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1.
Would'st thou divert thyself from melancholy?
Would'st thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?
Would'st though read riddles, and their explanation?
Or else be drowned in thy contemplation?
[...]
Would'st thou lose thyself, and catch no harm,
And find thyself again without a charm?
Would'st thou read thyself, and read thou know'st not what,
And yet know whether thou are blest or not,
By reading the same lines? O then come hither,
And lay my book, thy head, and heart together.
John Bunyan: The Author's Apology for his Book
2. I have 1971 words of an essay which started out ambitiously and ended up being utterly conventional. That is not the point, however. The point is it is a essay for Renaissance Literature which a) is reasonably good (i.e. I won't fail) and b) didn't result in my death or the death of others. This is a good RenLit essay.
3. I was talking to Freya yesterday and she asked me what was new here and I realized ho happy I am. Not right this moment - right this moment I'm a bit sleepy and kind of hungry and a little frustrated with RenLit in general - but overall. In general. I think this year is maybe the happiest I've been in 5 or 6 years. It's not that I've been depressed, but there's just always been something not quite right, and now there isn't. Or at least not as chronically; now, most mornings, I wake up happy, I have good days, I talk to people, I don't mind asking for help, I don't mind being on my own because I know it's my choice. It's weird how I didn't notice it sneaking up on me.
4.
Stories were different, though: they came alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by torchlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being. They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination and transform the reader. Stories wanted to be read, David's mother would whisper. They needed it. It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours. They wanted us to give them life.
- John Connolly: The Book of Lost Things
5. There's a really interesting comparison to be made between Anansi Boys and The Book of Lost Things, I can't help but feel.
6. This is an incredibly bad idea, because it means that when your lecturer decides that an interesting 15 minutes digression from the theme of women in Anglo-Saxon lit would be homosocial and homoerotic bonds in the same, you and Becca will spend the entire fifteen mintues stifling giggles and occasionally writing lewd notes on each other's notebooks.
7. It is desperately cold here. Is it cold where you are?
Would'st thou divert thyself from melancholy?
Would'st thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?
Would'st though read riddles, and their explanation?
Or else be drowned in thy contemplation?
[...]
Would'st thou lose thyself, and catch no harm,
And find thyself again without a charm?
Would'st thou read thyself, and read thou know'st not what,
And yet know whether thou are blest or not,
By reading the same lines? O then come hither,
And lay my book, thy head, and heart together.
John Bunyan: The Author's Apology for his Book
2. I have 1971 words of an essay which started out ambitiously and ended up being utterly conventional. That is not the point, however. The point is it is a essay for Renaissance Literature which a) is reasonably good (i.e. I won't fail) and b) didn't result in my death or the death of others. This is a good RenLit essay.
3. I was talking to Freya yesterday and she asked me what was new here and I realized ho happy I am. Not right this moment - right this moment I'm a bit sleepy and kind of hungry and a little frustrated with RenLit in general - but overall. In general. I think this year is maybe the happiest I've been in 5 or 6 years. It's not that I've been depressed, but there's just always been something not quite right, and now there isn't. Or at least not as chronically; now, most mornings, I wake up happy, I have good days, I talk to people, I don't mind asking for help, I don't mind being on my own because I know it's my choice. It's weird how I didn't notice it sneaking up on me.
4.
Stories were different, though: they came alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by torchlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being. They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination and transform the reader. Stories wanted to be read, David's mother would whisper. They needed it. It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours. They wanted us to give them life.
- John Connolly: The Book of Lost Things
5. There's a really interesting comparison to be made between Anansi Boys and The Book of Lost Things, I can't help but feel.
6. This is an incredibly bad idea, because it means that when your lecturer decides that an interesting 15 minutes digression from the theme of women in Anglo-Saxon lit would be homosocial and homoerotic bonds in the same, you and Becca will spend the entire fifteen mintues stifling giggles and occasionally writing lewd notes on each other's notebooks.
7. It is desperately cold here. Is it cold where you are?
