Thank. Perhaps some of that should be put below the fold?
I'll also take the opportunity to explain how I ended up reading that interview. I'm not much of a poetry person but a couple of years ago I read an article about Edward Thomas which made an impact so every once in a while I look up some of his poems.
I happend across this article by David Rivard talking about the poem, "There's Nothing Like The Sun". Which ended up both being an example of the fact that I'm not a natural poetry reader, and ending up with me getting pulled in.
It's a longish article (and a short poem) so I read part of it, skipped down, read the poem, didn't really make much of it. Read the rest of the article, read the poem again, and still didn't feel much emotional involvement. Then I listened to the attached audio file of Rivard reading the poem and was captured -- mostly because Rivard has a great reading voice, but also because it give me a different appreciation for the rhythm and pacing of the poem.
I've listened to the audio maybe a dozen times (it's only 1:29), and that also got me to follow some of Rivard's links including one to the OP interview.
IANA expert in the Talmud, but regarding the argumentativeness, I do remember this story, which is nice in the same vein:
It has been taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument,3 but they did not accept them. Said he to them: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let this carob-tree prove it!' Thereupon the carob-tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place -- others affirm, four hundred cubits. 'No proof can be brought from a carob-tree,' they retorted. Again he said to them: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it!' Whereupon the stream of water flowed backwards -- 'No proof can be brought from a stream of water,' they rejoined. Again he urged: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it,' whereupon the walls inclined to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked them, saying: 'When scholars are engaged in a halachic dispute, what have ye to interfere?' Hence they did not fall, in honour of R. Joshua, nor did they resume the upright, in honour of R. Eliezer; and they are still standing thus inclined. Again he said to them: 'If the halachah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven!' Whereupon a Heavenly Voice cried out: 'Why do ye dispute with R. Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the halachah agrees with him!' But R. Joshua arose and exclaimed: 'It is not in heaven.'4 What did he mean by this? -- Said R. Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because Thou hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline.5
Obviously, the "after the majority must one incline" bit has its own exceptions, and probably quibbles and arguments about the exceptions, etc.
I don't get most of the stories in the OP. I think I'm insufficiently deep.
For example, I get "If my family traded in shrouds, people would stop dying." That's pretty funny. I don't get what all the stuff before had to do with it.
The stuff before is just scene-setting. It isn't actually necessary, because the punchline is actually a one-liner. But in a good routine (or story), all the scene-setting would be set-up for other jokes.
Thank. Perhaps some of that should be put below the fold?
I figured the thread below was several days old.
I figured the thread below was several days old.
Who says there's no point to studying math?
Thread throrridge hot.
Thread throrridge cold.
Thread throrridge on the blog
Two days old.
Do you know what the secret of blogging is?
Chantilly lace and a pretty face?
If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be neat and wipe the seat?
Substitute baking soda for buttermilk?
Sorry I'm no fun. Tired and I need to be a real boy for a change tomorrow.
You've been lying to us this whole time?
Pinocchio, may you get your wish.
20: Crap. I meant timing. Timing is the secret to blogging.
Too late is almost always better than too fast.
There is a compost, turn, turn, turn.
A desire to bring a beautiful vision into this world is just enough to keep going, but someone should probably probably pay Raftery to sweep the floors or something.
35: Not to be ableist or anything, but I'm not sure sweeping the floors is the best job for a blind person.
OTOH, my blind dog continually outsmarts me.
25.last was actually referring to the fact that I am now precisely 3 months out from my retirement date and am experiencing significant senioritis. Today I have an actual biggish thing to do. But. I. Am. Not. Doing. It. So. Far.
Only 3 months to put it off! Congratulations!
That's great. August is the shittiest month to go to work during anyway.
In three months, Pinocchio is going to be a real old guy!
O Thou who Man of Baser Earth Did Make
Who Even with Paradise Didst Devise the Snake
For All the Sins with which the Face of Man is
Blackened
Man's Forgiveness give -- and take!
Did I remember this correctly?
Does the Fitzgerald translation bear any relationship to the original?
Congratulations (?) Stormcrow!
41.last: If it doesn't, I question whether it is a translation.
Does the Fitzgerald translation bear any relationship to the original?
My recollection is some but not a whole lot. IIRC (which I very well may not), the original was a collection of genuinely free-standing verses with little or no connection from one verse to the next. Fitzgerald translated some pretty faithfully, some more freely, and some freely enough that it's hard to tell what he was translating, and arranged them so that there were some coherent subgroupings forming connected narratives of a sort.
41, 45 No, not really. Maybe more later but on on my way to the airport having just finished a two day long campus visit interview.
That makes much more sense. Best wishes.
Hope it went well, Barry! I was hoping you would comment on this.
Without an exclamation mark, because you have inhuman opinions on dried fruit.
38: Only 3 months to put it off!
Hard due date of middle of May, involves mid-7 digits per year, and we are doing it now to theoretically take advantage of my experience and expertise before I go. So they are probably going to be dicks about me actually putting some effort in.
42: Congratulations (?)
Yes, timing was mutually agreed to, and my job is being "eliminated" which is good as my org still has a rapidly-becoming archaic policy of relative generosity in that situation.
54: Hmm, no way any of that could be tracked back to my real name of Jeff Wilmerding and my job in the finance industry here in Atlanta, Georgia. right?
50, 51 Thanks, at the airport bar now for the next two and a half hours.
OT: I was able to see which car it is with the alarm that keeps going off. Hooray for threatening notes. Death to all Lexuses (sp? Lexi?)
Fuck. There's another car with an alarm going off. Or I got the wrong car?
Key them all, and let the courts sort them out.
I removed the note. When trying to destroy monsters, you first need to be sure you don't become one yourself.
When I looked again, it was clearly a very old car. Seemed unlikely to have been the guilty party.
61: Your aphorism is all wrong. For one thing you should know there is no try. For another, when destroying monsters it's best to be a bigger monster.
Bumped up to first class! I've got 50 minutes to live it up like the 1%.
Apparently insincere flirty banter from the pretty flight attendant is one of the perks.
You have to have Gold Status to get sincere flirty banter.
Crying babies is the perk they don't tell you about.