Auden’s syllabus

My Uncle John shared a syllabus for a course that W. H. Auden taught at the University of Michigan in the early 1940s. Auden assigned 6,000 pp. of reading, according to The Paris Review.

(I’m not sure if the estimate is for recommended and required reading, or just for the latter.)

The way to complete so much reading on time is to begin before the term. Like, in grammar school. I imagine Auden telling his students: “I’m sure you’ve already read two-thirds of this material.”

I try to read a lot, and not only fluff. But there are just three items on this syllabus that I’ve read from beginning to end. I’ll let you guess which they are. Two of them, I first read in grammar school.

What on earth have I been doing since then?

The Philadelphian writer Joe Queenan has a nice memoir of his reading life called One for the Books. He gets through plenty of books and speaks candidly of their lousiness. You can get an idea from this passage. (Read to the end for a tidbit about Winston Churchill.)

The font is Caslon no. 540, which I’ve discussed.

Later in the book, Queenan makes a disparaging remark about South Bend.

P.S. It seems that Alan Jacobs was the first person to blog about Auden’s syllabus. Today, Jacobs posted another good entry, about early cinema.

P.P.S. When I took A.P. English in high school, students were expected to read 700 pp. every 2 weeks to earn an “A”: not quite Auden’s pace, but not so, so far off it, either. I wouldn’t have come close if we hadn’t been allowed to accumulate pages during the summer and Christmas holidays. Even so, I resorted to dubious measures like counting blank pages and skipping ahead to pages with three or four lines of text – at the end of a chapter, for instance. (I found dozens of virtually text-free pages in my parents’ edition of Walden. I also used a very generously spaced edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner that contained hundreds of pages. That book was a godsend because we were allowed to count each poetry page as three pages.)

R.I.P. Joan Didion

Today, in her honor, I read “The Getty” and “Quiet Days in Malibu” from The White Album. The second item, especially, is moving.

I expect that the Library of America will soon exhibit another piece by Didion as a Story of the Week.

We have a mouse in our mud-room. I saw it dart behind a box. Jasper and Ziva rushed past their food and sniffed at the mouse but didn’t catch it. Later, Karin went into the mud-room and the mouse stared at her with its little brown face. We’d been using the mud-room to store cat food and other non-perishables; now, we must rethink this arrangement.

’Twas the night before Christmas / and all through the house / not a creature was stirring / not even a mouse.

Well, it depends on whether you count the mud-room as a part of the house.

We went to a Christmas Eve party and one of my uncles gave another of his biennial talks about the perils of the hantavirus. Don’t sweep up or vacuum after a mouse, he said. Use a wet cloth. Unlikely as it is that we’ll contract this virus, I figure the advice is worth posting because, who knows, it may save a life. One’s words might do tremendous good down the road. I told this to another of my uncles, who was lamenting that a paper he’d presented had involved a lot of work for a negligible result.

At least I didn’t get beaten up, he said. A group of Caribbean Christian brothers and sisters had been praying and fasting so that that wouldn’t happen.

His paper, which he gave at an evangelical theologians’ conference, argued for racial reparations.

Birthdays; visitors; dinners; autumn; Ray Bradbury; hyphens

Happy birthday to Karin! She looks about to burst, but the doctors say she could remain pregnant for three more weeks.

Tonight’s dinner was provided by Karin’s mom and grandpa.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Happy birthday, also, to our sister-in-law Ana, who has flown up from Texas with Ada, our new niece.

Karin & I saw them yesterday, and then we were all fed by our Aunt Lorena & Uncle John.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Not many leaves have fallen, but the weather is unambiguously autumnal.

I remarked that this is Ray Bradbury Month.

Mary: “What? You’re going to name your child Ray Bradbury?”

John-Paul: “No.”

When a nosy person asks what our child’s name will be – as Karin’s mom did, again, tonight – I say, “His name will be John-Paul-Karin.”

Some visitors from Esmeraldas

Yesterday, Karin & I went to the movie theater. The movie itself cost $6 per ticket – the only good deal in the house. Two popcorns and two drinks would’ve cost about $20. Two bottles of water would’ve cost about $10.

And then, to add insult to injury, the drinking fountains in our section didn’t work. (We did find drinking water at the other end of the building.)

We settled into our seats. The previews were uninspired.

Clearly, the movie industry is in bad decline …

… except for the Mission: Impossible series, which just keeps on getting better and better, and whose latest installment we’d come to view. (It’s one of the comforts of my old age.)

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the “Thundergun Express” of movies. Tom Cruise hangs from a cliff, and from a tall building. He jumps out of a plane – in a lightning storm. He pilots a helicopter – in a dogfight with another helicopter, over the Himalayas. And, in Paris and London, he runs, and runs, and runs.

It’s best viewed on the big screen, what Tom Cruise manages to do.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Afterward, we stopped by my Aunt Lorena’s & Uncle John’s house to borrow a book; and, lo and behold, who should be visiting but my Aunt Lorena’s own aunt and uncle, Amparo and René Bermúdez. It’s not often that I see people I knew in Esmeraldas, as a child.

We conversed in Spanish.

“How is Ruth?” they asked, referring to Mary, my sister. “Does she still have asthma?”

“No,” my Aunt Lorena said, “she has diabetes.”

“She has both,” I assured them. We all shook our heads.

“She exercises regularly and watches her diet,” I told them. “She’s in better condition than her brothers are.”

“Ah,” they said. “And little David, who wanted to play for Real Madrid?”

“Married to an hondureña.”

“And young Stephen?”

“To a nicaragüense.”

“And your wife, does she speak Spanish?”

“No.” (Karin later told me that she understood 25% of the conversation – and, yes, the, and other words like those.)

“With whom do you practice?”

“With no one.”

“You speak Spanish perfectly.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “For an esmeraldeño.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Before we took our leave, Karin & I went upstairs to greet my cousins, Annie and Vickie. Annie was in her bedroom with Johnny, her fiancé. Vickie was in her own bedroom.

After we talked to them, we came back down the stairs.

“Was Vickie in her own room?” asked my Uncle John.

“Yes,” I said.

“Annie and Johnny aren’t supposed to be in a bedroom alone together,” said my uncle.

“Well,” I told him, “you’d better go up there and drag them out.”

And then Karin & I left.

Xmas’s eve’s eve’s eve

One third of my vacation is spent. I didn’t write as much as I should’ve done. I can’t even claim to have rested well.

My cold persists. Its decline, while slow, is at least steady. (Karin’s cold yo-yos up and down.)

Ziva has been discreetly vomiting – we think she’s trying to work a furball out of herself. Tonight, Jasper did a tremendous vomit. He scarfed down his quarter-cup of supper (he isn’t used to dieting yet). What goes down (like that) must come up. Karin took pity and gave Jasper a little more food.

Thanks to my “Secret Santa,” I’ve received the first four volumes from my wishlist. Just eight more volumes to go.

Festivities begin tomorrow with a full night and morning of partying at Karin’s dad’s house. Then, we’ll spend Christmas’s Eve at my Uncle John’s & Aunt Lorena’s house. As always, I look forward to the mini-wieners and other snacks to be served there.

The Peruvians got an early Xmas present. Paolo Guerrero’s ban was reduced to six months. He will play in the World Cup. To the authorities, he offered up the old “coca leaf, not cocaine” defense.

December fragments

My little cousin posted this:

“Just to give an idea of how many books can fit
in my small bedroom. This is all thanks to my
dad who basically gives me a new book every day.”
‪#‎itsanerdelthing‬ ‪#‎youshouldseehisbookcollection‬

I feel so proud.

Announcement !!!

What: Leg One of the Ecuadorian soccer championship.

Where: Estadio Monumental Banco Pichincha, Guayaquil.

When: Wednesday (tomorrow) at 8:00pm, U.S. Eastern Time.

The cheapest tickets cost $25. This is the priciest B.S.C. game I’ve heard of. On behalf of the chusma, I’m indignant.

I don’t have a TV link to offer you. Please google “Barcelona Emelec en vivo,” and then cheer for the yellow team.

Leg Two will be played on Sunday.

Today after work I walked home in a pleasant, light rain. The park that I walked through could’ve been muddier; the alley could’ve had more puddles — I wouldn’t have minded. On the street, two different motorists flipped me off, which I enjoyed. (This is how it feels to recover from depression.) When I got home, I asked Mary to light a fire for me, and I dried my socks; she told me it would’ve been easier if I’d put them in the drying machine. Here is a nice video of some people making out.

Christmas 2012

Christmastime: family, family, and more family. It’s been kind of nice.

I hadn’t expected that Mary & Martin would be here in South Bend — they’d intended to go to Illinois — but on Christmas Eve, Mary got an infection and had to be admitted to Memorial Hospital. I visited her for several hours. It was kind of nice.

She’s out of the hospital now. She’s better.

I spent three consecutive days with my Uncle John, my Aunt Lorena, and their daughters, Annie & Vickie. Today I went to their house for Christmas dinner. At first they were surprised, but then they remembered they’d invited me. We ate spaghetti. It was good. … I convinced my aunt and cousins to read Wuthering Heights with me, one chapter each day. I’ve never read it. My aunt has, several times.

Annie was given a tree for Christmas — a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Here it is:

:) :) :)

Tomorrow is Carlos Muñoz Day.