Saturday, January 03, 2004
Well, that didn't last very long.
I have quite entirely dropped the terrifically misconceived idea of writing my essay on HM like a blogpost and am instead writing it in a more conventional (which is of course not to say normal in any way) mode. But what are you people doing? Comment!
Pleased to meetcha
It's always exciting to see a new face pop up around here. Would the MIT student who checked in at around noon please stand up?
Oh yeah, and the essay is coming along swimmingly. It's been two pages and I haven't said one thing about the school, save for its geographical location, but it's doing fine. Will post what I have soon.
Oh yeah, and the essay is coming along swimmingly. It's been two pages and I haven't said one thing about the school, save for its geographical location, but it's doing fine. Will post what I have soon.
Trying to figure out how to start.
I think we start with exposition:
The Horace Mann School was built at the top of a hill, and no student, teacher, or parent has ever forgotten it.
The Horace Mann School was built at the top of a hill, and no student, teacher, or parent has ever forgotten it.
Now work happens.
Okay. So I have two essays to write this week, to be handed in the day I get back to Dublin. One of them I really haven't thought about. I don't have any idea what I'm doing for that. But the other is, as I may have mentioned, "critique your own education." I've had a brilliant, stupid idea about this one: I'm thinking about writing it as a blog. This one's for The Essay, and the only formal requirement is that its structure be consistent and well thought-out. And quite frankly, I can't think of a medium I'm more used to at this point than this one. I know the medium's limitations, I know its parameters and demands, and besides, I think this is a question which involves us all. So I want commentary. In fact, I need commentary--I'll be citing you as sources. I want to get started today, so I figure I want to put out a few questions. Do answer, whether at length or in brief. I figure the past weeks spent in each others' company has given us all fodder. And this is for both graduates and current students. Even parents. I want everyone's input. If you can make time, I'd really appreciate it. Even if my nerve fails me and I can't quite lend it the warp-speed that maketh a blog, I still want to do it very much in the New Yorker Profiles mold, like we did in 11th grade with Mr. Desai. That is to say, quote-laden. Just because I had fun there, too.
So questions!
1) How did you love Horace Mann?
2) How did you hate Horace Mann?
3) How has Horace Mann fucked you forever?
4) Did you ever really leave Horace Mann?
5) Topic of your choice! (ah, thou dear old common app...)
p.s. Oh, by the way: if your comment is running long, bear in mind that HaloScan (the comment engine) tends to cut it off savagely at a certain point, so be sure and either save or copy/paste before publishing.
p.p.s For those of you what aren't sure how to do this comment thing, just click on the little orange "Comment" link below. Or, uh,click the one in the last sentence.
So questions!
1) How did you love Horace Mann?
2) How did you hate Horace Mann?
3) How has Horace Mann fucked you forever?
4) Did you ever really leave Horace Mann?
5) Topic of your choice! (ah, thou dear old common app...)
p.s. Oh, by the way: if your comment is running long, bear in mind that HaloScan (the comment engine) tends to cut it off savagely at a certain point, so be sure and either save or copy/paste before publishing.
p.p.s For those of you what aren't sure how to do this comment thing, just click on the little orange "Comment" link below. Or, uh,click the one in the last sentence.
Friday, January 02, 2004
Hey, Duncan?
I'm noticing ntl.com popping up on the SiteMeter a lot. Is it mere fantasy to imagine that maybe they've given us a certain much-desired Xmas present back at Halls?
Ladies and Gentlemen, for your reading pleasure...
It was impressed upon me (with a hot iron, as a matter of fact) that whether or not every single person who might conceivably read this blog (with the exception of those who live in an area far too remote to attend or care) was party to the events about to be recounted, those events still bear recounting, if for no other reason than that people like to read about themselves. Props to Sam and Ma. Blame them. Also, when considering the low level of storytelling here, consider the fact that this is news to no one, and my retelling it is equivalent to my repeating to Samantha Do, who has a mind like a bottomless garbage bin (or a toilet, depending on who you ask), anything I've ever even mentioned on this blog.
So New Year's Eve:
At about 5pm, the doorbell rings. It's Ben Bright-Fishbein. It then strikes me that he did not receive my text message, sent from Commerce Bank, instructing him and some others not, repeat, NOT to come early for a little poker, as there was going to be rather a lot of mania going on in the house that evening while we were setting up and whatnot. Fucking text messages don't seem to work no more, damn it. But he's there, after all, and since three of Anna's buddies from Swarthmore were on their way up anyway, we decided, what the hell, we'll play a few dozen hands.
Jacob, Sabrina, and her identical twin Acacia showed up 20 minutes later, and the five of us, plus Jacob, fell to playing. The craic was grand for a good hour and a half, with Mike showing up at around 6:30. At 7pm the game broke up, because this was the hour designated for the starting of the setting-up. The Swatties skipped out right after the ever-faithful, self-sacrificing Jared Friedman, for whom no praise is in excess, arrived to help. A few hours later, people started trickling in, then pouring in. Post-collegians, collegians, and pre-collegians mingled and drank champagne out of plastic cups. Frankly, I think the idea of having parents and so forth around worked out perfectly well, even if I didn't get to take their money, as I did certain others, whom I am glad to say I took to the cleaners rather thoroughly. Sorry Ben, Jonah, and Mike.
Also I think we can roundly agree that the highlight of the evening was--aside from the lovely ackapelling, which charmed all assembled--the sudden penetration of nine scruffy Westchesterites, no small percentage of whom were high as shit, into the bosom of the house, their hasty but only momentary direction into the cellar, their subsequent reemergence followed by their egress through the back door into the backyard, where they presumably got even higher, and finally their mass trample back out the way they came, at which point the guests, most of whom were quite unprepared for that sort of invasion, resumed their conversations. Though it was good to see Berkovitz, Whit, and Naughton again, Mike, you are a bastard.
But the poker game. First, big ups to cousin Billy, whose omission from the Brush Up Your Poker post was an egregious act of concerted oversight, because the little bastard took everyone in the family for everything they were worth on Christmas night, when he turned $9 into $22. Merry fucking Christmas. But now, see, I feel secure enough to mention this, for my masculinity was restored to me when I took $18 of your money. What a lovely game, poker. We must do this again sometime.
So I think it was a grand party. And, how, pray, do you people feel?
So New Year's Eve:
At about 5pm, the doorbell rings. It's Ben Bright-Fishbein. It then strikes me that he did not receive my text message, sent from Commerce Bank, instructing him and some others not, repeat, NOT to come early for a little poker, as there was going to be rather a lot of mania going on in the house that evening while we were setting up and whatnot. Fucking text messages don't seem to work no more, damn it. But he's there, after all, and since three of Anna's buddies from Swarthmore were on their way up anyway, we decided, what the hell, we'll play a few dozen hands.
Jacob, Sabrina, and her identical twin Acacia showed up 20 minutes later, and the five of us, plus Jacob, fell to playing. The craic was grand for a good hour and a half, with Mike showing up at around 6:30. At 7pm the game broke up, because this was the hour designated for the starting of the setting-up. The Swatties skipped out right after the ever-faithful, self-sacrificing Jared Friedman, for whom no praise is in excess, arrived to help. A few hours later, people started trickling in, then pouring in. Post-collegians, collegians, and pre-collegians mingled and drank champagne out of plastic cups. Frankly, I think the idea of having parents and so forth around worked out perfectly well, even if I didn't get to take their money, as I did certain others, whom I am glad to say I took to the cleaners rather thoroughly. Sorry Ben, Jonah, and Mike.
Also I think we can roundly agree that the highlight of the evening was--aside from the lovely ackapelling, which charmed all assembled--the sudden penetration of nine scruffy Westchesterites, no small percentage of whom were high as shit, into the bosom of the house, their hasty but only momentary direction into the cellar, their subsequent reemergence followed by their egress through the back door into the backyard, where they presumably got even higher, and finally their mass trample back out the way they came, at which point the guests, most of whom were quite unprepared for that sort of invasion, resumed their conversations. Though it was good to see Berkovitz, Whit, and Naughton again, Mike, you are a bastard.
But the poker game. First, big ups to cousin Billy, whose omission from the Brush Up Your Poker post was an egregious act of concerted oversight, because the little bastard took everyone in the family for everything they were worth on Christmas night, when he turned $9 into $22. Merry fucking Christmas. But now, see, I feel secure enough to mention this, for my masculinity was restored to me when I took $18 of your money. What a lovely game, poker. We must do this again sometime.
So I think it was a grand party. And, how, pray, do you people feel?
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Storm warning
Incidentally, anyone coming tonight with a hankering for more Gaelic Storm should bring a blank cd. There's a new album out, Special Reserve, with five quality new tracks, and then there's some other stuff no one has. I'd be glad to rip and burn for you.
Whoa
Just was awakened from my nap to hear someone doing an absolutely stunning rendition of the Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 on the viola. Figured it was Yuval (Jacob's teacher) showing his pupil it was how it done. I went out to confirm this.
Turned out the reverse was true.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ that kid can play.
Turned out the reverse was true.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ that kid can play.
Repondez S'il Vous Plait
Hey, um, could I get a little show of hands for tomorrow night? Who's coming? I have no idea what kind of crowd we're looking at. Just pop your head in the comments box, if you would be so kind.
Thank you.
UPDATE: One more thing. Parents are more than welcome. So if you like yours enough to spend New Year's with them, and yours like you enough, then by all means invite them. Any questions, call me. 646.436.9110. The idea is that we all party together. Don't worry. There will be no bridling or fettering of merriment, this much is promised. There will be a tipsy synergy.
Thank you.
UPDATE: One more thing. Parents are more than welcome. So if you like yours enough to spend New Year's with them, and yours like you enough, then by all means invite them. Any questions, call me. 646.436.9110. The idea is that we all party together. Don't worry. There will be no bridling or fettering of merriment, this much is promised. There will be a tipsy synergy.
"The Eternal Tourist"
Found this little phrase in the JP Donleavy book which my friends at Bloomsday Books in Kansas City recommended to me, "The Ginger Man." It's about a young Americano, Sebastian Bullion Dangerfield, who, just after serving in WWII, goes off to Trinity College Dublin on the G.I. Bill. And has--and here I'm quoting from the back of the book--"bawdy, picaresque adventures. Time magazine called Dangerfield 'one of the most outrageous scoundrels in contemporary fiction, a whoring, boozing young wastrel.'"
So of course I had to buy it.
Anyway, I just thought this was a perfect assessment of me now. The eternal tourist. Not at home really anywhere. But fascinated by everything.
So of course I had to buy it.
Anyway, I just thought this was a perfect assessment of me now. The eternal tourist. Not at home really anywhere. But fascinated by everything.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
ALbatross! ALbatross!
See, now I get all guilty when I don't blog for a few days. Also slightly paranoid. I figure that if I don't produce on a sufficiently regular schedule, all my readers will just ebb away. This is such a blazingly fast medium that if, through simple laxity, time is allowed to get ahead of its reporting, then the medium fails. Because what good is play-by-play ten minutes after the play? An instant medium demands constant attention and updating. This is all to say that this thing is an evil bitch mistress sometimes.
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Come one, call all!
New Year's Eve bash chez Ashworth!
A time to reunite at a place where it may be safely estimated some of you spent more time than at your own homes. Just like old times.
Fiesta to begin at 8pm or before or after on the last of 2003.
To R.S.V.P for the V.S.O.P. call or write or preferably comment or what the hell don't RSVP at all, just show up and party.
And don't nobody say this was short notice; I made this invite months ago.
<<>><<>><<>><<>>
Oh, and by the way. The good soldier Schveik-Pareles is trying to organize a walloping grand ultimate frizbizzling match out in the sticks where he lives. Me too. December 30. Irvington. Call or email him for details (he ought to be posting a comment right about now, only he's a big fat wanker). Nudity guaranteed.
A time to reunite at a place where it may be safely estimated some of you spent more time than at your own homes. Just like old times.
Fiesta to begin at 8pm or before or after on the last of 2003.
To R.S.V.P for the V.S.O.P. call or write or preferably comment or what the hell don't RSVP at all, just show up and party.
And don't nobody say this was short notice; I made this invite months ago.
<<>><<>><<>><<>>
Oh, and by the way. The good soldier Schveik-Pareles is trying to organize a walloping grand ultimate frizbizzling match out in the sticks where he lives. Me too. December 30. Irvington. Call or email him for details (he ought to be posting a comment right about now, only he's a big fat wanker). Nudity guaranteed.
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