ariasne

Quotations from Claude Lévi-Strauss in an article on Zuni American literature and the translation of them, seem far less incongruous when you remember that the comet is actually called Shoemaker Levy, and therefore he can't possibly be the astronomer who noticed it...

I've spent the last half hour or so reading about birth control, abortion, and childbirth in Fascist italy, and I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight because of it...

I sit within the valley green,
in the pretty twilight,
under the boughs, beside
a heart carved tree trunk.

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I've never really listened to anything by Peter Gabriel for long enough to form an opinion on his music, but apparently the tracklist for his new album looks pretty impressive:

"Heroes" (David Bowie)
"Mirrorball" (Elbow)
"Flume" (Bon Iver)
"My Body Is a Cage" (Arcade Fire)
"The Book of Love" (The Magnetic Fields)
"Après moi" (Regina Spektor)
"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" (Radiohead)

I am wearing contact lenses
I am wearing earphones that make it look as though I have a babelfish in each ear
I am wearing a batman t-shirt
One of these statements is a lie. Which one?

( Answer here... )

The sound of a goshawk screeching was audible even above the sounds of the busy market street, and the man pushing his way through the crowd paused, a look of intense concentration on his face. He waited, as though trying to decide whether or not he was hearing things that weren’t there. A half minute or so later, once the cry had echoed out again over the hubbub, he turned and strode back in the direction from which he had come.
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Have a nice day! :D

"You always wanna hear that same old song
Come on play another song!"

Megan looked up from her books. "Do you not notice any irony in that lyric?" she asked snidely.
"No," I say dismissively, keeping my eyes focused on my computer.
I do not like Megan.

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The maids moved around the room sombrely, stripping drapes from the bed and removing the many trinkets from where they had been carefully placed. The man stood just outside the doorway observing them, his face impassive, but so lined with worry he seemed older than his years. In his right hand he held a small metal key, which he was slowly turning over and over between his fingers.
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Every time I read or write anything about St Bernard of Clairvaux, this is the image I have in my mind.
(Apologies, it doesn't translate very well with my crappy digital camera. I'll be getting a new one soon though :))

This poster may be older than I am, but it's so cute, and so heart-breaking, and so important:

Tomorrow (well, today), I have to give a paper on how awesome &, dare I say it, "bad-ass", medieval queens could be. There is apparently something very authoritative about the name "Matilda".
On Monday, I have to hand in an essay on how important women were to the conversion of the dreaded pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. As it turns out, they were probably fairly important, but we can't really prove it because chroniclers were all sexist old men who were scarily obsessed with sex and periods.< /slight-exaggeration>
On Tuesday, I have to hand in another essay on how Renaissance Italy was a hotbed of prostitution, female slavery, objectification and discrimination. I do not like Renaissance Italy. It is damned depressing. I also have to have go to a seminar discussion on whether women benefited from the renaissance at all. I do not think they did.
"Feminist" history, if that's what this even qualifies as, (I'm not entirely convinced, but sadly I get the impression that gender topics tend to get lumped under that banner by uninterested historians) is quite interesting though.

On Tuesday, it will be one week from my 21st birthday, and yet, I find myself unable to really care less. I'm going to visit my Gran, which will be nice, but aside from that...? My friends are all in the middle of exams, and I've got yet another essay deadline on the Friday so can't get up to too much mischief (though I will take Tuesday off from work and chillax). Siobhan's working and we're doing combined birthday/Christmas gifts in January anyway.
I don't even feel too depressed about this... I'm just indifferent to the whole thing. It's not as though 21 really means anything any more...

I went to the dentist this morning... I've had a swelling in my gum for about two weeks now, but I was expecting just to get a prescription for amoxycillin and then get sent on my way. Instead the new dentist (who was very nice and friendly) took an x-ray and said. "I'm going to have to extract the tooth. Can you come back in an hour?"
I said yes, then went to the library (because I was not walking home again in the torrential rain, only to have to leave again in twenty minutes), wrote half a paragraph of an essay, then went back.
He told me that the infection was in fact on the tooth next door, and that could be solved by having a root canal, which he then proceeded to perform.
My jaw now hurts.

Apparently the RMCP have made a number of arrests made regarding a republican protest to a visit by Prince Charles. The fact there has been a protest is wonderful, the arrests not so much. There should be a more organised republican movement in the UK. I think the United Republics sounds so much more dignified...
Although this raises the question. If we did abolish our monarchy, would the royal family up-stakes and head out to one of their other kingdoms, or would there be a domino effect or republicanism? Even if there weren't, would they still choose to stay? Who can say...



The above image is from a protest in 2005. I think the sign "We're not bees, why do we need a queen" is brilliant.
The concept of a republican movement wanting an elected Governor General however seems somewhat confused. Surely if the monarchy were abolished, the office of GG would also, and be replaced by a president or something similar.

The young man sat in the ante chamber, waiting to be invited in. Though he was little more than a boy, he held himself like a man in his prime who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Despite this however, his eyes seemed to flick around the room a little too much to be natural, as though he were afraid of an ambush.
After a while, one of the large wooden doors at the end of the room opened, and a clerk poked his head around the door. "You can come in now," he said quietly, though his voice echoed in the silent room.
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I've been weirdly prolific the last week or so... I just wish I'd had all this inspiration when I didn't have an ass-tonne of uni work to be doing.
Out of interest, does anyone rely on livejournal for reading my writing?

I don't have many vivid memories of my grandfather. I only met him a few times, but something that happened on the last of these occasions stands out.
I wasn't very old at the time, maybe six or seven at most when he and my grandma came to stay. I didn't like either of them very much. They were both very tall, and I remember I thought they looked like the drawing of Jack Spratt and his wife in my picture book. He was stick thing, and she was round as a pudding, but I would never consider approaching her for a cuddle.
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Life is a metaphor.
It doesn't always make sense.
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I am older now than Alex Band, the lead singer of The Calling, was when I fell in love with their first record back in 2001.
Does this mean I'm a grown up now?

I just found out that my best friend from when I was 11 is now the vocalist in an Italian Death Metal band.
I kind of want to get in contact with him, just for old time's sake, but I don't think we have that much in common any more. I certainly can't think of anything I'd say to him, especially since I think I spoke to him once after I visited him in 1999.

I looked around nonchalantly as I waited for Dariusz to open the door. It was a cold, frosty morning, so I thought it fairly unlikely that anyone would be wandering around this industrial estate, but it always pays to be vigilant. I turned around at the sound of creaking metal hinges to see the thin Polish man grinning down at me.

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