Now that I'm older, and purportedly wiser, I feel that I should have a more coherent set of interests. As well as reading philosophy (the historical figures, mostly) for the joy and sheer strangeness of being transported into a scheme for viewing the world, I should be reading with some purpose whether or not my ultimate aim ends up criticism or ( Read more... )

For no good reason, I feel abandoned: as if I've been writing chatty letters to no-one in particular and pining for an affectionate response. I've gotten out of the house--to teach Friday and today and to see the incredible Van Gogh and Expressionism exhibit with KSG yesterday--yet I feel confined and spectral, somehow. Everythink irks me and I ( Read more... )

I spent the better part of the day making aloo paratha, eeriely unconcerned that all I have for hours of labor is the neat arc of a burn on my left hand and six UFO shaped patties with crimped and upturned edges. The first came off of the skillet singed with a skull's face--no grin but a smirk or perhaps a leer instead. The second was impressed ( Read more... )

I sat down to write my philosophy of social sciences paper around 5:30, and all of a sudden it's nearly 1. I should be tired but my head's swimming; I'm intellectually twitchy and I haven't even attempted to follow my own argument yet. I've been trying to argue ( Read more... )

The menu for tomorrow's dinner party:

Appetizers
Black bean cakes with scallion cream
Salsa de molcajete and cumin chips

Entree
Fish tacos with chipotle cream

Sides
Pinto beans with sofrito
Orzo salad with roasted peppers and corn

Desserts
Coconut Ice Cream
Double Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream
Brownies with Chai Spices
Mudslide Cookies

After a somewhat difficult day--restraining myself from not shouting at the student I'm tutoring for repeatedly confusing the radius and diameter of a circle, spending nearly two hours in a sweaty, smelly, mechanically unsound subway car while seated next to a five year old who found it amusing to grab at me in my newspaper and several seats away ( Read more... )

The residual rain reminds me of the time ML lent me Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter, a novel I strangely associate with Lie Down in Darkness and the Philip Roth novel whose narrator is Gabe Wallach and whose title I never remember.
***
Remembering and forgetting are now a constant preoccupation.

I'm so glad I forced myself awake at 6:30 after about three full hours of sleep to schlep down to NYU (the 1 to 42nd street, the R to 8th street, and a mile of walking) for a Hume conference. The energy, wit, and erudition of a room full of Hume scholars was worth the truncated sleep, the blisters, and feeling awkward and ill-proportioned in my ( Read more... )

I was surprised to find out that Marx had a sense of humor. The recurring example of the Bible-buying linen merchant in vol. 1 of Kapital is really quite amusing.
***Borsch is an incredibly underrated food. It's delicious, especially once lots of fresh dill has been thrown in and it's been finished off with several generous squeezes of lemon juice ( Read more... )

Preparing for tomorrow's dinner party, I'm doing all the grubby tasks Mrs. Dalloway would never deign to do (chief among them separating mucus-y egg whites and watching the discarded yolks slump down the sink drain) yet I think of Woolf nonetheless. My mother and several others claim not to like her becuase they find her too intellectual; I've ( Read more... )