lightningbug

thanks to the generous lendings of friend g., I have now had the immense pleasure of peeking at firefly, mr. whedon's third television endeavor, and I am firmly convinced that the abrupt cessation of this miraculous little show is one of the sadder things imaginable for our sad tvland. in one particularly gripping episode, our beloved cap'm is tortured to death and then revived for more torture by a sadistic super-bad-guy, who cuts off his ear among other uglinesses, and when the motley troops of serentity (the ship) load up their guns to take the badguys by storm, I gotta say, I choked up a little bit. and that the next episode is all about our captain's bare naked ass (isn't that what it was about?) just shows the show's very fine range.

plus, you gotta love a show that makes, for its futuristic slang (in addition to the common introduction of chinese into particularly heated conversations), use of words like "shiny" and "humped."

this thing has got to be brought back. it's just too wonderful.

big love

I feel like I give a fair amount of attention to affairs of the heart, here and elsewhere, and today is a day more or less set aside for these affairs, though yes of course I know about the flower companies, but I've always kind of felt like I could support any day that distinguishes itself for some expression of love. if I have a problem at all, it is that the love we are supposed to express is so strictly defined (super romantic love with lace and frills), which is silly, and which I think is the reason (and a fine one) our ire is collected against the day.

nevertheless..

I've been thinking lately about the few lines re: love in rilke's eighth elegy, where he writes, "Lovers (were not the love one there/obstructing the view) draw near it an marvel" [snow translation] and the beloved obstructing a kind of transcendental understanding (as does human consciousness, I think rilke suggests, as both fail to consider the expanse beyond a self), as if love could exist more purely if we did not so doggedly attach it to the one who perhaps inspires it. there's something kind of compelling about this idea.

so, here's where I'm at. :-) yea transcendental undefined love. the beloved, all beloveds (sisters, lovers, friends, strangers), however, are not obstructions so much as they are like trees or prarie grass or plastic bags, and love is ideally like wind, which one doesn't really see until it collides and moves our beloved plastic bags or swishes our hairs as we stroll. there yes, always, even if as just potential, and then visible, observable by what we love.

that's all.