BERNEVAL

I Ching
Hexagram 62

When a bird flies too high, its song is lost.

Graffito in a lane way in Toronto – Humility is Endless

Two pieces from a little stroll through the oracle online and through an ally way in my physical neighbourhood in Toronto. Two pieces spliced. A rudimentary mashup.

And so for day 2749
23.06.2014

Ever notice that there is “tea” in “teacher”?

I can drink to that. Slowly or gulp quickly.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves — slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

Thich Nhat Hanh (quoted in a number of locations)

And so for day 2748
22.06.2014

Gentle Reader:

I would say these numbers tell us very little about the
audience you have. I don’t think numbers can do this. For
me, an audience is made up of people who do things like pay
attention, show interest, listen or read carefully, ask good
questions, make useful comments, offer suggestions, press
counter arguments, tell you about what they think, show you
other things you may be interested in, point out your
mistakes, praise your clarity and illumination, ask to talk to
you about their work, engage in fruitful correspondence, and
such like.

Tim Smithers
On Humanist 33.730: on using academia.edu & Humanities Commons

The whole Humanist post is an exercise in scholarly decorum and appropriate phatic and cognitive functions (the three “letters” have opening and closing salutations). Well worth preserving and keeping in mind and showing students or members of your audience what the “hard” work of being a humanist looks like and what an plug should look like — care of Kathleen Fitzpatrick. She is Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English Michigan State University. Her contribution in Humanist 33:730 promotes Humanities Commons in a graceful fashion. Full disclosure — Kathleen and I have been part of each other’s audience for a good decade or more. I truly appreciate her blogging, tweets and her online presence. As do countless scholars known and unknown to me.

And so for day 2746
20.06.2014

Give a kid a magnifying glass
Give a kid a microscope
Give a kid a telescope

Give them the knowledge they can close their eyes

Give them the knowledge they can cover one eye then the other
“Cover” (in case they can only wink with one eye)

Let them find their own mirrors

And so for day 2744
18.06.2014

The die is cast: loaded dice that will never give snake eyes.

Match a die with pips with one with numerals. Roll then and then do arithmetic.

Inspired by Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings

And so for day 2743
17.06.2014

“Jell-O”
from Kentucky Derby by Andrea Cohen

Beginning and end…

O, I remember those days
stuck in bed with a lunch
that wiggled, like a pet
that happy to see you,
a pet you were meant to eat.

[…]

O, love is strange, we do
strange things: give a child
a wild-eyed herd of horses
in a bowl and expect
her to get better.

Note: gelatin was/is made from animal parts.
If you think this is myth, I cite Snopes as my authority
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gelatin-source/

See agar-agar for a vegetarian option

{Every adolescent learning to cook should do a year of being vegetarian or at least handle agar-agar and adjust sugar which you often can’t do with a commercial product … }

Note the placement of the O in Andrea Cohen’s poem at the line openings. The horse references are an appropriate leitmotif in a book with the title Kentucky Derby.

Jell-O is the trademarked name. “Jello” is the generic word that you will find in late twentieth-century (or later) dictionary.

The book Hello Jell-O! by Victoria Belanger has a disclaimer right on the cover: “This book is not sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated in any way with Jell-O®, Jell-O is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods.” Kraft in turn were sponsors of television programs and their products were a big part of imparting an appreciation for new tastes in many a working-class household.

And so for day 2742
16.06.2014