2011.02.10
109 Days Remaining

01. Well, I'm sick. In fact, roughly 2/3 of all the professors I know are sick right now. We all seem to have some version of a cold or sinus infection that includes stuffy headaches, runny noses, phlegmy coughs, and randomly occurring body aches (mine seem to be localized in the upper halves of my legs). Since none of this is debilitating, and we certainly all got it from the walking germ factories who are our students, most professors have continued teaching in person, but yesterday on campus we were not a happy bunch.

02. That said, teaching this week was very long, but overall went very well. I got to campus early on Tuesday, had good classes (we discussed causation and necessity in Medieval Philosophy, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the film, not the TV series) in Supernatural in American Popular Culture. In between classes I went to lunch with the Religious Studies' department's Islamic Studies professor, and after classes were done I attended a talk sponsored by the Philosophy Department. The talk was on what it means to claim that categories like race, gender, and disabled are socially constructed. After the talk, I accompanied the other Philosophy professors and the speaker to dinner, where we stayed from roughly 6 to 930pm discussing various issues. After that, I accompanied the speaker and two other professors to a bar in New Aldwych, where we waited until her train to Boston was ready to leave, and while there discussed television viewing habits and memories. While riding back to campus to get my car, I discussed issues about belief in ghosts and supernatural explanations with the philosophy professor with whom I am sharing an office this semester. After I got home, I stayed up to go through my ridiculously full inbox, and I got to bed around 1am. All in all, a full but satisfying day.

03.Yesterday morning/afternoon I played my newest Netflix disc-by-mail, which turned out to be a very odd film. It's Hawk the Slayer, a live-action fantasy from 1980 with clear Star Wars inspiration (with some Tolkien flavoring). It was, alas, in some ways very silly (Jack Palance is a weird Darth Vader-esque villain, for instance), but had elements that were interesting and which, in a different treatment, would have been very interesting. As with so many fantasy films or novels, it rested too much on special effects or archaic language to bolster a poorly developed plot and incoherent background story. But, that said, it's the kind of thing that could be revised (extensively) to generate a much better story.

04. Today is mostly cold. I didn't go outside at all yesterday, and so I read about the sub-freezing temperatures, but today I had to go back to campus, and it was so cold out that being outside between classes actually hurt any exposed skin. Tonight we're likely to go sub-zero with wind chill, and then things start to move upwards again with highs in the low 40s starting on Saturday (I can hardly wait). On the upside, today was very bright and sunny.

05. Livia has some exciting news: one of her short stories was accepted for publication at an online literary magazine. She's very excited, and I'm very happy for her, as it's about time people start recognizing her talent as an author.

06. She also mentioned in an email that she has begun to watch hockey (as a substitute for football). I have never been a sports fan of any sort, and the only sport I enjoyed participating in enough (or which I had enough skill in to participate seriously) was running, which isn't really for watching. Still, I have a theoretical appreciation for some sports (not football, which I genially loathe), including hockey, and so at her mention of this I looked up (on Wikipedia) the history of hockey, and discovered that it, like many of our sports, is a particularly modern version of a family of folk games played in Europe and North America into the 19th century. To my surprise, there are a host of other such modern versions (mostly local) in other countries, including Bandy (in Ireland and Scandinavia), Shinty (in Scotland), and Hurling (Canada). There is also speculation that hockey is related to a now defunct Dutch game called Kolf which is also the ancestor of our modern golf (obviously with substantial modifications, such as the loss of an opposing team - which would be awesome). Lacrosse, interestingly, is a Native American game and so is related only in a hybrid fashion - there is some speculation that hockey's interpersonal violence is actually derived from lacrosse playing styles (although I'm suspicious that this may be a way to suggest that Native Americans were more savage than Europeans and I don't know the evidence for this claim so I can't endorse it). Actual Lacrosse nowadays is, interestingly, generally less violent than Hockey.

07. I bought a new inflatable bed. My first one developed a tear around the gasket into which the pump is inserted to inflate the bed, and although I've gone for two or three months now sleeping on what is basically a mattress pad, the muscle aches with this cold were sufficient that I thought, on Monday, that I really wanted to sleep on something softer than the floor (even padded). It helps a lot.

08. Selena has been posting a bunch recently about Iunia and Euander, who remain lights in my days. I won't summarize her blog here, but if you're interested in the kids' exploits of late (Euander had a very funny episode a few nights ago - which, when I shared it with my students, made him favorite kid for the day among them), check her out: www.yestheykeepmebusy.blogspot.com .

09. I'll be going to Delaware next weekend (after Valentine's Day). If any of you will be around and free, let me know!

Sunday Sunday

2011.02.06
113 Days Remaining

01. First, a correction. If you look at the preceding post, you'll note that I made a calender mistake: my brother Decius' birthday was 01 February, not 02 February. I wrote "today" for "yesterday," which is why it gets confusing when I used the past tense when talking about his birthday despite suggesting that I was writing in the afternoon of his birthday. I think this was due to the deleted posts snafu, but anyway, the wishes were belated when I posted them. So, Decius, I hope you had a good birthday on February 1st. And, generally, a nice day on the 2nd, for good measure.

02. Today, of course, is Superbowl Day, and as per my usual mode of celebrating, I don't particularly care, except that there definitely won't be a new Simpsons or Family Guy to watch tomorrow on Hulu.com. I was invited to participate in a pool-playing tournament with another professor, but I don't actually like hanging out with said professor (I knew her before I worked here, and she's very disturbed, though a nice woman). So instead I'm here working. Or, pretending to, anyway.

03. Last night I went onto campus and did a bunch of photocopying and file-sorting so as to be a less presumptuous office user (as a Visiting Faculty member I don't have my own office, and am sharing an office with someone who is in residence but on sabbatical, so he's not usually in on the days I teach). I was in my building for somewhere around 5 hours, working and monkeying about. In the final hour and a half, however, I repeatedly had the feeling that I was Not Alone. I've heard stories (one, exactly) that this building has had at least one ghost sighting, but I've worked late several times (including one all-nighter two years ago when I wanted to get a lot of grading finished up) and have never had anything odd occur. Last night I heard a door slam when I was the only person in the building, and I had the impression (at least once definitely triggered by visual stimuli - if the other times were also so triggered I was not consciously aware of it) that there was someone else walking around in the area of the foyer where the copy machine is located on the 3rd floor. This was both intriguing but also a bit disorienting, and at one point I actually sort of looked around to see if a student had gotten into the building. When I left I ran into a Campus Safety officer and actually told him that they might want to sweep the building to make sure there wasn't someone who had sneaked in.

04. As I'm working this evening I've been playing a documentary (via Netflix) about wolverines. The voice-overs are somewhat annoyingly "awed and cheerful" (ex: "Dr. X has written over 100 scientific articles" and the narrator clearly wants to have Dr. X's baby). I mention that only to get it out of the way; the visual footage is astonishing, and various researchers who are studying wolverines are alternatively charming, bittersweet, or adorable in their enthusiasm (one group, working in Glacier National Park, continued to do their work for years after funding ran out because they loved it). I'm particularly struck by how differently wolverines behave when studied at length than the way that people had previously assumed. Among the neat discoveries: wolverine males have multiple mates at one time, each of whom will have her own litter and den; unexpectedly, the fathers travel from den to den while there are pups and help raise each litter, and when the pups are old enough to travel, the different litters will sometimes travel together around the territory with their father, learning wilderness skills. Also, wolverines are so well insulated by their fur that they don't melt snow when they lay down on it. They're very neat animals, to my mind especially as examples of evolutionary change: wolverines are descended from weasels, but have clearly begun evolving into a different niche, and their bodies are shaped much more like canines and bears than like weasels now.

05. Tomorrow night my Supernatural in American Popular Culture is having our first movie watching, to see the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I prefer over the television series). I'm looking forward to it, as it'll be my first chance to see the students interacting directly with the material (as opposed to reading it outside of class and then having a chance to think about it before class). Also, from past experience, out-of-class movie watching is a good way to generate (or encourage) group building.

06. And that's about it for now. Decius, I'm sorry for screwing up your birthday wish.

Cailleach and Groundhog Agree: Winter Is Ending Sooner Rather Than Later

2011.02.02 Imbolc/Candlemas
117 Days Remaining

01. First off, happy birthday to my brother, Decius, who turned 29 today. I hope he and his wife had a chance to celebrate, given the weather conditions now regnant.

02. Second, I'm annoyed. I realized that I had three or four drafts the contents of which were never actually posted, and I went through, copied and pasted them all into this post, and then promptly deleted them unintentionally. Nothing was particularly pressing or so lyrical that its loss is cause for weeping, but it was a substantial amount of text and musings, and now all is gone. Damn it. I'm trying to remember what fragments were contained therein, but I only browsed it as I was collecting them, and nothing is sticking out to me to reconstruct.

03. Baskerville College was closed today (which impacted me not at all, as I don't teach on Wednesdays) in preparation for the monumental blizzard that smote a large portion of the country. New Aldwych, however, got icy sleet in the early morning, followed by temperatures in the mid- to upper-40s and rain for the rest of the day. I hear that driving conditions, due to the early morning sleet, were hazardous, but I went out to shovel further (with the higher temperatures and rain making some of the more entrenched snow drifts amenable to being moved) and had very little difficulty. Momula told me that conditions in Wilmington were similar to those here. My exing-wife sent me a photo of Herman, the best dog in the world, playing in the snow that fell at their house in Tulsa, OK:
He really likes the snow, so I'm happy that he finally got some to play in.

04. Weather is important today, it being of course Groundhog Day, and overcast. This means, of course, a shorter winter, if one believes in the prognosticatory capabilities of largish ground-dwelling rodents (especially in western PA). Interestingly, it isn't only German groundhog-watchers who think that today's weather is oracular: in Ireland and parts of (Gaelic-speaking) Scotland (which are Gaelic speaking because they were settled/conquered by Irish pirates called the Scotti in the Dark Ages) today is Imbolc, and today is the day that the Cailleach (literally: "old woman" - she's kind of a semi-divine legendary figure) goes out to gather firewood for the remainder of the winter. According to traditional lore, if it's going to be a long winter she makes the sun shine on Imbolc to allow her to see farther, so if it's cloudy she isn't worried about winter going on much longer. So, as far as I'm concerned, that pretty much settles it: a legendary Irish hag and a Pennsylvanian rodent agree that winter is due to end sooner rather than later this year. And there is much rejoicing, I'm sure, as many people with whom I've communicated recently have said that this winter in particular is weighing on them.

05. Speaking of weather, and on a much sadder note, today I read a striking article about a polar bear who swam for nine days trying to find an ice floe on which to climb and rest (she was being tracked via radio implant). She lost 100 pounds in the process, and tragically the cub who accompanied her died en route. In related news, the Republican governor of Alaska is trying to gain access to various restricted wildlife areas in order to allow for more oil drilling.

06. To balance out that story, here is a very charming song and video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeZMTOSeHVw&feature=branded . It's called "Be My Honeypie" and is by the Weepies (who, despite their lacrimose name are not depressing).

07. In the midst of other things the past few days I've been doing some fun academic reading, and came across a very interesting essay by Richard C. Miller entitled "Mark's Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables In Classical Antiquity." Basically, he's addressing an interesting manuscript problem: in the earliest manuscripts (and in attestations by early readers) the Gospel According to Mark ends with the discovery of Jesus' empty tomb, and the women fleeing in fear (for anyone keeping track, that means that Mark 16.8 is the likely original ending, and that Mark 16.9-20 are later additions). Though the young man they meet in the tomb tells them that they will see Jesus in Galilee, if Mark ends at verse 8, there is no narrated encounter with Jesus after his burial. Now, this is a problem, because it leaves open the possibility that the author (and the community for/to whom he was writing) of Mark didn't intend that Jesus was physically resurrected, or (even worse) that he didn't know that story, or any range of possibilities. Biblical scholars, often working from faith positions, have tended to interpret the resurrection narratives in light of 2nd Temple Judaic resurrection beliefs, and to insist that Jesus is best understood either as sui generis (i.e., totally new) or best understood in terms of Jewish prophecy, etc. Miller says, essentially, this is bollocks. There are plenty of similar stories (even down to empty tombs and the announcement that those looking for the disappeared deceased would see them elsewhere) both earlier than, contemporaneous with, and later than Mark, but they're all Greek or Latin and about demi-gods, heroes, or related folks. This is not exactly news to me, but Miller's essay lists a lot of them, more than I had been aware of, and statistically makes it much more difficult to claim that the original Mark was only coincidentally like those other stories. This comports with something that I have been convinced of for a while, following the work of Graham Burridge, that the Gospels really make sense primarily in terms of Hellenic literary traditions (specifically biographies) rather than in Judaic literary traditions. This is sensible, given that 1st and 2nd century Palestine, Egypt, and Anatolia (modern Turkey) had large Judean populations, were Hellenophonic (Greek speaking), and that educated Judeans were educated in Greek. But it does also strongly point out that the expectations and interpretations of Mark's original audience were profoundly shaped by Greek (and Roman) culture, thus distancing them from a solely rural Palestinian cultural background (which some people try to assert in order to keep Christianity pure and far away from "pagan" traditions). Miller goes so far as to argue that, taken to its logical conclusion, his argument suggests that Mark was written for non-Judeans (i.e., "Gentile" Christians). I'm less confident about that conclusion, mostly because we know so little about the ethnic backgrounds of early followers of Jesus (both during and after his lifetime), and what we do know strongly suggests a majority Judean group. If Mark was written for non-Judean Christians, it became popular with Judean Christians very quickly. Anyway, Miller's essay is a good one, and though I'm not teaching New Testament this semester, this is the sort of stuff that I use to make these texts less familiar to my students, who often come to the class already "knowing" lots of stuff about what the New Testament is and contains.

08. Anyway, on another topic entirely, Junia has been diagnosed with Scarlet Fever, something that in earlier times would have been cause for serious alarm (Helen Keller, for instance, may have become deaf and blind due to contracting Scarlet Fever, although the diagnosis is disputed - some medical historians think she had a form of meningitis). Regardless, in this era of antibiotics, Junia is already back at school and, according to Selena and Momula, was never even in poor spirits, let alone bedridden. Still, she has scarlet fever, so I say, "Get well soon, kiddo!"

09. In my Medieval Philosophy course we're doing historical and cultural background/context work to figure out why medieval European philosophy is both like and unlike modern Western philosophy, and why it tends to get short shrift nowadays (at least outside of academic areas like Philosophy of Religion, where Thomas Aquinas is still read frequently). Yesterday we read the autobiographical text Historia Calamitatum ("history of my sufferings") by Peter Abelard, my favorite medieval philosopher, who was the Elvis of medieval European philosophy, though less gracious in person than the King is said to have been. Abelard was, according to himself and most of his contemporaries, the smartest man in Europe. He had a tendency to go to study with someone and, after a ridiculously short time, begin to publicly surpass his teacher, and then to challenge them to public disputes/debates. Unfortunately, he pretty much always won the debates, except where no one could understand what he was talking about. He is also famous for being the Abelard of "Abelard and Heloise" (one of the most famous couples in European history - before Romeo and Juliet they were the preeminent example of romantic love in the Western tradition). Given his intellectual achievements, the most astonishing part of their story is that Heloise (his student, lover, and eventual secret wife) was apparently his match. Reading their letters (those that have survived, anyway) is profoundly unsettling, because he's an egomaniacal genius who, incidentally, spends as much of his time with Heloise as is humanly possible and she is incredibly smart but says, basically, "I'd give it all up for you." We read their story in my Love, Death and Desire course last semester, and the students could not agree on whether Heloise was Abelard's doormat, equal, emotional and moral superior, or some complicated mixture of all three. Even though he was an arrogant jerk, I like the fact that in their later life (they became a monk and a nun, respectively, after Abelard was castrated - you read that right - by Heloise's uncle, who was furious about the secret marriage) Abelard basically neglected all of his official duties to visit Heloise's convent, even though by that time physical passion was kind of a no-go. Their relationship was certainly not ideal, but I've never been able to shake the strong sense that they were actively devoted to one another, and wanted to be nowhere else than together. On the down side, they named their son Astrolabe, after the astronomical device.

10. And that's about it.

2011.01.29
121 Days Remaining

01. I started composing this post two days ago on Thursday, where I was writing from home, where I would normally not be at this time on a Thursday, because Baskerville College was closed due to snow. We didn't get hammered quite so hard as points south (apparently Wilmington got about a foot, we seem to be somewhere between 8 and 10 inches at the most), but New Aldwych isn't good with handling snow, and neither is Baskerville's campus, and so we were closed. On the 4th day of the semester. Several students wrote to ask me about how this impacted the class topics for Thursday (are we skipping them, pushing them back to Tuesday next week, or adding them to Tuesday's scheduled class - it's the third option, btw). I went out for a walk yesterday and the accumulated snow from the past few storms is hovering around 2 feet on the ground (and that's after having had intermittent warm days and upper-layer melting). The roads are mostly plowed, although none so well as I would like, and I once again shoveled my car out from a mound of snow (this time on the street, rather than attempting to shovel in-between cars in a parking lot).

02. Though I'm not normally the type to pass around items of utter cuteness, I saw this today and thought it was adorable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBU3BwWpR8Q&feature=player_embedded . It starts off slow, but once the pony starts, it's very cute.

03. Today I've been doing some research and working on various things. It occurred to me that I wish I had a larger and more diversified living space just so I had housework to do, if that makes sense. As it is, here, I get up, have breakfast, and have my computer to work with. I was actually kind of glad to do the snow shoveling yesterday, as I was outside and working for about an hour. I shoveled some of the rest of the street, just because.

04. Anyway, while working today, I played (god bless Netflix) a fairly uninteresting Rick Schroeder-starring version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, which was not bad as such, but contained an egregious number of silly scientific errors (dinosaurs lived over a million years ago, says the geologically and paleontologically trained main character). With that around, I also browsed the rest of Mr. Schroeder's oeuvre, and came across two films from my childhood: Earthling (where he stars as a kid orphaned in the outback who is saved by a terminally-ill man going to die in the ruins of his family's settler homestead) and Champs (where he plays Jon Voight's son). I have fond memories of Earthling, in particular, from repeated viewings on what I assume must have been HBO when I was very young.

04. It got me thinking about the number of very sad films I saw when I was small, or at least films with a strongly sad theme in them: Earthling (which ends with 8-year old R.S. burying his mentor and heading "north" back to civilization), Dot and the Kangaroo (the ending of which actually still makes me cry to think about), Raggedy Ann and Andy (the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees being a bittersweet character), and later on, at the end of Quantum Leap Sam never makes it home. Those are just some random items from the list; there are lots more, but I won't list them all.

05. I don't have a lot more to write at this moment. Just wanted to post something and keep things up to date. Have a good night!

Sprung Spring Semester

2011.01.25
125 Days Remaining

01. I'm tired as I type this, so today's post will probably not go on for very long. Today was the first day of the Spring Semester at Baskerville College. It started off dark, literally, due to a snowstorm moving through the area. We didn't have much accumulation (I think it got up to 3 inches in some places), and was over around 1pm, but this was the first time I've had to drive in snow while living in New Aldwych. Sadly, several of my neighbors had difficulty, even on paved and completely clear roads (my favorite was the person who wouldn't go above 10 mph on a 35 mph road without any obstructions save the bits of downy-looking, very cold water drifting gently down from the heavens). Once I got to campus (early, mind you, it being the first day) I discovered that plowing was an ongoing project, and it took me 20 minutes to find a parking space. I mention all of that not to gripe, particularly, but to contrast the process of arriving on campus with the actual niceness of the day.

02. I'm teaching only two classes this semester, which is very odd. I have a 3 hour gap between them in the middle of the day, and will have to find ways to entertain myself (actually, I'll be fine - there's a library right there). My first class (1025am-1140am each Tuesday & Thursday) is Medieval Philosophy, which currently has only 8 students enrolled, although a 9th sat in today to see if she'd like it. I'm not particularly looking forward to this class, mostly due to the topic (which is interesting but not energizing, so I leave class tired). That said, the students seemed interested and involved already, and we'll see how that goes. My second class (245-4pm each Tuesday & Thursday) is the Supernatural in American Popular Culture. I love this class, having taught it once before 1.5 years ago. This one has 30 students, and a list of people who wanted to take it but didn't register in time, so even if some drop it, it will very likely fill up. The room is a bit cramped, but bright (very good for a mid-afternoon class, as many students like to take naps at that time of the day, I've noticed), and just from today I could tell the students were very enthusiastic and interested (much eagerness in responding to questions, offering examples, etc.). This was the case even after I told them that the trade off for taking a class that discusses things like vampire erotica, supernatural detectives (from Kolchak the Night Stalker to Hellboy), ghost stories, and the Princess and the Frog is that, "I will work [them] like dogs" with weekly essays and high standards for writing and content, an active participation requirement, and a lot of movie-viewing and book-reading each week. I've already had one student email me excited because the first reading mentioned something from her hometown that she grew up with (the so-called "Dover Demon" from 1977 in Dover, Massachusetts), and I overheard one student comment, as he was leaving class, that he could not wait for this class to start over break. So that all makes me happy. This is my last semester at Baskerville College, and this will be the last class I teach there, I'm very glad it's this one.

03. I had a somewhat surprisingly positive email exchange with my exing-wife yesterday about the divorce procedure, and she updated me about the pets. Everyone is fine, although her cat, Jasper, has apparently gone completely deaf (he no longer hears when she's eating, whereas in the past the sound of food being prepared and/or eaten would bring him running from a sound sleep to beg uproariously for food). When I sent her the divorce document last week I included dog and cat treats for the pets. Mo (the cat we adopted together, my little guy) is fine, skittish and affectionate as ever. Herman, my dog, is fine and was very excited to play in the inch of snow they got last week. She sent me a picture of him, which is basically him sniffing her iPhone camera, so it's very muzzle-prominent. It was the nicest series of emails we've exchanged, tone- and content-wise.

04.a Today on campus, as I walked around between classes through the snowfall, I was struck by how beautiful things, or the world, can be. I'm so very unhappy right now on so many counts, but that's because my perspective is very focused on specific circumstances and constraints in my life. And when I focus outward beyond myself, I am reminded sometimes of a phrase from a Navajo ceremony, which is not (in the ceremony) meant as a description of one's surroundings (it's actually meant as a sort of exhortation for propriety and order), "Beauty behind me, beauty before me." In that spirit, here are some songs that I think are beautiful, though I cannot vouch for the lyrics of the first:

04.b: Neutral Milk Hotel "The King Of Carrot Flowers" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZXtRP3mND0&feature=related is beautiful in part, because it feels to me like it's meaning is...just...over...there...

04.c: Sarah McLachlan "Ice Cream" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAhv0XGv8Pc is one of my three favorite songs

04.d: Midge Ure "Cold, Cold Heart" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2N7FI16K2M is a song I've loved intensely since hearing it on Pierre Robert's radio show on WMMR when I was in high school. I heard it exactly once, remembered the refrain, and finally tracked it down after college. The video is surprisingly enjoyable (desert rocking scenes notwithstanding)

05. And that's about it.

Uskglass and Sunlight

2011.01.24
126 Days Remaining

01. First off, happy belated birthday to my sister-in-law (from Saturday) and preemptive happy birthday to my brother-in-law Iunius (tomorrow). Anyway, I received an email from Selena yesterday asking how I have been, since it has been over a week since last I posted and I've been generally reticent, communication-wise. So, first things first: I'm alive.

02. Thursday last week I drove up to Providence to fill out and file the divorce paperwork using the ($66) transcript of the divorce hearing in December. I had to wait until I had money to pay the remaining $26, and that meant after my paycheck on the 15th, followed by MLK, Jr. Day, and appointments on campus. So I drove up and filled out the Findings of Fact and Settlement Terms dictated by the magistrate. I did this by hand, and went to turn it in. Then I discovered that the forms had to be signed by the magistrate who had presided, which was interesting since no one had mentioned that before, and he wasn't scheduled to be in that day. Then someone tracked him down (so very fortuitous) in the building. So he signed the papers, I was given my copies, and then the clerk said, "You know this isn't the final judgment, right?" I said, "No, I didn't." It turns out that I have to wait 3 more months, after which I can (I'm not making this up) fill out all of the same information on another form, get it signed by the magistrate, and then I'll be divorced. So I have one more trip to Providence after 21 April (I know now to call ahead and make sure this is on a day when the magistrate is present in the building), at which point my marriage will be finally ended.

03. After that process I mailed a copy of the interim form to my exing-wife, then went grocery shopping (Providence has three Whole Foods Markets) and then drove home in the falling darkness. I got home and emotionally curled up inside into a ball. Aside from the lack of any clear guidelines made available by the Family Court in Providence, one benefit that I might have had from doing this via a lawyer would have been being able to avoid the repeated personal trips to and from divorce court, which have each time left me feeling raw and scraped inside. And this is without any complicated property or custody settlements that needed negotiating. I think that, given the frequency of divorce in our society, we could really do a better job of organizing it and running the procedure, both for low-conflict divorces like mine and ones with more issues to settle.

04. So that was why I didn't really communicate much over the weekend. I felt shell-shocked, especially by the news that there is one more step to take before this is finally done. Our society really, really, wants people to be married and not to get divorced, as evidenced by the ease with which one can get married ($35 and ten minutes) versus the difficulty with which one can get divorced (over $300 in fees and 8 months).

05. Anyway, onto other topics. I recently downloaded to iTunes the CDs for an audiobook I picked up several months ago, Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories. Clarke's wonderful novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my favorite books, and the short stories in LoGA are equally elegant and, to me, captivating. This morning as I sat down to work through my inbox and do final tweaks on my syllabi (first day of classes is tomorrow), I played the final story, "John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner," which I have never actually read (the book collects previously published stories, with this final one being written for the collection), and was struck again by the loveliness of language well used (and full credit to the narrator/reader, Simon Prebble - Davina Porter narrates other stories in the audiobook). For any in the know, John Uskglass is the name of the character otherwise called the Raven King in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and this particular short story purports to be a retelling of a medieval story about said character. It is exceptionally well done, and at points made me laugh out loud as I listened to it.

06. I mention the aesthetic pleasures of reading (or, in this case, listening) in part because I recently saw a review of Stanley Fish's newest book on writing, How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One, wherein Fish argues that American prose has been somewhat handicapped by the preeminence of Strunk and White's Elements of Style and the fame of native authors like Hemingway (both the guidebook and the literary author preferred a type of prose that avoids ornament in favor of short, direct language and phrasing). I'm intrigued to read Fish's book, because apparently he argues not for abandoning Strunk & White, but for teaching them as one type of prose, to be mastered along with others. This intrigues me due to an ongoing thinking I've been doing about purported Ebonics, American dialects and idioms, and the grammar of some types of popular music (which can also influence things like spelling and punctuation). Although I am not a classicist in the technical sense (I read Greek and Latin poorly and god help me if I had to produce new work in either language with any rapidity), I have had to learn a fair amount about language, and have actually engaged in discussions (sometimes arguments) about whether there is such a thing as "proper" English against which any one person's individual speech (their idiolect) should be measured. I have come down increasingly against the formalist position that there is some sort of True English (or any other language) and instead see any one "language" as composed of the various idiolects of everyone who speaks it (thus languages can blend into each other at their margins and are only clearly marked off when two people become unable to converse fluently though they may be able to basically understand one another).

07. This has led me to think about the ways to teach language arts, writing, etc. in the classroom (as a former writing tutor and current teacher who works to improve my students' writing abilities, this is a big deal to me). I wonder whether teaching writing and style as dialects (how would one say "X" in formal business prose? In middle-class everyday speech? In a hip-hop song? My wonder is whether that might be a way to avoid the power conflicts that seem to come about with teaching kids that they should speak a specific way, and instead teach them how to do so in order that they could maneuver effectively in different social settings. I got thinking about this years ago when I was doing some research into how creolization works (cultures often work like languages in interesting ways, so I was doing this work while thinking about how two different cultures can influence one another and create something new between them). The example that struck me most forcefully was from British Guyana, where a single individual (interviewed for the article) switched between Creole, Queen's English, and American English with a great deal of facility in the midst of a single event (a wedding). To upper-class guests she spoke Queen's English, to the linguist American English, and to the guests who were misbehaving, she spoke Creole. Sidney Poitier's character alludes to a similar multi-dialectality in To Sir, With Love, where his character is from British Guyana but trained in the US and teaches in the UK. The character spoke very formal English without a British accent as he negotiated his place as a teacher in British society. I wonder if that sort of approach might make it clearer to students that they are not being asked to replace their speech, but to see language as a tool they can master and use on their own (and, I would hope, to enjoy observing how others use it as well, as I do when I read or hear Susanna Clarke's stories).

08. Belisarius commented a while ago that my blog-voice is very similar to my email-voice, and that they are both very similar to my speaking voice. On the other hand, there is very little profanity in my blog-voice, and far fewer digressions (one assumes because I'm not directly interacting with anyone to draw a new topic into the mix, and because I can structure these posts deliberately, though I usually just list topics). My students and I have discussed teachers' self-presentation and speaking styles; I'm very informal nowadays, though I was much more formal when I started. I don't know for sure why I don't seem to change my voice very much, I think it's a sign of comfort with my normal interlocutors (all of you); I'm very likely to be more polite and formal with strangers, though once I get excited I start talking normally again. Hrm.

09. It's sunny out. We had snow again on Friday, though I haven't had any call to go outside since then. I'm doing laundry this afternoon, though, and will need to go outside to the laundry room to do so. Thankfully the sidewalks are shoveled.

10. And that's about it.

Ed Teach's Sword, Discovered

2011.01.15
135 Days Remaining

01. Today I walked (having decided that I need the exercise) to the grocery store. The walk to the store was only slightly more strenuous than normal (I probably walk there as much as I drive - according to Yahoo Maps it's approximately 2.25 miles each way) due to the ongoing lack of consistent plowing or shoveling along my route, but I have no particular issue with walking carefully on packed snow, or climbing over small disorganized hills of plowed snow. The walk back, on the other hand, was somewhat more difficult, as I purchased more than I had intended upon setting out. I mention that not to complain about my sore arms and hands (carrying those plastic bags any significant by hand is a royal pain), but to mention that as I was walking up a hill along my route, a man pulled up beside me and asked where I was going, offering to drive me. I had the same thing happen (though with a different man) back in October when I was doing the same walk (though there wasn't snow on the ground, and I wasn't carrying so much that time). So that's two people who've spontaneously offered to help me out when seeing me carry heavy loads. I just thought I'd mention this, as evidence that people can be nice for no other reason than to be nice.

02. I enjoy spending money. Not throwing it away on ridiculous things. I like the feeling of paying bills and buying goods or services and saying, "I paid for that." One of the things I can't (or won't because this place feels so temporary) do here is stock my kitchen fully and properly. When I left my ex-wife I kept only a small portion of our foodstuffs, including the spices, flour, etc. So I'm working without anything like a functional base when cooking. Add to that the lack of proper pots and pans, and I feel like a wet-behind-the-ears college graduate, rather than a man in his mid-30s. Today at the grocery store, thinking of my limited cabinet space and restricted functionality, I looked at things I would like to buy, of recipes I don't have the means to cook, and of the cookware I don't currently own. Someday. Tomorrow, anyway, I'm having pancakes, having bought maple syrup today.

03. Lavinia emailed me today to say that her Black Lab puppy, Zeke, was undergoing surgery because apparently he ate some sort of stuffed animal stuffing and was unable to digest it. She indicated that he was apparently coming through surgery okay, but I feel for both her and the dog that this happened. Poor little guy. Speaking of dogs, on my walk today I passed a couple out walking their Corgi, who is so short that it can't see over the shoveled snow. If I wasn't directly behind them, I would have thought they were using one of those silly "invisible dog" rigid leashes. It was very cute.

04. The semester is coming up quickly, and one of the events of the Spring has already started: requests for recommendation letters for next year's semester abroad programs. I don't particularly mind doing the letters, but I sometimes wonder how seriously they're taken. I suspect the letters are just a pro forma part of the application packet.

05. Oh! I forgot to mention yesterday that Iunia lost her first baby tooth two nights ago. My girl is getting bigger all the time. I remember being excited when she got her first baby tooth.

06. YahooNews posted an article from the ongoing excavation of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of Blackbeard, my all-time most favoritest pirate ever. Apparently a sword was found which, for some reason, the excavators think may have belonged to Thatch himself. A word of explanation: many (though not all) of the pirates in the early 18th century had noms de guerre to prevent the stigmatization of their families, and Blackbeard was no exception. He was actually known by the name Edward T-ch (variously spelled "Thatch," "Teach," "Tach," "Theatch," etc.), but that was probably not his birth name, and then it got even more complicated as his fame spread and he was given the nickname "Blackbeard" (because, interestingly, he had a black beard worn long - onomastically imaginative, the early 18th century press was not). So why is he my most favoritest pirate ever? Because, despite his fearsome reputation, he actually mostly scared the living hell out of people, rather than being a butcher (he was very media-savvy, and cultivated the image of a monstrous murderer, but in fact seems to have preferred not murdering people whenever he could avoid it). His crew was found, during their trial after his death (he commanded several ships, and while everyone with him on his last day died, 16 other crewmen were arrested later elsewhere) to be racially integrated, an interesting example of why the pirates of the Caribbean are worth more study and thinking - there's one school of thinking that pirate ships were more like republics than dictatorships (fictionalized accounts notwithstanding, pirate crews served under what was called "free suffrage" and were not subject to the captain's autocratic whims), and more egalitarian, in racial and socio-economic terms, than anything else in European cultures of the time.

07. Anyway, despite all of his apparent preference for threat over violence to achieve his goals, when the chips were down, Blackbeard went out like nobody's business. From the firsthand accounts, when he was captured and killed on 22 November 1718, he was one of the angriest human beings on the planet, possibly ever. After the entire rest of his crew were dead, it took all of the remaining British soldiers involved to wrestle him down and kill him. The official report noted that he had been shot 5 times (and we're talking pistols and muskets, the latter of which leave grapefruit-sized holes in people) and stabbed/cut at least 20 times. He had to be actively wrestled down after someone came up behind him and slit his throat with a knife. He individually sustained wounds that would have killed several other people if the wounds were distributed one per person. In one later retelling, it only stopped when they actually cut off his head, and he couldn't bite the people holding him down anymore. I mean, JESUS CHRIST. If you're going to go, go hard.

08. Speaking of Blackbeard, he'll be portrayed by Ian McShane in the upcoming fourth Pirates of the Caribbean films, subtitled On Stranger Tides (based on the excellent novel by Tim Powers). I mention McShane because I've been thinking about television the past few days, having spent so much time over the past semester watching old shows on Netflix. Last semester one of my students asked what my favorite TV show was, and I didn't have a ready answer, but I do, in fact, have two shows I would consider my favorites, different though they may be: The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Deadwood (starring Ian McShane, among others). In tone, focus, and them, these shows have nothing in common other than being non-big 3 network productions (AoP&P was done by Nickelodeon, and Deadwood by HBO), but AoP&P depicts a world that I wish were real, and Deadwood just has some of the most psychologically complicated and artful storytelling I've ever seen (including the final episode of the first season, which is actually my single favorite episode of any television ever).

09. I shaved off my beard a few days ago, mostly because I've decided to grow it all out, instead of just the Van Dyke, for the winter months, and it's less of a nuisance to just start it from scratch rather than having a multi-tiered beard for several weeks. But, and I always forget this, it itches in the early stages of growth. Blackbeard, I am not.

10. And that's about it.