Friday, March 12, 2010

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - March 12, 2010



I decided to go for class this week with an Ingres drawing.

Loyal reader, do you think it is so wrong

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Monday, March 08, 2010

sonnets contain many metaphorical variations



an incurable cancer of the brain

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Saturday, March 06, 2010

Miss Muffett in a runaway ugly machine

Back in college, well before I became interested enough in poetry to write it (two years this April 10, unless you count the elven folks' rhyme-speak in my play TAM LIN written in 2002) one of my favorite poems in the Norton Anthology was LeRoi Jones' "W. W."

The entire poem is available online in Google books. My favorite part:


... The black women in Newark are fine. Even with all that grease
in their heads. I mean even the ones where the wigs
slide around, and they coming at you 75degrees off course.
I could talk to them. Bring them around. To something.
Some kind of quick course, on the sidewalk, like Hey baby
why don't you take that thing off yo' haid. You look like
Miss Muffett in a runaway ugly machine. I mean. Like that.


So cool. After writing that poem Jones had his best-known play, DUTCHMAN, premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre, in 1964. (Then he changed his name to Amiri Baraka)

So imagine my excitement when Cherry Lane offered NYCPlaywrights a bunch of free passes to Baraka's March 8th Master Class. It's not often you get to meet the author of one of your favorite poems.

I mean. Like that.

...Persistent algorithm of your life...

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Friday, February 26, 2010

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - February 26, 2010 edition



This isn't so much about the clothing although that's a nice cravat - but whoah, who knew that Gericault was the hotness? I'd rather gaze upon his self-portrait than The Raft of the Medusa!

All the fine arts are covered on this blog: It was good to see you again.

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Monday, February 22, 2010

Showmance

During yesterday's rehearsal for SODOM & GOMORRAH: THE ONE MAN SHOW one of the actors used the term "showmance" to describe the often short-term, embarrassing sexual relationship that sometimes develops between two actors during the course of theater productions. And the very worst is when one of the actors is married and you have to meet the actor's spouse. Awkward!

I love the term, though and plan to use it.

One of the actors had an hysterical story about a production of "The Nutcracker" that she was in, during which one of the female actors was having sex backstage with the actor playing the Nutcracker - in the magic sleigh that goes to Nutcracker land - while the guy was wearing the giant Nutcracker head. I fell on the floor laughing at the image - I am trying to convince her to write a monologue about it - if she doesn't soon, I will write the damn thing myself.

ah, memories...

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

I C U



I see you pussycat

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Methought I was enamoured of an ass!



Do I wake or do I dream?

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Latest from Literotica

Well now my excerpt from the Darlington Curse has been read 948 times, still received only 8 votes and has a rating of 3.50 out of 5. But I finally got some feedback, via email:
You write well. For me, this means you create a tangible sense of setting and give a lot of color and detail around the characters. It draws me in. When you inject erotic situations into this mix, it is all the more arousing. In short, you get the imagination going and that drives everything else.

And, don't think I didn't notice the appearance of boots in this story. Hmm, I might have to wear some sexy boots

He also read my first Literotica story, hence the boots reference. And I think he's flirting with me.

Out of the blue, another sonnet.

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Friday, January 29, 2010

Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 29, 2010



Here we see the hot Regency man very conspicuously displaying his hat label. This comes by way of the previously mentioned Oregon Regency Society. On their "description" page they rightly identify Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as a prime source of Regency imagery. Although if I know my Ingres, this image, although interesting, and the guy is pretty cute (the outfit helps) is not by Ingres.



Well which will it be first: sonnet or Darlington?

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Saturday, December 05, 2009

If my sonnets...



a sonnet of exploration...

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

the popcorn - sonnet simile




Sonnets are like popcorn - just when you think your popcorn is all done, one or two more kernals will pop.

literarily speaking...

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Saturday, October 17, 2009

O muse



O Muse, you have lost your humanity

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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sneaky sonnet

Ambushing me in the middle of the night. I blame the spirit of John Keats...

Oh to see him, whom I should have forgot
Dressed in antique fashion, willy-nilly
more

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Mystical phenomena



I've had a few sort of mystical, or at least weird unexplained-phenomenon type experiences with men. The first was when my boyfriend John and I were kissing - we were in our early 20s and we both suddenly felt that we were reading each other's minds. We both said it, right after the kiss: "I felt like I was reading your mind!"

Then there was the strange incident of the death of Earl Rich. Earl was not my boyfriend, but I felt a connection to him - a friend used the term "soul mate", and the morning he died I felt like I heard somebody calling to me "Nancy, Nancy.... good-bye." In fact I felt weirdly blue all that day and had a dream that night that somebody was trying to tell me something. I found out he died the next day - about 30 hours after it happened, but I had weird sad sensations - and never anything like that, before or since - during those 30 hours.

Then there's what happened a few years ago, as described in this sonnet.

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Monday, August 17, 2009

Sonnet Seduction

Ooh, free fiction on the Internets - a short story called Sonnet Seduction (in PDF format). The literary style is not very good. "one Mr. Darcy" just grates my nerves.
Brrrrring!
Harper Alcott looked up from her dog-eared copy of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, startled away from a particularly juicy fantasy involving herself and one Mr. Darcy.
“Okay, time’s up, people!” she shouted over the ringing of the school bell and a collective groan from her students. “Please leave your quiz on my desk. I’ll have them graded for tomorrow morning.”
The kids filed out one-by-one, and she mentally cursed their slow-footed, apathetic teenage selves at the moment. I have to get out of here, Harper thought as she hustled them out of her classroom like a madwoman escaping the asylum.
A grown woman of thirty-two, desperate to get to her mailbox for another taste of her secret admirer. Was she crazy... or just pathetic? Perhaps a bit of both, but the combination of a twelfth-grade English teacher’s avid love for a good romance and cryptic, daily love notes from a hidden paramour proved to be irresistible.

Her secret admirer does turn out to have excellent taste in clothing though...
Harper took one step and froze in place. Among the midst of variously dressed high school students bumping and grinding, there he stood head and shoulders above them. He sported an austere, black tailed overcoat, breeches with tall black boots, and dark, curling brown hair that barely touched his collar.

Rrrow, come to mama!

This sonnet, alas, is far from seductive.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009

some people love those sonnets...



For real this time. It isn't one of the sexy ones though...

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Why, man, they did make love to this employment



HORATIO
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

HAMLET
Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow:
'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

NL8

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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

drowning in tears



As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, 'and in that case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.

'I wish I hadn’t cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. 'I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.'


it's a common metaphor

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

displacement is the new normality



NL6

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Friday, July 10, 2009

Age of Wonder



When Poets Were Scientists - a book review of "The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science " by Richard Holmes.

Hey, doesn't coding in HTML and Javascript count???

New Leaf Sonnet #5

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Monday, July 06, 2009

sensible advice



Here is a good article: How to get over the silent treatment, especially this part:
Re-evaluate your relationship. Decide how important your friend is to you. If you are getting the silent treatment, your friend is probably emotionally immature. Adults are able to talk things out and communicate on an adult level. Ask yourself if this person is really worth keeping around. If you find that the answer is "No," survive the silent treatment by moving on.

Very sensible. Sonnets, however, are rarely sensible.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Of snakes and absolute gems



Sonnets are all well and good but really, I probably should look into a Zoloft prescription.

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Saturday, June 27, 2009

This was not supposed to happen



Turns out that the surest way to feel inspiration for a sonnet is to tell yourself NOT to write a sonnet.

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

New leaf sonnet



Well this makes 5 days in a row I've posted sonnets... but I'm in a different mood now... time for a sexier sonnet.

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I'm an American artist and I have no guilt.



Wow, sonnet marathon. This one marks the fourth sonnet in four days. And I might like this one the best - I'm talking back to the forces of artistic suppression - the little suburban minds who think they can tell me what is appropriate to write about. The little shamers of this world - the ones who dabble in the arts but who don't have the soul of an artist.

Patti Smith's BABELOGUE:

I haven't fucked much with the past, but I've fucked plenty with the future. Over the skin of silk are scars from the splinters of stations and walls I've caressed. A stage is like each bolt of wood, like a log of Helen, is my pleasure. I would measure the success of a night by the way by the way by the amount of piss and seed I could exude over the columns that nestled the P.A. Some nights I'd surprise everybody by skipping off with a skirt of green net sewed over with flat metallic circles which dazzled and flashed. The lights were violet and white. I had an ornamental veil, but I couldn't bear to use it. When my hair was cropped, I craved covering, but now my hair itself is a veil, and the scalp inside is a scalp of a crazy and sleepy Comanche lies beneath this netting of the skin. I wake up. I am lying peacefully I am lying peacefully and my knees are open to the sun. I desire him, and he is absolutely ready to seize me. In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American; in heart I am Moslem, in heart I'm an American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin. The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce. We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore. He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

On the banality of evil

How stone dead inside do you have to be
/ To attack someone you have never met?

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Monday, June 22, 2009

The Institute for Poetic Medicine


The only thing that can save the world is the
reclaiming of the awareness of the world.
That is what poetry does.
--Allen Ginsberg

Writing allows us to discover how vulnerabilities and strengths can co-exist, even thrive together. Poems can reveal deep insight and compassion. They can give voice to what is raw and wounded in your life and that honesty, creatively expressed and explored, can bolster and guide you through rough times. Your writing can transform you at profound levels.

web site

another sonnet..

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

I'm famous on the Internets



A "tribute" of sorts, to my sonnets has been posted on the Internets.

Here's a little sonnet dedicated to my fan club.

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Monday, June 15, 2009

Dream Sonnet 2



A dream sonnet with Wuthering Heights imagery.

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Monday, June 08, 2009

unruly dreaming



Taunted by another unruly dream. *sigh*

Begin another sonnet cycle. *sigh*

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

Logistical sonnet



Probably the last sonnet of this series. I may finally be coming to my senses.

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Friday, May 29, 2009

Sounds of silence



It's meant no treat at all to be given /
The silent treatment...

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

wham bam



Sonnets are like falling in love - completely unpredictable. This one quite amuses me.

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Dreamland sonnet



We were last night in Dreamland...

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Friday, May 15, 2009

a bee or reverie



A sonnet in proximity.

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Saturday, May 09, 2009

come here... I want to see you....



Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of March 10, 1876, describes the first successful experiment with the telephone, during which he spoke through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room. Bell writes, "I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: 'Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you.' To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said."


Sonnets are also a form of communication...

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Thursday, May 07, 2009

Long ago...



Sonnet 2 in this series

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Sunday, May 03, 2009

New sonnet series


Communication sonnet #1

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Friday, May 01, 2009

How do I love thee?

From an analysis of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet 43 from "Songs from the Portuguese" ("How do I love thee, let me count the ways."):

"Sonnet 43" expresses the poet's intense love for her husband-to-be, Robert Browning. So intense is her love for him, she says, that it rises to the spiritual level (Lines 3 and 4).
more here.

Some sonnets are not quite so spiritually elevated I'm afraid. That's what happens when you're leading a life of noisy desperation.

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

pm7

I can't stop thinking about poor Harry Eastlack

So he found his way into this sonnet.

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Poetry month Sonnet 6



Well I figured I should write at least one more sonnet before poetry month was over.

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Happy sonnet anniversary



I can't believe it - tomorrow it will be one year since I started writing sonnets. I began writing out of complete desperation - I was battling depression and despair at the time, reeling for months after being suddenly cut off from someone I cared deeply about, at his choice, and for what I considered unjust reasons. Or perhaps the better word is unfair - I was no saint either, but I mostly acted the way I did due to extreme provocation. And I felt bad about it.

Sometimes I think that nobody in the theatre world but me is capable of feeling remorse or making an apology.

sigh

Anyway, I would probably never have written a sonnet without such circumstances, and although I don't claim to be a great poet, it's been a good literary exercise. And I am fond of some of them, especially the sexy ones, like this most recent one.

Tomorrow I will have to take stock of my sonnets and decide how I feel about them, maybe pick my favorite ones. I will post the results here.

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Wednesday, April 08, 2009

My heart quite fills me with astonishment...

My heart quite fills me with astonishment
In its amazing stubborn persistence
Its foolish self-defeating discernment
And monomaniacal insistence

More of PM#4 here

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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

PM#3



Evocative particle accelerator trails.

sonnet

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Friday, April 03, 2009

Living the sonnet life


2nd sonnet in this series

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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Happy National Poetry Month



The first sonnet of National Poetry Month.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

latest sonnet



My latest sonnet, which mentions vipers.

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Friday, March 20, 2009

spring



The first sonnet of spring 09

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Neo-pagan sonnet

In Roman mythology, Flora was a goddess of flowers and the season of spring. While she was otherwise a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology, being one among several fertility goddesses, her association with the spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime. Her festival, the Floralia, was held in April or early May and symbolized the renewal of the cycle of life, marked with dancing, drinking, and flowers. Her Greek equivalent was Chloris. Flora was married to Favonius, the wind god, and her companion was Hercules. Due to her association with plants, her name in modern English also means plant life.

Flora achieved more prominence in the neo-pagan revival of Antiquity among Renaissance humanists than she had ever enjoyed in ancient Rome.


Time for a neo-pagan sonnet

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ooh lah lah Petite Sirah

Rosenblum 2004 Petite Sirah Heritage Clones - one of the best wines I've ever had. And such a bargain for the price.


Wine Spectator notes
Rated: 90
Delicious, with remarkable flavors. Smooth, rich and polished, with layers of huckleberry, blueberry and plum and a meaty-beefy-cola edge. Plush and saturated on the palate, coating the mouth, with an added tier of mocha and spice. Drink now through 2011. 9,587 cases made.


I like it so much I put it in this sonnet.

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Friday, March 06, 2009

Another sonnet



About souls... or not.

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?



Another sonnet.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Resistance is futile



Goddam Sonnet 3

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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Yes, another one.



Yes another goddam sonnet.

It is not an easy life, to be the slave of an evil and relentless Muse, who keeps letting you believe you have defeated him, only to come back more domineering and heartless than ever, making you dream up sonnets on a topic you swore a million times you'd never touch again.

No wonder so many writers drink.

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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Because I am a goddam fool, utterly bereft of self control



Yes, a sonnet, yes on Valentine's day, because really, can one ever get enough self-loathing and humiliation?

A goddam sonnet that I wrote even though I should know better.

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Monday, January 26, 2009

Final NY sonnet



Because really this has become too ridiculous even for me...

NY Sonnet 5

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Thursday, January 01, 2009

New Year, same old sonnets



I'm reasonably sure that the subject of my sonnets actually reads my sonnets - I've said as much in the sonnets themselves. How do I know? The mighty powers of deduction and web statistics - just ask Sherlock Holmes.

But if he does read them, then it's truly weird because he won't speak to me (or respond to emails.) Which is creepy, so I kind of hope it isn't him. How crazy would you be to care enough to read somebody's sonnets about you, but still not talk to the author. Unless of course you are such a gigantic egomaniac that you are obsessed with reading about yourself, even if the person doing the writing is dead to you. Talk about ghost writing!

Well my New Year's resolution is to keep writing sonnets but with a new subject. Right after this one.

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