Political compass

I took this test again and ended up in the far lower left corner again. This makes me much more radical than Mahatma Ghandi or Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and virtually every U.S. presidential candidate is in the upper right quadrant, which they share with Adolf. Uncle Joe is in the upper left … More Political compass

Gary Tyler

Gary Tyler is out today but had to admit (allege) guilt as part of the arrangement. Do people actually believe this plea or did they just want to create him as a permanent felon? It occurs to me that it means he can never sue for wrongful incarceration. This may have been the reason. Axé.

Buddhas Veje

I just threw out a poster I had had since I was sixteen and that was for me a sign of self and home. It had a marvelous red and yellow image and said: BUDDHAS VEJE NATIONALMUSEET I BREDE MAJ-OKTOBER 1970 Daglig 10-17 Tirsdag og torsdag aften 19-22 I did not want to get rid … More Buddhas Veje

Shoshana Felman

The Scandal of the Speaking Body must be an update of The Literary Speech Act. Amazingly, we have the latter book in our library so I can recycle my old photocopy of it. My notes in the margins, from the old days, say that promising turns out to be a big part of language (the … More Shoshana Felman

Japan

I have had a fetish for Japanese furniture since I was about two, and I think I should indulge it. I want this pillow in Ya Gasuri blue cloth (or navy). I want real tatami mats and a kakebuton. Axé.

Byung-Chul Han

Solo las diferencias que se pueden consumir están permitidas. No se puede amar al otro al que le han quitado la alteridad, sino solo consumirlo. Quizá sea por eso por lo que hoy crece el interés por el apocalipsis. Uno siente el infierno de la igualdad y quiere escapar de él. That is from an … More Byung-Chul Han

Milton

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. [. . .] That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, … More Milton

Jorge Manrique

I decided to revisit a famous text by this poet and thought: how amazingly 15th century! And it is; in fact Manrique died before 1492 and missed the entrance of the “Indies” onto the global stage. This makes him profoundly removed or foreign, I feel, because he is at the same time so close to … More Jorge Manrique

One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Inevitability of Race

I will go here, but will have to come up with something on women characters not women writers, I fear. I might argue that certain incomprehensible or hard to interpret classics are crystal clear if you think in forbidden terms about gender and race. Cien años de soledad becomes very clear, for instance, if you … More One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Inevitability of Race

My shadow resumé

Others have written shadow resumés of failures, but mine is of roads not taken. In the years in which I was realizing what my real interests were, I had these intuitions: 24-25. Realize I wanted a B.S. in Economics, and to go from there. (What I could have done, with my M.A. and partial Ph.D. … More My shadow resumé