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Author Archives: Boz
Our Whole Heart: Language and the Book of Common Prayer
Along with the King James Bible and the collected works of Shakespeare, the Book of Common Prayer has permeated the English language and given Anglophones worldwide some of our most beautiful and evocative phrases. Even the most secular among us get … Continue reading
Acedia–In One Image
My initial goal for this post was to discuss acedia in 25 words or less. That opening line (including its ungrammatical modification of a countable noun) was meant as a joke, but it turned out to be not much more laughable than my … Continue reading
Posted in books, cemetery, musings, photography, religion
Tagged acedia, cemetery, depression
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Meditations All Too Human
I teach a college-transfer class called English 112: Researching and Writing in the Disciplines, whose objective is to present a crash course in academic writing across the university curriculum. To that end, and drawing on my experience as a disability examiner … Continue reading
Not Exactly Epiphanies
At the age of 36, I decided to get a master’s degree in English. I have elsewhere–well, everywhere, including in the introductory lecture of nearly every class I teach–suggested that I was standing in a bookstore, staring at the American literature selection, when … Continue reading
Posted in books, memories, musings, people
Tagged death, epiphany, Joyce, Weldon Thornton
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Ho-Hum; Or, Whatever Happened to the Capacity for Wonder?
As we were driving home from seeing the movie Genius in Chapel Hill, my husband asked me why people don’t read Thomas Wolfe any more. My snappy retort masked what has been for some time an insidious fear: “Because they can no … Continue reading
My Name Is Vicki, and I Am a Taphophile
1960: My sister, my cousins, and I scrambled into the back of my uncle’s 1948 Ford pick-up and headed with our fathers to the cemetery overlooking the dusty town of Globe, Arizona. We played among the graves while they watered the grass … Continue reading
Forever Becoming: A Meditation
Written at Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, 11 Nov. 2009 I was only 36, beginning a second graduate program—clearly, I was far from complete. We who continually reinvent ourselves retain the illusion of eternal becoming far longer than those respectable adults with 2½ … Continue reading
A Luddite Reviews the iPad Pro
I prefer my books on paper, please. I cancelled my subscription to Time when the editors decided to print photographs in color. I have never owned a dishwasher, but I do own several fountain pens. Although I send text messages to my husband … Continue reading
Posted in education, technology
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Ode to OED (and Friends)
When I was a girl in the dusty mining town of Globe, Arizona, with the sulfur odor in the air when the wind blew from the west, our house had a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom … Continue reading
Math Anxiety
One morning during my twelve years in blue-light purgatory, I was sitting over coffee with my co-worker Dolores and Steve, her district manager in the ladies’ apparel department. I can scarcely imagine how the topic of higher mathematics arose in … Continue reading