#gertrude rome

[aster-luna-light]

Carl : if you were to die , what would be your last words be ?

Rook : I love you <3

Ace : *rolls eyes*

Kalim : aw mine too

Gert : what about you , yuu?

Yuu : finally .

Ace : No .

[lemon-koii]

Gossip duo

@aster-luna-light

@fools-ramblings-and-whatnot

[•~•~•~•~•~•]

They first met when they realised they were talking shit about each other then proceed to talk about others.

Carl accidentally made a 7 year old cry during Halloween because of his piercings.

When Gert first came to the "teaching merman to be human" camp, the instructor had really shinny hair but when he touched it, it was really oily. The instructor told him it was conditioner which resulted to Gert never using it.

Azul tried to make a contract with Gert to obtain his flight skills.

Carl's favourite upper classman is Lilia

And Gert's is Trey

Gert almost tried to swallow a bowl of small fishes in the lounge thinking it's possible but was stopped by Azul.

Carl sometimes imagines his classmates and upper classmen with piercings.

Epel really likes Carl's piercings and is slightly jealous that he's allowed to wear it.

[besiegedhunter]

Projekt Red: Desire for connection and her relationship with Kal'tsit and Grandma.

So originally this was going to just be about Red's relationship with Kal'tsit but thinking about it, I decided I wanted to discuss many other facets of Red when it comes to her connections with other people.

But without further ado:

Setting the scene.

Firstly I want to discuss the possible themes of family and accompanying themes for Siracusa and particularly Lupos.

Nothing illustrates it better than the founding story of Siracusa: the story of the She-Wolf, which takes inspiration from Rome's founding story of Romulus and Remus. A story that ends with Romulus killing his brother Remus, which I say for a reason.

From Rewinding Breeze's Stories from the Sky, it goes as such:

I want to specifically point out the final line of this cropped version: "From then on, Lupos stopped separating themselves into tribes, and called each other family instead."

The story of the She-Wolf and founding of Siracusa is specifically connected to family and Lupos and I think that the state of the She-Wolf's family is echoed in other Lupo's families. Maybe not purposefully but the inversion of wolves, known for their packs is what I imagine they're going for.

But to call attention to Lupos with strained families or connected to lonliness:

Texas's Father killed her Grandfather, leading to the destruction of the Texas family which she herself just watched, tired of it all and before meeting Emperor was alone thereafter.

Lappland hates her Father more than anything else but Siracusa, with her cutting ties with him entirely after Il Siracusano and him vowing to kill her if they meet again. Also due to her exile she's described as a Lone Wolf.

The Bellone family falls apart in Il Siracusano, with several betrayals and rifts caused throughout the event.

Capone and Gambino, once sworn brothers, become enemies in Code of Brawl.

Gertrude suffered abuse from her father and killed her brother, living and dying alone thereafter.

Pozyomka's whole family was murdered right in front of her, leading to her distrusting the surface and fleeing alone till finding a home with the Durin, though with undeniable differences between them.

Horn is implied to dislike her Father's action but her story following Episode 9, wherein she loses her whole squad but Bagpipe, became Dublinn's prisoner and survived alone in Londinium's sewers with only Metal Crabs as company hones in more on the loneliness.

Crownslayer's parents dying in the Chernobog sarcophagus purge. Reunion falling and then Red killing her mentor, leaving her with no one.

But there's one I left out in this for the sake of focusing on it.

Kinship.

This is Red's Trust 1 and 2 voicelines, Both portray her loneliness and call to two different things. I'll get onto her Trust 2 in a bit but for Red's Trust 1, it shows that whereas where other Lupos or Siracusans have turmoil with their families, either having them be strained, broken or dead, Red doesn't have a family.

Now, it is mentioned in Red's file 4 the existence of someone called Grandma who is responsible for why Red is the way she is, having been the one to raise her, uh, "raise her" before Kal'tsit.

Il Siracusano reveals the existence of beings known as the Signore dei Lupi who are Lupine Beast Lords like Emperor or Gawain and revealing that Grandma is one of them as well as what she expects from Red. Basically, the Signore dei Lupi each have a Fang that they train to kill the other Signore dei Lupi's Fangs. Red is Grandma's Fang.

The Signore dei Lupi claim territory in the wastes of Siracusa. Red's module confirms that this is where Red was trained in the least but as Il Siracusano introduces Lunacub, another Fang who only knows the wilderness and has no family like Red, it can be inferred that Red too was raised away from society, in the wilderness only knowing Grandma.

But even with Lunacub sharing almost the same upbringing that Red did there's a profound difference in how they were raised by their respective Signore dei Lupi. One that results in Lunacub being more capable and sociable than Red.

As said, Red has many problems. She's stated to have both educational as well as social problems. She cuts anything that gets close to her. I believe that her speech is broken (more evident in CN text if I'm right). And has limited empathy.

And as illustrated by her Trust 2:

She has a yearning to bond with other Lupos specifically it appears from this and her module which includes a ball made of fur specifically mentioned to be for when there's no Lupo tails to touch. Which, her wanting to bond with others would make sense.

There's a theme with Red's Trust lines where each line she doesn't take a hard stance on, moreso questioning or confused by something whether it's the importance of family, why she's being avoided or what her life could've been if she wasn't a Wolf Hunter i.e. met Grandma.

The final line of her Trust 3 is the Doctor asking Red to answer the question herself, which I think calls back to her module that really hammers in that Red struggles thinking for herself:

Something that Kal'tsit recognizes and points out herself:

So I see Red's Trust lines as her not being able to understand what she's feeling, the best she can do is to question things that she has feelings about deep down or have deeper meaning to her that she's not aware of.

Being that if she wasn't a Wolf Hunter she could have lived a happier life. She maybe would've had a family of her own. Could approach and befriend other Lupos. Have a bond with others, something that she can't at the moment.

I feel that Red's targeting of Lupos in her Trust 2 is for sure because of Siracusa's emphasis on Lupos and between the She-Wolf & her children and the Signore dei Lupi there is an emphasis on Wolves sticking together.

There's also something specifically with Red, cause the Signore dei Lupi as far as we've seen only have Lupos as their Fangs which on top of the emphasis on Lupos and wolf packs actually goes a level deeper due to two points:

I made a whole post about this but basically: Zaaro demonstrates the same or near identical ability as Red scaring Lupos and Vigil describes it as "kinship" and in the second and third images through Ho'olheyak we learn that Kukulkans and likely all Ancients were originally actual creatures.

So Lupos likely were originally actual Wolves, with the Signore dei Lupi or rather Lupine Beast Lords were kin with in some way or another and able to exert power over them through kinship, like Zaaro demonstrates in that image.

But also likely what Red is doing to scare Lupos, which is tragic. She wants kinship with her fellow Lupos but if I'm correct with this, then unbeknownst to her she has stronger kinship with them than any other Lupo and it's exactly why they're terrified of her.

Also a side note, I do wonder if in IS-ST-4 Red sees Crownslayer as someone she's somewhat fine with and if it's a result of Crownslayer being a Lupo by her account.

Cause there's "Is she your Kal'tsit?" which I'll delve into, but her expression is a happy one as opposed to her resting one for the rest of the conversation and in general she feels too casual.

But that's just a thought. Now, onto the next part:

Grandma and Kal'tsit.

"I do as Grandma/Kal'tsit says"

It's the exact same thing for both of them and by all means it should be. Grandma and Kal'tsit are the people who raised Red, albeit one better than the other.

With the minimal knowledge that Kal'tsit has about Grandma she suspects her to be responsible for the problems Red has that Rhodes has laid out in her files:

As I showed before, Grandma only taught Red what Grandma deemed Red would need to know to accomplish what Grandma wanted before throwing her into a traumatic experience and then doing it again:

And as the end of that paragraph, the way that Grandma raised Red, what she threw her into again and again would have killed her in some way if it wasn't for Kal'tsit.

Now, this is where our information about Grandma dries up as she's not mentioned in Il Siracusano outside of that one screenshot and we don't yet know how Kal'tsit met Red but what we do know is what Kal'tsit did upon meeting her:

Kal'tsit saw the problems that Red has and like Rosmontis, probably recognized how severe they were and decided to provide her with shelter in exchange for Red aiding Rhodes Island through her combat skills.

We also know that Rhodes Island put Red through several tests, likely headed by Kal'tsit herself who we also know tried coming up with several contingencies before scrapping them, destroying test data and classifying a lot of information regarding Red because of the severity and delicate nature of her situation.

But while there's nothing that she can do and by extension Rhodes, she still tries to help Red, whether by teaching her outright like the homework she gets her to do or by teaching her moral lessons which I believe she does in 6-11 after Crownslayer leaves.

Kal'tsit puts in a lot of effort to help Red which really contrasts Grandma's lack of care or affection or help. If Grandma had done much of anything then Red wouldn't have the problems she does, she like Lunacub could've known care and affection and end up better because of it.

But Red, the awful experiences she's gone through, how even now she struggles and doesn't know how to do a lot of things and yearns for affection from other Lupos, is because of how Grandma raised her.

And now Kal'tsit is doing her best to help Red, despite likely knowing that Red will one day leave and that Kal'tsit can't do much to help her and that it's up to Red to help herself at the end of the day. She put in a lot of effort for her.

How Red feels about Kal'tsit on the other hand I feel is quite complicated.

A lot of the time when Red talks or thinks about Kal'tsit it's what Kal'tsit has done for her or their agreement. There's not anything so much resembling the worry Kal'tsit puts in for her. Which I think isn't for lack of care for Kal'tsit.

Going back to how Red says she does what Grandma says and Kal'tsit says in the same way, right?

Red struggles to think for herself. It's what her Trust lines are about. It's what Kal'tsit sees that Red needs to do in her File 4. It's what her module is about. But Red can't and it's the basis of her relationship with Grandma, which is the only one that she knew for ages.

Grandma would teach her something, expecting her to accomplish it and then Red would be thrown out to do it. Likely this repeated and Red came to rely on Grandma to know what to do and not yet having learnt to be autonomous, Red now leans on Kal'tsit in a similar way.

Red doesn't know what it's like to have a parent or a friend, she only knows a master and while I'm sure Kal'tsit tries to not have their relationship be that, Red is the one who sees it as such.

But I think like the Trust lines being Red's attempt of touching upon deeper feelings, I think Red holds that care for Kal'tsit but she knows no different than how she acted with Grandma but it comes through. In it's own way.

And here is where I leave this off because sadly the state Red is in right now isn't the most happy state but I hope you enjoyed reading. Red's got a lot of developing to do for her eventual event and I cannot wait to see what happens between her and Grandma and hopefully Kal'tsit.

I just deem their relationship as really really important and while I'm sure Red will get closer to others in her event, Kal'tsit is so important I hope it's shone some light on in the event itself or an oprec or module.

[opera-ghosts]

„WALKÜRE“ R. Wagner / SECOND and THIRD ACT

Some Brünnhildes

Amalie Materna as Brünnhilde; Bruxelles, 1889

Pauline Mailhac as Brünnhilde; Karlsruhe, 1891

Ellen Gulbranson as Brünnhilde; Bayreuth, 1902

Lucienne Breval as Brünnhilde; Paris, ca. 1900

Anna Bahr-Mildenburg als Brünnhilde; Vienna, ca. 1900

Laure Berge as Brünnhilde; Bruxelles, ?

Elise Beuer als Brünnhilde; ?, ?

Olga Blomé as Brünnhilde; Bayreuth, 1924

Lina Boeling as Brünnhilde; ?, ?

Helena Braun as Brünnhilde; Munich, ?

Gertrud Bindernagel as Brünnhilde; ?, ?

Berthe Briffaux as Brünnhilde; Antwerpen, 1932

Lotte Burck as Brünnhilde; Milan, 1932

Sara Cesar as Brünnhilde; Rome, 1920

Sofie Cordes-Palm as Brünnhilde; ?, ?

Erna Denera as Brünnhilde; Berlin, ?

[lizardrosen]

How Is It that the Clouds Still Hang on You

Bridgertons performing Hamlet, part one! This wouldn't have been possible without @glintglimmergleam!

Pre-play, Anthony’s Hamlet is the eternal student, the idle rich somewhere between seventeen and thirty who still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. First sons really only have one job, and that’s to someday be their fathers; and Hamlet, like Anthony, is sure he’s getting it wrong no matter what he does. Anthony at least has the estate and his younger siblings to look after, but Hamlet only has the vague notion of someday being king, and looking through the script for hints of who Hamlet used to be, Anthony thinks for the first time that the prince must have been lonely even before his father died.

His only recourse was to take nothing seriously and sell himself as the clown of any group, and he usually managed to believe what he was selling and even enjoy himself. When Claudius popped in between the election and his hopes, those hopes curdled inside of him and he started putting up firmer, spikier walls, where before there was only wordplay and multi-layered classics references. (Anthony is actually hopeless at this kind of thing; he had to ask Benedict about “When Roscius was an actor in Rome” and “Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!” but what was he going to do, not make Hamlet a classics nerd??)

Gregory memorizes the roles with the most lines first, of course, so he’s already gotten the bantering rhythm down for playing both halves of a comedy duo attempting to be spies. “My lord, you once did love me” is regret for the distance in age with his oldest brother, and the distance in social status for Rosencrantz and Hamlet. Osric, he unlocks when he decides this vain and silly courtier idolizes both Laertes and Hamlet in much the same way that Gregory looks up to his oldest brothers, so he and Benedict talk about it and come to the conclusion that Laertes might trust Osric enough to ask him to help kill Hamlet, but Osric would never go along with it, which means that in this production Laertes didn’t tell him what he was getting Hamlet into.

Now he has to bring the soldiers on the watchtower to life. He whirls as if to face an unexpected noise, and answers himself rapid-fire.

— Who’s there! — Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold thyself! — Long live the king! — Barnardo? — He.

It’s almost a knock-knock joke but the truth is that no one in this play really knows who’s there or if they can be trusted, and it’s an uncertainty hidden in plain sight right from the opening lines. For this dialogue to work, it has to be two people meeting in the dark and he can’t just play both roles like he does for Ros and Guil.

“Hey, Daphne, my favorite sister, how would you like the second speaking role in Hamlet?”

“Hold still, your collar’s askew, I need to fix it. Only the second role?” she asks. “Not the first?”

“Daaaph, cut it out, my shirt is fine! And Barnardo can pretty much be combined with Marcellus and not much will change because they’re both there to back up Horatio’s story, and he’s there to back up theirs. Francisco’s more like Gertrude, he never gets to see the ghost.”

“Not a mouse stirring,” she quotes. “But he’s wrong about that and so is the queen — there’s so much more stirring in her kingdom than she’ll allow herself to see. Yes, I think you’re right about giving me Francisco. You’ll make a good director for next year’s play.”

“Titus Andronicus?” he asks with a bloodthirsty grin.

“Well, we’ll talk about it.”

At first Francesca has trouble deciding how to distinguish Claudius from his dead brother — are they more alike or more different? No face paint for the ghost, she decides, and in fact they should have almost the exact same costume with perhaps a different colored sash, and it’ll depend on how she carries herself.

Claudius is personable and popular except when he’s alone and the thought of his own sin wraps around his neck, while King Hamlet has forgotten everything but the purgation of his sins, and the vengeance he must see visited on his killer before he may rest. The ghost is not all there, still half in the fires of hell, but he also has a supernatural gravity that snaps all the attention in a room to him. It’s a kind of authority Claudius wishes he could project, but as good at public speaking as he is, he always seems a little bit desperate and out of his depth, so he turns up the charm even more.

Francesca finds what they have in common, too, more than either would care to admit. “Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched” says one; “my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen,” says the other. Both kings save Gertrude for last, which could either mean that she’s an afterthought or that she was the most important thing to lose or gain.

Francesca is a Bridgerton which means she’s a romantic, so she decides it’s the latter. They both just really love their wife, enough to kill a man, enough to tell Hamlet not to contrive against his mother aught, enough to come back from the dead for a few more moments in her bedchamber, enough to send Hamlet away to be executed in England instead of imprisoned in Denmark simply because Gertrude asked.

By the time Claudius gives his speech about marrying Gertrude, Hamlet has a permanent clench to his jaw whenever he’s in public or in the same room as Claudius — that shouldn’t be too hard, says Eloise, since that’s his default expression, and Benedict, who’s probably seen Anthony laugh more than anyone else, has to agree with her. But when he’s left alone, though forbidden to go to Wittenberg, he can at least relax enough to stop trying to hold back the things he shouldn’t say in front of the nobles. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of the world!” is just full of bitter laughter, giving in to the cosmic joke that Nothing Matters. But his aspect changes completely when he sees Horatio, and he picks Hyacinth up to spin her around, even though she’s almost gotten too heavy for that.

Hamlet cannot believe that Horatio would lie to him about a ghost, or tell him anything until he’s sure of what he’s seen, but he still warns himself not to hope too hard, in case nothing comes of it, it’s something he wishes he had not seen. And despite the dull but persistent heartbeat of “nothing matters, nothing matters,” always singing at the back of his head, his father’s spirit does appear, and when Hamlet follows, he learns that there is a meaning — an awful, perfidious one, but still.

So what if he has to kill a man (so what if Anthony had to decide, eleven years ago whether they should try to save his mother or his sister), at least it’s a purpose, and when he wipes clean the tables of his memory he can fall backwards into his prior persona of taking nothing seriously, but now with the bitter armor of actually not caring what happens next.

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Joseph-Benoît Suvée - selfportrait - 1771

Joseph-Benoît Suvée (3 January 1743 – 9 February 1807) was a Flemish painter strongly influenced by French neo-classicism.

Suvée was born in Bruges. Initially a pupil of Matthias de Visch, he came to France aged 19 and became a pupil of Jean-Jacques Bachelier. In 1771, he won the Prix de Rome. In Rome from 1772 to 1778, he prolonged the usual duration allowed to pensionaries of the French Academy in Rome. He was named an academician on his return to Paris and he opened an art school for young women at the Louvre. One of his students was Constance Mayer. He emulated and competed with Jacques-Louis David, earning his enduring hatred.

Named the French Academy in Rome's director in 1792, replacing François-Guillaume Ménageot, he was imprisoned for a while in the Prison Saint-Lazare and only able to take up the post in 1801. After a brilliant career, and a six years' stay in Rome as the Academy's Director, he died there suddenly.

His works include Achilles depositing the body of Hector at the feet of the body of Patroclus, (1769, Louvre), and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, (1795, Louvre).

His pupils were Jean-Baptiste Joseph Autrique (1777–1853), Augustin van den Berghe, Marie Bouliard, Cornelis Cels, Césarine Henriette Flore Davin, Joseph-François Ducq, Jean-Bernard Duvivier, Guillielmus Petrus Geysen (1761–1827), Albert Gregorius, Jean-François Legillon, Constance Mayer, Jozef Karel De Meulemeester (1774–1836), Joseph Denis Odevaere, Gertrude de Pélichy, Pierre Joseph Petit (1768–1825), Ange René Ravault (1766–1845), Jacques-Albert Senave, Charles Spruyt (1769–1851), Philip van der Wal (1774–?), and François Wynckelman . Anna Barbara Bansi, with whom he is said to have had an affair, was another pupil.

[doc-avalon]

Holiday's and Items of Note for March 17, 2024.

St Gertrude’s Day, The Patron Saint Of Cats.

Liberalia (Ancient Rome) festival of Liber Pater “Free Father” and his consort Libera. The Romans celebrated Liberalia with sacrifices, processions, ribald songs, and masks hung from trees.

St. Patrick’s Day is a day to pee green to celebrate a story about some guy driving the Druids `er, snakes out of Ireland, or to drink until the snakes come back.

Campfire Girls Day

Kustonu Diena (Ancient Latvia) “Return of the Larks.”

National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day.

The Rubber band was introduced on this day in 1845.

[allyourprettywords]

"One Train May Hide Another," Kenneth Koch

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line, As at a crossing, one train may hide another train. That is, if you are waiting to cross The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read Wait until you have read the next line— Then it is safe to go on reading. In a family one sister may conceal another, So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another. One father or one brother may hide the man, If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love. So always standing in front of something the other As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas. One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe; One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica one tomb May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another, One small complaint may hide a great one. One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another, One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath may hide another bath As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain. One idea may hide another: Life is simple Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory One invention may hide another invention, One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows. One dark red, or one blue, or one purple—this is a painting By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass, These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here. A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it. In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by the mother's And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or the same love As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts" Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that" And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve. Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem. When you come to something, stop to let it pass So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where, Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about, The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading A Sentimental Journey look around When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see If it is standing there, it should be, stronger And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the foot of a tree With one and when you get up to leave there is another Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher, One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass. You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be important To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

[brookston]

Holidays 3.17

Holidays

Buy Women Owned Day

Camp Fire Girls Day

Children’s Day (Bangladesh)

Day of Comics & Comic Books (Spain)

Doctor-Patient Trust Day

Ennensaii (Kyoto, Japan)

Evacuation Day (Suffolk County, MA)

Glider Day

Kustonu Diena (No Planting Day; Ancient Latvia)

Mobilization Employee Day (Ukraine)

National Children Day (Bangladesh)

National Muay Thai Day

National SBCD Day

National Slime Day

Patrick Star Day (SpongeBob)

Psyche Asteroid Day

Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Day (Philippines)

Rubber Band Day

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Day (Bangladesh)

Social Care Day of Remembrance & Reflection (UK)

St. Carl’s Day (Sacrilege Brewing)

St. Patrick's Day (a.k.a. ... 

Corned Beef & Cabbage Day

Green Ribbon Day

Irish Coffee Day

Irish Stout Day

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

St. Catrick’s Day

Submarine Day [also 4.11]

317 Day (Indiana)

Vanguard I Day

Violet Day

Wood Anemone Day (French Republic)

World Maritime Day

World Shale Energy Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Irish Coffee Day

Irish Stout Day

National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day

National Irish Beer Day

National Irish Food Day

3rd Sunday in March

American Chocolate Week begins [3rd Sunday]

Buzzard Sunday (a.k.a. National Buzzard Day) [Sunday after 15th]

Root Canal Awareness Week begins [3rd Sunday]

Silly Sunday [3rd Sunday]

Weekly Holidays beginning March 17 (3rd Week)

American Chocolate Week [3rd Full Week]

Clutter Awareness Week [3rd Full Week]

Consider Christianity Week [begins 2nd Sunday before Easter]

International Goof Off Week [3rd Full Week]

Jobs for Teens Week [3rd Full Week]

National Agriculture Week [3rd Full Week]

National Animal Poison Prevention Week [3rd Full Week]

National Anonymous Giving Week [3rd Full Week]

National Bubble Week [1st Week of Spring]

National Button Week [3rd Full Week]

National Clean Out Your Closet Week [3rd Full Week]

National Fix a Leak Week [3rd Full Week]

National Inhalants and Poisons Awareness Week [3rd Full Week]

National Introverts Week [3rd Full Week]

National Poison Prevention Week [3rd Full Week]

National Surveyors Week [begins 3rd Sunday]

Passion Week (thru 3.23) [Week before Holy Week; Christianity]

Passiontide (thru 3.30) [Passion Week + Holy Week]

Schools Library Media Center Week [3rd Full Week]

World Folktales & Fables Week [3rd Full Week]

Independence & Related Days

North Albania (Declared; 2009) [unrecognized]

Republic of Abrus (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Venice Republic (Declared; 1848)

Festivals Beginning March 17, 2024

Austin Fringe Festival (Austin, Texas) [thru 3.24]

Kegs & Eggs Bar Brunch Block Party (Atlanta, Georgia)

NIOP Convention (Palm Springs, California) [thru 3.19]

St. Patrick’s Day Festival (Dublin, Ireland)

St. Patrick’s Day Parade (Birmingham, UK)

St. Patrick’s Day Parade (New Orleans, Louisiana)

St. Patrick’s Day Parade (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Feast Days

Agricola (Christian; Saint)

Alexius of Rome (Eastern Church)

All Snakes’ Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Damballah’s Day (a.k.a. Damballay Weddo; primordial snake of life Iwa; Vodou)

Dave the Dog (Muppetism)

Feast of the Blessed Leprechaun (Church of the SubGenius)

Gertrude of Nivelles (Christian; Saint)

Hans Namuth (Artology)

Jean Baptiste Oudry (Artology)

John Sarkander (Christian; Saint)

Joseph of Arimathea (Western Church)

Kate Greenaway (Artology)

Liberalia (Ancient Roman festival of Liber Pater)

The Martyrs of Serapeum (Christian; Martyrs)

Mikhail Vrubel (Artology)

Noah Entered the Ark Day (Middle Ages Christianity)

Patrick of Ireland (Christian; Saint) [Ireland] *

Paul of Cypress (Christian; Saint)

Shabbat HaChodesh (שַׁבָּת הַחֹדֶשׁ) [25 Adar]

St. Patrick’s Day Excuse (Pastafarian)

Tacitus (Positivist; Saint)

Trefuilnid Treochair (Feast of Triple Bearer of the Triple Key; Ireland)

Orthodox Christian Liturgical Calendar Holidays

Forgiveness Sunday (Orthodox Christian) [Last Sunday before Lent]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Sakimake (先負 Japan) [Bad luck in the morning, good luck in the afternoon.]

Very Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [16 of 60]

Premieres

The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone (Novel; 1958)

American Hot Wax (Film; 1978)

Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero (WB Animated Film; 1998)

Beezus and Ramona, by Beverly Cleary (Novel; 1955)

Bound for Glory, by Woody Guthrie (Autobiography; 1943)

Bowery Bimbos (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1930)

Break Like the Wind, by Spinal Tap (Album; 1992)

Breathless (Film; 1960)

The Champion of Justice (Might Mouse Cartoon; 1944)

Circle of Friends (Film; 1995)

Dial “P” for Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1965)

Erin Brockovich (Film; 2000)

Final Destination (Film; 2010)

Fletch Lives (Film; 1989)

Goofy and Wilbur (Disney Cartoon; 1939)

Gym Jam (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1950)

Iron Fist (TV Series; 2017)

iZombie (TV Series; 2015)

The Little Princess (Film; 1939)

The Magician’s Elephant (Animated Film; 2023)

Maiden Voyage, by Herbie Hancock (Album; 1965)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV Series; 2017)

Minx (TV Series; 2022)

Naughty Number Nine (Multiplication Rock Cartoon; Schoolhouse Rock; 1973)

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, by Frederic Chopin (Piano Concerto; 1830)

Plane Crazy (Disney Cartoon; 1929)

Purple Haze, by Jimi Hendrix (UK Song; 1967)

Shazam! Fury of the Gods (Film; 2023)

Son of a Son of a Sailor, by Jimmy Buffet (Album; 1978)

The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers, by Will Durant (Book; 1926)

Thank You for Smoking (Film; 2006)

This Year’s Model, by Elvis Costello (Album; 1978)

Traffic Troubles (Disney Cartoon; 1931)

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, by Patrick Hamilton (Novel; 1935)

V for Vendetta (Film; 2006)

William Gibson (Writerism)

William Tell, by Friedrich Schiller (Play; 1804)

Yakety Yak, recorded by The Coasters (Song; 1958)

Today’s Name Days

Gertraud, Gertrud, Patrick (Austria)

Domagoj, Gertruda, Hrvatin, Patricija, Patrik (Croatia)

Vlastimil (Czech Republic)

Gertrud (Denmark)

Gerda, Gertrud, Kärdi, Kärt, Kerli, Kert, Kertu, Ruta, Ruuta, Truude, Truuta (Estonia)

Kerttu, Kerttuli (Finland)

Patrice, Patrick (France)

Gertraud, Gertrud, Patrick (Germany)

Alekos, Alexios, Alexis, Gertrude (Greece)

Gertrúd, Patrik (Hungary)

Patrizio, Teodoro, Wanda, Vanda (Italy)

Gerda, Ģertrūde, Karīna (Latvia)

Gendvilas, Gertrūda, Patrikas, Varūna, Vytė (Lithuania)

Gjertrud, Trude (Norway)

Gertruda, Harasym, Jan, Patrycjusz, Patryk, Regina, Rena, Zbigniew, Zbygniew, Zbyszko (Poland)

Alexie (Romania)

Ľubica (Slovakia)

Patricio (Spain)

Gertrud (Sweden)

Oleska (Ukraine)

Paden, Pat, Patrice, Patricia, Patrick, Patsy, Patti, Patty, Trish, Trisha (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 77 of 2024; 289 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 7 of week 11 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Fearn (Alder) [Day 1 of 28]

Chinese: Month 2 (Ding-Mao), Day 8 (Geng-Chen)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025)

Hebrew: 7 Adair II 5784

Islamic: 7 Ramadan 1445

J Cal: 17 Green; Threesday [17 of 30]

Julian: 4 March 2024

Moon: 59%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 21 Aristotle (3rd Month) [Socrates]

Runic Half Month: Beore (Birch Tree) [Day 8 of 15]

Season: Winter (Day 88 of 89)

Week: 3rd Week of March

Zodiac: Pisces (Day 28 of 30)

Calendar Changes

Fearn (Alder) [Celtic Tree Calendar; Month 3 of 13]

[aster-luna-light]

In the Mostro lounge..

Azul : ....

Carl : WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LIPS ?!

Yuu : eh..?

Azul : it's pretty swollen..

Yuu : Oh , gert recommended the crab dish he liked from here

Azul : what does that have to do-

Carl : Oh my sevens are you allergic ?

Yuu : :)

Azul & Carl : THEN WHY DID YOU EAT IT

Yuu : it's not like I'm gonna die

Azul : im cutting 40% off gert's paycheck

Carl : and I'm cutting his hair

Yuu : ...Ayo?

@lemon-koii

[lemon-koii]

Gossip duo after an argument

[•~•~•~•~•]

Gertrude: One hot latte for Carl

Carl: Can it be in plastic instead?

Gertrude: Sure:)

Gertrude: *turns around and turns back again*

Gertrude: Hello pretty boy. You look extra shinning today.

Gertrude: Hi sir. Your make-up looks so good, so thick:)

Gertrude: Perfectly covers your face, should I also add some make-up in your drink?

Carl: ....😐

Carl: I'm telling Azul

[•~•~•~•~•]

[fabiansteinhauer]

Gay, Goy, Guy! Deboard!

We have seen the weather in rome and it will be: Thank you for flying with TNT Dynamic Airlines.

1.

Fröhliche Wissenschaft, herrlich fröhliche Wissenschaft! Irgendwann ist aber jeder Flug vorbei. Irgendwann setzt alles wieder auf und sitzt auch alles wieder auf. Gestöber in der Luft, die eine und andere Turbulenz, ein reizendes Quietschen im Moment der Landung und dann ist alles wieder gesetzt. Zurück auf Erden, wieder auf dem größten Polobjekt auf Erden, nämlich dem Planeten namens Erde. Wieder geerdet, wieder verdreht, wieder drehend bis zum durch.

Who`s afraid of the Kippmoment, an dem der Flug vorbei ist? Alle, jeder, jedes, denn es war so schön zu fliegen. Alles hilft aber nicht, nur das minore Objekt tut es, zum Beispiel der . [Punkt, Anm. FS.]

Im römischen Kalender gibt es besondere Flugzeiten, für jede Gelegenheiten eine Flugroute. Der Take-off findet alltäglich statt, aber über Details. So klein muss man ihn nicht machen, denn so groß ist er nicht, der römische Flieger. Im März fliegen die Römer, im Dezember fliegen sie: Tag für Tag ist guter guter Tag dem Flieger, wenn er fliegt. Eigentlich hüpft er, so klein die Parabeln.

Who`s afraid of the Kippmoment, an dem der Flug vorbei ist? Alle, jeder, jede. Am Ausstieg finden für alle, jede und jeden jedesmal Treppenszenen statt. Entweder steht am Ausstieg auf dem Flugplatz eine Treppe parat oder man schiebt sie flugs dahin, schon wieder flugs, huch, aber nicht hoch, nur zum Ausstieg.

2.

Der Take-Off des Westens ist ein Gerücht, so Pierre Legendre in einem Interview, das er mal in jenem Heft geführt hat, das Anton Schütz (eine Art Krotos), Susanne Lüdemann, Cornelia Vismann, Clemens Pornschlegel in der Reihe tumult herausgegeben haben.

Der Take-Off des Westens ist ein Gerücht, also immerhin normatives Material. Das ist alles Material (Jonathan Meese). Ist es Gerücht, dann ist es normativ, denn Konjunktivität ist Normativität. Jonathan Meese hat sein kleines und im Detail titanisches Rechtsverständnis und Rechtsgefühl eimal an Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit erläutert: Hand drauf legen, gesagt getan, das Buch berühren und so berühren und rühren lassen.

Dazu hat er gesagt, ich paraphrasiere in Würdigung der Details und dennoch mit einer Umstellung, für die ich hafte und einstehe: Habe ich nicht gelesen, brauche ich auch nicht, weiß ich sowie was drin steht. Recht hat er, das Buch soll auch von ihm handeln, also soll er auch wissen, was drin steht, ohne es zu lesen. Behandeln soll es ihn nicht, mit ihm handeln, händeln, spielen und tanzen soll es. Man muss nicht sein, man muss auch keine Zeit haben, auch nicht für Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit.

Kann man, sollte man können. Sicher kann Jonathan Meese das lesen - unbedingt sollte er es lesen können. Muss er aber nicht, nur können sollte er, können könnte er. Das kann jedes Kind, Bing-o! Das ist das Verzehren des Gottes, wie Gertrude Bing einmal geschrieben hat: Groß daran ist das Fressen, la grande bouffe oder das Lex Satyra (Gratian), jeweils nur eine Vorbereitung des Nächsten, das man fahren lassen will. Liebe Deinen Nächsten, lass' ihn fahren. Irgendwann setzt nämlich alles wieder auf und sitzt dann nämlich wieder auf.

Der Take-Off des Westens ist ein Gerücht, und der Westen ist nämlich nämlich, ein Name, wie man annimmt.

2.

Zwischenstand: Am sechsten Mai und am siebten Mai wird geflogen werden. Dank der Reaktion von João Tiago Freitas Mendes, der auf den CfP zu einem Workshop über letters/ objects, that let spontan mit einem fantastischen Brief an das Max-Planck-Institut reagiert hat, indem er verspricht, sich mit Fluginstruktionen zu befassen, wissen wir ein bisschen mehr vom Mai. Der wird sein, der Mai, und er wird möglich sein, wir werden ihn mögen, weil er so möglich daherkommen wird.

Friedrich Weber-Steinhaus wird auch kommen und wird nicht nur einen Punkt machen, eine Pointe setzen, er wird auch die Orthodoxie und Orthographie minorer Objekte, die Art und Weise, mit der sie auslassen, im Aus lassen, ausgelassen und ausgelassend sind am Beispiel von Karl Krauss' Akten vorstellen.

Andere werden auch kommen. Stück für Stück werden wir es wissen, noch flattern Briefe ein, noch setzen eine Reihe von Rechtswissenschaftlerinnen und Rechtswissenschaftlern ihre Schreiben auf, um im wunderschönen Monat Mai, wenn alle Knospen springen im MPI dabei zu sein, nichts als dabei, als wäre nichts dabei, als ginge das. Willkommen!

[khamishassan]

'Coffee is real good when you drink it it gives you time to think. It's a lot more than just a drink; it's something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup.' ~ Gertrude Stein - - - ¬ © Ursula Andras™

* Espresso Bar on Via Veneto, Rome '2024

[opera-ghosts]

„GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG“ R. WAGNER „Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort…!“ Brünnhilde's immolation scene

Felia Litvinne as Brünnhilde; Brussels, 1902(?)

Louise Grandjean as Brünnhilde; Paris, 1902

Minna Tube as Brünnhilde; Graz, 1920

Ellen Gulbranson as Brünnhilde; Bayreuth, 1914

Josephine Reinl as Brünnhilde; Berlin, ?

Henny Borchers as Brünnhilde; Breslau, ?

Zdenka Fassbender as Brünnhilde; Munich, ?

Gertrud Rünger as Brünnhilde; Munich, ?

Lilly Hafgren-Waag (-Dinkela) as Brünnhilde; Milan, 1927

Margot Kaftal as Brünnhilde; Rome, ?

Jeanne Paquot D'Assy as Brünnhilde; Brussels, ?

Paula Florentin-Weber as Brünnhilde; Magdeburg, ?

Marta Fuchs as Brünnhilde, Bayreuth, ?

Lotte Burck as Brünnhilde; Milan, 1936

Anny Konetzni as Brünnhilde; Vienna, 1937

Fanny Wahrmann-Schöllinger as Brünnhilde; Hannover, 1926

[kostantina]

Just wanna share the names I like for Holy Rome and the Papal States/Vatican City: Fem!HRE - Gertraud/Gertrud/Gertrude/Trudy Male!HRE - Adal/Adalbert/Adel/Adelbert/Albert Papal States - Lucerius/Lucius/Lucis/Lucian/Lucien/Lucianus Also, Holy Rome had a Latin name. I currently like the name Caelestina/Caelestis/Celeste/Caelina/Celestia for Fem!HRE and Aurelius/Aurelianus/Aurelian for Male!HRE.

[7r0773r]

In Search of the Great Dead by Richard Cecil

In Search of the Great Dead

In Paris, Vallejo's hotel near the Bibliothèque Nationale charges a hundred a night, and Ginsberg's seedy room on the rue Git-le-coeur sports flowered wallpaper now, and a couple of Michelin stars. Cabourg's Grand Hotel on the chilly Normandy coast, nearly driven from business by the sunny "costas" of Spain, rents "Chambre Marcel Proust" for twice the price of a suite— a week's pay for the profs who book it, months in advance, to lie in Proust's bed one night fighting sleep as they read his description of insomnia in his snail-paced masterpiece. And, speaking of Spain, in Ronda Rilke slept for a month in room 208 of the Reina Victoria Hotel, which exhibits souvenirs— some scribbles, a cancelled bill — that cold man left behind when he resumed his search for gorgeous emptiness hollow as his hollow heart. But if their names have jacked ridiculously the rent of the tiny, outmoded rooms they slept in for pocket change, like the "Taube" in Hemingway's Shruns, now a first class Austrian Inn with a three-color brochure where, for $2.50 a night, he polished The Sun Also Rises, abandoned his wife for his mistress, and blamed it all on Dos Passos — consider visiting their tombs.

In Cimetière Père-Lachaise in Paris you can stand for nothing by Alice B. Toklas's and Gertrude Stein's remains and stare at their blank stone — not a single word but their names after thousands of pages of chatter! From their excellent address in the capital city of death, avenues of genius fan in all directions. But if you prefer the lonely and isolated dead, Chateaubriand in St-Malo on an island linked to the mainland for an hour at ebb tide rests within the sound of the wind and the sea—and the tourists who photograph his inscription quick! before the causeway floods. Then they board the ferry to the sullen Irish coast to add William Butler Yeats to their album of poet's tombs. Graves's grave's in Majorca near the Chopin/Sand Condominiums; Dante's is in Ravenna, Keats's and Shelley's in Rome, where poets and Caesars lie whose marble cenotaphs barbarians burned for lime. Augustus paid Virgil and Horace to praise his empire and Virtue, then Nero slaughtered Lucan for winning a poetry contest, and Seneca for hating vice, but all of their tombs are lost. There is no place to stand feeling your heart expand at the greatness of the waste that lies between you and them; at the brilliance of their lines through centuries of gloom overshadowing patronage and hostility alike. First the houses they lived in, then their houses of death disappeared, and all that's left are their works—some of their works— some fragment of their works. Half of Livy's History, the juiciest parts of Tacitus were ripped out, charred, scraped off to make paper for another bible or wipe the ass of a monk. All that's left of Sappho is several hundred words caught drifting on the wind from the fire at Alexandria, and Gilgamesh, written on stone, is written on pebbles now— pebbles displayed like diamonds for crowds at the British Museum.

When the pebbles become grains of sand and blow away in the wind of a nuclear strike on London or the gentler breeze of erosion after the city's abandoned, that epic's only remnant will be Hatred of Death, which is the theme of Gilgamesh and also the impulse that drove its author to hack it in granite. "Now I'll never die," he said to himself as he wiped his bleeding hands on his shirt. And he hasn't, quite, yet, though bombs from the War for Oil rocked his ancient, anonymous bones recently and will again. The little wars and the Big One the lovers of death are planning will leave no monuments but rubble and rows and columns of identical soldiers' tombs next to the fields and trees or featureless, shifting dunes that thousands of xs and ys died for, not guessing why, and the unmarked humps of mass graves of civilians who got in the way. These, too, attract their visitors, veterans and survivors who've vowed never to forget, and, later, politicians for a century or two, but at last only the haters of death walk these bone yard acres shaking their heads and digging their nails into their palms, driving needles of pain up their arms into their brains to shake the drowsy numbness of so much nameless slaughter, exactly like the numbness that comes, reading Livy's History in bed, late at night. 10,000 Carthaginians slaughtered 10,000 Romans in 300 B.C. or vice versa — annihilating armies annihilated in turn until the Empire, secured, turned upon itself and Romans murdered Romans— fathers, sons, brothers— for four more hundred years. Their civil war graveyards, long buried by barbarians, must once have looked like ours at Fredericksburg and Shiloh, where every numbered marker listing Company and Regiment whispers, like Emily Dickinson, "I'm Nobody —are you Nobody, too?"

Oh, yes, I'm Nobody, too. My plot, reserved for a small down payment at Valhalla Memory Gardens, isn't a pilgrimage site; it's not on the tour bus route, not topped with a simple stone carved with memorable words, waiting, impatient, for me to die to make them immortal. My house, 912 East First, lacks a bronze inscription screwed into its plastic siding and will certainly be converted to a rental, not a museum when I leave it dead or, alive, determined to die in Florida or Southern France, like Yeats, desiring a year in the sun after a lifetime of gloom and greenness and peasant neighbors. That year's when I plan to write my deathless epitaph and enter it in the contest glutted with Baby Boom poets dying at the rate they were born. But first, I'll waste my life, like now, writing against the grain of drowsiness— I rose at 4 A.M.— with Olive, my black and white cat, kneading my arm with her claws— a pleasure so much like pain, a pain so much like pleasure, like dying after a long illness, then haunting the house you lived in, brushing the fabrics you touched, shoving ghostly feet into shoes, marveling at their size and weight, in which you once walked like a giant. For even the greatest dead, if death isn't just dirt in the mouth, must moan with their reedy voices for the life they lost to be famous.

***

Front Porch Visiting

On the nursing home's front porch swathed not in wool, but air smudged by global warming to an even, tepid gray, I'll think of cold blue days like this one with nostalgia. Wheeled out of my room for "sensory stimulation," and issued a docile cat to cradle in my arms, I'll look straight at the sun through gasoline haze and remember today's wintry glare falling on this page so brightly I have to shade it with my left hand as I write. And I'll remember the feisty cat rolling on my lap, her licorice-colored fur turned chestnut by warming light which drugs her defenses so that I can stroke her unguarded white belly.

Ranged on that porch beside me, strapped into their wheelchairs, my tranquilized companions will stare, like me, at the sun while chatting with dead husbands and wives about dead friends. I'll overhear their halves of intimate conversations as I have at public phones— pleading or angry voices transmitted over black wires to invisible listeners whose inaudible replies stir terrible emotions sometimes. Waiting to call a tow truck, I've eavesdropped on jilted lovers sobbing into receivers and viciously low-pitched voices threatening hearers with death while I shifted from foot to foot, and the dimes in my palm grew hot.

But calls from that future porch placed very, very long distance, will require my companions to speak up to be heard on the other end. Even with my deafness, I'll intercept their messages to the dead as I did in childhood, sprawled on my front porch, when the widower next door sat at his table with two glasses of beer and muttered to his dead wife. His voice rose in argument while I bounced my ball and swept jacks— onesies, twosies, threesies— and listened for her replies. I couldn't hear her talk, but when he went in I peeked over the ledge that divided our connected row house steps and saw that her glass was drained. So I knew she'd returned from the dead to silence his complaints.

They quarreled on their porch all summer as they had the summer before her heart attack and funeral. And then, that fall, their daughter took him to a "home." My mother said he was crazy talking to himself like that, but I knew he wasn't. I learned to hear her side of their talks as I lay flat on the concrete behind the ledge and listened to her indignant denials that she wasted money on doctors and kept a filthy house. "I'm too sick to scrub floors," she said, as she had in life, and he grumbled, "no, you're not," as if she hadn't died to prove it.

Between that haunted porch a nd the haunted one in my future everything I love will have turned into a ghost, even this winter sun, which has put the cat to sleep. The shadow she casts on this page prefigures the gray afternoons I'll sit with dying strangers mumbling to our dead lovers. But they won't come to us as Lilly did to Chuck next door, when I was six. They'll cling to their clear black vacuum sucking us toward them on the other side of the veil of smoke shrouding our planet.

***

Incident at Third and Woodlawn

The flaming trees, like girls on prom night dressed in orange and gold they'll change to gray tomorrow, distract me as I step into the street. A horn, a brake, a turning driver's scream— I dodge her bumper, hopping to the sidewalk, luckier than that squirrel laid by the curb. He's flattened, abstract, except for his glassy eye.

Meeting his stare reminds me I've been struck down twice by cars. Once, looking neither right nor left, I raced toward Carol Anne's yellow curls bobbing on her neck across the street. When I woke up, unhurt, one whole day off from grade school with an x-ray of my skull for a souvenir, I said I'd learned my lesson,

but twelve years later, many states away, musing on the date I hustled toward, I got knocked down again, by a swerving teen on her first day of driving and my last on earth, almost. Looking up I wondered if stars I saw were real, or the kind you see unconsciously in transit to your death.

They turned out real— the Big Dipper, Venus glittering green beneath the crescent moon. The stretcher crew so gently lifted me, I sighed like a taken-care-of child. Once more, x-rays showed no fractured bones, and when I knocked, hours late, at my date's door, my bruises turned her rage to sweet concern.

It's half a lifetime since her frown unwrinkled in dim porch light to wide-eyed sympathy, but I can see and feel that same change, now, as sun breaks through a rift in mottled sky and brushes my face like her unfisted hand. The smiling sun and her gorgeous daughter-trees, tossing down the favors of their leaves,

seem to love me as she seemed to, then, loving, really, only my persistence in trailing beauty like a bee in fall, when threatening frost turns flowers into gems and trees to flowers, and men in their forties to squirrel brains. Oh Nature, take my hand and help me safely cross to brown November.

***

Picnic in the Basement

For the last time this year I clip what's left of the stunted elm hedge— brown gaps in it like rotten teeth. Then I heave the picnic table no one's eaten at all summer onto my shoulders, like Atlas, and stagger through the garage to the black basement, stumbling over the broken trellis that held the climbing rose that died the month after I moved here. I reach for the wall to steady myself and grab a handful of plastic pickets I bought to fence the vegetable garden I sowed that first year with lettuce whose leaves tasted bitter as weeds. The table slips and luckily falls away from the wall of flowerpots filled with geranium skeletons blighted by frost last September, and lands in the center of the concrete floor an inch from my foot. I set it upright, slide one of its splintery redwood benches to elbow-resting distance from it, and, panting, take a seat. I'm finished with outdoor living for another year. I've oiled my push mower with the price tag still attached from ten years ago when I bought it downtown at the hardware store converted to a savings bank when the courthouse turned into a mall. I've taped the orange power cord slashed in six or seven places where the suicidal trimmer trimmed it almost in half but not quite. I shudder whenever I touch its coils, remembering the first time I plugged it in to a living room socket and dragged it outside. While I hacked the weedy hedge, my cats nosed past the screen door and wandered into the strange yard, bordering a street of speeding cars, hundreds of miles from where they were born. When, finished, I wiped sweat from my eyes, looked up, and saw the door ajar, I rushed inside and ransacked rooms, reached deep into closets and hidey-holes. Finally, desperate, I ran out again. Crying their names, I crawled the yard at cats' eye level until-what joy! I found them cowering under this table— new then, half rotten now, with its redwood paint bleached almost white. That family picnic was our last. Since then they've watched from kitchen windows each spring when I haul the grill outside, each fall when I haul it in again, though I haven't cooked meat on it for years. Now they're waiting for me upstairs. I hear their claws click overhead as they pace the kitchen, hungry, impatient. Why not invite them to scamper down the cellar stairs and join me here, each with her plastic dish of Friskies while I gnaw my bone of nostalgia? I feel my way upstairs and fling the cellar door open. Suspiciously, they sniff their way down every stair, while I slide the other bench up to paw-resting distance and set the largest pot of geraniums over the table's umbrella hole. It's safe here, sweeties, out of the glare of the murderous outside world that's dying for the eleventh time in eleven years. Nothing's scary here but corpses dragged in from the lawn and garden— steel cutting edges eaten by weeds, charcoal long ago flamed to ash, and our ghostly centerpiece— branching in your eyes of phosphorous— flowers of death that bloom in the dark.