It'll take your family heirlooms, but it can take your darkest sins

[sovay]

I have just had a poem accepted that I will announce tomorrow. I am extremely happy about the acceptance, if not about the political situation that sparked the writing of the poem.

I just received an e-mail from President Peter Salovey of Yale that the university has decided to rename Calhoun College for Grace Hopper. The statement and the two linked reports are worth reading.

This song from Brandi Carlile's The Firewatcher's Daughter (2015) has been playing on repeat since ladymondegreen linked me to it. But nothing scares me more than the stranger at my door who I fail to give shelter, time, and worth.

Last night I started coughing and this morning I woke up sneezing and I just had to cancel an invitation for dinner from friends who really don't need whatever the hell this is on top of whatever their small child might already have brought home from daycare. I think my plans for the rest of the day are to finish writing about a movie and then see if I can either stare at another one or pass out.

Comments

[dewline]

1. Congratulations!

2. I'd heard of the Hopper College decision via Reuters earlier today. Pleased to do so.

4. Wishing you better health sooner than later!

let the dust hold my soul like a holy rolling stone

[kore]

Brandi Carlile, holy wow! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bem32zF_w48

[umadoshi]

I hope whatever you've come down with passes quickly. ;_;

[sovay]

1. Congratulations!

Thank you! It just went live!

2. I'd heard of the Hopper College decision via Reuters earlier today. Pleased to do so.

I had lost track of the debate until a night or so ago when I read an article in the New York Times, after which the university's announcement was timely.

4. Wishing you better health sooner than later!

Much appreciated! Tonight has involved way more coughing than I consider humanly reasonable.

Re: let the dust hold my soul like a holy rolling stone

[sovay]

Brandi Carlile, holy wow!

She's really good! I had not taken any real notice of her despite having four of her songs on my computer (one by her, three she wrote for other people) and now I've got the entire album of The Firewatcher's Daughter and have played "The Stranger at My Door" thirty-nine times.

[sovay]

I hope whatever you've come down with passes quickly.

Thank you. I would enjoy that. (What is the text of your icon from?)

better men have hit their knees and bigger men have died

[kore]

I think all I knew of her was Raise Hell, which is awesome, but not like the Daughter tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w4CHePRnYs

have played "The Stranger at My Door" thirty-nine times

That is my kind of music fan!

Re: let the dust hold my soul like a holy rolling stone

[kore]

also, DUDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osNUs_HcsbE

Re: better men have hit their knees and bigger men have died

[sovay]

That is my kind of music fan!

It's kind of my default approach to music, at least new music or music that really resonates with me. I don't know if it's normal or not. It wouldn't make a difference if I knew. (ONSIND's "Heterosexuality Is a Construct" is up to 26.)

Re: let the dust hold my soul like a holy rolling stone

[sovay]

also, DUDE

That's great. More bands should use close harmony like it's no big deal.

[edit] She appears to be my age, a married Christian lesbian with a daughter and tattoos from The Neverending Story. I really enjoy finding out this sort of thing.

[umadoshi]

I think I got the icon from a batch of quirky-text icons, so if it's from something, I don't know what. (If the post had mentioned a source I'd probably have it in the file info, but I don't see anything.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

"The Firewatcher's Daughter" is excellent.

But nothing scares me more than the stranger at my door who I fail to give shelter, time, and worth.

I just went to a packed-to-overflowing town hall meeting of my US Congressman, Jim [oops! got the name wrong intially] McGovern, and he was saying that he'd stand by Northampton as a sanctuary city, and if it came to that, we'd ask houses of worship to create safe living spaces to shelter people. He had, and received from people in the audience, several good suggestions for courses of action going forward; I'll share them at some point.

He said he asked his Republican colleagues if seeing all the marches had them worried, and they replied, "A little," and he asked, "Why just a little?" They said, "Because we don't think it's sustainable." So, he said to us, we need to make our resistance sustainable. Someone in the audience shouted out "And yet she persisted," and everyone applauded. We will do this.

[sovay]

I just went to a packed-to-overflowing town hall meeting of my US Congressman, Jim [oops! got the name wrong intially] McGovern, and he was saying that he'd stand by Northampton as a sanctuary city, and if it came to that, we'd ask houses of worship to create safe living spaces to shelter people.

Oh, that's wonderful. I'm really glad to hear it. I didn't know Northampton was a sanctuary city, but I'm not surprised. I'll have to ask derspatchel's father in Cummington if he can be part of the worship/sanctuary effort. That is how churches are supposed to work.

He had, and received from people in the audience, several good suggestions for courses of action going forward; I'll share them at some point.

Thank you. The more information in common, the better.

He said he asked his Republican colleagues if seeing all the marches had them worried, and they replied, "A little," and he asked, "Why just a little?" They said, "Because we don't think it's sustainable."

Well, that to me is an excellent reason to sustain.

So, he said to us, we need to make our resistance sustainable. Someone in the audience shouted out "And yet she persisted," and everyone applauded. We will do this.

Good!

[gwynnega]

Congratulations on the poetry acceptance! I look forward to learning the details.

That is wonderful news about the name change at Yale.

[sovay]

Congratulations on the poetry acceptance! I look forward to learning the details.

Thank you!

That is wonderful news about the name change at Yale.

I was glad to see it. The letter and the reports are very clear that the point is not erasure, but what a community chooses to honor.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on poetry acceptance! And I hope you feel better.

I have mixed, though generally positive, feelings about the Calhoun name change. I do feel strongly that they ought to put up a plaque to remind everyone that yes, this was what it was called for 86 years.
But Grace Hopper was one of those people - perhaps one should say, one of the many women - who deserves to be better remembered. So I also feel like they ought to get a good print of this and frame it somewhere prominent.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Oh and that: in honour both of remembering the former name, and of celebrating the new, "Amazing Grace" ought to be sung at all major Hopper College events.

[sovay]

Oh and that: in honour both of remembering the former name, and of celebrating the new, "Amazing Grace" ought to be sung at all major Hopper College events.

Write and propose it: that's brilliant.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the poem's acceptance. I hope the resting up wards off any encroaching illness.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Wasn't "Amazing Grace" written by a slave trader? Admittedly he repented later, but still.

[sovay]

Wasn't "Amazing Grace" written by a slave trader? Admittedly he repented later, but still.

Yes, which I think is sort of the point. He also became a serious and active abolitionist, so it's not as though he just wrote songs about his change of mind.

[sovay]

Congratulations on the poem's acceptance. I hope the resting up wards off any encroaching illness.

Thank you! I'm trying.

[sovay]

Congratulations on poetry acceptance! And I hope you feel better!

Thank you! I made Totally Inauthentic Chicken Saag for dinner (next time: more spinach and more spices and cook the spinach for longer; I got the bitter green taste out, but I think it still released too much liquid into the rest of the curry) and wrote about a movie, which is currently not crossposting to LJ because something something DDOS I don't know I can't even edit the typo I found because then it will post twice aargh.

I have mixed, though generally positive, feelings about the Calhoun name change. I do feel strongly that they ought to put up a plaque to remind everyone that yes, this was what it was called for 86 years.

Yes. And after a while people will read it and wonder why, but then you can have the conversation about reasons people make decisions in one century and different decisions in another.

But Grace Hopper was one of those people - perhaps one should say, one of the many women - who deserves to be better remembered. So I also feel like they ought to get a good print of this and frame it somewhere prominent.

I'm for it.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

There's a chapter of Alan Moore's _Jerusalem_ that attempts to grapple with that contradiction.

[sovay]

There's a chapter of Alan Moore's _Jerusalem_ that attempts to grapple with that contradiction.

Does it do it well?

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I thought so, though I make no claims as to the mileage of others.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

From all the evidence I've seen, the hymn was written well before his change of mind. I could be wrong about that, and I'm sure I'm biased as I disliked "Amazing Grace" before I knew anything about the author.