The wearin' o' the white

Winter doesn't get any more gorgeous than this. It's that perfect snow which the word always evokes but which reality can seldom match. Large, wet, slow-falling flakes that cling to every branch and bud. There's no sleet mixed in, no wind to speak of. Goddammit do I wish I could be standing out in glade right now listening to the subtle rustle as the clumps of flakes are broken up falling through evergreen branches and delicate shrubs. It also caught me much by surprise. Yesterday was mild, so when I looked up from my bed and saw white outside, I naturally it assumed it was nothing more than mist. It was already melting on the streets of my neighbourhood, but up north it seems to be getting thicker by the minute. How long will it last? Long enough to sweeten my lunchtime excursion? I don't think so. I'm just thankful I was able to experience as much of it as I did. Even winter weather grumps like felipemcguire can't resist its charms!

Also, in honour of the Apostle of Ireland, I drove all the administrators out of our building this morning!

Heuristic cultural question

I'm not sure quite what I'm asking, so please bear with me. The recently flurry of entries about regional stereotypes (Digression: Now that's my kind of meme! Not the same dull list of questions propagating from blog to blog but a discussion that causes each person to ponder the same issues but post about different aspects of them) got me thinking about local culture and sparked the question:

Who do you think of as your culture-bearers?

Of course, this already begs many more questions, most significantly what constitutes "culture". The arts, particularly performance, come immediately to mind, but foodways or even modes of thought certainly qualify as well. Even a person who simply embodies a particular mindset that seems locally prevelant might fit the bill.

I admit, when it comes to my own background, I'm kind of stumped. Mark Twain was born only a few miles away from where I once lived, but I don't read his works to learn about my culture as much as to get a taste for one that preceded it. None of the modern writers I've read has given me the experience of thinking, "This is it; these are the people I belong to (or came from)"; the closest I've come is the petit-bourgeois northern German family described in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks.

But I feel I've already said to much to prejudice the question. Don't rely on my interpretation; take it however you will.

'Tis a pity, doncha know!

Many thanks to listens2kids for today's serving of off-colour ethnic jokes. My favourite:

Two Irishmen were sitting at a pub having beer and watching the brothel across the street.

They saw a Baptist minister walk into the brothel, and one of them said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see a man of the cloth goin' bad."

Then they saw a rabbi enter the brothel, and the other Irishman said, "Aye, 'tis a shame to see that the Jews are fallin' victim to temptation as well."

Then they see a catholic priest enter the brothel, and one of the Irishmen said, "What a terrible pity...one of the girls must be dying."

This, in a nutshell, is how my ancestral religion has managed to persist as an institution up into the present day.