thinking thursday.
mind :: my brain and yours
Having studied Mandarin Chinese, this story was of interest to me. The complexities and nuances of language fascinate me: "The English language clusters consonants together, which results in a variety of complex syllables such as "stretch" and "plump." But Chinese syllables don't combine that way, so the only way to tell the difference between two otherwise identical syllables is by listening to the tone and the context.
15 essential back-to-school podcasts.
I wonder what WWII would have looked like played out on Facebook. I need wonder no longer.
I'll hear Jonathan Franzen speak at the Decatur Book Festival tomorrow night. His new book, Freedom, and all the press coverage surrounding it, has sparked quite a conversation among the literati and feminists about what comprises "literary fiction" and what has come to be known as "chick lit." Here's what Slate has to say about his newest: "The novel aspires to be a portrait of America on a Tolstoyan scale—at least that's one way to interpret the many references to War and Peace in it—and Franzen has indeed absorbed some of Tolstoy's astonishing capacity for empathy. Gentrification and the fetishizing of parenthood occupy the foreground of Franzen's panoramic canvas."
body :: my place and yours
I tweet, therefore I am: "How much, I began to wonder, was I shaping my Twitter feed, and how much was Twitter shaping me? Back in the 1950s, the sociologist Erving Goffman famously argued that all of life is performance: we act out a role in every interaction, adapting it based on the nature of the relationship or context at hand. Twitter has extended that metaphor to include aspects of our experience that used to be considered off-set: eating pizza in bed, reading a book in the tub, thinking a thought anywhere, flossing. Effectively, it makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self."
Roger Ebert can no longer eat. But he still cooks and has written a new cookbook about cooking in a rice pot:"'Food for me is in the present tense,' he said. 'Eating for me is now only in the past tense.' He says he has a 'voluptuous food memory' that gets stronger all the time. 'I can remember the taste and smell of everything, even though I can no longer taste or smell,' he said."
soul :: my heart and yours
I'm going to start practicing yoga. Oh yes I surely am. (Thanks, Kurt "Angle" Reineking, for the wonderful, generous nudge). Reading this, I feel like I should have started, oh, forty years ago.
A final thought :: The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend. ~Henry David Thoreau
[Image from artist Wendy Cook, whose gorgeous image is featured on page 145 in Four Word Self Help]
