From the RSAnimate series, in this video, Matthew Taylor explores the meaning of 21st century enlightenment and how the idea might help us meet the challenges we face today.
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Poem of the Week
Lady Blaga is away this week on an likely much-deserved vacation, so I’m bringing you the poem of the week in her stead. Here we have Edna St. Vincent Millay, who was probably the coolest poet this side of Oscar Wilde. Here is one of my favorites of hers. Afternoon on a Hill I WILL be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise. And when lights begin...
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On Saturday, I’m leaving for vacation! On the beach! I’m rather excited. In this week’s poem, Ogden Nash celebrates the joys of doing nothing. On the beach. Thanks to my friend K., who introduced me to this very pleasant piece. Pretty Halcyon Days by Ogden Nash How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to...
Continue reading...Mad Men,"The Rejected"
Peggy, to Allison: “My problem is not your problem.” Well, it looks like Allison did not take Don’s rejection as well as it appeared last week, or even at the beginning of this episode. On the conference call, it’s clear how good Allison is at her job — she even gives Don a little bit of attitude. “Why is this empty?” he asks, holding up a bottle of booze. “Because you drank it all,” she quickly shoots back. But when Don gets a Polaroid of himself with Anna from his recent trip to California, Allison notices and...
Continue reading...The Girl Who Was Not Impressed
My interest in books tends to vary inversely to the amount of hype, so I had about zero curiousity in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But then both my parents recommended the series highly, and they both have great (and divergent) taste in books, so I figured if they both enjoyed it, maybe I really was missing out in my Stieg Larsson-less existence. So I borrowed Dragon Tattoo, the first novel of the trilogy, and I slogged through the first hundred or so pages before finally finding myself engrossed. I didn’t expect that it would take so...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week: Child at Heart Edition
I’ve been suffering from some vague anonymous illness for the past week and a half, which is no fun. Unlike this poem’s protagonist, I’ve not been playing hooky, though on the plus side, it’s been very quiet in my office this week. In honor of mystery sicknesses, here’s one of my childhood favorite poems, which as I recall I memorized for a contest in middle school. Sick by Shel Silverstein ‘I cannot go to school today, ‘ Said little Peggy Ann McKay. ‘I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My...
Continue reading...Book Rec
I picked up The Myth of You & Me at the library based solely on the title. I was not disappointed. This novel, by Leah Stewart, chronicles the unraveling of a friendship between two women, and more to the point, the intense bond they shared before falling out. The action takes place when the women are adults and looks back on their teenage years in frequent flashbacks. The story is told from the perspective of Cameron, and is propelled forward by several unanswered questions about the demise of her friendship with Sonia– a friendship so close the...
Continue reading...Mad Men, "The Good News"
Stephanie: “Nobody knows what’s wrong with themselves, but everybody else can see it right away.” Despite finding themselves in a precarious financial position as New Year’s approaches, 1964 was a good year for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. It has not been a great year for most of our characters’ personal lives, however. The episode focuses mainly on Don, Joan, and Lane — each of them dealing with the loss or potential loss of someone they love. Don discovers that his best friend, Anna Draper, the one person who knows absolutely everything about Don and still loves him,...
Continue reading...Poem of the Week
One of my recent Netflix picks was Bright Star, the biopic about the poet John Keats and his lady love Fanny Brawne. I thought it was lovely–sad at the end, of course, but also unabashedly romantic. I could now present to you a poem by Keats, but that would be too obvious. Instead, here’s one about the poet. Keats by Christopher Howell When Keats, at last beyond the curtain of love’s distraction, lay dying in his room on the Piazza di Spagna, the melody of the Bernini Fountain “filling him like flowers,” he held his breath like...
Continue reading...Mad Men, "Christmas Comes But Once a Year"
Don: “I don’t hate Christmas. I hate this Christmas.” I hope everyone was excited about the return of Glen, or Creepy Glen, as I like to call him. As the Draper-Francis family picks out a Christmas tree, Glen emerges from the shadows to talk to Sally. His mother got re-married, he explains, and he heard about what happened with Sally’s parents. Bobby Draper seems to be adjusting well to their new life, he and Henry putting their arms around each other as they walk away. Sally is the one who truly feels the loss of Don, especially...
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