Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanks

Something that stuck out to me quite a bit this time home was how much I am like my parents. When I was helping my father replace the thinner serpentine belt on my car (it fell off!), I noticed he has lots of my mannerisms: he clucked when he was trying to figure something out and nervously laughed just like I do when he encountered unexpected problems. And my mother likes to help everyone solve everything--a trait I've definitely picked up.

Anyway, I didn't post anything I was thankful for on thanksgiving (aside from the lovely first snowfall of the year), so I'd probably better do that now (following Hopkins):

My father spending two hours in the freezing cold to put the belt back on my car. My mother cooking up a storm, especially monster cookie dough batter. Friends feeding me chocolate and coffee. Talking on the phone. Walks. The May of Teck Club, too. Babies, especially Emmaline (and imminent babies)! Running. Teaching. Reading, especially the Psalms and detective novels. Williamsport. The BCSC. Taking pictures. Traveling. All of my family and friends.

Thursday, November 25, 2010


Happy thanksgiving! What a wonderful day for the first snow of the year!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Winchester


These pictures are from the lovely old town of Winchester, Virginia. Here's the Beaux-Arts library. It was built in the shape of an open book, with the rotunda as the spine! (Although you can't tell from this picture.)



(the rotunda)



This downtown is one of the most hopping small-town downtowns I've seen.




I've been told that the basement of this building was one of the only places to buy Christmas toys back in the day.



The iron work in this (second story) window reminds me of an old bed frame.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Pope and Condoms.2

A) I love this NYTimes headline: "Pope's Comments on Condoms Sow Confusion," because it seems to me that it is, rather, the NYTimes (and I'm sure others') descriptions of the pope's comments that actually sow the confusion. And then the NYTimes reports on the confusion it has sown! So meta...

B) From another NYTimes article:

"Father Lombardi [the Vatican spokesman] said he had asked the pope if he had recognized the risk in publishing a book of interviews in a complex media landscape, where his words might be 'misunderstood.'

In response, 'the pope smiled,' Father Lombardi said."

This is delightful! One can't read into a smile too much, I suppose. But it seems to me to be a wise response: this isn't the first time that he's been misunderstood, nor will it be the last. A sense of humor and confidence in his position seem like the way to go.

Lives Like Loaded Guns

Lyndall Gordon's wonderful biography of Emily Dickinson reads sort of like a soap opera: there are affairs and power struggles; the power struggles have continued into the present day.

Gordon reveals Emily's brother, Austin,'s mistress, Mable Todd as the force conspiring against the truth of Emily's life. Todd was the first editor of Dickinson's poetry after her death, and she was jealous of Austin's wife, Susan. Todd made Susan into the bad guy of the whole situation, editing her out of poetry and letters, and undermining the truth of their close relationship. Gordon shows how one of the previously most significant biographies of Dickinson, written by Richard Sewall, takes the Todd side of the Dickinson feud.

Todd, never having met Dickinson in person (although she glossed over that fact and pretended that they were good friends), had an interest in making Dickinson into a romantic, other-worldly figure who was jilted in love. The truth is, as Gordon shows, Dickinson had a variety of lovers through her short life.

Gordon's surprise revelation (connected to Dickinson's choice not to marry) is her hypothesis that Dickinson had epilepsy, which was the reason that she hid out in her father's home. (A person with epilepsy in her day may have chosen not to marry in order not to pass it down to their children or in order to better hide the disease.) Epilepsy may have even been part of her wearing white dresses: epilepsy was treated in part by extreme cleanliness.

(picture)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Serendipity and the Internet



art nouveau girl--I don't know any, but I wish I were one; then I could be on the side of a bottle of absinthe.











fat leopard stuffed animal
--See left. (Buy it at amazon.)









small rat game--It is unclear to me whether this request is for a miniature-sized rat game or a rat game for little rats (maybe baby rats or dwarf rats).

who got a stat crux dum volvitur orbis necklace--No one! However, if I were to make one, it would be a little cross hanging in the middle of a translucent little globe stand.

baby white leopards--We've got one! But stay tuned! We're expecting a couple more in the upcoming months!

smallest information about white leopards--They are actually called snow leopards.

slovak polkas--Only the best kind ever! And this is how you should probably dress while you're dancing Slovak polkas.






(picture, picture, picture)

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Saturday in Eastern Market


Eastern Market is delightful--so many shiny things! Wystan and I celebrated Saturday by going there for coffee, browsing, and the good bookstore (with the lively proprietor--Capitol Hill Books).


The people watching is pretty great in Eastern Market (also baby watching and animal watching). I also found a lovely scarf (which, happily, involved rummaging through a whole suitcase of scarves).

Saturday, November 20, 2010

From a NYTimes article entitled, "Pope Says Condoms to Stop Aids May Be Acceptable":

"The pope made clear that he considered the use of condoms a last resort and not a way to prevent conception. The example he gave of when they could be used was in the case of male prostitutes."

So the Church is now affirming not only condoms, but also male prostitution!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Annapolis.2





Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Will and Kate


Sigh: my hopes are dashed forever.

This is the best paragraph from the NYTimes article on their engagement:

"Interested parties can now focus on a new set of pressing issues: Who will design Kate’s wedding dress? How massive will her engagement ring be? Who will be Prince Harry's date at the wedding? And, should Miss Middleton become queen – which would not take place until the death of both the current queen and the future king, Prince Charles — will everyone call her Queen Kate? (Her name is Catherine.)"

(picture)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

(I've been thinking lately about a newly revealed fact about myself [by Hopkins and Wystan, separately]: I like things that are "overwrought." [I don't understand, exactly, why this word is pejorative, and why we can't just say, "greatly wrought" or "appropriately wrought."])

I liked this movie very much (and wrote about it here), and so Stearns got me the book for my birthday.

This book is told in the most unbelievably dry tone ever. It's like a bored man recounting a series of events (although this may be due, in part, to the fact the it's in translation).

In his ever so dry tone, Milan Kundera writes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: "Early in the novel that Tereza clutched under her arm when she went to visit Tomas, Anna meets Vronsky in curious circumstances: they are at the railway station when someone is run over by a train. At the end of the novel, Anna throws herself under a train. This symmetrical composition--the same motif appears at the beginning and at the end--may seem quite 'novelistic' to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on condition that you refrain from reading such notions as 'fictive,' 'fabricated,' and 'untrue to life' into the word 'novelistic.' Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion."

"They are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life. Anna could have chosen another way to take her life. But the motif of death and the railway station, unforgettably bound to the birth of life, enticed her in her hour of despair with its dark beauty. Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress."

I think that there's some truth to what he's saying here. I remember, during an internship I did in DC five years ago, there was a component that focused on Christian life together with the other interns. We sang hymns together, but there was one in particular that Lawrence and I loved, and thought summed up our experience at the internship well. It was called, "Come all Christians, be committed." Anyway, in a meaning-packed moment during our last gathering, Lawrence and I contrived to sing that song last of all (okay, so some lame students who didn't understand the arc of the experience, made us sing some other hymns, with less meaning, after that one; don't worry, Myrrh, it wasn't you!). The meaning of that hymn as the culmination of 4 months of Christian life together might have been pretty much in my head and Lawrence's, but, you know, if they made a movie out of our experience, they would have had to frame it within that hymn.

Kundera proceeds, throughout the novel, in his matter-of-fact, ironic tone to show this--through describing the lives of his characters, he shows how one event or characteristic (such as loyalty) could hold entirely different meanings for different characters, based on their past experiences.

He both denies that Anna Karenina is overwrought or fictive or untrue to life (not exactly synonyms, but close enough), and proceeds to show that the meaning of events is there only in each person's interior life (and can only be brought to the reader when he shares those internal events with the character). This is to say, the meaning of our lives is there through our interpretation of it.

(picture)

Monday, November 15, 2010

Steans's Birthday



For Stearns's birthday, Carrot, Stearns and I cooked up quite a storm (we were so out of kitchen space and baking trays the whole time!).



(Stearns loves her Christmas apron, and so put it on to cut the bread. Because it was her birthday, we let her go.)

I will leave you with a quotation from Stearns (who cracks me up!), referring to some of the pictures on our wall: "That's the spirit of Little Gidding: We can unite the cottage and the cathedral in one living experience."

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Annapolis.1





Today was Stearns' birthday, and we spent the day in Annapolis.

Well, first we went to church with my aunt and uncle, and had brunch together, and then we went to Annapolis.

We also accidentally visited Hopkins' sister's crepe shop! Accidentally in that it didn't occur to us that it might be hers until we were eating the lovely nutella crepes. Alas, she wasn't there.

Friday, November 12, 2010

A Life Beyond Reason

I highly recommend to you this article, "A Life Beyond Reason," in which an English professor writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about his severely disabled son and the way that his son's existence has affected his life. It is a moving and intelligent article. A selection:

"Many such well-meaning people would like to put an end to August's suffering, but they do not stop to consider whether he actually is suffering. At times he is uncomfortable, yes, but the only real pain here seems to be the pain of those who cannot bear the thought that people like August exist. For many of those folks, someone with August's caliber of cognitive and physical disability raises the question of where humanity leaves off and animality begins. But that animal-human divide is spurious, a faulty either-or."

...

And, since I like to give away the ending: "That is not to deny that August [his son], along with my daughter and my wife, is the most amazing and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, for he has allowed me an additional opportunity to profoundly love another human being. A person such as Peter Singer well may conclude, reasonably, that I have become overpowered by parental sentiment. So be it. I can live with that. There are limits to reason."

Guestblog: Sr. Margarita Aloysius on Gracious Men

I was at the dinner of a non-profit organization last night, and I was talking to NAME REDACTED. (Do you know him?) Some old friends of mine, a husband and a wife, came up to say hi. The wife is a rather straightforward person, and she said rather bluntly, "Is this your boyfriend?" Meaning NAME REDACTED. And without a moment's hesitation, he said, "I should be so lucky!" It wasn't a matter of flirtation, but good breeding. He managed to say no in a way that charmed everyone and diffused any awkwardness on my part.

Naturally, I appreciated it at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I was impressed with his effortless graciousness. And it got me to thinking about one of the overlooked values of good breeding/social mores in general - making women feel secure in social settings. I hadn't realized it before, but I typically go into big non-profit events with the mentality that all men fall into one of two categories: 1) nerds desperate for a date to be deflected and avoided or 2) reasonably good looking guys who are unbearably smug because they do better than other conservative guys with the ladies. Both cases make one anxious, albeit in a totally subconscious way, about a conversation with any male. Which is why it was so darn pleasant to talk with a fellow who was not only respectful, but also benevolent.

Editor's note: Which is really why I was so appalled when someone was telling me last night about a game men play, trying to pick up women by being jerks to them. Really, women flock to graciousness and kindness (and it's good for them!).

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Fall in Georgetown



I like these brain-looking fruits, which were all over the ground.











A green door! And I love the lace birds, which fit perfectly in the glass panels.


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Future of Political Theory


There was another Georgetown talk last night on the future of political theory (the last one was by Arlene Saxonhouse); this one was given by a UVA professor, who is a good friend to the political theory department at Georgetown. He gave a rather gutsy talk, given the audience, in which he expressed his opinion that the great texts were exhaustible. Despite this heresy, he made a lot of wonderful points. He challenged the tendency to make political theory arguments in terms of neat categorical dichotomies (such as liberal v. communitarian, foundationalist v. anti-foundationalist, etc.), which he maintained is egged on by the peer-review process. He critiqued, similarly, the use of ideological labels such as liberal or feminist, which he claimed are practically meaningless.

As part of pointing the way forward for a revitalized political theory, he urged a phenomenological openness to and willingness to learn from political reality (this sounds like Voegelin, oddly). In addition, he advocated a turn to realism through non-ideal theory. (My real point of difference with him is that I think that the great texts are one avenue through which we can consider political reality.)

(picture--prettier without the library, no?)

Monday, November 8, 2010

What I'm Eating.2


Oatmeal with orange-flavored cranberries, apples and maple syrup. It's fall in a bowl!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Emily Dickinson over Time




After her death, upon Dickinson's increasing popularity, her family doctored the picture of her, making it increasingly fancy.

I'm reading Lives Like Loaded Guns, the recent biography of Dickinson, and boy, that family did a lot of doctoring!--not just with pictures, but with facts, as well.

(Pictures here, here, and here.)

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Twitter

Sympathizing with my complaints about being forced to articulate my dissertation in 800 characters, Carrot replied, "That's tweeting your dissertation!"

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Green Dress.8

April (The Green Gown) by Childe Hassam

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Children of Men

I love the film of The Children of Men (and have blogged about it here); however, not until this past weekend had I read the book, and Oh My Word! It is better than the movie!

Really, the movie has so little in common with the book (except the setting: in a world in which fertility has ceased and the government is quasi-fascist, a woman conceives a child and convinces an unlikely man to help them escape the government). And the book is so much better (in most ways). In the book, it is a fifty-something professor of history at Oxford who gets shaken from his ennui, becomes a criminal and robber to protect the woman, Julian, and her unborn child from the government (a government which forces the elderly to commit suicide in a ritual called, "Quietus" by drugging them and offering financial incentives to their family).

The book is unswervingly realistic--it refuses to see any man as perfect and sinless--even our narrator at the end makes us wonder at the end if power doesn't unfailingly corrupt. In addition, the father of the child is not her husband, but rather the Anglican priest friend of Julian's--both share a real faith (rare in their day) and yet conceive an illegitimate child. The conception of the first child in twenty-five years by Julian and this priest is ironic in the book, for both are handicapped in some way--they are not numbered among the finest in their society, among those who are being prepared to repopulate the earth, should a fertile male be found.

There are only two things that I liked better in the film: the character, Jaspers (our narrator's friend and mentor), is much nobler in his care for his wife and for his friend. Second, there is a particularly poignant scene with the narrator and the girl and her baby in the film in the midst of a battle--when the soldiers here the baby crying, all of the fighting stops and they all admire the child.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The Lady Eve

The Lady Eve is a charming romantic comedy with loads of advice on how to make a man fall in love with you (well, that and how to make him furiously angry with you, but anger and love aren't so far apart, right?). The problem with making men fall in love with you, though, is that love is sometimes contagious.

My favorite line is when Eve is seductively describing her ideal man to Henry Fonda (who I accidentally called Henry Ford at one point), and she describes how he'll kiss her, "He'll sneak up behind me..." Henry: "Like a burglar?"

Eve thinks that she's the burglar, but in the end, the burglar is burgled.