serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (Whoa)
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Another story is gathering in my head. It's another one-off, separate from the main series I've been writing. It's intense. (SHUT. UP.) So much so that my main problem is working up the courage to start writing it. I think it's gonna hurt, frankly.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'd like to present to you a book I've had for many years, one that is little known, but revolutionary in its impact. It's a small book, and it's fundamentally a work of translation. It's called Prayers of the Cosmos, and it's by Neil Douglas-Klotz, who writes about religion and psychology and is also a poet and artist.

The book is very simple. It takes the two best known Christian prayer-passages (the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes), gives you the original Aramaic (with the King James version on the facing page), then a phonetic breakdown. After that, the book takes each line separately and gives you first the Aramaic, then the English, then a list of possible translations (more on that below), and then a little essay on that line and its components, the syllables and sounds in the words and their meanings. Then as a nice addition, there is an exercise in breathing and tuning you can do to use the line as a meditation point or mantra.

I tell you, the book is a revelation. I had no idea of the scope of the divide separating us from the original words of this man. It's unbelievable. Here's just one example:

-------------

1. Our Birth in Unity )

Dancing with Matt

Sunday, July 25th, 2010 09:25 am
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (OogaChaka)
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Have you heard of Matt?


The story of Matt Harding is one of those phenomena that could only happen via the internet. Matt was a computer guy who decided to take some time off and travel the world the way he'd always dreamed of. He took his laptop with him and while he was wandering about, he posted little vids on his website, Where the Hell Is Matt?, to let his friends and family know how he was doing. For some reason, he started dancing in these videos, in different locations and always very badly, because as Matt will enthusiastically tell you himself, he is a very bad dancer.

The videos went viral, and Matt became something of a sensation. He edited his little clips together when he got home and turned them into a lovely piece with really beautiful music.




Where the Hell Is Matt? - 2005



He got noticed by Stride, a company that makes chewing gum, and they offered him a deal: put our brand on your clips and we'll fund your travels. He accepted, and now Matt makes videos around the world of himself dancing in all sorts of places.




Where the Hell Is Matt? - 2006



In 2007, Matt made his first video that included groups of people. This took the vids to a whole new level. Now the vids would not just be travelogues, but celebrations. Dancing is a universal art, an expression of joy and communality that can be found everywhere there are human beings.

Here's where I come in.

In September, Matt came to L.A. I had signed up on his site, hoping he would pick this area to touch down in, and luckily he did. A large group of people converged on Santa Monica Beach just north of the pier, and we spent a sunny afternoon hanging out and eventually dancing - very very badly - with Matt. There's nothing like dancing joyously with a large group of strangers, I'll tell you.

About six months later, Matt's video was finished and posted on his site. Here's the result:




Where the Hell Is Matt? - 2008



I love this video, even more than the earlier ones. So many people all over the world dancing together! No matter where, everyone understands the joy of dancing. (Well, almost.) It brings a tear to my eye every time, not least because Matt's really good at picking music for these videos.

The dance in L.A. is near the end. Here I am:



It was great fun, a lovely event, one I'll never forget. Matt was a sweetheart. Afterward, he hung out and took pics with us, and also danced with some of the crowd for their own little vids. Too bad I didn't have a videocam; I would have loved to have a dancing clip with him!

He's planning another video, and this time he's going to be learning how to dance. From the site:

For this new video, I'm actually learning how to dance. I'm collecting dance styles from all over the world and teaching them to groups in other parts of the world. We might be doing the tango in Helsinki, an Irish jig in Hong Kong, or some Bollywood moves in Brussels. I'm pretty sure there's some big idea in there about connecting and communicating, though I assure you, at the end of the day we'll all still just be dancing badly. Anyway, like I said, I'll be collecting dance styles, so please bring a dance you know and show it to me so I can teach it to people somewhere else.

There's a sign-up page at the site. I strongly recommend that you go there and sign up. There's no guarantee that he'll hit your area, but if he does, you'll be in for a treat you'll tell your grandkids about. Trust me.


serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (SigourneyBoobies)
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So, as you guys have probably already surmised, I'm an Star Trek: Original Series girl. Nothing beats the cool logic of Mr. Spock, the crusty quips of Dr. McCoy ("I'm a doctor, not a scriptwriter!"), the hot legs of Lieutenant Uhura, or the rampant Casanova complex of Captain Kirk. (Although those occasional love handles can put a damper on things.) Certainly Star Trek: The Next Generation, with its cardboard characters and rather grimly humorless PC stance (you can thank Gene Roddenberry's rather unrealistic vision of the future for that aspect of it), bores the pants off me most of the time. Just about the only episodes I ever liked were the ones that either linked back or were obvious rewrites of TOS episodes. I think the only NG episode that didn't hark back in one way or another that I really approved of was Family, in which Picard, Wesley, and Worf all had to deal with their families and the ramifications of time and choice. That had substance that wasn't either forced or self-consciously "tolerant"; its depth came from who the characters were at heart (imagine my surprise that they actually had them), not from what "ingenious" situations they were pushed into. (The quote marks come from the fact that there was very little ingeniousness in the series - the writers ans producers just thought they were being so. Big difference.)

But whether you liked the series as a whole or not, one thing that just about everybody agreed on was the character of Ensign Wesley Crusher. In a word, he was an annoying little dweeb. (Okay, that's three words, but you get the point.) This came mostly from the writers, who thought it would be cute to make one of the major characters a kid, and then didn't know what the hell to do with him. After all, you take an adolescent know-it-all, stick him in the middle of the workings of a military starship, and how's he gonna be anything but annoying? It took quite a while before they put any real effort into developing the guy out of his brattiness and dumb-ass mistakes; meanwhile, the audience had great fun throwing tomatoes at him.

The other problem was Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley. Not that he was a bad actor at all; Stand By Me proved he could be really wonderful and touching. But he didn't seem quite sure what to do with the guy, given that his lines were so dreadful and the character himself was such a giant hardoff. And he had a callow prettiness that worked against him, I always thought. I kept wondering why the hell he wasn't off chasing girls instead of whining at his mom or bugging Picard. (For those of you who don't know or don't care to remember, the Enterprise Mach MMXVIII supposedly had whole families on board, a fact that freaked Picard out in the first episode and then seemed to disappear from sight. Great, guys - what was the point of THAT?) It took Wheaton quite a while to find his balance in the role as well, and by then it was pretty much too late. Everyone had grown to love hating Wesley, so his efforts were kind of a moot point.

Anyway, for those of you given to a bit of day-before-yesterday nostalgia, I thought I'd point you to something pretty damn cool: Wil Wheaton's ST:NG review blog over at TV Squad. Every now and then, when he has the time and the inclination, he posts a detailed review of an episode. He started with the very first episode, and he's picking his way through the series chronologically, choosing episodes that he feels he has something to say about.

And what reviews they are! Wheaton's a very good blogger, as anyone who's read his personal blog knows. He's sharp, funny, and tempers his snarkiness with an accomplished story sense. Plus there's all that personal experience to draw on, as he includes in each review a section dedicated to his memories of filming the particular episode in question, so you get not only opinion, but information as well. This is the sort of thing that review columns should be about, and so seldom are - the complete experience of a piece of entertainment, not just an excuse for the critic to show off how speshul his views are.


This way to the Briefing Room!


If you take my advice, you'll start at the beginning and work your way up the list - there's a particular flavor to reading Wheaton's analysis of the show's development as a whole, as well as his thoughts on each individual episode. But any way you read it, it's a damn hoot.

ETA: Okay, looking back at the blog, I see that it's not exactly in chronological order, but the issue of series development still holds. As there seems to be no "previous page" button over there, I shall now give you a list of links to the blog entries as they were posted. Yes, I have no life. Wanna make something of it?

List over here )

As I have no ST icon, instead I give you the next best thing - Lt. Tawny Madison's boobies!
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (CraziestFuckingThing)
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[livejournal.com profile] weepingcock has done it again!


Gay, Bejeweled Nazi Bikers of Gor


For those of you who have not had the...pleasure... the Gor novels, by John Norman (pseudonym of a real live Harvard English professor!), are a series of hideously written scifi-fantasy novels about an "alternate Earth" called Gor, in which manly men, who are manly because they know the True Way of Things, that way being the way that allows them to be manly, unlike the unmanly men of Earth who are definitely NOT manly, or men, but are of Earth, and not of Gor...where was I? Oh yeah. The Gor novels are about the struggles of the manly populace to rule over the slaves, who are women, mostly, because it is the True Way of Things for women to be slaves, beautiful slaves. In silk. And collars. Beautiful collars, which are beautiful because they are slave collars, placed around the necks of the beautiful slaves by their manly owners...DAMMIT.

*ahem* Start again!

For those of you who have not had the pleasure, the Gor novels are exceedingly wordy books about war and sex and gender relations on a planet called Gor. THAT'S ALL.

But they really are wonderful, in that Theissian Eye of Argon way. Meaning they're actually awful, but will convulse you with laughter. Incessantly turgid, and yet strangely torpid, every page awash in this hellaciously hairy prose as purple as a ten-inch hardon. Just gloriously, self-consciously pumped up with Importance. They're collector's items now, so they don't come cheap, but if you ever see one, jump on it. They're truly worth the coin.

Oh, and the [livejournal.com profile] weepingcock entry linked above? Is to a parody that is utterly BRILLIANT in its evocation of Norman's...writing. Read and be choked with laughter. You'll wonder "Can the original really be this bad?" Rest assured, it can.

Oh yes. It really, really can.


P.S. In the comments is the link to Houseplants of Gor, yet another incredible parody.

Ahahaha

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 10:30 pm
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (Let'sShootThisFucker)
BIG TIME REC...

If you haven't ever seen Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, you must rent it immediately. I Command It. It is Art of the Highest Order.

I'm just nine minutes into this thing and already we've had chicks in pink gogo boots, 60's proto-goth acidhead rock, an insanely goofy dialogue poem on the pros and cons of L.A. ("Cold and cruel" "Swimming pool" "Phony City" "It's so pretty!"), a tsking old-lady schoolteacher, guys in paisley vests, naked boobies...this is just, just

The. Best. Movie. EVER.

OMFG

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 02:15 pm
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (HolyShit)
ARGH ARGHGHGHGH

Why am I writhing? Why, you ask? I'll TELL you why.

It appears that there is actually such a thing as...

Bill/Ted slash

NO. Oh dear Goddess. NONONONO

My BRAIN is melting...aiiiieeeeee...
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (ThisSucks)
*sigh*

Oh, well.

EEEKKK!!!

Sunday, October 3rd, 2004 09:44 pm
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (Writer)
Oh, my goodness!

[livejournal.com profile] lunarising is making a Manga from my story, A Dream in the Black Land. Go see, go see!

Luna's wonderful Manga!

I'm so honored. Luna's artwork is wonderful, and I'm really looking forward to what she'll do with this story.

*grin*
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (DudeWhatever)
Lots of fun/sexy giggles to be had via this great new vid by [livejournal.com profile] andraste_oz. DO NOT MISS!!

Elijah in Tubthumping




And speaking of the Little Sex Bomb, I had a thoroughly hot-but-frustrating wet dream about him the other night. I don't remember a whole lot about it, except that I kept getting pulled away and interrupted every time we were getting down to the nitty-gritty. There was, however, one incredibly sizzling moment that I recall with photographic clarity... )
serai: A kiss between Casey Connor and Zeke Tyler (DudeWhatever)
[livejournal.com profile] mordelhin (she of the searingly hot A Second Darkness, the only interspecies fic that pops my cork), has posted a wonderful Dr. Seuss/Fahrenheit 9/11 crossover poem. Take a look.

The Who's down in Whoville liked people a lot...

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