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ROBERT E DUNN

The House on the Hill

4/27/2022

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A villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.

​Edward Arlington Robinson
 
They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
 
Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
 
Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
 
Why is it then we stray
Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,
 
And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.
 
There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

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psalm 150

4/27/2022

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Our seminarian is Jacob, Bachelor of Music (BM).

Jacob's musical arrangement of the Psalm 150 with all the instruments mentioned begins at 59 minutes and is eight minutes long.


Clementine Vulgate
Latin text
1  Alleluja. Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus; laudate eum in firmamento virtutis ejus.
2  Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus; laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis ejus.
3  Laudate eum in sono tubae; laudate eum in psalterio et cithara.
4  Laudate eum in tympano et choro; laudate eum in chordis et organo.
5  Laudate eum in cymbalis benesonantibus; laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis.
6  Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum!
Alleluja.
​

Douay-Rheims Bible
English translation

1  Alleluia. Praise ye the Lord in his holy places: praise ye him in the firmament of his power.
2  Praise ye him for his mighty acts: praise ye him according to the multitude of his greatness.
3  Praise him with the sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp.
4  Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organs.
5  Praise him on high sounding cymbals: praise him on cymbals of joy:
6  let every spirit praise the Lord.

Alleluia.

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12-tone music

4/25/2022

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Western music is based on the 12-tone system. The Catholic Church banned the wolf interval as offensive to the ear, but it is heavily used in death metal music and is very hard to sing unless the vocalist employs a false chord technique, also known as a scream or a growl. I think the Sabaton singer does it … maybe not.

This excellent video shows the connection between geometry and music. Some students have a harder time developing numeracy than they do with literacy or musicality. I placed a metronome on my piano and found it to be unnecessary. I suppose numerical timing and beat were already firmly fixed in my body, specifically in my foot.
​

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child desires

4/24/2022

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Why Russian children still love the ballet

CULTURE, FEB 14, 2015, By MARIA FEDORISHINA, SPECIAL TO RBTH 

“According to a 2013 survey by children’s charitable fund, Deti Mira, 16.4 percent of Russian children aged 4-6 dream of an artistic profession, including the ballet.”
…

“In other countries, Russian classical ballet is often associated with the leading Russian theaters, the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, where the dancers are mostly graduates of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography and the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. It is practically impossible to prepare for entrance to such institutions because natural attributes – such as flexibility, being able to rise and jump, and a good ear for music – play such a leading role. Students are subject to an intense screening process.
 
“About 98 percent of children study ballet for themselves,” says Yulya Subbotovskaya.


https://www.rbth.com/arts/2015/02/14/why_russian_children_still_love_the_ballet_43709.html​
 
Ballet comes in second behind sport for Russian children. An American parent might send his 14-year-old son into football, and a Russian parent might have sent him into ballet school three or four years earlier.​ These boys are 16.

It is hard for a parent to know what his or her child desires. Alexander, my little 8-year-old genius, excels in reading and has an immense imagination. His mother told me that he thinks differently from us. Our thoughts follow a straight line, and his thoughts resemble vectors.
​
Picture
Frank D and Nykamp DQ, “An introduction to vectors.” From Math Insight.
http://mathinsight.org/vector_introduction

At least, that is what we think is going on inside his little head. All I know is that I must keep up with his way of thinking, which is so different from my own.
2 Comments

latin translate

4/23/2022

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Latin students, let’s see if you can translate this:

Omnipotens semptierne Deus, qui paschale sacramentum in reconciliationis humanae faedere contulisti: da mentibus nostris; ut, quod professione celebramus, imitemur effectu.

Hints: qui - who; contulisti - hast bestowed; da - grant; ut, quod - that what


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Gifts

4/23/2022

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On the Gift of a Book to a Child
 
Child! do not throw this book about!   
   Refrain from the unholy pleasure   
Of cutting all the pictures out!
   Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
 
Child, have you never heard it said   
   That you are heir to all the ages?
Why, then, your hands were never made
   To tear these beautiful thick pages!
 
Your little hands were made to take
   The better things and leave the worse ones:   
They also may be used to shake
   The Massive Paws of Elder Persons.
 
And when your prayers complete the day,   
   Darling, your little tiny hands
Were also made, I think, to pray   
   For men that lose their fairylands.
 
Hilaire Belloc


When asked by a heckler during a campaign speech if he was a papist, Belloc (1870-1953) withdrew a rosary from his pocket and responded, “Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”

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duet exams

4/22/2022

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Finally, some 2022 video from Vaganova Ballet School in St. Petersburg, Russia. This is a comprehensive school giving instruction in academics and ballet, and ages are roughly 10 - 18. The video is probably the 7th or 8th year of study, so 17-year-old students. The teachers are Denis Matvienko and Mikhail Sivakov. Russia’s passion.
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zero factorial

4/21/2022

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Here is the simplest proof I ever saw, done by working backward. Enlarge so you can see the whiteboard. His teaching style encourages class participation. Sine functions are trig, which follows geometry, and a complex number is expressed in standard form when written a + bi where a is the real part and bi is the imaginary part. For example, 5+2i is a complex number. No need to think about that. Watch the teacher. (BTW, Fourier, 1768-1830, was orphaned at age nine. Ergo, I have no excuses when doing math.
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trial of joan of arc

4/18/2022

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I watched The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962), written and directed by Robert Bresson (1901-1999), the same man who directed Diary of a Country Priest (1951), which I have reviewed before. Classified as historical film, it holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I have four French films in my top ten. The other two are Léon Morin, Priest (1961) and Dialogue with the Carmelites (1960). All have English subtitles. I never expected any French films to be near the top.

As pointed out by Bresson, there were no paintings of Joan done during her lifetime. He used the actual trial transcript as well as the transcript of her rehabilitation trial years later.

Bishop Pierre Cauchon (1371-1442) was the trial judge. He and all the other clerics there were anglophiles. England had occupied the northern part of France at the time. If I had been pope, I would have hauled his ass to the Vatican and flogged him and excommunicated him. Didn’t happen. Cauchon died of a heart attack at 71. They none of them liked the fact that she dressed in men’s 
clothing during the trial but did protect her from the lustful jailers. A group of women verified her virginity. Joan (1412-1431) was 19 when she was burned at the stake.

The questions put to Joan were very clever, but her answers were cleverer, and some questions she refused to answer. At one point, the interrogator says, “… at this trial …”, and she says, “Is this a trial?” She got hand signals from her priest-lawyer on which questions to answer, and a couple of times he flashed a small, covert smile after her answers. No one was allowed to advise her.

The court at her rehabilitation trial declared her innocent on July 7, 1456, by annulling her sentence and declaring that she had been tried on ‘false articles of accusation’. The articles and Cauchon’s sentence were to be torn out of a copy of the proceedings and burnt by the public executioner at Rouen.

My rating of the film is five stars. I would classify it as realism. I prefer films on saints rather than Christ for two reasons: 1) it is impossible to portray divinity and 2) it is too much to ask an actor to be the face of Christ.
​
I prefer realism over sickeningly pious films.​
Picture
Painting by Hermann Stilke (1803-1860), right-hand side of "The Life of Joan of Arc" Triptych, created 1843 and owned by the Hermitage Museum.

This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: The author died in 1860, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years of fewer.
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mcteague

4/13/2022

2 Comments

 
Frank Norris novel, McTeague, published 1899, set in San Francisco and one other place, I recommend for its stark realism and noir tone. Genre - Naturalism.
2 Comments

bob hope

4/13/2022

2 Comments

 
A friend sent this clip of Bob Hope.
Picture
SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY
https://sfpl.org/locations/main-library/historical-photographs


​Outside his father’s store in San Francisco’s North Beach, Figoni Hardware, my friend met Bob Hope. They had a nice conversation … about Bob’s eye problem. Figoni sold live worms, too.

2 Comments

detective radio

4/13/2022

1 Comment

 
1 Comment

alaska '22

4/12/2022

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1 Comment

into/in

4/12/2022

2 Comments

 
“Into” is a preposition.
“In” is a noun, preposition, adjective, or adverb.

Examples of “in”
I have an in with the company. (noun)
She placed her books in the bookbag. (preposition)
Dress shirts with no tie are in this year. (adjective)
Turn your essay in to the teacher. (adverb)

In the last example, “in” is connected to “turn”, “turn in”, indicating how. Put the adverb “in” next to “turn” and then it becomes clear. If one said, “into the teacher”, now there is a preposition and making the essay the teacher is impossible unless one owns the Good Witch’s wand.
2 Comments

host secreted

4/12/2022

1 Comment

 
1 Comment

politicians

4/11/2022

1 Comment

 
One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, “I cannot accept money from you. I’m doing community service this week.” The florist was pleased and left the shop.

When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a ‘thank you’ card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop came in for a haircut, and when he tried to pay his bill, the barber again replied, “I cannot accept money from you, I
’m doing community service this week.” The cop was happy and left the shop.

The next morning when the barber went to open, there was a ‘thank you’ card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Then, a politician came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again replied, “I cannot accept money from you. I’m doing community service this week.” The politician was very happy and left the shop.

The next morning, when the barber opened his shop, there were a dozen politicians lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it.

As Ronald Reagan said, “Both politicians and diapers need to be changed often and for the same reason.”

1 Comment

tittup

4/11/2022

1 Comment

 
Tittup [ˈti-təp] is an intransitive verb (there is no object to receive the action of the verb) and means “to move in a lively and jerky, or exaggerated, manner”. In 1862, William Makepeace Thackeray wrote of “a magnificent horse dancing, and tittupping.” The word is not common today but use it and turn a head or two. Thackeray is the author of Vanity Fair (1847), which I list among my top five novels.
1 Comment

china face

4/8/2022

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My source tells me that China puts on one face for the outside world, a face that proclaims peace and prosperity, and another face when addressing its citizen-serfs. Children there are taught to hate America and kill all Americans, all Americans. Sorry – can’t reveal my source.

I felt tasked with doing a bit of research and found this video that follows the money trail. Father William Ryan, SJ, a teacher at my high school in the 1960s, was held in solitary confinement in 1951. What a stark contrast there exists between Ryan and the man who strikes deals with communists.

A 180-degree Jesuit turn and fiendish repudiation of their history in China. In the morning offering I push through a six-second snag.
Listen to what Cardinal Zen from Hong Kong says: “It’s a secret … secret even to a Chinese cardinal.” Report is from the South China Morning Post, dated Oct. 8, 2020, and offered without commentary by the newspaper. That is welcomed.

​www.scmp.com/video/hong-kong/3104745/former-hong-kong-bishop-pessimistic-about-religious-freedom-beijing
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Twain & Ina Coolbrith

4/7/2022

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When Mark Twain heard that Ina Coolbrith lost nearly all she owned in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, he offered a few of his autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. I mention that because there is a park named after her. Here is a video of the park, which is perched on a Russian Hill precipice at the intersection of Taylor and Vallejo and interrupting Vallejo itself because it is too steep for vehicles. I passed by it many times on the way to some incident or other.​
Coolbrith (1841-1928), poet, writer, librarian, first California Poet Laureate, the first of many

​I assigned a story to one of my students born in San Francisco, a report that was written by Jack London, “The Story of an Eyewitness”, special correspondent, Collier’s, the National Weekly, May 5, 1906. The earthquake occurred at 5:12 in the morning of April 18, 1906, magnitude 7.9.

My nana, born Nita Leonard, April 17, 1894, San Francisco, lived at 120 Church Street. The house her father built still stands. The fire stopped four blocks from the Leonard home.​
Picture
This photograph by Arnold Genthe shows Sacramento Street and approaching fire.
Steinbrugge Collection of the UC Berkeley Earthquake Engineering Research Center
​

0 Comments

pac-man gold

4/6/2022

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wonderful imagery and metaphor - there's room in science for artists and writers
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anaphora/epiphora

4/6/2022

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“I want pizza, you want pizza, we all want pizza.” Example of epiphora. Epiphora is the opposite of anaphora, which is the repetition of the beginning part of a sentence, in Sonnet 66, the word, “And”. Epiphora is repetition at the end of phrases or clauses, as in the phrase, “want pizza”.
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diversity

4/5/2022

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This past Friday, a Los Angeles judge ruled that California’s diversity law is unconstitutional. The law mandated that publicly held corporations must alter their boards by selecting members from certain racial, ethnic, or LGBT groups. Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. Weber
0 Comments

Rectangles

4/5/2022

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Using whole number dimensions, how many different rectangles can be created to have a total area of 80 square inches?

​The area of a rectangle is length times width. So, there are two numbers for each set. The total area is 80 square inches. This is a case of finding factors for the number 80. A factor is a number that divides another number with no remainder. List all the factors.

1X80
2X40
4X20
5X16
8X10
10X8
16X5
20X4
40X2
80X1

These are the only sets that can create 80 square inches.

However, the last five sets are the same as top five sets in reverse order. So, the conclusion must be that there are five unique rectangles that can fit inside a rectangle of 80 square inches.
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the raven

4/5/2022

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Several times Edgar Allan Poe eerily uses the repetend, “nevermore”. Pallas is a Titan god in Greek mythology. Nepenthe is a potion used by the ancients to induce forgetfulness of pain or sorrow...or oblivion…probably cannabis or opium.

Once I heard an art student say that he smoked cannabis for inspiration. I said, "Flush it down the toilet."

Nothing more.


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teacher farewell

4/4/2022

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pd is professional development and 125 sq. ft. is 10 X 12.5
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