Snow-day edition

Click image to enlarge. Found here.

It's a winter wonderland here in Wichita: a heavy snow has led to schools, including mine, cancelling classes for the day. So, I've been catching up on blog-reading.

Here are some things you might enjoy having a look at:

Via Edge of the American West comes some inspired silliness called Strindberg and Helium

A sleep-deprived Ariel, whose lovely wife Lindsay has given birth to children who are, apparently, both nocturnal and light-sleepers, writes a gorgeous tribute to the daytime nap.

Acephalous answers, quite eloquently, the innocuous-looking question, "Why do I teach?"

Still more--lots more--below the fold.

Those interested in the question of blogs-as-literary-genre should visit Literature's Next Frontier. Host Huysmans has taken up this topic for his/her thesis.

Via The Plank comes these fun trailers for Michel Gondry's new film. Watch them in order, please:





Gondry (he of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) does playful work, no?

Winston of Nobody Asked . . . reports that he has real trouble with earworms.

Raminagrobis comes roaring out of his hibernation from the blogosphere with a spot-on meditation on belatedness in No Country for Old Men.

Pam of Tales from the Microbial Laboratory revels in camellias and Rilke.

Over at Today at the Mission, [rhymes with kerouac] realizes, after giving a talk at a private school for well-off kids, that

I always knew that poverty, injustice and oppression could stifle the voice of the poet and the artist within, could silence one's true voice from being heard in society, in the world. But I never imagined that wealth and privilege could stifle one's true voice from being heard, either. Poverty exacts a toll, but so does wealth, it seems. The pressure on these kids to meet an increasingly difficult standard, year after year, is enormous... and they're just kids. Conformity or Catastrophic Failure - that's their choice in life.

I'll say it again: any of you interested in seeing the Gospel at work and honest (read: questioning, doubting, but always-faithful) engagement with Jesus' message needs to read his blog.

Aunty Marianne (IRL a passionate advocate for the world's impoverished and oppressed) gets in touch with her virtual inner-Alexander the Great.

Enjoy. We'll be back soon with another Obama-free post.