jabloggy

hiya

In the Summer of 2006 I visited Rom for two weeks for a graduate school class, the name of which I no longer remember. While there, we visited the major sites. The Vatican (and Museum), The Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, etc.

But then, one day, our professor took us to Campo De' Fiore, gathered us all around this random statue, of which we were unfamiliar with. He told us the story of Giordano Bruno, the Dominican friar who was silenced behind an iron mask and was burned at the stake for heresy in this very place, and his ashes cast into the Tiber river.

Our professor then proceeded to read this poem to us, and by the end, we were all in tears.

What He Though

by Heather McHugh

We were supposed to do a job in Italy and, full of our feeling for ourselves (our sense of being Poets from America) we went from Rome to Fano, met the Mayor, mulled a couple matters over. The Italian literati seemed bewildered by the language of America: they asked us what does “flat drink” mean? and the mysterious “cheap date” (no explanation lessened this one’s mystery). Among Italian writers we

could recognize our counterparts: the academic, the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous, the brazen and the glib. And there was one administrator (The Conservative), in suit of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide with measured pace and uninflected tone narrated sights and histories the hired van hauled us past. Of all he was most politic— and least poetic— so it seemed. Our last few days in Rome I found a book of poems this unprepossessing one had written: it was there in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended) where it must have been abandoned by the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn’t read Italian either, so I put the book back in the wardrobe’s dark. We last Americans

were due to leave tomorrow. For our parting evening then our host chose something in a family restaurant, and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till, sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make our mark, one of us asked

“What’s poetry? Is it the fruits and vegetables and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori

or the statue there?” Because I was the glib one, I identified the answer instantly, I didn’t have to think— “The truth is both, it’s both!” I blurted out. But that was easy. That was easiest to say. What followed taught me something about difficulty,

for our underestimated host spoke out all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:

The statue represents Giordano Bruno, brought to be burned in the public square because of his offence against authority, which was to say the Church. His crime was his belief the universe does not revolve around the human being: God is no fixed point or central government but rather is poured in waves, through all things: all things move. “If God is not the soul itself, he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world.” Such was his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die

they feared he might incite the crowd (the man was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors placed upon his face an iron mask in which he could not speak.

That is how they burned him. That is how he died, without a word, in front of everyone. And poetry—

(we’d all put down our forks by now, to listen to the man in gray; he went on softly)— poetry

is what he thought, but did not say.

Decided to take the ol' professional site for an actual spin to see if I can make anything of it.

Just wait. This time next month, I'll be a LinkedIn influencer posting memes about how people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers.

Because that trope hasn't been rehashed a million times yet.

I’ve been listening to the Stone Temple Pilots discography beginning to end over the course of the past few days.

Currently wrapping up No. 4. I remember being so excited about this album when it came out back in 1999. It brought back the heavy roots of STP after the poppy glam rock feel of Tiny Music three years earlier, though not fully departing from it (see Church on Tuesday, e.g.).

Listening to it now, 25 years after its release (holy shit), I hear the album for what it is — a failed attempt to regain the commercial success the band once had in the mid-90s. Unfortunately, between Scott Weilands legal and drug issues, and a music scene that mostly left grunge behind, they never were able to recover.

As I type this, the next album, Shangri-La Dee Da (such a ridiculous name), has started, and from the get-go, I’m feeling the nostalgia that the hard-core fan of the band in me had when it was released in 2001. But, again, in hindsight I can only hear it as the dying gasp of a band that I adored and followed diligently (and to many of my friends, annoyingly — sorry about that) for so many years. This album is where my love affair with STP ended.

The next three albums will be an interesting listen. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to any of them in their entirety.

#music #grunge #nostalgia

The weekends are great, but the inner child in me still wants to stay up late, which is a problem because the adult in me still wakes up early, which results in my weekend leaving me more exhausted come Monday due to inadequate sleep.

Somehow federation seems to be broken and I can't figure out why. The settings all seem to be right on the back end, but I'm not seeing the posts when I follow @eb@blog.jabooty.org from Mastodon.

Thoughts? Hit me up on Mastodon if you have any ideas.

Rewatched one of my fave movies tonight — Garden State, written and directed by Zach Braff. I haven't watched it in years, and after all this time, it still holds up.

Good luck exploring the infinite abyss, everyone.

🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦

I am equal parts proud, scared, and embarrassed that the purple category came to me so easily today.

#NYTConnections

Tiny post.

That's it. That's the post.

Decided to start working on my CAC Certification this weekend. Pretty fast progress. Might actually finish by Sunday. #ProfessionalDevelopment #CompAnalyst

Picked up two expansion packs for our Villainous games tonight.

Played a couple rounds of Twisted Ambitions, both times I played as Kang the Conqueror while Pam played as Doctor Octopus. Pam won both times. Overall, a good expansion.

#Games #MarvelVillainous #StarWarsVillainous