I don't normally participate in these sorts of things, but this "answer these questions" activity combined Music and Randomness. How could I not?

Gashwin's blog pointed me to Zadok's iteration of the questionnaire. The instructions are:

Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

Herewith, my answers:


How does the world see you? Wouldn’t You Think I’d Know By Now? (J. Henry Burnett)

Will I have a happy life? Forgive & Forget (Bob Bennett)
This seems like sound advice.

What do my friends really think of me? You’re the One (Sweet Comfort Band)
As if.

What do people secretly think of me? U.F.O. (Larry Norman)
This seems more on target.

How can I be happy? Hero (Steve Taylor)

What should I do with my life? Good News (2nd Chapter of Acts)

Will I ever have children? Lord of the Starfields (Bruce Cockburn)
Wasn't something like this once said to Abram? Does this mean I can expect our first child when I'm 80?

What is some good advice for me? True Confessions (Tonio K)
Oddly enough, there's a Lenten Reconciliation Service at St. Tommy tomorrow evening.

How will I be remembered? Big Race (All Saved Freak Band)
At least it's not "Big Racist, which, given my upbringing, wouldn't be too surprising.

What is my signature dancing song? The Golden Age (Mark Heard)
Since I can't really dance (no rhythm at all), a non-dance tune seems appropriate.

What do I think my current theme song is? The World (Fireworks)

What does everyone else think my current theme song is? Wondering Where the Lions Are (Bruce Cockburn)
...especially my students, who would like to feed me to them ASAP.

What song will play at my funeral? Dancing Barefoot (U2)
This would be cool.

What type of men/women do you like? House of Mirrors (T-Bone Burnett)
Don't we all want people who just reflect us back to ourselves?

What is my day going to be like? Rock of Ages (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings)
"When my body gives out / Gonna read those final pages."


Pax,
Izzy
knows not single soul in this town who would have this oddball collection of music, but in desperate need to share a few beverages with anyone who does

Omar, Homer, and the Cobbler

I used to work at Duke's Perkins Library with a young woman who had done her undergrad at Bryn Mawr. It was she who told me that Mary Patterson McPherson was prone to tell students that the real purpose of a Liberal Arts education was "to make your head a more interesting place to live." I heartily agree.


Omar reads his namesake:

Back in March of 2004, the Washington Post had a brief article on the doings of the famous Egyptian actor Omar Sharif. It turns out that the septuagenarian was teaching himself Homeric Greek so that he could read the Iliad and the Odyssey in their original languages. Part of that article read:

Fluent in several languages, the elder Sharif said he has taken up the study of ancient Greek. "One of two things will happen: I will have died learning something useless but beautiful, or I shall die having read Homer in the original. It may seem stupid but you have to have a beautiful mission in life."

harvested in March 2004, link now dead

Let's hear that again: If he does not complete his task, the worst that happens is he "will have died learning something useless but beautiful.... You have to have a beautiful mission in life."

He wasn't taking up this task for it's utility, because it might be useful, rather, he took up the task for it's beauty.


Ornamental Knowledge

This marvelous quotation from Sharif put me in mind of a gem from one of the novels in Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy:

"Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge."
"Certainly"
"You say that a man's first job is to earn a living, and that the first task of education is to equip him for that job?"
"Of course."
"Well allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position."
-- Humphrey Cobbler challenging Hector Mackilwraith in chapter five of Tempest-Tost


Allow me to take this moment to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge.


Now, go learn something cool. And remember, as a very wise tiger once said, “if nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.”

(Clickerize to embiggenate.)

I haven't anything to say.

Really.

The only reason I got this ID was so I could respond to other people's blogs on a very occasional basis.

Want to know what I'm thinking? Try spending a little time with me in real life. Virtual relationships are no relationships at all.

Log off and come on over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
added 20 May 2007

I’m still not saying anything, but I do seem to be storing a bit, and my memory is notoriously spotty. I also don’t find the Search feature useful in jogging my memory, only in finding what I remember. So I’m going to add an index of sorts here at the beginning, which appears at the end. (I suppose that this is a first being last sort of thing.)

Index:
Advent, O Antiphons

• December 17, O Sapientia
• December 18, O Adonai
• December 19, O Radix Iesse
• December 20, O Clavis David
• December 21, O Oriens
• December 22, O Rex Gentium
• December 23, O Emmanuel
• December 24, Advent reaches fulfillment

Art: the Frick; More, Cromwell, Jerome (Holbein & El Greco)
Margaret Atwood: on getting read
Margaret Atwood: poems
Margaret Atwood: a poem with a hook 
St. Augustine on 2nd Language Acquisition
Autism & vaccines
Benedict XVI on Ecumenism and Unity
Benedictio Cerevisae from the Rituale Romanum
Blessing for beer from the Rituale Romanum
Bizarro: E-Church
Beer Blessing from the Rituale Romanum
Drew Bunting: “Sewanee Mountian”
Bustard in a limerick
Christmas Music
Cicero: on blogging
Cicero: on Higher Education
Cicero: on political flip-flopping
confession, best ever
Stephen M. Corey, “The Poor Scholar’s Soliloquy”
Thomas Cromwell in Art @ the Frick
Robertson Davies: Ornamental Knowledge
Robertson Davies: collected e-mail sigs
E-Church; Dan Piraro’s Bizarro
Roger Ebert: Creation and Art
Umberto Eco: Best of
Umberto Eco: Computer Wars
Umberto Eco: the Loss of a Parent 
Fiddler on the Roof, “Do You Love Me?”
“Fallacy, Love is a” by Max Shulman
Fiddler on the Roof, best song about marriage ever
Fowler’s Modern English Usage
Ian Frazier: Laws Concerning Food and Drink &c
Neil Gaiman (& Terry Pratchett): British monetary system (from Good Omens)
Cary Grant on marriage in a flick
El Greco’s Art @ the Frick
Graham Greene: grief in The Heart of the Matter
grief and the loss of a parent (U. Eco)
grief, Christmas 2021
Robert Hayden: Those Winter Sundays 
Seamus Heaney: Horace and the Thunder, notes
Seamus Heaney: Horace and the Thunder, poem
Mark Helprin: Predestination & Free Will
Mark Helprin: Winter’s Tale
Holbein’s Art @ the Frick
Holocaust Quotation in Boston
Walter Huston: The Dead
Immunization & Autism
Transubstantiationist Inscription at St. Lawrence outside the Walls
Transubstantiationist Inscription at St. Lawrence outside the Walls, at length
St. Jerome in Art @ the Frick
James Joyce: “The Dead”
Dave Karlotski: Season of the Bike
Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
Limerick on the Bustard
David Lodge: Conferences
Lost my Cherry to Reagan
“Love is a Fallacy,” by Max Shulman
Phil Madeira’s “Christmas This Year”
Magnificent Obituary
Marriage: Fiddler on the Roof, best song about
Marriage: The Grass is Greener, great quotation about
Frederica Mathewes-Green on her change to being anti-abortion
Merton’s prayer
MMR Vaccine & autism
Walter M. Miller jr: Francis’ Confession
St. Thomas More in Art @ the Frick
Motorcycles: Chromed Tires
Motorcycles: MSF Acronymns
Motorcycles: SC-1000
Motorcycles: Why I Ride
Mira Nair: The Namesake
O Antiphons of Advent

• December 17, O Sapientia
• December 18, O Adonai
• December 19, O Radix Iesse
• December 20, O Clavis David
• December 21, O Oriens
• December 22, O Rex Gentium
• December 23, O Emmanuel
• December 24, Advent reaches fulfillment

Obituary, Magnificent
Object Lessons: Another Oxford Comma
Object Lessons: Constitutional Comma
Object Lessons: Lohan texts
Object Lessons: Million-Dollar Comma
Object Lessons: Pronoun / Antecedent
Object Lessons: Pronunciation, Intonation, & Nails
Object Lessons: Synopsis 1
Object Lessons: Synopsis 2
Object Lessons: Synopsis 3
Object Lessons: Unfortunate Collocations
orphan: Eco on being one
Walker Percy: Bourbon
Walker Percy: Ex-Suicide
Dan Piraro; Bizarro: E-Church
“The Poor Scholar’s Soliloquy” by Stephen M. Corey
Terry Pratchett (& Neil Gaiman): British monetary system (from Good Omens)
Prayer from Thomas Merton
William Raspberry on civil civic discourse.
Recipes: Asparagus sauce (Peanut & Ginger)
Recipes: Baba Ghanouj
Recipes: Baked Beans
Recipes: Baked Home Fries 
Recipes: Balsamic red onion with green beans
Recipes: Banana Pudding, Scrumptious 
Recipes: Beef & Stout Stew w/Stilton Pastry (Williams-Sonoma)
Recipes: Blender Hollandaise
Recipes: Bloody Mary mix
Recipes: Blueberry Chutney
Recipes: Bok Choy Soup
Recipes: Brie in pastry w/ Red Onion Confit
Recipes: Brownies (Triple Chocolate)
Recipes: Brussels Sprouts
Recipes: Camembert & Caramelized Onion Quesadilla (w/Apple chutney)
Recipes: Caprese Sandwich, grilled
Recipes: Caramelized Onion Chutney
Recipes: Casserole, Jean Corey’s Egg w/chilies
Recipes: Casserole, Toni’s Easy Spinach
Recipes: Chaplain’s Triple Chocolate Brownies
Recipes: Cheese, Marinated (via Gloria)
Recipes: Chess Pie, Mrs. Moore’s
Recipes: Chicken, Curried
Recipes: Chili, Award-winning vegetarian
Recipes: Chimmichurri, Chris’s
Recipes: Chris’s Chimmichurri
Recipes: Corn on the Cob
Recipes: Cranberry Relish, Mama Stamberg’s
Recipes: Creole Garlic Soup
Recipes: Croutons 
Recipes: Curried Chicken
Recipes: Derby Pie
Recipes: Easy Spinach Casserole, Toni’s
Recipes: Egg Casserole, Jean Corey’s
Recipes: Eggs, hard boiled
Recipes: Eggs, Scrambled (Lady & Pups)
Recipes: Eggs, soft boiled
Recipes: Filet
Recipes: “Fries,” Baked Home 
Recipes: Fudge, Velma’s
Recipes: Garlic Soup, Creole
Recipes: Ginger/Nut Sauce (for asparagus)
Recipes: Goat Cheese Mousse
Recipes: Green beans with Balsamic red onion
Recipes: Grilled Caprese Sandwich
Recipes: Hollandaise in a blender
Recipes: Hard boiled eggs
Recipes: Hummus, Lentil
Recipes: Jam, Tomato
Recipes: Jean Corey’s Egg Casserole
Recipes: Kahlúa (the first draft, complete with disaster)
Recipes: Kahlúa, pt 2 (the final form)
Recipes: Lentil Hummus (revised recipe)
Recipes: Mac-n-Cheese in a skillet
Recipes: Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish
Recipes: Marinara
Recipes: Marinated Cheese (via Jeffita)
Recipes: Meatloaf
Recipes: Mint Julep (Lt. Gen. S.B. Buckner, Jr)
Recipes: Mint Julep (Walker Percy) (julep ice shaver)
Recipes: Mrs. Moore’s Chess Pie
Recipes: New York-Style Pizza Crust
Recipes: Old Fashioned
Recipes: Omelets
Recipes: Omelette Lyonnaise
Recipes: Onion Chutney
Recipes: Pancake, Swedish Apple
Recipes: Pancakes for Brunch
Recipes: Pasta e fagioli
Recipes: Pasta sauce
Recipes: Peanut Butter Bars
Recipes: Peanut & Ginger sauce (for asparagus)
Recipes: Pesto
Recipes: Pie, Chess (Mrs. Moore’s)
Recipes: Pie Crust cf. Strawberry Fudge Cheesecakey Pie
Recipes: Pizza Crust, New York
Recipes: Pizza Crust, Thin
Recipes: Potato Salad
Recipes: Potaotes, Baked Home Fries 
Recipes: Pudding, Scrumptious Banana 
Recipes: Red Onion Confit
Recipes: Roman Cheese
Recipes: Salmon, basic
Recipes: Salmon with Basil & Mint
Recipes: Salmon with Citrus Glaze (Alton Brown)
Recipes: Scrambled Eggs (Lady & Pups)
Recipes: Scrumptious Banana Pudding
Recipes: Skillet Mac-n-Cheese
Recipes: Soft boiled eggs
Recipes: Soup, Bok Choy
Recipes: Soup, Creole Garlic
Recipes: Spinach Casserole
Recipes: Spinach & Strawberry Salad with homemade vinaigrette
Recipes: Sprouts, Brussels
Recipes: (Mama) Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish
Recipes: Strawberry Fudge Cheesecakey Pie
Recipes: Strawberry Spinach Salad Vinaigrette
Recipes: Swedish Apple Pancake
Recipes: Tenderloin Filet
Recipes: Thin Pizza Crust
Recipes: Tomato Jam
Recipes: Tomato Pie
Recipes: Toni’s Easy Spinach Casserole
Recipes: Triple Chocolate Brownies
Recipes: Vegetarian chili (award winning)
Recipes: Velma’s Fudge
Recipes: Vinaigrette for spinach & strawberry salad
Reconciliation, Rite of; best ever
James Redfield on Classics & Anthropology
Rituale Romanum: Benedictio Cerevisae
St. Lawrence outside the Walls; Transubstantiationist Inscription
St. Lawrence outside the Walls; Transubstantiationist Inscription, at length
Dorothy Sayers on the Seven Deadly Sins (courtesy of Gashwin):

• Introduction
• “Warm-hearted sins”
• 1. Lust luxuria
• 2. Wrath ira
• 3. Gluttony (much about consumerism) gula
• “Cold-hearted sins”
• 4. Avarice / Covetousness (much about usury) avaritia
• 5. Envy invidia (a bit about social services)
• 6. Sloth acedia
• 7. Pride superbia

Scripture on Serious Sin
Omar Sharif on beautiful tasks
Shonen Knife’s “Space Christmas”
Shulman, Max: “Love is a Fallacy”
Solipsistic posts about posting &c; omitted
on the Split Infinitive

SWMBO’s Dietary Restrictions

Transubstantiationist Inscription at St. Lawrence outside the Walls
Transubstantiationist Inscription at St. Lawrence outside the Walls, at length
Vaccine & autism
Kurt Vonnegut: Moderately Talented
We Are Still Married 

William Butler Yeats: The Second Coming
Why Study Latin?