#upstream color

[alexanderwales]

Finally watching Upstream Color, and I have to say, 20 minutes in I think that Shane Carruth seriously misunderstood the principles of Save the Cat!

[advoirsmovies]

With no exposition whatsoever, Upstream Color (2013) touches on questions of consciousness, memory, and identity in a way I can only describe as freaky and intelligent. Writer, director, and lead actor Shane Carruth (Primer, 2004) delivers another low budget, cerebral masterpiece. It's truly a shame he hasn't made more films.

2023 10 05

[b0ringasfuck]

nanorecensioni sci-fi: Upstream color (2013)

Altro film spacciato per sci-fi. Troppo contorto, poca sci.

Un'altra di quelle cose che ti fa arrivare alla fine del film perchè non si capisce un cazzo o quasi e poi dici «ma vaffanculo».

Che la parte principale si intuisce abbastanza presto, e uno è li che aspetta che qualche cosa venga svelato per rendere la cosa meno caotica e cazzara e sperabilmente più suggestiva e invece c'è solo la conferma e vengono aggiunti solo altri elementi caotici inutili.

Anche no.

[mummer]

anybody have any suggestions for "movies about god". please note that this does not mean "movies about religion" (in fact the two are basically mutually exclusive)

[imperialchem]

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[phaeton-flier]

I have a condition where my opinions are made of the same material as the truth

[classic-asian-art]

Carp Swimming Upstream, Edo period, mid 1820s by Toyota Hokkei (colour woodblock print)

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Hello and happy day, everybody! Today's fish of the day is the Alabama sturgeon!

The Alabama sturgeon, known by scientific name Scaphirhynchus suttkusi is an incredibly endangered sturgeon found in the American South. Found, as the name implies, in the great state of Alabama, this species once had a wide historic range, stretching the entirety of the Mobile basin and bay, from the Alabama, Tombigbee, and Cahaba Rivers, but now has such limited numbers they are listed as wherever found. The Alabama sturgeon is now found only in the lower 130 miles of the Alabama river, living in fast currents of water 6-14 meters of depth nearby rock or mussel beds.

With only 3 confirmed sightings of them since 2009 confirming the species is still extant. With little hope of proving that the Alabama sturgeon continues to live other than the rare sightings, in 2016 researchers turned to another way. Using eDNA, which is usually sheddings, excrement, or other materials left behind in the environment around an animal, they got a positive result determining that the Alabama sturgeon population is still alive, leading to hopes of a captive breeding program. Despite this, there have been no female Alabama sturgeons caught, forcing plans for a breeding program to be entirely paused until they can secure eggs for it.

Regardless of current conservation efforts of the sturgeon, let's discuss other things known about this fish. This sturgeon's diet is made up of plant materials, aquatic bugs, mollusks, and other small bottom dwelling organic matter. Like other sturgeon, the Alabama sturgeon is a bottom feeder with a protrusible mouth, acting as a vacuum. They can get up to a size of 30 inches, relatively small for sturgeons, and are mostly known within the family for their striking orange-yellow color. Their life cycle is nearly identical to that of other sturgeon: sexual maturity occurs at 5-7 years of age, at which point they swim upstream to lay eggs, repeating this every 2-3 years until their lifespan comes to an end around 12-20 years!

That's the Alabama sturgeon, everybody! Have a wonderful day!

[ursaspecter]

X-Men Evolution isn't perfect, but there's a part that really sticks with me and I think about it a normal amount.

In the beginning of the series the existance of mutants is still pretty secret. The kids are still seen as fairly normal if just a bit weird because they live at the Xavier school/Brotherhood boarding house, but otherwise have friends who aren't mutants and no one assumes anything of them.

Hank's mutation though isn't like the others. He can't just wear special glasses like Scott or use an image inducer like Kurt or simply choose to not present his mutation like Evan can. He has to regularly take a serum he's invented to keep looking normal. Until it doesn't work anymore, that is.

At the end of the episode, he's lost his teaching job at Bayview High School and instead teaches at the Xavier school now as Beast. It's a hard adjustment to not being able to really go out and interface with the public anymore, but they make do.

In a later episode, Kitty suggests that Hank lead a field trip out in the redwoods so he can get out of the mansion without risking being seen. While the kids are at camp, he goes for a walk on his own and finds a sockeye salmon slapping around in a shallow part of the stream. He sighs and says, "You can't go back either." and helps the fish along.

But the thing is, the salmon is red with a green face meaning it's already gone through changes before spawning and dying. It has mutated and can't go back.

I don't know if the writers intended that. Maybe they just wrote the line to mean "The salmon is trying to swim upstream but got stuck and can't go back to where it spawned now" and just used the red and green color palette to make it stand out as a salmon because when it's still silvery it just looks like any other fish to kids. But I'm choosing to believe the deeper meaning is there. Hank McCoy is salmoncore.

[apolaskiart]

Frost and Gricko's tattoos for the iasuw au! Moving on to the kinda complex designs that made me have a bit of a crisis (legit), these ones are just as fun to make but relatively challenging to the previous one in terms of "what do I even put?".

I'll be yapping on my thoughts/headcannons regarding these below, so feel free to dive in! A warning that it is quite lengthy because of said crises-induced reflecting session (a proud citizen of yap city indeed)

First off, we have to talk about the technicalities of Frost's tattoos. It actually put me in a crisis when making this because the first question that came to mind when finding inspo was was "how the hell do you put tattoos on a tiger?"

Aside from the issue of tattooing onto fur, there is the presence of stripes that make it difficult to create a design in the first place. So for this a.u's sake (and my well being) we can treat fur like skin where tattoos can easily be applied and expressed, but would have a shorter lifespan, aka fade quicker, as a con so retouching would be more often. It can also overlap the patterns of the natural fur if designed as such (as I did with Frost).

With this, characters who have fur (e.g. Jornir) could possibly be given tattoos designs in the future while side stepping the technical issues to avoid putting to much focus on it. This could apply to other characters who may have leathery or feathery skin types.

Now of to the designing part. Unlike Gideon and Torbek, the aesthetic/style of the tattoo was not apparent at first and took a bit of a backseat to the actual design elements for Frost. Originally, using a purely geometrical style did not feel satisfying. After revisiting his canon for some ideas, an illustrative style was added to contrast the geometry which then seemingly worked out.

"Frost's design is built mostly of geometry (circles, squares and triangles) to reflect the motion of balance between familiarity and change, logic and unpredictability, comfort and discovery. Strict in pattern and position, most are simple as to take into account the stripes of his fur.

"The only complicated design, a dragon circling a tower and followed by a koi fish, was inspired by the legend of a koi travelling an upstream waterfall to turn into a dragon, signifying strength and perseverance. It is also a sign, that behind a rigid demeanor is a fiery passion waiting to be unleashed." -> The connected yarn was to give the idea that Frost can weave this path of his, but a connection as well to my other hc that it is his main reminder of his home in Yulong.

Things also mostly come in eight (resembles infinity as well as signs for wealth and success)! It was quite fun determining how to add this in as well :D

For the actual main inspo, IVE's "HEYA" has been on the forefront. Combined with another inspired by the phrase "When tigers used to smoke…" (which is the literary equivalent of "once upon a time…" and what has "once upon a…" in their name?), I must say that culture took the reigns in directing Frost's design and imho I would say that, compared to others, his was more appropriate to have strong semblances of his home as a remembrance (e.g. yarn, temple) during his travels.

Also I used a green coloring scheme because literally all other colors did not look as good as i intended. Fate really wanted him to have a green-orange scheme.

Now we got Frost out of the way, its Gricko's turn! Despite being challenging as well, Gricko's design had assistance from punk/heavy metal aesthetics. Though the only idea that I really had mostly was the logo of different band names

I will gladly argue on why Gricko's college band name should be "Goblin Deez..." Imagine, you can say nuts if you are being funny or hands if you want a fight. Anything really, which is liberating at its finest.

From here though, the main idea really that bloomed after this was that most of his tattoos were going to be personal too him!

"Aside from the egregious tattoo of his band name, the tattoos all over him speak of his journey. A pinup of a lady troll and a crown from the hit tv series game of chairs, for his childhood dreams of being a king and bagging a hot troll. A scale and guitar for his college pol. sci days. Others speaking of his collected hobbies and knick- knacks throughout a particularly challenging adulthood. Yet on his chest is his most cherished, his center and everything, which is none other than Hootsie."

The covered half sleeve tattoos on his arm ? That's to cover up the name of his exes (Headcanon that Gricko was just as much a womanizer as Gideon, but mostly in his college to early adult life. He slowed down once Hootsie entered the picture). Also its just more badass looking with designs of the monsters his canon self uses lol.

ALSO ALSO PAINTED NAILS, I'LL ARGUE WITH THE WHOLE COURT ROOM THAT HE AND HOOTSIE PAINT EACH OTHERS NAILS AS A HC!!!!

End of yapping session. Meeting adjourned!

[alexanderwales]

Movie Review: Upstream Color (2013)

I watched Primer when it came out on DVD. It's one of the few movies that, when I finished, I immediately watched a second time. I loved it. It was dense and opaque, and benefited greatly from a second watch, which made the whole thing slot together like a nice little puzzle. It was filmed on a razor-thin budget, with one of the main characters being a writer, director, producer, and editor. I immediately put Shane Carruth on my (then short) list of directors to watch.

So I've been meaning to watch Upstream Color, his second movie, for a full decade now. The reviews for it were never very good, and every Primer fan I knew of said that it was no Primer, and I guess I had other stuff going on for literally a dozen years. I keep a "to watch" movie list, which is usually 20-30 movies deep, and other stuff kept taking priority for one reason or another. I wanted to be in the right mood for it, that was definitely part of it. So I watch a movie every two or three days, something like 100 movies a year, and that means that since Upstream Color came out, I have watched more than a thousand movies instead of watching it.

Spoilers Follow

Let's start with the obvious: Upstream Color is no Primer.

I think that I could fit the story of Upstream Color into a single paragraph. It's not complicated. When we start any movie that my wife doesn't think she'll like, she goes to look up the synopsis and reviews and trivia and stuff, and she quoted me a review that said it was an "opaque mess", and ... I don't agree with that, but I can see where they're coming from.

Here's my plot synopsis:

A man (credited as "Thief") discovers some worms that can be used to induce a hypnotic state. He uses them to hypnotize a woman, Kris, and makes her give him her entire net worth while under hypnosis. When that's done, he leaves, and she writhes around under worm control until being summoned by some music by a different, unconnected man (credited as "Sampler"). The Sampler takes the worm out of her body, implants it into a pig, then releases her. She wakes up with no memory and her life is shattered. Later, she meets Jeff, who had the same thing happen to him, they fall in love, they have a psychic connection to these pigs, they gradually get more in touch with what happened to them, then they go kill the Sampler and rescue the psychic pigs.

I don't think that there's anything in there that anyone could be confused about. The movie spells everything out. There are one or two plot beats aside from that, but this is about it.

It's how the movie does this which is unusual. It's taking show, don't tell to its limits, almost never with dialogue that clarifies anything, and its scenes muddle into each other, with none of them feeling like they last more than a few seconds. There is essentially no grounding, even when it felt to me like there should be, and the movie doesn't ever really stop being a visual tone poem. I found this grating in the first five minutes, then got used to it, and eventually started to find it grating again. I guess my best point of comparison is Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, which I thought was more effective but also did grate on me a little bit.

When a moviemaker does something like this, particularly an auteur (or would-be arteur) like Shane Carruth, I always start by assuming that this is part of the point, that we're being fed the plot one way instead of another because it ties into whatever is going on thematically. And here ...

Where I thought it was most effective was the sequence when the baby pigs were being drowned, since we're almost required to have that whole thing be done with Kuleshov effect, cutting back and forth between the pigs and Kris and the pigs and Jeff. It's a nicely evocative little bit of cinema, even if I didn't think that it emotionally landed for me. Where it's less effective is when we really would have been better served by just having some straightforward exposition, or more standard filmmaking, but I guess if you're committing to the bit, you're really committing.

So what's the story about? What's the analogy, what's the theme?

Kris and Jeff are drawn together because of the psychic connection from the worms/pigs, but also (in my opinion) because they've both been victims of this horrible thing that's happened to them, their entire life having been torn down by some thief, then made to believe that they were somehow responsible. So they've got the psychic thing going on, yes, but they also have parallel traumas, and the same sort of gap in their lives. I think this what I'll call Thesis One, the shared bond of trauma.

Another major thing that struck me when watching the movie was that both our protagonists seem insane from the outside. They have this weird connection to each other that no one could understand (though they don't seem to have friends or family or anyone to talk to who could find it weird). They mix up their memories, and sometimes fight about that. They have bouts of irrationality, paranoia, anger, grief, with no explicable-to-them source. They feel like there's somewhere they're meant to be, but they try to follow that sense, and it leads them nowhere. To me, this immediately said "mental illness", so I'm going to call this Thesis Two, the terror of knowing that something isn't right with you, but having no idea what it is, having this internal feeling inside of you, patterns of behavior that make sense at the time. This movie is basically not shot like a horror movie in any way, and does not use the language of horror films, but I think it does share a lot thematically with the subgenre "mental illness horror" where the protagonist thinks they're crazy. That our two protagonists seem intensely codependent helps push that line.

Lastly, at least some of the movie is about personal identity and meaning, though I'm not sure that I would called that Thesis Three, mostly because I don't know what it's trying to say about personal identity. Clearly both Kris and Jeff are attempting to construct meaning in the wake of what's happened to them, and their identities bleed together with their overlapping memories, but this is just not fulfilled very much, and some of it is wrapped tightly in what I'd call the mental illness stuff.

Even if I'm reasonably confident in what literally happened in the film, and what it's about, there are a few things that don't really click for me.

In a normal film, I would expect that the sequence goes:

woman gets hypnotized and wormed

life is ruined

lots of strange thoughts and adventures with another man who is equally crazy

revelation that she's not crazy after all

revenge and catharsis

But in Upstream Color, the Thief and Sampler are implied to be operating entirely separate from each other. There's a little gap which can't entirely be closed through inference, but it's implied the Sampler incidentally pollutes the water with dead worm-pigs, the organism infects plants, those plants get (totally be coincidence?) taken up by exotic plant foragers, then bought by the Thief. So the Thief and Sampler apparently don't have any relationship with one another.

And yet, it's the Sampler, who removes the worms from people and puts them into pigs, that gets killed in the end. Yes, he was the one to kill the Kris-pig's piglets, but ... I don't really understand this narrative beat. Do they assume that he was the Thief? The Thief gets away with it, and all we see of him in the end is that he's sadly shaking his head because the magic worms are all gone.

I mean, yes, the Sampler is a creep who uses his psychic connection to peep on stranger's lives, and yes, most of these people (seem to be) victims of the Thief, and it's fucked up to not give them information or closure. But if the Sampler and Thief are unrelated, which seems likely to me, then it feels like the Sampler is taking bullets better meant for the Thief? Or is it just because he killed some piglets?

And what does that mean?

I am, moreover, confused about what the function of the Sampler is when compared to what the themes are. Does he tie in with the mental illness angle? No, not really. Does he tie in with shared bond of trauma? Only in that he's preventing people from getting closure, I guess. He's a voyeur, a failed artist, some of this ties to personal identity, but again, it doesn't feel like a strong thesis, it just feels kind of random, especially since we have virtually nothing to go on as far as the Sampler's motives or history. He seemed to me like he was mostly just an artist, with the sounds of nature as his primary art and the experiences of other people as his secondary "art".

I'm going to give my hot take on this movie now, which is that I would have liked it a lot better if it were more traditionally structured. The opening five or so minutes really made me think that I would have been better off leaving it on the to-watch list. The "piecing together the location of the Sampler and getting revenge" stuff was super rushed and kind of nonsensical, and offered no catharsis, only confusion.

Overall, I would say I didn't like the movie. I think it was trying too hard to be deep (for me this is a very high bar to clear), and didn't benefit from the experimental aspects, and would have been better if it at least had a stronger idea of what it was trying to say.

I will now go read some reviews, and maybe that will help something click for me. Hopefully I haven't missed anything major.

[gynandromorph]

it's nofna week, which i do not participate in and probably never will, but it makes me want to finish some of the strips i just haven't really colored yet... as you can see, i didn't finish this one. hopefully i will go back and color it all the way through someday. i am currently coloring a more important strip.

anyway in this strip, resolve tries to incline JS to start trusting her. some of these things may or may not be more obvious to JS, but it should be noted that they don't live in a society where psychological knowledge we might take for granted today is widely distributed. regardless, JS is probably not playing 5d chess the way that resolve is here so much as trying to preserve her sense of dignity. there is a similar tone to syconium's smoothie-and-fig scenes, but JS is technically allowed to leave without resolve, which is seen in a strip i haven't finished sketching. resolve offers access to a distributary here as a gesture of goodwill and almost sort of like a bribe; by leading JS to this water, JS has access to it for bathing whenever she is out on her own as well. she may have been too sensitive to the indignities of being rationed bathing water as a form of continuous bribery. resolve must instead assume JS will use the distributary on her own and feel a sense of gratitude or building trust knowing it was offered to her. as a side note, some cut dialogue was of resolve warning JS not to wander upstream, as there was regular hominid activity that way. all significant water sources are controlled by humans in modern society and theirs is no different. this particular creek was based on one close to part of a canopy tour or hiking path with a waterfall nearby. it's been some-odd months, so i don't remember exactly anymore off the top of my head. -_-; the area was mostly selected based on areas in the drakensberg with forested terrain, to emulate the tree roots of HIOT in rotary.

like in the chronologically first strip with PS, the "R" on JS's thesis means to review, revise, and turn in again. PS scribed her thesis's written proof for her. if scribed by a rodent, the handwriting probably would have been smaller.

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Chordata - Petromyzontida

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Petromyzontida is a class comprising one order, Petromyzontiformes, commonly called “lampreys.”

Like their closest living relatives, the hagfish, lampreys bear a cartilaginous skull and rudimentary vertebrae. Adults lack a jaw, and are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like, sucking mouth. They have elongated, eel-like bodies reaching up to 1.3 metres (3.9 ft) long. They have one nostril atop the head, seven gill pores on each side of the head, two well-developed eyes, and two parietal eyes. Only 18 species are predators or scavengers, the rest (all freshwater species) do not feed as adults, instead living off the reserves gained as juveniles. Carnivorous species are marine, though 9 of them migrate into freshwater to breed. They use the suction cup around their mouths to cling to rocks or prey, using their tongue to either rasp blood from prey or algae from rocks. They also use this suction cup to climb up rocks when migrating upstream to breed.

Adult lampreys spawn in nests of sand, gravel and pebbles in clear streams. After hatching from their eggs the larvae, called ammocoetes, will drift downstream with the current until they reach soft and fine sediment in which to burrow, taking up an existence as filter feeders, collecting detritus, algae, and microorganisms (image 4). Their eyes are underdeveloped, only capable of discriminating changes in light. Lampreys spend the majority of their lives as these filter-feeding ammocoetes. Most species spend up to 8 years, though some may spend as little as 1-2 years. The ammocoetes will then undergo a metamorphosis which generally lasts 3-4 months, during which they do not eat.

The oldest fossil lamprey, Priscomyzon, is known from the Late Devonian. Other stem-group lampreys, like Pipiscius, Mayomyzon and Hardistiella are known from the Carboniferous. While they appear relatively unchanged, stem-lampreys lack the specialised, heavily toothed discs with plate-like laminae present in modern lampreys, and their larvae resembled the adults, rather than having a distinct stage. The earliest lamprey with the specialised toothed oral disc typical of modern lampreys is Yanliaomyzon from the Middle Jurassic.

Propaganda under the cut:

Many species change color as ammocoetes, becoming dark during the day and pale at night.

Lampreys have been extensively studied because their relatively simple brain is thought to reflect the brain structure of early vertebrate ancestors, thus providing insight into our origins.

Lampreys are valued as food in the Northwest United States, throughout Europe, in Russia, Japan, and in South Korea. King Henry I of England is claimed to have been so fond of lampreys that he often ate them, late into life and poor health, against the advice of his physician concerning their richness, and is said to have died from eating "a surfeit of lampreys".

In the county of Nakkila (Finland) and Carnikava Municipality (Latvia), the European River Lamprey (Lampetra fluviatilis) is the local symbol, found on their coats of arms.

The legend of the Lambton Worm from County Durham in North-East England concerns a lamprey being fished out of the River Wear by a young boy skipping church. He declares that he had “caught the devil” and disposes of it down a nearby well. Over the years, the lamprey grows into a giant, poisonous Worm, wrapping itself around a local hill and terrorizing the village. Hijinks and witch-curses ensue.

Lampreys were highly appreciated by the Ancient Romans, not only as food, but also as pets. Lucius Licinius Crassus was mocked by Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus for weeping over the death of his pet lamprey, who he was said to have adorned with earrings and small necklaces, training it to respond to its name and swimming up to eat what was offered. Crassus retorted that Domitius had lost three wives himself and Crassus had never seen him shed a tear.

Publius Vedius Pollio was reportedly an exceedingly cruel Roman soldier who kept a pool of carnivorous lampreys to which he would feed slaves who had displeased him. This went on until Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus was visiting his mansion and witnessed Pollio about to dispatch a slave who had broken a crystal cup. Augustus had all of Pollio’s cups destroyed, as well as his mansion, and filled in his pond. This is likely an urban legend, but honestly, I feel like it should have ended with Pollio going down with the lampreys.

Dams and other human development have made it hard for lampreys to migrate upstream to breed. Some scientists are hoping to design ramps that will utilize lamprey’s climbing ability so that they can bypass dams.

[xmarchwarden-of-lothlorienx]

Two Halves of the Same Whole

Legolas x gn!elf!reader

Requested (Kinda): @legolastaint

Summary: “Ughhhh i NEED someone to write a legolas x reader fic where you just get to be feral little guys together. Please!!! I want running through the woods barefoot together, i want playing pretend!! I want catching bugs and frogs and the like and marvelling at their beauty!!! I want playing in a creek and catching fish and crawdads and shiny rocks!!! I want playing and making things out of all of our little found object collections!!! I want hanging out outside in the rain or during a thunderstorm!!! And i dont want it to be platonic!! I want this to be love!!!!!!!! I want this to be our affection for each other!!!!!!!”

Author’s Note: I hope I captured the vibe you wanted! As a feral little gremlin that grew up in the country, I’ve also wanted more fics like this :) It is a little short, but if you like it I can and will write more <3

The cold water of the creek was a direly needed refreshment. You had stripped off your boots, rolled up your pant legs, and were now wading in the shallow water. A splash from a few feet upstream told you that Legolas had decided to join you.

"Meleth nin, are you sure our friend won't mind us being late?"

"No, he will understand," you hummed. "Especially if we find a gift to bring him." The pair of you were on your way to visit a new friend, Willard, that resided in his own small corner of the Greenwood.

That is, you were on your way until you could no longer ignore the call of the creeks cooling waters. You intended to depart for Willard's home earlier, before the heat peaked for the day, but Legolas had been very particular when selecting wildflowers. He insisted the finishing touch for today's picnic be a marvelous bouquet that Willard could admire during the time before your next visit. After showing you the final product, you agreed with his vision, but now you needed a break from walking in the heavy heat of the afternoon.

"And what sort of gift would he like most," Legolas questioned.

"I think we will know when we find it." You scanned the creek bed for a glimmer of any long lost trinkets to gift your friend. The only thing to catch your eye was a school of small, shimmering fish coming to say hello in the water surrounding your legs. You softly laughed as they tickled and brushed against you.

"Do we have something that the little fish may enjoy," You called out to Legolas and gestured to your new acquaintances. A gentle smile, touched with affection at your care for even the smallest of creatures, spread across his face.

"I shall look, meleth nin." He returned to where he'd left the picnic basket on the shore, looking for something suitable to give the fish among what you packed. Legolas settled on some apples slices that he could further dice to a smaller size.

While bringing the bits of apple to you, something peeking out from the creeks sandy bottom caught his attention. He bent down and scooped it from the sand, gently swishing it around in the water to clean it off. The little treasure was a stone, more of a gem really, no bigger than a large coin, yet Legolas knew that this was it.

Legolas approached you, a grin plastered across his face as he presented the stone to you - its colorful and translucent surface resembling stained glass, smoothed and polished from the water. You let out a gasp, throwing your arms around him and nearly sending both of you tumbling into the water.

"It's perfect," you brushed a few stray strands of his hair away and pressed a kiss to his temple. "I know Willard will absolutely adore it."

-

You were walking side-by-side with Legolas, your hands intertwined while his free hand carried the picnic basket and yours carried the precious stone. The two of you were now approaching the large willow tree that marked Willard's dwelling.

You halted once you reached the tree, rapping the trunk with your knuckles a couple times, "Willard, we're here!" You shot a glance towards Legolas who had lowered and started to unpack the picnic basket. Kneeling down to a small gap where the tree's roots met the ground, you peaked inside, "Willard?" Your voice was met with a soft thud as Willard, the large toad that lived beneath the willow tree, hopped out of his abode to greet you.

"There he is," Legolas chimed in. "Perhaps we left him waiting too long and he laid down for his afternoon nap," he commented as he set plates and food down for the three of you.

"Maybe," You sighed, drawing your eyebrows together. "But I think our lateness will be forgiven once he sees his gift. Here," you placed the shiny stone several inches in front of Willard, who immediately hopped over to inspect it further.

"I think he loves it already, meleth nin," Legolas observed while passing you a flask of water to fill your cup with.

"I agree, I think you certainly have an eye for treasure, Legolas," a satisfied grace spread across your features.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to your lips, "I think I most certainly do."

[imperialchem]

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[theragamuffininitiative]

My drive home was gorgeous tonight. I had the windows down to the cool night air. I wanted to write a poem about it and found I didn't know the words...

May 3rd poem:

"Atrophy"

The words don't come anymore.

The words have been dammed for

years, plugged and stopped like held back tears

until the well

dries up.

The words don't come anymore.

I drove home through colored lights and

sounds, and artful thoughts ground

to a halt,

silent.

I once could tell, tell with words sparkling and smooth, phrases made of river rocks polished from years of holding, feeling, use.

I could spin fairy tales out of the way the white lines on the highway chart paths for...for... something.

(Cars are like ships without sails.)

I could build windows to view how something as mundane as the drive home might look if it were in paint...

(Traffic beneath a bridge has a voice that echoes.)

The sun was going down on my drive home.

The sky was gilt orange with its passing and curtained with bowing purple to give a royal send-off while the faithful regent moon took her turn.

How many poets have sung the praises

of sunsets?

How many pens have made stories out

of sorrows?

The emotions are still there - the yearning music, the love of beauty, light, and form now wait

behind the dam, somewhere upstream of tear ducts.

Poets' words echo here like traffic under a bridge where I sit.

Sonnets and semi truck highbeams

keep the bridge, the white striped lines, and my poet road

lit.

I stumble for a sense of rhythm

I catch almost by chance upon a rhyme...

They've disappeared two stanzas in.

The words don't come anymore.

My atrophy disarmed them

and sent them on their commute.

Maybe tomorrow morning

in my car

at sunrise

when my heart aches

or under a bridge

I'll wave them a hello.