Off the Mark

… but broken for much longer.
This blog, Off the Mark, is 2 years old today. I shall refrain from calling it an anniversary, as such, since last year we sort of decided that my blogging anniversary ought to be from the start of my 1st public blog, …the thoughts are broken…, which debuted in January […]

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I went back through my posts of the last two months and there isn’t much explicit mention of the best distraction a boy could ask for. I think the first (and one of 2, maybe 3) explicit reference is in the post “Living room talk.” There are certainly several other references that were mostly for […]

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2 views on the slipperiness of words:
Words are clumsy tools. And it is very easy to cut one’s fingers with them, and they need the closest attention in handling; but they are the only tools we have, and the imagination itself cannot work without them.
(Frankfurter 1947: 546) as quoted in Harris, R., & Hutton, C. […]

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Caresses and punches; or, what big corbicula you have, dear
Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

Bee best viewed at largest size.

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Things have sort of “settled down” around here; here being the blog. Related things in my daily life got “interesting” and have only progressed. Today was a most enlightening day. [Yes, Christina, that “interesting” was purposefully vague, and for you.  ]
Wow. What to say, or not say? Been working on this for a while […]

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the man sat gazing
awed by the vast firmament
night after endless night
terrified, alone
years rolled by
friends came
friends went
his children grew
and the world changed around him
the stars, they were too many
one May evening in the endless procession of months
in an Alley
the man and a friend sat and talked
unknown to the man
something stirred in the heavens
the night sky had […]

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After seeing several posts about Wordle I finally decided to play. The easiest thing for me to play with were my del.icio.us tags. Even these are not entirely representative or, I should say, not accurately representative.
Based on previous (faulty) workflow, it is the case that there are hundreds of posts in Bloglines that I commented […]

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Back in mid-January 2007 I started a “feature” entitled “Some things read this week, …”. I have, for a long time now, been unhappy with it. I have rarely addressed the important things in the depth which they deserved and to which I would like. The date data is generally recorded in at least one […]

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I have come to realize that I am a failure at the professional role that I have been trying to adopt for the last several years.  It is one which, in many ways, I am perfectly suited for.  For instance, I can shoot holes in most any argument presented by most anyone, preferably with the […]

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 2 - 3:30 PM
Library Colloquium: Michael Gorman : Are Libraries Still Vital to Research?
Why do we keep bringing him here?
And, yes, I am well aware of his connection to UIUC. But, honestly, you’d think people might have outgrown him by now. Perhaps if more of our students could learn to […]

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