Now I am writing a pre-piece of my new book and trying not to ignite my usual set of literary academic writing reactions, having to do with wishing I had always been doing more of this, and also wishing that when I decided I preferred to move on from it that I had honored my … More Chola soy, y no me compadezcan. Jacques Derrida. Paroles en liberté
I really am almost finished transforming back. I think. To continue to transform back I would like to say that what Reeducation did was take a distorting picture of one’s moment of trauma and say: This is the real you. Admit that it is the real you. And you had to start living as that … More On Transformation
I have had another of those conversations with someone who likes teaching, in which I said I did not. But when I told her WHAT I was teaching she turned up her nose. “In my university we have other people to do that.” I thought, “Well, I rest my case.” But my graduate student does … More And Continuing
Now animated by a yogic comment from Hattie, I can keep on saying things and drawing pictures, these always having been some of my first goals in life. The immediate additional causes of my current malaise: a) so many students, including graduate students, need remedial work, but we are keeping up a certain fiction … … More On Precariousness and Destabilization
Voy a hablar de la esperanza. HOY SUFRO SOLAMENTE As we know, I am a working man, although if I were a male academic I might not have all the same duties as I do. That, precisely, is why I am a working man in old fashioned terms: a working man works on an assembly … More Voy a hablar de la esperanza
1.0. It turns out that the ATM card my bank mailed me in Peru, was already invalid when it arrived because they had also mailed a regular debit card to me here. Moral of story: if you have an ATM card mailed to you elsewhere, even if it is a different type of card than … More Back to the Future
Here is another labyrinthine post from the olden days. Now I am awake like the Buddha, but a seer at a Los Angeles botánica told me years ago that I was “carrying a great weight.” Qui potest capere, capiat. I Trying to discover my way back professionally from the ravages of Reeducation is sometimes dangerous … More On Anorexia
1. Now I am experiencing luxury, calm and voluptuousness in the form of New Orleans streets on a lovely fall afternoon. I am trying to learn to take greater advantage of all affordable luxuries available to me than I have done in some time. Before Reeducation I lived in a very pleasant way, but in … More Luxury, Calm, and Voluptuousness III
Lisa and Undine raised the question, what makes you write? My answer was and is Baudelairean: ordre et beauté, luxe, calme, et volupté. A garret by a good bookstore and a job as a barista could constitute luxury, calm, and voluptuousness. Another answer is that writing is like breathing – nothing motivates me, or everything … More Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness II
As the assiduous reader will know, this weblog exists so that I can extirpate from myself that whiteman’s voice and rediscover my own. It is, in other words, a playground in which I am learning for the second or third time in life not to be cruel to myself. One of the ways I am … More Mountains, Winds, and Seas
coldhearted scientist وداد 