A new poem by Shelley...

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a major influence on my life when I was twelve. Still is. I never thought that 184 years after his death I'd be seeing a new poem by him.

The news item is from The Times and there'll be more in Saturday's Times Literary Supplement, if I can get my hands on it. I guess that's an excuse to go to Mags and Fags on the weekend (how soon would the paper arrive?) to see if they have a new Starburst or TV Zone. They're the only magazines I know likely to have items on Doctor Who and that's the only store I know likely to carry British magazines.

A new poem by Shelley, a political poem, in collaboration - of all things - with his sister. He must have been eighteen or so when he wrote it. I'd love to know the story of how it 'turned up'.

When I was a student in London, a bunch of papers about Lord Byron just 'turned up', including a poem copied by Claire Clairmont - they'd been lurking in someone's safety deposit box all that time.

I love it when this happens.

(no subject)

Over lunchtime I read a fascinating graphic novel, How Loathsome by Ted Naifeh and Tristan Crane. It reads like a novel, though I suspect it's all based on real life and real people. And like real life, it's hard to see through the form to the structure and meaning. It's about people in San Francisco. Is it the transgendered scene, the drug scene, the goth scene? A bit of all of those. It's about people who know, more or less, what they're looking for, but when they find it, it rejects them.

The introduction is by a person named Danielle willis, who, one day when she was lying around waiting for her drug dealer, got handed a cop by her roommate. She read it, and said: "This is about my life." And so it was. When she contacted Naifeh and Crane, they said that seeing her in a San Francisco club had given them the idea for the story. Danielle finishes the introduction: "This book will help you understand. We are not definable. We are not straight. We are not gay."

So - did it help me understand? Well... I already understand the transgendered thing as much as someone who hasn't experienced it may. I find it more difficult to understand caring more for drugs than sex, or other people - or maybe the problem there isn't understanding, it's sympathizing. Danielle Willis talks about a roommate who "put crystals up his pee-hole and claimed to see demons. We believed him." My thought: eeu.

I wondered what the title meant. Was it to imply these people thought the rest of the world found them repulsive? Or that they found themselves repulsive? Or just - lost? The art made these people attractive, at least to my eyes, but I found myself impatient with their lact of perspective, not quite able to like them.

Good quotes:

S&M parties tend to be light on the alcohol, so Kelly and Nick had brought their own. By around 12:30 they had become quite popular.

[re two goths named Aaron and Ashley] They're easy to make fun of, but to be completely honest, I've always found them extremely attractive. In an embarrassingly perverse way.

Though fluidity (and ambiguity) of gender is the hallmark of these these people, and though they go to sex parties and pursue those they desire, there isn't much sex, but a lot of foreplay followed by passing out or leaving. These are stories without climaxes, just extended searching. The impression isn't so much of frustration as of vagueness.

(no subject)

This site, with Little-Known Song Titles That Answer Questions Posed in Better-Known Songs made me laugh, especially: "I Wrote the Book of Love, but Unfortunately, Due to Improper Copyright Registration, It Has Since Lapsed Into Public Domain".

Questions about The Doctor...

I came across a Doctor Who Friending Meme by martoufmarty. What a great idea, I said to myself....

( Spoilers here, maybe )

( Doctor Who in Tarot Cards )