Paris Pride

It takes some time to soak up the beauty of Paris. It is shockingly fantastic. Over-the-top fantastic. Girls-in-high-heeled-shoes and boys-with-languorous-eyes fantastic. Plus cute dogs.

Paris Gay Pride had the entire city rocking for hours. Straight people -- families, even, with tiny Parisians in baby carriages, and middle-age men and women in couples -- were everywhere, watching the parade, circling the Bastille. And thousands and thousands of gay people, from teenagers to incredibly sweet old lesbians. Maybe even more than 700,000 people.

Let's give a honorable French salute to the city street sweepers who swept the city streets after that big party. Whoa.

The Dickinsonian oracle is on vacation.

Cool Egyptian Fact #2

Recent advances in imaging technology, along with the imagination and skill of artists with nothing else to do, have made it possible--finally--to reconstruct the physical likenesses of people long dead (at least of those who have left their bones lying about). So it should come as no particular surprise, though surely a delight, that we now know what King Tut looked like.

And we finally, finally have confirmation of what many of us have suspected for decades, namely that Barbra Streisand is the reincarnation of the world's most famous, short-lived boy king.

Thank goodness.

On reincarnation, ancient Egypt, and Babs, the Dickinsonian oracle says:

Me -- Come! My dazzled face
In such a shining place!
Me - hear! My foreign Ear
The sounds of Welcome - there!

The Saints forget
Our bashful feet -
My Holidays, shall be
That They - remember me -
My Paradise - the fame
That They - pronounce my name -
(E. Dickinson, 389)

Feline Health Report #3

kitty is home.

kitty isn't quite himself.

kitty apparently told the good people at kitty klinic about his aspirations to join the circus. the good kitty klinic people outfitted kitty with a kitty clown collar. blue to match his eyes. kitty's considering "blue kitty clown collar kitty" as a stage name.

The Dickinsonian oracle offers this:

A Charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld -
The Lady dare not life her Vail
For fear it be dispelled -

But peers beyond her mesh -
And wishes - and denies -
Lest Interview - annul a want
That Image - satisfies -
(E. Dickinson, 430)

Feline Health Report #2

kitty is resting comfortably at kitty klinic after receiving two stitches.

kitty is wondering why his mothers don't feed him wet food.

kitty will return home this afternoon, much to the chagrin of two other kitties.

kitty vows to stay away from sharp objects, though is interested in trying out tight-rope walking.

unpon the kitty's successful surgery, the Dickinsonian oracle pronounces:

How much of Source escapes with thee -
How chief thy sessions be -
For thou hast borne a universe
Entirely away.
(E. Dickinson, 1567)

Feline Health Report #1

kitty to the kitty klinic for sliced wrist.

speculate (a) practicing knife juggling (b) attempted suicide (c) shameless cry for attention (may be variant of (b)).

leaning toward (a).

The Dickinsonian oracle offers this prognosis:

A Sparrow took a Slice of Twig
And thought it very nice
I think, because his empty Plate
Was handed Nature twice -

Invigorated, waded
In all the deepest Sky
Until his little Figure
Was forfeited away -
(E. Dickinson, 1257)

Cool Egyptian Fact #1

Those crafty Egyptians... they buried lovely little shabtis, or "answerer" figurines, with their dead (at least with their rich and royal dead) so that when the dead were prayed to and called upon to do work (like bringing on the rain), the dead needn't disturb their divine reposes; they just sent out their little shabtis to do the dirty work.

What a good idea.

On laziness in the afterlife, the Dickinson oracle pronounces:

It dont sound so terrible - quite - as it did -
I run it over - "Dead", Brain - "Dead".
Put it in Latin - left of my school -
Seems it dont shriek so - under rule.
(E. Dickinson, from 384)

Esoteric Scientific Theory #1

florigen

From the Latin, flora (flower) and genna (to beget).

That substance which explains the flowering of a plant (call this plant "Lily") upon the grafting of a blosom from another plant (call this plant "Dahlia") onto that first plant (you know, Lily).

Lily makes Dahlia bloom. Well of course she does.

But wait. "The inability to isolate florigen, however, has led some botanists to doubt wether the substance exists" ( so says the venerable Dictionary of Theories. 2002. Ed. J. Bothamly et al. Detroit: Visible Ink.).

What the boys don't know won't hurt them.

The Dickinsonian oracle knows. Miss Dickinson knows everything. Hence:

I tend my flowers for thee -
Bright Absentee!
My Fuschzia's Coral Seams
Rip - while the Sower - dreams -
(E. Dickinson, from 367)

Toddler Wisdom

This in from Madeline:

"Leave your mind alone and your projects will go away."

And the Dickinsonian oracle pronounces:

I had a daily Bliss
I half indifferent viewed
Till sudden I perceived it stir -
It grew as I pursued

Till when around a Hight
It wasted from my sight
Increased beyound my utmost scope
I learned to estimate -
(E. Dickinson, 1029)

Batwoman is one of us

Finally, Batwoman comes out from under the rafters. We always knew... Now we just have to wait for Thelma.

The Dickinsonian oracle celebrates Batwoman's joining the Dickinson fanclub:


Her spirit rose to such a hight
Her countenance it did inflate
Like one that fed on awe.
More prudent to assault the dawn
Than merit the etherial scorn
That effervesced from her.
(E. Dickinson, 1527)