I deleted the post I wrote earlier today. The more I thought about it, the less comfortable I was with what I had written: namely, I thought I hadn't expressed well what I was trying to say, and probably expressed something I wasn't trying to say. Rather than re-edit the thing, I thought it best to delete it. Apologies.
... Read More!My apologies. I've been extraordinarily busy with work, and recently there has been a death in the extended family, calling me out-of-state. I hope to resume at some point in the near future.
... Read More!I have rearranged things somewhat, with a purpose. I'd like to rearrange things more, but I haven't the inclination to rewrite Blogger's code. They really should offer more templates and flexibility than they currently do.
1. I have a hard time writing entries to the weblog. The result is that I often fail to mention explicitly the many insightful posts that I find on other weblogs. Part of the reason is the compulsion I feel that if I am to dedicate an entire weblog entry then I must add some comments of value, rather than merely list links.
To my rescue comes Google Reader with its ability to share items from an RSS feed. I have done so with many such posts and now you can find them near the top of the right-hand column, organized into various topics.
A lot of references take you to Siris, written by a philosophy professor who makes me wish I could sit in his classes.
On the other hand, you won't notice many references to Sententiae, which might seem strange since I leave comments there much more often than on any other weblog. I have to find a way to link to Clemens' weblog more often, but I have as a rule tried to stay out of news or controversy on this weblog unless they deal with the Catholic faith. Looking at what I have linked, however, things seem a little one-sided (sigh) so perhaps I should loosen up a bit.
2. In the same way, you will find a list of weblogs that I read regularly, in which both Siris and Sententiae are featured. A number of other weblogs are also featured, but many of them have, sadly, gone silent. In illo tempore was one of my favorites, linking frequently to lovely images, reflections, and other treasures of traditional Catholicism. Elliot at Claw of the Conciliator has greatly reduced his output.
(I mention this not as a complaint, but as a sigh, and in case they stop by to let them know that I miss their writings.)
3. It would be interesting to figure out why I have stopped reading some excellent weblogs that persist, such as Lee's A Thinking Reed and Steven Riddle's Flos Carmeli. Perhaps, like old friends, weblogs necessarily part ways. There is only so much time, and we make our decisions, for good or ill. I should mention that Flos Carmeli, along with James Hannam's History, Science, and Religion (to which I do link), were the two weblogs that sparked my interest in a weblog.
4. For what it's worth, I still read Millinerd, and I'd like to share a lot of what he writes, but his weblog's RSS feed mysteriously doesn't work with Google Reader. Mr. Milliner has however begun writing for First Things on occasion, and his most recent column was, as usual, splendid.
5. I recently introduced a tongue-in-cheek poll on a news item I found amusing. In case you've missed it, it's at the top of the right-hand column.
I wrote in that last post,
Again I find myself in a position where the weblog is taking a direction I don't like. I have a family to tend to, so I think I will walk away awhile. I'll probably return, but it will be a while.True, but I don't want to end on the sour note of that last post. It occurred to me today that I could add two more posts and end better, so I'll try that. Back in a bit. ... Read More!
In case you follow this blog via RSS updates, then I have not started blogging at a phenomenal rate, although Bloggers' RSS system might deceive you otherwise. I merely updated a large number of old entries with labels. I had been delaying this for a while.
I scanned most of them, in order to determine the proper label(s) for each post. Some of them are truly abysmal. Did I really write that much nonsense about the 2004 election? How embarassing. At least I didn't vote for the winner.
(I didn't vote for the runner-up, either. When I vote for a loser, I go all the way!)
Some of them, however, aren't so bad. My favorites, as usual, are the translations of Latin hymns. Too bad they bore everyone else to tears.
A quick note on why this weblog is now undead. I had retired it to devote more time to work and family. The end of the semester is approaching, so I have a little more free time, and I've been wanting to write some things for quite some time (which makes me wonder why this post, for example, is not up to the standards I was sure it would reach). I'll write a few more things as the days pass. I'll probably have to re-retire the weblog in the near future (with the new semester, for example), but I am enjoying this weblog again. :-)
... Read More!Short of a miracle, it's looking as if I'll have to say good-bye. I'll provide a brief update, after which these haunts will in all likelihood fall silent.
We're now in Mississippi, far from Virginia and North Carolina, farther still from Italy and Russia. The move was exhausting. My father and youngest brother helped with loading and moving the truck. My wife, mother, and children took an overnight Amtrak, enjoying somewhat the conveniences of a sleeper. I have to say "somewhat" because either the agent had it wrong or I misunderstood him terribly. I understood from him that there would be three beds, and there were only two. So their trip wasn't as comfortable as I'd intended.
My initial understanding of Mississippi's ad valorem property tax terrified me. The phrasing I read put it at 30% of a car's value. If a car costs $20,000, the tax would be $6,000. I knew something had to be wrong there! Reading a little more carefully, I realized that 30% of the car's value is taxed, the actual tax rate is a percentage of that 30%. In fact, the $6,000 would (depending on one's residence) diminish to $660 or so, a far more reasonable amount.
At work, I have settled into an office, begun teaching classes, and (most importantly) restarted my research. I spent all day Thursday doing research, and ended up with a theorem that had eluded me for months.
Last year, I tended to mix personal time and work; I did some weblog writing at the college, and some research I did at home. This year I plan to keep the two much further apart — and when I am at home, I plan to stay involved in family life.
Keeping a regular weblog wasn't a problem when I was single. Last year, however, it generally mean that I went to bed much later than my wife, or that I wrote in my office while procrastinating lesson plans. (I hated preparing for statistics.) I've thought about a number of things I could write on the weblog recently, but I've kept the weblog at a lower priority than (a) sleeping, and (b) working. I know this situation isn't exactly the dichotomy I'm making it out to appear, but I can't resolve the shortage of time without letting go of a few things, and this will be one of them. I'd really like to post an occasional chant translation, but I can't even guarantee that. After all, it's been months (again) since I worked on the translation of The Spiritual Combat.
To all of you who visited and left comments,thank you for making this weblog a much more interesting place. As my wife would say, Идите с богом — go with God!
1. Rich has a point. I have been slacking a little on my blogs, although what I've wanted to do is organize the archives. I just haven't gotten 'round to it yet, nor to a lot of other posts that I do want to write.
2. My father points out that he was the second-last person to buy a cell phone — I, apparently, am the last — so he is not the best example of Gadget-pox. I should note that he observed this after I made breakfast using a new waffle-iron.
I browse a few blogs every day. Most of them write two or three entries a week; others write five or six entries a day. I ask myself, how do they do it? I barely have time for the one or two entries a week that I post. I'd love to write more, and I've had the ideas lately, but with a wife, a son, two jobs, and a transition to a new job... where will I find the time? Gentlemen (and ladies), I salute you.
... Read More!I've now written two post-Easter essays that I cannot bear to publish on the weblog. I want to write and rewrite them until they're perfect.
That's impossible of course; I become so aware of their imperfections, and so disappointed — considering how clear my ideas were when I began writing — that they now languish as Drafts.
My beloved wife is annoyed. She has read them, and says that I should publish them. Normally I would obey my wife, of course, but this is much the same as if she asked me to run naked through the parking lot. No way!
While I thrash like a hard drive under badly-written memory manager, you could read Claw of the Conciliator, blogged by frequent commenter Elliot. His subtitle is, A mixture of gravity and waggery, and I must say that he's succeeding at both.
PS — Upon reading this one, my wife commented, I hope you don't do that with our babys; you will want to make another baby, and another, until you create the perfect one.
Heh, heh, heh... She shouldn't give me ideas.
It's especially cute the way she says, bebyë. ;-)
I will be leaving tomorrow to attend two weeks of The Special Semester on Gröbner Bases in Linz, Austria. (Some of my students are convinced, however, that I'm taking a vacation. In a sense, that's true, except that they would view with horror the things I find enjoyable and relaxing. ;-))
Entries in the weblog will depend on whether I can access the internet. Don't think I've gone and done something drastic just because nothing appears for three weeks.
My lack of blogging hasn't been a lack of ideas. In fact, my mind is vomiting ideas at a phenomenal rate, most of them related to my programming, many other relating as well to my research, and a few relating to an idea for a novel that I've been tossing around the last few months. (I write some stories and poems. Haven't published anything since the days of my college's literary magazine, though.)
This isn't to say that most of the ideas flitting around in my mind are actually any good. Riding my bicycle home the other day, I noticed a cloud of birds swarming in the sky, moving almost as one body — stretching, collapsing, and so forth. What on earth goes through those birds' minds as they do this? I have no idea, but these ideas swirling in my head behave similarly. I've gotten over the insomnia that accompanied them the first few nights; I've managed to implement some, follow others through, list others down for future investigation, etc.
A handful of the ideas flitting about are ideas for weblog entries. Some of them predating December! I seem to have a talent for turning upside-down the general principle that weblogs are raw, unfiltered thoughts. For example, I did draft one entry comparing recent political history in America and Russia. I was very pleased with it, until I showed it to my wife. She admitted that it wasn't entirely incorrect, and confirmed that the statements I had attributed to her family were statements they had in fact made. However, her ambivalent air made it clear to me that what I understood didn't mesh with what they meant to say, so I have put it aside indefinitely.
I have put several such drafts aside indefinitely. I should look at them again someday.
The real problem is that on the few occasions that I have time to write an entry, I'm usually empty of any energy. Here's hoping that today will provide a fresh start.
The spammers have discovered this weblog, and are filling the comments section with their rot. It's going to be nearly impossible to hunt this stuff out. Who has the time? Please email me when you find any.
... Read More!I will be traveling out of the country from July 11th through August 10th. Don't expect too much for the next month, but there will be some news. :-)
I've made some more template changes, and created an index to almost every entry in this weblog. Two reasons:
I haven't been posting the last few days, because graduation kept me busy.
I've been contemplating the end of this weblog, for various reasons.
First, it hasn't really achieved my goal. Maybe it's because I've been too busy to work on this, but the stated and unstated goals of this weblog have been nearly impossible to achieve. I'm not very happy with the usual subject matter. My favorite posts are my translations of medieval hymns (see the archives below). That's a good thing, I think: they really are gems from an age that thought less in terms of THE NOW and more in terms of ETERNITY; but I don't need a weblog to carry out that work, and I haven't done that much of it anyway.
Second, even though I don't write much at all, I write enough that I don't do some things that I think I should do. I have some other projects — some old, some recent — that are suffering because I spend time writing on this weblog, or reading other people's weblogs instead.
For example, I've been saying for ages that I would finish Oriana Fallaci's Insciallah and write something about it, then turn to another book. I haven't looked at her novel in weeks; in fact, I left it at my parents' house two weekends past, after taking it there to read and still not looking at it. This may indicate that the book isn't worth finishing, but I really ought to finish it before I decide. Either way, I have a list of other books I'd like to read, and none of them is getting read while I procrastinate Insciallah. I'm not so competent as Steven Riddle at encouraging my reading by blogging about it.
Third: it makes me uncomfortable sometimes. I feel a little conceited, and I worry that I misrepresent myself as a person. I do write about thoughts that are on my mind, but they're usually somewhat considered before I commit them to the weblog, and a great number of thoughts are off-limits. This is quite different from the rash, off-the-cuff, and ill-considered remarks for which I am somewhat better known "in real life." So already there is some idealization going on here.
But more: like anyone else, I am a sinner, although unlike most people (as far as I can tell), I am keenly aware of my sinfulness. The one prayer that has remained with me all these years — the one prayer that I say every night as I lie down, even if I pray nothing else during the day, are these words: Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner: I wish to see. What is it that I wish "to see"? I want to be honest: not to deceive myself about who I am or what is going on in my life; to see and draw closer to God, to that absolute reality that enables all others. Some blindness is necessary in our pre-glorified condition, but I don't want to be so blinded by sin to reality that I cannot draw closer to God. The point being: I worry sometimes that maintaining this weblog can blind me.
My adviser call this sort of reflection "metathinking": thinking about thinking. :-) (He usually means something else, but humor me.) I'm disallowing comments on this post, because of this. In any case, the weblog won't be ending soon: I have at least two more posts to make today :-) and while writing this, I thought of a third.
First I wanted to add a transparent image; that worked okay, but it overlapped with the header. I wanted something a little less dark anyway, so I also started messing with the colors, and what you see is the unforunate result. My apologies.
I know the colors are painful, but I'm particularly annoyed about the sidebar; it wasn't doing that when I previewed the template.
This is what happens when you no longer have anything to do! I'll work on it more in a few days.
Sorry, really.
I've added some new links to weblogs; see the sidebar. I should have added two of them some weeks ago. I know most of the people in question; eight or ten years ago I used to talk with them on an email list called Christifideles. I know they're thoughtful, intelligent, devoted Catholics. They might not remember me, & I'm not sure I want them to remember me. I've grown up a little... In fact, you should probably be reading their weblogs instead of mine. But don't you dare stop reading mine! :-)
I will also note the following timesaver in case you don't know about it. Blogger provides an RSS feed for many (most?) of its weblogs, including this one. The Firefox web browser (for example) will subscribe to an RSS feed. (It's free!) It's a fantastic feature: RSS allows one to read the headlines of different websites (news sites, blogs, &c.) without clogging the Internet by downloading an entire index page. The headlines show up as bookmarks, so I just look in the bookmark menu. It saves me an enormous amount of time. I could probably add them as a button in the toolbar if I cared enough to spend the time necessary to figure out how.
If you're reading this with Firefox, look in the lower right-hand corner of your browser. You should see an orange box that looks like a dot and two or three arcs. If you click on it, you will be able to subscribe to the RSS feed.
I'm not sure how to arrange it for other web browsers, but if you can't figure it out, that's one more reason to download Firefox (besides the fact that it's free, of course). If anyone knows how to do it with Internet Explorer or some other program, please do add a comment.
...so please forgive me if I don't write much, or even at all...
... Read More!Kind reader, you might complain: The internet is full of chatter. Why add another blog? A fair question.
Part of it is vanity: Everyone else is doing it; why shouldn't I?
Part of it is curiosity: Why are so many people talking about their personal lives online?
Part of it is expedience: Now let people complain that I don't tell them enough about myself.
I resisted blogging for a while. I didn't want to do what everyone else was doing; I had to do something different. It was only after I thought of a purpose and an appropriate title, that I consented.
Cantànima: anyone familiar with a romance language will recognize its Latin roots: cantàre + ànima. In English, I might translate it as A Soul Sings, except that it sounds awful by comparison.
Cantànima: thoughts that reach towards heaven, without being saccharine or insincere.
A difficult proposition! The awful truth is that I'm often petty, shallow, and obsessive about what seems wrong with the world. Last night, for example, I had a hard time letting go of a political argument at the office.
I'd like to think the world has enough pessimism, cynicism, and vulgarity. If I wanted to demagogue my politics, I'd go to the office and have it out with my officemates, or turn on the radio, or watch television. So you won't find that here. I hope. (Remind me of this when I break this promise in the future, because I probably will break it in the future.)
You might, however, find an occasionally peculiar view towards heaven — I'm planning my next post (or two) to consider a question on who would win if Victor Hugo's brain were locked with Fyodor Dostoevsky's in a cage for a no-holds-barred wrestling match.
Don't worry: they won't all be like that.
Anyway, I'll try to make this an interesting weblog, and I'll try to update it two or three times a week, but no promises. I do invite suggestions, but since it's a weblog, I get to do most of the talking, not you. :-P If you want to talk, start your own blog and tell me about it. I promise I'll visit it at least once.
I'll also try to keep future posts shorter than this. Nothing irritates me more than the long screeds that populate so many... uhm... yeah.
Gotta look towards heaven.
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