I love seeing this rationale and linked variations on “hello pages”: alastairjohnston.com/introduci…
dreaming
Dreaming about a one year gap year program in great books, suitable as “core curriculum” prep for other college experiences — you come for trivium-style foundational structures, head out to uni or trade school or whatever. Co-op style, too, with lots of physical exercise and campus maintenance/chores. Does such a thing exist?
First year of classes at Northeastern clocked! Giddy. My students were great this week. It’s only the start of spring, weather-wise, but my summer has begun.
My 18 yr old with Down syndrome bossing his younger sibs around on the family group chat. This is as alpha as he gets.
Is it a coincidence that we had a consult about Paying for College and then, on my run right after, one of the book ideas I’ve been working on snapped right into shape? Prob not. Smelling salts for the brain.
Springtime runner’s high thanks to The The’s “Giant.” First flowers!
I just want to say: in keeping with the “limiting virtues” spirit of my latest newsletter, I am ever more resolved not to utilize any of the promotion tools in Substack. It drives me bananas to see them copying the quote-tweet and algo-pushed design features of Twitter, and I am officially old enough to be that one lady shaking her fist at the sky, so—
James Bridle consults LLMs for advice about building chairs, has mixed results: booktwo.org/notebook/…
Anyone here know students at St. Michael’s College at the U of Toronto? I’m intrigued on my kids' behalf.
On the city and the “limiting virtues”: cafe, church, library: open.substack.com/pub/sarah…
My youngest is 14 today. 💔 Should I just openly tell my grad students that being a wife and mother is orders of magnitude more meaningful than any work I’ve done (and I need work like oxygen)?
Yikes! Jordan Castro’s unsparing look at the ubiquity of “right?” as a form of commanding consensus in professor-speak: sarahendren.com/2024/03/2…
Good to see this reasoned testimony by Carter Snead to the senate, offering principles and correcting the record on misconstrued cases after Dobbs. https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/assets/562574/snead_senate_judiciary_20240320.pdf
Our 15 yr old daughter reports that her friends laugh, in a friendly way, at the idea that we have “family dinner.” Apparently few people among her cohort do this??
Iain McGilchrist citing Heschel on the tyranny and inadequacy of “thinghood” for capturing the world’s complexity: sarahendren.com/2024/03/2…
Helping STEM academics get clearer about ethical tech, by way of @ayjay’s generous concision with the Standard Critique of Technology: sarahendren.com/2024/03/1…
Still on McGilchrist over here — a good intro to his argument is in this lecture: www.youtube.com/watch
Got a fabricator making me a bunch of samples for semi-sculptural “canvases.” Finishing up a short film and then heading to the studio for the loooong summer.
And reading McGilchrist, I suddenly see why Sufjan Stevens’s “Chicago” speaks to so many people: all things go / all things grow / all things know.
About 50 pages into McGilchrist, The Matter With Things. It’s good to be alive and in the awestruck presence of a contemporary magnum opus.