[Ed note: Warning. No technology content ahead. May not be suitable for all
readers.]
Well, I've finally broken down and installed the RealPlayer so that I can listen to The Writer's Almanac on my computer every day instead of mostly missing it on our
local NPR station. What I find fascinating about it is that it manages to bring poetry
back from the obscure backwater that it inhabits in my high school English classes
of the past. What's even more fascinating is that normally I absolutely cannot stand to
listen to Garrison Keillor do a reading - his "News from Lake Wobegon" segment from A Prairie Home Companion is like nails on a chalkboard to me. But for some reason
I think his poetry readings are just absolutely superb. It's probably because he lacks
that self-conscious "poetry cadence" that most people (including poets themselves)
use when reading poetry. I think the poetry choices are also very good and I have
found the poems he reads to be very personally affecting, something that I had really
forgotten that poetry can do. Many kudos to a fine and worthy effort.
And for those who wonder, the title of this entry comes from one of my favorite poems
(do people still have those these days?), "The Emperor of Ice Cream" by Wallace Stevens. Why it is a favorite, I have no idea.
Something about the line "Let be be finale of seem" just does it for me, I guess...
[We now return you to your regularly scheduled technology blog.]