May 14, 2006
Reading Material
I am a big believer in looking into people's souls by examining their bookshelves, so I-- like Andrew Dilts-- was deeply amused to see on tonight's season finale of The West Wing that former President Bartlet reads Foucault.
UPDATE ONE: A very dear reader adds:
Yeah, he read Foucault but also had the good sense not to take him seriously.
Indeed!
UPDATE TWO: I also complained out loud when President Santos suggested that it was the fault of Jefferson and Adams that inauguration day is in January. Not so. Blame the 20th Amendment. I see Sandy Levinson caught the same mistake. I like to think it was a clever reminder that Santos is no Jed Bartlet (who would never have made such a trivial mistake).
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Poem of the (or so I've promised myself) Day
One Art
Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
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