A Single Layer

dear ridley scott, please make all my movies.

Two weeks is almost a record of unblogging for me. Many apologies to my faithful readers. I have been working a good deal, of course, what with the holidays. And my yesterday was filled with all the warm delights of a cider party at Emily's. This meant two kinds of cider for me (Strongbow!!!) and lots of sugar cookies! Thank you, Holly, for coming with. It was a good drive there and back again. The Christmas season is a little strange this year. The parents were going to be in Israel, so we made all our plans without them. Now they will be here after all, so our plans are split in two. It will be confusing and odd, but still Christmas. I didn't do my usual Advent posts this year, and I confess that I'm not quite holding onto the season as well as I usually do. It seems full of retail this year, and I regret that. I'll try to do better this week - despite it being the busiest, money-filled week of the year. All my Christmas love to everyone.

Because you all need more blogs to follow, this is my sister's blog from Africa. It will probably be updated very infrequently, considering the limitations of her internet access, but it's worth checking. I promise. Hopefully there will be pictures soon. I've seen some, and they're beautiful!

I'd like to give a shout-out to my neighbor, two houses down. He's an amazing man. To begin with, he entertains the neighborhood to no end by walking, jogging, or biking his dogs around several times a day. One of these dogs is an Irish Wolfhound the size of a small motorcycle. It's a wonder to behold. Impossible not to stop what you're doing and stare every time they go by. But this man does more than entertain. He's got some sort of tendre for the community. He picks up after everyone else's dogs. He gathers their litter every week as he makes his rounds. And right now, in the beastly pouring rain, he's standing on the corner fishing dead palm fronds out of the gutter with a rake so that the streets will stop flooding. I feel like I should be bringing him hot cocoa, but he's too busy to drink it, and his hands are full. Cookies, perhaps. Or some of that gingerbread already made. Everyone else is at work. No one knows what he does but me, curled up with

The miracle of Till We Have Faces is that every time I read it, I swear I am reading about myself on every page. Walk away, and there is small resemblance between me and that veiled sister. Open it up, and it is me again. It is me. It doesn't matter that I know the end. It doesn't matter that I know she's mistaken and bitter and blinded and wrong wrong wrong. Talent cannot write this stuff. It is made out of miracle. Out of an uncanny sight.

My new favorite sentence, from my always favorite author, on the danger of poets being the only qualified critics of poetry: 'The republic of letters resolves itself into an aggregate of uncommunicating and unwindowed monads; each has unawares crowned and mitred himself Pope and King of Pointland.' - Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost Yes, Edinburgh fellows, he just used the word 'monad'. And Walter Benjamin thought he was being all clever...

thank you, benji.