My colleague Melissa, student Ben, and I were working on the student literary magazine today, and somehow the conversation turned to ghosts. I think I mentioned the Writing Center ghost, which was a spur of the moment figment of my twisted sense of humor, since the punch line I was going for was that "he proofreads people's papers when they haphazardly leave them about." However, Melissa cut off my joke by recounting how the Writing Center at her previous college did indeed have a ghost or several malignant spirits. It would seem that the building was an old jail that had been retrofitted for the college, but in the rear of the building there were still some of the old cells, and in the basement there was the decidedly foul-smelling solitary confinement cell. Now, as Melissa related, the building had a negative feel to it, and she and most others never felt quite right about the building. Nevertheless, on a dare from the student body, one of the Deans promised to stay the night in the building. He was too scared to stay in the back with the cells, so he stayed up front in Melissa's office with his dog. All was going well until around three in the morning, when his dog stood bolt upright, hackles raised, growling in the direction of the back of the building, with seemingly no physical presence to inspire such behavior.

Now I was always a rationalist about ghosts when I was younger. I mostly think/thought that ghosts are projections of our own issues/personalities, and have little to do with people who existed. Somewhere along the way, however, Hamlet's admonition to Horatio sunk in a bit. Perhaps there is more to Heaven and Earth than is in my philosophy.

All this snow has inspired me to whip out the mighty SNOW GANESH:

For some reason I've been listening to a lot of Nick Drake lately. I've been carrying various CD's in my backpack and invariably choose one of Drake's three. The first one seems to be played more than the other ones. It is not so much the songs I'm listening to, but the guitar work. It is not that I mind the words or the interesting melodic quality of the songs, but I'm just interested in how he made the song with the guitar work.

Friend Charkes found new SLC cam: http://bluejay.homedns.org/~charles/wcc/cam/270 from the new Clark Planetarium. It looks east towards downtown SLC, spanning from about 3rd to 5th South. The big blue building in the middle is the Wells Fargo building. Surrounding it is the Gallivan Plaza. At night they light up the top floors in erie blue. The Hilton (the building with the big H) is right up front.

I suggest looking at the cam at night or during snow storms.

So yesterday I was checking on my polling place for the election today. (Quite a task since Salt Lake County seems to want to withold this information from voters and buries the proper precinct finding page deep in their structure covered by 3 pages with borken links to it.) When I finally got to the site, I entered all the requisite information and found that they are listing a school clear across town in the Sugar House district as my polling place--with the address of the old polling place--an elementary school that closed down last year. Not being all that suspicious, but understanding how everyone in the county government seems to hate SLC's excellent mayor (and I'm not being sarcastic), I called Rocky Anderson's campaign headquarters to let them know what is going on. After a bit of calling around, they found that my polling place really hadn't switched and there is erroneous information on the County Clerk's web page. Mike, the campaign worker-guy, thanked me and gave me a personal invite to Rocky's election gathering up at the Jewish Community Center.

I haven't really decided to go yet, but it might be worth a hoot or two. Maybe I can find me one of those intern women that all the politicians are raving about.

Damn, it is snowing hard. This bodes well for a snowy winter. Here's hoping.

It is/would be my mom's birthday today. Her last birthday we had a sort-of surprise party for her. It wasn't that people all showed up somewhere and then surprised her, but people just filtered into her house individually. It was just about the most fun way to a surprise party I've ever seen. One minute there are 2 people at your house and then 10 minutes later there are 40 with seemingly no rhyme or reason. It reminds me of those all to hip instant crowd events that are going on in New York these days.

I was just reading "The Tale of Sir Gareth" form Mallory's La Morte Darthur. In the story there is a trope of naming: people's names are hidden, as are their origins. The characters are ultimately named by others, but seem to have their own secret names which they only reveal after some level of trust is achieved between them and their adversary turned friend. Thus, "Beaumains" is named by Sir Kay to relegate the would-be-knight to the status of a servent. After Beaumains defeats Sir Kay (who because of his inhospitable behavior doesn't deserve to learn Gareth's true identity) and comes to a tie with Lancelot, he reveals to Lancelot his true name and heritage, and secures his knighthood from the truest of knights. He, of course, swears Lancelot to secrecy as to his true name and origins.

The next person he reveals his name to is Lynett, the lady who also refuses to give her name. He overcomes her by killing off various foes, and she begins to trust in him. Like Lancelot, he swears her to secrecy, as she swears him to secrecy. Ultimately all sorts of characters start revealing their names at this point in the tale--the Puce Knight (I'm not kidding)--the Indigo Knight--etc. All have secret names.

Gareth's peril comes when the Red Knight finds out his name before he even fights him. It would seem that Gareth's/Beaumain's drawf cannot be trusted to die with dignity and not reveal the secret name and origin. Gareth is a peril in this case since the Red Knight knows his name (it would seem that in the online version I have located the story is slightly different and the Red Knight does not know Gareth's true identity). Although he still defeats the Red Knight, there is a note of danger that does not exist in his other battles.

The analogy/metaphor is tantalizing: if people know your true identity they have some power over you. If they can name you, they own you. Unless, of course, you have a true identity that overrides presumptuous naming. Gareth did not have to accept being Sir Kay's slave (be named by him) simply because he had an identity--and a noble one at that.