People with three names

I have now been in Boston for a week, and library school for two days. So far, both have been illuminating and enjoyable.

One of the classes I've been to is what I've been referring to as my technology requirement, which I thought would be more "how to use this program," which to an extent it will be, but will also be "how the Internet works" and the digital divide, and the future of resources (i.e., the printed book). All very interesting (to me, anyway). In the timeline of technological developments was the second mention I'd heard in 24 hours of Alexander Graham Bell...just the night before, Jon Stewart posited (in a conversation on decency) that after Bell said "Watson, come here," he followed it with "What are you wearing?"

Speaking of timelines, I came across this one today by Ben Schott, of Schott's Miscellany. I find especially fascinating the top Google searches for the year 2005: XBox 360, Iran, and Jessica Simpson.

In one more dispatch, I spent the afternoon at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I'm afraid you'll be hearing a lot about this place, because I'm utterly in love with it. It's laid out just as ISG wanted it, not by artist or period, but in a way she intended to impart inspiration. This sounds really presumptuous, but I think we have similar tastes in art. Beauty ranks high in her aesthetic sensibility. The painting is of her, by John Singer Sargent (from wikipedia.org). She either had a good tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, or was on the arrogant side -- this painting is in the Gothic room with portraits of the Virgin Mary and female saints.