It is hard to believe I've only been back in New York for two weeks. Once the semester starts it is a roller-coaster, all you can do is hang on and wait for it to stop! I guess it is about one-twelfth of the way done?!? Hmmmm, better pace myself for the remaining eleven-twelfths....
Did an amazing triathlon on Sunday (race report here). One more next weekend and then I just need to get on a regular exercise schedule. I've been resting all week due to tired legs, scraped-up elbow and knee and general insanity of school!
Some good light reading around the edges (weeks worth, really - I am annoyed with myself when I go so long without posting it as it becomes tedious to paste in a good many links at once!):
My friend Marco posted a picture drawn by his ten-year-old daughter that reminded me of my passion for Martin Millar's Lonely Werewolf Girl. I checked Amazon and there was indeed a new installment of this utterly enthralling series: The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf! It is just as good as the previous two. Imagine Jilly Cooper (he has her rare gift for writing funny appealing characters you care about & being able to spool off stories about them at nearly infinite length) as rewritten with input from Stephen Elliott and Francesca Lia Block - these books are frankly just ridiculously appealing!
Then I read Millar's pseudonymously published Thraxas, but it is not as much to my taste (if you want to try Millar without werewolves, a good place to start is the hilarious Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me).
I liked Declare so much that I downloaded a few more books by Tim Powers; The Drawing of the Dark and Three Days to Never are bot good reads but neither is as much to my taste as Declare.
A cycling-related recommendation from my friend Troy: Richard Moore, Slaying the Badger: Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault and the Greatest Tour de France.
I got Gwenda Bond's Girl on a Wire as an electronic advance reading copy via Amazon Prime. It is delightful! Gave me happy memories of reading again and again from the school library a Noel Streatfeild book that was not one of my absolute favorites (theaters being more exciting places to me than circuses!) but that still captivated me like all her others, Circus Shoes. (It was clear even to optimistic childhood self that I could not have a career as an acrobat or a trick horse rider if I had to run away and join the circus, but I thought there was a good chance that I could play in the band!)
Amazing two-fer that got me blissfully through the knackered evenings of the first week of classes: Lee Child, Personal and Tana French, The Secret Place. These two books are perfect of their respective kinds, and they are appealing kinds at that. I would teach these on a syllabus to show the equal importance of voice, character and plotting to perfect popular fiction! The Tana French in particular is just remarkably good, I am sure I will read it again very soon - shades of Miss Pym Disposes! Especially impressive is the way the whole thing really depends on the creation of a grimly intense mood - it is really like a much more effective and amazing version of what I was trying to do in The Magic Circle.
A very appealing SF novel by Daryl Gregory called The Devil's Alphabet (reminded me of another underrated old favorite of mine, Peter Dickinson's The Green Gene).
Finally, devastatingly (I finished it an hour ago and can't quite imagine what novel I could read immediately following it - might have to turn to some nonfiction instead?): Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun.
One more tenure letter to write this weekend, and a letter of recommendation I should have done already (many others hard on its heels!); meetings tomorrow morning, but after that mostly just plans to do a lot of work and some exercise. Had to get this post written this evening because light reading catch-up is one of the throat-clearing procrastinatory things I do when I have to write something that takes attention but that I don't really feel like doing, and it will be better to have gotten it out of the way this evening!
Showing posts with label triathlon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label triathlon. Show all posts
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Saturday, September 06, 2014
Weekend chaos!
In minor chaos and disarray at this end! I am having a very good month: my only complaint about it is that all the good things are happening in a very compressed time period, whereas I know there will be long dull stretches at other points that would have benefited from this kind of stimulus!
(New Tana French was so good that I just wanted to read it all over again when I finished. Also enjoying Vikram Chandra's new book - excerpt here - but fuller light reading log will have to await some more leisurely moment. Had a great meeting Thursday with an editor I'm keen to write for, found a very good dress yesterday to wear for my one annual professional black-tie event, new semester still has the glow on it, etc. etc.)
Heading off in a couple hours to New Paltz for the SOS Triathlon. My brother and his family are crewing for me - niece GG just had her first day of kindergarten on Thursday, as well as her fifth birthday on Tuesday, so I am excited to hear all about it on the car on the way there! I'm taking NJ Transit out to where they are - they have just moved into a new house in Rutherford, this will be my first visit (of many I hope!).
Haven't finished everything for Monday's initial seminar meeting, but the syllabus is finalized and I don't teach till late afternoon, so that should be OK - ditto Tuesday's class on Milton. One letter of recommendation that I will try and squeeze out this morning if I can get tidied up and packed in sufficiently good time. One more tenure letter due the 15th, but it was slightly amazing that I got two of the other ones done over the holiday weekend.
Triathlon: sport of stuff!
Syllabus design also breeds an accumulation of things:
And then there's the OTHER syllabus!
(New Tana French was so good that I just wanted to read it all over again when I finished. Also enjoying Vikram Chandra's new book - excerpt here - but fuller light reading log will have to await some more leisurely moment. Had a great meeting Thursday with an editor I'm keen to write for, found a very good dress yesterday to wear for my one annual professional black-tie event, new semester still has the glow on it, etc. etc.)
Heading off in a couple hours to New Paltz for the SOS Triathlon. My brother and his family are crewing for me - niece GG just had her first day of kindergarten on Thursday, as well as her fifth birthday on Tuesday, so I am excited to hear all about it on the car on the way there! I'm taking NJ Transit out to where they are - they have just moved into a new house in Rutherford, this will be my first visit (of many I hope!).
Haven't finished everything for Monday's initial seminar meeting, but the syllabus is finalized and I don't teach till late afternoon, so that should be OK - ditto Tuesday's class on Milton. One letter of recommendation that I will try and squeeze out this morning if I can get tidied up and packed in sufficiently good time. One more tenure letter due the 15th, but it was slightly amazing that I got two of the other ones done over the holiday weekend.
Triathlon: sport of stuff!
Syllabus design also breeds an accumulation of things:
And then there's the OTHER syllabus!
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Closing tabs
My only complaint about this week, if it is a complaint, is that it was too full of a rich and complex variety of things!
On Tuesday I taught The Princesse de Cleves and on Wednesday, A Journal of the Plague Year. These are two of my particularly favorite books of all time, and I'm really excited about this semester's courses.
On Thursday I went with G. to see Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. The third act is brilliant and genuinely haunting - I am not quite so sure about the long first act, which seems to me to have too much of the sort of conversation that seemed fresh when we heard it in Pulp Fiction but which strikes me on the stage these days as overly rambling and a little self-indulgent. The three acts of the play take place in the near future, seven years later and seventy years later - it covers some familiar ground in terms of thinking about linguistic and cultural transformations after an apocalyptic break (think Riddley Walker or other post-nuclear scenarios), but the originality comes from the way that we see time morphing the "Cape Fear" Simpsons episode together with Gilbert & Sullivan and all sorts of other random cultural snippets, especially musical, into a postapocalyptic morality play, with Bart Simpson as familiar to modern audiences as the medieval Vice would have been to audiences many hundreds of years ago. The acting is very good, and so is the production. (Dinner afterwards at the West Bank Cafe, which is currently offering a very good prix fixe dinner - $20 for appetizer, main course and dessert. I had spinach ravioli, a very delicious skate with capers and an even more delectable lemon mousse.)
Lots of meetings with graduate students - I think I have finally reached critical mass. Also was given a brand new iPad for a major committee assignment, something that presages huge amounts of online reading.
On Friday I had dinner at La Lunchonette with an old friend from graduate school who has invited me to come and speak at Tel Aviv University in May, a trip I am very much looking forward to.
On Saturday I went to Governors Island on the ferry and met up with my brother and his family at Fête Paradiso. Among other things we rode the world's first bicycle carousel.
Today I finally had time to write my race report for Ironman Wisconsin.
This coming week is very busy too, though after that I am hoping things will settle down a bit. I could use a few quiet days at home with little to do!
Light reading around the edges:
Seanan McGuire's new October Daye novel, Chimes At Midnight, which ends very abruptly but regardless confirms my impression of McGuire as one of today's great geniuses of popular fiction in the fantasy/science-fictional vein; and Gwenda Bond's lovely The Woken Gods, which entirely lived up to my very high expectations.
Closing tabs:
Open up this essay by Mark Kingwell in a new browser tab and save it to read later!
A humble plea for the bumblebee.
On Tuesday I taught The Princesse de Cleves and on Wednesday, A Journal of the Plague Year. These are two of my particularly favorite books of all time, and I'm really excited about this semester's courses.
On Thursday I went with G. to see Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. The third act is brilliant and genuinely haunting - I am not quite so sure about the long first act, which seems to me to have too much of the sort of conversation that seemed fresh when we heard it in Pulp Fiction but which strikes me on the stage these days as overly rambling and a little self-indulgent. The three acts of the play take place in the near future, seven years later and seventy years later - it covers some familiar ground in terms of thinking about linguistic and cultural transformations after an apocalyptic break (think Riddley Walker or other post-nuclear scenarios), but the originality comes from the way that we see time morphing the "Cape Fear" Simpsons episode together with Gilbert & Sullivan and all sorts of other random cultural snippets, especially musical, into a postapocalyptic morality play, with Bart Simpson as familiar to modern audiences as the medieval Vice would have been to audiences many hundreds of years ago. The acting is very good, and so is the production. (Dinner afterwards at the West Bank Cafe, which is currently offering a very good prix fixe dinner - $20 for appetizer, main course and dessert. I had spinach ravioli, a very delicious skate with capers and an even more delectable lemon mousse.)
Lots of meetings with graduate students - I think I have finally reached critical mass. Also was given a brand new iPad for a major committee assignment, something that presages huge amounts of online reading.
On Friday I had dinner at La Lunchonette with an old friend from graduate school who has invited me to come and speak at Tel Aviv University in May, a trip I am very much looking forward to.
On Saturday I went to Governors Island on the ferry and met up with my brother and his family at Fête Paradiso. Among other things we rode the world's first bicycle carousel.
Today I finally had time to write my race report for Ironman Wisconsin.
This coming week is very busy too, though after that I am hoping things will settle down a bit. I could use a few quiet days at home with little to do!
Light reading around the edges:
Seanan McGuire's new October Daye novel, Chimes At Midnight, which ends very abruptly but regardless confirms my impression of McGuire as one of today's great geniuses of popular fiction in the fantasy/science-fictional vein; and Gwenda Bond's lovely The Woken Gods, which entirely lived up to my very high expectations.
Closing tabs:
Open up this essay by Mark Kingwell in a new browser tab and save it to read later!
A humble plea for the bumblebee.
Monday, September 02, 2013
Swim bit
Thoughts on Diana Nyad's memoir from six years ago.
(I thought it would be a three-year quest from September 2007 to Ironman, but it has turned into a six-year one due to factors largely beyond my control - am going to write something about this once I have done my race next weekend. I hope I get an official finish, and I believe that I will, but on the other hand I am just happy to have been able to do the training properly this time round - getting to the start will be a victory in itself, and I have promised myself to take what the day brings with good cheer.)
(I thought it would be a three-year quest from September 2007 to Ironman, but it has turned into a six-year one due to factors largely beyond my control - am going to write something about this once I have done my race next weekend. I hope I get an official finish, and I believe that I will, but on the other hand I am just happy to have been able to do the training properly this time round - getting to the start will be a victory in itself, and I have promised myself to take what the day brings with good cheer.)
Sunday, September 01, 2013
"The myth prescribes the garret rather than the Guggenheim"
I have been exhausted all week, but I think I am finally starting to feel more normal - failed to get up for projected early-morning bike ride today, but it was for the best, I needed the sleep more. Had a good swim yesterday but am feeling much thwarted by August swimming-pool closures.
All sorts of Seamus Heaney-related tabs open, waiting for a proper send-off, but I realize that I could wait forever, so here are a few good ones (I never took a class with him, but he was an active and benevolent presence during my undergraduate days in Adams House): Henri Cole interviewed Heaney for the Paris Review (this one's a must-read, all sorts of the things he says are quite arresting, including thoughts about living in two places); Andrew O'Hagan at the LRB on car trips with Heaney and Karl Miller (note blethering discussion, which strongly reminded me of my Scottish grandfather - it was a word he loved - that and shoogly are two Scots words that remain in my personal idiom).
A good interview with Ruth Franklin about the art of criticism.
Lee Child has an amazing apartment! (I like my current apartment very much, indeed it is somewhere I will very happily live until the day I die if that is the way things go, but at this time of year I hugely regret not having central air-conditioning - it is the nature of the Columbia housing stock to be pre-war and very beautiful/spacious, but the humidity right now is killing me, and it leaves me with the impression of my apartment being a sinkhole, even though really it is the same as always.) Very impatient for the new Jack Reacher book - if I am sensible, I will save it to read on Thursday in the airport en route to Madison for my race.
Light reading around the edges of copious trivial errands and obsessing about upcoming race and digging out books and papers for fall-semester classes: Mick Herron, Slow Horses.
Also I forgot to say I read Adam Phillips' Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life as my "airplane book" (I am ready for the silly rule about not using electronic devices during takeoff and landing to be abandoned - but in the meantime, I will continue to have some kind of nonfiction or essay collection with me to while away those stretches of Kindle-banned time). There are only about three worthwhile paragraphs in the whole book, but on the other hand it is a very short book. At his best, Phillips is transfixing, but one also feels he spools this stuff out without regard to quality - he could use a more challenging interlocutor at this point, I suspect, than his own ears!
All sorts of Seamus Heaney-related tabs open, waiting for a proper send-off, but I realize that I could wait forever, so here are a few good ones (I never took a class with him, but he was an active and benevolent presence during my undergraduate days in Adams House): Henri Cole interviewed Heaney for the Paris Review (this one's a must-read, all sorts of the things he says are quite arresting, including thoughts about living in two places); Andrew O'Hagan at the LRB on car trips with Heaney and Karl Miller (note blethering discussion, which strongly reminded me of my Scottish grandfather - it was a word he loved - that and shoogly are two Scots words that remain in my personal idiom).
A good interview with Ruth Franklin about the art of criticism.
Lee Child has an amazing apartment! (I like my current apartment very much, indeed it is somewhere I will very happily live until the day I die if that is the way things go, but at this time of year I hugely regret not having central air-conditioning - it is the nature of the Columbia housing stock to be pre-war and very beautiful/spacious, but the humidity right now is killing me, and it leaves me with the impression of my apartment being a sinkhole, even though really it is the same as always.) Very impatient for the new Jack Reacher book - if I am sensible, I will save it to read on Thursday in the airport en route to Madison for my race.
Light reading around the edges of copious trivial errands and obsessing about upcoming race and digging out books and papers for fall-semester classes: Mick Herron, Slow Horses.
Also I forgot to say I read Adam Phillips' Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life as my "airplane book" (I am ready for the silly rule about not using electronic devices during takeoff and landing to be abandoned - but in the meantime, I will continue to have some kind of nonfiction or essay collection with me to while away those stretches of Kindle-banned time). There are only about three worthwhile paragraphs in the whole book, but on the other hand it is a very short book. At his best, Phillips is transfixing, but one also feels he spools this stuff out without regard to quality - he could use a more challenging interlocutor at this point, I suspect, than his own ears!
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
On near misses
It all worked out fine in the end, but I had a highly unpleasant half-hour this morning around 9:30am when I went to the TriBike Transport site to check the exact address and time window for Friday's bike drop-off, only to find that the drop-off deadline had been changed to YESTERDAY at 7pm!
Utter panic ensued - I couldn't get through to TriBike, and I started thinking about the various dreadful alternative methods of getting a bicycle to Wisconsin, and how horrible it would be if I had to pursue any of them. Fortunately I soon had a productive chat with a TriBike employee who informed me that the truck wasn't scheduled to pick up bikes from the store until 11am this morning, that she would call the truck's driver and that as long as I could get there by 11:30 it should be fine.
So I threw a few things into the gear bag (no time to pack it properly, just aero helmet and wetsuit and one or two other obvious bits and bobs), grabbed my bicycle and dumped everything in the trunk of a taxi - there was a lot of traffic (I was glad I wasn't riding across town!), but I was in the East Village by 11 sharp and dropped off my stuff with HUGE relief at having dodged a bullet. Acquired a pedal wrench to replace the one I'm not sure where to find and also paid for store mechanic to replace rear tube with broken valve.
Took subway home and found email notification that bike and bag were now safely on route. I will pick them up a week from Friday in Madison: it's a very good service, much better than having to have bike unpacked and rebuilt (capable mechanics do this themselves, but I really prefer to pay a professional to do it properly - especially the reassembly!) and paying airline extortionate fees to slam it around for me. (Not to mention my bike case is in Cayman still.)
(Needless to say, I was having considerable self-reproach at not having checked online over the weekend - they say to check a week or two in advance in case details have changed, but I suppose I didn't imagine it would be more than one day in one direction or another. This sort of lapse is partly just the inevitable consequence of life complexity - I am reasonably on top of life details, I would say, in a general sense, but I am also good at staying focused on getting one thing done at a time. I had to do my 112-mile ride on Sunday, I had to fly home to NYC on Monday and also finish reading and preparing comments on a dissertation for first thing Tuesday morning. It is neither pious nor defensive, I hope, to say that my students' dissertation defenses take priority over Ironman logistics! The rest of yesterday was a wash, with a long nap and a celebratory dinner with dissertation student and colleagues at Le Monde; it was only when I got up this morning that I let my mind shift back to Ironman. A very lucky thing that I saw the change in time to remedy the situation - I have been very pleasantly feeling that the obligations of the new school year have been happily stopping me from obsessing about my race next week, but now I am thoroughly rattled and am going to be a lot more diligent about getting everything I can sorted out in next day or two. Have just made my MASTER LIST of things for different bags. Tomorrow will retrieve tri bike from Sid's Bikes and do some actual exercise - I've had three days off due to travel and fatigue and notional taper, but really I need to do S/B/R over next few days, and hopefully a hot yoga class somewhere in there too.)
Utter panic ensued - I couldn't get through to TriBike, and I started thinking about the various dreadful alternative methods of getting a bicycle to Wisconsin, and how horrible it would be if I had to pursue any of them. Fortunately I soon had a productive chat with a TriBike employee who informed me that the truck wasn't scheduled to pick up bikes from the store until 11am this morning, that she would call the truck's driver and that as long as I could get there by 11:30 it should be fine.
So I threw a few things into the gear bag (no time to pack it properly, just aero helmet and wetsuit and one or two other obvious bits and bobs), grabbed my bicycle and dumped everything in the trunk of a taxi - there was a lot of traffic (I was glad I wasn't riding across town!), but I was in the East Village by 11 sharp and dropped off my stuff with HUGE relief at having dodged a bullet. Acquired a pedal wrench to replace the one I'm not sure where to find and also paid for store mechanic to replace rear tube with broken valve.
Took subway home and found email notification that bike and bag were now safely on route. I will pick them up a week from Friday in Madison: it's a very good service, much better than having to have bike unpacked and rebuilt (capable mechanics do this themselves, but I really prefer to pay a professional to do it properly - especially the reassembly!) and paying airline extortionate fees to slam it around for me. (Not to mention my bike case is in Cayman still.)
(Needless to say, I was having considerable self-reproach at not having checked online over the weekend - they say to check a week or two in advance in case details have changed, but I suppose I didn't imagine it would be more than one day in one direction or another. This sort of lapse is partly just the inevitable consequence of life complexity - I am reasonably on top of life details, I would say, in a general sense, but I am also good at staying focused on getting one thing done at a time. I had to do my 112-mile ride on Sunday, I had to fly home to NYC on Monday and also finish reading and preparing comments on a dissertation for first thing Tuesday morning. It is neither pious nor defensive, I hope, to say that my students' dissertation defenses take priority over Ironman logistics! The rest of yesterday was a wash, with a long nap and a celebratory dinner with dissertation student and colleagues at Le Monde; it was only when I got up this morning that I let my mind shift back to Ironman. A very lucky thing that I saw the change in time to remedy the situation - I have been very pleasantly feeling that the obligations of the new school year have been happily stopping me from obsessing about my race next week, but now I am thoroughly rattled and am going to be a lot more diligent about getting everything I can sorted out in next day or two. Have just made my MASTER LIST of things for different bags. Tomorrow will retrieve tri bike from Sid's Bikes and do some actual exercise - I've had three days off due to travel and fatigue and notional taper, but really I need to do S/B/R over next few days, and hopefully a hot yoga class somewhere in there too.)
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Back to school
It is nice to be back at home in New York. This time of year is always cheery in Morningside Heights, with students moving in and the optimism of a new school year!
I got home from Cayman yesterday evening, did a dissertation defense this morning and then came home and crashed for a deep and discombobulating three-hour afternoon nap that will probably wreak havoc with tonight's sleep possibilities, but I think it was worth it regardless. I still have one surplus cat staying with me, which is nice (two cats are more than twice as funny than one cat).
I need to get in gear for my opening classes next week (this means trying to unearth notes, course readers, books etc. and wondering why I do not leave them in some better and more systematically accessible fashion) - both are classes I have taught before and enjoy, so it shouldn't be too overwhelming. I'm on a big committee this year that will take up a significant amount of time and attention, and I also have three or four talks scheduled for October and early November, so I think things will be fairly busy.
I am done with the bulk of Ironman training and now have eleven days before I race next weekend in Madison! I am actually finding it nice to have the school stuff to worry about/concentrate on, it takes a bit of pressure off the other. I need to pick up my tri bike tomorrow from the store where it was having a tune-up, make all my complex lists for gear and travel and then drop off my road bike (which I'm actually using for the race) and gear bag on Friday to be transported in a truck to Wisconsin. One more long day on Saturday - the recommendation in the training plan I'm loosely following is to swim 1hr, ride (I will spin indoors) 2hr and run 2hr - at this point, that actually seems pretty short! Otherwise just bits and pieces to stay sharp/fresh.
(Over the past twelve weeks, I have completed approximately 165 hours of training - my biggest week was 20 hours, but many hovering in the region of 15 and recovery weeks at more like 6 or 8. It has been a pleasure and a privilege - I do want to do another iron-distance race in the not-too-distant future, but I think the training has to come in a semester where I have a sabbatical and am not trying to start or finish a major book! Next summer probably just a couple of half-ironman races and an Olympic distance or two.)
Light reading (airport edition): Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season (quite reasonably good - a thousand times better than The Night Circus, which only suggests itself as a comparison because of industry hype, but not perhaps as perfectly suited to my tastes as Laini Taylor's wonderful Daughter of Smoke and Bone books, with which it has a good bit more in common); a super book by David Epstein, The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (I only wished it was longer - had the same experience with Wright's Scientology book - if the notes in the Kindle edition take up the final 30%, one comes very abruptly upon the end of the narrative while still wishing for more!); Kelly Braffet's Save Yourself, which I enjoyed very much indeed. Now reading Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens stories.
Closing tabs:
The distribution of octopus intelligence.
Grizzlies prefer the overpass, black bears prefer the underpass. (Via Tyler Cowen.)
Another good interview with Wayne Koestenbaum. (Courtesy of Dave Lull.)
I got home from Cayman yesterday evening, did a dissertation defense this morning and then came home and crashed for a deep and discombobulating three-hour afternoon nap that will probably wreak havoc with tonight's sleep possibilities, but I think it was worth it regardless. I still have one surplus cat staying with me, which is nice (two cats are more than twice as funny than one cat).
I need to get in gear for my opening classes next week (this means trying to unearth notes, course readers, books etc. and wondering why I do not leave them in some better and more systematically accessible fashion) - both are classes I have taught before and enjoy, so it shouldn't be too overwhelming. I'm on a big committee this year that will take up a significant amount of time and attention, and I also have three or four talks scheduled for October and early November, so I think things will be fairly busy.
I am done with the bulk of Ironman training and now have eleven days before I race next weekend in Madison! I am actually finding it nice to have the school stuff to worry about/concentrate on, it takes a bit of pressure off the other. I need to pick up my tri bike tomorrow from the store where it was having a tune-up, make all my complex lists for gear and travel and then drop off my road bike (which I'm actually using for the race) and gear bag on Friday to be transported in a truck to Wisconsin. One more long day on Saturday - the recommendation in the training plan I'm loosely following is to swim 1hr, ride (I will spin indoors) 2hr and run 2hr - at this point, that actually seems pretty short! Otherwise just bits and pieces to stay sharp/fresh.
(Over the past twelve weeks, I have completed approximately 165 hours of training - my biggest week was 20 hours, but many hovering in the region of 15 and recovery weeks at more like 6 or 8. It has been a pleasure and a privilege - I do want to do another iron-distance race in the not-too-distant future, but I think the training has to come in a semester where I have a sabbatical and am not trying to start or finish a major book! Next summer probably just a couple of half-ironman races and an Olympic distance or two.)
Light reading (airport edition): Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season (quite reasonably good - a thousand times better than The Night Circus, which only suggests itself as a comparison because of industry hype, but not perhaps as perfectly suited to my tastes as Laini Taylor's wonderful Daughter of Smoke and Bone books, with which it has a good bit more in common); a super book by David Epstein, The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (I only wished it was longer - had the same experience with Wright's Scientology book - if the notes in the Kindle edition take up the final 30%, one comes very abruptly upon the end of the narrative while still wishing for more!); Kelly Braffet's Save Yourself, which I enjoyed very much indeed. Now reading Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens stories.
Closing tabs:
The distribution of octopus intelligence.
Grizzlies prefer the overpass, black bears prefer the underpass. (Via Tyler Cowen.)
Another good interview with Wayne Koestenbaum. (Courtesy of Dave Lull.)
Friday, August 02, 2013
Life v. literature
The weeks where I am most copious here are weeks I am spending a lot of time at home on my computer. What is good for life is not necessarily good for blogging! I've been busy with all sorts of enjoyable things, including a fantastic party Tuesday night at the Algonquin Hotel for Amazon's little A fiction imprint.
I'm writing this Friday evening on my Kindle Fire (links a bit of a pain to paste in, so I may be selective) in a Vermont bed and breakfast; tomorrow Liz and I will race the Kingdom Even-Up Triathlon, and last night we stayed here on her aunt and uncle's absolutely lovely farm. Both of those links are highly worthwhile, and we had an amazing morning visiting calves in the barn (one of them sucked on the heel of my palm in a most endearing fashion), walking the hyper-energetic and muscular black lab blend down and up a very steep dirt road, looking at chickens and pigs and generally enjoying a magical agricultural interlude. There is also a cat, and another dog (a golden retriever that's considerably less active than the lab)! We will go back there tomorrow night for post-race feeding and recovery, and then drive home to New York on Sunday.
(Liz was telling me recently about this, and the family syrup site has just gone live - order some here! I am definitely intending to take a quart home with me: it is perhaps dubious, but I am thinking that it might make good endurance sport fuel....)
I'm writing this Friday evening on my Kindle Fire (links a bit of a pain to paste in, so I may be selective) in a Vermont bed and breakfast; tomorrow Liz and I will race the Kingdom Even-Up Triathlon, and last night we stayed here on her aunt and uncle's absolutely lovely farm. Both of those links are highly worthwhile, and we had an amazing morning visiting calves in the barn (one of them sucked on the heel of my palm in a most endearing fashion), walking the hyper-energetic and muscular black lab blend down and up a very steep dirt road, looking at chickens and pigs and generally enjoying a magical agricultural interlude. There is also a cat, and another dog (a golden retriever that's considerably less active than the lab)! We will go back there tomorrow night for post-race feeding and recovery, and then drive home to New York on Sunday.
(Liz was telling me recently about this, and the family syrup site has just gone live - order some here! I am definitely intending to take a quart home with me: it is perhaps dubious, but I am thinking that it might make good endurance sport fuel....)
Friday, June 28, 2013
Closing tabs
I have said this before, but when I was a little kid, I wanted to be famous when I grew up. I wanted to have an interesting life, and I thought you had to be famous for that to be the case. Little did I know that I was grossly mistaken. Many famous people have what I would consider very boring lives, and some of the most interesting days of my life have been spent in libraries and classrooms!
It is a good week that sees the successful completion of the Syracuse half-Ironman, the final revisions completed on the style book (I sent the file to my editor earlier this afternoon) and news of the official confirmation, by the trustees of Columbia University, of my promotion to full professor! Not so status-oriented myself, but it means a decent raise and I have also been irked for some years that my lovely doctoral advisees have to have their primary letter of recommendation written by an associate professor - I am particularly glad to have set that straight...
Some very enjoyable light reading: two novels I absolutely loved by Alex Bledsoe, The Hum and the Shiver and Wisp of a Thing; Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane (gave me a keen desire to reread the tales in Joan Aiken's A Touch of Chill - also, Pobby and Dingan!); installments two and three of the Expanse series, Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate (it really is a super trilogy - the characters are much more fully and appealingly rendered than in standard space opera); and Iain M. Banks, The Quarry.
Next work thing I have to do is a reader's report on a book manuscript for a university press - haven't cracked it open yet, but am rather looking forward to it, if not easier then certainly more intellectually engaging than putting final touches on one's own book. Looking forward to much (warm) triathlon training, yoga and reading in the days to come - I'm here in Cayman through Monday the 8th.
Closing tabs:
My former student Sarah Courteau on the self-help movement and the logic of affirmation.
A friend is recognized for excellence in book design.
Ian Bogost's principles for university presses (I am very strongly in favor of most of these, though I think the tenure question is more complicated than this format permits delving into).
Last but not least, sconic sections.
It is a good week that sees the successful completion of the Syracuse half-Ironman, the final revisions completed on the style book (I sent the file to my editor earlier this afternoon) and news of the official confirmation, by the trustees of Columbia University, of my promotion to full professor! Not so status-oriented myself, but it means a decent raise and I have also been irked for some years that my lovely doctoral advisees have to have their primary letter of recommendation written by an associate professor - I am particularly glad to have set that straight...
Some very enjoyable light reading: two novels I absolutely loved by Alex Bledsoe, The Hum and the Shiver and Wisp of a Thing; Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane (gave me a keen desire to reread the tales in Joan Aiken's A Touch of Chill - also, Pobby and Dingan!); installments two and three of the Expanse series, Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate (it really is a super trilogy - the characters are much more fully and appealingly rendered than in standard space opera); and Iain M. Banks, The Quarry.
Next work thing I have to do is a reader's report on a book manuscript for a university press - haven't cracked it open yet, but am rather looking forward to it, if not easier then certainly more intellectually engaging than putting final touches on one's own book. Looking forward to much (warm) triathlon training, yoga and reading in the days to come - I'm here in Cayman through Monday the 8th.
Closing tabs:
My former student Sarah Courteau on the self-help movement and the logic of affirmation.
A friend is recognized for excellence in book design.
Ian Bogost's principles for university presses (I am very strongly in favor of most of these, though I think the tenure question is more complicated than this format permits delving into).
Last but not least, sconic sections.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Closing tabs
I have been remiss in documenting theatergoing! A Picture of Autumn was perhaps overly long but highly watchable (very good dinner afterwards at Esca); to my surprise, since it is a play I've never really seen the point of, the Shakespeare in the Park Comedy of Errors was wonderfully good! Everything about the production is inspired: the costumes, the music, the fact that the actors sound as though they genuinely understand the words they are saying (not always the case); the performance of Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Dromio is particularly good.
Finishing revisions on the style book this week and next before I go to Cayman at the end of next week. (Also final tinkering with two essays, one on Restoration drama and the eighteenth-century novel and the other on conditions of knowledge in Austen's fiction.) Week two of Ironman training went well and I am racing this coming weekend in Syracuse.
Linkage:
Research on holes in cheese. (Via GeekPress.)
Medieval leprosy bacterium sequenced.
Malcolm Gladwell on A. O. Hirschman (I must read that biography - this is a particular favorite of mine).
Miscellaneous light reading around the edges of far too much internet time-wasting: Gene Kerrigan, Little Criminals (this guy's books are amazing, only I am afraid I have now read them all!); Joanna Hershon, A Dual Inheritance; Karin Slaughter, Busted (a teaser for the full-length book, which I am eagerly awaiting); Ake Edwardson, Room No. 10 (annoyingly poetic, and definitely not his best); and M. E. Thomas, Confessions of a Sociopath (luridly enjoyable, and rings true to my personal experience of this type - realized I had to read the book after reading this endorsement). I would like to read a long essay or a book-length discussion of quasi-truthful first-person narratives, from Robinson Crusoe through things like this - especially it seems to me an interesting topic in American Studies (someone should write a dissertation!).
Finishing revisions on the style book this week and next before I go to Cayman at the end of next week. (Also final tinkering with two essays, one on Restoration drama and the eighteenth-century novel and the other on conditions of knowledge in Austen's fiction.) Week two of Ironman training went well and I am racing this coming weekend in Syracuse.
Linkage:
Research on holes in cheese. (Via GeekPress.)
Medieval leprosy bacterium sequenced.
Malcolm Gladwell on A. O. Hirschman (I must read that biography - this is a particular favorite of mine).
Miscellaneous light reading around the edges of far too much internet time-wasting: Gene Kerrigan, Little Criminals (this guy's books are amazing, only I am afraid I have now read them all!); Joanna Hershon, A Dual Inheritance; Karin Slaughter, Busted (a teaser for the full-length book, which I am eagerly awaiting); Ake Edwardson, Room No. 10 (annoyingly poetic, and definitely not his best); and M. E. Thomas, Confessions of a Sociopath (luridly enjoyable, and rings true to my personal experience of this type - realized I had to read the book after reading this endorsement). I would like to read a long essay or a book-length discussion of quasi-truthful first-person narratives, from Robinson Crusoe through things like this - especially it seems to me an interesting topic in American Studies (someone should write a dissertation!).
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Closing tabs
Iain Banks has died.
What is it like to be an octopus? (Via Mike Doe. I note that though I am not a vegetarian, the one creature I really cannot eat is octopus, though in the past I have found grilled octopus delicious. The problem: the part you eat is the part it thinks with....)
Adam Johnson on Kim Jong-il's sushi chef. (Still haven't read the novel - I am torn, often I buy books I suspect I will want to hand on to others in paper rather than electronically, only it makes me much less likely to read them myself - I might have to buy a second copy for Kindle!).
An interesting survey on women and clothes - go and fill it out if you have some spare minutes, I found it quite thought-provoking.
Miscellaneous light reading around the edges: James S. A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes (I don't read a great deal of this style of science fiction, but I hugely enjoyed this one, and will definitely continue with the next installment soon); Jo Nesbo, The Redeemer (it's an earlier installment in the Harry Hole story, I suppose just now published in the United States - I liked it very much indeed, I think it's stronger than the last couple I've read, which lose a little steam compared to the early ones); Taylor Stevens, The Doll (I have been a huge fan of this series so far, but I'm a little worried about the direction it seems to be moving in - I will certainly read the next one, but the Mary Sue element is stronger and there's a bit of Patricia-Cornwellesque grandiosity in the international serial-killer plot - on the other hand, I think Stevens should be counted on a very short list of writers who could be considered to come close to beating Lee Child at his own game, and I still definitely would recommend the series); and Lauren Beukes, The Shining Girls. Curiously extended similarities to Nos4A2 (neither author's fault, just in the DNA of this genre), and not I think as impressive to me as her previous novel, which is probably one of my favorite books of the last five years, but still very much worthwhile, with some really lovely stretches of writing.
Next two weeks: massive triathlon training (especially cycling) culminating in a 70.3 race in Syracuse (I'm not tapering, I'm just going to train through); style book revisions; revisions on the essay I wrote a couple years ago about the relationship between drama and the novel in eighteenth-century Britain. A couple plays - I don't have tickets yet to this, but I'm very keen to see it.
What is it like to be an octopus? (Via Mike Doe. I note that though I am not a vegetarian, the one creature I really cannot eat is octopus, though in the past I have found grilled octopus delicious. The problem: the part you eat is the part it thinks with....)
Adam Johnson on Kim Jong-il's sushi chef. (Still haven't read the novel - I am torn, often I buy books I suspect I will want to hand on to others in paper rather than electronically, only it makes me much less likely to read them myself - I might have to buy a second copy for Kindle!).
An interesting survey on women and clothes - go and fill it out if you have some spare minutes, I found it quite thought-provoking.
Miscellaneous light reading around the edges: James S. A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes (I don't read a great deal of this style of science fiction, but I hugely enjoyed this one, and will definitely continue with the next installment soon); Jo Nesbo, The Redeemer (it's an earlier installment in the Harry Hole story, I suppose just now published in the United States - I liked it very much indeed, I think it's stronger than the last couple I've read, which lose a little steam compared to the early ones); Taylor Stevens, The Doll (I have been a huge fan of this series so far, but I'm a little worried about the direction it seems to be moving in - I will certainly read the next one, but the Mary Sue element is stronger and there's a bit of Patricia-Cornwellesque grandiosity in the international serial-killer plot - on the other hand, I think Stevens should be counted on a very short list of writers who could be considered to come close to beating Lee Child at his own game, and I still definitely would recommend the series); and Lauren Beukes, The Shining Girls. Curiously extended similarities to Nos4A2 (neither author's fault, just in the DNA of this genre), and not I think as impressive to me as her previous novel, which is probably one of my favorite books of the last five years, but still very much worthwhile, with some really lovely stretches of writing.
Next two weeks: massive triathlon training (especially cycling) culminating in a 70.3 race in Syracuse (I'm not tapering, I'm just going to train through); style book revisions; revisions on the essay I wrote a couple years ago about the relationship between drama and the novel in eighteenth-century Britain. A couple plays - I don't have tickets yet to this, but I'm very keen to see it.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Closing tabs
Brent Cox on William Gibson. (Via Alice.)
"We know when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sleeps." (Via James Bridle.)
The shape of careers?
Eggs will pop soon!
At the intersection of my two blogs, but I found this post by Gordo Byrn thought-provoking. He lays out a minimal base fitness schedule that will let you do something crazy in triathlon after twelve weeks of training without wrecking yourself (2 x 20min strength, 3 runs at shorter of 5mi or 1hr, 3 bikes at 2 x 45 and 1 x 75, 3 swims at shorter of 1350 yards or 25min, for a total of a little over seven hours per week); I think there are close analogies in literary matters, which is to say that you need to do a certain amount of reading and writing every day and every week if you want to be able to call upon all your powers of composition intensely over a more sustained period of time - but huge output over the whole of life is not sustainable, and comes at the cost of too many other things. Worthwhile to think of maintaining base writing fitness even through times when a big writing project can't be a priority.
"We know when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sleeps." (Via James Bridle.)
The shape of careers?
Eggs will pop soon!
At the intersection of my two blogs, but I found this post by Gordo Byrn thought-provoking. He lays out a minimal base fitness schedule that will let you do something crazy in triathlon after twelve weeks of training without wrecking yourself (2 x 20min strength, 3 runs at shorter of 5mi or 1hr, 3 bikes at 2 x 45 and 1 x 75, 3 swims at shorter of 1350 yards or 25min, for a total of a little over seven hours per week); I think there are close analogies in literary matters, which is to say that you need to do a certain amount of reading and writing every day and every week if you want to be able to call upon all your powers of composition intensely over a more sustained period of time - but huge output over the whole of life is not sustainable, and comes at the cost of too many other things. Worthwhile to think of maintaining base writing fitness even through times when a big writing project can't be a priority.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Catch-up
Fruit stencils! This is an amazing piece, very much worth clicking through to....
Snoozed alarm for too long this morning and am trying to gear up to get out the door for my run. It is supposed to snow again later, so that's a good incentive to get it done now. Afternoon of grad student appointments and a rather overdue haircut, so I am not sure I will get in a second session later, though I might go to 6:30 hot yoga if I'm done at the hair place in time. (I like having quite short hair, only it's high-maintenance, and it always makes me grumpy to give up an early-evening exercise session in order to be sheared!)
I'm 90% ready to dig in on proper revisions for the two things I'm working on this month, a long-delayed essay on particular detail and the novel and the final revisions on the style book. Need one more session of preliminary work on style, then I will go for it and start really taking the particular detail piece apart and putting it back together in final form. Read enough of the remaining stack of Young Lions submissions last night to submit my rankings - we meet to decide the five-book longlist in early March. Job talks for the postcolonial search are now over; will need to read some materials before that meeting, also in early March.
Miscellaneous light reading: one more Imogen Robertson, Island of Bones; Erin Celello, Learning to Stay (I followed Erin's Ironman training blog obsessively in 2007, the first year I was really fixated on triathlon: on which note, I think this really is the year when I will be able to pull off my Ironman, having been derailed twice before by calamity and illness); Ann Leary's delightful The Good House; Chuck Wendig's Mockingbird, which I hugely enjoyed and which is exactly the sort of book I most wish I could write myself, only somehow I cannot; and my graduate school colleague M. E. Breen's lovely YA novel Darkwood, which has some minor unevenness in terms of introduction of worldbuilding and plot stuff but which is riveting in terms of character and storytelling.
Snoozed alarm for too long this morning and am trying to gear up to get out the door for my run. It is supposed to snow again later, so that's a good incentive to get it done now. Afternoon of grad student appointments and a rather overdue haircut, so I am not sure I will get in a second session later, though I might go to 6:30 hot yoga if I'm done at the hair place in time. (I like having quite short hair, only it's high-maintenance, and it always makes me grumpy to give up an early-evening exercise session in order to be sheared!)
I'm 90% ready to dig in on proper revisions for the two things I'm working on this month, a long-delayed essay on particular detail and the novel and the final revisions on the style book. Need one more session of preliminary work on style, then I will go for it and start really taking the particular detail piece apart and putting it back together in final form. Read enough of the remaining stack of Young Lions submissions last night to submit my rankings - we meet to decide the five-book longlist in early March. Job talks for the postcolonial search are now over; will need to read some materials before that meeting, also in early March.
Miscellaneous light reading: one more Imogen Robertson, Island of Bones; Erin Celello, Learning to Stay (I followed Erin's Ironman training blog obsessively in 2007, the first year I was really fixated on triathlon: on which note, I think this really is the year when I will be able to pull off my Ironman, having been derailed twice before by calamity and illness); Ann Leary's delightful The Good House; Chuck Wendig's Mockingbird, which I hugely enjoyed and which is exactly the sort of book I most wish I could write myself, only somehow I cannot; and my graduate school colleague M. E. Breen's lovely YA novel Darkwood, which has some minor unevenness in terms of introduction of worldbuilding and plot stuff but which is riveting in terms of character and storytelling.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Tropical island paradise
Really it falls under the category of unseemly gloating, at least for those reading in northern climes, but this is where I was early Sunday morning!
I am having the best month that I've had for a long time - probably haven't felt this non-insane for ten years! - need to buckle down and get back to work soon, but in the meantime it is a lot of swimming and running and hot yoga, extremely mentally calming. Reading The Tale of Genji and sundry crime fiction of minor import that I will log at a later date.
I am having the best month that I've had for a long time - probably haven't felt this non-insane for ten years! - need to buckle down and get back to work soon, but in the meantime it is a lot of swimming and running and hot yoga, extremely mentally calming. Reading The Tale of Genji and sundry crime fiction of minor import that I will log at a later date.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Magic circles
This amazing set of pictures by my colleague Taylor Carman notates in a very different idiom the same sort of place and feeling I wanted to capture in my novel. (Which, by the way, I am still wrestling with; there's one little penultimate scene that isn't right, and a couple other tweaks, but I am going to have to wait and have another crack at it in the very early morning. Tomorrow is the day I'm hoping to do a long endurance workout starting at 10am, so if I don't write first, it's hopeless: the pleasant post-exercise brain fog will neutralize intellectual activity later in the day.)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Update
Slogging away at novel revisions in short frequent sittings. Think I am still on track to finish for the 25th. Ready for semester to be over!
Miscellaneous light reading around the edges: Tobias Buckell's Arctic Rising; Garth Nix's Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz; and an exceptionally charming self-published novel by a talented newcomer whose book I came across because I fell for his wife's triathlon training blog last year when she and I were both training for Ironman Coeur d'Alene. (She successfully completed the race; alas, I didn't make it to the start due to a particularly bad bout of bronchitis.) So, strongly recommended: M. H. Van Keuren's Rhubarb. I think comparisons of a book in this sort of vein (aliens, paranormal radio, pie!) will inevitably be first of all to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker books; there's a little bit of the feel of the appealing TV series Supernatural; but really it's a very fresh and appealing novel in a mode I especially enjoy.
Bonus link: crab computing! (And more here.)
Miscellaneous light reading around the edges: Tobias Buckell's Arctic Rising; Garth Nix's Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz; and an exceptionally charming self-published novel by a talented newcomer whose book I came across because I fell for his wife's triathlon training blog last year when she and I were both training for Ironman Coeur d'Alene. (She successfully completed the race; alas, I didn't make it to the start due to a particularly bad bout of bronchitis.) So, strongly recommended: M. H. Van Keuren's Rhubarb. I think comparisons of a book in this sort of vein (aliens, paranormal radio, pie!) will inevitably be first of all to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker books; there's a little bit of the feel of the appealing TV series Supernatural; but really it's a very fresh and appealing novel in a mode I especially enjoy.
Bonus link: crab computing! (And more here.)
Friday, February 10, 2012
Unusual tongues
At the FT, Daniel Cohen interviews Brian Stowell, author of the only full-length novel written in Manx (site registration required):
Slightly annoyed with myself due to belated recognition that I have rather been letting Facebook cannibalize amusing but non-literary links that come my way. Resolved for future not to waste stuff over there: Light Reading is a better archive if I want to find anything later on! A couple of the best ones I did double up on here also (i.e. black cat auditions), but I hereby offer up the following handful of recapitulations: wings and more wings, presidential aspirations in the youthful professoriat, a day in the grinding room, mattress flip.
Radium-age re-releases!
Light reading around the edges: Carol O'Connell's latest Mallory novel, The Chalk Girl. I thoroughly enjoyed it (it's better than the last few have been); I find O'Connell an intriguing case, as she basically ignores pretty much all the rules of good writing and yet produces these books that are strangely mesmerizing despite their evident shortcomings in the matter of narration, characterization, plausibility, etc. The books for the Young Lions award seem to me very good this year, and there are certainly a couple I'll blog about at a later stage once confidentiality isn't an issue.
Nice glimpses here of my little nephew as well as of my sister-in-law's very lovely Austin store. I am trying to figure out when I might get down to Austin: I'd love to go for the 70.3 in late October, though I fancy that even in late October Austin might feel rather warm to me. I am going to San Antonio for the big eighteenth-century studies conference in March, but teaching obligations on either side mean that there is no way to extend that trip with an Austin leg.
In 2006, I published a novel in Manx, The Vampire Murders, satirising life on the Isle of Man. It was serialised in one of the papers here and now bits of it are being used for the Manx equivalent to an A-level. It’s the first full-length novel in Manx. The potential readership is very low indeed – only about 200 people can read it without much difficulty. You could rationalise why I went ahead by saying, “oh, it will be used for studying Manx.” But I never had that in mind at all. I just thought it’d be a great laugh to write a novel in Manx. Now there are a few other people writing original material.About to be fairly fiendishly busy for the next three or so weeks. Had a good visit for some days this week from cousin George and her boyfriend Jeremy, although I am slightly ashamed that I didn't make it to either of his gigs (inertia and fatigue were very strong, and Williamsburg and the Lower East Side far away...); Olympia, WA looks like it was fun....
Slightly annoyed with myself due to belated recognition that I have rather been letting Facebook cannibalize amusing but non-literary links that come my way. Resolved for future not to waste stuff over there: Light Reading is a better archive if I want to find anything later on! A couple of the best ones I did double up on here also (i.e. black cat auditions), but I hereby offer up the following handful of recapitulations: wings and more wings, presidential aspirations in the youthful professoriat, a day in the grinding room, mattress flip.
Radium-age re-releases!
Light reading around the edges: Carol O'Connell's latest Mallory novel, The Chalk Girl. I thoroughly enjoyed it (it's better than the last few have been); I find O'Connell an intriguing case, as she basically ignores pretty much all the rules of good writing and yet produces these books that are strangely mesmerizing despite their evident shortcomings in the matter of narration, characterization, plausibility, etc. The books for the Young Lions award seem to me very good this year, and there are certainly a couple I'll blog about at a later stage once confidentiality isn't an issue.
Nice glimpses here of my little nephew as well as of my sister-in-law's very lovely Austin store. I am trying to figure out when I might get down to Austin: I'd love to go for the 70.3 in late October, though I fancy that even in late October Austin might feel rather warm to me. I am going to San Antonio for the big eighteenth-century studies conference in March, but teaching obligations on either side mean that there is no way to extend that trip with an Austin leg.
Monday, November 07, 2011
Holiday edition
The sad truth about Columbia's election holiday is that I mostly use it to catch up on work! Just finishing a tenure letter for a scholar at another university (these are time-consuming) and will spend Tuesday and Wednesday working on a similar letter for an untenured but prolific colleague at my home institution as well as writing several other letters of recommendation and an overdue reader's report on a journal article.
On the bright side, though, I'm in an environment full of lizards and chickens; I got to do an Olympic-distance triathlon yesterday; I intend to go to yoga every day this week unless the minor sinus infection that has been teasing me since Friday escalates; and I read two very enjoyable books, quite different from each other, during Friday travels: Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia, which was so thoroughly immersive that I gnashed my teeth when I finished it and realized I couldn't get the next installment for my Kindle until November 22; and Siddartha Deb's The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India, which is so fascinating and so well-written that I gnashed my teeth at the thought that I am not capable of writing such a book myself. It was a satisfactory day of reading that took away the pains of a long layover in the Miami airport!
On the bright side, though, I'm in an environment full of lizards and chickens; I got to do an Olympic-distance triathlon yesterday; I intend to go to yoga every day this week unless the minor sinus infection that has been teasing me since Friday escalates; and I read two very enjoyable books, quite different from each other, during Friday travels: Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia, which was so thoroughly immersive that I gnashed my teeth when I finished it and realized I couldn't get the next installment for my Kindle until November 22; and Siddartha Deb's The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India, which is so fascinating and so well-written that I gnashed my teeth at the thought that I am not capable of writing such a book myself. It was a satisfactory day of reading that took away the pains of a long layover in the Miami airport!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Catch-up
I had to cancel my race, ugh - a great disappointment, but I will survive, it is not the end of the world. Glumness-inducing, though! I believe I am now on the mend, but still feeling pretty much under the weather, with a bad cough and low energy levels.
It would be seriously misrepresenting things if I implied that I had not been without New York consolations in the meantime. L. successfully defended her dissertation yesterday, and her parents took us out for duck lunch; I saw friend Jason Grote's Civilization (all you can eat) (it is a good production, but the power of cough drops was strained to the uttermost limit!) and had a drink afterwards at Lucky Strike with some folks I admire.
Kio Stark's Follow Me Down is a beautiful little novel, following in a vein I think of as having been very profitably mined by Sara Gran, with every word absolutely perfectly positioned in the right place; I thoroughly enjoyed it (it is also the first I've read from Richard Nash's new venture Red Lemonade. Hmmm, it might be that this would be a good home down the road for BOMH (initial copy-edit is complete, and I am slightly daunted by the scale of the new writing and plotting required, but will undertake it as soon as I have wriggled through next set of geographical transitions)...
Other light reading: Stuart MacBride's Cold Granite (slightly cartoonish but appealing and readable); Steve Mosby's Cry for Help (implausible but suspenseful); S. J. Bolton's Now You See Me (ditto).
Two good and quite different-from-each-other books about endurance sport (tormenting myself while I can't do anything much myself): Chris McCormack's I'm Here to Win (worthwhile, interesting) and Amy Snyder's Hell on Two Wheels: An Astonishing Story of Suffering, Triumph, and the Most Extreme Endurance Race in the World. It is rare for me to read a book of this sort without having a fairly strong urge to undertake the event myself, but in this case I can truly say I would not harbor even the least little desire to do such a thing!
It would be seriously misrepresenting things if I implied that I had not been without New York consolations in the meantime. L. successfully defended her dissertation yesterday, and her parents took us out for duck lunch; I saw friend Jason Grote's Civilization (all you can eat) (it is a good production, but the power of cough drops was strained to the uttermost limit!) and had a drink afterwards at Lucky Strike with some folks I admire.
Kio Stark's Follow Me Down is a beautiful little novel, following in a vein I think of as having been very profitably mined by Sara Gran, with every word absolutely perfectly positioned in the right place; I thoroughly enjoyed it (it is also the first I've read from Richard Nash's new venture Red Lemonade. Hmmm, it might be that this would be a good home down the road for BOMH (initial copy-edit is complete, and I am slightly daunted by the scale of the new writing and plotting required, but will undertake it as soon as I have wriggled through next set of geographical transitions)...
Other light reading: Stuart MacBride's Cold Granite (slightly cartoonish but appealing and readable); Steve Mosby's Cry for Help (implausible but suspenseful); S. J. Bolton's Now You See Me (ditto).
Two good and quite different-from-each-other books about endurance sport (tormenting myself while I can't do anything much myself): Chris McCormack's I'm Here to Win (worthwhile, interesting) and Amy Snyder's Hell on Two Wheels: An Astonishing Story of Suffering, Triumph, and the Most Extreme Endurance Race in the World. It is rare for me to read a book of this sort without having a fairly strong urge to undertake the event myself, but in this case I can truly say I would not harbor even the least little desire to do such a thing!
Sunday, May 01, 2011
"Nothing can come of nothing"
King Lear at BAM was excellent - not, perhaps, transcendent, but the production as a whole is impeccable and Derek Jacobi is extraordinary. This is my favorite Shakespeare play - my favorite Shakespeare tragedy, anyway (The Winter's Tale and Midsummer Night's Dream are two others that are particularly close to my heart); I've taught it half a dozen times and must have read it at least a dozen more, I know it very well indeed. Very, very lovely...
Only one more day of classes! A couple additional days of insanity and then on Thursday I am going to go and see Brent for a few days before coming home and finishing up grading and the other bits and bobs of end-of-semester business.
In other news, I'm just finishing up week 6 of training for Ironman Coeur d'Alene. Last week's big weekend training was a bit of a bust, so I am happy to report that this week's seems to be going much better - I did my long run and long swim on Friday (bookending a dissertation defense for which I wore comically different garb), and Triathlete Lauren is picking me up in her car shortly and we are going to go and do a five-hour bike ride in New Jersey. It is finally beautiful weather for bike-riding; I have had to do almost all of my training in preceding weeks indoors, and am still feeling a little nervous about riding in the real world instead, though it should be very nice...
Only one more day of classes! A couple additional days of insanity and then on Thursday I am going to go and see Brent for a few days before coming home and finishing up grading and the other bits and bobs of end-of-semester business.
In other news, I'm just finishing up week 6 of training for Ironman Coeur d'Alene. Last week's big weekend training was a bit of a bust, so I am happy to report that this week's seems to be going much better - I did my long run and long swim on Friday (bookending a dissertation defense for which I wore comically different garb), and Triathlete Lauren is picking me up in her car shortly and we are going to go and do a five-hour bike ride in New Jersey. It is finally beautiful weather for bike-riding; I have had to do almost all of my training in preceding weeks indoors, and am still feeling a little nervous about riding in the real world instead, though it should be very nice...
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