My dear students,

In light of the impending meteorological calamity, I will not be holding office hours tomorrow. I will make up for this by being in my office on Thursday from 11:30-12:30 offering help to all comers. You should also consider availing yourselves of the assistance offered by your friendly and knowledgable TAs (see the syllabus for location and time details).

A note on homework: On Thursday, please hand in your homework at the beginning of class. Please write your homework on a separate piece of paper from the assignment sheet. Please staple together the separate sheets of your responses, if separate sheets there be. And please, if you write your answers on a sheet of loose leaf torn from a notebook, use the perforations to avoid ragged edges on the page. If there are no perforations, then find something else on which to write, because those ragged edges really get me steamed.

“Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you’d look out your little window and think, ‘Boy, I’m glad I’m not out in that.'”

This is the opening track to F#A#∞ , the (a previous effort, which doesn’t really count, notwithstanding) début LP from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and one of the greatest albums released in the past couple of decades (their follow-up, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, is perhaps even better). Maybe a lot of you won’t be into it, but I would bet that a few of you will be bowled over.