Like everyone other supporter of the North London Massive, I am gutted by the loss to Man Utd. this morning. It feels like a Zidane red carding, a Trezeguet penalty miss, and Italy winning the 06 World Cup again. It is almost unbearable pain. I can't even like Ronaldo now. (Truly, I can't! But give it another day-- or hour. This is Ronaldo we are speaking of, so let us not be rash.) I would go on, but I would be tiresome. Or even more tiresome than I already am.
But this piece of news 1) rather unsettled; 2) made me sad; 3) put things in perspective. I am truly enamored of the beautiful game and the Arsenal way, but I love myself too much to follow suit. Read this.
I had to bite back a smile when I read this bit on Nicklas Bendtner, Arsenal's much-maligned Danish striker's (I am inexplicably fond of him though-- and you will think me mad if you were to see how painfully extravagant he is with chances. I think he's precious in that brash, undauntable, clueless 20-year old sort of way.) borderline histrionical reaction to the loss. He took to the tipple, too much of which, we all know to be, twin to certain downward spirals. Nik's was literal.
His apology was swift and sweet, and in all likelihood, dictated by Arsene Wenger. Haha. Nik B., you made what was an otherwise unmakeable day!
Note:
1. I should mention that Cesc (and Nasri and Song) did try to bail Arsenal out. But with certain deadweight players (let us not name names) reveling in their deadweightness, alas, it was a Sisyphean task.
My heart has hairline fissures.
A physiological impossibility, perhaps, but a description that dovetails with my hyperexaggeratory self.
Arsenal seem to be coming up short again. And where this team is concerned, I find myself always overtaken by an ineffable immediacy, this sense of life-and-deathness, a see-sawing between pure joy and unadulterated grief. On top of, quelle surprise, indefatigable babble.
I did not write about Arsenal's loss to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi's two weeks ago (How is one to bear rehashing a 2-1 loss, when one's team led courtesy of a Theo Walcott goal only to allow the Enemy in the person of a certain Didier Drogba, the run of the park?), and find no need to relive the Thursday morning's numbing non-performance v. Man Utd. in the first leg of the Champions League semi's at Old Trafford (It is a mark of Arsenal's poor play that a 1-0 loss is reason to rejoice, when the results, fairly, it pains me, could have been a more lopsided 3-0, 4-0, 5-0. Ow.) I simply could not.
I do, however, want to highlight that Cesc Fabregas scored two goals in last Saturday's Prem win against relegation-endangered Middlesbrough. This is the joy of Cesc. Swoon. See the goals in this video, and tell me that this is not the most attractive football on the planet. How skilled was Nik Bendtner's backheel flick to Cesc? How clever was that pass from Andrey Arshavin to Cesc? And how inspired was that first goal?
It is proof of Cescy's growing stature as one of football's leading lights that Man Utd. coach Sir Alex Ferguson journeyed from the backwaters of Mancunia to the capital to scope out the Gunners at The Emirates the Sunday preceding the midweek CL fixture. Full points to SAF who read the game and read it well. Fab was shackled by some MU non-entities in the CL game.
Top marks for Cesc though, in the pitch black that was that horrid match, he was light. Hahaha. Someday, I would be properly mortified by this paeanistic effusion. For now, I am past containment.
Oh and the boy paints. Or tries. He is certainly not in the caliber of his Catalonian compatriot, Miro. But let's give credit where credit is due. The boy does try. This is his painting for the Willow Foundation (I regret not bidding for it) and what I hope Arsenal's future to be. Sunny... With Teeth.
The second leg of the CL semi's, Arsenal's final hope in ending a four-year trophy-less spell, likewise my last purchase on sanity, plays on Wednesday. If by some miracle it is managed, Arsenal ought to turn in a vintage performance and send MU tumbling off their high horses. One can hope so one does.
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Spent Earth Hour (well 15 minutes of it) with a candle, a roti bun and a digital cam (at ISO 1600):
in outward silence but with this repeating in my head:
and [CHEAT!*] a general urge to edit:
--- "with regular hand washing, clean, disinfect
and moisturize your hands, reduce germs
and protect hands for a longer period of time".
1. It was reported that the RP was the most successful participant of Earth Hour this year, with 650 cities participating and 611 Megawatt-hours saved. But one wouldn't know it, talking to my cousin, J. Pempe Luis, who said that Neighbor A... oh nevermind. It's much funnier when you're there yourself.
2.
London's Lucky Soul takes me back to the '60s, where I've never been. How fun. It's just what pop music is supposed to do. And as much as they deny being clever ("[y]our guts aren't clever"), well they are ---
Shady, shameless and hurtful,
The bitterest cream makes the best cocktail curdle and
Undream, all that you long for,
To throw it all down and retreat into a corner and cry...
"I want you so bad that it hurts,
I want you so bad that it burns right through."
Forever struck dumb, dum dum de do woah a woah
Struck dumb, dum dum de do woah...
Baby, I’ll not desert you,
When carrion crows argue envy is a virtue,
They bleed green. Don’t let your guard down,
The magic don’t touch when you curl into a small ball and cry...
"I want you so bad that it hurts,
I want you so bad that it burns right through."
Forever struck dumb, dum dum de doo woah a woah
Struck dumb, dum dum de doo woah a woah...
Lately, silent survival,
Has brilliant thoughts turning grey on arrival,
Like old gum: stretched out and worthless,
A literate thirst is a hearse when you can’t say the lines:
"I want you so bad that it hurts,
I want you so bad that it burns right through."
Forever struck dumb, dum dum de doo woah a woah…
Struck dumb, dum dum de doo woah a woah...
Line:
1 - Shady? Shameless? Hurtful? In a pop song?
2 - Bitterest? I love excess.
3 - "Undream..." Word invention is my favorite thing in the whole world, "...all that you long for..." Ouch.
4 - Ali's restraint is amazing on "cry".
5 - And her desperation here is utter.
6 - As here. In 4, 5 and 6 the impending doom-ish background vocals add necessary drama.
7, 8 - I love any resort to ooh-wahs.
9 - I want this promise made to me.
10 - I love when people turn all sciencey and geeky. Once in my second year in High School I kept raising my hand after I'd already recited in Biology. Ms. Dyguazo said, "Other hands?" Wow. That does happen in real life. And it happened to me. (So I love me? Well that's a given.)
11 - Good advice. In this verse there's a "pap-pap-pap" going on in the background also.
12 - Here Ali lets go on "cry". And then there's the (impending doom-ish) BVs again.
13, 14, 15, 16 - Please see 5, 6, 7, 8. More desperation.
17 - Not sure what to make of this, but.
18 - Any use of the word "brilliant" and I'm sold. Still waiting for that to appear on my pleadings, though. But one's got to strive for something.
19 - There's urgency again in "stretched out".
20 - I will be less literate and say I am one of those who cannot resist a British accent.
21, 22, 23, 24 - Please see 5, 6, 7, 8.
A full review of The Great Unwanted shall follow.
3. Okay my goal is to make things better one label at a time. Take heed.
Why:
1. One does not really wash her hands "regular(ly)", does she? Like, say, every 2 hours? It's more like, when the need arises.
2. To "reduce germs" and to "protect hands" already fall under "clean" and "disinfect". They may be done away with.
3. "(F)or a longer period of time" --- This conflicts with "regular hand washing" because one need not wash regularly if her hands were protected "for a longer period of time". In any case, since we've removed "regular", and since we've established that one ought wash her hands based on the circumstances, the phrase becomes unnecessary.
And so. Having been washing my hands obsessively for the last 3 years I haven't been sick majorly for a while. I guess then that it works. In this respect, this product is alright.
---
Lucky Soul photo c/o http://www.elefant.com
*An afterthought, of course.