Have you ever sat down and listened to a song, especially one from when you were younger, and realized that you were missing what the song was about because you had only heard a portion of it? I had two of those moments today in American Music Traditions class. The first song was "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Gunthrie. I remember learning it in elementary school as a fluffy little patriotic song like "America the Beautiful". Well, that was because I only learned the first few stanzas. Here you take a listen and let's see if I'm the only one who hears the social commentary in the song.



The other song was of all things, "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary. Before today, I knew maybe the first 3 lines and I had always heard the rumor that the song was about drugs or whathaveyou. Having now heard the whole song, I don't see it. The last verse in particular makes me think it's about a lost of innocence and growing up. *shrugs* What do you guys think?

I would like to start off by saying that I am NOT the biggest H.P.Lovecraft fan. While there are certain stories that I find suspenseful, chilling and terrifying I find much of his mythos confusing and many of his stories tedious. This aside I still get a chuckle out of the below songs, mostly because I like jaunty tunes about tentacled creature that will make me go crazy and then eat me and fishmen.

Remember how I said that I was TOTALLY going to keep up with my Halloween posts because I'm totally going to have much more time this semester? HA. What a laugh...I totally forgot about this insane online Renaissance class.

But this isn't about my class from hell.

This is about catching up.

So first catch up post.



This past Tuesday, Oct 20, was the 127th birthday of actor Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, better known as Bela Lugosi. His portrayal of Dracula in the 1930 movie by the same helped to change the image vampire in popular culture from a disgusting, blood-clotted fiend to a suave and alluring creature of the night. Unfortunately,due to his trademark accent Bela ended up being typecasted for the rest of his career. Even so, Bela Lugosi continues to be a beloved actor amongst old horror movie fans such as myself (him and Vincent Price, because they have the voice) and so here are a few of my favorite Bela Lugosi films.

( The virginal brides file past his tomb... )

Guess what you guys? As of today, it is officially 13 days before Halloween. Last year, I attempted to do countdown posts and then kind of failed miserably due to the fact that I had like 8 million assignments due all at once. This year, this is not the case, so without further ado...

On the 13th day til Halloween my dear ghoul gave to me...

( A treat bag full of contreversy )

TILT time WOOOO!

• Scoring one of the Vampire Requiem dresses - After wrestling with the order form for about 2 hours, I finally figured out what the heck I was doing and I sat there refreshing my email over and over until I got the happy little email saying that I got one! I got it in Ivory. It was the only color left when I finally got it to work, but that's totally fine with me.
• Skeleton Pops - I accidentally upset one of my teachers today with one. She flipped out in mid sentence and says "What is that in your mouth?" The stick part of the lollipop is a skeleton about the length of my palm so, it's pretty big. It was pretty funny.
• Finally finishing that freaking Carnegie paper - Hallelujah! No more Gilded Age! Onto the Progressive Era.
• Ludwig Kakumei - I finally got around to finishing it the other week and I really enjoyed it! I laughed, I cried (DOROTHEA! T_T) and Ludwig mother > EVERYONE. I'll admit it got a little wonky at the end and I'm not sure if that was due to the translation or the author (Kaori Yuki's stuff tends to get weird at the end. I'm still confused by the end of Godchild.) but, overall I really liked it.
• Edgar Allen Poe - I know I lose massive numbers of Goth Points by admitting this, but until this past week I had read maybe, 3 or 4 of Poe's works. I read The Pit and the Pendulum and William Wilson for the first time and oh my god, so good... Poe is a God. It's been so long that the suspense in a story has actually gotten me worked up.
• Bath and Body Works Stress Relief Shower Gel - This morning, having pulled an all-nighter to finish my paper, feeling kind of zonked out. My stomach was in knots, my skin was crawling and I was irritated and lethargic simultaneously. On top of that, I was looking pretty zombified. However, just because I looked like the undead didn't mean I had to go to school smelling like it. This stuff smoothed everything out. Nerves calmed, mind at relative peace, I was able to get through most of my day until Lit, where our discussion of Anne Bradstreet's poems almost put me to sleep.
• Packing a bento lunch - I really haven't had the time lately to do it, but today I actually set aside sometime to put something together. I made a roast beef sandwich on a roll with an olive toothpick through it, a bunch of grapes and one of those Pringles lunch packs. It made me really happy for some odd reason.
• Finding new communities that are relevant to my interests - Between creepgirlfrenzy  and moorishrennies lj is getting all of my love.

Well, that's all I can think of. I'm still exhausted, it's cold and I'm really done with this week. Between Cosplay Club, that Carnegie paper,and the sheer amount of Race Fail that this week has been riddled with I'm looking forward to curling up on Mommo's bed and watching Project Runway. Well, off to go work on my Renaissance homework.

What kind of poison is your personality? Ergotoxine You're so deadly you've chipped out a space in history! You were responsible for famines and tens of thousands of people fell victim to your deadly touch. Despite being a lowly grain fungus, you've managed to afflict people with fantastic flares of gout, hallucinations, ecstatic mania, and of course death. Hell they even blamed the Salem witch trials on you. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

I happened to have some time today since my original plans all feel apart, so I went through the box my folks decided to put all of my stuff that was on my bedroom floor (a little peeved about that one). One of the things I pulled out was a sheet of class notes from World History II last semester. I had kept it because I have a habit of writing in my margins stuff that pops into my head throughout class (my mind is constantly churning).

On this particular sheet, I had been thinking about the idea that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Portrait of Dorian Gray were reflections of the Victorian Era. I thought that it was an intriguing notion at the time, but after reading about Sex and the Gilded Age in 3Rs class, I have to agree. The Victorians (especially men) were FAR from prudish. People liked to put up the front of being respectable but, behind closed doors frequented prostitutes (prostitution was at some of it's highest levels during this time period), wrote each other dirty letters and girls would engage in all kinds of stuff in exchange for a night on the town. This was the time period were marital rape was just becoming a issue of importance and officials were actually RESISTANT to the idea that the age of consent should be raised from 10 or 12!

Beneath all those frills and formality, the Victorians were some freaks, plain and simple.

Last week, after Convocation, Jenny, Tabs and I went to go see District 9 (which was awesome by the way). This post however is not about the movie. During the previews they were showing the trailer for a new horror movie coming out called Jennifer's Body.


I've been pondering ever since about where in the world I've heard "Jennifer's Body" before and then it hit me just a moment ago, and I raced to my cd shelf to find that I was indeed correct. "Jennifer's Body" is also the name of a song by Hole.



I'm surprised that don't have this song on the soundtrack.

</lj-embed>(Courtesy of my Aunt Vivian)
As someone who grew up and only recently stopped being hassled by other Black people because of the fact that I don't have "good hair" (I have something like 8 inches of the thick, kinky, comb-teeth-breaking stuff) I can't WAIT to see this movie.

Where can I get some infinite beer?