August 12, 2017 at 5:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: Calyx, Literary Magazines, poetry, Saturdays, summer
Moon Over Park Avenue, New York, May 2016
Human Weather (an excerpt)
by Laura Jean Baker
August made a habit: warming our bodies
to the point of sacred.
On Dog Star days for twenty years
we loved to our dew point,
honeyed our moon,
and kneaded our bodies
into the wholesome shape of babies.
Girl-boy-girl
slid into the not-yet warmth
of every other May.
Better late than incomplete,
we made our last
between Autumn sheets; a boy named Frank,
he’d skid across the cusp of June and July.
The poem originally appeared in Calyx, a Journal of Art and Literature by Women, summer 2012.
About Laura Jean Baker: she earned her MFA from the University of Michigan. Her poetry, fiction, and memoir have been published in The Gettysburg Review, Connecticut Review, Cream City Review, Third Coast, Confrontation, and War, Literature, & the Arts.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
1 Comment
August 12, 2017 at 2:13 am (Food and Drink, Links, Places, postaday, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: California, desserts, discoveries, indulgences, postaday, postaweek, restaurants, Wordpress
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is ELEMENTAL. Erica V. on The Daily Post describes her response to experiencing the American Southwest for the first time: “I was both confused and in awe of this extreme landscape.”
Last month, self was in Pasadena. Her first visit south in three years. She Airbnb’ed in the Pasadena hills. The house was at the very top of a winding driveway. Behind it was nothing but steep, scrubby hillside.
Just inside the front door was a rock, a very heavy rock. Self should have asked her host about it, but she never did:
There was a chameleon that kept trying to get into self’s unit. It was a beautiful thing. Every time self left the apartment, the chameleon would be clinging to the screen door. One day, self decided to photograph it:
Finally, a slice of green matcha tiramisu from Urth Caffé, in downtown Pasadena, a block from legendary bookstore Vroman’s. It looks for all the world like moss!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
6 Comments
August 6, 2017 at 9:20 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Flowers, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Recommended, Sundays, Surprises, television, Traveling)
Tags: flower photography, Game of Thrones, Gendry, Gendrya, India, Ireland, photography, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Been reading Gendrya all day in preparation for tonight’s Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4. Which self knows already from all the leaks has NO. GENDRY. Nevertheless. It is reportedly spectacular. There is a scene in which . . . but, no. THERE SHALL BE NO FURTHER SPOILERS.
She’s posted twice on this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge TEXTURES. Now it’s time to appreciate these beauties from other WordPress bloggers!
Kudos to the bloggers!
Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
August 2, 2017 at 5:29 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Food and Drink, Links, postaday, Surprises)
Tags: art, California, discoveries, exhibits, memories, museum, nostalgia, restaurants, San Francisco
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge (posted every Wednesday) is TEXTURE.
Photos have “a tactile element, too,” Ben Huberman says. As an example, he provides his shot of “tangles of seaweed . . . across the wet sand at low tide.”
Here are three of self’s own examples of texture:
- The lace on a ladies’ hat, circa 1900 – 1925, in the exhibit on Impressionism and the Milliner’s Trade at the CA Palace of the Legion of Honor:
Maker identified only as “French, Madame Georgette”
- Look at the wonderful texture in this salad arrangement!
Le Pain Quotidien, Claremont, CA: July 2017
- Discovered in the exploration of son’s room: a frog that squirts water. Self loves that the frog’s skin is so pebbled. It has a degree of realism you don’t often find in other toys.
Plastic Frog! Found in Son’s Room in Redwood City, CA: This used to be one of his favorite toys.
Leave a Comment
July 30, 2017 at 4:46 pm (Eavesdropping, Links, Recommended, Sundays, television)
Tags: adaptations, California, fantasy, Game of Thrones, Gendry, humor, review, summer, websites
Self had to sign up for Amazon Prime solely in order to be able to watch Game of Thrones Season 7. She got the first week of HBO free, but now she’s being charged $14.99/month. It’s all good because if she weren’t able to watch GoT Season 7, especially now with confirmation that Gendry would be returning (At last! My Gendry is in the House! Gendry is back, people!), she would just die.
Under the foolish assumption that having HBO deliver the show directly to her feed means she can watch Episode 3 about 12 hours ahead of anyone else, she keeps checking her Amazon link to make sure it is “good” and that the signal is strong. As of right now, there is nada.
So, here she is, all lonesome and frustrated and wondering how she is going to fill the next 12 hours. And then she stumbles on The Verge. Wow, whoever writes the show re-caps is so on point!
There’s this:
We’re back in King’s Landing before you can say “the feature-film debut of pop sensation Britney Spears,” and it seems to me like we could have just stayed here and held off on the 90-second greyscale explainer video until later, but it’s not my show. Cersei and Qyburn take a stroll through the Red Keep’s basement collection of skulls, where he unveils his dragon-slaying plan: a sinister-looking mechanical crossbow loaded with an enormous spear, which he claims “the finest artisan blacksmiths in King’s Landing” have been working on for months.”
- Wait a minute: Did Qyburn actually use the words “finest artisan blacksmiths in King’s Landing?” Or did he just say “finest blacksmiths”? Because there is a difference. At this point, any mention of the word “blacksmith” has self going waaaay waaaay back in time, to Seasons 2 and 3. Because reasons. Anyhoo, end of digression.
I don’t know, I mean, it’s just a crossbow loaded with a spear. It looks to be only about 1.5 times larger than the one Joffrey was using to pick off prostitutes six years ago. But it successfully shoots a centuries-old dragon skull that is sitting perfectly still . . . on the ground . . . about 15 feet away. Oh baby, here is a foolproof plan if I ever saw one. And artisanal!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
July 29, 2017 at 9:42 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Publishers, Recommended, television, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: adaptations, California, Calyx Press, fantasy, Game of Thrones, Gendry, indulgences, poetry, Saturday, summer
It is sweltering here up in the Pasadena Hills, and self feels no inclination to go outside. In the daytime, Pasadena is a sleepy city. At night, everyone drives with fury almost, zipping past slower cars and switching lanes with abandon. Self finds it very disconcerting. Especially as her GPS Navigator tells her where to turn only after she reaches an intersection, at which point she is usually in the wrong lane.
So, no going outside today. She’s re-reading a Calyx poetry anthology, A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women’s Poetry, which she stumbled across in her house two weeks ago. Here’s the first half of a poem by Sheila Demetre:
A Woman Is Running For Her Life
Under my ribcage a live coal
is singing. It wheedles from its hutch
of bone, glows blue in every kindling breath.
I need these bright shoes to burn up centuries
of inertia, of sickness holding me limp
with forehead ground against my tangled knees.
Celestial now, I’m all brush and sweep.
My elbows scribble, quickening the air I slog.
Don’t touch my sparks, my hieroglyphs of heat.
She absolutely loves the “hieroglyphs of heat.”
Tomorrow is Episode 3 of Game of Thrones. Does Euron die? Does Yara die? Does Ellaria Sand die? Does Olenna Tyrell die? Does Grey Worm die? If Grey Worm dies, will Missandei go crazy? Does Meera Reed die? If Meera dies, does Bran get to have a wheelchair at last? Do we see Gendry (finally? Cause the tweets are getting ridiculous) Do Brienne and Podrick get to spar again? Does Ned Stark come back from the dead? Does Stannis Baratheon come back from the dead? Will we see more of Ser Jorah’s horrible greyscale? Will Sam be retching again? Will Dany continue to be her insufferable self? Will Sansa be more of her cryptic self? Will Jaime continue to be disconcerted? Will Cersei continue to be sarcastic? Will we ever find out which skilled blacksmiths created the Giant Crossbow aka Dragonkiller? Will Arya Stark continue to evolve? Will Wun Wun come back as a wight?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
July 29, 2017 at 4:30 pm (Artists and Writers, Dearest Mum, Family, Flowers, Links, Lists, Places, Plays, postaday, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, Cork, Events, Ireland, London, memories, Paris, postaday, postaweek, Readings, Sacramento, Saturdays, Shakespeare, summer, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Washington DC, Wordpress
- Share a photo of something that brings you satisfaction. It can be monumental, minor, or something in between.
— Jen H., The Daily Post
For this post, self decided to kill two birds with one stone. She’ll look back at her fondest memories of 2017 (thus far) — the moments that gave her the most satisfaction.
From Shakespeare’s Globe, her last night in London, June 2017
The Eiffel Tower: May 2017
Quarterly West reading at Sixth Engine, Washington DC, February 2017
Bus Stop (near the Cathedral of Notre Dame)
Waiting for the beginning of Kenneth Macmillan’s beautiful, stunning ballet, “Mayerling”: Saturday, May 13
The Main House, Under a Crescent Moon
The Forest Seen From the Lake: Early March
Going to the Globe and seeing Tristan and Yseult; sorting through old photographs of Dearest Mum; seeing the Eiffel Tower up close; reading her story First Causes at Sixth Engine in Washington, DC; watching Mayerling at the Royal Albert Hall; visiting Cork; Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
5 Comments
July 20, 2017 at 6:38 pm (Artists and Writers, Dearest Mum, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Pianos, Places, postaday, Recommended, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: Filipino food, memories, postaday, postaweek, Sacramento, Wordpress
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is:
UNUSUAL
The prompt comes from guest host Lignum Draco: “Experiment.” Try something “unusual.”
Don’t know whether self is interpreting this week’s Photo Challenge correctly but, without further ado, self’s takes on “unusual”:
Gina’s Filipino Café, 1101 Twelfth St., downtown Sacramento
- There is only one Filipino restaurant in downtown Sacramento. And it just so happened to be very close to the apartment self was renting. Adobo is the quintessential Filipino dish. Anthony Bourdain said the best pork he ever tasted was in the Philippines.
Still can’t get over the fact that this bridge over the Sacramento River is such a vibrant, fun yellow! Cool!
- It’s all there in the caption.
Dearest Mum was the reigning superstar of her day (She won the New York Times International Piano competition when she was just 14). In spite of that, she was very demure.
- Photos from a stash self had in her closet. She stumbled across them just two weeks ago. Dearest Mum as a shy flower. Before self was even a notion. She went on to marry Dear Dad, who took her home to the Philippines (She had grown up East Coast, mainly New York City) and with whom she had five children.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
3 Comments
July 13, 2017 at 9:57 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Flowers, Food and Drink, Links, Lists, Niece, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, postaday, Relatives)
Tags: art, California, exhibits, museums, postaday, postaweek, restaurants, Sacramento, San Francisco, Wordpress
What is a collage? In the words of Michelle Weber over at The Daily Post, it is “an assortment, a collection, a hodgepodge.”
Here are a couple of shots that show a collage:
- The printed dress. So fabulous. The wearer was self’s niece, Rina. We were having lunch at Boiling Crab:
Rina Villanueva, July 2017
- An assortment of reading matter: Everything from a Playbill to a book written by someone she used to know in college, Rick Manapat. The book, History of Negros, is about an island in the Philippines called Negros (The Spanish gave it the name, in the 16th century):
What Self Found in Son’s Room: July 2017
- A collection of roses on a hat at the recent exhibit “Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade” at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor:
Woman’s Hat, circa 1910: The artist went by the name “Madame George”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
2 Comments
July 13, 2017 at 4:44 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Surprises)
Tags: causes, Chinese writers, inspiration, Nobel, transitions
And self can’t even.
She found out, of course, from Twitter.
There’s confirmation from BBC World News, here.
Heartbroken.
Leave a Comment
« Older entries
