Archives: December 2005
Sat Dec 31, 2005
A Christmas Carol Commentary
I encourage all my friends to do as I do, and read Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" every year in early December. It is a tonic for the ache of commercialization, and a grace that sets the entire season into the proper place. I found a very nice essay about "A Christmas Carol" this morning that says some original and insightful things about my favorite book. (via Book Slut. Here is the final paragraph: More...
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On Friendship
Since Judy died, my thoughts turn to my other friends and the value of my friendships many times a day. Gretchin Lair offers this quotation of George Eliot.
"Friendship is the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and, with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away."
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Fifteen Minutes in My Head
I like to see famous people in public. I like the feeling. I admit it. I don't care if they are a real celebrity (eg. Bill Murray at Pebble Beach) or a local celebrity (our State Assemblyman John Laird). This last week, I started playing a game where I imagined everyone I saw in public was a famous person. Wow! Talk about fun! I was able to completely manufacture the feeling of seeing a famous person by using my imagination alone! More...
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Fri Dec 30, 2005
First Timers
I'm just getting around to reading through the December entries of "Savage Love." This year's christmas special: losing-virginity-horror-stories from his readers. Hilarious.
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Cafe Realities
via J-Walk, I read an interesting little essay on the realities of owning a cafe. More...
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Sat Dec 24, 2005
Solstice Sunset
Last Tuesday night I watched the solstice sunset from Natural Bridges as I usually do. More...
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Two Men In Love Does Matter
A local movie critic wrote last week, as he encouraged his readers to watch Brokeback Mountain, "try not to think about the gay thing." I wrote him and asked what he meant by that. He replied that he wants people to watch the movie, and not skip it because its about a gay relationship. This is what I wrote in reply: More...
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Wed Dec 21, 2005
Things Learned Today
Usually on Winter Solstice morning I watch the sunrise, but it was pissing down rain and nothing to see. Anyway, I had to get ready to go to my friend's memorial. More...
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Tue Dec 20, 2005
More from Ferron
Ferron is doing more publicity for her lateste CD than she ever did, and the interview she gave to After Ellen is great.
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Lesbians on Ice
I've been wanting to know more about life in Antarctica ever since I started reading Big Dead Place. Now there's by a lesbian scientist that I'll want to read. Salon interviewed her.
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Nineteen Years of the Moon
The moon returns with its same phase on the same date every nineteen years. Some say this is why the 19th Tarot card is The Moon. The sun has an 18-year cycle and guess what? The 18th card is The Sun. Together, these cycles add up to one long, 56-year cycle. Which is just a smartypants way of saying: take a look at this Astronomy Picture of the Day."
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Mon Dec 19, 2005
Missing in Translation
A friend of mine gave me a lovely book, The Elixirs of Nostradamus, in an edition with 16th-century illustrations, published by Moyer Bell. The translation is from German edition published in 1572. Inbetween a chapter on how to make an aromatic oil and how to make an aromatic soap, one finds that a chapter was omitted: More...
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Mary Poppins: Lesbian Witch
Mary Poppins is one of my most beloved literary characters. If you have only seen the movie, you know nothing of Mary Poppins. I read this week in a New Yorker story that Mary Poppins' creator, P. L. Travers, wept during the premiere of the Disney movie and I'm not surprised. The real Mary Poppins is nothing like the Julie Andrews freak, (a soubrette as Travers said years later) and she doesn't have a boyfriend. While everyone this week is finding christianity in Narnia, you can find overt paganism all the way through the Mary Poppins novels. Take this scene for example from Mary Poppins Comes Back. More...
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Sun Dec 18, 2005
Sins in the Past
via Cronaca: the cigarette in a photograph of an illustrator of a sixty-year old children's book has been digitially removed. What next? Karen Karbo has a few suggestions for decreasing risk in Goodnight, Moon.
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Sat Dec 17, 2005
The Year Ahead
My friend Judy was an astrologer. We met as volunteers in a Women's Radio Collective at KZSC in 1986. We would collect news, produce stories, and engineer the show that focused on feminist topics of the past week. Then at 0:50, Judy read the horoscope for the coming week, telling us what to expect until the next Monday. I didn't believe in astrology at the time, and I mostly still don't. But the horoscopes Judy read for me were incredibly accurate--for instance her last one predicted that I would get a new job exactly at the time that that I did. I'll never trust anyone else to look at my chart. Last fall she published her last horoscopes, including one for the coming year. You'll want to check it out.
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Taking the Waters to the Bank
I've heard of heard of sources of blessed waters from sacred wells, or tinctures of healing flowers, but I had never heard that the ground under the Alamo is the source for sacred distilled water ($13 per half oz) to be used for "people who need a break from the day-to-day rush and the active state of doing." More...
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Sartorial Oddness of Cowboys
I finally was able to see Brokeback Mountain last night. I wish I could have seen it in Austin because it was weird to have the nearly silent roughness of the "scene in the tent" broken by hysterical girl giggling. Maybe that is why I was taken out-of-the-moment in that scene and couldn't think of anything but "Cowboys sleep with their belts buckled?" More...
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Wed Dec 14, 2005
Christmas Present
I don't usually go in for Santa Claus figurines, but my Uncle gave me an old family heirloom, one that was given to his family when he was a boy during the Depression. His mother arranged it on the living room table on a mirror surrounded with cotton. More...
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Tue Dec 13, 2005
Austin Scenes
I landed in Austin in the middle of a cold snap so extreme that schools were closed, so we didn't do much touring around. But after it warmed up I went on some walks and took a few photos I'll share. More...
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Mon Dec 12, 2005
Judy Havey
A brief, too brief, email tonight gave the news: my friend Judy has passed away tonight. I'll know more soon about how and when and was she alone, but tonight I simply am remembering our 18 years of friendship, and wishing for 18 more. I turn to the poem of Marge Piercy. More...
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Fri Dec 09, 2005
Texas, State of Superlatives
The Uncles and I went to a thrift store today. It was, naturally, the largest thrift store I had ever shopped in. I photographed, but did not buy, the Ugliest Sweater in the World. More...
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Thu Dec 08, 2005
An Island of Gay Cowboy Lovers
I was all excited about seeing Brokeback Mountain in Austin this weekend with my gay uncles, but it's not opening here until NEXT weekend, and I'll be back in Santa Cruz by then. boo hoo. All three of us are pouting and stamping our feet. Apparently "they" are delaying the opening so that "they" could hold fundraiser event next Thursday and the gayterati of Austin have already sold it out. So while the rest of Texas and every other Red State is "ignoring" the movie, Travis County is celebrating it. Whatever is in the water here, I wish it were more catchy.
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Wed Dec 07, 2005
Back To Austin
I'll be in Austin Texas visiting my Uncles for a few days, just like I did last March.
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All Great Loves Are the Same
Someone has pointed out that the poster for Titanic looks just like th poster for Brokeback Mountain. How sweet.
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Did Jesus Ruin Narnia?
I loved Narnia before I knew it was written by a christian. An essay at Salon explains about why this was so. Let's not worry about the xians taking over Narnia.
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So Much More than Beatlemania
via J-Walk: The Beatles Changed Everything Read the comments, and see the story about "The Roadie."
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Lights on the Water
Last Saturday we went to the Santa Cruz Lighted Boat Parade for the first time. It was mellower than I expected, but then again, what would you expect for a Santa Cruz parade? More...
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Santa Cruz Mountain Eccentricities
I learned today that in a castle in Bonny Doon has a pipe organ built by generations of High School Sciences students. They built some other cool stuff too. Next week, there is a public Christmas Carol party up there where they sing with the pipe organ. I'll see if I can go and let you all know.
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Mon Dec 05, 2005
Anonymous Email PO Boxes
Haven't you sometimes wished that you could get an anonymous PO box just for one delivery? We can't get that now for US Mail, but mailinator is offering the use of one-time anonymous email addresses. A brilliant service with endless possibilities.
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