Today is National Dance Day. Why don't we learn the Charleston?

(Photo: Library of Congress)

(Photo: Unknown!)

 (Photo: WWU Swing Kids)

Little Dorrit

 

Pictures: Masterpiece Theatre, Jane Austen Today

Choose the best of the following answers:

1. I finished watching Masterpiece Theatre's rendition of Dickens' Little Dorrit today, which has resulted in one or more of the following:

A. I want to write a slightly dark, comical short story, Dickens-style.

B. I have a crush on Matthew McFayden which hasn't surfaced since he played Darcy.

C. I am making a purple dress, half-inspired by Amy Dorrit's wearing purple throughout the film.

D. I sort of want to get bangs again.

E. All of the above.

7. Learn to crack an egg with one hand.

An update on my summer bucket list:

I am done with House of Leaves and will write properly about it later.

My family and I went to the Pageant of the Masters last weekend, which was amazing. And I will write about it later.

Last night, I decided to try cracking an egg with one hand, remembering it was on this list. (I got this idea from Sabrina, when Audrey Hepburn goes to cooking school and cracks eggs one-handed.) As it turns out, I succeeded on my first try.

Check.

(Photo: Reefbuilders)

"Also today I experienced something which I hope to understand in a few days."
-Jørgen Leth's The Perfect Human

The other day I walked down to the dock near my grandparents' beach house and noticed some small, blue, glowing things in the water. They were about the size of a staple and moved in small circles, leaving bright blue trails and then disappearing. I had no idea what they were until I got home and discovered that they are phytoplankton, and more specifically "bioluminescent dinoflagellates."

Aren't they amazing? I just love the fact that these things exist and live right here on the same planet, and not only that, but they were here first. And thousands, or more likely, millions of years later, I get to be amazed by them as if they were brand new. It's like the world just told me a secret.

"There is another world, but it is in this one."
-William Butler Yeats

Your Secret

Your secret from Jean-Sebastien Monzani on Vimeo.

Ignant is a German blog and one of my favorites (and soon, I'll do a real post about them). Today, they showed me this beautiful peice by Jean-Sebastien Monzani. I am severely tempted to watch this movie, every day, for the rest of my life.

Isn't It Romantic?

I am in Newport Beach this week, and last night I was sitting on the dock of the development where my grandparents live, looking out into the bay. Across the water, you can see Balboa Island and on it, an old building, all lit up.

My grandma used to tell me stories about how that building was once a dance hall and how all the lovely Newport ladies would dress up for the dances there. I would love to have been there, slow dancing to this:

I am keeping this scar because it reminds me of you.
I am keeping this paper I wrote all over at the end of last June
And I am saving my ticket and yours from a play we saw last August
And I am still wearing the shoes I wore when I walked next to you
I am still writing with the same fingers I wrote with when our orbits moved closer
I am still walking with the same feet and moving with the same bones
And I am also saving the feeling I had and the words that I wrote about it
And I am keeping the chalk and paint on my hands and the eyes I saw your eyes with

(To be continued?)