by ZiXiang Zhang

I.
Marching in the snow, tire marks
breaking ice shales, this is Siberia in lucid sleep,
in the gallop of steam & horns.

II.
I must be a mammoth once wedded to ice,
I am as old as the whipping storms.
There is no Venus in the morning sky, pines
growing wet with mercury—
when the whiteness leaves, another comes
with the promise of a crow.

III.
I feel a bulldozer in the distance, a simian groaning
with mouthfuls of salt;
I taste the earth behind it, I lick the wounds.

IV.
Over the slumping of ice grains on sand, a tusk of magnolia
juts from the sun,
abandons her tracks on the cobbled waves.
The water swallows her.
She is not hungry, but she lives
& primal, her lips try hunger.

V.
I send emptiness to that other coast—
a floating rubber pail.
I give what lives to the basin edge: silence & its waterbed.

By this hostel for the fins—infantry of the feathered flock,
I dig a nest for the flipper breed.
When I tire & the tides grow limbs,
I will gestate beneath the fog, in the infinite rinds
of this winter, this gathering in the womb.

by Brian Tich

I am not the first person to feel that a certain text—whether it be poem, novel, myth, or just about anything else—possesses, as a kind of quasi-mystical twin, a perfect musical pairing. Some people in the past have felt so strongly about this that they actually took the time to write the music themselves (for some reason, Scheherazade keeps coming to mind), but, lacking such compositional skills, I have been forced to confine my searches to the realm of pre-existing music. Which brings me to the pairing which I am about to suggest.

But first, let me give you some little idea about the context in which I first read Wallace Steven’s Sunday Morning. Still struggling to sort out how I ought to view my life in a post-theistic state of mind, I had come across Phillip Larkin’s poem, Aubade. It is, by all accounts, an absolute gem—how else to describe a poem which, without blinking, swallows lines like “Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,” and “Death is no different whined at than withstood” ? Not exactly the stuff that happiness in made of. But then, I came across Stevens. It would be difficult to overestimate the effect that these lines had on me:

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

Here was a visionary (and I do not use the word lightly) who could perceive as possible the fruition of all human longing for paradisiacal fulfillment—and perceive it, moreover, in a world with a human sky. This, my friends, was a moment of joy.

And now, cue the music. In the year 1958, the Brazilian musician Antonio Carlos Jobim collaborated with the poet and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes to write a song which, in the skillful hands (and iconic voice) of João Gilberto, would become popularized as one of the earliest manifestations of a style soon to be known as Bossa Nova. The song, Chega de Saudade, is not something to be missed. Its lyrics describe the intense and painful longing (saudade, which many say is untranslatable) one lover feels when separated from the other, and the imagined ecstasy of their future reunion. Its music, which floats along with Bossa Nova’s characteristic lightness, begins in minor during the ‘tristeza’ section, but halfway through, it shifts to major with the words, “But if she comes back…what a beautiful thing.” I cannot do justice to the way the ears are uplifted by this brightening. It is never overwhelming—Bossa Nova rarely is—but it’s certainly difficult to feel the change without smiling.

I can just imagine Stevens’ woman of Sunday Morning, nested contemplatively among the “pungent oranges and bright, green wings,” hearing Gilberto’s voice wafting over from the next room: late coffee and oranges, and Chega de Saudade. Among all the music with which I am familiar, there is little else that can evoke so effortlessly for me those words, “But in contentment I still feel the need of some imperishable bliss.” Few other songs make me so happy to spurn Augustine and fall more deeply into the things of this world. In their own way, those wonderful Brazilians have ‘stray[ed] impassioned in the littering leaves,’ enshrining, with Stevens, the delicious temerity of human longing.

by Sarah Weston

Let it be known that I had a Korean-food themed New Year’s Eve party in the works WAY before Kim Jong Il decided to ruin it all and make me look completely tasteless. Instead of re-theming the menu, I’ve decided to embrace the indelicacy and GO ALL OUT! As such, you are cordially invited to a…

GEOPOLITICALLY TACKY NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY!!!!!!!!!

Have you ever wondered if you’d make the same dirty jokes at a party if you knew you were being wiretapped? Do you have a burning desire to know what a “Fascist Party Favor” is? Do you ever wonder what kind of tattoo (butterfly, heart, or tramp stamp?) your favorite dictator sported on his hiney? Have you ever had the urge to play a game of “Pin the Mustache on the Dictator” or “Spin the Molotov Cocktail?”

Well then, this is the (AUTOCRATIC) PARTY FOR YOU!!!!!!!

The Date: 31^st of December
The Time: 8 o’clock in the P.M.
The Place: Your nearest bunker
The Dictatorial Details: There will be no uprisings at this party. So check your free thought and speech at the door with your coats. In fact, this whole party’s going to be censored, kind of like the rest of this sentence dissentious a material in dissentious material and that’s when she dissentious material dissentious for material by dissentious material or dissentious material to dissentious with material then dissentious material.

Potential Party Games include Fascist Family Favorites like….

• Musical Electric chairs™ – where the winner is the person who doesn’t get a chair
• Totalitarian Telephone™ – a game of censoring sentences beyond recognition
• Francisco…. Franco! ™ – a version of the popular “Marco… Polo!”
• Stoning, Firing Squad, Guillotine™ – a delightful modification of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”
• Spot the Informant ™– a variant on “Where’s Waldo?”
• Truth or Dare… on the RACK. ™
• Socialist Charades™
• Knock in the Night™ – Followed by a game of “Hide and Go Seek.”

How to Best Prepare for this Party…

1. Come dressed as your favourite dictator! Need inspiration? Here’s a list…

• “Don’t disrupt me, I’m anachronistically playing the Four Seasons on my violin… also it’s getting a little hot in here, someone turn down the thermostat” Nero (Roman Empire)
• “Broseph” Joseph “I mustache you to join the Communist Party” Stalin (Soviet Union)
• Adolf “I keep my mustache this short because I get embarrassing amounts of schnitzel stuck in it if it’s any longer” Hitler (Third Reich, Nazi Germany)
• Emperor “My skin grafting operation didn’t go as well as expected” Palpatine (The Galactic Empire)
• Benito “I actually prefer coffee, please stop asking me to tea” Mussolini (Fascist Italy)
• Napoleon “my sideways hat is almost as obnoxiously large as my ego” Bonaparte (Post-Reign of Terror France)

2. Design a unique commemorative mustache for Kim Jong Il. Help the recently departed dictator join the impressive mustachetorial ranks of his fellow autocratic rulers (see: Stalin and Hitler).

Still thinking of joining a different party? I have testimonials…

“They rang in the New Year with absolutely no tact at all.” – The New York Times

“I felt invigorated to join a Totalitarian party after playing ‘Spot the Informant.’” – The LA Times

R.S.V.P. … or else

xoxoxoxoxoxox,

Comrade Weston

by Rachel Kolb

On Sunday night, facing the truth that over 45 cumulative pages of final papers were calling my name, I swore off of Facebook.

Actually, “swore off” isn’t the right phrase. It implies that I have a measure of self-control, that I could distinguish myself from my legions of friends who complain, “I’m wasting time on Facebook! It’s such a time suck!” even while they… continue to waste time on Facebook, papers and projects languishing all the while. I forced myself off of Facebook, was more like it. Instead of signing a mental pact with myself or deactivating my account – which I theoretically could have just reactivated anyway – I handed my password over to my sister, had her change it, and then washed my hands of the whole thing.

Now, the obvious risks of such a move aside, I’ve been feeling surprisingly relieved. Even if my paper-writing hits a wall and I want to defer the strain (i.e., procrastinate) by taking a peep at my news feed, I can’t. My most recent status – telling my friends to text or email or come find me if they need me – is still there, gathering comments and “likes” for all I know. And I’ve been reflecting on what drives the text-based attraction of Facebook in the first place.

I was not someone who joined Facebook willingly. Even while my high school friends professedly used the website every night, I wrote my papers, wrote for fun, chatted with my family, read novels, and went to bed early. I admit it: I was antisocial, unwilling to become digitally active until the end of my freshman year at Stanford, when someone pointed out to me that if there was a venue for making more connections with people, I should use it. And then I discovered something else. For someone who considers herself an introvert, being social (or believing that I was social to some extent) became as easy as what I already enjoyed most: reading and writing. Through the interface of text, a medium which I already understood, I could appear to have a lively social life on the interwebz, all while protecting myself from the uncertainty of seeing other people face-to-face.

I need not describe the downward spiral from the time I gave in and joined, the exchanging of my private literary interests for the excitement of conducting textual interactions in a semi-public setting. Before this past Sunday, I had been increasingly struck by the fact that, on Facebook, my goals were not necessarily to “keep in touch with my friends!”, to waste my time, or even to tell the world my moment-by-moment answers to that question: “What’s on your mind?” Instead, as murky as they otherwise were, my goals all stemmed from the desire to have a social standing, to have my curiosity about other people satisfied, to have a presence in a way that promised minimal commitment and maximal affability. Most of all, the ability to construct this type of presence, frivolous and time-consuming though it may be, strongly appealed to my drive toward writing. I’ve long considered myself a writer, but I’ve also long maintained that I was a better writer before Facebook. And it’s true. When the source of this inner energy to narrate, to shape, to interact through words was channeled toward actual composition, it was unmistakably purer.

It was that feeling of undivided attention, of engrossment in the page rather than in my own construction of my life, that drove me to abstain from Facebook. As well as the sort of undivided attention I remember giving my friends and their words more of when I was 17. So I was only 17 then. But I remember sending long emails and letters and thank-you notes to my closest friends and relatives, as small as that group might have been. Instead of the cursory writing on someone’s wall or “liking” their status, I did text or email or go find someone if I needed them. As for the people who slipped through the cracks, the ones who nowadays amused me with an occasional post but otherwise never crossed my mind – all they added to my Facebook life was the feeling of being well-connected, and nothing more.

The truth is, since Sunday I’ve already felt the desire to post an amusing thought or link on a friend’s wall, or to see what that interesting acquaintance is saying next. But why not satisfy those curiosities on a personal level? Via direct writing or face-to-face? The truth is, Facebook has added distance to my sense of intimacy with friends, as well as the type of response I have to the happenings in their lives. What happens is less sharing than showcasing, casting onto others our own words or theirs, constantly aiming to alter a public consciousness through the textual proof of our presence.

I’m wondering if it all adds up to a process of narrative construction – which people have always done anyway, in life and in literature. As I use my time to grapple through concepts of narrative formation for an ever-lengthening honors thesis, it strikes me that this might be an interesting research topic indeed. But maybe that’s just the thesis speaking. Or my desire to procrastinate – again.

Office Hours is a Leland Quarterly column exploring the nooks and crannies of our favorite professors’ and lecturers’ workspaces.

by Sandy Huang

He is probably an expert on truffles. He can teach you what you couldn’t learn in Catechism and Synagogue. He directs Stanford’s Alpine Archaeology Project. You’ve seen him on the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel.

Yeah, Patrick Hunt is kind of a big-time professor here at Stanford—even if his humility may cause him to profusely deny it.

As a member of Patrick’s SLE (Structured Liberal Education) section, I am constantly astonished by his vast knowledge of various topics. The size of his personal library just goes to show how well-read he actually is. My section notes tell me that he has quoted John Keats and Epictetus verbatim without ever having to consult a hard copy (or Google, I guess).

Patrick also composes operas, plays the flute fairly well, writes poetry inspired by his time teaching, and is editor-in-chief of a history-focused magazine called Electrum. And on top of all this, he works with Stanford’s athletic department in talking to interested recruits. Yep, that means he personally knows Andrew Luck and every other player on one of the top-ranked football teams in the nation (in fact, many of them have been to his house during their time on campus).

If Dos Equis ever decides that Jonathan Goldsmith is getting a bit too old, Patrick Hunt has my vote to replace him as the “The Most Interesting Man in the World-” even without the beard.