April 9, 2020

today i will stop being a dilatory wretch and do something.

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lingering only to commend to one and all tangible things, an exhibition, then a book of the exhibition, then a HarvardX course: there is a gorgeous w.g. sebald/thomas browne quality to it.

. “The university not only owns a Gutenberg bible, it also cares for Turkish sun dials, a Chinese crystal ball, a divination basket from Angola, and nineteenth-century �spirit writing� chalked on a child-sized slate. Tucked away in storage cabinets or hidden in closets and the backrooms of its museums and libraries are Henry David Thoreau�s pencil, a life mask of Abraham Lincoln, and chemicals captured from a Confederate ship. The Art Museums not only care for masterpieces of Renaissance painting but for a silver-encrusted cup made from a coconut. The Natural History museums not only preserve dinosaur bones and a fish robot but an intact Mexican tortilla more than a century old.” (from the course catalog)

you too can audit the course for free on EdX: starts june 2.

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tangiblethings sarah carter, whose knowledge and intelligence and wise ways had always helped me when i was in grad school, is a person whose work often makes me