Creating, collecting, and sharing thoughts and ideas. And learning along the way.
We’re not done with Shakespeare for the year just yet…
Last Saturday we attended a terrific production of Much Ado About Nothing put on by the University of Michigan’s Dept. of Theatre at the Power Center.
Want proof? Click here!
A Character
– William Wordsworth
I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom
And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease,
Would be rational peace–a philosopher’s ease.
There’s indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs;
Pride where there’s no envy, there’s so much of joy;
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.
There’s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she’s there,
There’s virtue, the title it surely may claim,
Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.
This picture from nature may seem to depart,
Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;
And I for five centuries right gladly would be
Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.
What’s that you say? Dosas go only w/ sambar and chutneys and alu-masala? Not if you’re in my house!
Especially not if it happens to be a snowy Sunday morning and you find yourself seated around my kitchen table for brunch. What you might very easily find paired w/ the crispest and most delectable dosas are scrambled eggs– scrambled in desi-ghee, no less, and mini chicken-sausages made w/ spinach and asiago cheese. Oh, and you might also find a jar of Kissan– the finest mixed-fruit jam from India, along w/ apricot jelly from Greece.
Yes, that’s what East meets West means.
For a feast for the eyes, look no further! (That means click on that link for more pictures!)
Thanks to Sapna Mukherjee, my friend in Delhi, for sharing this lovely Raag via her FB page. I took hindustani voice lessons from her mother many years ago, and I am always delighted to see Sapna’s love of music in how she continues to train classically in this delightful genre of Indian vocal music.
And call me strange, but the strains of the Raag somehow bring to mind Jason Mraz’s song “Life is Wonderful”. Check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R08q2wzGpzk
(And please don’t be up in arms about the comparison– the two genres of hindustani classical and western pop might be oceans apart but still share a common thread)
Rick Snyder, Michigan’s New Governor-Elect (who takes office next month) on the campus of Wayne State University earlier today. For an accountant by profession, his jokes were not too bad. It is to be seen what new policy measures he takes that might be just as good, or hopefully even better
Sorry, the picture’s blurred– thanks to my not-so-cool cellphone camera. Still, it’s proof that I was there! Oh, and it pays to be a little late sometimes– I was ushered in all the way to the front of the auditorium just like that!
I was there. Quite a likable and believable guy. The Business School hosted the event, but moved it to a larger auditorium on campus b/c of a huge RSVP response. I was running a bit late but when I got there an usher showed me to all the way in the front in the second row! Article from the Detroit Free Press follows:
I was there. Quite a likable and believable guy. The Business School hosted the event, but moved it to a larger auditorium on campus b/c of a huge RSVP response. I was running a bit late but when I got there an usher showed me to all the way in the front in the second row!
The bar is set pretty low for Michigan, Gov.-elect Rick Snyder learned recently when he attended a new governors conference hosted by the National Governors Association.
There, he was handed a briefing book on how his state stacked up nationally, including a forecast by the bond rating agency Moody’s which suggested Michigan job growth over the next four years would rank 50th (out of 53 or 54; Snyder said it included Puerto Rico and a few other territories).
“I looked at that …to me this is a piece of fiction,” he said this afternoon in an address to business students at Wayne State University. “This is not going to happen.”
Instead, Snyder said, “We’re going to change those numbers.” The Moody’s forecast is going to be posted on the wall in his new office as “a benchmark to beat.”
The governor-elect gave few hints, however, about how he plans to turn things around.
We have to change our attitudes, Snyder said, raise our expectations and stop “fighting with each other. It’s time to say as Michiganders, we can win together.”
In Lansing, state government has to stop focusing on how to pay for what it’s doing and has always done, and figure out whether what’s being done is needed and effective.
That’s going to mean change and a commitment to measuring results, he said.
Snyder, the first CPA elected governor in Michigan, asked the WSU students to stick around and help make it happen, and to prove Moody’s wrong.
Contact Dawson Bell at 517-372-8661 or dbell@freepress.com
My noon-hour expeditions/adventures on the campus of WSU continue unabated by the weather outside. Wrapped up in scraf, hat and gloves (no they didn’t all match!), I had stepped outside my warm office building even as fat flurrying flakes fell all around me. Heading north on campus, I approached the somewhat non-descript building called the General Lectures Building adjacent to the Alex Manoogian Ethnic Heritage Center, a quick ten-minute walk from my office. Manoogian Hall, as it is commonly known, houses a number of Departments, many of them in the languages (modern and ancient) and social-sciences. On its many floors, there are a number of study-rooms that are themed in decor and style for a certain country. So, there’s the Polish Room, the Greek Room, the Chinese Room, and so on. Anyway, more on these lovely rooms in Manoogian Hall another time…
Today, I discovered that the General Lectures Building, right next door to Manoogian Hall also had one such study-room called the Italian Heritage Room. And what a lovely room it is!
Here’s an album of some pictures I took (again w/ my lowly but trusty cellphone).
Scattered through the room were several interesting pieces of art– ceramic and bronze sculptures, paintings and reliefs, beautiful calligraphy on the walls, and other historical info about the the once vibrant Italian Languages Department (now perhaps collapsed into the Classics Dept.). The black-and-white checquered marbled floors and the grand columns inside the room certainly gave off a certain Italian vibe, no doubt!
And to quote Dante, the great Italian poet, “He listens well who takes notes“. Which is exactly what a study-room is good for– to read and revise notes that were taken in class!
