We were presented in class today with an intriguing revelation(thank you Kevin): Ramon Fernandez, that random name in Wallace Stevens' poem, was a French literary critic whom Stevens felt had misunderstood his work. Or was he in fact a Filipino basketball player who hadn't even been born yet? Or was it just a name with no real signifigance as Stevens said? Or is the poet simply being ironic? These are questions which do not have a ready answer, at least from me.

Two interesting words: Tautology, which is basically just the fancy way of describing the state of being interested in something because you find it interesting. And incantatory, which describes something that doesn't need to be understood to be believed, like chronicles of obscure Biblical names(this could launch into a thorny discussion of the nature of belief, but never mind right now). The mere act of speaking them makes them become real through a hyponotic power.

And we are all required to see a film on literacy on Thursday October 23 at 7:00 in the evening. Sounds piquant.

And we have been asked to consider possible explanations for a phrase from Idea of Order at Key West: "it was more than that."