“Then the populace closes in again, so quickly and densely that it seems impossible it could ever have been parted, and negro water-carriers, muffled women, beggars streaming with sores, sinewy and greasy “saints,” Soudanese sorcerers hung with amulets made of sardine-boxes and hares’-feet, long-lashed boys of the Chleuh in clean embroidered caftans, Jews in black … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Edith Wharton
In the New Year I will renew last year’s vows, namely, to engage in luxury, calm, and voluptuousness. I will call more regularly upon the spirits, who reside here in the breath of winter’s fiery hearth. I In graduate school one had to prove one was serious. One of the main ways to prove this … More New Year: In Which I Am Not a Suburban-American
The third section of this post is the one relevant to its title, but I have a few other things to say. Even before the first thing, and in preparation for tomorrow’s post, I announce that not only do I believe in living in VERY URBAN ENVIRONMENTS, I also believe in SURFING and BACKPACKING, this … More Another Past
I never get over missing the Western landscapes and Woody Guthrie’s song “Roll On, Columbia” never fails to make me nostalgic. The video has majestic photographs, but listen closely to the song lyrics. They are racist, colonialist, anti-environmentalist, and although Guthrie would never admit it, they favor big business. These are some errors in modernization … More Limits of Modernity
In Denmark this is the first day of Christmas. To get ready for Christmas back in the day you had to prepare many special foods, including rolled lamb sausage and pebernødder. On Christmas Eve there was rice pudding and goose with red cabbage. On Christmas Day there was an endless luncheon of pickles and things. … More On the Train
This is also my birthday, and it is an excellent day to work for peace. Among other things let us consider working to free Muntazer Al-Zaidi (especially since Bush has “no hard feelings”) and to get out of Iraq, Barack! I am feeling interestingly light. Here comes part of the 2007 Christmas concert given at … More Lumen Christi
A few days ago I was standing on a New Orleans wharf watching the ships come in, and just after noon today, Pacific Standard Time, I will be on a San Francisco dock waiting for the Larkspur Ferry. If you fly to San Francisco from Houston this morning, you may see me on the plane. … More On the Docks
ERRORS OF MY WAYS/JOB DESCRIPTION What my job ideal description was and is: Active, fast-paced career in large, urban, research oriented, policy making institution, involving national and international partners. Find documents, analyze and discuss them, discover their role in the national and international imaginary. Make decisions, write reports. Organize research groups. Write books alone and … More What Is A Scholar? or, Primordial River. Original Groove
Servetus says being a scholar … * is about having a question or questions you need to answer. Not want, need to answer. For you or for the world. Not for your tenure committee or to fill out your vita. To inform the world. To change the world. To find the truth. Your truth, whether … More Stolen from Servetus
Je suis en ville! Je ne rentre pas à Maringouin jusqu’à la nuit! C’est merveilleux! I keep thinking I have a Serious Mental Health Problem I need to blog my way out of. But I do not – I merely cannot take the suburbs and the suburbanites, that is all. That is why I stay … More En ville!
