tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92543962024-02-28T08:29:40.553-08:00The Bourgeois BurglarsHobbitual RuminationsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger372125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-31755395845715567912010-01-16T14:10:00.000-08:002010-01-16T14:11:59.095-08:00On Pondering a Variant from VindobonensisMy mind moves slowly,<br />as slow as the incoming clouds,<br />slightly faster than <i>adagietto</i><br />though I hope to think<br />thoughts less vaporous<br />and more Viennese.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-63123299451452329702009-08-26T19:48:00.000-07:002009-08-26T19:51:57.346-07:00Tigers UpdateI coined a nickname for the most recent Tiger, Aubrey Huff. It's "Half-Swing." I dubbed him this after watching last night's game in which he struck out three times on check swings. Half-Swing Huff.<br /><br />It was nice to take two of three from the Angels in Anaheim. Not easy to do.<br /><br />Fernando Rodney is only a little less roller coaster than Todd "Roller Coaster" Jones. I know because I haven't had to dip into my stash of antacids as much this season.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-64870527803104024612009-05-16T21:19:00.001-07:002009-05-16T21:21:38.217-07:00Quotable LeylandManager Jim Leyland on the reason Ryan Raburn has been hitting better of late:<br /><a href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=290516106"><blockquote>"I told him that I was taking away his entrance music if he didn't start hitting. That's why he started hitting."</blockquote></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-42534187836682159742009-04-29T13:20:00.001-07:002009-04-29T13:40:47.326-07:00Standing Tall in the CornerMy favorite thing to peruse during the baseball season is the <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/index.jsp">mlb.com overall standings board</a>. I would get into <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.baseballprospectus.com%2F&ei=yrb4SeSdIaGsjAfA-bS0DA&usg=AFQjCNEWbnPLW-Jy8LYTeoCw0mSmRSLJMA&sig2=FTJcphsNllVzrSqvNuI1ag">Baseball Prospectus</a> but I already have enough black-hole-time-absorption machines in operation. The regular standings have just enough to keep me occupied for about 5 minutes, and then I can move on, satisfied. <br /><br />Today's contemplation: Runs Scored and Runs Scored Againts. Now, the teams I root for: MN Twins (Land of My Heritage) in the AL and LA Dodgers (Land of My Birth) in the NL are a giving me very different feelings in my tummy. <br /><br />The Dodgers have been on a tear. Everything is right. Manny Ramirez is "being Manny" to the tune of <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=120903">beating the living crud out of the ball</a> (Boston, we thank thee). The young starters are <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=4161303">doing things that make me giddy</a>. And is all of the exuberance something we can continue to count on or should we trap our happiness in a jar and look at it longingly in July? Apparently, <a href="http://dodgerblues.com/">contrary to this man's existence</a>, plan on repeated euphoria Dodgertown: our Runs Scored: 119; Runs Allowed: 82; Expected Win-Loss Record: 14-7. Actual Win-Loss Record: 14-7. <br /><br />On the other hand, the Minnesota Twins. Now, the Twins have been having a lot of problems. Their <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=408045">All Star, 2X Batting Champ Catcher</a> has been out, coming back Friday against the Royals {anticipatory giggling}. The rotation, also young, has been garbage except for the #5 pitcher; this can be expected to get better. So, we have accumulated these numbers: RS: 85; RA: 113 which should give us the diametric opposite of Dodger-lation: an 8-13 record. What have we actually managed to do? 10-11, with a chance at .500 against Scott Kazmir tonight (not likely, I know, but why can't the good times roll?). The culprit? Being 4-0 in 1-run games. {guilty chuckle}. The Twins hereby thank the world for allowing them to miraculously and inexplicably not trash their season already, and hope you will not mind when we go on another ridiculous run in August-September to steal the division from some much more "expected" (i.e., deserving) winner.Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-61077244164359315872009-04-26T21:44:00.000-07:002009-04-26T21:47:11.359-07:00Next Year, We Can't Miss ThisWhy didn't I find out about the annual <a href="http://www.aldenteblog.com/2009/04/grilled-cheese-invitational.html">Grilled Cheese Invitational</a>, which is held in L.A., until too late? Probably because God is looking out for my cholesterol levels. But next year . . . .Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-58216229835456060812009-04-11T12:45:00.000-07:002009-04-11T12:51:26.900-07:00Classic Rodney? Let's Hope So.The Tigers were up 4-3 against the Rangers this afternoon in the top of the ninth.<br /><br />Last year in this situation Jones would have made an appearance, and we would have broken out the antacids. This year, Jones is retired (in peace, we hope), and Fernando Rodney is our man. What did Rodney do today? Struck out the side in the top of the ninth. That's not the Jones spirit, but it's one we can live with.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-85972410384667563302009-04-05T15:57:00.000-07:002009-04-05T16:10:16.838-07:00Let the Record Show... that Jim Caple's attempt at prescience is the only one that would not result in a November stoning were we to apply Old Testament prophecy standards <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview09/news/story?page=09expertpicks">to 2009 Major League Baseball Pre-Season predictions</a>. <br /><br />Therein: 13 out of 21 "experts" (variously defined) have the MN Twins getting to the playoffs; only 2 predict the Tigers to assert themselves (though the Tigers did snag the "Dark Horse" pick from Rob Neyer and Jason Stark, who are more "expert" than most). In fairness will I have to spot the Burglar some good odds this year? <br /><br />On the eve of the real beginning of baseball: may injuries not be the bane of destiny!Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-23097455487458057282009-03-02T22:56:00.000-08:002009-03-04T12:30:54.359-08:00Je aime le matérialismeThis may ring a bell with Burglar more than me since he has direct experience with freshman philosophy students who have "figured it out" after three lectures, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19523.html">but I couldn't help but giggle at this</a>.<br /><br />The part to which I refer is the very end, where we are treated to the following.<br /><br />"Really, the weather, it's not an important aspect for <span style="font-style: italic;">driving</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">protesting</span> ... it's a simple material state, I think. So, people come out in the snow or in the summer, it really doesn't matter to them because they have a message they want to present to the congressmen and senators and they're gonna do it despite whatever happens."<br /><br />Question: what do the protesters think about the significance or lack thereof of the simple material state of the globe?Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-51864486788947805832009-03-01T12:26:00.000-08:002009-03-01T12:35:19.701-08:00Stat ChallengeDid everyone notice? Baseball started. Now I can finally procrastinate again. <br /><br />In memory of losing <a href="http://www.firejoemorgan.com/">FireJoeMorgan</a> over the winter, here's a baseball-announcing puzzle. <br /><br />Sunday, March 1st, bottom of the ninth, Twins-RedSox, two out, two on, Twins down by one. One Dustin Martin steps up to the plate. Since it's Spring Training and there are often whole games where I hardly know who anyone is, I wait with great anticipation for that ever helpful stat box to pop up. Here's what it said:<br /><br />1-1; AVG: .750; RBI: 1; OBP: .667. <br /><br />Is there any scenario in which this is possible? Ready ... go!<br /><br />Oh, and lest our favorite label meet its end, the aptly surnamed Red Sox closer of the day, Hunter Jones, was slinging a textbook Classic Jones.Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-6500820513419849162009-02-15T10:41:00.000-08:002009-02-15T11:01:25.451-08:00Tolkien My MindSince Tolkien is appearing all over this blog we might as well keep up the trend. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.history.ubc.ca/documents/faculty/booker/byte-sized_middle_ages.pdf">An interesting article</a> by <a href="http://www.history.ubc.ca/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=65&Itemid=9">Courtney M. Booker</a> tries to explain the progression from the publication of the <i style="">Lord of the Rings</i> in 1968 to the release of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=fellowship+of+the+ring&x=0&y=0"><i style="">The Fellowship of the Ring</i> in 2001</a>.<span style=""> </span>The central issue being why those who read the book in the 1970s and those born post 1990 had such different reactions to Peter Jackson’s visuals.<span style=""> </span>Not necessarily: “I didn’t like it” vs. “I did,” but more “That is not at all how I pictured it” vs. “That’s perfect!”<span style=""> <br />To summarize and simplify, his progression goes: Lord of the Rings -> United States -> Fantasy Literature -> Role Playing Games (esp. Dungeons and Dragons) -> RPGs into Computer Games -> The Personal Computer -> Graphics Oriented Computer Games -> RPGs lost much of their “personalized” and “plot” aspects in favour of large-scale CGI effects -> Peter Jackson welds the new fantasy computer game look back onto the Lord of the Rings plot and characters. “<i style="">The Fellowship of the Ring</i> … can largely be reduced to a host of dramatic helicopter and swooping bird’s-eye-view shots of landscape, and a linear sequence of frantic hack-and-slash video-game scenarios … his interpretation moves through a series of scenarios in much the same fashion that computer games are structured.<span style=""> </span>There is little time for character development or interaction; instead, <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/thumb/0/0a/Peter_Jackson%27s_Balrog.jpg/180px-Peter_Jackson%27s_Balrog.jpg">stunning visuals</a> and <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcq6N1cXAWi1jZLaENjKNWQAg71C6kONcM7MqioNPp3n_UNlK7oI2LTEYwpfbGvzre-9EMBKJhKRZTxHbE5JGJNNfbiRLe44Sip2XDXYgiYZhmVUHchVaIcT28q2BpSwqN3SE/s400/17A+Minas+Tirith2.jpg">special effects</a> are relied upon to breathe life into a fantasy realm encountered largely apace.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think his best example (for which Booker quotes B. Rosebury) of this is the scene in the mines of Moria, when the fellowship is nearly trapped by hosts of orcs.<span style=""> </span>The scene is a page in the original book: over five minutes in the movie.<span style=""> </span>“In the film … its theme seems to be: how very, very difficult it is to kill <a href="http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0bqR6bq5dh4Wv/610x.jpg">a cave troll</a>. … [in the book] its focal point is the ominous fact that the orc-chieftain has selected Frodo for his spear-thrust.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">All of this I find interesting, and can agree with for the most part.<span style=""> </span>However, Booker’s second major point, which he starts the essay with and concludes with (and so which seems to be his main axe to grind)—even though he spends almost no time in the body of the essay specifically arguing the point—is that (and this is a little hard to follow) Tolkien presents a “Medieval” world (or at the very least, that is how basically everyone reads him); there is no “religion” in that medieval world; one problem with present conceptions of the medieval world is that we don’t get and so ignore how religion fits into the medieval thought world; when we “role play” a medieval character or present him in a movie, or imagine him/her in a book, we assume the medieval character thinks in a crisis like we do (obviously a huge generalization here): with “logic and violence” (his terms); this is incorrect.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m going to let his final points alone, mainly because I find it too problematic to even begin talking about.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">However, the premise that Tolkien’s world is “not medieval” because there is no overt religion, to my mind presents one of the problems representative of Medieval Academics.<span style=""> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">They</span> don't get it either, even though they know they should. For starters, Tolkien was himself a professional academic “medievalist,” and as a literature-linguistics person I would argue more closely attuned to the intricacies of a “medieval thought-world” than 99% of historians.<span style=""> </span>Secondly, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0618057021/ref=sib_dp_pop_fc?ie=UTF8&p=S001#reader-link">any of his biographies</a> point out that his interest in the medieval period and texts started at a very young age: if anyone in the modern world had their mind formed by medieval texts; if anyone could actually claim to possess a medieval mind in a modern age, it was Tolkien. <span style=""> </span>Finally, for a medievalist, what should stand out to Booker is a medieval epic (which the <i style="">Lord of the Rings</i>, given its author and the way he created the text,<i style=""> </i>is) <i style="">doesn’t </i>talk about religion as such.<span style=""> </span>Where is religion and God in the Arthurian tales?<span style=""> </span>Ever read Gawain and the Green Knight?<span style=""> </span>About the only “religious” thing there is the setting of the Pentecost feast.<span style=""> </span>Even in Spencer (who is a bit late), “religion” is present much more in allegory than in explicit plot sequences.<span style=""> </span>How about that dramatic communion scene in <i style="">Song of Roland</i>?<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Religion is <i style="">so much </i>a part of the backdrop that you don’t even need to say anything: it is just there, it is assumed.<span style=""> </span>This is a point completely missed by those who continue to read medieval mystical texts as though they could also be Buddhist: if you’re careful, you realize it just doesn’t work.<span style=""> </span>All of their apparent “loosey-gooseyness” assumes that the loosey-goosey experiential path to the Divine is at the same time taking place <i style="">within</i>, not apart from, the religious structure and thought of the <st1:place><st1:placename>Universal</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Church</st1:placetype></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>It is a part of the church, <i style="">not </i>an alternative to it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What is <i style="">actually </i>really interesting about the <i style="">Lord of the Rings </i>in modern (especially American) culture is the generation that Booker failed to talk about: those of us who were born from 1970 to 1985 or so, and grew up largely without larger-than-life computer games, but were formed by an early reading of the <i style="">Lord of the Rings</i>.<span style=""> </span>We have the same claim to have intimately experienced that world as kids right now will have on Harry Potter: when you encounter books like that in your middle school and elementary years, they are going to fundamentally impact your imaginitive world for the rest of your life.<span style=""> </span>One of the oddest things about my generation seems to be the movement (which I am a part of) to more “medieval” forms of Christianity: the high-church traditions of the Church of England, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox where the Christian life, where ‘religion’, becomes a rhythmic part of life in the way that it becomes a part of everyday life down to the way one behaves at card playing … so that an outsider may not at first realize that they are being immersed into a deeply Christian universe until it is too late, and they find themselves on their knees kissing the chalice … <o:p></o:p></p> <p></p>Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-8521074923181119412009-01-24T01:09:00.000-08:002009-01-24T01:24:03.495-08:00Ents in IsengardI feel somewhat apologetic for it, but I cannot help, at a certain level, feeling somewhat relieved -- yes, that is what I said -- at the economic crisis. Am I a jerk? Probably. Yes, I know how bad it will be for so many things that I like, and for so many people's real lives and real livelihoods: including those of us who have invested our all in the academic profession, which unfortunately is a surplus industry. Just this morning the Cambridge Crier announced that Cambridge University Press is cutting half -- <span style="font-style: italic;">half</span> -- of its staff. That is not fun times for anyone's family. But we have been living in a bubble world where the face of the earth has become a video game; and eventually things had to break. And yes, there is that grim delight in destroying rot that Treebeard sings out so perfectly somberly in Isengard. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom">Michael Lewis says:</a><br />In the two decades since [the late 1980s], I had been waiting for the end of Wall Street. The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management: Over and over again, the big Wall Street investment banks would be, in some narrow way, discredited. Yet they just kept on growing, along with the sums of money that they doled out to 26-year-olds to perform tasks of no obvious social utility. The rebellion by American youth against the money culture never happened. Why bother to overturn your parents’ world when you can buy it, slice it up into tranches, and sell off the pieces?<br /> <br />At least one other person agrees with me:<br /><br />When I hear the stock market has fallen,<br />I say, "Long live gravity! Long live<br />stupidity, error, and greed in the palaces<br />of fantasy capitalism!" I think<br />an economy should be based on thrift,<br />on taking care of things, not on theft,<br />usury, seduction, waste, and ruin.<br />(W. Berry from <span style="font-style: italic;">Some Further Words</span>)<br /><br />I would be very bad at it for quite awhile, but I've always sort of wanted to be forced into trying farming ...Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-5291789306686825682008-12-17T02:38:00.000-08:002008-12-17T03:44:58.895-08:00Father Brown : Chesterton :: Socrates : Plato?I just read a G.K. Chesterton Father Brown collection for the first time: <span style="font-style: italic;">The Innocence of Father Brown</span>. I was anticipating enjoying it, but I didn't. I mean, they were entertaining enough to keep me occupied for most of a sick day drifting in and out of consciousness, but really I was disappointed.<br /><br />From a plot perspective, there is a crisis in fiction's requisite suspension of belief: the stories simply cannot all be true. For example, the initially thief, later comrade to Fr. Brown, Flambeau, shows up as the crook in way too many for it to be surprising that Fr. Brown figured him out ... again (Did you not recognize him? What is going on here?). For an innocuous country priest, he shows up in way too many random locations (unless he is really an absentee bishop); his own village is frustratingly undefined and between the stories there are just too many odd people, rich and suspect types around to be likely.<br /><br />From a character perspective, Fr. Brown is a bit flat and frankly just a little bit annoying probably because he is not amusing (or rarely so); he's just a little bit too 'intuitive' for me: in quotations because often intuitive turns out to be "oh yes, I also happened to read the will which says X, which is the answer." Hmmm, very clever of you, Fr. Brown. He (both Fr. Brown and Chesterton) also plays <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> of his cards close to his chest -- usually in mysteries you expect to have to guess just one or maybe two random pieces of information to get the game.<br /><br />So, Fr. Brown is more in the Sherlock Holmes type of loner genius, but he doesn't have any problems and he doesn't have a mysterious past, he's just apparently heard the detailed (meaning exactly how I did it) confessions of every type of criminal, and he is pure, and very philosophic (also kind of obnoxious to me).<br /><br />In other words, the books are a bit tedious because they present Chesterton's almost apologetic for his take on the Catholic worldview versus the rest. He seems to have been more interested in making points about priests (being "cloistered and pious" doesn't mean they don't know the ways of the world; in fact they know the ways of man more intimately than anyone else because that is their "profession"), in general the Catholic Church's teachings (confession of sins is simultaneously both freedom and a sufficient penance; Catholicism is the worldview of reason; the fundamental thing that must be seen about mankind is that we must look inside and admit that everything is not alright, the church's approach to sin and sinners - confession - gets many more and better results than that of society, etc.), skewering various groups in society for their incompetence, destructiveness, insufficience (socialists, new pagans, English evangelicals, teetotallers, calvinists, etc.), or making a sort of broad moralizing point: as man lives in sin his sins get smaller and smaller (meaning I think more and more personal), and meaner and meaner (meaning more and more vicious).<br /><br />Through each of his stories he gets across fairly bluntly a related point on one or several of these. Now, I grant this is a point I usually find interesting and most always agree with. What I object to is use of the genre, which caught me by surprise. Perhaps if I pick up a Father Brown collection again, my approach would be to try to read them as Platonic dialogues. The plot is not exactly an accidental happenstance to the philosophy therein, but it is definitely subservient to the point being made, though in the best dialogues the plot is itself also that point. It is as though Chesterton formulated a moral truth to himself and thought, 'now how can I get a Fr. Brown case to exemplify this?' Thus, in their own way these tales are enjoyable, but don't expect the literary delights of Dorothy Sayers.Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-87602916578360503072008-11-29T01:26:00.000-08:002008-11-29T02:35:39.678-08:00Sunlit SilenceI like to classify poets in my own mind in a couple of ways; or rather, there a few major categories of things that I think poets do, and some do some categories better than others: the best poets in their best poems strike a perfect balance. One set of my categories is "idea" and "music". George Herbert was such a fantastic poet he usually was musical, but I think his poems are more driven by thought/idea. T.S. Eliot is the same; but for both, their best poems cannot be understood without reading them as music, without sounding them. Gerard Manley Hopkins was the paradigm "music" poet -- in many of his poems, I have no idea what he is saying, but I will read them again and again just to hear the birds singing. Another set of categories are the senses -- poets usually focus on a couple of the senses when they create a scene; again with Eliot as an example, I think he focuses on sound and movement, less so on smell and textures, little on sight.<br /><br />Wendell Berry is one of the easiest to categorize, I think: in my categories he is an "idea" poet and a "sight" poet. Thus at his best he is a good but not great poet; at his worst he is an essayist pressing "enter" every couple words and after a handful of poems you feel as though you've read several philosophy essays, and you can see a lot of birds and trees, but can't hear or smell or feel them very well. For instance what if his poem (left) were just lightly edited with an eye (haha) to its sound (yes, I am making criminal presumptions, but the sound of the last line as he wrote it criminally offends the injunction therein and if he did that intentionally then he is too clever by half and that proves my point anyway):<br /><br />... Accept what comes from silence. <br />Make the best you can of it. <br />Of the little words that come <br />out of the silence, like prayers<br />prayed back to the one who prays,<br />make a poem that does not disturb <br />the silence from which it came. <br /><br />Accept what comes from silence.<br />[delete]<br />Of the little words that come<br /> from the silence, like a prayer<br /> prayed back to one who prays,<br />make a poem that does not disturb<br />the silence whence it came.<br />~from <span style="font-style: italic;">Further Words</span>, "How to be a poet (to remind myself)"<br /><br />On the other hand, here are some of his poems I have been enjoying, in order of increasing excellence.<br /><br />"The Future."<br />For God's sake, be done<br />with this jabber of "a better world."<br />What blasphemy! No "futuristic"<br />twit or child thereof ever<br />in embodied light will see<br />a better world than this, though they<br />foretell inevitably a worse.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Do</span> something! Go cut the weeds<br />beside the oblivious road. Pick up<br />the cans and bottles, old tires,<br />and dead predictions. No future<br />can be stuffed into this presence<br />except by being dead. The day is<br />clear and bright, and overhead<br />the sun not yet half finished<br />with his daily praise.<br />~<span style="font-style: italic;">In a Country Once Forested</span><br />{See? Some good lines, but mostly the essayist who presses enter a lot}<br /><br />"II."<br />When we convene again<br />to understand the world,<br />the first speaker will again<br />point silently out the window<br />at the hillside in its season,<br />sunlit, under the snow,<br />and we will nod silently,<br />and silently stand and go.<br />~ <span style="font-style: italic;">Sabbaths 2000</span><br />{Now, there is some "sound" here, but mostly this is the marriage of vision and idea with the emphasis still on idea; the next with a more balanced role for vision}<br /><br />"III."<br />As timely as a river<br />God's timeless life passes<br />{though "passes ... passes ... past", I would<br />prefer "flows ... flows ... through"}<br />Into this world. It passes<br />Through bodies, giving life,<br />And past them, giving death.<br />The secret fish leaps up<br />Into the light and is<br />Again darkened. The sun<br />Comes from the dark, it lights<br />The always passing river,<br />Shines on the great-branched tree,<br />And goes. Longing and dark,<br />We are completely filled<br />With breath of love, in us<br />Forever incomplete.<br />~<span style="font-style: italic;">Sabbaths 2000</span><br /><br />And finally, Wendell Berry at his very best (which is very good):<br /><br />"VI. (for Jonathan Williams)"<br />The yellow-throated warbler, the highest remotest voice<br />of this place, sings in the tops of the tallest sycamores,<br />but one day he came twice to the railing of my porch<br />where I sat at work above the river. He was too close<br />to see with binoculars. Only the naked eye could take him in,<br />a bird more beautiful than himself killed and preserved<br />by the most skilled taxedermist, more beautiful<br />than any human mind, so small and inexact,<br />could hope ever to remember. My mind became<br />beautiful by the sight of him. He had the beauty only<br />of himself alive in the only moment of his life.<br />He had upon him like a light the whole<br />beauty of the living world that never dies.Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-61159918681419724992008-11-23T20:42:00.001-08:002008-11-23T20:44:17.003-08:00Irony Alert<a href="http://www.zenit.org/article-24309?l=english">"Pope Clarifies Luther's Idea of Justification."</a><br /><br />I'm sure Luther appreciates the help.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-28672503461381170852008-10-30T21:25:00.000-07:002008-10-31T00:29:20.923-07:00Panic! Averted.The title of <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081030&content_id=3655001&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det&partnerId=rss_det">the article that caused my panic</a>: "Jones Returning as Tigers' 'Pen Coach."<br /><br />What! How could they bring back Todd Jones to coach their bullpen! Our bullpen is ruined.<br /><br />Wait. Did that say "Jeff Jones"? Okay.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-43660362162009753142008-09-14T20:53:00.000-07:002008-09-14T20:55:41.537-07:00Only Slightly DisappointedI just finished reading a book of poems. The poems in the book were not what I expected them to be. I suppose that if a Pottery Barn catalog were converted into a book of poems, the result would be something quite like the book of poems I just finished reading.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-32047174049325748522008-09-05T10:19:00.000-07:002008-09-05T10:29:39.457-07:00I have no ideaThe following quote was written about a particular candidate in the upcoming presidential election. I am keeping the author and the candidate in question (if you really want to know, you could google a phrase) to illustrate the point that this comment could be said about any person and their support of any candidate, anywhere. We can only hope that, when the author of this comment read his own article in the paper the day after writing it, in a flash the irony struck him and he chuckled at himself. <br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages -- and loses -- both necessary and unnecessary wars.<br /></blockquote>It is cool that I get to determine the society I will live in based on the simple tell-all inclination of whether I want someone "just like me" to be president or not. <br /><br />I think, if we were to take the author seriously the choices before all of us are:<br />1. Live a reprehensible life and wish for someone morally upstanding to take over my government for me because I am busy choosing to be despicable. <br />2. Live a morally upstanding life and wish for someone who is a moral turd to take over society simply so that I will not deserve the hell that I will thereafter live in. <br /><br />Further suggestions from the floor are welcome.Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-61775173509369487432008-08-06T21:35:00.001-07:002008-08-06T21:37:14.634-07:00C-c-c-c-coffeeSometimes what you keep hoping is true, really is. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/health/05brod.html?no_interstitial">Jane E. Brody is our heroine</a>.Thorgersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07953573377628773420noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-66130044921790591992008-08-01T11:14:00.000-07:002008-08-01T11:17:20.347-07:00Reading Lakatos and Plato's "Timeaus" in the Afternoon after Babysitting in the MorningInsight may be nothing more than guessing --<br />modestly, courageously -- but still some<br />questions answer themselves as if divined.<br />For example,<br />"Why should we notice the little girl<br />whose budding humanity -- in full<br />bloom already -- makes it difficult<br />to put the cap back on the<br />juice and easy to love the<br />cosmos in its all-fangled beauty?"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-75011574249023863892008-07-27T17:48:00.000-07:002008-07-27T17:51:03.718-07:00End of an Era (a.k.a., Sales of Antacids Will Now Be Falling Off)No more Jones. It was fun (or something) while it lasted.<br /><br />The new closer is <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080727&content_id=3206371&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det&partnerId=rss_det">Fernando Rodney</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-69610556857494265092008-06-30T21:02:00.001-07:002008-06-30T21:04:45.265-07:00Big TalkIn the previous post, I brashly claimed that the Tigers would sweep the Twins in the upcoming series. Well, so far I don't have to eat my words. Tigers take the first game 5-4. What's better: Jones did not make a relief (<i>sic</i>) appearance. Zumaya pitched in the eighth and ninth innings. That saved me a couple antacid tablets.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-34068127996445420142008-06-22T21:29:00.000-07:002008-06-29T17:02:16.577-07:00When You're Not Playing Very Well . . .. . . maybe what you need is a good fifteen-game swing through the National League.<br /><br />The Tigers have gone 7-2 against the NL and now have the Twins in their sights. (Twins are are 1.5 games back of the White Sox; Tigers are 5 games back.)<br /><br />There's still six more (!) games to go against the NL: Three against St. Louis and three against Colorado, all in Detroit.<br /><br />Who knows whether the Tigers can keep the same level of play against AL teams. Maybe their current play is like beating up on the practice team and then getting clobbered in the real game.<br /><br />UPDATE: The Tigers just polished off the Rockies to make their record on this interleague swing 12-3. Next up: A three game sweep of the Twins.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-47538552078351012122008-06-20T15:35:00.000-07:002008-06-20T15:38:58.479-07:00Maybe It's Time to Switch VerbsFrom the <a href="http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=232281&&cc=5901">ESPNSoccernet report</a> on the Euro 2008 game between Turkey and Croatia:<br /><br /><span style="color:blue">Victory came at a cost as Tuncay Sanli, Arda Turan and Emre Asik will be banned for the semi-final after picking up yellow cards. Nihat Kahveci also appeared to pick up a groin strain.</span><br /><br />"Picking up" yellow cards. Maybe that works. But really, Kahveci picked up a groin strain? "Hey, what's this here? Should I pick it up? [Picks it up.] Oh, that wasn't such a good idea."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-36689272234215215512008-06-15T12:08:00.000-07:002008-06-15T12:23:07.099-07:00Tigers UpdateIn general, I don't like interleague play. One reason is that the Tigers do not have a natural National League rival. I can understand the draw of Yankees-Mets, Dodgers-Angels, or even Marlins-(Devil) Rays. But the closest NL rival the Tigers have is the Reds. Not too awe inspiring.<br /><br />But this time around the Tigers are playing teams from the NL West. They've been manhandling the Dodgers at Comerica (the benefit of this matchup is that I can catch the games on local radio and television), and then they come out west for games against the Giants and Padres. I'm trying to finagle a way to San Diego to watch one of the games. I've heard great things about Petco Park, but I wouldn't usually be interested in driving down there to see a random game. But the Tigers' series there changes the formula. We'll see what happens.<br /><br />Before the season opened, I said the Tigers would either win it all or end up somewhere around third place. They've been playing really good baseball of late -- the kind that everyone expected them to play at the beginning of the season -- but will it be too little, too late? Currently, they are eight games back of the White Sox. Having seen the Tigers' play of late, I think they'll make up some ground and end the season over .500. But whether they catch the White Sox is mostly up to the White Sox. If the White Sox crash and burn, and if the Tigers' pitching holds up (which is a medium- to big-sized "if"), and if the Tigers' bats stay moderately hot (i.e., score an average of five runs a game), then they have a shot at least at the wild card (we also need the (Devil) Rays to peter out for the wild-card race).<br /><br />In short, the hole the Tigers dug for themselves up to this point is too big for them to climb out of without help from other teams. Their destiny is not in their own hands.<br /><br />P.S. Happy Father's Day, dad!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9254396.post-60584900555567999642008-05-20T19:45:00.000-07:002008-05-20T19:49:05.469-07:00Fill in the Blankety-Blank-BlankFrom Jim Leyland, on the current Tigers situation (i.e., last place). <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080520&content_id=2736697&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det&partnered=rss_det">MLB.com provides the brackets.</a> There are so many it's comical:<br /><br /><span style="color:blue">"I don't give a [care] what [effect] it has," he said. "When people start making weak excuses in the newspaper, diversionary tactics and [stuff], that rubs me wrong. I don't give a [care] what effect it has. It can't have a bad effect, because we've been as [bad] as you can be. So it can't hurt. I'm not looking for problems here, but I'm a man. I look in the mirror. When I'm [bad], I'm [bad]. And there's a few [players] in that clubhouse right now that are [bad] too. And they need to look in that mirror. Don't look at mine, look at theirs. And don't look at the guy next to them. Look in the mirror yourself. Don't be pointing fingers over here and why we're not doing well. That's all weak [stuff]. Grilli's [stuff], some of that other [stuff] I read in the paper today, that's weak [stuff]. Weak."</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3