DEPARTMENTS

FEBRUARY 2006 – NO. 3

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[From the 1950-1951 diaries of a Michigan mathematics professor (name unknown), purchased at the White House Flea Market, Schenectady, NY, 2002.]

Burned papers and did other odd jobs in the morning.
Cut back the hydrangea. Lunched at home.

Dr. Parr preached an excellent sermon … Assignment to Austerity.

Started over again on hypergeometric, with new notation.

Got a light lunch at a theater — lunch that would best be forgotten.

I went to Research Club + heard Brauer's
talk on trouble with the infinite,
went home after the intermission
+ played Canasta.

*

Mr. Parr preached on "What Makes Life Worth While?"
to an audience not quite as good as last Sunday.

Burned papers + Helen
and I planted some rose
shoots that Mrs. Ward gave us.

Did a little work on hypergeometric.

Exchanged coats with Orbeck
and put my pipe + tobacco pouch in another man's
overcoat, but recovered them.
Helen and I heard lecture on Portugese cod
fishermen with very moving pictures
by an Australian, Alan Villiers.

Walked downtown, deposited check, straightened gasbill, + got some canvas gloves.
After walking around with lost boy turned him over to the police.

Worried about furnace noise, but I guess it is all right.

*

Got my good watch from Mr. Rust, got a new fawcet handle.
Played pool with Bateson, Carey and Wenrick.
Got a new idea on hypergeometric.

Jim Gault died last night.
Did a little computing.

Burned papers in the springlike morning.

Helen and I went to church,
there was a good audience.
Mr. Parr preached a good sermon
on the question "Does it matter."
We had dinner at McKenny Hall.
There had been a peculiar lurid
sky all day, quite dark but yellow
in the middle of the afternoon.

*

We had dinner at House of Good Food
+ started our naps about two.

Mr. Parr spoke of his visit to Mr. Douglass
+ said he was nearing the end. He preached on That Which Endures.

Burned papers + looked at bags + oiled motors.

Mourning doves have arrived.

A fawcet dripping 2 drops per second
takes 45 minutes to drip a quart.
I timed it in the basement.

Eclipse of moon, Helen + I
looked at it when half over.

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Articles in this Issue

Gray Area: Thinking With a Damaged Brain, by Floyd Skloot The Alternate Palace, by Dawn Raffel Killing Our Elders, by Brenda Peterson History's Mornings, by Philip Lee Williams Are We Losing Our Memory? or The Museum of Obsolete Technology, by Alexander Stille Film Studies, by Kreg Abshire Textiles, by Jamie-Lee Josselyn Mathematics, by Noah Kucij Literature, by Peter Orner Computer Science, by Jon Yang

AUTHOR BIO:

Noah Kucij is from upstate New York. He lives and teaches in Akaike, a small town on Kyushu, Japan that will be wiped off the map next month when it merges with two other towns. But that's another story.