Mrs. Dalloway's pocket poem

The Origin of the World

About suffering they were never wrong. - W.H. Auden

They knew something about pleasure, too,
those painters; they understood
how it may be compounded
of the simplest elements, the merest trace
of water or light.

Courbet's L'Origine du monde, for instance.
The bedclothes are thrust aside
and a woman's sumptuous thighs
sprawl open the canvas toward you
as  you approach.

Courbet studies his nude with the acuity
of a lover. And lets you see
in the crest of reddish fur
at the body's threshold
a hint of wet

like the dab of white in the iris
that lights the eye.

- Chana Bloch

Jack, AKA The Baba

Maizie gets licky wid it

39

Birthdays are so strange, so loaded. It almost feels as though you're required to be happy throughout your special day. And I am happy, but I am also anxious, as I so often am. I know I am lucky for what I have. I know there is also so much that I want. All in all, not the worst place to be.

Happy fifth anniversary!

The fam on the way to the Russian River. Happy anniversary, baby. I love you more every day!

Play fetch with us!

RIP Roger Ebert

Damn you, 2013. You are taking too many amazing people. Today Roger Ebert died at the age of 70. He was a great man and a huge influence on me. When I write, I so often think of a line I once read by him, something to the degree of specifics create the best universalities.

I first became a huge fan while working at the Fairfield Daily Republic, where his reviews would run on the wire. Then I read his Sideways review, where he noted that, at heart, a drunk is always planning his drinking, and I realized (after so many others) that this was more than just a movie reviewer. This was a philosopher, and a brilliant one at that.

Adam and I saw him at the Castro Theater a few years back. He and his wife Chaz seemed like great people. It's a very sad day.