Black Oak Holiday

Great Thanksgiving with the Hughes family!

(And some Iwanski's; and some Campbells too, of course...)

Evan was in fine form:


Dave and Fran tried out a great technique with the turkey: just popped all the meat off of the carcass and carved it afterward:

Sensible and delicious!

(Nice job cutting sage for the serving platter, Amelia!)

Good food, good wine; even some good sparkling grape juice for Emily and the kids:


Hard to get everyone in one photo, but Fran got a good shot of most of us:


We enjoyed the nice weather as we walked the property:

I think Braxton has just about enough orange on to be visible to any hunters :)

Had some fun around a bonfire in the back yard:


This photo's a little dark, but I just love this shot of Dave, Fran, Evan, Magen, and Emily:


One last look around the area before we head home:

Taken at the Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area, where they hold the hilariously named Marsh Madness.

Oh, and there are a few more photos in a set on Flickr if you're interested...

Hope you had a great holiday, reader!

Moving Pictures

Saw a great movie last week. I'd definitely recommend it:

WE WERE HERE (trailer) from David Weissman on Vimeo.

Stephen Holden of the New York Times really liked it too.

And I really can't get enough of this picture of Emily:


Anyway, I'd better run. Hopefully I'll have time for more blog posts once EJ actually gets here ;)

25 Weeks!

Looking good!

Heard his heartbeat at the doctor's again yesterday—good strong 140 beats per minute. Amazing stuff.

Where We Are With Beauty

Been a great (but busy!) quarter, especially with my Freshman Seminar classes. We're again examining different accounts of the relationship between beauty and knowledge.

Spent a nice afternoon at the Seattle Japanese Garden last week.


And last night we saw a very, very odd shadow puppet and silhouette-based modern-day adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. The show (Shadow Odyssey) was pretty raunchy and definitely a loose translation of Homer, but how could anyone resist this description from their website:

Picture this: you walk into a dimly lit tent. You sit back in a chair or get comfortable on a pile of pillows. Then, the show begins: on all four walls surrounding you (plus the roof above) live actors in silhouette, shadow puppets and hand drawn projections interact to bring to life Shadow Odyssey.

I don't see the students until next week, but I can't wait to find out what they thought!

Finally, have you seen this video clip?

It's a version of Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, from the 2001 movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and I absolutely love it. Showed it in my classes just yesterday.