A brief exchange on Facebook a while back (5/27/26) that I think is worth bringing to a wider audience. From Lynne Murphy (University of Brighton, in the UK), testily:
Hey, students who thought they could skip seminars after they “knew” what they were going to write their essay about.
You were wrong, and I’m taking some pleasure in pointing out all the connections you missed between different aspects of our module.
A pleasure I would have been happy to forego if you’d only come to class …
About my daily life, because I’m so backed up in things to do that I’m just picking little stuff out of a hat. (The incidental good news is that my lab tests were very pleasingly improved, and I’m now starting, eek, a very slow withdrawal from prednisone; think good thoughts about woolly mammoths for me.)
Meanwhile, I took an early break in my sleep last night, to search, I don’t really know why, for material on the dog books of my childhood.
I did indeed speed-read (and barely comprehend, though I got Midsummer Night’s Dream and King Lear for life) all of Shakespeare at the age if 9, of my own volition, but I also adored imaginative fiction for kids. Dr. Doolittle, Freddy the Pig, every Oz book there was. And books about noble dogs. My West Lawn PA companion for several years was a sweet mutt dog (part terrier, the rest mystery). Spot / Spotty (not an imaginative name, but fitting).
Out of this I will produce soon a posting on what we all called at the time LadADog (three syllables rushed into a ball). And Albert Payson Terhune. But that’s not what this posting is about. This posting is about the music that Apple was playing for me when I went on my computer dog search around 9:15 pm last night.
Little Poll Parrot
Sat in his garret
Eating toast and tea.
A little brown mouse
Jumped into the house
And stole it all away.
— nursery rhymeIf you like the parrots and getting caught in the rain
If you like making love at midnight under the trees on the cape
Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me and escape
— The Parrot Song
Well, yes, tariffs (by Canada, against those levied by the Grabpussy administration of my country), not my misheard parrots. But I was taken by the idea of billions of dollars in parrots, bright parrots in the air.
And so was led down the psittacine path of associative memory. Some highlights on the path …
This morning, I went to get a bunch of lab tests done at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (for a nephrologist consultation tomorrow) and discovered that a lot of the phlebotomists recognized me, greeted me enthusiastically by name, and asked about my life since they had last seen me. The thing is, I’m really visible (well, I also remember them, and facts about their lives too; they’re interesting people, and the question “How did you end up working here?”, while they are drawing my blood, elicits some extraordinary stories). Almost always wearing stunningly gay clothes (today, rainbow-flag track shorts and a honking big rainbow-colored DEI t-shirt).
(#1) The DEI shirt
The PAMF staff find these clothes cheering, which is indeed one of the things they’re for.
This makes me happy.
Two views of (parts of) my apartment at Avant (photos by Opal Armstrong Zwicky), so you can see some of the things I’ve been writing about. And then can be used for a more urgent purpose: opposing death — I am on deathwatch for one of my oldest and dearest friends — by laughing in its face and by counterposing the power of sex against it. This will take us down some surprising paths, of parallels and analogies and loosely related circumstances. And then somehow it will all end in Latin, with Catullus, where I at least will find release and repose — cease, Galatea, cease to grieve. But in a lot of steps, and only a bit of it today.
The ultimate topic here is my sleep patterns, which I will post about more systematically in a while. Here I’m trying to take some of the burden of background material off that posting by stashing it for easy reference later. Picking an item — the revival by Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre of Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros — that I also view, in desperation, as carrying an urgent message about today’s sociopolitical climate.
It will start with odd everyday routines of no consequence, but will end with contemplating literal dehumanization, staring evil in the face. I’m touchy on the point, having never fully recovered from the shock of seeing the Nazi death camps exposed when I was a child. And understanding that that could happen to me. (No, I don’t think children should be protected from such knowledge. They should be treasured and supported, as I was, but they should also see the dangers clearly, so that they can arm themselves against them.)
But first, the routines. (If you think I’m just a nutter or a pathetic neurotic in need of professional care, fuck off; it’s none of your business. I’m doing stuff that works for me; why should you care?)
Today’s foodmanteau — the hybrid food’s my very own, composed yesterday (8/22) to be served for the first time today — is
biryanestrone = biryani + minestrone
The elements: (1) from the Hyderabad Dum Biryani in Mountain View CA, lamb keema biryani plus paneer (spicy fried cheese cubes); (2) from the Menlo Park Safeway store, Signature brand minestrone soup.
