Susan Wise Bauer's Blog, page 23

Scenes from Venice

We're on Dan's birthday trip; he wanted to see Italy and Greece (I guess some of that classical education penetrated the neurocranium) and so we've planned to divide the trip into three: Venice, Rome, Athens.

Venice is IMPOSSIBLE to navigate. You just have to stare at the sky, keep walking, and hope you run into 1) the railway station, 2) the Grand Canal, or 3) a church big enough to be on your totally inadequate but picturesque map. A good part of our four days in Venice has been spent...

Dan's birthday trip, Phase One

It's been part of our family plan to take each child on a birthday trip somewhere out of the U.S. sometime during the year after the year they turn thirteen. It's a rite of passage, but also a chance for us to spend a couple of weeks entirely alone with one of the kids.

Christopher chose Scotland and England, Ben chose Jamaica; Daniel asked for Italy. We planned a trip to Venice and Rome, and then Pete suggested adding a couple of days in Athens ("We'll practically BE there already, after a...

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-12

Just returned DS19 to dorm with stern instructions to rest, eat 3x daily, drink liquids. Following own advice by having lunch on the Mall. #The reverse image of imagophobia is grammatolatry. #Having trouble with a metaphor. Does a trajectory have points on it? You know, like dots that outline the trajectory's path? #I would like to thank my Twitter followers for being so good with metaphors. #Must…write…faster… #I need a synonym for "apocalypse" (because you can only use the word...

The boundary stone

Last week I was reading an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) and was struck by this line:

And I have a small stone "Boundary God" statue from Sulawesi Indonesia right here on my desk, next to my laptop, reminding me not to say "yes" to everything!

Oh, I thought, a boundary marker; that's a wonderful idea.

"Boundaries" has turned into one of those pop-psych terms that shows up every time women start talking about their lives (remember "co-dependency," last decade's...

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-05

Staring down a week's worth of work… #

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When all else fails: chicken and dumplings

In the middle of preparing lectures and spelling out writing lessons and elucidating grammar lessons and working on the History of the Renaissance World…the rest of life revolves on.

Revolves, turns, rotates…it's hard to find a word that carries the exact shade of meaning, the one that implies exactly the right sort of forward movement, taking the same exact struggles to a different place, in which they're neither the same nor different, but both distinct from the previous struggle, and...

When the book was the new technology

In preparation for those Vancouver lectures, I've been reading lots and lots of different takes on Marshall McLuhan's aphorism, "The medium is the message." (I think he's wrong, by the way, but you'll have to listen to the lectures in November to find out why.) From critiques of McLuhan, I took a rabbit trail into the early days of print and the effect this had on the reading process. And while I was reflecting on how the book changes words, I came across this.

A note from an Australian reader

I wanted to pass on this email from a reader…both because I enjoyed it and because it demonstrates just how books get sold. (Not primarily through ads in the New York Times, in short.)

Dear Susan,

I live in Australia – which is probably the antipodes to Charles City, VA. Three hours ago I hade never heard of Susan Wise Bauer, nor had I any intention to buy a book on medieval history, and yet here I am, three hours later, having ordered "The History of the Medieval World", and very likely to...

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29

My head is full of fourteenth-century German kings and non-restrictive clauses and SAT prep classes and uncleaned stalls. #My head is full of papal monarchies and Augustinian dichotomies, Postman and McLuhan, outlining exercises and home-made pasta. #I seem to be adrift in a sea of sloppy thinking. Doesn't anyone study logic any more? #Multiple anecdotes do not an argument make. #Happy seventeenth birthday, Ben! #Baking anniversary/birthday cake and watching news. Very weird day in U.S...

Rites of passage

This was a big week for life events: we delivered Christopher to his freshman year at college, and Ben turned seventeen.

The college trip came first…after a last goodbye from the youngest.

(Wait, one last visit from the brain-sucker…)

Arriving…

Picking up dorm keys…

And moving in.

Right after I took that picture, Pete and I realized that two perfectly healthy young men, aged eighteen and nineteen, were completely capable of unpacking and organizing all their own stuff. So we left and went...