Amazing Grace
Jun. 19th, 2002 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
incandescensYes, I was just listening to Joan Baez enjoying that song with the crowd. Mm. She really does have a splendid voice.
I am tired and cannot seem to concentrate very well. On the other hand, I know, from past experience, that this does not necessarily produce bad work. On the contrary, if I can get into the flow of something, I can sometimes even get quite an interesting gush of words spouting forth. (Here is the metaphor bat. Please use it as you see fit.)
I have a pretty printout of a Kougaji picture to go up on my wall at work tomorrow. I also have a pretty printout of a Hakkai picture, but that will not be going up, owing to what might be referred to as certain subtext in the picture. (Okay, okay, forget the subtext, it's practically surtext, and there are some topics of conversation I really do not want to start at work. Know thy conversationalist.)
"Well, I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again, but that's not unusual, it's just that the moon is full, and you happened to call..." (Diamonds And Rust, same album)
I was talking today, at work, to a coworker, about background reading material. The context was that I was remembering part of an Antonia Forrest book (excellent children's writer) where a girl is given a reading list after being caught reading a forbidden book at boarding school (it's a Mary Renault, which is supposed to be restricted to seniors, and don't complain to me about this, it's just part of the story). Anyhow, the reading list is very bread-and-butter reading, a load of classics such as Ivanhoe and Dickens and Fielding and so on, because, as the teacher puts it, if she wants to claim to be well-educated, there are certain books that she ought to have read.
Leaving aside that this applies purely to English literature, one can see a degree of point here. Humour and cultural discussion and comparison and reference are all based on context, and one must know what one is referring _to_ before going further. But in the current world, how far do we need to pare context down? That is, how much does one need to know for a general knowledge base so that one can make intelligent conversation in most subjects or with most people? Or how far down will subjects have to be defined so that children and then students can read the relevant seminal works?
Some days I'm very glad that I'm not a teacher. (Being a parent is something that may or may not happen in the future. I'd be quite happy being an aunt, but I don't know about being a mother. Eh.)
Suzanne on the CD now, Joan Baez singing the Leonard Cohen song. Nice.
I am tired and cannot seem to concentrate very well. On the other hand, I know, from past experience, that this does not necessarily produce bad work. On the contrary, if I can get into the flow of something, I can sometimes even get quite an interesting gush of words spouting forth. (Here is the metaphor bat. Please use it as you see fit.)
I have a pretty printout of a Kougaji picture to go up on my wall at work tomorrow. I also have a pretty printout of a Hakkai picture, but that will not be going up, owing to what might be referred to as certain subtext in the picture. (Okay, okay, forget the subtext, it's practically surtext, and there are some topics of conversation I really do not want to start at work. Know thy conversationalist.)
"Well, I'll be damned, here comes your ghost again, but that's not unusual, it's just that the moon is full, and you happened to call..." (Diamonds And Rust, same album)
I was talking today, at work, to a coworker, about background reading material. The context was that I was remembering part of an Antonia Forrest book (excellent children's writer) where a girl is given a reading list after being caught reading a forbidden book at boarding school (it's a Mary Renault, which is supposed to be restricted to seniors, and don't complain to me about this, it's just part of the story). Anyhow, the reading list is very bread-and-butter reading, a load of classics such as Ivanhoe and Dickens and Fielding and so on, because, as the teacher puts it, if she wants to claim to be well-educated, there are certain books that she ought to have read.
Leaving aside that this applies purely to English literature, one can see a degree of point here. Humour and cultural discussion and comparison and reference are all based on context, and one must know what one is referring _to_ before going further. But in the current world, how far do we need to pare context down? That is, how much does one need to know for a general knowledge base so that one can make intelligent conversation in most subjects or with most people? Or how far down will subjects have to be defined so that children and then students can read the relevant seminal works?
Some days I'm very glad that I'm not a teacher. (Being a parent is something that may or may not happen in the future. I'd be quite happy being an aunt, but I don't know about being a mother. Eh.)
Suzanne on the CD now, Joan Baez singing the Leonard Cohen song. Nice.
