This is a thing I love.
POEM HOLDING ITS HEART IN ONE FIST
by Jane Hirshfield
Each pebble in this world keeps
its own counsel.
Certain words--these, for instance--
may be keeping a pronoun hidden.
Perhaps the lover's you
or the solipsist's I.
Perhaps the philosopher's willowy it.
The concealment plainly delights.
Even a desk will gather
its clutch of secret, half-crumpled papers,
eased slowly, over years,
behind the backs of drawers.
Olives adrift in the altering brine-bath
etch onto their innermost pits
a few furrowed salts that will never be found by the tongue.
Yet even with so much withheld,
so much unspoken,
potatoes are cooked with butter and parsley,
and buttons affixed to their sweater.
Invited guests arrive, then dutifully leave.
And this poem, afterward, washes its breasts
with soap and trembling hands, disguising nothing.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The lost case of common sense.
"You can only be so open-minded before your brains fall out."
A qoute by someone in Walled Lake Michigan.
A qoute by someone in Walled Lake Michigan.
Oh, I am so not even lying.
My husband and I will be travelling to Ireland come March! Whoohoo! One of the stops on the map is Cork City. While I was looking through Frommer's at the list of attractions to visit in Cork, I see the usual Blarney Castle and Stone, but all of a sudden my eyes stop. Cork Butter Museum. It could be the baker in me, but I knew right then and there that we would be paying the 4 euros to visit inside! (My poor husband:-)!) Turns out that Cork was the chief producer and exporter of salted butter in the world (what!?) for over one hundred years starting in 1770. I noticed at the gift shop (gift shop?!?!) they have one of my favorite items to buy anywhere in the world---postcards:-). Hee hee, those of you who know who you are, be expecting one:-).
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Oh, yeah!
I always consider it a Day of Triumph (!) when I do not get in the car and drive someplace. It feels like the most luxurious thing in the world. Here's to one of those days. Aaaaaah.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Quantum Physics--Heisenberg Uncertianty Principle
"...there are no disinterested observers in the world, only engaged participants.
...In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg demonstrated that it is not possible to measure accurately all the properties of a single subatomic particle because the action of making measurements causes unpredictable changes in the very system being measured. In order to make any kind of measurement, an observer has to add some kind of energy somewhere--for example, if we want to use a ruler to measure the length of a piece of wood, we need to shine enough light on the ruler to be able to read the scale. We do not normally notice the effect of such a simple act, but at the incredibly tiny scale of atomic physics even minuscule infusions of energy cause dramatic effects. So the energy used to measure the location and speed of a moving electron causes it to change course, which means we can only determine the speed and location it had before we touched it.
Until Heisenberg's discovery one of the fundamental assumptions of science was that good researchers would always be objective, uninvolved, standing outside the systems they sought to study. It was almost as though the entire universe were sealed in a sterile bubble while scientist somehow stood on the outside--looking in, observing, making notes, learning, but never interacting. Any involvement of the researcher in the system might invalidate the results of the experiment.
But the Uncertainty Principle, although it essentially applied only to the very limited field of quantum physics, blew a hole right through this assumption. The effects of this simple discovery are still being felt across the natural sciences to the present day. Heisenberg had demonstrated that, in the end, pure objectivity is impossible. We are involved in the universe, intricately bound into the whole system, and our every act affects both us and the universe around us--even the act of trying to study the universe disinterestedly and objectively. We cannot help being engaged. We are never silent watchers on the sidelines, but always participants, whether we like it or not."
an excerpt taken from The Fire of the Word by Chris Webb
...In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg demonstrated that it is not possible to measure accurately all the properties of a single subatomic particle because the action of making measurements causes unpredictable changes in the very system being measured. In order to make any kind of measurement, an observer has to add some kind of energy somewhere--for example, if we want to use a ruler to measure the length of a piece of wood, we need to shine enough light on the ruler to be able to read the scale. We do not normally notice the effect of such a simple act, but at the incredibly tiny scale of atomic physics even minuscule infusions of energy cause dramatic effects. So the energy used to measure the location and speed of a moving electron causes it to change course, which means we can only determine the speed and location it had before we touched it.
Until Heisenberg's discovery one of the fundamental assumptions of science was that good researchers would always be objective, uninvolved, standing outside the systems they sought to study. It was almost as though the entire universe were sealed in a sterile bubble while scientist somehow stood on the outside--looking in, observing, making notes, learning, but never interacting. Any involvement of the researcher in the system might invalidate the results of the experiment.
But the Uncertainty Principle, although it essentially applied only to the very limited field of quantum physics, blew a hole right through this assumption. The effects of this simple discovery are still being felt across the natural sciences to the present day. Heisenberg had demonstrated that, in the end, pure objectivity is impossible. We are involved in the universe, intricately bound into the whole system, and our every act affects both us and the universe around us--even the act of trying to study the universe disinterestedly and objectively. We cannot help being engaged. We are never silent watchers on the sidelines, but always participants, whether we like it or not."
an excerpt taken from The Fire of the Word by Chris Webb
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