R.E.M., Umberto Eco, Found Magazine, M&Ms

... these were my touchstones for the last class tonight in BT501-Hermeneutics, the best session yet. :)

Finally we got around to an example of application of hermenuetics, in Mark 13. Fascinating discussion. An R.E.M song, "The End Of The World As We Know It", figured prominently in the interpretation of this apocalyptic passage (or so it's popularly taught). Connecting Mark's gospel with Isaiah as the predominant source of quotations (and interpretation) certainly led to a different view of the whole book, as well as this chapter. Hm. This needs more thought.

Then, the prof recommended an Italian literary critic and author, Umberto Eco, and his best selling novel (made into a movie in 2003), "The Name of the Rose", as an example of proper interpretation of the events (which confront and confound the protagonist in the novel), in a murder mystery set in a medieval monestary. Okay, public library, here I come! :)

Following that, during a class discussion on the use of imagination in interpretation, I suggested that the professor's ideas in this regard could be over-emphasized, and used FoundMagazine.com as an example of imagination taken to an extreme, where the reader fills in all background details (because the communicative items found are so completely disconnected from any known context.)

A couple of students immediately began browsing the site on their laptops, and wound up whispering, giggling or going "aww..."

When the prof shushed them, guess who got blamed!! Then on the break, I ran into a couple of the same classmates at the vending machines. They gushed about the website, wondered how I found it, and then asked me about the packages of M&Ms that I bring to class (one plain and one peanut package each week), my sorting them by color and writing down the numbers of each on a chart.

Apparently, the whole upper right row of girls in the class ("the girls", as they called themselves) now go buy M&Ms on the break because they see me sorting (and eating) mine, and can't stand it. They just have to have some. So they hold me personally responsible for stimulating, and causing them to give in to, their chocolate cravings. They refuse to share any guilt in the matter. It's all my fault - again!

And they were very curious about my sorting by color and my writing notes on a piece of paper. When I told them I was doing a statistical analysis of the color distribution, they said "no way!" And I said "oh yes. I'm a statistician by trade. You'd be surprised at the things I keep track of." Not that I'd ever tell them. ;)

So, back in the classroom I showed the Excel printout with the means, standard deviations, and coefficients of variation by color. They offered to buy more M&Ms (and consume them, of course) if only I would let them join the research team. Um, sorry... I work alone.

By the way, so far orange leads in the "plain" category, while green leads in "peanut", but orange shows the least amount of variation in both. Very stable color, apparently. :)