Friday, January 30, 2009

mom... i'm a thespian...



hey guys!


guess what?!


i auditioned for the spring play at my school (i was the only freshman, too) and i'm the understudy for one of the lead roles!!


i'm also the assistant stage manager. but i don't care as much about that...


yay, understudy!!


anyway, my (well, sorta mine) character is a girl who's part of a really rich family in 1912. and she unknowingly pushes a girl named Eva into suicide.


she's kinda airheaded, and a little too naive, but hey! who cares?


today was our first practice in the theatre, and we did a bunch of weird stuff... we had to yell at each other from across the room.


we also played the question game! (if you don't know what that is, it's just a game where you keep asking questions to the people around you, and if you faulter, or wait too long, you're out). i won with the question "are those fake?"


we played a bunch of improv games, too...


so, anyway... back to the play...


we have to wear really old fashioned dresses (think of what the rich people wore on Titanic) and gaudy rings and broaches and hats.


i think it's gonna be really fun.




Sunday, January 25, 2009

my (maybe not so) slight obssession...


hey... it's me again!


today, or, tonight really, i am planning on introducing you to one of my obssessions...


Dylan Thomas.


really, it's just pathetic, but i love him to death. even if he was on drugs.


so here, is one of Dylan Thomas's most famous poems...



Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



is that not absolutely freakin' beautiful?!? he wrote it for his alcoholic father.


now, this poem is probably one of my absolute favorites...




In My Craft or Sullen Art

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms

I labour by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.


Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art



okay... there's a better version in a book i have, i'll fix this tomorrow.


and then, there are poems like this, which show how much on drugs he really was...




Not From This Anger

Not from this anger, anticlimax after

Refusal struck her loin and the lame flower

Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods

In a land strapped by hunger

Shall she receive a bellyful of weeds

And bear those tendril hands I touch across

The agonized, two seas.

Behind my head a square of sky sags over

The circular smile tossed from lover to lover

And the golden ball spins out of the skies;

Not from this anger after

Refusal struck like a bell under water

Shall her smile breed that mouth, behind the mirror,

That burns along my eyes.



funny thing is... i like that one a lot, too....


oh my goodness! this one's awesome, as well!




Sometimes the Sky's Too Bright

Sometimes the sky's too bright,

Or has too many clouds or birds,

And far away's too sharp a sun

To nourish thinking of him.

Why is my hand too blunt

To cut in front of me

My horrid images for me,

Of over-fruitful smiles,

The weightless touching of the lip

I wish to know

I cannot lift, but can,

The creature with the angel's face

Who tells me hurt,

And sees my body go

Down into misery?

No stopping.

Put the smile

Where tears have come to dry.

The angel's hurt is left;

His telling burns.


Sometimes a woman's heart has salt,

Or too much blood;

I tear her breast,

And see the blood is mine,

Flowing from her, but mine,

And then I think

Perhaps the sky's too bright;

And watch my hand,

But do not follow it,

And feel the pain it gives,

But do not ache.



gosh. he's so good. and fabulous. and whatnot.


okay, this is the last one, i promise. (you'll like it!)




Where Once the Waters of Your Face

Where once the waters of your face

Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows,

The dead turns up its eye;

Where once the mermen through your ice

Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers

Through salt and root and roe.


Where once your green knots sank their splice

Into the tided cord, there goes

The green unraveller,

His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose

To cut the channels at their source

And lay the wet fruits low.


Invisible, your clocking tides

Break on the lovebeds of the weeds;

The weed of love's left dry;

There round about your stones the shades

Of children go who, from their voids,

Cry to the dolphined sea.


Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids

Shall not be latched while magic glides

Sage on the earth and sky;

There shall be corals in your beds

There shall be serpents in your tides,

Till all our sea-faiths die.



okay, you have to admit... that poem is total genius. GENIUS!


well, i hope you get my slight obssession just a little bit better now...


-elise

Sunday, January 18, 2009

the list of things i want to do... eventually.

alrighty, i know that, technically, i'm not in Mr. Whoever's class, but i wanted to make one of these anyway.

:D


1. learn every word to "Busta Move"

2. dance and sing on the table in a cafe in New York City

3. lead someone to Christ without turning bright red and stuttering

4. take the water

5. memorize the first chapter of Paradise Lost

6. learn to juggle

7. go somewhere i've never wanted to go

8. go to Catholic Mass

9. learn as many languages as i can

10. make an absolute, and irreversible difference in someone's life

11. stay up for an entire 24 hours

12. learn to play the piano, or at least, Fur Elise

13. build a snowman

14. win the game

15. learn to play the guitar, bass, and violin

16. dye my hair purple again

17. learn how to cook a decent meal that won't kill someone

18. not get on the computer for a month, or longer

19. win an emmy, grammy, tony, and academy award

20. have a movie week

21. visit South Georgia Island

22. have my ashes turned into a firework

23. take an absolutely stupid and pointless course in college

24. win best delegate at the model un conference

25. be part of the trans-siberian orchestra

26. educate the world on the difference between the words "to" and "too"

27. save someone from drowning

28. watch a horror movie

29. be in two places at once

30. do something important

31. meet a modern-day Holden Caulfield

32. keep Chelsie from naming her child Wilson Gibgot

33. watch Mulan with Rachel and Jen twenty years from now

34. go back to Geode Mountain

35. tell a teacher my last name is pronounced "hare-eese"

36. dodge raindrops

37. win a spelling bee (without mispelling the word college... or should i say colledge?)

38. stuff a hundred roses into Krista's mailbox, just because she likes them

39. make my prom dress out of duct tape

40. meet the barenaked ladies

41. have someone write a song for me, or about me (yeah... that's a little cheesy. but, it'd still be awesome)

42. be a better listener

43. ride the chunnel

44. witness Abbey eating a piece of chocolate

45. sue somebody, just so i could say i did

46. convince somebody that i'm from france, or a relative of the queens

47. make a weekly video blog with someone, at sonic

48. pretend to eat meat in front of my friends

49. recieve a first edition copy of Sweet Darkness

50. make a quilt :D

51. be "aunt Elise"

52. find James a new buffalo necklace

53. hunt down every teacher i've ever had, and thank them

54. wear a suit and bowler hat around town, just because i'd look cool

55. succeed in never growing up

56. publish some flaming piece of crap

57. direct and design the marching band halftime show

58. own a rose brass, farkas, double horn, with a bell that screws off

59. learn how to skateboard

60. learn how to say no

61. design my dream home, have it built, and live there forever

62. eventually get married, even though it scares me a little

63. raise a kid, and hope they turn out right

64. give Evan an all-expense paid trip to Forks, Washington

65. make an outfit match

66. die on my birthday

67. drive across the country

68. find the blue dog

69. convince someone that human food wafers are a fabulous idea

70. memorize everything Dylan Thomas has ever written

71. convince someone i'm blind

72. have that feeling, you know, the one you can only say in French

73. make someone so happy they don't say anything



well, that's it. what do you guys think?

i think it's really cool.