In Which I Take a Break from Literary Genius to Bring You News of the Outside

Blogger Buzz: Concerning the Historie and Nature of Blogs of Note

How intensely interesting... Here I was thinking that Google, with all their fancy tech-knowledge-y-ness would decide what their "blogs of note" were by seeing which blogs were getting the most traffic and positive comments. But. No. They just skim around and arbitrarily look for ten blogs out of thousands that strike them as interesting. Real scientific.

Has anyone else noticed that it's impossible to search for other blogs by topic? Well, either it's impossible to do it, or it's damn near it. So much for easy interface. Let us rally together, and fight the bitches! Bloody the bitches! Revolution!!!

Yeah.

So, I've decided to post my favorite peace of prose to date. That oughta cheer you up (I know you're distraught)

“A Good Book”

There is nothing so decadent and voluptuous as a book sitting fat and unopened on the shelf, like the most sensual secret whispered haughtily between lovers—a novel that looks so plump and inviting, beckoning like a pretty young prostitute, “Read me, deeply and knowingly, peruse my secrets and my darkest corners, touch the cobwebs of my soul, read me, oh, oh, read me!” A title that flirts with your senses. The Joy Luck Club, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Bluest Eye, Anna Karenina, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Lolita—teasing, provoking, cunning, kissing titles, like geishas, coy and lovely. Like a veiled bride, like the first bud of spring.

Like a photograph of lovers in trench coats meeting in the St. Petersburg snow, exchanging letters with wax seals, eyes locking—blue eyes, love-making eyes—and red, red lips. The cathedrals that soar over their heads are in black and white, blurred in a swirling background. Silhouetted against the grey towers, her hair is brown, curled. And she is classically beautiful and so his he, with his strong chin, daring eyes, and sensuous lips. The snow is so white, and it’s like the most hauntingly beautiful Christmas you ever dreamed (the year when the lights made glowing gum-drop patterns in the fiery snow, when your breath puffed in cotton candy clouds, and your mother bought you the most beautiful dark green coat, with the big, fat buttons and the narrowed waist, the one that made you look so grown up. And you were only 6 and you were in love with life; with the lonely sounds of the railroad tracks mingled with the laughter in the candy shops, mingled with the bells and rosy voices soaring from the vaulting cathedral heights. )

There is a universe of loss to be read in that scene, in those eyes.

Later she will be sprawled on his bed, in his penthouse apartment. And there are no shades and the city is glowingly alive through the windowpane, but abandoned by its sleepy denizens—a snowy skeleton sprawled out beneath their arching bodies. And she is in her lacy lingerie, so unbearably white, as white as her skin is white, as white as her hair is dark, as white as her eyes are brooding. You know it will be so, as certainly as you know the hollowness in your own heart—the aching want that wants to be filled with her eyes, her cheeks, her smile, her story.

She is an orphan. Her tightened muscles and darting eyes tell you so; exclaim it. Her parents met in some slum in Leningrad, in some romantic, vodka-fueled, passionate, and tragic tryst not so unlike the one she is having tonight, but without the glamour, brandy, and cigars. You can tell because her speech is all sophistication and cunning, but with a bite and bitter aftertaste that speak to working-class lovers, sloppy kisses, and bad breeding. She is a spy. You can tell by the way she hides her teeth when she laughs, like her mirth is a badly-kept secret. You can tell by the way she makes love, because her moans are deeper than the darkest well, and her eyes are shut against her pleasure.
Her name would be something foreign, feminine, and rare- a sapphire of a name, strong and deep, faceted and light-catching, satin and steely. Fantine, Anna, Marie, Cossette, Wei Wei, Eowyn, Summer, Miranda, Esmeralda, Nina. Nina, Nina, like a tiny ballerina, like a broken promise, like a runaway child, like a brief touch of heaven for an eternity in hell- burning passion and longing, locked up, tortured, burning, burning, while she is so coy, so afraid, and laughing cruelly all the while. Like Antoinette posed on the guillotine, precious and guilty. Like snow. Nina, Nina.

You could put her in a cage, like a sparrow, but she would neither fly nor sing. You could beg her to dance, to but speak your name, but she would deny you, again and again. Oh, but that would only make you love her all the more, dream of her always- of her nakedness under the snowing sky, of your name being swirled on her tongue, of her sure fingers dancing some mournful waltz on the piano as her eyes contemplate the grey and dreary countryside, misty and lonely beyond the clouded windowpane. You could keep her forever, and still she is always a secret, always safe from your prying thoughts, but you- she had every corner of you from the moment she thought to glance you, nothing of you is a mystery worth wanting, and you know it—knew it from the moment you saw her photograph, faded and dying in some attic somewhere. Dead and bones crumbling in some grave, anonymous and dirt, she is still more alive than you have ever been. She is intoxicating, unbearable, and never, ever yours.

You tuck the book under your arm. It feels secure and right, nestled against your side, the vaulted secrets of a life that never lived, but will live on long after the worms have forgotten you. You will lie in bed and it will whisper such secrets in your ear, the most patient of lovers, because it has forever.

There is nothing more beautiful, whole, and good than the tragically suggestive; nothing more dear than the company of a good book.

It's a prose poem! So smile!

Good Cheer and Violent Rioting Forever!
---Your Always Lovely Mei-Mei