onomatopoem


turning my face up to the showerhead
setting the alarm, again, and getting back into bed
turning one last page
no one makes demands,
(except for my mother)
the remote control might never leave my hand
i can eat a shrimp enchilada every day
no one to hear about these dreams
except for sal and gustavo
my private ceremonies
my excellent jokes
the long deep breaths
and the red candle burning on the mantle
and the light of my laptop
i can slip in and out of the world at will
if the phone rings, will i answer?
if you knock at my window,
will i come and let you in?
and if you say
i'll be there
will
i be there?
you sew me up for moments at a time
your face
you fascinate me for a week
for months you think
i am yours
i wish you were right

i don't remember what i was watching, though i feel it must have been a documentary- what is that show on National Geographic with the funny little British fellow who puts himself through all kinds of torments? the hottest, coldest, wettest, driest places in the world... at any rate, i think it was he, who was on some tiny island inhabited almost entirely by tiny birds which flocked all day long in the skies over this little bit of rock off in the grim horse lattitudes of some remote sea. one of the few people who lived there was regarded as something of an eccentric even by his fellow islanders. he would wake up every morning and climb a steep hill holding a long pole with a net at the one end and a sack tied at his waist, and he would spend all day swiping teeny uccellini out of the air. when his sack was full, he'd go home and pour their soft little carcasses out onto his table, each little head rolling on a neck he had snapped between two fingers, and then he would pluck their feathers, bird by bird, and grill the creatures on his fire. this was his only sport, his only work, his only food, other than the plants that grew wild on the island. he didn't know how old he was, nor who his parents had been. the only things he knew were the net and the flocks, the necks, the feathers and the fire. sleeping, waking, the sea, sky, rocks, consumption and elimination. wind. bellwether.
what incredible clarity.

Today's poem II

Ya se ha puesto la noche bastante oscura
Cuando me empiesas a mecer

En las cuevas y bajos las calles
Entre las curvitas dulces y secretas
donde se callen finalmente
las canciones de los pajaritos, y
las alas de mariposas muertas
Allí. donde corren con sangre y jugos electricos
El color del melon maduro,
El color del fondo del mar
Allí se oyen de ahora en cuando
pasos, tronos, y se han sentido a veces
unos tambores discretos
Pero hoy
Se me olvidan todas las casualidades
Que me dejaron aquí
Encima de esta pequeña montaña,
(Bueno, pero no esta tan pequeña, eh?)

Al amanecer
A veces
Se me aparecen
Los colores de esos paises descubiertos
-Como me decia ese amigo mio?
A, sí -
Fenomenales


or, translated to English, -

It’s already very dark
When gently you begin to rock me


In the caves and below the streets
In the sweet hidden curves
Where birds’ songs and the wings of dead butterflies rest

There, where blood and electric juices run
The color of a ripe melon,
The color of the bottom of the ocean

There, where every now and then
the footsteps and thunderbolts have been heard,
I perceive some discreet drumbeat

Today, for a change,
I’ve forgotten the arbitrary circumstances
That left me here atop this little mountain
(not so little)

So then, at dawn
The colors of those countries
I had not seen
Appear to me
-how did my friend use to say it-
ahh,
phenomenal.

These are our histories

in a light sweat
all parts dusted with salt and sugar
certain faces express themselves in the dark
as reliefs of hypnagogic gold
two dissimilar skins pressing together
awakening familiar human geographies
to new configurations
like homonyms
equal tones, disparate in meaning
these are our histories
what skin has learned
skin shares secretly, with rare, precious strangers
between dreams
singing softly
we to us
at midnight and at dawn

enigmiac: Rearing in quaffed monk, you stun me by employing eight windows when the priest is but iodine.
VanessaIAB: the dinosaurs, they leapt and quailed and spat and slept and loved where i bought my mcgriddle.
enigmiac: You turn the atmosphere wild with currents of vitriol when you smile at the passing insects.
VanessaIAB: no one's making bricks of mud anymore and yet up up up up up go the towering structures of brown like poos from a colossal rectangular rectum.
enigmiac: Your eyes flash upon my cathode ray flesh in a manner that propels my viscera into an eternal state of turgid flux.
enigmiac: this would be much easier on you if you had what I have
VanessaIAB: i like the manhattan bridge best because it is blue.
VanessaIAB: last night i danced in the cobbled streets of dumbo while miles away my true love lay and tory played scrabble. the quesadillas were delicious.
enigmiac: the turpid climate of my welcome yesterday evening was warning enough that the summer season shall be sluggish, and devoid of any true combustion.
enigmiac: *torpid
VanessaIAB: turpid is better, love
enigmiac: your supercallowfragilekissessexmeoutthedoorstop
VanessaIAB: yoursouporsaladisdelicousnmyappetite'sferocious
enigmiac: haha
enigmiac: but I stole mine from a song
VanessaIAB: not me i'm an original baby
enigmiac: that's so AWESOME, and you don't even know why
VanessaIAB: ?
enigmiac: the song is called "free los angeles" by my new favorite band, "baby"
VanessaIAB: GOOD NAME!
enigmiac: yeah
enigmiac: you'll love them
enigmiac: I'll drag you out to see them one of these days
VanessaIAB: mmm
VanessaIAB: baby
enigmiac: it's such a great word
VanessaIAB: baby just rolllls offa da tongue
enigmiac: aww baby
VanessaIAB: *gasped at the precipice of ecstasy* baby
enigmiac: *laying in post coitial bliss* thank you baby
VanessaIAB: mmm
VanessaIAB: love that so much
VanessaIAB: the thank yous
enigmiac: of course
enigmiac: and I'll play you free los angeles later
VanessaIAB: weeoooh!
enigmiac: I wish I had a little guitar I could fold up and take with me everywhere
enigmiac: oh, here's something you'll surely enjoy
VanessaIAB: whatta concept
enigmiac: http://www.madsci.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~lynn/jardin/SCG/
VanessaIAB: all the bonus but none of the looking like a pretentious jerk
enigmiac: exactly
enigmiac: I want something pocket sized
enigmiac: I wish I had an invisibility cloak too
VanessaIAB: Most certainly, your fingernails stimulate magnetism in the most organic of solvents!
VanessaIAB: ohniiiiice
VanessaIAB: ohgodohgod
VanessaIAB: Cry for the stiffness of the earlobe. The turtles are fallen and the rain stands still. How long must I suffer with your undergarments?
enigmiac: Your moist towelette speaks to me as the disgruntled post man listens attentively while pumping the iron pumpkin.
VanessaIAB: coffee was in nose, now on laptop
enigmiac: mwahahaha
enigmiac: I hope it wasn't hot
VanessaIAB: tepid
VanessaIAB: numm
VanessaIAB: evens smells restorative
VanessaIAB: wish it tasted as good
enigmiac: the tepid coffee from your nose glistens like brown diamonds on the glossy surface of your laptop
VanessaIAB: twin fingers of coffee paused in spacetime
extruded from my nostrils, grappling, glistening pseudopods
peering into the cold, outer light.
later, in a frozen snapshot of eternity they lay shattered across the letters T, G, H, N, Y and W like cabochons of glimmering smog.
VanessaIAB: too many likes in that sentence
enigmiac: full of similies
VanessaIAB: like life
enigmiac: no, life is full of smiles, if you look in the right places
VanessaIAB: from my nostrils
enigmiac: No, not there.
VanessaIAB: Haaaa!
VanessaIAB: from my nostrils, extrusions of coffee paused in spacetime, like grappling, glistening pseudopods, peering into the cold, outer light.
in another frozen snapshot of eternity they lay shattered far below
across the letters T, G, H, N, Y and W -
cabochons of glimmering smog.
enigmiac: better, I like it
VanessaIAB: right on
VanessaIAB: clive barker's The Great And Secret Show, some of the bad guys were a race of monolithic lovecraftian freakazoids called the Iad Ourobouros.
enigmiac: I'm agreeing with you
enigmiac: backing you up
enigmiac: I got your back baby, from here to eternity
VanessaIAB: monolithic lovecraftian freakazoids pretty much sums that shit up
enigmiac: wordy mcword
enigmiac: vowels mcconsonants
VanessaIAB: i got your back too - till atoms lose the will to keep it together
enigmiac: haha
enigmiac: playing scrabble last night
enigmiac: I got to use my favorite word
enigmiac: ion
enigmiac: and then, later, scions
VanessaIAB: niiiice
VanessaIAB: powermove
enigmiac: I love those words
enigmiac: because of you, many many years ago
VanessaIAB: moi?
enigmiac: si, toi
enigmiac: we were sitting in the library at dwight
enigmiac: and you handed me "the sword of shannara" by terry brooks
enigmiac: and said here, read this
VanessaIAB: ohhhh yesss
VanessaIAB: actually maybe Elfstones of Shannara
enigmiac: maybe
VanessaIAB: that was the best one
VanessaIAB: loved Allanon
enigmiac: but one of the later books is called the scions of shannara
enigmiac: there are like 9 or 10 books in that set now
VanessaIAB: yup
VanessaIAB: Demonize your sofa. It will lend forth more peanuts between the cushions.
enigmiac: my login message this morning was "today is a good day to disappoint a good friend in need"
enigmiac: it actually made me mad
VanessaIAB: login message?
VanessaIAB: buh?
enigmiac: when I log into my computer, it prints a funny message to the screen
VanessaIAB: how you get it to do that???
enigmiac: for example:
enigmiac: With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
enigmiac: you have to use linux :-(
VanessaIAB: too true, she said, nodding sagely
enigmiac: or
enigmiac: He hadn't a single redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde
enigmiac: It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like the rose and the teeth were in the same glass.
enigmiac: some are funnier than others
VanessaIAB: niiice
VanessaIAB: classay!
VanessaIAB: can i just say
VanessaIAB: Cry for the stiffness of the earlobe. The turtles are fallen and the rain stands still. How long must I suffer with your undergarments?
enigmiac: forever, said the duck
VanessaIAB: so perfection that it hurts me unduly

Sometimes sitting at home, sweating, hollering 'ASSHOLE' at the top of your lungs is actually the only thing you can do.

Who knew?

time is a circle
circles to be traced
take my fingers back ten, fifteen years
i am shrinking back to when i was growing up
these are the physical sensations:
the musics and the people and their faces
the middle of the night
the roof, the sounds of the crickets and
the train rattling in the meadowlands

the whispering of my cigarette against terra cotta painted green

the smell of the ashes from my drawer

the appaling reality of seven a.m.,

which i have never outgrown,
the truth of darkness, punctuated by infrequent lights
the same fears
going back these ten or fifteen years
can i put my head down on the ground?
can i cry out?
some days i am running through the lightest air
the water receives me
there is peace in footsteps and phone calls
some days i really wonder about you people,
i wonder what i am really doing here
at all

 
last week's triumphs turn
to this week's regrets, I've learned
seamlessly, in dreams

 

my poem today,

cantando constantemente
como las velas
de las abuelas
sin consuelo
me aparecen luces en el silencio
en la noche, solita en la cama
quemada por las llamas, las llamadas
volando y separando

callan las aguas del cielo
pero sigo muriéndome de sed
coño, ¿y cómo me metí yo en ésto?

roughly translated:

i sing constantly,
as my grandmothers' candles burn,
inconsolably.
lights appear in the silence
at night, alone in my bed
i'm burned by my flames, by telephone calls
which float, and diverge.
water falls from the sky,
yet i am always dying of some thirst.
shit. how did i get myself into this mess?

 
 
VanessaIAB (11:41:28 AM): my friend Doron is singing a little song
VanessaIAB (11:41:32 AM): he made up
VanessaIAB (11:41:41 AM): called "Fuck the World"
enigmiac (11:41:47 AM): I need to hear it
VanessaIAB (11:42:21 AM): fuck the world/make it a better place/for you me and everybody else/there are birds dying/and we don't really care
enigmiac (11:42:30 AM): haha
VanessaIAB (11:42:54 AM): fuck the world/make it a better place/we hate boys/and we hate girls who don't know what they're doing
enigmiac (11:43:00 AM): lol
VanessaIAB (11:43:01 AM): tralalallaaaalaa
VanessaIAB (11:43:28 AM): kill the birds/yesyesyesyeeeeessss/kill it kill it KILL IT, BABY!
VanessaIAB (11:45:17 AM): make it a better place for you and me and everyone who would like to die today 
VanessaIAB (11:47:47 AM): i changed my sexiest on-screen love scene in salon personals to "The diner scene in Howard the Duck"
enigmiac (11:48:14 AM): LOL
enigmiac (11:48:24 AM): that, my dear, is why you are the perfect woman
VanessaIAB (11:49:08 AM): haaaaaaaaaa
enigmiac (11:49:32 AM): for me, anyway
VanessaIAB (11:49:41 AM): when that guys turns into an evil alien and the world is about to end, only it doesent, because it gets saved by a GIANT TALKING DUCK
VanessaIAB (11:49:44 AM): WITH ARMS
enigmiac (11:49:51 AM): and fingers
enigmiac (11:49:54 AM): don't forget the fingers

 

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 
there are two voices on the other end of the line 
this time last week, one of them was mine -
keeping up the necessary empathy,
or maybe the appearance thereof,
was much, much easier
on the other end of two thousand miles.
i do know that trying to be good is really not the same as the real thing at all.
he always took the phone to the bedroom, though, 
and i was reverent, patient, and silent
each time you called.
i guess that would explain 
why your beautiful voices
and the disconnected distances that spring up overnight 
electrified fences, frayed selvedges, stark palisades and hedges 
have left nothing connecting us
except three voices in thin air, pitched too high. 
i felt my stomach rumble down deep
and my lungs fill to push against my heart
i'm so sorry to be small, but i don't think i promised -
what did i know -
that i would never let these things happen

gpesoa says:
aviravirmayeddhidharmasivayanassanimamundi!
 
I'm not not licking toads... says:
osolemiosolemnissimoarrividerlaaldilaicinominepatriisefilliisespiritosantisenmundoseculumsecularumamen
gpesoa says:
ostabatmaterdolorosaymelosachocolatosaperadonaisabaothmetrathononaglajesuchristiredemptorhominietricottaconnuecesamén!
I'm not not licking toads... says:
achtungmonsoontyphoonbassoonsturmunddranggrandreinedrag
 
gpesoa says:
einekleinenachtvanessaplusapplestrudelversussadnessworeinmalvonquestognocchiwogeborenichunddu
I'm not not licking toads... says:
fragglejabbabaccawookieETkookyskookchinookwendigoetorc

gpesoa says:
flotsamjetsamalakazamkhakikiroakahasiaguadebebertweedlededeedidomdarú

I'm not not licking toads... says:
shintooboebashokobehomomomomuumuututubooboocoocookachooperiodebleupetitechouchoumojodojorobomototelefoto

You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood...blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.
-Spike

We might kiss when we are alone
When nobody's watching
We might take it home
We might make out when nobody's there
It's not that we're scared
It's just that it's delicate

So why do you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've know
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why do you sing with me at all?

We might live like never before
When there's nothing to give
Well how can we ask for more
We might make love in some sacred place
The look on your face is delicate

So why do you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've know
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why do you sing with me at all?


-Damien Rice, 'Delicate'

Yaki Torysan: hello
VanessaIAB: baby
Yaki Torysan: you busy?
VanessaIAB: always but never
VanessaIAB: when it comes to the chosen few
Yaki Torysan: what I mean is, can you/do you want to talk
VanessaIAB: unless i'm getting
VanessaIAB: yelled at
VanessaIAB: sure call me
VanessaIAB: 212
Yaki Torysan: and... and... and... am I one of the few?
VanessaIAB: 609
Yaki Torysan: I can't phone right now
VanessaIAB: 3729
Yaki Torysan: but I'll write it down
VanessaIAB: ok
VanessaIAB: my feet are smelly today
VanessaIAB: hmm
VanessaIAB: they're not usually smelly feet
Yaki Torysan: nice
Yaki Torysan: is that your cell #?
VanessaIAB: they smell like guacamole
VanessaIAB: no
VanessaIAB: office
VanessaIAB: here till six
VanessaIAB: i hope
Yaki Torysan: you hope?
VanessaIAB: unless i go real slow
VanessaIAB: :-(
Yaki Torysan: ahh
Yaki Torysan: I'm going really fast today
Yaki Torysan: I don't know why
VanessaIAB: where r u anyhow
Yaki Torysan: suffern
VanessaIAB: i'm sorry to hear that
VanessaIAB: but where are u?
VanessaIAB: hahahaha
Yaki Torysan: hahah

I miss you, lovers
Come back, all of you
And let me take my pleasures like I used to do
Forget the end and spiral back to the beginning
Where memories waited fresh like flowers in plastic at the grocery store
All spangled with cold water and neon light
Come back, my lovers and tell me again for the first time
I miss your finer moments-
I miss mine
It was a long while ago
And like a novel,
I will re-read you, and if it's been long enough,
Perhaps we can forget the ending?
Please, come back lovers
Let's tell stories
Let's surprise each other
I remember your black eyelashes and green eyes
And your freckled shoulders
And your laugh
I remember
Before you belonged to someone else
Before, I was someone else
Roll back the river
Erase my lies,
these lines beneath my eyes
Oh my lovely loves
We should have done better the first time
We should have done it all better the first time

My best emails:

On 10/29/03 4:09 PM, "Soto, Vanessa B" wrote:

hello
my headache is a mile-high storm cloud of shrimpy pink and mango orange sprouting sizzling lime lightning and looming over a landscape of sad, bilious greenish-gray avocado. in fifty-eight minutes I can go home, and I'll call you so we can chat for a while, if you like. meantime, edit credit memo written by venezuelan Tanya. intense.
i'll go talk to the moaners, who have been creating an eBay ad for me. they tell me i'm going to make them rich. they also say 'snake!'
NWOT and available at a superlow reserve,
Vanessa

On 10/30/03 3:08 PM, "Soto, Vanessa B" wrote:


i try to get the self-loathing out of the way while i am awake. spreading the lord's word? well, i'm smiling. what would a good Lord's word be?
they won't let me take Monday afternoon off. in fact, someone asked me this morning whether there are conference rooms on the 15th floor, and i said " How would I know? I have to tell someone when I'm going to the ladies' room." that might've been a bit gruff.
but the assistants, the analysts, the admins, the lowly ones who rise at dawn to change the copy paper and refill the toner cartridges!
when will my people be free?

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanessa
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:52 AM
To: Dean; Rick
Subject: RE: fyi


not even punctuation could save that one-


-----Original Message-----
From: Dean
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:46 AM
To: Vanessa; Rick
Subject: RE: fyi


is the fish speak

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanessa
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:45 AM
To: Rick; Dean
Subject: RE: fyi


Excellent. Perhaps then you will be able to keep Mandelbrot and Reimann straight.
Blub, blub, blub,
v

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:38 AM
To: Vanessa; Dean
Subject: RE: fyi


So far I only have 37 megaGf of piscomputing power - I'm hoping I'll get that promotion so that I can move up to the 50 MGf class of parallel goldfish processing power...

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanessa
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:34 AM
To: Rick; Dean
Subject: RE: fyi


Why 21 and not 20? Are your goldfish so poor they need an extra round, Evans?

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:32 AM
To: Dean; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


Can we at least play 21 questions? That would give the goldfish a chance to kick in...

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:31 AM
To: Rick; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


3rd

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:30 AM
To: Dean; Vanessa

Subject: RE: fyi


[deafening silence]

Point of information - which of the following is an accurate interpretation your punctuationless phrase below:

What? Do you think I am stupid?
What do you think? I am stupid.
What do you think I am, Stupid!

Fractal grammar.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:25 AM
To: Rick; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


what do you think i am stupid

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:24 AM
To: Dean; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


yes - but the boundary of the Mandelbrot set has complexity of infinite resolution - fractal...

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:22 AM
To: Rick; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


thx...but i have already determined that it does not go to infinity but stops where the modulus of Z is greater than 2?

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:21 AM
To: Dean; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


courtesy of the university of Utah...

http://www.math.utah.edu/~alfeld/math/mandelbrot/mandelbrot.html#applet

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 8:11 AM
To: Rick; Vanessa
Subject: RE: fyi


Does one of the sequences in mandlebrot set go to infinity...and if not, how far does it go?

Songs for Ten a.m.

if the buzzing in my head is any sign
or the sensation that swells my ribs
and pushes out my eyes
from behind
from behind
i'd say i spent the night with you,
hanging accidental pearls in my hair
telling stories
and spooning melting chocolate ice cream past my lips
your pretty head intent between my thighs
and pretty hands are resting on my hips

'That's quite the collection you've got there,' I said,
as the black cloth momentarily covered my eyes.
I might have said more:
'sometimes these things remind me of another kind of darkness.'
But I felt so light and sweet, that I was able to cough out a laugh, instead.
There is something frankly winning in your voice, which always sounds so glad.
(Even thought it's clear we are both mad.)
For an hour or more I ran my hands over your skin,
talking about this and that,
There was something like a dream about it-
at last, I wound my arms around and pulled you in.

OP-ED
Just Trust Us
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 11, 2004

TIMES NEWS TRACKER


Didn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would eventually come to light?

When the world first learned about the abuse of prisoners, President Bush said that it "does not reflect the nature of the American people." He's right, of course: a great majority of Americans are decent and good. But so are a great majority of people everywhere. If America's record is better than that of most countries — and it is — it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances.

Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable.

Just trust us, John Ashcroft said, as he demanded that Congress pass the Patriot Act, no questions asked. After two and a half years, during which he arrested and secretly detained more than a thousand people, Mr. Ashcroft has yet to convict any actual terrorists. (Look at the actual trials of what Dahlia Lithwick of Slate calls "disaffected bozos who watch cheesy training videos," and you'll see what I mean.)

Just trust us, George Bush said, as he insisted that Iraq, which hadn't attacked us and posed no obvious threat, was the place to go in the war on terror. When we got there, we found no weapons of mass destruction and no new evidence of links to Al Qaeda.

Just trust us, Paul Bremer said, as he took over in Iraq. What is the legal basis for Mr. Bremer's authority? You may imagine that the Coalition Provisional Authority is an arm of the government, subject to U.S. law. But it turns out that no law or presidential directive has ever established the authority's status. Mr. Bremer, as far as we can tell, answers to nobody except Mr. Bush, which makes Iraq a sort of personal fief. In that fief, there has been nothing that Americans would recognize as the rule of law. For example, Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's erstwhile favorite, was allowed to gain control of Saddam's files — the better to blackmail his potential rivals.

And finally: Just trust us, Donald Rumsfeld said early in 2002, when he declared that "enemy combatants" — a term that turned out to mean anyone, including American citizens, the administration chose to so designate — don't have rights under the Geneva Convention. Now people around the world talk of an "American gulag," and Seymour Hersh is exposing My Lai all over again.

Did top officials order the use of torture? It depends on the meaning of the words "order" and "torture." Last August Mr. Rumsfeld's top intelligence official sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantánamo prison, to Iraq. General Miller recommended that the guards help interrogators, including private contractors, by handling prisoners in a way that "sets the conditions" for "successful interrogation and exploitation." What did he and his superiors think would happen?

To their credit, some supporters of the administration are speaking out. "This is about system failure," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. But do Mr. Graham, John McCain and other appalled lawmakers understand their own role in that failure? By deferring to the administration at every step, by blocking every effort to make officials accountable, they set the nation up for this disaster. You can't prevent any serious inquiry into why George Bush led us to war to eliminate W.M.D. that didn't exist and to punish Saddam for imaginary ties to Al Qaeda, then express shock when Mr. Bush's administration fails to follow the rules on other matters.

Meanwhile, Abu Ghraib will remain in use, under its new commander: General Miller of Guantánamo. Donald Rumsfeld has "accepted responsibility" — an action that apparently does not mean paying any price at all. And Dick Cheney says, "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had. . . . People should get off his case and let him do his job." In other words: Just trust us.

So you want to become an Evil Overlord?

something joan said snatched me
out of my own head
and walking those same three blocks
through another iteration of twenty four hours
in this rain which is like an exhausted fog
i was afraid

If I can't be the Prince of Darkness, can I at least be the Marquis of Moral Relativism?

This is really cool

Friendster
To: eevin
From: vanessa
Re: a staggering work of writing a nonboring profile

Eevinevil!
How are you?
All things, large and small, are as they should be. I'm looking for work, currently interviewing at Univision. Have been working at ugh Citigroup as assistant to Managing Director. Nice people, but not really my thing. I live in Park Slope with my plant (nameless) and maybe some spiders. It's cool. People visit.
But what about you? What have you been up to? Last time we spoke I think you were working at the Museum of Teeve. Still there?
Glad to be rebefriended,
Vanessa


Eevin wrote:
> Beatrice!
> We are befriended.
>
> How's every little thing with you?
> What news?
>
> Ee
>
> Vanessa wrote:
> > hello lovely eevin,
> > this is vanessa, now rejoining the world of the
> > computerable. want to befriend me?
> > have a wonderful day!
> > v

This is getting publicity on CNN now. Angels and ministers of grace defend us...

Which John Cusack Are You?

oh, gregory

In a message dated 3/19/2004 1:00:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, CBotana2 writes:
To allay anyone's concerns that Vanessa may be the only woman this wide world over that is incompatible with another human being, I too am confirmed to have no man nor woman match in all continents, according to eHarmony. A Buddhist monk might have more luck in love than either of us. Alas, I am not even suitable for Vanessa whose profile must have been scanned against mine.

Watch this:

and listen closely at the begining.
Mad? Learn more at Move On.org

it's a choice...



great shots at chrismilk.com

'The Penguin is Mightier than The Sword'

From: Berkeley Breathed
Date: Fri, Oct 10, 2003, 1:51 AM
Subject: Fwd: salon interview

> Last we heard from you, via the Onion interview a few years back,
> the odds of you ever doing a strip again seemed pretty slim
> (to put it mildly). What changed?

The world went and got silly again. I left in 1995 with things properly, safely dull, and couldn't imagine why anyone would feel it necessary again to start behaving ridiculously. It would have been at least courteous of the Republicans to warn a few of us inclined to retire our ink-swords that they had King George waiting in his zoom-zoom jetsuit aching to start the Crusades again.

I can't believe that George W. Bush soundbite I just heard on The Daily Show referring to Sen. Kerry about not making accusations without proof to back them up. That man is too, too much.

check this

Also, I love Jon Stewart and I need to marry him. squeep.

Reality TV snark quote of the day, from Television Without Pity's America's Next Top Model II forums:

pontoon, Couch Potato
Mar 16, 2004 @ 10:07 pm
"I was watching the show with Mrs. Pontoon and when Shandi's boyfriend wailed his quavering, sobbing, girly "Oh my gawwwd!", we both lost our shit. I think you'd have to be overly technical not to react thusly."

Thinking about this later, it just seems like such an awful situation for both of them. I can't imagine the producers and editors having a clear conscience about televising this scene. And yet, it was cringey and fascinating to watch. The weird paradoxes of reality TV. If we've all been through it one way or another, is it a 'larger human theme' or 'universal archetype'? Or is that an easy way around the fact that the tears of misery or humiliation of these poor schmos are just as unique and personal as yours or mine in the stall in the office bathroom or in bed at 4pm and should be left the heck alone.

I don't really know, but I have to say it makes for some undeniably compelling and satifying programming. Sometimes reality TV is just soooo real.

I went to see the Nederlands Dans Theatre's 'ballets' Claude Pascal and others at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the other night with my friend James. It was unfortunately just awful, but had one redeeming moment, when a woman in a black Edwardian bustled gown with a fan stepped forward and pronounced "I like darrrknesss, and solllitude, and spaghetti."

That was the one thing in a performance full of random that was sort of random in a nice way.

From Dan Renzi's weblog, by way of Gawker.com

"Real World Miami star Dan Renzi has renounced reality television -- except, admirably, for one show: "I have decided that, when I die, I want to be reincarnated as a contestant on America's Next Top Model," he writes in his weblog. (Yes, in case you forgot, he was the gay one.)"

The Best TV Show Ever:

"I want to be Shandi. I want to have a criminal record and a messy, drug-addicted past. I want to have wild sex with hot Italian men, and then call my boyfriend in suburban Kansas City and crumble into guilt-riddled, emotionally-unstable breakdowns. I want to win dance contests because I'm the only one in the room who knows how to "do levels."

I love this guy!

George Michael, long may he live:

Giving it away for free: George Michael has announced that he won't be releasing albums in the traditional sense and will instead just put music out via the Internet for free download -- with the option for fans to donate money to charity should they so choose. "I've been very well remunerated for my talents over the years so I really don't need the public's money," the musician told BBC Radio 1. (Soundgenerator)


*having a Pump up the Volume / Grosse Pointe Blank moment*

So this one goes out to all the folks at Callahan's, from Spider, Mike and Jake-


Well I guess it would be nice
If I could touch your body
I know not everybody
Has got a body like you

But I've got to think twice
Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
Because I play them too

Oh but I
Need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
And when that love comes down
Without devotion
Well it takes a strong man baby
But I'm showing you the door

'Cause I gotta have faith...

Baby
I know you're asking me to stay
Say please, please, please, don't go away
You say I'm giving you the blues
Maybe
You mean every word you say
Can't help but think of yesterday
And another who tied me down to loverboy rules

Before this river
Becomes an ocean
Before you throw my heart back on the floor
Oh baby I reconsider
My foolish notion
Well I need someone to hold me
But I'll wait for something more

Yes I've gotta have faith...

Free Will Astrology:

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Imagine that your life is a detective story.
The goal is not to solve a crime, but to solve the mystery of why you're
here on earth so you can carry out the special mission you've come to
accomplish. Sometimes you go for months without even looking for clues.
You sleepwalk through the world, reacting blindly to the tricks that the
gods use to try to wake you up. Then there are those phases when hot leads
and fresh evidence pop up all over the place, convincing you beyond a
doubt that magic is one of the fundamental properties of reality. This is
one of *those* times, Pisces.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

baby, you're Canadian, she said...

...


i had a dream last night that I was recently married to a jewish artist in his late thirties. we had a tiny baby, just a few weeks old. his name was isaac einstein and his parents didn't seem to overwhelmingly approve of me. for sure, my parents didn't approve of him because we lived in an apartment underground between several subway lines with a bunch of other people, including lizzy. our families had come to visit us, and we were trying to convince isaac that we should move to a nice two-bedroom in brooklyn, rather than raise our baby dodging trains and climbing down access ladders, but isaac refused to leave manhattan, despite my pleading. the baby was beautiful, and my husband was not bad either; he wasn't tall and was a bit dorky, with a nice face, and short straight brown hair and a funny leather jacket. at one point in the dream, i hugged him and felt very safe indeed. i was very attached to both of them, and felt so odd when i woke up.

as ever, i wonder if someplace in manhattan, a stubborn artist called isaac woke up this morning wondering about a dream he had in which he was married to a shiksa named vanessa and had a little baby...

hmm.

-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 1:44 PM
To: Tanya; Amit; Dhaya; Oscar; Rick; Piyush; Gachi; Nick
Subject: Thanks!


Hi guys,
Thanks so much for coming to lunch to celebrate the eleventh anniversary of my fifteenth birthday. Please forget those figures immediately, of course...
Love,
V

I think this is really interesting, and I usually agree with Heather Havrilesky. I'm also usually a huge sucker for Stephen King's (better) written work, though very rarely his televised/feature film projects. Kingdom Hospital, in keeping with tradition, is leaving me with an overwhelming feeling of meh, though my geekly email from SK.com advises me to "Remember that Kingdom Hospital is a 'novelization for television'. Like a novel, it will pay back dividends but you will have to give it a little bit of time." Well, I hope so, but in the meantime, our pal Heather had a few choice things to say about the miniseries premiere, and they go a little something like this:

My kingdom for a Band-Aid

But you know, as a devoted slave to "Paradise Hotel," I may be a little biased. Which brings us to an important distinction: There are critics who prefer to give the illusion that their word is final. They would like you to think that they have some privileged powers of perception, that they alone can separate what is Good from what is Bad.

Then there are people like me. I've got some good ideas, sure, but I also have a lot of personal preferences and prejudices based on a tangled set of psychosocial and cultural influences. Who knows, maybe if I didn't love ham so much, I would have enjoyed "Charlotte's Web" a little more when I was younger. Maybe if my parents got along better when I was a kid, I wouldn't love "Ordinary People" and "The Corrections" and "Six Feet Under" as much as I do.

Look, it's nice to pretend that you're objective. We all like to offer up this illusion whenever we can. But there comes a time when a writer must admit his or her prejudices. I watched Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital," based on "The Kingdom" by Lars von Trier, and I tried to form an unsullied opinion of it. But here's the problem: I think Stephen King sucks.

To me, Stephen King is the worst kind of a sensationalist hack, the kind who puts a toddler in front of a 16-wheeler, or has a jilted lover masturbate all over his former girlfriend's bed, and he does it all without style or finesse or even an original turn of phrase or two. He's full of creepy stories, sure, but he's also full of hackneyed phrases and clichés. Sweet doggies turned rabid. Possessed toddlers. Brand new cars that smell almost as good as "pussy." I hate the stuff this guy writes about, the way he writes it, the way he takes his coffee, you name it.

So, let's take a scene from "Kingdom Hospital," just to see if you can understand where I'm coming from. A famous artist leaves his magnificent house to go for a run. As he's leaving, his wife tells him not to run on the road, because it's dangerous. Then she mentions that his latest painting is really weird. The artist leaves without saying goodbye, apparently angry at this comment. Guess what happens next? Instead of staying off the road, which we hear is quite dangerous, the artist runs right for it, and promptly gets mowed down by a guy in a van who's been swerving all over the road for several miles because he's trying to keep his Rottweiler away from a big raw steak which is, for some reason, within reach of the dog. The artist hits the windshield and ends up in a gruesome broken tangle on the ground -- just like a squashed ant, except with lots of blood and wild eyes staring up, helplessly. The guy in the van gets out, tells the bleeding tangled mess that he's really sorry, but he can't stick around because he's got an ounce of some unspecified drug in his dashboard.

Now, if the artist weren't famous, if the wife hadn't warned him about running on the road, if the guy in the van were trying to keep a poodle away from a bag of Cheetos instead of a Rottweiler from a steak, if he had no good excuse for leaving his victim bleeding on the road, aside from a fear of being charged with vehicular manslaughter, maybe I could excuse this scene. But everything here is so fundamentally filthy with Stephen King's grubby fingerprints, I really can't stand to watch. Did I mention that a crow lands on the bleeding guy's chest and threatens to eat his eyes out? A crow, get it? Crows are really creepy! Then, as I sit in amazement at the overly obvious, absurd details King has chosen, I vaguely recall something about his being in some kind of a serious accident a few years ago. A 10-second Google search later, I discover that every "absurd" detail I just listed, except the part about the drugs and the guy leaving the scene of the crime, is taken straight from the true story of King getting hit by a van while taking a walk through the country.

Has there ever been clearer proof of a critic's utter lack of objectivity? I am now willing to admit that I'm in no way qualified to analyze Stephen King's work. Obviously, I've disliked his books and movies for far too long to have anything reasonable to say about him.

...


Oooh. Burn! Well, she certainly has some excellent points about the sensationalist and arguably exploitative nature of King's work, but I thought it was a fascinating little blurb. It's amazing how when you let someone or something get on your nerves it can color your perceptions so totally.

Oddly, she didn't even mention the menacing saber-toothed anteater totem, which I thought was just screamingly funny.

Ohh buttery bday goodness

-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:25 AM
To: 'Erik Kang'
Subject: butt trek


i hope i don't tell him to take this nightmare of a job and shove it where no photon has gone before.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chantal
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:01 AM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: Re: needed to share this with someone


i think you need to go on the oysters and lemon herb martini diet. it's my favorite. it promises to make you thin, drunk and horny.

Chantal

STREET SPIRIT [fade out] (4:14)
radiohead

Rows of houses, all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things into position
All these things we'll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out

This machine will, will not communicate
These thoughts and the strain I am under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under
And fade out again and fade out again

Cracked eggs, dead birds
Scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see its beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things are one to swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out again

Immerse your soul in love
Immerse your soul in love


Thom: "'Street Spirit' is our purest song, but I didn't write it.... It wrote itself. We were just its messengers... Its biological catylysts. It's core is a complete mystery to me... and (pause) you know, I wouldn't ever try to write something that hopeless... All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve... 'Street Spirit' has no resolve... It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song... It's called detachment... Especially me.. I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn't play it... I'd crack. I'd break down on stage.. that's why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning... I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together... That's what's meant by 'all these things are one to swallow whole'.. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn't have it in me to articulate the emotion... (pause) I'd crack.... Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don't realize what they're listening to.. They don't realize that 'Street Spirit' is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes... and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he'll get the last laugh...and it's real...and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that to long, I'd crack. I can't believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song... That's why I'm convinced that they don't know what it's about. It's why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell everytime I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of it's meaning, like when you're going to have your dog put down and it's wagging it's tail on the way there. That's what they all look like, and it breaks my heart.
I wish that song hadn't picked us as its catalysts, and so I don't claim it. It asks too much. (very long pause). I didn't write that song."

NO SURPRISES (3:49)
radiohead

A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal

You look so tired and unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us
I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here)

silence, silence, please


i'm sorry if this is all a bit maudlin and boring but i'm having a bad day here and i'd like to buy the world a coke, or marry some gay folks-

[edited for extreme moodiness]

News flash: Mean people make me cry. Fuck you, mean people.

Thanks to Alert Reader Erik:
Don't mess with Karma Ghosts!

Message from my Dad:

Apparently, the word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

Also, slugs have four noses?

Cool!
Thanks, Dad!

In the meantime, here's something frighteningly cool from our old friends, Mr. Douglas Adams and Auntie Beebe.

the best thing i've come up with this morning, by way of a 'Hi, Morgan,' inspired in part by Homer's disability search in "King-Size Homer" and partly by my televisual crisis of an evening- nothing to do tonight, so should i watch Angel out of order, before Nibblz gives me vids, last week's Apprentice, which I missed, or check out Kingdom Hospital, which, if it's good, how surprised would I be?

i'm suffering from juggler's despair.
boreanaz v. trump v. reanimated stumps,
mimetic paralysis, career antiperistalsis,
failed-limeric analysis?
maybe i'll just wash my hair.

Pig have meme!

'crushed yet again, rocco decides to wear his kidney on his sleeve for a change.'

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Kang [mailto:erikkang1@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 3:35 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: YOU YES YOU!


Love cards for people like us.....

Robert's wisdom for today:

Be reconciled with the whole universe. When you are so reconciled the whole
universe is your friend. When the whole universe is your friend nothing
whatever can harm you. To be hurt by something or attacked by bacteria or an
evil spirit is proof that you are not reconciled with everything in the
universe. Therefore reflect upon yourself and be reconciled.

To be reconciled with the whole universe means to be grateful to everything
in the universe. True reconciliaction cannot be achieved by patience or
forbearance with one another.

To be patient or forbearing is not to be reconciled from the bottom of your
heart. When you are grateful to one another, true reconciliaction is
achieved.
Those who are grateful to God but cannot be grateful to everything in the
universe are not reconciled with the whole universe.

If you are not reconciled with the whole universe, although God wishes to
save you, your thought waves of strife will hinder you from receiving God's waves
of salvation.

i should never write another word again.

Inscription for a Gravestone
Robinson Jeffers

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.

The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That's gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)
But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.


I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,
Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.

I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

lord, it's a zero-sum game with you.
even the harmless are armed,
and I
am armored, and alarmed.
it's late to figure out
who is a sitting target
with a hole like a bullseye,
having none of it,
that keeps coughing up arrows,
though I have plenty.
i'll keep walking around like this, instead,
with my arms over my head
and over my eyes, my hands.
i'm sick to death of hearing of it.
no amount of prayer will clean out the wounds,
where breaths congeal
and blood runs hot and cold,
where the sweat wells up between midnight and five-
when it's always dark.

i take my comfort in flesh instead.
unafraid in blackness,
beneath your hair, beside your neck, behind my eyelids,
hiding straining skins, violet and red.

Pentagon report predicts some very, very bad news.

you know who you are:

don't worry, i think i'll probably not get felled like a fragile young birch sapling by a runaway bus, crossfire from illicit mafiose Russian wholesale cigarette dealers, treesharks, the black plague, cancer of the bones, unhinged exboyfriends banding together on drug-induced rampage, raging fire started by spiritualist-recommended eternal flame karma-candle, massive stroke as brain tries to escape from the monotony of *company name deleted due to wage paranoia* by exploding from my skull and hopping away under it's own power, skin failure, electric eel attack whilst sitting on toilet, injudicious slip of the tongue during interface negotiations with TechnoCore A.I.

did i mention i love you?
cheer up, buttercup.

Elegy for Jane
(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,

A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.


T. Roethke

Save Scott McPartland from ridiculous NYU politics.

He is my ex
He made jokes about sex
Some kids skipped the texts
And they got his ass fired.

It's a shitty world sometimes.

Check out The Minor Fall, The Major Lift for fun things like
this, and because TMF, TML is such a great name for a blog.

*singing to self*
I thought love was only true in fairytales WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP!
Meant for someone else but not for me WHUMP WHUMP!

wow, i am such a dweebie

Gawker.com! Because my subscription to US Weekly Magazine just isn't enough sometimes.

also, thanks to Erik for the poop cube!

build your own

this is mine

What is the Federal Marriage Amendment?

Write to your representative

Sign the Million for Marriage Petition

"I never cease to be amazed that anyone would actively oppose the marriage of any two people who want to make a legal commitment to love, honor and support each other"
-Kim Gandy, President, National Organization for Women

"Washington has permitted interracial marriage since 1868, even though most states at the time barred it. It was nearly a hundred years before the United States Supreme Court, based on fundamental principles of equality, declared those laws unconstitutional. But in the meantime, Washington was free to decide this question locally, based on the views of its own citizens, rather than succumbing either to peer pressure from other states or direct orders from the federal government.

The marriage amendment flies in the face of this ideal. It shifts power to the federal government at the expense of local control. Historically, our nation has benefited from the independence of its states, allowing regional and local solutions to problems instead of insisting on one-size-fits-all approaches. In a nation that is increasingly diverse, this preference for local variation is crucial."

-Julie Shapiro and Kellye Testy, The Seattle Times

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”


Eliot, The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock

i will bring water.

This was waiting in my inbox from Robert this morning:

"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be
dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you
can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be
the same again."

-Og Mandino

It's not just me:

Fantasy suite in D minor
Those who studied "Structural Elements of Reality TV" in college already know that there's a crucial juncture in the life of every reality show. It's that moment when the conflict between a show's characters either shifts into high gear, reflecting larger human themes and universal archetypes, or it gets predictable and repetitive and you switch to a "Seinfeld" rerun.

- Heather Havrilesky, "I Love to Watch"
Salon.com

-----Original Message-----
From: McPartland
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 10:27 AM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: Saving Angel


I expected a post from you to your blog about this. What can people do to protest the cancellation of Angel? I've gone to the WB website, but there's really no place to protest, only an Angel chat. Any ideas?


----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 9:02 AM
To: 'McPartland@aol.com'
Subject: RE: Saving Angel


Here's the petition

I'll post it to my blog, too

the pain will cleanse you ??

joss says:
(Sat Feb 14 22:31:16 2004)

Some of you may have heard the hilarious news. I thought this would be a good time to weigh in. to answer some obvious questions: No, we had no idea this was coming. Yes, we will finish out the season. No, I don't think the WB is doing the right thing. Yes, I'm grateful they did it early enough for my people to find other jobs.

Yes, my heart is breaking.

When Buffy ended, I was tapped out and ready to send it off. When Firefly got the axe, I went into a state of denial so huge it may very well cause a movie. But Angel... we really were starting to feel like we were on top, hitting our stride -- and then we strode right into the Pit of Snakes 'n' Lava. I'm so into these characters, these actors, the situations we're building... you wanna know how I feel? Watch the first act of "The Body."

As far as TV movies or whatever, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I actually hope my actors and writers are all too busy. We always planned this season finale to be a great capper to the season and the show in general. (And a great platform for a new season, of course.) We'll proceed ahead as planned.

I've never made mainstream TV very well. I like surprises, and TV isn't about surprises, unless the surprise is who gets voted off of something. I've been lucky to sneak this strange, strange show over the airwaves for as long as I have. I don't FEEL lucky, but I understand that I am.

Thanks all for your support, your community, and your perfectly sane devotion. It's meant a lot. I regret nothing (except the string of grisly murders in the 80's -- what was THAT all about?) Remember the words of the poet:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn."

See you soon.



-j.

New Buffy shirts from Slayage.com

i think they're so cool that i'm making myself nauseous

In Loving Memory - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Slayage.com honours our favourite show, 'Buffy,' with this range of items.













and more!

I love my dead gay show

here's a toast to the dark side. heh.

my horoscope

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You will wake up one morning and realize
you're more free than you've been in a long time. Nagging ghosts will have
lost their power to bug you. Stale traditions will have faded. You will have
made your last payment on an old karmic debt. Through an act of grace you
don't fully understand, mind-forged manacles will have vanished. So what
should you do next? I suggest you celebrate. Throw a "Get Out of Jail"
party for yourself. Then run wild for a couple of days. When you're good
and ready to harness your adorable new independence, ask yourself, "In
what area of my life is it most important that I start fresh?"

fuck, can anyone believe that anyone cares about this Ken-Barbie breakup thing?

Dear Lord: So far today, I'm doing all right. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or self-indulgent. I have not whined, complained, cursed, or eaten any chocolate. I have charged nothing on my credit card.

But I will be getting out of bed in a minute, and I think I will really need your help then.


***
To this prefab affirmation, I may need to add, "And I have not read any BTVS Willow/Giles facfic."

The Introvert's Lexicon

Last night I dreamt that I was walking around a snowy college town with my parents. Every once in a while, perspective would switch to that of another person, a woman, who was also walking accompanied by a man and another woman. I was trying to take my parents to a nice restaurant for lunch, but the snow was very thick, and the village was on a steep slope, and the streets were paved with neckties. There were skiers skimming down the flanks of the mountain, and from the perspective of the other group of three in my dream, I stood on the stage where they were awarding the medals to the winners. Back in my own body, my parents and I were still climbing the winding main street with some difficulty, when I looked into a gallery and saw my ex, JR, with his father inside. They saw me, and J's dad put his arm protectively around his son, as they turned away from me together. I walked towards him to say hello, nervous to think I might be rebuffed, but glad of the opportunity to mend fences. We ended up walking together, JR telling me about the microclimate that caused the unusual cold weather in the town. Our walk led us back to the awards stage, where I switched back to the perspective of the woman in the other group. They went into a welcoming, dark, Gothic-looking wood and glass bar. I was interviewing a beautiful quadroon girl in a long red woolen dress with an apron when her father burst in angrily. Instead of leaving her to her fate, I chose to run off with my notebook, in which I had made notes regarding her story- the loss of her virginity. Her father chased me through the icy streets of the town as I struggled to tear out the damning pages and dispose of them.

"The contents of the collective unconscious are represented in consciousness in the form of pronounced preferences and definite ways of looking at things. These subjective tendencies and views are generally regarded by the individual as being determined by the object -- incorrectly, since they have their source in the unconscious structure of the psyche and are merely released by the effect of the object. They are stronger than the object's influence, their psychic value is higher, so that they superimpose themselves on all impressions. Thus, just as it seems incomprehensible to the introvert that the object should always be the decisive factor, it remains an enigma to the extravert how a subjective standpoint can be superior to the objective situation. He inevitably comes to the conclusion that the introvert is either a conceited egoist or crack-brained bigot. Today he would be suspected of harbouring an unconscious power-complex. The introvert certainly lays himself open to these suspicions, for his positive, highly generalizing manner of expression, which appears to rule out every other opinion from the start, lends countenance to all the extravert's prejudices. Moreover, the inflexibility of his subjective judgment, setting itself above all objective data, is sufficient in itself to create the impression of marked egocentricity. Faced with this prejudice the introvert is usually at a loss for the right argument, for he is quite unaware of the unconscious but generally quite valid assumptions on which his subjective judgment and his subjective perceptions are based. In the fashion of the times he looks outside for an answer, instead of seeking it behind his own consciousness."
Jung, "General Description of the Types."

Last night I dreamt I was a production assistant on The Ring. The movie was being filmed in a haunted subway station and surroundings here in NYC. The only way to get to the shoot was on a creepy haunted bleached-out old white subway train, and the whole cast and crew were staying in leaky, paint-peely tunnels on cots and bunk beds. No one wanted to share a bunk with Evil Dunnowhatkindabeastie Samara, who lurked threateningly around the set trailing long wet hair and leaving puddles everywhere. Also, no one wanted to watch the dailies of the movie, because everyone was scared that someone from Props had left the Evil Videotape lying around. Gore Verbinski was very depressed about the situation and would not get out of bed, so I tried to cheer him up with some coffee.

Why do we exist?

-----Original Message-----
From: Evans, Richard J
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:20 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: I should have had the corn chowder

-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:21 PM
To: Evans, Richard J
Subject: suckerrrr

it's delish. haha.

word to that
pseudodictionary hopes you use your increased knowledge for the forces of good

refresh away.

hathos - the taking of pleasure or joy in despising something.

e.g., That Styx concert footage was pure hathos.

In the business, this is what we refer to as 'T.P.M.O.'

ok?

rain pours from yellow clouds
that wreath the skyscrapers of downtown

it's white white day
in the wrong way
the augurs tell me to swim hard
against the wind and the leaves
and the purely driven snow
no hidden agendas
though nelson and robert
used to tell me
that when signs point to no
turn off the alarm and
go back to bed kid
but i can't seem to
put these livers and feathers
and tarnished knives
and reams of paper
punched through up the sides
to sleep

it's not just me. everyone hates Diane Sawyer.

this one's my favorite:
"Rebecca Traister's deconstruction of Judy Steinberg Dean's media unveiling was dead-on -- except for failing to note that it might be more apt to tattoo "cold careerist bitch" across Diane Sawyer's furrowed brow.

Sawyer, whose ladder-climbing tendencies have been matched only by her eagerness to hold out for more money, acted as if she had just landed Earth's first interview with an alien life form: a woman who believes in her work, who relishes being a mother and a wife, and who dares to remain true to herself.

Judging from the look on Sawyer's face, Steinberg Dean did not respond with words but by smiting her interlocutor with a croquet mallet. What gives? Our culture celebrates a woman's independence ... right up until that woman's husband runs for public office. Let's see: You can either work a job you love and dote on your teenage son, or you can subject yourself to relentlessly insipid questions posed by vacuous media hacks who wonder whether you really have the right kind of hairstyle to be first lady. Which would you choose?"

Bob Keeshan, Who Played Captain Kangaroo on TV, Is Dead at 76
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 23, 2004


Filed at 1:41 p.m. ET

QUECHEE, Vt. (AP) -- Bob Keeshan, who gently entertained and educated generations of children as television's walrus-mustachioed Captain Kangaroo, died Friday at 76.

Keeshan died of a long illness, his family said in a statement.

Keeshan's ``Captain Kangaroo'' debuted on CBS television in 1955 and ran for 30 years before moving to public television for six more. The program was wildly popular among children and won six Emmy Awards, three Gabriels and three Peabody Awards.

The format was simple: Each day, Captain Kangaroo, with his sugar-bowl haircut and uniform coat, would wander through his Treasure House, chatting with his good friend Mr. Green Jeans, played by Hugh ``Lumpy'' Brannum.

He would visit with puppet animals, like Bunny Rabbit, who was scolded for eating too many carrots, and Mr. Moose, who loved to tell knock-knock jokes.

But the show revolved about the grandfatherly Captain Kangaroo, whose name was inspired by the kangaroo pouch-like pockets of the coat Keeshan wore.

``I was impressed with the potential positive relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, so I chose an elderly character,'' Keeshan said.

whooah! teeny tiny midget cows



boy, do i hope they're getting 100% vegetarian feed.

thank you, Alert Reader Erik!

i got a six percent pay increase just now.

big boss: "well, don't spend it all in one place"
vanessa: "do you think they can give it to me in a lump-sum?"
big boss: "heh"

he's actually a really, really nice guy. anyway i smiled a lot, and said 'my pleasure,' and asked for constructive criticism.

-----Original Message-----
From: King mOrgan [mailto:Iworkw/KingMorgan.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 1:44 AM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: IRS

G. should understand that trying to make them recognize him as a decent human who in turn recognizes that they are decent humans (who simply have unpopular jobs) is indeed problematic at best. What he really wants is for them to decide to simply move on to less complicated prey. Instead of a seven page letter expressing mutual respect, a shoe box with a dead hamster inside and a note that says "Unlike this hamster, my love for you will never die."

.m

wow. someone is trying to kill Stephen Hawking. that's messed up.
also, hello, Munchausen Sydrome by Proxy. That's a new one.

Police Probe 'Assault' on Scientist Stephen Hawking
Mon Jan 19, 8:49 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Astrid Zweynert

LONDON (Reuters) - British police are investigating an alleged assault on scientist Stephen Hawking, the disabled cosmologist and author of the best-selling "A Brief History of Time."

Detectives want to question Hawking about a number of minor injuries he recently suffered.
A Cambridgeshire Police spokeswoman said Monday detectives were probing allegations that the university professor had been assaulted.

"Police are investigating an allegation of assault on a 62-year-old man from Cambridge," the spokeswoman said, declining to give further details.

Hawking, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, is confined to a wheelchair after contracting motor neurone disease, a muscle-wasting condition, when he was 21. He can only speak through a computerized voice synthesizer.

The Daily Mirror reported Monday that Hawking's three children feared he might be the victim of someone suffering from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a disease where sufferers harm others to draw attention to themselves.

"The family are worried sick. They've been suspicious for some time that someone has been harming Stephen," an unnamed source told the newspaper.

The inquiry was triggered when nursing staff contacted police last summer after the professor was left stranded in his wheelchair in the garden of his home on the hottest day of the year and suffered severe heatstroke and sunburn, the Mirror said.

Hawking, 62, achieved international prominence in 1988 with A Brief History of Time, which examined the origin of the universe and was translated into 30 languages.

*thanks for the update, astrid...*

Tuesday morning after a three-day weekend, or

Hello world:

hello world indeed
it's a good thing there's singing
otherwise my garbage hands
might tire of making garbage stands
and walk me back to the hunting lands
where buffalo and yarmeluke play at arabesques in the tall grass
and no one lacks for peace of mind
until the cowbops who come on a big black train
return to teach us spelling and deportment

Reading about BSE and prions and came across this incredibly alarming condition:
Fatal Familial Insomnia

"Fatal familial insomnia is a genetic disease, due to a specific mutation in the PrPc gene. However, the disease can occur spontaneously, without a mutation. This form is called sporadic fatal insomnia. Fatal familial insomnia and sporadic fatal insomnia differ from other prion diseases because they affect predominantly one area of the brain, the thalamus, which influences sleep.

The disease usually begins between the ages of 40 and 60 but may begin in a person's late 30s. Most often, it runs in families. At first, people may have minor difficulties falling asleep and occasional problems with muscle movements. Eventually, they lose the ability to sleep. Other changes include muscle twitching, rapid heart rate, and dementia. Death usually occurs after about 7 to 36 months of illness. No treatment is available."

-The Merck Manual, Second Home Edition

>From: "Soto, Vanessa B"
>To: "Erik"
>Subject: eBay item 3266395901 (Ends Jan-17-04 180641 PST) - JESUS LORD
>DIVINE MERCY THRO
>Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:30:59 -0500

JESUS LORD DIVINE MERCY THRO-O-Oh God, It's HIDEOUS!



-----Original Message-----
From: Erik
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 2:41 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: RE: eBay item 3266395901 (Ends Jan-17-04 180641 PST) - JESUS
LORD DIVINE MERCY T


So jesus can shoot both a heat ray and an ice ray from his chest?
Awesome...


-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 2:46 PM
To: Rick; Tanya; Scott; Erik
Subject: RE: eBay item 3266395901 (Ends Jan-17-04 180641 PST) - JESUS
LORD DIVINE MERCY T


"jesus, i trust in you...
not to freeze or fricasee me with your nifty laser-beams"

-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 2:53 PM
To: Rick; Tanya; Scott; Erik
Subject: RE: eBay item 3266395901 (Ends Jan-17-04 180641 PST) - JESUS
LORD DIVINE MERCY T


Celebrity Death Match: Jesus v. Sensitive '00s guy

Heaven protect us

-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:16 PM
To: Scott, Rick
Subject: um, coooool!

you guys want to buy a bunker? we can get it cheap on eBay!

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:24 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B; Scott
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

Its the perfect place to start my monastery. I see whole curved walls covered in hair shirts.


-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:25 PM
To: Rick
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

aggggh. take me there. maybe alternating hot and cold plunge-pools and brown bread and beer.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:26 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

no women allowed in the monastery. we'd have to create a nunnery wing. With no access between the two, of course.


-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:27 PM
To: Rick
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

i guess, but sorry, that's just no funnery.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:29 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

Ummm.... right. That would be consistent with the hair shirt thing.


-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:32 PM
To: Rick
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

i give your monastery two weeks before the hair shirts need shampooing and the fridge smells like cheese.
also, and contradictionally, it is a sexist, exclusive monastery that violates my Constitutional rights, and i'm taking this to the Supreme Court.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:34 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

I'll sit on my separation of church and state rights, unless the nuns are offering to do the laundry and the cooking. Then maybe we can work something out.


-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:35 PM
To: Rick
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

chauvinist!

it will not stand- what kind of religion is this?

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:39 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

Its a secret idea under development - but something really patriarchal and misogynistic. Heavy doses of St. Augustine, sprinkled with some Southern Baptist and Taliban. Good times.

-----Original Message-----
From: Soto, Vanessa B
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:39 PM
To: Rick
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

clean your own fridge!

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:40 PM
To: Soto, Vanessa B
Subject: RE: um, coooool!

mmmm.... cheese....

Remind me never ever again to date anyone I work with? Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanessa
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 9:47 AM
To: Tanya
Subject:

kill meeeeeee

-----Original Message-----
From: Tanya
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 9:52 AM
To: Vanessa
Subject: RE:

Boom....

riddle of the day: i hate time

Last night I dreamt that I was in the kitchen of my parents' house holding hands with my friend Morgan. I decided to have some strawberry ice cream, and grabbed it from the freezer. As I was eating it out of the carton, I opened the top cupboards to get a dish, but instead, my ex-boyfriend Scott was sitting up there like it was the most normal thing in the world, grinning like he never did in real life. I tried to leave the kitchen, but when I did, I realized that it wasn't in the house anymore. It was just a box containing a room, which sat on some very very high tracks in the path of a monorail.

.................

I broke up with my boyfriend again. This time for good. What a New Years'. Eugh.