Category Archives: Uncategorized

“L’Attuno,” by Giovanni Battista Caccini, Florence

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Blog correspondent Pete Harrison on the news about Daraprim.

From our own Pete Harrison:  “As a guy who has to take pills every day for the rest of his life just to stay alive, allow me to weigh in on the Daraprim controversy.

“If I was rich and controlled that drug, I agree, I would say the $13.50 per pill thing is ridiculous.

“Then I’d drop the price to $1.00 per pill. With the first six months of prescriptions free of charge for anyone, insured or not.

“Not because I’m a really great guy.

“Because I’m a human being with a soul.

“We’re all going to be DEAD someday. And you can’t take the fucking money with you.

“But you can go to your eternal rest knowing you helped people.

“That’s worth more than a billion dollars, man.

“Thanks for reading this.

“Peace.

“Up, over, and OUT.”

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“Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police.”

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

— from W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939”

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“In the Peristyle,” by John William Waterhouse, circa 1874

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Photo credit: John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO.

https://www.facebook.com/stephanie.lembo/videos/10153072516429149/?pnref=story

“Ophelia,” by John William Waterhouse, 1889

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Photo credit: John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

“Sonnet XVII,” by Pablo Neruda

“Sonnet XVII,” by Pablo Neruda (translated from the original Spanish)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

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Catch “Cooties” (2015) — you’ll like it.

And I am certain I am the only filmgoer who has come up with that clever headline.

This was fun, though — I’d give it an 8 out of 10.  It isn’t quite the instant classic you might expect from the trailer, but it’s an engaging horror comedy that made me laugh.

The running jokes connected with Elijah Wood’s straight man and Jorge Garcia (HURLEY!!!) ran thin early on.  (The former is an obsessed would-be author, that latter is a drug-addled security guard.)  Far funnier was an unrecognizable Rainn Wilson as the boorish gym teacher, and the pretty Nasim Pedrad as the paranoid aggressive.  The nod to The Lord of the Rings was especially nice.

Upstaging the entire rest of the cast, however, was a surprise comedic performance by the screenwriter himself, Leigh Whannell, as the office weirdo.  Whannell wrote this film along with other great horror movies like “SAW” (2004), and the “Insidious” films.  I had no idea that he could be so damn hilarious; he’s a talented guy.

If you like horror-comedies, check this out!

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Detail from the “Zuniga Map” of Virginia, featuring Jamestown and James Fort, circa 1608

From The Encyclopedia Virginia, The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities:

“The Zúñiga chart, a manuscript map of the Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater Virginia, features the bay’s major rivers, the location of Jamestown and James Fort, and the locations of sixty-eight Indian villages. The chart, probably a copy of a map made by Captain John Smith, was sent to King Philip II of Spain by Don Pedro de Zúñiga, a Spanish ambassador to England.”

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