Delight Springs

Monday, August 27, 2018

Opening Day!


Back from a wonderful weekend meetup in Chattanooga with old Grad School pals who descended on the Gig City from all directions - not quite Seven States, but next year we'll add Carolina to Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia. It was the perfect transition from summer to the first day of fall semester today. I can now heartily recommend The Honest Pint, The Hair of the Dog, and the Pucketts breakfast buffet. The Lookouts fell dramatically to the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. But really, it is only a game.

Today I'm meeting a section of Honors Intro ("CoPhilosophy") and Environmental Ethics. Much to talk about, to bemoan, to hope we'll soon overcome.

Opening Day every semester is still special, after all these years. Fresh starts and new beginnings never get old.

But the old ones were good. Maybe it's time to bring back the argument clinic, or the whale...



It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a sperm whale had been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with suddenly not being a whale any more. This is what it thought as it fell. 

Ahhhh!!!! What's happening? Excuse me! Who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? What is this 'I' that I want to know what it is? Calm down, get a grip now ... ooh! This is an interesting sensation... ANGLE: From below. The whale is wriggling a bit. Oh! This is an interesting sensation, what is it? It's a sort of... yawning, tingling sensation in ... well I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach! Good. Ooooh! It's getting quite strong now. And hey,what's this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that ... wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Perhaps I can give it a better name later when I've found out what it's for! It must be very important because there certainly seems to be an awful lot of it. Hey! What's this thing ... this ... let's call it a tail - yeah! Tail! The whale thrashes its tail. Between the camera and the whale drops the bowl of petunias. It falls from sight. Hey! I can really thrash it about pretty good, can't I? Wow! Wow! Doesn't seem to achieve much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. How. Have I built up a coherent picture of things yet? No. Never mind. Hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, ao much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with anticipation ... Or is it the wind? There really is an awful lot of that now, isn't there? It's eye tries to look down. Camera pulls back from the whale, abandoning it ... And hey! What's this thing coming suddenly coming towards me very fast, so big and flat and round it needs a big wide-sounding name like ... ow ... ound...round ... ground! That's it, ground! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?

Unlike the philosophical whale, we'll hit the ground running!

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