SUFJAN STEVENS

"No iron can stab the heart with such force as a full stop put just at the right place." This was going to be one of a number of 'literary quotes' displayed prominently around the classroom to try to inspire the students. And then I decided that I couldn't be arsed. However, it came into my mind again this morning, because no sound can quicken the pulse or gladden the heart like a Sufjan Stevens number. A quick check on Wiki. reveals the following:

Sufjan Stevens is an American singer-songwriter and musician from Michigan. He is known for his lyrically focused and instrumentally rich songs that often relate to faith and family. Stevens has enjoyed wide critical success in the United States. He is considered part of the folk revival in indie pop, but his influences are very broad. His music has been likened to electronica, the pop jazz of Vince Guaraldi, and the minimalism of Steve Reich. Stevens has announced plans to make a concept album for each of the 50 U.S. states, having begun the series with Michigan (2003) and Illinois... his ambitious "50 states" albums, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals inspired by his home state of Michigan. The result, the expansive Michigan, included odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith in God, sorrow, love and the regeneration of Michigan.

Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the Christian-folk album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004.

Next he released the second in the 50 states project, entitled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville, the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Chicago's observance of a holiday in honor of Casimir Pulaski, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr.

Some titles of songs include -

Come On! Feel The Illinoise!
Say Yes! To M!ch!gan!
Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head!

excellent.

SOUND WAVES

The next-door neighbour listens to Radio 4 all day. Often, I do, too. I'm sometimes working upstairs in the back room, which backs onto next door's garden and kitchen. I can hear their radio - usually broadcasting the same programme I'm listening to. I've been struck by the delay in the sound of their radio reaching me - next door's radio seems two whole seconds behind mine yet they are merely a few metres away. I couldn't figure this out; it's not like the delay of one hundred feet, such as the time taken to travel from the top to the bottom of a cliff. I've realised it's likely to be that their digital radio is not synchronised with my analogue model. So now the delay seems to have a prosaic explanation, after all.

VALENTINE'S DAY

In addition to this being an old feast day (The Feast of Lubercus, whoever he was), Europeans believed Valentine's Day was the day when birds would chose a mate and commence nest building. Cute. Thus, Drayton wrote about birds mating on Valentine's Day

Each little bird this tide
Doth choose her beloved peer,
Which constantly abide
In wedlock all the year.

And Chaucer, in "Parlement of Foules" wrote "For this was Seynt Valentine's Day when every foul cometh ther to choose his mate". True enough, it must be round about now that they begin to pair.

Main Type	Overall Self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||| 47% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||| 48% Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||||| 45% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||||| 49% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||| 56% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||| 55% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||| 43% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||| 38% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||| 49% Your main type is 5 Your variant is self preservation

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Enneagram: Type Five
The Thinker tries to figure out life. The Thinker has a compulsive need to know and understand, to be self-sufficient, to be left alone, and to avoid not having the answer or looking foolish.

KNOTS - LAING

These knots are kind of startling and I'm enjoying reading them

There must be something the matter with him
because he would not be acting as he does
unless there was.
Therefore he is acting as he is
because there is something the matter with him

He does not think there is anything the matter with him
because one of the things that is
the matter with him
is that he does not think that there is anything
the matter with him
therefore
we have to help him realize that,
the fact that he does not think there is anything
the matter with him
is one of the things that is
the matter with him.

DICKENS - Oliver

Just noticed this brilliant line:

"If he were not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought an action against his countenance for libel, and have recovered heavy damages."

WAKING THE DEAD

The first two in the new series were terrible. Just awful. But they've been getting steadily better. Tonight's was particularly good, developing, somewhat inevitably, the conflict between Foley and Boyd. I love that counterpoint: Trevor Eve's aggressive, dynamic "take no prisoners" style of pursuing a line, and Sue Johnson's empathetic, intuitive and more probing, psychological approach. They are, of course, stereotypically gendered roles, but that doesn't matter.

More than anything else when I watch this show, I realise that I want that kind of job. Far too late for me, now, of course. But psychology with a proper practical application must be the prize for anyone who makes it that far, and the 'carrot' for the many thousands of psychology undergraduates. Tonight the Foley character yelled at Boyd which led to him pondering all sorts of pertinent questions about denial and repression. I'd love a job like that... that is, if they even exist, and are not the constructions of television commissioning editors.