Bach returns to St. John's

The concert performed this past Sunday by two of our beloved tutors, Ms. Chen and Mr. Bolotin, was an unforgettable experience. Mr. Pesic, tutor and musician-in-residence, has also given many piano concerts, but the Chen-Bolotin duo has initiated a ritual, or rather a new tradition that is now part of the college. Being a devoted Bach-ean, I thoroughly enjoyed the Bach sonata, however the technical flashlights were fully displayed by their incredible performance of the Shostakovich sonata. After the concert, we all had tea and coffee with the tutors and their new Santa Fe fans. Mr. Bolotin stated that he was crafting a quartet by next academic year. So apparently there is plenty to come. Never let anyone tell you that there is no music at St. John’s, every Friday evening I sit outside the Fine Arts Building in order to listen to my fellow sophomores sing Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus.

Johnnies of our generation

After the election—the myth that Johnnies of our generation were completely ‘a-political’ was disproved last night. The Great Hall became an explosive gathering of Johnnies who kept close track of the election. It is no surprise, most Johnnies there were Obama supporters, and so dancing and celebrations of all sorts followed the announcement. The Lower Dormitory common room was packed as well. Much of this new enthusiasm for a renewed interest in the political life might be a consequence of the current political climate, but at St. John’s we owe a lot to the club anthropoi politikoi: citizens Aristotle would be proud of. For they organized special debate-watching events with such enthusiasm that they were well-attended and just plain fun, even tutors were with us eating pizza and watching the debates. The discussion continued even today at lunchtime. Though, I must say, there are very few discussions of modern politics nowadays in which Rousseau, Hobbes, Smith, Locke and Plato are continuously brought up. The Great Books are constantly with us, or rather in us. How could we not love using our background to discuss our modern ideas?

I am known as Mr. Lira

Hi! My full name is too long to write here, but I am known as Mr. Lira here at the college. I adore poetry, love theater, flirt with music and maintain an unhealthy relationship with pure mathematics. St. John’s is a place like no other; a probable “no-place”, but hopefully you will find that out for yourselves. Currently, I am exploring the infinite with Newton’s Principia, my new love, and reading Madame Bovary in my preceptorial. God, precptorials are so much fun! Such a careful reading, that is, I will have read the novel twice by the end of the semester, while constantly referencing the French text! For those of you who don’t know, preceptorials are the only sort of “electives” at St. John’s open to Juniors, Seniors and Graduate Students. The texts studied in precepts are for the most part pretty amazing, and they are, of course, the tutors’ choices. We had some interesting choices this year, such as: ‘the principles of geology’, ‘general theory of employment, interest, and money,’ and Borges’ Ficciones.