Things that are awesome, Vol. 12

The Scott CR1 Elite.

Look at the lines, the graphics, the SRAM components, the white (!) bar tape and saddle.  Yes, this is a rocket.  Put a pair of Speedplay pedals on there, and you've got my dream bike.  Or at least one of them.

Among the things I have learned this past week

1.  I look at a road like that and think, "maaan, that would be great to ride on."  Even though it's a mountain highway and that kind of a climb would probably kill me.
2.  I have gained a reputation at academic conferences as an "engaging" speaker.  I get more comments on my delivery than my content.  Is that a good thing?  Don't know.


Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
    True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore ; this is the second of our reign.
 (Donne, "The Anniversary")

"Fie on this quiet life! I want work!"

I am now of all humors that have showed themselves humors since the old days of Goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o'clock at midnight.

(1 Henry IV, 2.4.92-95)

Down from the mountain

I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim Necessity, and he and I
Will keep a league till death. 
(Richard II 5.1.20-22)

(the picture is from my pilgrimage)

Best Line of the Conference

"Let's face it:  Jonson will always be the Burger King to Shakespeare's McDonalds."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

poor Ben.  Still my master, though.

This popped up in my twitter feed just a few minutes ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "You Don't Have to Live Your Life the Way Other People Expect You To."

What next?

“Why ask? Next will come a demand about which you already know all you need to know: that its sole measure is your own strength.”

(Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, p. 124)

Sweet rose,

whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye--

Sunday Morning

 




1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound.
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.

3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

(Stanzas 1-3.  Wallace Stevens, 1923)

What a difference a year makes

"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."
--Milton, "Areopagitica" (1644)


Well, last year it was one kind of challenge--this year, a different kind of challenge.  Apparently, in payment for all the hunkering down & withdrawing I did last year--the "closing the valves of my attention," so to speak, I'm getting the opportunity to be stretched, tested, refined this year.  This shall be known as my "make-it-or-break-it, do-or-die" year.  Professionally, that is.

# 72

O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

(Shakespeare)

An omen?

This little guy is hanging out right outside my office window.

Yes, it's a bat.  See his batty little face?

Adventures with Students, vol. 11

There's a certain kind of student that will predictably make a curious response to any given task ; I watched one today.  I gave a fairly clear-cut task to the class, and watched as she spent literally 15 minutes digging through her bookbag, arranging and rearranging papers in folders, opening and closing her binder, rummaging some more, etc.

Though not in this case, often this behavior is paired with obsessive pencil-sharpening to where the point is no more than a couple of microns wide.

**
There's another kind of student that comes into a composition class with a frown, and never budges.  The one today sat in the back (of course), and for the second class in a row was completely checked out.  Following basic instructions is beneath him--and while everyone else worked on drafts, he hunched over his book as if he were reading it.  I'm always torn about this type:  do I try to help him out, or do I (as is my first instinct) let him hang himself out to dry?

I try to be helpful & accessible, but I don't want to waste my time on a person who doesn't give a crap.

The chase

that's about right, wouldn't you say?

(I came home today & found the boys watching it, and thought of this)

Coming down from class

yup, manic depression--and yup, King's X is one of my favorite bands. (TMI, I know--oh well)

Tightly Wound

that about sums it up!

I hear you've got offices up there

You inspire me to climb trees
And kiss the bark and kiss the leaves--

(Harrod & Funck)

(picture: Tumblr)

Smile while you can,

Cause when they find
You're not amused--not really--
They'll rob you blind
Of what they gave
Yes you gave them that power--

(Nickel Creek, "Brand New Sidewalk")




(oh, and I miscounted:  THIS is actually #1000)

Number 1000

this was yesterday. It was the Big Brother's idea.

Soybeans & Funnel Cakes.

Come, let us go while we are in our prime ;
And take the harmless folly of the time.
       We shall grow old apace, and die
       Before we know our liberty.
       Our life is short, and our days run
       As fast away as does the sun ;
And, as a vapour or a drop of rain
Once lost, can ne'er be found again,
       So when or you or I are made
       A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
       All love, all liking, all delight
       Lies drowned with us in endless night.
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

(Herrick, 1648)

(picture from the Pacer.)

"Sow the seeds you will . . .

. . . but I am the reaper."

They are all gone . . .

 . . . into that world of light.

Glass is made from sand and sun and lime

Caliban: Be not afeared.

The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

(The Tempest, 3. 2. 130-138)

A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest

(Prospero to Ariel)
.  .  . 
Sing first that green remote Cockaigne
Where whiskey-rivers run,
And every gorgeous number may 
Be laid by anyone;
For medicine and rhetoric
Lie mouldering on shelves,
While sad young dogs and stomach-aches
Love no one but themselves.


Tell then of witty angels who
Come only to the beasts
Of Heirs Apparent who prefer
Low dives to formal feasts;
For shameless Insecurity
Prays for a boot to lick,
And many a sore bottom finds
A sorer one to kick.


Wind up, though, on a moral note:--
That Glory will go bang,
Schoolchildren shall cooperate,
And honest rogues must hang;
Because our sound committee man
Has murder in his heart:
But should you catch a living eye,
Just wink as you depart.
.  .  .



**
The Supporting Cast, Sotto Voce

(Antonio)
.  .  . 

Antonio, sweet brother, has to laugh.
How easy you have made it to refuse
Peace to your greatness!  Break your wand in half,


The fragments will join; burn your books or lose
Them in the sea, they will soon reappear,
Not even damaged: as long as I choose


To wear my fashion, whatever you wear
Is a magic robe; while I stand outside
Your circle, the will to charm is still there.
.  .  .  



(Auden, from The Sea and the Mirror, 1944)

Watch out for the tiger--

Humanity on its raft. The raft on the endless ocean. From his present dissatisfaction man reasons that there was some catastrophic wreck in the past, before which he was happy; some golden age, some Garden of Eden. He also reasons that somewhere ahead lies a promised land, a land without conflict. Meanwhile, he is miserably en passage; this myth lies deeper than religious faith.
-- John Fowles, The Aristos

(illustration:  The Raft of the Medusa, Theodore Gericault, 1819)

At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew--

--To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new.

(Milton, "Lycidas," 192-93)

Things that are awesome, Vol. 11

The 1985 Honda Accord.  Fun to drive, compact, and would--not--quit.  Seriously, the thing was bombproof.  Best car I've ever driven (and I'm including the current CR-V and Fit, both fantastic cars in their own right, in that assessment).  Until just a few years ago, it was common to see them on the road, 20 years old and still going strong.  Haven't seen as many recently.

Naturally, it was The Spouse's car (the above isn't her car--she didn't have a sunroof).

Hello, Baby.

Piers now has a niece.

"In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn? / Ways are on all sides, while the way I miss"

(Tumblr)

"I'm gonna come home on my shield, or I'm not coming home at all"

"I would rather my body were robed in the same
burning blaze as my gold-giver's body
than go back home bearing arms"
--Beowulf, 2651-2653

"Can you see the real me? can ya, can ya?"

"Take Brian Little, a professor who taught a legendary class on personality psychology at Harvard. According to those who saw him lecture, he was eloquent and garrulous, brimming with ebullience and energy. Unsurprisingly, he was widely known by his students as a raging extrovert.  Yet Little disagrees. He insists it's all an act executed in the service of being a good teacher. Should we believe him? Isn't it possible, after all, that extroversion is a blind spot of his?  But if you take a wider perspective and view Professor Little in multiple contexts, his version gathers credence—you learn, for example, that he's much happier engaged in a one-on-one conversation in a quiet corner of a restaurant than he is flitting from person to person at a noisy party. Unlike a true extrovert, who's energized by the social stimulation of teaching a large class, Little is exhausted afterwards—which is why, after many lectures, he locks himself in a bathroom stall to recover from the excessive stimulation."

(Psychology Today)

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."

(Vonnegut)

"Fate Goes Ever as Fate Must"

Beowulf, l. 455