Thursday, February 19, 2009

Alarms and Discursions

Rrrringg!!! Hey! Wake Up!!!

It's TEST DAY!

(Oh, no!)

Ahem. I apologise for intruding into our comatosity. (Is that a word? It is now.)

But I decided I would try to assist in getting things going again. And I know you are wondering: What the heck is "alarms and discursions" anyway? So let's do that first. Alarms and Discursions is the title of a collection of GKC's essays, which I understand previously appeared in his weekly Daily News column, and so it goes with Tremendous Trifles on your bookshelves. As GKC explains in his preface, it is a take-off on the Elizabethan stage-direction called "Alarums and Excursions" (which my concise OED tells me means "noise and bustle").

I presume that most of us are busy at present - I am too, but I often have to wait for something else, and have room for little excursions into the E-cosmos. So, I was wondering, how I might assist in producing some activity here. Since everyone hates essay tests, and all too often the empty posting-box (or even the empty comment box) gives one that tension of having to write an essay, maybe I can make it a multiple-choice kind of affair...

Ready? Put your books away, sit up straight. You may begin now.

1. Given that I have some spare time, I would rather:
(a) Write something about Chesterton (or in his style)
(b) Read Chesterton, or a discussion of his writing
(c) Read more about my distant nephews and nieces who visit this blogg
(d) Learn more about what GKC writes about, like say Heraldry, or World War I, or Distributism, or Christianity, or Poetry, or...
(e) None of the above.

My answer: ______

NOTE: If you choose (a), we hope to see a posting from you soon.
If you choose (b), let us know what you want to read.
If you choose (c), you'll have to help us out by writing about yourself.
If you choose (d), let us know what topic(s) you'd like to see.
Otherwise, you have to say WHAT you WOULD do.

That's it. Just one question. (Hey, we're not that testing place in Princeton.) Now sharpen your number two pencils, open up that comment box and fill it in neatly.

4 comments:

Old Fashioned Liberal said...

I would have to say I like a+b (which, ironically, equals e, not c, in this case).

That being said, I think I prefer breaking my brain on a nearly insoluble metaphysical problem to any of the above options. But such an occurrence is all at once rare, painful, and exhilirating.

Which gives me an idea. I ought to write a poem about it. Be patient...

Ria said...

B would probably be (hehe, sorry, that was unintentional)my first choice. As to what I would read, there are so many things I want to read of his that I'm not sure where I would/will begin... probably "As I was Saying".

gigi said...

B - I have been longing to finish the Ball and the Cross ever since I started it (January). Alas, alas, surely standardized tests and study manuals shall follow me all the days of March.

I am gleefully looking forward to April 5th, however, on which day I can curl up with a nice, not assigned book (I think:).

gigi said...

Oh, I don't mean to say that assigned books aren't nice (they almost always are) there's just such a lack of urgency in spare-time reading that makes it so enticing:)