Blair Hanley Frank's External Thought Repository

May 13

“The base of all artistic genius is the power of conceiving humanity in a new, striking, rejoicing way, of putting a happy world of its own creation in place of the meaner world of common days, of generating around itself an atmosphere with a novel power of refraction, selecting, transforming, recombining the images it transmits, according to the choice of the imaginative intellect.” — Walter Pater, The Renaissance

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May 07

Can vs. May

• student: can i borrow a pencil
• teacher: i don't know, CAN you?
• student: yes, also colloquial irregularities occur frequently in any language and since you and the rest of our present company understood my intended meaning being particular about the distinctions between "can" and "may" is purely pedantic and arguably pretentious

May 06

Did anyone actually read “The Great Gatsby”? -

Gatsby parties can be found all over town. They are staples of spring on many Ivy League campuses and a frequent theme of galas in Manhattan. Just the other day, vacation rental startup Airbnb sent out invitations to a “Gatsby-inspired soiree” at a multi-million-dollar home on Long Island, seemingly oblivious to the novel’s undertones.

It’s like throwing a Lolita-themed children’s birthday party.

A wonderful piece of cultural criticism from Zachary M. Seward over at Quartz. There’s a particularly poignant moment later in the piece discussing student responses to Gatsby, as related to this New York Times article. The students were asked to fill in the blank of “My green light is ________,” as a means of asking them what they strive for.

While the Times article shows more intellectual depth among some of the pupils than I think Seward gives them credit for in his writing, the list of their responses is a bit chilling. Some responses are silly (“My green light is lunch.”) others heartfelt (“have a job and a family that I love and that loves me”) but some show a curious mirroring of subject matter in Gatsby that makes me pause. 

“Get rich and become famous for something, have someone write a book about me,” is the one response that stands out the most, among a not-insignificant number of responses relating to money. I can’t help but wonder–does the writer of those words think that Fitzgerald’s writing doesn’t apply to them, or did they simply not understand the book?

As a teacher, the question becomes (to my mind), which one of those options is worse?

Apr 24

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Apr 13

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Apr 09

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Apr 08

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Apr 07

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Mar 30

littlemissmutant:

neednothavehappenedtobetrue:

littlemissmutant:

neednothavehappenedtobetrue:

mark-gaytits:

imagine if one day jesus and his disciples were eating bread and wine and shit and jesus didn’t even use a fork and peter was just like “dude were you born in a barn”

and jesus just

who uses a fork for bread?

good point but OOH if it was a Seder, you do use the fork for wine in fact!

wait I am very confused how do you eat liquids with a fork?

You use your fork to put drops of wine on your plate to commemorate the plagues.

No one eats wine with a fork AFAIK, although in a traditional seder you drink so many cups of wine that probably someone has wound up trying to do it that way.

You use a fork? I’ve always used my pinkie.