What about the gay people in Dover, PA?
Is God like, ignoring them twice as hard?
Or is it like a double negative, and now God totally loves them?
New York Times, Saturday, Nov. 12
This time fer sher, Rocky!
No, really. The editor called and confirmed. Good week for it, because we can tie-in with the Pierce Brosnan interview in Playboy. (Amusingly, the editor asked me to buy a copy to find a good pull-quote, and while I had already read the pertinent excerpt, he wanted me to see the whole thing. And, while I don’t necessarily find it humiliating to buy Playboy, the evil back room of the Garden State News where I had to go to find it was SCARY. OH. MY. GOD.)
Anyway. So it’s tomorrow’s Op-Ed in the still fairly respectable now that Miller is out! out! out! New York Times.
I know I should be outraged, but…
I needed the laugh. And this made me laugh out loud.
God made the whack-jobs too. 🙂
Good article on riots in France
I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on in France, and have read numerous articles and essays without feeling any smarter. This article by Juan Cole actually gave me some insight. Go read it. 🙂
Lovely little movies
Last Friday, the blog Shakespeare’s Sister ran asked readers to suggest their favorite “little” movies. You know, the ones that no one has seen but you. The ones you recommend to your disbelieving friends every time the topic of movies comes up.
Ah, I have so many. If you haven’t seen Gregory’s Girl, you probably didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Scottish high school romantic comedy with a penguin suit, let alone a perfect one. But there is. The equally strange and lovely The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is about a Welsh village proud of its mountain, until Hugh Grant comes along and tells them it’s really just a hill. Recently, I saw Twin Falls, Idaho, and it was just amazing. At the same time that I was captivated by the allegory, I wondered if it was literally true.
I could go on and on. What are yours?
Totally demoralized
There are days when my political interests yield exciting responses. There are colorful days full of such adjectives as “explosive,” “outraged,” and “livid.” (Livid is especially colorful. Really—you should see me.) But this is just totally gorram demoralizing.
I mean, if there’s any chance that, ever, you’ll be sick, or hungry, or old, or, I dunno, stressed out, then you are humped in the dark nasty place. So bend over.
Sigh. I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.
More about labyrinths
I found this article about the spiritual and health benefits of labyrinths. Ignore the silly price for a portable fabric labyrinth. I also found The Labyrinth Society web page. It’s kinda weird because it never explains why you would wish to walk a labyrinth. On the other hand, it has many lovely, amazing animations showing how labyrinths are constructed, and also a “worldwide labyrinth locator.” So that’s something.
Good stuff also at Lessons for Living.
I Want to Have Harry Reid’s Love Child
Just sayin’.
Harry Reid, using his grapefruit-sized cajones, showed the country yesterday that being a Democrat means never having to say “I kiss Bill Frist’s lily-white ass.”
Over on Kos, there’s a diary suggesting that, in lieu of a love child, you might wish to give $10. Meanwhile, AmericaBlog suggests a lovely thank you.
Festival of Souls: Trip Report
Festival of Souls was fun. Tiring. A little chilly.
FOS is a smallish event. There were about 150 people this year. I’m told it’s down about 100 from last year. Apparently, they had a dispute with the State Park about camping, which limited attendance. Seems like it’s been straightened out and they should be able to open registration wide next year.
It’s a very homey, everyone-knows-everyone-else affair. Easy for an out-of-towner to feel left out, but fortunately, I made new friends and so I felt pretty cozy. The camp has heated cabins, which is a great blessing, and my hosts went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. Maybe it was the combination of chilly weather and warm cabin, but I slept a lot. These people must think I’m a complete slug. They have no idea that I can be Total Party Girl®. Maybe I shouldn’t tell ’em?
Workshops and rituals are one-per-timeslot, which is in keeping with the low-key feel of the thing. Everyone does seem to want to be in the same place at the same time.
The rituals I attended were a simple, solemn (and tearful) Ancestor Rememberance, and a Labyrinth walk.
The Rememberance was good for me; because of planning Memphis many months in advance, I had to miss my friend Winnie’s Memorial Service, and this was an opportunity to honor her memory at more or less the same time (at least the same day) as the Memorial.
The Labyrinth followed immediately; it was meticulously laid out with hundreds of tea lights. I think if it had been straightened out, it would have been about 2 miles of walking. A very beautiful experience.
I got some super bodywork from Jamie & Paula Cassidy, not a perk normally provided by festivals, but boy howdy do I encourage it to any organizers reading this! I felt fresher and more functional and able to face the flight home.
Which was grueling. Well, only the last leg, which took me from Dulles, in D.C., a genuinely scummy airport, to White Plains, NY, which is a nice airport, and Home Sweet Home. The D.C. to N.Y. plane wasn’t the smallest puddle-jumper I’d ever been on, being as I could stand, but I was seriously squished into a squishy seat which sat up at an odd angle. I was seated next to an ENORMOUS man, and I was seated behind another ENORMOUS man who was trying (unsuccessfully) to lean back. I am a big girl and I don’t normally feel squished and small but I swear by the time I got up you could have fit me in carry-on.
Plus, to add insult to injury, when we got to the airport, they wouldn’t let us off the “plane” for about ten minutes.
Oh, and on the flight from Memphis to D.C. I sat in front of a woman who was quite the Chatty Cathy. I learned a lot about her. One thing I learned was that she had a “friend from A.A. named R____ G_____.” Some people are maybe unclear about the anonymous part of Alcoholics Anonymous. But if R.G. was, indeed, anonymous, he certainly ceased to be to anyone within three seats of Chatty C. R.G., Chatty told us all, was recently deceased, but does that really free one from the bonds of anonymity? Geez Pete.
