Archive for the 'Thursday Thirteen' Category

May 08 2008

Thursday Thirteen May 8th 2008: Best Movie Lines

Published by auria cortes under Movie Scripts, Quotable Quotes, Thursday Thirteen

After I finished Mija, I went back to writing nonfiction. I completed the nonfiction proposals I worked on. Since I’m not ready to edit Mija, I’m considering working on a movie script. This way I learn a new skill and I’m still writing.

In honor of my new endevour, below is a partial list of AFI 100 Movie Quotes

  • We rob banks - Bonnie and Clyde
  • Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars - Now, Voyager
  • You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk? - Dirty Harry
  • Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into! - Sons of the Desert
  • Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room! - Dr. Strangelove
  • Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape! - Planet of the Apes
  • I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. - A Streetcar Named Desire
  • Striker: Surely you can’t be serious! Rumack: I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley. - Airplane!
  • Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make. - Dracula
  • Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star! - 42nd Street
  • Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac…It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!!” - Caddyshack
  • Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death! - Auntie Mame
  • Hello, gorgeous - Funny Girl

Source

10 responses so far

Apr 24 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Poet Quotes

Published by auria cortes under Thursday Thirteen

A Puerto Rican who is born in New York is called a Nuyorican. According to Wiki, Nuyorican itself dates at least from 1975, the date of the first public sessions of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe was a place I freqented in my my teens and twenties. The Cafe is where poets gather and slam. Though I never had the courage to perform, I enjoyed the ambiance and watching the performances of others.

Since April is poetry month, I decided to devote this week’s TT to poetry quotes.

  • Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen
  • Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. ~Kahlil Gibran
  • Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
    There is no happiness like mine.
    I have been eating poetry.
    ~Mark Strand, “Eating Poetry,” Reasons for Moving, 1968
  • There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either. ~Robert Graves, 1962 interview on BBC-TV, based on a very similar statement he overheard around 1955
  • Poetry is what gets lost in translation. ~Robert Frost
  • Imaginary gardens with real toads in them. ~Marianne Moore’s definition of poetry, “Poetry,” Collected Poems, 1951
  • A poem is never finished, only abandoned. ~Paul Valéry
  • He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life. ~George Sand, 1851
  • Always be a poet, even in prose. ~Charles Baudelaire, “My Heart Laid Bare,” Intimate Journals, 1864
  • Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition. ~Eli Khamarov, The Shadow Zone
  • Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. ~Carl Sandburg, Poetry Considered
  • Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. ~Percy Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821
  • Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato, Ion

4 responses so far

Apr 17 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Thesaurus.com

Published by auria cortes under Thursday Thirteen

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Earlier this week I had a conversation with a fellow writer. I read his query letter and one of the faults I found was the repetition of words. I then introduced him to a thesaurus. :-) His book is a military crime. Mine is about a young girl in Puerto Rico. Below are keywords that are relevant to both our books, along with synonyms found on Thesaurus.com.  

  • Deceit: cunning, deceitfulness, deception, double-dealing, duplicity, guile, shiftiness

  • Elude: burke, bypass, circumvent, dodge, duck, escape, eschew, evade, get around, shun, elude

  • Thief: bandit, burglar, highwayman, housebreaker, larcener, pilferer, purloiner, robber, stealer

  • Crime: deviltry, diablerie, evil, evildoing, immorality, iniquity, misdeed, offense, peccancy, sin, wickedness, wrong, wrongdoing

  • Poor: beggarly, destitute, down-and-out, impecunious, impoverished, indigent, necessitous, needy, penniless, penurious, poverty-stricken

  • Food: aliment, bread, comestible, diet, edible, esculent, fare, foodstuff, meat, nourishment, nurture, nutriment, nutrition, pabulum, pap, provender, provision, sustenance, victual

  • Alone: companionless, lone, lonely, lonesome, single, solitary, unaccompanied

  • Psychic: elixir, medicament, medication, medicine, nostrum, remedy

  • Travel: fare, journey, pass, proceed, push on, remove, wend

  • Field: arena, bailiwick, circle, department, domain, orbit, province, realm, scene, subject, terrain, territory, world

  • Whack: bang, clout, crack, hit, lick, pound, slug, sock, swat, thwack, welt, wham, whop

  • Play: disport, diversion, fun, recreation, sport

  • Understanding: empathetic, empathic, feeling, sympathetic

    

4 responses so far

Apr 10 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Of Mice and Men

Published by auria cortes under Quotable Quotes, Thursday Thirteen

In February, I posted a clip of the movie Of Mice and Men. I’m rereading the book this month. Grab a few tissues and check out the embedded clip. Below are thirteen great quotes from the book.

  • George, on life without Lennie: “Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want. God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want”

  • Ch. 1: “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.”

  • Ch. 1: “Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.”

  • George, on the worker’s dream: “All kin’s a vegetables in the garden, and if we want a little whisky we can sell a few eggs or something, or some milk. We’d jus’ live there. We’d belong there. There wouldn’t be no more runnin’ round the country and gettin’ fed by a Jap cook. No, sir, we’d have our own place where we belonged and not sleep in no bunk house”

  • The Boss, on George and Lennie: “Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is”

  • Ch. 3: We could live offa the fatta the lan’.”

  • George, on loneliness and Lennie: “I ain’t got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin’ to fight all the time. . . ‘Course Lennie’s a God damn nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin’ around with a guy an’ you can’t get rid of him”

  • Crooks, on a black man’s loneliness: “S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and play rummy ’cause you was black. How’d you like that? S’pose you had to sit out here an’ read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody-to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick”

  • Crooks, on George and Lennie’s dream: “I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Everybody wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head”

  • Crooks, on human rights: Maybe you guys better go. I ain’t sure I want you in here no more. A colored man got to have some rights even if he don’t like ‘em”

  • Curley’s wife, on men: “If I catch any one man, and he’s alone, I get along fine with him. But just let two of the guys get together an’ you won’t talk. Jus’ nothing but mad. You’re all scared of each other, that’s what. Ever’ one of you’s scared the rest is goin’ to get something on you”

  • George, on the lost dream: “-I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would”

  • Slim, on George’s killing of Lennie and the dream: “Never you mind. A guy got to sometimes”

4 responses so far

Apr 03 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Traditions and Customs from Around the World

Published by auria cortes under Thursday Thirteen

machete.jpg

As you all know, the setting of Mija is in Puerto Rico. My culture is full of customs and traditions. Below are a list of customs and traditions from different parts of the country.

  • I’ll start with a tradition in many Puerto Rican households. Many of us have a machete next to the backdoor in case an intruder comes into the house. Yes, I know. The intruder can break in and get hold of the machete before we can get to it. Hey, traditions aren’t supposed to make sense. Right? The picture above is the machete that is near my door. It belonged to my parents and it’s the machete I grew up with.

  • Guadalupe Day: Guadalupe (pronounced gwahth ah LOO pay or GWAHD uhl OOP) Day commemorates the day that the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to Juan Diego, a Mexican Indian. According to legend, on Dec. 9, 1531, Juan was hurrying over Tepeyac Hill, in what is now Mexico City, when a vision appeared to him. A lady told him to ask the bishop to build a shrine where she stood. But the bishop did not believe Juan until the vision appeared again, on December 12, and produced a sign. The lady later appeared to Juan’s uncle and called herself Holy Mary of Guadalupe. Our Lady of Guadalupe (often called the Virgin of Guadalupe) became the patron saint of Mexico. (Source)  

  • On November the 1 st and 2 nd the Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) is commemorated. Every family in Ecuador goes to the cemeteries to leave flowers and visit the family members who have died. (Source) 
  • One Costa Rica wedding tradition is for the bride to wear a long, black silk dress as her wedding gown. In other wedding traditions, this may seem inappropriate seeing that wearing a black dress typically signify death and mourning. But in most traditional Costa Rican wedding, the bride wears a black gown, in striking contrast to the immaculately white wedding gowns commonly worn by modern brides today. It is customary also for the groom to wear a shirt that is painstakingly hand-embroidered by his future wife. This will mean that the bride already shows her devotion and concern for her future husband, even before the marriage ceremony has taken place. (Source)  

  • Flying Bells: Children don’t look for eggs left by an Easter Bunny… rather, the French believe that the Flying Bells leave on the Thursday before Good Friday, taking with them all the grief and misery of mourners of Christ’s crucifixion, reaching Rome to see the Pope and then come back on Easter Sunday morning bearing chocolate easter eggs, which are hidden around houses and gardens for children to find. (Source)

  • April 2nd in Argentina — Dia de las Malvinas or Malvinas Day.  This commemorates the day in 1982 that the Argentine military invaded the Falkland Islands with the commitment of reclaiming them from the British.   Both Great Britian and Argentina still claim jurisdiction over the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as Islas Malvinas. (Source)

  • Sati was a Hindu funeral custom, now very rare and a serious criminal act in India, in which the dead man’s widow would throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre in order to commit suicide. The act of sati was supposed to take place voluntarily, and from the existing accounts, most of them were indeed voluntary. The act may have been expected of widows in some communities. The extent to which any social pressures or expectations should be considered as compulsion has been the matter of much debate in modern times. It is frequently stated that a widow could expect little of life after her husband’s death, especially if she was childless. However, there were also instances where the wish of the widow to commit sati was not welcomed by others, and where efforts were made to prevent the death. (Source)
  • domovoi (Russian Spirit). A well-wishing spirit of the house who helped with domestic chores. Domovoi played tricks on people only when the owners were lazy or negligent, and lived in harmony with things from the church. Appearance: An old peasant with a long gray beard; also appeared as a cat or a dog. Tricks: Stole neighbor’s oats; if unhappy, was known to mess up the yard, tangle needlework, spread manure on the door, or, in extreme cases of anger, suffocate the victim. (Source)
  •  Andrew’s Day (Andrzejki): This a special night for young Polish girls who want to find a husband. On this night and the next day, fortunes are told and the results are not taken lightly. Here is the most popular way that are fortunes are told: The most popular way is by melting wax and pouring it into a bowl of cold water. Wax is then picked up from the water, raised to the light, and the girls try to see the similarities of it to real objects. Depending on the shapes, fortunes are told for the following year. If nothing meaningful comes up, there is always a chance that a girl will dream of something important dealing with her future, that night - but only if she could remember it. (Source)

  • Gullah burial customs begin with a drum beat to inform people that someone in town has died. Mirrors are turned to the wall so the corpse cannot be reflected. The funeral party takes the body to the cemetery, but waits at the gate to ask permission of the ancestors to enter. Participants dance around the grave, singing and praying, then smash bottles and dishes over the site to “break the chain” so that no one else in the same family will soon die. Then, the funeral group returns to town and cooks a large meal, leaving a portion on the veranda for the departed soul. (Source)

I’m short a few tradtions. Provide a tradition of your own in the comments section and help me complete the list.

12 responses so far

Mar 27 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Dream Dictionary

Published by auria cortes under Thursday Thirteen

So I had a dream last night. A dream that an agent jumped on my back while I was sleeping and pulled my hair and pinched my nipples. Yep, you read that right. He pinched my nipples and it wasn’t in that nice sexual way. No. It was painful. Also, the faceless agent was a man but I felt it was a woman disguised as a man. Anyway, we struggled and ended up on the floor. And somehow back on the bed. What could this dream mean?

I took to Dream Moods Dictionary to come up with a reasonable explanation. Below are thirteen keywords that appeared in my dream. But somehow I still can’t make out my mess of a dream. Any thoughts?

  • Nipples: To see nipples in your dream, relate to infantile needs and a regression into dependency. To dream that you are squeezing pus out of your nipples, refers to your negative feelings about relationships. You are feeling sexually inadequate.
  • Author: To see an author at work in your dream, signifies that your mind is preoccupied over some literary work that you or your associates is working on. 
  • Acquaintance: To see an acquaintance in your dream, signifies positive affairs in business and harmony in your home life.  It also foretells that you will see or hear from them shortly after this dream. To dream that you are in a dispute with an acquaintance, denotes that you will soon find yourself in a humiliating situation. 
  • Bedroom: To dream that you are in the bedroom, signifies aspects of your self that you keep private. It is also indicative of your sexual nature. 
  • Aggression: To dream that you exhibit aggression in your dream, denotes repressed sexual needs. It is also a reflection of conflict in your waking life. 
  • Fear: To dream that you feel fear, signifies that you achievements will not be as successful as you had anticipated. You are having anxieties in certain circumstances of your life. However, your worries will be temporary and short-lived.
  • Pain: To dream that you are in pain, signifies that you are being too hard on yourself with regards to a situation that was out of your control. It may also be a true reflection of real pain that exists somewhere in your body.
  • Terror: To dream that you are in terror, forewarns of disappointments and loss. To see others in terror in your dream, signifies that the unhappiness of friends will impact you as well. 
  • Back: To dream of your back, represents your attitudes, strengths, burdens and stance in the world. It may also relate to stress and pressure that someone is putting on you. To see a naked back in your dream, symbolizes secrets that you may have kept from others or aspects of yourself that you have kept hidden and shielded away. Consider the pun, “watch your back!”; this dream may be telling you to do just that. Traditionally, seeing a back in your dream, forewarns that you should not lend money to anyone. In particular, lending money to friends will cause a rift in your relationship. To see a person turn their back on you, signifies that you will be deeply hurt as a result of envy and jealousy. 
  • Head: To see a head in your dream, signifies wisdom, intellect, understanding and rationality. It may also represent your accomplishments, self-image, and perception of the world.   
  • Hair: To dream that you are cutting your hair, suggests that you are experiencing a loss in strength. You may feel that someone is trying to censor you. Alternatively, you may be reshaping your thinking or ambitions and eliminating unwanted thoughts/habits.
  • Faceless: To see a faceless figure or person in your dream, indicates that you are still searching for your own identity and finding out who you are.  Perhaps you are unsure of how to read people and their emotions. And therefore are expressing a desire to know and understand these people in a deeper level.

  • Floor: To see the floor in your dream, represents your support. It may also represent the division between the unconscious and conscious. To see a polished, wooden floor in your dream, indicates that you are fully aware of your unconscious and keeping it suppressed.

12 responses so far

Mar 20 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Palindromes

Published by auria cortes under Thursday Thirteen

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When I started to compile this week’s TT, I thought I had a cool idea. Now that I have completed it, the list looks lame. Oh well, I can’t have a winner every week. Below is a list of palindromes. A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that has the property of reading the same in either direction. Source  

  • dog = God

  • desserts = stressed

  • saw = was devil = lived

  • snips = spins

  • buns = snub

  • doom = mood

  • flow = wolf

  • liar = rail

  • loop = pool

  • paws = swap

  • sway = yaws

  • pins = snip

4 responses so far

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