21 December, winter solstice. Morning: Rappi came! I think I will go to the Anthropology museum today and Coyoacán Saturday, there’s some kind of live crèche with villancicos in addition to the other things I want to do (Cineteca Nacional, Xoco). Sunday is also good for Coyoacán, although the cineteca will be closed. Evening: Actually … More The log

I always want to give it right but never have time for all the reading and all the film catch-up. I should actually take a sabbatical just for this. People take sabbaticals for course development–why not me? Axé.

And here I am saying it, so I will remember, but nobody else had better beat us to this selection. Axé.

We can start with this Sánchez Prado article when it comes out. We can see all of Guzmán with a better selection of accompanying texts. This will take some work. But it may be worth it. We’ll study the references in the films, Zurita, Neruda, Jara, etc. I won’t be intimidated by the amount of … More Seminario Guzmán

I am more interested in other questions, on the relationship between professional and amateur work, and on what we mean by terms like “radical.” On the first issue, I have wanted a law degree because those skills and that license would permit me to do work I cannot. But as we also know, professional work … More Another paragraph I am redoing

René Char, “Arthur Rimbaud,” Recherche de la base et du sommet, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1983), 731: “Avec Rimbaud la poésie a cessé d’être un genre littéraire, une compétition. Avant lui, Héraclite et un peintre, Georges de La Tour, avaient construit et montré quelle Maison entre toutes devait habiter l’homme: à la fois demeure pour … More Avez-vous lu Char?

Activism also means having political convictions, speaking up and acting on them, an attitude that in my experience, at least, is unusual and often unwelcome in academic life. And maybe I’ll cut: This zone has no metrics, but it is nearby. We can find it by “writing together,” they say. Axé.

The work requires an orientation toward action and problem-solving that in my experience, at least, is unusual and often unwelcome in universities. Here the formation of a committee to study a problem is often a way to defer action, but the activist world one must stand on convictions and act. ***Our old organizations in the … More Notes I have now cut and should perhaps resurrect

Around the time Hayes was released my life took me away from New Orleans, but I stayed in touch with Gary and the other prisoners by letter and telephone. I began visiting again, although from a different town, when I returned to Louisiana. The groups I had been involved with dispersed as other lives changed … More Cutting More