Discussions of prosody turn readers into referees.

uh-oh... looks like dom's flight is gonna be late...

just saw neil labute's The Shape of Things... definitely don't want to live in his universe...

Pitchfork... new rock-type music reviews...

hard to say that the big country of rubinstein's chopin is not music for all moods... but it makes the mood... or coincides... confirms... slides along next to... whatever's happening in here...

quiet sunday... cool enough to open the windows

reading (still...) erdrich's The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse... taken up (again) on a gentle reminder from suzanne... the other day when i whined about loving no book lately... and it's been working... i'm loving this book and wishing i might use it in a class sometime... but here's the thing... this sentence from very early on... And Chopin, played simply, devastates the heart. is true isn't it... and reminds me of something angela carter wrote in Nights at the Circus... but about schubert's songs... which of course i can't find now... but it made me go to schubert for the first time... and love it because from time to time those songs too will devastate the heart...

Less advice, more response, support, encouragement and recognition. ...yes yes yes... i'm thinking how good it feels when somebody takes yr stuff seriously... like chris murray on my flowers lately (& suzanne always)... not only praising... but giving some kind of honest response... as if what had been done mattered on some scale... generated a feeling or a thought... doesn't it just goose you up with all kinds of surprising energies... i need to remember this when the classroom is full and i've put on the teacher cap... as if that only meant criticizing and judging and ranking... wherein many always find themselves in the lower parts... how might one study to change these old habits... to become more inciteful... set aside those other grim games

Selected Poems by Nicole Cooley (via riley dog) ...poems in the shadow of this horror...

was up to about 12:30 last night... and he never came... i suspect i got the dates wrong... maybe tonight... o well... that late hour let me sleep in a bit this morning without walking... i said o i'll walk later today... so i suppose it could still happen... but later hasn't yet arrived...

just reserved a room in jeffersonville in... for lodging after the land use panel discussion on 7.22... i guess that ties me into going... did a mapquest on distances & times... it's about 4 hours from here to mom's... and about 6 hours from mom's to j-ville because it's two sides of the triangle... it's the exact same time from here to j-ville... down the hypotenuse... but... it's always good to see mom & meg...

i'm up late waiting for a visitor to arrive... i've got my window open to hear his arrival... he will be driving a large car thingy... one of those suvs... and he will be accompanied by a large german shepherd... where can he be... and does he know how to enter this castle without my aid... and what if i fall asleep...

i passed some time watching Mystic River... which i liked but felt uneasy about something near the end... this afternoon i watched The Barbarian Invasions and liked it very much... but made the mistake of watching the dvd's special feature... a ridiculous "let's get the cast together to talk about it all" piece... the director was smart to avoid it...

noteworthy change... a few days ago the grounds crew removed a chainlink fence from the side of our house... this fence has been the bane of my gardening existence... forcing me to add many steps to my business around the place... but now it is gone... to be replaced by... who knows what... but i am pleased for now... ding dong the fence is down...

pardon me... i need to figure this... some more numbers... scores for the big ap lit test arrived today... a 5 is the highest possible score... a 3 is generally considered "passing"... but that issue is complex...

- 77 took the test... 70 of them were from my class...
- five students received a 5...
- twenty-two students received a 4...
- thirty-nine students received a 3...
- eleven received a 2...
- none received a 0...

some students who took ap lit during senior year had taken ap language during their junior year... these are two quite different classes... the lit test includes poetry and a different slant on analysis... five of these students improved their score from junior year... eleven declined... seventeen remained the same... these outcomes are certainly due to many factors... some in my control... some not...

five of my students who did not take the ap lit test this year had scored a 4 or 5 on the ap lang test last year...

twelve of my students who did not take the ap lang test last year scored a 4 or 5 on the ap lit test this year...

for the past few years i've had a struggle with some students who don't want to take the ap test... for any number of reasons... so i was interested to read the following today in a list serv message:

Several major universities, including the University of California, have told us in writing that they will admit a student who takes an AP course and scores a 1 or a 2 on the exam before a student who takes the course but does not take the exam. And some, including Cornell, have said that they see a low score as a suggestion that students are willing to take on a challenge knowing it may be a huge stretch.

you see... the scores are only as meaningful, valuable, weighty as the individual colleges want them to be... i need to think about this some more...

a favorite wberry poem... posted at whiskey river...

so the new doc calls to say... here's yr numbers... total cholesterol = 174... ldl (bad kind) = 106... hdl (good kind) = 29... triglicerides = 193... he says not bad... says that hdl is really stubborn... hard to raise but 40 would be a better number... triglicerides are kinda high too.. under 150 would be good... but they're quite casually variable... i admit i've got a sugar/carb jones... he says just keep trying but don't go cold turkey... i like this guy... who stays on the phone to explain all this in detail...

see fyp for this one's silver twin...


and more pictures will open in new windows...

... special thanks to chris at tex files... for the appreciation... summer's in hot conspiracy with flowers... Mothers of America! let your kids go to the garden!

without dominic these mornings... i walk my inner dog alone... and think about heaven.. or at least the pleasures of peace and how they fall around my silly head like lucky coins or white petals... i like the sun's angle this morning... i wonder about my right knee's durability... those swallows are way down dew-level close... good morning, mr. deerleg... cool and dry... we greet each other with a smile and a mornin'...

jiveturky: The single greatest event of my life. ... please do not read this if you are offended by negative thoughts about george w. bush... encounters with greatness... indeed

Coastal Post Online
Should we halt development to protect the snail darter? Should we 'Wendell Berry' it and return to a completely organic farm-based, computer-less nineteenth century world? Should we stop using oil altogether, or not watch any TV? How much ocean and river warming should be allowed to cool power plants? How much air pollution should be allowable? ... is he close to becoming a verb?

in drawing room #2... no bigger than my closet... he sticks the needle in and i'm feeling fine... hardly a prick... i say this is a pretty nice new building... but no windows... he says o yes there are but they're in the examining rooms like over in ob/gyn... what do they need windows for over there... he says

Invisible Library (via the spiral-bound list)

j. chalmers on carmelite ways...
The fundamental reason for the existence of so much poverty in the world lies in the depths of the human heart. It is a great mistake to blame only others for the situation because each of us bears some responsibility. The commitment to justice and peace must go hand in hand with the contemplative process of putting on the mind of Christ so that our service of the poor does not become a subtle way to make the poor serve our own needs.

Lectio Divina from The Carmelite Web Site

standing parvati

Bob Dylan takes a turn at wine making

Of the 415 cases produced, 125 will be exported to the United States, with a suggested retail price of $65 per bottle.

so Fahrenheit 9/11 is the kind of movie where the screen goes black but the sound goes on while the planes come in... the kind of movie that doesn't blink at the torn burnt and broken bodies of soldiers and civilians... the kind of movie that traces a path from saudi arabia to texas to afghanistan to iraq... that takes full advantage of the president's least endearing qualities and connections... the kind of movie that will convince the convinced and with luck & grace shiver some other timbers... the kind of movie that ends with neil young rockin' in the free world...

A riddle by William Carlos Williams

I felt like a fool. Called the woman back. Sounded authoritarian: 'You have to come in to the ER immediately.' I gave her no option.

read Hermes - A Resident's Life

posted this morning to the wendel berry list...

Since today is Henry David Thoreau's 187th
birthday, I thought to celebrate by sharing a
small paragraph from "The Long-Legged House" ...
which has always seemed the most blatantly
thoreauvian (waldenian?) of WB's essays:

On the last morning of October, waking, I looked
out the window and saw a fisherman in  a red
jacket fishing alone in his boat tied against
the far bank. He sat deeply quiet and still,
unmoved as a tree by my rising and the other
events that went on around him. There was
something heron-like in his intent waiting upon
what the day might bring him out of the dark. In
his quietness and patience he might have been
the incarnation of some river god, at home among
all things, awake while I had slept. (161)

May your day, too, be lived today "at home among
all things."

July 22: Panel Discussion - Ohio River Bridges and Land Use Planning · Time: 7:30 p.m. At: First Presbyterian Church, 222 Walnut St. Jeffersonville, IN. Speakers: Wendell Berry, Jane Kirchner, Dale Orem, Jack Ragland, Dr. James A. Segedy Cost: Free

...i'm hoping to be there

met the new doctor this afternoon... another young one... lynn says she likes old doctors... but i'm not so sure they're necessarily the best... then i treated myself by stopping off to see spiderman 2... which is just about as good as everyone says... pretty good... we like our superheroes self-tormented... young enough to be learning still... still human

MadInkBeard... on writing with formal constraints... inspired by responding to... oulipo...

I've been interested in the (mostly French) group called the Oulipo (Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle) ever since I discovered the writings of Italo Calvino and (thanks to him) Raymond Queneau (both being members, the latter one of the founding-presidents). To put it as succinctly as possible the idea of the group is to create new forms of literature for the possible use of other writers. It's not about creating new literature qua literature, but about creating forms for new literature.