Sunday, September 28, 2008

Skins Mania!

I cried over episode four, "Sid". I really loved Cassie. Hay.

The Skins Gang profile


Tony


The leader of the pack. Also the most good looking guy in town. A manipulative asshole.

Michelle


Tony's ex- girlfriend. The "shaggable" one. Sometimes annoying and self-centered, but she's really smart and lovely.

Sid



Tony's "bestfriend" whom he always plays for a fool. He's so awkward that he doesn't seem to now what to do right. Forever in love with Michelle, but feels bad for Cassie.


Cassie



The "anorexic, self-harming, drug-addict". I love her. She's so cute.

Chris


The druggie who's in lovewith their Psychology teacher, Angie. He was left by his mother to fend for himself. Depressing story, really.

Jal


The talented one. She plays the clarinet, aside from being an awesome friend to everybody. She's got two funny brothers and a music tycoon dad.

Maxxie

He's gay and he's cute.

Anwar

The Muslim boy. He is everything not Muslim: he likes dope, tequila, breasts, among other things.


Abigail

The girl Tony openly cheated with. Loaded with her psychiatric meds, she's crazy, but rich.

Effy

Tony's little sister and the only person in their family that he cares about. But she's also crazy.

Posh Kenneth

The black boy. He wasn't in the first two episodes, but he's really funny (and hard to understand because of his slang).

Friday, September 26, 2008

Skins the shoes


WHile surfing for Skins the TV series, I found this very cool shoe brand with its very cool concept: "ergonomic, sturdy inner support system that can be taken out of a leather or suede shell" (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2007/07/i_recently_trie.html). You can use a Skins "bone" with other cases!



or watch it here.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Hahay, the Macbook Touch


Okay. No more folding. No more bulkiness and chaka, geeky laptop bags. It could freakishly fit in your backpack, shoulder bag, or whatever bag you want to put it in (as long as its dimensions fit).

Hay. A girl could always dream.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Skins: The British teen Angst Tv Series



I've read about the British TV series Skins a year ago, but just had the chance to see it this week. I got so curious kasi it was controversial daw, tackling the youth's sexual and mental health, drug addiction, among many things that "represent" today's young culture.

It was, however funny and enjoyable. Parang Gossip Girl, but more shocking (extreme nudity, language, drugs). But, streaming sites are also very scarce. Ü

Skins revolves around the lives of a group of 16–19 year-old friends who live in Bristol. The Dawson Bros claim the series represents the everyday lives of adolescents. These characters attend the fictional Roundview Sixth Form College in Bristol. Each episode has a self-contained theme and focuses on each different character, however there are several story arcs that span different episodes. Accompanying the episode title at the beginning of each episode is a short few second montage of that episode's central character. The show's co-creator Bryan Elsley said that as series 2 ends with the cast going off to university, it will not be possible to keep on following them in the future, the show will operate in two year arcs with new casts.(from wikipedia.com)

go to the official site here

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Newsies


The 1899 New York newsboys' strike is the subject of this full-scale musical set against a stylized backdrop depicting turn-of-the-century New York City. In a series of rousing song and dance routines, choreographer/director Kenny Ortega chronicles the 'newsies'' struggle with publishing mogul Joseph Pulitzer, their battering at the hands of strikebreakers, and their eventual triumph over the powerful newspaper establishment.

Genre: Kids/Family, Musical/Performing Arts
Starring: Ann-Margret, Bill Pullman, Kevin Tighe, Michael Lerner, Robert Duvall
Director: Kenny Ortega
Release Date: April 10, 1992

Jeanne and the Perfect Guy


Jeanne loves men. One day, she finds herself drawn to a man named Olivier. Olivier is a HIV positive patient and told that his life won’t last longer that 6 month. After she visits him in the hospital, Olivier decides to go home with his parents without telling Jeanne. Finding this out, Jeanne struggles hard to find him. She finds him though, but really late for Olivier.

Genre: Art/Foreign, Comedy, Drama, Musical, Romance
Starring: Virginie Ledoyen, Mathieu Demy, Jacques Bonnaffe, Valerie Bonneton, Frederic Gorny
Director: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
Release Date: April 16, 1999

Love's Labour's Lost


Kenneth Branagh continues to make sterling adaptations of classic William Shakespeare plays with this romantic musical-comedy. LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST takes place in 1939, when the King of Navarre and his three best friends make a pact to remain celibate for three years. When the Princess of France arrives with her three beautiful companions, their will, and honor, is put to the test immediately. Their efforts to hide their true feelings provide the film with its most humorous situations. Featuring classic compositions by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, and Jerome Kern.

Genre: Art/Foreign, Musical, Comedy, PerformingArts
Starring: Alessandro Nivola, Alicia Silverstone, Kenneth Branagh, Matthew Lillard, Natascha McElhone
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Release Date: June 9, 2000 LA/NY

Hedwig and the Angry Inch


Hedwig was born a boy named Hansel in Communist East Berlin who dreamed of finding his other half and becoming a big American rock star. When a handsome American GI promises love and liberation, it seems like a dream come true. But there's a catch-in order to marry and emigrate Hansel must 'leave a little something behind.' Hedwig survives a botched sex change operation that leaves her with an 'angry inch' only to be stranded in a Kansas trailer park the very day the Berlin Wall comes down. Undeterred, Hedwig dons immaculate makeup and a Farrah Fawcett wig and forms a rock band-The Angry Inch. While supporting herself with babysitting gigs, she falls for a 16-year-old Jesus freak she renames Tommy Gnosis. Tommy steals her songs and becomes the rock star Hedwig always dreamed she'd be. Refusing to be defeated, she fiercely performs in crumbling theme restaurants seeking recognition, retribution, and reconciliation with her other half.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, and Musical/PerformingArts
Starring: Michael Pitt, Alberta Watson, John Cameron Mitchell, Miriam Shor, Stephen Trask
Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Release Date: July 20, 2001 Limited

Standing in the Shadows of Motown


Their music is famous around the world, though their names are not. Known as the Funk Brothers, they put the backbeat - the soul - into the hits of Motown Records, for such legendary performers as Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and many others. Creating music that helped to define the era of the 1960s and has remained a vital influence to this day, these musicians played on more #1 records than the Beatles, the Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley combined. Now the new documentary Standing In The Shadows Of Motown tells their story, combining exclusive interviews, archival footage, re-enactments, reminiscences, and thrilling new performances by the reunited Funk Brothers.

Genre: Documentary and Musical/Performing Arts
Starring: Andre Braugher, Joe Hunter, Joe Messina, Johnny Griffith, Richard Allen
Director: Paul Justman
Release Date: November 15, 2002 (LA/NY).

Love Songs


Genre: Drama, Musical
Starring: Chiara Mastroianni, Clotilde Hesme, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier
Director: Christophe Honore
Release Date: May 23, 2007 (Belgium)

The exuberant and tender LOVE SONGS (LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR) further laments Christophe Honore as one of the most exciting filmmakers of our generation. A modern day musical told through unforgettable songs sung entirely by the cast and scored by Alex Beaupain, the film has overjoyed audiences at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. In the hope of sparking their stalled relationship, Ismael (Louis Garrel of DANS PARIS, THE DREAMERS) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier of SWIMMING POOL) enter a playful yet emotionally laced threesome with Alice (Clotilde Hesme of REGULAR LOVERS.) When tragedy strikes, these young Parisians are forced to deal with the fragility of life and love. For Ismael, this means negotiating through the advances of Julie's sister (Chara Mastroianni of PERSEPOLIS) and a young college student (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet of STRAYED); one of which may offer him redemption.

watch trailer
here

Half Moon

Mamo, the old renowned Kurdish musician, has begun a journey to Iraq with his sons to perform a music concert after the fall of Sadam Hossein. On the journey, a middle aged man who is Mamo’s follower escorts him and the sons as a driver of an orange mini bus which he has borrowed from a friend. Mamo gathers his sons one by one from different areas. When the last son joins the team he insists to speak to Mamo. He explains to Mamo that the Old of the village has predicted that Mamo should not go on the trip because as the full moon comes, something awful will happen to him. Mamo persist on continuing his journey. He claims that he must continue his trip despite all the obstacles because he was not allowed to work for many years. Mamo intends to take Hesho, a woman singer who lives with 1334 other women in exile, with his team. But Hesho has lost the strength of her old voice with her self confidence. While crossing the borders, Mamo’s teams face many difficulties and their journey becomes full of events and adventures.


Genre: Art/Foreign, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts
Starring: Allah-Morad Rashtian, Hedye Tehrani, Ismail Ghaffari, Kambiz Arshi, Sadiq Behzadpoor
Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Release Date: December 14, 2007 (NY), September 9, 2006 (Toronto Film Festival)

The Doors


Oliver Stone might have considered his film a tribute to the enduring power of the Doors' music, but he seems to have also intended it as a cautionary tale on the perils of both celebrity and substance abuse. Starring Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison, the film focuses on the Lizard King from his days as a UCLA film student in the early 1960s to his death in a Paris hotel in 1971. In the early days of the group's formation, Morrison is at his most benign; he's just a guy hanging out at the beach writing poetry. But as the Doors' fame begins to spread--with Morrison as the focus of attention--his drug consumption and erratic behavior increase exponentially. The rest of the band--Ray Manzarek (Kyle McLachalan), John Densmore (Kevin Dillon), and Robby Krieger (Frank Whaley)--begins to grow tired of his late arrivals, the increasing number of cancellations, and the drunken recording sessions requiring infinite retakes. But no one can help Morrison as he spirals downward into an inferno of drugs, alcohol, public obscenity, and depression. Kilmer gives an excellent performance, including a frighteningly accurate imitation of Morrison's singing. Stone's intimate familiarity with SoCal in the 1960s also provides the film with a high degree of surface verisimilitude.

Genre: Drama
Duration: 2 hrs. 20 min.
Starring: Kevin Dillon, Kyle MacLachlan, Meg Ryan, Michael Madsen, Val Kilmer,
Director: Oliver Stone
Producer: Bill Graham, A. Kitman Ho, Sasha Harari
Distributor: TriStar Pictures
Release Date: February 23, 1991 (Los Angeles premiere, California)
Writer: Oliver Stone, Randall Jahnson

Water


From the courageous and provocative filmmaker Deepa Mehta comes WATER, the profoundly moving and compellingly vibrant story of India's 'widow houses,' where women of all ages are taken to live (even today) apart from society following the deaths of their husbands. Sprinkled with humor, rife with universal emotions and alive with visual excitement, the story of WATER follows three widows who dared to stand up for themselves in the liberating time of Mahatma Gandhi. Seven years in the making, WATER was nearly undone by fierce political controversy when the film's India-based production triggered violent protests by Hindu fundamentalists and was forced to shut down and remount the production - years later, under a shroud of secrecy in the neighboring country of Sri Lanka. But at the film's debut, opening the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, Mehta's unflinching and passionate filmmaking resulted in a rousing standing ovation and critical acclaim. 'After making WATER, I feel I could retire. That is how satisfied I am,' Mehta said at the time.

Genre: Drama, Musical, Mystery and Romance
Starring: Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Waheeda Rehman, Rishma Malik
Director: Deepa Mehta
Release Date: May 12, 2006

Antonia


From the producers of City of God and acclaimed writer/director/producer Tata Amaral comes Antônia, a moving, soulful look into the lives of four women living on the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil. Determined to escape their poverty-stricken lives, the talented young women form an all-female rap group but find their road to success is riddled with sexism, racism, and violence. One by one, they succumb to their grim realities, putting the group's future—and their lifelong friendships—in jeopardy…until they learn that out of struggle comes strength, and out of strength, the courage to continue on.

Genre: Drama, Musical
Starring: Cindy Mendes, Jacqueline Simao, Leilah Moreno, Negra Li, Thaide
Director: Tata Amaral
Release Date: September 21, 2007 (limited)

20 Centimeters


With an 'Almodovarian' twist and the flamboyance of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, director Ramón Salazar's 20 Centimeters tells the story of Marieta (Mónica Cervera) a narcoleptic, transsexual who longs to get rid of 8 inches (20 centimeters) of equipment that separates her from being the glamorous woman she dreams to be. When she accidentally falls asleep, usually in the most inopportune times, Marieta's dreams become lavish and colorful musical numbers, where as a real woman she can sing in Spanish, French & English. So cue up the lights, powder that face and slip on that sexy gown because Marieta's dreams are about to come true... Multi-talented star, Mónica Cervera made her North American debut in Álex de la Iglesia's Perfect Crime which had a theatrical release in 2005. Her unique look and ability to sing in various musical styles and performs Queen's 'I Want to Break Free' and Madonna's 'True Blue' adds additional pizzazz to this already comic and frothy Spanish import.

Genre: Comedy, Musical
Starring: Concha Galan, Juan Sanz, Miguel O'Dogherty, Monica Cervera, Pablo Puyol
Director: Ramón Salazar
Release Date: October 20, 2006

Colma: The Musical


One town. Two worlds. Three friends forever. Colma: The Musical is an enchanting film that captures the comedy and drama of “coming of age” in the shadow of a great city. Catchy melodies, funny lyrics and appealing teenage protagonists bring South San Francisco’s cemetery town to life in this highly original musical.

A favorite on the festival circuit, the film won the Special Jury Award at the 2006 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and earned IFP Gotham Award and Independent Spirit Award nominations. A critics’ darling, Colma: The Musical was called “an itty-bitty movie with a great big heart” (New York Times), “a giddy, unexpected pleasure” (LA Weekly) and “irresistible coming of age charmer” (Village Voice).

Director Paul Wong assembles a talented group of San Francisco musicians and actors to make his feature film debut with Colma: The Musical. He started his career in television, most recently working on the Emmy® Award-winning comedy Arrested Development. Colma: The Musical was originally written as a pop album by H.P. Mendoza who also stars in the film, along with Jake Moreno and L.A. Renigan.

Set in the suburban town of Colma, where the dead outnumber the living one thousand to one, Colma: The Musical weaves a fresh personal look into the ups and downs of early adulthood. Best pals Rodel, Billy, and Maribel find themselves in a state of limbo. Fresh out of high school, they are just beginning to explore a new world of part-time mall jobs and crashing college parties. As newfound revelations and romances challenge their relationships with one another and their parents, the trio must assess what to hold onto and how to best follow their dreams.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Musical
Starring: Brian Raffi, Gigi Guizado, Jake Moreno, L.A. Renigen, Sigrid Sutter
Director: Richard Wong
Release Date: June 22, 2007 (limited)

Kill Your idols


A documentary on thirty years of alternative NYC rock 'n roll.

Genre: Documentary and Musical/Performing Arts
Starring: Arto Lindsay, Glenn Branca, Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth , Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Director: S. A. Crary

The Fearless Freaks (the flaming lips documentary)


This must-be-bought documentary on Flaming Lips is presented by the tenacious Bradley Beesley. It features never-before-seen footage, new interviews and performances. Beesley reveals the band's deep-set Oklahoma roots; early punk/noise phase; the experimental parking lot/boom box 'Zaireeka' era; and endless touring days. It also conveys the Flaming Lips' live shows which are full of bizarre projections/animal suits/hand puppets/confetti and simulated head wounds.

Genre: Documentary, Musical
Starring: Beck, Bradley Beesley, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, Steve Burns
Director: Bradley Beesley
Release Date: March 2005

The Producers


Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick return to their award-winning roles in the hilariously funny film of the record-breaking Broadway smash-hit. Scheming producer Max Bialystock (Lane) and his mousy accountant, Leo Bloom (Broderick), discover that under the right circumstances they could make more money by producing a Broadway flop than they can with a hit. But what will they do when their sure-to-offend musical becomes a surprise sensation? Co-starring sexy Uma Thurman and comedy genius Will Ferrell, The Producers is a fun-filled, side-splitting comedy.

Genre: Comedy and Musical
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell, Nathan Lane, Roger Bart
Director: Susan Stroman
Release Date: December 16, 2005

I'll Sing for You

In the early 1960s, Mali radio broadcast the melancholy voice of Boubacar Traore, better known as KarKar, who sang of love and independence. After Malian independence, however, KarKar disappeared from public life. This film, which reveals his fate, is ultimately a portrait of Mali, painted with intertwining discussions of politics and religion, reminiscences of notable Malian musicians including, Ali Farka Toure, Madieye Niang, and Ballake Sissoko, and moving musical performances.

Genre: Art/Foreign, Documentary and Musical/Performing Arts
Duration: 1 hr. 16 min.
Starring: Boubacar Traore, Ali Farka Toure, Madieye Niang, Ballake Sissoko, Blaise Pascal,
Director: Jacques Sarasin
Producer: Jacques Sarasin
Distributor: First Run Features
Release Date: March 26th, 2004 (Washington, DC).
Writer: Jacques Sarasin

Romance and Cigarettes (2005)


Romance and Cigarettes is a down-and-dirty musical love story set in the world of the working class. Nick (James Gandolfini) is an ironworker who builds and repairs bridges. He's married to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), a dressmaker, a strong and gentle woman with whom he has three daughters. He is carrying on a torrid affair with a redheaded woman named Tula (Kate Winslet). Nick is basically a good, hardworking man driven forward by will and blinded by his urges. Like Oedipus at Colonus, he is sent into exile and searches to find his way back through the damage he has done. In an imaginative, humorous, and touching way, Romance and Cigarettes explores the cost and value of a relationship through life and death. When the characters can no longer express themselves with language, they break into song, lip-synching the tunes lodged in their subconscious. It is their way to escape the harsh reality of their world - to dream, to remember, and to connect to another human being.

Genre: Comedy, Musical, Romance
Starring: James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Julia Stiles, Christopher Walken
Director: John Turturro
Release Date: August 19, 2005 Limited

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2004)


In 1974, the New York City music scene was shocked into consciousness by the violently new and raw sound of a band of misfits from Queens called the Ramones. Playing in a seedy Bowery bar to a small group of fellow struggling musicians, the band struck a chord of disharmony that rocked the foundation of the mid-seventies music scene. This quartet of unlikely rock stars traveled across the country and around the world connecting with the disenfranchised everywhere, while sparking a movement that would resonate with two generations of outcasts across the globe. Although the band never reached the top of the Billboard charts, they managed to endure in face of fleeting success and crushing interpersonal conflicts by maintaining a rigorous touring schedule for twenty-two years. Tracing the history of the band, from its unlikely origins, through its star-crossed career, bitter demise and the sad fates of Joey and Dee Dee, End of the Century is a vibrant, candid document of one of the most influential groups in the history of rock.

Genre: Documentary, Musical
Duration: 1 hr. 52 min.
Starring: Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone, Tommy Ramone, Marky Ramone,
Director: Michael Gramaglia, Jim Fields
Producer: Jan Rofekamp, Diana Holtzberg, Andrew Hurwitz
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: August 20, 2004

Mayor of the Sunset Strip


Mayor of the Sunset Strip tells the story of music and fame through the eyes of pop impresario Rodney Bingenheimer, and his friends David Bowie, Gwen Stefani, Coldplay, Courtney Love, Oasis, Brian Wilson, The Doors, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Mick Jagger, Brooke Shields, among many others. From the Monkees to Van Halen to No Doubt and beyond, Rodney Bingenheimer, a.k.a. “Rodney on the ROQ,” has been a cherished figure not only in Los Angeles, but the entire music community, for over 2 decades. Motivated by his love for music and the allure of Hollywood, Rodney first hit the infamous Sunset Strip as a teenager during its psychedelic 1960s heyday. A constantly evolving fixture as scenester, journalist, promoter and club owner, Bingenheimer was deemed “Mayor of the Sunset Strip.” He began spinning records on Los Angeles’ cutting-edge radio station KROQ, and soon became one of the country’s most well known DJs. Rodney was the first to play songs by many California pop, glam, punk, goth, new wave and alternative bands who have since become some of the most celebrated and influential bands in history, including David Bowie, Blondie, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Van Halen, The Go-Go’s, Joan Jett, Dramarama, No Doubt, Coldplay Oasis, to name a few. Mayor of The Sunset Strip depicts the unusual life of a man who was taken in by Sonny and Cher as a teenager, was a stand-in for Davie Jones on the Monkees, and went on to launch the careers of a multitude stars who clearly have not forgotten what Rodney’s done for them.

Genre: Documentary and Musical
Duration: 1 hr. 34 min.
Starring: Cher, Courtney Love, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Tori Amos,
Director: George Hickenlooper
Producer: Christopher Paul Carter, Greg S. Little, Tommy Perna
Distributor: First Look Pictures
Release Date: March 26, 2004 (limited)
Writer: George Hickenlooper

Once Upon a Mattress (2004)


Once upon a time, Queen Aggravain states a rule that none may marry until her son, Prince Dauntless marries. Her son doesn't ask for that. Instead, the queen has sabotaged every princess that comes along. Meanwhile, Sir Harry and Lady Larken learn that they are going to be parents, wed or not. So, Sir Harry, the King, goes off to the swamps and brings back Princess Winnifred (called Fred by her friends). Knowing this, Queen Aggravain arranges plan to get her out of the kingdom, but the plan will be much less-successful than what is wanted because Fred has her father and the Jester as her back-ups.

Genre: Comedy, Musical, Romance
Starring: Carol Burnett, Denis O'Hare, Matthew Morrison, Tracey Ullman, Zooey Deschanel,
Director: Kathleen Marshall
Distributor: American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
Release Date: December 18, 2005
Writer: Dean Fuller, Jay Thompson, Marshall Barer, Mary Rodgers

8 Women


At an isolated mansion in the snowy countryside of 1950s France, a family is gathered for the holiday season, but there will be no celebration - their beloved patriarch has been murdered! The killer can only be one of the eight women closest to the man of the house. Was it his powerful wife, his spinster sister-in-law, his miserly mother-in-law? Maybe the insolent chambermaid or the loyal housekeeper? Could it possibly have been one of his two daughters? A surprise visit from the victim's chic sister sends the household into a tizzy, encouraging hysterics, exacerbating rivalries and encompassing musical interludes. Comic situations arise with the revelations of dark family secrets. Seduction dances with betrayal. The mystery of the female psyche is revealed. Eight women. Each is a suspect, each has a motive, each has a secret. One of them is guilty.

Genre: Art/Foreign, Comedy, Crime/Gangster, Musical, and Mystery
Duration: 1 hr. 43 min.
Starring: Emmanuelle Beart, Virginie Ledoyen, Catherine Deneuve, Fanny Ardant, Isabelle Huppert,
Director: Francois Ozon
Producer: Olivier Delbosc
Distributor: Focus Features (USA Films)
Release Date: September 20, 2002 (LA/NY).
Writer: Francois Ozon, Marina De Van, Robert Thomas

Gloomy Sunday (2003)


Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.

Genre: Art/Foreign, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts, Romance
Duration: 1 hr. 52 min.
Starring: Erica Marozsan, András Bálint, Joachim Krol, Stefano Dionisi, Ben Becker,
Director: Rolf Schubel
Producer: Richard Schops
Distributor: Menemsha Films
Release Date: June 20, 2003 Chicago; November 7, 2003 NY/LA/BO/WA; November 14, 2003 MI.
Writer: Nick Barkow, Rolf Schubel

Very Annie Mary


The myth of the eccentric Englishman (or woman) is given a cinematic boost by the awkwardly hysterical VERY ANNIE MARY, a tale of a young Welsh woman's stumbling struggle to proclaim her independence and strike out on her own. With an epic sweep reminiscent of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, VERY ANNIE MARY examines the bucolic and banal life of 33-year-old Annie Mary (Rachel Griffiths), a perpetually adolescent and tragically klutzy young woman, miserably under the thumb of her egomaniacal opera singing father (Jonathan Pryce). Since the death of her beloved and similarly opera-loving mother when she was a girl, Annie Mary clings to the memories of a childhood musical competition where she was awarded a scholarship to study opera singing in Milan (which her domineering father prevented her from accepting). Haunted by the specter of a future that could never be, Annie Mary mopes around, lost in hopeless dreams of living on her own and finding love. When her father is rendered helpless by a stroke, Annie Mary is forced to take her life into her own hands, which is when her inspired and overenthusiastic effort to reclaim her true self (and her singing voice) begins to send shock waves through her secluded Welsh village. This film was screened as part of the Contemporary Films from Britain series organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City.

Symopsis from: allmovieportal.com

Monday, September 22, 2008

Disco! Disco! You Don't Mess With the Zohan


It was sexist, racist and politically incorrect, but what do you exactly expect from a comedy? It was hilarious and crazy. If you can't take wrong remarks and get isulted easily, do not watch it.

The book I am




You're Mother Night!

by Kurt Vonnegut

Nobody knows what to believe about you, and you know least of all. You
spent most of your time convinced that the ends justify the means, but your means were,
well, downright mean! And the end is nigh. Meanwhile all you want is to travel back in
time, if not to change, then to just delight in the way it used to be. You are who you
pretend to be. Oh yes, you're the great pretender.



Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.



** thank you hanna! Ü

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Engkwentro by Zelda Soriano

“Ganun lang talaga ang bata. Siguro may epekto sa kanya ‘yung matagal na ‘di natin pagkikita. Biruin mo naman, halos limang taon na ‘di natin siya nadalaw man lang. sabi nga ni Nanay e hindi na halos matandaan ni Ineng ang hitsura natin. Kumbaga, hindi na rin siya nasanay na maging anak natin.”
Napahiya si Pablo sa sarili nang umpisahang magtanong: Hindi rin kaya ako nasanay maging Tatay?
Niyaya ni Gina ang asawa upang mahiga. Sumunod si Pablo.
“Ka Gina…” humikab si Gina at ipinahalatang inaantok na siya. Hindi na nagpatuloy si Pablo. Nakaramdam siya ng pangungulila. Mahaba pa ang gabi at mag-isa niyang sasagutin ang isang libo’t isang tanong sa isip.gusto niyang magalit sa patulog nang asawa, gisingin, at salubungin ng bulyaw : Hindi mo ba naiintindihan, nahihirapan akong maging Tatay ?
Kaninang umaga ay ayaw ni Ineng na kumain ng kasabay siya. Kay Gina sinabi ni Pablo ang alburoto ng bata. Malambing na sinuyo ni Gina ang panganay na anak. “Ineng, sabay tayong kumain, ha?” lumapit ang bata sa kanyang ina at sisinghot-singhot na dumulog sa hapag.
Magkaharap na si Pablo at ang kanyang anak sa mesa. Umiwas si Pablo sa tingin ng bata. Sinasaklot siya ng pangamba. Pangambang hindi niya naramdaman maski noong hagarin siya ng mga sundalo ng METROCOM sa binuwag na rali noong 1972. Mas malalim ang pangamba niya ngayon kaysa noong 1973, nang makipagkapitbisig siya sa mga nagwiwelgang manggagawa sa Batangas Sugar Central at muntik na silang sagasaan ng trak ng mga eskirol at goons. Kaiba rin ito sa pangambang naramdaman niya noong 1973 nang tumakas siya – at pito pang mga kasama – sa Camp Vicente Lim. Maski papano ay kongkreto ang simbulo ng pangamba sa karanasang iyon. May mga sundalo sa paligid ng selda at sa kaunting pagkakamali ay maaari silang mapansin at paputukan. Pero sa pagkakataong ito, walang kaaway sa paligid, ngunit siya’y kinakabahan.
Gusto sana ni pablong tawagin ang pangalan ng kaniyang anak, itanong kung bakit ayaw syang sundin nito. Pero lalo siyang kinabahan sa naisip niyang baka itugon ng bata.
Inabutan ni Pablo si Ineng na nagsusulat sa loob ng kubo pagkapananghali. Isinandal niya ang kanyang M16 at umakbay sa bata. Marahas na pumiglas ang bata sa mga braso ng ama, linuyumos ang sinusulatang papel, at mabilis na tumakbo palayo. Sinundan ni Pablo ng tingin ang anak. Pagkatapos ay dinampot niya ang gusot na papel, tinitigan ang naka-drowing : isang babaeng may katabing bata, pakilukilo ang guhit ng mga letrang nagpapakilala sa krudong hitsura ng mga tao sa drowing: Ito ang Nanay ko, ito si Ineng.
Tumangging umiyak si Pablo sa matalas na kalungkutang sumusugat sa kanyang sarili. Doble ang kalungkutan ngayon kaysa noong itakwil niya ang pangarap na maging sundalo dahil siya ay mababa. O noong hindi siya tinanggap bilang manggagawa sa pabrika ng kumot at kulambo dahil hindi lang ibinoto ng kanyang ama ang kandidato sa eleksyon ng kapitalista.
Napapagod na siyang mag-isip. Kaninang pahapon ay ipinasya niyang kausapin ang bata. “Anak, bakit hindi mo kinakausap ang Tatay?” walang sagot si Ineng. “Galit ka ba sa Tatay?” Lalong nagpakatungo si Ineng sa kanyang dibdib.
Kinukumbinsi pa rin ni Pablo ang sarili na nahihiya lang ang bata sa kanya. “Ako naman ang Tatay mo, a. narinig mo ba yung boses ko sa radyo? ‘Di ba kinuha ka ng mga sundalo sa Batangas? Dinala ka sa kampo nila, tapos pinilit kang tawagin ang tatay mo sa radyo. Sumuko na raw kami at kunin ka.”
Umangat ng bahagya ang mukha ni Ineng. Nasiyahan si Pablo, “Natakot ka ba noon, anak? Alam mo, alalang-alala ako sa’yo noon. Hindi ako makapagtrabaho ng tuluy-tuloy kasi lagi kitang iniisip. Tinawag nga kita sa radyo. Sinabi ko sa mga sundalo na huwag ka nilang idamay. Bata ka pa, bakit ka nila babalingan kung ako naman ang kalaban nila.”
Sumulyap si Ineng na parang kinikilatis ang mukha ng kausap.
‘’ Pasensya ka na, anak. Pati ikaw ay naiistorbo dahil sa akin. Pati ang pag-aaral mo ay nahinto dahil kinuha ka. Tapos, lagi pa tayong magkalayo. Hindi na tayo nakapaglaro, ano? Sori, anak. Paglaki mo, maiintindihan mo kung bakit kami ng nanay mo ay naririto sa bundok – malayo sa ‘yo. Basta’t tatandaan mo: mahal ka namin. At kaya kami hiwalay sa ‘yo ay para alisin na ‘yung masasamang tao katulad ng mga sundalong kumuha sa ‘yo. Pag wala na ‘yung mga salbahe, magsasama-sama na tayo lagi ng nanay mo. Mamamasyal tayo at maglalaro sa Batangas. Ano, anak?”
“’Yung mga kalaro ko, may Nanay at Tatay.”
“Kami naman ang Nanay at Tatay mo, a.”
“Hindi!”
Tumakbong palayo si Ineng at tinungo ang kanyang ina. Gusto na niyang umiyak. Kahit pinipilit niyang kumbinsihin ang sarili na talagang ganun lang ang bata ay tinatalo siya ng pagdududa. Siya, siya na isang rebolusyunaryong sinanay ng dalawang dekadang sakripisyo at kahirapan para likhain ang lipunang mas matino, mas mabait sa mga bata – bakit hindi siya itinuturing na ama ng sarili niyang anak?
Ang nararamdaman niya ngayon ay tulad noong soya’y nagluluksa sa pagkamatay ng kayang ama at tuwing pulong-parangal para sa mga kasamang nasawi sa digmaan. Buhay pa siya! Ngunit magdurugo na rin siya sa isang engkwentrong musmos ang kalaban.
Bumuntong-hininga si Pablo sa pagkakahiga. Hindi siya napagod sa buhay-mandirigma mula noong 1974 sa Calauag hanggang ngayon sa kung saang lugar sa Timog Katagalugan. Hindi siya pinaghinaan sa iilang pistola nilang armas sa Sandatahang Yunit Pampropaganda na una niyang kinapalooban. Hindi niya kinainipan ang rebolusyon na tumaeb at humibas, nabigo at nagtagumpay. Pero ngayon ay hindi niya maigpawan ang nararamdamang pagod sa puso at isip.
Bumangon si Pablo at sinulyapan ang asawa. Nagpasya siyang puntahan ang anak na natulog katabi ng ibang Kasama dahil ayaw sumiping sa kanila – sila na kung tawagin ni Ineng ay “mga tao” sa halip na Nanay at Tatay. Mag-iisang linggo na ay hindi pa naririnig ni Pablo kay Ineng na tinawag siyang Tatay.
Hinaplos ni Pablo ang noo ng anak. Bahagya itong napapilig. Mabilis na iniangat ni Pablo ang palad ng anak habang humuhiling sa kawalan na huwag sana itong magising. Nagsisimula na naman siyang makaramdam ng pangamba at kalungkutan para sa sarili niyang anak. Binuhat niya ang bata. Biglang dumilat si Ineng at halos matunaw si Pablo.
“A-a-anak,” gusto sana niyang magpaliwanag, “anak, ililipat lang kita ng higaan. Doon ka na lang sa tabi namin.” Pero walang makahulagpos na salita sa kanyang lalamuna. Pinilit niyang ngumiti para huwag magalit ang anak.
“Tatay?”
Biglang naramdaman ni Pablo ang walang hanggang kasiyahan sa narinig. Niyapos niya ng mahigpit ang anak at hiniling muli sa bata, tawagin mo uli ako, Anak. (1993)

Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

John and Mary meet.
What happens next?
If you want a happy ending, try A.

A.

John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.

B.

Mary falls in love with John but John doesn't fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you'll notice that he doesn't even consider her worth the price of a dinner out, and after he's eaten dinner he fucks her and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he won't think she's untidy, having all those dirty dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll look good when he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesn't even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took them off. He doesn't take off Mary's clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts as if she's dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesn't, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely he'll get used to her, he'll come to depend on her and they will get married, but John goes out the door with hardly so much as a good-night and three days later he turns up at six o'clock and they do the whole thing over again.

Mary gets run-down. Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so does Mary but she can't stop. People at work notice. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isn't good enough for her, but she can't believe it. Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough.

One evening John complains about the food. He has never complained about her food before. Mary is hurt.

Her friends tell her they've seen him in a restaurant with another woman, whose name is Madge. It's not even Madge that finally gets to Mary: it's the restaurant. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it's not even whiskey. She leaves a note for John. She hopes he'll discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.

John marries Madge and everything continues as in A.

C.

John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair falling out. She sleeps with him even though she's not in love with him. She met him at work. She's in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down.

John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isn't impressed by him, she's impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free. Freedom isn't the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. Thursdays are the only days John can get away.

John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time. John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he can't leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time.

One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than you'd believe possible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Mary's apartment. He finds them stoned and entwined. He's hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless he's overcome with despair. Finally he's middle-aged, in two years he'll be as bald as an egg and he can't stand it. He purchases a handgun, saying he needs it for target practice--this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later--and shoots the two of them and himself.

Madge, after a suitable period of mourning, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names.

D.

Fred and Madge have no problems. They get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise. But their charming house is by the seashore and one day a giant tidal wave approaches. Real estate values go down. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it. They do, though thousands drown, but Fred and Madge are virtuous and grateful, and continue as in A.

E.

Yes, but Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until Fred dies. Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be "Madge," "cancer," "guilty and confused," and "bird watching."

F.

If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you. Remember, this is Canada. You'll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.

The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.

That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

Now try How and Why.


_________________________________________

this is why I love Atwood so much. haha

si tenggang's homecoming by Muhammad Haji Salleh

i

the physical journey that i traverse
is a journey of the soul,
transport of the self from a fatherland
to a country collected by sight and mind,
the knowledge that sweats from it
is a stranger’s knowledge,
from one who has learnt to see, think
and choose between
the changing realities.

ii

it’s true i have growled at my mother and grandmother
but only after having told of my predicament
that they have never brought to reason.
the wife that i begun to love in my loneliness,
in the country that alienated me
they took to their predecisions
i have not entirely returned, i know,
having been changed by time and place,
coarsened by problems
estranged by absence.

iii

but look,
i have brought myself home,
seasoned by confidence,
broadened by land and languages,
i am no longer afraid of the oceans
or the differences between people,
not easily fooled
by words or ideas.

the journey was a loyal teacher
who was never tardy
in explaining cultures or variousness
look, i am just like you,
still malay,
sensitive to what i believe is good,
and more ready to understand
than my brothers.
the contents of these boats are yours too
because i have returned.

iv

travels made me
a seeker who does not take
what is given without sincerity
or that which demands payments from beliefs.
the years at sea and coastal states
have taught me to choose,
to accept only those tested by comparison,
or that which matches the words of my ancestors,
which returns me to my village
and its perfection.

v

i’ve learnt
the ways of the rude
to hold reality in a new logic,
debate with hard and loud facts.
but i too am humble, respecting,
man and life.

vi

i am not a new man,
not very different
from you;
the people and cities
of coastal ports
taught me not to brood
over a foreign world,
suffer difficulties
or fear possibilities.

i am you,
freed from the village,
its soils and ways,
independent, because
i have found myself.

Love on the Farm by DH Lawrence

What large, dark hands are those at the window
Grasping in the golden light
Which weaves its way through the evening wind
At my heart's delight?

Ah, only the leaves! But in the west
I see a redness suddenly come
Into the evening's anxious breast--
'Tis the wound of love goes home!

The woodbine creeps abroad
Calling low to her lover:
The sunlit flirt who all the day
Has poised above her lips in play
And stolen kisses, shallow and gay
Of pollen, now has gone away--
She woos the moth with her sweet, low word;
And when above her his moth-wings hover
Then her bright breast she will uncover
And yield her honey-drop to her lover.

Into the yellow, evening glow
Saunters a man from the farm below;
Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed
Where the swallow has hung her marriage bed.
The bird lies warm against the wall.
She glances quick her startled eyes
Towards him, then she turns away
Her small head, making warm display
Of red upon the throat. Her terrors sway
Her out of the nest's warm, busy ball,
Whose plaintive cry is heard as she flies
In one blue stoop from out the sties
Into the twilight's empty hall.

Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes
Ride your quaintly scarlet blushes,
Still your quick tall, lie still as dead,
Till the distance folds over his ominous tread!

The rabbit presses back her ears,
Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes
And crouches low; then with wild spring
Spurts from the terror of his oncoming;
To be choked back, the wire ring
Her frantic effort throttling:
Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!
Ah, soon in his large, hard hands she dies,
And swings all loose from the swing of his walk!
Yet calm and kindly are his eyes
And ready to open in brown surprise
Should I not answer to his talk
Or should he my tears surmise.

I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair
Watching the door open; he flashes bare
His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes
In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise
He flings the rabbit soft on the table board
And comes towards me: ah! the uplifted sword
Of his hand against my bosom! and oh, the broad
Blade of his glance that asks me to applaud
His coming! With his hand he turns my face to him
And caresses me with his fingers that still smell grim
Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare!
I know not what fine wire is round my throat;
I only know I let him finger there
My pulse of life, and let him nose like a stoat
Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood.

And down his mouth comes to my mouth! and down
His bright dark eyes come over me, like a hood
Upon my mind! his lips meet mine, and a flood
Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown
Against him, die, and find death good.

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;--on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the ebb meets the moon-blanch'd sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The Dover Bitch by Anthony Hecht

So there stood Matthew Arnold and his girl
With the cliffs of England Crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc."
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in fairly good translation
And caught that bitter Allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking he had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel. and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And the brandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch chain and seem to swear a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running so fat, but dependable as they come,
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d'Amour.

Friday, September 19, 2008

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

I

WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.

It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.

Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.

When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment.

They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father.

They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain.

Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves."

"But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?"

"I received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have no taxes in Jefferson."

"But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the--"

"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson."

"But, Miss Emily--"

"See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out."


II

So SHE vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.

That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we believed would marry her --had deserted her. After her father's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man--a young man then--going in and out with a market basket.

"Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.

A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.

"But what will you have me do about it, madam?" he said.

"Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law? "

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it."

The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we've got to do something." That night the Board of Aldermen met--three graybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation.

"It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don't. .."

"Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?"

So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away.

That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.

When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.

The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.

We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.


III

SHE WAS SICK for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of tragic and serene.

The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer after her father's death they began the work. The construction company came with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the riggers, and the riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.

At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies all said, "Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer." But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige- -

without calling it noblesse oblige. They just said, "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her." She had some kin in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of old lady Wyatt, the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families. They had not even been represented at the funeral.

And as soon as the old people said, "Poor Emily," the whispering began. "Do you suppose it's really so?" they said to one another. "Of course it is. What else could . . ." This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: "Poor Emily."

She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they had begun to say "Poor Emily," and while the two female cousins were visiting her.

"I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look. "I want some poison," she said.

"Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom--"

"I want the best you have. I don't care what kind."

The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is--"

"Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?"

"Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--"

"I want arsenic."

The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. "Why, of course," the druggist said. "If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for."

Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back. When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: "For rats."


IV

So THE NEXT day we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, "She will marry him." Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a marrying man. Later we said, "Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove.

Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister--Miss Emily's people were Episcopal-- to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day the minister's wife wrote to Miss Emily's relations in Alabama.

So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch developments. At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler's and ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men's clothing, including a nightshirt, and we said, "They are married." We were really glad. We were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.

So we were not surprised when Homer Barron--the streets had been finished some time since--was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.

And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets. Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die.

When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man.

From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china-painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris' contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her taxes had been remitted.

Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines. The front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.

Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.

And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro

He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse.

She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.


V

THE NEGRO met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.

The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.

Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.

The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks.

The man himself lay in the bed.

For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.

Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.