Superman’s Burden

The press says that you took your life, George Reeves.
An ill-timed buck laid low the great Chris Reeve.
Meanwhile Tom Welling, Brandon Routh, Dean Cain
Are no big stars but dim remembered names.

They say that there’s a curse that Reeves began
Woe to all actors playing Superman
Rue thy cursed fate, Henry Cavill,
Doomed’s your career now you’re the Man of Steel.

Great is the burden — He who wears the tights
And red cape must pose with heroic might…
With wide-eyed earnestness of a Clark Kent?
To be typecast, it seems no accident.

And yet… is not the price worth the renown?
For when you’re Superman, there’s naught but down.
Like comets burning through the skies you shoot
As paragon of justice and of truth.

An honor given to priv’leged few men
To play the Legend comics can’t contain;
Even films struggle to depict his scope!
For this short time, you play our greatest hope.

Poem Club Week #2

Reblogged from jessicaslavin:

Well, (lack of much) participation be damned, I'm going on with Jessica's Wednesday Poem Club. I thought maybe it would help if I shared ahead of time the poem that I would like to discuss tomorrow. I've chosen Walt Whitman's A Noiseless Patient Spider.

Here's hoping you'll join discussion* of it tomorrow. (And also, I would very much welcome your suggestions for other great poems to discuss.

Read more… 40 more words

Poetry lovers! I encourage you all to join Jessica's poetry club! Every Wednesday, a different poem will be chewed over and digested like a prime cut of sirloin. How can you not?

Tanka for the teachers

Meager waged career
For grads with college papers.
Oh, you lovely fool
With your damned, pesky conscience
To build another’s future.

NOTE: my wife is a teacher. It’s utterly ridiculous how low they’re paid compared to most other professions. I mean, seriously, can you imagine a world without teachers? Of course not. But if we value them so much, why do we consider their careers to be so inconsequential? I’m not even talking about raising taxes for public school teachers or anything. My wife teaches a private school that her family founded, and she doesn’t get paid much. I grew up in the parochial system, and I can tell you the lay people who work there don’t get compensated much either. (At least the sisters who worked there had a decent support system with the convent.)

But seriously, I’ve heard stories about people who’d pursued a career in education, only to leave because the stress was too high, and the money just wasn’t enough to pay the bills. I mean, geez. Do we just not value future generations enough in this world?

I have, in fact, have had this conversation with my wife, who feels bad she’s not making money and is thinking of switching careers. I tell her it’s up to her, but I don’t really want her to… because those kids need her, and without someone to guide their education, what’s left of their futures?

Transformers Gangnam Style

So… yeah.

Top 10 Ways You Know You’re A Trekkie

So… are you a Trekkie? In this day and age where Trek fans are popping out of the woodwork thanks to the J. J. Abrams movies, it’s hard to be sure some times. Use this handy dandy list to see if you, my friend, qualify under the moniker of being the most devoted (and mocked) fandom in science fiction.

1. Despite decrying the song as a travesty on the order of a Bryan Adams love ballad, you guiltily have “Faith of the Heart” set as your ring tone on your phone … which, incidentally, also has an app that transforms it into a tricorder. (Bonus points if you’ve managed to transform your tablet into a working PADD.)



2. You have a crazy impulse to elbow the person next to you whenever Nurse Chapel, the ship’s computer voice, Luxanna Troi, or the original Number One appear onscreen. The person watching with you, incidentally is not interested at all in why you find these characters fascinating.
3. You own either pointy ears, a Klingon head piece, or a “Wesley Crushers” shirt. In absence of such material goods: you have actually written an entry on Memory Alpha.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting