Saturday, September 10, 2011

Saturday Emily



In a Library 

A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.

-- Emily Dickinson

And here's an interesting article to read that offers a glimmer of hope in its unorthodox thinking: Are Jobs Obsolete?

6 comments:

  1. Very interesting article. Thank you Elizabeth.

    And yes, I am hard on myself:)

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  2. I love you! These articles you find never fail to inspire and educate me. Thank you for being such an avid media reader (I love to read but, alas, not so much news-y type stuff) and filtering out all of the crap for me to find the gold nuggets.

    I don't know how you do it, but I appreciate it.

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  3. a little "emily" is the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea on a rainy saturday.

    p.s. that article was interesting and thought-provoking and sort of hopeful. thanks for linking to it!

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  4. Fascinating article. I'll be chewing on those questions all day.

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  5. Interesting article. I agree that as a country, America certainly has plenty of "stuff". And I agree that shifting the focus of jobs away from those jobs that "make more stuff" sounds reasonable, but I sure don't see employment as an obsolete concept.

    Rushkoff writes that "we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve that stuff."

    Really? Don't we need more skilled teachers, more family practice physicians, more skilled caregivers for our disabled and elderly? I think the question for our government is how do we attract people towards the kind of work our society truly needs.

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  6. I am wrapped up in three good books right now and it is such a happy time for me in reading.

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