Some people from the Lynchburg Obama office set up a table in DeMoss today, which seemed to be well-received. We talked to the people a little bit and asked for a button, but they ran out, which is good. They said that they were able to register over 120 voters and it was only noon when we went by. Some people walked by yelling, “NOBAMA!” Clever, guys. Very clever.
Chris thought it’d be a good idea to pile up all of our library books.
They can’t even stand without toppling over.
Some are coming due soon, which means we’ll just have to interlibrary loan them all over again.
Annoying.
2008 Mr. Rufus and Katie vs. 2004 Mr. Rufus and Katie.
We have gotten better at operating cameras…..
And got better cameras….
And I really, really, really need a haircut.
And Mr. Rufus really, really, really needs her claws trimmed.
P.S. I didn’t intentionally take the same photo twice.
Chris: Will you help me make this sentence sound better?
me: Sure. Wait, I thought that book was called Junky?
Chris: It is.
me: You just put Junk.
Chris: Oops…..
Can you imagine this book just being called Junk?
Onto another silly Burroughs-related conversation…
Chris: All of these works by Burroughs sound like Flaming Lips songs. The Soft Machine… The Ticket that Exploded… Nova Express….
Christopher turned 23 today!
I got him the prettiest pocket watch ever for his birthday. Maybe I’m partial.
Then I put this together trying to be all zen: lavender, washed stones, and a candle holder from Ikea.
I like it. Now to find a place to put it that will encourage harmony and maintain my chi…. I have no clue what I’m saying.
I don’t understand why anyone would think that Palin could make an even all right Vice President.
She can’t even speak to the media. After the debate, the McCain campaign sent some other lady out to comment on the debate. It is the potential VP’s place to respond. Biden gave his reaction to the debate and both he and the announcer lightly mentioned the fact that Palin was absent. How can they trust her to be the VP if she can’t make a statement to a simple newscaster who isn’t really pushing back?
Not to mention that she sounds like a nervous broken record whenever she is interviewed, chiming back scripted responses. When pressed for more details, she looks to the ground and stutters out the same reply in more or less the exact phrasing as before.
I know Christians like her because she is pro-life, and maybe she is a nice person. Maybe. But really, she is not ready to be VP. And then Republicans are still have the nerve to make the “experience” claim in regards with Obama. Well, he certainly holds his own and shows fantastic judgement, better than McCain who has been in the Senate for years.
P.S. I like the fact that the McCain camp already made a “McCain wins debate!” graphic before McCain even said he’d come to the darn event. What a ploy. What a ploy….
Published at September 26, 2008
in Blabber.
I’ve been thumbing through Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society for my thesis and found a rather humorous, out-dated section. According to Ellul, during 1960, the “l’Express of Paris published series of extracts from texts by American and Russian scientists concerning society in the year 2000.” Here is an excert:
By the year 2000, voyages to the moon will be commonplace; so will inhabited artificial satellites. All food will be completely synthetic. The world’s population will have increased fourfold but will have stablized. Sea water and ordinary rocks will yield all th necessary metals. Disease, as well as famine, will have been eliminated; and there will be universal hygenic inspection and control. […] Knowledge will be accumulated in “electronic banks” and transmitted directly to the human nervous system by means of coded electronic messages. There will no longer be any need of reading or learning mountains of useless information; everything will be received and register according to the needs of the moment. (432)
It seems that our present-day scientists have been slacking. They clearly have some late project to turn in. However, I am glad that some of the predictions did not come to pass. No need for reading or learning? That doesn’t sound like a very positive shift.
Pero che tu trascorri
per le tenebre troppo da la lungi,
avvien che poi nel maginare abborri.
Tu vedrai ben, se tu la ti congiungi,
quanto ‘l senso s’inganna di lontano;
pero alquanto piu te stesso pungi.
Inferno Canto 31:22-27.
No accent marks because I’m lazy. Sorry.
Nothing too exciting has been going on. Really. I gave two presentations yesterday, one in Old English–well, it was about Anglo-Saxon culture 600 - 800 A.D., I didn’t say it all in Old English–and then another on Florentine politics and Dante. I’m glad that is all over with. I have about four books of Inferno illustrations that I plan to use for my Dante paper. The most recent one that I got from the library, which, by the way, took a MONTH to get and is due in just two weeks, is more than two feet in length. I understand that this helps the viewer to notice the details of the art, but it just looks ridiculous when only looking at the text, which is about size 30 font.
Fall break is coming soon, which means we will be able to head out in the wilderness again. I’ve been missing it since the school year has started. We haven’t had as much time to go to the park as I’d like either, but we were able to take Abed-nego for a long walk on Sunday and threw the ball for him.
I really need a haircut.
We have moved on from translating Anglo-Saxon prose to poetry since it is a little more difficult. As we were about to discuss “The Seafarer,” a conversation similar to this took place:
Dr. Muller: Has anyone been out to sea for a prolonged amount of time?
Amber: Well, like a cruise….
Dr. Muller: Not exactly what the seafarer is experiencing.
As I am progressing through the school year (I think we’re nearly a third of the way done), it is odd to look back on life. I remember when two-fingered power chords were good enough. And instant rice was a filling meal. And I read about one book per year. And I fell asleep for the first time in class listening to a reading of Frankenstein–I’d still probably fall asleep to that. If the younger Katie met the older Katie, I don’t think I’d recognize myself. Now, I’m not saying that I’m disappointed with anything, past or present, but we sure do all adjust and change and grow up. I wonder where I’ll be living in five more years.
Chris and I were looking through old journals. One of mine opened with a poem.
Chris was amazed.
“Wow! You were really great!”
Then we noticed that it was by T.S. Eliot. Duh. Well, there you go.
The weekend has been quite productive. I am almost finished with my rough draft of the thesis proposal, which will be sent to my chair to be sure that I am satisfying the requirements. Hopefully I will be able to shine it up enough so that I might be able to defend it next week. That is what I am hoping, at least, to go ahead and get it out of the way, so I can actually start writing the monster. I have set up a calendar that has me completing the thesis by March 20th. Then I can defend the thesis itself soon thereafter and be done with it a month before the deadline.
I have been dreading our first paper in Dante because I simply don’t know what to write. There is so much to Inferno, much more than I can recognize. As I was interlibrary loaning some books, I decided to get a bunch of books of illustrations of Inferno. There are a few key artists, so maybe I can compare and contrast their techniques and interpretations. I’m no art historian, but I think it’ll be fun. Now, hopefully interlibrary loan will come through because some of the books only have a few copies world-wide. Liberty seems to have trouble finding even semi-rare books that I request. Hm. I’m very excited about the prospect, though.
Inferno has been more than depressing. I want to go on to Paradiso, but the Hollander edition isn’t even out in paperback yet, and, of course, we must journey through Purgatorio first.
I finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater this morning. No apocalypse other than what is in Eliot’s head, but tons of commentary on social class and hope within humanity. This will work well with my thesis’ conclusion. Now onto Slapstick! for the second time. It has been about four years since I first read it.
