And with unusual finality - I was finally due for a new computer from Columbia (we're on a four-year cycle), it arrived yesterday and I had an emergency meeting this morning at 9:30 with a faculty desktop support guy who set it up all up for me - I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a lovely but complicated trip to Cayman, England and Iceland, and it is a boon to have this new tiny computer to travel with rather than the current BEHEMOTH!
(Which I will now leave in my office so that I have a computer permanently there, and it may be the source of future blog postings, but it will no longer be the main device....)
Links:
Neglected books still neglected, including a very funny one noted by Anthony Burgess (clearly a major source for his own somewhat neglected novel The Wanting Seed). (Via.)
Listen to all ten of August Wilson's plays for free between now and the end of August!
What would Daniel Kahnemann eliminate if he had a magic wand?
Jane Goodall on 55 years at Gombe.
Sarah Waters' ten rules for writing fiction.
A delightful roundup at the TLS on four recent books about the history of British cooking and Steven Shapin at the LRB on the history of tea (subscriber-only I think).
Showing posts with label Jane Goodall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Goodall. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Closing tabs
Rather grumpy about ongoing minor respiratory ailment. Had hoped I might be able to run for a bit today, but really I'm still hawking up huge gobs of disgusting phlegm, it will not do lungs any good to strain them with exercise! Behind on various work stuff, generally feeling rather low. (About to dig in on clearing some of these overdue tasks, which with any luck will lead to a feeling of considerable relief .)
Nice writeup of last week's Swift symposium. I had a very funny conversation afterwards with an elderly Irishman who was peculiarly vivid of conversation. He was excited to tell me that I was "a BORN LECTURER: BORN TO THE PODIUM" - also I used two words he was unfamiliar with, paratactic and hypotactic, which let him tell me a wonderfully complex multi-part anecdote about an alcoholic friend of his, now deceased, who was a great lover of language and once told this gentleman, when he used the word "creature" to describe a lady, "to refer himself to the discipline of the dictionary"! This is now a good new phrase in my repertoire. Said friend died in hospital of complications due to alcoholism, but on his deathbed sung this gentleman two songs which I promised I would go and hear online: one I think was "The Parting Glass," if I am remembering correctly, and the other was a Gaelic song whose title loosely translated into "Nobody knows her name" (various versions here). Some reciting of Yeats was also involved....
Fun to see this profile of an old friend in my Digg feed!
Jane Goodall's jungle.
The link B. sent me yesterday really did bring a smile to my face: the Shetland Pony Grand National!
Nice writeup of last week's Swift symposium. I had a very funny conversation afterwards with an elderly Irishman who was peculiarly vivid of conversation. He was excited to tell me that I was "a BORN LECTURER: BORN TO THE PODIUM" - also I used two words he was unfamiliar with, paratactic and hypotactic, which let him tell me a wonderfully complex multi-part anecdote about an alcoholic friend of his, now deceased, who was a great lover of language and once told this gentleman, when he used the word "creature" to describe a lady, "to refer himself to the discipline of the dictionary"! This is now a good new phrase in my repertoire. Said friend died in hospital of complications due to alcoholism, but on his deathbed sung this gentleman two songs which I promised I would go and hear online: one I think was "The Parting Glass," if I am remembering correctly, and the other was a Gaelic song whose title loosely translated into "Nobody knows her name" (various versions here). Some reciting of Yeats was also involved....
Fun to see this profile of an old friend in my Digg feed!
Jane Goodall's jungle.
The link B. sent me yesterday really did bring a smile to my face: the Shetland Pony Grand National!
Saturday, February 08, 2014
My family and other animals
At the FT, Ben Martynoga visits Jane Goodall in her family home at Bournemouth. Really enchanting picture at the bottom of Goodall's "favorite thing": 
(Photo credit: Victoria Birkenshaw.)
It is difficult to overstate the extent of my youthful obsession with Goodall: I really thought for many years that it would be my vocation in life to go and study chimpanzees (or perhaps gorillas) in their natural habitats. I can't pin the date down exclusively, but the book that was my utter obsession the year I turned eight was In the Shadow of Man. I read it again and again - and in fact in childhood times of stress and trouble I would retire to my room and contemplate the chimpanzee family trees on the endpapers and think about how much better life would be if I were living with a tribe of chimpanzees instead of a human family!
As a 12-year-old, she joined eight matchboxes together to make a stack of small drawers and filled them with dozens of handwritten scrolls; each slip of paper contains a quote from the Bible. Goodall made this Bible box as a gift for her grandmother and, for more than 50 years, the family have used it as an inspirational lottery.
(Photo credit: Victoria Birkenshaw.)
It is difficult to overstate the extent of my youthful obsession with Goodall: I really thought for many years that it would be my vocation in life to go and study chimpanzees (or perhaps gorillas) in their natural habitats. I can't pin the date down exclusively, but the book that was my utter obsession the year I turned eight was In the Shadow of Man. I read it again and again - and in fact in childhood times of stress and trouble I would retire to my room and contemplate the chimpanzee family trees on the endpapers and think about how much better life would be if I were living with a tribe of chimpanzees instead of a human family!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
"And also, I didn't want the pigs to eat her"
Jane Goodall interviewed at Salon. (Thanks to Shanna for the link.)
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