The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 1-2

This show is too funny to watch when you have the flu. Every time I guffaw, it turns into an extended coughing spasm, and every third line makes me want to guffaw.

In an ideal world, I might be able to convince people to watch this by comparing it to Futakoi Alternative. In reality, few people have actually seen Futakoi Alternative (which is a damn shame, and comment if you'd like my help in rectifying that), and it would be fairly useless to describe how, like Futakoi Alternative, it smoothly mixes the bizarre with the mundane. I might do better to compare it to CLAMP crack--possessing of a unique, ironic weirdness too entertaining to begrudge.

Anyway, the title character is a high-school student obsessed with time-travelers, espers, aliens and paranormals, who's energetic and charismatic enough to drag a crowd of reluctant followers into her obsession. Beyond that, I have no idea what the story is, because the first episode is devoted to a parody of crappy, low-budget, science fiction flicks (and it is unspeakably hilarious, especially the narration), and introduces the real characters only in passing; episode two is mostly backstory.

Those who are interested, rest assured I'll be pimping this one--via multiple upload services, if that's what it takes.

April is National Poetry Month!

I'm too sick to offer commentary. Have a nice sestina.


"The Waking," Theodore Roethke.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

April is National Poetry Month!

April is also national-forgetting-to-post-a-poem-everyday month. Here's yesterday's. More Yeats, because I'm lazy, and I once named a fic after a line in this poem.


Stanza V from "Supernatural Songs," W.B. Yeats.

V. Ribh considers Christian Love insufficient

Why should I seek for love or study it?
It is of God and passes human wit.
I study hatred with great diligence,
For that's a passion in my own control,
A sort of besom that can clear the soul
Of everything that is not mind or sense.

Why do I hate man, woman or event?
That is a light my jealous soul has sent.
From terror and deception freed it can
Discover impurities, can show at last
How soul may walk when all such things are past,
How soul could walk before such things began.

Then my delivered soul herself shall learn
A darker knowledge and in hatred turn
From every thought of God mankind has had.
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.

At stroke of midnight soul cannot endure
A bodily or mental furniture.
What can she take until her Master give!
Where can she look until He make the show!
What can she know until He bid her know!
How can she live till in her blood He live!