Moving Right Along

Mad Science Sunday - The Final Installment

There are so many things Sara left undone, but today I'm happy to announce that the community of mad scientists, voyeurs and gawkers that eagerly awaited the final outcome of Mad Science Sunday can rest at ease.  Here for your viewing pleasure is the final picture of the hydrophilic Santa and severed leg that has been sitting on top of our refrigerator for about a year.  Here at last we present the results, and await the conclusion of the peer-review process to which you will undoubtedly subject our findings to.

Now that was all for Sara, but I feel I have to add my own commentary here.  Honestly, I have been called a perv for wanting a litte bondage during sex, but to keep Santa in a bottle, and have a growing severed leg on my refrigerator, right next to the cat shaped salt and pepper set is really far more perverted than anything I ever got into.  No, please, don't justify your dirty little habits to me, so long as it doesnt' increase my taxes or make my neighborhood look rundown I don't want to know.  

Sticks of Incense

There's a lot I thought about writing today.  My own grief of course, recent ruminations on attachment and sacrifice, our unwillingness to betray our grief and the need to prove we were loved.  All these topics seem to want to be put to paper or blog but I fear co-opting you, gentle readers, which would prevent this entry from being the offering I mean it to be.  Instead I will offer you two poems I found while doing a little cleanup around Sara's poetry bookcase and let the works speak for themselves.

From "Japanese Death Poems" compiled by Yoel Hoffman and published by Tutle Publishing, Boston, MA:

Kozan Ichikyo

Died on the twelfth day of the second month of the year 1360 at the age of seventy-seven:

Empty-handed I entered the world,
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going -
Two simple happenings
That got entangled

A few days before his death Kozan called his pupils together, ordered them to bury him without ceremony, and forbade them to hold services in his memory.  He wrote this poem on the morning of his death, laid down his brush, and died sitting upright.

While Sara would have felt similarly about ceremonies and services, she would never deny her friends the chance to throw a party. 

From "The Golden Treasury" compiled by Francis T. Palgrave and published by Dodge Publishing Company, NY:

Time and Love

When I have seen by time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age;
When sometimes lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the eternal ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,
Ruin has taught me thus to ruminate-
That Time will come and take my Love away;

-This thought is a death which cannot choose
but weep to have that which it fears to loose.

W. Shakespeare

Haiku's for Sara

From Sara's sister, Lynn:

So, to the artist endeavor in her memory --- When I first came up with the idea of a Haiku tribute to Sara, Erik hadn't yet posted to Sara's blog.  So it was just a few of us sad faces trading mournful e-mails of loss.  Since then I've read an amazing diversity of blog postings here and I am humbled; and I realize now that maybe my proposal isn't needed. But, who knows?  Maybe you'll embrace it and we can put together something amazing in honor of my sister --- something she would have loved because it meant she inspired art in others (all while costing nothing and leaving no additional carbon footprint!). 

To see some great examples of Haiku, go to Sara's website (Erik, thanks for keeping it going!) www.saraarts.com and click on "Some Haiku". 

A Haiku doesn't need to rhyme.  It is a concise expression of a larger concept --- theoretically about nature.  So, how about our inspiration being Season of Sara -- some poignant moment, memory, thought about her --- that particularly touches your heart.

Sara recently told me that she thought her greatest gift as an artist was to see the beauty of the small within the large.  I can't think of a better way to honor her memory with each other and in a lasting way than to share Sara inspired Haiku.

If you are inspired to write a Haiku, please send them to me at:

lynnballou at comcast dot net

(don't post here) and I will compile them and put together some sort of cyber Haiku art show in her memory and honor.  Some of you have already sent some beautiful haikus to me along with wonderful notes and memories, which will be treasured. When we are done writing my husband hopes to have time to writing a piece of music using these poems and his own memories of her as inspiration.

Again, please send them to me, and please let me know who you are so I can thank you!  And, please note that none of this will be copywritten or in any way legally protected --- it's just a simple way to pay tribute with love with respect to Sara and her values.

Doom and Gloom

1. The temperature outside is dropping below 32 degrees tonight.
2. Wednesday is tax day.

'nough said.

Spirited Movie Watching

Among so many things that my sweetie left me with is our giant Netflix queue.  Sara categorized movies into those for us, and those for her.   When I get movies for her I play them, even if I don't intend to watch them, just in case there is an afterlife where spirits of our beloveds can enjoy life at 24 frames per second and 6.0 digital surround sound.

Last week was a couple of Italian flicks, Felini's La Dolce Vida and Bread and Tulips. 

I know many of Sara's readers are going to be Felini fetishists but I wasn't able to sit through more than five minutes of it.  It was too much like a Tennesee Williams play.  Yeah, I know, LDV is beatifully shot, realistic, powerful, poignant, and yet all the characters made me feel dirty just by watching them.  Don't need them in my head. 

On the other hand Bread and Tulips was a really great movie! I know Sara would have been cheering for our heroine from the first few minutes of the film and so did I.  There were a few moments I just found too painful, probably because I was greif stricken (see how easy this excuse is to use?) so I had to fast forward.  I could practically sense Sara's exasperation at being unable to pinch me for that, but I'm sure she's almost forgiven me, if she was around at all.     Anyway, highly recommended as a chick flick guys won't go screaming from.