tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10559322574649759022024-03-15T20:10:14.556-05:00Stupid Motivational Tricks / Bemsha SwingScholarly writing and how to get it done. / And a workshop for my own ideas, scholarly and poeticJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comBlogger5305125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-13185945253589184042024-03-15T04:46:00.000-05:002024-03-15T04:46:45.013-05:00PeyrouA friend in Spain shows me a book by Mariano Peyrou on how to read contemporary poetry. I open it up randomly and there is a discussion of the Red Wheelbarrow (in Spanish), then again, I see 13 maneras de ver un mirlo (in Spanish again). I went back to buy the book, and it has Hejinian, and, in Spanish, poems by my favorite contemporary Spanish poets. I've never felt my "taste" more Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-28518523149976160512024-03-12T10:37:00.005-05:002024-03-12T10:37:59.955-05:00Minor wins The Face ID on my phone wasn't working, neither was the phone charging well. I took some lint out of the charging hole with a. toothpick. I found a cell phone case shop and got the screen protector changed. Now I've been able to reactivate the face recognition, and the phone also charges perfectly. Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-58414545858458072712024-03-12T09:31:00.001-05:002024-03-12T09:31:54.414-05:00Useless knowledge Could someone map one's personal knowledge? Imagining hundreds of thousands of separate items of information, with, for example, knowledge about everyday life, the origins of words, musical instruments, cooking techniques, the rules or scoring systems of various games. This knowledge would form a complex web in anybody's mind. Most of it is useless in any given circumstances. If I am Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-73373297061999496932024-03-11T11:25:00.000-05:002024-03-11T11:25:33.125-05:00experiences not dreams but experienced as though they were 1. In a store downtown selling pens, notebooks, and art supplies. I see a friend, JR, I recognize her from the back and she turns around. We have a brief conversation. I see that that another friend of J's I also know, KG, is also there a few feet away. JR says, "I didn't know you drew." I said, "I don't... well, I do, but that's not why I'm here." Then I wonder if these two Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-32880873126428282112024-03-06T11:31:00.005-06:002024-03-06T11:31:48.360-06:00Drummer as bandleaders I was thinking, oh, not many drummers are bandleaders, after I saw "The Gene Krupa Story" recently. Not a horrible movie though not A+ either. What saves it is that the drumming itself in the movie is done by Krupa himself. Anyway, then I thought well, there's Chick Webb, Art Blakey. Then it dawned on my that it is pretty common. Max Roach had several groups, including the best Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-68716861129731549682024-03-05T08:24:00.000-06:002024-03-05T08:24:21.328-06:005 k I ran a 5k on the weekend, with approximately 11 minute miles. I came in around the middle of the pack, below average for male and above average for the entire group. I came in second in my age group, which sounds less impressive when you add the information that there were only 5 of us in the 60-64 span! On the other hand, most men of this age group are not out there running at all. Doing Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-15086766964181486212024-03-04T07:05:00.001-06:002024-03-04T07:05:18.484-06:00Dream of finishing High School In my dream I had been trying to finish High School. (It seemed like my GED was no longer satisfying to me.) I was in the choir and noticed that the duration of what we had to sing or recite was contrived, in order to occupy a fixed amount of time. I grew skeptical about whether I really needed to go back and do my senior year in High School. Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-11875352032695515982024-02-26T13:41:00.003-06:002024-02-26T13:41:51.730-06:00Model of relation between words and music (classical, dualistic model) The words come first. The melody is a "setting" of a previously written usually canonical poem. The process of song setting is not collaborative. Words and music are fundamentally at odds. The composer overrides the poet's art. ****Reverse this, and you get the "organic" model. Neither words or music are essentially prior, and either might come first as a matter of practiceJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-56213510266576436632024-02-25T14:52:00.003-06:002024-02-25T14:52:36.929-06:00New York Times"'Reading Genesis' is, as the title suggests, Robinson’s literary analysis of the first book of the Old Testament — one writer’s appreciation of the enduring work of others. Like so much of Robinson’s writing, the book is alive with questions of kindness, community and how to express what we so often struggle to put into words. 'An argument that I make in the book,' Robinson says, puckishly Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-75355504017129589962024-02-24T08:55:00.001-06:002024-02-24T08:59:12.295-06:00How a shirt dries Still submerged in water, the shirt will not begin to dry. It is maximally saturated with water. Once lifted out, a great deal of liquid will fall from it rapidly: it was not absorbed into the fibers in the first place, and thus has no way for it to hold on. At this point, more water will be shedded manually, through a process of squeezing or wringing out the excess. Some tub or basin, or Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-61097178786230813972024-02-23T16:22:00.000-06:002024-02-23T16:22:02.510-06:00Heterodoxy I read most of a book of interviews with Valente. He insists over and over on the distinction between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. (It is funny, too, how he repeats the same metaphors over and over. He is the "long distance runner" distant from his own contemporaries. It is striking how self-righteous he is and how ungenerous with other writers: he only saves a very few, and even comes Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-71294891408570280292024-02-21T11:01:00.000-06:002024-02-21T11:01:01.663-06:00Two gears I ran six k this morning. I did it slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, where slow is an 8 minute k, "fast" is 7:15 (or 6:45 in the case of the last kilometer). I have two gears. The really fast gear, at 6 minute kilometers, is not sustainable for me yet (or any longer!). I'm thinking this was easy, in that I feel not very tired an hour later. Forgetting Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-66866327194683221562024-02-18T09:10:00.000-06:002024-02-18T09:10:37.967-06:00Dream of Patagonia boat race I was on a plane and reading a book. The table of contents looked cryptic, literally in some kind of terse code. One part I read had to do with some boat races near Antarctica: apparently the navy was racing captains against each other to decide which ones got to be the captains of ships. There was a great loss of life and material because the conditions were "near blizzard." I couldn't Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-3889658467814454992024-02-15T08:36:00.001-06:002024-02-15T08:36:22.057-06:00Dream of misspelled name This really happened. The Deans mispelled my name on a little commemorative item they gave me for being interim chair. They promised to give me one with my name spelled right, but that hasn't happened yet (two months later). In my dream, they gave me the corrected plaque in some kind of public ceremony, but I looked and it still said "Johnathan" instead of "Jonathan." They askedJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-33487832160774321482024-02-12T10:23:00.004-06:002024-02-12T10:23:51.976-06:00comic genius It keeps getting better. Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-79599100587883532002024-02-07T17:47:00.001-06:002024-02-07T17:47:11.661-06:00Fruit flies and train wrecks Here an exchange for the ages... Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-73778651752347972802024-02-04T11:41:00.001-06:002024-02-04T11:41:13.149-06:00Dream of unrestful sleep I dreamt of someone coming in constantly to clean as I tried to sleep (maternal figure). I was trying to explain to her that I only had a few hours to sleep before I would have to get up anyway. When I did wake up from the dream, I realized that I had actually slept (since I was dreaming) while experiencing this sleep as unrestful (someone trying to prevent me from sleeping). I had Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-580542705624422442024-01-27T09:36:00.001-06:002024-01-27T09:36:04.343-06:00A dreamThere were two houses on opposite sides of a street, on a hillside, such that the house on the higher side of the hill had floors above the road, and the house across, on the bottom, had floors lower than its "ground floor" or street entrance. We were staying at the lower house, but attending a party or celebration of some kind at the upper house, which was superior in every way. In Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-48306342766548764542024-01-25T08:34:00.002-06:002024-01-25T08:34:56.773-06:00 I noticed that there are several possibly *negative* components of running: Being hot / sweaty / thirsty. In cardio-vascular terms, breathing hard or having elevated heart rate. Feeling tiredness / soreness in the legs or pain in legs any part of the body. Being bored / unmotivated. "I'd rather be doing something else." The first two don't bother me (unless I were Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-13407105322268092232024-01-23T09:59:00.003-06:002024-01-23T09:59:59.633-06:00Cognitive load and canine intelligence Running in the gym (because the ground is icy) requires a lot. I can lock up things in a small locker, but must remember a combination and which locker I have used. I have to have ear buds (they must be charged), the wallet containing id, the phone to play music in my earbuds, water. I must change clothes; make sure I am aware of the hours of the gym (not a problem usually but Sunday they Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-73475457246646828942024-01-20T09:34:00.000-06:002024-01-20T09:34:16.361-06:00the gym paradox There is a cognitive bias, I will call the gym effect. At the gym, if I catch my reflection in the mirror, I see and old, weak-looking guy with five pounds extra body fat. At home, in the mirror, on the other hand,I see a relatively young looking guy, with a decent physique for his age and not very much overweight. The gym is where the students work out, so I am going to be 45 Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-46805845256363424322024-01-18T09:13:00.001-06:002024-01-18T09:24:53.102-06:00Writing as manual labor Murakami's book on running suggests that writing a novel is manual labor. It is just laborious work. He says that three things are required: talent, focus, and endurance. Talent is necessary but not sufficient. There has to be a way of grinding it out over the long haul. This makes perfect sense. The book itself, What I talk about when I talk about running, could be seen as a slight Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-8677899044518090122024-01-17T13:08:00.002-06:002024-01-17T13:08:32.226-06:00running It took only two months to reclaim most of my running fitness. I ran 5k in under 32 minutes, just three minutes faster than my record time of 29 something, when I was maybe 7 years younger than now. I started by running six minutes, walking three. Then 9 and 3... Then I did 8 and 4, 12 and 4, 16 and 4... until I got into a good alternation. Soon, I could run 25 minutes Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-39103091358969026562024-01-17T12:53:00.004-06:002024-01-17T12:53:31.282-06:00Dreams I felt I was dreaming all night. 1st, a love scene I don't care to describe in detail, but entirely soft-core. I was playing a game based on chess, but not exactly chess. I moved my queen to threaten opponent's rook, but of course their rook took my queen instead. This was agasint someone I know in real life to be a skilled chess player (as I am not). I resigned the game in Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055932257464975902.post-37407835124184848712024-01-14T11:07:00.002-06:002024-01-14T11:07:44.251-06:00out loud You do'nt get to judge the quality of your poetry (out loud). That's because, egocentric bias. On the other hand, you do get to judge the quality of your scholarship. There is an ego there, too, but you can objectively lay out the strengths and weaknesses, and you compare yourself to others because you are all doing the same thing. That being said, I do think my poetry is onJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.com0