YouTube Tuesday: Holiday Charity Appeal

A cute little takeoff on the heartfelt holiday charity pitch. And a well-known Holywood bimbo type shows at least a little sense of humor about her own image and the roots of her "fame."

Hope . . . And Change

This time of year gets Me thinking a lot about those things that the season is at least theoretically about: Joy, Peace, and Hope. Less comforting sometimes, to think about is the aspect of Change, which is a part of this season, too.

Below is quoted a favorite poem of Mine, The Journey of the Magi, by T. S. Eliot. Eliot's take on the birth of Christ, from the Magi's point of view, isn't exactly Hallmark Card material. But for Me this poem encapsulates the "Change" aspect of the season.

A Happy Holiday season to all . . . with all that the season entails.


'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

You Don't Say

I've written a number of times about the importance of communcaition between Dominant and submissive. But there are times, in D/s, and especially in life, when silence truly is golden.

I'm not talking about those very intense moments of subspace, or Topspace. Words are unnecessary and in any event inadeqaute at those times. Nor am I takking about those times, and every Dom/me and sub has had them, where one just knows that discretion is the better part of valor (or obedience). I'm talking about times when it's simply not necessary to say anything, or, more to the point, to say a particular thing.

I am fond of saying to My girls that "I notice everything." And I think they would concur that I pretty much do. But I only express a small fraction of what I notice. And not only with them; that behavior carries over into other interactions, both in D/s spheres and in daily life.

Certainly it pertains here in the blogosphere. I read a lot of blogs. I comment rarely, and I blog on a small percentage of things that I might blog about.

Why?

The big aspect, for Me, is that it's a matter of control. Control starts with controlling One's own responses. People say and write a lot of things. Often those things could be responded to. But part of Me being Me, and feeling good about Myself, is remembering that other people's negaitvity diminishes them, not Me. When I don't respond, I feel stronger, not because I was the "bigger person," but becasue I'm reminded that I've held onto the one thing that is truly, immutably, totally Mine -- self-control. What others do, and how they do it . . . well, that's on them, for good or ill, ultimately. But watching what I say and how I say it makes Me feel good.

When communcation was almost exclusively one on one, there were natural buffers, unspoken norms that constrained behavior and choice of words, tone, etc. And there were natural constraints on the length of interactions, often. In the net age where there is "anonymity" and asynchronicity all bets are off. In a medum of immediacy and essentially universal access, the goal seems to be to not only say whatever you like however you want to, but also to say absolutely everything that one might be thinking/have thought. I think that overall we are worse off as a result.

And there is no hierarchy of intelligence here. In fact, the smart people are the worst offenders, since, well, being smart, they tend to have more to say.

And speaking of which . . . I've said more than enough already. KAHTATUS.

YouTube Tuesday: Once In A Lifetime

Perhaps My favorite song of any genre of any era. Rarely does a piece of music hit every nerve -- muscial, spritiual, intellectual, physical. When I hear this song I feel it, in every part of Me. Yes, I know this is a shortened version (I assume at the behest of MTV), but the live versions don't do it for Me the same way.


YouTube Tuesday: Totally Wrong, But What The Hell?

I admit to being pretty uninspired tonight in My search for a youtube Tuesday clip.

But when in doubt, Kylie Minogue barely dressed is a pretty good choice. This clip is a lingerie commercial (not shown in the US as far as I know) . . . a mechanical bull, an old lady, a rather lame joke. Doesn't sound promising but as commericals go, but . . . somehow it all works. The music is "Main Offender" by The Hives.


New Link/Progress Report

I discovered, thanks to technorati, that I'm linked to from the fabulous Myths and Metawhores. So in accordance with long-standing #TEPB policy, they've been added to the link list. Thanks, and glad to reciprocate . . .

Part 5 of the current Lenora X story is in the works . . . it's taking a bit longer than I'd intended but it's coming along . . .

More soon . . . hope all are well and happy . . . KAHTATUS (kissses and hugs to all the usual suspects).

YouTube Tuesday: Fashion, Baby!

Tonight's clip is from a fetish fashion show held a couple of months ago in Atalnta by Buckle magazine.

What I like particularly about this clip is that unlike a "straight" fashioin show, the crowd is really into it. At most fashion shows there's nothing going on in the audience except some murmurs and the scribbing of notes by reporters. At this show, the crowd is totally alive, screaming, hollering, making the fashion show an event in and of itself, as opposed to a traditional fashion show which feels much more like an extended introduction to a thing. This show feels like the thing itself.

Also, about midway through, it appears as though one of the models starts to fall off of her platform heels, but she makes a neat move and saves it, making it look at though it's part of the dance and sort of corkscrews herself down to the floor.

Some cool clothes, too. Hmmm . . . think that blue number with the butterflies on it is a bit too much for the office?

Tagged!

nina tagged Me . . . the meme in in question is to reveal "six weird things about Me."

Well . . . hmmm. Weird is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but here goes.

1. I am deathly afraid of horses. I have no idea why, or how, but I always have been. I can't recall any bad experience.

2. I hate mustard. About to the point of physical revulsion.

3. The stupider something is, the funnier I think it is. Jay and Silent Bob may be the funiest film ever made. Or maybe Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

4. In college I was that person who lobbied for anchovies on the pizza.

5. I have never ever tattled on another person. Even as a child.

6. While I do not believe in reincarnation, I do believe that I'd have been much better off having lived in the 1940s.


OK . . . I'm supposed to tag SIX people? . . . well, in keeping with My inability to follow rules not of My own creation, I tag two people . . . this girl and taylor . . .

New Link . . .

A few things this week caught My eye, courtesy of sitemeter.

1. I'm linked to from a Femdom blog that's entirely in Spanish, Las Mujeres Mandan . . . true to the finest link-whore tradition, I'm adding them to the linklist. Any readers fluent in Spanish who might happen to visit there can let Me know if it's any good.

2. My blog was mentioned in a post on a Polish Femdom message board.

3. Just about half of My traffic (48%) comes from outside the US.

Cool.