driving off to ohio in the morning... for services for dom's dad... see you wednesday...

out my window i don't get no mountains no ocean view... but from time to time i get this kind of stuff... and am happy enough to have it... somehow the orangey quality of the shot isn't quite right... but... it is... there's a tiny speck in the sky that's a plane...

James Blood Ulmer... woah... woe... w... oh... the blues!

an annotated gay teen book list

listening again to gyorgi ligeti... complete piano music vol 1... performed by Fredrik Ullen... music that makes me happy to be alive... modern, wild, astringent, quiet, loud, fast, slow... somehow... somewhat... melodic... but i may just be imagining that... what do i know? music that makes me want to live...

ArkivMusic | Ligeti: Complete Piano Music Vol 2 / Fredrik Ullen

and more from WB...Heaven in Henry County, Sojourners Magazine/July 2004...
People are always talking about the first church. The real first church was that gaggle of people who followed Jesus around. We don't know anything about them. But he apparently didn't ask them what creed they subscribed to, or what their sexual preference was, or any of that. He fed them. He healed them. He forgave them. He is clear about sin, but he was also for forgiveness.

wendell berry interviewed... Heaven in Henry County, Sojourners Magazine/July 2004
But we need also to raise the questions that are not quantitative. How happy are people? What do we make of all this complaining? How healthy are people? How are love and beauty faring? What do we make of all this doctoring and medication that's going on all the time at such a great expense? That's not to deny that this so-called progress has given us things that are worth having. A hot bath every night is a good thing. I affirm that it is good, and wish to record my gratitude. There are other good things, but real harms also have been done.

American Memory: FSA/OWI B&W Photographs

Lexington Herald-Leader | 09/18/2004 | State now has more trees in less forest
Most agreed that major changes are needed in the way Kentuckians relate to their forests.

One of several people who expressed that notion was Wendell Berry, the Henry County writer and farmer, who introduced himself as a 'woods owner.'

'What we're really talking about is changing our minds about how we think about our forests, which means we're not going to have to change two or three things, we're going to have to change everything.'

Paula's House of Toast has some strong, very critical words on the president's claim to stand for "a culture of life"... one who is opposed to abortion may feel initially offended by some of paula's comments... (so... if you are a person who may be offended or even outraged by such criticism... & you know who you are... please do not bother reading what paula has to say)... but i find her thoughts relevant to how the sincerely positive spin of much pro-life language (and the many good-hearted people who use it) is so open to co-optation by political characters whose agendas are often quite dark once the surface is scratched... note to self: scratch the surface...

Reading Rants! -- The Closet Club: Gay Fiction for Teens

DIGHTON ROCK, MASSACHUSETTS

Why use A9.com?... hmmm...

was amused yesterday to note that it was the birthday of two of the most talented of the williams boys... bill (1883) and hank (1923)...

AP English Resources

Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'... Arthur Miller... new yorker... october 1996...

so long, johnny...

Written word loses much of its appeal
But there is no evidence that the Internet makes people better readers and more informed citizens. In 1997, Sun Microsystems conducted a study titled 'How Users Read on the Web.' The first sentence was: 'They don't.' Only 16 percent of test subjects read word by word. The rest scanned the page, picking up snatches of text and looking for visuals and keywords before jumping to another screen. ... i wonder if the blog has changed these patterns in any signifcant way...

and not to complain but... tonight is parent-back-to-school night... so we teach a full day today... then bounce back for a second show from 7 to a bit after 9 tonight... then up in the morning for another full day... feel sorry for me... for us all...

i passed the morning reading the prologue of Invisible Man to the apes (advanced placement english students)... kicking off that novel... i always forget how big it is... how daunting it must seem... one says we'd better read something really short next time... and i tell no lie when i say we will... since IM is the longest of the year...

the sophs are beginning The Crucible w/ some in-class reading today...

dominic's dad died last night... so things are... well... you know...

 In "The Unforeseen Wilderness" Wendell Berry writes, "the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.

A Guide to Online Jean Renoir Materials ... jr would be 110 today... this is a rich site... just needs a tiny bit of updating...

Google Search: salem witch trials

photography by Sebastiao Salgado (via the spiral-bound group)

so yesterday afternoon i unplugged the phone jack fromt he computer back into the phone because it looked for a moment like it might storm... it didn't... but there was the little red light telling me of some voicemail... it was my sister... inviting me to a birthday celebration for her husband my brother-in-law... on sunday... last sunday... mom and meg were coming up from petersburg for it... and well... i missed it... sorry, folks... you really do matter to me much more than it may seem at times... sigh...

Decline of the Literate Culture / Without lust for literature, reading is at risk
In 2002, most activities showed a slight drop from earlier surveys in 1982 and 1992, but literary reading underwent marked change. It fell 10.2 percentage points from 1982, a loss of 20 million potential readers. Young adults (age 18 to 24) showed even greater decline. In 1982, about 60 percent of them read literature; in 2002, less than 43 percent did.

fw #4... go this is goofy i'm just doing this here instead o fon paper and then i'll push itout to you whoever you are my typing is not much better than my handwriting but who cares... you might not care but then... look theres no if in here theres no maybe just push push the tiny black keys... then you remember theres sojmething goingon theres nothing goning on back there but i'm making lots of noise with this and they're just writing so quietly pencil or pen to paper is so quiet you could sleep to it you could dream... that's ok we're just dreaming this has nothing to do with
English why you'c apitalize that why'd you butter yr bread... never use it muyself mam but then he ran out to get some magaxzines a newspaper and never came back well maybe he came back ten of three years later but the whole world had changed by then and this person he;d been was just aashaodw type right dummy type clearly for the good folks out ther but a freewreite is for yrself its not to be read so go away this is just me typin gfor maybe five minutes is it done yet i wonder is it ever done who know... i lost rack of time i forot to look at the minute hand i only saw the steady thin gliding red second. hand.

aplit reads macleish's "ars poetica"... you know... "a poem should not mean/but be"... and has some good conversation about its apparent contradictions... i wonder... what are we to do in the presence of poem busy being but not meaning? isn't old archie ignoring the reader... any of us... who needs meaning whose whole job is to make meaning of what's there... of course... but he's been beaten up enough over the years...there's still something ripe about his poem... ripe enough...

after reading edward taylor's huswifery... i thought we might try our own extended metaphors in the sophomore classes... and we started... and... complications ensued... and so they'll turn in what they've done today...and we'll move on...

The poetry of Nicanor Parra, non-decorative,
concrete, direct and turbulently narrative, hides in its
most intimate crevices a profound spiritual convulsion.

Amazon.com: Books: Hannah Coulter: A Novel
Hannah Coulter is the latest installment in Wendell Berry's long story about the citizens of Port William, Kentucky. In his unforgettable prose, we learn of the Coulters' children, of the Feltners and Branches, and how survivors "live right on."

Kirkus Reviews
Berry, Wendell HANNAH COULTER
September 15, 2004 - Hannah Coulter comes from that long-past generation of rural Americans who fully expect their lives to pass as uneventfully as their parents' and grandparents' and God only knows how many ancestors' before them. A girl during the hard years of the ... and drat... there's no access to the complete review... i'll have to visit our school librarians... see if they can help me out w/ the kirkus...

The Fall Preview (washingtonpost.com)
Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry (Shoemaker & Hoard, Nov.). The latest installment in Berry's narrative of Port William, Ky.