Words from Charles Van Doren

The name Charles Van Doren will bring to mind the quiz show Twenty-One and scandal. But here's another way in which Charles Van Doren might be remembered -- as a deeply thoughtful student of the sorrows and possibilities of human life.

In 1999, Van Doren was invited to address a reunion of Columbia College's class of 1959. Like these alums, he started at Columbia in 1955 (as an assistant professor); he resigned in 1959. In the course of some remarks on how to live late in one's life, he mentions Aeneas' journey to the world of the dead, which begins at Lake Avernus in Italy, and quotes the Sibyl's words to Aeneas:

"The way downward is easy from Avernus.
Black Dis's door stands open night and day.
But to retrace your steps to heaven's air,
There is the trouble, there is the toil."

(Virgil, Aeneid 6, translated by Robert Fitzgerald)

Van Doren notes (in his own translation) the advice that the shade of Phlegyas gives Aeneas: "Study justice, and do not scorn the gods!" (Phlegyas, enraged after Apollo seduced his daughter, set fire to the god's temple at Delphi.) Van Doren goes on to say that

None of us can take Aeneas's journey, nor, in fact, did he. The story of his descent into the Underworld and his return to the brightness of the sun is a myth, and myths are stories that are so true they can never happen. Something like his journey may happen to anyone. The human name for it may be despair.

Despair -- the Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard called it. As we enter this last part of our time we mustn't forget that bad things can happen. The failure of hopes, the death of friends, the venality of politicians, the manifest cruelty that stalks the world -- these may tempt us to descend from Avernus into that dark place where safety seems to lie. But then we scorn the gods. This great line is from Paul Valéry's "Le cimitière marin":

      Le vent se lève; il faut tenter de vivre!

      The wind's rising; we have to try to live!

You can read a transcript of Van Doren's remarks to the class of 1959 via the link.

       » Charles Van Doren revisits Morningside Heights
      from Columbia College, Columbia University

Mother and child

Overheard:

Mother: "What is a chair used for?"

Child: "Climbing?"

Overheard

"It's not fun to watch other people in Hawaii."

John Hicks (1941-2006)

John Hicks was a brilliant pianist, one who (like Jaki Byard) ranged freely across styles. I've heard him on many records and was lucky to hear him in person, about 20 years ago, at a club in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was playing in a quartet with David Murray (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Fred Hopkins (bass), and Ed Blackwell (drums). For a reader who knows jazz, that should be all I need to say.

      » Pianist John Hicks Dies, from JazzTimes

Good advice for students

Anders Ericsson is a professor of psychology at Florida State University. His and his colleagues' work, as described in the New York Times, holds some lessons for any student:

Their work, compiled in the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, a 900-page academic book that will be published next month, makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers -- whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming -- are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.

Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love -- because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't "good" at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

"I think the most general claim here," Ericsson says of his work, "is that a lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it."

So often I've heard students say that they're "not good" at writing essays or at reading poetry, as if their present skills were beyond improving. The way to get better at these things, as I always say, is to work on them.

      » A Star Is Made, from the New York Times

Breakfast with William B. and Edna St. V.

William Butler Yeats and Edna St. Vincent Millay read their work in distinctive voices -- highly musical, highly theatrical, or, if you prefer, totally over the top. Hugh Kenner tells a story of Yeats reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree":

[H]e read it as he read everything, in a peculiar half-chant in which Ezra Pound heard keening, and other Americans heard Celtic melancholy, and Dublin heard Willie Yeats putting on airs. A no-nonsense American lady asked him to kindly infarm the audience (he recalled the sound she made as "infarm") why he read his poetry in that fashion. He replied that every poet since Homer had read in that fashion. She asked him to further infarm them how he knew that Homer had read in that fashion. He replied that the ability of the man justified the presumption. [From A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers, 1983]

My wife Elaine, our daughter Rachel, and I were recently talking about Yeats and Millay. (Rachel worked on a group project about Millay and has now read enough of her work to last a lifetime, thank you.) Elaine suggested that we ponder the idea of Yeats and Millay talking over breakfast. My imagination went to work (or play, really) developing a scenario.

[William B. announces his plans for the morning.]

I will arise and go now, and go to the grocery
      store,
And a carton of milk I will buy there, and a dozen
      eggs or more,
And I will buy some bread there, for the bread
      truck comes today.

[Edna St. V. replies.]

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little trip.

[At this point, Elaine directed Katherine Hepburn to enter the dining room and ask if they'd be needing anything else this morning. Curtain.]

All this silliness is curiously appropriate, given Yeats' 1937 remark on the work of the poet:

[H]e never speaks directly as to someone at the breakfast table, there is always a phantasmagoria.

Yes, and there is even a phantasmagoria of the breakfast table.

I'm no fan of Millay's delivery, I'll admit, and my passion for Yeatsian loftiness waned some time ago. My favorite readers of poetry are William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, and Ted Berrigan, vernacular Americans all. And here's another odd connection: Ted Berrigan appropriated "[T]here is always a phantasmagoria" as a tongue-in-cheek shorthand statement of his poetics.

If you'd like to hear Yeats, here's a link. I'm unable to find a recording of Millay online.

      » William Butler Yeats reads "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

Update: I found two Millay recordings.

      » Edna St. Vincent Millay reads two poems

Inquiring minds want to know

Do you have to be on a certain floor?

Do you have to have money to eat lunch?

If you are on a break, do you get to play on the Internet?

From a wonderful bunch of questions.

      » What do fourth-graders want to know about college?
      From the University of Houston-Victoria

Exams

Just in time, a link to a short piece that I wrote last fall, with five tips (or five tips and three sub-tips) for finals-takers:

How to do well on a final examination

Or as we say in Brooklyn, how to do good.

When I submitted my dissertation in August 1985 ("Heavy in July, light in August"), I remember that it occurred to me that I'd never have to take another final exam. As a student, I dreaded finals, never having any idea what they'd look like. Why, they'd be comprehensive. What more would one need to know? As a prof, I take pains to make the structure and focus of a final exam clear to students in advance.

A reader of this post who disagreed with the suggestion to overprepare suggested that "studying a lot leads to poorer grades." Yes, it's futile to try to memorize massive amounts of information at the last minute, but with this general claim about studying and grades, I can't agree. It's based in part on psychologist George A. Miller's rule of seven, which has been decontextualized into a general claim that most people can't take in more than seven bits of information at one time. If you're curious about the rule of seven, the link below is to an extended discussion from "Ask E.T." at Edward Tufte's website. The discussion includes Miller's comment on the uses and misuses of his rule and a link to the text of his original essay.

      » The magical number seven, from edwardtufte.com

Reality trumps academic satire

Stephen Budiansky, in the New York Times, on the difficulty of writing a satirical novel on American college life:

I knew that Tom Lehrer, the great satirical songwriter of the 60's, had said he had to give up satire when it kept being overtaken by reality. The final straw, he said, was Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

My final straw came when a friend at Case Western Reserve University (now referred to as Case, after their consultant concluded that all great universities have single-word names) sent me a packet of information on the university's new showcase undergraduate seminar program. Called SAGES (this supposedly stands for Seminar Approach to General Education and Scholarship), the program offers as an essential component of its core intellectual experience an upscale cafe that serves Peet's Coffee and is "staffed by baristas whose expertise in preparing espresso is matched only by their authoritative knowledge of all things SAGES" . . . . As a model of pandering to students in the guise of lofty academic purpose, I thought that was pretty hard to top. Then I started reading the 92-page guide Case has created for teachers of these seminars.

If students fidget, talk or walk out of class, the guide advises seminar leaders not to "manage" such behaviors, but to explore their underlying causes. Instructors must remember that to such characteristically American cultural beliefs as the importance of morality, rationality and personal responsibility, there are equally valid alternatives that must be respected.

Instructors must be wary of spurious objectivity, such as a 0-100 grading scale; much better is a 0-5 scale, or, best of all, a check, check-plus, check-minus scale. And finally, if students do not contribute to discussions at all, seminar leaders should "make space for silence."

It's enough to drive a satirist to something stronger than chai latte.

Yes, it is. It's fortunate that there are still students (see the post immediately below) who understand that college remains not a commodity but an opportunity, with myriad possibilities of endeavor and effort.

      » "Brand U." from the New York Times

Rachel's tips for success in college

I asked my daughter Rachel, who's finishing her first year of college, what advice she might offer student-readers. Here are Rachel Leddy's tips for success in college:

1. Build a social network. Living away from home in a dormitory with 1000 other people your age is a little unnatural after about 18 years of family living and close friends. It's important to make sense of the mass of people by finding those you can relate to and trust. If your roommate is a no-go on the friendship front, seek out activities in your dorm or your campus. Look for religious organizations or activities like intramural sports or debate teams. Find support from your resident advisors, teaching assistants, or other mentors. College friends do not have to replace the connections you have at home; they do, however, make your home away from home more comfortable.

2. Get good with names. Meeting people can be overwhelming, so make yourself special by being the one who knows everyone they meet. People love to be known and recognized, so find a trick to help you keep people straight. When you meet someone new, repeat his or her name aloud once or twice and then put your trick into action. Identify something deeper than clothing choice with the person, such as a story they tell you, the place you where you met (e.g., on a bus to the quad or a specific basketball court), or someone they strongly remind you of. If you forget a name the next time you meet, be honest and ask. Tell the acquaintance that you remember the time or place but you can't remember the name. People want to be remembered; don't worry about offending someone by asking them to help you remember them the next time.

3. Feel out your campus. Get to know your new home by finding a place for everything. Find a specific place to study (like a residence hall library, a specific table at a library, or a coffee shop you like). Find a space outside to play Frisbee, lie out in the sun, or read. Make these places your own and you'll be more comfortable in your new home. Of course, it's important to be flexible with your space. Be aware that your space is shared, not owned, and be prepared to find a new place if needed.

4. Create rituals. This is perhaps the easiest and most important thing to do at the start of the year. Establish familiarity through daily, weekly, and monthly rituals. Rituals can be as simple as taking notes with a favorite pen in journalism or always stopping for a drink at the same soda machine before chemistry. They can be more formal, such as going out to dinner once a week with your roommate or significant other. By setting rhythms in your new space, your days and weeks will be more natural and flow more easily. Flexibility also pertains here, so be prepared to change or reschedule your ritual based on availability and conflicts.

5. Remember what you're at school to do. You're at school to learn. The school is there to provide you with a great education, so do your part and go to class. Stay healthy. Take plenty of vitamin C. While it’s tempting to stay up all hours with friends, get enough rest to keep your immune system up and your mind alert. College is a great (and expensive) opportunity. Don’t waste it.

All good advice, if I say so myself. Thank you, Rachel!

*

February 15, 2016: Rachel adds one more tip:

Nearly 10 years have passed since you published this post, and I think that the tips still stand up! I find it interesting that these tips were mostly focused on living away from home for the first time instead of talking about the academic nature of college. The nature of these tips illustrates just how big a transition the college years are for many young people. Living with new freedoms and responsibilities must be balanced with (sometimes extremely) demanding academics. My four years at university were not the most successful years of my life; however, I think that being willing to grow and explore is still the most important aspect of attending college.

Knowing what I know now, I would adapt this post to add this tip:

Become comfortable with failing.
Depending on your experience in high school, you may be very surprised at the number of responsibilities you will face in college. Even if you were a top 10 student in your class of 200, you may be a middle-of-the-road student in a class of 10,000. If you were a top athlete, you may not even succeed in club sports. Do not be discouraged by failures at the beginning of your university experience. Work with an advisor to determine the workload that will suit your strengths and challenge you academically while allowing you to balance your academic pursuits with the (very big!) transition to living away from home for the first time. Adjust your expectations of yourself and find outlets for your creative energy that are fulfilling, even if they aren't exactly what you did in high school. You are not exempt from failure, no matter how capable you are. Do not fear failing; instead, embrace each mistake as a learning experience. Stay sober enough to avoid making mistakes that will haunt you for the rest of your life. And never, ever, ever drink and drive.