La Belle Dame Sans Merci

You discover something that you think you really like. You don't really understand it, but you're sure it's the best thing thats ever happened to you. You are thrilled. You focus on it. You give into the beauty and richness and pleasure, and let it overwhelm you.

Then the pleasure is gone. Far more than a normal letdown, the experience has left you crippled emotionally. At least for a while, you don't talk about regretting the experience. And it remains an important part of who you feel you are.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every section of the movie, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening Credits: America the Beautiful - Ray Charles

Waking Up: Sing - Travis

First Day at School: We are family- Pointer sisters

Falling in Love: Brighter than sunshine - Aqualung

Fight Song: If I ever lose my faith in you - Sting

Break up Song: Bye bye love - Simon and Garfunkel (Ha!)

Prom: One - U2

Life's OK: Imagine - John Lennon

Mental Breakdown: Holding back the years - Simply Red

Driving: Achilles heel - Toploader

Flashback: Strangers like me - Phill Collins

Getting Back Together: I fought the law - The clash

Wedding: The Bartender And The Theif - Stereophonics

Birth of a Child: Never felt like this before - Shaznay Lewis

Final Battle: Hard to get - Rich Mullins

Death Scene: Hey Jude - Sting, Elton John, Eric Clapton

Funeral Song: The Who - Quadrophenia

Closing Credits: Message in a bottle - Sting

'The phrase "in the dark", as i'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact, in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but inthe dark in the dark nonetheless, not only becasue of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the darkabout the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park. '

The series of unfortunate events - The end -Chapter 9 - Lemony Snicket

Wow!

How totally bizaar!

Trick photography at lowdown... 

Two poems today; i am unsure of why i like this first one so much, but i do. It's called 'Once upon a time'.

Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed
they used to shake hands with their hearts:
but that’s gone, son.
Now they shake hands without hearts:
while their left hands search
my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home’! ‘Come again’:
they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
there will be no thrice –
for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – homeface,
officeface, streetface, hostface,
cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’;
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare
fangs!

So show me, son,
how to laugh; show me how
I used to laugh and smile
once upon a time when I was like you.

Gabriel Okara

I could write an essay including all the poetic techniques displayed in this poem, but i will save you the greif of reading it. Poem two- just because of the date, but also because it is surprising how many people only know the first two lines by heart:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

It may be a nursery rhyme, but I can't see children singing the full version of this!

Anyway, me and Lucy decided that in our english lesson, revision was the lesser option, and consequently wrote two poems, based on another two poems.

The first one is based on 'I shall paint my nails red' by Carole Satyamurti. So here goes:

I shall paint my nails black

Because Carol Satyamurti paints hers red.

Because i am a rebel.

Because black has more depth than brown.

Because my mother will be horrified.

Because it is less obvious than black lipstick.

Because it makes my hands stand out.

Because emo society dictates it.

Because it keeps me company.

Because it distracts me.

And I won't write the last line for sanitys sake.

The second poem is based on 'An unknown Girl' by Moniza Alvi. I love this poem, but i we have managed to destroy it completely!

An unknown German

An unknown German

Is filling my shoes

With gravel off the drive

And turf from the lawn.

An unknown German

Is saluting her Fuhrer

With a fake moustache

And a swastika badge.

Posters of the saviour

Slathered on the walls

Pictured on horseback

In a sea of glowing ambience.

An unknown girl bows down.

Hehe! You have to read the original to see the humor, if you even want to call it that!

I am reading two books at the moment, and they both have great paragraphs I just have to share with the world, so here is book 1:

'Chapter 1
If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling it in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegatable.'

Series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket - The end

Hows that for a first topic sentence?

And book 2:

'She reached down into his throat and grabbed his heart, pulled it out, threw it on the floor, stepped on it with her high heels, spat on it, shoved it in the oven and burnt it. Then she sliced it into little pieces, slammed it on a hunk of toast and served it to him, and then expected him to say, thanks honey, it was delicious.'

The girl in Times Square - Paullina Simons

Ha!

Well I promised pictures...