So I need some help.  I have this idea, which is really an ephemeral, less than half-formed thing, for a story.  And it is a story about World War I, which as most of you have probably gathered by now is a war I am completely and utterly fascinated by.  However, fascination does not necessarily mean I'm well-prepared for such a project ( Read more... )

This is a somewhat silly thing to write a post about, which is to say I feel really self-conscious about this.  So here goes.  One of my very most favorite songs is I Had No Right, by Dar Williams.  It is an immensely powerful song and it means a lot to me.

Click to view

It means a lot to me-- about how I feel about war, and how I feel about my religion.  And ( Read more... )

I saw War Horse last night.  And it was an excellent movie-- very powerful, very compelling.  And it was a movie about World War I.  I would call it a horse movie in only the loosest of terms.  Yes, the movie followed the travels of the horse, and the horse's various riders, but it also showed us some of the worst horrors of the war ( Read more... )

Now, I think I need a list.  This is going to be a list of all of the books I need to read over break.  Just so I can keep track of what I'm getting myself into.

• By the Mountain Bound
• Diplomatic Immunity
• The Left Hand of Darkness- already started.  I figured it was about time I actually read this book after hearing marvelous things about it for years
• ( Read more... )

To start with an unrelated point, the snowpocalypse is imminent.

In my extremely limited free time, I have been reading The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchmann. It has been very interesting in a sickly horrifying way. World War I was a disastrous war, and reading about the buildup to the war has been edifying a way that makes me wish to scrape my ( Read more... )

For all those who served, thanks. Today, I think of my grandfathers, both of who served in World War II. And I think of friends, who have also served. Thank you.

On Passing the New Menin Gate
Siegfried Sassoon

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed, ( Read more... )

    So, I'm writing a paper for my English class that is a compare/contrast of two poems after reading and analyzing them.  And, I, being the silly girl that I am picked a poem by Wilfred Owen (who is one of my absolute favorite poets) and another poem by Siegfried Sassoon.  Both of them were marvelous writers, but god, the bitterness.  I'm writing ( Read more... )

    Politics are a bitch.  And I am quite possibly an idiot.  Well.  Definitely.  Watching those videos was not smart.  Not smart at all.  I knew they would piss me off and I watched them anyway.  They young woman who put them together was quite brilliant and very talented, and what she does is wonderful, but damn.  This is depressing.