Michael Wade presents questions that should be asked at more meetings. I don't have much trouble with this in my job, but my husband does, and we've been coming up with others, including:
--"Let's make a decision now and see what happens."
--"We are running over time, here."
--"The meeting is being held to decide XXX. The doors will be locked until we do."
I have colleagues at a facility that shall remain nameless who are so busy attending meetings that they never have time to do any actual work. They could use some more of these questions.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Is this really necessary?
I'm currently reading Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero. The preface, not written by the author, begins thusly:
This, as modern lit-crit writing goes, is pretty mild stuff (I can understand it, for example). Nevertheless, some of its stylistic quirks annoy me. There is the tendency toward overstatement: Benardete's title is not merely appropriate and catchy but "deeply serious and brilliantly playful," as well as reflective of the author's appreciation of the tragedy and comedy of life. I also (and I may be treading on shaky ground here, as my knowledge of Plato is limited) am dubious that comprehending the subtle distinction between Plato transforming poetic knowledge into philosophy versus learning what he knew from the poets ultimately requires rethinking the relation between thought and action and with it, the very nature of the human soul. Finally, I find the last sentence unnecessarily cute: isn't the whole point of a colon to link two ideas?
Yes, I'm being crotchety here. The Preface goes on to usefully examine Homer's treatment of divisions (between irrational and rational, war and peace, action and reflection) in the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is, however, a noticeable contrast between the ease of comprehension of the Preface (circa 2005) and of the main text (originally published in 1955), and it's not clear to me that the rather more obscure Preface has a higher information density than the accessible main text.
I may simply be running up against the differing expectations of a scientist versus a humanities scholar. I think scientists look for texts to get to the point with prose that is clear and focused, while the above Preface revels in a playfulness with words that makes me impatient, but probably entertains many others. Or am I stereotyping here, too?
Perhaps it was his appreciation of the tragedy and comedy of life that gave Seth Benardete such delight in titles at once deeply serious and brilliantly playful. Late in his life, Benardete published The Bow and the Lyre: A Platonic Reading of the Odyssey -- the culmination of over forty years of reflection on Homer's Odyssey. In the preface, surveying his own experience, Benardete remarks that Plato so consistently provided him with access to Greek poetry that he was forced to wonder whether Plato had not so much transformed poetic knowledge into philosophy as learned what he knew from the poets. If so, it would be necessary to rethink "the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry" that Plato first made thematic. This, no small matter, in the end would require that we rethink as well the relation between thought and action, and with it the very nature of the human soul. The "Platonic wisdom" of the Odyssey is at its heart an account of the intimate connection between the irrational and the rational -- the bow and the lyre. The main title of Benardete's first published book on Homer thus stands to its subtitle as Homer stands to Plato and as poetry stands to philosophy. The question of the principle that at once unites and divides them lurks in the colon.
This, as modern lit-crit writing goes, is pretty mild stuff (I can understand it, for example). Nevertheless, some of its stylistic quirks annoy me. There is the tendency toward overstatement: Benardete's title is not merely appropriate and catchy but "deeply serious and brilliantly playful," as well as reflective of the author's appreciation of the tragedy and comedy of life. I also (and I may be treading on shaky ground here, as my knowledge of Plato is limited) am dubious that comprehending the subtle distinction between Plato transforming poetic knowledge into philosophy versus learning what he knew from the poets ultimately requires rethinking the relation between thought and action and with it, the very nature of the human soul. Finally, I find the last sentence unnecessarily cute: isn't the whole point of a colon to link two ideas?
Yes, I'm being crotchety here. The Preface goes on to usefully examine Homer's treatment of divisions (between irrational and rational, war and peace, action and reflection) in the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is, however, a noticeable contrast between the ease of comprehension of the Preface (circa 2005) and of the main text (originally published in 1955), and it's not clear to me that the rather more obscure Preface has a higher information density than the accessible main text.
I may simply be running up against the differing expectations of a scientist versus a humanities scholar. I think scientists look for texts to get to the point with prose that is clear and focused, while the above Preface revels in a playfulness with words that makes me impatient, but probably entertains many others. Or am I stereotyping here, too?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The Downside of Spring
This is the allergy map for today. Notice the red finger of death reaching up to encompass Colorado. Ugh.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sad news
My favorite blogger, journalist Cathy Seipp, is dying.
This morning, I was listening to the first lecture in
Operas of Mozart about The Magic Flute, which premiered as a huge success a mere month before Mozart died. And so, I find myself saying for the second -- but sadly more immediate -- time today, "S(he) deserved more time!"
UPDATE: Rest in peace, Cathy.
This morning, I was listening to the first lecture in
Operas of Mozart about The Magic Flute, which premiered as a huge success a mere month before Mozart died. And so, I find myself saying for the second -- but sadly more immediate -- time today, "S(he) deserved more time!"
UPDATE: Rest in peace, Cathy.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
The Little Bulbs
I love small bulbs. They're easy to plant and they look so cheery when they come up in the spring. Right now, we have crocus, miniature iris, winter aconite and some species tulips.
Shown here: eranthus hyemalis, a beautiful crocus vernus with a terribly politically incorrect name, crocus chrysanthus 'Advance,' and Iris histrioides 'George.'
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Blond jokes
A colleague and I have a running joke based on the Teen Talk Barbie "math is hard"
kerfuffle. Since I'm a research astrophysicist and she is a mechanical engineer specializing in optomechanics for space-based hardware, we've both experienced our share of math classes, so we thought the talking Barbie scandal was pretty funny.
Well, she just sent me the attached blonde math joke. She isn't blond, so she likes to give me a hard time. And I must say, I'm much better at saying "math is hard" with the appropriate head toss and Valley Girl accent. We all have our strengths.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Quote of the Day
Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect -- and don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.
--Ambrose Bierce
(Poor fellow, to have been born an American--is any home less suited to his philosophy?)
The Race Season
So, one of the requirements of living in Boulder County is that an active physical lifestyle must be pursued. (Really, it was in the housing contract.) This requirement is not without tribulation, as Outside magazine pointed out, because no matter how skilled you are, someone else is invariably better. For those of us on the lower end of the distribution, racing in Colorado is an exercise in enforced modesty. I recite a lot of "what's important is that I'm out here"-type mantras.
Last year, I discovered triathalons. (Here is a good case in point: just as I proudly finished my first tri, the girl-power heavy Danskin, a coworker completed his first Ironman.) I like tris. They are much more forgiving on the joints than running and the training variety is fun. Plus (thanks, Mom!), I know how to swim quite well, so I get to tear up the field for the first section of every race. My favorite race last year was the Fat Tire Tri in Fort Collins, CO, which consisted of a swim, mountain bike, and trail run. The picture shows me on the bike trail. Notice how I'm all alone. The route was sufficiently spread out and the field sufficiently small that I spent much of the race like this. (Quite a contrast to the aforementioned Danskin.)
At any rate, it's time to decide what to do this year. I think the Danskin and Fat Tire are definite repeats, but my vague goal of upgrading to an Olympic distance race is probably out, as my travel schedule is shaping up to be a real pain. Maybe I'll add the Boulder Backroads half-marathon too. My sister and friend ran it last year and had a great time. Planning for a September race is dangerous, though, because I'm terribly allergic to late summer grasses and often spend the end of August and much of September in a haze. Either way, the first two races should get me off my duff and out into the gorgeous Colorado landscape.
2006 Top Ten Reading List
I keep track of the books I read, and try to write short reviews for each (usually, very short, cause I'm always running behind). At the end of the year, I review my list and pick my personal Top 10. So here, just for fun, are my best reads for 2006:
10. The End of the Bronze Age by Robert Drews. This history offers an explanation for the abrupt collapse of most of the highly developed civilizations of the Mediterranean basin around 1200 B.C., including the Myceneans, the Hittites, and the Egyptian New Kingdom: namely, the influx of pesky barbarians who knew how to counter chariot forces. Drews' thesis is tightly developed and well attested with written and archeological data. I've read a number of books over the last few years about Western antiquity; the end of the Bronze Age was a significant event, as it started the first "Dark Ages" that set back Western development by several hundred years and was only ended with the rise of classical Greece. Plus, I enjoy just about any well-written history (as my other entries below will attest).
9. The Demolished Man . Alfred Bester's 1951 novel is one of the classics of science fiction, and deservedly so. Ben Reich wants to murder a hated rival, but is hindered by the presence of telepathic law enforcement monitoring the minds of citizens to prevent crimes before they are committed. Reich's murder and his subsequent efforts to escape justice form the crux of the novel, which is also a classic detective story in a futuristic setting.
8. The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV, Anne Somerset. Somerset uses a bizarre case of poisoning hysteria to cast light on Parisian life in the reign of the Sun King, from the highest of high aristocrats to the lowliest of servants and workers. What links them together in this story is their reliance on female fortune-tellers, who made a living handing out fortunes, as well as a little late-term family planning help and perhaps a bit of get-rid-of-your-vexing-husband help. It's a fascinating story, well told.
7. Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet, Nicholas Reeves. Reeves checks in with another great history, this time about the Amarna period in the Egyptian New Kingdom. Because he swept out the old gods in favor of a single one, the Aten, Akhenaten has often been heralded as a prescient forerunner of monotheism. Using artistic, architectural, and written evidence, Reeves makes a strong case that Akhenaten's reforms were made not out of religious conviction but out of a desire to curb the power of the temple of Amun in Thebes and concentrate it in himself (as the chosen communicant to the Aten). His abandonment of the traditional religion was so unpopular that his reign veered toward the tyrannical; it took only a few years after his death for his new religion and city to be abandoned. The story of Akhenaten is well told here and gorgeously illustrated (the Amarna period also being one of artistic revolution).
6. The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight, and Exile, Paul Hofmann. Hofmann writes a history of Vienna and its people, concentrating in particular on the time from the 18th century to the post World War II period. It's really more of a cultural history than an event-based one: Hofmann concentrates on what makes the Viennese the Viennese and how their city has inspired that evolution. Vienna isn't such an important city anymore in the scheme of things, but it used to be the center of art and culture for a vast empire and this book helps explain how it fufilled that role.
5. The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millenium by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. This is one of the best "popular" histories I've read. Lacey and Danziger present an overview of what life was like in England of 1000, a surprisingly pleasant time to be alive (our view of the Middle Ages tends to be biased by the nastiness of life after the Black Death came through). They discuss how crops were grown, what foods were eaten, religious and social occasions, and political events. Really, a very entertaining short history.
4. Snake Agent, Liz Williams. Liz Williams rocks! I have enjoyed every one of her delightfully inventive fantasy/sci-fi novels, and she has reached the status of automatic purchase with me. Snake Agent is the first in a series (two so far) of novels about Detective Inspector Chen, a Shanghai cop who is detailed to cases that involve the supernatural. When a young girl is murdered and her soul is highjacked to hell rather than heaven, Inspector Chen is called in to find out who in hell is stealing the souls of the innocent. Of course, he stumbles into a giant conspiracy that reaches from Earth to heaven and hell. The scenes, aboveground but especially in Hell, are so lavishly imagined that I hated to see the book end.
3. The Portrait of a Lady , Henry James. Fortunately, this is early James, so it doesn't require that each sentence be read twice, once to establish the structure and punctuation, and once to actually get at the meaning. Portrait of a Lady is a more accessible entry into James' exquisite psychological character studies, in this case centered around Isabel Archer, whose confidence in her own superior intellect and discernment leads her into a disastrous marriage. James can be cold when it comes to matters of passion (how much of a role did sexual attraction play in Isabel's decision to marry Osmond? -- we can't really say) but in other areas of the human element, he shines.
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, Susannah Clarke. Have you ever finished an 800 page novel and felt it was too short? Clarke's novel inspires that reaction. Her world of a Regency England still tied to magic and Faerie is so charming that I wanted to read more. The protagonists are the two magicians of England who have rediscovered magic but are in conflict about how it should be used. Clarke does an excellent job balancing plot, character, and setting, and the overall result is a joy to read.
1. The Iliad. The Lattimore translation of Homer's Iliad has sat on my night table for a couple of years now, as I slowly made my way through it. I finally finished it last year. In the meantime, I'd actually read several excellent studies of Homer:
Homer on Life and Death,
The Greeks and the Irrational, and
Homeric Moments being particular standouts. Forget about the war: it's already been going on for 10 years before the story starts and doesn't even end until after the tale cuts off. Fundamentally, the Iliad is about Achilles, facing the choice between a long, obscure life and a shortened one that will last in glorious reputation. The Iliad is about the meaning of life, the facing of death, and what it means to be heroic. This isn't just a valuable historical relic, it's the first and still one of the greatest works of Western literature.
10. The End of the Bronze Age by Robert Drews. This history offers an explanation for the abrupt collapse of most of the highly developed civilizations of the Mediterranean basin around 1200 B.C., including the Myceneans, the Hittites, and the Egyptian New Kingdom: namely, the influx of pesky barbarians who knew how to counter chariot forces. Drews' thesis is tightly developed and well attested with written and archeological data. I've read a number of books over the last few years about Western antiquity; the end of the Bronze Age was a significant event, as it started the first "Dark Ages" that set back Western development by several hundred years and was only ended with the rise of classical Greece. Plus, I enjoy just about any well-written history (as my other entries below will attest).
9. The Demolished Man . Alfred Bester's 1951 novel is one of the classics of science fiction, and deservedly so. Ben Reich wants to murder a hated rival, but is hindered by the presence of telepathic law enforcement monitoring the minds of citizens to prevent crimes before they are committed. Reich's murder and his subsequent efforts to escape justice form the crux of the novel, which is also a classic detective story in a futuristic setting.
8. The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV, Anne Somerset. Somerset uses a bizarre case of poisoning hysteria to cast light on Parisian life in the reign of the Sun King, from the highest of high aristocrats to the lowliest of servants and workers. What links them together in this story is their reliance on female fortune-tellers, who made a living handing out fortunes, as well as a little late-term family planning help and perhaps a bit of get-rid-of-your-vexing-husband help. It's a fascinating story, well told.
7. Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet, Nicholas Reeves. Reeves checks in with another great history, this time about the Amarna period in the Egyptian New Kingdom. Because he swept out the old gods in favor of a single one, the Aten, Akhenaten has often been heralded as a prescient forerunner of monotheism. Using artistic, architectural, and written evidence, Reeves makes a strong case that Akhenaten's reforms were made not out of religious conviction but out of a desire to curb the power of the temple of Amun in Thebes and concentrate it in himself (as the chosen communicant to the Aten). His abandonment of the traditional religion was so unpopular that his reign veered toward the tyrannical; it took only a few years after his death for his new religion and city to be abandoned. The story of Akhenaten is well told here and gorgeously illustrated (the Amarna period also being one of artistic revolution).
6. The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight, and Exile, Paul Hofmann. Hofmann writes a history of Vienna and its people, concentrating in particular on the time from the 18th century to the post World War II period. It's really more of a cultural history than an event-based one: Hofmann concentrates on what makes the Viennese the Viennese and how their city has inspired that evolution. Vienna isn't such an important city anymore in the scheme of things, but it used to be the center of art and culture for a vast empire and this book helps explain how it fufilled that role.
5. The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millenium by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. This is one of the best "popular" histories I've read. Lacey and Danziger present an overview of what life was like in England of 1000, a surprisingly pleasant time to be alive (our view of the Middle Ages tends to be biased by the nastiness of life after the Black Death came through). They discuss how crops were grown, what foods were eaten, religious and social occasions, and political events. Really, a very entertaining short history.
4. Snake Agent, Liz Williams. Liz Williams rocks! I have enjoyed every one of her delightfully inventive fantasy/sci-fi novels, and she has reached the status of automatic purchase with me. Snake Agent is the first in a series (two so far) of novels about Detective Inspector Chen, a Shanghai cop who is detailed to cases that involve the supernatural. When a young girl is murdered and her soul is highjacked to hell rather than heaven, Inspector Chen is called in to find out who in hell is stealing the souls of the innocent. Of course, he stumbles into a giant conspiracy that reaches from Earth to heaven and hell. The scenes, aboveground but especially in Hell, are so lavishly imagined that I hated to see the book end.
3. The Portrait of a Lady , Henry James. Fortunately, this is early James, so it doesn't require that each sentence be read twice, once to establish the structure and punctuation, and once to actually get at the meaning. Portrait of a Lady is a more accessible entry into James' exquisite psychological character studies, in this case centered around Isabel Archer, whose confidence in her own superior intellect and discernment leads her into a disastrous marriage. James can be cold when it comes to matters of passion (how much of a role did sexual attraction play in Isabel's decision to marry Osmond? -- we can't really say) but in other areas of the human element, he shines.
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, Susannah Clarke. Have you ever finished an 800 page novel and felt it was too short? Clarke's novel inspires that reaction. Her world of a Regency England still tied to magic and Faerie is so charming that I wanted to read more. The protagonists are the two magicians of England who have rediscovered magic but are in conflict about how it should be used. Clarke does an excellent job balancing plot, character, and setting, and the overall result is a joy to read.
1. The Iliad. The Lattimore translation of Homer's Iliad has sat on my night table for a couple of years now, as I slowly made my way through it. I finally finished it last year. In the meantime, I'd actually read several excellent studies of Homer:
Homer on Life and Death,
The Greeks and the Irrational, and
Homeric Moments being particular standouts. Forget about the war: it's already been going on for 10 years before the story starts and doesn't even end until after the tale cuts off. Fundamentally, the Iliad is about Achilles, facing the choice between a long, obscure life and a shortened one that will last in glorious reputation. The Iliad is about the meaning of life, the facing of death, and what it means to be heroic. This isn't just a valuable historical relic, it's the first and still one of the greatest works of Western literature.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Great web humor II.
Other favorite web humor links:
1) The Art of Art Frahm: Ladies, don't you just hate it when you're innocently going about your everyday duties and your underwear falls down? What? This doesn't happen to you? Well, don't tell Art Frahm; you'd break his heart.
2)Weight Watchers Recipe Cards, circa 1974: the first time I saw these, I laughed so hard I cried. Yes, the genre has already been pretty well plumbed by James Lileks, but these recipes deserve their own treatment, too.
3) Leeroy Jenkins Warcraft Soundboard and the actual video: This one requires a certain geek quotient, but for those who qualify, this site provides an essential link to one of the seminal events of MMORPG history.
4) Red vs. Blue (Episode 1 here): Since I've already revealed my gaming geek side, I'll add a link to the ongoing series concerning life for the hapless foot soldiers stuck in Halo PvP.
I thought I had others, but they have been lost in the mists of time.
1) The Art of Art Frahm: Ladies, don't you just hate it when you're innocently going about your everyday duties and your underwear falls down? What? This doesn't happen to you? Well, don't tell Art Frahm; you'd break his heart.
2)Weight Watchers Recipe Cards, circa 1974: the first time I saw these, I laughed so hard I cried. Yes, the genre has already been pretty well plumbed by James Lileks, but these recipes deserve their own treatment, too.
3) Leeroy Jenkins Warcraft Soundboard and the actual video: This one requires a certain geek quotient, but for those who qualify, this site provides an essential link to one of the seminal events of MMORPG history.
4) Red vs. Blue (Episode 1 here): Since I've already revealed my gaming geek side, I'll add a link to the ongoing series concerning life for the hapless foot soldiers stuck in Halo PvP.
I thought I had others, but they have been lost in the mists of time.
Great web humor I.
Since I've been on a Food Network kick, I thought I'd better link to one of my favorite items on the web:
The Great Giada Disaster of 2006, in which Giada de Laurentiis has an unfortunate reaction to her cranberry sorbet.
The Great Giada Disaster of 2006, in which Giada de Laurentiis has an unfortunate reaction to her cranberry sorbet.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Quote of the Day
On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or of the passage of time. When at last I came to myself, it was almost eleven and I was quite exhausted: I knew that I could not prudently continue without refreshment.
--Hilary Tamar, Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
Has the arduous life of the research academic ever been more profoundly captured?
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Sandra Lee is comedy gold, however
I should add a link to Sandra Lee's classic,
The Kwanzaa Celebration Cake, wherein she takes a storebought angel food cake, frosts it with storebought vanilla frosting (with cocoa and cinnamon added for that semi-homemade touch), fills in the hole with canned apple pie filling, and tops it all off with a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds, popcorn and Corn Nuts!
The Kwanzaa Celebration Cake, wherein she takes a storebought angel food cake, frosts it with storebought vanilla frosting (with cocoa and cinnamon added for that semi-homemade touch), fills in the hole with canned apple pie filling, and tops it all off with a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds, popcorn and Corn Nuts!
Tony Bourdain smackdown
Tony Bourdain has made a name for himself presenting a frank (that's a nice way of putting it) view of how restaurants and cooking really work. Here, he once again turns his sights on the Food Network and its continuing devolution. Do you remember when FN hosted David Rosengarten, Sara Moulton, Mario Batali, and Ming Tsai? Well, those folks are long gone. Instead, meet Sandra Lee, inventor of the "semi-homemade" concept, where storebought, pre-prepared foods are tarted up with a few extra ingredients and then presented in a distracting "tablescape." As Bourdain puts it, these people make Emeril Lagasse look like Escoffier.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Tribulations of the rich and famous
I absolutely love the New York Times. They are a never-ending source of articles like this, wherein Hollywood moguls and Upper East Side executives ponder the vexed question of how to get your child to sleep in his or her own bed. The parents consult sleep experts, who recommend reward systems, parents sitting farther and farther away each night, and a proxy for the little bundle of joy to clutch. At no point in the article is the phrase "because I said so" uttered. One woman even justifies the fact that she is letting her child run the household by recounting how traumatic is was to know that the parent's bed was off limits, even during a storm. The horror, the horror!
Quote of the Day
For resting upon soft down, or underneath
The blanket's cloth, is not how fame is won--
Without which, one spends life to leave behind
As vestige of himself on earth the sign
Smoke leaves on air, or foam on water.
--Dante, Inferno
(Robert Pinksy trans.)
Spring, please!
We humans aren't the only ones who have felt that this winter has been cruel and unusually long by Colorado standards. The first crocus have come up in my yard, the earliest I remember them doing so. Nothing like two months of snow cover and and a thaw to get the garden started!
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