Richard Hyde’s “In Search of a Sense of Place”

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My friend Richard Hyde has started a weblog In Search of a Sense of Place.
I've always enjoyed reading the email reports he would send out and
encouraged him to share them with the larger public. Here's a sample of
one of Richard's entries from February 2, 2007:

    I had just walked out of the Holocaust Museum,
    where I was attending an academic conference on the great culture war
    between fascism and communism in Europe between the world wars. A
    couple of the morning presenters were pretty good, but the literary
    critics were front and center for the afternoon. After a paper full of
    words like 'transgressive,' 'essentialist,' 'inversions,' 'subversive'
    and so on, and on, I had had enough. As I headed for the exit, I
    remembered the comment of someone who dropped out of Yale’s English
    Ph.D. Program: "It’s become the place where language goes to die."

Darfur, Google Earth, and Kristof

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BBC NEWS | Africa | Google Earth turns spotlight on Darfur. (More coverage of the use of Google Earth at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth, Google Earth Blog: Crisis in Darfur - The Google Effect, Ogle Earth: Darfur)
I finally got to take a look at the "Crisis in Darfur" layer in Google
Earth. I'm reminded once more of the need for prayer and advocacy on my
part and the part of those around me. Following the list at What Can I Do to Help Prevent Genocide? is a start; engaging with | Save Darfur is another.

I'm pondering Nicholas Kristof's words in Driving Up the Price of Blood - New York Times:

    All this makes genocide easier to stop than people
    imagine. Where it arises from a weighing of costs and benefits, then it
    is possible for outsiders to impose additional costs and change the
    outcome. That’s what we need to do. The U.S. should lead other
    countries in pushing hard on all sides for a negotiated peace agreement
    among the warring factions, for that is ultimately the best hope to end
    the slaughter in Darfur and in neighboring areas in Chad and the
    Central African Republic.

    I find President Bashir’s ruthlessness pretty easy to understand. What
    is harder to fathom is President Bush’s refusal to stand up to the
    genocide for four years. Why not impose a no-fly zone, why not hold an
    international conference on Darfur, why not invite survivors to the
    White House for a photo-op, why not give a prime-time speech about
    Darfur?

    Perhaps the explanation for Mr. Bush’s passivity is the same as the
    explanation for Mr. Bashir’s brutality. Maybe Mr. Bush has made his
    calculations, looked at the number of calls and letters he gets about
    Darfur, weighed the pros and cons, and decided that Americans really
    don’t care enough about genocide to make him pay a major price for
    allowing it to continue.

Slings & Arrows / Shakespeare online

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Laura and I learned about Slings and Arrows from reading Fire up Netflix; you need to see the first two seasons of 'Slings and Arrows' before third starts.
We took up Tim Goodman's advice and have been working ourselves through
seasons 1 and 2. Watching the actors recite Shakespeare makes me want
to commit more texts to memory.

BTW, how does one link to a specific spot in Shakespeare's plays? I see
the use of an Act/Scene/line number reference system. Is that
prevalent? For instance, I see from Hamlet
that the beginning of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be: that is the
question:" is Act III, Scene i, line 64. What versions of Shakespeare's
text are in use? (In looking for ways to link directly to Hamlet, I
found main, which an image of the 2nd Folio of Hamlet, III.i.)

moleskines and other writing implements

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moleskines and other writing implements

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.


For Christmas, Laura's folks gave me a large plain Moleskine notebook. Although I quickly took to writing in it sporadically, it is only during this last week that I've been writing many times a day in it. The notebook is, of course, not the only instrument for recording my thoughts. It has, however, become a guiding one as I sort through the jumble of thoughts that buzz around in my brain. Forcing myself to write my thoughts in a linear narrative often helps make sense of the nonlinear, illogical scramble of notions, emotions, questions, and conjectures.

Turning 40

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Two weeks ago yesterday, I turned the big 4-O. I look back on my
thirties as a decade that vastly improved on my twenties, which weren't
too bad. I optimistically look at my forties as a time for profound
growth and change and undoubtedly, deep challenge.

Morality, the Wikipedia, and Academics

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Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior - New York Times:

    Biologists argue that these and other social
    behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe
    that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it
    is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these
    rules are.

    Moral philosophers do not take very seriously the biologists’ bid to
    annex their subject, but they find much of interest in what the
    biologists say and have started an academic conversation with them.

Wikipedia is good for academia
-- nice to see an essay about how the Wikipedia is good for the
university and academic culture. I should say more about what I mean
here....

Summoning the spirit of Glenn Gould

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My friend Dan referred me to Ghostly Grand Piano: Technical Marvel Plays Like an Old Pro - washingtonpost.com, which in turn led me to Zenph Studios - Glenn Gould’s - Bach Goldberg Variations - Connections Column - New York Times:

    Zenph also announced it had accomplished this feat
    of technological legerdemain with one of the most remarkable recordings
    of the last century: Glenn Gould’s 1955 mono rendition of Bach’s
    “Goldberg” Variations. Gould, who retreated from performance into the
    private realm of the recording studio where he could splice and fiddle
    with sound and phrase, would be posthumously pulled back into the realm
    of public performance.

I'm almost ready to plunk down the money to hear the recreation of Gould's famous Bach recording. (See *BACH:
The Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould's 1955 performance re-created in
modern hi-res surround sound and hi-res binaural sound by Zenph - Sony
Classical for the album cover.) Where can I buy it?

Notelets for 2007.03.15

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I'm happy that TimesSelect University
program opens up TimesSelect to university folk like me. (It would be
even better if my friends and family outside the university could also
read the special features of The New York Times for free.

Enchanting TED - Pogue’s Posts points to the latest round of TEDTalks (audio, video).

Guidelines for Using a Cellphone Abroad - New York Times is useful if I ever go to Europe or Asia -- but mostly, when I leave the USA, I'm in Canada.

The Bach Birthday Bash sounds tempting. Stanford is just a bit too far away these days for me:

    Join us for a celebration of the master's 322nd
    birthday with a musical party, featuring Bach family videos, a wig
    tossing contest, and an intimate performance of several of his
    wonderful Brandenburg Concerti. Featuring the award-winning Palo Alto
    Chamber Orchestra and their music director, Benjamin Simon, this
    evening will be an opportunity to brush up on your Bach trivia, have a
    fugue explained to you, and learn the names of all of Bach's
    twenty-plus offspring. Those attending in period costume are eligible
    for valuable door prizes!