LADYBLOGS DRINK FREE: I have two posts up, on polar explorers as Gothic romance heroines and an open thread asking for your best Obama-supporter victory cries, with my own nominations from downtown DC. Read more

From what sharp, biting fileDoes your tired skin keep growing thin and failing,O ailing soul? Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any longer to calm my soul, now turned toward that divine loveThat opened his arms on the cross to take us in.–my notes say that this is Michelangelo, from a book (and likely a translation) by S.B. McHam, book title Looking at Italian Renaissance Art Read more

THE MOON UNDER WATER: The video for “Video Killed the Radio Star” is surprisingly sophisticated–its timing, cross-gender identification, frame-within-a-frame, and general ability to do more than what was promised (see the title of this post) push it well past what you might expect from first-gen MTV. Read more

I’M AFRAID PHILOSOPHY IS JUST TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY FOR ME: One of the most awesome links I’ve ever had the privilege to click. Read more

“She thaws nothing but Facts, do what I would, not one unfathomed Mystery in the Lot!”–Masie Tuck-and-Frill in re: Cynic Sal, Ladies Almanack Read more

“Love in Man is Fear of Fear. Love in Woman is Hope without Hope. Man fears all that can be taken from him, a Woman’s Love includes that, and then Lies down beside it. A Man’s love is built to fit Nature. Woman’s is a Kiss in the Mirror. It is a Farewell to the Creator, without disturbing him, the supreme Tenderness toward Oblivion, Battle after Retreat, Challenge when the Sword is broken. Yea, it strikes loudly on the Heart,... Read more

THE TORTURE COLONY: “In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds.” (via A & L Daily) Read more

THE YELLOW EYES OF FRANCIS DOLARHYDE: Sean Collins posts about an Entertainment Weekly list of “twenty scary movies”; I infest his comments-box. Also includes my recantation re: “The Thing.” Post titled because of how thoroughly Ratty freaked me out when I’d just finished reading Red Dragon and she said, “Look behind you!” MOST GULLIBLE, yes, I know. Read more

It has been noted by some and several, that Women have in them the Pip of Romanticism so well grown and fat of Sensibility, that they, upon reaching an uncertain Age, discard Duster, Offspring, and Spouse, and a little after are seen leaning, all of a limp, on a Pillar of Bathos.–Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack Read more

DO PARALLEL LINES MEET? There’s a scene in David Lodge’s novel How Far Can You Go?–published in this country, unfortunately, as Souls and Bodies–in which a gay character and a straight character confront one another, and have a conversation in which neither one of them ever allows the subtext to become text. Because the subtext is, At least you don’t have to–! I thought of that scene last week, when I heard about a young pregnant woman whose parents told... Read more