Art and shiny things…
I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird.
We text, text, text
our significant words.
I re-read your first,
your second, your third,
look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.
The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.
I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.
Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.
With but his red to woo her,
in a courtship of minutes,
he captured her jackhammer heart.
For three years, with each
never losing sight of the other,
they’ve wrapped countless presents
of tree and sky with the scissor-
curled ribbons of their flight,
managing, with nothing
but the cap-pistol firepower
of their BB-sized brains,
two lifetimes of devotion.
-Larry D Thomas, Right Hand Pointing
When I fall in love again I will have another heart
and a second set of eyes which is one way
to watch the woman you love grow old
The story of my heartbreak started like this:
someone gave me a key that opens many doors
I traded it for a key that opens only one
I traded that one for another and that for another
until there were no more doors
and I had a fist full of keys
At any given moment only part of the world is gruesome
There are three pomegranates in the fridge
waiting to be broken open
When I fall in love again
my beloved and I will spit seeds into the street
-Patrick Rosal in Wax Wing Magazine
Historically, I have liked but not loved traditional Earl Grey, finding it less flavor-full than most of the black teas I favor. I impulsively tried Blue Earl Grey on a cold winter morning at Dawson Taylor’s a week ago however, and fell in love from the first sip. I like Earl Grey’s for the morning: most of the actual breakfast teas – see TheKitchn’s guide to the difference between English, Irish, and Scottish breakfast teas – tend to be malty and rich instead of slightly bitter as I prefer. Blue Earl Grey in particular has really hit my palate preference, being full-bodied and very strong with a resonant flavor and just a distant hint of sweetness. My love for Lavender Orange Earl Grey is well-documented (a slightly more milky/malty flavor), but overall I prefer this as my favorite of the Greys (who else immediately imagines “the Greys” as an aristocratic British family of teas?). You can order all sorts of Blue Earl Grey online ( would probably recommend this), or find it at Dawson Taylor’s if you live in the Northwest.
It’d been so long since we’d touched, you thought I must’ve found God. I caught you in the dark watching a video: a piano on the curb letting itself be touched and touched, singing for any finger that asked. It only survived one night before men with sledgehammers shattered it to tinder, took away each metal part that sang. Each time I caught you watching this–your face glowing in the darkness of our bedroom–you told me you were learning acceptance. After all, this is the world we live in: men can be broken and made whole again. Woman with all her faults remains dismembered: body and body parts forever being torn to pieces.
In this Cinderella-esque tale, scrappy, stubborn Makino Tsukushi (Inoue Mao) is one of only a handful of students at her elite boarding school who doesn’t come from a wealthy family. Having gained entrance through hard work and superb grades, she finds herself hating both the school and her new classmates. When Makino steps up for a fellow student who’s being bullied, she earns that attention – and ire – of the school’s reigning king, Domyouji Tsukasa, the hot-tempered, arrogant leader of four boys known collectivley as the F4 who rule the school. Makino isn’t about to bow to them, and so sparks a long chain of events in which each of the boys go through a process of self-awakening, and sparks begin to fly between Makino and Domyouji…
An enduring classic and arguably the most famous Japanese drama ever, this is considered by many to be the best adaptation of the Hana Yori Dango manga, though the personal favorite of many is the Taiwanese adaptation Meteor Garden. Continue reading
The CoffeeLetter is out! This is a once-every-two-months newsletter I send to blog followers; view this one here and subscribe to get the next one. Cheers!
by Alex Negrea
1. Go see The Last Five Years instead. It’s an unabashed romance starring the adorable Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan who can sing. Without having seen either, 10,000 times more romantic than Fifty Shades.
2. Gaze at your wife, girlfriend, or significant other, and ponder how you have not, in fact, ever slapped her, threatened her, or tied her down in order to have sex with her.
3. Go on a freaking picnic. Find a nice hill where you can talk to your significant other as if though she’s an emancipated human being who can walk upright and has a brain and a heart.
4. Read these Fifty Shades of Grey quotes – handily put on posters of the film by The 6th Siren for your amusement and edification – for all the E.L. James you’ll ever need.
5. Realize that the stars of Fifty Shades of Grey actually don’t like each other. “The most glaring problem with the press blitz—currently several months underway, though the film will not be released for another two weeks—is also the most damning for the upcoming film: Simply put, romantic leads Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan do not like each other. They dislike other things as well—the press; sex; the film in which they are starring—but it is clear their distaste for each other is the most keenly felt of all.” The Disastrous Fifty Shades of Grey Press Tour
Coffee and Irony 
