GRIEF AND REGRET

Cormac McCarthy:

Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.

The Passenger, p. 140

THE BONDS OF READING

Cormac McCarthy:

…having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.

The Passenger, p. 143

MAKING A READING PLAN

I spent a couple of hours yesterday making up a list of 20 books to read in fall 2023. I’m defining “fall” as the three months September, October, and November. This follows up on my participation in the 20 Books of Summer challenge. I found setting up and (almost) meeting the summer challenge to be a good exercise, so I’m going to continue it at least into the fall.

Yesterday, as I pulled the list together, it occurred to me that this is by no means the first time I’ve spent hours in July and August pulling together a list of readings. In fact, it was pretty typical for me to spend such time both in the mid to late summer and in October into November putting such lists together when I was selecting texts and supportive material for the classes I was teaching. Those times – like this time – were interesting and exciting, as I pondered the best (or at least not the worst!) combination of readings that would support and challenge students finding their way into an area of study.

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THE PRACTICE OF WRITING

Albert Einstein:

The most important method of education … always has consisted of that in which the pupil was urged to actual performance. This applies as well to the first attempts at writing of the primary boy as to the doctor’s thesis on graduation from the university, or as to the mere memorizing of a poem, the writing of a composition, the interpretation and translation of a text, the solving of a mathematical problem or the practice of a physical sport.

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RESPECTING TRADITION AT THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

Years ago, I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC shortly after it opened. I was overwhelmed by the different exhibits. The story told of that horrible time was both moving and profoundly depressing. I still remember details, especially the smell of leather when I entered a room where shoes of the murdered were collected. It’s interesting to me that olfactory memories are so pronounced.

One of the most moving parts of my time there came at the end, when we sat in a theater watching video of Holocaust survivors telling their stories. There were signs everywhere instructing people to show respect for the setting and the people on the screen by not taking pictures. I was sitting in the crowded theater between two people I didn’t know. Quite suddenly a woman sitting next to me pulled a camera out of her bag and snapped a picture of a man telling his story. I was flabbergasted and upset that she would violate the dignity of the room by taking a picture even with signs everywhere telling people not to do that. As I was wondering whether I should say something to her, I overheard her telling the person on the other side of her, “That’s my uncle.”

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ON TURNING 70

As I approached my 70th birthday last week, I realized that 70 suddenly doesn’t seem all that old any more. Of course this is not a novel observation (I know I’m not the first person to reach this age – in fact, I remember my mother saying, when she was about as old as I am now, “But I don’t feel that old.” – and of course I’m able to think it’s not so old in large part because I’m lucky enough to be relatively healthy and active. While I’m not all that bothered by turning 70, It disturbs me just a bit more to think that in just a decade I’ll be 80. Somehow that’s more difficult to swallow.

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THE PAST IN THE PRESENT

Virginia Woolf:

The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. In those moments I find one of my greatest satisfactions, not that I am thinking of the past; but that it is then that I am living most fully in the present. For the present when backed by the past is a thousand times deeper than the present when it presses so close that you can feel nothing else, when the film on the camera reaches only the eye.

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SMELLS OF THE PAST

While bicycling along the Charles this past week, I smelled cigar smoke. The smell brought a smile to my face – or at least to my mind. It’s not that unusual while I’m out on my bicycle to smell the smoke of someone’s cigar. Usually – like this time – the person smoking the cigar is sitting on a bench by the trail. There was a time, though, while riding in northern Virginia that I began to smell the cigar several minutes before I overtook a man enjoying his smoke while riding leisurely on his bicycle – the smoke wafted behind him for a mile or so, and the smell got stronger and stronger the closer I got to him. I encountered him several times over the years, and usually smelled his cigar long before I saw him.

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THE COMPANIONSHIP IN READING

May Sarton:

I am drawn to people, for I am one myself, for whom literature is a passion, deep rather than wide readers, who discover the great works as Marc had discovered #Proust, feel themselves companioned by certain writers throughout a lifetime, follow every clue about the invention of characters in their books, one might almost say lead double lives.

A World of Light, p. 156.

THE BENEFITS OF LUCK

George Sarton:

Every creature needs luck, and he is very ungrateful who ascribes his success to his merit and naught else. All the merit in the world will not save a man against bad luck. The theory of success is written by successful men who would be wiser if they boasted less ….”

From George Sarton’s journal, quoted by May Sarton in A World of Light: Portraits and Celebrations, p. 38.

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