Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Fabulous Acknowledgement
"I most sincerely thank each and every one of them, husband, children, parents, siblings, and in-laws. They all contributed to lengthening the time of production of this book. But without each and every one of them, I would not have had anything nearly so interesting to say."
Monday, September 29, 2008
Desperate Housewives?
Basically, women (or for that matter, men) who do not first orient themselves toward their home and family by engaging in activities that, as far as they can tell, benefit the home, are disordered. Women who enter the public realm while disregarding their families evidence the same lack of ability to navigate between the public and private realms as women who lounge at home with no interest in strengthening their families and their communities. The women who we should emulate are women who enter the public realm, while keeping their families and homes as priorities, and the women who devote themselves while at home to their families and communities--volunteering, praying, serving neighbors, etc. Both the household and the public realm are realms that women have to make sense of (although in different ways at different times in their lives). Friedan was right, then, to apply for entrance of women to the public realm. She was also right to disparage some ways of acting as a housewife. Her critique went too far, however, when it didn't allow that housekeeping might be done well.
In Defense of Center Parts
Anyway, I hear we are to forget about face shape now when making hair-parting decisions.
According to Bella Online: The Voice of Women:
This [theory] says that when a person puts a part in their hair, they are emphasizing either the right or left brain functioning. According to the study by Catherine Walter and John Walter called The Effects of Hair Parting on Social Appraisal and Personal Development, others make subconscious assumptions about you from the way you part your hair.
The Gender Theory
Men with a Left Part
The left part works well for men. They are seen as popular, successful, strong and traditional although possibly out of touch with their feminine side.
Women with a Left Part
This is good for women interested in a career in politics or business. They are perceived as intelligent, in charge, and reliable. Sometimes they are perceived as overly masculine and this can create difficulties in fulfilling traditionally feminine roles.
Men with a Right Part
The right part is not natural for men. It can create an uncomfortable image, and is sometimes perceived as radical. However it can work for the man who is very self-confident or striving to be respected in a non-traditional role.
Women with a Right Part
This is natural for women. It is seen as very feminine, gentle and caring, however it can sometimes cause the problem of not being taken seriously.
Men and Women with No part, Center Part or Bald
This is perceived as natural for men and women. It is perceived as balanced, trustworthy and wise although it can lack the flair associated with the other types.
Oh no. This make me rather angry.
But it is too much fun to ignore:
The Hair Part Theory was developed by a brother-sister team trained, respectively, in nuclear physics and cultural anthropology. Their revolutionary theory is now being made available to the general public, so that all individuals can have more control over automatic and mostly unconscious assessments made of their personalities by others. John and Catherine Walter also produce the True Mirror®, a mirror that does not reverse the viewer's image and which therefore allows an accurate self-assessment.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Moral: I'm Not a Very Good Friend, But I Try Really Hard
Well, this happened a long time ago, and thankfully I have a very poor memory. The man who handled making everything flow smoothly was tall and wearing a suit (both strong selling points), and was obviously pleased to be facilitating for someone as young and nice-looking as Myrrh. Of course, my matchmaking urges (which really, as you will see, ought to be suppressed under all circumstances) started cropping up. So I mischievously said, "Myrrh, what if I slide that guy your phone number?" She didn't exactly say yes, but she didn't say no, either. So, I wrote it out on a little piece of paper (I hope I gave him your cell and not our apartment number!). But when the moment came, I totally chickened out (I'm all talk). When I confessed this to Myrrh, she said coyly, "I really wouldn't mind that you didn't give him my number, except that you said you would."
And while I regret giving up the opportunity to end with the riveting words, "Myrrh's milkshake," I think it makes the story even more interesting to hear it from two perspectives, so here's Myrrh's:
Here's the story as I remember it. You were watching him watch me as we rehearsed, and came up with this idea. Then, during a lull, you showed me the piece of paper with my name and number on it (already written out), and (with an extremely excited face) told me, "I'm going to give it to him!" You're right - while incredulous and very amused, I didn't technically forbid you from going ahead with the plan, and when we were leaving and you told me you had chickened
out, I did point out that you'd said you would do it.
Stearns: Two poems by Celia Leigh Heywood
The curfew tolls the knell and light remains
For a man, about the Lord’s own work,
(Of course) begged for light, sun stand thou still,
please.
The garish beams of God’s bright-answer stayed
The calm moon and added to the already overheated carrion days of summer.
The bodies heaped and rotted,
And the Children, in perpetual unbelief,
(for the red rock in the dust wilderness would have
offered up its own water), mumbled about
Sunburn and sweat and how the baby wouldn’t go down.
Sweet mercy cloys and sticks like manna
On the tongue and heavy sweetness in the too-full stomach.
We eat the book and eat the Word (for he starved
in the desert)
And must surfeit ourselves at his command
(to make up for his own breadless days)
So we are desiccated in the endless-saving
desert sun,
And can only beg that the heart-battering, heart-ravishing
bread becomes rock.
But our coffee spoons overflow
For grace to grace is a fearsome thing.
The Twelfth Year
She had taken part of him into her.
Swanlike, God pressed her open and with a life-sigh,
she was heart-body whole.
Calamitously, he announced his conquest to the world:
I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.
Baby-Proofed Skull and Crossbones
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Serendipity and the Internet
drink with demanovka--I'm confused about this query. Demanovka is actually a drink. It is sort of hard to drink with a drink. Demanovka is, however, a very important to drink to drink, and, in fact, to drink often. One could have a beer with it if you shoot it; I guess I've done that.
bahm toballah sacoombaraffay--An ancient incantation, which ought to be chanted around campfires.
lauinger library brutalism--Really, the only thing that would have made this phrase more apt is if brutalism started with an "L." Lauinger library is brutal, both from the outside and from the inside. I cannot complain, however, about the carrels, particularly regarding the view to the south. Particularly at night when Rosslyn is lit up with pretty lights (my aesthetic sensibilities are rapidly deteriorating in DC--there is a modern apartment building that I actually think is pretty in downtown Clarendon; alas).
ornaments six peas in a pod--This would make a very lovely brooch. It would be green and remind us of vegetables.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Virtue, Liberty and Independence
While there, I remembered, as I always do, how much I love Pennsylvania. The only two types of people I interacted with while I was there were mechanics (possibly my favorite type of person in the world) and an old-man bookstore owner (also pretty high up on the list). Oh--I forgot!--and a Polish woman who told me about a miracle she experienced at Chestahova. Who would have guessed in Waynesboro, PA?
Frilly Blouses
Frilly blouses are particularly pretty with this very high neck, no shoulders look, as far as I can tell. Possibly, because it makes them look more modern than they would otherwise look, such as when we wore frilly blouses in middle school; I think those were called poet blouses, which is actually a very nice name.
Also high-necked. The cap sleeves could be cut off, or forgiven due to the very shiny fabric. Also, couldn't you wear a broach with this?!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Ode to Little Gidding
They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park. Just on the crest, where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road, was a little white frame house with groups of pines on either side of it, stretching their arms protectingly over its low roof. It was covered with red and gold vines, through which its green-shuttered windows peeped. Before it was a tiny garden, surrounded by a low stone wall. October though it was, the garden was still very sweet with dear, old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs—sweet may, southern-wood, lemon verbena, alyssum, petunians, marigolds and chrysanthemums. A tiny brick walk, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to the front porch. The whole place might have been transplanted from some remote country village; yet there was something about it that made its nearest neighbor, the big lawn encircled palace of a tobacco king, look exceedingly crude and showy and ill-bred by contrast. As Phil said, it was the difference between being born and being made.
…
"It’s the name I want you to notice especially," said Phil. … "Patty’s Place. Isn’t that killing? Especially on this avenue of Pinehursts and Elmwolds and Cedarcrofts? Patty’s Place, if you please! I adore it."
"Have you any idea who Patty is?" asked Priscilla.
"Patty Spofford is the name of the old lady who owns it, I’ve discovered. She lives there with her niece, and they’ve lived there for hundreds of years, more or less—maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggeration is merely a flight of poetic fancy."
…
"I’m going to dream about Patty’s Place tonight," said Anne. "Why, I feel as if I belonged to it. … [I have a presentiment] that Patty’s place and I are going to be better acquainted yet."
Rant: On Patronization
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Discussion Sections
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
...
CONTRA NATURAM
Amazing! Usury slays the child in the womb?! It stops courting? I mean, I have some romantic sympathies with the idea that money ought not bear money, but who really seriously defends that idea these days? Well, bringing this poem to class was a moment of weakness, and I regret it. It didn't occur to me until after I made them read it that the children didn't even know what usury was. And Aristotle's views on money and private property, while interesting, were not the most central question in the reading.
All that to say, for my next seminar, I went with the Czesław Miłosz (you have to love the raised eyebrow) poem I'd originally picked, and that went swimmingly:
But thoughtless and sly in everyday toil.
Pitiless to its widows and orphans, pitiless to its old people,
Stealing a crust of bread from a child’s hand.
Ready to offer their lives to draw Heaven’s wrath on their foes,
Smiting their enemy with the screams of orphans and women.
Entrusting power to men with the eyes of traders in gold,
Elevating men with the conscience of brothel-keepers.
The best of its sons remain unknown,
They appear once only, to die on the barricades.
Bitter tears of that people cut a song off in the middle,
And when the song dies away, noisy voices tell jokes.
A shadow stands in a corner, pointing to his heart,
Outside a dog howls to the invisible planet.
Great nation, invincible nation, ironic nation.
They know how to distinguish the truth and yet to keep silent.
They camp on marketplaces, conversing in wisecracks,
They deal in old door handles stolen from ruins.
A nation in crumpled caps, carrying all they own,
They go west and south searching for a place to live.
In the middle of class, someone brought up Amish people. There is nothing better to derail me with (do Amish people have politics?). I told them about my secret (I don't think I get to use that word) dream of putting on a black dress and joining the Amish (if I lived with the Amish, I would be able to tell if they have politics). And then I began to rant about facebook and the hook-up culture and the idea of going off to college in general, and it was fabulous (at least for me).
On Rejection Letters
One of the very best: a rejection note sent by the writer Stefan Merken to an editor who had rejected one of his short stories. “Please forgive me for not accepting your rejection letter,” wrote Merken. “At this time I cannot accept a rejection of my short story. I accept more than 99 percent of the rejections I receive. Many I don’t agree with, but I realize that accepting a piece of fiction for publication is a very subjective judgment call. My acceptance of your rejection letter is also a subjective process and therefore I am returning your letter to you. I did read your letter. I read every letter I receive. Your letter was well-written, but due to time constraints from my own writing schedule, I am unable to make editorial comments. I do make mistakes. Don’t you, as an editor, be disheartened by this role reversal. The road of publishing is long and tedious. You need successful publications and I need for successful publications to print my stories. I will expect to see my story in your next publication. Good luck in the future.”
(Which led Frankincense to point me to this College rejection rejection letter:)
Having now reviewed the many rejection letters received in the last few weeks, it is with great regret that I must inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection at this time.
...
See you all in the fall!
(Which, in turn, led me to this [which I intend to keep in mind for future use]:)
Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.
This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite Prestigious' outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.
Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Comping.2
Emily: "But that's all I do, ever."
Quotes
"That's okay," she deferred, "I think I'd rather hear where that was going."
In the vein of class quotes, here are some from Peter Lawler, cleverly collected by one of his students. A sampling of my favorites:
"Use your money for pink Cadillacs, pink flamingos and all sorts of other pink things" (I'm vaguely offended at this; we just got a pink iron that I'm quite excited about.)
"I need to apologize for the coffee stains on your term papers"
"Handling snakes is a gray area, but sacrificing virgins is over the top"
"Sexual orientation is somewhat ingrained, but it can be changed. Examples...prison and Sparta"
"Plato's Republic was a snipe hunt. You wait around in a thicket with a bag and when "justice" comes out, you grab it!"
"Catholic theology says that Heaven is looking at God for eternity and thinking it is good. We can't imagine that because we would get bored and say, 'Hey God let's go to lunch or something'"
"If someone wrote in the back of your yearbook, 'You can be whatever you want to be,' that was really dumb because you can't be a fish. It is just not going to work out for you"
"You just said something profound, but I think accidentally"
"Some of your papers I am handing back have grease on them. Just don't think about it"
"In history when Christians have really big armies, studies show that God lets them win"
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wooden Churches
Sunday, September 21, 2008
On Cussing
Saturday, September 20, 2008
What Makes Man Different from Animals.4
"Action alone is the exclusive prerogative of man; neither a beast nor a god is capable of it, and only action is entirely dependent upon the constant presence of others.
"This special relationship between action and being together seem to justify the early translation of Aristotle's zoon politikon by animal socialis ('man is by nature political, that is, social')."
--Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition
Friday, September 19, 2008
Plays and Politics
For more, see Julie Carlson's "An Active Imagination: Coleridge and the Politics of Dramatic Reform."
Comping
Everything about a manual was sensual and tactile, from the careful placing of paper round the platen (which might be plump and soft or hard and dry, and was, Mr Tytell said, a typewriter’s heart) to the clicking whirr of the winding knob, the slight high conferred by a new, wet, Mylar ribbon and the feeding of it, with inkier and inkier fingers, through the twin black guides by the spool. Typewriters asked for effort and energy. They repaid it, on a good day, with the triumphant repeated ping! of the carriage return and the blithe sweep of the lever that inched the paper upwards.
[Okay, so the psychoanalysis bit that follows might be over the top, but after that we find out that he met his wife over a typewriter!]
Each typewriter was, to him, an individual. Its soul, he reminded Mr Frazier, did not come through a cable in the wall, but lay within. It also had distinguishing marks—that dimple on the platen, that sluggishness in the typebars, that particular wear on the “G”, or the “t”—that would be left, like a fingerprint, on paper.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Little House in Linden
Imagine five blonde-haired children racing each other across a grassy field. Their tan faces and brown eyes glimmer ecstatically as they sprint toward their mother, hardly panting as they all exclaim, “Maw-ee, the rabbit had babies! Butterscotch had two babies!” The mother smiles animatedly and continues to pat the infant on her shoulder. After going out to see the new babies, she remembers the peach pies that are in the oven, returns to the house to check on them and lets the kids tell her husband the good news. This story is true, and although it sounds like a homestead in Laura Ingalls’s times, these are my cousins, and this is their story.
My uncle is a mailman, who works hard at his job; he then comes home and works hard around the house. My aunt is a busy stay-at-home mother whose kids refer to her as mommy without the m’s, which is difficult to write phonetically. Their home is situated on a hill in
The oldest boy of the family is thirteen—Joel, the bookworm and member of the Civil Air Patrol. His soccer speed is a result of chasing his sisters around the yard.
Laura, an eleven-year-old, is the bossy older sister and a baker extraordinaire. She used her baking skills to make and decorate a cake for her younger brother’s birthday. Unfortunately, the cake was missing an integral ingredient, the flour. When she discovered her error she promptly remade the cake and frosted it white with pink and purple flowers, not quite fitting for a seven-year-old boy’s birthday, but lovely nonetheless. The next girl, Amy is nine years old. She is a seamstress at her young age and produces a variety of clothing, both for her dolls and herself. She also knitted a blanket for her new baby brother.
Ethan is a lovable seven-year-old who delights in rocks. This summer he collected them in large piles throughout the house. He often searches the rocky hills about their home for fossils or unique stones. Always at his side is Ellie, the four-year-old. She has been obsessed with toy balls since just after birth; her favorite Sunday dress is covered in polka dots, and her eyes glow as she says to me, “Ilana, I have balls on my dress!”
The youngest, Peter, is only a few months old and has yet to develop an interesting personality, but his sisters have cuddled him and carried him since he was a week old. I am sure they will continue help him along every step of his life, picking for him his favorite color and toys.
These children love animals—especially rabbits, dogs and rats. They fell in love with rabbits when they saw them at the local farmer’s house where they pick up fresh milk and eggs every week. After thoroughly researching proper rabbit care, which included checking out and memorizing every book from the library on the subject, they got rabbits—for free! They proceeded to learn about breeding rabbits and now have a herd of them. Their other pet, a rat, belongs to Joel. The oldest girls bought him one for Christmas last year. Their dog, although he is usually well-behaved, has to be kept in his pen during deer season.
Deer season is an exciting time in my cousins’ household. After school, the kids sit with their eyes peeled on the woods in front of the house, because if they see a buck, their dad gives them a dollar. These sightings may lead to more venison to eat, because both my aunt and uncle have been known to shoot deer while standing on the front porch. Then comes the fun. The oldest three, Joel and Laura and Amy, help gut and skin the deer. My aunt proceeds to instruct them on how to cut the meat from the bone and remove the fat with very sharp knives. She then divides the meat into portions and freezes it in Ziploc bags. This all typically occurs over just a few hours.
My aunt does not just freeze meat, though. With help and hindrance from Laura and Amy, she cans peaches, tomato sauce, pears, green beans, and the uneaten half of the garden. Making sure her children receive the proper nutrients in their diet, my aunt cooks with nearly all natural ingredients—she even makes her own whole wheat bread and pasta noodles from scratch. Eating her whole wheat pizza, however, is interesting; somehow it just does not work. Her delicious baked goods are made without recipes—whenever my mom asks her for a recipe, she replies “I think it may have whole wheat flour in it…” which is hardly a help in decoding the secrets of her superb chocolate chip cookies.
As if she is not busy enough, my aunt also supervises my cousins’ education—she homeschools them. They learn by doing unit studies—a method of learning in which they read books and study history from the same time period. Biology labs are enhanced by annual deer dissections. Their studies are often promoted by their curiosity—Joel reads World War II books by the dozens, Laura has mastered the care of rabbits, and Ethan owns countless books about rocks. As much as they enjoy learning, like most children they enjoy the remainder of the day when school is done, and it never includes TV.
During the summer, my cousins frolic outside, swimming in their pool, jumping on their trampoline, riding their bikes on their rocky driveway, playing in the sandbox and playing tag. In the early weeks of June, Joel and Laura and Amy pick strawberries at the local field, working from six in the morning until noon in ninety-degree weather, earning sixteen dollars per day.
Clutching the fruit of their labors and the occasional dollars saved from sighting deer and doing extra chores, they all pile into the eight-passenger van and venture off to go yard-sailing every Saturday in the summer. They return home with a cornucopia of items varying from doll clothes and toy balls to items from the free box.
Sometimes the yard sales have to be missed for a week, because they go on interesting vacations. This year, my uncle took the oldest kids for a fishing trip down Pine Creek. Joel and Laura maneuvered one canoe, while he took Amy and Ethan in the other. They usually go camping every year as well, piling six children into a tent. I often wonder if my aunt and uncle sleep on those outings.
My cousins have been raised well: when they enter and exit the room they hug and kiss everyone and always remember to say thank you. When my sister gives her friends a tour of
Dominicans
Yes, Brother O.P. can preach. I've been teased incessantly for questioning this. Only I have a Pentecostal understanding of preaching, which includes yelling and microphones and a stage and a particular voice and sometimes stomping, and so I just wasn't able to picture Brother O.P. this way.
Actually, I did contemplate running away with a young Czech. I was only in Prague for a day, but it was suggested ... I assume he was Czech, but, actually, who knows? There was also the Polish guy who evidently wanted a green card quite intensely ... (I was convinced he was joking, but in retrospect, I think he wasn't). It's too bad I'm Catholic and can only get married once, otherwise I would marry people so that they could move here and then divorce them. That would be a great hobby--a of all, it would be shocking; b of all, it would be a way to thumb my nose at immigration rules. Yes, Brother O.P., I'm a liberated woman.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
I Dwell in Possibility
I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--
Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow
Hands To gather Paradise--
Today in class we put Emily Dickinson up against Plato, and I think we all sort of went for Dickinson, to my relief. At the very least, in this poem she's arguing (arguing being the wrong word; perhaps expressing?) that poetry tells us something about the nature of reality (my student: "Isn't Emily Dickinson putting down prose?"). I denied it for a while (because, of course, that isn't all or precisely what she's doing), but finally gave in and contrasted that with Plato. He says toward the end of Republic that poet's don't have special access into what it means to be human.
I have the students read the poem out loud stanza by stanza at the beginning of our discussion. My secret strategy is to pick the side of the room with most men/boys on it and ask that side to start reading. This way it pushes the boys right into the middle of it. But, for crying out loud, one of the boys brought Sir Philip Sydney's Defense of Poesie up in class today.
On Being Awkward
The Woman Who Was Thursday
"The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the paradoxes of the place. Most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking."
--Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"
There is no one else that I would rather hate as a feminist than conservative men. It is a delightful game (I guess only because I come down closer to their side than any other). And partially because they can be so extraordinarily witty about it.
Oh Chesterton, in one breath you compliment the liberated woman and deny that any liberation is possible--any spiritedness, while lovely, only reinforces (or, better yet, strengthens!) "the natural order," that of women adoring men. Unbelievable.
Blogging is Stressful.2
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
On the Evils of Constant Communication
What seems to be getting popular these days, however, is neither being alone, nor being with people—it is a constant in between state in which you are communicating to an anonymous audience and receiving a plethora of communications that are directed to an anonymous audience, and not specifically to you. I am going to group Twitter-ing in this group, as well as facebook newsfeeds and gchat messages. This gives us a way to be with people in our isolation (when I’m bored and lonely of comps studying, I do just study ghcat away messages every 10 minutes; plus I have the constant urge [which I resist as much as possible] to update mine frequently with whines or reports of how my day is going). What if this is the worst of both worlds? What if this gives us neither community nor solitude and thus saps our ability to participate in community properly when it is time to return to it?
I need alone time (it has to be short and frequently interrupted, as my roommates can vouch for due to my frequent excursions from my room just to say one or two things, and then go back in). If I don’t have time alone, I get stressed as I’ve not been able to process my previous interactions and unwind and rest. If your alone time is filled with text messages and facebook and emails and other such merely marginally meaningful interactions, then that solitude becomes less able to serve as a catharsis, preparing us for future social engagement. Rather, it becomes a quasi-sustainable method of poor quality, pseudo-social interactions. We don’t need roommates (at least ones we love) and families and friends who live down the road (thanks, The Others!).
Goodness gracious, I’m upset. I’m upset because one of my students emailed me from his blackberry today (a freshman! Imagine!). I’m upset because my priest thought that when I said, “I’m buying a car,” I meant this minute, as opposed to this month (obviously not upset at him, Dear Fr. Dinousaurhead, but at the idea that I would presume to update him on little immediate details of my life as they happen). Furthermore, in his email response, he introduced me to the word, “Treo” (still not sure what that means): “I took your last email to mean that you were AT THAT MOMENT buying a car. Why would I think that? Because everyone else emails constantly...in the midst of whatever they are doing...from their iPhone, Blackberry or Treo. So I just presumed you were doing the same. I pictured you sitting in the chair at the dealership, signing the papers, getting the keys, driving away in your Hummer. Being an old fashioned guy, I'm glad to know you were just using email in the traditional manner.” To be fair, I had written, “I am buying a car at the moment; I will email you again when I've bought it and can make my way out to your now far distant parish” (admittedly ambiguous).
The thing is, I’m not against technological innovation. Some people need things like this in order to facilitate the convenience of work so that they can spend more time with their families. I’m just worried that we aren’t considering the way in which we communicate forms us and has a pervasive influence on the rest of our social interactions, and, indeed, the rest of our life (Kudos to Whigwham and Wendell for avoiding Facebook). I’m most worried about our younger siblings who don’t know what life is like without constant communication. That is not childhood. Thankfully, we come from Amish, Pennsylvania, so Ilana has no cell phone.
On Laughter and My Present Lack
(This was in an email from my friend, Sayers, responding to my query about her first day at a big law firm. Her reply to my question was, essentially, "Fine." And then she continues:)
More interestingly, we found a mouse in our apartment. He was running around the counters in the kitchen. So it turns out that under pressure, I scream and run away from mice. The plan was that Mr. Sayers was going to move the fridge (the mouse had run under it) and I was going to put a pot on top of it to trap it. So Mr. Sayers moved the fridge, the mouse ran out and Mr. Sayers jumped back, fell into me, and meanwhile I've dropped the pot and am screaming and trying to run away from the mouse. I ended up with rug burns on both knees. The mouse ended up going through a hole in the wall under the stove that we promptly stuffed with a rag and taped shut. I feel pretty wimpy as a city-dweller at the moment.
Other thing that amused me today, although it can't rival the increasing self-knowledge a mouse can bring was from my phone conversation with a man about replacing the windshield on my car-to-be:
Man With a Strong Hick Accent: "That will be $276. When would you like us to replace the windshield."
Emily: "Oh, I won't be scheduling an appointment. That's higher than the other price quote I received."
MWSHA: "Well, we have a price matching guarantee. What price were you quoted?"
Emily: "$218, plus they were going to come to my apartment."
MWSHA: "Okay, our price is $238. I can send a mobile unit out as early as tomorrow. When would you like an appointment?"
Emily: "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but how is that price matching?" (To which he mumbled something about "the lowest they can go" and a lifetime guarantee, and I think at that point he finally understood that I would not be requiring his services.)
Monday, September 15, 2008
An Adjusted Feminism
Of course, everything bad comes back to birth control becoming the norm (or at least women's use of birth control to permit them to become "as predatory as the most wolfish men"), although that is implicit in Mansfield's article (he mentions abortion as a backup, presumably for when birth control fails), rather than explicit.
A: People listen to me, but they don't pay attention to what I say. I should punch them out, but I don't.
A: I have a young wife who grew up in the feminist revolution, and even though she is not a feminist, she wants to benefit from it. I wash the dishes, and I make the bed.
Q: How young is she, exactly?
A: She's 60. I'm 73.
A: I disagree with that.
Q: When was the last time you did something that required physical strength?
A: It's true that nothing in my career requires physical strength, but in my relations with women, yes.
Q: : Such as?
A: Lifting things, opening things. My wife is quite small. (the best part is: he's quite small, too!)
Q: What do you lift?
A: Furniture. Not every night, but routinely.
Something Worse than Facebook?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
A Rant
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Dreaming Time Away
Wordsworth's "Expostulation and Reply"
"WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?
"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.
"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:
"The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.
"Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?
"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away,"
I used this poem for a conversation with my class about Plato's Republic. The students cleverly tied it to Plato's metaphysic (particularly to his understanding of the underlying structure of reality). They also talked about how conversation is possible within the individual person since the person is composed of the three distinct parts (reason, spiritedness and appetites).
I was thinking much more simply than they were about learning in isolation v. learning in conversation with others (dialogue form) and passive v. active learning. Actually, this poem, which I'd actually planned for the last conversation, but decided to use this week, worked surprisingly well as Wordsworth and the Romantic poets have some of this platonic idealism in them, but also differ in interesting ways.
Also, I'd gotten confused about the reading assignment, and consequently hadn't done half of the reading. I like being a teacher-ish way more than being a student!
Friday, September 12, 2008
What's Wrong With the World? Or So The Surprising Thing Isn't The Modern Malaise, It's That Some People Make It Anyway
"Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;
Yea, there is strength in striking root and good in growing old.
We have found common things at last and marriage and a creed,
And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read."
--Chesterton, from the preface in poetry to "The Man Who Was Thursday"
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Faulkner on Work
Okay, so I guess I shouldn't support his alternative of indulging the sensual appetites instead of work, but I do support his position that "I don't want money badly enough to work for it. In my opinion it's a shame that there is so much work in the world." I couldn't agree more (I mean, except the days in which I'd love to throw lavish dinner parties with everything expensive delicious to eat and drink; and the days in which I want a balcony).
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
On Blasphemy and What's Worse
--Percy
Parricide--killing one's father or mother or other close relative
Patricide--killing one's father
Matricide--killing one's mother
Fratricide--killing one's brother
Sororicide--killing one's sister
Filicide--killing one's child
Mariticide--killing of one's husband
Uxoricide--killing of one's wife
Deicide--killing a god
The way we have families these days, it isn't even necessary, for instance, to kill your wife--you don't need one (in order to have children) to start with! Moreover, no need to kill the child, we can just prevent their birth. This reminds me of Eliot when he writes about blasphemy in After Strange Gods:
"[B]lasphemy is not a matter of good form but of right belief; no one can possibly blaspheme in any sense except that in which a parrot may be said to curse, unless he profoundly believes in that which he profanes ... It is certainly my opinion that first-rate blasphemy is one of the rarest things in literature, for it requires both literary genius and profound faith, joined in a mind in a peculiar and unusual state of spiritual sickness. I repeat that I am not defending blasphemy; I am reproaching a world in which blasphemy is impossible."
On Humilty and Community
--GKC, "The Man Who Was Thursday"
(Imagine how proud I am after reading this line!)
Also, I'm vaguely happy and surprised to wake up this morning/afternoon, what with the particle accelerator and all. Although I wasn't actually all that worried about the world being wiped out, as long as the whole world was wiped out at the same time, I think it wouldn't bother me so much (this is where my uber-communal tendencies show through ["Myrrh-cry!"]). I just wouldn't want to die myself and have everyone else go on without me.
Grocery Stores Get Smaller!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Rants: On The Contemporary Family and Political Use of Disabilities
Although the Children's Names Are Questionable
“She’ll be with Piper or Trig, then she’s got a press conference or negotiations about the natural gas pipeline or a bill to sign, and it’s all business,” Ms. Burney, who works across the hall, said. “She just says, ‘Mommy’s got to do this press conference.’ ”
Ms. Palin installed a travel crib in her Anchorage office and a baby swing in her Juneau one. For much of the summer, she carried Trig in a sling as she signed bills and sat through hearings, even nursing him unseen during conference calls.
Todd Palin took a leave from his job as an oil field production operator, and campaign aides said he was doing the same now.