Indigo Lambast [Poll]
erithromycin
relatively stealthy drunken writing sessions [14]. I like the way they
sound, and, almost as importantly, what they make my imagination do. I
find them beautiful, in the same way that I find the concept of a
truncated elvis stopwatch intriguing and that I desire to have a West
German carphone in a 1986 BMW as a living history project. It appeals to
me. So, ignoring the fact that the title, again, has scant little to do
with owt [1], here is my question, preceded by a little vignette:
Not more than fifteen feet away from me is a mug. It's one of a line of
novelty mugs [2], with a little poem on it [3]. I gave it to a very good
friend of mine for christmas. Whenever I see it, I smile [4]. This is
because I remember the look on her face when she got it [5].
Late yesterday [6], I was "playing" [7] Trivial Pursuit. When Jennie got
the answer to a question right, she smiled gleefully [8]. When she got
the answer to a question wrong, her eyes flashed with either justified
anger or quasi-humourous chagrin.
Being the kind of guy I often am, I find both of these things beautiful.
Hence the question.
What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
beautiful thing you ever saw?
Mine was a sunset in singapore, the way the light danced over clear water
and the industrial limbs of a merchant shipping port, the multi-coloured
cranes bathed in the glow of glass-reflected oranges and reds, framed by
the windows of a rotating reference where I sat dining from flawless
china with bamboo chopsticks watching the stars appear in the pacific sky
as I ate what remains one of the finest meals I have ever had the
pleasure of savouring, surrounded by my family and friendly role-models.
That or the poppies in the frost at the bottom of the war memorial at the
bottom of my street, or the tracery of a tear on someone's eyelash. Or,
indeed, the great barrier reef. I've seen lots of beautiful things. I
hope you have too. What were they? [12] More importantly, and I
acknowledge reiteration may seem like belabouring, why were they
beautiful?
Anyone?
drew [13]
[1] I'm down with words, but semantics depress me.
[2] You know the drill: Name, comedy poem, cartoon.
[3] It's twee. I like things that are twee [11]
[4] One of the nice smiles, without teeth or metal.
[5] Glee. I like that word. Glee glee glee.
[6] Hah! I laugh in the face of bedtimes!
[7] I am a bribable free agent with hidden agendas in every game I play.
This is why many more people should regret me not being in a position to
comment and influence their personal lives.
[8] All the women I'm friends with start smiling with their eyes. I'[ve
just realised this, and it makes me happy that I can find another little
shard of beauty in people I must truthfully say I love and respect.
[9] The immediate last. The one you saw before fingers touched keyboard.
That one.
[10] We'll gloss over the whole definition of beauty thing until there's
momentum.
[11] If I could have a twee shotgun that played industrial music and
drank guinness and was a woman I'd be very happy indeed.
[12] Structure is a mechanism of statist repression. That is all.
[13] Footsoldier par excellence in the greates game of all.
[14] Of which this is not one. Shockingly.
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of stealth and waste."
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
magdalene
>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
>did you find it so?
A very large, very annoyed Canadian goose all alone in the parking lot of a
movie theatre, waddling through fresh snow.
I've no idea what it was doing there, alone at that, but it was beautiful in
its absurdity.
Also, because I've never been up close to one of those birds, I've never
realised their sheer /size./
Watching EdwardS follow it around, trying to get it to eat some of our popcorn
and the *slapslapslap* sound of its feet on the sidewalk is something that I'm
not likely to forget for a long, long time.
>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>beautiful thing you ever saw?
The most beautiful thing I ever clapped eyes upon was the blackness of sea and
sky, as I stood at a lighthouse in Fraserburgh, in the middle of November, at
around eleven o'clock at night.
It was like trying to peer through Turkish coffee. You could occasionally catch
glimpses of the stars or the water as it broke against the rocks, but that was
it. And all around was the roar of the ocean, full on in your ears.
I can't ever forget it. I could have stood there with the most hated person in
the world and it would still be a good memory.
I found it beautiful for the fact that you couldn't see it. But you knew it was
there. Something so immense, powerful, and /huge./ But you couldn't see it.
When I had visited there, I had been living in Philadelphia for the greater
part of eight years. I'd never really seen pitch blackness. There was always
some form of light, be it artificial or not, to give shape to things.
But this was so completely alien to me, that it struck me quite breathless and
dizzy.
~magdalene
"Well hi, Mister Giggles! Why don't you get
a job? Then you can buy your own cheese."
http://www.manifest-angel.com/magdalene
rufus
<erithr...@888.nu> wrote:
>
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
> did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
The last beautiful thing I saw was fx. standing up, leaning into her
computer at work, black-tipped pigtails swaying in a very faint breeze,
the soft light from the lamp bringing out the gold in her hair and the
pink in her cheeks and lips, the intensity of her concentration not
sufficient to cause her to frown, but rather to appear to be giving the
screen an expectant, patient look.
I have been carrying that image around for two days now (violating the
footnoted injuction, I know) but yet it *is* the most beautiful thing I
have seen recently.
It inspired a kind of painterly awe -- a modern Rembrandt or
Pre-Raphaelite could, if sie put hir mind to it, do wonderful work with
geeks, light, and machines.
But as for the most beautiful thing I have *ever* seen -- that is a tough
one. The Sistine Chapel, or St. Peters, could be one entry, for sheer
ancientness and artistry. The (now torn down, the bastards) old, ivy
covered Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island, for strength and
stubbornness.
The bounce of light off Glasgwegian rooftoops after a heavy, bruising
rain, as seen from the windows of the TV room of the QM Union, because it
was quiet and still and I had my love nestled in my lap.
The Verrazano bridge rising through the fog, or blinking at night. The
view from the Manhattan Bridge. The view of CT out the window of an Amtrak
train headed north.
The mist rising over the Clyde, and the cranes that move through it, like
industrial sized ghosts. The ride through the Grampians to Glasgow,
because it feels like you have really left the rest of the world behind,
and come to somewhere both remote and alive.
The view out the window of Achnabreac train stop -- for sheer intimidating
emptyness. The harbor of the Isle of Skye at sunset, because it is
peaceful.
> [3] It's twee. I like things that are twee [11]
> [11] If I could have a twee shotgun that played industrial music and
> drank guinness and was a woman I'd be very happy indeed.
I love your footnotes.
rufus
--
rufus AT bway DOT net | www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/8106
"I've *heard* of cleanliness. Sometimes I wish that I
got the neat freak gene. Then I toss another soda bottle
in the corner." -- benton
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Edward Scissorhands
<batsinth...@aol.com> writes
>A very large, very annoyed Canadian goose all alone in the parking lot of a
>movie theatre, waddling through fresh snow.
>I've no idea what it was doing there, alone at that, but it was beautiful in
>its absurdity.
I think I'd be inclined to second that. Especially since being back
here, I haven't seen beauty in anything *sighs*
>>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>>beautiful thing you ever saw?
There are perhaps 2 things... once, was last year I think. The clouds
froze in a rainbow, making the sky shimmer with a green, gold, red,
explosion of colour. I've never seen anything like it, like a cross
between how you'd imagine the Northern lights, and oil in a puddle, but
above you.
I feel inclined to communicate beauty as in nature, but I'd also include
something as mundane as the front suspension of a Chrysler Prowler.
Given Magdalene and I spent a fair bit of time wandering around the art
gallery/museum in Philly, that seems almost criminal, but the beauty is
on more levels - the efficiency, the fact that it's on a production
item, a consumer good, the fact that someone saw fit to break the mould
and allow something so unusual onto something so ordinary.
EdwardS
--
Edward Scissorhands |\ _,,,---,,_
Retro, notgoth, weird, AGF-Borg - 0 of Goth /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,
E-Mail: EdwardS<at>lovecraft.demon.co.uk |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'::.
'Motives': http://www.lovecraft.demon.co.uk/ '----''(_/--' `-'\_)Morticia
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful, and why
> did you find it so?
The pattern of little red lines against the yellow background on a taro chip
I was about to eat before I told the machine to download Usenet. It is at
least as balanced as any abstract art, the way the little dots around the
edges turn into large swirls towards the centre. And unlike abstract art,
it's high in fibre and low in salt. Or at least that's what the folks who
make them say.
> In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
This one is fairly easy for me. I was driving south from Columbus, IN,
home, late one April evening. I drove into a hellacious thunderstorm Large
hail began falling. Not wishing to drive in the hail and high winds, I
pulled off the road under an overpass. I got out of the car and crouched in
the sloping area behind the pillars. There was loud thunder and sharp,
close lightning all around.
Then, the rain slacked off, but not the lightning. And there was a noise,
like the noise of a plane taking off fed through a stack of Marshalls. I
climbed down a bit, and then I saw it.
There was a funnel cloud, coming down out of the storm, almost touching the
earth. Beneath it, you could see a funnel of dust and junk whirling
underneath it, in response. My guess would be that this couldn't be more
than a half a mile away, if that. It was not quite as impressive as some of
the movies I've seen; this one was long and thin, and somewhat contorted.
Other drivers were seeing the same thing, and soon there was a small crowd
under the overpass. All were watching the tornado. My first thought
was --- a tornado! I'm going to die! My second thought was, "Ain't nothing
you can do if you're going to." My third thought was, "Who cares about me,
what if it wrecks my car?" And finally, I thought, "You've always wanted
to see one of these things. May as well go take a look."
So I spent maybe the next minute and a half, maybe two minutes, watching the
funnel cloud. It moved away, rather capriciously, and seemed to grow even
thinner as the time wore on. Most of the people were crouching in the
narrow part of the overpass, under the bridge. A few of the people came
down with me by the pillars and watched the storm.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
Farouche et raffolant des donjons moyen âge,
J'irais m'ensevelir au fond d'un vieux manoir:
Comme je humerais le mystère qui nage
Entre de vastes murs tendus de velours noir!
--- Maurice Rollinat
Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.
Marshdrifter
>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
>did you find it so?
The last thing would have to be a payphone in the parking
lot of the local A&W. It's not a booth as such, more one of
those drive up phone thingies. The sign was lit with a yellow
light, which reflected brightly off of the huge snow piles
dwarfing the phone box on three sides. It was amazing
and I hadn't ever noticed it before. Well... at least not since
it had snowed.
>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>beautiful thing you ever saw?
Wow, this is a tough one, and things are beautiful in
so many different ways that it's hard to compare them
all.
hmm...
>I've seen lots of beautiful things. I
>hope you have too. What were they? [12] More importantly, and I
>acknowledge reiteration may seem like belabouring, why were they
>beautiful?
I made sweet potato curry last night. It's a beautiful looking
dish of all sorts of colors when it's done. It looks like fall. I
love fall. Sitting in my equally beautiful calphalon wok, it's
beautiful enough that I want to just stand there and look at
it. I don't though. It smells too good to not eat.
I was given a Japanese-style tea cup for Christmas. It came
from Crate and Barrel and is absolutely beautiful in it's
simplicity. It has a rough brown ring around the rim and
the body has a green glaze. I haven't used it yet, haven't
had an occasion to use something other than one of my
other tea cups or mugs. I have, however, gotten it out of
the cupboard just to look at it.
The other day, a friend of mine and I worked out a "new
move" in Wing Chun. It was simple and elegant and we
had never thought of it before a new student accidentally
used it instead of doing what he was supposed to. We're
still in love with that move.
I've been reading some Bradbury, I find his appreciation
of life as well as his poetic use of metaphor (in prose no
less!) quite beautiful.
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The motion, the
sets, the costumes, the actresses, the language, the
theatre (the Orpheum in Madison, WI).
The smile a girl smiled at me a couple of weeks ago. It was
because of me too, which made it all that much better. Of
course, it was because I was a big doofus, but it was still
beautiful.
The outside world. One of the perks of living in rural
Wisconsin. Oh look, a black squirrel.
Eyes. Eyes are like little jewels. Some are more
beautiful than others, but they're all, in some way,
beautiful.
etc.
>Anyone?
Not *just* anyone, but a lot of people, yes.
Stephen
fuzzy pink satan
>>>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>>>beautiful thing you ever saw?
It was last summer, & I was at my mom's place staying with
my brother for a few days.
The sun was getting ready to set, and it was oddly cloudy.
The way the clouds & sun were made the sky pure gold,
with scant hints of pink. The trees were abnormally bright,
and it was really as if someone had upped the "saturation"
on the world by about 50% (for all you photoshop dorks).
It was unearthly. Then the rain came.
I yelled for my brother to get his ass out on the front porch,
and he reluctantly dragged himself from his MUD.
It looked like there were millions of locusts descending.
They were so high up, and you could see them falling.. you could
keep your eye on one and follow it down. The light was still shining
oddly, and the drops looked glittery and dark blue.
They got closer. We were probably staring for half a minute,
maybe more, just watching these drops fall. Nothing had hit yet.
The anticipation was great.
The drop I had my eye on finally got low enough, it was so pretty..
and it landed in my eye. Suddenly the ground was wet, but the
sky was still golden.
I turned to look at him, and he at me, and we both just kinda
shook our heads and said "whoa.."
No one else in the neighborhood was outside.
They had missed it.
It was a miracle. I know I'll never be able to describe it properly,
but I assure each and every one of you that it was like magic.
Carrie
------------
kids love satan: http://ossuary.net/~skerrella/
"I'm not jaded. Just bored." - Father Holy
spidermonster
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and
why
> did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
>
The last beautiful thing I saw? A woman at a goth/industrial night I
went to last weekend. The room was full of smoke, and I was leaning
against the wall, tired from dancing. She was sitting at a table maybe
five to ten metres away, not quite lost in the haze yet. She was
wearing some kind of red pvc cyber-looking outfit, with long dark hair,
half fallen across her face. She had her elbow on the table, cupping
her chin, and looked somewhere between sad and tired, as if she'd seen
all the world had to offer and found it wanting. But most importantly,
there was a red light pinned to the shoulder of her outfit (I think),
which was blinking on and off, half obscured by her hair. For some
reason, she just looked so perfect like that, as a sculpture. I have
no idea if she was attractive, I don't mean beautiful that way... but
she just looked so amazing, the light giving a strange surreal touch to
her. It's hard to explain.
The most beautiful thing I've ever seen?
Edinburgh, from a train stopped in Waverly Station, January the 3rd
1997, about 6pm, I think. I was travelling back up to University to
see someone whom I was very much in love with, and it was cold, snowy
and dark. At Waverly station, I looked out of the train windows, and
was sitting in the right part of the train to great an amazing view of
parts of the castle and of Edinburgh, illuminated all from below by
yellow-gold lights, and a few of the remaining Christmas decorations.
The snow was falling heavily, but more powdery now, although it had
been heavy earlier, and in the lights, the snow looked like flakes of
gold falling from Heaven. There were so few people about, things were
so quiet and it was like looking out of some kind of magical window
into a fantasy image from an old film. I had spent most of the journey
thus far thinking a lot about the person I was travelling to see,
wishing I was there, wishing the train would go faster. But right
then, the train could have stopped forever, if the world would just
keep looking like that.
--
"Society is full of dangerous individuals: wits and poets."
*cyberperkyrivetglittergothguy*
email - spider...@discodiva.co.uk
kest
> relatively stealthy drunken writing sessions [14].
I was going to bitch that I couldn't find what your last footnote
refered to but, damn there it is.
You one of those people who eats their dessert first?
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and
[9] The immediate last. The one you saw before fingers touched keyboard.
> That one.
This post. Although I would like to point out that I am also _hearing_
beautiful music, and _feeling_ beautiful cat teeth. [stop that, you]
Why? Because its well written and has far too many footnotes for its own
good, and talks about beauty like there's some hope in the world and
alt.gothic is just a nice place to hang out.
k {ok, group hug}
--
"The ability of the Internet to position dog excrement at the center of
so many lucrative commercial transactions is one of the most astonishing
developments of the new millennium." -Joe Queenan, forbes.com
H Duffy
erithromycin <erithr...@888.nu> wrote in message
news:945k37$49o$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
> did you find it so?
A fox, two days ago, in my street. I live in a suburban street in the
Midlands, and you don't really expect to see real live wildlife there, but
as I was walking home in the cold and the dark, there it was, walking
along my street up ahead of me. It crossed the road (didn't even look both
ways first), ducked behind a wheeliebin, and was gone. A friend of mine
who lives two streets away saw it too, on _his_ way home.
It was beautiful because it was unexpected; I shouldn't have been there,
and besides, it looked larger than it should have done, and wilder, and
more foxy. So foxy that although I saw it briefly, and in the dark, and on
the move, and through a cloud of my own breath, there was never an
instant's doubt that it was a fox.
It was beautiful because it was so alive. In a dull dark street with dim,
buzzing orange lights, big black plastic bins, and tired old cars, it
almost glowed, just with being alive. It looked healthy, and alert, and
interested. And although I wanted to stop, to make contact, to look into
its eyes and know it saw me, that would have ruined it entirely.
> In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
I don't know. Unexpected things, mostly. Sudden flashes of light and
colour through the clouds; A bird that came right up close before it
realised you were there; A butterfly's dull brown wing that flashes green
at you as it turns; A smile where you weren't looking for one; The sudden
view from the crest of a hill; The curve of a breast or a hip or a neck; A
lock of hair that catches the light and plays with it; A colour.
Thinking about it, colours play a big part in my "most beautiful" things.
Surprise me with colours, and I'm all yours.
H
siani evans
erithromycin wrote:
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
> did you find it so?
the roots from the paperwhites trailing down through a mixture of glass
pebbles, white quartz and smooth brown stones in a very pale blue glass
pitcher on my windowsill.
> In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
i don't know. honestly i don't. i get too caught up in the moment; the
smells, the temperature, all of that, to actually know what *looks*
beautiful. the best thing i ever smelled was hot dry pine needles and
crushed wild rose leaves and earth.
siani
Edward Scissorhands
writes
>It was beautiful because it was so alive. In a dull dark street with dim,
>buzzing orange lights, big black plastic bins, and tired old cars, it
>almost glowed, just with being alive. It looked healthy, and alert, and
>interested. And although I wanted to stop, to make contact, to look into
>its eyes and know it saw me, that would have ruined it entirely.
Did you smell it?
Foxes are some of the rankest, foulest smelling creatures around...
Of course, living up here, I see them all the time - have even touched
one, which was a mistake because I couldn't get the smell of it off my
hand for the rest of the day.
I'd like to see a badger - I've seen ones hit by trucks (I'd assume,
since anyone in a car is going to damage it severely hitting one), and
occasionally slowly running up the side of the road, but never their
faces.
siani evans
Edward Scissorhands wrote:
> Foxes are some of the rankest, foulest smelling creatures around...
>
> Of course, living up here, I see them all the time - have even touched
> one, which was a mistake because I couldn't get the smell of it off my
> hand for the rest of the day.
i used to follow their trails around the back yard by smell. :)
although, i have to admit, the black one in my tree planting camp did
not smell as bad, even when it walked within a foot of me in the mess
tent.
and it was black! :)
siani
H Duffy
Edward Scissorhands <Edw...@lovecraft.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:5hwY+XNT...@lovecraft.demon.co.uk...
> In article <946kkn$cm62$1...@rook.le.ac.uk>, H Duffy <he...@nospam.le.ac.uk>
> writes
> >It was beautiful because it was so alive. In a dull dark street with
dim,
> >buzzing orange lights, big black plastic bins, and tired old cars, it
> >almost glowed, just with being alive. It looked healthy, and alert, and
> >interested. And although I wanted to stop, to make contact, to look
into
> >its eyes and know it saw me, that would have ruined it entirely.
>
> Did you smell it?
>
> Foxes are some of the rankest, foulest smelling creatures around...
*grin* Oh, go and spoil the moment, why dontcha...
> I'd like to see a badger - I've seen ones hit by trucks (I'd assume,
> since anyone in a car is going to damage it severely hitting one), and
> occasionally slowly running up the side of the road, but never their
> faces.
One crossed the road in front of me a few months ago, so I saw it in
profile, but at a distance and in the dark, so I didn't get a good view.
They're much bigger than I had thought!
H
Jennie Kermode
>Late yesterday [6], I was "playing" [7] Trivial Pursuit.
He was asking the questions. He wasn't prepared to risk public
humiliation, like the rest of us, by possibly getting them wrong, but he
does suit being a game show host rather well.
>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
>did you find it so?
That would be Galatea, my white and yellow carp, trying to tug
a piece of food free from the gravel in her tank. She's a remarkable
looking fish in any circumstances, her colouring delicate but vivid,
flattered by the gentle lustre of her scales. Her eyes are large and
alert, her fins elegantly angular, her tapering body superbly toned. Other
fish adore her. When she was wrestling with that food, it was a fine thing
to see the combination of her prettiness, power and determination. I am in
awe of her.
>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most beautiful thing you ever
>saw?
I am having dreadful difficulty trying to do justice to this
question. There are so many different things.
Overall, I think that I would have to say the ocean. The ocean
under a grey sky, when sky and water seem to merge at the horizon. I find
it more visually alluring than anything else I have encountered. At
Whitby, I can be talking to the most beautiful and fascinating people, but
my eyes will always be drawn towards the sea. It makes and breaks so many
promises. Space, to my eyes, looks like a surface; it is hard for me to
appreciate its depth; the ocean, however, is recognisably vast. I love the
way that it enables me to feel small.
My most beautiful memory of space is from when I was thirteen,
on holiday in northern France, lying in a field with friends. The grass
was dark and wet with dew, full of secret vitality. Below us, the
shoreling stretched away in a great arc of silver-shite sand. The ocean
was roaring and black. A little island marked the southern horizon, some
obscure gothic ruin jutting from amongst its subtle dunes. The air was
warm and soft, scented with salt and poppies and thrift. Yet it was the
sky which captivated me. I have never seen it so clear. With my naked eyes
I was able to see the whole arc of the Milky Way stretching from horizon
to horizon. Uncountable stars swam within my grasp. It was the first time
I truly understood the significance of The Stars in ancient symbology; the
stars are full of hope, because they are proof of vast realms of
possibility. They allow us to be small, and to be small is to be free.
The total eclipse of the sun in Cornwall the year before last
was beautiful in a different way. I don't know why, but I been thinking
beforehand of the old Norse phrase 'east of the sun, west of the moon',
and it was only at that last moment that I suddenly realised what it
meant; as a result, I felt a surge of medieval terror akin to that which
must have stirred the hearts of men in ages past when the sun's light
unexpectedly fled the sky. Donald, The Emperor Penguin and I were alone in
a high field. We listened to the different noises of all the animals
deciding it was night time, warily finding places to hide, or just flat
out failing their Sanity rolls and indulging in various inventive forms of
panic. As this happened, the whole sky turned green. No-one had mentioned
the greening before, so once again I was thrown by it. The eclipse itself
was not so spectacular, but that unnatural green light thrown suddenly
across all the world was awe inspiring. The darkness and the chill that
followed wakened something ancient in my bones. When I saw true sunlight
slanting forth again I was filled with an intense delight which could
easily have turned to worship of that distant orb upon which we rely so
desperately; some instinctive part of me had really believed that it might
never return.
There have been other things. Tsar Nikolai dva's private
chapel, precociously ornamented within and draped on the outside by a
blanket of snow. The huge, seemingly neverending marshes of the southern
French Landes, a solitary windmill standing guard over their emptiness. A
passionate kiss from my beloved Paul on the last night we let ourselves be
together, knowing that, with his alcoholism, it could never work, but
wanting it so badly anyway. The small dark green pebble which I found on a
beach as a small child and carried everywhere with me. Geena morphing out
of the dark outside the old concert hall, the moonlight sliding over her
hair and skin so that she seemed to glow. Cecilia laughing at the bus stop
with snow in her hair. Forked lightening over Normandy hills. The
rain. Always the rain.
>[5] Glee. I like that word. Glee glee glee.
It's almost onomatopoeic, isn't it? One's mouth forms the same
shape when speaking it and when feeling it. ;) Perhaps 'synaesthetically
onomatopoeic' would be the best way to describe it.
>[10] We'll gloss over the whole definition of beauty thing until there's
>momentum.
I expect that most people will think first of visual
beauty. There is, however, much beauty which can be experienced by the
other senses. Right now, I am aware of a certain beauty in the faint
sounds of traffic from the motorway, which sound like waves on the
sea. Also, beauty in the complex texture of the lace where my hand rests
on my knee.
>[11] If I could have a twee shotgun that played industrial music and
>drank guinness and was a woman I'd be very happy indeed.
Surely a twee woman with a shotgun (and those other
qualities) would be a better idea; or you could do yourself an injury...
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"One able to make the enemy come of his own accord does so by
offering him some advantage." - Sun Tzu
Spider-ic
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful and why
> did you find it so?
The look in her eyes just before we kissed. It was so simple, so...
fuck, I cannot even describe it.
The moment meant so much. From the light tug on my chin to the
asking in her eyes. To the fact that I could see myself reflected
there and knew that I looked as unsure as I felt. And then the joy at
the assent in her eyes.
In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
God there are so many things that I cannot seperate them.
The most beautiful sunrise was the one spent the last night I saw my
friend Jeremy. The electric storm in one half the sky pitch black, the
tail ends of the storm to the east bloody reds and vivid purples.
Like Jennie, the sight of the ocean and the sky meeting with no way
to tell one from the other. It reminds me of GOD for somereason. GOD
in the unknowable, eternal, non-religous sense.
The sight of a standing ovation. I'm a theatre junkie, nothing is as
beautiful as the visual confirmation of a good job. Ego petting is
beautiful.
These are just a few examples.
--
Spider-ic the Carcinogenic Smoke Angel and TurboTramp's PR Frontman
If a tree falls on a man alone in the woods there are two sounds. One
is a sound like hitting an over ripe melon w/ a sledge hammer. The
second is Mother Nature laughing.
fuzzy pink satan
>Like Jennie, the sight of the ocean and the sky meeting with no way
>to tell one from the other. It reminds me of GOD for somereason. GOD
>in the unknowable, eternal, non-religous sense.
Mmmm, yes.
The night I was sitting on a concrete slab that was lodged into
one of the bluffs over Lake Michigan.. for what reason, I do not know.
It was about 1am, we weren't supposed to be there, I wished he wasn't
there.. this is back when I was cute, and boys wanted to date me.
He didn't want to date me, he just wanted to fuck me. I wasn't about
to let him. But the sky was so charcoal grey it was almost black, and
the water matched, and it was foggy.. it was a void out there, and I
tried so hard to see a dividing line, but there was none to be found!
It was silent, the water wasn't even moving, which was very odd..
it's a great lake ferchristsakes..
The slab of concrete had a pentagram spraypainted in black, and
awkward blobs of black candlewax on each point.. it just made it
all the more eerie.
I haven't been able to find that place since. *shrug*
Gwen
>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and why
>did you find it so?
A shy film editor's smile as I looked up at him across his desk and caught
him watching me eat my lunch. It was sweet and bashful, all while being
somewhat sly. There was this glimmer in his eye that I've never found the
words by which to describe it.
I order blackcurrant smoothies[1] just to remember that smile.
>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>beautiful thing you ever saw?
I'm torn between two images...
a. 14 june 1997
Sitting against a column at the Temple to Hera in Agrigento, Sicily
watching the sun set over the city below. The quiet solitude over the
whole scene. The colors that danced across the sky. The immense feeling of
the ages that swelled around. You could almost feel the treads of all of
the people that have walked through that same spot. The faint image of a
half full moon hanging in the deep blue sky still over shadowed by the
intensity of the sun.
b. 14 may 1997
Early that same trip, my first night in a foreign country. It was spent in
a small beach town outside of Rome called Tarquinia. I was sitting on a
wall at the top of the city, just outside the main square. The wall
overlooked the countryside below. It was the darkest, blackest thing I've
ever seen. Not a man-made light anywhere in sight. It was nothing short of
astonishing. I got the distinct feeling that if I were to fall over the
side of that cliff I would float forever.[2]
When I moved to Rome I would go back to the town sometimes for a night
just to order a gelato and sit on that same wall. It would always
recapture that same sense of awe.
-Krista
[1] what I happened to be sipping at the time
[2] the fantasy obviously shattered the next morning when I discovered the
bottom was only about 200 feet down.
Tiny Human Ferret
> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful
[immediately before sitting down to post], > and why
> did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
Ah, there's precious little of beauty in the little slice of life that
precedes my sittting down to post; I rise after dark at this time of year,
and this very evening, my rush out the door to work was made the more
harried by the prosaic and weekly tass of putting out the recyclables. A
blue plastic bin full of the week's dead soldiers and vegetable tins isn't
the most lovely of things, nor is a lightly rainswept suburban sub-arterial
sadly pressed by relentless population-growth far beyond its original duties
as a winding country road. There's a certain hill, though, and the road to
work passes over it and for a brief glimpse I can see most of western Anne
Arundel County and much of northeastern Prince George's County laid out
before me to the east, and there's a certain christmas-decoration prettiness
to the pinpricks of actinic streetlights poking, as it were, through the
drab velvet of a misty night in the Sprawl. And then I'm parked on a street
that would be almost quaint if this town's "historic district" weren't
historic mostly because for about 100 years, nobody who's lived in this part
of town has had the money to tear down the old houses and build new ones.
But I have to admit that this SPARC has a damned good (if only 8-bit)
display, and the screensaver is pretty decent.
The most beautiful thing I've ever seen? Ah, strange -- I can't really
remember. It could be any of a number of things. I'm quite fond of seeing
the US Capital building at sunset or sunrise. The western montaine deserts
are quite impressive if a bit severe. When I was 18, nothing on earth could
be more beautiful than my girlfriend, and when I was 17, nothing could be
more beautiful than the body of the "class dog" who was astonishingly
healthy under her drab and fashionless daily wear, and who stuffed a cheap
gym-class pne-piece swimsuit better than anything I've seen before or since.
When I was 22, most of the planets were visible within a quarter degree of
each other on a frost-fanged winter night and it was worth the
near-frostbite to sit and watch. Springtime is always an inspiration, and
I've seem some of the most precious little flowers poking up through late
snows, and perhaps one of the most beautiful things I've seen was a midnight
snowstorm which came out of nowhere and dropped the temperature 30 degrees
in an hour and left me walking home shivering in a light coat as the cherry
trees' abundant blossoms dripped with the large clumps of "hominy" snow.
My dad has the best story though -- before I was born, when they had just
moved to New Mexico, the family used to go for long drives. New Mexico is
subject to the occasional major thunderstorm, and while tornadoes aren't too
common, flash flooding and large hail is. The folks saw one of these going
on over the next rise in the land, and sat it out at the side of the road
while the storm moved past, acrosspaths. Eventually they started the car and
headed onwards. It was late afternoon and they had the sun at their back,
and when they drove across the rise, the front that had been driving the
storm came past and mixed with the turbulence to create a number of
dust-devils which were sweeping across the plains so recently hit with
golf-ball size hail. Dust devils can be pretty strong, and many of them had
filled up with debris. They weren't quite strong enough to pick up mud, so
they mostly held melting hail... and that hail was lit from the viewer's
rear, and was refracting the sunlight...
There can't be too many things on earth more beautiful than would be seeing
a thousand rainbows dancing in the desert.
--
Be kind to your neighbors, even | "Global domination, of course!"
though they be transgenic chimerae. | -- The Brain
"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive
positions and have a tremendous impact on history." -- Dan Quayle
erithromycin
> erithromycin wrote:
>> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and
>>why did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>> beautiful thing you ever saw?
>The last beautiful thing I saw was fx. standing up, leaning into her
>computer at work, black-tipped pigtails swaying in a very faint breeze,
>the soft light from the lamp bringing out the gold in her hair and the
>pink in her cheeks and lips, the intensity of her concentration not
>sufficient to cause her to frown, but rather to appear to be giving the
>screen an expectant, patient look.
>
>I have been carrying that image around for two days now (violating the
>footnoted injuction, I know) but yet it *is* the most beautiful thing I
>have seen recently.
The quality of the description invites forgiveness, so consider yourself
retroactively allowed. Anyhoo, I'm always violating my own
proscriptions, so I don't see why anybody else shouldn't too.
>It inspired a kind of painterly awe -- a modern Rembrandt or
>Pre-Raphaelite could, if sie put hir mind to it, do wonderful work with
>geeks, light, and machines.
There's something of the genuflector in the way we angle ourselves
towards these machines. Sitting in the Qm on the G4 the light is
bouncing of the slate bits and dancing over my fingers as I type, my
fingers spilling over the edges because I'm still not properly
conditioned to this wee keyboard. My head's vaguely bowed as I attempt
to orient my fingers [now naked of nail-polish] correctly when I'm sure
the keys are too thin to be where they are. Pesky engineers.
>But as for the most beautiful thing I have *ever* seen -- that is a
>tough one. The Sistine Chapel, or St. Peters, could be one entry, for
>sheer ancientness and artistry.
Things like Krak De Chevaliers impress me. Huge lumps of rock and
savagery frozen in place by time and injury and circumstance. Actually,
castles in general impress me.
>The (now torn down, the bastards) old, ivy covered Cyclone roller
>coaster at Coney Island, for strength and stubbornness.
For that same reason, the work of IK Brunel, and, in fact, any other of
the poet-engineer steam kings [a bit difference engine, I'll admit].
>The bounce of light off Glasgwegian rooftoops after a heavy, bruising
>rain, as seen from the windows of the TV room of the QM Union, because
>it was quiet and still and I had my love nestled in my lap.
Ah. but the TV room has a subtle warping effect on everything in it.
Heck, while watching MTV2 [god among music channels] I'm often tempted
to tolerate M.Manson. Tempted mind, naught else.
> The mist rising over the Clyde, and the cranes that move through it,
>like industrial sized ghosts. The ride through the Grampians to
>Glasgow, because it feels like you have really left the rest of the
>world behind, and come to somewhere both remote and alive.
Glasgow's full of found beauty, largely because it grew and grows in
fits and starts, as much by greed and avarice as sense. It's one of the
few places in the world that mingles with itself so energetically. The
distinctions that get drawn for it often bear no resemblance to
anything.
> > [3] It's twee. I like things that are twee [11]
> > [11] If I could have a twee shotgun that played industrial music and
> > drank guinness and was a woman I'd be very happy indeed.
>
> I love your footnotes.
Footnotes suit the way I think.
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a m
erithromycin
> "erithromycin" wrote:
>
>>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful, and why
>>did you find it so?
>The pattern of little red lines against the yellow background on a taro
>chip I was about to eat before I told the machine to download Usenet.
>It is at least as balanced as any abstract art, the way the little dots
>around the edges turn into large swirls towards the centre. And unlike
>abstract art, it's high in fibre and low in salt. Or at least that's
>what the folks who make them say.
I now have to go home and make sushi so I can eat something that looks
like an edible name of god too. I am firmly of the opinion that what you
eat should be pretty, though I can't actually bring myself to attempt
the almost mandatory double-entendre.
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of stealth and
erithromycin
> erithromycin wrote in message...
>>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and
>>why did you find it so?
>
> The last thing would have to be a payphone in the parking
> lot of the local A&W. It's not a booth as such, more one of
> those drive up phone thingies. The sign was lit with a yellow
> light, which reflected brightly off of the huge snow piles
> dwarfing the phone box on three sides. It was amazing
> and I hadn't ever noticed it before. Well... at least not since
> it had snowed.
There's something comforting about the juxtaposition of industrial
design and nature. I think that's one of the reasons why I like the
A-10: I've yet to see a picture of one that wasn't taken over rolling
desert or wooded german hinterland or just in the azure skies of
california. For much the same reason I love so much of classical soviet
engineering, if only because it's seen in the snow so often.
>>In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>>beautiful thing you ever saw?
>
>Wow, this is a tough one, and things are beautiful in
>so many different ways that it's hard to compare them all.
Well, given the response to this thread in even the last few hours I'd
say that we can safely start to discuss beauty as an abstract. I'll
agree that there are different types of beauty, but not that they can't
be compared. After all, surely the best measure is one's own emotional
response?
> hmm...
>
> >I've seen lots of beautiful things. I
> >hope you have too. What were they? [12] More importantly, and I
> >acknowledge reiteration may seem like belabouring, why were they
> >beautiful?
>
> I made sweet potato curry last night. It's a beautiful looking
> dish of all sorts of colors when it's done. It looks like fall. I
> love fall. Sitting in my equally beautiful calphalon wok, it's
> beautiful enough that I want to just stand there and look at
> it. I don't though. It smells too good to not eat.
Again with the food. Actually, woks are beautiful too, as examples of
near perfect design.
> I was given a Japanese-style tea cup for Christmas. It came
> from Crate and Barrel and is absolutely beautiful in it's
> simplicity. It has a rough brown ring around the rim and
> the body has a green glaze. I haven't used it yet, haven't
> had an occasion to use something other than one of my
> other tea cups or mugs. I have, however, gotten it out of
> the cupboard just to look at it.
I've got a couple of those, and am still to use them too. Some things
are so beautiful in their utility that it seems simultaneously wrong to
use them, but also wrong to reduce them to ornament. The cups seem to
fall into this category for me, so I propose an exercise. At some point
in the immediate future I will raise a cup of tea in toast to beauty.
Will you join me?
> I've been reading some Bradbury, I find his appreciation
> of life as well as his poetic use of metaphor (in prose no
> less!) quite beautiful.
Bradbury is underrated. His mastery of the short story is often
overlooked, which is, to be honest, a crying shame.
> The smile a girl smiled at me a couple of weeks ago. It was
> because of me too, which made it all that much better. Of
> course, it was because I was a big doofus, but it was still
> beautiful.
> Eyes. Eyes are like little jewels. Some are more
> beautiful than others, but they're all, in some way,
> beautiful.
>
Smiles and eyes are two things I expected to feature heavly in this
thread. They're really really big cues in emotional response, so it's
not a little unsurprising that we place such importance in them. Still,
it's nice to check. <smile>
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of
erithromycin
>erithromycin wrote:
>> I put these words [Indigo Lambast] together randomly during one of my
>> relatively stealthy drunken writing sessions [14].
>
> I was going to bitch that I couldn't find what your last footnote
> refered to but, damn there it is.
>
> You one of those people who eats their dessert first?
Ask jennie about that one. I'm not sure I bother to differentiate.
>>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and
>>[9] The immediate last. The one you saw before fingers touched
>>keyboard. That one.
> This post. Although I would like to point out that I am also _hearing_
> beautiful music, and _feeling_ beautiful cat teeth. [stop that, you]
I'm flattered, even with the qualifications. Thank you.
>Why? Because its well written and has far too many footnotes for its
>own good, and talks about beauty like there's some hope in the world
>and alt.gothic is just a nice place to hang out.
In order: Footnotes are a means to an end. I think linearly often
enough, but usually at the same time. There is hope, and beauty, and
each is often found in the other. Finally, a.g is a nice place to hang
out. You just need to make sure you snag a table near the bar that looks
out onto the dancefloor.
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of stealth and
erithromycin
> erithromycin wrote:
>> What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful [9,10], and
>>why did you find it so?
>
>the roots from the paperwhites trailing down through a mixture of glass
>pebbles, white quartz and smooth brown stones in a very pale blue glass
>pitcher on my windowsill.
Stone and glass reminds me of the tiny zen garden in my bookcase. I like
that a lot.
> > In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> > beautiful thing you ever saw?
>
>i don't know. honestly i don't. i get too caught up in the moment;
>the smells, the temperature, all of that, to actually know what *looks*
>beautiful. the best thing i ever smelled was hot dry pine needles and
>crushed wild rose leaves and earth.
Then that counts. There really shouldn't be a single sense of beauty. My
memories of Singapore are tied to the smell of satay on street corners,
the aseptic cleanliness of everthing, and the soft hums of
air-conditioning, barter level language, and the constant feeling of
warm humidity.
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of stealth and
erithromycin
> erithromycin wrote:
> >Late yesterday [6], I was "playing" [7] Trivial Pursuit.
>
>He was asking the questions. He wasn't prepared to risk public
>humiliation, like the rest of us, by possibly getting them wrong, but
>he does suit being a game show host rather well.
I have a fear of denting the mystique of being the omniescent drew the
world has come to expect. I'm not alone in knowing this is a lie.
<snip>
I'll agree though, about the rain.
> >[5] Glee. I like that word. Glee glee glee.
>
>It's almost onomatopoeic, isn't it? One's mouth forms the same shape
>when speaking it and when feeling it. ;) Perhaps 'synaesthetically
>onomatopoeic' would be the best way to describe it.
I'm still smilng now. Glee.
>>[10] We'll gloss over the whole definition of beauty thing until
>>there's momentum.
>
> I expect that most people will think first of visual
> beauty. There is, however, much beauty which can be experienced by the
> other senses. Right now, I am aware of a certain beauty in the faint
> sounds of traffic from the motorway, which sound like waves on the
> sea. Also, beauty in the complex texture of the lace where my hand
> rests on my knee.
We're already getting that. Here's hoping that'll continue.
>
> >[11] If I could have a twee shotgun that played industrial music and
> >drank guinness and was a woman I'd be very happy indeed.
>
> Surely a twee woman with a shotgun (and those other
> qualities) would be a better idea; or you could do yourself an
injury...
That might be a better idea, but it's funnier this way.
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of stealth and wa
Jennie Kermode
>like an edible name of god too. I am firmly of the opinion that what you
>eat should be pretty, though I can't actually bring myself to attempt
>the almost mandatory double-entendre.
Where is Ron when we need him?
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"Luck can often save a man, if his courage holds."
Jennie Kermode
responded to rufus with:
>Things like Krak De Chevaliers impress me. Huge lumps of rock and
>savagery frozen in place by time and injury and circumstance. Actually,
>castles in general impress me.
It is a fortunate thing for us, history's heirs, that the
practical reasons for situating castles in particular locations, and for
constructing them in particular ways, happen to coincide so elegantly with
aesthetic ones. Although Edinburgh Castle isn't a 'proper' castle in that
its central buildings are comparatively modern, its position on that
dramatic clifftop overlooking the city, with the blue curve of the North
Sea beyond, gives it a quite remarkable beauty. Familiar though it is to
me, the sight still takes my breath away. More beautiful still is Casteal
Harlech, overlooking the stormy Welsh coast, so solid and so pale, proof
even against the armies of time. Apparently I tried to throw myself into
the sea from the battlements there when I was two. I suppose I loved it
even then.
>Glasgow's full of found beauty, largely because it grew and grows in
>fits and starts, as much by greed and avarice as sense.
One of the goals of its most avaricious dwellers has
traditionally been to display their wealth through the construction of
beautiful buildings, gardens and monuments. Hence the spectacular folies
of the Necropolis, the glorious bridges and fountains, the enormous
corniced ceilings now to be found in the most humble of abodes, the
multitudinous towering gothic churches and the exotic scents and hues of
the botanic gardens. I do not believe that I could ever love another city
so dearly as this.
Jennie Kermode
>jennie wrote:
>>He was asking the questions. He wasn't prepared to risk public
>>humiliation, like the rest of us, by possibly getting them wrong, but
>I have a fear of denting the mystique of being the omniescent drew the
>world has come to expect. I'm not alone in knowing this is a lie.
I used to care about such things. I guess I grew
up. ;) These days, I find it more amusing to shatter the illusions of
those who like to form grand ideas about me. I'm only interested in
cultivating the company of people who can stand me as flawed as I actually
am.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
Webpages at: http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
fuzzy pink satan
>One of the goals of its most avaricious dwellers has
>traditionally been to display their wealth through the construction of
>beautiful buildings, gardens and monuments. Hence the spectacular folies
>of the Necropolis, the glorious bridges and fountains, the enormous
>corniced ceilings now to be found in the most humble of abodes, the
>multitudinous towering gothic churches and the exotic scents and hues of
>the botanic gardens. I do not believe that I could ever love another city
>so dearly as this.
Once again I am stabbed in the chest by a reminder of how much
I miss out on by living where I do. *frown*
Someday. I promise to myself.. right now.
Edward Scissorhands
satan <killjo...@aol.comthpam> writes
>Once again I am stabbed in the chest by a reminder of how much
>I miss out on by living where I do. *frown*
>
>Someday. I promise to myself.. right now.
Glasgow is beautiful, in some ways, but remember that all of these
places are so much older than much of the US. And as a visitor to
Glasgow, I find you don't see as much of that as you would like. Heck,
the M8 just looks like any other damn road to me.
There's beauty everywhere, whether it's an 18th century tenement when
they still thought people needed 10ft ceilings (and outside bathrooms,
mysteriously), a colonial townhouse, or just a big chunk o' nature.
Miserable as I am, I don't think I miss out living in a wasteland area
of the Borders. I could find beauty in Hawick, if I had to.
Still, if you ever do visit, once you've seen Glasgow, you're welcome to
see what the unpopulated areas of the England/Scotland Border look like
- we'll[1] be happy to show you around.
EdwardS
[1] Of course Magdalene will be here by then. I'm sure of it.
magdalene
>[1] Of course Magdalene will be here by then. I'm sure of it.
Damn straight I will be. :)
And if Carrie comes to visit, I can show her the sheep in your backyard! Yay!
They are /most/ evil sheep who stare quite viciously at you when you walk past
them.
I've got the pictures to prove it.
~magdalene
still not quite awake
"Well hi, Mister Giggles! Why don't you get
a job? Then you can buy your own cheese."
http://www.manifest-angel.com/magdalene
Greylock: Monochrome Tart
>Jennie Kermode writes:
>> I do not believe that I could ever love another city
>>so dearly as this.
>Once again I am stabbed in the chest by a reminder of how much
>I miss out on by living where I do. *frown*
I know.
I have no feelings for my city whatsoever.
>Someday. I promise to myself.. right now.
I'll take pictures for you.
------
H*ydn www.goth.org.au I'msopsuedosopsuedoI'm www.darkwave.org.uk/faq/ag
Deemed "Officially rockin'" by Narnia and "Heartbreaker" by Barbarella
Deemed "the sarkiest, bitterest bastard on the newsgroup" by Basingstoke
Deemed "One-half of ACG's hottest platonic relationship..."
fuzzy pink satan
>I know.
>I have no feelings for my city whatsoever.
I didn't mean so much my city.. as
my friggin' continent. ;)
I dig Milwaukee. It has heaping piles of charm.
But I've also lived here for 22 years.
I grow bored.
Carrie
------------
kids love satan: http://ossuary.net/~skerrella/
"A devil gotta get up early to screw me." - Alain
Margaret A Sawyer
by Greylock: M. Tart@hotmai
> I have no feelings for my city whatsoever.
>
I've grown so bitter about mine. There are no decent paying jobs for
artists, yet any idiot[1] can walk in off the street to the local ISP
and get a $10/hour job for doing low level tech support. Whenever I go
to where I was originally from, I get all happy and start to enjoy
humanity again. I think that says something...
Megan
[1] No offense to tech supporters. This ISP actually does hire people
who don't know what they're doing, and they give a bad name to people
who actually do a good job at tech support.
--
Megan Sawyer
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~msawyer - New and Improved!
"No Ralph, Jesus didn't have wheels"
--
Greylock: Monochrome Tart
>>I know.
>>I have no feelings for my city whatsoever.
>I didn't mean so much my city.. as
>my friggin' continent. ;)
Ah, see, I like my continent.
There's something safe about living in what is arguably the World's
Greatest Democracy.
:)
`Una
<erithr...@888.nu> wrote:
>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful and why
>did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>beautiful thing you ever saw?
the last thing i saw that was truly beautiful was
my own face in the mirror.
i haven't seen my face clearly without the aid
and hindrance of a pair of glasses since i was
10 years old. that's sixteen years of seeing
my face as an abstract blur or with glasses,
perched on my nose, distorting a large portion
of my face. there aren't even any pictures
of my face without my glasses past the age of ten. [1]
when i first saw my face clearly without my glasses
i was shocked. it was so different. i didn't know if
i liked it. then, i realized that i was prettier
than i thought i would be without glasses, beautiful
even. then, i smiled. i saw my whole face with this
big smile on it. it was the most amazing thing.
it was beautiful to me because i finally found the
confidence to stop hiding. i have always hidden behind
my long hair and my glasses. they are the sheilds that
make me invisible when i do not want to be noticed.
i still wear my glasses when i work with the creep.
i don't know what the most beautiful thing i have
ever seen is. there are too many beautiful things
in the world to pick just one. there were the rainbows
a couple of months ago and the unbridled joy in the
face of the boy at work (who has become my friend)
as he ran outside to look at them. it was a perfect moment.
there was the look on my best friend's face as he looked
at me with nothing but love because he'd forgotten for
a moment that fat is a bad thing. maybe that was the
most beautiful thing because he wasn't looking at my
size and worrying about what his mother would think
if he ended up with me. he was looking at me with
nothing but the feelings he has for me and no thought
as to whether those feelings are right or wrong by
anyone's standards. he graced me with that look many
times and i miss it. i always know when his mother
has been criticizing his friendship with me because
he pushes me harder to keep working towards my goals
to lose weight. i used to think it was my weight that
was the problem in our friendship, but i think it's
his mother.
`Una - the love platypus
sees beautiful things everyday, but breathtaking
things a little less often.
[1] there is one self portrait of me with my
mother's glasses. i was 8 and i wanted to see
what i would look like with glasses. i couldn't
see my reflection clearly through her glasses,
so i used my camera to snap a picture of my
reflection. i'm surprised it turned out at
all because the lighting was poor at best and
i wasn't sure my aim was right nor my hands steady.
--
Gothae Una Verus
The Young Locust
http://www.velvet.net/~una
a turkey neck in a pot of water looks very much like a penis
Kris
><erithr...@888.nu> wrote:
>
>>What was the last thing you saw that was truly beautiful and why
>>did you find it so? In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
>>beautiful thing you ever saw?
One of the most beautiful things I've seen ever, was recent, and I get to see
it frequently, for which I am very lucky.
The peaceful look he gets when he sleeps brings out all kinds of things I
rarely mention when he's awake, because, I'm a very quiet person when it comes
to telling the people I love, that I love them, and such images are no
exception.
The last time I went skiing was incredible.. definitely another of the most
beautiful things I've seen... crisp, cold air, sparkling white everywhere, and
nobody else on the mountain yet.. the sun was still rising.. the lifts had
*just* started to move.. breathtaking it was... the views were awesome too..
made me feel particularly small, and insignificant.
I see so many little things that touch me, every day.. but most of the images
that bring out the best in me, are seekrit. :>
~Kris.
-----------------------------------------
Here we are again
Just face to facing
Each other another day
~NickelBack
-----------------------------------------
waif
> erithromycin wrote:
>
> In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> beautiful thing you ever saw?
>
oh.
Fourteen years old. That insane bus trip through Europe-- on the road every
other day, all the chaperones getting drunk every night. Through London,
through Paris, through three miserable cities of Italy and then up to
Lucerne, and Frankfort, then that long train ride down, the guards with
their machine guns who came in to wake us as we crossed the Chechoslovakian
border and back up again into East Germany.
We hit Berlin in the early morning, everyone's exhausted and dirty, nobody's
eaten in the past twenty hours, everyone's hauling a month's worth of
luggage and everyone's hauling ass because we've hit Berlin in the early
morning... we've hit Berlin at rush hour, and we're heading for public
transit.
Public Transit. Communist Country. Rush Hour.
Sixty-odd Yankee kids trying to keep track of ourselves because our
chaperones are too fucked up and too scared to track us.
The crowd caught us like a vice and moved us forward with the inevitable and
unthinking force of a child's hand wrapping around a pet mouse. Onto the
train. I'm sitting because I can't stand. I can't stand crowds and I can't
stand. I'm sitting on my own suitcase, probably, shaking a little but not
much because I've not enough focus to, fevered, bleary, bleeding,
frightened, and sick to my stomach...
and that's when the boy got on. The boy and his father. His father was a
tall, broad, bald man in a conservative grey business suit and he's just
like every other one of the dozens upon dozens of conservative grey adults
packed around us on this train except for that hand. That one hand that
never left his son. The boy stood ahead of him, no room for them to stand
side by side, no room to look at each other, and I think that boy was ten,
but he might have been a hundred for the look on his face.
He was too thin, and his eyes were too big, and he had a head of auburn
curls like some damn Hallmark angel-child, and the expression on his face
was
white, closed, brave... perfected restraint.
And with my hands closed over my cinching gut I looked at this boy, held up
by and holding up that hand on his shoulder that is a living testimonial of
love, at these two living and living bravely day by day in this city that
shrivelled me in some several minutes... and I was awestruck.
---
A year and a half and countless minutes and trials and terrors of teenhood
later, I walked into Mr.Bingham's classroom and he spins when he sees me and
says, "Germany's reunited. They're tearing down The Wall,"
and my mind's eye *snapped* back to that boy's face, a rubber band that had
been held to that point and waiting all this time, finally released.
--
----- waif
waif "at" treebyleaf "dot" com
http://treebyleaf.com
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> > erithromycin wrote:
> >
> > In that same vein, in fact, what was the most
> > beautiful thing you ever saw?
> >
<snips>
>
> A year and a half and countless minutes and trials and terrors of teenhood
> later, I walked into Mr.Bingham's classroom and he spins when he sees me and
> says, "Germany's reunited. They're tearing down The Wall,"
>
> and my mind's eye *snapped* back to that boy's face, a rubber band that had
> been held to that point and waiting all this time, finally released.
Will all please rise in the presence of genuine talent.
That was actually inspirational and finely done.
<applause>
>
> --
> ----- waif
erithromycin
Tiny Human Ferret <kla...@clark.net> wrote:
>
> Will all please rise in the presence of genuine talent.
>
> That was actually inspirational and finely done.
That a thread about beauty can produce something that beautiful *is*
beautiful. Go waif!
drew
--
"I'd like to introduce myself, I'm a man of stealth and waste."