Statistics

My least favorite thing in the world is when people brag about page numbers. In person or on Facebook, it only leads to the listener/lurker feeling bad about her/himself, because the nature of academic life is such that you are constantly aware of the impossible task of reading everything you need to know or writing down everything you want to say. It's not academic neuroticism; it's the nature of knowledge. Still, hearing the number of pages somebody managed to bang out in a day makes one feel pitiful, a loafer, a slouch. No matter whether the pages written were any good or had a thousand long block quotes taking up all the white space, or if the book they read had pictures or was written by the Dr. Seuss of their discipline. No matter. Internal monologue: OH GOD, WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY TIME?!

And so, it is with the mental health of all my numerous and sundry Facebook friends and at the sad expense of my few, so very few but loyal blog readers, that I announce the birthweight of Chapter 1. I'm sorry to do this, friend(s), but I have to. For all the times I thought, hmm, well, if i can squeeze out 25 pages for each chapter, add 10 pages for intro and conclusion, tack on a hefty bibliography and images, maybe I'll just clear a respectable 150 pages???, I announce to you:

Chapter 1: 73 pages, not including 59 images.

*I do not know this baby.

BOO-YA!

Longest night of the year

benighted, adj. 1. Overtaken by the darkness of the night; affected by the night (obs.). 2. a. fig. Involved in intellectual or moral darkness. b. Involved in obscurity. Obs.*


What is it about the solstice that makes me want to stay up all night watching the best Simpsons episode ever and organizing my books? Is it the fear of literal and figurative benightedness? (What a great word.) Or just a ritual to remind me of apartments past where this very same activity always dependably inaugurated my feeling finally at home?

What I love about this "new" apartment:
-bike room
-record player
-HELLO?! awesome roommate!
-ceiling fans
-quantity of empty jars and jars full of grains and pulses
-huge kitchen table study hall
-remote control bed
-um, ROOMMATE!
-location location location (not a joke)

*Is this some kind of lexicographer's inside joke? Oh, O.E.D.

Happy Solstice 2011, dear reader. What are you doing on the New Year?

This Is a Thing

Wow, wikipedia (and history), blowing my mind again:

Sumptuary laws (from Latin sumptuariae leges) are laws that attempt to regulate habits of consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc.".^[1] Traditionally, they were laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures. In most times and places they were ineffectual.^[2]

Throughout history, societies have used sumptuary laws for a variety of purposes. They attempted to regulate the balance of trade by limiting the market for expensive imported goods. They were also an easy way to identify social rank and privilege, and often were used for social discrimination.^[2]

This frequently meant preventing commoners from imitating the appearance of aristocrats, and sometimes also to stigmatize disfavored groups. In the Late Middle Ages sumptuary laws were instituted as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the prosperous bourgeoisie of medieval cities, and they continued to be used for these purposes well into the 17th century.^[2]

I mean, for real? Apparently so.

Some Book Titles

Two memoirs, one for now, one for later:

The Puberty of My Career

and

The Premature and Tragic Ending of the Puberty of My Career

In bookstores soon.

VOLKSbühne!

What can I find to eat on a plane?

What I ate in the last 24 hours:

-a $4 bottle of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice from JFK airport*
-crunchy airport apple
-oily chickpea airport salad
-large black airport tea
-mushy orzo and steamed vegetable "sweet and sour" slop on the airplane (one of the more disgusting vegan airplane meals in a while)
-brown airplane roll with margarine
-airplane fruit
-airplane salad greens
-breakfast airplane banana
-nature valley airplane breakfast granola bar
-airplane tea
-hotel coffee
-street falafel
-dinner ramen with vegs
-kimchee
-seaweed salad
-inordinate amount of midnight prezels (Brezels)
-1,5 liter bottle of water...my body begs for home.

*I didn't pay for it. The second time I've gotten a fancy drink as a result of a "clerical error" in my favor in the last week. I'm not giving it back.

Back

Cold salty ocean air of Howard Beach greets me and my suitcases at JFK. Reading Just Kids on the flight home, I thought about Patti and Robert's trips to Coney Island, and made a plan to go to the sea before it gets too warm.

Tragic and Damning

This was on the front page of the NYT homepage for one hot second and then got yanked to the World section, and not even to the top, but buried like 12 stories down behind China not wanting to report on protests and rising oil prices. What is going on?? Why are we in this shitty war???

Gathering Firewood, 9 Afghan Boys Killed by NATO Helicopters