Eb major – you are warm and kind, always there for
your friends, who are in turn there for you.
You are content with your confortable life and
what you are currently achieving; if you keep
in this state you will go far.

what key signature are you?
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Sir Thomas Wyatt, “They flee from me”

They flee from me that soemtime did me seek
With naked foot stalking in my chamber
I have seen them gentle, tame and meek
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked by fortune, it has been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thine array after a pleasant gyse,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, dear heart, how like you this?

It was no dream: I lay broad awake.
But all is turned through my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also to use new fangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served,
I would fain know what she has deserved.

This quiz should be popular

Ted: Food & Wine Connoisseur

Which Member from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is your
type?
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I saw Urbania, then Smoke, tonight, for my New York City literature class. The ordering of the films was important: Urbania is much, much darker than Smoke, and would have made a bad ending to the night.

My presentation, on Petrarchan love, went quite well. I think; at the time, I felt like the professor was hastily correcting my numerous mistakes, but apparently everyone feels like that. One can always hope.

From another corner comes more writing, this time for 2300AD: information on Freihafen, and an entirely new write-up on Neubayern. Thanks to redroach!

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
rfmcdpei goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as an astronaut.
vcutag gives you 19 light blue chocolate-flavoured nuggets.
nire_nagaf tricks you! You get a button.
london_calling gives you 7 tan orange-flavoured wafers.
cernunnos001 gives you 15 brown tropical-flavoured hard candies.
kalev gives you 14 purple vanilla-flavoured gummies.
mathwhiz78 gives you 2 purple coconut-flavoured gummy worms.
just_jordan gives you 2 light orange raspberry-flavoured gumdrops.
orlando_br tricks you! You get a button.
teridian tricks you! You get a block of wood.
mikedavsi gives you 2 dark green lime-flavoured wafers.
rfmcdpei ends up with 61 pieces of candy, a button, a button, and a block of wood.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

Some Petrarch

Rime 134

Petrarch’s Original

Prose Translation

Pace non trovo e non ò da far guerra, e tomo e spero, et ardo e son un ghiaccio e volo sopra ‘l cielo e giaccio in terra e nulla stringo e tutto ‘l mondon abbraccio. Tal m’à in pregion, che non m’apre né serra, né per suo mi riten né scioglie il laccio, e non m’ancide Amore e non mi sferra, né mi vuol vivo né me trae d’impaccio. Veggio sensza occhi e non o lingua e grido, e bramo di perir e cheggio aita, et ò in odio me stesso ed amo altrui. Pascomi di dolor, piagendo rido, egualmente mi spiaco morte e vita: in questo stato son, Donna, per vui.

I find no peace and have no strength to make war, and I fear and hope, I burn and am ice, and I fly above the heavens and lie upon the ground, and I grasp nothing and all the world I embrace. One has me in prison, who neither opens nor locks the door for me, and either keeps me as hers nor unties the bonds, and Love neither kills me nor frees me from my chains, and neither wants me alive nor rescues me from trouble. I see without eyes, I have no tongue and I cry out, I yearn to perish and I beg for help, I hate myself and love another. I feed on pain and laugh while weeping, death and life equally displease me: in this state am I, Lady, because of you.

[ESSAY] Marxist Theory in Literature

My intellectual formation in anthropology played a critical role in my intellectual formation, demonstrating to me (among other things) the reality of cultural materialism. To me, it is nonsensical to insist that culturally generally, and literature specifically, exist autonomously from the material realities of a culture. The literature of nineteenth century Europe, for instance, could never have been written but for the emergence of a complex industrial society that pulverized traditional barriers to general intercourse such as region and language, and allowed memes of secularism and liberalism to propagate; Flaubert could write a realistic and naturalistic Madame Bovary in mid-nineteenth century France, but even in mid-eighteenth century France a putative Flaubert, without any way to make a realistic Emma in a self-contained conservative peasantry, would have been stymied.

Grr

We just had a fire alarm. At 9:30 pm. Just as I was getting undressed to go to the shower.

The only good thing about it is that it’s the only chance you have to see everyone on the floor at the same time.

Historical Revisionism

From The Boston Globe, “History rehabilitates the tyrants of old“, by H.D.S. Greenway.

October 24, 2003

UNTIL THE TYRANTS of the 20th century came along, they were the most efficient, cold-blooded, feared, and destructive conquerors the world had ever known. They were the Mongol horsemen from the steppes of Central Asia, whose hordes under the leadership of Genghis Khan built a 13th-century empire by mass slaughter — burning cities and terrifying half a dozen civilizations from Russia to the East China Sea. Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulagu, leveled Baghdad, and Iraqis have invoked his name ever since to brand their enemies, including the Americans.

It is said that you could smell their stench downwind before you could see their dust or hear the thunder of their horses signaling onrushing death. It is said that they could stay in the saddle for days, living on mare’s milk or the blood of their own horses if necessary. According to a contemporary Persian account they were covered with lice “which looked like sesame growing on bad soil.” It is also said that they could ride 70 miles a day and fire their steel-tipped arrows 200 yards with deadly accuracy at full gallop.

They swept all before them — the armies of the emperor of China, Russians on the banks of the Dnieper, and the storied Khanates of Central Asia. And if surrender was not immediate, all were slaughtered.