Barcelona vs. Inter Milan, today and in 2010

Watching the first leg of the UEFA Men's Champions League semifinal between FC Barcelona and Inter Milan this evening, I remember watching the second leg of their Champions League semifinal just over fifteen years ago, on 28 April 2010. Eight days earlier, Inter had won the first leg in Milan, 3-1. For the second leg in Barcelona, Inter trainer Jose Mourinho had his team play nothing but defense, especially after Thiago Motta was sent off in the first half. Barcelona attacked and attacked but only managed to score a goal in the 84th minute (Gerard Piqué). The match was not aesthetically satisfying—unlike this evening's match, which is thrilling so far. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 30 April 2025)

Rhetoric, Repetition, and Pip as character and narrator in Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations” (1861)

In discussions of Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" (1861) this semester, my students and I keep repeating two issues: first, rhetorical figures of repetition, such as anaphora and epistrophe, and secondly, the relationship between Pip the adult narrator and Pip the child (and young adult) character. Today, on the basis of Peter Brooks's 1980 article "Repetition, Repression, and Return: 'Great Expectations' and the Study of Plot", we added a third issue: repetition of scenes in the plot rather than phrases in sentences. Our goal could now be to work toward integrating the doubling of rhetoric, the doubling of Pip as character and narrator, and the doubling of scenes into one overall interpretation. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 29 April 2025)

At the stoplight in her new electric convertible

With her hair pulled back and her sunglasses on, she pulled up to the stoplight with the top of her brand-new red electric MG Cyberster down. He was standing there waiting for the crosswalk light to change. She hadn't seen him for at least two years, but she had thought of him the other day when her bio-engineering startup, which he had always made fun of, had sold for millions. When he saw her behind the wheel, she smiled as she realized she was driving something like his dream car. The light changed for her first, and she looked right at him and laughed as she drove into the evening sun. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 28 April 2025)

From “Don’t Leave Me This Way” to “Tempted” and “Black Coffee in Bed” (The Communards and then Squeeze)

I had Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Cary Gilbert's song “Don’t Leave Me This Way” in my head, but not the 1976 version by Thelma Houston or even the original 1975 version by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, with Teddy Pendergrass on lead vocal. I was remembering the version by The Communards, with singer Jimmy Somerville after his first success with The Bronski Beat. I indulged my earworm online, and somehow it led me to Squeeze's 1981 song “Tempted”, with Paul Carrack on lead vocals of Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford's song, and that led me to also isten to Difford singing on their 1982 single “Black Coffee in Bed”. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 27 April 2025)

Alma Mahler-Werfel and a kiss with Gustav Klimt

In "Femme Vitale", his article on Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879-1964) in the 10 February 2025 issue of "The New Yorker", Alex Ross recalls that the woman born in Vienna as Alma Schindler had three husbands: composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), architect Walter Gropius (1883-1969), and Franz Werfel (1890-1945). Between her marriages to Mahler and Gropius, she also had an affair with painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). But Ross also mentions something I didn't know: her first kiss was with painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). I liked that extra twist even more when I thought of Klimt's painting known as "The Kiss" (1907-1908) and then learned that some critics think Mahler-Werfel might have posed for it. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 26 April 2025)

I’m a Basler from Detroit. Where are you from?

For a few years now, when people in Basel ask me where I'm from, I say that "I'm a Basler from Detroit." That gets a laugh, and I get another when I ask in return where they are from. Often, they admit they are "not from Basel either", but from a nearby town or some other canton in Switzerland. Once in a while, I then learn they are not even from Switzerland at all—an immigrant like me. Later this year, barring unexpected obstacles, I should be getting my Swiss citizenship. I might then try out saying that "ich bin Schweizer aus Detroit", but I think I'll probably stick with "Basler." (AndrewShields, #111Words, 25 April 2025)

Despite everything, Snoopy types another story

Despite everything, Snoopy decided he would do what he wanted to do: sit on top of his doghouse and write another story. First, he put a new ribbon in his typewriter and checked that all the keys worked. Then he started typeing: "It was a dark and stormy night." He liked the rhythm of the keys clacking out that sentence, so he typed it again: "It was a dark and stormy night." And again and again: "It was a dark and stormy night. It was a dark and stormy night. It was a dark and stormy night. It was a dark and stormy night. It was a dark and stormy night." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 24 April 2025) 

Sarfaz Manzoor writes down a line from Bruce Springsteen that comes to seem like “the secret to the universe"

In class today, we discussed a line from Bruce Springsteen's song "Candy's Room" (on "Darkness on the Edge of Town", 1978): "In the darkness there’ll be hidden worlds that shine." Sarfaz Manzoor quotes it in his memoir "Greetings from Bury Park" (2007): "[...] after my father died that one line felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man." He writes it on a piece of paper: "I fixed it to my bedroom wall [...]. I stared at those words as if they might hold the secret to the universe." This led us to discuss how lines from songs, poems, or other texts can come to seem like keys to meaning. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 23 April 2025) 

Snoopy gets distracted from writing by another silly statement from Exit

Snoopy would prefer to sit on top of his doghouse and write another story: "It was a dark and stormy night." But whenever he looks up, his gaze is drawn across the ocean to Plunderland. Today he read that Exit had ranted again about the Six Flacks and the people who tell them their stories: "They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations." But Exit, Snoopy thought, who else do you expect criticism to come from than "disgruntled" people who might not even work for you anymore? Satisfied employees, after all, don't complain and don't exit their jobs. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 22 April 2025)

While Uneven and Don Q milled around Hush Money House, Vanza visited the Good Shepherd, who then died

While Uneven milled around Hush Money House and ranted about how anyone who disagreed with him was a "terrorist", Don Q stared at the window on the wall and wished even "the radical left lunatics" Happy Resurrection Day. But Vanza had left Plunderland to fly across the ocean to visit the Good Shepherd. Vanza and the Shepherd had disagreed about "the order of love", and the Shepherd had continued to contradict Vanza's understanding of shepherding, but Vanza still got to speak with the Shepherd on Resurrection Day. In the evening, Vanza flew to visit the homeland of his wife, and the next morning, the Shepherd died of shock from that meeting. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 21 April 2025)

Objections to Meta’s request for permission to use my public posts for their AI products

Meta sent me an email if I wanted "to object to the use of [my public] information" in order "to develop and improve AI at Meta." I objected. First, many of my posts are my own creative work, which I don’t want any company to use for AI. Secondly, AI for search is misleading at best and worthless at worst, with too much false information compared to non-AI approaches. Thirdly, the servers used to feed large language models (LLMs) have appalling environmental effects. Finally, LLMs are based on an understanding of language that is completely contradicted by linguistics. Human language is not statistically generated on the basis of a gigantic database. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 20 April 2025)

Don Q thinks about Paul Revere

Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride, which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commemorated in his 1860 poem, "Paul Revere's Ride". When Don Q heard about that anniversary, he turned to look at the window on the wall and said, "We've all heard of Paul Revere. He's someone everybody is talking about." Remembering that Revere had been riding a horse, he began to weave: "I don't want to ride a horse, especially on the golf course. Their hooves would tear up the fairways and the greens. They might even eat all the grass off the greens! Vanza, write me an order to sign that gets rid of all the horses!" (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 19 April 2025) 

"Well, I’m not involved in it”: Don Q answers questions from the Six Flacks and laughs with Omen and Vanza

Don Q listened to the questions from the Six Flacks and looked at the window on the wall in Hush Money House. "Well, I’m not involved in it," he said. The Six Flacks followed his gaze and saw the painting of the window. He saw what the window told him to see, and he told the Six Flacks what he saw, so that the people in Plunderland who see what he tells them to see would see it. "We were inundated by criminals at the highest level, murderers on the loose. Nobody can believe the job we’ve done." He laughed and smiled at Omen and Vanza, who laughed and smiled back. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 18 April 2025) 

"I was born in a city near two lakes”: A short autobiography without names

I was born in a city near two lakes. When I was three, my family moved to a city on a western coast. Over the next twenty years (except for one year on an island across an eastern ocean), I moved back and forth between those lake and western regions. I then moved to a city on the eastern coast. Later, I moved across that eastern ocean to a foreign capital, where I met my wife. After living in a smaller city in that country, I moved to a riverside city in a nearby mountainous country, where we had three children and I have now lived for half of my life. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 17 April 2025)

Inspired by an idea from a poet from that island: "I thought it would be fun to write a biographical note that said everything there was space for, but named nothing." 

Snoopy’s view of Don Q’s Plunderland

From atop his doghouse, Snoopy looks across the ocean to Plunderland, where Don Q sits in Hush Money House. From Snoopy's vantage point, everything happening in Plunderland comes down to what Don Q sees when he looks at the window repainted on the wall every day. Once he looked at what had been painted there and convinced all the people who see what he tells them to see to try to hunt Dime Penny down. Now he looks at what Vanza has painted there and convinced all those same people that all the dogs Don Q says are barking against him have to be flown away to pounds to the south. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 April 2025)

Don Q invites Bookalie to celebrate his successes

Looking at the window painted on the wall, Don Q decided he wouldn't make the same mistake he had made with Sky Man, who had not praised him but argued with him. This time, he would only invite his friends to celebrate whatever he saw when he looked at the window. So he invited his protege Bookalie to speak to the Six Flacks with him about the situation, with Vanza, Omen, and others joining them. While Don Q, Vanza, Omen, and the others smiled and chuckled as they celebrated their successes, Bookalie said everything Don Q wanted to here about the incarcerated men Don Q had declared criminals and gang members. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 15 April 2025)

A British touring production of “Twelfth Night” in the late 1990s

In a British touring show of William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" that I saw in Toledo, Ohio, in the late 1990s, the stage was empty but for a table and several chairs, and the six actors wore hats to distinguish the roles they played. One brilliantactress, whose name I don't know, played the estranged twins Viola and Sebastian in the same clothes but different hats. When the two are finally reunited at the end of the play, she faced the audience, hatless, and turned her head from one side to the other to distinguish the characters, and the audience learned that she had been speaking the roles differently throughout the performance. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 14 April 2025)

Seven premieres at the Human Shields concert in Basel on 11 April 2025

The Human Shields concert on Friday, 11 April, featured seven world premieres of songs written between 2018 and 2024. "Speak Up" was inspired by young people who speak up. "Water from a Whiskey Glass", which I wrote before I stopped drinking alcohol, came from a line I had lying around for years. "Touchstone" was inspired by Claraplatz in Basel. "What the Fuck" is a jam-rant. I wrote the poem for "Not Who We Are" on 7-8 January 2021 but only wrote the music in 2024. "Radical Left Thug" counters the Grifter's use of that phrase. And "Love Deeper" takes a poem by George Szirtes and makes a ballad out of it. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 April 2025)

Watching two FC Basel football matches in one afternoon and evening

This afternoon, I'm watching the first leg of a quarterfinal between the FC Basel and FC Aarau women's football teams, and this evening, I'll be watching a regular-season match between the FC Basel and the FC Zurich men's football teams. The women's match is on a live stream broadcast by the Women's Super League in Switzerland. The men's match will be on the free channel SRF2 as well as on the pay channel Blue Sport. There's no commentary for the women's match, and only a few cameras. After long previews with several experts, the broadcasts of the men's match will have commentators, numerous cameras, and video-assisted review for the referee's calls. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 12 April 2025)

Singing Woody Guthrie’s "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia

While preparing for this evening's Human Shields concert at Beclys in Basel, I thought of Woody Guthrie's 1948 song "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)", which he wrote about the crash of a plane being used to deport Mexican farm laborers from California to Mexico: "You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane. / All they will call you will be 'deportees'." So tonight, we started with the song and dedicated it to Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, whose case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court, which has ruled he must be returned to Maryland. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 April 2025) 

Buying first one and then later another copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

In July 2007, I bought "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" the night it was released. In August, my wife and I began to read the series to our seven-year-old son Miles. Whenever we had no time to read to him, he just read it himself. One morning in November, he took the "Deathly Hallows" book to school to read at recess, and promised he wouldn't lose it. When he came home for lunch, he hadn't lost it, but he had left it on the playground, where someone had set the book on fire! So I got another copy, and he finished reading the series the day before his eighth birthday. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 10 April 2025) 

Don Q, Lovey Leave-It, and Pronoun Users

Don Q shouted at the window on the wall: "I don't want to talk to anyone who uses pronouns!" Vanza told Lovey Leave-It: "The President says Hush Money House shouldn't speak to pronoun users". Lovey Leave-It responded to a journalist: "Anyone who uses pronouns must not care about our reality. We will not answer your inquiry." The journalist responded: "The press secretary's refusal to use pronouns keeps people from saying things easily. And by the way, your response contains five pronouns." Lovey Leave-It wrote back: "I don't care about your difficulties with anyone who is not using pronouns. I care about the truth for everyone who supports Don Q in Plunderland." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 9April 2025)