in honor of bjork's birthday today i've blown the dust off the sugarcubes' life's too good... unheard for at least five years... and it stands up to time very nicely... a good soundtrack for post-counting...

Bedford/St. Martin's TechNotes

It turns out that this year marks the 50th anniversary of publication of 'The Dollmaker,' an epic tragedy that at least one contemporary observer has dubbed the great American novel of the 20th century.

you should see me being a bum here still in my walking sweats... last of the cold coffee swirling round my teeth... reading a blog here and there... writing bad sunday morning pomes... thinking there's all this stuff i gotta do... some of it quite soon... some of it right now... shower shave dress up and... please... smile for the people as they visit carmel catholic (hey, so says our startling new logo) high school... smile all day or at least from noon to four p.m. ... then come home and GET TO WORK... you see, i'm on a deadline of sorts... aimed at three p.m. monday... might be a bit off... we'll see

if you haven't seen any beautiful babies lately... and wish you had... check out suzanne's wonder-full granddaughter

Steppenwolf Theatre Company: The Cherry Orchard

Classical Net

Emerson & John Muir...
... the writings of both men on each other from their journals, letters, and essays...

Caleb Stegall is a Christian conservative, but not in the way most people think of the phrase. He opposes abortion. His four sons are home-schooled. He decries the crassness of popular culture. But he also dislikes suburban sprawl, questions whether unfettered business growth is a good thing and tries to grow his own food whenever possible on his family's 18-acre plot of land near Perry.

Pessoa's Trunk

Some callers wanted Vacca fired. One wanted him shot.

Thoreau's Journal: 17-Nov-1853...
Are not more birds crushed under the feet of oxen than of horses?
(via waldenlist)

The New York Times > The Poetry Symposium...
The Book Review recently asked a handful of poets and critics to respond to this question: What book of poetry, published in the last 25 years, has meant the most to you personally -- the book you have found yourself returning to again and again? We asked them not to select reissues, or volumes of a poet's ''selected'' or ''collected'' work. Here are their responses...

"I happen to believe that art must make something happen," Muldoon said. "All art is about the dismantling of ideas."

Bob Dylan: The most dangerous man in America?

Ohio Reading Road Trip | Using Technology in the Classroom

Education World: Blogging Basics: Creating Student Journals on the Web

Sitings : essays on place and arrival by Jarrett Walker ... (via suzzanagig jig)

Busse Library Web: American Authors

for a day that began in frumpish disorientation... it turned out ok... might have been the weather so unseasonably warm... might have been our quieter than usual walk (not in itself a bad thing)... the absence of laughing ducks... heavy gray all day...

plus... i was bugged by my failure to connect with visiting suzanne last night... left a message on a machine somewhere in 773... without reply... so i was resolved to slog through the day with madame b. and the apes and hdt with the sophs...

and then... right before period g... the door knocks... and then... enters suzanne!

who proceded to spin some yarns, read some poems, and whip all the good questions into a fine souffle of sound sense... i can't speak for my sophs, but i couldn't imagine a better way to wrap up the day... she's a great reader of her own poems... and just as good for conversation... even on a gray thursday of a week one day too long... real art wakes me up... you... too?

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. the supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States." ...Noah Webster

Brutus on the Evils of Standing Armies by Laurence M. Vance
One subject that Brutus speaks on at length is the evils of standing armies. In four of his sixteen essays ([The Anti-Federalist Papers] numbers 1, 8, 9, 10), he explains how the establishment and maintenance of standing armies breeds fear, is destructive to liberty, and should be viewed as a scourge to a country instead of a benefit.

The Restoration saw the birth of a standing army that belonged to the king.

I have for many years been trying to move away from writing out of anger or turmoil, from a place of psychological upheaval and trauma. ... good stuff... read the whole piece

« Quand j'écrivais l'empoisonnement de Madame Bovary j'avais si bien le goût de l'arsenic dans la bouche, j'étais si bien empoisonné moi-même que je me suis donné deux indigestions coup sur coup, - deux indigestions réelles, car j'ai vomi tout mon dîner.» ...g. flaubert a hippolyte taine. 20 novembre 1866.

Gustave Flaubert : Madame Bovary

John Dryden : Mac Flecknoe... finds his heir...
           
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullness from his tender years.
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity.

from "Reverdure" in wendell berry's Clearing...

13.
And there are ways
the deer walk in darkness
that are clear.
It is not by will
I know this,
but by willingness,
by being here.

Thomas Murphy: Chicago Alderman... 18th ward

Thomas J. Murphy: Jesuit

Thomas Murphy: principal research data analyst for ETS

Thomas Murphy: Speaker of the Georgia House

Thomas Murphy: Lecturer in Law

Thomas Murphy: Master Harness Racing Horseman

Thomas Murphy: dead at Appleton, Wisconsin, 1905

Thomas Murphy: painter... circa 1910

Thomas Murphy: cinematographer/actor

and another word about that hateful amlit anthology... i just checked out its price at our official web book store... varsitybooks.com... new: 83.69... used: 62.99... HOLY COWS DROPPING UNIMPEDED FROM THE BIG BLUE SKY... what... a... racket...

Marianne Moore & Georgia O'Keefe ... two great old ladies of the arts... both born on the same day... this one... in the same year... 1887... (though it's likely that neither was born an old lady)

Thomas Murphy

MURPHY, Thomas, clergyman, born in Randalstown, County Antrim, Ireland, 6 February, 1823. He came to the United States in 1834 and was graduated at Princeton in 1845.

o... btw... i HATE this text/anthology: prentice hall... the american experience... should be the american snippet

pondering the order of these days in amlit... started emerson last week... thoreau today... normally i'd jump from walden and civil dis into douglass's narrative... as a non-fiction thread... but douglass always leads to huck finn... which is late 19th c. fiction... and i haven't yet touched irving, hawthorne, poe... early 19th c. fiction... so maybe after thoreau i'll leap back to irving, poe, hawthorne... then douglass... hmmm

neat back and forth about being (in) a blog at OKIR

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

CBC News: Oppel, Jorisch win [Canada's] Gov. Gen. awards for kids' books