Sarah Wrote That

Dear Tumblr

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to reply to our own posts, so if we have replies enabled and people use them we can reply in turn without having to use Disqus to make comments that don’t show up on the Tumblr dashboard?

The Way We Plagiarize Now

By far the most-viewed and most regularly viewed individual pages on my blog are posts analyzing Katherine Mansfield’s and Flannery O’Connor’s short stories.  Which: yay people interested in Katherine Mansfield and Flannery O’Connor.  Multiple visits, however, have arrived by Google searches for entire phrases written not by Mansfield or O’Connor but by me.

I wonder if my posts got good grades.

A Times writer fears that copy/paste makes The Way We Plagiarize Now different from the file-in-the-frat or sorority-house method not in the amount of retyping required but in the kind of thinking it fosters:

When many young people think of writing, they don’t think of fashioning original sentences into a sustained thought. They think of making something like a collage of found passages and ideas from the Internet.

(Young people: is this true??  Digital media: it is changing everything!)

As a teacher, I’m less worried about plagiarizing than about basic grammar and usage.  My students’ mistakes tend to be consistent and distinctive enough that exceptions immediately stand out.  Once I found my own comments incorporated into a later draft of a personal statement.  Another time a pair of students writing a research paper hadn’t removed the “prepared for…” from their cover page before printing (search for “paper writing service” and prepare to be creeped out.)

Editorial writers love to point out Something We’ve Never Seen Before, and The Way Things Used To Be (in which decades are smoothed into a uniform, irretrievable past).

One summer I was a research assistant for a former professor.  I really only had a few hours of work each day, but I always seemed to end up spending hours in the stacks.  There were magazines going back to the 20s, some with pre-ZIP code mail-in offers still in them (“What will she do when you’re gone?” over a pensive line-drawing of a man in a short, wide tie, poring over his life insurance policy).  There were Theory books I’d heard cited like the word of God but never read.  And of course novels, stories, and poetry.  The only difference from web surfing was more complete works from more eras more readily available.  Also having to climb stairs, the feel of paper, and the scent.

Now that’s a sea change.  Old Books.  Someone should make a room spray.  Fill your house with time.  Before it all flattens out into Past and Present.

"Tevershall pit-bank was burning, had been burning for years, and it would cost thousands to put it out. So it had to burn. And when the wind was that way, which was often, the house was full of the stench of this sulphurous combustion of the earth’s excrement. But even on windless days the air always smelt of something under-earth: sulphur, iron, coal, or acid. And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled persistently, incredible, like black manna from the skies of doom."

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Currant Cream Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 cup all-purpose, 1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour)
1 tablespoon sugar if desired
2 tablespoons double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 cup dried currants
1 large egg
2/3 to 1 cup heavy cream, half-and-half, or crème fraîche, plus additional cream for brushing

Into a bowl sift together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar if desired, baking powder, baking soda, and salt).  Blend in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal, and stir in the currants.

In a small bowl beat together the egg and 2/3 cup of the cream until the mixture is combined, add the mixture to the dry ingredients, and stir with a fork, adding more of the cream if necessary, until it just forms a sticky but manageable dough.

Knead the dough lightly on a floured surface for 30 seconds and pat it gently into a rectangle 3/4 inch thick.  Cut out rounds with 2 1/4 inch cutter dipped in flour, or cur out 2-inch squares with a sharp knife dipped in flour and arrange the scones on a buttered baking sheet.  Form the scraps into a ball, pat the dough into a rectangle, and cut out scones in the same manner. Brush the tops of the scones with the additional cream and bake the scones in a pre-heated 400° F. oven for 12-15 minutes, or until they are golden. Makes about 12 scones.

from May 1984 Gourmet

Vacation Weather

Yesterday was brilliant, in the dictionary and British colloquial senses; real summer-feeling (i.e. humid), but cool enough for a six-mile morning run with clouds like pop-up mountains.

I like the summer Sunday sound of towns: people walking everywhere, outdoor weddings, swimming parties, runners, and, here, parents surreptitiously bringing their kids to wade in the fountain on Washington Street.  And no low grinding noise of trucks.

A woman with Pennsylvania plates stopped me to ask for directions to a park in another town, and was angry when I didn’t know.

But, Saturday.  Cool and grey—finally, a rainy day—so early morning seemed to continue until mid-afternoon.  It’s never vacation until a rainy day when there’s no rush to be off and about anything.

Spicebush swallowtail butterfly, the first I’ve ever seen.