by Robert Herrick


WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free ;
O how that glittering taketh me !

Tonight is my play with new Web 2.0 sites night.  So how do you go from Web 2 to Renaissance Poetry?

It all starts when Jott spams me with an announcement of their new jott-links that let me add events to my google calendar by dialing their number and speaking into my cell phone.  This seems cool and when I get to the signup page there is a list of other web sites that have jott-links.  One of them is Mosio, which is a service that promises you human answers to any message you text them.  


Well, I have to try that!  But what to ask?  My mind draws a blank.  Luckily, I have a 15-year old in the house.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing?”
“My Homework, mom. Why are you bothering me?”

I explain my need for a really good question and look over his shoulder.  As a true digital native, he does, in fact, have some homework up in Word, something about Death of Saleman...his GAIM Icon is blinking and he has a non-school book of Renaissace poetry open next to him.

“The second line, in the second stanza.  Ask them what it means.”

I type it in on my iphone, it comes out as:

 That brave vibration each way free is a line in a poem Robert Herrick what does it mean?
 The title is upon Julia's clothes

There! I have stumped them, no way I'm getting an answer to that garbled and obscure a question!

Twenty minutes later my first answer comes in:

The phrase "each way" capitalizes on the novice reader's uncertainty, escalating a proposition of intent and adding the loose element of liberty to the image. The vibration is "free", Herrick points with a wink to the reader..
-slikwacko (0Q / 407A) Thu Dec 6, 2007 6:50pm
..that Julia might lack her undergarments only to emphasize the movement of her body underneath.

A few minutes later:

The movement of Julia's clothes is personified in this line. The vibration can be either of Julia or her clothes, this is not clear; however, it seems clear that this "vibration" is intentionally being made for the author's enjoyment.
-jspierre (2Q / 13A) Thu Dec 6, 2007 6:19pm

So I'm impressed, talk about great homework help!  It's free, they put small text ad on every answer they text you.  If you want to answer questions you sign up and it AIMs you the questions when you are sitting at your computer.

I am taking a class on Learning Technologies at Harvard Graduate School of Education and one of the programs we studied had high school students mentored for history projects.  One issue that always comes up is "Is it really scalable?" "Can you find enough mentors?"  Seeing that some random web site I had never heard of has someone available to interpret renaissance poetry at 9pm (my time, looks like 6pm the answerer's time) makes me think that, perhaps, the answer is “yes”.  Not that there aren't other challenges..but that is for another post.

So, thumbs up to Jott and Mosio!