Don't call me pretty

At brunch yesterday, we somehow got on the topic of gender roles (yes, yes, it's one of my favorite topics), which then turned into a discussion of how little girls and boys are addressed.  

Our friend Emily, a trained child psychologist, mentioned that adults usually immediately tell little girls they are pretty while they use more qualities to address little boys, ranging from strong to smart.  This discussion reminded me of this article by Lisa Bloom which reminds the audience to avoid the immediate reaction to call a girl pretty and focus on other things, like "what' are you reading" or "what do you like to do."  Note: I'm bookmarking this for my future niece coming this July.

Since I've already gone pretty rogue with this blog posting bits and pieces of things I've made, I decided to post a poem I wrote this morning (see the photo above).  I don't think I've written a poem since I was 10 during a haiku assignment, but oh well, here you go.

In conclusion, don't call her pretty.  (well, sometimes it's great to hear... just not all the time)

Lessons from the Dead Poet's Society

Apple has a history of prodigious advertisements that elevate their product from a device to a philosophy.  

There's the 1984 Superbowl Commercial, the Think Different campaign and now this...

The video didn't make me want an i-pad.  It made me revisit clips from the Dead Poet's Society.

Here's some of my favorite parts (sorry for the low quality footage from youtube)

On conformity ...

On changing your perspective...

On seizing the day...

[Cool Chicks] Some Epic Poetry Slamming

I started a new role at Google this week, so I've been extra busy (re: sorry, for ignoring you, blog).

I ran into these 3 AMAZING college women, slamming some good, feminist truth.

Definitely worth spending the 7 minutes watching.

Anais Nin on a Monday

Martin Klimas

Risk
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.
- Anais Nin (a very cool chick)

Poem for a Weekend: I Carry Your Heart with Me

http://www.sparrek.org/

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

- e. e. cummings

Not your typical Craigslist Ad

I'd say take a bet that 75%+ of jobs posted on Craigslist are escorts or "booth girls".  

And, then there is Aaron Belz.  He sells his poetic service.

Would you take him up on the offer?

(here's one of his poems)

Worms

Cyclists, as a rule, think bikers are cheating,

because they have engines. Pedestrians, in turn,

think cyclists are cheating; they use wheels.

People in wheelchairs think pedestrians

have a leg up, for obvious reasons,

but pedestrians think the same thing

about people in wheelchairs; they use wheels.

What makes people in wheelchairs unique

is that they also think cyclists and bikers

are cheating. Their disdain is uniform.

The wheelchairists' hypocrisy lies,

however, in their use of automobiles.

Everyone uses automobiles except worms.

Worms think they're better than everyone.

Worms think they're more authentic than everyone.

This is why people say worms are self-righteous.

To worms' credit, however, they aren't hypocritical,

except the ones that glide down the sidewalk

on hundreds of tiny legs, blithely ignoring

their wilted, sun-blackened comrades.

Those worms are called millipedes.

Those worms are really bad apples.

[A Poem for a Sunday] Power

Power by Adrienne Rich

Living in the earth-deposits of our history 

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth 
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old 
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic 
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate. 

Today I was reading about Marie Curie: 
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness 
her body bombarded for years by the element 
she had purified 
It seems she denied to the end 
the source of the cataracts on her eyes 
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends 
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil 

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.

[A Poem for a Monday] The Summer Day

Photopin

The Summer Day (Mary Oliver)

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

[A Poem for a Friday] Laughing Heart

Laughing Heart.

Your life is your life
don't let it be clubbed 
into dank submission.

Be on the watch.
There are ways out.
There is a light somewhere.

It may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.

Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.

You can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, 
sometimes.

And the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

[Charles Bukowski]