“Einstein’s great work was over well before he was 40. Photos from that time show him as a nattily dressed young professor, though we’re more familiar with the image of the old Einstein — the benign and unkempt sage of poster and T-shirt. But Einstein didn’t rest on his laurels in old age: he worked till his dying day seeking a unified theory of nature’s forces. At that time it was, we now realize, a premature quest which was doomed from the start. Cynics have said that Einstein might as well have gone fishing from 1920 onwards. Although there’s something rather noble about the way he persevered in his attempts to reach far beyond his grasp, in some respects the Einstein cult sends the wrong signal. It unduly exalts ‘armchair theory,’ which by itself would achieve little. We’re no wiser than Aristotle was, and the advance of science stems mainly from new technology and new instruments — in symbiosis, of course, with theory and insight.”

 

 – Martin Rees

 

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San Sepolcro
Jorie Graham

 

In this blue light
     I can take you there,
snow having made me
     a world of bone
seen through to. This
     is my house,

my section of Etruscan
     wall, my neighbor’s
lemon trees, and, just below
     the lower church,
the airplane factory.
     A rooster

crows all day from mist
     outside the walls.
There’s milk on the air,
     ice on the oily
lemonskins. How clean
     the mind is,

holy grave. It is this girl
     by Piero
della Francesca, unbuttoning
     her blue dress,
her mantle of weather,
     to go into

labor. Come, we can go in.
     It is before
the birth of god. No one
     has risen yet
to the museums, to the assembly
     line — bodies

and wings — to the open air
     market. This is
what the living do: go in.
     It’s a long way.
And the dress keeps opening
     from eternity

to privacy, quickening.
     Inside, at the heart,
is tragedy, the present moment
     forever stillborn,
but going in, each breath
     is a button

coming undone, something terribly
     nimble-fingered
finding all of the stops.

 

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1. Synonym test (Homer, Simpson or the Greek poet; Lennon/Lenin, John or Vladimir?)
2. Stop in a book store
3. Stop in a record store
4. Order ice cream (do they only like vanilla? Do you have the same favorite? Are they bold and willing to take chances like ordering rum raisin)
5. Go to a bar and only order a glass of water and then wait to see what they order

 

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Unbelievable But Real Film Title of the Week:

 

Pagan Gladiators, The (1982)

 

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1. Maya Angelou
2. Donald Hall
3. Billy Collins
4. Louise Gl