On an unrelated note (because that is always the best way to start a paper), it occurs to me that part of the superficiality (negatively intended) of Pessoa comes from the fact that in fragmenting himself into heteronyms, he also fragmented his own complexity and nuance.

I won’t be posting for the rest of the week, so everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving!

– NOVEMBER – is the month for being thankful.

– PICTURE OF THE WEEK –
Dinner.

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
What is your favorite comfort food?

The Detroit Free Press: Questions linger after Richards apologizes for racist rant.

What strange calamity.

Seinfeld was never my favorite show, but it was always a show I’ve enjoyed. In the last year or so it has even come to mean more to me, seeming one of those indelible mid-nineties things that I can inexplicably associate with theater and driving and Alternative.

The older I get the more I’m (quite unintentionally) getting in the habit of pronouncing the word “coincidence” differently than everyone else. I’ve caught my self, whether reading or speaking, shifting the emphasis from the second to the third syllable: coincidence.

– NOVEMBER – is Vegans month.
– TODAY – is World Hello Day.
– HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Voltaire and Bjork.

– QUOTE OF THE WEEK –
“I am a grateful… grapefruit.”
– Bjork.

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
I’ve been surprised at least once recently.

At this time of year the lectionary is filled with all sorts of apocalyptic stuff. It really is a genius bit of scheduling, since the material is scattered throughout both testaments. You can find it in all four gospels, but especially John, the letters of John and Thessalonians (though most of them have it somewhere), Revelations, of course.

– NOVEMBER – is Peanut Butter lovers month.
– HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Edwin Hubble and Bobby Kennedy. But most important, my dear friend Lyn!

– NEWS OF THE WEEK –
The New York Times: Schools Slow in Closing Gaps Between Races.

I have decided to take the death of Bo Schembechler more personally than that of Milton Friedman. When complex, difficult, and admirable people die, it just sort of stops you.

END OF POST.

I was in the middle of my first quarter at the University of Chicago. Still a little overwhelmed and confused by everything that had accumulated, quite suddenly, I didn’t leave Hyde Park at all between the end of Orientation and Thanksgiving break.

I don’t want this to be conflated with what I think is good and bad in poetry.
There is, however, substantial overlap, so anything that I think generally good in poetry, as well as being pleasurable to me personally, I will put in italics.