S. P. Cooper 🍋

Ph.D., FRSA. Now: Director of Education Policy @MackinacCenter, Host @CritReadings. Formerly: @EuroConOfficial, @MadisonProgram, @Princeton.

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

In this week's episode, @d_n_keane delivers a tour de force of hosting, taking us on a trip back to the beginnings of the detective story, and placing the Murders in the Rue Morgue in the context of its influence on the genre. Share and enjoy!

[Critical Readings @CritReadings]

CR Episode 344: The Murders in the Rue Morgue
https://t.co/8QoDRaYGgM

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

For a friend, I wrote,

"There once was a gourmand named Julian,
Who had a French vase of cerulean
Trimmed in argent and or,
And what was it for?
Just something to keep his tabbouli in."

Let the record show that, "It's a Sèvres tureen, not a vase." I regret the error.

[Dan Brooks @DangerBrooks]

Reading is one of the best things you can do and costs like $20 for six hours, tops. In many cases it's free. The people who make it possible live in penury and the whole modern economy is organized against it.

[Alex Rettie @AlexRettie]

Another fine roundup of poetry and writing on poetry from @StevenEKnepper. I'm pleased to see links to two poems (by Jeff Young -- @CatholicFoodie and Cara Valle) from @PoemsforPOI's September issue.

[Alex Rettie @AlexRettie]

Who am I to disagree?

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@KlassicalKat_88 No gun, just a fireplace poker.

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@yuanyi_z Praying for you all!!

[Anna Su ([email protected]) @theannasu]

This is not even a spicy take these days. The admin bloat in higher ed is out of control

[Samurai Shiba @SamuraiShibaJP]

I've lived in the same apartment building in Tokyo for 11 years.

I know zero names.

That's normal here. We nod in the elevator. We do not speak.

Then Mike moved in on the third floor.

Ohio. Six-foot-four. Laughs like a truck starting up.

Day 1: He knocked on every door with a plate of cookies.
(In Japan, when you move in, you give your neighbors a small towel. Then you leave. Mike gave cookies. Then he stayed and talked.)

Week 1: He knew everyone's name. Including the dog's.

Then there was Mrs. Sato on the first floor.

She's 84. Her husband passed away ten years ago. She lives alone.

In 11 years, I had never heard her voice.

Every Tuesday, Mike carried her groceries up the steps. She didn't speak English. He didn't speak Japanese.

They talked anyway. Mostly about the photo of her husband by the door.

Then one morning, her curtains stayed closed.

Mike noticed.

Nobody else did. I didn't.

He knocked. No answer. He called the building manager.

She had fallen the night before. She'd been on the floor all night.

She's okay now.

But the building isn't the same.

People say good morning. The elevator has conversations.

Last month, we had our first rooftop potluck. Nobody knew what a potluck was. Mike explained it twice.

Mrs. Sato brought 40 rice balls.

And then she laughed at something Mike said.

That was the first time I ever heard her voice.

Mike moved back to Ohio this week.

On his last morning, the whole building came down to the lobby. Kids. Grandparents. The dog.

Mrs. Sato handed him a box.

Inside: one thousand paper cranes.

In Japan, you fold a thousand cranes for someone you want to protect. Her hands shake. She had been folding them since the day he found her.

Then she said the English sentence she had practiced every day for a week.

"Please... come back."

Mike was crying too hard to answer in English.

So he answered in the Japanese he had been secretly practicing.

"Kanarazu kaette kimasu."

In Japanese, that doesn't mean "I'll visit."

It's what you say when you're coming home.

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@marcpuck High praise!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

I know that I must have mentioned it before, but Wayne Siegel's Chaconne for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra is such a brilliant, perfect piece. If you haven't heard it before, dim the lights and listen.

And so to bed!
https://t.co/uGjRjBA3Zd

[Adrian Vermeule @Vermeullarmine]

Christopher Landau (@DeputySecState) has an important post today titled “A New Chapter of American Statecraft,” on the Substack of @StateDept. The subject is merit-based recruitment and fellowships for a new generation of Americans in the foreign service. Should be of great interest to students and young professionals. The link is below.

https://t.co/JXBiRqm08S

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@d_n_keane Isn't it? What a work!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@madeline_cct Thanks ever so much!!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

Came home to birthday cupcakes. 😊

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

RT @HenmackIII: The crisis is an indicator of wholesale mission failure.

Higher education abandoned its purpose: forming informed, virtuo…

[Robert P. George @McCormickProf]

The Chronicle of Higher Education on the new report of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters on the crisis in the humanities.
https://t.co/lyAp7gApdi

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@FantinaVienna It's hard to beat german chocolate cupcakes with coconut pecan frosting—at least, in my view. Thanks!!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@KlassicalKat_88 @DStrungk ❤️❤️❤️

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@KlassicalKat_88 @DStrungk —But passacaglias and chaconnes are so similar! —And also, what's wrong with passacaglias!?

The Haydn *is * good, but this Siegel is divine!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@AlexRettie @PoemsforPOI I'll warn/notify/threaten Sheehan in the morning!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@ThomasDHowes Thanks, Tom!!

[S. P. Cooper 🍋 @Prof_Cooper]

@DStrungk @KlassicalKat_88 How can the Kat turn his nose up at this!?