vampire potter you motherfooker

My favorite thing in the world right now is dramatic readings of the Harry Potter fanfiction My Immortal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3NTwvcAVEI&feature=channel_page
It is so awesomely, painfully bad. The Hungarian accent from the fabulous aquana makes it that much better.

Once again the tattoo plan for the summer is under construction. Originally I'd been set on a design for my upper arm, but I'm thinking I'm not going to want to bother trying to cover it up all the time for work. So, I'm considering twin raves on my feet instead. I believe it'll do.

Was dragged to the rodeo last night by my friend. What fun. I have no idea who Gary Allen is, but the guy in the kilt was pretty fabulous.

They had front-row seats and free food, so I guess I don't have any reason to complain. Although I am not really a fan of horses kicking dirt into my food.

Ophelia Rosamund has 'officially' been changed to Ophelia Violet... in case anyone cared. Doubtful.

Stagnating in spring break. Ye gods I am bored.

christian bale freakout: the remix

I've found my new theme song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTihsJQHt48

I've spent a good deal of the week delivering variations on it to a lot of people. People are stupid.

In other news.

Lately my attention has turned to researching the part of my family I hadn't previously paid as much attention to as the rest: the Wendish branch. They're my maternal grandmother's mother's side, and my grandmother still cooks traditional foods (Wendish noodles *drool*) and knows a small bit of the language.

From texascultures.utsa.edu:

The Wends of Texas represent a small Slavic group of people who have never
had an independent nation and who have undergone a double assimilation in Texas.

Known as Sorbs or Lusatian Serbs, Wends have lived in Lusatia, Eastern
Germany, as a recognizable group from the Middle Ages until today. Just before
1850 some Wendish families emigrated to Australia; then, hearing of German
settlement in Texas, a few Wends came to Austin County. In 1853 about 35 Wends
entered Galveston to settle in New Ulm and Industry.
The only larger group of Wends ever
to leave Europe was a congregation of Lutherans led by Johann Kilian. This
group, decimated by cholera in Liverpool and yellow fever in Galveston,
eventually settled in present Lee County, where Johann Dube and Carl Lehmann had
purchased a league of land. Johann Kilian's two-room house served as the church,
and the settlers initially lived in dugouts. By 1860 a community named Serbin
warranted a post office. The settlement grew until 1871, when a new railroad
turned Giddings into the population center for the area.
Life for the first generation was
hard, and the Wends were conservative. Dancing and secular music were considered
inappropriate activities; the main job in life was making a living, not
preserving tradition. Since they came from Germany, most Wends considered it
natural to live among already-established Germans in Texas.

Even in Europe, the Wends were largely “Germanized” by the 19th
century. In Texas they became more so; Wendish families living in German
settlement areas were quickly assimilated. Those Wends who spoke only Sorbian
learned German as their second language, then English. By World War I most of
the Wends in the state had adopted German. The Giddings Deutsches
Volksblatt contained a few columns of Wendish for a number of years, then
shifted entirely to German.

Many Texas Wends simply consider
themselves German, but in the Serbin area, considerable identity has been
maintained through a revival of interest in earlier Wendish characteristics.
Some individuals today maintain that
no intermarriage has taken place in their families since the main Wendish
arrival in 1854. But for the most part, intermarriage and an acceptance of
German, then Anglo, customs has meant a thorough acculturation for most
families.

The Texas Wendish Heritage Society was founded in 1971, when the group
began its annual participation in the Texas Folklife Festival of the Institute
of Texan Cultures, and the membership maintains a Wendish museum at Serbin. The
group has revived interest in European costume, foods, and crafts and is
attempting to collect, translate, and publish early Wendish documents. Many were
lost during the first years in Texas.

The community at Serbin holds an
annual Wendish Fest and extends a welcome, Witajcže K'nam, to visitors. During
the affair church services are conducted in German and English, a Czech band may
play, and corn-shucking contests are held. Some of the local descendants dress
in European Wendish costume.

The Wends of Texas represent one of the strongest examples of cultural
revival by later generations.

I'm thinking the next time we go out to my grandparent's farm we need to stop by
the Texas Wendish Heritage Museum. The culture seems interesting and I'm not
sure why I've never researched that side of my heritage much. It's a small branch, yet probably actually more visible in my family today than the German.

the bucket list

I was watching Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel when I realized just how much I hate the perky little bitch. She has my job.

Anthony Bourdain kicks her ass soundly.


There's too many places I want to go and not enough time or resources to do it all. Just some of the places I must see at some point in my life:

Alaska. Probably the most beautiful place in the world.

Norway. As I'm hoping to do Scandinavian/Germanic studies in addition to my English degree, I'm looking into the Norwegian study abroad programs at my future university. They offer an option to spend a summer in Oslo which I think would be fabulous. (A whole semester would be even better but I don't know if I could actually handle the winters. Damn TX and our inability to acclimate to anything below 80 degrees.)

Germany. Land of my ancestors. My parents have been wanting to go for a while, so this may actually be a future possibility.

The Externsteine (above) is a must-see for me.

Finland.

Washington and Oregon. I applied to and seriously considered accepting a position at the University of Washington in Seattle just to see sights like this.

Prague.

Mongolia. Not the forefront of everyone's travel list, I imagine, but I find something fascinating and starkly beautiful about it.

I can dream, yeah? I am going to London next year. It's a start.

chilling with the dead folk

New hero: Heimdall ala Thrymskvitha. ("A dress? But... but... I'm Thor! I'm a man!")

Friday I'm heading off to see my hillbilly relatives on the family farm. I'm excited, if only because I've got a mission this time; I need more "old" family photos and information to feed my newfound obsession with constructing a family tree. I'm planning (hoping) to go to Germany at some point, and it'd be nice to check out the towns we came from, if I could possibly find them ("Porno, Prussia" gives me nothing of value on search engines, though it does return some.. interesting.. results).

I do have this picture, which I love. It's my great-grandmother Ottilie and her husband at their wedding. (And to my relief I've found out she is Ottilie, not the ugly Otilli I'd originally thought - that turned out to be a miscript from my aunt when she drew up a rough tree for me. I think she's the best-named person in my family.) I have only vague memories of her, as she died when I was very young, yet I tend to feel closest to her of my ancestors, or fondest of her anyway. She immigrated to Texas as a child, penniless, and grew up building up a decent homestead out of difficult land that was advertised as worth more than it was. As an older woman she was very much the matriarch of the family, keeping them together and being the one everyone went to for advise, support, recipes, home remedies, anything.



And I have an abiding respect for her mother, of course, who immigrated to a new country while heavily pregnant, and gave birth on a ship (the child died at sea). Unfortunately I know little else about her nor do I have her picture. I also quite like her grandfather Baldwin, who recognized the corruption and hypocrisy in the organized Christian church, and left it. In Germany at the time, seating in the churches was segregated by social class, and as a farming class family his was confined to the back.

It's been bothering me lately how little my family knows or remembers about our own history. Ask my parents a question about names, birthdates, etc, and they'll just shrug. They're apathetic about it. My grandparents and great uncles/aunts are the only ones left who speak even a little German. I think it's unfortunate that we as German-Texans have lost so much of our heritage (and I know Germanic ancestry in America, or anywhere, isn't a unique thing, but still) in the pressure to assimilate, which is why I can't hold with the whole "melting pot America" idea. Cultural cooperation is good, cultural indifference is not.

~

I suppose I'm obligated to do this too at some point... so, names. Ophelia's been a staunch favorite of mine for a while, and I'm still fairly certain it's what a hypothetical future daughter would be called, but I'm not sure I'm feeling my combo anymore. I still love Rosamund as the middle name, but it's rather pompous for real-life usage. The thing is I can't think of another mn I like as well with it, except maybe Violet. Suggestions?

My top twenty as it stands now (it's much the same as it ever was, but whatev):

Ophelia Rosamund

Lavinia Astrid

Eva Juliette

Helena Violet

Isotta Margriet

Cecelia Madeline

Josephine Iris

Genevieve Isemay

Scarlett Annevieve

Ingrid Cordelia

Ivy Jochebel

Alessandra Liv

Sylvie Elizabeth Lilje

June Adelaide

Helen Iris Solveig

Rachel Mariamne

Sophie Junia Mairwen

Isibéal Ruby Ginevra

Signe Charlotte Beatrix

Sunniva Isabeau

And the extras:

Lucinda Tuulikki
Jocosa Ellinor
Audrey Calixta
Saskia Ottilie Ruth
Anastasia Lilith Pearl
Lily Rannvá Mathilde
Diana Vuokko Elspeth

I'm thinking of switching Helena Violet for Helen Solveig, making Ophelia Rosamund Ophelia Violet, and putting Lily Rannvá Mathilde up there somewhere as Rannvá Lily Mathilde. Meh, I don't know.

I should probably get out more.

books

If anyone wants to donate a Barnes & Noble to me, that' d be great. My to-read list:
Return of the King - JRR Tolkien
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo A. Anaya
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Jacob's Room - Virginia Woolf
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
A Room With a View - EM Forster
Some anthology of William Butler Yeats's poetry
Sagas of the Icelanders
The Agricola and the Germania - Tacitus
Das Nibelungenlied
Volsunga Saga
Njal's Saga
Kalevala

And because I'm not bankrupt quite yet, any recommendations? What is everyone reading?

Also, if anyone really wants the behemoth that is the Mists of Avalon and its sequels (The Forest House, Lady of Avalon, Priestess of Avalon) by Marion Zimmer Bradley, come take mine off my hands. I only recently realized what a fluffy crock they are. In a spurt of New Year's Cleaning mood, I've been going through my library and pulling out everything I don't want, and so far I have a 15 lb pile of wiccan pipe dreams destined for Half Price Books.

the wild swans at coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had suddenly finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

Some despondency starting to settle in again.

I'm developing an unhealthy obsession with my new camera. Instead of finishing everything I'm working on this week I'm wandering around the neighborhood shooting random things and playing around on DeviantArt. I've started an album of all the shots I like and I had the above tree photo made into a print, which is now hanging on my wall.

The ghost tree series are my favorite. I was thinking Sunday while working in my nursery that I should take pictures of all the kids and make scrapbooks to give to the parents as Easter gifts or something. I already have about 30 of the most adorable photos. Someone take my camera away from me so I can get through the end of this semester.

As a random aside, I finally saw Iron Man. Totally not my sort of movie usually, but I have to recommend it if only for the brilliant presence of Robert Downey Jr. Only ancient microcosms could possibly be able to live in the vicinity of that man. Om nom nom.

your star is alcyone

I've toyed on and off with the idea of getting a tattoo, but I've finally settled on something I really want. I'm going to get a raven on my upper arm - I'm not exactly sure of the design yet, but I was thinking something like this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/slimlove/phoenix.jpg Not exactly a raven, but I think the design is lovely. Underneath it will be þó siámk meirr um Muninn (yet more I fear for Memory). From Grimnismal 20:

Huginn ok Muninn fliúga hverian dag
iörmungrund yfir;
óomk ek of Huginn, at hann aptr ne komit,
þó siámk meirr um Muninn.

The whole world wide, every day,
fly Hugin [Thought] and Munin [Memory];
I worry lest Hugin should fall in flight,
yet more I fear for Munin.

It's one of my favorite stanzas in the Poetic Edda. The tattoo is meant to symbolize the importance of my heritage and family history to me, and there's the connection to my heathenry. Surprisingly my parents have no objections. They're just glad it's tasteful. I'm fairly certain I'm going to get it in the summer, after my birthday.

I seem to be alone in my devotion to Girl With A Pearl Earring. Am I? Almost everyone I know who's seen the movie or read the book has said how boring they thought it was, how nothing worthwhile happened, how they wished Vermeer and Griet would've just gotten together. I don't get it. For me, it's one of the most beautiful, emotionally devastating films I've ever seen. It leaves me breathless every time. (Plus Colin Firth is mighty nice as Johannes Vermeer.) I'm not one to get tearful during a movie - and I certainly never cry in public - but that and these other films have managed to affect me in some way:

Atonement. The "Elegy for Dunkirk" scene is hauntingly beautiful, as is the long beach scene at the end. Wonderful film.

Evening. Another one people seemed to hate. I don't know, I thought the cinematography and story in general was really lovely. The opening scene gives me chills.

The Hours

Dead Poets Society

The Phantom of the Opera

The Village. It's mostly the soundtrack, I think.

The Illusionist

Pan's Labyrinth

And because I have a big L stamped on my forehead, I got a little teary-eyed in Return of the King, during the last battle with the Rohirrim, when they started playing the Rohan theme music.

I complain about peoples' lack of appreciation for Girl With A Pearl Earring, but then I'm the same way when it comes to The Notebook. That's one film I did not get. It was pleasant I suppose, but I thought it was terribly cheesy and overrated. Certainly nothing to make me weepy like it did some girl I watched it with. I still can't really look her in the face without giggling a little.