{ Yuletide recs! }

/he who would gather immortal palms. (defying gravity)

When there was nothing left, he put his hand on the screen, up to where her face was and imagined being able to touch her skin. Maybe he could draw some strength from her, because he had nothing left.

"I'm no good with blind worship," he whispered. "I never have been. But what if these objects are another school house, and all my doubts bring about their destruction? What if I repeat the same mistake again, Claire?"

She brought her hand up to the same spot as his. A millimeter and fifty million kilometers away, and yet still he felt better, especially when she tilted her head and smiled. "Then maybe at some point you'll have to admit that it wasn't a mistake in the first place, Evram. Because you are who you are: a smart, compassionate man who can evaluate data as he sees it, and, when all the data isn't there and you still have to make a choice, you do the best you can."

Hiiiiiii, someone write this for meeeeeee. More emphatically: some BADASS wrote me EVRAM MINTZ FIC. Fuck. Yes. What's more, they nailed his personality, the measure of his speech, his mannerisms - they nailed his mood. Yes, the man has a mood. And it is SO GREAT. Much like this fic!

In all seriousness, though, I am kind of bowled over! I did have high hopes of getting Evram fic for this challenge, and yet my assigned author did wonders. It reads like an addendum to an episode that hasn't been aired yet, referencing the aftermath of the Venus landing beautifully. Plus, Claire here is lovely, and Evram's questions are so real. I am so fond of this story and the way in which it unfolds. I like Evram in his isolation; I love his persistent tone with Goss; I feel for him in his guilt. Just. It's so wonderful.

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/longhorns and sooners. (saving grace)

"What do you get when you cross a University of Texas fan and a pig?"

Butch smirked, lifted two fingers at the fast food vendor, and almost immediately had two cups of deep fried peaches and cream thrust at him. He handed one over to Grace and snagged a spoon for each of them. "I dunno, Grace, what?" he answered, navigating the huge crowd of mixed orange and red as he headed toward the Cotton Bowl.

"Nothing!" Grace said, snorting as she simultaneously tried to laugh and eat, talking with her mouth full. "There's some things even a pig won't do!"

Saving Grace fic! With banter! Friendship! Underlying sexual currents! Just-- GUYS THIS IS SO GREAT. Grace and Butch play fight over football and are utterly delightful. Fuck. I love this! It's so them. It's so what I want for them.

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I wrote this post a couple of days ago and this is where I would have launched into all my other recs but that's going to have to wait. I do want to do them pre-reveal so they'll be out some time today.

{ Yuletide recs! #2 }

subtle salvation. (alien series)

Logically, she knows she can't outrun the nightmares. Doesn't mean she can't try.

Ripley/Hicks, post-Aliens, of course. Ripley and Hicks become part of this spoken-word legend and they purge the universe of the threat. But beyond the legend is the story of two messed up, determined people. I love Ripley stories. She's like the ultimate stronghold.

( more recs. Aliens, Angels in America, The Assassination of Jesse James, Being Human, Dead Like Me, Dinosaur Comics, Empire Records, Glee, Greek Mythology (Metamorphoses), Juno, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Life, Mad Men, New Amsterdam, Practical Magic, Push, Raines, Spooks, The Thick of It, The Wire, United States of Tara. )

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You can find all the Yuletide fics I bookmarked this year at my delicious account.

{ Anis Mojgani: Milos. }

Milos
by Anis Mojgani

let us take a sack of spray paint and spray paint over the paintings
let us dance through Paris
kiss in the shadow of the Louvre
crawl inside its windows
scrawl manifestos over the canvases
write Morse code on the sculptures
roll a sleeping bag on the floor to sleep inside of
tell one another a story by flashlight
unearth everything from before
bury each other inside the other
feed grapes to the ants
light fireworks in the fists of sleeping kings
kill a monarch
break back outside, find a world to do all these same things to, up, and upon, against break the bricks
climb over them
and when the sirens scream, laugh loud

hold my hand
and run fast

run through these streets with me with a bunch of bottles
a bucket of gasoline, a mouthful of matches
a pocketful of paintings and a fresh-faced batch of policemen to chase the fires we're lighting
laugh on a shoulder of gold

and I thought that the museums were cemeteries where the dead pay the walls to hold what we have
so we can walk through what we once were
where children take their skulls to turn into gardens
to pluck for forefathers and farther stars
that on some nights resemble an armless mother praying for her arms to return

every tooth we tear from our jaw
to fling at the black-gloved riot soldiers as another shadow we are trying to lose
so every giggle is filled with lust
let us laugh this night away and I will fuck you like you were a prayer
I could save me by having my mouth around you
and I will hold you afterwards like
you were the pulpit and I was the sky
and this love that danced between that hardness
was a telephone line of holiness that those two things spoke through

take me into your heart like I was a saint
and you were a face of forgiveness
blooming in a valley destined to sink further

be a river with me
be the storm
the bend in the path
the front porch
the heat in the South
be a boot full of banjo strings
a fistful of written songs
a mouthful of chocolate dust
when they come to take us, stab them between the eyes
do not take your hand from around mine
make a fist with the other and punch spines like guilt
spit, sweat, kiss them like a grandmother
howl open-mouthed, terror love-filled
and when they come to cut our hair
and ask to hear penance come from inside of us
say with me loud and trembling but loud and clear

I have already emptied myself
I kissed regret goodbye
took the hands of another backwards angel and rode backwards into the rain
when the hangman of morrow comes to hang the sun in its daily execution
say this with me:

Sarah, we are apples
our love is an arrow
I'm unbuttoning my shirt
painting the circle over my heart
please, just shoot straight

{ David Whyte: Everything is Waiting for You. }

Everything is Waiting for You
by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.