That Wooden O; A Bit of Good News; and O Fenômeno

(With apologies to readers of my other blogs for the overlapping posts.)

We finally did attend the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival's production of Henry V yesterday with Nathan and Micah. A lovely evening, a handsome set, and some decent readings of some nicely written words.

I was asked to take no pictures during the performance, but here's hoping these shots do justice to the setting.

Mimi, enjoying a beverage before curtain.


Emily and myself at halftime (that's what they call it, no? and yes, I do love that t-shirt).

For those who wish they knew me or the Bard a little better, here's my favorite bit of the play, from lines spoken by the King to the Bishop of Canterbury, concerning whether England should go to war:

Therefore take heed how you impawne our Person,
How you awake our sleeping Sword of Warre;
We charge you in the Name of God take heed:
For neuer two such Kingdomes did contend,
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltlesse drops
Are euery one, a Woe, a sore Complaint,
'Gainst him, whose wrongs giues edge vnto the Swords,
That makes such waste in briefe mortalitie.

Ah, if only. . . . (Of course, they do go to war; but it's a good speech nonetheless. . . . )

Speaking of current politics, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Administration's plan to try those held at Guantánamo in military tribunals is illegal. Full text of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld here. As Amnesty International put it, a victory for the rule of law. Huzzah.

Read more on the case on the Truth Will Out blog.


Finally, a huzzah for Ronaldo (or O Fenômeno), who set a new record for goals scored in a World Cup (in its 76th year) with 15 the other day. See the goal here.

Read more on Ronaldo on the Jayhawk Nation blog.

a new house, just in time for the move

Mostly for my mom's benefit, here are some photos of the doll house that Emily's been working on for a while now (something in the neighborhood of 15 years, I believe)--as you can see, it's very nearly done.


When we first retrieved the house from Illinois, it was a real fixer-upper: no windows or doors, only half carpeted, and an exterior needing a lot of work.


Mimi's first step, last winter, was to get that roof shingled. Second step? Order a new set of instructions from the manufacturer, so that the third step might be known.


Look--windows!


The interior after some refurbishing.

As the first photo (above) shows, the windows now have trim and the exterior (mostly) has siding. We expect to be able to, um, move in within the next month, if not sooner.
In any case, well done, Emily.
cheers


Not much else to report around here these days--tried to attend the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival in Kansas City (they're doing Henry V this year; not a bad play as those things go), but Saturday's show was rained out. Not to worry: we'll try again this week, and I've even written for consent to photograph the show, so you, reader, may be in for a real treat . . . (?).

For some odd reason (is it a last-name thing? or peer pressure?) Aaron Dopf has been cheering Germany on as they advanced to the quarter-finals of the World Cup (or Weltmeisterschaft, as Aaron would have you say). Meanwhile I enjoy applauding those sexy Brazilians. Whatever team you support, the official FIFA World Cup site has lots of glorious, and gloriously free, video, available here.

More to come.

Happy Bloomsday

Today is one hundred and two years to the day since Leopold Bloom walked through Dublin in James Joyce's Ulysses.

Often the day is celebrated by readings from the book. This morning, however, I ran into Nathan, who had a tape of Mr Joyce himself reading from another, perhaps more challenging work, Finnegans Wake. I'd read the passage before, but it really comes alive in this reading.

For your pleasure, reader—and with the assistance of folks like salon.com and wordwing.com—I offer you this excerpt. Now playing is Joyce, reading from the Anna Livia Plurabelle section; below you'll find the text.

Enjoy, and Happy Bloomsday.

Well, you know or don't you kennet or haven't I told you every telling has a taling and that's the he and the she of it. Look, look, the dusk is growing! My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold cher's gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. 'Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw Waterhouse's clogh. They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh. When will they reassemble it? O, my back, my back, my bach! I'd want to go to Aches-les-Pains. Pingpong! There's the Belle for Sexaloitez! And Concepta de Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we spread them here now? Ay, we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and I'll spread mine on mine. Flep! It's what I'm doing. Spread! It's churning chill. Der went is rising. I'll lay a few stones on the hostel sheets. A man and his bride embraced between them. Else I'd have sprinkled and folded them only. And I'll tie my butcher's apron here. It's suety yet. The strollers will pass it by. Six shifts, ten kerchiefs, nine to hold to the fire and this for the code, the convent napkins, twelve, one baby's shawl. Good mother Jossiph knows, she said. Whose head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are alle her childer, say? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be to them farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no more, more again lost alla stranger. I've heard tell that same brooch of the Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dunders de Dunnes in Markland's Vineland beyond Brendan's herring pool takes number nine in yangsee's hats. And one of Biddy's beads went bobbing till she rounded up lost histereve with a marigold and a cobbler's candle in a side strain of a main drain of a manzinahurries off Bachelor's Walk. But all that's left to the last of the Meaghers in the loup of the years prefixed and between is one kneebuckle and two hooks in the front. Do you tell me. that now? I do in troth. Orara por Orbe and poor Las Animas! Ussa, Ulla, we're umbas all! Mezha, didn't you hear it a deluge of times, ufer and ufer, respund to spond? You deed, you deed! I need, I need! It's that irrawaddyng I've stoke in my aars. It all but husheth the lethest zswound. Oronoko! What's your trouble? Is that the great Finnleader himself in his joakimono on his statue riding the high horse there forehengist? Father of Otters, it is himself! Yonne there! Isset that? On Fallareen Common? You're thinking of Astley's Amphitheayter where the bobby restrained you making sugarstuck pouts to the ghostwhite horse of the Peppers. Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread your washing proper! It's well I know your sort of slop. Flap! Ireland sober is Ireland stiff. Lord help you, Maria, full of grease, the load is with me! Your prayers. I sonht zo! Madammangut! Were you lifting your elbow, tell us, glazy cheeks, in Conway's Carrigacurra canteen? Was I what, hobbledyhips? Flop! Your rere gait's creakorheuman bitts your butts disagrees. Amn't I up since the damp tawn, marthared mary allacook, with Corrigan's pulse and varicoarse veins, my pramaxle smashed, Alice Jane in decline and my oneeyed mongrel twice run over, soaking and bleaching boiler rags, and sweating cold, a widow like me, for to deck my tennis champion son, the laundryman with the lavandier flannels? You won your limpopo limp fron the husky hussars when Collars and Cuffs was heir to the town and your slur gave the stink to Carlow. Holy Scamander, I sar it again! Near the golden falls. Icis on us! Seints of light! Zezere! Subdue your noise, you hamble creature! What is it but a blackburry growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns. Are you meanam Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory? I meyne now, thank all, the four of them, and the roar of them, that draves that stray in the mist and old Johnny MacDougal along with them. Is that the Poolbeg flasher beyant, pharphar, or a fireboat coasting nyar the Kishtna or a glow I behold within a hedge or my Garry come back from the Indes? Wait till the honeying of the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die! We see that wonder in your eye. We'll meet again, we'll part once more. The spot I'll seek if the hour you'll find. My chart shines high where the blue milk's upset. Forgivemequick, I'm going! Bubye! And you, pluck your watch, forgetmenot. Your evenlode. So save to jurna's end! My sights are swimming thicker on me by the sha- dows to this place. I sow home slowly now by own way, moy-valley way. Towy I too, rathmine.

Augustana College!

Okay, the other major thing what's happened to us lately—actually, it happened while we were in Montana—is that I was offered a one-year visiting professorship at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. After talking it over for a few days, we accepted the offer.

I'm still uncertain on some details (that job title, for example; also when exactly we'll move there), but it's a great opportunity to work with some pretty good students and faculty, and I'm almost positive that I will work and teach primarily in the building pictured, Old Main.

For more pictures of the campus, which is quite nice looking, click here.

Should be fun; the Quad Cities seem pretty nice, and I recently emailed the chair of the Philosophy Department asking about how to structure some of my classes and what sort of readings to include; his response was "be free." As I said, should be fun.


Guess that's just about it.

Oh, one more thing:
Brazilian soccer (or should I say futebol?) is damn fun to watch. The Brazilian team's next World Cup game is Sunday the 18th; you ought to watch.

Aaron Roger Sandon

My brother, Aaron Roger Sandon, died last week. He was 26. We will miss him very much.

A very nice piece about him ran in the Helena, MT, paper: read.


The song now playing is for him.



Here are some nice, though perhaps embarrassing, photos (thanks, Mom):

Merrica baking with Aaron


Marisa, Gina, myself (?), and Aaron


huh


does this need explanation?

[added 11 June]

Gina, Marisa, Yancy, Aaron


the five of us


This was posted on my blog last summer; it's Misti and Aaron with their daughter Kayci


Thankfully, Emily and I were able to fly out to Montana to see everyone, as was Merrica.

US Highway 287, if you can believe it, which we took from Bozeman (where we flew into) to Helena


Merrica in front of Aaron and Misti's house, which was completed fall of 2005


Outside the Cathedral before the Mass


Mimi outside the Cathedral, with Mt Helena in the background


In the Cathedral in Helena


At Resurrection Cemetery


Aaron and Misti's son Rhys


Merrica under the lodge-pole pines at McDonald Pass


Ryan, taking a break from the disc-golf


Ryan and Merrica


Merrica and Yancy, folfing together for the first time


Ryan and Maraya

Maraya really liked being photographed, and she's awful cute. Here's a couple of videos:





family


The four of us: Gina, Merrica, Marisa, Yancy