scuppers any chance of the proposed 30th anniversary reunion movie coming to fruition. But obviously the hearts of all Angels fans around the globe are with Farrah and her family right now.

Lyrical Ballad of the Week - October 2

Again with a reference to the mighty Wordsworth. There's no stopping me. :-)

From the film Latter Days:

If I Could Be With You Now

All my life I've looked for angels
All this time I've searched for signs
Now I've turned the corner
You're standing before me
You’re not what I thought I might find

I've never been shaken
Never been confused
Always protected all my affections
In only directions I choose
All my intentions and all my best plans
Now come to rest in your hands

If I could fly
If I could soar
If I could rise up to heaven
Unlock that door I might finally stop
This world spins around
I would just to be with you now

I've never been shaken,
I've never been confused
Always projected all my affections
In only directions I choose
All my intentions and all my best plans
Now come to rest in your hands

If I could find the key
Into your heart
And unlock that door I might finally stop
All the spinning around
If I could just be with you now

Always believed I was solidly grounded
All my assumptions come tumbling down...
(chorus merging)

Recorded by Dean Nolen and Bobby Joyner.