Cover-a-Week #26: "Nightswimming" by R.E.M.

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic this week...


http://youtu.be/JgwJ3Ti4j3s

The rhythm for this song was a bit tricky to figure out; it took me a few tries before I realized that the irregularities were in the chord changes rather than the strum pattern.

R.I.P Seamus Heaney

A literary luminary died today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435

I've owned a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf for as long as I can remember, and I've read it cover-to-cover at least three times. It's beautiful, and not just because the parallel text (with annotations!) indicates just how faithfully Heaney translated from the original Anglo-Saxon. Rather, given the cadence and word choice of his modern English, it becomes immediately evident that the translator is himself a poet.

Few poets have been as universally revered in their lifetimes as Heaney was. It has been said, even before today, that he was Yeats's successor as Ireland's foremost poet -- and one would be hard-pressed to find a competitor for the accolade. His original poetry was not only sublime, but also widely accessible -- he was a true poet of the people. His laurels are too many to count (including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Struga Golden Wreath, and the Irish PEN), but in my mind, one of his most significant accomplishments was that he brought poetry to those who might not otherwise consume poetry, who might consider the art too academic, too arcane. He brought beauty and wonder to generations of readers who saw something of themselves set on paper in his words.

He was, by all accounts, a compassionate and upstanding man who was profoundly aware of his position as a voice of the people in a land often rent by civil and religious strife. He tried to balance a sense of cultural heritage and pride of place with a concern for individuals that was evident in everything he wrote. One of my favorite of his poems, "Digging," describes his work as a natural continuation of the life's work of his forefathers, telling the story of several generations in just a few verses. (You can hear Heaney's own rendition of it here.)

A star has fallen.

Edit: I just discovered that Seamus Heaney's last words, delivered via text message, were "Noli timere" (Latin for "Be not afraid"). How fitting -- he was a poet to the last.

Morley Walk!

This is what I did last Sunday (August 18th):
http://morleywalk.tumblr.com

Christopher Morley was a novelist, poet, and journalist -- and the founder of the eminent Sherlockian society the Baker Street Irregulars. However, he is perhaps most well-known as a tireless advocate for the book trade. One of his best-beloved novellas, The Haunted Bookshop, is set in a used-bookstore in Brooklyn, and is essentially an ode to bookselling, wrapped in a cute romance and a quaint mystery.

The Morley Walk, organized by Melville House (which publishes what is likely the most recognizable edition of The Haunted Bookshop and its prequel, Parnassus on Wheels), was splendid. It was a reading crossed with a walking tour of independent bookshops around Prospect Park. A small horde of bibliophiles descended upon the streets of Brooklyn, where we attempted not to get run over by passing cars, parents pushing baby strollers, and over-eager dogs as we migrated en masse from shop to shop, taking turns reading aloud from a copy of The Haunted Bookshop.

There were some people who thought we were a cult -- come to think of it, passersby mistaking Morley for Scripture in a mob of bookish people is actually rather fitting. I doubt I shall see most of the other participants again, but for an afternoon, we had found our tribe. And much like a novella, it was over far too soon.

BuzzFeed: A Tale of Three Bookshops

This is what bookshops in Britain do on Twitter:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/aarong31/three-bookshops-had-a-twitter-fightand-it-ruled-dmhw

To all the bookstores in the US (but especially indies): please have an internet pissing contest. It would make my day. (@McNallyJackson, @StrandBookstore, and @StMarksBookshop, I'm looking at you!)

Cover-a-Week #25: "Doctor Worm" by They Might Be Giants

A bit belatedly, for Geek Week:


http://youtu.be/odJD73piZdc

This was meant to be good, nerdy fun, but ended up a little more introspective than I'd intended... (It was fun nonetheless!)

If I Used Twitter...

... I'd post this gem from last night:

Nutella is the spice of life. If I had to choose between variety and Nutella, I'd pick Nutella.

Words to live by -- a direct quotation from my sister, who loves food. (Seriously, she once said that if she were on Twitter, her handle would be something like "ilovefood".)

The Economist: On Pollution, China is Better and Worse Than We Think

I'm reading Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse (you know it's important when it has its own Wikipedia page!), which devotes a whole section to the real sociopolitical dangers modern China faces as a result of environmental fragility and degradation. I rather serendipitously happened upon this article in The Economist, which discusses developments therein (both good and bad) since Collapse was published in 2005:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21583245-china-worlds-worst-polluter-largest-investor-green-energy-its-rise-will-have

I subsequently ended up thinking a lot about the subject, so I thought I'd muse about it in prose. (Sometimes -- very occasionally -- I miss writing essays for college history classes...) This post is rather long, so I've put it below the cut:

My Totoros Have Multiplied!

I now have two Totoros!

I acquired the blue one in Japan five years ago; my sister got me the grey one for my birthday just a few days ago. (I promise I haven't put the latter through the wash; it's just the texture of its fur making it look particularly disheveled.)

"My Neighbor Totoro," despite having a rather thin plot, is one of my all-time favourite films (this is mostly due to its sheer cuteness). Miyazaki and his co-conspirators at Studio Ghibli are geniuses (genii?).

Curiosity Rover Sings Happy Birthday to Itself

Two days late (the rover Curiosity landed on Mars on August 5, 2012), but just as awesome:


http://youtu.be/uxVVgBAosqg

I am reminded of WALL-E. (I trust I'm not the only one?)

Cover-a-Week #24: "The House of the Rising Sun" (traditional)

People seemed interested in more folk/old-school material, and I'm happy to oblige:


http://youtu.be/_scn7y8uCis

I didn't realize until after the video went live that the angle of lighting makes me look a bit ghostly in the still-shot... I suppose it's appropriate for the piece.

The Problem with Time Travel

I recently saw, and was amused by, this Abstruse Goose comic:

http://abstrusegoose.com/526

History buffs are often asked (in the process of making an acquaintance) what time period they'd like to inhabit, or at least to visit for a little while. I find that I tend to give answers as if I were white, male, and Christian (my main area of interest is pre-modern and early modern Europe). After all, the Scientific Revolution, or Republican Rome, or the Italian Renaissance are fascinating times to have been alive if you weren't being downtrodden, persecuted, or discriminated against. (I imagine that, being both female and Asian, I would have twice as much difficulty as either of the above characters. I wonder if the probability of death by persecution would increase logarithmically with each undesirable trait?) If I were to actually consider the logistics of visiting a particular time and place, I'd be largely limited to China and, well... there really isn't a good historical era in which to be female.