The poem I'm loving this week is a bit of a throw-back. It's from the famous Romantic poet John Keats, and it's a ballad of la belle dame sans merci; the beautiful woman without mercy. (You go, girl.) It's longer than usual, but well worth the read. It tells a chilling and lovely story and has inspired quite a bit of artwork, some of which I've included here. Enjoy.
My biggest accomplishment in life thus far is getting BA's in both English and History while managing to stay on the Dean's List, have a job, and maintain some semblance of a social life the whole time. It was hard work. Only to be topped when I finish my Master's...If I don't drop dead from exhaustion first!
My favorite place to sit in my house is on my front porch or in my bed. If I'm not there, I'm usually on a big comfy chair that's sitting in the corner of my bedroom. My house is full of big plush furniture. It's a lounger's paradise.
My fashion philosophy is classic and comfortable. I wear a lot of blue jeans. I have a pretty massive cardigan collection - It's my staple wardrobe item, and I wear them year-round. I don't really wear jewelry and I'm not too interested in shoes. I do have a few pairs of really beautiful heels, but other than that I stick to tennis shoes, flip flops, topsiders, and cowboys boots (which I'm wearing right now - Yeehaw!)
Something every girl should have is at least one bottle of high-quality, knock-em-dead perfume. I have quite a few of them - That's really my main splurge item when it comes to beauty products. Right now I'm loving Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf and Lola by Marc Jacobs. (And yes, I am one of those women who wears way too much perfume.)
If you looked in my purse right now you'd find car keys, gum, about three variations of chapstick/lip gloss, a few receipts, a pocket knife in the shape of a pink grenade (cute, right?), a coin purse, a bottle of Twilight Woods hand lotion from B&B Works, a few pens, and my iPod. I never seem to have my phone with me, but I never leave home without my iPod.
My favorite music right now is the soundtrack from Glee. I really love how they've freshened up a lot of older show-tunes in order to reach a new audience: "Don't Rain on My Parade," "Funny Girl," and "Maybe This Time" are a few of my faves. Although my favorite Glee song of all time is Lea Michele and Idina Menzel's rendition of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face."
My favorite part of my body is probably my eyes. They can look either blue, green, or gray on any given day. Eyes are the perfect built-in accessory for any girl.
This week marked a very sad ten-year-anniversary. In 2001, two beautiful 6th-century standing buddhas carved into a cliff-side in the Bamiyan valley (a lovely region of central Afghanistan) were destroyed by the Taliban, who were seeking to eliminate all pre-Islamic and "idolatrous" artifacts from the country.
When it happened, I don't think the magnitude of this loss, in cultural, religious, and historical terms, registered with me. (I was thirteen at the time.) Now it makes me want to cry every time I think about it. The buddhas, which once overlooked an ancient monastery, survived over 1,500 years of natural wear & tear, war, and several invasions, only to be destroyed by some assholes with dynamite out of of sheer cruel small-mindedness.
There has been a movement, both within Afghanistan and around the globe, to reconstruct these statues. UNESCO is meeting in Paris this week to discuss the future of the site, i.e. whether to rebuild or simply preserve what is left. Here's the story.
I can't decide whether or not I think rebuilding them is a good idea. At first, I'm all for it. But then I think that maybe leaving these empty spaces in the cliffs, like scars, would serve as a reminder to us all of the absolute finality of the losses suffered in religious conflicts. These beautiful statues were casualties in an wide, tragic, and still-raging war on religious tolerance. Maybe they could be rebuilt, but it wouldn't be the same. And, lest we forget, human lives certainly cannot be reconstructed.
Okay, it is a Saturday night - Enough sad realities. Time to relax and have some fun. Hope you have a good one, too.
I love kooky celebrities. And Helena Bonham Carter is about as kooky as they come. I love her for choosing 'out-there' roles (including Marla Singer and Bellatrix Lestrange, my two faves to-date), for being married to Tim Burton (brave lady), and for never seeming to give a fig about what other people think. She strikes me as a very interesting and confident woman.
And because she's so unusual, I think some people forget how pretty she is. Here's a few of my favorite photographs of her:
So Australia, a Baz Luhrmann-directed epic romance, was basically eaten alive by critics, didn't do so great at the box office, and was widely considered to be very disappointing. Well - surprise! - I actually loved it. And, when people see it among my DVD collection, I inevitably get made fun of for it.
It's the love story of an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) and the Aussie equivalent of a cowboy, a drover (Hugh Jackman). The first half has all the trappings of a Western: dusty wilderness, a long & dangerous cattle drive, stampedes, life on the outback, etc. The second half depicts the beginning of the World War II and the role that Australia played in it. It's intertwines some valuable social and military history, such as the "Stolen Generation" (the removal of Aboriginal children from their families by the Australian government) and the Japanese attack on Darwin and Northern Australia.
I guess it's overly ambitious. It's quite long and attempts to be too many things. But watching it always puts me in a good mood: Kidman and Jackman are always delightful, the film actually provides some great insight into Australian history, and it features some gorgeous cinematography. Not to mention, it's a lovely romantic tale. So, even though it's goofy, it's also highly entertaining and a fabulous tribute to a fascinating part of the world. Here's the trailer:
Watch it! If you hate it, like a lot of people apparently did, then at least you tried. And if you adore it, like I do, then don't feel too guilty about it. After all, you can't help what you love.
With figures like Mubarak and Gadhafi dominating the news lately, and the fact that you can't open a history book without stumbling across one brutal despot or another, and finally because I've been teaching students about Hitler and Stalin this past week, I have had tyrants on the brain.
For your reading pleasure:
caligul
" Epitaph on a Tyrant" Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And he was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
So I'm constantly hearing rumors about film/mini-series adaptations of Diana Gabaldon's amazing Outlander saga. For those of you who haven't read it, it's a romantic-historical-science fiction tale about a British woman who is transported back into the 18th century Scottish highlands. It's a wonderfully engrossing series that I highly recommend.
The downside is that, because the stories are so detailed, complex, and full of a wide variety of characters and locations, any filmmaker who attempted to take it on would have a huge task ahead of him/her. So I've decided to help them out by doing the casting for them:
Rachel McAdams as Claire Beauchamp:
Chris Hemsworth as Jamie Fraser:
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as "Black Jack" Randall:
Ionn Gruffud as Frank Randall:
Blake Lively as Brianna Randall
With all the fans out there, and the huge success that the series has enjoyed, I can't imagine that they won't make some type of film version of this. If I do say so myself, I think that I have chosen a perfect cast. A little red hair dye and that's that.
