The Planster’s Vision
Cut down that timber! Bells, too many and strong,
Pouring their music through the branches bare,
From moon-white church-towers down the windy air
Have pealed the centuries out with Evensong.
Remove those cottages, a huddled throng!
Too many babies have been born in there,
Too many coffins, bumping down the stair,
Carried the old their garden paths along.
I have a [...]

Rather beautiful and very sad:

I tend to really enjoy reading Steyn’s song of the week,  and I usually do it accompanied by youtube versions of the song in question.  I figure it makes sense to post links together in case anyone else wants to appreciate them.
This week’s song is “Dance me to the end of love” by Leonard Cohen. [...]

From babynamewizard we have (click image for bigger version):

In case you don’t understand, watch this:

A friend points out that the same applies to Mary and Amanda and Alice and Anna. Mary was actually the 234th most popular men’s name in USA between 1900 and 1910.

As promised.
Here is how you would deconstruct this Guardian article: The great shift in global power just hit high gear, sparked by a financial crash — Martin Jacques
The text in question predicts the rise of China and the decline of the USA in terms of global power.  Here’s how we deconstruct:

First take some of the [...]

I’ve just been reading about deconstruction and that worthless charlatan esteemed intellectual Jacques Derrida.
As far as I can ascertain, this is how you are supposed to deconstruct a text:

Take a bunch of concepts or things from the text.

For each thing, take its opposite.  There may be many possible choices of opposite but it is important [...]

The bold encroachers on the deep
Gain by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune, with one general sweep,
Turns all again to barren strand.
The multitude’s capricious pranks
Are said to represent the seas,
Breaking the bankers and the banks,
Resume their own whene’er they please.
Money, the life-blood of the nation,
Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Its motion and [...]

Inspired by Steyn’s song of the week,  here’s Easter Parade, with Judy Garland manhandling Fred Astaire:

MALHEUR à la malheureuse Tamise
Qui coule si près du Spectateur.
Le directeur
Conservateur
Du Spectateur
Empeste la brise.
Les actionnaires
Réactionnaires
Du Spectateur
Conservateur
Bras dessus bras dessous
Font des tours
A pas de loup.
Dans un égout
Une petite fille
En guenilles
Camarde
Regarde
Le directeur
Du Spectateur
Conservateur
Et crève d’amour.
T.S. Eliot  (1920)
Always liked this. I think the last line is very powerful, flipping the poem from what would be an unremarkable though [...]

One of my students unwittingly reminded me of this:
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af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
ee cummings