Spoken Word Group!
I am once again involved with a new group. I can't seem to stay out of harm's way. But, this project is something I've been wanting to do for a while and doing it in collaboration with others means it's more likely to get off the ground:
Elocutionists is a spoken word group; our aim to to bring a voice to poetry, prose, and other writings. We're still working out a bunch of things behind the scenes, but I'd like everyone to be aware of it and maybe consider putting it on Watch. If you have a WordPress, we have a blog there as well. We have a pretty solid team so far, most of whom have their own reading blogs.
I keep my personal readings over on WordPress.
disrhythmic has a Tumblr.
LionesseRampant uses SoundCloud.
And MindlessThinker prefers to use SoundCloud.
One of the projects I'd like to work on is a discourse on how to read a poem. I'm constantly bringing up the effect punctuation has in poetry when critiquing; it's one of those things that's easier to hear than it is to explain. I plan to take full advantage of these too-expensive headphones my brother bought a few weeks ago 
Personal
The weather is an oscillating menace. Yesterday I had to wear long sleeves and today it was 80 degrees outside. Just pick something and stick with it for a while, yeah?
Aside from working on recordings, my big project for the weekend will be completing my Translation Project. I am now relatively fluent in Early Middle English (that would be just before Shakespeare). Part one was a literal word for word translation; part two is where I make decisions like "how/ do I want to keep the rhyme scheme," "they used this word, but there's a better modern equivalent" and things like that. How to preserve the original intent, but make the poem readable to modern audiences. I'm doing my darndest to keep the rhyme scheme, but it's going to put up a fight.
I have a secondary unofficial project that I've been working on for a few weeks in which I edit radio scripts for Dr. Minnick. Kinda goes right along with all this business about recording. In about a month, we should be in the recording studio (well, he will be, I'll just tag along 
). I've never written anything with the intention to be read aloud, which is why I'm glad I'm only editing. I'll be doing some research for him this weekend too, for the next batch of scripts.
I'm not getting graded for any of that, but I'm enjoying he experience
So my Internet blew up over the Disney buys Lucasfilm thing, and I can't help but wonder - what is everyone so worried about? It's not like anyone can ruin Star Wars better than Lucas 
And yes, Disney had been in a slump for a few years, but I think they're crawled out of it admirably and gotten their heads screwed back on; everyone raved about The Avengers over the summer. Don't pretend you didn't love it.
Home on the Range excepted, Disney makes mediocre movies at their worst. And at their best they make Beauty and the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean, UP!, The Lion King, Tangled, Holes. Their good movies FAR outweigh their bad ones. Even just looking at the animated canon, 48 out of 50 of those films fall on the "not terrible" side of the scale. That's an amazing track record.
Besides, this means Kingdom Hearts 3 has the potential to feature characters from Disney, Final Fantasy, The World Ends With You, Marvel, and Star Wars! 
Around dA
A Realistic Short Fiction Contest. The prompt is rust and the deadline is December 8th.
Vintage Christmas story contest.
This week's Saturday Spotlight is on running-in-the-rain!
I guess I'm closing Passages again. 
Thinking about commissioning someone to draw Autumn and Lawrence for me. Know anybody? Are you somebody? 
Features!
Sorry that the lit. thumbnails are still being wonky
Bitlets 12If hitchhikers were any younger
they'd skip hopscotch across
states and provinces; instead
they play four-square
in the same four counties
close to their home town
because they lost their sense of wanderlust
when they bought a map of North America
and drew stars on where they wanted to go,
but never made the effort to take it
out of the glove compartment.
LingerieEvery woman owns one garment
that remains tucked away,
saved for special occasions
when it will be seen.
It is almost always midnight
black, or blood red, and
covered in lace, or made
of mesh, soft and delicate
as the skin it covers.
Such things should be hidden,
lest the owner be labeled
as something other than "lady."
It has a power we can't
control, one that transforms
denim and cotton clad
ragdolls into Barbies,
perfectly proportioned plastic,
smooth and flawless hourglasses
that turn on command.
We groan and flinch
as satin strings pull us
apart and together,
and heartstrings are plucked
as we scrutinize our reflection;
we are not diamonds
with perfect exteriors--
we are fractured, as we
realize hourglasses can be exchanged
for quartz watches that are
faster, more convenient,
incapable of failure
made by the obsolete.
A Night at Pinetop's TavernSomewhere in the back alleys of the city's older section there was a crumbling brick building that had been around since before ragtime music was popular. Hanging above a faded green door that led down to the building's cellar was a wooden sign, and despite the peeling paint, you could still make out the bar's name: Pinetop's Tavern. Nobody really knew when Pinetop's first opened; local folks would tell you it had been there since time began, and the world had grown up around it. It was one of those places where the lighting was always dim and the cigarette smoke never dissipated and the cloud you were breathing now had probably been around since W. C. Handy was still alive.
Pinetop's Tavern was a blues joint, and it had been around almost as long as blues music itself. Blues music was a lot simpler than most kinds of music—simpler chords, simpler lyrics, and most blues musicians couldn't read sheet music. The genre was born on some unknown plantation in the forgotten Deep
Colouring InSometimes when I'm bored, I doodle in my head. I take up an imaginary pencil and draw leaves and flowers on the trees, birds in the sky, butterflies which land on my arms. I fill the sad world with colour. I draw smiles on people's faces.
My brother was a soldier, but they sent him back when he couldn't shoot anymore. I draw him back his missing arm and a medal on his chest and make his mouth touch his ears at each end. He doesn't smile much, now, and he says they don't award medals for bad luck.
I colour in the square, grey buildings of the city which fills my canvas as far as I can see. The library is green, like the plants I've seen pictures of there; the hospital is red for blood; the prisons are blue for sad; I fill in the government building with black; and the adjoining military headquarters is bright orange and yellow for the bomb which started all this.
I draw Mummy next to Daddy. She holds his hand and her smile reaches up towards her pencil-dot eyes. Sometimes I draw in her
The Importance of Gold FlecksHereditary.
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I learned the meaning of the word when I was young on a summer afternoon. Too hot to play outside, I was sitting with my dad on our blue couch with the small white polka dot fabric. In retrospect, it was probably a tacky piece of furniture, but love is unconditional when you are small, and I sure did love that couch. I remember my dad watching Winnie the Pooh with me every Saturday morning on its spotted cushions. That day, though, we had a conversation about eyes that I never forgot, and even then, its deeper meaning was not lost on me.
"Daddy, your eyes are green like a cat's," I said.
He smiled, and told me that mine were also green, but unlike his, they changed colors. "Sometimes they are blue. Your eyes were so blue when you were a baby! Big and blue.... Someti
DandelionsI remember,
When I was just a little kid
In spring,
I would pick dandelions.
My mom told me not to pick them
Because they were weeds.
"But mom," I would argue,
"Dandelions are flowers,
Not weeds!"
I remember
Not being able to comprehend
How something so pretty
Could be a bad thing.
Besides,
They weren't hurting anyone.
Now, I wonder-
Who is more at fault?
Me,
For judging by looks
Or my mom,
For judging by labels.
But one thing I am sure of;
Neither of us
Gave dandelions
A fair chance.
1..87) Today you hugged me. And it was the nicest thing in the
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world. I miss that.
3) The crook of your neck where your collarbone meets
your shoulder had become my new favorite place in the
world. It was warm and safe and had the benefit of having
your arms around my waist.
1) We always play too many mind games. With each other
and with people who we know don't really care about us.
Its fun to scramble their thoughts and mess up their minds
with pushpull scenarios and awkward word conversations.
6) And you told me you loved me. Before breaking my
heart in two. The pieces clattered to the floor and shattered
into a thousand shards. One of them must have caught me in
the eye because I can't stop crying.
5) We're pretending again...and thi
Autumn HeartsBrittle paper threatens to flake away in my hands, so delicate from all my loving caresses.
Letters, of love and longing, hatred and despair, anger and loneliness. Sweet and harsh, your words splay across the page, obscenely raw and honest. My fingers trace the curves and edges of your letters, imagining your hand flying across the white expanse.
Every word is a thread in the giant web that still connects us, though we are now so far apart.
Words are all that I have left of you, all that I have left of everything that passed between us. Our romance, red and gold and burnished like autumn.
The newest letter came a month ago. I remember my hands shook as I peeled open the seal. I am always scared, though you have been writing for years, though you clearly expect no reply.
I am always scared that the next letter will say goodbye.
A picture fell out of the envelope. A brightly-colored picture, jewel greens and shimmering blues, a golden yellow light. Two people wrapped around each o
