[lit-ideas] Re: Milton translated (as prose?)
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 22:13:19 -0800
On Dec 2, 2008, at 12:02 AM, Eric Yost wrote:
It's like the opposite of instant coffee ... the labor of a lifetime.
There are some periods of cultural transition when it just doesn't
pay not to be an infuriated Godzilla on a rampage in Tokyo.
"Ultimately it falls into a place of privilege," is what someone said
on day two or possibly three, in all seriousness, adding, "I'm
curious if the work references entropy or exchange value."
Ah, thesis week.
Perhaps the best measure of the badness of a correspondent in the
modern era is inches, as in how many inches within the "in" box does
one have to go to find the e mail one is replying to? More than X,
makes a bad correspondent unless, of course, there are extending
circumstances--three spams of such a sort allow one to pull a card
from the community chest and possibly stay out of the dean's office.
Someone off-list asked me about a teaching prize and bemoaned the
fact that her car won't start. It occurred to me that cross-
fertilization here could be key. "Because of my ability *in* a
clutch situation, could the college please award me a clutch? And
for giving an earnest student a break when he confused homonyms, I'm
wondering about a brake job? Also, since enlightenment is our
goal...a new set of halogens?"
Among the experiences of three days of thesis proposals and oral
defenses was one great one, a Reed student who had worried me
immensely and who took considerable guidance. But what goes in
always has a chance of bearing interest on the way out. I was
delighted by that rare experience of a student taking everything in
and giving something better back. Of course we act as if this were
the normal form of university exchange, but it's actually something
to be savored. My other students generally did well--I went to all
their defences--and so, though tired at the end, I felt that good had
been achieved. On Tuesday I'll get to hand their writing to my
colleague and to read what his students produced. Is there no end to
fun?
Today I took my father to my favorite thrift store. I wish I could
tell you that he scored at least as well as I have in the past, but
just as one cannot teach a lifetime of fly fishing knowledge to
another generation in an instant, one must go slowly when it comes to
introducing someone to thrift store hunter- gathering. He bought a
Nordstrom's sweater for seventeen dollars, not a bad buy for someone
unused to the experience.
Last night we watched, "The Other Boleyn Girl." I cannot recommend
it. Earlier in the week we tried, "Flawless," which at least has
Michael Caine in it. This evening the library offered us, "Mad
Money." Again... We took him to a cinema to see, "Burn After
Opening," which was middling good Coen brothers, a movie that leads
exactly like a joke up to the punch line. They should have called
it, "Quite A Long Joke."
No snow here, only wind from the east, which means cold after dark.
Do carry on.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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