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Son et lumière, Brumeux Bas, Midi.

12:01

Toward the White House end of the street, someone sings Hey Jude.

Wings flutter: The President’s helicopter flies over Washington Circle.

A car alarm.

White clouds float over a blue sky.

Wheels jangle at the university loading platform.

A FedEx truck in front of Rice Hall idles.

Flocks of swallows look black against the blue sky.

An ambulance wails.

A truck door rattles.

More music, from a car radio: You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.

High piping as a delivery vehicle goes into reverse.

Hammering at the construction site.

A cawing bird.

Police siren.

The clouds darken and move more swiftly.

A heavy jet engine roars.

The Hey Jude singer starts up again.

12:55

Margaret Soltan, October 21, 2010 11:55AM
Posted in: snapshots from home

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6 Responses to “Son et lumière, Brumeux Bas, Midi.”

  1. Kevin Says:

    Very nice. All in 54 minutes?
    Regards, Kevin

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Thanks, Kevin. Yup – 54 minutes.

  3. Kevin Says:

    Well, you’ve out-McCarthy’d C. McCarthy w/out representing violence, at least directly. Who knows where the ambulance is going? And why? Anyhow, I’m going to borrow your idea on a post I’m mulling over on A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. If I see one more book review, I’ll wail and darken like a cloud, I will. Kevin

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    I think I was inspired by a scientist at this Hopkins conference on empirical bases (if any) of aesthetic creation and response. He said ever since he was a kid he was simply obsessed with sound, and was always making lists of all the ambient sounds around him, etc…

  5. Kevin Says:

    Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to compose this bit? Did you do it simultaneously with whatever other task was at hand? Or did you take brief notes and return to it later, in a spirit of composition? K

  6. Margaret Soltan Says:

    I did it while reading stuff online.

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UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
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I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
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As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
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Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
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