Sunday, March 19, 2006
Fine article on the role of the USA in the world
What 5 years of Bush has done - The World's Dispensable Nation
Friday, March 17, 2006
Ulysses in audio
Many months ago I listened to Homer's Iliad in audio. That was a wonderful experience making the drive to and from work quite a high point in the day. I took a long rest and eventually dived back into listening with James Joyce's Ulysses. I'm about half way through now. I've read the book a couple of times. It's really hard reading but immensely rewarding. Listening to it is quite superior.
The book defies easy summary. Imagine a conflation of Homer (the Odyssey) and Shakespeare (mainly Hamlet) tranposed to Dublin, 1904, as told by an Irishman totally in mastery of the English language. Stephen Daedalus is a Irish-Greek - a mixture of Telemachus (Odysseus's son) and Hamlet. Leopold Bloom is Odysseus as a Irish-Jew wandering the street of Dublin for many a hour before going home to his wife Molly who is beseiged by a suitor (only one) as Penelope was. The scenes from the Odyssey are transferred to Dublin so that for example the Cyclops becomes the Citizen - an Irish patriot who only has one view on everything. But the book is not simply diagrammatic. Joyce pioneered stream of consciousness and so you live inside the head of Stephen, Leopold, and Molly. Bloom is very sympathetic - he is Homer's "master of stratagems" brought into Dublin. He does come home eventually to Molly. The book ends with a long soliquy by Molly. The pleasures of the book (and audio as read by Jim Norton) are quite varied. It's very entertaining and funny, for one. Joyce demonstrates his ability to write in a wide range of styles and voices. And his ability to describe conversations between groups of people (sharing a few drinks perhaps) is superb. The net result is a book that simply towers over other great novels. It should be read (or listened to) by anyone who loves literature.
Tim
The book defies easy summary. Imagine a conflation of Homer (the Odyssey) and Shakespeare (mainly Hamlet) tranposed to Dublin, 1904, as told by an Irishman totally in mastery of the English language. Stephen Daedalus is a Irish-Greek - a mixture of Telemachus (Odysseus's son) and Hamlet. Leopold Bloom is Odysseus as a Irish-Jew wandering the street of Dublin for many a hour before going home to his wife Molly who is beseiged by a suitor (only one) as Penelope was. The scenes from the Odyssey are transferred to Dublin so that for example the Cyclops becomes the Citizen - an Irish patriot who only has one view on everything. But the book is not simply diagrammatic. Joyce pioneered stream of consciousness and so you live inside the head of Stephen, Leopold, and Molly. Bloom is very sympathetic - he is Homer's "master of stratagems" brought into Dublin. He does come home eventually to Molly. The book ends with a long soliquy by Molly. The pleasures of the book (and audio as read by Jim Norton) are quite varied. It's very entertaining and funny, for one. Joyce demonstrates his ability to write in a wide range of styles and voices. And his ability to describe conversations between groups of people (sharing a few drinks perhaps) is superb. The net result is a book that simply towers over other great novels. It should be read (or listened to) by anyone who loves literature.
Tim
WHEN YOU THINK OF WATER, think of BOB
Living most of the last 30 years in the US Southwest desert (New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado), it became clear that outdoor gardening is not my forte. Of course, it never helped that I was miserly with water - but with the drought and all.... I just felt it was the right thing to do. Of course the gophers didn't help much and the bind weed.... oh, the bind weed!
Well, an unusual thing happened the other day that I want to mention. I went to Bunnings (sort of an Oz "Home Depot") and while there, decided to invest in a few plants. Bunnings is probably not the best place to get plants (an employee even told me they don't take care of the plants there at all!), but since I was there, I thought "Why not?"... and I grabbed a few. As usual, my selection criterion were price, hardiness, easy care, drought and frost resistance, does it pass the "is it pretty?" test, and I do like natives. You might think I'm being cheap putting price first on my list, but remember that this sport is not my forte - do I want to sink a bunch of cash into something that's just going to die soon anyway?
.... well, to cut this story short, I planted one little plant right away, and the rest several days later (I'm not into heat much). This was a little guy with a lot of potential. I planted this plant (we'll call it BOB), next to the steps going up towards the house from our driveway. I'm hoping that BOB is a forgiving plant, because I had to build up a soil base for him. Oh, there's plenty of dirt here, but it covers plenty of rocks. So if BOB keeps his roots short, he should do alright. After planting him with some nice black soil mixed with other stuff that looked good, I gave him a nice bath of seaweed water. I don't know if seaweed is good for BOB or other plants, but it's usually green and I think that's probably a good sign.
The clincher.... what I have been leading up to with this story... is that an hour later, water actually fell from the sky and gave BOB an even better bath. Hey, you don't see that happen much in New Mexico... WATER... falling from the sky.... There might be some hope for me... better yet, there might be some hope for BOB. I'll keep you posted.
Cheers! Judi
Well, an unusual thing happened the other day that I want to mention. I went to Bunnings (sort of an Oz "Home Depot") and while there, decided to invest in a few plants. Bunnings is probably not the best place to get plants (an employee even told me they don't take care of the plants there at all!), but since I was there, I thought "Why not?"... and I grabbed a few. As usual, my selection criterion were price, hardiness, easy care, drought and frost resistance, does it pass the "is it pretty?" test, and I do like natives. You might think I'm being cheap putting price first on my list, but remember that this sport is not my forte - do I want to sink a bunch of cash into something that's just going to die soon anyway?
.... well, to cut this story short, I planted one little plant right away, and the rest several days later (I'm not into heat much). This was a little guy with a lot of potential. I planted this plant (we'll call it BOB), next to the steps going up towards the house from our driveway. I'm hoping that BOB is a forgiving plant, because I had to build up a soil base for him. Oh, there's plenty of dirt here, but it covers plenty of rocks. So if BOB keeps his roots short, he should do alright. After planting him with some nice black soil mixed with other stuff that looked good, I gave him a nice bath of seaweed water. I don't know if seaweed is good for BOB or other plants, but it's usually green and I think that's probably a good sign.
The clincher.... what I have been leading up to with this story... is that an hour later, water actually fell from the sky and gave BOB an even better bath. Hey, you don't see that happen much in New Mexico... WATER... falling from the sky.... There might be some hope for me... better yet, there might be some hope for BOB. I'll keep you posted.
Cheers! Judi
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