Friday, February 26, 2010

Raising his glass tonight, one of my colleagues toasted, "To March." Nothing sums up my mood better.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

I Have No Name


I saw Richard II performed this evening. What a striking play! Themes of treason, familial vs. national commitments, and the wisdom of the old v. the impatience of the young weave through it.

At the beginning of the play, Richard II listens to flatterers and undermines his counselors, his uncles, replacing them with his young friends. From this beginning, the play examines a world turned upside-down.

In response to the king's harmful actions, traitors rise up against him and threaten him. The king is forced to give up his crown to his cousin. In the process, he realizes that he, too, is a traitor, even of himself, and that, consequently, he has no name.

The new "king," Henry IV, forgives his cousin, who is part of a treasonous plan against him. The cousin's father has come to turn in his son as a traitor to the king, and the cousin's mother comes to beg that her son be forgiven. Henry IV forgives his cousin, as he hopes to be forgiven.

In the end, Richard II is killed in prison by someone who mistakenly believed that Henry IV willed it. While Henry IV did will it, and so accepts the guilt, he does not condone the action and sends the regicide-er away.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

What Makes Man Different from Animals.12


"The man who pursues a project is really possessed by it. The humblest man, who has once formed a project, however unimportant--say that of taking his family on a definite trip next Sunday--will deploy all the qualities of a statesman and a ship commander to carry it through regardless of the importance he formerly attached to it. This capacity of man to wed himself to a project really defines man. He is the animal which acts not quia but ut, not pushed by causes but fascinated by a goal."

--Bertrand de Jouvenel, "The Nature of Politics"

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

In the Spirit of Sayers' College Cards: Top 5 Reasons Why Lawyering is Great

5: Women in suits are sexy.


















4: You can learn more about drugs.





















3: There are great tricks--like leaving your light on when you aren't there. Or leaving your coat on the back of your chair. Or turning out other peoples' lights when they have gone home for the evening...

2: It is one of the few occupations that can feed Sayers projects fast enough that she isn't bored.

1: Babies won't stop crying!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

On Conversation

From Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell:

[Postcard: Winslow Homer, Marblehead, 1880 (watercolor, Art Institute of Chicago); and image of two people in conversation on a costal rock]

"Out of all the masterpieces in this place I chose this to send you, for obvious reasons. We spent hours here--most of the time in Chicago--I suppose you've seen it, but I had never been to C before--or believed in Nevada, Utah, and so on. Utah is exactly like HELL. But it was a very nice train ride on the ZEPHYR, everyone fighting for clear views for their polaroids ... Please write.
Hope all is well, with much love,
Elizabeth" (From Words in Air)

As I couldn't find a Homer watercolor called Marblehead, I chose this one--either there was a mix-up with the title or the real Marblehead no longer exists (that is to say, is not present on the internet).

What is the obvious reason that Bishop refers to? This poem that Lowell wrote about being with Bishop gives some insight into that:

Water, by Robert Lowell

It was a Maine lobster town—
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,

and left dozens of bleak
white frame houses stuck
like oyster shells
on a hill of rock,

and below us, the sea lapped
the raw little match-stick
mazes of a weir,
where the fish for bait were trapped.

Remember? We sat on a slab of rock.
From this distance in time
it seems the color
of iris, rotting and turning purpler,

but it was only
the usual gray rock
turning the usual green
when drenched by the sea.

The sea drenched the rock
at our feet all day,
and kept tearing away
flake after flake.

One night you dreamed
you were a mermaid clinging to a wharf-pile,
and trying to pull
off the barnacles with your hands.

We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end,
the water was too cold for us.





Saturday, February 13, 2010

Guestblog: Sandpiper on the Still Point

Below is Burnt Norton IV (a short section), which concludes thus: "At the still point of the turning world." The line recalls for me the motto of the Carthusian order (founded 11th century): Stat crux dum volvitur orbis---"The cross stands while the world is turned." Probably the sentiment does not originate with them, even if the motto does.

IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?

Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

"I was looking to see if we could get them partially blocked." --Wystan, on my tear ducts

Kolya











This film is lovely:

First of all, because it is a Czech film.

It is about a musician man seeking to avoid commitment enters into a green card marriage (it has been one of my dreams to do green card marriages as a job) and ends up saddled with the woman's little boy.

Secondly, because the little boy is the cutest little boy. They man and the little boy don't speak the same language, but they become very close.

Thirdly, the film deals with love and home and leaving--the musician stays in Czechoslovakia, although he could have left when he was traveling with the symphony. He buys his family home and takes care of his mother. His brother, on the other hand, has fled the country. The musician flees his apartment in order to hide and keep the little boy--an act of love and of rebellion. At the end, we see the Velvet Revolution.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

One Hundred Years of Solitude and Incest

I've renamed the book, and I think it's fitting.

This book delighted me at the beginning, made me a little tired of the sex in the middle, and delighted me again at the end. The book is sort of like a dream--you aren't really sure if what's happening is real or if it's happening only in the characters' minds (as things sometimes do in that novel).

From the first page and "The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point," I was intrigued. When Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia, who are cousins, marry, but she refuses to sleep with her husband because she's afraid that they will have a child with a pig's tail, her husband says, "I don't care if I have piglets as long as they can talk." And later: "If you bear iguanas, we'll raise iguanas." Hilarious!

Themes of incest, solitude, the deciphering of parchments, innovation, and repetition among generations are plentiful. The structure of the book is wonderful and all the pieces tie up in a satisfactory way (by this I mean that the foreshadowing in the novel always means something and it all comes together not in a way that is too easy, but in a way that makes sense). The depressing parts are not too depressing because they're so bizarre.

The men in the novel are warriors and/or lovers and/or mystical scholars. The women are mostly the ones who connect the men to the physical world--they keep the house, literally, from being overcome by nature--infringing ants and dust. They fight back nature in their attempt to civilize. Of course it's more complicated than this--not all of the women do this--some are just lovers, one floats up to heaven because she's so beautiful. But in general, it is the women who sew and clean. But this sewing and cleaning is invested with loads of meaning.

Of course, the religion and politics of the novel are interesting. But most interesting is its very loose and casual treatment of what is true and what is real. It is equally believable when Aureliano's 17 sons (all named Aureliano) get a cross of ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday that stick and won't come off and when the gypsies have a flying carpet as when Amaranta Ursala goes away to school and comes back loving fashion (okay, even here, she returns being able to predict in advance all developments in fashion--there is very little in this novel that is "normal").

On Brooches

I have a soft spot for brooches (although I can't for the life of me remember how that word is pronounced). I do more buying of brooches than wearing of them. Anyway, I recently bought a lovely gold and pink flower brooch from Etsy, that I now attach to a necklace and wear at all of my dinner parties.













This brooch was made by a company called Parco, which is now out of business. I'm now sort of obsessed by other brooches that Parco made (although I still think mine is the prettiest [and the last one sort of looks like a pot leaf]).

Monday, February 8, 2010










HT: Frankincense, who writes, "This is me EVERY TIME I see you write with your left hand."

Sunday, February 7, 2010

"She doesn't need a tattoo! She needs to get her Ph.D.!" --Julian on Emily

In Honor of the Super Bowl: Whoopie Pies

I noticed on facebook that one of my friends bakes three kinds of whoopie pies for a superbowl party. For the most part I've stuck to the basic recipe (although I did make gingerbread whoopie pies with lemon icing, which were amazing). Seeing all these different kinds on one plate, however, made me think about the other possibilities. In addition to red velvet and pumpkin whoopie pies, there are other variations such as boston cream, creamsicle, and chocolate with walnut coconut filling.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

My First Lecture


Today I gave my first lecture. I was nervous, of course--I put maroon lip liner on my eye lids when I was getting ready. But it went very well--I thought I would run out of things to say, but in fact I didn't get to cover all of the things that I'd prepared. The kids asked lots of questions, which was helpful. Goodness gracious, it was wonderful!

It was hard, however, to make them even smile, not to mention laugh. It took basically the course of the whole lecture to get them used to me. There was nothing when I said, "Aristotle when to Athens at 17 to
study at Plato’s Academy until Plato’s death—20 years! (my mother calls me a professional student after only nine years of higher education!"

They did not laugh (although the head teacher did) when I proposed to talk about the four causes of this green dress: "In order to understand what these four causes mean, let’s consider these four causes as applied to one of my favorite things in the whole world [slide]: a green dress. What is the material cause of the green dress? (the fabric, the thread, the leather for the belt) What is the formal cause? (dresses are a shirt and a skirt that are attached—this is the form of a dress—a dress has to have this to be a dress—we do not make “dress” up—we do not invent dresses; rather, we make a particular dress) (To review: we make the dress out of material, which already exists, and we make the dress according to the shape of a dress, which already exists—a dress is already a thing, and we make it according to that, although, of course, there are lots of ways that this can vary. Furthermore, a dress might not be a great example, as the sphere is, which Aristotle used—for maybe someone at some point invented a dress, but no one invented a sphere.) What is the efficient cause of the dress? (the dressmaker or the patterns and the sewing machine) What is the final cause of the dress? (why are we doing all of these things? Why do we take the material and the thread and learn how to sew and follow a pattern? The dress itself is the final cause.)"

They cracked a smile at this:
"It is important to note here that Aristotle’s notion of a telos does not include inevitability—the acorn does not have to turn into an oak tree. It can get a disease; it can get uprooted. However, in its nature, there is the potential and the purpose to become an oak tree. It isn’t going to grow into a maple tree. It isn’t going to become a gorilla. Its purpose is to be an oak tree. (This gets much harder when you talk about the telos of a rock, for instance. What is the end of a rock? Can’t it be many different things? I could throw a rock through a window. I can use it to build a pretty wall in New England. But, we can say that part of the end of a rock is to be hard.)"

They were definitely smiling by the time we got to: "V
irtue is at the mean—middle between excess and deficiency—but it is the mean that is appropriate for that particular situation—how much it’s appropriate to drink is going to vary—how much it’s appropriate to drink when you’re sitting at home by yourself on a Thursday night is going to be different from the mean of how much your should drink at a celebration, like a wedding."