Poetic License Horoscope

Horoscope for July 16-22
With Advice from Lady Gaga, William Carlos Williams, and Band of Horses

Cancer (June 22-July 23): Once, during my Orange County days, my friend Jaimes was driving me home on the 405 when the dash lights started flickering. He got us safely to a gas station before the alternator died. He then proceeded to get out of the car and yell angrily skywards, asking God why this had happened. Rage against unfairness this week. Stamp your foot.

Leo (July 24-Aug. 23): Never get a couch that needs a slipcover. You will spend all of your time arranging the fabric to try and cover up the spots and stains. Get something that’s good and beautiful all the way through. Your ass deserves it!

Virgo (Aug. 24-Sept. 23): Since your deepest desire is to be confided in, practice keeping confidences. Sew whispers and secrets into your coat like satin patches. It’s a little warm for this.

Libra (Sept. 24-Oct. 21) You like parties with lots of costumes. Next year you’ll be my date for the Steampunk World’s Fair, “A Three Day Expedition into Yesterday’s Future!” Start buiding yourself a copper shell, lit with glowsticks. Meanwhile, Halloween is mere months away—start boning the corsets, building the scaffold.

Scorpio (Oct. 22-Nov. 22): I believe in haircuts. Lay back and let a stranger shampoo you. When the scissoring begins, let each strand represent a mistake you’d like to forget. Someone will sweep them away.

Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 22): Your viral video of the week is “Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Double Rainbow 1-8-10.”(sic) Go camping by yourself and show enough awe to rival early American wilderness painters. It’s almost a triple rainbow. It goes all the way across the sky. What it means is that you’ll have everything.

Capricorn (Dec. 23-Jan. 20): I bought a poetry collection called The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing. I’m surprisingly giddy to read it. Let’s open up to a random page, shall we? “If you can bring nothing to this place/but your carcass, keep out.” (William Carlos Williams)

Aquarius (Jan. 21-Feb. 19): In The Golden Compass, Lyra, the heroine, reads archetypal symbols said Golden Compass to plan out her next move. Here are your symbols, Aquarius: The Key, The Notebook, The Butterfly, The Giant Squid.

Pisces (Feb. 20-March 20): Please enjoy this quote from Lady Gaga’s latest Rolling Stone interview: “When you work as hard as I do or you resign yourself to something like music or art or something, you have to commit yourself to the struggle and commit yourself to the pain. And I commit myself wholeheartedly to my heartbreak…It’s a representation of my work. As artists, we are eternally heartbroken.” Discuss.

Aries (March 21-April 18): Interviewer Lynn Hirschberg apparently makes a habit of coaxing rock stars into ordering French fries fried in truffle oil, then using that as an example of how bougie they are. Don’t let anybody tell your story like that. Be like M.I.A. and release a retaliatory single. Or two.

Taurus (April 19-May 18): I think I need to use my weekly So You Think You Can Dance time for something else. Mia Michaels’ phlegmatic alterna-sniping is no match for Mary Murphy shrieking about the Hot Tamale Train. It’s just not so fun anymore!

Gemini (May 19-June 21): Here are some great lyrics from the Band of Horses song “Factory”: “Now then later, I was thinking it over by the snack machine/I thought about you and a candy bar/The Now and Laters, now that I've got, stuck between my teeth/
I fell asleep to the greatest movie of the year” Do just that kind of motel ruminating.