i'm back in california. 40 degree difference in temperature. i am nowhere near unpacked. mixed feelings, to say the least.
the month off was great.
back to reality.
i recently picked up a copy of the san francisco guardian. the issue? "the hard times handbook." encouraging
today is part two of unpacking and getting my life back in order aka laundry, groceries, shower, nightstand purchasing (the side of the road...i'm penny-less)
fun fun fun!
o o o so now that i have my camera chord i can put photos up again. nice, right?
church just came into my room... it's time to cuddle
love and loyalty
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
a funeral
from the UK Guardian:
Harold Pinter was buried yesterday afternoon before a small gathering of family and friends at Kensal Green cemetery in London. And, if the half-hour ceremony conducted around the graveside had a deeply moving, faintly Shakespearean and entirely secular quality to it, it was because Pinter himself had wished it that way.
As recently as last August, he had sat down with his wife, Antonia Fraser, and selected the readings he wanted for his funeral.
Since the chosen pieces dealt with memory, mortality, passion, politics and cricket, they not only reflected Pinter's abiding concerns: they also showed his extraordinary capacity, even in death, to make his presence manifest.
What was especially impressive was the capacity of the readers, both actors and family members, to allow the emotion to flow directly through the words.
Michael Gambon, sombre and heavy-coated, read no fewer than four pieces. One was a speech he nightly delivers on stage in No Man's Land, in which Hirst pays tribute to the emotion trapped in photo albums and asks us to "tender the dead, as you would yourself be tendered, now, in what you would describe as your life".
Gambon also ended the readings with a Pinter poem, Death, that breaks through the bureaucratic formalities associated with mortality and finally asks: "Did you kiss the dead body."
The resonance of those words lingered in the chill air, prompting Tom Stoppard to remark, after we had filed past the grave: "You could cut the grief with a knife."
But, for all the palpable sadness, the ceremony reminded us all of the breadth of Pinter's personality. His step-granddaughter, Stella Powell-Jones, read beautifully a love poem dedicated to Antonia Fraser, It Is Here, recalling the coup de foudre at Pinter's first meeting with his future wife.
Matthew Burton, actor and director, read Pinter's favourite cricket poem, Francis Thompson's At Lord's, in which the run-stealers eternally flicker to and fro.
And Penelope Wilton delivered with impeccable gravitas the lines from TS Eliot's Little Gidding ending: "So, while the light falls/On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel,/History is now and England."
Apart from the fact that we were in the open air, rather than an Eliotesque chapel, the lines perfectly captured the deep Englishness of the occasion.
Afterwards, over drinks at Pinter's Holland Park home, his old friends, including Edna O'Brien, Ronald Harwood, Henry Woolf and Michael Colgan, reminisced warmly about the man himself. Everyone recalled, in graphic detail, their last encounter with Pinter.
Someone, I forget who, even suggested that when a plane flew over the ceremony temporarily drowning the words, they could well imagine Pinter wanting to rise from his grave to silence the unwanted intrusion.
But the last words should belong to Antonia Fraser who ended the simple ceremony by advancing to the grave and, gazing down at the coffin through her tears, quoted Horatio's words of Hamlet: "Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
It seemed a fitting, Shakespearean farewell to a great playwright.
farewell, dear friend
Harold Pinter was buried yesterday afternoon before a small gathering of family and friends at Kensal Green cemetery in London. And, if the half-hour ceremony conducted around the graveside had a deeply moving, faintly Shakespearean and entirely secular quality to it, it was because Pinter himself had wished it that way.
As recently as last August, he had sat down with his wife, Antonia Fraser, and selected the readings he wanted for his funeral.
Since the chosen pieces dealt with memory, mortality, passion, politics and cricket, they not only reflected Pinter's abiding concerns: they also showed his extraordinary capacity, even in death, to make his presence manifest.
What was especially impressive was the capacity of the readers, both actors and family members, to allow the emotion to flow directly through the words.
Michael Gambon, sombre and heavy-coated, read no fewer than four pieces. One was a speech he nightly delivers on stage in No Man's Land, in which Hirst pays tribute to the emotion trapped in photo albums and asks us to "tender the dead, as you would yourself be tendered, now, in what you would describe as your life".
Gambon also ended the readings with a Pinter poem, Death, that breaks through the bureaucratic formalities associated with mortality and finally asks: "Did you kiss the dead body."
The resonance of those words lingered in the chill air, prompting Tom Stoppard to remark, after we had filed past the grave: "You could cut the grief with a knife."
But, for all the palpable sadness, the ceremony reminded us all of the breadth of Pinter's personality. His step-granddaughter, Stella Powell-Jones, read beautifully a love poem dedicated to Antonia Fraser, It Is Here, recalling the coup de foudre at Pinter's first meeting with his future wife.
Matthew Burton, actor and director, read Pinter's favourite cricket poem, Francis Thompson's At Lord's, in which the run-stealers eternally flicker to and fro.
And Penelope Wilton delivered with impeccable gravitas the lines from TS Eliot's Little Gidding ending: "So, while the light falls/On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel,/History is now and England."
Apart from the fact that we were in the open air, rather than an Eliotesque chapel, the lines perfectly captured the deep Englishness of the occasion.
Afterwards, over drinks at Pinter's Holland Park home, his old friends, including Edna O'Brien, Ronald Harwood, Henry Woolf and Michael Colgan, reminisced warmly about the man himself. Everyone recalled, in graphic detail, their last encounter with Pinter.
Someone, I forget who, even suggested that when a plane flew over the ceremony temporarily drowning the words, they could well imagine Pinter wanting to rise from his grave to silence the unwanted intrusion.
But the last words should belong to Antonia Fraser who ended the simple ceremony by advancing to the grave and, gazing down at the coffin through her tears, quoted Horatio's words of Hamlet: "Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
It seemed a fitting, Shakespearean farewell to a great playwright.
farewell, dear friend
Friday, January 2, 2009
a year started properly
new year's actually went like this-
dinner for two at frog and the peach in new brunswick, followed with a freezing cold dash to our hotel room at the hyatt to uncork a bottle of champagne as the big ball hit the big building on television.
delightful.
if i said i'd go to one party/event/anything, i'd be disappointing everyone else at their respective locations of celebratory activities. so this year i spent it with one and ran into some friends on the fly. it was perfect.
2009 is in my favor. i spent the 1st (aka recovery day) with family and games and conversation and billy bob thorton and chinese buffet.
yahtzee!
today i opened up an email from my group communications seminar
"... I just finished reading your paper. I found it an insightful analysis of bedrock, pragmatic politics and the work that still needs to be done to truly bring justice to the issue. The disparity between the prohibitive Obama vote in California and the Yes on 8 majority is a revealing political phenomenon which begs for added analysis and understanding of the electorate.
I'm happy to award you an "A" for your good work. Your piece on 12 Angry Men was also excellent.
I should be officially posting grades for our seminar tomorrow.
I wish you every success in the graduate program, and please feel free to drop by my office, even for a chat."
sigh of relief.
one down. one to go.
thank you, 2009... now don't screw me over we have a long way to go
dinner for two at frog and the peach in new brunswick, followed with a freezing cold dash to our hotel room at the hyatt to uncork a bottle of champagne as the big ball hit the big building on television.
delightful.
if i said i'd go to one party/event/anything, i'd be disappointing everyone else at their respective locations of celebratory activities. so this year i spent it with one and ran into some friends on the fly. it was perfect.
2009 is in my favor. i spent the 1st (aka recovery day) with family and games and conversation and billy bob thorton and chinese buffet.
yahtzee!
today i opened up an email from my group communications seminar
"... I just finished reading your paper. I found it an insightful analysis of bedrock, pragmatic politics and the work that still needs to be done to truly bring justice to the issue. The disparity between the prohibitive Obama vote in California and the Yes on 8 majority is a revealing political phenomenon which begs for added analysis and understanding of the electorate.
I'm happy to award you an "A" for your good work. Your piece on 12 Angry Men was also excellent.
I should be officially posting grades for our seminar tomorrow.
I wish you every success in the graduate program, and please feel free to drop by my office, even for a chat."
sigh of relief.
one down. one to go.
thank you, 2009... now don't screw me over we have a long way to go
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