Scott Lord

Saturday, November 7, 2015

We met my online instructor in Harvard Square

Professor New of Harvard University will in fact be offering Modernism (Modern Poetry) in the Spring.
Thank you to Leah Dennis for the warm welcome that she gave me in Harvard Square when I introduced myself as her online student. I finished an online class last night that she is involved with on The Book from HaravardX that covered antiquarian manuscripts. The first two certificates from American Poetry may have been my favorites, but I completed four classes in American poetry that Leah worked on and am currently in a series in which she was discussing Herman Melville's copy of the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It discussed the Oversoul, but the professor use the term the world-soul (sounds more like Hegel than Kant, doesn't it?).
We were on our way to Mount Auburn and I was going to to get tobacco when Leah was going in for an frozen yogurt, so I went in and asked "Is your name Leah" and she gave me a handshake. We were in a hurry, which allowed me to keep it short, especially since she may have been busy at the University with something. She asked," So you take a lot of these?" and I was going to explain that I like the fact that Coursera is an international campus platform, but then checked myself self and mentioned that I took another one from Harvard titled Intangible Things but didn't like it as much as those that were instructed by Professor New.
I have now met two of my MOOC instructors, Leah Dennis and Professor Robert Allison, of Suffolk University, who instructs a course on history on a different platform. We attended one of his lectures at the Old North Church and I got a handshake from him as well.
We were on way to Mount Auburn and the weather was Indian Summer. The secret to Mount Auburn Cemetary is that it is easy to get to as it is on a bus line from the subway. From the entrance we could see a flock of birds at a distance walking up the pavement. At first you would think they were geese, but I though they might be pheasants. We followed them toward the Chapel, which was closed, near the Sphinx. As it got later we made our way to the grave of Henry Wadsworth Longefellow before leaving.
I heard a sound I have never heard before and turned to see four wild turkeys coming out of the brush. Apparently, although wild, they are not skittish, and we got nearer to them. it ties in with my long anecdote of their being wild rabbits at the Longfellow House (museum).

Poscript, this video was in this blog earlier from a period when we were taking a bus passed Harvard Stadium weekly, so after meeting the instructor, I added the above revision.
One of my recent internet poetry tutors (mentors). Please allow a quick listen.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Donna saw author Joyce Carol Oates, First Parish Church, Harvard Square

An incredible surprise. We were in Harvard Square to fill a prescription for Donna's glasses and the advertising board outside the Harvard Square Bookstore had posted that there would be a reading given by author Joyce Carol Oates. We had lunch together during the remaining three hours.
it was given at the First Parish Church, near Church Street, adjacent to the Old Burial Ground, where some of my online classes from Harvard University on the poet Anne Bradstreet were filmed.
it was a complete surprise. Because Donna was Phi Beta Kappa in New Jersey, I've have already been taking online classes from Princeton University, although they are not conducted by Ms. Oates. But she did demonstrate that she is not only a novelist, but a writer of literary criticism.
I was tiring of the story, but I had seen Joyce Carol Oates, as well as George Plimpton and John Updike, during the twentieth century, at the Boston Public Library; a quarter of century ago I believe.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

A new Wild Rabbit, The Swan Boats on Boston Common,an actor

It's a new wild rabbit; his eyes are smaller than the other one we had. He is in our courtyard, quadrangle, where the other one was. It is nocturnal like the other one. It is an outdoor smoking lounge with train tracks heading toward the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on one side and 19 floors on the other: therefore we have a flock of pigeons, tonight the one entirely white pigeon found our terrace again.

This afternoon, on Boston Common, and we can see the Prudential and Hancock from this height, we took the Swan Boats. "It was good relaxation for 15 minutes." We had had lunch on Arch Street, Boston, near Congress, Federal and Winthrop Streets.

We got to near Emerson College and someone emerged from the theater, so I asked if the Carole King Musical was playing and he kindly said it was at another theater and his theater was putting on the Book of Mormon. I then socially inquired if he was in the play, and he replied that he just worked for the theater house, but the question was on its mark and elicited a good response.

On the Swan boats a turtle had climbed on to the ramp to the island and was positioned between the two Swans.

While we were in the Swan Boats, the couple behind us was talking about a play the student was writing as I eavesdropped, when the exclaimed that someone from Broadway was on the shore/bank with the ducks. They recognized him as an off Broadway performer, David Larsen.

We passed him first after getting of the Swan Boat, so I asked him,"excuse me, were you an actor?" And he replied yes, so my explanatory remark was "the kids recognized you".

As we continued on, the couple from the boat caught up with the actor, and they seemed through as we peered through the trees as they got autographs or photos.bHe apparently is in the Broadway show The Book of Mormon, presently touring Boston.

I need my questions to be those of a novelist, and they were.

The rabbits, if you read earlier entries have been here for a year. First we spotted the at Mount Auburn Cemetary after having lunch here in Cambridge, and then at the Longfellow House on Brattle Street. By dint of some strange luck, one showed up here, near my ashtray.