The Friday Evening Nudes

Eugene Delacroix
Female Nude Reclining on a Divan













Gustave Klimt
Painting for the Burg Theater, Vienna

Courbet
Nude (below)






Femme Nu Se Coiffant
Manet (above

The Peace Tree

For better or for worse, my post is up at The Peace Tree: Mad Pride Part II

Peace,
Pagan

I've Been Called A Few Things...

Since I began blogging I've been assigned four labels, that I'm aware of, anyway: hippie chick by Cunning Runt, a punk-ass Mona Lisa" by johinieb (I not so secretly like that one) and a sap by a what's-his-face blogger in the comments of someone else's blog.

My favorite, however, is in bold below. It's an excerpt from a comment at Godless Liberal Homo, made by a dude named Christopher.

Pagan Sphinx,

Yes, the Shillaryshere is full of paleo-feminists like you who got sucked into the "if you oppose Hillary, you hate women" bullshit.

Don't you love it?

Regarding the hippie chick thing: I honestly don't think I qualify. I'm slightly too young, firstly. And though I identify strongly with the "hippie belief system" (whatever that is), I've never felt that easy to peg. So, stop tryin' ahready! ;-)

And a note to Christopher:
If by some remote chance you're reading this, I am not trying to insult or bait you, despite our disagreement about Hilary-bashing. I really laughed out-loud at paleo-feminist! I thought you were very clever for thinking of it until I googled it and realized the term didn't originate with you! I am such a dinosaur.

The Horseflies

Gravity Dance
1991

Tracks:

1) Life Is A Rubber Rope
2) Sally Ann
3) Time Is Burning

The Horseflies

Gravity Dance, 1991

Horseflies

Arriving at the right kind of music for the mood today was a bit of a trial. My first five tries were as follows: Edith Piaff, The Byrds, The I Am Sam soundtrack, Suzanne Vega and The Smiths. I then did a search for the poet, Anne Sexton (and found some great clips!) but that was a bit too morose and I'm not at all in that type of mood. I'm happy it's summer, actually. It was up to the mid-80's today, hot and breezy. A perfect summer day and I'm feelin' groovy, but in a pagan sphinx sort of way. ;-)

Finally, I went through a pile of CDs I haven't listened to in a very long time and found this - Gravity Dance by The Horseflies. Plugged myself in and - perfect. And when I opened the CD brochure I found this inscription:

WE CHEW IN ROWS
-Anne Sexton

There is other serendipity as well. A blogging acquaintance recently sent to me an MP3 file of a Natalie Merchant CD that features a cover of the second song on The Horseflies CD - Sally Ann.
Natalie Merchant (don't recall the title, exactly, but she's somebody's daughter) seems to often choose songs that she is especially well-suited to portray. I love her version of this song.

And I love how it all connects. My blog friend poetryman has reminded me of this a couple of times, calling it the butterfly effect.

Then I decided to look up horseflies.

Not the band this time, but real horseflies.

Shouldn't have done that...ugh. Aren't horseflies the kind of nasty, biting flies on the North Shore of Boston? Anyone familiar with Plum Island? Or are those beach flies a similar type of flesh-consuming, flying gnawers? (blogger has a not very good spell check program).


Happy Dreams.

The Raconteurs

Consolers of the Lonely, 2008

Jack Lawrence
Brendan Benson
Jack White
Patrick Keeler

Tracks:

1) Salute Your Solution
2) You Don't Understand Me
3) Consolers of the Lonely

Duration: 11 min, 20 sec

If you like rock and roll and you have ten minutes to spare, you'll like this. These tracks are from Consolers of the Lonely, one of my favorite CDs of the year.

What's goin' On

Supergirl One found a summer job. She starts work next week at what I call a Storybook Farm just over the river from my house. It's a strawberry farm, mostly but they also have cows and sell organic milk and cheese. When SG2 visited, her new boss was making cheese and already giving her pointers. She felt very comfortable with the gentleman farmer and when he told her that the whole family is into literature and writing, that was it. She'd found her niche for the summer!

Me, I'm lacking motivation. I thought that Spring and all her glory would help me lighten my step and begin all the household projects that need doing. Not a chance. I just want to play and blog and read and eat and sleep and hang out with W.P. and SG2.

Supergirl One is still at college. Today is the last day of her campus job and it's the day where I go down to Mount Holyoke and help her pack her stuff to move into the massive UMass campus for summer session. She's determined to graduate with her class of 2009, despite massive setbacks in her freshman and sophmore years due to bipolar illness and frequent hospitilizations. She'd also battled drug reactions, a severe skin rash from a virus and low blood pressure that caused her to pass out on several occasions. I'm continuously amazed, impressed and otherwise blown away by this girl's determination and intellect. Is this my kid? It's what you get when you cross a pagan sphinx with a cunning runt! hehehehe

As an aside, I know I'm boasting and that my English friends rather look down upon we Americans for it, but....SG1's semester GPA was a 3.9. No easy feat at that overly demanding elitist school. We're thrilled and proud and in the hopes of sounding humble, it has little to do with us at this point. Hell, I wanted her to go the easy route because I was concerned her illness would drain the life out of her and she wouldn't be able to do academics at that level. That girl has proven me wrong and that's what makes me so in awe of her.

I'm gearing myself up emotionally, if not in regard to cleaning and organizing my house, for my mother's visit at the end of June. My mother, for those of you who may not know, lives in Portugal. My family (including CR) who read this blog, know and understand fully how much I adore my mother; what a good relationship we now have and how much The Supergirls look forward to basking in her unconditional love - because she is good at that. There are complications, of course.

This is a case where Love can't be everything. Supergirl One, whom my regular readers know is gay and engaged to be married to a lovely young woman, is intent on telling her grandmother that she's a lesbian. SG1 wrote to me an eloquent email explaining her reasons for this. Below is an excerpt from that email:

The choice is between upsetting her [where, honestly, the onus is on her, because she is potentially the party to be behaving negatively] and acting against my own sense of dignity and pride by lying about one of the most fundamental and important aspects of my life. The latter choice also has repercussions for my relationship and the trust I share with my partner.

My own personal worry is not that my mother will be rude or angry but that she will consider this another form of Tragedy. I grew up with the various forms of Tragedy. Besides death, illness and suffering, and natural disasters, Tragedy as defined by my Portuguese family comes in the form of Alcoholism, Adultry and anything else that disgraces one's family. She will doubless be heartbroken by the news that her lovely grandaughter is a lesbian and plans on shacking up with a girl. My mother understands that gays get married. But "gays" are those other people over there somewhere in a world she doesn't understand.

My mother is 77 years old and has been through a tremendous lot. I don't want this news to put her over the top. Honestly, I have no clue as to how she will come to grips with this. Especially without my father, who died almost three years ago. Who will help her to understand? It will have to be me, of course. When SG1 gives her grandmother the news, she'll then go back to her dorm for summer session, while I sit with my mother and help her to contemplate this. I'm worried and sad and frustrated that I have to be burdened by this! My mother will doubtless blame this tragedy on either my divorce from The Supergirls' father or the bipolar disorder, or both.

To complicate things, my Portuguese is not what it used to be and certain things are just so hard to labor into translation. I have this upstanding, proud family where I am the only member of the immediate family who has divorced. It confuses me, really. We have so many nutcases in the family - depression and bipolar illness have touched the lives of several family members. But something like a same-sex relationship can put everyone over the top! WTF?

I'm projecting but with a very good scope consisting of 48 years of experience being a part of my family. We'll see what happens, but Happen it must.