"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
- T.S. Eliot

"The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter"

We read this poem first semester of senior year AP English. I love the imagery, especially the images of childhood, the sweetness, the sorrow and longing, the projection of the wife's emotions onto the natural world...I wrote my Aino poem under the influence of this poem, especially of its syntax and diction, which I find striking in their simplicity and straightforwardness.

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.

- Ezra Pound (a loose translation of a Chinese poem)

Shin splints and Riverdance

My shin splints have been bothering me of late, so I desist from dancing down our (concrete) hall now. I think I'm going to have to make my practice sessions in the dance studio shorter, and jogging is definitely off.

I'll keep wearing my dance sneakers for my soft shoe dances, too, instead of going barefoot. I need to do those anti-shin splints exercises more.

I went to the dance studio in the SRC today for a half an hour or so, mostly stretching and working on my slip jig. For those of you who aren't familiar with Irish dances -- most of you, I imagine -- the slip jig is a soft shoe dance in 9/8 time traditionally, and usually still today, danced only by girls and women. It's the so-called ballet of Irish dance, with a very flowing, graceful, swinging feel. I'll have to remember that Sunday afternoon is a good time (i.e. there were no crew people on the rowing machines or anyone else in the studio, hurrah!). I got my Riverdance CD in the mail a few days ago ($2.50 plus shipping used from Amazon!), so I got to enjoy practicing to the beautiful slip jigs from the numbers "Women of Ireland" and "Riverdance." You can watch/listen to them here:

"Women of Ireland" -- Such a pretty beginning; the slip jig is called "Countess Cathleen." Though I laugh a little inside when they are just revolving around each other in the in-between measures. Then the women get all fired up and Jean has a hardshoe showdown with a bunch of men who think they can handle her. Kinda reminds me of Enna at the beginning of Enna Burning when she's talking about Finn...

"Riverdance" -- The Irish chorus Anúna introduces the dance with a song ("Cloudsong" is the name, I believe); sit tight. This is Riverdance's performance as the interval act at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, the four minutes that made Irish dance famous, and that's no exaggeration. Starts out with Jean's gorgeous floating slip jig (I do love her dress, and her hair is so pretty; it's been straight for a long time now), then we get a bit of undiluted Michael Flatley, and it ends with iconic Riverdance treble reel, the entire company in their hardshoes in a single line. It gives me goosebumps every single time I watch it.

Thursday, Friday, Freedays

I stayed up until around three last night, watching The End of the Spear for my Bible/theology (BITH) class and studying for my comparative politics test today (ethnic and national identity and conflict, and political attitude, ideology, and culture).

I woke up early to study in Saga, skipped BITH, went to chapel, finished reviewing my politics notes in German durinig the last two Referate (presentations), and then took the test, which was not too bad. We had one essay question instead of the usual two, hurrah! I felt like I did quite well, except for one thing: the essay question asked us to cite examples from at least two of our country case studies, which are Iran, Japan, China, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and I didn't see how you could cite an example for that particular question, so I just didn't. Shrugs.

In the early evening I went to usher at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance on campus, but I fell asleep in the chairs in the back waiting for them to let people in. I think several conservies (conservatory of music students, a species of their own) must have been gathered around me, trying to wake me up without touching me or knowing my name, for a minute or two before I woke up. I didn't realize at first that I'd been asleep, and I muttered something about being really spacey. Hah. Then I left because I was superfluous and wanted to sleep. And here I am now, cozy in my room, rejoicing over the return of hot water to the underclassmen dorms.

There's something poignant about the light in autumn. When I walk through the long shadows of campus hearing the bells tolling, I feel a wave of Quentin washing over me. Oh, Quentin. What he felt was what we all feel to some extent, I think, only amplified.

Please tell me if you ever read The Sound and the Fury. That book is a part of my consciousness.