macaronic-john.blogspot.com
Macaroni: Canoeing the Kickapoo
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Thursday, June 25, 2015. We "did" a stretch in early May, before the summer hordes arrived. During our four-hour descent we met only one other group - a party of young men taking a break on a mid-river sandbar. It was more common to come upon fly fisherman standing on the banks, especially during the early part of the trip. The current was moderate, the paddling was easy and often all but unnecessary. Two young boys were fishing for sunnies on the beach with their mother. They reeled in their lines a...
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Macaroni: October 2014
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014. The Dictionary of Untranslatables. I have begun to wonder of late whether life's abiding truths are largely to be found in the titles of the popular songs of the 1930s—“Out of Nowhere,” “All the Things You Are,” “My Ideal,” “Body and Soul.”. Yet philosophy has its music, too, and now we have an anthology of its greatest hits, in the very thick book Dictionary of Untranslatables: a Philosophical Lexicon. Sunday, October 26, 2014. Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. It’s based on par...
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Macaroni: Why Grow Up? Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age
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Monday, July 27, 2015. Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age. The focus of this rambling treatise disguised as a cultural critique is the relationship between the is. Good idea. As a small way of putting the pursuit of the ideal into effect, let me suggest a few ways that her own book might have been improved. And decided to include the entire thing as a means of padding the book. The presentation would have been more compelling if a hundred pages had been cut. 3) Broader range of reference. Neima...
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Macaroni: Summer Reading
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Thursday, July 9, 2015. Does anyone actually go to a beach in the summertime to read? More likely the cabin in the woods, at least in this part of the country. In any case, it's a handy trope for gathering together a list of reading suggestions for idle summer evenings. Here are a few of mine. Bears: a Brief History. By Bernt Brunner (Yale, 2007). The book is crisply written and rich in both folklore and historic illustrations. Opening it at random we come upon sentences like this one:. His descriptions ...
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Macaroni: August 2015
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Friday, August 28, 2015. Why would anyone drive for six hours, then pile into a very small and tippy watercraft, paddle into the wind for a hour in misty 50 degree weather, then stop on some rocks and string up a tarp to block the wind and drizzle—all for the purpose of reading a book? Because it's fun. It's expansive. It's challenging. It's elemental. It's also unpredictable, which adds to the drama. It was 1 pm. Our paddling was over. My camp notes (in part) read as follows:. The wind has shifted. ...
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Macaroni: On Singing in a Choir - Oratorio Society Summer Chorus
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Saturday, August 8, 2015. On Singing in a Choir - Oratorio Society Summer Chorus. On our first foray into that realm together—a December sing-along Messiah. At Central Lutheran Church downtown—I got caught up in the majesty of standing in the midst of a few hundred powerful voices, even if mine wasn't one of them. Then we heard from our friend Debbie that the Oratorio Society. To my mind the crowning virtue of the program was the repertoire—opera choruses! The reply was pleasant and to the point. Sig...
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Macaroni: Bastille Day Meditations
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Tuesday, July 14, 2015. Unlike the slightly frantic and explosion-centered Fourth of July, Bastille Day has become a more broadly international, non-religious, open-ended celebration of personal liberty, artistic expression, social indulgence, and community values—all the things that make civilized living worthwhile. Avec ses quatre dromadaires. Don Pedro d' Alfaroubeira. Courut le monde et 'ladmira. Il fit ce que je voudrais faire. Si j'avais quatre dromadaires. With guitarist Sylvain Luc. By Jacques Bo...
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Macaroni: April 2015
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Tuesday, April 28, 2015. The Minneapolis film fest is a three-week event. But when the leaves are opening on the trees you start saying to yourself, "I don't really need to see any. Of these films. No one else will ever see them. One is more or less like another." That's when it's nice to get an email from a friend:. I'm lined up for Magicarena. Today, and am thinking about Grandad. Tomorrow, and possibly Tu Dors Nicole. On Saturday night as well (gonna hafta take a nap before that).". The elephants invo...
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Macaroni: May 2015
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Thursday, May 28, 2015. Walks in (Drizzle) Beauty. Walk in beauty: so the Navajo advise us, though it's not that easy to do. Yet sometimes it seems that beauty walks in us. Or all around us. We try to worm our way in. Then on to Calhoun, where I parked on the west side of the lake, just across from the volleyball courts, and pulled out my copy of Roberto Calasso's Ardor. I was having a hard time concentrating (maybe you were, too) when suddenly it occurred to me that I was only a few blocks from a shop I...
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Macaroni: June 2015
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Thursday, June 25, 2015. We "did" a stretch in early May, before the summer hordes arrived. During our four-hour descent we met only one other group - a party of young men taking a break on a mid-river sandbar. It was more common to come upon fly fisherman standing on the banks, especially during the early part of the trip. The current was moderate, the paddling was easy and often all but unnecessary. Two young boys were fishing for sunnies on the beach with their mother. They reeled in their lines a...
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