Here:
Glance
This is a poem about an October day, written in October. So I thought I should put it up before October ends.
10/31/2006
10/30/2006
10/29/2006
Time on my hands
Of course, I shouldn't have any "time on my hands." I should do something with it. But alas, if I had any talent at all, it is the talent of wasting time.
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10/27/2006
10/26/2006
Covering all bases
MPA (Magazine Publishers of America) has recently announced 2006 Cover of the Year Winner and Finalists at AMC, American Magazine Conference. Click here to go to the web page and view the gallery.
Magazine covers reflect the world, in terms of their contents, form, material, reference, etc. They cover all bases: faces, races, faiths, mazes, rages, ages, sages, razes... of course they cover all the pages, too.
My favorites among the covers chosen are the following (not necessarily in this order):
The New Yorker is just so hilalious that it's my desktop picture now. I.D. Magazine is very clever, and the topic is fascinating. Scarlett Johansson, on two of the covers, defies my inventory of beauty-related adjectives. Finally, I wonder how one is to take the tone of The Economist cover...
Magazine covers reflect the world, in terms of their contents, form, material, reference, etc. They cover all bases: faces, races, faiths, mazes, rages, ages, sages, razes... of course they cover all the pages, too.
My favorites among the covers chosen are the following (not necessarily in this order):
- The Economist: "Rocket man" Kim Jong-il of North Korea
- LIFE: Scarlett Johannson “Let It Snow” cover
- New York: Scarlett Johansson and Woody Allen on the beach.
- I.D. Magazine:“Design and Religion” issue, featuring iPod-like device turned into a crucifix necklace
- The New Yorker: Illustration of thin model on runway watched by fuller-figured women in the audience
The New Yorker is just so hilalious that it's my desktop picture now. I.D. Magazine is very clever, and the topic is fascinating. Scarlett Johansson, on two of the covers, defies my inventory of beauty-related adjectives. Finally, I wonder how one is to take the tone of The Economist cover...
10/25/2006
10/24/2006
Meditation on Ring and Representation
Friday early evening, I got on a bus, and saw some of my fellow third-year students, attired nicely, coming back from the Third-year Class Ring Ceremony.
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10/23/2006
10/22/2006
"You can't have your cake and eat it too."
An interesting idiomatic expression. It means, according to the Oxford American Dictionary, "you can't enjoy both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives."
When I first got to know this expression (long time ago), it didn't make sense to me. Surely, I thought, you can have your cake, and then eat it. In fact, logically speaking, you must first have your cake in order to eat it. I was getting the temporal framework wrong.
The fact that the possession of a cake and the consumption of it are presented here as equally desirable alternatives is interesting. Given the common sense fact that eating cake is good, it suggests that mere having of a cake is good (because "having" here, I believe, isn't just "keeping" it for later).
This in turn implies that a cake is a luxury, something valuable in a different way than as a source of nutrition. Indeed, in Republic, Socrates suggests that the difference between a healthy city and a luxurious city consists in paintings, pastries and prostitution.
Supposedly the original formation of this expression had the verbs other way around, namely: "You can't eat your cake and have it too." This construction seems better if one is to intuitively grasp the meaning. But then why the reversal? Perhaps it reflects some cultural shift in values, as in the transition from the healthy and primitive to the luxury and civilized. Perhaps it doesn't.
Anyway, I have neither had nor eaten cake for quite a while. Though I think I like cakes. How do I know? I don't know, but I believe I like 'em.
When I first got to know this expression (long time ago), it didn't make sense to me. Surely, I thought, you can have your cake, and then eat it. In fact, logically speaking, you must first have your cake in order to eat it. I was getting the temporal framework wrong.
The fact that the possession of a cake and the consumption of it are presented here as equally desirable alternatives is interesting. Given the common sense fact that eating cake is good, it suggests that mere having of a cake is good (because "having" here, I believe, isn't just "keeping" it for later).
This in turn implies that a cake is a luxury, something valuable in a different way than as a source of nutrition. Indeed, in Republic, Socrates suggests that the difference between a healthy city and a luxurious city consists in paintings, pastries and prostitution.
Supposedly the original formation of this expression had the verbs other way around, namely: "You can't eat your cake and have it too." This construction seems better if one is to intuitively grasp the meaning. But then why the reversal? Perhaps it reflects some cultural shift in values, as in the transition from the healthy and primitive to the luxury and civilized. Perhaps it doesn't.
Anyway, I have neither had nor eaten cake for quite a while. Though I think I like cakes. How do I know? I don't know, but I believe I like 'em.
10/21/2006
10/20/2006
10/18/2006
10/17/2006
Philosophy (or, a piece of sentence) at hand
For a long time I've been interested in the (mostly accidental) philosophical insights expressed in innocent expressions of everyday life, such as conventional phatic remarks, children's words, and fortune cookie sayings.
Regarding the many fortune cookie sayings I have encountered, my best is:
Recently I've encountered:
Regarding the many fortune cookie sayings I have encountered, my best is:
"Life is too short to say yes to everything"A profound (and perhaps somewhat sad) truth. I was thunder-struck when I got this one. I put this saying as one of my quotes in my high-school yearbook.
Recently I've encountered:
"A smile increases your face value"Do you see the subtle irony and the mild play of words (albeit probably unconscious) here? I love it.
10/16/2006
平凡な、神様の、贈り物
(Amadeus. Peter Shaffer. Live Arts production, directed by Mendy St. Ours. Fri. Oct. 13, 2006)
"That's our job! That's our job, we composers: to combine the inner minds of him and him and him, and her and her――the thoughts of chambermaids and Court Composers――and turn the audience into God."
金曜日ですが、ダウンタウンのLive Artsでピーター・シェーファー原作の『アマデウス』を観てきました！
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"That's our job! That's our job, we composers: to combine the inner minds of him and him and him, and her and her――the thoughts of chambermaids and Court Composers――and turn the audience into God."
金曜日ですが、ダウンタウンのLive Artsでピーター・シェーファー原作の『アマデウス』を観てきました！
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10/15/2006
でらぐらまとろじぃ の がやとりすぴう゛ぁく
が来ます！ いやいや、つまり、デリダの『De la grammatologie』の英訳（とそれにつけたなっが〜い序文）で有名なGayatori Spivakという文学理論家が、うちの大学で最も名高いレクチャ・シリーズである“The Page-Barbour Lectures”にいらっしゃるのです。今週の火曜から木曜まで三夜に渡って「Three Ways of Looking at the Ethical」というテーマでお話をされます。
過去のスピーカにT.S. EliotやW.H. Auden、最近ではRichard RortyやStephan Muhallを含むこの素晴らしいレクチャ・シリーズなわけなんですけど、平日の5:30〜7:00で３日連続っていうスケジュールだけがネックなんだなぁ（理想的には木金土の三日でやってもらいたい）。でもITで『グラマトロジー』も来週から読み始めることだし、忙しいけどがんばって聴きにいきたいと思ってます。
そのためにも今日のうちにいろいろやっとかないと…。
過去のスピーカにT.S. EliotやW.H. Auden、最近ではRichard RortyやStephan Muhallを含むこの素晴らしいレクチャ・シリーズなわけなんですけど、平日の5:30〜7:00で３日連続っていうスケジュールだけがネックなんだなぁ（理想的には木金土の三日でやってもらいたい）。でもITで『グラマトロジー』も来週から読み始めることだし、忙しいけどがんばって聴きにいきたいと思ってます。
そのためにも今日のうちにいろいろやっとかないと…。
Polysemy of honor
The English word "honor" has many meanings. It's interesting. I don't think I know what it means.
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10/10/2006
Update: Poetry (詩)
Here:
三人の女達
先月の初めに書いて、ページもつくってあったんだけどそれからなんとなくほっぽってあったものです。その時に書いた説明には「詩をもって何かを語ろうとしないために。習作。詩的雰囲気とは一体なにか、考える。」とあります。な〜に言ってんだか。
ところで今英語でもう二つくらい書けそうな感じです。一つはほとんど完成形。もう一つに関して、昨日の朝寝ていたら素晴らしい文が五行分くらい思いついたんですけど、起きてパソコンに向かった途端完全に失念してしまいました。まぁよくあることです。忘れてしまうくらいのフレーズはそれほど良くなかったと思うことにしてます。
三人の女達
先月の初めに書いて、ページもつくってあったんだけどそれからなんとなくほっぽってあったものです。その時に書いた説明には「詩をもって何かを語ろうとしないために。習作。詩的雰囲気とは一体なにか、考える。」とあります。な〜に言ってんだか。
ところで今英語でもう二つくらい書けそうな感じです。一つはほとんど完成形。もう一つに関して、昨日の朝寝ていたら素晴らしい文が五行分くらい思いついたんですけど、起きてパソコンに向かった途端完全に失念してしまいました。まぁよくあることです。忘れてしまうくらいのフレーズはそれほど良くなかったと思うことにしてます。
10/09/2006
Fanfare from Home
(Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra concert. "Songs of Home." Conductor: Kate Tamarkin. Sat. Oct. 7, 2006)
The symphony orchestra kicked off its season this weekend. I went to the first of their five prescription concerts last night.
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The symphony orchestra kicked off its season this weekend. I went to the first of their five prescription concerts last night.
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10/08/2006
10/07/2006
"I Habermas of headache."
is the pun of the week. "I have (harbor?) a mass of headache (perhaps reading Habermas)" .... you are not laughing... wwweeellll.
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10/04/2006
10/02/2006
In defense of first-person pronouns
You learned in high school (perhaps even in middle school) that you should not use first-person pronouns (I, we, me, etc.) in academic writing; this was one of the very basic rules.
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