Umberto Eco's book on lists is one of those books you wish you had written yourself. In honor of his genius work on a topic I know so very well, here is the beginning of a list I wish I had started long ago:
Favorite words --
glib
scumble
abecedarian
deipnosophist
twee
I used to keep so many lists of good words and I fell out of the habit sometime (somehow!) in graduate school. Back to this. Add it to my New Years Resolutions.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
New Years Resolutions 2015
These came late, but I have some goals here:
1. Long term goal: Become a member of the Newbery Medal committee and Caldecott committee so I can officially read and judge children's books. How does that even work? How fantastic would that be?--to meet the people at these conferences, to have direct insight into the world of children's lit? I wonder if I could get Steven Brown into this idea.
2. Exercise more. 5x/week. So far so good.
3. Become a Resident Tutor so I can better participate as a friend and mentor in this fantastic community of young geniuses noodling about in Cambridge. Re-orient all your random art projects to include the skills and interests of your students. Collaborate.
4. Figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my stocks. Keep my eye on that.
5. Travel someplace interesting this summer. I think I need to walk a great distance. "Yet everyone on earth feels a tickling at the heels; the small chimpanzee and the great Achilles alike."
6. Finish your dissertation prospectus. This is actually goal number 1.
7. Re-write your old papers and publish them in non-academic places. This is a silly goal but I want to do something with them. No one really wants to read academic journals and only two of these papers are worth the effort. Publish your stuff all over the place where people actually like to read and you can have more fun of it without all the academic futzing. Orient your research so you can justify traveling to neat collections in the process.
8. Try and win that darn Bowdoin Prize. Quit telling people about it because Steven Brown will kick your butt at this thing.
9. Drink more water. Lots more.
10. Get higher than a 4.5 on your Q scores.
11. Gracefully turn 27.
12. Structure your movie-watching more productively. Something old, something popular, something artsy. Brattle Theater should help you here.
13. MUCH more effort to eat my meals with people. Spend more time tasting your food and paying attention to all the interesting people you're surrounded by.
14. Sunday should be a day for learning to cook something new, and making it in amounts that it covers your lunch for a couple days.
15. More lists, thanks to Umberto Eco.
16. Once you get your camera, start hunting Messier objects.
hmm I suppose I should think about long term goals...
=Learn Italian and Spanish conversationally.
=Work on your Melville & Renaissance research with an i Tatti fellowship.
=Work with Rachel Sussman on her chrono-art.
=Find a way to make it to the AZ telescope, Mauna Kea, and Chile.
=Study under a Hilla Rebay fellowship.
Summer Reading Lists:
Read through the Newbery books.
Read through the Hugo Award books.
Read through your compiled Education books, and begin working on that philosophy.
Lists: Umberto Eco has given words to something you've always loved. The organizing aggregative force of lists...
1. Long term goal: Become a member of the Newbery Medal committee and Caldecott committee so I can officially read and judge children's books. How does that even work? How fantastic would that be?--to meet the people at these conferences, to have direct insight into the world of children's lit? I wonder if I could get Steven Brown into this idea.
2. Exercise more. 5x/week. So far so good.
3. Become a Resident Tutor so I can better participate as a friend and mentor in this fantastic community of young geniuses noodling about in Cambridge. Re-orient all your random art projects to include the skills and interests of your students. Collaborate.
4. Figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my stocks. Keep my eye on that.
5. Travel someplace interesting this summer. I think I need to walk a great distance. "Yet everyone on earth feels a tickling at the heels; the small chimpanzee and the great Achilles alike."
6. Finish your dissertation prospectus. This is actually goal number 1.
7. Re-write your old papers and publish them in non-academic places. This is a silly goal but I want to do something with them. No one really wants to read academic journals and only two of these papers are worth the effort. Publish your stuff all over the place where people actually like to read and you can have more fun of it without all the academic futzing. Orient your research so you can justify traveling to neat collections in the process.
8. Try and win that darn Bowdoin Prize. Quit telling people about it because Steven Brown will kick your butt at this thing.
9. Drink more water. Lots more.
10. Get higher than a 4.5 on your Q scores.
11. Gracefully turn 27.
12. Structure your movie-watching more productively. Something old, something popular, something artsy. Brattle Theater should help you here.
13. MUCH more effort to eat my meals with people. Spend more time tasting your food and paying attention to all the interesting people you're surrounded by.
14. Sunday should be a day for learning to cook something new, and making it in amounts that it covers your lunch for a couple days.
15. More lists, thanks to Umberto Eco.
16. Once you get your camera, start hunting Messier objects.
hmm I suppose I should think about long term goals...
=Learn Italian and Spanish conversationally.
=Work on your Melville & Renaissance research with an i Tatti fellowship.
=Work with Rachel Sussman on her chrono-art.
=Find a way to make it to the AZ telescope, Mauna Kea, and Chile.
=Study under a Hilla Rebay fellowship.
Summer Reading Lists:
Read through the Newbery books.
Read through the Hugo Award books.
Read through your compiled Education books, and begin working on that philosophy.
Lists: Umberto Eco has given words to something you've always loved. The organizing aggregative force of lists...
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
In memoriam Walter Liedtke
My favorite memory of Walter Liedtke was when he was giving our intern group a tour of the Dutch and Flemish Galleries of the Met, and, gesticulating vigorously, he unintentionally, unmistakably, loudly, rapped the surface of one of the Met's Vermeers with his knuckle.
The whole gallery went absolutely silent.
And he just went on... "When you're a curator, you can do that sort of thing!"
What a tremendous loss.
What a tremendous loss.
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