Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
Anna found these two pieces of reading material lying haphazardly adjacent. The irony was too good to be left unshared.
Once upon a time, I ordered a subscription to The Believer. Excitedly, I awaited my first issue. And waited. And waited. After about three months, I submitted the following witty complaint to the McSweeney headquarters. Surely they would listen to such well-reasoned disgrunt.
Dear McSweeney's,
Back on September 15 (or so my order confirmation email informs me), I purchased a year's subscription to your colorful magazine The Believer. My order confirmation email (Order xxxxxxx) assured me that my first issue would be in October 2007. Yet it is now December and I have yet to receive a copy, from October or any other month. I have checked the confirmation email and the address I supplied was correct in all details. Have you been sending out issues to vanish in the abyss that we call the United States Postal Service? Or did my order get lost in the shuffle of late-night editing and publishing? See, my distress at not having received my magazine prompts me to communicate with your customer service department on Christmas Day. However, the establishment at McSweeney's may attend to my query after the holidays have past. On the other hand, I respectfully request that the matter be looked into as swiftly as possible as my New Year's resolutions do include reading the Believer. Thanks greatly for your assistance.
Sincerely,
A would-be reader
(Sarah Funke)
Apparently McSweeney's felt that this, if any, was a reader who needed their magazine. So today I received my first issue. Which appears to be the 50th for McSweeney.
I must say this year is gonna be full of good reading:
Beauty is casual
A simple shrug and you fade into it
Like Friday afternoon.
A comfortable communion of attraction.
And the weekend's memories still to be made.
Beauty is a ball gown
Applied with care.
Served with a smile to
Dazzle.
Enchant.
Delight.
And the glittering night fractures into stardust.
Beauty is a bifurcation
Divided with mascara masks
And smooth eyeliner lines.
Or is it only a color wave
Shaped by another's retina?
Glamor and comfort sport
Over the territory of face.
And the image of Woman is swept into a compact.
Beauty is redemption
Exfoliated soul.
Where radiance is action.
And the bride comes adorned in lamp-lit readiness.
"You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion." ~G. K. Chesterton
"I cannot grow a beard despite months of premeditation." ~Sarah Funke
A somewhat positive review on Philip Pullman's Dark Materials series has rapidly become my most-read blog entry. I just have a few more things to add since posting those remarks.
I had already mentioned that I probably wouldn't recommend the books to children because of the vague (implied) sexuality. I went ahead and assumed that vagueness was in fact real and gave a few remarks on what that might mean from a Christian perspective. However, the one nagging issue was the still the fact that these kids were....well...kids. Twelve year olds having sex? Um, a bit racy, even for adult fiction. On the other hand, the scene *was* really vague. Could I just wishfully think they didn't? Or was that just silly Christian naivety?
Thankfully, Pullman is on my side. When asked about this point in his books, Pullman refused to pull a "Dumbledore is gay." He said that he deliberately wrote the scenes vaguely so that readers could make the call. If hard pressed, his own opinion was that they were too young, but hey, read the book for yourself. I appreciated that literary judgment call (an author like Rowling who feels compelled to spell every controversial nuance out has somehow failed to write very powerfully, I believe).
So--the choice is yours, my reader friends. And don't feel silly if you want to believe that two kids saved some things for later. You've at least got support from the author in that view. (You've also got support if you hold the other view, but at least we can agree to disagree.)
For some more extended reviews, please read the First Things article.
In light of the upcoming film based on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, there is new concern over Philip Pullman's devout atheism and antagonism towards C.S. Lewis. Will children be blindsided into ditching Aslan for Dust? I'm actually a decent fan of Pullman's literary style and books, whatever can be said for the man himself, and so here are a few of my thoughts on the series:
Organized religion bears a good deal of power. Pullman's books illustrate rather profoundly what happens when such power grows corrupt.
As much as Pullman dislikes Lewis, interestingly enough, he structures his book as an answer to Paradise Lost rather than as a response to the Chronicles of Narnia. (There is still some connection, as Lewis loved Paradise Lost, but he obviously didn't write it.) Pullman's books are also meant to counter the gnosticism (inferiority of the body, physical world) that inflects Lewis' work to some degree and Milton's work rather blatantly. And yet apparently really compelling fantasy involves conflict between the seen and unseen, because a certain measure of gnosticism remains even in Pullman's books. [On a related note, if we want to keep our kids from having their imaginations corrupted, I think we need to ban Paradise Lost ( the theology in it is hardly orthodox--so have at bashing it, is my conclusion).]
The most offensive part of the book is the figure of God that Pullman paints. And yet to me, that figure is really just the picture of anyone who usurps what is not rightfully theirs, burdened down by a power that does not belong to them. (Pullman calls "god" the first angel--anyone else remember an angel trying to set themselves up as "god"?--in Pullman's world, this angel really did succeed.) So the real Power of the universe remains mysteriously unknowable. This lack of personal interaction with God puts Pullman in the same camp as Tolkien, and I don't think kids will suffer if there is no Aslan figure explicitly laid out in their novels.
I have a second note of caution about the books, which would make me hesitant to give them to kids until they were probably freshman in high school: there is one episode of very vaguely described sexuality. However, I believe this moment is rather crucial to the whole (intended) project of the book, Pullman's final assault on Milton: in Paradise Lost, sex comes after the fall, sealing its "dirtiness" and subsequently the inferiority and uncleanness of the body and the physical world. In Pullman's universe, sex "saves" the world, signifying the act's sanctified goodness. In a culture of oversaturation and desensitization regarding sex, it was refreshing to find an author who treated it as holy and "set apart" (not set apart in the context of marriage, since Pullman is decidedly not a Christian, but set apart in the sense of having profoundly universal significance).
All that said, I would not throw the books at kids without discussion, but I believe that there are some good issues that Pullman raises. Maybe a family could read the Narnia chronicles and His Dark Materials in tandem, because I believe that they have different, albeit complementary, things to say.
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Update: Hm. Over on another thread, someone argued that Milton includes some descriptions of sexuality *pre* Fall...my statements here may have to wait while I go digging up some Milton.
Update #2: Please read some updated remarks here.
Chesterton had little regard for "modern" attitudes. Here, through the eyes of a villainous character, he describes the monotony of modernity:
You think Victoria* is like the New Jerusalem. We [poets] know that the New Jerusalem will only be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt.
~The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton
"Contentment" usually suggests visions of dull doormats. Yet it is the discontent who are eternally bored...the cynical who are never happy....the jaded who cannot be amazed.
*A train station in London
I'd almost forgotten that I had an account, but summer time is opening up new possibilities to add to the shelves. Now if I don't spend so much time on the computer trying to update my reading list, I can actually get a few more titles under my belt. Titles that don't begin with Postmodern Theory of..... Ah. Speaking of which, good news. I have a second reader and thesis defense coming up soon.
Details seem to be falling into place for a move to Boston in the Fall.
The Virginian is a novel that, despite its political incorrectness, despite its Noble Savage narrator view, despite its pontifications, still manages to spark all the Romanticism that lurks behind my jaded academic exterior. I am rereading it for the upteenth time, laughing at Em'ly the hen who hatches potatoes, the tale of the Frog Legs ranch, the baby swappin' prank, and the outsmarting of the over-zealous preacher. And "If a man ain't got no ideas of his own," says Scipio, "he ought to be mighty careful who he borrows them from."
I also recommend Ralph Moody, and not just cause he was a Coloradoan.
We're talking Atticus Finch sorts of heroics. C. S. Lewis once remarked that one outgrows fairy tales only to grow into them again. I hope that I will never grow too old to appreciate nobility: equality, justice, hard work, and mom's apple pie. Are these too much to long for?
I just submitted my application for the IHS Journalism Internship. I always experience a sense of mild relief after submitting something, whether it be an application or a final paper. During the preparation process I feel so hyper-Arminian: everything depends on my work and efforts in making myself look good. But once I hit the "submit application" button, I destress into hyper-Calvinist mode: there is nothing I can do about anything anymore, so I might as well do something else, like watch Slings and Arrows, which Laura recommended. And while I am blaming my friends for things, I just want to say that I have become completely engrossed in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, despite the fact that the volume is some 784 pages long and threatens to surpass my thesis in terms of academic priorities. Linnea really ought to warn people about those sorts of things. I wish I wrote like Susanna Clarke, or any English author for that matter. Such facetiousness.
According to the Hipster Handbook, the technical term is the PoLit (political/literary). But I just like Literazzi better...
The book came in handy the other day when one of my CoSpgs friends admitted that he was beginning to look a "little indie." Naturally, I was intrigued, so I sent him a couple of pictures of hipsters. "Ach. No girls' jeans!" he protested. "No, there is a specific look that I have always associated with indie for some reason."
"Describe it," I said.
"The blazer with elbow patches, worn with jeans and sneakers, longish/shaggish hair, with black-rimmed glasses."
"Oh," I said. "The English major."
"Well, at my school, the look is predominantly associated with the philosophy major, but yes, the English major can sport that look, too."
I refrained from mentioning that at my school, we were just happy that the philosophy majors wore anything at all....
But a quick look in the Handbook confirmed my suspicions. The best term for the look is the PoLit. But I had already thrown about the phrase Literazzi by that point, so we could go with that, too....
Death Cab for Cutie, the Quintessential Literazzi Band...
One book that changed my life: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
One book that you have read more than once: Watership Down by Richard Adams
One book you would want on a desert island: (I am assuming this is in addition to the Bible). This question is like asking me whether I'd like to keep my eyes or my ears.
Maybe I'd say Godel, Esher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
[Two] books that made you laugh: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and all ensuing sequels. Goops and How to Be Them by Gelett Burgess.
[Three] books that made you cry: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louis May Alcott, The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings.
One book you wish had been written: A biography of Matt and Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces. This would make my research easier...
Several books you wish had not been written: The Prayer of Jabez...um The Purpose Driven Life...uh, Wild at Heart...er, The Sacred Romance...well, you get the picture.
One book you are currently reading: Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott.
One book you've been meaning to [finish]: The Idiot by Dovstoevsky.
For all you Covenant people who had to read Friedman for Global Trends: you might find this critique of The World Is Flat from the perspective of a math and computer science double major (with interests in politics and economics) to be interesting.
I've always criticized the book from a literary perspective (the writing style relies too heavily on multitudes of metaphors), so I appreciate hearing an assessment of the actual content.
While I don't usually spend much time in CCM circles, every once in a while, I feel compelled to advertise. In this case, the reason is that the pianist and back-up vocalist for 33Miles is a longtime family friend. Collin's the one on the far right. He always was a bit of performer and social ham (and I mean that in an affectionate way), and now it's fun to see his band taking off. You can listen to a few of their songs here.
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Also, I am intrigued though baffled by this conversation. My mom suggested I merely rely on this.
A friend recently expressed frustration over the prevelant use of vulgar/curse words by Christians and inquired whether using vulgarity was ever permissible. This was my somewhat lengthy response:
First, I would like to say that I would rather hear the R-rated "f---" all day than the PG-rated "OMG." I cringe whenever I hear the latter, though culturally it is considered quite acceptable.
Which brings me to some serious thinking about language (a la Wittgenstein): is language meaning largely the result of the way we use words rather than what they refer to (in a sense-reference theory of meaning). Wittgenstein gets at the way people relate to language and through language much better than Russell, Moore, and Frege do (in my opinon). If usage determines meaning, then, "darn" and "heck" are no different than the words they stand in for: they are used in precisely the same situations to express the same kind of real anger/frustration, pseudo-anger for comedic relief, or attention-grabbing emphasis.
However, Bakhtin talks about how each form of language (way of saying something: in this case anger) also communicates meaning. In this case, "darn" does mean something different from "d---." "Darn," being culturally coded as more acceptable than "d---," can therefore mean "I am angry, but not so much that I seek to blatantly offend you."
I also believe that curse words related to bodily functions (such as "sh--" and "f---") are inherently harmless: it's the way they are coded as vulgar in our post-Victorian society that makes them offensive. If, for example, "tablecloth" came to mean something crude instead of the covering on the table, then it would be offensive, too, but not because of anything inherently wrong with tablecloths. I am wondering, though, if alternatively "sh--" and "f---" become used so often in certain contexts (mostly among the younger generation or else sailors, I guess) that they lose a degree of offensiveness. You may be offending society at large, but not anyone immediately around you if you use those words in this context.
"D---" and "h---" are slightly more problematic because of their invocation of curses on other people or things (although, funnily, in our post-Victorian climate, considered far less crude and thus less offensive...). However, I think that unless you are seriously expressing anger towards a specific person ("D---" you!"), then these words fall under the same guidelines as "sh--" and "f---." We are called not to use vulgar language, but what is vulgar depends on how everyone 1) in the larger society and 2) immediately around you has been taught to react to the words.
Which brings me to my conclusion: vulgarity depends upon context. And I would rather err on the side of NOT using vulgar words than to risk offending anyone. There are, on occasion, a few times when a well-placed four-letter word is the best way to indicate, culturally, that I mean business. I never use four-letter words in face-to-face conversation, however, because a) the degree of offensiveness seems to go up in immediate contact and b) I have opportunity to communicate the degree of seriousness and emphasis I want to through facial gestures and expression. (Anyway, I am so used to NOT using the words, that I would be far from convincing.)
Regarding using coarse words to convey pseudo- or mock anger designed to make others laugh. I guess it depends on your view of parody and whether it is healthy or beneficial to imitate a less-than-desirable state in order to 1) critique it and 2) dispel anxiety about it.
I will conclude with a reference back to my initial comment: I really think that the list of words that cannot be culturally diffused is small, probably limited to taking the Lord's Name in vain and the intentional damnation of another human--since that usurps God's power and is thus a blasphemy in itself.
And so while hearing people say "f---" around me all day has gotten to be second nature, I still cringe every time I hear "OMG" or Christ's name though it occurs with the same frequency as the former.
"...Laughter has the remarkable power of making on object come up close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact where one can finger it familarly on all sides, turn it upside down, inside out, peer at it from above and below, break open its external shell, look into its center, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it bare and expose it, examine it freely, and experiment with it...Laughter is a vital factor in laying down that fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the world realistically." [Bahktin, "Epic and Novel"]
Comedy and tragedy have an uneasy relationship. Comedy upsets the lesson that tragedy tries to impart; it is the naughty spitballer in the classroom. It exposes the farce that tragedy enacts; we see the emperor without his clothes on. And yet, in the eyes of some, the upstart comic belongs to a lower level of aesthetics. Comedy is for the moment; one laughs and then forgets. Lasting knowledge comes through the tragedy.
Yet I think we take ourselves too seriously because we fail to take God seriously enough. We would not build shrines to ourselves if we fully saw the face of God. Laughter is a path to perspective: flaws are exposed, but the cross stands ready for those who die to gain life.
That mini-manifesto in championship of the comedy aside, enjoy this for the evening:
I watched Tess last night, sandwiched around fencing practice, since the film is longish to get through in one go. And I am noticing a Thomas Hardy pattern: one deeply troubled woman marries, loses husband, marries someone else, husband #1 (the one she really loves) returns, and someone has to die. Or do they?
What are the legal ramifications in this case? It seems as if the woman would still be married to the first man, and have every right to return to him without killing someone in the process. In Far from the Madding Crowd, at least, husband no. #2 shot husband no. #1 and was hanged for it, so Bathesheba was conveniently free to marry the faithful Farmer Oake. Perhaps this relatively happy ending is the reason I enjoy Bathesheba's story more than I embrace the tale of Tess. I don't mind endings where the protagonist perishes miserably, but to me, such stories are always half-finished, waiting yet for the time when "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev. 21:4)
Breaks are the times when one can read for hours shamelessly. Or maybe that was school. I guess I've found the reason why I like school so much. Anyway, I've read a few "for fun" books over break.
1. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. An engaging blend of humor and Botswanan culture. Although my favorite books about Africa are by Alan Patton, I really enjoyed Smith's portrayal of Botswana community as seen through the eyes of a middle-aged woman.
2. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith. Second book in the series.
3. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I am ashamed to say that this was actually my first time through. I love random silliness if it involves words.
Happy thanks to Red Rover for lending me the following three.
4. The Perilous Gard by Marie Elizabeth Pope. If you are into castles, fairies, intrique, Romance, and thoroughly capable heroines, you MUST read this book! If I were ordering these books axiologically rather than chronologically (ie the order in which I read them), then this book would be at the very top.
5. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. This book starts out EXTREMELY slowly, mostly because the protaganist is an obnoxious brat, but if you stick with it, the plot takes a sudden turn for the better, racing to the end and headlong into the sequel. Then one regards the agonizing beginning through a Hamletian lens ("there is method in his madness").
6. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. The sequel. And rumor has it that a third book is forthcoming.
I also purchased Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, mostly because he also wrote a story (Lyda's Oxford) that takes place in Oxford, with pull-out maps and everything.
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Sometimes one returns to the first fruits of her attempts to master the English language and finds traces of a developing style. I look at my first stories and find them rather boring from a narrative point of view. They were predominantly about horses and inevitably followed the formula, "once upon a time, there a lived a herd of horses. Their names were...." and a page long list cataloguing each member of the equine family in its proper place ensued. The story itself would, by necessity of space, be curtailed to a cursory summary of how the bad stallion had tried to steal all the horses away but had been defeated by the ever victorious good stallion. The narrative portion thus dispatched, all the carefully named ponies returned to happy grazing and an orderly life.
Apparently I am just as fond of using lists as a form of communication as ever I was in third grade. Except now I name books and music rather than imaginary horses.
Our public library is wonderful: I found Tea with Mussolini (starring Maggie Smith), Cyrano de Bergerac (starring Jose Ferrer), and Amal and the Night Visitors (an operetta by Menoti).
Fun times planned for the weekend.
Don't worry, mum and dad: I am still squeezing studies in. :)
And, Linnea, don't worry. Eventually I will borrow books from the library....
An IM conversation with a friend whose taste gravitates toward the Romantic Sublime. We usually disagree on aesthetics, but in this conversation.....
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Me: So I had a Romantic moment the other day.
Friend: Good. I am glad to hear that your soul isn't completely dead. :p
Me: My soul is silly.
Me: So I hide it most of the time.
Me: But every once in a while, it emerges.
Friend: So what was this Romantic moment?
Me: It snowed on Friday. I walked home in the snow. Everything was so still and peaceful and calm and expansive and I wondered how there could be so much beauty.
Me: And then my hair sparkled.
Me: From the snow.
Friend: !
Friend: You are a poet!
Me: ?
Friend: Those are things that poets would notice, that's all.
Friend: But you probably convinced yourself that it was all meaningless and illusion and went home and listened to Cage. I know how you are.
Me: Well. Er. Yeah. It just seems rather silly to say stuff like that.
Friend: Perhaps because words can't adequately describe it.
Me: Yes and no.
Me: Poetry has remained popular for a reason....
And so forth...a rambling conversation on the difference between 20th century poetry and Byron....word play, imagery, etc.
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Is there a disjunct between words and feelings? Are words really inadequate to describe ourselves? Perhaps because of the fall and even Babel, we can't correlate our words and world perfectly any more. And yet, I sometimes wonder if I am only experiencing "the sublime" because the poets tell me I should feel a certain way. If I had never read poetry, would I ever feel anything? And is feeling really connected to the soul, anyway? Hmmm. I probably ought to undergo some Therapy for Those Overly Analytical Persons Who Can't Just Enjoy the World without Wondering Why. Maybe this is why I don't describe my feelings that often. They get lost somewhere in the shuffle.
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A treasured compliment I have received was "Sarah, you look like Geniveve," given once when I was wearing flowers in my hair.
Flowers in my hair.
Ribbons down my back.
And the desire to be beautiful.
All there. I confess.
On the one hand, this seems sentimental and silly. On the other hand, Romantic. I realize that in this extended entry I have wandered a bit, conflating Romantic with romantic, the sublime with the concrete. But I believe that they feed off each other and ultimately , as C.S. Lewis might say, are to be found in Christ. And yet, the symbols, though lesser, can bring great joy.
All things hold together in Him.
Someone sent me an email forward filled with graphically "doctored" pictures.
This one reminded me of one of the adventures of Dorothy on her second trip to Oz, as related in Ozma of Oz. On her way to rescue the princesses and princes of the Kingdom of Ev, who have been enslaved by an evil something or other magic being, Dorothy encounters a woman who owns approximately 37 different heads, one for every occasion. Pompously vain, this woman keeps these heads all on the shelf, in a room full of mirrors. Dorothy narrowly escapes having her own head added to the collection. It is strange that now when I look back on the types of books I read as a child (most of them classics), I find many of them to be rather morbid.
*Listening to Cash while reading Chesterton is heaven.
*Listening to Evanesance while reading Derrida is sanctification.
"At twenty minutes before seven, then," said Mr Pike, rising, "the coach will be here. One more look--one little look--at that sweet face [a portrait of Miss Nickleby]. Ah! here it is. Unmoved, unchanged!" This by the way was a very remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so many changes of expression.
"Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens
....actually makes sense.
Yeah, I woke up today with a lowgrade fever and a semantics paper to write. Ideas about how language is used to contain the unknown, to confront death, to prolong the self are floating round my brain...next up, Derrida through Delerium...
Insanity intrigues me...why are the "mad writings" all so incredibly lucid? Is madness a social transgression, a breaking down of inhibitions, a willingness to go beyond the "weather is very fine, sir" to outbursts of maniacal laughter, to disrupt comfort zones with an element of the terrible?
"I am a sick man. I am an angry man. I think that there is something wrong with my liver..."
When one wants to sound quite silly,
One can rhyme words willy-nilly.
Reining meter's quirky capers,
Serious turns to comic vapours.
Yet free
skcal too
clews
to two (who?)
meangni...
Thus:
Good art requires but two parts
To merit worthwhile read:
Familiarity, or repetitious pattern,
That practiced, reduces the need
Of ear to wonder at stops or starts.
Yet regularly metered rhyme
Gets old and clichéd after time.
Variety must enter in to
Save the poem from aesthetic sin.
A paradox--one keeps the ear
Content and guessing,
Line to line.
Too new--distate settles;
Too old--boredom rattles
The mind.
Cheese comes when one thinks too little
And feels too much.
Conversely, also.
Mind-heart are important,
But one must keep the balance.
Topped only by the following admonition:
Never decide that the time to finally read a book that all your friends have been telling you to read for years is one that also happens to coincide with the release of said book in screen version.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the quest was intergalactal, but I finally found you--under my towel.
PS What good is a spell check if it doesn't tell you how to spell "intergalactal"?
For everyone who has shared the experience of a Dr. Davis presentation of the Gavagai story: congratulations, you will know what I am talking about.
For everyone who does not fit into the catagory above: the Gavagai story is Quine's anaylsis of the underdeterminacy of language, or the fact that there is not a one-to-one correlation between a word and the world around us. We can point to concrete objects, (teach by ostension), but even multiple meanings can apply to each of our communicative motions. For example, suppose one travels to a dark, distant tribe and tries to learn the language. The native points to a rabbit running across a meadow and utters the pronouncement: "Gavagai." To what did that word just refer? Could have meant "rabbit." Could have meant "running rabbit." Could have meant "field with running rabbit." Could have meant "Wow, it's late. My wife has supper on the table. I'd better run like a rabbit." One cannot learn a language completely merely through simple pointing. This story tore apart the logical positivists' theories that a perfect language was within our reach, one that would correlate directly to the world around us, being empirical and thus scientific. Once distilled, all obscurity of meaning would vanish. Instead, language is just as muddled as ever. Instead of being able to read a single cheat-sheet of the rules, one has to sit through the entire Monopoly-length game in order to learn how to play (speak the language). We're talking total cultural immersion here.
All this introduction now leads into my comment. I am currently nannying for a family with seven kids, of whom the second youngest (a 15-month old) is learning how to speak. As I play with this child, pointing to objects around me and relating their names, I wonder "How do these kids get it?" How does this kid know that when I say "Ball" I am refering to the thing itself and when I say "Blue," I refer to its color? Touch seems even more tricky--"Soft" and "Hard" appear to be even more difficult concepts to grasp. The complexity of language and meaning make me believe that every baby is a genius if he even manages to sputter through his native language by the time he dies. Those who can speak multiple languages should be embalmed and their brains saved for science.
On a side note, I think that philosophers should all be required to raise children before creating theories of anything. Nannying has me rethinking all my decisions on Kant, Locke, and similar theorists of the mind and the way we learn.
New friends have joined my library shelves (which, in my closet, currently outnumber those shelves designated to housing articles of clothing):
1) A collection of poems by Robert Burns
2) The Real Face of Atheism by Ravi Zacharias
3) A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
Happy Day!