Last week sitting in Tom’s Kitchen, where the pork chops were quietly breaking my heart, Rossetti pulled out a bag from under the table. “For me?”, my brain salivated. A peek inside revealed Anger 3, The Devils and The Tempest (Derek Jarman’s).

More (including Anger's Lucifer Rising on YouTube) after the jump.

I watched the Kenneth Anger shorts last night, tickled by the breeze block thick card VHS case that housed the tape. Rossetti had suggested I skip the first film, Kustom Kar Kommandos, but being ornery that only made me want to watch it. Wonderfully amusing, slightly camp, car fetishising. I’d quite like to be given a once over by the fluffy white duster used to clean the chrome automobile with such tender, loving care. Superb colours - saturated, deep pinks, pale blues, white and gleaming metal - and a great soundtrack: I think I found more to like here than Rossetti. It reminded me of parts of Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition...

... which also popped into my mind during the next short, Invocation of my Demon Brother. The film was interesting, but Mick Jagger’s morse code-a-like loops did my ears in after a while. Fantastic, demented visuals, effects and editing though. But only a taster of things to come.

The standout film was Lucifer Rising. I loved it. The more stately pace, compared to Invocation, worked well, as did the more restrained use of effects to heighten their impact. Lucifer also has a killer soundtrack to match the imagery. Rossetti delighted in telling me a little of the history of the film. Jimmy Page had been asked by Anger to write the soundtrack, but they fell out during production. After that, Anger turned to Beausoleil, who was in sing-sing for his involvement with the Manson family killings. Legend has it that Anger also invoked some dark, satanic curse causing Jimmy Page to fall ill, so he could no longer play guitar.

Next up, The Tempest.

. . .

Lucifer Rising

Part I

Part II

Part III

Luca Rossetti, coadiuvato da Matteo Chiarcossi, ha vinto con la Peugeot 207 Super 2000 la 92ma edizione della Targa Florio, quarta tappa del Campionato Italiano Rally. Il pilota friulano, partito come una furia nella tappa di ieri, per poi essere costretto a rintuzzare gli attacchi degli avversari, dopo l’inconveniente alla terza marcia risolto solo in nottata, ha continuato a dare prova di straordinario carattere, vincendo due della quattro prove speciali disputate oggi.

Sulle strade attorno a Lascari e Cefalù, il pilota di Pordenone ha confermato la sua leadership, che lo ha portato al successo finale. Per lui il primato in classifica si rafforza, grazie all’uscita di Piero Longhi, che coabitava con lui in testa al campionato. In seconda posizione ha chiuso Paolo Andreucci, su Mitsubishi Evo IX. Il vincitore di cinque edizioni della storica sfida siciliana ha gestito al meglio il suo bolide di gruppo N, per esprimere delle prestazioni straordinarie su un percorso più adatto alle Super 2000.

Alle sue spalle sono giunti Andrea Navarra e Renato Travaglia, entrambi al volante delle Grandi Punto Abarth.

Classifica del Campionato Italiano Piloti:

01. Rossetti (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) 30 punti
02. Longhi (Subaru Impreza Sti) 20
03. Andreucci (Mitsubishi) 19
04. Navarra (Grande Punto Abarth) 17
05. Travaglia (Grande Punto Abarth) 14

Classifica Campionato Italiano Costruttori:

01. Peugeot 30 punti
02. Mitsubishi 26.5
03. Subaru 20
03. Abarth 19

Classifica Campionato Indipendenti:

01. Cavallini (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) 31
02. Cantamessa (Mitsubishi) 23
03. Perico (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) 18

Super 1600:

01. Torlasco 15 punti
02. Cortinovis e di Benedetti 10.

Super 2000:

01. Rossetti 35 punti
02. Navarra 25
03. Travaglia 18

Gruppo N:

01. Longhi e Andreucci 23
03. Cantamessa 18

Gruppo R3:

01. Pierotti 21 punti
02. Gamba 20
03. Tognozzi 18

Gruppo R2:

01. Chentre 34 punti
02. Buda16

Gruppo N 2Rm:

01. Bracco 24. 5
02. Moricci 21

Under 23:

01. Pinzano 5 punti

Femminile:

01. Mainiero 22 punti
02. Sciascia 18

Diesel:

01. Consigli 20 punti

[via: motorsportblog.it]

Es tan adorable introducirme
en su lecho, y que mi mano viajera
descanse, entre sus piernas, descuidada,
y al desenvainar la columna tersa
su cimera encarnada y jugosa
tendrá el sabor de las fresas, picante
presenciar la inesperada expresión
de su anatomía que no sabe usar,
mostrarle el sonrosado engarce
al indeciso dedo, mientras en pérfidas
y precisas dosis se le administra audacia.
Es adorable pervertir
a un muchacho, extraerle del vientre
virginal esa rugiente ternura
tan parecida al estertor final
de un agonizante, que es imposible
no irlo matando mientras eyacula.

Mostly a jumble of fear and worry. I don't want to let down my readers or my publishers, so I hope the book doesn't disappoint all of those people. I'm very grateful for the support, and I'm hoping I don't fail those readers.

2) Which do you prefer, writing the first draft of a manuscript or revising until it's ready for your editor's eyes?

I prefer whichever one I'm doing that day. I love the whole process. I'm a word geek. I like everything from conceptualizing to major overhaul to tweaking to comma checking. The only part that really evokes the angst is [the book's] initial release. Logic and memory say I'm a ranting fool in other parts too. [As I wait for Ink Exchange to come out], I'm going over revisions for Enthralled (book three) and first pass galleys for Love is Hell (an anthology), but that all feels like good fun.

3) Take us through a day in the life of Melissa Marr.

It's varied. This week:

-wake up, get Son ready for school, walk Son and Puppy Drusilla to school, tell Dru that we must leave Son there, walk some more, and go home.

-then I go with either Plan A (Make tea. Check email. Write.) OR  Plan B (Nap until afternoon. Make tea. Check email. Write.). This depends on whether I slept the night before or stayed up working.

-mid-afternoon, collect Son. Time with him. Collect Daughter. Time with her. Eventually dinner, and then working. If I'm not in revisions or away or dedicated drafting, there are pleasant workouts and bubble baths and roaming in there. Right now, I'm kind of hectic though. It's all relative to the deadlines and events schedules.

4) When you were a teenager, was there a book that had a lasting impact on you? If so, what was it that stuck with you, and why?

Probably the book that I cherished and was most influenced by was the biography of Jim Morrison.  It was through that book that I found Rimbaud, which led to Baudelaire, which led to Nietzsche, which led to Kierkegaard. After that discovery trail, I became a serious pattern reader. I used one book to springboard into others. I liked Faulkner, so I read Hemingway. I liked Rossetti, so I read Browning. I think that habit was first obvious to me when reading the Morrison bio.

5) When you enter a bookstore, where does your automatic pilot take you: the YA section, or adult section? And which genre do you lean toward as a reader?

I go to whichever section is in front of me. I read across the store/library/genres. Aside from self-help or inspirational, I'm pretty open to most sorts of books. I like folklore, classic lit, romance, YA, urban fantasy, mystery, women's studies, world religion/philosophy, contemporary fiction, some military history, once in a while a horror or middle grade novel, every so often a chick-lit book. My tastes are pretty wide.

For more Melissa, visit her site or blog.

Sono andato a vedere lo spettacolo completamente ignaro su chi fosse la compagnia, e anche dopo aver letto il libretto che li definisce "fra i più prestigiosi e quotati nel panorama mondiale della danza contemporanea" il dubbio è rimasto...sono stato a vedere lo spettacolo di Martha Graham e di Daniel Ezralow entrambi super accreditati, ma che alla fine non mi son piaciuti...

Ma la magia del teatro ha inizio, L. ha trovato dei posti eccezionali in seconda fila centrali, la luci si spengono, il red courtain si apre, la musica inizia e i ballerini sono pronti a rapirti per trascinarti con loro in un mondo nuovo, fatto di di perfezione, di sussulti e sospiri, di una bellezza pura da togliere il fiato.

La prima coerografia di una mezz'ora circa mi entusiasma come non mai, si chiama "Bardo" , è viscerale , forte e pulsante ... mette in scena dieci ballerini che si muovono come fossero un tutt'uno, mai una sbavatura, mai un alluce fuori posto ... poi finisce che mi perdo nella sinuosità di un corpo, nel desiderio sessuale e mi chiedo se sia un valore aggiunto alla sua arte o se sto .. (senza accento...grazie L.) ... sminuendo il capolavoro che quei ballerini stanno dipingendo davanti ai miei occhi ...

Finita la prima coerografia si cambia genere e si prosegue con un passo a due spagnoleggiante (in verità le musiche leggo che sono ispirate alla tunisia...)... qui il pubblico va in visibilio, e io rimango un po' dubbioso perchè in verità non riesco a smettere di pensare alle musiche e alle emozioni del ballo precedente.

Si prosegue con altre due coreografie simpatiche, i ballerini cambiano ogni volta e sono tutti eccezionali, ma porca miseria perchè continuo a desiderare di rivedere quelle scene di "massa" ?

Stranamente per una volta vengo ricompensato e nel gran finale "Palladio" ci sono tutti i ballerini visti durante le esibizioni precedenti...e già anche il mio sogno proibito...sono di nuovo in estasi e quando parte la musica di "Palladio" (quella dello spot di "un diamante è per sempre) un brivido mi percorre e mi stupisco nello scoprire che mi è venuta la pelle d'oca...

Lo spettacolo finisce mentre gli applausi sembrano non finire mai ....

Di ritorno a casa ho messo la musica di Karl Jenkins a manetta in un repeat infinito... Oggi in ufficio idem, per buona pace della mia collega R. che fortunatamente apprezza...

Insomma ora devo solo decidere se sono loro o i Momix i miei preferiti :)

Notte blog.

Per quanto riguarda la 1° edizione del rally storico invece, supremazia per Porsche, in tre salgono sul podio.

YouTube-kimoracing

fettered by all times of time

--

the hands are what catch the eye first

huge hands with long fingers folded and interlaced

arched neck and tilted head equine, not human

blue eyes stare vacantly from their perch above serious nose

lips curve into a bitter pout

--

wind gusts rustle the verdant leaves

startling the ravens from slumber

La Pia!  La Pia! they caw and cackle on their wing-ed way

--

painting is dante's private purgatory

so he borrows his namesake's tale

to tell his own the better

--

their love is the bliss of heaven

but their crime holds a circle in hell

his heart's desire cannot, will not be freed

--

she is not the patient The Pious

but merely a model sulking like all his women do

just gabriel's forbidden love silently, mockingly cursing her husband

from the gold-gilt frame her lover crafted to hold her

those hands could do cruel, wicked things

--

she sits entwined in ivy

fettered by all times of time

Above: despite his modesty, wine writer David Lynch is no second-string sommelier (center, with enologist Antigoni Karamvali and marketing director Valerie Tsakiris of Boutari).

It seems that Greek wines are in the air: Eric included a wine from Santorini in a post and column this week and I recently learned that the 2008 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen will include a seminar on Greek wine led by David Lynch -- wine writer, top-flight sommelier, and all-around good guy.

Week before last, David and I attended a tasting of wines by Boutari (whose website is written entirely in Greek). Besides Boutari's winemaker and marketing director, we were also joined by Mitch Frank of The Wine Spectator, a former political writer (whose insights into the current campaign were fascinating).

David likes to joke that he's a "J[unior] V[arsity]" member among NYC's top sommeliers but, let me tell you, this guy really knows his stuff: few can rival his knowledge of Italian wine and he's tasted and poured with the best of them.

"95% of the value of a wine in a restaurant," he said, "is the serving temperature and the stemware. Serve a $35 bottle of wine at the right temperature and in the right glass, and it's worth twice that much."

Above: of the whites, I really liked the Moscofilero (left) but the Santorini (center) blew me away.

While the higher-end blends of native Greek varieties and Bordeaux grapes were international in style and heavy on the wood, the lower-end bottlings were fresh, clean, and delightful. The Moschofilero (white) was distinctive, slightly musky, and delicious with grilled octopus and I really liked the Santorini, made from Assyrtiko grapes, a white with balanced mineral and fruit flavors.

As Eric mentions in his post, the vineyards on the volcanic island of Santorini are a sight to behold (I've never been but have seen photographs): the vines are trained in "bushes" (or baskets, as enologist Antigoni Karamvali called them). Bush training helps to protect the vines from strong winds (the same training methods are used in Sicily and Apulia). The bush training also allows the vine to "migrate": Antigoni showed me images of vineyards originally planted in perfectly straight rows, where the vines had crept -- at slightly different rates -- to more humid parts of the vineyard. Drinking this wine, you really get that sense of place, that sensation that this wine could have been made no were else in the world.

The wine that surprised me the most, however, was the Nemea (a place name), made from 100% Aghiorghitiko (also known as Agiorgitiko) grapes: the wine was light in color and in the mouth, with wonderful red berry flavor, a perfect wine to serve slightly chilled on a summer's eve with filleted branzino (otherwise known as Mediterranean sea bass). From what I understood, the price-point for this wine should weigh in under $20.

This was no wine of Circe.* And, hey, if David is pouring, I'm drinking.

In other news...

Thanks to everyone for the messages and positive vibes for VinoWire, which launched this week with a scoop about the changing of the guard at the Bruno Giacosa winery. I am proud to report that VinoWire was the first publication -- Italian or English -- to to break the story and to reveal the name of the new winemaker. Stay tuned to VinoWire for more...

* For [the painting] “The Wine of Circe” by Edward Burne Jones.

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o’er the golden wine
She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame,
Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame,
Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine.

Doth Helio here with Hecatè combine
(O Circe, thou their votaress!) to proclaim
For these thy guests all rapture in Love’s name,
Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign?

Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee
Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore,
Wait; who with them in new equality
To-night shall echo back the sea’s dull roar
With a vain wail from passion’s tide-strown shore

Where the disheveled seaweed hates the sea.

-- Dante Gabriel Rossetti

This is the picture:

Do you know who this hunk is?

Yes, that's right, it's JOSEPH FUCKING STALIN!

 Do you think he would be the dominant type in bed too?

OH MY GOSH I HAVE A CRUSH ON AN EVIL DICTATOR!

How did I overlook the fact he was so hot through all my years poring over dusty history books at school? How can a single photograph like this make me want to explain away years of political oppression and genocide? Am I sick in the head?

He is so hot though. He can oppress my Kulaks anyday.

Here are some other deceased historical hotties for your viewing pleasure:

This one above is the illustrious Karl Marx. What a fitty. Look at the idealistic sparkle in his eyes. Don't you just want to get him all caught up in revolutions under your duvet? It is more socially acceptable to have a crush on Marx, and he would possibly make a more considerate lover than Stalin.

Now, this Carl Barat lookalike here is the very talented Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He is the more metrosexual of my selection, but looking into the boundless ocean of his eyes one might feel like one has been transported into the idylic, romantic world of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Still, I can't get Joe Stallion (oops, I mean Stalin!)out of my head. What a dangerous man.
 

I used to think that actors had the easiest job on the planet. In my uneducated mind, actors were people who slept all day, simply spoke someone else's words, and cashed big paychecks. This assessment of the acting profession all changed when I found myself acting in my first church play at the age of 21. It was the most difficult and terrifying experience of my life. I found myself at rehearsal, in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, kneeling in the graveyard set of the play. After pouring my heart out for several takes, all I could hear was the director yelling, "Cut, cut, cut, I need to see some emotion here!" After this and several other stage-play experiences, I realized that acting is one of the most difficult things to do well.

After joining Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks in 1995, I soon understood how much more difficult acting for the camera would be. I have personally been cast as a prince of darkness type, a carjacker, a mad King Saul, and finally, Nero, the psychotic Emperor of Rome. (Interestingly enough, on weekends, I'm a kind-hearted children's minister; go figure.)

I have also served as Casting Director for WYSIWYG Filmworks and have auditioned over 1,500 actors. I would like to pass on a few tips to those brave enough to call themselves actors.

My first acting class instructor was Laurie Sinclair, whose credits include, "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and several roles on "America's Most Wanted". Laurie, or Rie Sinclair, as she is also credited, is not only a fine actor and acting coach, but an Emmy-nominated songwriter who has written music for ABC as well.

Having massive experience as a Sunday School teacher, preacher, storyteller, and overall class clown, but limited acting experience in church stage plays, I once again found that the acting profession was going to be an on-going process of learning and fine-tuning. The first thing I had to learn was to "bring it down", "get smaller", not so "over-the-top" or as Laurie but it, "Stop being such a ham!" Let me suggest here that you also take Laurie's advice. So many times when casting, we see hundreds of actors who, just like myself, have only stage play or theatrical experience. You can get used to "playing to the back of the house" and in an audition, come across as "over-the-top". Before your audition, practice bringing it down a bit.

The next influence in my acting career was that of Michael J. Stark, who came to hold a couple of acting workshops at our WYSIWYG Christian Film Festival one year. Described by critics as "One of daytime's brightest rising stars", Michael was one of TV's most sought-after actors and was cast as 'Joe Bradley' in the daytime drama "The Guiding Light". In New York, he signed contracts as an actor with CBS and NBC respectively. During this time, he was hired as a 'reader' and began his Casting Director's training. His credits include "Police Woman" and "Miami Vice". He also ventured into feature films with roles in "Good Guys Wear Black" and "Airport 1975".

Michael told me that in all of the hundreds of auditions he had attended as a reader, he had never heard the casting directors comment on how talented the auditioning actor had been, but only on how they looked. While this statement is generally true, keep this in mind. Michael Stark also spoke of acting taking place in the eyes. Yes, your "look" has to suit the director and your talent, or lack thereof, will definitely be seen in the first few words you speak; but if a Casting Director can see "it" in your eyes, you stand a fighting chance at getting the role. Roles have been changed, even new ones invented, to suit an actor after an audition.

Toni Suttie, President and Founder of Integrity Casting, shared with me once the need for actors to carry themselves in a professional and courteous manner. This fact about the acting profession was borne out on the very first nighttime location shoot on our first film, "Guardians."

We were on location at the Old San Francisco Mint, an historic building that had been closed ever since the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. Through a miracle of God, we had been given this wonderful building for a week of nighttime filming. Call time was at around 6:00 P.M. and we had hoped to begin rolling cameras at around 9:00 or 10:00 that night. Well, to make a very long night ~ I mean, story ~ short, twelve hours later I got the word from the director that we would not be able to shoot that night! I was given the task of informing the talent, who had been in heavy make-up and costume, endured multiple rehearsals, and run their lines for the last twelve hours, that they could now go home, without a frame of film shot. (The life of a casting director has challenges as well.)

I was shocked and amazed to see the reaction of the actors after I delivered the news. With the exception of one out of the 12 actors on the set that night, they all took it in stride and said, "We'll see you tomorrow night." My admiration of actors went up that night to say the least!

As I mentioned earlier, I have been cast in many roles in which I had to portray evil characters whose primary characteristics were hatred, deception, ungodliness, etc.; totally opposite from what we Christians would call, "The Fruits of the Spirit." I was deeply troubled by the possibility of tapping into some long-conquered emotions or dredging up unholy thoughts in order to convey for the director the emotion the evil character was to express during a scene. What was I to do? How could I pull off a good performance and not "go there" myself. I know many of you may not understand this next statement, but here goes. A wise man once told me, "There is no such thing as acting." Think about it. You become, for that moment, what you are portraying, or at least the spirit of the thing. If you disagree with this, I understand. For me however, I was in a quandary as to what to do.

I found the answer during a conversation I had while on set one day during those long "hurry-up and wait" times. I expressed my thoughts on the subject to another one of WYSIWYG's actors and acting coaches, Terrence Todd. He told me that God had made us with all the emotions that we possess and that in order to portray hatred, you don't necessarily have to think of a person. You could simply show your hatred of something, such as broccoli; or, as the case may be, your fear of going to the dentist, or your disgust at having your favorite sports team finish in last place. Your eyes will read the same.

I'm not going to tell you that I have all the answers. Many of you reading this are probably more qualified than I am to give advice. I do hope, however, that some of the things I have shared will help you in your perfecting of what I consider one of the hardest things to do well, acting.

By the way, for a professional example of how great acting is in the eyes, check out this short interview with Tom Hanks on "Inside the Actors Studio" as he discusses a scene from the movie, "Forrest Gump", during which his character discovers he has a son.

From BRAVO

Tom Hanks, Inside The Actors Studio (Part 6/8)

Chris J. Rossetti acted in "Guardians," and also was production manager, and casting director. He also acted in "Roman Trilogy," and was casting director, and is now unit production manager for the coming film "Gravity." He has been with WYSIWYG since its beginning.

I am not an actor... Well, at least that's what I've told people in the past. The truth is, I think it's fun. I was given that very opportunity for a film once. I was the guy chained to a wall. Do you remember him? Of course not. That is the art of the extra.

I see acting as a way of expressing my emotions by being somebody I am not; that way, instead of looking silly as myself, I look silly as someone else. Though people may recognize me as the character I may have played, it's still a good outlet to me. It's also just a bunch of fun. It can bring you back to your childhood when you were sitting on the floor with your toys, rescuing the damsel tied to train tracks; or walking on the moon or circling some planet in sector 48V of the Andromeda galaxy. Perhaps that's a bit extreme; but not extreme enough for a kid with an imagination as chaotic as mine.

I've participated in a few plays, mostly school plays and a few church plays, and I loved every minute of each. I never really saw myself as a screen actor until recently, though. Actually, for the longest time, screen acting was something I generally tried to avoid. But, with WYSIWYG as part of my life, "good luck staying out of a movie." *Thumbs up!*

I was around 13 years old the first time I did any acting in front of a movie camera. But I guess getting a whole bunch of nasty make-up put on and then being chained to a foam wall for about 4 seconds may not really be considered acting by some. Well, look at it this way: If the only actors you saw in a movie were the ones who had speaking lines or a meaningful action of some kind, the movie would be completely empty. Try taking the film "The Ten Commandments" and taking away all the extras in the film. Moses would've been crossing the Red Sea with about 8 people. That would be pretty lame. And chasing after them would've been Pharaoh and his trusty sidekick. Now, there's a movie no one would've ever watched. Instead, what you see is probably thousands of extras, without whom the movie would have been pretty boring.

Yes, it's true that a viewer is most likely going to forget anyone in a movie who doesn't play an important role. But without extras, the movie itself will become forgettable. It's the little things that make the big things what they are.

"The Roman Trilogy, Episode I, the Apostle Paul." That's right, Episode "I" not 1. (The "I" makes it look way better.) I was drafted into "The Roman Trilogy" to play a starved prisoner with my arms chained to a wall. The shot, I believe, was a flashback to Jesus being whipped before going to the cross. The guard would be walking Jesus by a few jail cells and that is where I would be, along with a few friends of mine who were also drafted to play prisoners.

After a long time of sitting and waiting for make-up, I sat some more as they applied a bunch of red and black scabby goop to my wrists and face. I then sat around waiting while they finished the set in the studio. I was then informed that because it took so long to set things up, I needed to get "re-make-upped." So, I sat some more while they redid the scabbiness that was my face and wrists.

Finally, it's film time. They tie my bloody wrists to the foam wall (which was awesome looking, by the way) and everyone gets in first position. All that is happening is: Jesus is walking by us prisoners with the guard and that's the end of my role in the entire movie.

"Action!" I suck in my tummy to look like I haven't been fed in years, holding my breath to do so, and I stare at the floor. I can hear the footsteps of "Jesus" pass by me and the clicks of the rolling wheels across the camera's track. I then hear, in mighty triumph, "cut!" I let out a big breath of the carbon dioxide I had been holding and laughed. "Well, that was easy," I said. I started to get up, when I heard the words, "Okay, let's do it again!"

We repeat this process for what seems like forever. I must have heard, "One more time" about thirty times. But I'm excited, because I'm in the movie!

Weeks and weeks go by and finally the movie was completed. We premiered the movie at our church in front of friends and family, as well as guests. I watched as my scene, the one I "suffered through," was about to come. Finally, it's here! My motion picture debut and... I'm not in the shot. The camera filmed too far to the left for me to be seen. I sunk in my seat. "Laaaaaame," I thought to myself.

That moment made me think that I never wanted to act in a movie again. I was young and upset. But I look back on it now and, though my role was probably forgotten by everyone there that day, it was kind of fun. I had fake blood all over myself and looked like a caveman who got hit by a car. The fact that I got out of school for the day was pretty sweet and of course, I can't forget the friends that were there with me, laughing and making jokes about how ridiculous we looked in our rags. It was fun stuff.

So, whether or not you are remembered in a film, just remember; you will always remember all the memories you'll make in the process!

Chris D. Rossetti is the son of Chris J. Rossetti. Chris has grown up through many of the WYSIWYG trials. A few months ago Chris became a full time WYSIWYG cast-member and is team leader of WYSIWYG’S internet websites.

Here I am. I just turned 18 last month and I'm designing a website for a film company run by crazy Christian people. Of course, I am one of them and I fit in quite nicely. I like the idea of trusting in someone else to figure things out for me. So when I'm entrusted with doing something that I've never done before, I seek after God. And what happens when the vision He shows me isn't about the calling He has for me? I am perfectly in line with God.

So who am I, and what is my story? My name is Chris D. Rossetti, which is not to be confused with Chris J. Rossetti, team leader of the Christian WYSIWYG Film Festival (2001-2005). I am actually his son. No, I am not a ‘Jr.' so, to tell the difference, I'm usually known around here as "Young Chris."

My current job at WYSIWYG is this here blog-site that you are looking at right now. Isn't it pretty? Leave me all the wonderful comments you want about how incredible this site truly is. (Ha, right, just kidding.) Actually, even though this is my current job, this is not my dream and number one passion. My number one passion is music. I dream of being on stage in front of thousands, banging on the drums and watching fans jump up and down to the beat that I'm playing. Yet I find myself here at this church managing a blog-site. I couldn't help asking the question, "Why is that?"

Let me take you back to about a year ago. So, it's the beginning of 2007 and I have high hopes. I'm writing music with two good friends of mine, David Lanza and Sunny Gazowsky, and it's just great fun. Stuff is happening in my life just the way I want it to. I have things all planned out. David, Sunny, and I are going to start a Christian rock band that reaches masses across the world, all for Jesus! Ha! I quickly realized that God does not like other people making plans for His Glory. I mean, the phrase is, "If the Lord is willing", not "If Chris is willing and God approves."

The year of 2007 soon became a year of the prophetic gifts really manifesting in the youth of our church, the Voice of Pentecost. I was a part of that group. Dealing in the prophetic comes with its sacrifices. Since seeing into the prophetic means seeing into the Spirit realm, anything that has to do with the flesh needs to be shut down. So I had to cut off some things in my own personal life that distracted me from God. Along with that, my desires and wants became the least of my priorities. That included my "rock band" desire. I decided that whatever God wants to do with me, He can do with me.

Suddenly, around the middle of 2007, Rocki Gazowsky began to lead worship at a few of our church services. I was drafted as the drummer of the group. Rocki's style of music is a LOT different than mine, to be quite honest. I like songs that are different and strange sounding, and I'm totally anti-pop. Nor do I care for bands with a girl as a lead singer. To me, when you have a female lead singer, people tend to focus on her more than the band. This was honestly my thinking last year. And even though I'm all about songs with deep inner-meaning and emotion, I found myself playing to songs with lyrics like, "Drip drop, drip drop."

"God! What about my dreams? What about my calling?" I would ask that question frequently. What I didn't know was that I was living my calling.

Some of our youth went on a missions trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong, and I went as the drummer for Rocki's Band. God had given Rocki the song "Shout" not long before we went. On August 15, 2007, I played drums for this song in front of over a thousand youth in Taiwan and they were all jumping and screaming the words, "shout, shout, shout, SHOUT!" The sky was pouring down rain, Sunny let down his hair, and I broke a drumstick. I've never felt a rush like that before. I was so sweaty, my hair was a mess, yet.....it was beautiful. I never knew that doing what I didn't want to do would fulfill my dreams. I wasn't living what I thought was my calling, but it turned out that I was living my dream. So, how does that affect me and web design?

Just last month, in the midst of the birthing of this website, I asked the Lord, "When will I be able to see You with my physical eyes and hear You with my physical ears? I want to be able to have You speak to me, tell me what to do, directly. I want to hear from You for my own ministry. When, Lord, when?" Immediately after that prayer, I went onto my iTunes and hit ‘play'. What I heard wasn't a song but an old prophecy from 2005. And it said the words, "When you serve others and when you humble yourself, then you will begin to hear God more and see God more." That was my answer. Serving others will bring me closer to God. This website isn't my main calling, music is. But, because I'm being obedient and serving others, it is bringing me closer to God. I am putting my desires aside and putting others before them. In a way, I'm fasting, because I'm depriving myself of something I want. But man, I've never been happier.

I hope that I've given to you and blessed you. Jesus loves you!

Chris D. Rossetti is the son of Chris J. Rossetti. Chris has grown up through many of the WYSIWYG trials. A few months ago Chris became a full time WYSIWYG cast-member and is team leader of WYSIWYG'S internet websites.

The Victorian age came at the time of the Industrial Revolution in England. So, industrial revolution means factories, possibly doily factories employed by orphans, a growing straight-laced middle class who actually want to use doilies for their ornate Christmas trees and tea, and a world of Mrs. Havishams, prostitutes, and other unmarried women who had no proper place without marriage. Yes, the doily does have its point after all as the great symbol of Victorian industrialization and domesticity.

I did get beyond the doily however, and found the Victorians to be much more complex and significant to literature than the lacy doily façade suggests. For example, Tennyson in “The Lotus Eaters” questions the point of humankind’s toiling: “Should Life all labor be?” (line 87). Why should we be miserable our entire lives working away like good workaholics when we could sit back and relax? Tennyson, I think, asks this question partly in reaction to the industrial revolution, and the miserable working conditions that come out of it, and partly in reaction to the questioning of religion in response to Darwin.  Becoming the world’s industrial leader meant paying a huge price in human happiness, and without a solid belief in God, there exists a greater reason to question this sacrifice. So why not become “like Gods together, careless of mankind” (line 155) and rest our heads beside our necter?

Matthew Arnold encountered this same sense of melancholy and longing for a serenity he can’t find in this incongruous world. His poem, “Dover Beach” offers a sense of this feeling:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

This poem is enough to make anyone feel melancholy. Arnold, and whoever his “love” is, seem to be alone in an uncaring world. The individual is reduced to nothingness in the vast universe with little connection to anyone. Even his connection to this “lover,” who never speaks throughout the poem’s monologue offers little comfort to the speaker as the last three lines end in despair:

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

In his essays, Arnold makes clear that these ignorant armies consist of the middle-class made ignorant by the dullness of their Puritan lives that replaced feeling, emotion, and beauty for order, machines, and false morality.

This Puritan morality, of course, was delegated to the Victorian woman, the “Angel in the House”, whose job was to purify their husbands when they came home after working all day in the immoral world.  The Victorian woman’s place was in the domestic sphere where she became the pure and selfless protector of morality. A woman, who wanted to be respected, had to become a wife. If not a wife, maybe she could become a governess, but her respectability declined slightly.  The rest of the “redundant women” who had no husbands and no money worked in factories, became prostitutes, or lived off of their father or brothers income, as Christina Rossetti did in order to write.  She lived the life of a “Chaste Victorian Spinster,” but as her poems show, this was the societal mask forced upon her. In “Goblin Market,” she reveals the dangers of a woman giving in to her desires.  In the Victorian age a woman was not supposed to have desire of any kind—sexual or not. She had her place in society, and to question that place was to threaten the moral success of society.

So with that said, as a woman, I am so glad that I did not grow up in the mid to late 1800s. While, yes, women have come a long way since the Victorians, I don’t know if we as a society have every fully grown out of our Victorian heritage (imported Victorian heritage since we’re in America). Women still do most of the house work, govern most of the children, and are consumed by the desire to marry. We are also considered “sluts” if we let our desires get the better of us, whereas men are “studs” or “players,” which have a much less negative connotation. The rapid growth of evangelical Christians in America suggests that Americans are not only desirous of a fixed moral structure, but are reacting to the need to have faith in something higher than themselves or risk feeling like Tennyson and Arnold—living pointless, struggling lives alone and forsaken in an uncaring universe.  The opposite, and incongruous aspect to the growing religious culture in America, is the obsessive materialism. The Victorians had knickknacks galore, and we are not different (maybe a little updated—fewer doilies). The Victorians were enthralled with technology, but society today is obsessed. i-Phone, anyone?  

So, needless to day I have one complicated doily image in my head now.

Por qué mi carne no te quiere verbo,
por qué no te conjuga, por qué no te reparte,
por qué desde las tapias no saltan buganvillas
con tus significados
y en miradas de azogue que no reverbera el sol
dando de ti noticia,
ni se destapan cajas con tu música
y su claro propósito,
y ningún diccionario ajeno te interpreta.
Por qué, por qué, Amor mío,
eres mapa ilegible,
flecha desorientada,
regalo ensimismado en su intacto envoltorio,
palabra indivisible que nace y muere en mí.

In The bleak mid-winter
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

-Christina Rossetti

Remember
By Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

When I am Dead, My Dearest
By Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Have you liked it ? You can find a lot more poetry at Famous Poetry Online.

DE LOS PUBIS ANGÉLICOS

A mi adorada Bibí Andersen

Divagar
por la doble avenida de tus piernas,
recorrer la ardiente miel pulida,
demorarme, y en el promiscuo borde,
donde el enigma embosca su portento,
contenerme.
El dedo titubea, no se atreve,
la tan frágil censura traspasando
-adherido triángulo que el elástico alisa-
a saber qué le aguarda.
A comprobar, por fin, el sexo de los ángeles.

Bibi Andersen se coloca destrás del móvil:

-Jessica, cariño

-Quién eres?

-Soy Bibi...

-No me lo puedo creer

-Me he encontrado a tu chico aquí en Madrid y me ha dicho que si te saludaba. Así que le planto dos besos para que te los dé cuando te vea.Oye te dejo que hay un cachondeo aquí... Un placer cariño!!!

Ea! Así son las cosas de surrealistas. Yo en Zaragoza de tapeo por el Tubo, comiendo calamares y hablando con la Bibi.

 Sáaaalvame, soy un naufrago.....

Nancys Rubias y Bibi Andersen

qué  overdose! Gracias Pet! :)

Painted in 1866 - Oil on Canvas.

Regina Cordium translates as "Queen of Hearts" and the model - Alice Wilding- was one Rossetti painted frequently. 

From the BBC's Painting Flowers virtual gallery.