Bringing love into my eyes

Today is poem in your pocket day! There is no need to actually have a pocket to have a poem--(god i hate how girls never get pockets on their clothes--I think i'll blog about that later!) I just think poems are so needed in this world and to know just one is to have knowledge. Read just one. I promise it will make you feel better. In fact, I will share this beautiful one by Martin Espada that my teacher gave to me:

Rednecks

At Scot Gas, Darnestown Road,

the high school boys pumping gas

would snicker at the rednecks.

Every Saturday night there was Earl,

puckering his liquor-smashed face

to announce that he was driving

across the bridge, a bridge spanning

only the whiskey river

that bubbled in his stomach.

Earl's car, one side crumpled like his nose,

would circle slowly around the pumps,

turn signal winking relentlessly.

 

Another pickup truck morning,

and rednecks. Loitering

in our red uniforms, we watched

as a pickup rumbled through.

We expected: Fill it with no-lead, boy,

and gimme a cash ticket.

We expected the farmer with sideburns

and a pompadour.

We, with new diplomas framed

at home, never expected the woman.

Her face was a purple rubber mask

melting off her head, scars rippling down

where the fire seared her freak face,

leaving her a carnival where high school boys

paid a quarter to look, and look away.

 

No one took the pump. The farmer saw us standing

in our red uniforms, a regiment of illiterate conscripts.

Still watching us, he leaned across the seat of the truck

and kissed her. He kissed her

all over her happy ruined face, kissed her

as I pumped the gas and scraped the windshield

and measured the oil, he kept kissing her.

  --Martin Espada

Happy poem in your pocket day!

-Lola

title quote: Coloured Rain, Traffic

Could you tell us where we are and the best way out of here

Ok, so here I am, sitting at home, being sick, so I realize this would probably be the best time to blog. I will now type in an excerpt from my travel journal from when I was in Punta Cana. It might be a bit philosophical, but that is because at the moment, I was reading The English Patient and it was very profound and philosophical, and when I read, I start to think in that sort of writing. The writing is about becoming accustomed to having everyone(including myself) speak Spanish there. So here it is...

To hear such words slip from my mouth, like honey slips from the lip of a jar, is new to me. To say "Gracias" and remember, enunciate the ci, is different. The language, the words that mean something to someone, that are compulsive to someone else, but for me I must form and think and rehearse them in my head. But I learned a language before. Studying Latin, words have slithered from my tongue with the English translations immediately forming in my mind. I sometimes wonder, do people who were brought up learning to speak two different languages equally fluently, think in both languages? 

As I said, I have learned Latin. But it is different, this new learning of Spanish, for with Latin I learn grammar and translate from a book and put words in declensions and cases.

 Here, now, learning De Nada and Manana, it is a wholly new sensation, for I learn the flow, without rules, just words. And in this way, I can mostly understand the rough outlines of dialogues, like shadows emerging from the night, but I cannot put the flow together, to move smoothly from my mouth as it moves from the speaker's. In time, if I wanted, I'm sure I could, but for now, I only marvel at the sensation.

Title Quote: They Got Lost, They Might Be Giants

Were captive on the carousel of time

ok, well i think that's really enough about Punta Cana for the time being. But there will be more posts about it in the near future, I assure you. For the meantime....

Here is a beautiful video for you, title-MI



(credits: Korik Jones, for VFS-Vancouver Film School)

title quote: Joni Mitchell, Circle Game

Lay me on the ground Fly me in the sky

So I have promised to tell about my vacation, and I will. We get up at 5-ish and leave for the plane to Punta Cana, the Dominican republic(It's basically a third-world country in the Caribbean with lots of inclosed resorts that only has tourists coming in the flight--no one from there coming back from a vacation in New York). In the taxi to the plane station, I marvel at how the sky--night blue--turns so fast to robin's egg then rose then lemon and finally settling on a light gray. We board the plane, my brothers and i in one row, the rest of my family scattered about (i.e. dad, cousins, aunt and uncle) in other seats. I chew my gum furiously as we take off and land. Then we're there and ohmybuddha we're actually WALKING DOWN STEPS FROM THE PLANE TO THE RUNWAY BELOW! 

Never done that before, we've always gone through some tunnel to a building or something. So then we walk into a thatch covered open air building with these enormous fans. So large that if you look up at them the sign says BIG ASS FANS and has a donkey's butt on it. ^_^

Seriously! So then we get in this line and the first thing they do, they have these women dressed up in "traditional" garb (yeah, right.) and they smile and take a picture with each of us. Too touristy already. Then we pay a fee for coming in, and later we pay a fee for leaving. That's just ridiculous! They should be paying us! But we get past that and finally board the bus that will take us to our all-inclusive touristy hotel where we will stay locked in for a week. (Not my choice, believe me.) It's called the Majestic Colonial, don't go to it if you are not touristy, like the real world, and/or are vegetariano(pronounced vay-hee-tal-iano). But I'm going to make the best of this vacation. Get some sun, go swimming at the beach, have fun, right? I'm even going to get my father to teach me how to windsurf! But unfortunately for me, we get there and though they advertise 6 DIFFERENT restaurants, they are all cooked in the same kitchen by the same "chefs". and none of the menus really have any vegetarian options, which for me is a nightmare, being a veggie myself. but my family and I go to the buffet as often as we can, for my father (top-notch best cook I've ever tasted and I'm a pretty big foodie here) can speak fairly good spanish and has taught the cooks there a little bit about cooking and they have the most options. Their food is bad, at best. The only reason I'm eating it is because there isn't anything better. And I can't windsurf because it turns out there is too much wind, which is not good for learners. We can't even go far out on the beach because the crazy dominican boat drivers and the inexperienced water skiers would chop our heads off. But don't get me wrong, not everything is bad here. We're all-inclusive as I said before, so everything (or almost everything) is free free free! We have not one, but two mini-bars stocked with dominican soda, beer(which none of us drink)and bottled water, the only kind safe to drink here. Our bed is four-poster and enough for all four of us to sleep in it, though only two of us do. They are the two biggest rooms ever, not counting the bathroom which could be the size of my room, and believe me, my room is fairly large. Then the beach is very nice, despite the water restriction. WE can go snorkeling there and the fish nibble at your fingers even without bread. I get a tan just sitting under our palapa(which kinda looks like a fake tree with dried out palm leaves to shelter our beach seats). And the pool is just great, being around 80-something degrees without even being heated. I have my family, and great books ( read The English Patient, by Michel Ondaatje, The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory, who also wrote The Other Boleyn Girl which I read last spring break, and Bound, a book about a chinese cinderalla type thing with a girl and her half-sister's bound feet)and heck, I'm in the Caribbean! 

But oh, do I miss home and do I miss the taste of our food. We start to make a list of all the things we'll eat once we get home, we're that desperate. This goes on for a week, and then we get on the bus where we pass numerous shantytowns and where my father had spotted a man with a gun patrolling outside a building on our way here. Every resort we stop at to pick up more travelers looks the same as ours. We get to the station where there are still no palatable vegetarian options for lunch, except the difference is that now everything is super expensive. We wait and wait and wait some more for our plane to come, and I am almost sure I saw Russell Crowe waiting as well but I only recognized him once I got home and opened the 'paper, which had a picture of him in the arts section. So we get on the plane and come home, having wasted an entire beautiful day waiting to get on a plane and then waiting for the plane to take off and then having the plane take off and not getting the window seat even though my brother's promised it to me but are feeling jerky from the waiting and then finally getting the window seat halfway through the flight only to have to wait to open the curtain because my grandfather and other brother don't want the light, and (yes I do know this is a very long run on sentence thankyouverymuch) finally opening the window to see us land, get out, and ohmygosh it's 7 'o clock already! Wow. I hate the waiting most of all. So that was my trip's overview. But though I couldn't blog while I was there, I wrote material in my notebook, and insight on the parts of the trip, good and bad, will come streaming in as soon as I feel like it, 'cause this is my blog and I can decide when to post or not, so there! Hehhhhhhhhh *deep breath*

Okay, I'm letting go now...

Lola

Title Quote: Collective Soul, Shine 

All photos are mine, thankyouverymuch

When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Hey, I know, I know, I promised to blog about the vacation, but it will all come in good time. For the moment, I have found something amazing for you guys. Many of you may have seen the phone commercials on billboards with hands made up to look like, say, an elephant, or fish and coral, and they are spectacular. Now I have found the artist who did these masterpieces. His name is Guido Daniele, a professional artist specializing in body painting and trompe l'oeil who resides in Milan. Here are some of my favorite works of his. 

check out his other works here. 

alright, I'm off to making vacation posts.

out,

Lola

Title Quote: They Might Be Giants, Particle Man

Nude noodle model parlor in the Nefarious zone

Alright! I'm back. Did you miss me? I am too busy smelling my room, tasting the filtered water, preparing to actually leave the house and walk somewhere, to post about the vacation. You will understand why I am doing these seemingly normal things with such gusto as soon as I get around to explaining. In the mean time, I must just tell you that the plane did not crash and the post before I left was my last, so be happy and rejoice! Now, with my apologies, I shall just show some random pictures and not so random words.

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. 
by Bankhead, Tallulah 

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. 
by Fuller, Margaret 

(this quote is actually referring to books, but we can say strawberries, right? ;p) 

when is a caterpillar a butterfly?

BuTTeRfLiEs fLuTTeR By *sigh*

title quote: Joe strummer and the Mescaleros, Mondo Bongo

I loved you since I knew you

Okay everyone, I am going to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, for a week, and I hope to come back with new insight and stories to tell, but in the meantime you will just have to wait and bide your time. I know; I'm sorry. And I would write a million posts for you and have them be posted every day or so, but I don't know how to work blogger to do scheduled posts. Sooo, you will just have to do with the ones already here. 

And don't forget we need a funny picture...!

Luv ya!

Title Quote: Roxanne, the  Police

I will not wait, I will not wait for what the world may not create I'll take fate day by day

Hungry. Oh, am I ever so hungry. And thirsty, too. I would lick the damp, moldy walls that keep me here, but I already have, hours ago, to no avail. My stomach has imploded. I must sit here, twisted into a fetal position, to possibly survive the pain, the hunger. I try not to cry, so as to conserve the little water left inside my dehydrated self. I try to close my eyes, but it is too hard not to look, not to watch. Slowly, my eyes rise and stare, my lower lip trembling, at the table above. At the food above. My eyes stalk the food, the steaming plate of mac and cheese and huge bowl of salad and the ten layer cake and the platter of little sandwiches with olives stuck in them--I will die with the food right there, trapped like a goldfish who has jumped out onto the ground, it's nose pressed to it's glass bowl filled with water. Mmmm. Sooo thirsty... With one last burst of effort, I get up, and run at the table, jumping on it, jumping on the food. But yet again, like all the other nights, my fingers only touch hard, clear glass, sealed over the feast, my feast. One last longing glance and then I jump from the table, throwing myself again and again at the concrete door. My mind watches my body, is startled to hear a wail, an inhuman wail of the most horrible suffering, and watches as I collapse on the floor, shivering uncontrollably. To be the infant in her mother's arms, to taste the strong milk between my lips, to taste anything, to feel my belly full. 

"I'll tell!" I whisper. "I'll tell!" I try to shout. To tell is to get food and water, to tell is to get mercy. Why won't they hear me? I'll finally tell, I am so Hungry. But no one hears. My voice too weak, a thin gossamer thread against iron cables. With one final breath, my voice breaks the cables, informing the world: "I'll tell!" No more breaths are drawn. I feel darkness close in, I succumb, just as I hear the heavy footsteps of my entrapper triumphantly storm into the room. My soul--shriveled as it is--rises and watches as the man comes in with a smug grin on his face that turns to puzzledness as he reaches down to check my pulse. His expression morphs to anger, to rage, to the prize dangling there and now, only just by a hair, lost, as he finds no pulse in my lifeless body. Now it is time for him to utter an inhuman scream to tell us "So close, so close!" To suffer, as he made me. Slowly, I smile, and turn, misting through the glass, to feast on the essence of the sustenance laid on that rough table. Yet I am hungry, Oh so Hungry. 

Title Quote Quote: Mieka Pauley, Fate Day by Day

she sang into the shadows to be free

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

-Erica Jong

I wish, sometimes, that I didn't. But I still ask and ask people, my family, my friends--I still ask the world. It helps, even when they tell you the wrong answer. It helps.

            

photo credit: eduardo bertone

Title Quote: Luscious Jackson, Chrisitine

cuz you said the brains I had went to my head

Hello everyone!

Words are part of everyone's life, as flower has recently demonstrated , though that post is not really what has inspired this post, and hopefully, other posts to come. Now, as I was saying, Words weave and slither through the depths of all of our inner cupboards and looking glasses of our convoluted minds, so I believe it is time to shake out the carpets and dust out the cobwebs and add a few new words to file away somewhere, ok? 

 first off, we have pogonotrophy, which almost sounds slightly dirty, but really just means beard growing. Just needed to out that there, as I believe I have posted not just once, but twice about beards!

Then, onto ishkabibble. Don't you just love that word? Ishkabibble, ishkaboo! Don't you love me, I love you! Ha... I know my rhyming sucks, don;t be mean ;).

Anyway, it means a dismissive statement. Try saying that next time you want to tell tell someone something's wrong.

Alrightey then,

I'll be off, and goodbye (which actually was made up by shakespeare and is a mishmashed version of god be with you) well, my god, that is!

Title Quote: Oasis, Don't Look Back in Anger

Planets are moving at the speed of light.

President Obama. Well, I do love him, because he's a million times better than Bush, but still, I wonder, how much is he really accomplishing? I know he's working hard and he has so much to fix (it's going to be a hard job after Bush comes through before you) but still, it seems to me that not much is happening. But hold up for a second, because before you start yelling at me about how amazing he is and all and how much he's doing to help the U.S., the world even, I know. And keep in mind that I am only a middle schooler who doesn't have tv. Yes, I read the news and listen to the radio, but I (obviously) do not know the whole story. So, with that said and in mind, here is what I have to say. 

Obama promised, while campaigning, to bring in new, fresh faces to the white house jobs, but instead, he has old people, who, granted, do know how to do their job well, but have also been in this position before and likely will think the same way as before, an look where that got us, right?Then Obama promised to pull the troops out within a certain amount of months, I don't remember how many. But now, he has decided to take it slower, pull them out in a longer number of months, at least 3 more than before. Well, at least he's pulling them out. Or is he? Because I heard on the radio a few days ago that, let's see, Obama has decided to pull troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan? To pursue Al Qaeda? Isn't that what kept us in this war for so long? Don't you want to end it, not prolong it? Like my father said, though, at least he's searching for him in the right place, unlike Bush. God, to be a soldier and think "finally! I'm coming home!" only to discover that you are actually just being pulled

 out somewhere and placed somewhere else. 

I have more arguments, but now I'm feeling kind of bad about criticizing Obama.  mean, he has a lot on his hands, and He's at least gotten things a little better, whereas if Bush was in his place, he would have only made it worse. I just think maybe he could do a little bit better, but I'm sure he has his reasons.

And last but not least, I have a picture I would like to share, which I find quite funny, which I got from this site. I mean absolutely nothing with it, the least that Obama is like Bush. Just enjoy the genius of it.

Title Quote: Coldplay, Speed of Sound

I am the ocean you are the moon

This is a beautiful, cute, touching movie. Now I know I'm being very gushy but it is soooo cute! It's called "An eye for Annai" And it's about this little dude, Annai, who is looking for--you guessed it!--and eye.

Title Quote : The Foyer, Stentaria

And my eyes are made of crystals Plastic flowers bloom

This is EXTREME. Magnificent. This man, Alan Sailer, shoots pellets into *things* and takes photos of them with a special camera that can photograph things that quickly. You may have seen his work already from a while back on the New York Times Magazine cover with the different vegetable exploding. Here are my two favorite from this site:

These are M&M's being hit and

this one is a pellet breaking glass.

But don't forget to go to the site, because it had a buncha really cool pics! Especially this one where he shot the pellet at a razor blade being held in a clamp, and the pellet was sliced in half!

smash!

**Lola**

Title Quote: Whiskeytown, Paper Moon

Hello? It's me.

I know that I'm lame and all that, but really, I haven't the creativity or strength to make a full-out post today (so I will just let it brew in my head) so instead I will award you with some lolimals, courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com and ihasahotdog.com. Love those sites!

Title Quote: Phoebe, the Redlands

Knights in shining karma will remain

On friday as I was taking the bus home with my friend, we saw out the window, literally, at  least hundred taxi cars, empty and parked, double-parked triple parked (!) by the side of the road. We wondered, and then we saw the men. All of the taxi drivers (strange that you never see taxi women, just taxi men) were standing there, milling around, talking, waiting, their turbans wrapped high on their heads. My friend and I (we'll call her Teddy) were watching with growing curiosity. This had happened once before! Our first day of school, and it had been a half day, just like now, and we had passed by the exact same scene, except we hadn't been on a bus. Curious as to why the bus wasn't coming after twenty minutes of waiting, we had walked on to the next stop, but before reaching it, we had walked by the men and their trusty steeds. Now as we sat in comfort on our bus seats discussing the same scene, the man in front of us turned. He explained that there was a temple, or mosque, or whatever you call the praying thing their religion attended, right next to the bus stop, and all the taximen went there on fridays at around one o clock. That's why we didn't see it every friday, because presumably they were in temple, praying, by then. 

Mystery solved.

So if you ever see a bunch of men in turbans waiting outside a building with triple parked taxis following them from blocks away, you know what it is. The Congregation of the Taxi Men. (I do not mean to offend any of you, taxi mean, if you read my blog.) But just imagine that scene! 

Title Quote: XTC, Knights in Shining Karma