This winter is absolute madness.  I’m snowed and iced in at the moment, looking out the window at near-solid white and praying the power holds through its occaisional fits, spurts, and blank-outs.  I’m trying to use this time to be productive — editing, writing, editing, writing, class planning, editing — but don’t know how long I’ll be able to resist the compulsion to get on my couch under the electric blanket and watch Fur (the imaginary Diane Arbus love story I found at Wal-Mart — at WAL-MART! — for four dollars — FOUR DOLLARS! — this weekend) and then a Grey Gardens/The Beales of Grey Gardens double-header.  I haven’t been able to resist poking around on iTunes for winter-themed songs, though, so, yes, you’re going to get another post of photographs and quotes (you may, perhaps, have guessed that I got a digital camera for Christmas).  Regular posting promised soon.

You'll note how shiny the ground is. This is because it is ICE.

Yesterday, they plowed the parking lot before the ice came in. This was the result.

I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime

– “White Winter Hymnal,” Fleet Foxes

The bushes outside are covered with ice, and then snow, and then ice ...

... and snow and then ice and then snow ...

Well, I lived with a child of snow
When I was a soldier
And I fought every man for her
Until the nights grew colder.

She used to wear her hair like you
Except when she was sleeping
And then shed weave it on a loom
Of smoke and gold and breathing.

And why are you so quiet now
Standing there in the doorway?
You chose your journey long before
You came upon this highway.

– Leonard Cohen, “Winter Lady”

The snow this morning.

This is the fence in my backyard. The rain froze as it dripped down the wood.

His daughter is twenty years of snow falling
She’s twenty years of strangers looking into each other’s eyes
She’s twenty years of clean
She never truly hated anyone or anything

She’s a dying breed
She’s a dying breed

She says, I’d prefer the moss
I’d prefer the mouth
A baby of the swamps
A baby of the south

– Regina Spektor, “20 Years of Snow”