Archive for the ‘ Diurnal dribble ’ Category

Geraldo Pino

I just purchased my first album in probably years. “Heavy Heavy Heavy” by Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats is now funking away. This is the music that turned Fela Kuti from high-life to afro-beat by introducing him to the James Brown sound. And I’ve been immersing myself deeply in Fela for a few weeks. One fun [ READ MORE ]

Easy or hard?

A student today said to me: “I’ve had harder classes that were easier.” I’m still trying to figure out what he meant, but I don’t think it was a terribly positive assessment! [ READ MORE ]

Alive!

So I had a novel experience today in the wake of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and other school shootings. A student had scrawled on a bathroom stall something about killing students today in Hickman Hall. That’s where my class is. After the police carefully inspected my bag, I made it to class to find a intrepid dozen. [ READ MORE ]

A bad situation is a good situation

So now things have gotten into about as much of a mess as they can. An hour ago, just before the start of a long weekend, the day care office called to tell me—not that they would be opening on Tuesday, as I had put faith in—but on March 1. March 1 is six weeks [ READ MORE ]

2010 starting up rough

Happy New Year! Should be a wonderful year and decade. But it’s not starting that way! Jan. 1 I managed to accidentally erase my website, including the theme. I’m just recovering now, so expect anomalous appearances and behaviors for a while. The bright side of this (despite the bad timing) is that I’ve needed to update [ READ MORE ]

UP prof allegedly punches coworker

Well, I wasn’t going to blog this ugly event (to which JS brought my attention), but seeing as the NYPost has picked it up in addition to the NYTimes and as it’s on the front page of reddit.com, I guess I can mention it briefly. I consider Mac, the professor in the dispute, to be [ READ MORE ]

Baseball’s decline

Bob Herbert has a column in the Times from Friday that pretty much sums up my experience visiting the new Yankee’s Stadium early this year (with free tickets). The game was played in the new Yankee Stadium, which is equipped with all the upscale accoutrements that are becoming essential in professional sports — enormous video screens [ READ MORE ]

Sienna’s debutante party

Off to the folks’ house this weekend to host a party for the extended family to meet Sienna. Hopefully things will calm down a bit after this. [ READ MORE ]

Post-green

My friend who runs the Big River Zen Center has convinced me that I should Ken Wilber’s ‘integral vision’ A Theory of Everything. I haven’t gotten too far into it and fundamentally disagree with his essentialist approach to hierarchies and his faith in nested hierarchies, but that’s for another time. Today I had a short [ READ MORE ]

Whispered applause

I love this time of year. The temperature is perfect: refreshing rather than bracing. The moisture is not really necessary, but it’s not unwelcome if it’s not raining. But the best thing (at least this year) is the sound of the leaves. They’re still vibrant and supple, but they’re beginning to dry up and get [ READ MORE ]

Maintenance

Looks like the site is going to be a bit wacky for a while. I don’t want to deal with this, but to get everything going, it seems as though I have to construct a more contemporary theme. Please pardon appearances while I work this out. [ READ MORE ]

The Art of Keeping House

No, not the art of keeping your house in a supposedly recovering economy. After a day of feeding and wiping, holding and hugging, and playing and praying for mercy from Sienna, I was just washing umpteen bottles, nipples, rings, caps, and covers. And it struck me what an art housekeeping can be. At its best it [ READ MORE ]

Christie

And another friend’s new blog: Una China Entremedias. [ READ MORE ]

Troy O. Body

My friend Troy has just started up a website/blog, which is sure to be of enduring interest. I disagree with him on most things, but a debate with him is always productive. [ READ MORE ]

Driving

“Going to work” for the last two days has been outstandingly productive. I haven’t gotten loads done, but it’s steady, useful progress. (Skipping today to register for day care and to make a campus visit.) The hours of work I put into setting up my computers and learning LaTeX and pgfSweave and latex-suite and Awesome [ READ MORE ]