A brief nod to Virginia Woolf in Cunningham's Walt Whitman novel:

She descended the garbagey stairs, went out into the morning, a spanking-fresh June one, all spangly on the fire escapes. She paused for a moment on the stoop, taking it in. On a morning like this, you could believe the world was safe and promising. You could imagine that nothing harmful, nothing toxic, could flourish. Not when early light slanted down so purely from an ice-blue sky. Not when the window-box geraniums of the first-floor widow were incandescently red and a passing truck said PARTY PLANNERS in glittering gold letters.

Catching up

Real life has been antagonistic to blogging these last few days. Saturday was my father-in-law's 75th birthday and the entire family gathered at Shatley Springs for the celebration. We made it home late, exhausted and overfed, and then had to get up Sunday morning and scurry to pack the cars and get R. moved into her new dorm in Chapel Hill. Her classes start today and she has a sort of not- an- interview lined up at the library from which I hope non-vague good things result.

There was a murderer in the library! On our floor! Spotted by our very own H.! One of the local TV stations interviewed J., our student worker, last night while we were on the desk.

Thanks to the Shelia Variations, I came across Beth's wonderful reflections , which I think everyone ought to go read, on Johnny Cash's Christianity and his Live at San Quentin album. I spent the first money I ever had buying San Quentin and Hello I'm Johnny Cash (please note: the cd currently sold under that title is not the same as the album I purchased in the 70s), so I was thrilled to see someone discover these songs all these many years later and draw basically the same conclusions I had.

Salman Rushdie on the empathy he shows in Shalimar the Clown toward the type of men who once tried to kill him:

"There's an argument," he says, "which is that to humanise them is a kind of exoneration. And obviously I don't think that. It's wrong to say that by understanding people you somehow let them off the hook. There was a recent film about the last days of Hitler, Downfall, and it showed all of them, Hitler and Eva Braun etc, as rounded characters, with moments of affection. It kind of makes it worse, when you can see that these are not cartoon villains, but are real people making these hideous decisions. In a way it does the opposite of exonerating them."

Rick Moody on the joy and enthusiasm of reading:

I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket. I believe in reading books because others dislike them or find them dangerous. I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book, and then making up my own mind.

Daniel C. Dennett explains how there's no science in intelligent design and suggests that

Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.

I'm reading Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days.

does the goat die in alice munro's runaway. . .

was the search query of the Swarthmore student frantically perusing page after page of this site yesterday evening.

Why am I appalled by that question while I find amusing the story R. told me of the public university student who was mortified to learn that rams aren't merely mythical creatures?

Now imagining a sacrificial goat with a golden fleece bounding about fleeing hunters in a Pam Houston short story while "Rocky Mountain High" blares from the heavens. . .

Last Friday was the 85th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. A celebration of that event is taking place today and tomorrow in Philadelphia.

A collection of articles from the New York Times on the ratification process--fascinating reading--is available here.

Nicholson and the Bard

. . . and another poem from Maxine Kumin

WHICH ONE

I eye the driver of the Chevrolet
pulsing beside me at a traffic light

the chrome-haired woman in the checkout line
chatting up the acned clerk

the clot of kids smoking on the sly
in the Mile-Hi Pizza parking lot

the meter reader, the roofer at work
next door, a senior citizen

stabbing the sidewalk with his three-pronged cane.
Which one of you discarded in a bag

--sealed with duct tape—in the middle of the road
three puppies four or five weeks old

who flung two kittens from a moving car
at midnight into a snowbank where

the person trailing you observed the leg
and tail of the calico one that lived,

and if not you, someone flossing her teeth
or watering his lawn across the street.

I look for you wherever I go.

(Remember to check out The Ark on Fridays and the Carnival of the Cats on Sundays for a round up of the best and latest pet blogging photos. Next week's carnival is being hosted by Annoying Litte Twerp.)

Books I'd Love to Buy This Very Moment. . .

Robert Sapolsky's Monkeyluv

E.L. Doctorow's The March

T.C. Boyle's Tooth and Claw

George Saunders' The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

R.'s Mindset

Excerpts from the Beloit College ''Mindset List'' for the Class of 2007, most of whom were born in 1985.

-- “Ctrl + Alt + Del” is as basic as “ABC.”
-- They have always been able to make photocopies at home.
-- They don't remember when ''cut and paste'' involved scissors.
-- Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
-- Iran and Iraq have never been at war with each other.
-- Voice mail has always been available.
-- Computers have always fit in their backpacks.
-- ''Whatever'' is not part of a question.
-- They have always had the right to burn the flag.
-- Bill Gates has always been worth at least a billion dollars.
-- The Starship Enterprise has always looked dated.
-- Bert and Ernie are old enough to be their parents.
-- Les Miserables has always been on stage.
-- They do not remember ''a kinder and gentler nation.''
-- They never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.
-- Airports have always had upscale shops and restaurants.
-- Black Americans have always been known as African-Americans.
-- The Field of Dreams has always been drawing people to Iowa.
-- They never saw a Howard Johnson's with 28 ice cream flavors.
-- Lyme disease has always been a concern in the woods.
-- They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.

Full list available here. Past lists available here.