a quote from my hometown senator, mr. zell miller:

"Who in his right mind would want to go into debt for the privilege of reading Beowulf when he can make $30,000 a year in air-conditioner maintenance right out of high school?"

and just when you think I'm going to say something snarky I'm going to consciously avoid the snarkiness, and say that the man just may have a point. at least, he's not pointless, even if he's not literary (although we all know him to be, if nothing else, biblical). I figure this just proves what I've always suspected -- that this girl is not in her right mind. this girl's mind is, in fact, so left behind it's pratically rapturous. mister miller's musings also remind me that it's been a really long time since I read the beowulf, which when I read I remember being only vaguely excited about, since I was just discovering uncle walt and cousin eliot, and beowulf seemed, if I recall, so last millenia.

on a less literary note, there's a computer clustering system (?) called beowulf that I vagely remember from my linux days. and while I cannot say with any certainty why this these clusters are named for the old hero, it seems a good enough name, full of spit and vinegar and whatnot.

I was thinking about saying that it'd be sad if the hackers of yore hadn't read the beowulf and gotten to name their clustery thing after it, but then I thought that ulysses is a fine enough name, maybe even finer for a cluster (since he pretty much always had sailors following him around) -- still, it occurs to me that heros, even those with the entourage, are somewhat solitary and probably should have their names attached to something more along the lines of penal confinement (sadness) or a lightbulb, or a mountaingoat, or a mountaingoat made out of lightbulbs.

a day after reading senator zell's quotable quote, I discovered that he was, for some time, an active member of the georgia endowment for the humanities. apparently, he didn't like the beowulf then either.

snark snark snark.

disclaimer: as I'm always yammering on to my students about taking quotes out of context, I feel compelled to note that I got this quote from another someone quoting and I'm entirely oblivious to the context. for all I know, he was just about to say, "and this is why we should fully fund students of the humanities -- so that they don't have to go into debt for the privilege of reading beowulf."

there. I consider myself disclaimed. yep. yesirree.