Skip to main content

Forgot to post!


I was looking for an image that had to do with "forgetfulness," and I stumbled accidentally upon this painting, by the German romantic or symbolist painter Eugen Bracht, about whom I know absolutely nothing.  Its title is Gestade der Vergessenheit, or The Shore of Oblivion (info only in German, sorry).  It's impressive enough, so I figured I may as well use it!

Forgetfulness is my theme, because here it is, definitely time to call it a night, and I just realized I forgot to post anything today.  I have been thinking about writing up some ideas on coronavirus and globalization, prompted by an essay I read that struck me as misguided.  But that will have to wait for (maybe?) tomorrow.

The day was filled with housekeeping for my courses and some grading.  The first big wave of grading in the new online regime is about to sweep over me (like the waves in the painting): papers in EMW awaiting my critical eye, exams today in my Luther seminar, more exams on Monday in Humanities, still more on Wednesday in Intro Political Thought.  I will need to give myself a motivational pep talk.

For now, maybe I'll read just a few pages by Gert Jonke (about whom I also promised I would post) and then let the sound of those crashing waves lull me right into oblivion.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

E-mail Wit on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It seems as though practically every business where I've ever bought anything in the past decade sends me e-mails about their products, specials, deal-of-the-week, etc.  Normally I delete them immediately, without a second glance. But one this afternoon made me hesitate.  I received a "Walgreens Weekly Ad" e-mail.  Its subject line read as follows: "We can't stop lowering prices." So instead of hitting "delete," I sent a quick reply: "In that case, I think I'll wait and shop next week." I have no idea whether or not that reply will go to a real e-mail address and be read by an actual human being.  But I hope so.
5 comments
Read more

Non capisco!

About once a week I get an e-mail from something called the Italian Cultural Institute in New York.  I don't know why.  I know nothing about them and have no idea how I got on their mailing list.  But I generally take a quick look at the e-mail, because every now and then I see something interesting. The other day I got one of these and saw what appeared to be a potentially interesting lecture today.  It was by a professor named Stefano Jossa, currently at Royal Holloway, the University of London.  He was going to be speaking on his new book, in Italian, but the title of which in English would be The Most Beautiful in the World: Why Love the Italian Language .  It sounded intriguing, it was free, all you had to do was register and get a Zoom link.  So I did. It turned out that the lecture was actually being sponsored not by the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, but rather by the one in Montreal.  But who cares, right?  As long as it's not in French, which didn'
4 comments
Read more

The Blessing and Curse of E-mail

I am, in fact, deeply grateful for e-mail.  It allows me to be in ready contact with colleagues both in this country and abroad, and to pursue opportunities I would otherwise never be able to. But then there are days like today.  My e-mail has been increasingly difficult to keep up with for the last year or so.  But just before supper this evening, I looked at how many e-mails I had written and sent today.  The total: exactly 100.  By now, of course, it's a bit more than that. I spent much of the day trying to reschedule a student trip to Germany that was canceled due to the coronavirus crisis.  We were going to travel over Easter; now we will try it next fall instead.  Probably about half of the e-mails were related to that.  I don't even want to know how many words I wrote today.  If they were a book.... Now it's back to real work, reading the first half of Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther  so that I can put together a mini-lecture for my Humanities students
3 comments
Read more