after the destructive revivifying passion
Stuff! And also things!
1. it got cold here again. I DO NOT APPROVE. And I had to wait longer than usual for a bus this morning, so I was Not Pleased, especially since I didn't wear a fleecy under my coat.
2. I spoiled myself for Amazing Spider-man 2. On purpose, actually. I needed to know if they were gonna do the thing and apparently they did the thing we all knew they were gonna do but desperately hoped they weren't, i.e., kill Gwen Stacy. Bah! Bah, I say, and also, feh! Otoh, I did see a comics blog post speculating that this is technically going to be the Ultimateverse (sans the vileness of various other Ultimates characters), because Andrew Garfield said he's not coming back for ASM 4, even though Sony is currently planning to do one. Now, that could just be contractual issues, and they could throw a buttload of money at him and he could do it, but it could open the door for 1. MILES IN THE MOVIES YES PLEASE and 2. GWEN TO COME BACK AS A CLONE (probably recast though, since I doubt Emma Stone would come back as a clone of herself, but I could be wrong). I AM ALWAYS UP FOR SOME CLONE GWEN STACY. I still don't know if I'm going to see it. I guess I'll wait until people I trust have seen it and commented.
3. Ugh, so I put the teevee on at 7:59 pm for Arrow and channel 11 was dark! And it was dark on the HD version too! And I was like, NOOOOOOO! but it popped back in just at the end of the previouslies. Whew. I have to say that Arrow and Good Wife are the two hours of tv I look forward to most every week. I still enjoy Elementary but I feel like it's been idling this season and has never really gotten into gear. But that could just be because everything feels slow when compared to TGW and Arrow (and Sleepy Hollow when it was on). Talk about breakneck pacing. Anyway!
Arrow: The Man Under the Hood (no, sadly, not Jason Todd)
= THEA! PRECIOUS DARLING. PLEASE BECOME SPEEDY FOR REAL SOON. Even with a supervillain (or two) for a parent, you can still be a hero! Also, Oliver, for ONCE just let the call go to voicemail! You were only going to be five minutes late! God.
= I wasn't surprised to see Roy strapped to that chair, mostly because I figured Slade wasn't going to use himself unless he had no other choice, but oh, poor Roy. THIS IS WHERE YOU GET THEA INVOLVED, OLLIE. COME ON.
= ISABEL = RAVAGER 1.0? Y/Y? When Digg shot her I was like, well, it sure was a waste of Summer Glau this season, BUT THEN SHE OPENED HER BLOODY-TEARED EYES AND I WAS LIKE OMG THIS IS AWESOME.
= Also awesome, Ollie's FACE when Moira tells him he was in the same bone zone as his dad. (I just laugh every time at the term "bone zone". I'm twelve. I'm sorry.) And Thea bringing up macking on her HALF-BROTHER Tommy. SHOW, I ADORE YOU.
= Otoh, I feel like Isabel's story is wonderfully petty (oh no! he chose his injured child over his teenage lover he was cheating on his wife with!), but I'm not sure I believe someone would actually team up with Slade - who's basically killing folks left and right - to get revenge on the family of their dead ex married lover. Having Robert Queen steal her father's work and make bank over it while choosing his kids over her might have worked better? Or are we supposed to see her and Slade as two peas in a pod, making grandiose revenge plans over affairs that ended badly (or never even started, in Slade's case), but I can blame the mirakuru in Slade's case. It just makes Isabel come off as a stereotypical hell hath no fury type, which, meh. (I mean, what I'm saying is, as an intern in love she might have believed Robert would abandon everything to run off with her; as a savvy adult businesswoman who has seen something of the world, surely she knew he was never really gonna leave his wife/life?)
= The show introduced VIBE. I'm just going to leave that there. VIBE is going to be on The Flash. I don't even know. (also, the internet tells me the lady scientist becomes Killer Frost? Huh.)
= Speaking of, IRIS. CAN WALLY BE FAR BEHIND?
= Laurel figures some shit out and does the right thing! I was surprised (and amused at the flashback of Sara in her Canary wig), but glad that she finally put all the pieces together and actually listened to her dad. Could have done without the hug for Ollie, though.
= Quentin gets his own bullet because DETECTIVE LANCE. CHOOSING NOT TO KNOW in order to make a sacrifice for the Arrow's sake, in honor of the sacrifices he's made for the city. He was so good tonight, y'all.
= Also, Moira! So nice to see her detente with Ollie. I hope she gets to be mayor, if only because it'll keep her in play.
= FELICITY, MY PRECIOUS GIRL. She didn't have a ton to do in this episode but nearly every line was comedy gold. "This is a bad plan." "This is your plan." "I didn't think you'd say yes!" ♥♥♥ (I also wanted her to shoot Slade, but I'm glad she didn't go at him physically.)
= Speaking of which, taser arrow is the way to go! Smart thinking, Ollie!
4. Speaking of excellent television, I would put the s2 run of Avatar: the Last Airbender, from The Blind Bandit through Crossroads of Destiny, up against any tv show in terms of excellent runs of episodes. There's really only the one clunker (The Guru) - it just builds and builds and builds to an amazing climax. Why yes, I've been rewatching. Last night, it was The Desert, which might be my favorite Katara episode. She's just so determined to get them all out of there alive and intact while Sokka's high and Aang's grieving and Toph can't actually help.
5. Today's poem:
What Goes On
After the affair and the moving out,
after the destructive revivifying passion,
we watched her life quiet
into a new one, her lover more and more
on its periphery. She spent many nights
alone, happy for the narcosis
of the television. When she got cancer
she kept it to herself until she couldn't
keep it from anyone. The chemo debilitated
and saved her, and one day
her husband asked her to come back --
his wife, who after all had only fallen
in love as anyone might
who hadn't been in love in a while --
and he held her, so different now,
so thin, her hair just partially
grown back. He held her like a new woman
and what she felt
felt almost as good as love had,
and each of them called it love
because precision didn't matter anymore.
And we who'd been part of it,
often rejoicing with one
and consoling the other,
we who had seen her truly alive
and then merely alive,
what could we do but revise
our phone book, our hearts,
offer a little toast to what goes on.
~Stephen Dunn
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/655781.html.
people have commented there.
1. it got cold here again. I DO NOT APPROVE. And I had to wait longer than usual for a bus this morning, so I was Not Pleased, especially since I didn't wear a fleecy under my coat.
2. I spoiled myself for Amazing Spider-man 2. On purpose, actually. I needed to know if they were gonna do the thing and apparently they did the thing we all knew they were gonna do but desperately hoped they weren't, i.e., kill Gwen Stacy. Bah! Bah, I say, and also, feh! Otoh, I did see a comics blog post speculating that this is technically going to be the Ultimateverse (sans the vileness of various other Ultimates characters), because Andrew Garfield said he's not coming back for ASM 4, even though Sony is currently planning to do one. Now, that could just be contractual issues, and they could throw a buttload of money at him and he could do it, but it could open the door for 1. MILES IN THE MOVIES YES PLEASE and 2. GWEN TO COME BACK AS A CLONE (probably recast though, since I doubt Emma Stone would come back as a clone of herself, but I could be wrong). I AM ALWAYS UP FOR SOME CLONE GWEN STACY. I still don't know if I'm going to see it. I guess I'll wait until people I trust have seen it and commented.
3. Ugh, so I put the teevee on at 7:59 pm for Arrow and channel 11 was dark! And it was dark on the HD version too! And I was like, NOOOOOOO! but it popped back in just at the end of the previouslies. Whew. I have to say that Arrow and Good Wife are the two hours of tv I look forward to most every week. I still enjoy Elementary but I feel like it's been idling this season and has never really gotten into gear. But that could just be because everything feels slow when compared to TGW and Arrow (and Sleepy Hollow when it was on). Talk about breakneck pacing. Anyway!
Arrow: The Man Under the Hood (no, sadly, not Jason Todd)
= THEA! PRECIOUS DARLING. PLEASE BECOME SPEEDY FOR REAL SOON. Even with a supervillain (or two) for a parent, you can still be a hero! Also, Oliver, for ONCE just let the call go to voicemail! You were only going to be five minutes late! God.
= I wasn't surprised to see Roy strapped to that chair, mostly because I figured Slade wasn't going to use himself unless he had no other choice, but oh, poor Roy. THIS IS WHERE YOU GET THEA INVOLVED, OLLIE. COME ON.
= ISABEL = RAVAGER 1.0? Y/Y? When Digg shot her I was like, well, it sure was a waste of Summer Glau this season, BUT THEN SHE OPENED HER BLOODY-TEARED EYES AND I WAS LIKE OMG THIS IS AWESOME.
= Also awesome, Ollie's FACE when Moira tells him he was in the same bone zone as his dad. (I just laugh every time at the term "bone zone". I'm twelve. I'm sorry.) And Thea bringing up macking on her HALF-BROTHER Tommy. SHOW, I ADORE YOU.
= Otoh, I feel like Isabel's story is wonderfully petty (oh no! he chose his injured child over his teenage lover he was cheating on his wife with!), but I'm not sure I believe someone would actually team up with Slade - who's basically killing folks left and right - to get revenge on the family of their dead ex married lover. Having Robert Queen steal her father's work and make bank over it while choosing his kids over her might have worked better? Or are we supposed to see her and Slade as two peas in a pod, making grandiose revenge plans over affairs that ended badly (or never even started, in Slade's case), but I can blame the mirakuru in Slade's case. It just makes Isabel come off as a stereotypical hell hath no fury type, which, meh. (I mean, what I'm saying is, as an intern in love she might have believed Robert would abandon everything to run off with her; as a savvy adult businesswoman who has seen something of the world, surely she knew he was never really gonna leave his wife/life?)
= The show introduced VIBE. I'm just going to leave that there. VIBE is going to be on The Flash. I don't even know. (also, the internet tells me the lady scientist becomes Killer Frost? Huh.)
= Speaking of, IRIS. CAN WALLY BE FAR BEHIND?
= Laurel figures some shit out and does the right thing! I was surprised (and amused at the flashback of Sara in her Canary wig), but glad that she finally put all the pieces together and actually listened to her dad. Could have done without the hug for Ollie, though.
= Quentin gets his own bullet because DETECTIVE LANCE. CHOOSING NOT TO KNOW in order to make a sacrifice for the Arrow's sake, in honor of the sacrifices he's made for the city. He was so good tonight, y'all.
= Also, Moira! So nice to see her detente with Ollie. I hope she gets to be mayor, if only because it'll keep her in play.
= FELICITY, MY PRECIOUS GIRL. She didn't have a ton to do in this episode but nearly every line was comedy gold. "This is a bad plan." "This is your plan." "I didn't think you'd say yes!" ♥♥♥ (I also wanted her to shoot Slade, but I'm glad she didn't go at him physically.)
= Speaking of which, taser arrow is the way to go! Smart thinking, Ollie!
4. Speaking of excellent television, I would put the s2 run of Avatar: the Last Airbender, from The Blind Bandit through Crossroads of Destiny, up against any tv show in terms of excellent runs of episodes. There's really only the one clunker (The Guru) - it just builds and builds and builds to an amazing climax. Why yes, I've been rewatching. Last night, it was The Desert, which might be my favorite Katara episode. She's just so determined to get them all out of there alive and intact while Sokka's high and Aang's grieving and Toph can't actually help.
5. Today's poem:
What Goes On
After the affair and the moving out,
after the destructive revivifying passion,
we watched her life quiet
into a new one, her lover more and more
on its periphery. She spent many nights
alone, happy for the narcosis
of the television. When she got cancer
she kept it to herself until she couldn't
keep it from anyone. The chemo debilitated
and saved her, and one day
her husband asked her to come back --
his wife, who after all had only fallen
in love as anyone might
who hadn't been in love in a while --
and he held her, so different now,
so thin, her hair just partially
grown back. He held her like a new woman
and what she felt
felt almost as good as love had,
and each of them called it love
because precision didn't matter anymore.
And we who'd been part of it,
often rejoicing with one
and consoling the other,
we who had seen her truly alive
and then merely alive,
what could we do but revise
our phone book, our hearts,
offer a little toast to what goes on.
~Stephen Dunn
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/655781.html.
people have commented there.