watch: continuous motion, enthrall, Sonoya...

Yuri Pysar "Ballet"

Finally got to see Ex Machina and, understated, is Sonoya with a performance that has no dialogue because they found an actress who can express without it.  How limiting it can be, words.  Sonoya can stare out a window and she is saying something.  In the recent Wide Open from the Chemical Brothers she is telling a story along with the effects.  It is tremendous expression.

http://motionpoems.org/films/




Earlier post on Sonoya: http://theedwardianjackal.blogspot.com/2015/04/poetry-is-form-and-movementsonoya.html

do: Love Letters on Valentine's Day

Stumped by what to get your loved one on Valentine's?  Look no further than a pen and a slip of paper.  There's little else beyond that.  And, there's little more than how you feel to contend with.  Sure you could still buy something, but supplant it with the letter.  But, I posit that a well crafted, well-intentioned letter will carry forward more than any gift.  How do we know this?  I've enclosed the 'Immortal Beloved' letter from Ludwig van Beethoven, from 1812.


Also, http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/how-to-write-a-love-letter#.wwkbVMG1ED.

There are basic facets to a well-penned letter.  The first is that it reflects how you feel.  Use a language that you are comfortable with.  Use a voice that speaks to you, it will then translate to them.  The second is to pass over it a few times.  Write the first draft quickly and thoroughly.  Then, live with it for a few days.  You'll see what I mean over time.

Less is more.  Cut whatever you've written back by a half.  Ask questions of what you have left.  Is is immediate?  Is it about them?  Is it about what no one else would say?  Is it what you wouldn't say to another person?  Is it personal?

Whenever you are done, write it out one last time - write it out in one sitting.  Let it look contiguous - let it live as a collective whole.

Want to keep love letters alive?  Go to http://www.moreloveletters.com/.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Ludwig van Beethoven, to an unknown woman, 1812

6 July, morning

My angel, my all, my own self — only a few words today, and that too with pencil (with yours) — only till tomorrow is my lodging definitely fixed. What abominable waste of time in such things — why this deep grief, where necessity speaks?

Can our love persist otherwise than through sacrifices, than by not demanding everything? Canst thou change it, that thou are not entirely mine, I not entirely thine? Oh, God, look into beautiful Nature and compose your mind to the inevitable. Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me — only you forget so easily, that I must live for you and for me — were we quite united, you would notice this painful feeling as little as I should…

…We shall probably soon meet, even today I cannot communicate my remarks to you, which during these days I made about my life — were our hearts close together, I should probably not make any such remarks. My bosom is full, to tell you much — there are moments when I find that speech is nothing at all. Brighten up — remain my true and only treasure, my all, as I to you. The rest the gods must send, what must be for us and shall.

Your faithful
Ludwig

Monday evening, 6 July

You suffer, you, my dearest creature. Just now I perceive that letters must be posted first thing early. Mondays — Thursdays — the only days, when the post goes from here to K. You suffer — oh! Where I am, you are with me, with me and you, I shall arrange that I may live with you. What a life!

So! Without you — pursued by the kindness of the people here and there, whom I mean — to desire to earn just as little as they earn — humility of man towards men — it pains me — and when I regard myself in connection with the Universe, what I am, and what he is — whom one calls the greatest — and yet — there lies herein again the godlike of man. I weep when I think you will probably only receive on Saturday the first news from me — as you too love — yet I love you stronger — but never hide yourself from me. Good night — as I am taking the waters, I must go to bed. Oh God — so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love — but as firm, too, as the citadel of heaven.

Good morning, on 7 July

Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never — never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life — can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.

What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart

Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

What to write on?  I am in love with this stationary, as it has become a bit of a commodity these days: https://www.papierplume.com/product-catalogue/stationery/kartos-station.html.  Kartos has beautiful paper with filigree and weight that is unmatched right now.  You can also find it at Barnes and Noble.

gift: Valentine's Day (Her Version)

There be time enough, time to buy something special for that lady in your life.  Yet that be said, don't be doltish and let time slip away from you.  I've scoured the far corners of the internet, those places where the sparks of imagination come to rest, and potentially alight the hearts of those ladies we love.

So let's raise a glass, take out our wallets, and pay, pay, pay...our way to love.




Aphrodisiac candy is not what it used to be, but you can get what it used to be, from Turkey, where there are definitely no camels.  Mesir macunu is said to have varying effects, one being getting you hot and heavy.  I don't need, but it would be an interesting science experiment, fire on fire.  Order this early as it is fairly difficult to get - or, try eBay if the first link is a dead end for you.  Mr. Ilter Mert, 21food.com, 90-532-6651663.

Keurig cups come in many flavors, but perhaps your love like the sweet fun of Tootsie.  Here's a K-cup hot cocoa, with Tootsie tastes.  It's Sugar, 12.99.

Etsy I love, if anything that the products come straightaway from the hand what made them.  This one stood out to me, looking best in natural light conditions.  You may include the song lyrics Lucky Star by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed.  petiteVanilla, Etsy, 9.90.






Scrutinizing the staid jewelry in the local shops, with its solid lines, I love irregular jewelry design.  This ring looks pretty and immediate, even when sitting there, but even more so when playfully worn by a beautiful hand.  LasyaJewelry, Etsy, 31.00.








Here's an easy one, that can be explained by what it is: personalized M&Ms in a heart shaped box. My M&Ms, starting at 39.99.

Want something a bit more lasting, and are actually committed for a year?  Well, e'en if it's not a year, but shorter, this gift will personalize a small token of affection, which you write, then nested in this cute locket.  It is so petite, it makes me weep.

Caveat emptor though - nothing sadder than a gift that continues onward when the romance has cooled.  Although I love those stories.  I love them so, so much.  shopRebeccaTollefsen, Etsy, 40.00.

A lock and key, you say?  This is for those ladies that have everything, except a practical lock.  Some of you may say, how is this romantic?  I don't know, something ancient and beguiling about it.  Perhaps showing you are serious.  Serious about locking her in your dungeon.  Olive and Cocoa, 38.00. 

So these 'screened graphics atop an antique page' has been out for some time, but how about something more anatomically correct?  It's a heart, so it says I love you.  It may say a lot of other things about you too.  Knock her dead, tiger.  MadameBricolagePrint, Etsy, 10.69.

Have a geeky girl?  S'no problem!  This pretty Groot Spores Bracelet will make her geek out and remember the time you tried to go to second base at the local AMC a few years ago.  Well, it was the start of something sweet either way.  I am Groot!  Think Geek, 14.99.

Speaking of mix tapes (*Guardians), how's about it?  I personally think it is a lost art form that was heroically brought back through Marvel.  Well, you can create your own, via http://8tracks.com/.  Pick your eight tracks, put your gal's name on it and let the lovin' commence.  I like this one by milldread http://8tracks.com/milldread/l-amour.  Makes me believe in love exists, somewhere.  Perhaps a hopeless romantic lost in the side streets of a brisk night along the Champs-Elysees, not realizing that's about as good as it's going to get, schmuck.

Original art is it.  It is original, personal and typically lovingly made.  Consider paintings from independent artists.  I've chosen Scarlett Clay, since her oil pieces of the sea speak to me.  She has a piece now at 45.00.  I heart it much.

Find more at Pinterest.

Spider-Gwen Tee - love the designs of both the new Batgirl and Gwen Stacy.  It would make a hawt pajama.  ThinkGeek, 19.95.

Jean-Michel Basquiat gets my blood warming up, with art that makes you react.  In Untitled, 1982 I see calculated destruction with mathematical preciseness.  Now on a plate.  I'd eat a hot dog from it.  Moma, 99.95.

watch: Art, Forgery and Money

Thoughtful documentaries on the nature of art from its darker side, may it be forged pieces or the money generation that comes from art in general, are available for streaming.

 Beltracci (2014) is an unabashed forger that was caught and sentenced to six years in Germany.  He made some 45 million Euros on 14 forged pieces.  The documentary lightly admonishes Wolfgang, but, in the end, still shines more light on the fiscal machine behind art and the art world more than his restitution of what is emphatically illegal.  That being said, I had to question the money behind these actions - if the art world and those few collectors were so incensed, where are the controls to limit such work from eking their way into such precious collections?

In Art and Craft (2015) Mark Landis, a diagnosed schizophrenic, forged pieces for donation.  What is obviously different in a Landis forged piece is that they were the product of a child seeking to find approval of long-dead parents and a willing art society ready to take his donations.  Landis, like Beltracci, can meticulously forge pieces by digging into the psyche of an artist.  I felt that Art found this voice better in Landis than Beltracci.  [I am eyeing an original piece by Landis, I just want to find the right photo and type.  I'll post it whence complete.]

Lastly, in The Art of the Steal, the documentary posits the great theft of the Barnes Foundation from the intended town of Merion but then, in a series of articulated political moves, brought instead to Philadelphia.  It is a horrendous misappropriation of the local government that outright makes motions upon what is clearly private property.  Amazing that it hasn't gone to the highest court.

BELTRACCI:
Beltracci on Netflix














MARK LANDIS:
Mark Landis on Prime
http://marklandisoriginal.com/order-a-painting/

THE ART OF THE STEAL:
The Art of the Steal on Amazon Video

A book to go along with this is the well-regarded, Caveat Emptor by Ken Perenyi, available at Amazon.

remember, listen: MLK JR, Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers

If I walk in the pathway of duty
If I work til the close of the day, Lord
I shall see the great king in all his beauty
When I've gone the last mile of the way, Lord, yes sir

When I've gone the last mile of the way, oh yeah
I shall rest at the close of day
For I know there are joy awaiting
When I've gone the last mile of the way

If I were, for Christ to proclaim the glad story, oh Lord
If I see for his sheep who gone astray, oh Lord
I am sure he will show me in his glory
When I've gone the last mile of the way, Lord, yes sir

When I've gone the last mile of the way, oh yes
I shall rest at the close of day, oh yeah
For I know, there are joy awaiting

- The Soul Stirrers, 1964's "The Last Mile of the Way"

Aaron Douglas, Idylls of the Deep South, 1934

happening: Google Doodles Charles Perrault's 388th

Gustave Dore's Puss in Boots by Perrault

The "father of the fairy tale" was recognized by Google with today's Doodle (https://www.google.com/doodles/charles-perraults-388th-birthday).  What instantly came to mind was a book I thirsted for while in the Army, and had to wait until I got out to buy.  Keep in mind that the internet did not exist forever, nor did online shopping and availability.  This was the Dover, large formatted copy of Perrault's Fairy Tales with thirty-four full-page illustrations by Gustave Dore.  What made this book stand out was, at least to what I found at the time, one of the few books to give appropriate real estate, in full pages, dedicated to Dore's renditions of Perrault's tales.  You MUST see Dore's illustrations given such a treatment because, as they are extremely detailed renditions from his etching, there's so much to explore.

This is where books shine, right?  They are not where you let the computer do the work on an easy-to-read screen, you have to get in close and move the book around your eye.

Little Red Riding Hood

The etching's are wonderful and of an era where the etchings would have been an experience to readers of all ages that may only see crude etchings otherwise.  What is fascinating with black and white etching is that it must put emphasis on the line and the density of the lines to illustrate its story.  It obviously cannot rely on color.

I am furiously partial to etchings, as you may have read of my call-out to Bernie Wrightson's interpretation of Frankenstein.

...

P.S. Much love to Mr. David Bowie...he was influential to me when I was younger - being that bold artist that put everything into his art.  I honestly thought the man would live forever.  Time has cured this misconception.  May you rock through-out the cosmos Starman!

poem: "If" Rudyard Kipling (1910)

If you can keep your head when all about you  
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;  
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;  
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

- 1910, Rewards and Fairies

Kipling at Barnes and Noble

      

         

...original: "Free Gun Huntress", part ii...

Her story sort of started here, before.
...
The trilling pulled her out of sleep.  She had the blue ambient on tonight, it bathed the entirety of the cabin with its flat light.  She took a swig of the purple syrup.  She was sleeping hard, but the purple didn't allow for dreams.  The warm fuzziness was pulled all over her body, but no dreams.  She knew this as she slept and it nagged her.  The trilling was the last of the annoyances.  She gestured in a unique way that had the lights in the cabin go on and a flash of pure oxygen to help her wake.

She pulled off her covers, made from cerybian silk.  It was the only luxury she really ever bought outside of ships and guns.  Her body teetered as she made her way to the console.  Without being fully awake, her hands lumbered all over the screen, but she got there.  The trilling stopped and Gustiv popped on.  His eyes rolled over her body.  She was nude.

"Hey.  Never saw you like that before."

"I'm sure we can both be professional.  You called me out of sleep."

"I'll defer a joke to your memory about what I'll be dreaming of."  He paused for a laugh he knew he would've gotten with anyone else in this galaxy.  "Ok.  Right.  So, I have the data you requested for Cam.  The best I could muster was some holographic stills from a few ports.  A lot of security in other places is strictly local.  It'll take time."

"Where then?"

Gustiv was pushing packets as he spoke, "Last known was three days ago in Lopare.  It was transferring transports.  Had a lot of credits on it, letting everyone know.  It is desperate."  She mulled that over a bit.  That was good intel.  The more eyes on it, the more it thinks nothing will happen in the bright of day.

"Good.  I'll transfer what I owe you.  You get me something within a day or twelve cycles, and I'll transfer you four times the amount.  Also, don't have Ber sending anything anymore, we're done: she and I."

"20,000.  The bounty must be solid.  Affirmative on Ber.  Done for both of us then, I'll let her know."  She caught his eyes roll over her breasts for a twentieth time, rolling her eyes in response.  Grow up.  He shut down.

With the packets in her possession she spooled up the AI, Richie.  He hummed as he booted up, it increased until it was at a conversational level.  "Howdy, miss."

"Richie, have new data to correlate Cam Eyres location.  I need you to start chewing on this against where I left off six hours ago.  I would ignore the last two hours beyond that, my mind was drifting.  I'll be working in tandem."

"Yes, mum."  The AI pulsed to acknowledge that it was working, but offline.  It sounded to her like a bass-filled swallow.

In the meantime, she scrutinized the pattern of Cam's movements.  They were furtive, but meaningful.  The bounty was for alive, so she had to think ahead of it.  He was Artharian, so he was limited to very specific zones, necessarily amphibic.  A wet place, warm.  She highlighted those systems in a line of his trajectory.  There were three options.  The faster I close the gap between it's arrival and myself, the faster we close this.  Amphibics can lay at the bottom of some deep chasmic lake and stay there for years.  It was a racist comment, but it was a variable in this equation.

She paused.  There were two other worlds.  She thought of the macro view and the macro statistics.  There were two other worlds that had regions that could sustain it too.

Richie came back into her console as a blurry finger, as if he were raising it politely.  She couldn't get mad at him often.  She acknowledged his question.  "To the finer points of the bounty, I already understand that Cam Eyres is wanted alive to be called as a witness in the prosecution of the Ta'il Syndicate.  However, your report has not specified to what information he holds."

"Relevance?"

"I could then correlate what information it has and to the disposition of travel movements it may take next."

"Exampled?"

"...if it were physical evidence, it may look to a Gridrian Bank for safekeeping.  However, if all is non-physical, the more remote and quickest option will put it in regions that I have overlaid upon your work."  He did it and put a yellow blur on the further options.

"Non-physical."

Richie acknowledged and disappeared again.  *gulp*.  She straightened up and looked at how the transit map looked now.  Too many options.  She got that itch though.  It would do what it knew best, get to a deep pit of a warm, water source and hide.  Hide and disappear and hibernate until it got tired of doing it for decades.

She queried her options against any subterranean water sources that held a consistent ambient temperature of 50Ui.  There was only one.  Only a day and a half.  She culled up Richie from his work and told him of her findings.  "You could possibly get there as it is arriving."

"That's the plan, Richie.  Punch it to Tevaris, top line."

the watch: praise of "Jessica Jones" streaming on Netflix

Jessica sums it up: 'if you want it done right...'

Netflix/Marvel's Jessica Jones buck the staid trends of comic book television by offering a character devoid of the tired pretensions of costumes, expected invincibility and dubious villains.  Where Daredevil, another Netflix/Marvel collaboration, has Vincent D'Onofrio to center the overall arc as Kingpin, I felt the series fell short with uneven acting.  It never truly allowed Kingpin to explore the horrors he inflicts on the city in the comic books.  The Kingpin on newsprint is an ever-present demon and Daredevil the only one that is willing to take him on.  At least by the last episode, they pull some of the arc together.

With Jessica, they start the arc quickly, with the villainous Zebediah Killgrave (David Tennant) already the driving force of the entire series through his unstoppable mind control 'virus'.  He is no empty suit.  The manipulation and utter abandon with which he inflicts suffering is downright disgusting.

Expertly handled by Krysten Ritter, her Jessica's nail-biting fear is our first exposure to his evil.  Her reaction is at first odd, but when we get bits and pieces at Killgrave's true abilities, they, increasingly, become well-founded.  ("Just go," she'd say.  And 'go' is what they must.)

The series introduces well rounded characters, who, quelle surprise, don't act like vacuous idiots that just dance around the screen.  All of them seem to know their arc through the entire series, making sure to allow the story to run its course in a very fulfilling way.  Carrie Ann Moss plays a hard-as-nails attorney where her sexuality is not the 'thing' - her characterization underlined as gay plays at a true tone and not minstrel-y.

It was a nail-biter to the end, and I won't ruin it, of course.  I am interested, if it runs into a second season, how they will pull off such a well honed story again.

No, there is definitely not the hair-flipping, come hither blink in Jones.

the art: of Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942) was an illustrator and stage designer that was part of the Russian artistic movement embodied in the Mir iskusstva.  His dream-like iconography and art noveau sensibilities lent itself well to fantasy.

Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:
Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,
Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,
Select the prince from a row of identical masks,
Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks
And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,
Or learn the phone directory by rote.
Always it’s impossible what someone asks—

Forest Stage Design, Bilibin

Ruslan and Ludmila

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe
That you have something impossible up your sleeve,
The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,
An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,
The will to do whatever must be done:
Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

A.E. Stallings, Poetry March 2010, Amazon Author Page