Self taped this sign to her printer because she wanted to make sure she looked at it every day. It’s been there approximately three years.
WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: The Sign Says
June 1, 2013 at 3:51 am (Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: advice, inspirations, photography, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Most Surprising Quote of the First Sunday of May (2013)
May 6, 2013 at 2:47 am (Recommended, Sundays, television)
Tags: adaptations, advice, humor, Sundays, Vanity Fair
“She was very strict about everybody’s time in life. Children should be allowed to play because you’re going to need all your happiness to grow up.”
– Luca Dotti, second son of Audrey Hepburn, describing his mother in the May 2013 Vanity Fair
Self is practically keeling over with exhaustion. Doubtful whether she can keep her eyes open long enough to catch the 10 p.m. screening of “Game of Thrones.” She almost fell out of her chair just a few minutes ago, so tired is she. She came to with a start. Now she knows what people mean when they use the expression, “dead on your feet.”
But, she did manage to catch Episode 5 of “Game of Thrones” last night, the episode where Jamie gets his amputated arm cauterized (without benefit of prior numbing with the “milk of the poppy” – Don’t say you don’t know what that refers to! Come on, it grows wild in the kingdoms of Game of Thrones almost as much as the opium poppy grows wild in the far reaches of Afghanistan) and where he gets into a steaming hot pool where the Amazonian Brienne is seen in vulnerable state (i.e., naked). Naturally, he flings himself forward into the pool (after an endless conversation during which he takes care to keep his bloody stump — wrapped in the grimiest bandages this side of gangrene — out of the steaming water) and Brienne darts forward to hold him up out of the water (presumably, even in water that shallow, one might drown, and viewers all know how fastidious Brienne is). “Kingslayer!” she calls out. To whom exactly, is left ambiguous. But the response is perfect: “Jaime,” the man gasps. “My name is Jaime,” before fainting dead away in Brienne’s Amazonian embrace.
Wow. That was a great scene. Can’t wait to see more of these two parrying and then falling into each other’s arms (Not having read any of the books, self is merely imagining the possibilities)
Self also liked the scene where the little girl who is dressed as a boy has to be very stoic and unafraid in the presence of a very smelly and dastardly variety of men. Self’s mind kept scurrying hither and thither, thinking Oh no, oh no, don’t let anything happen to that plucky little girl. Because even though this is alternate history, the men are still dastardly and the girl has a kind of Christina Ricci vibe going on, what with her dark hair and her dark eyes and that round face . . . Thankfully, the scene comes to an end before any of self’s wild imaginings bear fruit.
Daenerys was back but somehow self has completely lost interest in her. Unless Daenerys can get those dragons to make greater hoo-ha around her, it will take a lot to re-focus self’s attention.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Camila, Anselmo, Lothario and the Bold Servant-Girl Leonela (A Fable from DON QUIJOTE, by Miguel Cervantes)
March 30, 2013 at 8:56 pm (Books)
Tags: advice, humor, novel, reading lists, Saturdays, translation
Self is currently on Volume 1, Chapter 34 of Don Quijote (the translation by Burton Raffel):
It so happened that a very stupid man named Anselmo wanted to test his wife Camila’s modesty and virtue by asking his friend (Lothario) to woo her and see if she would submit to temptation.
So Lothario did woo Camila, and she did fall in love with him, and then she had second thoughts, wondering if perhaps she hadn’t submitted too quickly, but her maid Leonela hastens to assure Her Ladyship:
” . . . don’t let all these misgivings and finicky notions trouble your mind, but be confident that Lothario values you as you value him, and be happy and well satisfied that, having been caught in love’s noose, it’s one distinctly worthy of having snared you. Not only do you have the four S’s that all good lovers are supposed to have (solo, solicito, sabio, secreto: “unattached, attentive, sensible, secret”), but you have a whole alphabet: just listen, and you’ll see how I can recite it by heart. Your lover – as far as I can tell — is
Grateful (Agadecido)
Good (Bueno)
A Gentleman (Caballero)
Generous (Dadivoso)
In Love (Enamorado)
Steadfast (Firme)
Gallant (Gallardo)
Honest (Honrado)
Distinguished (Ilustre)
Loyal (Leal)
Young (Mozo)
Noble (Noble)
Modest (Onesto)
Renowned (Principal)
Solid (Quantioso)
Rich (Rico)
– and all the S’s I’ve said already — and then
Close-mouthed (Tacito)
True (Verdadero)
– and X isn’t right for him, because it’s a harsh letter –
– and we’ve already said Y (that is, I)
and Z, Zealous for your honor (Zelador)
What a very astute servant girl Leonela is! Knows just the right words to calm her Mistress’s fears. And so learned: look how quickly she came up with that Abecedario (ABC)!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Dateline: Redwood City, California (In the Business Section of the 23 February 2013 Economist)!
March 15, 2013 at 3:40 am (Recommended, The Economist)
Tags: advice, Robert Greene, The Economist
The article is called “The Price of Reputation.” It’s about a Redwood City-based company called Reputation.com which “has 1.6m customers. For $99 a year or more they get a basic ‘reputation starter’ package, which monitors when they are mentioned online and alerts them if anything sensitive comes up, such as ‘your real age, name, address, mugshots, legal disputes or marital problems.’ For $5,000 a year, the firm will ‘combat misleading or inaccurate links from your top search results’ (most people do not look at results much below the top page or two).”
Reputation’s founder, Michael Fertik, is 34 years old (Crikey!). His goal is “to launch a data vault – like a bank vault containing all the data that constitute a person’s reputation.” According to Fertik, the current internet “business model” is one where “giant firms give customers something free, collect data on them without their knowledge and sell it to third parties to do with whatever they like.” A firm like Reputation.com would let “the consumer . . . decide if they want to sell information about themselves to companies that want to get to know them.”
The article ends with the characteristic British tongue-in-cheek utterance: Reputation.com “has the advantage of that most valuable thing, which it must protect at all costs: a good reputation.”
OK, so how does this square with Law # 41 of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power?
Establish your own name and identity by changing course. Slay the overbearing father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own way.
In self’s humble opinion, you can only slay the overbearing father once. Because after that, there will be no more overbearing fathers (to slay). Naturally. And, what then? Your reputation is trash, you’ve bitten the dust, you’ve revealed your moral turpitude, you’ve — Self, cut it out! Right this minute! Whence all this negativity? You ought to enroll in a course about letting the sunshine into your life!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Project Runway and the Eighties
February 22, 2013 at 7:57 am (Conversations, television)
Tags: advice, fashion
“I have questions about Michelle. She really seems to love this 80s vibe. That scares me.” – Nina Garcia, on Project Runway
Earlier, Judge Nina said to Michelle, “It’s sort of AC/DC,” and Michelle said, “I love AC/DC!”
Nina: “But it’s so eighties. You want to look like a cool rocker. You don’t want to look like an AC/DC rocker.”
Fringe is OK, just not on a necklace.
Note to self: Stay away from anything 80s. Try not to look like you’re attending an AC/DC concert.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Stranger Still: Café Irreal 45
February 15, 2013 at 7:10 pm (Links, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: advice, Fridays, Literary Magazines, short story, speculative fiction
There is a story about a baby that self has been pondering for weeks. Weeks! Here’s the beginning:
“Worn Smooth by the Passage of Time,” by Jenn Marie Nunes
By boyfriend gives me a baby as a going-away gift. It is a blue-colored baby. Looks sort of like a potato and sort of like a piece of sea glass and I am not even sure it is a baby, but that’s what he says when I unwrap it.
“I want you to have this baby,” he says, “to remember me by.” And he picks up the plastic bag with his shirts and socks and the special set of pints he’s stolen from his favorite bars.
“Thanks,” I say. I would rather kick him in the shin, but it’s very early in the morning and I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
“Word,” he says and walks out the door.
Read the rest of it here.
What is it with self? She takes such pleasure in the grotesque.
Do not read the rest of the story if you are the least bit squeamish, dear blog readers.
Stay tuned.
Personal Library 9
December 24, 2012 at 12:53 am (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, short story collections, Sundays, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: advice, book lists, essays, Filipino writers, inspirations, memoirs, novel, poetry, short story collections, Sundays
It is pouring!
After valiantly braving the rain to proceed to: a) dimsum in Belmont; and b) Trader Joe’s in San Carlos, to get more Glucosamine for The Ancient One, self and The Man retired.
Self did wander the backyard in a purple lounging robe with gold thread (a relic from Dearest Mum), and a rain poncho (a relic from sole fruit of her loins) and old loafers. She checked which plants looked like they might be beat, and which ones looked like they might emerge, Herculean, during the spring.
She also counted the books in her bookcases. Here’s the latest tally:
Shelf # 3 in Dining Room Bookcase # 1: 50
335 + 50 = 385 Total books tabulated thus far
Selected Titles: A Season of Grace, by N. V. M. Gonzalez; Philippine Woman in America: Essays, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard; Parables of the Barrio, Vol. 1, Nos. 1 – 50, by Juan M. Flavier (This was a present from the in-laws); Skin, Voices, Faces, by Danton Remoto; The Arctic Archipelago and Other Poems, by Luis H. Francia; Philippine Vacations & Explorations, 2nd edition, by Jill Gale de Villa and Rebecca de Villa; The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, by Aimee Bender; Wildlife, by Richard Ford; What the hell for you left your heart in san francisco, by Bienvenido N. Santos; Herstory, by Rosario Cruz Lucero; Forbidden Fruit: Women Write the Erotic, edited by Tina Cuyugan; Trespassing Innocence: Poems by Virginia Cerenio; The Distance to Andromeda and Other Stories, by Gregorio C. Brillantes; Salvaged Poems, by Emmanuel Lacaba; The Way of Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton; Stone Field, True Arrow, by Kyoko Mori; The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner.
The Ancient One’s had a few little sprinkles, nothing close to the swimming pools of yesterday, for which self is deeply grateful.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
