That's what YOU think!

Noam Chomsky's book has made me so angry that I've finally decided to get off my posterior (euphemism for lack of a better word) and do something. I am annoyed at myself for feeling like I was already busy when I could've done more. As the Economist says: "The Sudan Can't Wait." Naturally, countless other impoverished nations are included in the thought of this brief statement.

Feels like some sloth coming on...

Ahhhhh... good to be home. It's a bit cold though. I guess that's logical, as this place is a tad more cold on average than Missourah. You heard me: Missoooooorrrrahhhh.

I finished Twenty Years After! Finally! It's a great book, but I think my attention span is shrinking, because I read about ten things between my commencement and termination of it. I think I liked it better than the Three Musketeers. TTM is wonderful, but TYA is just so deliciously complex... A plethora of characters, historical and invented, as well as millions of little interweaving plotlines. However, I don't think I'll jump into the next one, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, just yet. As mentioned, my concentraion wanes.

Thus, I started another Aristophanes play, The Birds. So far I think I like it more than the others I've read of his. It doesn't get so tangled up in contemporary Athenian politics which, while interesting, are a tad hard to keep straight in one's underdeveloped head.

Doooown home town

Ahhhh... to be in the land where cowboy hats are an acceptable fashion statement; the land where you open up your host's closet to find four or five hunting rifles. It's a great place though, even with lots of little yellow magnet-ribbons over-patriotically adorning the rears of one in twenty cars. You get used to it all after a while, and just ignore all the stupid crap in the face of the real stuff. Like the river. However pumped full of industrial chemicals it is, it's still the Mississippi. I'm glad I thought to get some of it.

Anyway, I'm here in my grandparents' house with my uncle and aunt's family. They're pretty nice. Haven't seen 'em in about five years. I get a huge flashback with my cousin Neil. He is soooooo much like Brian was, with even more energy if that's possible.

I also saw Revenge of the Sith yesterday. It was everything I expected, which wasn't a whole lot. Worth seeing once, but I wouldn't take anyone *special* to it.

The Old Man in the Mountain.

A mountain holds a paradise in which
Are multitudes of human pleasure found.
There, all alluring voices, sweet of pitch,
Contend to fashion peacefulness profound.
Who might inhabit this idyllic place?
How might they have, while all of us have not,
A heaven in creation’s fallen space,
Where one’s concerns are easily forgot?
An old, dilapidated man is he
Who dwells in this enchanted lair of bliss.
And whosoe’er his victims chance to be,
Are lost inside unsafe forgetfulness.
To see again the Eden to them shown,
They’ll hazard death, and fight empires alone.

Two down, one to go.

Well, the English ones went pretty well. I'm almost certain I was the only one of my age there, but that was to be expected. The first was in a very cold gym with lots of long tables and uncomfortable chairs. Other then that, it was ok. Everyone seemed to love the passage on the emotional complexity of cowboys, as did I.

The next one was in a less cold Japanese classroom. We took it all alone. I'm amazed absolutely no one besides us did it, I mean, it's literature, how hard can it be? As it turns out, not very, but I suppose it's just the "unnecessary" effort that kept them away. Oh well.

I'm starting to like this Shaw guy, though he was a bit of a Socialist. Mind you, it was the better points of Socialism that he seemed to espouse, like equality, so it's not too bad. Pygmalion, needless to say, is a wonderful play. Phonetics and the Greek myth... Who else would've thought of that? Brilliant.