arse poetica

Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe

This level of observation and whimsy just makes me want to hug the whole world.

[via]

Throwing my Sun Salutation all up in ya face!

Hoo, I needed that.

Dirt Under My Nails » I’m so gonna downward-dog your ass!.

When it comes to yoga, honey, I’m one Ashtanga crazy beyatch throwing my Sun Salutation all up in ya face.

Don’t you come in here posin’ because up in this Y, we yoga tough. This ain’t your mamma’s yoga, this is extreme yoga.

Monkey pose … bam! Flying Crow pose … bam! That’s right. I’m not even spilling my latte. You scared now? You should be.

Uh oh … Upward Facing Dog … bam! That’s right. I’m doing the dog. Uh oh … did you hurt yourself? Why don’t you take a break and see how the big girls play.

Why don’t you sit there and watch me reach a state of perfect peace? Check it out … Bam! Peace! Right there. Just reached it. I reach inner peace faster than any of these chumps circular breathing in here. I got so much inner peace it’s shooting out my nose. But I’m not done yet … oh no. Lotus pose … bam! Headstand pose … bam!

Check it out ... Bam! Peace! Right there. Bwaha! I want to be a peace badass, too. Must do more yoga.

Damn, I Love Voting

db and I vote in a historically African American district, and voting day always makes me happy -- I love to see the folks come out -- though I worry about one thing: all the poll workers are getting up there in years. I think this every time I'm at the theatre (or at the Hopper exhibit), too. Where are folks my age and younger? I know they're around, but I only see the traditional supporters of voting/theatre/museums/whatever, and I worry sometimes.

I was much relieved to be voting today on school and municipal bonds and not deciding the fate of the universe as in 2000 and 2004. I simply cannot take another devastating stolen election w/o losing (what's left of) my mind. (Still not over 2000, people, and not going to get over it any time soon.)

Aww, look at patriotic me. I didn't even plan on wearing red (white) and blue. Yeah! Who's a Murka-hater now?? (Actually, we may still be, because 1) that's art behind us, and we all know what a hedonistic, corrupting influence art has on the libidos of impressionable, otherwise abstaining young folk, and 2) it's by a European artist, and we all know what lax morals Eurpoeans have (see pt. 1), not to mention they're a cowardly bunch, and 3) it's a German artist, and we all know that Angela Merkel hates dumbyass, because if she loved him like she oughta she would've let him paw all over her that time at the G8 summit (the bitch!), which just proves that women are too hysterical to be world leaders and the U.S. certainly doesn't need to listen to anyone else in the world about anything.)

/idiocy

Reason #2987847756307181-b Why Gloria Steinem Should Run the World

Not my favorite interview ever with Gloria Steinem, who, regardless, deftly handles the sometimes silly questions.

Has Gloria Steinem mellowed? No way.

My favorite moment:

Q: Do you see the world through the prism of gender?

A: No, the world looks at me through the prism of gender.

Honestly, it's like a balm. If I could just apply a heaping handful of Gloria Steinem to my brain every day, I would be a much saner human being.

[via]

Samantha Bee for President!

Damn, I needed that laugh. I love Kim Gandy, Lady President of that ladies' thing!

Clips: Is America Ready For A Female President? Just Ask Carrie Bradshaw.

Also, LaShawn Barber: not that bright, sad to say. She is working some kind of tragic Men Are the Stronger Sex nonsense that wouldn't sound right coming out of the mouth of some creepy "men's rights" advocate. Oh. Well, then. 

Grace Paley, Writer and Activist, Dies

Grace Paley, Writer and Activist, Dies.

Grace Paley, the celebrated writer and social activist whose short stories explored in precise, pungent and tragicomic style the struggles of ordinary women muddling through everyday lives, died on Wednesday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84 and also had an apartment in Manhattan.

Ms. Paley had been ill with breast cancer for some time, her literary agent, Elaine Markson, said yesterday.

Ms. Paley’s output was modest, some four dozen stories in three volumes: “The Little Disturbances of Man” (Doubleday, 1959); “Enormous Changes at the Last Minute” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974); and “Later the Same Day” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985). But she attracted a devoted following and was widely praised by critics for her pitch-perfect dialogue, which managed at once to be surgically spare and almost unimaginably rich.

Her “Collected Stories,” published by Farrar, Straus in 1994, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. (The collection was reissued by Farrar, Straus this year.) From 1986 to 1988, Ms. Paley was New York’s first official state author; she was also a past poet laureate of Vermont.

Ms. Paley was among the earliest American writers to explore the lives of women — mostly Jewish, mostly New Yorkers — in all their dailiness. She focused especially on single mothers, whose days were an exquisite mix of sexual yearning and pulverizing fatigue. In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud’s men had loved and left behind.

Thank you, Grace Paley.

Blogging Done Right

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg is blogging the YearlyKos convention. Nice.

There's so much about this that I love -- Hertzberg's POV and writing style, the fact that he's blogging this (and avidly, it seems) for The New Yorker, that the old guard is mingling w/ the new, that YearlyKos is a bonafide important campaign stop worthy of serious coverage (i.e., right-wing nutjobs screeching "Witch! Witch!" doesn't hold as much sway as it once did), that the New Yorker finally has a site worthy of its stature.

UPDATED link 8.6.07.

Truth Will Out

Awesome.

Wooster Collective: Real Images From The War.

The Love Movement has embarked on a new series of street paintings which bring to light real images from the war that the government don't want you to see. This latest one was recently put up in Venice Beach, CA.

John Edwards, How Tweet It Is

Missed the Dem YouTube debate (though I caught the derision @ Wonkette), but I had the chance to catch the post-debate Q&A at johnedwards.com -- which I heard about directly from John Edwards on Twitter. Edwards' Twitter updates are 1) frequent and 2) worthwhile, and I have to admit I think it's a great idea for him to embrace this potentially fadish, now rampant technology, too. Edwards is the Dean of 08.

Anyhoo, he did a great job in answering the questions I heard. He was relaxed, respectful, even in tone, sincere, savvy, and straddled the line well between policy wonk and accessible to the rabble. He's never too wonky, never too flip. I was disappointed in his use of the phrase "secure the borders" in his discussion of immigration --man, do we need a new discourse in this country -- but his answer to the question about farm families/food distribution was amazing. It's astonishing how ill-informed dumbyass is. Though this is hardly news any longer, I cannot help but be astonished still.

Oddly (?), this exchange, sitting alone in a room reading from a computer screen the questions that folks submitted electronically (see screenshot), made Edwards seem more human. He was quiet, patient, possibly a little tired, and respectful of the queries he got. But then I'm predisposed to like him, unlike my coworker who, when I asked if Edwards had a chance in 08, looked at me w/ pity in her eyes and said, "bless his heart."

Oof.

Lest I Ever Forget Why I Love James Baldwin

The Progressive has reprinted Baldwin's letter to his nephew in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. A (sadly) timeless excerpt:

A Letter to My Nephew | The Progressive.

I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it and I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be--indeed, one must strive to become--tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of war; remember, I said most of mankind, but it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

Incredible.

Read the whole thing. Not a wasted syllable and gives form to the term "righteous."

[via Maud Newton]

[photo credit]