The nostalgia of the very young

A nice gloss on Faulkner's idea of peace as "was." Spoken by a second-grader:

"Oh, I wish I was in kindergarten again."

Why? Naps, and no homework.

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William Faulkner on peace

The sounds of sirens

Three fine examples of the ability to Keep Calm and Carry On, letters to the editor in the November 1940 Musical Times ("Founded in 1844, published on the fifteenth of every month"). The German Blitz had begun on September 7, 1940. "Feste," mentioned in the second letter, was the pen-name of a Musical Times columnist.

(Thanks, Elaine!)

William Faulkner on peace

Reading page after page in Proust's The Fugitive on remembering and forgetting made me recall this passage from William Faulkner, which has lurked in my mind since I first read it in college. It's from a conversation with students at the University of Virginia, March 13, 1957:

[M]aybe peace is only a condition in retrospect, when the subconscious has got rid of the gnats and the tacks and the broken glass of experience and has left only the peaceful pleasant things — that was peace. Maybe peace is not is, but was.

William Faulkner, Faulkner in the University, ed. Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995), 67

Imaginary failed restaurants (no. 4)

The Seven Cs, serving chili, cornbread, carrot cake, coffee, cocoa, and chai.

The menu sounds charming. I have no idea why this restaurant went under. Perhaps the owners argued over whether carrot cake counted as one c or two.

More imaginary failed restaurants
'FroZen!
O'Saka's
Poi Vey

Imaginary failed fusion restaurants (no. 3)

Poi Vey: Traditional Hawaiian and Jewish cuisine.

Imaginary failed fusion restaurants (no. 2)

'FroZen!: Soul food and macrobiotic cooking.

Imaginary failed fusion restaurants (no.1)

O'Saka's, featuring traditional Irish cuisine and sushi.

And now I'm waiting for imaginary failed fusion restaurant no. 2 to show up.

Proust on self-plagiarism

Is being oneself (or one's self) merely copying? Ah, habit:

[W]hat we call experience is only the revelation to our own eyes of one of our own character traits, which recurs naturally, and recurs all the more powerfully if we have already on some previous occasion brought it up into the clear light of consciousness, so that the spontaneous reaction which had guided us the first time becomes reinforced by all the suggestions of memory. The kind of plagiarism which is most difficult for any human individual to avoid (and even for whole nations, who persist in reproducing their faults and aggravating them in so doing) is self-plagiarism.

Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, translated by Peter Collier (London: Penguin, 2003), 403

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Proust on habit and selfhood

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Staple!

There are many ways for students to annoy their professors: "Did I miss anything important?" (No, nothing like that happens in our class.) "Will this test affect my grade?" (No, not at all.) "What are your office hours?" (They're the first thing on the syllabus.) Most professors understand that such questions are harmless; few, if any, would give the responses I've imagined here.

An annoyance that's less understandable is the absence of a staple to hold together pages of written work. No matter how good an essay or report might be, a missing staple says a lot. Unstapled work says that the writer either doesn't know what finished work looks like or isn't willing to take the care necessary to produce it. Unstapled work says that the writer couldn't be bothered to use a stapler in a library or residence hall or ask a friend. (My son tells me of a table in his undergraduate library with ten staplers available for students' use). Unstapled work might also indicate a failure to follow directions, as many course assignments carry a reminder to staple. Worse perhaps than the absence of a staple are turned-down upper-left corners, which seem to acknowledge that there's something wrong, but that the writer can't be bothered to fix the problem properly. And worse still is the question that comes up in class when written work is due: "Do you have a stapler?"

In such circumstances, some professors become codependent, so to speak, bringing a stapler to class when writing is due. To my mind, such professors are giving their students a false picture of the workings of the larger (so-called real) world. Can you imagine submitting a report or proposal as a sheaf of loose pages? Or asking your boss for a stapler before handing over that work? If not, start now, and staple! Unless of course your professors prefer paper clips.

[I've used the Swingline Tot 50 seen above since the 20th century, when I was in college. Yes, the smaller Tot staples are still around.]

Proust on jealousy

One parenthetical insight:

(It is astonishing how jealousy, which spends its time inventing so many petty but false suppositions, lacks imagination when it comes to discovering the truth.)

Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, translated by Peter Collier (London: Penguin, 2003), 402

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