Blog MeridianBlog MeridianArranging, deepening, enchanting the atmosphere. Commentary on art, books, film, music, and the ideas they inspire. 
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Housekeeping
2007-09-25 03:16:00 Just a quick note to inform you that I'll be away from "here" for a few days to crawl back on top of the papers that my students have the habit of turning in and then expect me to read and grade. The cheek of them! I should be back by Friday. In the meantime, I hope you'll visit some of the other sites I've linked to over in the right gutter. Thanks as always for your visits and comments and More About: Housekeeping
Archaic word of the week
2007-09-21 12:49:00 The other day, a student used "maugre" in a paper of his. Yes. Maugre. Yes, correctly. (Yes, I already knew what it meant--stop your snickering, you in the back row . . . but I hadn't learned it till I took a Chaucer course in grad school.) I can't say much more for reasons of student privacy, but suffice it to say that "maugre" is not entirely out of place in this student's writing. On an More About: Word , Week
Talk Like a Pirate post-mortem
2007-09-20 12:29:00 It seems to come earlier and earlier every year . . . I was remiss in not reminding and encouraging my reader(s) of the 19th--I've been quite busy for the past few days grading student writing ("Arrrgh! Th' freshness of yer prose fills me head like th' salt-air when I stand on th' bow, the ship under full sail !" "Avast! Revise this scurvy mess you call writing!") and, yes, I confess it, More About: Pirate , Post , Talk , Mort , Irate
Mark Rothko
2007-09-17 00:24:00 Long-time readers may recall that I have a poster of a painting by Mark Rothko (which you can see here) that a few years ago I tried to write about here and here. At any rate, via Andrew Sullivan comes this video on Rothko. Possessing something of the sensibilities of the Qatsi trilogy, it manages to persuade me, at least, that Rothko might not have been quite as abstract an artist as one might
Revisiting punctum's puncture
2007-09-16 15:20:00 "Then the Meridian said, 'Let us make the Meridian in our own image, after our likeness . . . '" In the comments section of this post, Conrad of Varieties of Unreligious Experience asks a good question in response to my anxiety resulting from pictures of me that appear to feature less hair than I perceive myself as having: "How about pictures of you in a mirror?" A good question, which this
W(h)ither the Novel?
2007-09-15 14:59:00 Inasmuch as concepts, including the concepts Fiction and Necessity, are more or less necessary fictions, fiction is more or less necessary. Butterf_ies exist in our imagination, along with Existence, Imagination, and the rest. Archimedeses, we lever reality by conceiving ourselves apart from its other things, them from one another, the whole from unreality. Thus Art is as natural an artifice
The Lanyard
2007-09-11 18:46:00 At my school, we faculty and staff have become lanyard-wearers (they bear new IDs that we're supposed to wear, as a security measure, whenever we're on campus). Though the poem that follows isn't quite about school and security, I've found it hard of late not to think about it whenever I put mine on. (Because I cut and pasted this from elsewhere, I can't attest to the accuracy of the
Six years later . . .
2007-09-11 15:02:00 This is not a post about Where I Was On That Day. I wrote that post last year. This is a post, albeit a brief one, about where (I think) we are today. Then, we were afraid, and with good cause, and that was a healthy and proper reaction to those events. I am still afraid now, but of something else: of the institutionalization of that fear, what it has done to our civil liberties, to our More About: Years
In which the Meridian is punctured by punctum
2007-09-10 04:56:00 Something about this post over at Pam's excellent blog, Tales from the Microbial Lab--well, okay, the inevitability of certain things, if you must know--brought to the fore something that I've been pondering of late: our differing responses to reflections and photographs. Okay, okay. Here it is. I'd wanted to sound all metaphysical and stuff, but I might as well spit it out: In pictures of me More About: Meridian
Tara Fuki, Auris
2007-09-08 15:22:00 Via Calabash Music Do I speak Czech? Nope. Did I much care that I don't after hearing about 10 seconds of the first sample on this album? Nope. You probably won't, either. Do I want to get this as soon as I am a bit more financially liquid? Yup. You probably will, too. Enjoy. Update: René of Teoría del Caos links approvingly and even ups the ante by posting a video for "Lej Lej Lejack, More About: Tara
Excerpt from "What Is a Nation?"
2007-09-08 04:08:00 Something I'm pondering, for scholarly reasons, from Ernest Renan's 1882 speech, "What Is a Nation ?" (full text here). I'd welcome any comments or observations anyone might have. More valuable by far than common customs posts and frontiers conforming to strategic ideas is the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and of having, in the future, [a shared] programme to put
Rest in Peace
2007-09-06 13:02:00 This wasn't my introduction to Pavarotti, but his singing this in front of Pope John Paul II on his visit to (I believe) Chicago many years ago was one of the more sublime moments I've ever witnessed on television. (This is not that specific performance, by the way.) William Faulkner once said that he wanted on his headstone, "He wrote the books, and then he died." He didn't get his wish. It More About: Peace , Rest In Peace , Rest
More hitting, less missing
2007-09-05 12:45:00 PhD Comics, via this at Acephalous (click on image to enlarge) There are days, such as those when I'm asked what my dissertation was/is about, when the words in the final panel hit closer to home than I might find comfortable. Ahem. If, as was the case in my most recent post, I'm reduced to posting about guacamole, let that be a sign to my reader(s) that my already-shallow well of inspiration More About: Missing , Missi
Whack-a-mole guacamole and hit-and-miss linking
2007-09-03 21:16:00 In part because it's Labor Day and in part because, well, at $1.45 each, what a waste if the avocados went bad, I've just finished mixing up some guacamole. As the first part of this post implies, though, Guess-n-Gosh is a key preparation component in my "recipe." Everything is fresh and from scratch, which means that even though I use the same ingredients each time (avocados, onions, Roma More About: Miss , Linking , Mole , Linkin , Whack
A stretch of river XLII: Signs, signs, everywhere a sign
2007-09-03 14:12:00 Illustration from Ferdinand de Saussure's "Course in General Linguistics" I see no sign that the Five Man Electrical Band was or is especially enamored of structuralism--or, for that matter, of post-structuralism. Still, recently it's been very hard for Scruffy and me to go on our twice-daily walk without the chorus of "Sign s " popping into my head, at least--especially the chorus's perhaps More About: River , Etch , Stretch
Spring break
2007-03-17 12:07:00 This morning Scruffy and I are heading down south to spend some much-needed time with my children, so this blog will be "dark" for a while. The plan is for us to return to Wichita on Friday. If it's good stuff to read that you're looking for and somehow or other you came to the conclusion that you might find it here, I'd like to direct you to the "Daily (B)reads" and Technorati Favorites More About: Break , Spring , Ring , Brea , Spring break
Barack Obama's post-race politics, Part II
2007-03-14 05:00:00 (You can find Part I of this post here) So how does Barack Obama articulate a post-race politics in a nation--in a hemisphere--whose history has been shaped by racial tension literally since before Columbus? Here in the speech Obama gave at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, he reframes the theme of race in this country in such a way that no one More About: Politics , Post , Race
Web 2.0: The Web Is Us/ing Us
2007-03-14 00:25:00 Elegant, humorous, clever in a thought-provoking way--especially at the conclusion. (Hat-tip: Clusterflock) More About: Web 2 , The Web , Web 2.0
Barack Obama's post-race politics, Part I
2007-03-13 23:37:00 "Old man, . . . have you lived so long and forgotten so much that you dont remember anything you ever knew or felt or even heard about love?" --William Faulkner, "Delta Autumn" Readers of this blog know that I have come to admire Barack Obama and that the speech he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial back in November (linked to above) sealed the deal for me. I'm not alone in that More About: Politics , Post , Race
"There are more things in heaven and earth . . . "
2007-03-11 16:59:00 Over at 3 Quarks Daily, Justin E. H. Smith has an essay up that is ostensibly about the difficulties inherent in translating the Yuktun word nâk: It may denote, depending on context, reindeer lichen (Cladina rangiferina), an Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus), an adult Yuktun woman, a Russian, something resembling poetic justice, and, of most interest to many, the life force that runs through every More About: Earth , Heaven , Here , More , Things
In which the Meridian reports that his car unnerves him
2007-03-10 17:06:00 There are times when my car unnerves me. It's a 1993 Toyota Corolla, bought new in 1994 and which looks just like the one you see here (though mine has hail dings on the hood and a cracked windshield--but is missing only one of its wheelcovers, so there). It's about as unassuming a car as one can imagine, and let's just say that over the intervening 13 years it has become more and more More About: Report , Port , Hat , Dian , Repo
The KGB in-like-a-(Nelson-Atkins)-lion Carnival
2007-03-06 14:14:00 Welcome to the first March edition of the Kansas Guild of Bloggers' weekly Carnival . Before I get to the posts for this Carnival, though, a word about last Saturday's meet at the Barnes & Noble Café in the Plaza in Kansas City: Um . . . well, Mrs. M. and I were there from about 3:15-4:00, along with a whole lot of other people, some of whom may have been bloggers looking for us, but none of whom More About: Nelson , Lion , Like , Atkins
In which the Meridian proudly toots Mrs. Meridian's artistic horn
2007-03-04 19:21:00 (click to enlarge images) Mrs. M. is on hiatus from law school, and to fill the time she has become an avid photographer. In her husband's considered if oh-so-slightly-biased opinion, she's become quite good already; indeed, she has taken the plunge and submitted some pictures for exhibition at an art show sponsored by my college that will open tomorrow. It's not juried, but she is a bit More About: Artist , Dian , Meridian , Artistic , Proud
That cloud of dust y'all see on the horizon . . .
2007-03-02 14:07:00 . . . is the approach of the KGB Carnival of Blogs. As Paul reported here at the most recent KGB posting (and which I'm only now very belatedly linking to), the Kansas Guild of Bloggers will be hosted here at good old Blog Meridian this Monday. In addition to the usual round-up of recent posts from members and others, we plan to include pictures of those who grace us with their appearance at More About: Hat , That , Loud , Cloud , Izon
Three years ago today . . .
2007-02-27 08:00:00 . . . this blog came into being in the way of all blogs, though its initial home was over at Livejournal. Back then, we didn't have a clue as to what was going on or just what we were going to be when we grew up. We still don't. But hey: We're past the toddler stage, though we're apt to trip over ourselves. We know our alphabet but don't yet know how to read; still, we love to be read to. We More About: Today , Years , Three , Year , Ears
In which the Meridian totally post-rocks wid his crazy self
2007-02-25 22:07:00 toothpastefordinner.com Given my advanced years, I find it surprising I know much of anything at all about, even, trends in contemporary music, much less some of the practitioners of those trends. I know what (little) I know, though, thanks to a combination of the much-more hip Mrs. M., friends with enormously-diverse tastes and my own natural tendency to listen to anything at least once. So, More About: Rock , Post , Self , Crazy , Tall
In which the Meridian hears his bucket scraping the cold dry bottom of the
2007-02-25 04:45:00 This is a sad thing: 3 days before the 3rd anniversary of this blog and, like the kids say these days, I got nuthin'. Stuff has happened, to be sure. Why, just yesterday, Mrs. Meridian and I had a wonderful breakfast at Milton's in Lawrence (here is a review) with Joel (he of Cup o' Joel fame) and his wife Jocelyn. Mrs. M. discovered that she and Joel attended the same elementary school in More About: Cold , Hear , Crap , Scrap , Dian
"Ash Wednesday"
2007-02-21 13:31:00 I wrote this back in college. I don't claim it is "good," but I still like it. Perhaps some of you might, too. Ash Wednesday And again I feel the tiny bits of my Self rubbed on me; those familiar words I Hear again; a prayer; and then it's finished. When do we learn the meaning of ashes? Even at death, they say, light shimmers in Dark tunnels and His voice narrates us through. No--not at More About: Ash Wednesday
KC-Area meet
2007-02-17 18:20:00 As long-time readers know, close to the end of my Intro to Humanities class we have an optional field trip to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. This is, for many of my students, the highlight of the class: many of them have never been in an art museum before, and they come away amazed and moved by the experience. This semester, some of us (accompanied, her schedule permitting, by More About: Meet , Area
Baghdad Bob as Prophet?
More articles from this author:2007-02-13 14:20:00 As I've mulled over the events of the past months in Iraq--specifically, how the war is being fought--something about them has dredged up for me memories of the nearly-forgotten "Baghdad Bob," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, whose 15 minutes came during his position as Iraqi Minister of Information during the Shock and Awe days of 2003. Once upon a time, it was easy and even fun to laugh at his More About: Prophet , Baghdad Bob , Prop 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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