February 2010 archives
Archive
February 27, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Flexible Flyers
“I ain’t seen one of those in years,” says the man, smiling at us and interrupting his cell phone conversation. * “That’s a real sled,” a mom tells her son. * They’re talking about the vintage Flexible Flyer that I’m carrying home, after a morning of sledding on a gentle hill in Stuy town with [...]Archive
February 26, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
USB Lightsabers
Well, Chani, how many of these should I buy? (I’m thinking six: a Jedi and a Sith each for me and my two boys.) They’re available from ThinkGeek. And, while I’m there, I’m might get myself one of these, as well:Archive
February 25, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Best Picture?
One of the programs that we’ve been conducting in the residence hall where I live is what we call our “Oscarfest”: we’ve been taking students to see all of the films that have been nominated for Best Picture (and making DVDs available for those that are no longer showing). We used to add in films [...]Archive
February 24, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Washington Square and Trauma
Today, toward the end of a section meeting that I was visiting for the Writing New York course, I had a thought: What would Henry James’s Washington Square look like as seen through the lens of trauma studies? Dr. Sloper might emerge as a victim of both personal and cultural trauma. The personal trauma is [...]Archive
February 23, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Neoclassic to Romantic
Tomorrow in American Literature I we are talking about the shift from neoclassicism to romanticism in U.S. poetry. In talking about the Enlightenment on Monday, I stressed what might be thought of as the sunny side of the Enlightenment, while hinting that there were shadows to be considered as well. I mentioned Toni Morrison’s characterization [...]Archive
February 22, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Next Season at the Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera announced the schedule for its 2010-2011 season today. It’s good timing for me, because I’m currently putting together the syllabus for next January’s J-term course on “New York and Modernity,” and I’d like to include a series of co-curricular trips to the opera, the symphony, and the theater. I’m thinking that a [...]Archive
February 21, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Edwards and Franklin
I suspect that many casual students of American literary history forget that Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin were contemporaries. Edwards was born in 1703 and died prematurely in 1758 after being inoculated for smallpox; Franklin was born in 1706 and lived until 1790. Edwards is generally regarded as the last Great American Puritan thinker, while [...]Archive
February 20, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
Stellar Diversity
I’ve always been interested in astronomy, and at a young age I learned all about red giants, white dwarves, and black holes. I spent a lot of nights during the second semester of my freshman year in college at the telescope in the science center while I was taking a course called Astronomy 14. Yesterday [...]Archive
February 19, 2010 by Cyrus Patell
