And now, a few observations about things completely unrelated to either North American election: That Wisdom book showed up today. Totally worth the money. It’s been a long time since I bought a “coffee table book”, but if I had a coffee table I’d be proud to leave this out on it. You know where I’m find more interesting reading… Read more →
Tag: cultural differences
Diverse practyk in many sundry werkes
My goal is to redefine the whole history of rhyme ‘Cause the only way to free the soul is to free the mind And no wisdom as old as this should be confined To total mystery, so we’ll just read the signs And DaVinci codes, and try to see the science In this linguistically-composed pristine design –extracted from Rhyme Renaissance… Read more →
The tabs, they must be closed.
You know the drill–some things that I found worthy of some comment: I quite liked Julie Rehmeyer’s short piece on the math scholars who accidentally solved an astrophysics problem. It’s got all the good stuff: pure math, astrophysics (come on, “gravity lensing” just sounds cool, even without any context), serendipity, and above all a good science journalist doing the writeup,… Read more →
Definitely the headline of the month
Sometimes I am very glad that I only have to deal with the relatively more abstract, if no less scary, concerns of modern Western society. Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital KINSHASA (Reuters) – Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of… Read more →
Arizona: We don’t get irony here
Measure backs ‘American values’ in state schools Arizona schools whose courses “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization” could lose state funding under the terms of legislation approved Wednesday by a House panel. SB1108 also would bar teaching practices that “overtly encourage dissent” from those values, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious tolerance. Schools would have to surrender… Read more →
It’s been a while since this happened…
I am completely ensorcelled by A Wild Sheep Chase. I’m not sure to what extent that’s down to Murakami, and to what extent to Birnbaum, though. I suspect that I am on the brink of disappearing into at least eight Murakami novels and not coming up for air until I’ve devoured them all. I can not yet explain why I… Read more →
Pay Attention
I have always known That at last I would Take this road, but yesterday I did not know that it would be today. Ariwara no Narihira (translated by Kenneth Rexroth) A strange old man Stops me, Looking out of my deep mirror. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (translated by Kenneth Rexroth) The mists rise over The still pools at Asuka. Memory does… Read more →
Just In Time For Christmas
One of the online fora I am active on included a pointer this week to a blog post showing some interesting Laotian rice wine: (You can see an even bigger version of that photo at the author’s Flickr page.) I’m not opposed to liquor with stuff in it generally–but there is some stuff that probably doesn’t belong in my booze.… Read more →
