I made my first successful bid through ebay for 100 IBM Fortran punch cards. A guilty pleasure, but I'm glad I did it. Matt and I will add them to our growing collection of hands-on pedagogic tools, which in addition to the punch cards include a Mini-Labs science electricity kit (for demonstrating simple electrical circuits); braille instructional paper (for discussions of binary inscription technologies and code more generally); a hard drive salvaged from one of my early PCs; facsimile chainline paper purchased through the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia (for illustrating principles of bibliographic format); and a number of artists' books (especially by Johanna Drucker).
A sundry list at a glance, but taken together the objects reflect our common interests in inscription technology, humanities computing, and the history of the book.
Have any pedagogic curios of your own? I'd love to hear about them.
It was waiting for me on my desk chair this morning: the majestic Cambridge Grammar of the English Language--more than 1800 pages of technical detail teeming with examples and showcasing the omnifarious knowledge of its compilers, Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. I've been coveting the hefty tome for almost a year now, dropping frequent hints to Matt, so it really wasn't much of a surprise to find it finally in my possession today, my birthday, but it was a thrill. (Thank you, Matt!!)
I immediately tested the CGEL coverage by flipping to the entry for conditional constructions (e.g., if you don't eat your citrus fruits, then you'll surely develop scurvy), which didn't disappoint: it's easily the most exhaustive, authoritative reference treatment of the subject I've found to date, devoting nearly thirty pages--thirty pages!!--to if-then statements. I'm fascinated by these constructions for a number of reasons, not least for the role they play in programming languages.
My next stop on the CGEL tour of English grammar? The subjunctive mood.
It's not ergonomics, it's not haptics, it's Laban Movement Analysis, a language for describing, notating, analyzing, and understanding movement. Renowned in the art world as a tool of dancers and choreographers, it's potential applications are limitless: the site creators suggest LMA extends its relevance into such diverse fields as aeronautical engineering and special education.
How about interactive design?
Today's Washington Post includes a special report on copyright in the digital age. Looks like they've created a mini-clearinghouse of recent IP coverage. A good page to bookmark.
Great blogging minds think alike: coincidentally, Matt and I rented and watched The Hours DVD on the same night that Calamity Jane did. I didn't get a chance to see the extras featurette that got CJ's dander up--the one that fixates on VW's dark and troubled psyche--but interestingly I came to much the same conclusions watching the film itself. Nicole Kidman's performance is strong, but whose Virginia Woolf does she give us? Her own? Michael Cunningham's? Stephen Daldry's? I don't know if Kidman's brooding, restless, withdrawn, and self-absorbed Virginia Woolf originates with herself, the novelist, or the director, but I do know this: she doesn't originate with Quentin Bell, whose VW is by turns bawdy, petty, effervescent, generous, despondent, mischevious, snobbish, and always, always brilliant. Quentin Bell is Virginia Woolf's nephew and biographer. The biography is superb--for me a touchstone, something I return to again and again. While Bell doesn't skirt Woolf's mental illness and the depths of her depression, that side of her is never allowed to dominate the portrayal as a whole, as it does in The Hours. The Hours gives us a monochromatic picture of a personality; Quentin Bell gives us the halftones.
The other disappointment was the language. Virginia Woolf always had words--beautiful, witty, effortless words--at the ready. But that dexterity isn't captured in the film. Kidman has one poetic line about the anaesthesia of the suburbs and the jolt of the city, but the rest is colorless.
The real surprise was Stephen Dillane's performance (not sure if I got the name just right), who plays Leonard Woolf. Extraordinary. The scene where he capitulates to Virginia's desire to return to London, against all his better instincts, is incredibly moving. But then I've always been partial to Leonard, the unsung hero of Bloomsbury. As Bell writes in Bloomsbury Recalled, the "great task of his life . . . was to keep Virginia alive and sane."
Having an after-dinner sweet is a ritual chez Kirschenbaum-Kraus. So after you've enjoyed George's heart-healthy bean salad, you can reclog your coronary arteries with this delectable treat.
Lemonade Pie
1 regular-sized can sweetened condensed milk (mmm . . . you already know this is going to be good!)
1 regular-sized graham cracker pie crust
1 8 oz. tub of cool whip
1 6 oz. can frozen lemonade (this size is hard to find; you may have to settle for the 12 oz. can and halve it)
Mix milk and lemonade in bowl. Fold in cool whip. Spoon into pie crust. Let freeze for several hours. Eat and enjoy!
If anyone was hankering after the meatloaf recipe, just let me know and I'll pass it along ;-)