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Snippets (The Rules)

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...Salesman says this vacuum's guaranteed, it
Could suck an ancient virus from the sea,
It could put the dog out of a job,
Could make the traffic stop, so
Little thoughts can safely get across...

It's the rules, it's the rules
Guaranteed or not, it's the rules.
Tragically Hip, The Rules (Phantom Power)
This piece is a placeholder, and will disappear, I expect, whenever I have time to develop the previous post on life in Japan, and to expand on the second of the two 'little thoughts' I've had today that have nothing to do with reviewing linguistics abstracts, revising a syntax paper and trying to prepare three midterm examinations before next week. (Incidently, if you are a linguist reading this, please have a look at the Inishmacsaint piece, and let me know what you think; if you're not, you probably don't want to go there). It's Poets' Day, effectively the weekend in a couple of hours' time, from the time that Sean takes the bus down the hill from school to meet me at Julian's nursery—after that, banal domesticity trumps reflection, until Monday 9am. So, here they are, in no particular order, those thoughts:
  • Why does nobody want you unless you're unavailable? (I was thinking particularly about employment, but it may apply more generally.)
  • Shakespeare was wrong about love, in perhaps his most famous sonnet on the subject—see below—at least as it is usually interpreted. Not only that, his beautifully crafted error conceals a wicked logic trap. Billy Joel, on the other hand, was right (maybe!). As so often. All will be revealed next week.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove;
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheek
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI.


(No, in case you might be thinking it, I don't know it by heart. But it did come up in last night's CSI: Las Vegas episode—another plus for crap tv shows!—and got me thinking again about my previous post on the subject last month (not the crime show, unconditional love)). 

Here's wishing us all a good weekend!
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