When you are old and grey
I have eaten the plums
and full of sleep
that were in the icebox
and nodding by the fire
and that you were probably
take down this book
saving for breakfast
and slowly read
forgive me
and dream of the soft look
they were delicious
your eyes had once
so sweet and so cold
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Lyrics
Like stars ascending on a cloudless night
We got together and it felt so right
Let’s share a life together
In sweet harmony
And now I’m working on the second part
If you could hear it it would touch your heart
Let’s sing this song together
Our sweet melody
But if you say
Our love is not real
That I’m a fool for you
I’ll walk away
and never say what I feel
What’s a poor guy to do?
But when you want to hold my hand so tight
I’ll know that everything will be all right
Let’s share our life together
In sweet harmony
We got together and it felt so right
Let’s share a life together
In sweet harmony
And now I’m working on the second part
If you could hear it it would touch your heart
Let’s sing this song together
Our sweet melody
But if you say
Our love is not real
That I’m a fool for you
I’ll walk away
and never say what I feel
What’s a poor guy to do?
But when you want to hold my hand so tight
I’ll know that everything will be all right
Let’s share our life together
In sweet harmony
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Finding One's Voice
Ron Padgett has a facetious poem about the idea of the poet's "voice." He hears people talking about finding their voice and wonders if they have literally lost their voice. Where is it? etc... Funny poem.
Anyway, I've often disliked my speaking and singing voices, but my friend Bob Basil recently commented to me that he liked both: I had sent him a homemade recording of a song I wrote called "Cloudless Night." Anyway, this comment made me want to embrace my two voices rather than dismiss them. I can more confidently speak and sing now because I have an outside perspective. Of course, Bob might think I'm better than I really am in many respects because he is my friend, but that doesn't really matter. Isn't that one thing, one of the major things, a friend is for, to like one's uniqueness?
And actually the idea of not liking one's voice played back from outside one's own head is almost universal. Who likes their own voice? It is only by listening to it and tweaking it from outside that one can even embrace it unapologetically, as I am trying to do, partly by taking voice lessons.
One's writing "voice," in the metaphorical sense that Padgett was making fun of, is also a real thing to be cultivated. I think my writing sounds like me in its exact balance of earnestness and facetiousness. In one sense voice is exactly what writing doesn't ever have, but in the metaphorical sense it is exactly what writing needs. Voiceless writing is crap.
Anyway, I've often disliked my speaking and singing voices, but my friend Bob Basil recently commented to me that he liked both: I had sent him a homemade recording of a song I wrote called "Cloudless Night." Anyway, this comment made me want to embrace my two voices rather than dismiss them. I can more confidently speak and sing now because I have an outside perspective. Of course, Bob might think I'm better than I really am in many respects because he is my friend, but that doesn't really matter. Isn't that one thing, one of the major things, a friend is for, to like one's uniqueness?
And actually the idea of not liking one's voice played back from outside one's own head is almost universal. Who likes their own voice? It is only by listening to it and tweaking it from outside that one can even embrace it unapologetically, as I am trying to do, partly by taking voice lessons.
One's writing "voice," in the metaphorical sense that Padgett was making fun of, is also a real thing to be cultivated. I think my writing sounds like me in its exact balance of earnestness and facetiousness. In one sense voice is exactly what writing doesn't ever have, but in the metaphorical sense it is exactly what writing needs. Voiceless writing is crap.
Routine, ritual, and improvisation
Routine is beneficial: it provides efficiency, safety, and comfort.
Efficiency because you don't have to think about the order in which you do something. Routine tasks are quick and efficient.
Safety, because you can avoid error. Always put your car keys in the same place, they will not be lost. Never transcribe someone else's words into your document without at the same time noting whose words they are and marking them off as separate, and you won't commit certain kinds of plagiarism.
Comfort, because a routine provides familiarity.
Ritual is the sacralization of routine, on top of its utilitarian benefits. It is a kind of "magical thinking" applied to routine. "This routine is not only efficient, but it will make everything else work right as well. It will make me safe not just from certain kind of errors, but from ERROR itself."
The problem with routine is that breaks from routine provide opportunity for creative thinking. Drive a different route to work, or do a routine task in a different way, work in a different space, or at a different time of day, and you might have an idea you never had before.
So the question becomes knowing what to approach "routinely," and what to approach creatively. Placing your car keys in the refrigerator is a creative move you might not need to take. Doing the same thing in the exact same way every day, though, will deaden the mind.
Efficiency because you don't have to think about the order in which you do something. Routine tasks are quick and efficient.
Safety, because you can avoid error. Always put your car keys in the same place, they will not be lost. Never transcribe someone else's words into your document without at the same time noting whose words they are and marking them off as separate, and you won't commit certain kinds of plagiarism.
Comfort, because a routine provides familiarity.
Ritual is the sacralization of routine, on top of its utilitarian benefits. It is a kind of "magical thinking" applied to routine. "This routine is not only efficient, but it will make everything else work right as well. It will make me safe not just from certain kind of errors, but from ERROR itself."
The problem with routine is that breaks from routine provide opportunity for creative thinking. Drive a different route to work, or do a routine task in a different way, work in a different space, or at a different time of day, and you might have an idea you never had before.
So the question becomes knowing what to approach "routinely," and what to approach creatively. Placing your car keys in the refrigerator is a creative move you might not need to take. Doing the same thing in the exact same way every day, though, will deaden the mind.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Chicken Asparagus
I took some chicken breast and cut it up, marinating it in a mixture of vermouth and corn starch. I prepared a sauce of more corn starch, tamari, sesame oil, garlic chili sauce. I cooked the asparagus spears to perfection, with a little ginger and onions, then removed them from the wok. I cooked the chicken until it was almost done, added the sauce and put the asparagus back in, mixing it all together. The trick is not to overcook the asparagus and not to undercook the chicken. Asparagus in this dish should be limp yet still crunchy, never soggy. The chicken should be cooked through but no more, so that it remains tender.
My plan for student evaluations
Here's how it would work. Students would have to compete to get into my program: I would accept the top ten students that applied. I would also have the option of dropping an underperforming student. I would coach the students to compile a portfolio of materials.
Some judges I do not know would judge, blindly, what my students have accompished against students at other universities. My teaching effectiveness would be judged solely by what I was able to make the students do.
Students' grades would also be determined by the same criterion. Their incentive is to come out on top as well. Student learning and faculty evaluation would be identical. The consumerist model of how well I am liked would fall by the wayside. I would be more like the basketball coach, recruiting students who will do well and cutting those who can't hack it.
Suppose all ten of my students place in the top 10%. Then they all get A's and I do too. If my class average is a C, then I get that as my evaluation too.
The problem here is that it gives the professor too much incentive to cheat, helping the students too much. I suppose the students would have to sit for an examination proctored by a third party.
Another problem is that my university might not have great students in the first place: how could I compete against the Ivies with what I have to work with?
Some judges I do not know would judge, blindly, what my students have accompished against students at other universities. My teaching effectiveness would be judged solely by what I was able to make the students do.
Students' grades would also be determined by the same criterion. Their incentive is to come out on top as well. Student learning and faculty evaluation would be identical. The consumerist model of how well I am liked would fall by the wayside. I would be more like the basketball coach, recruiting students who will do well and cutting those who can't hack it.
Suppose all ten of my students place in the top 10%. Then they all get A's and I do too. If my class average is a C, then I get that as my evaluation too.
The problem here is that it gives the professor too much incentive to cheat, helping the students too much. I suppose the students would have to sit for an examination proctored by a third party.
Another problem is that my university might not have great students in the first place: how could I compete against the Ivies with what I have to work with?
Why does the right [seem to] care more about free speech?
1. Everyone cares more about free speech for opinions they themselves hold. So a defense of free speech might be merely opportunistic. This is the same for the left and the right. So a free-speech issue involving a faculty's right to insult a right-wing group like the NRA will rally left-wing professors to it. An affront to free speech that prohibits certain kind of conservative speech will arouse the ire of the right-wing outrage machine. For example, suppose political opposition to affirmative action might count as a "micro-aggression." We only know if someone is really devoted to free speech per se if sh/e defends the right to express distasteful opinions.
2. A free-speech issue only arises with an unpopular opinion. In some sense, then, the fact that the right has more issues might have to do with the fact that certain conservative opinions have become unpopular. This is a good thing, right? I'm not saying that nobody is racist, but racism is publicly unpopular, in the sense that almost nobody wants to be perceived as a racist anymore.
3. So the right "seems to care" more about free speech in the academic context, because academia skews left. Most of the left-skewing of administrators is simply a response to legalistic matters and public opinion. If they were really left-wing the world would be a much different place.
4. Just because the right has an outrage machine designed to magnify any perceived threat to free speech or the censuring of conservative opinion does not mean that these threats are not real.
2. A free-speech issue only arises with an unpopular opinion. In some sense, then, the fact that the right has more issues might have to do with the fact that certain conservative opinions have become unpopular. This is a good thing, right? I'm not saying that nobody is racist, but racism is publicly unpopular, in the sense that almost nobody wants to be perceived as a racist anymore.
3. So the right "seems to care" more about free speech in the academic context, because academia skews left. Most of the left-skewing of administrators is simply a response to legalistic matters and public opinion. If they were really left-wing the world would be a much different place.
4. Just because the right has an outrage machine designed to magnify any perceived threat to free speech or the censuring of conservative opinion does not mean that these threats are not real.
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