Elle's Place

What all five of my examples have in common is that they are minor elements in the text; they are not main ideas. In fact, your usual practice of reading which focuses on main ideas would dismiss them all as marginal or trivial. Another thing they have in common is that, although they are minor, they are nonetheless conspicuous, eye-catching: they are either surprising or repeated, set off from the text or too long. Close reading pays attention to elements in the text which, although marginal, are nonetheless emphatic, prominent—elements in the text which ought to be quietly subordinate to the main idea, but which textually call attention to themselves.

Most of you have been educated to ignore such elements. You have been taught to seek out and identify the main ideas, dismissing the trivial as you go. This has had to be trained into you: read to a young child sometime, you will notice she has the annoying habit of interrupting the flow of the story to draw attention to some minor thing. Close reading resembles the interruptions of that child. It is a method of undoing the training that keeps us to the straight and narrow path of main ideas. It is a way of learning not to disregard those features of the text that attract our attention, but are not principal ideas.

[ID: web weaving of 6 pieces of prose, poetry, and art about bog bodies, in a warm color palette.

1: Text from Christine Finn’s article “Bog Bodies and Bog Lands” says, “There is a strange power in bog water which prevents decay. Bodies have been found which must have lain in bogs formore than a thousand years, but which, though admittedly somewhat shrunken and brown, are in other respects unchanged (from an ‘old Danish almanac’ in Glob 1965, i).”

2: Kathleen Vaughan’s painting Bog Series 1 is a red and yellow painting that features yellow organic shapes like curled-up human figures, black charcoal figure drawings, and a textured red background that suggests flesh. It is oil, acrylic and encaustic paint; photographic emulsion; xerography on acetate; cheesecloth appliqué; and charcoal pencil; all on three canvas panels.

3: Text from R.C. Connolly’s article “Lindow Man” says, “One thing is certain: he was not alone on Lindow Common on the day he died. Whether he was one of many or just of two is not certain, but he was not alone.” The first sentence is highlighted yellow.

4: Genius lyrics from Hozier’s song “Like Real People Do” say, 
“[Verse 1]
I had a thought, dear, however scary
 About that night, the bugs and the dirt
 Why were you digging? What did you bury 
Before those hands pulled me from the earth?” 
 The first two lines are highlighted brown; the next two are highlighted grey.

5: Text from Anthony Purdy’s article “The Bog Body as Mnemotype” says, 
”For though speculation about how the body came to be in the bog is an integral part of any bog body narrative, it does not in itself define the body’s chronotopic value. Far more important than either the Iron-Age world of the bog people or the modern world of their archaeological reappearance is the very particular way the bodies mediate the relationship between the two. Bog bodies have an extraordinary power to abolish temporal distance, to make the past present. They are not skeletal remains; they have flesh on their bones and that flesh bears the marks of their living and their dying. They have hair and beard stubble and faces with expressions we think we recognize. They have stomachs that still contain the grains and seeds and plants they ate as their last meal. In a word, with their peculiar capacity to compress time, bog bodies are exemplary mnemotopes and speak of a life anchored in an everyday that was then but is also now. To an extraordinary degree, bog bodies allow us to see time.”
 The bolded lines are highlighted golden.

imagine my shock at finding out people hate Egwene after the last books had me in tears during her struggles and then her speech about reunification

So I've been thinking about it and I think what really speaks to me about her character is that she isn't The Chosen One, but kind of finds ways to work towards being "A Chosen One". She's not the Wisdom, she isn't the Dragon Reborn and she isn't even ta'veren. She isn't ordained but she went out into the world and ordained herself. And I love that about her so much. She's from a small town where the highest ranking position of influence/power is currently occupied by a woman not that much older than she is so the odds of becoming the Wisdom are low and she doesn't necessarily dream of settling down to have babies but that's where the ceiling is for her until Moiraine comes to town and tells her that the ceiling is actually much higher than she ever even dreamed before - so Egwene charges out into the world to find the limits.

love this tote! The logo design is gorgeous, and the bag is the perfect size for vinyl record purchases (except for the more mainstream or obvious musical choices, which are rejected on contact). Also great for carrying baguettes, library books, cool rocks. - Brie Williams, WTNV Writer Find it here: https://topatoco.com/collections/wtnv/products/cpb-wtnv-jhdarkowl-tote

In Your Heart Shall Burn

I think about the Inquisitor stumbling through that mountain pass, desperately searching for any survivors, a very normal amount.

Still version:

but lets not forget sergei prokudin-gorskiy, who developed a similar process in 1902, published in 1903 and then toured russia to take hundreds of color photographs:

This is Leo Tolstoy, author of “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”.

Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara…

…and his Minister of the Interior.

A Type B-15 steam locomotive…

Another of those peasant girls with guest-gifts of berries…

The Church of St John the Baptist at Staraya Ladoga…

…and a Sergei Prokudin-Gorskiy self-portrait.

Unlike some current selfies ;-> he’s not dominating the image, so here’s a closer shot.

Nice hat…