tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48590272269366774712024-02-07T19:32:18.534-07:00Cheerio from Oxford~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-9225608771536305022010-03-28T04:08:00.001-06:002010-03-28T11:20:49.425-06:00Counting my stepsLast night walking through the courtyard of Christ Church (Tom quad), amid the throngs now allowed in for the literary festival, ourselves coming from a debate between an optimist and a pessimist taking part in the lit. fest, passing the fountain, I felt the urge of tragic outpouring begin to arise, how could it be that I won't be coming back here, how can it be that one can find the very place where one can be wholly oneself and be asked to depart, or at least not to be begged to stay, and from this perhaps you may think me aligned with the pessimist, but no, I'm not, though I often flee from optimists like they would drain all my self-attentiveness & honesty to notice without controlling and contriving what it is that swirls around my mind. Naya asked, while our footsteps echoed around that beloved courtyard, and cellos seemed to play in my head, "Are you an optimist or pessimist?" And I replied that I don't like how either of them cap, tie up, smother what they are feeling. I said I wouldn't have studied at Oxford for these three months if I wasn't the finest of optimists; yet, if I were true to optimism I would right now shove the lamenting down and make myself flutter about something else. I will flutter in time. But not until my body gives the go ahead. So I respect the pessimists because they'll often let themselves go to the places the optimists won't, i.e. deep tragic human feeling, which is utterly beautiful in its longing. I wouldn't give that up for any monotone nirvana of continual, relentless happiness. Yet, the pessimists are tiresome when they won't ride the wave that does also arise in the body and carry one away to heights that I've never known to be for me except at Oxford. So, I think there must be another term coined that better describes those that feel what it is that they are feeling, rawly, savagely, longingly, with ecstasy, twitterpattedly, forever tumbled by the rise that seems to take the breath away, capable of much awe, followed by falls from heights that feel excruciatingly hard to survive. This particular emotional aptitude is not a composition I'd necessarily wish for my daughter, but it is who I am, and it is brutally, artistically open to what actually is. I said something of all of this to Naya. Poor child. Lucky child. <br />
<br />
Then we came around the north corner of the quad and a bowler-hat-clad porter looked up and smiled so beamingly at us and said, "Well, it sure is nice to see some familiar faces amid all of this hubbub!" Could he know how much that was what this tragic character needed most to hear---because it fanned my fire--he recognized me as one who belongs in that quad, oh sweet comfort of that! Yet he has no idea that he soon won't be seeing us, oh depth of sorrow, familiar lover of mine, why do you visit so loyally? I replied appropriately instead of all of that with, "It is so good to see you too." And it was. I will miss three of the porters in particular. Him especially. He blocked us one night and didn't believe I was a student just after our arrival...but another porter knew us and so said...from then on this porter seemed to treasure us and tip his hat, with a twinkling eye, and kind, jolly phrases always aimed to make us smile and feel welcome. We walked in the opposite direction from him.<br />
<br />
Coming around the last corner before walking out Tom Gate, under the grand arch & bell tower & clock, here walked another familiar face, who met my gaze and smiled so wholeheartedly I found myself smiling warmly back without the usual reserve one has with strangers. He was a doctoral student I'd sat next to or across from at dinner many times, and exchanged nods and smiles many times, yet never talked. No exception now, no words passed across the gap. Yet again, this sense of belonging, of being of this quad surged me heavenward. And then the fall--I had imagined so thoroughly coming back again for dinners here in the fall that I hadn't pushed on some of these connections. It seemed there was no need to hurry and push. All would unfold. All these friendships would have chance to flower with ease. I would have the chance to learn my favorite porter's name, and befriend this doctoral student & others for a walk around the meadow, for a debate over port. <br />
<br />
Yet Oxford says it isn't so. Or so the woman on the phone said. My letter still has not arrived. The optimist in me says aloud to Naya, "What if the letter came on Monday and said 'Congratulations, Ms. Brigette, on your admittance to the Master's of English (1900-present). You, unfortunately, have not been granted the colleges you listed on your application as Magdalen and Balliol are satiated, however, you have been assigned to Christ Church. We understand you to be of the substance of that place. We hope this pleases you. Warm regards, your fellows."<br />
<br />
The pessimist weeps for the sweetness of such hope.<br />
<br />
Two more days in Oxford. I feel I'm counting my steps to the gallows.<br />
<br />
What about you, optimist or pessimist? & why or what for?~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-10710286152767783932010-03-26T12:04:00.002-06:002010-03-26T16:09:12.158-06:00the darling buds of may<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZmvAJLGV307iBw7aRTW1B-7M-mDkToVw4ltLxmS1JjbFuJm3fUIUUPhCquKq2sHJwS66rJn9y8pxujtOObneKBHYBOXj7aXYHtXfzHHp6PyONKesv1BqiXRuqKMC7nBrO3guTzBTptiI/s1600/P1000557.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZmvAJLGV307iBw7aRTW1B-7M-mDkToVw4ltLxmS1JjbFuJm3fUIUUPhCquKq2sHJwS66rJn9y8pxujtOObneKBHYBOXj7aXYHtXfzHHp6PyONKesv1BqiXRuqKMC7nBrO3guTzBTptiI/s320/P1000557.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAHTkDrRtmGVmBQcOMvYyJKzhRveQ3Sk3hw-lfaM53k41eXUlkIkLixVHlnwL-bVYwKNHH9HuX_pJ77GWDBKh4vkXRRJYFflP1o7eavVVlNXh5YZo5aOcaZQYc3T6OLdGmdYlM0MvLb8/s1600/P1000562.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAHTkDrRtmGVmBQcOMvYyJKzhRveQ3Sk3hw-lfaM53k41eXUlkIkLixVHlnwL-bVYwKNHH9HuX_pJ77GWDBKh4vkXRRJYFflP1o7eavVVlNXh5YZo5aOcaZQYc3T6OLdGmdYlM0MvLb8/s320/P1000562.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4DwQzxHiwXR3XgtnSuVAEU8-mhr4pF4VBQrs1npOr2J-8ke_BQFv5eMVUolv_Mn5hD_tdyJJU2Po3lcveo761PUihtsF6Wu_9_sztWoqwXLuOykeF1lx8r5_sEYR0Vug7Yn_aFFPeFLU/s1600/P1000559.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4DwQzxHiwXR3XgtnSuVAEU8-mhr4pF4VBQrs1npOr2J-8ke_BQFv5eMVUolv_Mn5hD_tdyJJU2Po3lcveo761PUihtsF6Wu_9_sztWoqwXLuOykeF1lx8r5_sEYR0Vug7Yn_aFFPeFLU/s320/P1000559.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEnX2dsUFi1vKr4KIC6xCxOciEwUHTCjHiEtiOT57LbvlCUtUMLn3TPd6pzFbbu4SJJoHO6fon4ZvgBRqdvZjXmmpwB62l9v3TU_Hbkt0_F8bkoBxYc956DgX5JsdyG0bU3U-eHgWp8Y/s1600/P1000512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEnX2dsUFi1vKr4KIC6xCxOciEwUHTCjHiEtiOT57LbvlCUtUMLn3TPd6pzFbbu4SJJoHO6fon4ZvgBRqdvZjXmmpwB62l9v3TU_Hbkt0_F8bkoBxYc956DgX5JsdyG0bU3U-eHgWp8Y/s320/P1000512.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpF1TL6g91JTCYxrrWJTlyYsnhFv5PN5gBwGmpvbm_NTAo6P1H_3RnU9pN1uz3XCeGduG_LDmACzBQGhDU-kqsyCXyDRTYpyQoGMojsGlZ2M_n0riaiyVuBWoI5QHlBz1_iBRTXrpF5U/s1600/P1000441.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpF1TL6g91JTCYxrrWJTlyYsnhFv5PN5gBwGmpvbm_NTAo6P1H_3RnU9pN1uz3XCeGduG_LDmACzBQGhDU-kqsyCXyDRTYpyQoGMojsGlZ2M_n0riaiyVuBWoI5QHlBz1_iBRTXrpF5U/s320/P1000441.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0B85WSrRCg7P-Ss7UJ5EHLY9uud5Wv1iF-hw0H3bh6MEfghJYTC4GH6yiErBd8Ak4uASdhwmiiIgoamU_VXHjv6hJDV_yZKDJBpVvQQZnERTOQIk13-5uQVnnEf3Ql3b1KNRwysV-IaE/s1600/P1000484.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0B85WSrRCg7P-Ss7UJ5EHLY9uud5Wv1iF-hw0H3bh6MEfghJYTC4GH6yiErBd8Ak4uASdhwmiiIgoamU_VXHjv6hJDV_yZKDJBpVvQQZnERTOQIk13-5uQVnnEf3Ql3b1KNRwysV-IaE/s320/P1000484.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">a question that keeps arising in this mind o' mine:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">if Shakespeare lived in England</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">why did he say "rough winds do shake the darling buds of May" in that favored sonnet</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">instead of the darling buds of March?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">because these buds are budding,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">or perhaps he had a certain bud in mind</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">like a later sort--roses?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">or perhaps global warming since 1600ish to 2010</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">has shifted England's budding-time from May to March?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">or perhaps he was scripting it for a woman from the mountains who wouldn't see buds until May?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">or perhaps he was just tired of figuring out what rhymed with "How shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and so went with May?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">anyhow one of the points of all of this silliness was really just to show you how lovely the buds of March are in England right this moment.</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-29176816784620221462010-03-23T04:36:00.012-06:002010-03-23T15:02:43.043-06:00As though of hemlock I had drunk<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99jHeAZhbk8vE-wmGKfGk3Qr_byHdBkGqYuCF5dmehIpAPtt4z7p7TXHK8XEnLRzYelJVlbCeqpQe47Pf6AH89wN35vAlzOV4LcYgvFCyXaHXAlhyfViw3r4yvEU6mfwiRi53lJp8CZc/s1600-h/draft_lens2080456module13567290photo_1232549595Frederick_Sandys_Mary_Magdalene_Tears_Idle_Tears.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99jHeAZhbk8vE-wmGKfGk3Qr_byHdBkGqYuCF5dmehIpAPtt4z7p7TXHK8XEnLRzYelJVlbCeqpQe47Pf6AH89wN35vAlzOV4LcYgvFCyXaHXAlhyfViw3r4yvEU6mfwiRi53lJp8CZc/s320/draft_lens2080456module13567290photo_1232549595Frederick_Sandys_Mary_Magdalene_Tears_Idle_Tears.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Not having been granted continued access to these behind-the-wall-things of Oxford, I am feeling a bit melodramatic and melancholy today. It is not from a pitying state, however, that I look to the TB-consumed Keats for comfort but as a reminder that what I feel is reasonable for one that wants little else of life than to be swept, tossed, drowned, picked up gently, warmed by the fire by the insatiable restless mind that is mine. This mind sighs vulnerably today making my body sorrowful that it might choose the unreasonable again as it always has. It is more devoted to itself, its intricacies, fervor, wonder, fatalistic tendencies than it is devoted to its long complacent continuation. I don't speak of hemlock, no, not that. But I do speak of listening to what it is that I am, bowing down to that, not talking myself out of it. My life is a slave to this mind that will die if it is not continually swept into a fury of emotion, into a fury of breath-paused captivation by being surrounded with the things those Oxford walls now stand against it seeing. But other doors will open, for this hand will forever knock on behalf of its weeping, longing, melodious mind that will not rest. Will not rest until this hand can no longer knock on doors.</div><br />
<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnrDymI8Gu2-CTmr8NUVHpOsRhdoY6VBlnMWvJ_vEU17zTV8wDFHr32cFtD6J0O-wIah9C4_F5yZYkAHRPB4T6HlVTW-hQMc72DJBITLWUoWuGLikZCrINKXQ4DG9rljLmX_M0s69oYKU/s1600-h/2746750154_25313e36ea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnrDymI8Gu2-CTmr8NUVHpOsRhdoY6VBlnMWvJ_vEU17zTV8wDFHr32cFtD6J0O-wIah9C4_F5yZYkAHRPB4T6HlVTW-hQMc72DJBITLWUoWuGLikZCrINKXQ4DG9rljLmX_M0s69oYKU/s320/2746750154_25313e36ea.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">(If you were me you would hear Terry Davies playing "Sebastian" in the background as you read the above paragraph, followed by Mark Bradshaw's "Ode to a Nightingale" as you read what is below. Thankfully you are likely not--like me.)</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Ode to a Nightingale</div><div style="text-align: center;">John Keats (1795-1821)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains </div><div style="text-align: center;"> My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains </div><div style="text-align: center;"> One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: </div><div style="text-align: center;">'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> But being too happy in thine happiness, - </div><div style="text-align: center;"> That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> In some melodious plot </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Of beechen green and shadows numberless, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Singest of summer in full-throated ease.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Tasting of Flora and the country green, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! </div><div style="text-align: center;">O for a beaker full of the warm South, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;">And purple-stained mouth; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> And with thee fade away into the forest dim:</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget </div><div style="text-align: center;"> What thou among the leaves hast never known, </div><div style="text-align: center;">The weariness, the fever, and the fret </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; </div><div style="text-align: center;">Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Where but to think is to be full of sorrow </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;">And leaden-eyed despairs, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Away! away! for I will fly to thee, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, </div><div style="text-align: center;">But on the viewless wings of Poesy, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: </div><div style="text-align: center;">Already with thee! tender is the night, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> But here there is no light, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, </div><div style="text-align: center;">But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Wherewith the seasonable month endows </div><div style="text-align: center;">The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;">And mid-May's eldest child, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Darkling I listen; and, for many a time </div><div style="text-align: center;"> I have been half in love with easeful Death, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> To take into the air my quiet breath; </div><div style="text-align: center;">Now more than ever seems it rich to die, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> To cease upon the midnight with no pain, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> In such an ecstasy! </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain - </div><div style="text-align: center;"> To thy high requiem become a sod.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! </div><div style="text-align: center;"> No hungry generations tread thee down; </div><div style="text-align: center;">The voice I hear this passing night was heard </div><div style="text-align: center;"> In ancient days by emperor and clown: </div><div style="text-align: center;">Perhaps the self-same song that found a path </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> She stood in tears amid the alien corn; </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> The same that oft-times hath </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Forlorn! the very word is like a bell </div><div style="text-align: center;"> To toll me back from thee to my sole self! </div><div style="text-align: center;">Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well </div><div style="text-align: center;"> As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Past the near meadows, over the still stream, </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep </div><div style="text-align: center;"> In the next valley-glades: </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Was it a vision, or a waking dream? </div><div style="text-align: center;"> Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHbO9tvprBQZf-4YUPbrrOQtKqpm7i19K09acTm1nzgwg5iiaZPazjnQiVRGs-2Q2h6BDEBP0P9tp_mpE9SypNPAxVTSoVDafCJJnzDx-fIN1GV_qQa29sgNFd02yfn5QWV_i_pH6lsI/s1600-h/6a00e551bd0760883301157120baf9970b-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHbO9tvprBQZf-4YUPbrrOQtKqpm7i19K09acTm1nzgwg5iiaZPazjnQiVRGs-2Q2h6BDEBP0P9tp_mpE9SypNPAxVTSoVDafCJJnzDx-fIN1GV_qQa29sgNFd02yfn5QWV_i_pH6lsI/s320/6a00e551bd0760883301157120baf9970b-800wi.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-60149569046544203952010-03-19T01:38:00.003-06:002010-03-19T01:45:46.747-06:00A poem I heard today upon waking<a href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/03/19">My sentiments on the human-animal divide/differance/or lack thereof said well in a poem by someone else, particularly lines 12 and 13</a> <br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(click on purple text, then listen to the audio vs. reading for best effect)</span>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-13622616408433432352010-03-18T12:25:00.002-06:002010-03-18T12:25:33.238-06:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPtqrOy4O9V80thbu9e3HT4PFLIQvmuf0R03j0yVMMobywWHRgqqki1yzEdfjVXzzavVsCHg4_drLstiz8tgzxk4yQ9rHFMaw-L3i38sYkkqUNaowQjD_Cna8HryhyvRCHkl1D-jlvYhc/s1600-h/P1000386.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPtqrOy4O9V80thbu9e3HT4PFLIQvmuf0R03j0yVMMobywWHRgqqki1yzEdfjVXzzavVsCHg4_drLstiz8tgzxk4yQ9rHFMaw-L3i38sYkkqUNaowQjD_Cna8HryhyvRCHkl1D-jlvYhc/s320/P1000386.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A pretty girl I saw in Oxford</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-36743005480655354362010-03-17T09:33:00.000-06:002010-03-17T09:33:28.381-06:00While awaiting something that will change your life one way or another, perhaps best to acquire something like Dante's 'Divine Comedy: Inferno', just in case you need a lift after the envelope and letter fall to the floorSo while I await THE letter in the post<br />
(from the Oxford English Department<br />
on my MSt. application<br />
due to be decided the 19th of March)<br />
I have done just that<br />
<br />
Prepared to descend into the bowels<br />
of despair<br />
where I will be reminded<br />
that there are far worse things<br />
imaginable (--imagination--all in one's mind--perspective--not real--fictitious--imaginable)<br />
to the human mind<br />
than a decline<br />
from Oxford<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJPGose1E3p1guzXrvb9dvT-wWnLnH4HrtrHSI8MC3-IFp0aSpzDa2qWeLs14jH9wpQLM81lf7CLAfUuoS1Qwh2qFJksso3eqf43p1FJHOMpnIcKWA179blW8dFcQWjK1Rh2opED1zHo/s1600-h/signorelli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJPGose1E3p1guzXrvb9dvT-wWnLnH4HrtrHSI8MC3-IFp0aSpzDa2qWeLs14jH9wpQLM81lf7CLAfUuoS1Qwh2qFJksso3eqf43p1FJHOMpnIcKWA179blW8dFcQWjK1Rh2opED1zHo/s320/signorelli.jpg" /></a></div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">dante alighieri</span><br />
<br />
Yet I will read Inferno either way (& probably Paradiso & Purgatory too)<br />
because I haven't yet<br />
and because I want to swirl with Francesca da Rimini<br />
in either swooning exuberance for seizing onto the thing in life that must be just like the taste of blood to a vampire (ie admittance into Oxford minds for another year)<br />
or in sheer despair for being condemned to vegetarianism for the eternity a vampire cannot get out of (ie barred from what is behind the walls & skulls of Oxford past next week).<br />
<br />
In the meantime<br />
after my four day break from reading<br />
I am compiling my own reading list for the remainder of this week:<br />
1. Andre Gide's <i>Strait is the Gate</i><br />
2. Maupassant's <i>Bel-Ami</i><br />
3. Zola's <i>L'Assammoir</i><br />
prep work for Brussels & Paris.<br />
<br />
Three more things:<br />
(1) I'm ready to depart for the continent (europe),<br />
(2) though biking around Oxford's alleys aimlessly today<br />
with my books in my basket<br />
I realized yet again<br />
this place stirs me, moves me, unhinges me in very charming ways<br />
which isn't all good because (3) After giving a presentation yesterday to Naya's class<br />
on conservation in the Rockies--on being a backcountry ranger in Glacier--and spending hours gazing at wall-size photos of our backpacking/peak-climbing/wildlife photos from over the years, I want to go home and nestle in with nature and forget all this human stuff<br />
that is at the very heart of it<br />
something I am not loyal to<br />
in any way<br />
as much as I am<br />
(at the end of wolf article<br />
by Chadwick<br />
in the current issue<br />
of National G.)<br />
to wolves being allowed<br />
to be.<br />
<br />
Okay--there's a (4) Yet<br />
without<br />
human minds<br />
like those you might find in Bodleian skulls roaming over books<br />
voraciously<br />
wolfishly<br />
pressing at human philosophy, etc.<br />
we may never arrive to a place<br />
(not even talking collectively--that would be asking too much--but just a handful)<br />
where humanism actually<br />
finally<br />
recedes<br />
enough<br />
to see what we humans<br />
are actually capable of<br />
when we<br />
are being<br />
smart animals.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxaY-x-umbRU9kPf2i7l_kBW6Di09_broIEROxML4JBqcklLpAmaHVw9dDlrTaVgktrOIe7Xrxunjfc4lODjJVPKFCqkEnR4KcfXSyfbT2VdqiXuYUqR7srdtc3KfrYl18rCF0gQ_Vw3I/s1600-h/grey-wolf-snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxaY-x-umbRU9kPf2i7l_kBW6Di09_broIEROxML4JBqcklLpAmaHVw9dDlrTaVgktrOIe7Xrxunjfc4lODjJVPKFCqkEnR4KcfXSyfbT2VdqiXuYUqR7srdtc3KfrYl18rCF0gQ_Vw3I/s320/grey-wolf-snow.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">grey wolf in montana</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTazxGtbavfzOgie4te_STc45_yB3kQZUEW5GAkZxKBSMGvlRkGXHLEEEDe-6EkkaWoOt2oPqxJI6SozF103LW0d03bUDV0qtdJj_addULWw1-ZJBjMXBeEtBJDWkhHQLQ73bghLHv19s/s1600-h/jane-goodall-national-geography-photo2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTazxGtbavfzOgie4te_STc45_yB3kQZUEW5GAkZxKBSMGvlRkGXHLEEEDe-6EkkaWoOt2oPqxJI6SozF103LW0d03bUDV0qtdJj_addULWw1-ZJBjMXBeEtBJDWkhHQLQ73bghLHv19s/s320/jane-goodall-national-geography-photo2.jpg" /></a></div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">jane goodall & friend</span>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-89066089919985806722010-03-15T03:33:00.000-06:002010-03-15T03:33:45.568-06:00Dance, then, wherever you may be<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">My little Naya bug hurt her neck quite a bit on Thursday & we've been a bit stressed since. Taking it easy, resting, stretching, massaging, hugging, watching movies, reading books... Today she's staying home from school as her neck isn't quite ready for a full day of school with swimming. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">This morning I left her upstairs in bed resting & working on her new hobby of stitching with embroidery (thanks Helen!), went down to make breakfast & bring it up to her. When I came back up she was twirling around singing this song they've been learning at New Hinksey primary for Easter--so sweet to see and hear, particularly since she has seemed quite pensive and sad since her neck injury, and not in the twirling mood.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">You all know, by now, my dislike for the surety of religion, however, what you may not know is that I love the sentimentalism, sweetness, hope of what is behind religion. I appreciate it most keenly particularly when standing below a statue of Mary in a cathedral or peering at the effects of oil dabbed precisely on canvas to make one sadly bow the head or brush a tear for humans hanging humans on crosses, other humans taking them down, mourning, painting, singing songs, etc. etc. Below are the sweet lilting lyrics of the song Naya was singing & below that is a video of a little old man singing the song:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I danced in the morning<br />
When the world was begun,<br />
And I danced in the moon<br />
And the stars and the sun,<br />
I came down from heaven<br />
And I danced on the earth,<br />
At Bethlehem<br />
I had my birth.<br />
<br />
<i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Dance, then, wherever you may be,<br />
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,<br />
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,<br />
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.<br />
</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I danced for the scribe<br />
And the pharisee,<br />
But they would not dance<br />
And they wouldn't follow me.<br />
I danced for the fishermen,<br />
For James and John -<br />
They came with me<br />
And the Dance went on.<br />
<br />
<i>Dance, then, wherever you may be,<br />
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,<br />
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,<br />
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I danced on the Sabbath<br />
And I cured the lame;<br />
The holy people<br />
Said it was a shame.<br />
They whipped and they stripped<br />
And they hung me on high,<br />
And they left me there<br />
On a Cross to die.<br />
<br />
<i>Dance, then, wherever you may be,<br />
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,<br />
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,<br />
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I danced on a Friday<br />
When the sky turned black -<br />
It's hard to dance<br />
With the devil on your back.<br />
They buried my body<br />
And they thought I'd gone,<br />
But I am the Dance,<br />
And I still go on.<br />
<br />
<i>Dance, then, wherever you may be,<br />
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,<br />
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,<br />
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">They cut me down<br />
And I leapt up high;<br />
I am the life<br />
That'll never, never die;<br />
I'll live in you<br />
If you'll live in me -<br />
I am the Lord<br />
Of the Dance, said he.<br />
<br />
<i>Dance, then, wherever you may be,<br />
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,<br />
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,<br />
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px;"> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pRfNLW_K6Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pRfNLW_K6Q</a></span></i></div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-22635713214295003232010-03-09T17:17:00.000-07:002010-03-09T17:17:31.522-07:00The things that happened today:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span>1) Went jogging for a really long time down on the river paths & around Oxford & noted that reading 800 pages a week for 8 weeks though righteously bodacious is detrimental to one's relaxed cheetah-mimicking stride. Shrug. So. Can't do it all--all at once that is. Can do it all in stride, however.<br />
<br />
2) Laid in bed with Aldo Leopold. Sorry. I like saying things like that on this blog. It's a cheap thrill. Studying ecocriticism & literature & what easy-on-the-mind reading to find Leopold's <i>A Sand County Almanac</i> in my hands among Heidegger, etc. I've been known to say that the one I seek to do life with is an Aldo Leopold/Robert Frost sort of bloke. Astounding as always to me the brilliance that precedes us well beyond what most of us have any notion of. "Progress" and the unfurling fad of progressive "consciousness" are no lovers of mine.<br />
<br />
3) Booked the two apartments we'll be luxuriating in, tittering in, window-leaning from in Paris. One is beside the Louvre with big windows looking down on the street! click here for photos: <a href="http://www.vrbo.com/186324">1st arrondisment flat</a> And the other is on the Ile St. Louis (the island on the Seine beside Notre Dame). click here for photos: <a href="http://www.vrbo.com/164772">4th arrondisment flat</a> . We have one week in each one. (Also booked tickets from Venice to Paris April 6th---this means we must get from Oxford on March 30th to Venice by April 6th--hooray! Probably through Salzburg and Vienna, or maybe through Prague and Vienna, that's to be arranged when I find the right tickets). <br />
<br />
4)Received word from Oxford Professor #1 that he judged my essay work/aptitude/bantering capabilities to be an "A-level" grade. I'm calling it an Oxford A, because, wow, I've never pushed it that far before. So thankful--totally didn't expect to earn more than average--the bar here is so high--weeped a bit today after hearing this. If Humble and Pride could be lovers, they would birth me at this very moment.<br />
<br />
5) Received word from the University of Vermont that I've been admitted into their MA literature & theory program for September--Burlington, VT; and, that I'm on the waiting list for having a Teaching Assistantship (full ride, stipend, and housing costs covered). (That makes--3 yes, 2 no, so far). Come on Oxford. March 19th should be the day. I'm almost feverish over the waiting. Thankful for my other options though.<br />
<br />
6) Found out about our friends' giant sweetheart St. Bernard, Canyon, having to be put to sleep yesterday & feeling glum. Dog friends are too amazing for such brevity. Yet, nature, life cycles, vulnerability, death are perfectly beautiful to notice so keenly as one does when loss occurs. I wouldn't like to live forever, I told Naya recently. It would create a cesspool of a world to have all the humans ever made forever clinging to it, but also I like the feeling of having to work with a finite time--it fosters the very feelings and drives that make me feel alive and lit up. I like feeling vulnerable. And I imagine becoming sick, old, injured and thus dying to be just as meaningful and captivating as any other set of moments. It is why if I come across an injured creature gasping I have a very hard time deciding what to do--because what if our idea, my idea of putting things out of their misery actually takes away the richness of something being experienced that we can't possibly understand. i want to be allowed all of my experiences, all. yet for other things i can't bear the witnessing of writhing or angst. tricky business.<br />
<br />
7) Ate dinner in Hall with my best mate, Naya, who laid out her life plan to me as she often does now in that Hall as we eat--tonight she said, "I'm definitely going to be a philosopher and do art." Pause. Chewing of a buttered roll. Eating of spanikopita. Swallow. "And who would you be if you could be anyone up on the walls in here?" I answered, ah, tough, either Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), Queen Elizabeth I, or her dad, Henry VIII. Naya said, "Well, I want to be Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway." But she's not up on the wall, I said. "Okay, then Queen Elizabeth." I said, okay then I'll be Henry the VIII and maybe I'll let all of my wives live this time around. Then I asked her where, if she could live anywhere in the world in any sort of house or situation, would it be. She gave me an elaborate multiple choice of options with very funny details to try to trick me and clue me in at the same time, with the correct choice being "A really big farm in Sweden with horses, chickens, rabbits, my kids, my husband and I'll teach art to kids in a school nearby." But then she said she was worried about this because she knew I'd want to live in Paris or Oxford or Whitefish. But we sorted that out. We'll have a dedicated spare room for each other, and we'll make lengthy visits lasting for months like happened in old Russia.<br />
<br />
8) Went to a play about semi-old Russia, "Three Sisters," three hours long, really brilliant. They wanted always to leave their dull town for Moscow which they put on an intellectual pedestal (hmmm...sound familiar?) But they never manage it. But they always want it. It breaks their hearts in different ways that they don't, yet, of course, the meaning and purpose they seek in life, would not be found in Moscow anymore than it would in....forgot the name of their town....so let's just say it was called Whitefish. The meaning and purpose they seek in life would not be anymore readily found in Moscow than Whitefish...though perhaps other things would have been more readily found, but perhaps not. One can't help leaving the play wishing they had gone to Moscow, at least for a time. It was a meaningful play at this particular juncture in my life, to be sure.<br />
<br />
9) Now I am going to finish the second half of the film, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Did not feel a kinship for the most part with the Sabina of the first half. Anyone reading this have any opinions of this book/film? I heard an intricately woven earful the other night from my Italian landlord, Erminia--another unexpected highlight of this wonderland called Oxford.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-67215916828488162202010-03-05T07:58:00.000-07:002010-03-05T07:58:53.572-07:00Feeling like Francesca da Rimini this afternoon<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZtrlO7KIrbCveX92tZwdshd7Te30euyRDwyqWhwyX_4GnfhTI-v0xNgfS_baUCL-s_gXbckcP2-zhM6myJE-uUHQvK8uDaA_g2FQkrVdNZqC-wWXwBpmoiaVfRc0ybhLSkQb8d7Y23M/s1600-h/Ary_Scheffer_-_Francesca_da_Rimini_en_Paolo_Malatesta_aanschouwd_door_Dante_en_Vergilius_1854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZtrlO7KIrbCveX92tZwdshd7Te30euyRDwyqWhwyX_4GnfhTI-v0xNgfS_baUCL-s_gXbckcP2-zhM6myJE-uUHQvK8uDaA_g2FQkrVdNZqC-wWXwBpmoiaVfRc0ybhLSkQb8d7Y23M/s400/Ary_Scheffer_-_Francesca_da_Rimini_en_Paolo_Malatesta_aanschouwd_door_Dante_en_Vergilius_1854.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ary Scheffer, The Shades of Francesca da Rimini and Paola Malatesta Appearing to Dante and Virgil, 1855</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Let the storm wash the plates. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(last line of Edwin Morgan's 'Strawberries')</span></div><h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading" style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0.5em;"><br />
</h1>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-37633574711279894322010-03-04T18:02:00.007-07:002010-03-05T00:59:39.619-07:00This House believes that politicians shouldn't do God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-W79yl7Wb3RcFDDhintC1u5188kVPRG33ndgfoYzQrnnCu_lL6F5_5OEx3kWefb8pTJYf4RqGMqlcholISkDH5QNLTgfer5jqqgdFPoQgybTm3JQGDZjf4J37hRbRVMBPUifnwWJPLM/s1600-h/images-35.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-W79yl7Wb3RcFDDhintC1u5188kVPRG33ndgfoYzQrnnCu_lL6F5_5OEx3kWefb8pTJYf4RqGMqlcholISkDH5QNLTgfer5jqqgdFPoQgybTm3JQGDZjf4J37hRbRVMBPUifnwWJPLM/s200/images-35.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;">Just home from another Oxford debate--(to generalise) the UK and Europe pity us for our god-laden politics, i.e. even someone as intelligently articulate and socially aware as Obama closes every speech with 'god bless america.' whereas here in the UK, sitting in this debate room, listening to the liberal, brilliantly conscientious nature of even those in opposition to keeping god out of politics, who don't argue that god is something to <span></span>believe in, but that if their politicians believe in god and are thus making their decisions based on superstitions that they want to know it and not have it hidden, thus they want 'politicians to be allowed to do God' and subsequently for them not to be voted in (the whole Tony Blair thing, for instance)--without sitting in this debate room i wouldn't remember that the US was once viewed and admired to be the most tolerant, intelligent nation. & of course w's funding of africa with the stipulation of no contraceptives with the $ (due to his faithful lack of basic tolerance and religious freedom) & resultant increase in HIV in the financed countries was brought up. makes this atheist want to put my head in my hands and say, 'oh lord.' </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBL87ChavOOjJe-jhbwj4yzBAcVXId_uTzx8Hy-3hzOwtDSr8OmYox3K2NJ3MJuzFk6z7PEXGGiucKheGLjix4bnL3TsUGab024x257z81WEN1Ru4-w3WGfqwwwFXeQSxT9afwziBcFo/s1600-h/images-34.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBL87ChavOOjJe-jhbwj4yzBAcVXId_uTzx8Hy-3hzOwtDSr8OmYox3K2NJ3MJuzFk6z7PEXGGiucKheGLjix4bnL3TsUGab024x257z81WEN1Ru4-w3WGfqwwwFXeQSxT9afwziBcFo/s320/images-34.jpeg" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqx312bFBmMzIEgS9vWlQyFzWABZ4G_bqY6T851O4yt1zCDTRz5Ldq1BTDgljhQHkEFOXlfFKHvTDChCgK4vLTPVI0gNQvnAKdp0HNzFDjp0f8MJ0nY-tzNsYGQZluSip8i-pL6O6DSmY/s1600-h/249938826_400x400_Front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqx312bFBmMzIEgS9vWlQyFzWABZ4G_bqY6T851O4yt1zCDTRz5Ldq1BTDgljhQHkEFOXlfFKHvTDChCgK4vLTPVI0gNQvnAKdp0HNzFDjp0f8MJ0nY-tzNsYGQZluSip8i-pL6O6DSmY/s320/249938826_400x400_Front.jpg" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlF7Z-llOc7PWkNHlzRKO0LKHRVZuVAC5UnaIzK5tqbV0GZeOr8p9zz9dTnI976erUVNzorANufYNSQcLy3Uhw2eNRMkGqhm9FYS3i48yaT7xfHvInYxObAVNEPq-kW3lB561sV1MtRQ/s1600-h/images-31.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlF7Z-llOc7PWkNHlzRKO0LKHRVZuVAC5UnaIzK5tqbV0GZeOr8p9zz9dTnI976erUVNzorANufYNSQcLy3Uhw2eNRMkGqhm9FYS3i48yaT7xfHvInYxObAVNEPq-kW3lB561sV1MtRQ/s320/images-31.jpeg" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xBi0IMEEMboP1v6k4GQbYh0PIzmTNbFdi-orRZT9uazDpGETCivUgS07wqtb5WEpj5mK9cYZekSfGOoSc52FYkGm6Mj7C93TinQUlugvFf0mOwEGXtQT7kmLuiSiCCQWX05Ov1k-Lgw/s1600-h/images-30.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xBi0IMEEMboP1v6k4GQbYh0PIzmTNbFdi-orRZT9uazDpGETCivUgS07wqtb5WEpj5mK9cYZekSfGOoSc52FYkGm6Mj7C93TinQUlugvFf0mOwEGXtQT7kmLuiSiCCQWX05Ov1k-Lgw/s320/images-30.jpeg" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;">i feel happy to be here tonight (an ocean away from the US's bizarre religious hegemony), just to know that america's dumbed down, tightly grasping, defensive, proselytizing version of faith isn't representative of a human condition with faith. europe/the uk handles its faith and faith questions quite differently than we do. if the US could first give up thinking of itself as the most progressive nation on the planet, and forcing our kids into dogged devotion to it, we might have the chance of respectable, collective intelligence once again. for now, however, we are sending our US kids to school every morning where they pledge allegiance under one god, where we overlook the fact that not even our liberal president is brave enough to actually separate church and state, and where many of us still have to feel the oppressive pressures of religious fundamentalism forcing prayer at a holiday meal, forcing hand to heart and allegiance to a nation and a god we may or may not believe in to fit in with the group, forcing abortion, sex, etc. to be non-discussable topics between divergent views of it, for instance. oppression is wicked if anything is. i will never understand how christianity (& others) doesn't see this of itself.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnLgbVAyOY-_MXuAbjxXyud7zPMLw3FpRZsN0dMsrrhxMGcgmuSO3KIMJDmHMrWSGWUOu2oGpdUngK3-S8YfFGqZ_jE30eeAiengGSRwylG-xEluu36-cbfbS0aZcDVgtizvOyU2yhIgI/s1600-h/images-33.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnLgbVAyOY-_MXuAbjxXyud7zPMLw3FpRZsN0dMsrrhxMGcgmuSO3KIMJDmHMrWSGWUOu2oGpdUngK3-S8YfFGqZ_jE30eeAiengGSRwylG-xEluu36-cbfbS0aZcDVgtizvOyU2yhIgI/s320/images-33.jpeg" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL8b-J0SnX59a-2R73RbW_0Y9jqhEKD4o2ynD9TIoNhQasg2eMit4ufsOd_cLLuh7ulsiYNyR560ILJqyU0SUVJ5hcpROCOgEDtU-Hk6y0OCDVKDcdgT_NI2F7Pn7TsCd0TO7KwG8mzhc/s1600-h/where-is-my-mummy-lost-in-the-tar-shales-of-friday-group-prayer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL8b-J0SnX59a-2R73RbW_0Y9jqhEKD4o2ynD9TIoNhQasg2eMit4ufsOd_cLLuh7ulsiYNyR560ILJqyU0SUVJ5hcpROCOgEDtU-Hk6y0OCDVKDcdgT_NI2F7Pn7TsCd0TO7KwG8mzhc/s320/where-is-my-mummy-lost-in-the-tar-shales-of-friday-group-prayer.jpg" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;">i for one feel readily willing to acknowledge that we, the US, have slid into some barbarianism, and all of us that shrug it off as we pay with our 'in god we trust' money each day, etc. endorse a lowering glass ceiling, even for those that do trust in 'god'. for if we are to see those with faith as intelligible versus superstitious, they must begin to demonstrate an awareness and humanitarian tolerance that theirs isn't the only approach to being human in this complex world of finding meaning. those of faith that profess a love for their neighbor, should be the foremost advocates against forcing others into their faith. this approach would reflect actual wisdom, love, and compassion toward their fellow humans in contrast to what has always been done--heavy-handed oppression and coercion so that people will either cower and fake it, or will give up something they held dear out of fear, guilt, pressure. it almost makes me sad for christianity when i see it in this manipulative way--like the bully on the playground who never has any true friends.</span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj69oT4Q1SFWkScmURDti_Y4NtUz9doTwYm9Hu9dJtXme1GzdaFQo9azd7L7tb69ALiiSC6GImpGNyfkK_beKDKrfqBA0s4cAJqhTFiwuIbAjhU0Bt6w7xkzCNhRlnSLFyzOdM5MdbLfgM/s1600-h/images-32.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj69oT4Q1SFWkScmURDti_Y4NtUz9doTwYm9Hu9dJtXme1GzdaFQo9azd7L7tb69ALiiSC6GImpGNyfkK_beKDKrfqBA0s4cAJqhTFiwuIbAjhU0Bt6w7xkzCNhRlnSLFyzOdM5MdbLfgM/s320/images-32.jpeg" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1CjnbVqzq1ReEUgi7UuZPb97ZNreXus0S-p_uH3fjDwf8uqFPQ-3nzlM5VRSKEqrzyJMBRvi9aSnD-MCJgP5xwWMpuaJFy4dH5eDCaIgwif_zAMIQIN7xidakOYwJzqO_WwbvGLMoYI/s1600-h/0w-Pieta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1CjnbVqzq1ReEUgi7UuZPb97ZNreXus0S-p_uH3fjDwf8uqFPQ-3nzlM5VRSKEqrzyJMBRvi9aSnD-MCJgP5xwWMpuaJFy4dH5eDCaIgwif_zAMIQIN7xidakOYwJzqO_WwbvGLMoYI/s320/0w-Pieta.jpg" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;">i, with the majority here tonight, walked out the door that said "Aye." "Aye, this house believes that politicians shouldn't do god," and by politicians I mean anyone who has sway over anyone else. Faith should be a private matter and not a coercive, guilt-laden tactic of interacting with other humans. I daresay it would be beautiful for all faiths to evolve continually as we discover our various blindspots, intrusions, and oppressions, as it seems to me these thirteen bishops in the UK who just this week endorsed gay marriage demonstrate as a possibility, or the chaplain in an Oxford University chapel who is openly gay with a partner in a town that brings it up with pride at its debate hall. Cheers to the UK as a nation I admire more and more as I get to know it. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj1pk19hqqG4LmMPsfAgo7WYqSSe80BP7rr9UiXot7LVobpxnEHweJsTZSv6DTB79-5MGfkweU6mRXbjMTMV4Vadmr-7wDJNJofJgh7FkjsIHf0ffCl6Sz-WtUlryVYUE_3y7rf18DMfY/s1600-h/bizarro_atheists.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #eeeeee;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj1pk19hqqG4LmMPsfAgo7WYqSSe80BP7rr9UiXot7LVobpxnEHweJsTZSv6DTB79-5MGfkweU6mRXbjMTMV4Vadmr-7wDJNJofJgh7FkjsIHf0ffCl6Sz-WtUlryVYUE_3y7rf18DMfY/s320/bizarro_atheists.jpg" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-43990897270373254312010-03-02T13:07:00.134-07:002010-03-05T02:48:24.826-07:00The Reading List Today at the Union Society Library<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsAR4bsTjF3rDXqa16Ah6mjyp1ULCBAGEVwd4hLq8KxuEsSPslEBy1PU18LemkZ-tTgDkMXqZkWmpZQ4HYrcMTF3R4sDxqstDfAlYE2KKvRrA-yeN8eAkWUkMMr36sLm8yhIbUYhq6XuA/s1600-h/Sabine+at+Union+Society+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsAR4bsTjF3rDXqa16Ah6mjyp1ULCBAGEVwd4hLq8KxuEsSPslEBy1PU18LemkZ-tTgDkMXqZkWmpZQ4HYrcMTF3R4sDxqstDfAlYE2KKvRrA-yeN8eAkWUkMMr36sLm8yhIbUYhq6XuA/s400/Sabine+at+Union+Society+pic.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My Reading List for Hilary Term (since January 15)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(any not read in their entirety have been left off this list)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">**not bragging (on the contrary, as it is a bit like revealing a heroin habit), but am just listing for posterity & to let you know what I've been up to & perhaps give you the backdrop on the restraint/unrestraint from previous blog post**:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>A Room of One's Own</i>, Virginia Woolf</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>A Writer's Diary</i>, Virginia Woolf</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Waves</i>, Virginia Woolf</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Woolf's Servants Get Their Due," Anna Mundow</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #1 (tutorial 1) on Woolf </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Lectures on the Philosophy of World History</i>, Hegel</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Hegel</i>, Peter Singer</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #1 (tutorial 2) on Hegel</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Jude the Obscure</i>, Thomas Hardy</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"A Distinctly Modern Novel," Howe Irving</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Jude the Obscure as a Tragedy," Arthur Mizener</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy</i>, Dale Kramer</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography</i>, Paul Turner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #2 (tutorial 1) on Hardy</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Theses on Feuerbach," Karl Marx</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"The German Ideology: Part One," Karl Marx</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Intro," Karl Marx</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Preface to a Critique of Political Economy," Karl Marx</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Marx</i>, Peter Singer</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Marxist Literary Theories," David Forgacs (<i>Modern Literary Theory</i>)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #2 (tutorial 2) on Marx</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Lord Jim</i>, Joseph Conrad</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Early Modernism</i>, Christopher Butler</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper," Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #3 (tutorial 1) on Conrad</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"The Death of the Author," Barthes (Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"What is an Author," Foucault</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Order of Discourse</i>, Foucault</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Archaeology of Knowledge,</i> Foucault (Intro)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Postmodern Condition</i>, Lyotard (Intro)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Universal History and Cultural Differences," Lyotard</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Postmodern Explained to Children</i>, Lyotard</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity...</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #3 (tutorial 2) on Universal History</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</i>, James Joyce</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ma</i>n, John Blades</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Cambridge Companion to James Joyce,</i> Derek Altridge</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #4 (tutorial 1) on Joyce</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>North and South</i>, Elizabeth Gaskell</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Murphy,</i> Samuel Beckett</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Three Dialogues," Samuel Beckett and Georges Duthuit</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett, </i>Hugh Kenner</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Art of the Novel, </i>Milan Kundera</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #5 (tutorial 1) on Beckett</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Women in Love</i>, D.H. Lawrence</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Good Soldier</i>, Ford Maddox Ford</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">final essay #6 (tutorial 1) on Ford</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The History of Sexuality,</i> Foucault</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Greenblatt Reader,</i> Stephen Greenblatt</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The New Historicism</i>, Veeser</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Practicing New Historicism</i>, Gallagher & Greenblatt</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">essay #4 (tutorial 2) on New Historicism</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Disgrac</i>e, J.M. Coetzee</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">four+ theory books on eco-criticism (tbc),</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and one final essay</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(for tutorial 2)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">=</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">really tired eyes (particularly the left one),</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">a sleep-deprived manic,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">an insatiable mind smiling,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">all requirements fulfilled for my BA in English lit. March 12, 2010</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-72489773416818158772010-02-26T03:51:00.009-07:002010-03-01T02:59:40.660-07:00The Oxford Narrative (or, What the World Looks Like If You Spend Your Days at the Bodleian and Your Nights at the Oxford Union For 9 Weeks Without Reprieve)<div class="MsoNormal">the laces are only tightened so severely in Oxford, criss crossing up the back, along the neural pathways, in the approach to essay writing or text interpretation or debate tactics or attire so that they can be released more completely with one sharp slice, directing one’s mind (with the swiftness of aufspritzen/ejaculation/a rocket) down neural corridors that it hadn’t seen before, that hadn’t been there before. the Oxbridge sex blog, underwear at busstops, "the pull," macabre bicycle seats like limbs and body parts in the bushes, oscar wilde’s sweeping of velvet in the wind that blows down cobblestoned alleys, dorian grey in every lowered lash, in between the lines of every theatre production, the physics student with a quill and red ink spilled at the bodleian, and the distraction of undone collars. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">one is released from everything at oxford. one doesn’t have to smile. one can forego pats on the back for nicking the knife edge to the laces of one’s comrades. one is released from the everyday niceties in favor of argument, even the niceties of everyday banter for ripping debate that takes on the form of being brought to one’s knees by a wave of the hand and a bold, ‘no thank you.’ one is released from the nervous, isolation-oriented, how are you, i'm fine, so busy, so great, neuroses of the modern gaze, to find eyes to be direct and smolderingly-confrontational, everyone smoldering, or with bothered indifference that your smoldering or your misunderstanding is like a fly in their butter, or a twist in their lace, but still they look on with intrigue. one can be, think, act in any way at all, so long as it is truly leading to the epitome of the unrestrained, in the way that one knows restraint, precision, resolve, determination, discipline, utter withholding of basic needs like sleep, and then at some exact moment opts to cut the corset up the back, and revel in the unrestrained one can only feel in oxford. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">some say oxford lives in a bubble, that it hasn’t come into the 21<sup>st</sup> century from the 16<sup>th</sup>, but it seems those people haven’t walked its corridors, stood in its debate rotunda, read its house-bound books, walked its spiral staircases, eavesdropped on its conversations, slunk along its puke-ridden alleys in heels, haven’t tightened the laces and sharpened the blade, or they would know that the bubble oxford dwells in is something not archaic/outdated but is a humanity that has followed a different branch from what one thinks of as our current collective state. encompassing all that humanity has ever been, holding it in the palm, aware intoxicatingly, precisely, unrestrainedly of what it is the palm holds, that it is crushable, that it is delicate, that it is kissable, that it is meaningless, that it is indestructible, that everything depends upon it, and then lifting it to warm, swollen lips to press against it so that the breath pushes out of it in agony, only to take a gasp of deepest inhale after in sweet repose. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">oxford is raw genius and human wildness smoldering as it laces and unlaces, and frightens the rest of humanity that might stop in for the weekend if they look closely enough to see they are finding a version of humanity that subscribes to a different narrative than one can find elsewhere, as if it is some non-mythical, rawer avalon, athens, atlantis, the stuff of literature, arias, paintings resides here still, the renaissance yet to die off beneath the cement, plastic, wifi, facebook one-liners we've been asked to contend with elsewhere. it is frightening enough to call the lacing and unlacing one will find here a bubble. it is intoxicating enough to cling to it and weep for having to walk out its gates. or it can also just look nice in a photograph, ‘I went to oxford, here I am standing beside an ancient college where the smartest of the smart have studied for centuries in the smartest of smart attire.’ if only the lacing could be conveyed in such pictures, and the smoldering, and the sound of laces being cut with one deft maneuver, as neural pathways aren’t all that’s released, in every room, under every archway, at every busstop, along every press of lips, and in every gaze that undoes the thought that it takes a 4.0 to get in here and money. it takes a willingness to hold one’s breath, to put a foot on the dresser to pull more tightly against that which wants to be lax, and to stow a sharpened blade along your inner thigh. that’s what it takes to get into oxford. and by get into, i mean understand.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">and of course there is the afternoon tea and scones if that is simply too much on occasion, or altogether.<br />
<br />
(and this is just a post about a particularly prevalent thread woven through a town that has many other threads, i've not lost touch entirely, nor have i become a dorian grey, nor a reveler in surety, don't worry)</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-32741451663490083452010-02-23T17:22:00.003-07:002010-02-24T03:10:11.551-07:00A few photos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxyDGBjflt3TatLn46rz7r4Up-yY-c0tRb-TZGiQR6RP7biMeY79iCnLr72hS31WJW1R0kHAq4Yc11a6xyOd2yFx0AVQvuTQnRNulVAIcS4N-51yOS5mDbIQsJVu7Kxh0XVmOIAFSud_s/s1600-h/P1000253.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxyDGBjflt3TatLn46rz7r4Up-yY-c0tRb-TZGiQR6RP7biMeY79iCnLr72hS31WJW1R0kHAq4Yc11a6xyOd2yFx0AVQvuTQnRNulVAIcS4N-51yOS5mDbIQsJVu7Kxh0XVmOIAFSud_s/s320/P1000253.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Naya at a pub (The Mitre) in Oxford with hot chocolate & scones</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">chatting with her friends Jade & Ella (in Whitefish) on the phone</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-BNrRAkm9CDf9EVdlhtktZ1an4haHZ9xEPBrAF-byJGCSYrKf1g-VHc0P611TxQfutR16AAW3rBXx7lQz6JZUiMhtLy2jTkGfvBGxduS9prcPxR_smn5EKL7vFj0R2NfiLP6pVcXpQpg/s1600-h/P1000057.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-BNrRAkm9CDf9EVdlhtktZ1an4haHZ9xEPBrAF-byJGCSYrKf1g-VHc0P611TxQfutR16AAW3rBXx7lQz6JZUiMhtLy2jTkGfvBGxduS9prcPxR_smn5EKL7vFj0R2NfiLP6pVcXpQpg/s320/P1000057.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Naya at the Rollright Stone Circle north of Oxford</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkoJEonKJ0tiorOnP3NT6kwEbw6Cddqen_BMmTVAiG4fHzZCP2UjS-1kwGMVnMSH1PyIBpfi4L2PxsBfV1y7xM9g8LAxMdDJPGw-m7P86RVeeZm8X8-FwL061G0kgQcfDFMIs6cHJTMNE/s1600-h/P1000214.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkoJEonKJ0tiorOnP3NT6kwEbw6Cddqen_BMmTVAiG4fHzZCP2UjS-1kwGMVnMSH1PyIBpfi4L2PxsBfV1y7xM9g8LAxMdDJPGw-m7P86RVeeZm8X8-FwL061G0kgQcfDFMIs6cHJTMNE/s320/P1000214.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Common bird here that I'd never seen before--the Coot</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEI-rPSrykqMmOR_FGDmBs49uRHh_g7fNIsFhlHUIbkAcdhEJszT2gMDuA5ZkzOig8EL2do-7sw1-t5RiGtUJNyCb4lFL-tbi8vhKNe0fdbDelIN4ZS0rww2GBzz3-U-0llYzlpPRu8U/s1600-h/P1000291.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEI-rPSrykqMmOR_FGDmBs49uRHh_g7fNIsFhlHUIbkAcdhEJszT2gMDuA5ZkzOig8EL2do-7sw1-t5RiGtUJNyCb4lFL-tbi8vhKNe0fdbDelIN4ZS0rww2GBzz3-U-0llYzlpPRu8U/s320/P1000291.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The "Old Library" in the Oxford Union Society where I've been studying the last few days, </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">an elitist alternative to the Bodleian,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">as if one needed more than the Bodleian.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycUws9FWRjpGlsXMNCW2VjJ3XyBlI7pKdhfGw79Ir-3AjfsX7wmNrcijSUp8g5g9tElxjGJS4oBMT0c15HFZdBw6JMqEjroV9sXvfsKLdoijaGZPfK6ei8BR-9U6A3fdwhtlXqMbzj00/s1600-h/P1000282.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycUws9FWRjpGlsXMNCW2VjJ3XyBlI7pKdhfGw79Ir-3AjfsX7wmNrcijSUp8g5g9tElxjGJS4oBMT0c15HFZdBw6JMqEjroV9sXvfsKLdoijaGZPfK6ei8BR-9U6A3fdwhtlXqMbzj00/s320/P1000282.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Naya and my mom in one of the Bodleian's courtyards</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq0Nyw5H1TT4IIemiajSkidLRUrTEhBaGWpYI8hiMe2uDddSgXt486Gw0-Ep0Xl-LyrsePmon3tIZ1hWnXN4koi84j3pbT919-lSV9ZBaQtbp4JUprNTLEI-Qf5_ACVslKLgOOyAxpyHg/s1600-h/P1000272.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq0Nyw5H1TT4IIemiajSkidLRUrTEhBaGWpYI8hiMe2uDddSgXt486Gw0-Ep0Xl-LyrsePmon3tIZ1hWnXN4koi84j3pbT919-lSV9ZBaQtbp4JUprNTLEI-Qf5_ACVslKLgOOyAxpyHg/s320/P1000272.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The entrance I use to enter the Bodleian, where most of the English lit. is</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghtnIadS7UECfgwxhNFecOp0lPEQMjsLW2GUmX1CYmMs4EtyrZU6OxWvyUNJTSrJ0zFE02R2f9u_AJb5gCemylQP-kpSPSR2FRVUzqYj6XYeQUq4V0svSk1LsfPPljhDyyiQIAxw9ogUA/s1600-h/P1000203.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghtnIadS7UECfgwxhNFecOp0lPEQMjsLW2GUmX1CYmMs4EtyrZU6OxWvyUNJTSrJ0zFE02R2f9u_AJb5gCemylQP-kpSPSR2FRVUzqYj6XYeQUq4V0svSk1LsfPPljhDyyiQIAxw9ogUA/s320/P1000203.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A walkway on the Christ Church grounds taken this weekend on a beautifully spring-like day</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0AdOdhlfd5EdtdyZn8ErrW_YIxk5CzVDcwg_rY0jvyAeIe9e3z0rJOIW9MQVWGO84wnJbxKVXMJazv8BfhF3abIAESqCFeDLieWcoQ73iJ8dzoleMO72Zcsd7cDpG1AZQM2NsNA31fDA/s1600-h/P1000086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0AdOdhlfd5EdtdyZn8ErrW_YIxk5CzVDcwg_rY0jvyAeIe9e3z0rJOIW9MQVWGO84wnJbxKVXMJazv8BfhF3abIAESqCFeDLieWcoQ73iJ8dzoleMO72Zcsd7cDpG1AZQM2NsNA31fDA/s320/P1000086.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">On a recent walk in the Cotswolds (Lower Slaughter to Upper Slaughter)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTSQixz9_8rbfiT4HHwsF61kf0lCifwaAz2igbjig8kejqFtpsxeuvzAHqgjjJq0gsxU3oEKcuwxt0WFKIrvfmQ3dQjyG3yD4yY0Y5KckqRj0hjYvfSvJvhsvvSrWBncuYTjUvADuKJzk/s1600-h/P1000124.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTSQixz9_8rbfiT4HHwsF61kf0lCifwaAz2igbjig8kejqFtpsxeuvzAHqgjjJq0gsxU3oEKcuwxt0WFKIrvfmQ3dQjyG3yD4yY0Y5KckqRj0hjYvfSvJvhsvvSrWBncuYTjUvADuKJzk/s320/P1000124.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Naya and Opa at brunch in the Christ Church dining hall</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjdUWBOknmWyobT8Iu7cPpnaSaMXvsqKf3Ozw1Cdlv9faZw07OxZ5LRMvkQ1pba4HmMU4RWrAhBCLo0dYTCqmZ-ENfBLl76EUIxinm7kG0iuTUijHemWew5jtnDw3P99KiI6wqW6sUVcc/s1600-h/P1000059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjdUWBOknmWyobT8Iu7cPpnaSaMXvsqKf3Ozw1Cdlv9faZw07OxZ5LRMvkQ1pba4HmMU4RWrAhBCLo0dYTCqmZ-ENfBLl76EUIxinm7kG0iuTUijHemWew5jtnDw3P99KiI6wqW6sUVcc/s320/P1000059.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">At the Rollright Stone Circle</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEBqYehdYDLmUvUQxh9uqxybmr5jxIjr4COYV6ZOhCp6dxCycHksRAh3_Zh5nSLxpAMUWm9baBB9di6mvgnM7tHXVXNfYuHhenHvPOP_Z8CoYuP9I5Q7BU1WS7NO3SnczOVuG1xAc8F8/s1600-h/P1000237.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEBqYehdYDLmUvUQxh9uqxybmr5jxIjr4COYV6ZOhCp6dxCycHksRAh3_Zh5nSLxpAMUWm9baBB9di6mvgnM7tHXVXNfYuHhenHvPOP_Z8CoYuP9I5Q7BU1WS7NO3SnczOVuG1xAc8F8/s320/P1000237.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In the Christ Church courtyard ("Tom quad")</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEHtr_Jd4RhPmDofi-L0vsdKJleL8Hal7jb727ZZ802OdavgVdFraw22BUEEwfLoWFzrrFglV9peL3pzLaxwAHT-KlXkkwofkv1IzlgF5gr98AZOSoVvPHzjAg4T6m1b2dD0oXD270FE/s1600-h/P1000262.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEHtr_Jd4RhPmDofi-L0vsdKJleL8Hal7jb727ZZ802OdavgVdFraw22BUEEwfLoWFzrrFglV9peL3pzLaxwAHT-KlXkkwofkv1IzlgF5gr98AZOSoVvPHzjAg4T6m1b2dD0oXD270FE/s320/P1000262.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">One of the Oxford colleges (Hertford)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> at sunset this weekend</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I can't stand the idea of these being memories I look back upon, so much do I love the living of it. We have one month left here & then will spend April in Paris with some side trips to Baden-Baden, Vienna, Prague...</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-5972170479052283182010-02-19T19:52:00.006-07:002010-03-01T18:18:49.212-07:00hell, to me, is being surrounded by suretyI am curious what narrative you dwell in?<br />
<br />
(because I've spent the last four days intertwined with an aspect of this question in every manner of scenario as I've been studying postmodernism--Lyotard in my second floor bed on Wytham Street with Italians spoken in the background, Foucault at the Bodleian, seat #207, Lyotard at a cafe filled with professors and students bantering, Lyotard at the Bodleian, seat #402, Foucault at the busstop, Lyotard for eight hours straight, Lyotard tucked under my arm to keep him out of the rain, Foucault like chinese water torture spread out in timed intervals, just when I think I can't handle anymore, there Foucault is again tapping for my attention because I hadn't even read half of what'd been assigned yet).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4toQAihJY9lnGUX9YyaSMOrzn6wk-Bg4lMQc9c3bCF0QqMkclL1ZIaeOrnN5cVkOpGFGNmfpISHeMXYxCd6ZTx-hC4cWjbff3Kw7sUCsgv_kGgVLQKCCEQK2UEs4R-X8xw-6buE6I9E/s1600-h/images-22.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4toQAihJY9lnGUX9YyaSMOrzn6wk-Bg4lMQc9c3bCF0QqMkclL1ZIaeOrnN5cVkOpGFGNmfpISHeMXYxCd6ZTx-hC4cWjbff3Kw7sUCsgv_kGgVLQKCCEQK2UEs4R-X8xw-6buE6I9E/s320/images-22.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiif85LHdr28jfEVM56RgMhATZD0VlsJO0aT4VzUsfW0GmKKwtR84HGrm7mrmjBTfpdeLLf9fDJFK3dcMqUn-ST8W0y1vp5b7b4WZJio0xSWMazIHg1wauzxPs1xkrJ7Sx-knVnKauoBG4/s1600-h/The+Blessed+Virgin+Mary,+Baby+Jesus,+and+the+Angels1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiif85LHdr28jfEVM56RgMhATZD0VlsJO0aT4VzUsfW0GmKKwtR84HGrm7mrmjBTfpdeLLf9fDJFK3dcMqUn-ST8W0y1vp5b7b4WZJio0xSWMazIHg1wauzxPs1xkrJ7Sx-knVnKauoBG4/s320/The+Blessed+Virgin+Mary,+Baby+Jesus,+and+the+Angels1.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Sorry, I digress, so to be more plain by asking what narrative you dwell in, I mean what story do you tell yourself or those around you of the way the world has unfolded, is unfolding, will unfold? As in, how do you make sense of your place in the complexity of life and the world (of postmodern life in the postmodern world)? (Please please post below, as I genuinely genuinely want to know because it is interesting, but also because I want to know your interior more thoroughly.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpsU3FOwjrCJs2R-iog_UhgnwUgRoNTM2EyqREbLWRvVSs7xfzrSgEJhKNVEGTcp9_7r4j6tweYT0U3Yw1b5b8yaZXB1qxKf0000750mSvoUksC-ntDwshRD6hRQ4a0TkEStyMHuaJfE/s1600-h/images-21.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpsU3FOwjrCJs2R-iog_UhgnwUgRoNTM2EyqREbLWRvVSs7xfzrSgEJhKNVEGTcp9_7r4j6tweYT0U3Yw1b5b8yaZXB1qxKf0000750mSvoUksC-ntDwshRD6hRQ4a0TkEStyMHuaJfE/s320/images-21.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRbfu1L0dP93fpy8UyU2OjanM4nurfRc5ypnQ6BqD_EzvwCImRDarFUTTjhHeB5MAcjRRNGUpoPjr8EkfbGHikoQnqB1EX5z2NP-laaPzLe7TJZ7WuLH2CxwMLUHGF_yb8h4A35E9hkA/s1600-h/realism_painter_corbert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRbfu1L0dP93fpy8UyU2OjanM4nurfRc5ypnQ6BqD_EzvwCImRDarFUTTjhHeB5MAcjRRNGUpoPjr8EkfbGHikoQnqB1EX5z2NP-laaPzLe7TJZ7WuLH2CxwMLUHGF_yb8h4A35E9hkA/s320/realism_painter_corbert.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
To be yet more plain, when you look at your life, or your niche/passion/career, or the way you interact with people, the way you parent, the way you love, or the way of history, or humanity, in what way do you see it? Is it progressively stacking? Progressively unfolding? Does it have an overarching meaningfulness? Is it a speck amid chaos, nonlinear, without purpose, without meaning? Or are you one that tells yourself the narrative that the time for believing in purpose is past? Or are you free of even contemplating the world in this delineating way? Or are you indifferent altogether and ready to hop off this tiresome blog post (I won't at all hold it against you, as one should mostly listen to one's needs--argh, narrative!)?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLW9tUbwkTEc6WOgoNrNmZJaapnm8hdSzR9qy-_fWK63GFKgBAFBmsubW8FYOfNBOXgq4te6b6IJ3oUiFggCTMO_aqeQCpnIm_5T0nQiFZVgugPg6bi5hS35mPoaL5XPcsdpTfmKxjeA/s1600-h/chalkgirls01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLW9tUbwkTEc6WOgoNrNmZJaapnm8hdSzR9qy-_fWK63GFKgBAFBmsubW8FYOfNBOXgq4te6b6IJ3oUiFggCTMO_aqeQCpnIm_5T0nQiFZVgugPg6bi5hS35mPoaL5XPcsdpTfmKxjeA/s320/chalkgirls01.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ73NvTwH4KmTmF33AtNzGTeUf0M9omwDd_wsO-FbMxlaQoR-1xmaXU9ezaJICoDJ8zdUKmcl3RBxULHMoMhzhMX48TfJWc8si2DfjV0jQ27cuHylpuFIpWtHmXzH7NBy_5HVHyNl3X4E/s1600-h/elizabeth_i_002a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ73NvTwH4KmTmF33AtNzGTeUf0M9omwDd_wsO-FbMxlaQoR-1xmaXU9ezaJICoDJ8zdUKmcl3RBxULHMoMhzhMX48TfJWc8si2DfjV0jQ27cuHylpuFIpWtHmXzH7NBy_5HVHyNl3X4E/s320/elizabeth_i_002a.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
I personally have dwelt (do dwell) in one particular story-telling narrative, for as long as I can remember, where I see the world's purpose (and by the world's I mean my purpose, but also the purpose of interaction, the purpose of literature/art, the purpose of education from kindergarten to oxford) to be the removal of ever more hindering layers, the removal of ever more blindspots and assumptions, to expand and push at the edges of intellect and emotional intelligence, and to move ever closer to some thorough version of brilliance for ever increasing numbers of humanity, whereby someday we might collectively stop acting and thinking on behalf of these blindspots, assumptions, and copious layers, and might once and for all act and think from some truer/less encumbered/more brilliant/softer/kinder part of ourselves.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIXCPEVc_SXsN1ebQo17RyoAn2a-FFD0jwQhkK0TwvfT7E3SQpcDAnGzIkRYNwQNLRV9_HR-eeS2Bz-z0Lr5l5hFxGxZQy1RRM5pJzfnlw4nI-o6qo9mgygkWB3zjtM5HoRV6FRFfQ6g/s1600-h/mnb1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIXCPEVc_SXsN1ebQo17RyoAn2a-FFD0jwQhkK0TwvfT7E3SQpcDAnGzIkRYNwQNLRV9_HR-eeS2Bz-z0Lr5l5hFxGxZQy1RRM5pJzfnlw4nI-o6qo9mgygkWB3zjtM5HoRV6FRFfQ6g/s320/mnb1.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
In my narrative, the human world aims (through its art, philosophy, academia, and literature in particular; but even in its ecological mvmts, human rights developments, etc.) to arrive to its finest, its least held back, its most brilliant. I see it everywhere to the point that it is amazing that five weeks of heavy-petting of the pages of modernist novels and postmodernist theory books can undo a lifetime of surety when prodded by two genius professors: namely, that my narrative can be undone & I can step back (at least in moments) from my narrative and look at it and set it down. And even more I can admit that what to me has seemed very genius and brilliant on my part is actually something dealt with much more thoroughly millennia ago. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Rq9F7vfCKqJmI_qrcSPGLTUM1NDSQRxoOomY98zW1JdxSNvd40RnUq0ZUspH3BdrENJOIRVtCFVOf5Fe06M_VIV37rQYBqUbC15VCYwg73mW3qoR2QiRgntI8DDWcJyU2hffKLX_ED4/s1600-h/love-squared-a-cubist-wedding-theme-0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Rq9F7vfCKqJmI_qrcSPGLTUM1NDSQRxoOomY98zW1JdxSNvd40RnUq0ZUspH3BdrENJOIRVtCFVOf5Fe06M_VIV37rQYBqUbC15VCYwg73mW3qoR2QiRgntI8DDWcJyU2hffKLX_ED4/s320/love-squared-a-cubist-wedding-theme-0.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjJEN9aN9wHvOb5C-5FLF315zMZielXsmrtbSKdzDJDu6ZX1V86YAKfOAwN3g31dx8HH-sjac-efBtkW-X9cZioTtgXwENS-TX74CC-VyBFyjh4LAaMIE6XmhbkO3rvA-EbJojZiwbX8/s1600-h/images-16.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjJEN9aN9wHvOb5C-5FLF315zMZielXsmrtbSKdzDJDu6ZX1V86YAKfOAwN3g31dx8HH-sjac-efBtkW-X9cZioTtgXwENS-TX74CC-VyBFyjh4LAaMIE6XmhbkO3rvA-EbJojZiwbX8/s320/images-16.jpeg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Some examples of narratives that humanity has told/ is telling itself: 1) the Christian narrative (certainly we could insert a Muslim narrative, and a Buddhist narrative, an atheist's narrative, etc. here as well) that seeks comfort and surety by assuring us that faith means that nothing permanently bad will happen to us because solid infinity awaits if we will only aim the gaze over the heads of those around us, up and out, heavenward; 2) the 'narrative of emancipation from ignorance and servitude thanks to knowledge' (Socrates, Plato, Kant, Hegel, (S.Brigette), etc.); 3) 'the Marxist narrative of emancipation from exploitation and alienation'; 4) 'the capitalist narrative of emancipation from poverty through technical and industrial development'; 5) the narrative I see in <i>abundance</i> in Whitefish/the liberal US is the abundance/mindfulness narrative--that angst and humanity's ancient sorrows and neuroses can be fixed if we are simply present with ourselves, our breathing, our blessings; 6) the postmodern scholarly narrative that there is no narrative, no unity, no cohesiveness, no objective that is universal except that, oops, now we are telling the narrative of no narratives; 7) the neo-religious narrative (modern Christian, yogi, new age, pscyhotherapy, otherwise)--that is almost precisely the same as narrative #1 except that it doesn't know it. (this is by no means meant to be comprehensive & the quotes above are from Lyotard). <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQWyTCAYaaw3mLo6pAzCRyy97ZI16JaYtf21wLn27-GgXB2Zk2j9NLxmSqI7DgorbB2LfrGVCAbn9XNuG3HEboIhfCIXExORGagHXvu4f55-KBrtbXwC6fXOv6OBR6va4QAhyU78ht5k/s1600-h/images-15.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQWyTCAYaaw3mLo6pAzCRyy97ZI16JaYtf21wLn27-GgXB2Zk2j9NLxmSqI7DgorbB2LfrGVCAbn9XNuG3HEboIhfCIXExORGagHXvu4f55-KBrtbXwC6fXOv6OBR6va4QAhyU78ht5k/s320/images-15.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JjqPJE4zWFFeSeQqtQsDIRZlClfVfp9bOfHnNFgEkjP5KPatlz3DMpVdiThSY45gjDZOe9i5G5D-ZQlyzCAWZ57uHHoDVmDwLMInSjPA4ItU1X5EAIp1re9e0rXyytqiYJCjlp2OSww/s1600-h/10401-judith-beheading-holofernes-artemisia-gentileschi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JjqPJE4zWFFeSeQqtQsDIRZlClfVfp9bOfHnNFgEkjP5KPatlz3DMpVdiThSY45gjDZOe9i5G5D-ZQlyzCAWZ57uHHoDVmDwLMInSjPA4ItU1X5EAIp1re9e0rXyytqiYJCjlp2OSww/s320/10401-judith-beheading-holofernes-artemisia-gentileschi.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
I'm rambling on about this (& sorry for the slightly edgy tone on some of the above) because unfortunately I still believe in my narrative (and apparently I am still untangling myself from Lyotard and Foucault). In my narrative if we <b>notice</b> that we are operating under layers and heavy assumptions it counts for a whole lot more than being oblivious to those layers and assumptions, or even outright denying that they are removable ideologies. So I ask you to consider your narrative, I suppose, in the hope that the world will be a slightly less opaque place if we take on this exercise together. Though I am fairly sure that this goal, and my narrative, of making the world less opaque, is as impossible and implausible as any other unifying goal for something so vastly complex and non-unifiable as life and humanity.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68y-mZzMS86W0YRo-LsZgF9wmp43JNZ912V-AKFVOZplEwtr8csPhqJTTvpdCjz6qEB63wlpQQokCScbiFSgiCVMOsq4YQSWK4-njZXuHs4rsKAocsje6GEld_v9NMVcKPVi5NCd8FOA/s1600-h/images-24.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68y-mZzMS86W0YRo-LsZgF9wmp43JNZ912V-AKFVOZplEwtr8csPhqJTTvpdCjz6qEB63wlpQQokCScbiFSgiCVMOsq4YQSWK4-njZXuHs4rsKAocsje6GEld_v9NMVcKPVi5NCd8FOA/s320/images-24.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhddQ6ftIZClGS9mMebzvbxLmolwV0Xsd83c8WpJoVX94bh1Z_svMYkAFutNeE-K_URd6BP7I3VFjTmLsdMZHnjYukX3iI2sxB7eULe5Quulv-1nJoqZn27ZYdoneBDAQFXw_-f4yZ95Ts/s1600-h/images-25.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhddQ6ftIZClGS9mMebzvbxLmolwV0Xsd83c8WpJoVX94bh1Z_svMYkAFutNeE-K_URd6BP7I3VFjTmLsdMZHnjYukX3iI2sxB7eULe5Quulv-1nJoqZn27ZYdoneBDAQFXw_-f4yZ95Ts/s320/images-25.jpeg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Perhaps even more than all I've just said, my point is to clear up the reason that my face gets a bit cloudy and I sigh when people around me speak of their narratives like they are real. Imagine then the beautiful humility I felt today when my professor's face clouded over a bit and he sighed because before him was someone (me) who spoke of her (my) narrative unknowingly as if it were a real force in the world whilst defending part of my paper. I love that Oxford makes me acknowledge my blindspots with a rigor and swiftness that I've heard many people say (another narrative, no doubt) can only be accomplished with an intimate relationship where you are plainly mirrored for what you are and what you aren't by another who won't look away. (Turns out, like all narratives, that this is untrue, we can be mirrored by a vast number of things beyond partnership.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX4WPrQkmqYWJS92q2PkUUfY6BYx136avi8isLVZsWSk0WvesWKmO2lgZcyrPokMn4Rkm04drQSqD6-ON6dK2O55SeyQXsUjeXkNYLroMVrGEcLoNkp1KYX5gsGuTc1wmtnFzb6bHrTqY/s1600-h/alg_freud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX4WPrQkmqYWJS92q2PkUUfY6BYx136avi8isLVZsWSk0WvesWKmO2lgZcyrPokMn4Rkm04drQSqD6-ON6dK2O55SeyQXsUjeXkNYLroMVrGEcLoNkp1KYX5gsGuTc1wmtnFzb6bHrTqY/s320/alg_freud.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkesmmaUySdDJVMt0d30e8foPLf1T4FfgCwKLXM_n-Y189HZ1eeOjX3ZE94nQPJHjXwqvMS3_d98Y2xYuf1Nu62YRA0IuSLOa2jbOlxdJ8F9f87gBG2ol5uh0u6nJw1YbW4zwdz5aLN0/s1600-h/images-23.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkesmmaUySdDJVMt0d30e8foPLf1T4FfgCwKLXM_n-Y189HZ1eeOjX3ZE94nQPJHjXwqvMS3_d98Y2xYuf1Nu62YRA0IuSLOa2jbOlxdJ8F9f87gBG2ol5uh0u6nJw1YbW4zwdz5aLN0/s320/images-23.jpeg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
I hope that all of you who read this post will find that if we acknowledge these stories we operate in, and try to look at them together, we can be even greater/more thorough friends than we are now when we silently disagree, or moodily cloud over, or judge, or fawn over, or avoid certain subjects, or talk about the surface oscillations of our lives like the weather or how pretty the Bodleian is, etc. How cool would it be if we could use some of the postmodern scholarly methods in our relationships--thorough and as free of assumption as possible, with neither party believing there will ever be a right way, just a multitude of ways to find interesting as speculation. I won't assume you are going for a humanity filled with Socratic minds if you won't assume I'm going for a life that will lead me to surety.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcP7hkoMgcWqphO7T2ODh0eiHBFbfcrY4_b2rpeXYRtg15cQdZZJEGtuUpDw8Y0Yv49aq2lpdSfMHWbFlKUcCVLbLvkMu-9XbZsJBjnkoMMXyi0JsF-jwgXNCXUxMcqgwWYcJ7dyampNw/s1600-h/1095893078.10983901.phpfiGJMFnR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcP7hkoMgcWqphO7T2ODh0eiHBFbfcrY4_b2rpeXYRtg15cQdZZJEGtuUpDw8Y0Yv49aq2lpdSfMHWbFlKUcCVLbLvkMu-9XbZsJBjnkoMMXyi0JsF-jwgXNCXUxMcqgwWYcJ7dyampNw/s320/1095893078.10983901.phpfiGJMFnR.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZs1ls3VroJu5mgh2enAV1UiAGNfmb3zZxafBiSM7k3QBwTyiwt6yO_U0LJVsXuTv7LzjfTZqadzZ6yTXbWkxoHMwo6LTsnM2k5hsXpiPa-UoCG4LPeXBdKQkaOro0fZCsnNLFpZ59d8/s1600-h/images-29.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZs1ls3VroJu5mgh2enAV1UiAGNfmb3zZxafBiSM7k3QBwTyiwt6yO_U0LJVsXuTv7LzjfTZqadzZ6yTXbWkxoHMwo6LTsnM2k5hsXpiPa-UoCG4LPeXBdKQkaOro0fZCsnNLFpZ59d8/s320/images-29.jpeg" /></a></div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-89499594293527320622010-02-15T18:28:00.000-07:002010-02-15T18:28:36.023-07:00The mama<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2pNT8vf59E1xOur7J0ytaNtgwhNo1Xj4WzRPdnmeP_pATB3e9-rzSxXhlTX0M_0b8-BTB88k_LsH6M4vjuDynqlL7orNU0NhpwyE4ZsIwVLuoXo-LC4d3x90Xnz06mNuSaQObYVDtYw/s1600-h/385041712_f75c5d0107.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2pNT8vf59E1xOur7J0ytaNtgwhNo1Xj4WzRPdnmeP_pATB3e9-rzSxXhlTX0M_0b8-BTB88k_LsH6M4vjuDynqlL7orNU0NhpwyE4ZsIwVLuoXo-LC4d3x90Xnz06mNuSaQObYVDtYw/s320/385041712_f75c5d0107.jpg" /></a></div>Erminia, my Italian landlord/housemate, says that when the father dies he floats away a little at a time like a boat on the sea until you can't feel him anymore; but that the mama is part of you and so you will miss her less. When you are peeing and look down at your legs, at your nakedness, at your hands you will see your mother, she will be there in your form until you don't exist either, so you will never feel separate from her.<br />
<br />
And we three sit at the table listening, my mama to my left, and Naya across from me, Erminia at the fourth seat. & I am happy that the mama is here. She is calming to me today. And as this is/has been rare I sit by it and notice. Though three inches shorter, the mama has my hands, my eyelashes, my frame, my curves, my way of looking down or out the window instead of always at the eyes, my tendency toward a chill, my escalation of laughing until others think 'geez, what's so funny,' my way of holding a fork, wanting endlessly more of life, etc. The mama is here. & Naya's helixed strands revel and pirouette in all the same. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKaAyYnQtUTk3CqV_hFWp_A5-xeb4GynUIrxV9q4a_LGcLu2fpPQau090ifPxWxt_K27MoeJT1EDKwEzd6F18KtModSnagYPX7jvddMh59hUf4IcPBaokG24tDpOC4j1ZFK5IOencgwU/s1600-h/DSC02882.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKaAyYnQtUTk3CqV_hFWp_A5-xeb4GynUIrxV9q4a_LGcLu2fpPQau090ifPxWxt_K27MoeJT1EDKwEzd6F18KtModSnagYPX7jvddMh59hUf4IcPBaokG24tDpOC4j1ZFK5IOencgwU/s320/DSC02882.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<br />
& for fear of over-sentimentality, an image of another story I was once told by someone else with a heavy accent comes to mind--about the idea that when a shark swims in the water it watches for the electricity, and when a person gets in the water the shark sees the electricity, and is shocked by the person's electricity, and the shark need only follow that electrical bolt to find the person (refer back to row boat painting).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
No matter the subject or content I'm a sucker for a good story in a heavy accent told with conviction, eye-contact, and precise pausing for effect. And at least one of these stories is at least partly true, but probably they are both all the way true if you hear them in the right way.<br />
<br />
Unrelated post script--if you want to explore truly how far you want/ are willing to go with amplifying your internal world (ie presencing, mindfulness) read Samuel Beckett's <i>Murphy</i> because one way of reading it is to see it as an exploration of how magnified we opt to make the external world we walk in versus the internal world we are. Tell me about it if you do read it.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-316806009208931022010-02-13T00:51:00.001-07:002010-02-13T00:52:48.855-07:00Love at the Oxford Union<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsTvrb-ODQSIcnTLpCyx60IxKLVRW43x2zqZfWWQzPftKb8MWulfqNK62SeU9sImqt_RbC8mN17CJOPx_M37SwX309p0tI_7bz3FTuSDScUgUskRA6LiDv6Zwb7pK0TLdood4mzo0ghjE/s1600-h/RS697~Courtney-Love-Rolling-Stone-no-697-December-1994-Posters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsTvrb-ODQSIcnTLpCyx60IxKLVRW43x2zqZfWWQzPftKb8MWulfqNK62SeU9sImqt_RbC8mN17CJOPx_M37SwX309p0tI_7bz3FTuSDScUgUskRA6LiDv6Zwb7pK0TLdood4mzo0ghjE/s320/RS697~Courtney-Love-Rolling-Stone-no-697-December-1994-Posters.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Duz, Naya, and I got decked out last night, took a taxi to Tom Gate, dined at Christ Church, then went to the Oxford Union Society & I secured two guest passes, & after drinks in the private fancy-shmancy bar we went to find a seat for the evening's debate only to find that the listed event had been a spoof to protect Courtney Love from the masses. She walked in like a rock star & spoke for the next two hours. I don't feel like posting a critique of her intellect as I mainly walked away feeling sad for an overly rocked life that has left behind a very tired woman without custody for her daughter, still missing the man she quite loves & as she alluded to in the beginning of her speech, I wish she could have attended Oxford instead because the framework of her mind would have flourished as I think she has the archways of genius, though now they've been fairly crushed and just need structural support to keep the whole place from caving in.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I feel the same gap, listening to Courtney Love trying to speak of Ovid and Virgil with prowess though ending up clumsily grasping at it before Classicist students, as I did watching the film <i>Precious</i>. The resounding question in my mind is why some are so supported while others are so destroyed. It's uncomfortable to look at anytime, but it is particularly uncomfortable when faced with the crevasse from the upper rotunda of the Oxford Union. I'd like to make a move, however, that we (and by 'we', perhaps I mean 'I' but really I mean we) abolish any quibbling, tired phrases such as "We are so lucky compared to--" or "I'm so grateful to live where I do/have the opportunities I've had/etc." These phrases don't do what they seem to--feeling luck/gratitude does not equal presence, it <i>actually</i> in large part equals putting distance so that the crevasse becomes so wide one can no longer even see what it is that the unlucky are doing over there. It stands in (disguised) as a phrase of thanks for one's own life, but it comes across much more loudly as a justification of why there will be no thorough investigation into those who we are ever so grateful we are not like. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Will we forever have a class system with elaborate ways of convincing ourselves that it just is as it is, some of us are lucky, and some of us are not? We've taken quite small steps since the Middle ages, since the Victorian era if the surface differences are seen as such, particularly if we are willing to see the world as not solely composed of that which we allow our gaze to settle on, but see that it is composed of the masses we regularly steer our gaze away from. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Poverty-mind, according to Pema Chodren, is having a mind that will feel poverty no matter the circumstance & she says that one could be in a quagmire of rape and dire poverty without poverty-mind. There is some truth there, but there is also some averting of the gaze, because I don't know that Pema will ever convince this poverty-mind that my listening to Pema recordings peacefully, well-fed, well-educated, safe will ever help a woman being raped in the Congo, for instance. But when I get tired of attempting to gaze across the crevasse, I certainly like Pema to pet my mind and tell me I don't have to worry about the others' poverty or poverty-minds, & just should attend to my own. I think Pema vs. Courtney Love or the Precious protagonist vs. an Oxford student represent the disturbing crevasse that remains gapped and uncrossable, the ancient crevasse that allowed slaves and slaveholders, the very same one.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It seems about time for a major revolution again to me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The mourning dove outside my window concurs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Naya just woke up. Going to start the day.</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-15748270929360132722010-02-11T17:03:00.003-07:002010-02-12T00:30:50.521-07:00Hot Damn!Just walked in the door from my first debate at the Oxford Union Society--kicking off the heels and pin-stripe suit I was wearing. The intellects of all two hundred in the room were lit up as we hung on each word--the proponents brilliant and the opponents geniusly ripping as they hashed out whether or not the British Empire was "a good thing." My favorite intro line from a floor speaker (anyone is allowed to stand up and insert a comment/heckle/affront during the debate) was "Well, as Henry the VIII said to his wives, 'I won't keep you long'..." Though the subject was beautifully dense, the humor was liberally applied throughout, including one historian/Oxford don attempting to gain our support of the British Empire's good because it has spread Cricket throughout the world. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhTHqu2MF8f5JOThJK6tMPwFUlvuVmgyZS0gbuMnenUWZBbICQC1dhpZDW4vlHSzxlOSMBejLMG4WRmMV6AxsgAr_6CTk0C253OH2WlBMPth7T9nwDwD-ozRCWR9lqKLgirGOjTVnFJY/s1600-h/Shakira_944498a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhTHqu2MF8f5JOThJK6tMPwFUlvuVmgyZS0gbuMnenUWZBbICQC1dhpZDW4vlHSzxlOSMBejLMG4WRmMV6AxsgAr_6CTk0C253OH2WlBMPth7T9nwDwD-ozRCWR9lqKLgirGOjTVnFJY/s400/Shakira_944498a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
The crux: Do we praise Empire (not just British, but any) for the positives they offered the world's stage--education (Univ. of Oxford), democracy, societal structure, exposure to Western phil/literature/music/art, an international language, promotion of human rights--or do we denounce them for the horrors they've set up that are still playing out--complete squashing of human rights, slavery, postcolonialistic effects, demise of indigenous peoples, environmental destruction, etc.--or do we remove good and bad from the argument altogether, and see it for the complexly historical fact that Empire just was & hasn't to do with morals, never did, never will, but has to do with exploitation/gain--or do we write it off as non-judgeable because a twenty-first century mind shouldn't put the nineteenth century on trial for being nineteenth century? After two hours of heckling, laughing, hushed hanging, clapping, smiling the debate ended and we all filed out one of two doors, voting on whether we sided with the proponents or the opponents. Above one door it says 'Noes' and above the other it says "Ays." And which I walked out of is for you to ascertain/guess & post, for my amusement, if you will. & tell me for fun, though you couldn't possibly know, I assure you, since you weren't there to hear, which you'd walk out of. It was a surprisingly waffling experience, so good were the debaters.<br />
<br />
And home now, heels kicked off, I'm still smiling from the debate & thinking "Hot damn, I love this town!" Still, after six weeks, can't believe how brilliant it actually is here. I'll lie prostrate at Carfax (where High Street, St. Aldates, Queen Street, and Cornmarket street cross at the centre) and weep if the graduate committee doesn't say "Ay." But, I counsel myself, that I'll be forever thankful for three months of what to me is what I'd need a good portion of heaven to be to want to go there. Not sure if that reassurance will work so well, however, when the three month timer goes 'ding.'<br />
<br />
Also, visited The Dragon School this am--Oxford's prep school--& where I'd like Naya to go next fall--the art wing is a place she would flourish as she deserves to. & read Milan Kundera's <i>The Art of the Nove</i>l at the Bod this afternoon--which assured me of my stance on the erasure of the binary way of devising/dividing the world/humanity/ourselves. & went to a film (American) called 'Precious' late afternoon that made me feel embarrassed for demanding the world be more like Oxford when there are so many someones that have no need for a place like Oxford with doors for voting and heels to walk through them and taxis to ride home in and blogs to detail a world so agonizingly separate from theirs. & now I must finish the rough draft of my short story on the servant girl at Christ Church to submit to my writing group before I sleep.<br />
<br />
Love, love, love when life is this stackedly full of exploring what it is to be a human.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-68010197169019280972010-02-07T02:08:00.000-07:002010-02-07T02:08:11.628-07:00As if told by smart childrenthe three-day forecast for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday in Oxford goes like this:<br />
Grey cloud<br />
Grey cloud<br />
White cloud<br />
<br />
I'll tell you if I see a difference on Tuesday when the white cloud takes over.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-4375631509809127512010-02-05T16:40:00.003-07:002010-02-06T03:59:24.322-07:00Scary mofos (or rather, scary mos)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCulSJPEs7YosJPWZcxfslAxqW3iXMp9hTch2OWHA_uO6-opg_V413G7usY_8XuOVDzpqK4YVpBdc-wYwWnp6K5MhyphenhyphenMETXqb2VdygH9hZ7QKKiauGUO6rA_jm9onVD-4VPcxZVhxTa5qI/s1600-h/the-cobbe-portrait-of-william-shakespeare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCulSJPEs7YosJPWZcxfslAxqW3iXMp9hTch2OWHA_uO6-opg_V413G7usY_8XuOVDzpqK4YVpBdc-wYwWnp6K5MhyphenhyphenMETXqb2VdygH9hZ7QKKiauGUO6rA_jm9onVD-4VPcxZVhxTa5qI/s320/the-cobbe-portrait-of-william-shakespeare.jpg" /></a></div> (Painted in 1610, six years before Shakespeare's death.) <br />
<br />
I'm sitting here at my desk, a plate of pasta & basil now emptied, a glass of blackcurrant juice instead of port at my right. Naya is sleeping at her friend Freya's and I've just returned from the theatre. Tonight it was Medea: like Beloved's mama (by T. Morrison) she is one of the scary mothers of literature. Medea offs her children to show her cheating husband what she is made of, for revenge, to maintain control amid chaos, or any other speculation to her motivations. & Yesterday I took a bus to Stratford-upon-Avon (birthplace & town of William) to visit <i>The Shakespeare Institute</i> as it is one of the places I've been accepted for grad school & thoughts of that swirl--namely that the lecture given was superb, the awareness that I could be there next September is a bit romantic, contrasted with when upon my return to Oxford it felt like home for all its rippling/brimming life and I felt like kissing the cobblestone and the prettily-scarved people jamming the "pavement" (ie sidewalk). And I met with my tutor today and presented my paper on Marx and his theory of world history, and I knew what I was talking about though press me he did to find a weak seam, and as we walked down the street in the sun post-debate he said, "that was a good essay," & I get the feeling he doesn't really say things like that. And an hour after that I leaned back on pillows and began Joyce's <i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</i> because I have two days to complete it & several books on Joyce. And the entire universe seems to be mapped out in my head right now. I have loads of theories, and four or five stories/novels demanding to be written before they flitter away. I collapse at the end of each day in satisfaction for the endeavour to actually now be underway. I'm in the middle of the current here & it's one of those times when the water moves as one mass like an object of water moving down the riverbed versus endless supplies of separate liquidness. Just perspective, but nonetheless.<br />
<br />
Here below is my favorite artistic (Delacroix/Louvre) depiction of Medea because of the soft, pretty flesh of her, including cherub-like coloring, yet note the knife. It's much more menacing from one who looks sweet than from one who looks nuts, because then we wonder something about humanity instead of just writing her off as nuts, then she becomes more like us. Unfortunately the players didn't get that part right tonight, but I felt happy in row six as I'd just had this random conversation with an old man in the foyer who had two versions of Medea propped on his lap--one translated in 1859, the other translated within the last half decade--and he and I compared lines and concurred on which got to the depths and which skimmed across distractedly. Plus, in row six, I worked out another possible dissertation topic--tracing these "scary" mother characters in literature and art and comparing intricately their varying motivations for undoing their children. At this moment, <i>Beloved</i> (that is Beloved's mama), is my favorite...but I'd need a year or four in Oxford to sort out all the others I don't yet know about, and to have anything meaningful to say about it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8jpBeLC_NmQsZwYeUCqjsg04ZAnQBwj-n-u2mYS6XLraysc3CbY0teHC-NcUkBOBFm7f-0Nd9lo-56Y7JphuUUSD4SklLtS2IynQSTmzE-y70hSnXtLRZmSCi7mOWBmXJprAdFPCIMg/s1600-h/delacroix20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8jpBeLC_NmQsZwYeUCqjsg04ZAnQBwj-n-u2mYS6XLraysc3CbY0teHC-NcUkBOBFm7f-0Nd9lo-56Y7JphuUUSD4SklLtS2IynQSTmzE-y70hSnXtLRZmSCi7mOWBmXJprAdFPCIMg/s320/delacroix20.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Long, warm hugs to Blase, Gerda, and Jen--my most dedicated penpals thus far. Warmth to Melissa for the happy joy I had recently at my pigeonhole--I read your circular thoughts right there before dinner one night. All the complexity of sweetness to the one who was my undoing yesterday in the Bodleian when your lines became more compelling than Marx's, because I don't know that a gentlemen will cut it--ask Melissa for my ten-line quote that ridiculously simplifies what will. Pen-tip to pen-tip to Mary because, you know why. Safe ocean flying to Duz, because he is aloft right now & headed my way by lunchtime tomorrow. "You are completely unreplaceable" &"I feel like a happy ten year old with my best friend when I talk on Skype with you or send late night emails" to Kari who someday will perhaps wear a little red beret too in Paris, or if not, will certainly ski with me and two black fuzzies many more times before we toss in the towel! Happy (or murderous, as the case may be, & maybe, unlike Medea, the two go hand in hand in this case) cheetah sightings to my mama who is right about now in Nairobi. & to Scot, "Scotland is pulling me more and more because of the promise of mountains (albeit small ones) & the affinity I'm beginning to have for the Scottish accent via a stupid BBC show we've been watching"...so any further travel plans for you and Jack? And, lastly, cheers, with my blackcurrant juice, to being affected by absolutely everything with utmost rapture. I can't at all think of what else is the point.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-65278818032603302812010-02-02T09:12:00.000-07:002010-02-02T09:12:23.881-07:00Hilary MagdaleneSo, I mentioned before, in an earlier blog post that I'm writing a story about one of the women who serve at Christ Church dining hall--as in how did she get there of all places, what is her life, etc. Well, I've connected with one woman and her name is Hilary Magdalene. She's quite young, so lovely like a pre-Raphaelite painting, she's very articulate and it pains me a bit that she is there handing us our soups night after night. Her life has been odd no doubt, and verging on the tragic. She had been a student of Oxford University about a year ago, but things went awry in her life, namely a man, and a subsequent baby. The rest you'll have to read the story for, which I am sketching in all the margins of my books, including (hush, hush) on occasion the margins of some of my library books--in pencil!<br />
<br />
She looks a bit like this, particularly the hanging tear:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkB3zl0svB0d_7siPz7pmx1jGajma5mNHZysya8CWp4EVbK-xp8D2ot-Puj5NBj2fzH8kcqI5kM7BlPMfbVBgmwK8a-I994h0t9orzrI6jVuNwH7cJdi-rJcj26GpD8gFBqrok5KrZSiY/s1600-h/draft_lens2080456module13567290photo_1232549595Frederick_Sandys_Mary_Magdalene_Tears_Idle_Tears.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkB3zl0svB0d_7siPz7pmx1jGajma5mNHZysya8CWp4EVbK-xp8D2ot-Puj5NBj2fzH8kcqI5kM7BlPMfbVBgmwK8a-I994h0t9orzrI6jVuNwH7cJdi-rJcj26GpD8gFBqrok5KrZSiY/s320/draft_lens2080456module13567290photo_1232549595Frederick_Sandys_Mary_Magdalene_Tears_Idle_Tears.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">& by the way, I haven't spoken to anyone who works in the hall beyond, "thank you," and thus you'll find that Hilary is fictitious, except that fiction never really is quite fictional.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anyhow I'm telling you all this because it demonstrates that I am back & well (as is my incredibly socially adept daughter) & I am once again finding life to be tragically too beautiful and short for all that there is fulfilling, sweet, and intricate about it. I love how the shoulders can carry too much at times only to be followed by their articulate cartwheeling.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Much ado about nothing,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sabine</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-39020881146196941132010-01-30T08:14:00.000-07:002010-01-30T08:14:14.037-07:00the sun is shining gloriously in Oxford & the birds are tweeting...but my bicycle got stolen last night & perhaps right at the same moment Naya undid her stomach contents across our bed, quite thoroughly across our bed and our room still smells of HCl acid/semi-digested food though I've spent the majority of the day scrubbing & laundering with the wee tiniest of washers in a country that doesn't readily believe in dryers & also, perhaps right at the same moment the secretary for the committee of a graduate fellowship that took months for me to compose hit send to deliver a "of the 8500 applicants only 1400 were chosen, and you were not one of them" message to my inbox & now today I attempt to read the books I must, with our sheets and blankets drip drying on every possible surface around our tiny room, but my stomach is churning & I don't know if it is because of the antibiotics working me over, the layered ill-luck, or the fact that Naya and I shared a spoon about an hour before she upchu@#d. I hope, like the bargaining optimist that I am (even though I feign atheism), that this means we've somehow "done our time" and can get on with the Oxford bliss momentarily.<br />
<br />
It's not lost on me, however, that I have been a bit exuberant, perhaps annoyingly so on this blog...so the upside of all this day's weirdness is that I will not deliver an annoying peachy blog post where I detail how perfect my life is.<br />
<br />
P.S. Naya is eating lots of food & feels mostly normal.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-79872083487131830322010-01-26T23:02:00.002-07:002010-01-27T02:06:14.921-07:00Going out for moon pieces<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1GNysEd4lijBcaePS0jmrauqxhpYaNt2mOdgRHFkDg5L1um34-zYb4iyIjzYRY6vsfPBMXki_sMJjVlOIf06jCp6nTVnKpezTPUyeBK2zH5oIbGwsthHQtCBja8luJDzJmLBVfrizIg/s1600-h/2746753310_832d1a94f8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1GNysEd4lijBcaePS0jmrauqxhpYaNt2mOdgRHFkDg5L1um34-zYb4iyIjzYRY6vsfPBMXki_sMJjVlOIf06jCp6nTVnKpezTPUyeBK2zH5oIbGwsthHQtCBja8luJDzJmLBVfrizIg/s320/2746753310_832d1a94f8.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><br />
This is part of the English section of the lower Radcliffe Camera reading room (in the Bodleian) & where I spend the majority of my time midweek. Yesterday & today's reading list: Hegel's <span style="font-style: italic;">Lectures on the Philosophy of World History</span>, a biography on Hegel, Marx's <span style="font-style: italic;">The German Ideology & Theses on Feuerbach</span> & ..., a biography on Marx, and Forgac's <span style="font-style: italic;">Marxist Literary Theories.</span> Not kidding. The 8-9 page essay on all of this is due Thursday by 5p. Then shift quickly to my other "tutorial" whose reading list must be consumed in its entirety Friday/Saturday so that I can deliver another 9 pager by Monday afternoon: Joseph Conrad's <span style="font-style: italic;">Lord Jim</span>, biography on Joseph Conrad, Kundera's <span style="font-style: italic;">Art of the Novel, </span>Butler's<span style="font-style: italic;"> Early Modernism</span>...too many to list, as I need to get off this blog & read. Last week I read 800 pages, this week promises more & I feel I am conducting an experiment with my mind to see how many pages can be read in each 24 hour period, with as little sleep as possible to keep the lab-rat going. I have to say it thrills me (vs. frightens/fatigues) to consume pages, authors, and entire periods so voraciously. It's the only way if one has any hope of grasping what humans have thought and accomplished.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX4s-fKhNwJ-kiswfWq1BqLPFvkKR4QLhDpPxfGBpUD_M2fxtxMtg4GwIVCxvKLVDQKVIW9wFvwFEkwnbsbx8YWVcD7szGonaptfLvaLQrXODOPV60i38uQ7Dz5ZvseXubMrtg8P9FCx4/s1600-h/christ-church.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX4s-fKhNwJ-kiswfWq1BqLPFvkKR4QLhDpPxfGBpUD_M2fxtxMtg4GwIVCxvKLVDQKVIW9wFvwFEkwnbsbx8YWVcD7szGonaptfLvaLQrXODOPV60i38uQ7Dz5ZvseXubMrtg8P9FCx4/s320/christ-church.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNUPspDwO-pE_SnLpjW4Hn8SUWE3FpOQCKHcF9eY8DagWG7qBRfzn2lVq2qtIgyv0wQQOktL-Aeo5Lv3UQDjNXoBeHycXauQC_bQQFLWZjpUKL6So-BwMMYsZGLFlyISaqgrAi8puU0Y/s1600-h/amerinpar_29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNUPspDwO-pE_SnLpjW4Hn8SUWE3FpOQCKHcF9eY8DagWG7qBRfzn2lVq2qtIgyv0wQQOktL-Aeo5Lv3UQDjNXoBeHycXauQC_bQQFLWZjpUKL6So-BwMMYsZGLFlyISaqgrAi8puU0Y/s320/amerinpar_29.jpg" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlMCFTbjWTDjVjKl6oJ_rdpH8_xdmS8g5w6xl6EybmARwoIknjFZ1UHqfXP09r7elb-nrfKBg-EBE3Jk9r99yWCivEie0aKnCP2aO2LQBhkZqRaerjMwrAMUM2KEYDsNE-nurMwrCHdA/s1600-h/OxfordChristChurch2006_lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlMCFTbjWTDjVjKl6oJ_rdpH8_xdmS8g5w6xl6EybmARwoIknjFZ1UHqfXP09r7elb-nrfKBg-EBE3Jk9r99yWCivEie0aKnCP2aO2LQBhkZqRaerjMwrAMUM2KEYDsNE-nurMwrCHdA/s320/OxfordChristChurch2006_lg.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then, in all the spare time between antibiotic doses, helping Naya sort through life, and thousands of pages of human scribblings, I have this idea for a story I'm working on. It is about a woman who works in Christ Church Hall serving the students their extravagant meals three times a day. How is it that her life has brought her to her knees there, so to speak? If you have any art in similar vein as the pic above please pass on the name of the artist/painting to me. This one is 'La Mere' by Elizabeth Nourse, 1888. &<br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> then, of course, the other two pics are the Hall we extravagantly dine in while I peep and wonder at the servers each night, making character sketches & a view of Tom Gate from the inside. The story'll be a tragedy. How couldn't it be.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then a bit of poetry to share that I read this morning at 4am whose last line's sentiments I adore:<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><br />
</div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><div class="episode_title" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: right; font-family: inherit; font-size: 100%; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 2em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 30px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><h2 style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.8em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 900; letter-spacing: -0.005em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">One of the Butterflies</h2><div class="author" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.5em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">by <a href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/author.php?auth_id=1324" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #7a0b0d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 100%; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">W. S. Merwin</a><br />
</div></div><div class="work" style="background-image: url(http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/standard/images/twa002/break/break1.gif); background-position: 50% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 100%; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.5em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 100%; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1.5em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The trouble with pleasure is the timing<br />
it can overtake me without warning<br />
and be gone before I know it is here<br />
it can stand facing me unrecognized<br />
while I am remembering somewhere else<br />
in another age or someone not seen<br />
for years and never to be seen again<br />
in this world and it seems that I cherish<br />
only now a joy I was not aware of<br />
when it was here although it remains<br />
out of reach and will not be caught or named<br />
or called back and if I could make it stay<br />
as I want to it would turn to pain.<br />
</div></div></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And lest you think I'm getting too arrogant and serious, some amusement Naya and I laughed rather too loudly over for our housemates last night:<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande'; font-size: 13px;">"Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaut on the moon and you fear your partner has been turned into Dracula. Next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham! You just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just<span style="display: inline;"> say, 'Think again, batman." --deep thoughts by jack handy</span></span><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwKeuKS_X6vO8lv6k6LfUrmTg4FB5xgC9_7llhU5Jk8paHjGYAJv7bLpjNoHo6KYj9B1YPN6nWy0CdO9ilfWP6tJZNRk59qhOrBOQ5ZkEagYIRjudvanjPiiavSjnK3Hv393sFBfK4DI/s1600-h/2746750758_34d6b70cce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwKeuKS_X6vO8lv6k6LfUrmTg4FB5xgC9_7llhU5Jk8paHjGYAJv7bLpjNoHo6KYj9B1YPN6nWy0CdO9ilfWP6tJZNRk59qhOrBOQ5ZkEagYIRjudvanjPiiavSjnK3Hv393sFBfK4DI/s320/2746750758_34d6b70cce.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>& These are one of those spiral stairs in the Bodleian I mentioned before, which at this point I have stopped climbing up and down for fun. It takes me four weeks of climbing spiraling staircases and smiling childishly about it before I can notice that the stack of books I'm not attending to almost needs its own spiral staircase to reach its top.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And on that note, to Hegel!<br />
</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-28452882816566698512010-01-24T12:21:00.002-07:002010-01-26T21:39:29.143-07:00Einstein's equations about the universe from an Oxford lecture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmLzGBN3RaMYDK6oyGfZCK4gzQrQe9tJLo4OxSLk23QOzNL6l11JKO7A-95y0Qfz-p0txRH85K-nFb2_ErX-AAGzcx97KINmz9jFtUm9rG7s_vcGgtc2L2usRXt_m-edRT93GOSHVXRWY/s1600-h/einstein_blackboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmLzGBN3RaMYDK6oyGfZCK4gzQrQe9tJLo4OxSLk23QOzNL6l11JKO7A-95y0Qfz-p0txRH85K-nFb2_ErX-AAGzcx97KINmz9jFtUm9rG7s_vcGgtc2L2usRXt_m-edRT93GOSHVXRWY/s320/einstein_blackboard.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><br />
The bottom line, I like the most, is the equation for sorting out the age of the universe.<br />
One up from that is for the radius of the universe.<br />
This and Thomas Hardy's tragic fatalism keep me company this very uncomfortable Sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
I'm quite ill. Intense, hot pain on one side of my head & jaw, and heavy, syrupy fatigue since last night, abruptly and without reprieve. I think it's a real deal sinus infection, which I now realize I've never had. Just took 6 children's tylenol after sleeping for two hours, and now I don't feel that I need to go to the hospital. I had started to think the meningitis shot didn't take & began sorting out what to do with Naya (Hardy's fatalism). Looking forward to attempting to secure a bottle of antibiotics tomorrow first thing. Thankful that unlike Jude the Obscure I have access to medicine that will prevent me from dying in a small room in Oxford whilst the bells of all the spires clang in the background & I feverishly recite poetry or physics equations before the lights go out on a mere three decade stint.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I've been doing a wee bit too much. But who wouldn't? & on that note, must write an 8-9 page essay by 1pm tomorrow that is better than anything I've yet written (must!), must go downstairs right now and cook dinner for Naya, & very much want to attend Burns' night tomorrow at Christ Church Hall complete with haggis, pipes, and whiskey & <span style="font-weight: bold;">wanted</span> to run with the x-country team again at noon Monday. I'll start with standing first and walking down the stairs to see how that goes. <br />
<br />
Oh, come now, human frame, no time for such a thing as weak, flimsy fatigue when I want robustness.~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-51411835987760726742010-01-21T01:38:00.001-07:002010-01-21T14:51:06.546-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihQyf8KIrQ4kSVkDxeWSkkoRl7XdlorBtOUXzYyQnNLuwFoXeFWHX6CZMA9ncoem0AUIoRblDrP-lwiYypcigCnQbMk86wGTIRJAN475M61zxqeM3DHsYiFqKzgSsklAtNOAtzXIrADh4/s1600-h/Photo+79.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihQyf8KIrQ4kSVkDxeWSkkoRl7XdlorBtOUXzYyQnNLuwFoXeFWHX6CZMA9ncoem0AUIoRblDrP-lwiYypcigCnQbMk86wGTIRJAN475M61zxqeM3DHsYiFqKzgSsklAtNOAtzXIrADh4/s320/Photo+79.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4859027226936677471.post-29252881574349641332010-01-19T07:02:00.000-07:002010-01-19T07:02:28.394-07:00Maybe this will help you win some future Trivial Pursuit/Jeopardy gameSome Oxford trivia:<br />
<br />
What, pray tell, does it mean when your professor writes NB in front of a phrase? Hint--the Latin is Nota Bene.<br />
<br />
Who is the only female who is gracing the walls of the Christ Church dining hall with her presence?<br />
<br />
What does it mean when your librarian says that the books are sometimes shelved a bit wonky?<br />
<br />
Why do we have the double solid yellow lines in the center of the road with white lines on the edges of roads in the US, and the very opposite in England--double solid yellow lines on each edge of the road & dotted white line in the center?<br />
<br />
How does one go about studying seriously in Oxford--nose to book without looking up for at least four hours, that is--when the archways overhead keep making one smile & walking up and down the spiral ladders and rolling ladders for fun keep distracting one from anything other than taking it all in?<br />
<br />
I use a fob, a hob, and a pair of Wellies every single day here, why and for what?<br />
<br />
What novel am I reading right now? Hint--Hardy's last.<br />
<br />
_____________________________<br />
With regards,<br />
Your happy friend,<br />
Who has come home to read<br />
so that she'll stop playing with the ladders &<br />
fawning over the titles she wishes she could read,<br />
Sabine~Sabine~http://www.blogger.com/profile/14141581853219718577noreply@blogger.com2