Oh Rose, thou art sick

mardi, avril 25, 2006

Our national disease


If there's one thing Dutch people can't do, it's walking. And I mean really walking. Not strolling or sauntering or window shopping.
Having lived in Canada, I learned that, apparently, I walk really really slowly. But because I lived in Canada so long, I must have gained some leg activity, because people here complain that I walk way to fast nowadays.
It's not just people around me either. It's the whole nation that can't walk with some speed that will get you to places. And of course there is a reason for all this. It's our bikes.
We learn to bike from the ripe age of about five, and we get toy bikes before that time. This way, our legs are developed in a way that can make them go round, but not linearly forwards. If we need to get anywhere, we get our bikes. So if you ever meet a Dutch person, don't expect them to keep up with you.

The squirrels made it seem less lonely

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Remember seeing The Brothers Grimm? Terry Gilliam made this one just after, way more low budget and way way better. I really loved this movie! And yes, of course it was weird. What did you expect?

Mom went to the land of the Vikings and then we came here on the Grayhound bus. The fireflies got names and the grain fields are a sea, the train a monster and dad was just a bit smelly till my new friend whom I thought was a ghost but she was just afraid of bees and had one dead eye made him all better again and now he's just lying upstairs on the bed but I talk to him and my best friend fell down the rabbit hole and I offered the other two to dad so now they have a new life and my best friend's there too, and the blue haired one with the contorted face is still with me. My friend has a submarine. He will battle the monster. My name is Jeliza-Rose and my dad made a song about me because I'm special.

This little girl is absolutely brilliant. She's from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and started her career at age five. She's also in some Stargate (Atlantis) episode (season 3 episode 1, was aired last summer).

This is really absolutely brilliant! Trust me!

Lady, wear a bra

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I know you are very cute and pretty and charming and country, but for the Goddesses sake woman!!

Also, some more tips for you:

* don't try to dance. It is ridiculous. That way, you won't step on things or knock them over either, which, though very funny, makes you look silly.


* make sure there's soundmen present that actually know what they are doing, and can fix a problem if there is one. Preferably before the night is over. Preferably have it fixed without it coming back ten times worse (yes, I'm still on about 'that buzz').

* fire your entire band. Or at least get them a makeover.

And don't change a thing, we love and adore you!

lundi, avril 10, 2006

Sick Blake


Most people who come to my silly blog through search engines seem to believe that I have something to say about Blake's poem; 'the Sick Rose'. I wonder why (rolls eyes). But because I'm a public pleaser, I shall now explain to you the meaning of this poem (as taught to me by one of my English literature teachers, I'm not just sucking this out of my thumb).

Now, The Invisible Worm is a man, or more precisely, a specific part of a man (it's his penis ok? Do I have to spell everything out for you?), he flies in the night because he's doing something secretive and Wrong (hence the howling storm as well), namely he's committing the terrible crime of raping an uncorrupted young flower (or girl, if that's what you'd prefer).
The Rose represents a young maiden, and she is sick because she has been corrupted (raped). The man found her 'bed of crimson joy' (does anybody not know why it's red?), and again, his love is Dark and Secret because it's of the illegal type. That's why it's destroying her life.
But I think you can also see it as a young girl who has a secret lover who comes to her at night and through their lovemaking might destroy her life by making her pregnant for example, or by giving her a STD. He has taken away her virginity anyway, so she's not the pretty perfect flower she used to be.

Happy now?
I'm very sorry to say I can't help the person who came here by searching for a painting of a vagina that looks like a rose, although I used to have one in my room in Toronto. My silly roommates didn't want it in the living room anymore, can you imagine that?
Mirror, mirror where's the Crystal Palace is from a Tori lyric, and doesn't have anything to do with Ani, people. Unfortunately I don't have any interviews with Katharine Blake. If you find one somewhere else, let me know!

dimanche, avril 02, 2006

Christian Science

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I'm reading this wonderful new book which daddy bought me as a present in the Big City last Friday. It's set in London in 1947, and there's a scene in it with a special kind of therapist who's helping an old man healing at that moment. A young man, by the name of Duncan, has come on the weekly appointment to accompany his 'uncle', Mr Mundy, who's suffering from arthritis. The therapist will, by talking to him, make Mr Mundy conquer his disease. The practice he's performing is called Christian Science. He has a picture of the founder, Mary Baker Eddy, in his treatment room, at which he's given to stare.

So I've looked up Christian Science in my magnificently useful encyclopedia. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) was healed from her chronic 'neuralgia in the spine and stomach' by Phineas Pankhurst Quimby, who sort of started the whole New Thought movement, in 1862. Both of them were Americans. Mme Eddy, after being cured, proceeded to found her own version of New Thought, like many others did. All these variations of New Thought have the same 'blame-the-victim' attitude, where any negative condition is the victim's own fault, and can be conquered by the power of mind/spirit.

Mary Baker Eddy's version, wherein she developed her own religious worldview, is closer to traditional Christianity then Quimby's New Thought. She believed that the universe, created by God (aka the 'divine Mind'), is entirely spiritual and good, whereas the human (mortal) mind is bad, as it tends to create the illusion of a material world. Illness is the result of the incorrect believe that a material world actually exists. Fortunately, we mortals can be saved by recognizing our 'divine within' and acknowledging an entirely spiritual reality.
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Mary Baker Eddy wrote all her views down in 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures' (1875). She was a proper visionary leader as well, having a feud and a consequent movement-split with one of her students, who said she had met God, a privilege that Mme Eddy claimed for herself alone. Most of the New Thought movements were created in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first few decades of the twentieth, and that which still existed in and after WW II was based on the theories created half a century before.
Ms Waters used esoteric subculture before, with the wonderful world of Spiritualism in Affinity. I hope this one's going to be easier.