2004-01-10

The truth is, she arrived at an Age when she thought she might indulge herself in any Liberties with a Man, without the danger of bringing a third Person into the World to betray them.

Henry Fielding, from Joseph Andrews
________________

Rabbi Hanina said, "One may not sleep alone in a house, for Lilith takes hold of whoever sleeps alone in a house."

Tractate Shabbat 151b
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Come and see: There is a female, a spirit of all spirits, and her name is Lilith, and she was at first with Adam. And in the hour when Adam was created and his body became completed, a thousand spirits from the left side clung to that body until the Holy One, blessed be He, shouted at them and drove them away. And Adam was lying, a body without a spirit, and his appearance was green, and all those spirits surrounded him. In that hour a cloud descended an pushed away all those spirits. And when Adam stood up, his female was attached to his side. And that holy spirit which was in him spread out to this side and that side, and grew here and there, and thus became complete. Thereafter the Holy One, blessed be He, sawed Adam into two, and made the female. And He brought her to Adam in her perfection like a bride to the canopy. When Lilith saw this, she fled. And she is in the cities of the sea, and she is still trying to harm the sons of the world.

Zohar 3:19
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'Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are.

Daniel Defoe, from A System of Magick

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Thirty-seven.


conceive a man,should he have anything
would give a little more than it away

(his autumn's winter being summer's spring
who moved by standing in november's may)
from whose(if loud most howish time derange

the silent whys of such a deathlessness)
remembrance might no patient mind unstrange
learn(nor could all earth's rotting scholars guess
that life shall not for living find the rule)

and dark beginnings are his luminous ends
who far less lonely than a fire is cool
took bedfellows for moons mountains for friends

--open your thighs to fate and(if you can
withholding nothing)World,conceive a man

e.e. cummings
from dream

________________
      in our only time

"Follow me," the voice, the long, longed-for voice stops
the writing hand. "I have your shoes."

(C. D. Wright)
________________

2004-01-09

Rape is a crime against sleep and memory.
the daily weather update
Would I make a good weather-woman?

1°F
Partly Cloudy
Feels Like:
-16°F

Lyle Lovett on the radio and having the car start - on the first try! - made for a warm morning.

morning

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best --
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows --
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

--Billy Collins

I had to look it up:

swale n.

1. A low tract of land, especially when moist or marshy.

2. A long, narrow, usually shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline.

3. A shallow troughlike depression that carries water mainly during rainstorms or snow melts.

2004-01-07

response to a dear friend

hey there rachel,

we can sign away just about all of our rights these days. now you have the ability to sign away your right to change your mind.


http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Relationships/Sex_contracts_040107-1.html
let me know what you think.

Bizarre.
This form would hold the same weight as a friend's witness that "she agreed to go up to his place at the bar in front of us and she was dancing with him all night," used to imply absolute consent and the impossibility of withdrawl of that consent. The legal system's place in the arena of sex is to protect individuals from unwanted invasions of their physical persons.
On one hand, contract law has a precedent for this sort of crystal-ball agreement; "I the undersigned agree that hereafter (whatever)" is common verbage. It does assume that each party will be free of the contract if either side breaks the restraints on the agreement. Stating the restrictions on sexual consent would be difficult without using vaguely defined language like "mental and/or emotional coercion," "UNWANTED physical force." This has been debated in sexual assault law since there was such a thing.
On the other hand (or maybe from a quote Feminist Philosophy of Law unquote), law must function within the mechanism of the culture it limits. If the intent of the legal system is to protect from incursion on the person and property of the individual from other individuals, then an agreement freely entered into is just that, whether dealing with sex or business partnerships. This is a system that assumes property and trade as the stuff of human interaction. If the intent of the legal system is to protect the inviolability of the individual's privacy, or dignity, or well-being, then factors other than obvious physical force or intoxication might render a contract untenable. Such a system might hold that it is not the place of a contract to determine sexual consent, especially not unconditional and continued signed-away consent for any period of time; instead, sexual assault law might err on the side of non-consent whenever one party declared said "consent" coerced in any way.
I was about to give you another "on the ___ hand," but I am not Ganesha. I would consider the proposed document letter-of-the-law tenable, but wholly unwise. This opinion does not at all diminish my lingering crush on Randite anarchy. More on this soon.
xo,
Rachel
6 degrees
feels like
-12 with windchill

Brrr!

Tofu and noodles and hot tea.
Neil Gaiman on the Presidential poetry cover-up

All right, all right: we get it already

It's 7C below zero!
Thirty-three.


A Precise Woman

A precise woman with a short haircut brings order
to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,
moves feelings around like furniture
into a new arrangement.
A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided
into upper and lower,
with weather-forecast eyes
of shatterproof glass.
Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.

A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)

-- Yehuda Amichai

2004-01-06

From: "Jay J. Haman" [qgehali@e-hkma.com]

Rise and shine!

A woman like you


people say A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

http://plant@www.hgjkl.us/alpha/?nokia

Oant sjen

Outland, Christian
service@execworld.net
185 2325566
Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most
readily develop.

I forgot: happy new year!


The nicest spam. Thank you, qgehali@e-hkma.com. (wait... hokmah?)
From: "Jay J. Haman" [qgehali@e-hkma.com]

Rise and shine!

A woman like you


people say A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

http://plant@www.hgjkl.us/alpha/?nokia

Oant sjen

Outland, Christian
service@execworld.net
185 2325566
Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most
readily develop.

I forgot: happy new year!


The nicest spam. Thank you, qgehali@e-hkma.com. (wait... hokmah?)
hung up on a dream

How is it that I'd gone so long without this album?

Five dug from the back of the closet:

Zombies - Odyssey and Oracle
Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers
The Who - Tommy (all four sides)
The Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
Cream - Disraeli Gears

You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun

2004-01-05

Thirty-one.

Boston

My northern pines are good enough for me,
But there’s a town my memory uprears—
A town that always like a friend appears,
And always in the sunrise by the sea.
And over it, somehow, there seems to be
A downward flash of something new and fierce,
That ever strives to clear, but never clears
The dimness of a charmed antiquity.

-- E. A. Robinson

2004-01-04

This is not the motorcycle road.



(Getting colder but never closer.)