Heh. Somebody should have told me that there was a random second "six" at the bottom of my seven quick takes.
Anyway, I don't have much to offer, but I figured I should write something. So hello, and I've been doing lots of hiking around and looking at beautiful ocean views lately, and I hope you're all enjoying yourselves as well.
And also, happy birthday, Bethie!
Now it is my intention to start some no-knead bread (going to a potluck tomorrow) and then hit the hay.
6.27.2011
6.10.2011
Seven Quick Takes Friday: Back-in-Binghamton(-For-Now) Edition
One: In the unlikely event that you've heard any, yes, the rumors are true: Albert and I are going out, and I am spending most of the summer in Rhode Island, at his mother's house (because two-month apartment rentals on the island are way out of my price range). But this weekend I am back in Binghamton/Ithaca/maaayyybe-Alfred, thanks to my cousin Michael's wedding.
Two: Yes, I should be in Binghamton long enough for trivia on Monday night.
Three: What have I been doing in Rhode Island? Among other things, I have been following Albert to chasms and forts and reservoirs (well, okay, only one of each); I have helped with a soup kitchen (no lie, Good Shepherd: we ought to serve some chicken salad sandwiches some night at Shepherd's Bowl); I have experimented with multiple routes to and from Newport; I have read George MacDonald's lovely fantasy tale The Princess and the Goblin; and I have succesfully survived nearly eight days without being chomped on by an attack dachshund. So it's been really eventful, considering that I don't have a job yet.
Four: What have I done since re-entering New York State? Well, I spent about two hours in Crossgates Mall in Albany on my way home, doing that thing where I come in with an actual need (namely, a pair of blue jean shorts), try on about sixteen things (fewer than half of which actually fall into the category of the item I truly need), and then leave without having bought anything (except, in this case, something to eat).
Five: Also, I did some recreational cooking, because I probably haven't done any since before the Indiana trip, and I've missed it. I made leek-chickpea-and-potato soup according to Jamie Oliver's recipe, and I used homemade chicken stock (though, as homemade stock goes, it was only okay) that I'd made last month and frozen. It was a satisfying project. Maybe on Sunday or Monday I'll make something else, like no-knead bread and/or baked tortilla chips.
Six: Did I mention yet on this blog that Joe and Andrea and I went to Indiana to see our Alfred friend Jessica? We did. It was fun. Links to Joe's blog entries about it will come some other day; tonight I'm typing from my iPod.
Seven: Because of the iPodness, please forgive any typos. It's basically impossible to scroll within a text box from an iPod, as far as I can tell, so editing something this long is very tricky. Also, yes, this was technically finished on Saturday. But it was started on Friday. So there!
Two: Yes, I should be in Binghamton long enough for trivia on Monday night.
Three: What have I been doing in Rhode Island? Among other things, I have been following Albert to chasms and forts and reservoirs (well, okay, only one of each); I have helped with a soup kitchen (no lie, Good Shepherd: we ought to serve some chicken salad sandwiches some night at Shepherd's Bowl); I have experimented with multiple routes to and from Newport; I have read George MacDonald's lovely fantasy tale The Princess and the Goblin; and I have succesfully survived nearly eight days without being chomped on by an attack dachshund. So it's been really eventful, considering that I don't have a job yet.
Four: What have I done since re-entering New York State? Well, I spent about two hours in Crossgates Mall in Albany on my way home, doing that thing where I come in with an actual need (namely, a pair of blue jean shorts), try on about sixteen things (fewer than half of which actually fall into the category of the item I truly need), and then leave without having bought anything (except, in this case, something to eat).
Five: Also, I did some recreational cooking, because I probably haven't done any since before the Indiana trip, and I've missed it. I made leek-chickpea-and-potato soup according to Jamie Oliver's recipe, and I used homemade chicken stock (though, as homemade stock goes, it was only okay) that I'd made last month and frozen. It was a satisfying project. Maybe on Sunday or Monday I'll make something else, like no-knead bread and/or baked tortilla chips.
Six: Did I mention yet on this blog that Joe and Andrea and I went to Indiana to see our Alfred friend Jessica? We did. It was fun. Links to Joe's blog entries about it will come some other day; tonight I'm typing from my iPod.
Seven: Because of the iPodness, please forgive any typos. It's basically impossible to scroll within a text box from an iPod, as far as I can tell, so editing something this long is very tricky. Also, yes, this was technically finished on Saturday. But it was started on Friday. So there!
6.03.2011
Another Word from One of Our Sponsors
Thanks again to the brilliance of public domain.
Note: I should point out again that I often don't agree with everything Chesterton says in any one essay. Here I wonder how far someone actually in serious pain would agree with him that one shouldn't talk about it - though, not having had many incidents in my own life which would fall under such a description, I can only wonder, as I'm not in much of a position to know. But, as you'll see, the handling of serious pain is not the primary topic of this piece anyway.
The Advantages of Having One Leg
G.K. Chesterton
A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can live through these great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little worries." "That's quite right, mum," answered the old woman with emphasis, "and I ought to know, seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she would wear the crown of thorns — if she had to. The gentleman may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that the grasshopper on man's shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know that it really is the last straw and not the first.
I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do no deny that molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental limitations that are always falling across our path — bad weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from all these that I sing — I sing with confidence because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork — a stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it.
To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another figure and the picture is less human — not more so. One is company, two is none. If you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day there is but one star in the sky — a large, fierce star which we call the sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower of Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which stands most alone.
This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal exactitude, "He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one good leg he should have another — this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had been a centipede.
All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of all visible things — wink the other eye.
Note: I should point out again that I often don't agree with everything Chesterton says in any one essay. Here I wonder how far someone actually in serious pain would agree with him that one shouldn't talk about it - though, not having had many incidents in my own life which would fall under such a description, I can only wonder, as I'm not in much of a position to know. But, as you'll see, the handling of serious pain is not the primary topic of this piece anyway.
The Advantages of Having One Leg
G.K. Chesterton
A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can live through these great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little worries." "That's quite right, mum," answered the old woman with emphasis, "and I ought to know, seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she would wear the crown of thorns — if she had to. The gentleman may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that the grasshopper on man's shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know that it really is the last straw and not the first.
I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do no deny that molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental limitations that are always falling across our path — bad weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from all these that I sing — I sing with confidence because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork — a stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it.
To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another figure and the picture is less human — not more so. One is company, two is none. If you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day there is but one star in the sky — a large, fierce star which we call the sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower of Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which stands most alone.
This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal exactitude, "He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one good leg he should have another — this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had been a centipede.
All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of all visible things — wink the other eye.