Here's one of the passages I taught today. What fun! Few phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which thawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut on the railroad through which I passed on my way to the village, a phenomenon not very common on so large a scale, though the number of freshly exposed banks of ( Read more... )

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the ( Read more... )

From the vault of obsolete language tricks, come two useful rhetorical devices I was never taught.

Scesis Onomaton is the emphasis of an idea by stating it several times in succeeding synonymous short phrases. I recommend three.

We had been defeated, vanquished, driven in defeat from the field of battle!

He was pudgy, had a few extra pounds, was ( Read more... )

( My Interests Collage! )

I've been re-reading Bob Richardson's book "Emerson: The Mind on Fire"--an intellectual biography I wish I had written ( Read more... )

I've been reading some Tom Paine, and some other fine writers from the 18th century. What makes their oratory so good? It's a combination of plain diction and careful use of some rhetorical devices we don't, generally speaking, get taught these days. So, in the interest of teaching them to myself, and getting used to using them, I'll post about ( Read more... )

Last week, I was walking to campus, and parked in front of our house, I noticed an older car, full of stuff ( Read more... )

So, finished new faculty orientation. Still can't get an ID card or get my official email running, but such is the nature of bureaucracy. I get the vague idea that someone in HR has a massive pile of Personnel Action Forms (the lifeblood of hiring, apparently), and have hoarded them, sitting on them like Gollum, and baring their teeth when people ( Read more... )

Received a giant box of photocopied manuscripts today: it's just like Christmas ( Read more... )

If you could pick a genre of film to be in (and assuming you could also pick the character), which would it be?

Explain why, if you like, in the comments.

Poll What Movie Do I Want to be a Character In? (and why?)