BLAZE

Done with all of that...

Today's wise words, courtesy of William Styron...

To most of those who have experienced it, the horror of depression is so overwhelming as to be quite beyond expression, hence the frustrated sense of inadequacy found in the work of even the greatest artists. But in science and art the search will doubtless go on for a clear representation of its meaning, which sometimes, for those who have known it, is a simulacrum of all the evil of our world: of our everyday discord and chaos, our irrationality, warfare and crime, torture and violence, our impulse toward death and our flight from it held in the intolerable equipoise of history.

Wow. "The intolerable equipoise of history." What a brilliant line. Don't you wish you had written that? The excerpt comes from his long personal essay Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. It's a harrowing, articulate exploration of his experience with depression at age sixty. Highly recommended.

And on the lighter side of life...

Away, you scullion! You rampallion! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. — Falstaff in Henry IV

Fun fact...

Scholastic says they will print 10.8 million copies of the regular trade edition of HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. — Publishers Lunch

Pace, Dr M...

Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. — Source Unknown


Saw Humble Boy last night — wonderful! B is climbing in Nordegg today — he'll have to post about the experience later. Taught a fun pick-up class for a colleague today — my last official teaching this academic year! Had a lovely maguro don for supper tonight. All is clearly right with the world.

Putting on my walking shoes...
L