Knitting in Flight
Carole is getting ready to do some international travel next week, so we have been going over the usual litany of indignities one is now subjected to in order to get on an airplane. Carole is also a knitter, which means she uses knitting needles, which are banned by the airline she is flying. Now [...]
More on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Finished my read-through of the novel for next term. I’m going to be using Frankenstein to focus several issues — education, which I mentioned previously, will be central, especially as it contributes to our idea of what makes us human. Oddly, the book has hardly anything to do with science, as such, because Shelley glides [...]
Jr. High Politics
When I was in junior high school in the sixties, you had to be a fan of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, or The Beach Boys (this was southern California). Call it an early form of identity politics — it was pretty severe. You had to dress like your chosen group, wear your hair like [...]
Genevieve Taggard on US Immigration Policy
Like many people, I’ve been appalled by the rise of nativist racism in the US in the last couple of years & in particular in the current presidential campaigns. I’ve wanted to write something & have twice sat down to attempt some kind of statement, if not an analysis, of the phenomenon, but both times [...]
Xmas-Eve Meatball Sandwiches
I had some leftover spaghetti sauce & some left over turkey sausage, so I made meatball sandwiches last night. For the meatballs, take about a cup of mild sausage, mix in three cloves of finely minced garlic, salt & pepper, some oregano, roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs, & one egg yolk. Mix with [...]
Rereading Frankenstein
I’ve been rereading Frankenstein the last couple of days because I’m going to teach it in my Imagining Science course next term. I’ve taught the book before, but never well, I suspect because I never managed to enter into its imaginative universe until now. The book is a bundle of narrative implausibilities & the science, [...]
Sandy Taylor Dies at 76
I only met Sandy Taylor a couple of times, but have great admiration for his work at Curbstone Press. He will be missed. He’d want me to tag this post as “politics” as well as “poetry.” As a memorial, here is the first stanza of Sam Hamill’s poem “Arguing with Milosz in Vilnius,” from Hamill’s [...]
Xmas Break
I keep thinking I’ll have a day or two to just kick back & read, post a couple of things on the blog, cook a nice dinner, but so far that hasn’t really happened. Until today, at least, I haven’t needed to drive in to school. I got my grades turned in last Sunday, then [...]
Dec 16 2006 Snow
Dec 16 2006 Snow
The birds have been enjoying coming to the feeder today in the bright sun. Just looking out occasionally, I’ve seen pair of hairy woodpeckers, several nuthatches, the usual flock of chickadees, jays, grosbeaks.
Snowstorm
Well, the storm that moved through the Northeast US seems to have played itself out. We got more than a foot of snow over the last twenty-four hours, which means I’ll be clearing the stuff of the deck (in shifts) for the rest of the day. When Carole gets home this afternoon, we’ll have to [...]
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