Saturday, February 13, 2010
Blogs <=> Coffeehouses
posted at 3:19 PM | Permalink | 6 comment(s)
Blog friend Ligneus commented, at a post at blog friend Alan Sullivan's, that
Isn’t it amazing how personal it gets and how close you can feel via the net and blogs to people who are otherwise strangers?
I’ve seen the internet compared to the eighteenth century coffee houses where people would meet to discuss the events and ideas of the time. So we miss the coffee, ambiance and physical presence of our companions, but we have a vastly increased number of people and exchange of ideas, on balance we win I think.
I agree, for one thing, but also am heartened to have an explanation that makes it seem acceptable to enjoy reading and contributing to blogs that are not simply rants and raves. I love the analogy to olden day coffeehouses especially since even modern day coffeehouses are some of my favorite places in the world, particularly if there are people willing to ponder, aloud. It's a relief to have a socially and intellectually acceptable reason for liking blogs!!

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Book of the week months
posted at 9:03 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
One of the advantages of working in a fairly large firm is that there are always different people to talk with and therefore different ways to look at things. Sometimes you expand your people universe because you run into someone unexpected in the hall (not run into literally, one hopes). And sometimes the larger universe comes to you.

On the elevator the other day, I exchanged pleasantries with a woman I know and have always admired for her intellectual curiosity and eagerness to stretch and learn in many directions. Shortly after our encounter, she mentioned - and invited me to join - a reading / discussion group she is in with some academic friends. The book they have begun is Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and I have to say I was excited at the prospect of reading and studying it now. And since my father wrote his doctoral thesis on Dante it feels quite full circle.

Like many, I studied The Divine Comedy in college literature classes but one is so inexperienced with life's events and with people in one's late teens and early twenties. I imagine it will be as it is an entirely new book. The professor recommends the Mandelbaum translation, by the way, as it displays the old Italian verses on the left ("old" being a technical term in this case as old Italian is quite different from modern Italian, not unlike English I suppose) and the English translation on the right. I'm sure she is correct that even if we do not know Italian, we will glean from it.

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