Light On Dark Water
Will I get in trouble for doing this?
If 'twere done when 'twere done, 'twere well it were done quickly.
Except snookerually smiling lodwians.
LOL PHooey
Interlopers!
That was great. You better name this one after Craig.
AMDG,
Except that I've already updated the template. I'll think about it...
Goodness, I almost missed this.
'Twould have been awful if I did.
*rimshot*
I forbid you to name this thread after me. Leave it as it is.
Thank you, cnb. I think that's probably best--it's really funnier this way. I laughed out loud when I saw your comment.
Y'all are funny. I just thought that CNB's jumping in like that was so in keeping with the way the UT got started in the first place.
cnb--You've gotten to be so forceful now that you're a father.
AMDG,
Yes, I'm not very well practiced at forbidding things, so I need to flex those muscles a little each day now. I have tried forbidding my wife at various times: "I forbid you to eat that chocolate cake!", "I forbid you to fall asleep at 6 pm!", etc. All to no effect.
Yes, I can tell by looking at her that your little darling is going to be obstinate and recalcitrant. You think that little fist next to her face is cute, but think again. 8-p
AMDG,
And, btw, those things don't work on me when my husband tries them either. If you can't stand up for your rights to chocolate cake and sleep, where can you stand? Or lie down?
AMDG,
It might be kind to break these things more gently to him, Janet.
I think I forbade my wife to do something once. She thought it was hilarious.
That comment problem seems to be manifesting itself again--comment heads show on the sidebar but aren't there when you look at the thread.
I haven't had that problem at all. Of course, maybe I'm not seeing them on the sidebar.
AMDG,
Actually, if he forbade me to do something (except sleep, nobody can keep me awake) or even strongly suggested that I do or not do something (much more likely than forbidding) I would probably comply. I've found that in certain areas, it's very stupid of me not to do what he asks. I learned this very early on when I basically forced him to move into a house where I cried myself to sleep the night we moved in and was miserable for the entire two years we lived there. There was just something opressive about that house.
AMDG,
I just have to say something here, because I think someone ought.
AMDG,
If anyone happens to be around this morning, please say a prayer for me this morning. I am very concerned about some things at work today.
AMDG,
Will do, Janet.
These follow up comments re: my "forbidding" must have come when the comment system was acting up, because I didn't see them. Yes, I suspect that the whole enterprise is pointless. It often seems that my wife simply doesn't listen to me -- but she says she listens to me later, after the conversation is over. There is some evidence to support that. 8-)
Oh, I think that's really true. It's like the conversation about having to talk/write to know what you think. Sometimes when you're talking, your just storing things up to process later. I hate to make computer analogies, but that one works.
AMDG,
And remember the parable in the Bible about the two sons--one says "yes" and then goes off and does what he pleases; the other says "no" but then does what the Father asks. I am definitely the second.
And thanks for the prayer.
AMDG,
I'm here ("here" actually is home today) and have said a prayer.
I meant to say, about that house: I'm surprised that if the house was that awful you didn't see it. Pretty bad case of buyer's remorse there.
Janet,
I said a prayer for you too.
We didn't buy it, we rented it and I wanted to move there because we had friends on that street and I wanted to get away from the people in the other side of our duplex.
And then, it wasn't damp when we looked at it, so I didn't know that the carpet smelled like a swamp when it rained. But it wasn't just that. This may sound crazy, but it just had an evil feel.
AMDG,
Thank you both for the prayers. I almost stayed home myself today, but that was not the brave thing to do. 
AMDG,
I don't think that sounds crazy. I think some places do have an aura about them. I also think there's room in Catholic theology for this.
Thank you all again for your prayers. The problem seems to have vanished in the mist.
So now I'm just sitting here with Van Morrison sticking labels on many, many brochures.
The speakers on my pc here are really better than the ones at home.
AMDG,
I wasn't here until the problem vanished - said a prayer of thanks instead.
I somehow missed the problem too. Glad it is better now.
Yeah Dave, I've been working on it for a long time.
AMDG,
So, Maclin, are your anticipatory azaleas abloom yet? We only have daffodils . Hard to believe that two days ago it was painful to go outside.
AMDG,
Well, doggone it. I'm giving up on embedded links. http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3265400730/
AMDG,
Daffodils!!!
(And I'm so sorry I missed the problem!)
Yes, we do have some azaleas blooming. The idiots. It was below freezing 48 hours or so ago, but was up near 70 (21C) today. It's virtually certain to freeze again sometime this month.
This is a terrible business going on in Australia, with the wildfires. Louise asks for prayers. As best I understand it the fires are down her way, in the southeast corner of the continent, but she's in Tasmania, 150 miles of ocean away from the mainland, and presumably conditions are different.
Praying!!
(Free CD) For anyone who might be interested, I found a copy of the Geoff Smith CD "15 Wild Decembers" at a used CD store for 50 cents. The jewel case is pretty jacked up, but the disc and inserts are fine. This is a sort of minimalist pop/classical thing, piano driven with contralto female vocals. Anyone who wants it I'll be happy to mail it out to you free of charge. Just email me at rgrano2@juno.com
Hey Anti! CNB has some ZOMBIES for you: http://cburrell.wordpress.com/20...-year/
#comments
AMDG,
*swoons*
*revives immediately*
Yaaaay!!!
*does the happy zombie bunny-hop*
I'm glad you like the book, or at least the idea of it, anti. It looks pretty cool.
I need some help. Yesterday I finished reading The Road. I seem to remember a while back a discussion here about the book, and someone (RobG?) posted a link to an essay on it. I think. Anyway, if anybody remembers this, and knows where the link went to, could you remind me? Thanks.
A very good book, by the way! Horrible, but good.
Never mind, I found it. It was buried in the other Undead Thread (i.e. the dead one).
For the record, here is the link: http://www.civitate.org/2009/01/...ormac-mccarthy/
A very good book, by the way! Horrible, but good.
Indeed.
AMDG,
And that's a good article, but someone, Francesca I think, linked to another one earlier that I think is better.
AMDG,
One neat thing about the Undeads is that you can search them from the Edit function. Not, I think if you click a comment on the sidebar--I think you have to click on the thread itself.
AMDG,
By "Edit function" do you mean the browser's Find command on the Edit menu? If so, you can do that within ordinary comments via the equivalent keystroke -- ctrl-f or F3 -- even though the menu isn't there.
(NB, if you care: the reason the menu doesn't show for regular comments is that they're displayed by a Java script (HaloScan-supplied) which fetches them and displays them in a window tailored in various ways for the purpose. Whereas the undeads are just a direct link.)
Thank you. I'm so happy. You have no idea.
AMDG,
A big, fat mosquito just landed on my arm and bit me. It hurt, too. This isn't right. You ought to have some hiatus from mosquitoes in February.
AMDG,
(Forty Pulpits) Over the past four years I have interviewed hundreds of preachers, many of whom come from Alabama, and I've made the discovery that people from Alabama pronounce the word "pulpit" in a very distinct manner that I am not even capable of imitating, much less trying spell. I'm wondering, Maclin, if you know what I'm talking about, or if you pronounce it that way yourself.
But maybe you can't even hear it. People in St. Louis pronouce "or" as "ahr" so, for instance, they say Lahrd or Lard instead of Lord. I once heard a Charismatic priest from St. Louis give a talk in which he said, "Praise the Lard!" so many times that by the time he got through, I was ready to go home and fry myself in a pan.
I used to have a lot of friends in St. L. and visted them fairly frequently. Once, I said to them, "Do y'all know that you pronounce "or" like "ar"--you say Lard instead of Lord. "I don't understand," my friend said. "Did you say we say Lard instead of Lard?"
For some reason, every time I would visit, there would be a reading at Mass that had something to do with forty--forty years in the wilderness--forty years I endured that generation--fasting for forty days and forty nights, etc.--and I would sit stiffling my giggles while they were saying that the Israelites wandered in the desert for fahrty years. Then after several years (not forty, though), I finally attended a weekday Mass with no numbers. I couldn't believe it. The string was broken! Then after Mass they started talking. "Whatcha doing this afternoon." "I'm taking the youth group to the ballgame." "Great, how many are going?" "Oh, about . . ."
I promise, this is all true.
AMDG,
Hey, hey hey! Second most miserable.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/
06...ble_cities.html
My favorite it the violent crimes rate that is more than twice that of NYC.
AMDG,
That's a really badly presented story. I never did see a list of the whole 10, and I didn't want to sit through their slide show.
Is New Orleans on the list? I would think it would be as bad as Memphis.
I'm not sure what you mean about pulpit, although I'm conscious of it being a problem word: I don't know whether to say "pull-pit" or "puhl-pit." I think some southerners try for the latter and slide past the "l", so you get "puh-pit."
"ahr" for "or" is one of the midwesternisms that can get on my nerves. I thought of another a couple of hours ago when I first read your comment, but virtuously did not take the time to reply then. So I guess God doesn't want me to criticize midwesterners. Southerners are sort of badly positioned for that, anyway.
Oh wait, here's one. Perhaps it was only a quirk of one particular person I used to know, but he was a mid-westerner, I think: "strobberies," rhymes with "robberies," for "strawberries."
I guess God changed his mind.
The accent is on the first syllable, but the pit turns into two or maybe three syllables.
AMDG,
I think my fascination with the pronunciation, however, is that fact that although it's clearly a Southern thing, I can't do it. And then, of course, I hear that word constantly.
AMDG,
"Pull-piy-it"?
Close. I'd have to hear it. But that's probably about as close as you can get. You should try to engage some people in conversations about pulpits. Maybe it's a Protestant thing.
AMDG,
This is hilarious:
http://
liturgicalspreadsheet.tri...spreadsheet.pdf
found on Robert's site - thx RG
I don't have time to read it all right now but I was laughing out loud by the fourth or fifth line.
(Triskaidekaphilia) I always celebrate Friday the 13th.
AMDG,
What form does the celebration take?
Usually I just make an announcement. Becca and I have a Triskaidekaphiliac Association, but I'm the only present member. We may go out to dinner though. You think I could get somebody to give me 13 shrimp instead of 12 in honor of the day? That's probably more shrimp than I could eat, but Bill loves shrimp.
I think I mentioned here before that one of the days that the Blessed Mother appeared in Fatima was a Friday the 13th--July, I think. If it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me.
And speaking of going out for dinner, a nice little restaurant has opened about 10 minutes from my house. This is so amazing. I like to go out to dinner on Friday, but we both get off work at 3:00, and it's too early to eat and too long to wait around here for dinner. Then, once I'm home I don't want to get back in the car and drive for half an hour to get to a restaurant. So this is really nice. The proprietor ("I used to go to Catholic Church") has been trying to get us saved, but not offensively. I don't think he knows what he's let himself in for.
AND DAVE--that spreadsheet is really funny. Maybe to celebrate I'll print off 13 copies and send them to people in categories 2 and 3.
AMDG,
I suppose I must be at least a little superstitious, because, while I don't worry about Friday the 13th (one of my children was born on the 13th, though not a Friday, and then there's Fatima), I would still feel slightly uneasy joining your Association.
Yes, it's great to go out to eat on a Friday. Or get take-out seafood and watch a movie while you eat.
I'm going to a Mardi Gras parade in a little while, unless it starts raining a good bit more heavily. I'm sorry to say I'm a bit tired of MG parades.
"I would still feel slightly uneasy joining your Association."
I bet if I'd told you we celebrated with tiramisu, you would have jumped right in.
AMDG,
Are you tired of parades because you've been to too many this year or tired of them for the rest of your life?
AMDG,
This was the first for this year, so I guess it means I'm tired of them, period. Maybe not for the rest of my life.
Parades start when? After Epiphany, Candlemas?
Maybe you're just in a mood.
Or maybe it's like my Christmas tree aversion.
AMDG,
The truth is that Mardi Gras parades are a little sad and tawdry. You need to bring a certain celebratory frame of mind with you in order to ignore that and enjoy it anyway. It helps to have young children with you, I think. Maybe it's partly a mood on my part and partly just a result of having seen so many of them.
A Mardi Gras parade in the rain, which is what I experienced last night, is really almost grim. There's nothing sadder to me than a failed celebration.
Yeah, you probably would have enjoyed it more if you had been driving around taking pictures of it.
AMDG,
There's not really a set time for the parades to start, but it gets going in earnest about two weeks before the beginning of Lent--Mardi Gras, the day, is the marker, rather than any fixed date, and of course it floats with Easter.
There was a parade associated with the Senior Bowl, several weeks ago, that I think they tried to call a Mardi Gras parade, but that was just PR.
Possibly, but that's physically impossible due to the streets being blocked off.
Well, you didn't have to do it there. You could have just driven down the X-way.
AMDG,
X-way?
I think that this might be why kids in the neighborhood call our house The Witch's House.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3281931729/
AMDG,
That's scary.
Maclin, I have just now seen the recent comments on this thread and your relay of my prayer request for the bushfire victims. Many thanks!
The conditions are much better here in Tassie, as you supposed. For which I am very thankful.
I think the kids that lived here before we did must have painted that face on the tree. The original owners used to have an orchard and this pear tree is the last one standing. It is completely hollow inside and up until about 3 years ago still bore a lot of fruit. I think it's about had it now, though, but somehow I don't want to get rid of it.
AMDG,
When I first looked at this, on my too-small laptop screen, I thought it was a natural phenomenon, which might be scarier.
Yeah, that would be even creepier than the head (I guess that's what it called) of about 30 garlic cloves that I found underneath the tree in front of my house. I'm wondering if one of my neighbor's thinks we're vampires.
AMDG,
I just got an email from the President of the seminary that we're having a meeting at 10 about some "news from the board meeting over the weekend." This is a bit scary. He also says there are going to be changes to the health insurance, so I guess that means the seminary isn't closing anyway.
AMDG,
Are you talking about something man-made or some kind of fluke of nature?
Last night I had a nightmare about zombies. I was about to blame some of y'all, as I have probably not given zombies ten minutes' thought in my life until recently, but then I remembered the hacked traffic sign I posted.
When I first wrote the preceding, I first said "I dreamed," then changed it to "I had a nightmare," but forgot to remove "I dreamed" so that it said "I dreamed I had a nightmare." I hope I never actually do that.
Of course my 9:42 was about the garlic head. As for the board report, funny, our board met last week & we're having a similar report today. We're definitely not closing. Yet.
Oh darn. I wish it had been man-made. It was like someone had plucked the head off the stalk. But where it came from and how it got into my yard is mystery. Maybe Duke, but I'm not too sure he'd go out of his way to get a mouth full of garlic. But who knows. Maybe his name is really Il Duce. Or maybe he's just being a good dog and protecting US from vampires. We watched The Omega Man (what a horrible film) the other night and I've been thinking a lot about Matheson's book and his vampires in comparison to the Inquisitorial whackos in the movie.
AMDG,
Sometimes it's helpful to be at the bottom of the barrel. 1% pay cut starting in August. I figure if they had told me I was getting a 1% raise, I would have said, "Oh heck, that's nothing." In fact, I've said that about even a 3% raise, which is the highest percentage anyone is getting cut. So, nobody's getting layed off and all-in-all it's not too bad. They are also lowering the matching funds for our retirement funds from 5% to 2.5%, but I've been getting ready to cut that out anyway.
AMDG,
Yeah, could be way worse. No layoffs here, either, and so far no salary cut, but no raises this year.
No raises this year as well, for faculty, staff, and grad students.
At this end, our crazy lecturer's union wants to go on strike for an 8% pay rise. They are living in cloud coocooland. I just hope the union as a whole votes against!
I read on the Princeton Seminary website that their endowment has lost 1/3 of its value, and they are freezing everything in sight. For once we don't envy the Americans, with their vast endowments. We get next to no money from endowments, whereas they (you) are dependent on theirs (your colleges).
Yeah, if your national situation is anything like ours, that's crazy.
Small colleges here, like the one I work for, depend on a mix of endowment, fund-raising, and tuition. When the stock market goes bad the first two are hit hard--the first directly, the second indirectly by the fact that big donors are probably also big stockholders. And the third is hit by economic downturns generally.
"I dreamed I had a nightmare." I hope I never actually do that.
I'll happily do that for you, Sir! :-D
You know not what you offer, anti. I'm afraid something bad happens if you wake up screaming and realize you're only in another dream.
I think I saw this in a movie once.
It's like this variation on the dream where you dream you get up and get dressed and then wake up and realize that it was a dream and you have to do it all over again and then you realize that THAT was a dream and you have to get dressed for the third time that morning and then . . .
That is a nightmare.
AMDG,
I don't think I've ever had a dream where that happened, exactly. I do fairly often become aware in a dream that it's only a dream. I guess that's when I'm starting to wake up.
Twila Paris. Am I the only one who likes Twila Paris? Is that just plebian of me or something?
AMDG,
I don't know who she is.
The videos tend to schlock. I don't often listen to contemporary Christian music, but this gets to me somehow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q...h?
v=QJfSp_rceFs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A...h?v=AtDgb-6dl-
g
AMDG,
Hey Rob--I have a question for you: should I see the Tarkovsky version of Solaris? I was about to put the Soderbergh one on my Netflix q, even though I've seen it before, and then I saw that they have T's. It's dauntingly long for a movie that doesn't have a lot of action.
I'll have to wait to try those vids sometime at home, Janet. Besides the fact that I'm supposed to be working, we have streaming video throttled back here, so it takes a long time.
Tarkovsky's Solaris is very long and very slow, with lengthy bits where hardly anything happens. I came away somewhat underwhelmed (and I'm one who generally doesn't mind 'long and/or slow').
I don't mind long and/or slow if there's a good enough artist at work, but it needs to be very good. If there's not any real action, it needs to be visually fascinating or intellectually engrossing. La Dolce Vita is about the same length and I found it tiresome. I guess I'll give this a shot, though. The only thing is, I find it very hard to abandon a movie, sort of like not wanting to leave food on my plate. So I'll probably waste the whole almost-three hours if I don't like it.
Tarkovsky: I've read a lot of good things about Solaris in the past. I haven't seen it. I think Andrei Rublev is a good film. I also liked The Sacrifice years ago, but haven't seen it recently.
I'm not familiar with him at all--wouldn't even have recognized the name out of context.
I like Andrei Rublev a lot. I didn't hate Solaris, but I can't imagine watching it again any time soon.
Hmm, yeah, looks interesting, but...205 minutes (=almost 3 1/2 hrs)?!...I dunno....
Frankly, I think you'd be better off watching Andrei Rublev if you haven't seen it.
I'd say the same. Start with Andrei Rublev and go on into Tarkovsky from there.
Sigh. Ok. 3 1/2 hours...
My mom just called because she heard on the news that a pedestrian was hit in front of the seminary. She wanted to make sure it wasn't I. I'm not even in TN, but now I'm sitting here at school wondering if it's ok to pray that it's not somebody I know, which it almost certainly is because the students park across the street and it happened right before classes start.
AMDG,
Like us praying that the hurricane will hit someplace else. Maybe you should just pray for the person, that he or she is not injured too badly. Although I guess if it was on the news it isn't good.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm guessing it was just on the traffic report, so it might be ok.
AMDG,
It's like this variation on the dream where you dream you get up and get dressed and then wake up and realize that it was a dream and you have to do it all over again and then you realize that THAT was a dream and you have to get dressed for the third time that morning and then...
*sigh* That happens to me a lot. Usually on Mondays.
That never happens to me. I think it would freak me out.
Wow, really?
It annoys me like bleeping crazy. I mean, it gets to the point where I'm all dresses and headed out the door. And then I "wake up" in bed again. And it starts all over.
Or else I come in late to where I'm supposed to be, and then I "wake up." Rewind, etc.
Oy, Anti. That does sound tiresome.
"all dresses" is funny. Like you kept putting on one dress on top of the last every time you went through this loop.
Oy, Anti. That does sound tiresome.
Oy Dave! Tiresome it is, mmmhm!
Actually I had one of those cycles a few weeks ago when I had to do a report in class. In one cycle I dreamt that I got out of bed, left the house, went to school, and wowed the prof with my amazing research and oratorical skills. Then I "woke up."
"all dresses" is funny. Like you kept putting on one dress on top of the last every time you went through this loop.
Haha! I knew there was a reason why I didn't bother to correct that little typo :-D Then again, maybe that's actually what happens :-P
I think Marian's been reading too much Calvin and Hobbes:
http://schwicky.net/calvin/image...ages/
dreams.jpg
We love Calvin & Hobbes. Thx Ryan.
I'm not sure it's possible to read too much C&H. But that is uncannily like anti's dreams.
Speaking of C&H:
http://blogs.herald.com/photos/
u...calvinhobbs.jpg
I'm not sure it's possible to read too much C&H
Yes, Calvin was my first kindred spirit wrt gravity.
But that's pretty much the dream, except it repeats at least 3 times.
AMDG,
I did know the woman who got hit, but she's ok. They looked her over at the hospital and sent her home. This intersection is awful. You have to cross a right-turn lane to an island, cross 7 lanes to another island, then another turn lane. It's really not an intersection because the N-S street goes under the E-W street. Last month, a car went over the edge of the overpass onto a car below. It just so happened that it landed on a car containing a former neighbor and his wife. Thank goodness, they were ok, too.
AMDG,
Oh, it is. I had my comic books taken away from me as a kid after I reenacted one of Calvin's antics. :-P
I think it's great how the characters are named after John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes after their personalities.
My favorite C&H's are the ones where we see Calvin and Susie grown up:
http://bp1.blogger.com/
_KWVerE0X...+and+Hobbes.gif
Alright, off to teach poetic meter!
Oh yeah, I absolutely love those. Like the one where they're playing husband and wife and Calvin just can't stand it anymore. One of these days my wife and I are going to give ourselves that gigantic hardbound collected C&H for Christmas.
Gad, Janet, that does sound like a nightmare (heh) intersection. Glad your friends were not badly injured.
(Andrei Rublev) Actually, because the film is divided into six sections of roughly equal length, it's not the type of thing you absolutely have to watch straight through. You can watch 3 + 3 or whatever. I find the section featuring the Tatar invasion to be very disturbing, but the final section, "The Bell," is one of my favorite cinematic sequences in all of moviedom.
Didn't the film make some sort of all-time great movie list put out by the Vatican?
They are having chapel upstairs. The chapel is right above my office. They are playing some kind of reggae music and someone is stomping HARD on the floor. It makes me a bit nervous because I've seen chunks of ceiling fall around here. 
AMDG,
The Bell is indeed wonderful. The sections do help. You can almost watch a section a night for a week.
Chapel + reggae?...does not compute...
Humph. What does the Vatican know about movies? I bet Smokey and the Bandit wasn't even on that list.
Yeah, easily separable sections would help.
The third element is Black History Month. You should be here for the Hip-Hop Mass--Episcopalian, thank goodness.
AMDG,
Episcopalians rapping?! As my mother would say, "Oh horruhs!"
Somehow I had the idea your seminary was somewhat more conservative than that.
"Episcopalians rapping?"
We're white guys
We're extremely white
And we walk with our rears
Extremely tight...
(anyone remember that from Sat. Night Live?)
Moving further afield, but un the Norton Anthology I'm teaching from, the editor compares Skeltonic meter (the meter of John Skelton, who uses very short lines and repetitious rhyme) to rap. I actually see his point:
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit...lit/
sparowe.htm
This is actually a better example of Skelton's 16th century hip-hopping:
http://www.luminarium.org/editio...ons/
elynour.htm
Absolutely! You need to record that.
AMDG,
"With a whym wham,
Knyt with a trym tram,
Vpon her brayne pan,
Like an Egyptian.."
Yep, that's rap.
Do you think that Elynour Rummynge waits by the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door?
AMDG,
No Janet, but:
And this comely dame,
I vnderstande, her name
Is Elynour Rummynge,
At home in her wonnynge ;
And as men say
She dwelt in Sothray,
In a certayne stede
Bysyde Lederhede.
She is a tonnysh gyb ;
The deuyll and she be syb.
Yeah, that's what gave me the idea.
Skelton even has some scatological and bawdy humor in that poem, which I won't share among this polite company.
But Janet, you should tell your Brit Survey teacher you want to read some Skelton, and no playa hatin'.
Work. I'm going to work now.
AMDG,
Haha!
Tunning, btw, refers to her occupation with brewing ale. She has some interesting recipes in the poem.
She also makes mad cheese.
Also, Skelton was a priest, who used to diss Cardinal Wolsey a lot in his raps, until the Cardinal hired Skelton, who then sold out.
No doubt speaking truth to power can get kinda old.
LOL! It's been a fun day here.
Okay. So I've been browsing the thread.
I thought to myself, "I didn't know Skeletor was a poet."
Then read some more.
"Oh!"
Then I thought, "Why does Ryan keep typing skeleton with a capital 's'?"
*Sigh* Time to really wake up. (And can I really be sure this isn't a dream, Sir? :-D)
Unfortunately, no.
Anybody who knows who Skeletor is has to be either of a certain age or the parent of somebody of a certain age.
Haha! I bet :-D
I must be the parent of somebody a certain age.
AMDG,
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who love He-man, and those who love Thundercats. I am one of the latter.
Ah! But it doesn't necessarily follow that those who love one aren't the same as those who love the other!
No, that would be like loving the Mets and the Yankees, or loving Duke and UNC, or...loving Star Wars and Star Trek.
Well, after 150 contacts on linked in, 700 emails, 30 responses to actual postings, 25 resumes sent to companies without postings, 14 interviews for 8 jobs, 2 rejections and 2 "we can't pay that much"es, I now have 3 job offers to consider.
That's nice of course, but the trouble is, the job I like best pays the least and the job I really don't like very much pays a lot more. The next few days will be all about discussions, negotiations, and vacillations.
In any case, please say a little prayer thanking God and asking Him for wisdom.
Congratulations, Dave. May God guide you in your decision.
I had a choice sorta like that once. I took the low-paying one. But I'm not going to tell you it was the right decision--I still don't know, and never will in this life.
Dave,
That's great news. I've been out of the loop on this, but I will be praying for your job search from now on.
No, that would be like loving the Mets and the Yankees, or loving Duke and UNC, or...loving Star Wars and Star Trek.
*dies laughing*
please say a little prayer thanking God and asking Him for wisdom
*revives
Prayers sent! I'm so glad you at least have more than one option to consider. And yep, choosing is a drag. But then, so is job hunting.
I still don't know, and never will in this life.
:-(
"it doesn't necessarily follow that those who love one aren't the same as those who love the other"
I'm having a little trouble with this logic. It seems to mean that one person can be two kinds of people. Which is true in some contexts but I'm not sure about this one.
Mac, Thanks and I know what you mean about not knowing. Seems too many are too blithe when they say "I'm sure it has worked out for the best."
Oh, I meant to add: I'll probably pick the middle preference/middle pay job - After all, I am a moderate
Ryan, thank you for your prayers. I've kept it kinda quiet but glad to have the support here (by golly is the whole thing ever gut-wrenching). And you've been downright chipper today when I thought you'd told us you were just going to duck in every now and then to complain about...students maybe, or grading papers, or.. shame on me but I can't remember now 
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don't
Oh, and thank you too, Anti.
I had no idea who Skelton is.
I love that one, Dave. I've been very tempted to buy a t-shirt with that on it.
I love that binary joke.
Don't feel bad--I can't remember either. Yes, I've been a bit chipper. I think it's for two reasons: 1) I think *knock on wood* I'm beginning to get healthy again, and 2) I just found an important piece of evidence for my dissertation last night, so I have a renewed sense of hope and purpose. But it has been a tough winter!
And you're very welcome regarding the prayers.
I'm having a little trouble with this logic. It seems to mean that one person can be two kinds of people. Which is true in some contexts but I'm not sure about this one.
*dies again laughing*
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don't
*revives*
What's binary?
*ducks
":-(
antiaphrodite"
That's not really bad, anti. I we always knew when we'd made the wrong decision, it would drive us crazy. We'd spend our whole life fretting about it.
Then, again, if you're looking at the right goal, and decide for the right reasons, I suspect any decision can end up being the best.
AMDG,
Prayers here, Dave. Bill once quit a higher paying job for a lower and I'm sure it was the right thing because I was about ready to have him committed previously.
A primary consideration for us has been the amount of time he could spend with the family. His job at the museum paid terribly, but he was 5 minutes from home, could run home in an emergency and we had fun hanging around the museum.
AMDG,
Thanks Janet. It is a primary consideration for us too, which points to the middle job - close to home, close enough even to bike sometimes, close to each school, flex time, and most importantly, they shoo all the contractors out the door at 4:30 - I'm sure Pam will be doing double takes for a few months with me at home at 4:45.
Anti, it doesn't bother me much not to know. Also, while I like my decisions to work out well of course, the criteria for judging if it was a good decision is based more on the information that was available at the time. Nobody can see the future and we're always forced to decide with incomplete information. Finally, occasional poor decisions are disappointing of course but they don't bother me too much either, "Well, that was stupid. I'll try not to do *that* again."
We've made poor decisions about buying homes, twice, and paid dearly in money and psyche. Job decisions are bigger in some ways - similar financial impact but somewhat harder to correct. Gladly, the job decisions so far have been very good. Those are just as much about knowing when it's time to change and summoning the hutzpah as choosing the the next one.
[didn't mean to prattle on so]
I'm coming to this conversation late, but I'll send up some thanksgiving and discernment prayers for you, Dave. I know very well how gut-wrenching this kind of thing can be until it's finally settled and you're going forward.
Ryan, have you ever heard the Flanders and Swann sketch (well, it's really a monologue by Michael Flanders, with Donald Swann playing improvisations on "Greensleeves," which is the real subject of the monologue) in which John Skelton and Thomas Kydd try to write a musical together?
The Master of the King's Revels comes to Kydd and says, "Could you write us another one of your little plays? We did so like that Spanish Tragedy. And it's going to be rather a special occasion: they're nationalising the monasteries . . . "
So Skelton and Kydd end up trying to write Ralph Roisterdoister as a musical -- anything to keep it from being done straight -- but they need a song to close the first act.
Luckily Henry VIII turns up and hands them off this song he's just scribbled down, and when they realize who he is ("We are Henry VIII, we are"), they also realize that "Greensleeves" is exactly what they were looking for.
It's very funny, and what's even funnier is to hear an audience, ca. 1963, belly-laughing at references to things like Gammer Gurton's Needle and "Noah's Flodde -- On Ice."
I was thinking the other day, Sally, about the decline of the middlebrow audience that would have gotten at least some of those jokes.
About decisions: I always figure that when neither option is sinful you just make your best guess and, if it doesn't work out so well, shrug it off and don't kick yourself too hard. In part this is just logical, because you can never know whether the other option(s) would have worked out, either. Where you did something that was actually wrong, though--morally--that you can regret indefinitely.
We've had the same sort of "luck" with buying houses, Dave. Nothing totally disastrous, but usually we managed to lose money, and we never had quite enough money to buy what or where we really wanted, so my poor wife has spent her whole married life trying to make the best of houses that were in some significant ways unsatisfactory.
That house going up next door that I've mentioned before is the latest: we had a shot at buying that lot 15 years or so ago, but could never quite manage it, so now we've got this damn thing twenty feet away and towering over us.
That's not really bad, anti.
I know, it just sounded sad.
I we always knew when we'd made the wrong decision, it would drive us crazy. We'd spend our whole life fretting about it.
Ah, but I make fretting into an art form! :-P It doesn't even matter whether I actually know I made a bad decision or not. I don't drive myself crazy, but then I don't have to :-P
Anti, it doesn't bother me much not to know.
That's good
Where you did something that was actually wrong, though--morally--that you can regret indefinitely
I'm not even sure that we are allowed that luxury--not that we don't do it, but we ought not.
AMDG,
Hi Sally,
When I need a break from my Renaissance dissertation, I will check that out! :-D
"Noah's flode on ice"--lol!
My curiosity is piqued by mention of a "Renaissance dissertation".
(Also by the fact that I can't find the post that these comments relate to, but the more I see of the comments the less I want to go there.)
And while proudly laying claim to being middlebrow enough almost to have choked at "they're nationalising the monasteries", I've just visited the home page and was struck by the fact that I'm now following two blogs with epigraphs from Wittgenstein (the other is http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/). Next thing you know I'll be an intellectual myself.
Hi Paul,
It's actually in this thread--look for Skelton.
And yes, I'm a PhD Candidate in English Literature, with a focus on Late Medieval/Early Renaissance. It appears from your blog like you're in History?
Anyway, if you want the gory details about said dissertation, you can email me at ryan_lothar@hotmail.com.
And now back to reading through Michael Drayton.
Hello Paul,
I tried to answer you on FB, but I just can't make it work at home. I wish you could go with us, but it's a bit too far to come pick you up this time.
AMDG,
And Paul, aren't you up very, very late?
This thread, btw, is a sort of catch-all thread. You will find it in the sidebar under Janet's Undead Thread 2.0.
AMDG,
Having been in bed with the flu all morning and most of the afternoon, I now feel fit and rested in the middle of the night. I'm sure it will have worn off by the time the children have to be given breakfast.
The very few times that I ever feel fit and rested are in the middle of the night. Of course, nowadays I get up at 4 a.m.
Do you have a reliable email address where I can write you, since I only have time to write on weekends when I can't use FB? You could email me and tell me what it is.
AMDG,
I'll email you both. (And Janet, is my computer playing up, or is this thread your homepage?)
You're computer is fine. This, humble and strange as it is, is my homepage.
AMDG,
This may be
the weirdest thing I have ever seen.
I count myself singularly blest in that I am married to, possibly, the only man alive who would stand in the middle of a truck stop in Alabama and take this picture for me.
AMDG,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3302685534/
Why can't I do this? I guess a person just can't be good at everything. Hopefully this will work.
Hah! Well it does look pretty and tasty :-D Interesting!
Yes, and it cleans your teeth.
And it's all natural, though not green.
But if it really is all natural pork hide, that was one strange looking pig.
All-natural goes psychedelic.
Oh, there are green ones, too, if that's what you would like. And there are some that look like braided strips of extruded candied fruit. There were at least 6 different varieties, but I didn't want to try Bill's self-sacrificing nature too much.
AMDG,
If I could only get a picture of that pig!
Morning visitors.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3303104549/
This: Oh, there are green ones, too
and this: If I could only get a picture of that pig!
made me with you did get a picture of that pig.
Wow!
Was that Wow for the pig or the deer. I don't undertand the post above the last.
Wow for the deer. For the other, I meant that the first time I read your post I thought you were talking about green pigs. Don't worry, I'm not sure I understand myself right now, either.
Anti is staying up too late again...
Wow - never seen candy-striped pork scratchings before!
Why my next car will be a Toyota.
http://www.facebook.com/album.ph...3619572&
l=4d752
I thought my '93 Civic was going to make it to 300, but it developed problems around 270 that put me in the "should I put more money into this repair than the car is worth?" bind, and left it at the dealer where it had been towed, having traded it for a not-all-that-used 2001 model, which Clare is now driving. I replaced it with an old ('92) Volvo which now has around 185, and I plan to drive it until it starts falling apart, but I fear that process has already begun. The guy at the shop says the engine is almost indestructible if you don't do anything really stupid to it, but the car has a lot of minor problems.
Anyway, congratulations.
When we were dating, Bill had a Volvo. He loved that car. One day, we had had a rather heated discussion about something that I'm sure was very stupid, although I have no idea what. However, we had to make up so he could come and get me and I could watch the odometer turn to 100,000 miles. So we have a long history of this sort of thing. Today we didn't have a fight first, so I guess we've learned something in the past 38 years.
AMDG,
I've been trying very hard to be bad in preparation for being very good starting tomorrow, but it has been a dull and dispiriting attempt at badness.
It's bad when you're no good at being bad.
But on the other hand it's not good when you are. Wish I had that problem (Janet's).
I've always taken pleasure in the odometer rolling over some large number. Or milestones like 77,777. I'll never forget 222,222.
Well, actually I had until just now, but I did note it. I guess I'm not as into it as Bill, as I've never invited anybody who wasn't already in the car with me to share the moment.
I'm resisting the urge to go off on Christian medieval numerology haha.
I guess I'm not as into it as Bill I think he was more into me.
AMDG,
It's bad when you're no good at being bad. It didn't have anything to do with my ability or lack thereof. I had to with having nobody around to talk to.
AMDG,
"He was more into me." Of course.
A couple of days ago, we had an absolutely gorgeous sunset. I was driving down the expressway at the time (rush hour), but I thought that maybe I could just stick the camera out the window and get a picture. It doesn't begin to capture the beauty of the sunset, and I post it here, not to show you what the sunset looked like, but as evidence that somebody here has been a VERY BAD INFLUENCE.
Here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
AMDG,
Janet
nyeh...it's probably not nearly as dangerous as talking on the phone while driving. Of course maybe you don't do that either. And it wasn't even raining.
Great picture, anyway.
Rough winds have been shaking the darling buds of February around here--not to mention snow.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3317819858/
I can't tell how dark this will be on a regular monitor. It's almost black on mine, but I think it should look just about right on anybody else's.
AMDG
Today, I MUST do my taxes so that I can fill out Becca's FAFSA and the Financial Aid form for TAC. I don't know why, but this process makes me very queasy and shakey. This makes no sense. I'm not worried about the money--not much use worrying about what you don't have--and none of the forms are particularly difficult to figure out. Aside from gathering all the information, it's a pretty simple process. But still, I'm overshadowed by this conviction that I'm going to do something wrong and she won't get Financial Aid and won't be able to finish college and it will be a terrible blight on her whole life and she will hate me forever. But, aside from that, what's to worry about. I know this is irrational, but if you could say a prayer for me today, I would appreciate it enormously.
The best aspect of all this is that after today, I will NEVER have to do this again.
AMDG,
Filling out FAFSA forms for me and my two brothers always made my dad incredibly cranky, haha! So maybe there's something to the anxiety.
I don't worry about stuff like that, because I've achieved such a level of detachment from the world. That, plus the fact that my wife does it all.
Sometimes, however, I do worry that she's laying plans for my being hauled away to tax cheaters' prison if I outlive her.
By the way: does anybody remember Francesca saying anything about being away for a while? I don't think she's said anything for a couple of weeks. I would suppose she had given up this blog for Lent, which I'm pretty sure she's done in the past, but her absence predates last Wednesday. I'm starting (again) to read her book, Christ the Form of Beauty, and finding it quite interesting. Not easy reading at all, though.
I was wondering the same thing.
"I don't worry about stuff like that, because I've achieved such a level of detachment from the world. That, plus the fact that my wife does it all."
I can't begin to tell you how immensely uncharitable this response makes me feel. I just hope that you are extremely nice to her when she is doing it and that you will look down from you spiritual loftiness and same a prayer for me. I'm not kidding. This is excrutiating.
AMDG,
I have not yet achieved any particular spiritual loftiness, but I will offer my prayers, as always.
It was supposed to make you laugh. Of course I'm vastly appreciative of her. I did indeed say a prayer for you, and will say another.
I know. Thank you. It is part of the insanity of this particular day that I go a place where I cannot laugh. However, I have been knocked out of that place by this FAFSA question: At anytime since you turned age 13, were both your parents deceased?
Hmmm. Yes I think they were once, but not anymore.
AMDG,
Well, that's a mercy. I find it hard to deal with anything of that sort without getting into a rage.
By the way, I don't think my wife would allow things to be any other way, as far as her doing this stuff is concerned. Some time before we were married she discovered that I had not balanced my checkbook for months. She was horror-stricken and assumed control of the finances at once. I know she gets sick of it but I suspect--no, I'm sure--she would rather put up with that than the worry that would ensue if I were doing it.
LOL. Well, she and I are on exactly the same page. The first thing I did when I started dating Bill was balance his checking account. I think that was probably the day he decided to marry me. When we were young, I used to be disappointed because he didn't seem to value the things about me that I thought were important, but he never has failed to tell me, "Thank you for handling the finances." And he tells everybody else, too, which is nice.
I develop facial tics at the very thought of his messing with budget. He is chock full of delightful attractions, but he just can't subtract. I can't tell you how relieved I was when I figured out that one of my daughters was a mathematical adept. Now I know that someone can make sure the bills get paid if I die first.
AMDG,
I'm actually not bad at arithmetic. Even though Karen is *way* better than me at serious math, I think I'm as good, possibly better, at doing fairly simple arithmetic in my head. My defect is not in inability or carelessness with the calculations, but the mental discipline necessary to do them in the first place and especially to keep doing them regularly and consistently. In that respect I'm a complete disaster.
This is really part of my problem at the moment. I have always been very disciplined about money matters and kept track of things to the last penny and planned ahead, etc., which of course you have to do when you're raising four children on one not-so-great income. But since I've started working, I just can't keep up with it like I used to and so doing something like this FAFSA (finished, thank goodness!) where you have to get 30 different documents together, becomes a nightmare. Actually, it's never nearly as bad as I think it will be, but I've built it up in my mind because things around here are so far from where I think they should be.
Anyway, I've been wondering about Francesca, also. Maybe she's working on something? Have you tried emailing her.
I went and got Louise yesterday, because I've been wondering about her also.
AMDG,
And thank you, anti.
AMDG,
Also, it didn't help that we couldn't go to Mass this morning because the streets were icy. But they're better now, so we can go this evening.
AMDG,
Francesca is Francesca Murphy? Who wrote an essay on "What is a Catholic historian" (or words to that effect - obviously a question that concerns me) in a volume about Christopher Dawson? Gosh. The people one meets in the anonymity of the internet.
I've been thinking myself - I gave up blogging for Lent, but given the relative time involved in each, it might have been more fruitful to give up *reading* blogs than to give up *writing* them.
See, I would have thought that giving up blogging involved both. I'm not faulting you or anything, that's just what I would have thought.
AMDG,
I don't know why, but this process makes me very queasy and shakey.
Paperwork is from Satan.
I don't worry about stuff like that, because I've achieved such a level of detachment from the world. That, plus the fact that my wife does it all.
Nick and I once made the mistake of filling out gov't forms together (for family allownce, or something) and nearly killed each other! Maclin, you are not only very advanced in detachment from this world, you are also prudent!
I stand in awe of you...
I went and got Louise yesterday, because I've been wondering about her also.
I'm glad I was fetched!
I (still) find it really weird to think that until a couple of hours ago, I was fast asleep for some 8 hours and you were all here having a party without me!
Even though I understand the theory perfectly, I still find time differences weird.
And if you cross the date line, you lose a day completely. Of necessity, of course, but isn't that just the freakiest thing?
Some people are less wise and far-sighted than others, Janet.
Janet, all week I was doing taxes, the FAFSA, another form like it for our Catholic high school, an application for security clearance, and helping my folks with their medicare part D. I only just now checked in to see your earlier distress. Now that we're both done, my prayer will be one of thansgiving for us both.
Mac, your marital finance arrangement and dispositions are just like mine.
Must not be just the same, Dave, if you were doing the taxes?
Good to see you again, Louise.
No, I haven't mailed Francesca--I wanted to ask first, in case I'd forgotten something she'd said about being away for a while. But I think I will.
I've thought about giving up reading other blogs for Lent, but that seems ungracious if I'm to keep writing mine. And it's occurred to me to give up mine, but six weeks of silence is almost long enough for a blog to be considered dead. I'd be worried that nobody would read it when it resumed.
Oh, surely not.
Must not be just the same, Dave, if you were doing the taxes?
And the FAFSA.
But, I sympathize with you Dave. And since I probably start doing that stuff long before you did, I'll try not to feel guilty when you have to do it next year.
AMDG,
Tonight at Mass, I ran into someone whom I had not seen in many years--a former spiritual director--a priest who has lost his faculties--a person who has gone way down the wrong road. I was stunned when he walked up to me in the back of church. I don't think he'd been to Mass, but he had heard that there was a Charismatic prayer meeting and he wanted to be prayed for. He seemed very disoriented. I don't think there was a prayer meeting, and I'm not sure where he went.
This has really thrown me for a loop because I have prayed for him (not nearly enough) for a long, long time. He was the last priest that you would have thought would go off the deep end like he did. Well, maybe I would recognize the signs now. Anyway, please pray for Fr. Bob. It's so heartbreaking, but maybe he is finally where he needs to be.
AMDG,
OIC. Yeah, I do the taxes etc, but my wife does the checkbook and the bills. I have greater tolerance for figuring out byzantine instructions (where's DN?), and she has greater tolerance for the tedious checkbook stuff. She also is *far* more disciplined. I only have to gather that strength once a year.
Janet,
I'll definitely be praying for Fr. Bob tonight before I go to sleep.
Also, re: Franscesca--judging from what I've been going through I wouldn't be surprised if she's just very busy with the semester--didn't she have to finish a project ASAP? Still, I have also been disconcerted by her absence.
I pray that Fr. Bob will find his way/be led back to the right path.
Mac said: "My defect is not in inability or carelessness with the calculations, but the mental discipline necessary to do them in the first place and especially to keep doing them regularly and consistently. In that respect I'm a complete disaster."
Me, too. We were both disastrous at this kind of thing when we first got married -- I can remember doing bills together (our anniversary is next week, and part of the reason we're celebrating this many years together, I'm sure, is that we gave up trying to do bills together a long time ago), and my husband saying to me in complete seriousness, "Well, I know that's how much money we have ON PAPER . . . " But he's been the one willing to sit down with it all and work out budgets and talk to insurance companies and the whole shebang, which makes me a heck of a lot happier about grocery shopping and cooking dinner and housecleaning than I might have been otherwise.
Re blog conversations: I've given up a bunch of things seriously -- coffee, alcohol, desserty food -- and taken on some spiritual disciplines. Trying to scale back blog conversation because I get so sucked in, and I don't get real writing done, but basically I feel like you, Mac. I gave up blogging completely last year, and I really don't feel like doing that particular death-resurrection process again. So I'm doing some Sunday visiting, at any rate.
Just don't get me started on VAT.
I was thinking Janet that anybody can go off the rails - and the holier a person is the harder the devil will try to derail them (which, shamefully, sometimes makes me feel glad I'm not too holy, but of course it doesn't work like that either).
And while we're asking for prayers, my own carefully nurtured almsgiving plans for Lent have been thrown off by my little sister's farm hitting a financial crisis. Please pray for her.
Will do, Paul.
My remarks about blogging before were really just a bit of thinking aloud on the keyboard. It occurs to me now, Paul, Sally, & Maclin, that the reason I think that way is that unlike y'all, I don't have a blog--so giving up not blogging in that respect would not be much of a sacrifice for me. Maybe I should get one.
And zipping off in a totally different direction, Paul has a link to a blog on his homepage that belongs to some people named Mac and Karen. When I first saw that on the blog, it confused me for a minute.
AMDG,
Everytime I open this thread and see cnb plaintive little, "Will I get in trouble for doing this?" I laugh--or at least smile.
AMDG,
And if I did have a blog to give up, well, it wouldn't be much of sacrifice to give it up since with Paul's arrival ALL of my online friends are here.
I meant when he first arrived, to say that he is my longest-running online friend--about ten years, maybe? When we were discussing barbeque, I talked about taking a friend from Belgium for barbeque and his response which was, "It's been a very long time since someone's cut up my meat for me." Well, this is he. I should have taken him to a better bbq restaurant, though. This one was only convenient.
AMDG,
I am really glad to hear that you've given up desserty food, Sally. I've been bracing myself to resist. Sally can make a really delicious dessert from air and chlorophyll.
AMDG,
I will pray for your sister, Paul.
The more it snows, tiddley-pom
The more it goes, tiddley-pom
The more it goes, tiddley-pom
On snowing.
And nobody know, tiddley-pom
How cold my toes, tiddley-pom
How cold my toes, tiddley-pom
Are growing.
WtP
With all the poetry talk going on around here, I thought that I would share my very favorite poem. Actually, it has quit snowing, but I'm amazed how much more snow there is left here in Memphis than there is at home. We are almost snowless and there are still a few inches here, but not on the street, thank goodness.
My toes, are growing cold. It is 57 degrees in my office and the coffee is not ready. I suppose I should offer this up.
AMDG,
That is a great poem. And I must say I covet your weather a bit. I was thinking on the way to work about doing a post to this effect, but I'll just say it here: I'm very displeased with the blue skies we've had for a couple of days now.
We need rain. It hasn't really rained for weeks. It's supposed to rain a lot here in late winter and early spring, and for four or five years now we've been somewhat to very below normal. All last week the weather reports harped on the severe storms and heavy rains headed our way. First they were supposed to arrive late Wednesday. Nothing. Thursday. Nothing. Friday. Nothing. Finally on Saturday morning we got TWO MEASLY TENTHS OF AN INCH. A few hours later we got about that much more. So all told it rained for maybe twenty minutes, producing four tenths of an inch (about a centimeter).
Then the cold front arrived and we had constant 25-35 mph (40-55kmh) winds for 36 hours or so, which no doubt dried things out again. I'm not a happy camper. Good thing I won't be live here forever.
The only good part of the weather was that it was very clear last night, though miserably cold, and I got to see the crescent moon as it was about to set.
Yes, we were looking at the crescent moon in the clear, miserable cold, too. We had just gotten back from Mass. There was a youth choir BUT they sang the antiphons using Orthodox hymn tones. They did a great job. It was beautiful. We were supposed to sing, but we just wanted to listen.
AMDG,
Speaking of Lent, and cars (another thread): I've inadvertently made one of my Lenten observances more difficult. The cassette player/radio in my car didn't work when I bought it (over a year and a half ago now). So I've just been using my iPod in the car, which is sort of a pain (cords always getting snagged on something, etc.) and probably against the law (although not actually dangerous with ear buds, since one can hear just fine around them).
So I recently decided to buy a cd etc. receiver. What with trying to figure out which one I needed/wanted, and the usual unanticipated problems with the installation, I didn't get it working till yesterday.
One of my Lenten observances is to give up listening to music (or anything else) in the car. Since I have a 45-minute (each way) drive to work, that's significant to me. It was easy to stick to my resolution by just leaving the iPod at home. But now I can cheat at any time just by pressing a button.
I've gotten to really like the quiet in the car. Of course, I know we are different in this way. But, not only is it really good for praying--since it's Lent--but it's also very useful for writing papers in my head and thinking up all the scathingly brilliant things that I write on this blog.
AMDG,
I know, I've experienced that effect, too (I mean, not the brilliance, but ideas etc.). If I didn't have such a huge appetite for music...
The Morning After
http://www.facebook.com/photo.ph...7&
id=1413619572
I know it's blurry but I had to risk my life on a busy street to get it at all.
AMDG,
Oh man--that's in the class with Sally's.
By the way, I did see your daffodil pic the other day. It was quite viewable. Nice.
I wish I could have gotten close enough for the details to show up. For instance, he looks like he's incarcerated behind a chain-link fence.
AMDG,
The fence came through--it definitely has that effect.
Thanks Ryan!
The first time I went on the CatholicSource forum on delphi (where I virtually met Janet) would have been when my wife was just pregnant with a girl whose 9th birthday was two weeks ago. So that would be not quite ten years ago. Wow. And to think we've only met the once in all that time.
"it's probably not nearly as dangerous as talking on the phone while driving."
That was the cause of the only crash I've ever been in (I was stopped at lights and somebody on their phone drove into the back of me - and then offered me 50 euros to forget it ever happened).
But once, cycling, I suddenly heard a voice beside me say "Ok darling, ciao!" and glanced to the side in time to see the driver of a convertible hang up her phone and start to turn her steering wheel - if I hadn't heard her talking I wouldn't have braked in time, so perhaps on that occasion talking on the phone while driving saved a life?
All things considering, I think it's amazing that we have met once.
AMDG,
True. Still, I do hope we meet again.
On the other hand, Paul, if she hadn't been talking on the phone she might have seen you and not turned.
I just checked my "delphi profile", and it's older than I remembered: 16 February 1999; so it must be a full 10 years. Gosh. Where does the time go?
That had occurred to me, Mac, but somehow I didn't get the impression she would have been on the look-out for cyclists even without the distraction of a mobile phone.
You completely misunderstood, Paul. When she said, "Ok darling, ciao," she was talking to you. It was her intent to run you over, but you foiled her plan.
AMDG,
For some reason "run [you/me/him/her] over" sounds funny to me, as opposed to what is to me the usual way of saying it, "run over [you/me/him/her]".
I don't know why it should be in the least funny, as the first time I can remember hearing it--the time that sticks in my mind, anyway--is when the creepy programmer (no, that is not redundant) in Jurassic Park promises one of the nasty little spitting dinosaurs to "run you over" when he comes back from executing his evil plan. Of course that's not what happens.
In Tennessee, we run people over all the time. I wouldn't have noticed the difference either way.
AMDG,
I'm sure the dinosaur thought it was funny.
I'm sure it did. The problem is that humour whets the appetite of those little spitting things.
I don't think you should have fritters for lunch today.
AMDG
I wonder why my 11:16 comment appears before my 10:42 comment, to which it's a reply.
Nope, no fritters today, just a nice suburban sandwich.
I know that's been going on quite a bit. One of Ryan's comments moved all over the thread.
AMDG,
I just got an email saying I can make money by taking online surveys. Cool! This must be my providential fallback plan for the recession/depression.
I get them too - "Make money online. We want to hear you opinion."
Something about the grammar rather puts me on my guard.
The scenario you outline is not one that I'd envisaged, Janet.
Like you said, Paul, "Some people are less wise and far-sighted than others."
Y'all's spam is a lot more innocent than mine.
AMDG,
"One of Ryan's comments moved all over the thread."
Hmm...must be an apparition.
"apparition"..."spam"...a poetic juxtaposition.
I have the title: "Apparition of Spam Upon a Winter's Day." Who wants to write the poem?
So wait, they made several stops to try and find the snake? Why not stop and not go back in the car? :-O
LOL!
And sorry, I meant to put that other comment in the new thread.
"apparition"..."spam"...a poetic juxtaposition.
I'd like to write a limerick, but I really can't be stuffed.
Morning After the Morning After
http://www.facebook.com/photo.ph...f&
id=1413619572
I'm not even sure what that is, or was. But if it depicts a hangover it's a pretty dire warning.
It's another snowman.
AMDG,
But you knew that didn't you?
AMDG,
Yes, I thought it must be, or have been, but as a rule snowmen are at least sorta whitish. It looks more like a mudman, or perhaps a mud-and-leaf man. I'm at a loss to understand how it got that way. Maybe it was made after nearly all the snow was melted?
It is funny, by the way, but also slightly unnerving. Looks a bit like Oscar the Grouch, not hung over but still lit. Singing at the Drones, maybe.
Bill says that yesterday it was covered with grass, so it was probably even more Oscarish then. I wish I'd seen it, but it was dark when I left the house and when I got home. In our area, it was a very soppy snow, so I'm sure the ground was very wet.
AMDG,
Completely off-topic (whatever exactly the topic is on this thread), but I just got round to clicking on Mac's profile and saw Kristin Lavransdatter listed as a favourite book. Hurrah!
Sorry. Just go back to discussing snowmen. I'm going to bed before midnight for once.
I suppose I think of Kristin as often as I do of any work of literature. I haven't read Master of Hestviken, though, which I'm looking forward to.
By the way, this thread is pretty much open for anything within reason and propriety.
reason, uh-oh
I just got round to clicking on Mac's profile and saw Kristin Lavransdatter listed as a favourite book.
Oh cool! I know I've read Maclin's profile before, but it was probably before I'd ever read KL. Great book! Amazing, brilliant etc!
I read it late last year. Will revisit it when I get my copy back. By "coincidence" two other parishioners were reading it at the same time (out of a few hundred who are at Mass on the weekends). Their sister and aunt (whose name is Karen) says that it's her favourite book.
I really was amazed by it.
So, Janet, you think we need to clamp down on some of this unreasonable stuff?
It's a beautiful evening, very calm and clear. Cool but not cold. The water is almost glassy-smooth, and the moon and stars are very bright, hanging over it. Just fyi.
Louise, some people say The Master of Hestviken is even better.
Wow!
I think that as long as we stand firm on propriety, we're ok.
BTW, the longer I look at that mudman, the more it looks like a Shmoo--a very dirty shmoo, but a shmoo nonetheless.
AMDG,
I've been trying to acquire The Master of Hestviken for a while now, but the third volume appears to be out of print. It seems pointless to buy only three of four.
Hmm, my edition, bought used many years ago, is all in one volume. I see some used copies of Vol. 3 on Amazon, though (probably via 3rd parties). As well as the one I have:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product...sr=1-15&
seller=
CNB, I hope you can read the complete Master of Hestviken eventually. Some rate this quartet even more highly than the Kristin trilogy. Hestviken is, at least, extremely good.
At Amazon, in the reviews of The Axe, you will find my "Guide for the Perplexed" to help with the geneaologies.
Have you looked for the volume you need at abebooks.com?
I hadn't seen that edition before, Mac. Do you know who the translator is? I ask because I have two different translations of Kristin. One, by Tiina Nunnally, is excellent, but the other (by I-forget-whom) is atrocious.
The atrocious version is in an older one-volume edition, so I'm a little wary of the older one-volume edition you suggest. I guess if you liked it it must be safe.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that the third volume of a tetralogy goes out of print? Does this imply that there are people who bought the third volume but didn't buy the others? Or does it mean that the publisher printed fewer copies of volume 3 than of volumes 1, 2, and 4? But why would they do that? It is very strange.
Off the top of my head, no, I don't know who the translator is. Oh wait, let me look in a library catalog..Arthur G. Chater. Which I think is not the name of the first Kristin translator.
I must disagree about the quality of the first translation, at least as considered as an English book. On those terms I thought it was excellent--very rich and vivid. From what I read Archer's somewhat archaic style was not very faithful, and Nunnaly's is more true to the original. I haven't read it, so I don't know what I would think.
p.s. I haven't read the one-volume Master. It's only been sitting on my shelf for 20+ years.
My down-the-hall colleague is Mitzi Brunsdale, author of a book on Sigrid Undset. In a piece written a few years ago for the now defunct magazine Crisis, Mitzi commented on the two translations of the Kristin books. She regards the older translation as something better than atrocious. However, I have read the first of the three Kristin books in both translations, and find Nunnally's recent one much more readable. It is unexpurgated, while I understand that the earlier translator suppressed some material in a passage in one of the Kristin books describing a difficult childbirth. Mitzi can read the original, so if she regards the first English translation as having merit, it does, I'm sure.
Undset is a great writer. In the Kristin trilogy and the Hestviken quartet she really is a peer of the great Russians. Kristin and Hestviken, I would say, are the ones to read first, but I can also recommend The Longest Years, The Wild Orchid, The Burning Bush, and others. Her book about a journey across Russia to escape the Nazis, Return to the Future, was interesting, as I recall. I'm having trouble remembering which one of these novels I read (and I liked it): The Faithful Wife, Ida Elisabeth, Madame Dorthea... No, I am quite sure it was The Faithful Wife; but I'm sure they are all worth reading.
Undset "really is a peer of the great Russians."
I agree, and without having read The Master.
The short novel Gunnar's Daughter is very good.
My understanding is that the language of Undset's Kristin books reflects an old form of Dano-Norwegian. Modern Norwegians write Nynorsk. I hope I have all this right. You could say that Undset's Norwegian sounds approximately like the English of Donne's era sounds to us. Nunnally does not attempt to capture that quality, while the older does -- what Mitzi calls a "bardic" quality.
That's interesting, because I read something or other about the two translations that seemed to say almost the opposite: that Undset's style was very modern, and Archer put an antique finish on it.
Well, I like the antique quality--for me it helped create an illusion that I was actually reading a medieval work. Ok, maybe not that exactly, but it certainly brought the medieval world nearer.
Becca gave me Gunnar's daughter for Christmas. I haven't had time to read it, though. I found a while back that I had two, three-volume boxed sets of Kristin and one large book with all three novels. I thought this was a bit selfish, so I gave at least one away--maybe to Sally.
AMDG,
Interesting remarks about the translations of Kristin. My problem with the first translation was not so much the archaisms, but the precious feel of it. It really did not work for me. I found Nunnally's more straight-forward version more palatable. Maybe I should try that original translation again -- it has been about 8 years. Nah.
From what little I could gather when Nunnally's translation came out, I'd got the impression that Undset's "medieval style" echoes the very dry, matter-of-fact narrative of the sagas, and Archer went for a more Maloryesque style to mirror the medievalising in English, rather than trying to reproduce the spareness. (It might make a difference that at the time the best-known English translations of the sagas were William Morris's, which really are rather florid.) They both seem valid options to me, although Nunnally is a bit rude about Archer in her introduction to the Penguin edition.
I've only read Gunnar's daughter in Dutch, but it was pretty bleak. Very Scandinavian.
Here's a review of Gunnar's Daughter I had in an early issue of Caelum et Terra (I don't know what's causing the problem with the display of quotation marks):
http://www.caelumetterra.com/cet...ticle.cfm?
ID=41
It is a very bleak novel indeed, btw.
If it's bleak, I'm not going to read it until summer. My soul is cold.
AMDG,
Not only is it bleak spiritually, there's a major scene that involves a long trek through snow. Yeah, wait.
Then again, reading Beowulf has given me an interest in that era when Christianity was first blooming in a pagan world. Spring break is week after next. Maybe it will be warm then.
I don't ever have to look like Barbie, do I? Or even Ken?
AMDG,
I agree, Mac, about Gunnar's Daughter being bleak (and excellent).
The Faithful Wife was indeed the one I was thinking of, in an earlier message.
I've also read her novel Jenny, an early novel, worth reading but not a great work like the ones we have been discussing.
Is there not a scene where a character recounts a story of a vision of a Scandinavian frozen Hell? (Rather like the vision of Guthlac) Or am I getting it mixed up with another one?
Sory, Drythelm - not Guthlac (it's been too long since I read Bede!)
Whose translation of Beowulf have you been reading, Janet? (Or is it the original Old English?)
Sullivan and Murphy.
AMDG,
"I hope you can read the complete Master of Hestviken eventually. Some rate this quartet even more highly than the Kristin trilogy."
Anthony Esolen has said that 'Master...' is in some ways a better place for the newcomer to Undset to start, although he didn't seem to be implying that it was a better work.
I've found his recommendations in both literature and film to be spot on, btw. I recently read 'The Leopard' by Lampedusa at his recommendation and found it excellent. He spoke in Pittsburgh a couple nights ago and I had the good fortune to spend an hour and a half talking with him and David Mills at the latter's house after the lecture. Lots of wisdom there, and an amazingly humble and personable guy to boot.
I think you did give it to me, Janet, and I lent or gave it to Aaron, because I have a single-volume copy . . . now I want to dig it out and see which translation it is.
OK: Archer. I wasn't bothered by it when I read it, that I can recall -- I just got sucked into the story. But I can see how it wouldn't be faithful to a spare Scandinavian tone.
As a sidenote, one novel which I did find fascinating for what it could accomplish in that bleak saga-like voice was Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders. It's been years since I read it, and I don't think I even have it any more, but I remember finding it kind of a tour de force, much more than her big ol' rewriting of King Lear (A Thousand Acres).
I was in the local library a bit ago hoping to have a look at the Nunnaly translation, but they didn't have it. Guess I'll have to, like, buy it or something.
Sounds like a great evening, Rob.
I haven't read The Leopard. The film is well regarded but I'm afraid I found it rather dull.
I think I'm going to read The Master of Hestviken when I finish the two books I'm currently reading. I've put it off for years because of its length relative to the amount of time I have for reading, but who knows if that will ever change?
Mac, The Master of Hestviken will be a great reading experience for you.
Thanks, everyone, for suggestions as to where to buy The Master of Hestviken. I found an inexpensive second-hand copy of the elusive third volume on Amazon, and I ordered it. With that safely in hand, I am well on my way.
I was going to start Beowulf today, but had to do other things.
I will definitely be reading more of Undset and re-reading Kristen!
See you in about 12 hours!
"The Leopard. The film is well regarded but I'm afraid I found it rather dull."
I liked the novel much better than the film. The book has a certain elegiac, melancholy quality that was largely absent from the movie.
Has anyone read Doctor Zhivago? I'm about 80 pages in and am finding it rather tough going. The writing is fine, but I'm finding the episodic way that Pasternak plots it pretty tedious.
No, haven't read Dr. Z. I saw the movie five or six years ago, for the first time since it was a current hit, back when I was in high school or college. It was not at all my cup of tea back then, but I thought it was rather good this time.
Maybe I'll just drop the book and watch the film. It's not like there's nothing else to read! I hate giving up on a book, but I figure if I'm 80 pages in and it still hasn't grabbed me, it probably won't.
Oh, rats. That inexpensive copy of Hestviken, Volume III that I ordered is actually not available. Back to square one.
It is very weird that only that volume would be o.p. I think it should be illegal.
Well, when I run for President on the Abolish DST ticket, I could make that part of my platform.
AMDG,
You're onto something, Janet. I can sense the momentum beginning to build. I'll try to think of some more stuff to add to the platform.
(A Moon by Any Other Name) Yesterday morning, as I was driving to work, the moon was setting and the mist was rising. There was a thin cloud over the moon--just enough to give it a sort of halo which was trimmed in a pale red. I love dark moonlit mornings because there's just enough light to make everything look beautiful. And then I remembered a story that I read once about some missionary sisters in Oregon who called the moon, Our Lady's Lantern. It's the sort of lantern, I think, that she might have liked to have.
On the way home after class, the moon was at just about the same height on the opposite horizon. I guess there are some benefits to being away from home for 15 hours. It was nice, though, to think about Our Lady lighting the way for me so that I wouldn't run into a deer or drive into the swamp. Probably those sisters had to contend with deer and swamps, too, but they weren't going 55 mph.
AMDG,
I've always associated the moon with Our Lady, too. These past few days (DST) I've been up early enough to see the setting moon, but it's been too foggy and cloudy.
(the Moon) Mac, check out the song 'Shipwrecked' on that Jody Abbott cd I loaned you.
That's a cruel thing to say to somebody that gave up listenting to music for Lent.
AMDG,
Listenting, bah!
Not totally--the ironclad rule is no music during my daily commute, but I can still listen at other times. I don't really have to work to curtail that because I'm so busy with other stuff at home that I don't have much time for it.
Funny how that second "t" makes me pronounce the first one. List-en-ting.
Are you list-en-ting to port or starboard.
AMDG,
"I've been up early enough to see the setting moon, but it's been too foggy and cloudy" That's another thing I was thinking about. We're all seeing the same moon, even anti (where is she?) and Louise, but it's different because of the local weather. I was thinking it would be nice to take a picture of it, but then, sometimes I think that taking a picture makes you forget the real thing--you only remember the picture.
AMDG,
"to port or starboard"? First one and then the other, of course. I'm a little surprised that you needed to ask.
Yes, I busied myself taking pictures of things in the fog a morning or two ago, which meant I wasn't really enjoying the sight.
Well, I most always list to port. I don't know what it is, but if I walk into a wall, it's always on the left.
AMDG,
Does this shadow remind you of anything?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3350825717/
Darth Vader is the first thing that comes to mind.
Speaking of listing--this is a totally trivial thing, but perhaps it's odd enough to be interesting--but the ordinary shoe-tying knot will not stay tied on ashoe on my left foot. It will come loose within 15-30 minutes, depending on what I'm doing, no matter how hard I tighten it. The right one will stay tied all day. It happens with any pair of shoes and any kind of shoelace. The only way I can keep it tied is the old double-knot--i.e. tying the loops from the first knot in a square knot.
I have a feeling Darth Vader was not the right answer. Second thing that comes to mind is some other vaguel familiar villain or monster. Third thing is Chesterton in a cape.
I thought of Chesterton right off.
It reminds me of a picture of Pontius Pilate condemning Jesus to death.
It's really this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3351373037/
It's very disconcerting. The room is only about 10 x 10.
AMDG
That shoelace thing is waaaay out there.
Yeah, even the photo is disconcerting.
It's not that dark in there, but I have trouble praying with that thing looming over there.
But maybe from now on I'll try to think of it as GKC, or I'll just go the parish with the really nice adoration chapel.
AMDG,
Maybe you should leave your left foot to science.
AMDG,
That's a thought. But suppose it fell into the wrong, um, hands. The enemies of America might discover the secret and use it to force us every man in America to wear shoes with velcro closures (at least when he wasn't wearing flipflops, penny loafers, or cowboy boots). Imagine what it would do the American businessman to have to go around in wingtips held in place by velcro. And of course our enemies probably hold a velcro monopoly, since they're evil and it is too.
Very amazing:
http://babyfaithhope.blogspot.com/
"My little miracle turned 3 weeks old today! I was just thinking back to the day we brought Faith home from the hospital. They sent us home with a "do not resuscitate" letter, a memory box for someone who just lost a baby (pretty inappropriate if you ask me... it had condolences written everywhere... umm?), and some literature on bereavement... I thought the memory box was a horribly insensitive gesture, considering my baby was and is still alive, and the pamphlet on bereavement was totally impersonal and tacky"
AMDG,
A self-help book on bereavement? Egad.
Mother and baby look wonderful. Totally amazing!
I had another funky dream/set of dreams last night. I dreamed I was ill. People came to visit me, people I haven't seen for a long time. One of them was already dead. But I got better after a few days; I even reported to the office. I feel like I dreamt a week.
I was trying to get a picture of the raindrops on the plum blossoms, which didn't work out at all. The raindrops refused to show themselves. But, I like the way the branches outline the roof here. I wish I could say I did it on purpose.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3359611309/
AMDG,
That's a great picture, Janet.
anti, did the person who was already dead have anything interesting to say?
I got a call from a woman in my parish Saturday, "Janet, nobody that can sing is going to be at Mass tomorrow, so could you lead the music?"
Well, since you put it that way . . .
AMDG,
Is it possible you helped bring this on yourself by praying for humility? I was asking myself a similar question when my car wouldn't start this morning.
If so, it didn't produce the desired effect. It just made me laugh. Anyway, one of the people that can sing showed up, so I didn't have to lead. I don't think she meant it the way it sounded because really, nobody there can sing.
There are still some days that I CAN sing and yesterday happened to be one of them, but often now, I can't. I'm also having trouble singing harmony because I can't hear it in my head. I've always been able to do that even when I was quite young. I'm wondering if it isn't a hearing problem.
All of the physical attributes that I used to think were my best things seem to be wearing out, but I still have my sense of humour, so that's ok. When I lose that, I will have a BIG problem, but not as much of a problem as poor Bill.
I'm really sorry about your car. I hate car problems and when you live so far from work, that must be a problem. Did you get to work today?
AMDG,
Do you know that Yeats poem about the old men admiring themselves in the water? Looking at themselves and saying "All that's beautiful slips away / like the waters..." or something to that effect. It's cruel and a bit funny. I think we're going to need our sense of humor, as this aging business shows no signs of stopping. I keep half-thinking it will: "Ok, this is getting pretty close to enough now, I've learned my lessons, you can stop now and bring the real me back."
I rode with Karen to work. Or rather I drove her to work and continued on to my job, which is farther away than hers, though fortunately in the same direction. (We don't ordinarily ride together because our hours are different.) Dang car still won't start. I *really* don't want to take it to the shop. I'll give it another 24 hours to see the error of its ways.
anti, did the person who was already dead have anything interesting to say?
No. He was rather quiet for a dead man in a dream. Of course, my grandfather can't really be described as "talkative", but he and I did have our share of conversations.
"All that's beautiful slips away / like the waters..." Well, like the waters, there's always something slipping in from the other direction. That's what's pushing the old water out, you know. Do you think that poem was the inspiration for Simon & Garfunkel's Old Friends. Did we talk about this before? That's the song I keep thinking about. I was thinking the other day that it wasn't really so terribly strange to be 70. S&G are going to be 70 in 2011. Do you think they'll do a reunion album--sitting on a park bench?
I do have to remind myself that that person who looked like this and could do that is gone for good--it's not the real me--this is the real me. And that's good because I have to die and this makes it a lot easier. If I was beautiful and could run really fast (not that either of those things was ever true) it would be too hard to die.
AMDG,
I don't know...Old Friends isn't really my fave S&G song anyways, though I like it well enough.
I don't know if it would be terribly strange to be seventy, but of course I feel like it would be mighty strange if I were to reach that age.
I'm giggling at the thought of S&G doing a reunion album sitting on a park bench.
If I was beautiful
If?
It's becoming clear to me that in one sense you never feel old. Of course you're aware that your body doesn't work as well as it used to, and even if you were never much impressed with your own looks you know that you don't even look that good anymore. But it's still the same consciousness looking out at the world, exactly the same consciousness that took in what are now your earliest memories. There's something essential in there that simply hasn't changed at all, though it's experienced a lot and presumably learned some things.
There's something essential in there that simply hasn't changed at all
Yes. When I was much younger, I'd wonder now and then what it must feel to be grown up. I thought it would feel different somehow. And it does, of course, but not in the way I expected.
This discussion is interesting -- I've recently been feeling nostalgic about childhood for some reason. Not only mine, but my daughter's (she's 17 now), and childhood in general. I can't say that mine was idyllic, but there's a particular aspect of childhood that I miss. Not the 'innocence,' exactly, but something like childhood's freedom combined with the sense of wonder. I've had that feeling on and off over the years, but lately it seems more intense or 'concentrated.'
Odd though, as there is nothing new or different about the last few months that would prompt such a thing.
anti, it's almost as if we have some kind of essence that's distinct from our bodies and from time, isn't it? You know, like...what's the word?...a "soul" or something. Curious, since science tells us there is no such thing.
I'm not sure I've ever felt nostalgic about childhood. And I'm not using "I'm not sure" in the way people often do, as a softer way of saying "I don't think." I mean I'm really not sure nostalgia is the right word for what I feel. I feel tremendous nostalgia for certain times, places, etc., but I think not so much for the way I felt then. I do feel very much that way about a few years of adolescence, roughly 15-19 I guess.
Come now, science has just not detected a soul. You mean the psuedo-science philosophers say that nothing exists that cannot be detected. But that's a mouthful.
Rob, Though I have no nostalgia whatsoever for my own youth, I've been feeling nostalgic for my children's.
Our youngest is 12 and a young 12 at that who still likes little-kid things. Most recently it's been the soundtrack for "I'm Really Rosie" which our now 17 yr old performed in when he was a very skinny 8 yr old. Carole King does all the music and I love it. The lyrics are perhaps insipid, but I remember everyone in that play doing their numbers and it was just plain old sweet and innocent. I remember my boy too, just recovered from a tonsilectomy and skinner even than usual in a 'muscle shirt' that only accentuated all that... singing his little heart out. I've mentioned here before the another little girl whom we see once a year or so. When I do, I just whistle the song she did and get a warm smile in return.
What was it that Wendell Barry(?) said, something like "A world fit for small children".
You know, like...what's the word?...a "soul" or something.
Gosh! It does seem like it, doesn't it? That's so weird...I'll have to, like, meditate on that sometime.
:-D
Curious, since science tells us there is no such thing.
Yeah, but since science is going to, like, discover the secret to, you know, eternal life, we really don't have to, like, worry. I mean it's not like we're gonna die before that happens.
I was being sarcastic, Dave--making fun of the Dawkins types. I've been meaning to post something on the weird phenomenon of scienctists or science-minded people wanting to prove that they don't really exist and have no meaning. Curious phenomenon.
I used to Really Enjoy Really Rosie (even though I'm not a Carole King fan). Haven't heard it for many years now.
Sorry Mac, thick as I am, I wasn't sure who your target was.
Say, I remember you mentioning that you were going to inquire on Francesca, but I don't recall the result. Hope all is well.
Yes, anti, and even if you/we do die before science is ready, we can have ourselves frozen. Or cloned. Or have our consciousnesses loaded into computers. The possibilities are so exhilarating.
That last one especially amuses me--it combines near-total ignorance and pure conjecture and treats the result as all-but-fact, sans a few engineering details.
That's ok, I know it's not always obvious when someone is being tongue-in-cheek.
Yes, I did inquire of Francesca, and forgot to mention the result: she has given us up for Lent, which I trust was done in the true spirit of penance, i.e. giving up something very good, rather than as an effort to rein in the disordered appetite for something not so good. And she had gone away for a week or so before Lent, so she's been absent quite a while now.
I'm reading her book, Christ the Form of Beauty--not as penance, but in an effort to meditate on The Good. It's quite good although I'm not by any means understanding all of it. Guess it's just as well I didn't go into academia.
Francesca is offline for Lent.
AMDG,
Oh, sorry, I had haloscan open for a long time, so Mac had posted before I did.
OK, I really am beginning to get a complex, because no matter how many people are chattering away on the blog, as soon as I start commenting, everybody goes away.
Oh well, my very late lunch is over and I have to go back to work.
AMDG,
I've been in a meeting. And now I'm going to, like, work.
My comings and goings here are pretty unpredictable. Depends partly on what else is going on, partly on how scrupulous I'm being about commenting during work hours. Sometimes I don't check in for several hours, or overnight, and that's when you see a series of comments in quick succession from me.
Well, I'm here, Janet, but it's hours later. Maybe some people leave when you show up, but others of us are just late.
Hello Sally, I was just feeling a bit woebegone before, but I'm better now.
Glad to see you made it home safely.
AMDG,
By the way, note the times on anti's last few comments. Then add 17 hours (or is it 16 now that we're on DST?) She practically stayed up all night. So you really can't blame her for disappearing on you. I hope she didn't have to go to work/school today (tomorrow? tonight?).
By the way, I can't tell when you're actually woebegone and when you're just goofing around. Maybe we should arrange a signal of some kind.
Anyway, I hereby signal, sincerely, that I'm going to sleep in a few minutes.
By the way, to judge by the visit count on this blog, there's usually a deep lull that starts somewhere around mid-afternoon and goes on until 7 or 8 (Central time).
Also, interestingly--and this seems to be a general pattern for web sites--visits go down on the weekend. An awful lot of people are surfing the web at work.
Why yes, I did stay up a bit later than usual last night *blinks innocently* But really: I figure that since I pretty much sleepwalk during the morning, whatever time I wake up, I might as well do as much work (that requires serious thinking) when I'm awake, so I can just process away in the a.m.
And yes, I'm at school right now, and I woke up pretty early today. I'm not sure I'll be around later y'all.
we can have ourselves frozen. Or cloned. Or have our consciousnesses loaded into computers.
Sweet. Because, of course, we can always count on our consciousness to stay put in whatever box we choose to put it in. Lovely!
An awful lot of people are surfing the web at work.
It's a link to sanity :-P
It's hard to be sarcastic/deadpan in cyberspace. I like emoticons just fine, but I'd be using them a whole lot less if I was sure people would get it when I'm trying to joke/sound clever.
Redbud in the Ruins
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...s/25575672@N02/
This is why I think it's dangerous to sleep with your window open around here in the spring. It's the sort of thing that Tom More might notice.
AMDG,
No, No, No. THIS link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3364681953/
One of these days, I'm going to stop to take a picture like this and somebody's going to come out of the house and shoot me.
AMDG,
That is one monster tree.
We likes!
"somebody's going to come out of the house and shoot me"
I've had similar thoughts cross my mind. There are a couple of buildings that I pass on my way to and from work that get nighttime pictures of, and I have this vision of being seized by Homeland Security agents as a suspected terrorist.
That is a very weird tree, or rather trees. I take it the redbud is all entwined with the remains of a bigger dead tree?
"...we can always count on our consciousness to stay put in whatever box..."
That whole idea of consciousness without a body but yet physically confined gives me the serious creeps. Sounds like being decapitated but not dying. I don't understand why people like Ray Kurzweil think it sounds cool. But then I think he's probably in fact crazy. (In case you don't know who he is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray...ki/
Ray_Kurzweil )
The whole idea of consciousness without a body but yet physically confined makes me scratch my head and smirk. What the funk?
Decapitated but not dying
Exactly! What the bleeping funk??!
Fortunately these ideas are most likely pure fantasy, though I can imagine some perverse experiments coming out of them.
From Wiki: "Transhumanist philosophers argue that there not only exists a perfectionist ethical imperative for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human condition but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a transhuman phase of existence, in which humans are in control of their own evolution."
That's like, mystical, man.
A perfectionist ethical imperative! For humans to strive for!
Does it even cross their minds that they're proposing to make themselves godlike not just in regard to themselves but to everyone who lives after them? Those "humans" who are to be in control of evolution are certainly not just any old humans--they're the Ray Kurzweils et. al., because they're so smart.
"On weekends, Kurzweil also undergoes intravenous transfusions of chemical cocktails at a clinic to further reprogram his biochemistry. He routinely measures the chemical composition of his bodily fluids to ensure balance, undergoes preemptive medical tests for many diseases and disorders, and keeps detailed records about the content of all the meals he eats."
"Kurzweil joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which is a company that provides human cryonics services. In the event of his death, Kurzweil's body will be chemically preserved, frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at a safe Alcor facility until a point in the future when medical technology can revive him safely."
Fortunately these ideas are most likely pure fantasy, though I can imagine some perverse experiments coming out of them.
Right, because we have to let Science do what Science does without impeding it with moral imperatives. We have to listen to what Science says even when it's inconvenient. Especially when it's inconvenient.
Last year, maybe longer ago than that even, I went to a talk by a Christian bio-ethicist at a local college. This was the first time I had ever heard of Transhumanist, and, of course, something inside of me was shrieking--N.I.C.E! Do you think they read That Hideous Strength and thought it was an instruction manual?
AMDG,
About the tree, I think there must be the remains of another tree in there, but I'm not about to get close enough to find out. Somebody would be posting a new picture where you could see MY arms sticking out of the vines. And then, I don't know who lives there and this is the country, so I might really get shot. Or they might have a dog. I'm sure they must have a dog.
AMDG,
stored at a safe Alcor facility until a point in the future when medical technology can revive him safely.
Safely for who?
AMDG,
they're proposing to make themselves godlike...to everyone who lives after them?
Until of course the next step of voluntary evolution occurs and they're made obsolete.
iDo you think they read That Hideous Strength and thought it was an instruction manual?
Which of course, they would have to improve on as well, considering the conclusion of that...er, manual.
Changing the subject--
I got an ad yesterday that said:
If you are between the ages of 50 and 85, the federal government provides funeral expense benefits that many Seniors living today are not aware that they qualify for.
Do you see a Catch 22 here?
AMDG,
Safely for who?
well, once he successfully becomes a posthuman, they have to be careful with him. If some sort of accident happens then the rest of the posthuman race is done for.
In short, I don't know.
Do you see a Catch 22 here?
I must confess I haven't read that book yet.
Well, I was thinking that it might be safer for the rest of us if they didn't bring him back.
Catch 22 is about pilots during the Korean War. Catch 22 is like this: If you are crazy, you can get sent home, but you can't ask to be sent home because you're crazy, because the fact that you want to go home proves that you aren't crazy.
AMDG,
I've been thinking of Lewis, The Abolition of Man, That Hideous Strength, and the Head since this discussion started.
Ah!
the fact that you want to go home proves that you aren't crazy.
Yeah, well, that's what they all think. *wicked grin*
Well, one more thing before my lunch hour is over.
Yesterday, while we were driving to work, there was this unbelievable fog. I didn't realize how thick it was until a car appeared out of the mist about 10 feet in front of us. We drive about 13 miles on country roads and then go around a curve and the town of Hernando, MS appears bfore us. Well, we went around the curve, and there was nothing there. No WalMart (hmmm, not so bad), no fast food places, no banks. It was bizarre. We couldn't see the other cars that we knew were there or the red light, until we were right at the corner. Getting on the expressway was delightful fun. And, although it was a bit better after that, it persisted all the way to Memphis.
I usually love the fog, but this was a bit scary.
AMDG,
I hope, Maclin, that you can spend the rest of the afternoon NOT thinking about them very much!
AMDG,
Re Kurzwiel's weekend routine:
Once someone told me that every hour you exercised added an hour to your life, and immediately thought, "Yeah, but it's an hour of exercise. Why do I want to add years of exercise to my life?"
OK, Now I'm REALLY going.
Bye.
AMDG,
It's my lunch time now and I'm going to direct my evolution to Chik-fil-A, where I'll be distracted from thinking about THS etc by wondering where the chickens came from, and worrying about what they were fed.
"Until of course the next step of voluntary evolution occurs and they're made obsolete."
Interesting scenario. I can see the press conference, Microsoft-style: "Transhuman 1.0 is a great product and has been very successful, but new customers are asking for features that we really can't implement using the 1.0 framework. So today I am happy to introduce to you Transhuman 2.0..."
And then in the Q&A you find out support for 1.0 is going to be dropped in 12 months.
Fog like that caused a gigantic pileup (100+ cars) on the bay bridge here some years ago. People described it the same way: as if a wall suddenly dropped down. My procedure in fog is, if at all possible, to keep the taillights of the car ahead at visible but far enough ahead that I have room to stop if he suddenly slows or stops. I regularly see people on that bridge tailgating at 80 mph in fairly thick fog.
I'm gone now.
can see the press conference, Microsoft-style:
Hah!
"So far there has been no progress in experiments with self-regenerating implements, but we expect results daily and are certain of an eventual breakthrough."
I think I'm just about ready to fall off my chair. To think I drank caffeine-rich soda earlier (technically last night). I must be rally tired.
"rally." Really!!
*sigh*
Don't even try to rally at this point--just go to sleep.
The thing about trying to stay awake with heavy caffeine is that it often doesn't really do the job, but it does keep you from sleeping well.
*giggling uncontrollably*
No, I won't try to rally--because I can't! (Why is that so funny to me?)
Oh that's totally true about caffeine. You're awake but you're not functioning properly either.
Back to that ad and the Catch-22--I'm having too much trouble parsing it in a strictly logical way to be certain that it's really a Catch-22. As written, it seems to postulate that the reader's age determines whether or not the benefits exist. Then I wonder what happens if two people read it, and one of them is 49 and the other is 51.
Possibly there's a Catch-22 involved with announcing to the living something that they can't get without dying, but perhaps they've figured out a way to convey benefits to the dead.
It was the fact that it was available to to the living that I thought was amusing.
I just got home from work and, by golly, it's spring here. It wasn't spring at work. It wasn't spring here when I left this morning, but it is now. There's a bee buzzing around the front door and birds are chirping and the grass needs to be cut. I mean it REALLY needs to be cut. I don't remember it needing to be cut this morning, but then, this is the first time since Monday afternoon that I've been home when it was light outside and we've had all the rain that didn't get to Maclin.
AMDG,
That's funny--it's certainly springish here, but the grass does not need cutting. I have noticed, though, that since the rain over the weekend there's been a definite greening everywhere.
The grass doesn't need cutting here either just yet. But the hedge needs trimming, and suddenly all the daffodils are blooming and the dandelions are starting to sprout.
Now that Paul's here, I remember that I wanted to say something about Chick-Fil-A, where Maclin went lunch. When Paul was here, he told me that when he was in Atlanta, he asked someone where he could get breakfast and the man had told him, "Chick---Fil---A," which Paul thought was as amusing as it really is, but we're just so used to it. He was also fairly amazed to be offered draft beer in a bottle.
There is actually a fast food restaurant in Memphis called Fish-Fil-A, which is really sad. I think that if you are going to have a ridiculous name for a restaurant, you ought at least to think up your own stupid name.
AMDG,
It came highly recommended. I think my exact words (spoken to the security man in the mall that the hotel was attached to) were "Sorry to trouble you, but is there anywhere nearby that you could recommend as a good place to get some breakfast?"
Grass that needs to be cut:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3366958322/
You can see that, unfortunately, it is full of leaves that need to be raked.
Some violets, too, which is nice.
AMDG,
Will the lawnmower not pick them up?
I'm sure it will.
Probably the reason that they are there is that I'm always asking Bill not to collect all the leaves for his compost because I like to kick them.
AMDG,
Maybe, or probably, it's just me, but there's something slightly spooky-seeming about that picture. Could just be an after-effect of watching an X-Files episode.
At first I thought draft beer in a bottle was a contradiction in terms, but eventually I decided I must not understand the meaning of "draft." The alternative is to believe that the marketing departments of beer companies are deranged. And where would that train of thought stop?
Maybe it's opposite of volunteer beer. Or maybe it's for drinking on windy days.
AMDG,
That grass IS pretty close to the spooky tree with the face.
Which episode would that be? It's not the one where Scully and Muldur move into the perfect neighborhood, is it?
AMDG,
No. It didn't have anything to do with grass or houses or anything of that sort, it just had some very creepy moments. It was called Avatar and involved Skinner being sort of haunted by something that Mulder thought was a succubus but was more like a guardian angel.
Or maybe it's a discarded attempt at real beer.
That one was spooky.
AMDG,
Are you familiar with the one I'm talking about? In this neighborhood everything has to be just so or something rising up out of the ground and kills you. We wouldn't last 15 seconds in that neighborhood.
AMDG,
This is what's been rattling around in my head for two days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h...h?
v=hjNteHSCCSg
AMDG,
And I'm going to have the rubber ducky song in mine.
Yes, I remember that episode. I thought it was great. I haven't seen it since it was on tv some years ago, but it was quite memorable. The basic situation seems entirely plausible.
I knew I shouldn't have clicked on that link. Now I'm going to have to find something to get that song out of my head.
I love kicking leaves too (late comment). It's like snow in a way. On this *stuff* falls on anything and everything with the temerity to be out of doors. It's so messy and I love it.
Maybe the picture is spooky because the grass is all wavy and twisted. It's some kind of odd grass that grows from bulbs. My yard is full of millions of these little white kernel things. This is the first chance I've had to see the picture on a monitor that isn't dark, so I didn't know quite what it looked like before.
AMDG,
I'm leaving for home now. I'm so happy.
AMDG,
Yes, it's as if the blades are a little too heavy and twisty, or something. I think it's reminding me a bit of some tentacled creature from a movie or something. Not its fault.
I'll be at work for two more hours. I'm not particularly happy. Although every time I have a thought like that I think "Thank you, God, that I have a decent job. I really do appreciate it, so there's no need for you to take it away in order to make me understand how fortunate I am."
Yes, I pretty much think that way myself.
AMDG,
I am going to watch "The Lives of Others" now.
AMDG,
(Who?)
For the past couple of weeks, there has been an owl hooting all night long, but this morning we saw it for the first time. We had a good time for about half an hour trying to get a picture, which was impossible with our camera, but this is kind of neat. I wish I could get it to look in Flicker the way it does on the desktop, but no.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3369711951/
It's really too bad there wasn't somebody else behind Bill and me to take pictures of us trying to get a good picture, because I'm sure it was funny to watch.
I walked a long way to try and get a shot of the moon and the owl in the same picture, but it flew away just as I got ready to shoot. Still, I liked the picture, so here it is.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
AMDG,
The one with the owl is great. The other one is nice, but not as. Funny, I was stalking an owl with my camera the other day, too. It was in a dead tree across the road and looked quite picturesque, but I never got a decent shot.
Please pray for my friend Steve, who is having surgery today.
AMDG,
Done.
Ditto!
Please continue to pray for Peter Eunice and his parents, William and Phoebe. Twice, he as been almost ready to go home and his temperature has shot up. Sunday, they were just a couple of hours away from leaving the hospital when this happened. I know his parents must be terribly tired and discouraged and they have other children who must be missing them. Maybe you could offer up something special for them today.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3381661373/
AMDG,
Prayers sent!!
Thank you for keeping us posted on this, Janet. I will pray.
Thanks, Janet. So will I.
I just heard on the radio that a recent study has shown that eating too much red meat causes a 30% increase in the rate of deaths.
??????
Does this mean that if you eat too much red meat, you have a 130% chance of dying?
AMDG,
I love the fog picture on your homepage.
AMDG,
Now, Janet, you know you're not supposed to think about that--you're supposed to put red meat on your list of Things That Are Trying To Kill Me or Give Me Alzheimer's and fret about it now and then. They'll tell you when it's time to take it off the list, as has recently happened with eggs and butter.
I've been seeing headlines for that story every time I looked at a news site today. Here is CNN saying, in print, exactly what you heard:
"People who ate the most red meat had about a 30 percent greater risk of dying than those who ate the least."
Clearly (or foggily) I was responding to the comment about the red meat story. Although you don't need to worry about the fog picture, either.
I'm glad you like it. I do too--it was a lucky shot. An old friend wrote to me that she really liked it but that it was so sad and lonely looking that it was almost hard to look at. Which was interesting, because it doesn't strike me that way especially--more just sort of pensive and mysterious.
I'm with you about the pensive and mysterious. It's like a southern version of the lamp post in Narnia.
And if not eating red meat means that you aren't going to die, I'm going to go get a hamburger as soon as I finish my computer test.
AMDG,
(Guilty Pleasures) I've never been sure I quite understood this concept, so I don't think I've contributed much to those conversations, but I think that mine must be this coffee shop. I took this picture from a big, comfy leather chair where I like to sit and study if I can manage to get to Memphis early enough.
There are, of course, the regulars--the tall, bald, paunchy policeman who sits with the tall, paunchy guy that looks like a retired hell's angel--the man with the cap and big mustache that looks like an illustration from a book by E. Nesbit--and lots of medical students.
Today, while reading The Fairie Queene, I learned that it is the 51st anniversary of the day that Elvis got his official haircut to enter the army. I heard this from a woman in her forties who comes in every morning with her almost-blind father. She sometimes looks a bit careworn (but not today--the Elvin feastday must have cheered her up), but the father, who looks just like Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life, is unremittingly cheerful.
The coffee is pretty good and they give you a chocolate-covered coffee bean to boot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3385117286/
AMDG, Janet
What coffee shop is this, Janet?
High Point Coffee on Union. Sometimes I see our Dr. friend there.
AMDG,
"...Elvin feastday..." I don't know if that was a typo or not, but in either case it's amusing, in a disconcerting sort of way ("elf" + "Elvis" does not really compute).
(Peter) OK, this is the sweetest picture I have ever seen in my life and it's also the first time I've seen a picture of this child that looked anything like the one that's on his dad's website and was taken before he went in the hospital.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3385278452/
They think he may have a staff infection OR maybe the sample was contaminated, however, his fever did not get to 100 last night and they expected it would, so this is good.
AMDG,
Elvin--definitely on purpose.
That's funny, I was more taken by the one with the mother, though it's good to see the baby looking happier here. I am really glad to hear that he's better.
It was the look on their faces. Pretty much the same expression. In the first one, the mom is beautiful--her expression is so telling--but the baby looks sooo sick. It makes me sad. But, I suppose it is some consolation when you can pick them up and hold them like that.
AMDG,
I didn't post anything about the Annunciation today, but cnb has something very nice at All Manner of Thing:
http://cburrell.wordpress.com/20...unciation-2009/
You might check out Thursday Night Gumbo also.
AMDG,
That was I.
AMDG,
I have, actually. I had sort of gotten out of the habit of checking there, because they went for a while without posting anything. I'm glad they're at it again. Good Brideshead discussion going on over there.
Ah, right. I like High Point. Should you run into our mutual acquaintance anytime soon, do give him our greetings.
Sorry, I was responding to Janet on the subject of coffee shops in Memphis, but her comment on that topic was some time back.
Don't worry, happens all the time. I assume people figure it out.
Speaking of Brideshead discussions, Janet mentioned there was one here a while ago. As the Evelyn Waugh Society's membership officer for Continental Europe (regional membership: 1) I do have a vague notion I should keep up with things like this. Where do I find it?
I think you read it at the time. At least, I told you about it and ask you to read it and you wrote back to me with thoughts about it.
AMDG,
The official discussion started on May 2, but we had already been talking about it before then.
AMDG,
Now that I read the Brideshead thread I realise I have read it before (or some of it at least). It was then that it first occurred to me that Charles Ryder's dilemma (give up an aristocratic Catholic bride or go against one's conscience) is exactly the choice Waugh would have faced himself if his annulment hadn't come through.
I hadn't noticed - perhaps having read the thread too early - that somebody signing themselves "Baffled" has been editing Aurel Kolnai's memoirs. That's exciting news. He's a philosopher who should really be a lot more famous than he seems to be (or am I just displaying my ignorance of how famous he really is? I do sometimes assume that if I haven't heard of a person they can't be famous, which is rarely really true).
There was also some talk of Anglophilia. A friend has been recommending for some time that I read Ian Buruma's "Voltaire's Coconuts", a book on that very theme (or rather, "Anglomania" as I think he calls it).
I made cauliflower cheese for dinner, and now have to go and scrape the cheese off plates and cutlery.
Baffled was Francesca.
AMDG,
What did your mother and sister make of the book, Janet?
And glum am I.
Not because of Francesca's book, though.
Why are you glum?
Paul, I don't remember what they said. It didn't lead to any interesting conversation, though.
AMDG,
Well, Maclin's glum and Ryan is down. How depressing. BUT, I am going to a book sale now, so if I see any self-help books for the glum and down I will buy them for you--if they are paperbacks--no self-help book is worth two bucks.
AMDG,
Please, no, not a self-help book! Are you trying to plunge me all the way down into the pit?!
I don't know (to answer your question). Maybe it's astrological or something.
In that case you are in luck. The only self-help book I saw was The Manual of Lipid Disorders and it was hardback, so I didn't get it.
And none of the children's books looked like they had lead in them, so that was a big disappointment.
AMDG,
glum... I rememeber a firestorm starting with that word
This morning when I turned on the headlights, right in the middle of the pool of light, was a big tawny cat sitting sphinxlike amidst several clumps of leaves from defunct daffodils and incipient irses. This little scene was framed by our huge old pecan tree on the right which had just the right shade of green lichen growing up the side. And it dawned on me that there was nothing that I could do to capture this picture for anyone else. I could never photograph it or describe it in any way that would convey exactly what I saw or the absolute stillness of the moment. This small circle of beauty was just for me. I wonder if when we get to heaven we’ll be able to share these things. Maybe in the presence of the Beatific Vision, they’ll seem unimportant, but maybe not.
AMDG,
I think the Beatific Vision will include use being able to see everything God has done, and thus all of Creation, including the cat and the flowers, must be visible.
"Manual of Lipid Disorders"--I read that first as "Limpid Disorders." Sounds like a band name.
I just put a book called Surprised by Hope on my Amazon wish list. I keep thinking there's a joke in that somewhere but I can't quite put my finger on it.
I have that same experience (Janet and the cat) on an almost daily basis. Often I end up squandering my own enjoyment by trying to capture it with a camera. In many cases that's not just practically but theoretically impossible, because other things (e.g. sound and scent) are involved.
Uh-oh. I said share, didn't I?
AMDG,
OK, so my 2 year old grandson got hold of my daughter's cellphone and sent 15 text messages to various people on her contact list. So, she got a call from her poor husband who is frantic because his boss wants to know what L. meant by sending him a message that said, "QqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqCall me when you get this message. Lqo"
AMDG,
Your grandchild has funny name, although I guess it's not any more strange than his father's. Or is that the father's boss's name? I think I may have read a scifi story once in which there was a character named Lqo.
I see I'm going to have to restrain my impulse to gripe about certain words and phrases--I'm giving some of y'all a complex.
Oh, and I forgot to mention how impressed I am that your two year old grandson can spell his name.
I wasn't traumatized by my vocabularian gaff, I was just trying to be considerate of your sensibilities.
AMDG,
That's pretty funny, Janet. Our mutual friend Aaron says that he gets lots of "pocket calls" from people -- his name is at the top of everyone's contact list, since it starts with two A's, so whenever anyone inadvertently presses the call button, he's the one who gets called. So he listens to lots of change rattling in people's pockets, people ordering lattes in Starbucks, that kind of thing. I apparently once called him from the middle of Aldi, so he got to listen to me mutter about potatoes and frozen spinach, until he got bored and hung up.
I appreciate that, Janet. My sensibility would probably benefit by keeping its mouth shut about some of these things, though.
One of our children did something similar, with more old-fashioned technology. She had to have been under two, because we moved out of the house where this took place about the time she turned two. She was a bit of a precocious talker. Our phone was on the wall. My wife had been talking to her mother while holding the child, and probably allowing her to talk to "Ganny" (Granny). After my wife hung up the phone, she stood there talking to somebody else--me, I suppose--for a few minutes, holding the child and with her back to the phone. A few minutes later we realized that the babbling about "Ganny" seemed rather purposeful, and then noticed that there was a voice coming out of the phone. The child had taken it upon herself to pick up the receiver and hit the re-dial button, and was carrying on a conversation of sorts with a somewhat puzzled Ganny.
" I appreciate that, Janet. My sensibility would probably benefit by keeping its mouth shut about some of these things, though."
Oh, I don't know. It makes me laugh.
AMDG,
This reminds me of something from long ago, something a college girlfriend once said to me. Like a lot of pop music fans, I have a tendency to speak very contemptuously of music I deem unworthy. I'm not nearly as bad about it as I was then, though, thanks to her. I was slagging some band and she suddenly interrupted me and said "You know, it's really obnoxious when you do that." I was, as they say, convicted: I knew she was right, and tried to tone it down.
Wonder whatever happened to her. I liked her. I hope she's had a good life. We actually were sort of a good match but circumstances.... Wouldn't it be funny if she reads this blog?
I just got an email from someone named Mezeh and the subject line: Find out what you've been missing. The message was "Qwo 9534825."
Do you think maybe it came from Ryan (my grandson, not the highly-trained English teacher)?
AMDG,
Either that, or he's put you in touch with the alien underground. Qwo is another good sci-fi name.
Peter is home from the hospital. Thanks be to God! They have a picture of him on his tricycle on their FB page. If we had been in the hospital that long, they would have to teach us how to walk again.
AMDG,
Thanks, indeed. That's great news.
Thank you, God.
Yes, good news indeed, Janet!
So, I stopped at Walgreen's on the way to work to get some things I needed and as I was going in, a street person came up to me and asked for some money. I gave him some money and at that moment, the manager came out and told the guy that he had to get off the property and the guy started yelling and the manager started yelling and some unlovely language ensued. I thought it might be best to be inside the store. Then, after a bit the manager came in limping and when I left there were 3 police cars in the parking lot.
Then, I got behind a red Saturn with the license plate--666 LRD.
But worst of all, when I got my coffee, they had change the shape of the cups and the lids. Now I feel like my whole world is dissolving.
AMDG,
If there's one thing we've been taught over the past decades, it's the importance of being open to change. So whether it's new coffee paraphernalia or Satan assuming control of the world, you don't want to be one of these people who just can't adjust to new things.
Don't make me laugh! I'm determined to be in a bad mood.
AMDG,
Satan always puts me in a bad mood, too. To say nothing of unfamiliar coffee cups and lids.
Just kidding.
AMDG,
Google's April Fool's Day stuff is very funny. Gmail automation:
http://mail.google.com/mail/help...ilot/
index.html
I've been looking around for some April Fool's Day jokes, but I haven't found many. That Google one is pretty good. They have some funny reviews up today at ClassicsToday.com. This one is my favourite. The others are listed along the right-hand side.
Does anyone know who Kirk Whalum is? Have I asked this before?
The schoolwork is done, but I'm pretty busy work-wise.
AMDG,
The name rings a bell. I think you have mentioned him before but I can't remember what you said about him.
Funny, I opened that and it says, "In the Garden," which is what he's playing right now, right over my head. He's very good. Works here. I think I did say something when he first came here.
AMDG,
Yes, I thought it had something to do with him being there, or appearing there, or something. Pretty good memory work, for me.
Yes, and it was even something bad about me.
AMDG,
Oh, but wait, it was something I said twice--par for the course.
AMDG,
Two other April Fool's Day jokes (sort of funny):
IPv6 over Social Networks.
Galaxy Zoo: an unusual new class of galaxy cluster.
I don't think remembering (albeit very hazily) that you mentioned something before qualifies as remembering something bad. I'd have to stretch to consider mentioning something a second time after an interval of ? is even much of a lapse, much less something bad.
I've been very busy this afternoon and haven't had time to look at those, cnb. Later, I hope. In the meantime, I hope everyone has looked at Google's announcements, and seen CADIE's blog. Scroll down and read the posts in order to get the full effect.
I looked at that this morning when you linked to it. It's really funny. I just didn't have time to say anything then.
AMDG,
She is coming to a somewhat sad end. Better look quick: she may disappear at midnight.
What if she wasn't really an April Fool's joke?
AMDG,
I disbelieve in real AI on philosophical grounds, so I don't think she's possible.
Last night, a man in a Kentucky sweatshirt walked into our classroom to gloat. He was leaning on a cane, so maybe he thought people wouldn't hit a man with a cane. I don't know. Things are pretty emotional in Memphis this week.
AMDG,
I guess you're talking about basketball? Than which few things are more boring?
Well, ok, I exaggerate, there are lots of things more boring. But really: I just can't get interested in watching it, and it gets on my nerves because the season never seems to end.
I could find this easily enough online, I'm sure, but I'll just ask: what Memphis team is involved?
University of Memphis and I don't keep up with it much anymore, although I don't find it boring, but if you were in this city, you could not avoid it. In fact, it's been all over the national news too, apparently, that our coach has left for Kentucky.
Thing is, this basketball team was about the only thing the city had going for it.
AMDG,
Speaking of Memphis and decline: I heard a very fine singer/songwriter a couple of weeks ago, Spencer Bohren, who had a song (or was it just the song's introduction?) about that. He described going to downtown Memphis expecting to find this lively music scene and finding it abandoned.
I did notice something noisy about Kentucky in the sports section headlines this morning.
"Thing is, this basketball team was about the only thing the city had going for it."
Is this a parody of sports-journalistic hyperbole, or are things really that desperate?
To think - a city on the banks of the Mississippi, with a theatre where Houdini and Sarah Bernhardt performed, and a shop like Schwab's to pull in the tourists, to be reduced to relying on a basketbaal team for its profile ...
I'll Janet give the definitive answer to that, but on the face of it I don't dismiss it. Memphis wouldn't be the only once-glorious city to have withered away over the last fifty years or so, losing whatever commercial base had made it prominent in the first place, with other things following.
But let us not forget Graceland.
Aw, now. The tap water's really good, too. And Memphis hardly ever gets hit by tornadoes, and the big earthquake that's been supposed to happen my entire lifetime hasn't yet.
Writing that last post, I literally forgot that I don't live in Memphis any more. My current town has no basketball team, so we have nothing to get sad about, except maybe the late unpleasantness over to the Sons of the Confederacy.
I have never visited Graceland. When we were driving Paul back to Memphis, it crossed my mind that he might want to go there because for some reason lots of people from Europe do. So, I prepared to sacrifice myself and asked him if he was interested. I don't think that I phrased the question in any leading manner, such as, "You don't want to go to Graceland, do you?" But, happily he said that although his wife had told him that he should make sure to go, he didn't really want to. I could have sent him with Bill, though. Bill has had to go there for a job-related event. Unfortunately, the one day that Paul had for site-seeing was a Monday when everything is closed and it was cold and windy by the river.
AMDG,
I can't tell, Paul, whether you are being sincere or sarcastic. I had never been to Schwab's before we went and I wondered what you must have thought about it.
AMDG,
The political "leaders" of Memphis are so horrible, that it casts pall over everything. The crime rate is terrible. Even Paul said after his first day, "Well, I've been in Memphis a whole day and haven't been shot." And the racism issue is trotted out at every opportunity and discussed ad nauseum. The basketball team is about the only thing that Memphians can discuss with any degree of harmony.
AMDG,
What is Schwab's? Sounds vaguely familiar but I may be thinking of the financial company.
Spencer Bohren's Memphis song/story included a visit to Graceland. He described it as one of the few places on his musical pilgrimage where he saw signs of life, and said he would have liked to chat with the visitors but he didn't know enough Japanese.
Your description, Janet, sounds like the city--Baltimore--portrayed in The Wire.
Birmingham would have gone that route as the steel industry declined, but managed to transition to health care as an economic engine and is pretty prosperous.
It's the last of the old drugstores in Memphis. It's on Beale street--three, maybe 4 stories. You can literally get everything there. A good deal of their stock is very old. Unfortunately, you can meet all your Santeria needs there also, but that's all in a corner, and I just avoided it.
You can get some idea from the comments here:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/a-schwab...s-store-
memphis
AMDG,
Here's an article about someone's visit Schwab's.
http://www.bootsnall.com/article...-
tennessee.html
AMDG,
The day I went to Memphis, it turned out everything was closed except Schwab's and the second-hand bookshops (it's a good thing Janet was there to show me where they were). I really enjoyed Schwab's, which just about manages not to be a tourist trap, and among other things I bought a child-sized kitchen apron with a clematis print and a lacy fringe. I don't think I noticed any Santeria stuff.
We went to take a look at the theatre, which I read somewhere was really worth seeing just for its own sake, but they wouldn't let us in to take a peek because their insurance only covers tour parties (or some such feeble shadow of an excuse). So we looked admiringly at the names affixed to the pavement outside, and went and stood on the windswept riverbank.
I was delighted just to have seen the Mississippi, having arduously picked my way through "Hucklebury Finn" as a twelve-year-old (without being able to begin to imagine what sort of accents the spelling was intended to represent.)
When Janet asked whether I'd like to see Graceland, she did it with such bright optimism that I felt I ought to let her down gently.
I've just read the link you provided, Janet, and I have to say I think Schwab's is outrageously misrepresented. It's cluttered and the floorboards creak, but it's nothing like so smelly and decrepit as the writer makes out. (Or if it is, it's gone down hill very fast in the last 3 or 4 years.)
That's true. I don't remember it smelling at all and I'm very sensitive to that. Plus, I don't remember the merchandise being dirty or there being so much dust. They have a lot of old stuff there, but they have to have quite a bit of new, also, because they do a lot of business. So, I almost didn't post it, but some aspects, like the size and the large variety and types of merchandise, he got right.
AMDG,
"He"? I assumed from the tone that the writer was a precocious and somewhat over-fastidious teenage girl (until I got to the mention of business cards at the end, which was slightly jarring in an unexamined way). Not that teenage boys, if they write at all, don't write badly (and I should know) but this isn't a style I'd have imagined had a masculine mind behind it.
I'd been trying to remember the name of the theatre; googling Memphis+Houdini+Bernhardt turned it up: it's the Orpheum Theater, which does look very grand (if you scroll down far enough).
When I was a girl, it was a movie theater. I used to love to sit up in the balcony.
AMDG,
"He" Ha, I guess you are right, although you can't tell from the name. I just automatically assume people with business cards are men, even though I have them myself. I've been told that I'm stuck in the 50's and I suppose them that says it are correct.
AMDG,
Well, the Santeria stuff is tucked in a corner right inside the front door, so if you want it, you can certainly find it.
I used to work for the River City Writers' Series at the university, and Schwab's was one place we'd take visiting writers, for a kind of "get this; this is Memphis" experience. I remember taking the poet Jorie Graham down there; she tried on lots of hats.
Amen to what Janet says about the city government. It's beyond depressing.
I think you must be crazy to try one hats unless you have a can of Rid with you.
AMDG,