In Which I Am Alive

Sometimes my roommates and I like to create casts for movies we wish existed (call it a movie geek's version of assembling a Fantasy Football team). For example, we once created a concept for a film version of  Candyland , directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Lord Licorice, Danny Devito as Plumpy and many others. I feel like it would be absolutely terrifying and 100 percent awesome. Our latest (and perhaps most successful) casting session happened last night as the roommates, practically-roommates and I watched my favorite movie of all time. And so, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you: N311's cast for a live-action adaptation of Disney's  Beauty and the Beast . Beast: Ewan Mcgregor Belle: Anna Friel (Chuck from  Pushing Daisies ) Gaston: Hugh Jackman Maurice: Dustin Hoffman Lumiere: Neil Patrick Harris Cogsworth: Ricky Gervais Mrs. Potts: Melissa McCarthy (Sookie from  Gillmore Girls) Le Fou: Kevin James The guy from t...

Can you tell I've been on a poetry kick this summer? Here's some more favorites: A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. Emily Dickinson Beauty is not caused. It is. Emily Dickinson Forever is composed of nows. Emily Dickinson Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all. Emily Dickinson “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”  ―  Emily Dickinson ,  Selected Letters  

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes.”  Walt Whitman “Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.”  ―  Walt Whitman “Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.”  ―  Walt Whitman “Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.  Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”  ―  Walt Whitman ,  Leaves of Grass “I have learned that to be with those I like is enough”  ―  Walt Whitman “I exist as I am, that is enough,  If no other in the world be aware I sit content,  And if each and all be aware I sit content.  One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself,  And whether I come to my own today...