Here we are in the goldfish bowl

Annie Dillard's descriptions of collective self-consciousness are unmatched. When we're truly awake we know we're in a "goldfish bowl" of mutual shared awareness. Will we waste this opportunity, while the lights are on, or use it well? That's also the challenge of the classroom.

I am sitting here looking at a goldfish bowl and busting my brain. Ich kann nicht anders. I am sitting here, you are sitting there... Here we are...

seeing

Quoted Annie Dillard on where I expect to spend eternity, in the dawn blog this morning. Her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is on my short list of favorite 20th century works.


"Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won't see it..."


This amateur flip cam production nicely conveys her youthful romance with seeing.

Satch

The Cards are stuck on 1, the Rockies rallied and the Cubbies rocked. (Gotta love baseball poetry! Annie Dillard went on about that once, repeating "Terwilliger bunts one" until it turned the language to goo. Good writing does that sometimes.)

Sticking to the baseball theme...

Satchel Paige's Rules for Longevity

1. Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social rumble ain't restful.

5. Avoid running at all times.

6. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

What it's all about

Annie Dillard was a wise twenty-something in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Answering a curious London cabbie:


Only the other evening I picked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him, "Well, Lord Russell, what's it all about," and, do you know, he couldn't tell me... I know what it's all about, and I wish I didn't. The parents die, the next generation lives, ad majorem gloriam, and so it goes.

And so it goes.