Reflections on Week 53 (Dec 30&31 THE END!)

         Link to the readings

Last one!

Quick review on this week's readings:

Dec 30 Two Years Before the Mast by Dana: 3/5 I would like to fake my way through a foreign country by knowing a related language.

Dec 31 "Inaugural Address at Edinburg University" by Carlyle: 1/5 Way to end the year on a downer

Average: 2 I did that math myself.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Kind of a let down for the final week. Two Years Before the Mast, like some of the selections the week before, was fun to see one last time (even if the choice was odd). The Edinburg Address is a rambling disaster. Anything passable here could've "saved" the average, but this was a disaster.

Reflections On Week 52 (Dec 23-29)

        Link to the readings

It's slightly more than 52 weeks in a year.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Dec 22? (Oops, wrong week)  The Voyage of The Beagle by Darwin: 2/5 Not the best Darwin

Dec 24 Holinshed's Chronicle by Harrison: 1/5 This was a total bait and switch.

Dec 25 The Gospel of Luke: 3/5 An obvious, but appropriate, choice for Christmas.

Dec 26 King Lear by Shakespeare: 3/5 Lear is an underrated play.

Dec 27 The Voyage of The Beagle by Darwin: 3/5 The famous finches. 

Dec 28 "Drake's Great Armada" by Briggs: 2/5 The worst of the Drake excerpts for the year.

Dec 29 The Odyssey by Homer: 3/5 This project finally got me to stop adding an extra "e" to Odyssey. (I think I already said that.)

Average: 2.42 Saying goodbye to some favorites this week.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

It was kind of cool to see the final selections Eliot picked for the repeats. Circling King Lear back to just before the first reading. The Odyssey ending on its natural climax. Darwin getting his finches. It was like seeing an old friend grow up and realize their potential.

Reflections on Week 51 (Dec 16-22)

       Link to the readings

(Blogging) Area 51

Quick review on this week's readings:

Dec 16  On The Sublime and Beautiful by Burke: 2/5 I didn't care for this section, but the rest of the essay sound interesting..

Dec 17 The Confessions of St. Augustine: 1/5 Wasn't there a non-awful Christian tradition Eliot could've pulled readings from?

Dec 18 Some Thoughts Concerning Education by Locke: 2/5 How to learn Latin (which you don't need) without forgetting English (which you do).

Dec 19 Samson Agonistes by Milton: 1/5 God is extra terrible this week.

Dec 20 An Account of Egypt by Herodotus: 3/5 Child abuse and engineering. 

Dec 21 The Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan: 2/5 Literature's strangest wills.

Dec 22 "What is a Classic?" by Saint-Beuve: 3/5 A pretty good definition of a classic.

Average: 2 I don't think there's going to be any weeks above a two this whole year.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

I've read that sublimity (real word, didn't expect that) is often contrasted with religion, which makes it kind of interesting to see the Burke excerpt paired with St. Augustine, Milton, and Bunyan here this week. Religion says things are overwhelming, therefore there must be a god. Sublimity says things are overwhelming... wow! I don't know that that's accurate (having only read this chunk and I think one other excerpt), but that's the impression I've gotten. Interested in learning more, which is the point of this project.

Reflections on Week 50 (Dec 9-15)

      Link to the readings

Final month!

Quick review on this week's readings:

Dec 9  The Fugitive Slave Law: 3/5 Well that's shitty.

Dec 10 The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini: 2/5 He's a slightly less funny edgelord in this one.

Dec 11 Alcibiades by Plutarch: 3/5 Probably the strangest Lives excerpt of the year.

Dec 12 Poems by Browning: 1/5 So far past my bad poem quota for the year.

Dec 13 Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage... by Pretty: 3/5 It's where you bend your Ell! 

Dec 13 Poems by Plutarch: 1/5 Please stop.

Dec 14 The Odyssey by Homer: 3/5 Vampire Ghosts!

Average: 2.29 Ugh, poetry.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

If all the poetry hadn't bombed, I was thinking about rereading Cellini to see if I could justify moving it up to a three. But then there was more bad/generic poetry, so it didn't matter. I think if your poetry involves telling me something is beautiful you should just stop, since it's already been done a few million times poorly, and you're probably not going to do any better.

Reflections On Week 49 (Dec 2-Dec 8)

     Link to the readings

Hey, I'm only a month behind now!

Quick review on this week's readings:

Dec 2  Le Morte d'Arthur by Mallory: 3/5 Chivalric tongue lashings!

Dec 3 Buddhist Writings: 3/5 The way they pick the Buddha is questionable, but I learned things and practiced math.

Dec 4 The Aeneid by Virgil: 2/5 It's a lot easier to read the random excerpts of stories I've already read.

Dec 5 Poems by Rossetti: 3/5 She's like a better Emily Dickinson.

Dec 6 Essays by Addison: 0/5 It's like he had a philosophical dialogue with himself. 

Dec 7 Cicero by Plutarch: 2/5 Stop giving me an excerpt of a half of a pair with no context, Eliot.

Dec 8 "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow" by Quincey: 3/5 Just inventing new triple goddesses for fun.

Average: 2.57 Addison ruins it for everyone. 

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

We're getting recent enough that I actually remember some of the readings reasonably well! This week didn't really stand out. The Lives are usually kinda meh, but I blame the formatting. I think the one that stood out to me the most was the Buddhist writings, since I had to sit down and do math while I read it. A literal interaction in your literature can be fun.

Reflections on Week 48 (Nov 25-Dec 1)

    Link to the readings

Hopefully I can avoid any of the dramatics from the last two days tonight.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Nov 25  The Shoemaker's Holiday by Dekker: 2/5 I wasn't thrilled with this one, but I think part of that was the production.

Nov 26 "On The Tragedies of Shakespeare" by Lamb: 1/5 Lamb is entitled to his opinions, and I am entitled to think this is one of the dumbest things I read all year.

Nov 27 Utopia by More: 2/5 If the thing you're satirizing isn't real, is it really satire?

Nov 28 Poems by Blake: 2/5 Slant rhymes rhymes with band rinds.

Nov 29 Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding by Hume: 3/5 I think some of the other philosophers have had similar points in 15MAD, but still relevant. 

Nov 30 “Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation” by Swift: 4/5 All good advice, and interestingly written.

Dec 1 Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous by Hume: 1/5 Heat isn't real.

Average: 2.14 I'm developing a physical aversion to philosophical dialogues. 

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

I Swift's "Conversation" for I think the third time, and it's great every time. I look forward to rereading some of my other favorites (and finishing the ones that're in excerpts) later this year.

Reflections on Week 47 (Nov 18-24)

   Link to the readings

OK, back on track now.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Nov 4  Wilhelm Tel by Von Schiller: 3/5 Cool to read an actual version of this. I was vaguely aware of the story, but just from 30 second parodies and stuff.

Nov 5 "Morte D'Arthur" by Tennison: 3/5 Decent enough version of the grail story.

Nov 6 "The Valiant Little Tailor" by The Brother's Grimm: 3/5 Light and silly.

Nov 7 "On Inoculation" by Voltaire: 3/5 The historical basis of Twi'leks?

Nov 8 Aeneid by Virgil: 2/5 Probably better in a different translation.

Nov 9 Thoughts by Pascal: 1/5 Pascal's villain rant about failing math. 

Nov 10 The Origin of Species by Darwin: 3/5 Lamarckian Darwin!

Average: 2.57 Had a real streak going early on. 

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

The dichotomy here is interesting. We start the week with classic legends, folk tales, etc. Wilhelm Tell, Grimm, King Arthur. Then (except for Virgil) it's all non-fiction in the back half. I don't think there's been any other weeks split like that.

Reflections On Week 45? (4-10)

  Link to the readings

I definitely wrote this yesterday, and I have no idea what happened to it. I'm guessing I thought I was using it as a template and overwrote it instead.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Nov 4  Polyeucte by Constable: 3/5 Weird translation, but seems like an interesting play.

Nov 5 The Life of Sir Thomas More by Roper: 1/5 Dude really liked his FiL.

Nov 6 "The Force of Gravitation" by Faraday: 3/5 Cool science.

Nov 7 "The First of the Three Ladies from Baghdad": 3/5 Sick bars, and I learned what a hafiz is.

Nov 8 "Paradise Regained" by Milton: 1/5 Who asked for the Bible as a questionable poem?

Nov 9 Plasms: 2/5 A couple of these are half decent.

Nov 10 The Deserted Village by Goldsmith: 3/5 I even reread this whole thing! (It was decent.)

Average: 2.29 This week got one more point on the rerate.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

I think a one point difference on a scale of 0-35 is pretty decent (less then a 3% spread). I don't really remember what I put here yesterday. I think something about being glad to reread Goldsmith.

Reflections on Week 46 (Nov 11-17)

 Link to the readings

I'm making breakfast for dinner to celebrate my wife's thesis after this.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Nov 11 Poems by Whitman: 3/5 Unconventional subjects, pretty good poems.

Nov 12 Paradise Lost by Milton: 3/5 An actual good(ish) Paradise Lost section!

Nov 13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine: 2/5 I waffled on scoring this one a lot. Strong front half, iffy back half.

Nov 14 "Uniformity of Change" by Lyell: 1/5 Not very interesting, and hard to comprehend.

Nov 15 I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) by Allessandro Manzoni : 2/5 Random section way after the rest of the book.

Nov 16 Two Years Before the Mast by Dana: 3/5 California Girls are have but little virtue doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Nov 17 Sir Walter Scott by Carylye: 0/5 What even is this?

Average: 2 This was a really hard to rate week.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Sure, my wife is getting a doctorate, but did she do fifteen minutes a day of a pseudo liberal studies degree? No. (She did a lot more work, but I didn't have to put up with her cohort and professors.)

Reflections on Week 44 (Oct 28-Nov 3)

Link to the readings

Snow day tomorrow! We haven't had one of those in like half a decade.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Oct 28: "Some Thoughts on Education" by Locke: 3/5 Kids learn best via Boggle gambling.

Oct 29: Poems by Keats: 2/5 Nightingales, man.

Oct 30: "Science of Geology" by Lyell: 1/5 Not wrong, just not well written.

Oct 31: BUUUURNNNNSSSSS: 0/5 IT'S OVER!

Nov 1: The Tempest by Shakespeare: 2/5 I kinda want to go all the way down to one for this one, since there are more deserving Shakespeares.

Nov 2: The Divine Comedy by Dante: 3/5 Artistic censorship. 

Nov 3: Pliny's Letters: 3/5 Just a little torture to be safe!

Average: 2 The end of the "Burns Curve"

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

I cannot express how happy I will be to never have to read Burns again. I'm proud that I actually read (admittedly, kinda skimmed sometimes) every Burns day. I think that's the biggest challenge of this whole project. He's just so terrible. And barely even in English.

Reflections On Week 43 (Oct 21-27)

      Link to the readings

Now listening to: Dawn of Victory

Quick review on this week's readings:

Oct 21: "On Old Age" by Cicero: 4/5 It's not all bad getting old.

Oct 22: "Jonathon Swift" by Thackeray: 3/5 All I ever think of when I read Thackeray is Colonel Makepeace from SG-1.

Oct 23: "Caesar" by Plutarch: 2/5 Back to Plutarch being meh.

Oct 24: "Oresteia" by Aeschylus: 2/5 I think I saw a version of this and liked it, but didn't love reading this selection.

Oct 25: "Machiavelli" by Macauley: 3/5 I don't have anything to say about this one. Interesting enough, but not mind blowing.

Oct 26 Ben Franklin's Autobiography: 3/5 Fun, and vaguely meta. 

Oct 27: Buddhist Writings by Warren: 3/5 Karma's a bitch!

Average: 2.86 One point away from "passing."

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

This was kind of a low key "good" week. I think this is the kind of thing I mostly expected to read. Thought provoking, not the most entertaining, some stuff I recognized and some more obscure. On the whole, I think the project has been more "fun" than I thought.

Reflections On Week 42 (Oct 14-20)

     Link to the readings

Are these still technically weekly reflections since they're on a week of readings? Or no, since they're not happening weekly by any stretch of the imagination?

Quick review on this week's readings:

Oct 14 The Wealth of Nations by Smith: 3/5 "It's called consolidation; strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time." (But in reverse.)

Oct 15 Amerigo Vespucci's Account: 3/5 So much discovering America lately.

Oct 16 Hippocrates' Oath and Law: 3/5 First, misattribute historical quotes.

Oct 17 Religio Medici by Browne: 0/5 "You're not making philosophy better! You're just making Christianity worse!"

Oct 18 Poems by Shelly: 2/5 Zzzzzzzzz.

Oct 19 "On the Realities of Imagination" by Hunt: 4/5 This is the kind of practical, rational philosophy I wish more low level courses focused on. 

Oct 20 The Odyssey by Homer: 3/5 Doing this challenge got me to finally swapping the first y for an e in Odyssey.

Average: 2.57 It's all Browne's fault.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

This week is as good a place as any to talk about something that I find odd about a lot of the 15MAD readings on Christianity (and, I guess, Christian apologetics in general). I was fairly religious as a kid, and something that a bunch of pastors, priests, Sunday school teachers, etc. all said to me was that you can't prove Christianity. It's inherently unprovable at best, illogical at worst. And that was the point. If you didn't need faith to believe, it wouldn't be a big deal. I think that's a reasonable enough point of view (if you're going to accept things like rib-women, believing in an omnipresent, unknowable being is pretty easy). But a lot of these authors are dead set on convincing you that, of course, Christianity makes perfect sense. I don't know if I just went to very liberal churches growing up or what.

Reflections On Week 41 (Oct 7-13)

    Link to the readings

Blog, then bath, then band.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Oct 7 The Journal of John Woolman: 3/5 There is no ethical consumption under slavery.

Oct 8 Joseph Andrews by John Fielding: 1/5 Genre=Law

Oct 9 Latin Hymns: 2/5 This is one of the ones that exists at the weird intersection of "fair to include in T5FSOB" and also "Possibly the world would be a better place if most of them didn't exist."

Oct 10 Don Quixote by Cervantes: 2/5 Digression!

Oct 11 The Aeneid by Virgil: 3/5 Still waiting on USS Babadook.

Oct 12 A Letter of Columbus: 3/5 The flag thing still amuses me.

Oct 13 Meditations by Aurelius: 3/5 I appreciate MA recognizing everyone who helped him along the way.

Average: 2.42 There were a lot of somewhat awkwardly amusing things in here this week.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Definitely a big week for things that weren't necessarily great, but worth reading. The hymns are mostly bad, but historically significant. The Meditations excerpt wasn't as interesting as some of the others, but it's cool to see this historical powerhouse being so humble.

Reflections On Week 40 (Sep 30-Oct 6)

    Link to the readings

I had a double shot of scotch between the last entry and this one.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Sep 30 “Manners" by Emerson: 2/5 I like Emerson better as an essayist than as a poet.

Oct 1 The Prince by Machiavelli: 3/5 Still good examples.

Oct 2 The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin: 3/5 At least it's an honest genocide.

Oct 3 Canterbury Tales by Chaucer: 3/5 You just gotta read it out loud.

Oct 4 Demosthenes by Plutarch: 3/5 Ode to a Grecian Burn.

Oct 5 "University Life at Athens" by Newman: 1/5 Nostalgia for times you weren't even alive for is so weird.

Oct 6 Reflections on The Revolution in France by Burke: 1/5 Burke still wants to deepthroat the boot.

Average: 2.29 That double whammy of missing the non-existent better days really tanked the week.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

It was nice to read Canterbury Tales again. I remember being really overwhelmed by it in high school, but it wasn't too hard. I sometimes worry about being a "peaked in high school" kid, so it's good to see that I'm at least better at reading now if nothing else.

Reflections On Week 39 (Sep 23-29)

   Link to the readings

Happy birthday to JRR Tolkien

Quick review on this week's readings:

Sep 23 “That To Philosophise Is To Learne How To Die” by Montaigne: 3/5 I worked with a John Florio. He did not write awkward translations.

Sep 24 Don Quixote by Cervantes: 3/5 Literature's greatest fanboy.

Sep 25 Themistocles by Plutarch: 2/5 This one felt more disjointed than a lot of the lives.

Sep 26 John Stuart Mills' Autobiography: 3/5 Dude really loved his wife.

Sep 27 "Thoughts" by Pascal: 0/5 Pascal makes Christianity look even worse than usual.

Sep 28 "Germ Theory..." by Pasteur: 3/5 Learning about germs and debate!

Sep 22 "The Sayings of Confucius": 3/5 Good as a companion to Meditations, etc. It's worth looking at similar texts from different cultures.

Average: 2.43 Great job, Pascal.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Pascal's take on Christianity is exhaustingly bad. I think that I'm overall a theistic-leaning agnostic, but nothing wants me want to be an atheist more than reading once every two weeks or so about how terrible humanity is and how we should all just give up and hope God will take mercy on us since we'll always be awful failures.

Reflections On Week 38 (Sep 16-22)

  Link to the readings

It's good to start the new year by reflecting on the last one.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Sep 16 Holinshed's Chronicles: 3/5 You can execute people, or you can torture them. Don't do both at once. 

Sep 17 Poems by Whittier: 3/5 Surprisingly good poems!

Sep 18 Two Years Before the Mast by Dana: 3/5 I really wish Elliot had flopped these last two Dana selections This would've been more fulfilling at the end of the year.

Sep 19 Don Quixote by Cervantes: 3/5 It's like Fahrenheit 451, but 348 year sooner..

Sep 20 The Quran : 2/5 I feel like I learned nothing about Islam across the chunks that were selected this year.

Sep 21 The Aeneid by Virgil: 3/5 The most fanfic part of this fanfic.

Sep 22 Froissart's Chronicles: 1/5 This veered into the name-list style too much.

Average: 2.57 A strikingly average week.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Apparently, Tuesdays are the days for good poetry and I hate all Chronicles.

Reflections On Week 37 (Sep 9-15)

 Link to the readings

It's good to start the new year by reflecting on the last one.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Sep 9 "Nature" by Emerson: 1/5 Nature good, transcendentalist hipsters bad. 

Sep 10 Poems by Holmes: 3/5 More fightin' ship poems, please!

Sep 11 Wealth of Nations by Smith: 4/5 WoN is still good, and Adam Smith would still get called a socialist on Newsmax if they knew how to read him.

Sep 12 Poems by Browning: 1/5 These are flirting with a zero. No more psycho love poems, please.

Sep 13 Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan: 1/5 PP has the most inconsistent score range in T5FSOB.

Sep 14 The Divine Comedy by Dante: 2/5 I look forward to reading this not chunked.

Sep 15 George Washington's Farewell Address: 3/5 George Washington was (basically) a Federalist.

Average: 2.14 I'm going to start plugging these into a spreadsheet.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

This far into the year, it's interesting to see the distinction between pieces that are good, and pieces that are good when semi-randomly chunked. I enjoy The Divine Comedy, but I'm really tired of reading ten pages of Paradiso then twelve of Inferno then a different bit of Paradiso and then shuffling to Purgatorio, because why not? 

Reflections on Week 36 (Sep 2-8)

Link to the readings

Back to school kicked my ass!

Quick review on this week's readings:

Sep 2 All For Love by Dryen : 2/5 It's really hard to give a blob of play any higher than this. 

Sep 3 The Treaty of Paris: 3/5 We still fight about fishing rights.

Sep 4 Letters On The English by Voltaire: 1/5 Almost good satire, but not satire, so not good.

Sep 5 The Origin of Species by Darwin: 3/5 If we're going to talk about evolution, it's good to think about extinction as well. All part of the same continuum.

Sep 6 Sir Walter Scott by Caryle: 3/5 Weird beginning, but some good thoughts on writing and existing in society.

Sep 7 "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel": 2/5 Fragment of a fragment is meh.

Sept 8 Ice and Glaciers by von Helmholtz: 3/5 Some interesting general science.

Average: 2.43 I think this is a good score? I haven't done this in a while.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Alright, trying to get caught up again. The beginning of the school year really kicked my ass this year, and I had to cut back to just the core posts to keep up. I don't know why I thought committing to basically two posts a day (between this, Star Wars, and guest posts elsewhere), plus the reading, plus my fiction writing was going to work out. Still, proud that I kept up with the core posts at least. I think I should be able to get pretty close to caught up by the new year. I plan to take some time to do reflection posts without doing a new project, so that'll give a little buffer to finish up if I need to.

Caryle was, unexpectedly, the highlight this week. I'm not a big fan of these random introduction sections, but he had some good thoughts on writing, "jostling", etc.

Reflections on Week 35 (Aug 26-Sep 1)

 Link to readings

And there goes my buffer...

Quick review on this week's readings:

Aug 26 Froissart's Chronicles : 1/5 This is a list of names, not an actual reading.

Aug 27 BURRRNSSSS: 0/5 Off to a great start this week!

Aug 28 Faust by Goethe: 4/5 Faust is literature's most delightful villain protagonist.

Aug 29 Antony by Plutarch: 3/5 A good Lives!?

Aug 30 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: 3/5 Even a questionable translation can't keep MA down. (Although it probably could've gone up to a 4 in a better edition)

Aug 31 "The American Scholar" by Emerson: 2/5 This got a point for being a historical example of a crappy commencement address.

Sept 1 Some Fruits of Solitude by Penn: 3/5 This goes in the "I was sleepy when I read it, but I can tell it was good" category. Will read the whole thing later when I'm more awake.

Average: 2.29 Mostly the usual suspects dragging this one down. "Saved" by a surprisingly good lives.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

This was a drag of a week (not helped at all by several longer selections). Burns and Emerson continue to be disasters. Froissart flips the script, after scoring a FOUR last time, down to a one. Plutarch swoops in with a surprisingly interesting lives to keep the score from absolutely cratering.

This was one of the "themiest" weeks, with Aurelius, Emerson, and Penn covering a lot of the same ground in their own ways. I think of the three I liked Penn the best, but I think a stronger translation of Aurelius could've pulled ahead.

I haven't talked about the, "you don't have to like everything, but you should hopefully learn from everything" angle of T5FSOB in a while, and Emerson's speech is a strong showing. It's astounding how little you'd need to change to make this a modern commencement address. Obviously, modernize the language a bit, but otherwise it's the same self-important, navel-gazey, faux-inspiration drivel that millions of people pay to be "strongly encouraged" to listen to.

Reflections on Week 34 (Aug 19-25)

Link to readings

I was going to say I was in the home stretch, but I have to make it to next week to hit two thirds of the way through the year.

Quick review on this week's readings:

Aug 19 Journey to Diverse Places by Paré: 3/5 16th century white noise machine!

Aug 20 Paradise Lost by Milton: 1/5 It's still bad!

Aug 21 Confessions of St. Augustine: 1/5 Fundamentalist Christianity is not compatible with a liberal education, no matter how much fundamentalist Christians advocate for it!

Aug 22 Two Years Before the Mast by Dana: 3/5 Weird, but mostly inciteful, sailor expressions!

Aug 23 From A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Burke: 2/5 Less the origin of beauty, and more what isn't beauty.

Aug 24 Pliny the Elder’s Letters by Luther: 3/5 First person disaster account is pretty cool.

Aug 25 "The Tides" by Kelvin: 3/5 I now understand how tides work.

Average: 2.29 An aggressively average back half of the week.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Workmanlike:

: characterized by the skill and efficiency typical of a good workman

also : competent and skillful but not outstanding or original

Workmanlike is how I'd describe about half the selections this week. And that's fine. Yeah, it's great to read some Keats or something, but I'd rather a week with four good selections and three okay ones than one great one and six stinkers.

I learned several interesting things this week, and mostly avoided having to slog through anything.