Shahrazad IV

Back to Shahrazad III At dinner that night I discovered that the past week’s FARC attack had taken place just outside Pasto. As a left leaning, petit bourgeois intellectual I do not know what to feel, someone said. The FARC are excellent guerrillas, we really like them. Usually nothing happens anyway, the boys just come … More Shahrazad IV

Patriarchal Women I

For ridiculousness, one of my favorite academic experiences of all time was the telephone call I received from a senior person in Women’s Studies who announced that I was the least oppressed person on the faculty: no husband, no children, not a woman of color, not disabled, not gay. As the least oppressed person, it … More Patriarchal Women I

Shahrazad III

Back to Shahrazad II Tupac drove us to a gated and heavily guarded compound. Inside the white walls were a lawn, a restaurant, and a number of pavilions. This was the club of the Bank of the Republic, where we were to stay. Official and fancy though it was, its nighttime attendant seemed a bit … More Shahrazad III

Shahrazad II

Back to Shahrazad I About a week after the phone call, or the dream, a fax arrived from the Bank of the Republic of Colombia: we urgently need the title of your lecture. So now I phoned. It seemed I was to cancel my regular classes for a week to participate in a symposium at … More Shahrazad II

Shahrazad I

I can compose calmly and directly now instead of having my brain expand and pulsate in asymmetrical ways. And composition is craftsmanlike and pleasant. As it gets sharper, I can feel the synapses click and the blood run through the capillaries in my temples. I have more wind in my chest, and more space in … More Shahrazad I

Orange Blossom Special

This is Pacific Ocean Bluegrass, with fiddle player Katie Nakamura channelling Bill Monroe. Go Katie! Also, a piece of news I ought to have posted for Memorial Day, but am posting now for us to read and mourn, is this story of a PTSD-affected veteran, killed at home by a police sharpshooter after receiving a … More Orange Blossom Special

Jacques Lacan

I have very little knowledge of Lacan and cannot comment seriously on him, but observe this: Between man and love, there is woman; between man and woman, there is a world; betwen man and the world, there is a wall. What is at stake in a serious love relationship between a man and a woman … More Jacques Lacan