Watching the illegal film "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" on my PC last night, I was inspired to go to the freaking New York Times site and pay to download my own Barbie story. (The 45-minute filme is acted almost completely by Barbies.)

If you click on the NY Times link in the left column (or here), you can now read the full story, instead of just their teaser.

I just posted something, just below--don't look yet!--composed of a favorite poetic passage, the picture it inspires in me, and an explanation about their interaction. But once it posted on the website, I read through the lines again, it worked completely differently with the picture. That is, it failed to work. The metaphors refuse to materialize on my internal projection screen when the concrete image is right there alongside trumping them.

So I'm reposting just the passage here, for two reasons:

1. For reasons which should be obvious if and when you read the second post--not yet!--I couldn't bear to take the picture down. But I didn't want to deprive you the wonder of enjoying those words unfettered again either.

2. I'm curious whether this is a universal (or at least common) reaction. If you read both posts (this one first!--are you listening?), please click on the comments tag (in this post, preferably), and let us know if the picture also shut down the visualization of the metaphors for you. (Or does that only happen when the picture represents the embodiment of the poetry to the individual reading it?)

Here's the original passage, with the original title and introduction:

Nabokov for the week--Guest blogger, William S.

In the whole wide world of literature, that I know of, so far, there's one little passage I admire more than anything written by our good friend Vladimir--that I know of, so far.

So making a very special one-time-only guest blogging appearance--offering a slight variation of the usual text, explained down below at the second asterisk**--may I present the master of the word usement, our slightly more foreign* friend William S:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat his eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if his eyes were there, they in his head?

The brightness of his cheek would shame those stars

As daylight doth a lamp; his eye in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

In the whole wide world of literature, that I know of, so far, there's one little passage I admire more than anything written by our good friend Vladimir--that I know of, so far.

So making a very special one-time-only guest blogging appearance--offering a slight variation of the usual text, explained down below at the second asterisk**--may I present the master of the word usement, our slightly more foreign* friend William S:

Two of the fairest stars in all of heaven,

Having some business, do entreat his eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if his eyes were there, they in his head?

The brightness of his cheek would shame those stars

As daylight doth a lamp; his eye in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

* Nabokov may have been born in Russia, but he's far less foreign to me than Shakespeare. Apparently time is thicker than space.

** It may be sacrilege to some of you, but yes, I flipped it around to read to a man. Because in my little head, I am reading it to a man. Because . . .

I had no intention of doing this as I started typing, but those lines always make a mess of me, and now the keyboard's all soaked and . . .

And of course my thoughts ran straight to that boy who walked out of my life again May 16th. No chance of getting back with him, because we don't belong together, but I do still love him, so one last time I'm going to dedicate that passage to him. There he is pictured in a happy moment last Halloween. (I cropped myself out of the shot, because this passage is just about him, not the two of us, and it just did not seem right to squeeze me in there with him. I'm going to post the full pic shortly at a new pix page on my author site here.)

So I just couldn't bear all the hers in there beside a picture of him. Too many people would read it way too literally, and I get enough of that "girl" shit from gayboys already; he's never been a girl to me, just a guy who luckily likes to love men.  Besides, when I'd sit up in bed in the morning and beg him to let me read it again--giving him a rare break from all the Nabokov passages and the Catcher in the Rye ending over and over again--I always changed the hers for him then. That's how it reads in my head, so that's how I'm displaying it here. You can change it back in your own head; this one's just for him and me.

UPDATE:

We've overhauled the code behind this site. Apparently we fixed most of the mess for Mac/Mozilla(other?) users. Please let us know if you're still seeing crap. (Other than the writing.) Don't hold back.

Windows users may see some intermittent problems, but we hope those are behind us.

Thank you all for bearing with us. Let us know what you think.

I've been noticing quite a few people clicking on the link explaining who the hell I am. Unfortunately, I never really wrote up what I wanted to put there, just threw in a bunch of quickie stuff and a few links.

But since you're actually visiting, I figured it was time to get the freaking living room in order, so now it explains who I actually am. (Though it still doesn't explain the whole Nabokov obsession. I'll get to it. Meanwhile, there's plenty on that here.)

Oh my God, that little Dean frenzy almost cost me $1500. This was the final day of Colorado Tax Amnesty month, and I was just getting everything caught up this year (got caught up with the feds in January.) No penalties and half the interest on any old returns you filed today.

And I almost blew it. That mag assignment came up suddenly and I didn't have a chance to do it before I left, so I knew I had one day when I got back. Got in late last night, went to sleep at 3, woke up and started blogging! This freaking addiction. Didn't pull the taxes out until 3:30, and then I had to figure out where I had everything, reprint the forms, redo one year, figure out where to take it ...

I ran in at 4:27, three minutes early, though of course they had their clocks three minutes ahead, bastards. But their website was also wrong, they were open till 4:45, so I was way early. Shew!

I cannot tell you the relief of having all that behind me. Saved $850 in interest and maybe $500-600 in penalties. (They have brutal interest here: about three times the rate of the IRS.) Thank God it's all in. I'm totally up to date. Except for my 2003 estimated payments. Blast. Plus I put today's bill on a credit card. But still, it's filed, they're paid, I'm no longer delinquent. Feel lighter already.

But not thinner, because I missed my workout entirely. These addictions.

Tomorrow, back to writing. The other kind of writing. I've got a magazine story to compose.

I turned in my Colorado-blogging piece to 5280 Monday, about 150 words over the limit, but they liked the topic enough to ask for more. (So far it's gone from a little 600-word ditty in the front section to probably 1,000, plus the list described below, though they might have to cut (cut!) something to make it fit.)

I had the pleasure of a long interview with Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft this morning. Very interesting woman. Out-take quotes coming soon (probably early next week, as this weekend is shot). And she's really put together a great site. Spends about three hours a day on it, but really finds it rewarding.

5280 also asked me to put together a list of ten great local blogs to go with the piece, and I had a chance to chat briefly with several others today. I was impressed, and I do not impress easily. Really having a great time meeting most of these people (had no idea you bloggers would be so interesting!) And much thanks to Andy of WorldWideRant for helping me in lots of little ways with lots of little issues with my blog. (I got two counters working halfway through the day--after half those precious links for Vodkapundit went uncounted! (you know how painful that can be as a newbie), but not the main one I wanted, Extreme Tracker.) And (still talking about Andy here) a host of really interesting email discussions.

Hennyway, 5280 probably doesn't want me giving away anything, so I won't reveal who's on the list of ten, but here are a few people I enjoyed talking to today (I'll just go with the blog name, since I didn't check spellings on all the human names):

ResurrectionSong (click here just for the Greenspan pick--you've probably all seen it already, but I've been cackling all day, every time I go back there.)

TalkLeft

RoverPundit.

And one person I keep missing, but hope to meet at one of the alleged local functions soon, Mary, from RantORama (great graphic there, too.) 

Publishers Lunch just emailed its "Lunch Weekly," and my friend's book deal was again highlighted:

28 year-old writer David Yoo's young adult novel GIRLS FOR BREAKFAST, a comic, biting and irreverent coming-of-age story about a Korean teen growing up in an alarmingly homogenous white suburb, as he tries to come to terms with his neurotic love and obssession for girls and his ambivalence towards his ethnicity, compared to THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER and HIGH FIDELITY, to Krista Marino at Delacorte, in a quick sale, for two books, by Steven Malk at Writers House (NA)

Now that the title is out there, I told him to hurry up and buy the domain name, and he grabbed it today, along with his own name (Dave, David was snapped up a few months back). So if you should be interested, down the road you can look him up at http://www.daveyoo.com or http://www.girlsforbreakfast.com .

Has everyone out there bought your name? You'd be crazy not to, if it's still available. For $15-20/year (depending who you go with), you can grab it for life. Do it now. If you want to see if it's available, Affinity has an ad at the bottom of my author page, or go here directly. You can can see what's still availbe in one click.

(By the way, that missing apostrophe on Publishers Lunch is their fault. That's their freaking name.)