recent tracks:

Sundry

FIRST, note the place links to the right. These are WPA-era travel guides to the named states, in Google book form. Some highlights:
MN p. 45 - picture of Skinner Chapel @ Carleton
MN p. 419 - a brief history of Northfield
RI p. 255 - a description of Providence

The appearance of the city today is that of a community which has undergone three successive stages of development. The agricultural character of the early settlement gave way in the eighteenth century to shipping enterprises which filled the waterways with tall-masted India-men. By the middle of the nineteenth century the eminent position of shipping was usurped by the industrialism characteristic of modern Providence. In like manner the simple homes of the first settlers were nearly all torn down to make room for the mansions of the shipping merchants. Many of the latter, in turn, were converted into offices for industrial enterprise or supplanted by modern buildings. Here and there, however, fascinating relics of the early settlement survive, especially along old Towne Street, now Main Street, which runs along the east bank of the river, from Rosemary Lane, now College Street, to the North Burial Ground. From the hill above, many stately Colonial dwellings look out over the rush and excitement of the modern city; and many of the downtown streets, following their ancient courses, express the leisure and intimacy of earlier centuries, when the curve was not an impediment to traffic and great spaces were not necessary. The present-day visitor to Providence cannot fail to notice the short streets that can be taken in at a glance, and whose ends frame a glimpse of another street, or of an obliquely places building on another lane.

[I recommend the entire history/description, pp. 253-260.]

RI pp. 261-62 - where I will work

The Courthouse is constructed of red brick with limestone trim, and is a modern adaptation of Early Republican architecture. In the late eighteenth century no building of such tremendous size as this would have been considered practical, nor could an eight-story building have been constructed in the days of wooden beams and framework. Designed by Jackson, Robertson and Adams of Providence, this towered and gabled structure covers an entire city block, and its plan is well adapted to a steep hillside plot. A secondary entrance, on Benefit St., is at the fifth floor level. Projecting wings at each end, connected by two arcaded entrances and a Corinthian colonnade, form a forecourt. Pediments on the wings, suggestive of gable ends, rise in three successive stages -- a motif that is repeated in the central section in front of the tower. The building not only rises with the hill, but its entire mass is given a sense of balance by the lofty tower which, rising in four square stages to a slender octagonal cupola, is the dominant feature of the exterior. The thid stage, surrounded by a balustrade, has a clock on each side. The formal arrangement of windows in the gable ends in monumental in effect. The large central windows, flanked by slender pilasters and crowned with a semicircular heading, are further emphasized by projecting balconies. The uppermost tier of windows in the facade, for the sake of lightness and balance, is doubled in height, the windows being arched at the top and divided in the middle by pediments set in panels. The fine central doorway, with its segmental pediment supported by engaged Roman Doric columns, is unfortunately obscured by the front colonnade. The interior is modern and furnished in tasteful simplicity.

SECOND, I loved Wall-E and I haven't been able to clearly express why yet. I think one reason might be that "[i]f Wendell Berry made a sci-fi movie for kids, it would be 'Wall-E.'" The movie acknowledges the incredible destructive power of a society in which so many costs are externalized merely because we fail to properly set economic boundaries with a rational long-term view. It acknowledges the potential harm of consumer choice--the fact that each of us daily engages in myriad incorrect analyses of market choices, being unable to identify correctly all relevant variables, and to predict accurately the long-term consequences of our choices. It acknowledges the pervasive force of advertising. It acknowledges that while consumer culture itself might be empty, people are nevertheless capable of creating great beauty, even in the overlooked detritus of everyday life. Most of these ideas are of a kind that does not get much air-time in popular media, since they are critical of the economic foundation on which the popular media themselves rest. But Wall-E is not afraid to be self-critical. A. O. Scott of the New York Times recognized that the movie implicitly criticizes cinemagoers:

Mr. Stanton shows his awareness of the contradictions inherent in using the medium of popular cinema to advance a critique of corporate consumer culture. The residents of the space station, accustomed to being tended by industrious robots, have grown to resemble giant babies, with soft faces, rounded torsos and stubby, weak limbs. Consumer capitalism, anticipating every possible need and swaddling its subjects in convenience, is an infantilizing force. But as they cruise around on reclining chairs, eyes fixed on video screens, taking in calories from straws sticking out of giant cups, these overgrown space babies also look like moviegoers at a multiplex.

They’re us, in other words.

But at some level that makes Pixar into the movie's ubiquitous corporate quasi-antagonist, Buy-N-Large, feeding us our sugar-coated petroleum. Perhaps because it is capable of this self-criticism, however, Wall-E ends with a message of some hope--a way out of our current muck. Andy writes, "Odd that the film both lampoons the weak laziness of humankind and at the same time assumes a limitless reserve of pluck and perseverance." But I think that this observation is not so odd: we as a culture are guilty of laziness, but we as individuals do harbor a reserve of pluck and perseverance. So what I take away as the film's message is this: don't let the group think for you. Take things into your own hands.

The other reason I loved Wall-E is more straightforward and I think the part that has truly defied description for me: artistry. I'll again let A. O. Scott do some of the work for me, because he likely says it better than I can:

The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E” — in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen — is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. The scene is an intricately rendered city, bristling with skyscrapers but bereft of any inhabitants apart from a battered, industrious robot and his loyal cockroach sidekick. Hazy, dust-filtered sunlight illuminates a landscape of eerie, post-apocalyptic silence. This is a world without people, you might say without animation, though it teems with evidence of past life.

And I'll leave it at that.

THIRD, the Eagles have begun training camp, and one development depresses me somewhat. Coach Reid has instituted a "30-plus club" whereby team members over the age of thirty get to sit out certain practices in order to reduce wear on their bodies. Or so the team says. I suspect, however, that the true motive for this move is to allow the younger members of the team to cohere as a unit, in preparation for the days when Donovan McNabb, William (nee Tra) Thomas, Jon Runyan, and Brian Dawkins spend each autumn at home realizing the long-term physical toll of their football careers. While this is likely a prudent move from a rational perspective, the idea of the team without Dawkins in particular is one that entirely bypasses my rational circuitry, sparking more of a reaction in my gut than my head. Sad.

FOURTH I take the Rhode Island state portion of the Bar Exam tomorrow, the multiple choice Multistate Bar Exam on Wednesday, and the Massachusetts state portion on Thursday. Wish me luck.