perspective.

when it is darkest, men see the stars.

ralph waldo emerson.

some we love, some we hate, some we eat.

In a constant moral battle with myself I am faced with the ethical dilemma... how can I love dogs, eat turkeys and wear cows? In Hal Herzog's book Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, he articulates this 'middle' ground I face like many other animal lovers. Like most people, he too is conflicted about our ethical obligations to animals. We middlers see the world in shades of gray rather than clear blacks and whites of committed animal activists. We live in a complex moral universe. I eat meat- but not veal or lamb. I am appose to testing makeup on animals but, would sacrifice hoards of mice to cure cancer. I think Herzog puts it perfectly, "...the troubled middle makes perfect sense because moral quagmires are Ginevitable in a species with a huge brain and a big heart. They come with the territory."

game of thrones.

read the series. watch the show. you will not be disappointed. magically medieval.

emotions aren't covered by single words.

emotions in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness", "joy", or "regret". maybe the best proof of that the language is patriarchal is that is oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say, "the happiness the attends disaster." or "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "imitations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with the "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never never had the right words to my life, and now that I have entered my story, I need them more than ever.

thank you jefrey eugenides author of middlesex.

bathroom stall.

A quotation from jeffrey eugenides' (author of the virgin suicides) novel middlesex has recently stood out to me. I love finding meaning beyond the surface of things, especially those that concern identity and adolescence. In this case, the bathroom stall. The center of the universe for any high school, secrets are told and tears are cried. with more privacy than the locker room the bathroom stalls provide an isolation away from the chaos of high school. some discover their first period, others purge their last meal. some find safety and others fear harassment. eugenides writes "Where else would a girl like me, hiding from the world of knowledge she didn't quite understand herself - where else would she feel more comfortable than in this subterranean realm where people wrote down what they couldn't say, where they gave voice to their most shameful longings and knowledge?".

3DD

teenage dreams really do come true. a new book that is dedicated to BOOBS and it is in 3-D. money.

the concept: The temptation was to write a long piece justifying our creation of 3DD. We could have thrown in some academic analysis on the prominent role of the nude in the history of art and elaborate on the ways that 3DD advances that canon. We might have pointed out that the beautiful images of natural breasts in all shapes and sizes are a wonderful celebration of real women in all their glory. Or we could have reveled in the universal truth that looking and talking about boobs is just a lot of fun.

But that would be to complicate something that can be said in four words.

Boobs in 3-D

catcher in the rye.

The Catcher in the Rye
 by J.D. Salinger, 1945. If you never read it, read it. If you have read it, read it again. It is impossible not to some days relate to Holden Caufield in his red hunting hat, surrounded by phonies...

“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.”

“I was sixteen then, and I'm seventeen now, and sometimes I act like I'm about thirteen. It’s really ironical, because I'm six foot two and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head-the right side-is full of millions of gray hairs. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still act sometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It’s partly true, too, but it isn’t all true. People always think something's all true. I don’t give a damn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes I act a lot older than I am-I really do-but people never notice it. People never notice anything.”

“If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody”

“That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ.
They can drive you crazy. They really can.”

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."

“It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.”

“All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

“It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.”

Image: flickr ciel photography