5.27.2005
Maybe it's that people aren't at their best after a long day shopping.
Maybe it's that Wal-Mart sucks all the goodness and joy and beauty out of a person's soul.
But whatever it is, I can hardly watch.
Capitalist pigs!
--Posted by s. on Friday, May 27, 2005.
5.24.2005
--. --- -..
.... .- - ....
.-. --- -
--Posted by a. on Tuesday, May 24, 2005.
The Ballad of Joking Jesus
From James Joyce's Ulysses
I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard
My mother's a jew, my father's a bird.
With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree,
So here's to disciples and Calvary.
If anyone thinks that I amn't divine
He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
Goodbye, now, goodbye. Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy . . . Goodbye, now, goodbye.
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, May 24, 2005.
5.19.2005
Vertical on virtue of caffeine. . .
So, tomorrow, theoretically, will wrap up yet another year of my adventure in what we like to call the "Educational System". It will also be the end of the first year that I could honestly consider "Educational" in any substantive sense of the word.
Things that Grinnell College has taught me:
1. When I graduated from high school I was under the impression that I could write quite well. Now I realize that I am competent, at best, on a good day.
2. Despite learning that my writing is actually not so hot, I have become (if this is possible) even more of a compulsive writer. I write essays. I write blog entrys. I write plans entries. I write journal entries. I write emails. I write letters. I write postcards...(by the way, either leave your street address on the comments or email it to me if you'd like one. . . ) And I think much, much more about the writing process itself, about what makes good writing and what makes bad writing and how to tell the one from the other.
3. Smart = sexy. I knew this before. But I've never been around so many. . .smart. . .people in my entire life. And I'm loving it.
4. It is, not just theoretically but in practice, possible to stay up all night and still be marginally functional the next day. It requires a lot of caffeine and the right kinds of music at the right time. I wouldn't recommend it, at least not on a regular basis. But it can be done.
5. There are people who believe that pure research and academic work - the kind without practical applications - are not only worthwhile, but inherently more valuable than research done for more practical reasons (i.e. making money for the researchers.)
6. Abstract math is fun.
7. It is not necessarily impossible for one person to be both almost a terrorist and almost a conscientious objector.
8. "Gender is a social construct."
9. I am an adept procrastinator. I can prove it too, because I still have papers due for tomorrow, and I am not working on them.
10. (This one may come as a surprise) Republicans can be intelligent people. Also, intelligent people can be republicans.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, May 19, 2005.
5.18.2005
No dogs. . .
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, May 18, 2005.
Are you here?
I'm not.
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, May 18, 2005.
5.16.2005
heh.
Downsized Works of Literature
Judy Blume's Lesser-Known Philosophy Texts
Rejected Titles for Hymns
Actual Bullet Points from a Handout for a Philosophy Class on Consciousness
A good salesman can sell...
that oughta keep y'all busy for a while.
--Posted by s. on Monday, May 16, 2005.
5.15.2005
Hey, all, especially Dr. Henry. . .
Have you heard/read anything about this book?
It sort of sounds like something that you might be interested in. Although, I haven't read it.
Which leads to yet another installment of "What Sven Bjorn Borg has been reading":
Growing Up Bilingual, Ana Celia Zentella - Details a ten-year research project among a Puerto Rican community in New York.
Three Plays, Slawomir Mrozek (Striptease, Repeat Performance, the Prophets.) - quasi-absurdist theatre with a strong political undercurrent.
Romulus der Große, Frederich Du:rrenmatt (giving up on umlauts for the time being) - german/swiss theatre with a strong political undercurrent
The Pilgrim's Regress, C. S. Lewis.
Dhammapada: The Sayings of BuddhaIf a traveler does not meet with one who is his better, or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool.
--Posted by s. on Sunday, May 15, 2005.
5.13.2005
I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news---
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's,
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parablous.
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes,
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a washing bill in Balylonic cuneiform,
And tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a chassepôt rifle from a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery:
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee---
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
Happy birthday Sullivan!!!!
--Posted by a. on Friday, May 13, 2005.
5.12.2005
A smattering of random thoughts (with complete and udder disregard to english syntacks, grammer, and spellin')
1. The world is a better place because of Weston Noble. And. Music of all forms including jazz, Classical, Baroque, Romantic, contemporary, and renaissance have been performed under Weston's direction and many of those works have seen their most brilliant performances in this modern age.
2. The education system of America will experience a verbal attack on May 22, 2005 in the most tactful way possible to an extent that nobody will even know it will have happened.
3. Kurt Bestor is a fantastic composer.
4. I love writing and making money when I do it.
5. High schools are pointless for people like Sven, Dr. What, and me. They only serve to enhance the images of pathetic the situations can be.
--Posted by Kelly D. Norris on Thursday, May 12, 2005.
Have you heard Schršdinger's Joke?
no
You won't know whether it is funny or not until you do.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, May 12, 2005.
5.11.2005
Musn't let today go by without acknowledging the birthday of everyone's favorite physicist.
Happy birthday, Mr. Feynmann.
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, May 11, 2005.
At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, May 11, 2005.
5.10.2005
It was on this day in 1940 that Winston Churchill took power as the prime minister of Great Britain. He was an English politician who had had a bumpy career. He had switched parties not once but twice. He started out conservative, became liberal, and then went conservative again.
At the start of World War I, he was one of the few to predict how enormous that war would be. He advocated an invasion of Turkey and the result was a disaster. There were hundreds of thousands of British casualties and nothing to show for it, and he had to resign his office in disgrace; whereupon, he joined the Army, went into battle, commanding a battalion in the trenches. He was the only politician of his stature to serve in the trenches in World War I.
Between the wars, he was alienated from politicians in both parties who felt that he was an extremist, a reactionary. In 1932, he made a speech about the growing danger of a second world war with Germany. Nobody took him seriously. He was considered paranoid and a warmonger.
But things changed when Hitler took over Czechoslovakia and Austria and then invaded Poland, Belgium, and France. In less than two years, almost all of Western Europe was either controlled by or allied with Nazi Germany. And then on May 10, 1940, Churchill became the prime minister. He gave his acceptance speech in which he said, "All I have to offer is blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
The situation for Great Britain was dire. The British Army was decimated in a retreat from Dunkirk. Hitler was so confident that he delayed invasion. He thought it would be a waste of resources. He expected British surrender, but Churchill set out to rally the British people by sheer force of will and his personality and his command of English.
Today he's perhaps more idolized in America than in Great BritainÑwhere he's seen as an important statesman but not perfectÑa man who did not support independence for India and who, in the 1930s, thought that Communism was more dangerous than Fascism. And many British felt that he turned Great Britain into a junior partner of the United States,
and more importantly,
It's the birthday of Fred Astaire, born Fred Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska (1899). He went off with his sister Adele, to dance in vaudeville. She left the act in 1932 after she had married. It was doubted by many that Fred Astaire could continue without her, but in 1933 he teamed up with Ginger Rogers in a movie called Flying Down to Rio.
--Posted by a. on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.
5.09.2005
I'm Ulysses!
by James Joyce
Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared
to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do
understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once
brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in
the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you
additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
(who would have guessed?
--Posted by s. on Monday, May 09, 2005.
5.08.2005
Explanation of forthcoming erratic blogging-activity, which, for Sven, is unusual.
classes left: 12
books to finish: 2
books in english to finish: 1
pages to be written: 21
pages to be written in english: 17
presentations to present: 2
out-of-class presentations to attend: 4
in-class final exams to take: 3
take-home final exams to work on: 1
plays to attend: 1
meetings with profs: 2(+)
hours to work (for money): 20
hours to sleep: um, Thursday is looking nice.
"group project" sessions/study sessions: 5
amount of stuff to be moved out: not infinite, but arbitrarily large.
people to say goodbye to for the summer: 3. (just kidding. i do have friends.)
date at which this had better all be history: may 20
times [sven bjorn borg] asks "why didn't i go to a community college???": NONE! None atall. What, do you think I'm complaining or something????
--Posted by s. on Sunday, May 08, 2005.
5.07.2005
I am at least slightly considering memorizing a birthday for every day of the year.
Should today be Pyotr Ilich Tschaikovski, Robert Browning, or Gary Cooper?
--Posted by s. on Saturday, May 07, 2005.
5.06.2005
For those, ahem, mathematicians in the crowd. . .
--Posted by s. on Friday, May 06, 2005.
Yet another birthday, folks.
The id an the superego have another quality in common. They both function irrationally and distort and falsify reality. Rather, we should say, the id and the superego distort the realistic thinking of the ego. The superego forces the ego to see things as they should be and not as they are. The id forces the ego to see the world as the id wishes it would be. In either case, the secondary process, reality testing, and in the reality principle are perverted by irrational forces.
--Posted by s. on Friday, May 06, 2005.
5.05.2005
I went on a walk today.
I saw a bunny rabbit,
a dead squirrel,
purple and white lilac bushes,
and a Subaru legacy with the extremely clever & original license plate "subaru".
That is my story.
The end.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, May 05, 2005.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Karl,
Happy birthday to you.
--Posted by a. on Thursday, May 05, 2005.
5.04.2005
Q. What has twelve legs, is pink, and chants, "Na, na, na"?
A. Three pink elephants singing "Hey Jude."
As though that weren't bad enough. . .
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, May 04, 2005.
Happy Birthday, Holly Golightly.
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, May 04, 2005.
5.03.2005
The Time Traveler Convention
May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC)
(event starts at 8:00pm)
East Campus Courtyard, MIT
42:21:36.025¡N, 71:05:16.332¡W
(42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, May 03, 2005.
Hmm.
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, May 03, 2005.
So.
You know the song "All Shook Up"? By Elvis?
My radio is usually set to NPR, but it was switched to an oldies station last night. That was the second song that played this morning when it woke me up. Do you know the first line to that song?
Hold on to your socks, this is crazy-bizarre:
A-well I bless my soul
WhatÕs wrong with me?
IÕm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree
A MAN ON A FUZZY TREE???
I don't even know what that means
What is a fuzzy tree? Are their biological examples of such a thing? Are fuzzy trees itchy? Why would a man be on a fuzzy tree? Would a man on a fuzzy tree itch? What sort of a simile is this, anyway? I have no experience with men on fuzzy trees.
Elvis, (or whatever unknown songwriter wrote this one), What IS wrong with you?
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, May 03, 2005.
5.02.2005
The Quotable Emma:
Emma: I'm going to be a policeman!
Dad: Ok! That's great!
E: Can girls be policemen?
D: Of course. They're called policewomen.
E: Ok.
D: Can girls be firemen?
E: Yes!
D: And they're called...?
E: Fire chiefs!
--Posted by s. on Monday, May 02, 2005.
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