It’s hard to believe, but it was ten years ago today that I impulsively opened up an account on Blogspot and semi-anonymously started my first blog. I was expecting to chronicle my transition out of academia into something else — I had no idea what the something else would be, at that point — and […]
I’m here! Safe and sound! Moved a couple of weeks ago, started my new job in mid-September, only just got the internets in my new apartment. Yes, the new job is fantastic so far. I continue to feel like I won the lottery and got whisked off to a ball in a transformed pumpkin carriage. I just […]
Partly because of my train commute back in Philadelphia and partly because one can't knit and read simultaneously, I've become a fan of audio books, and of LibriVox in particular. My most recent on-the-way-to-and-from-work listening has been LibriVox's recording of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I'd only previously encountered through movies.* And one of the first […]
Yesterday I took in one last movie, one last gelato, and one last browse at my excellent neighborhood used bookstore (where I said goodbye to Holly the bookstore cat). This morning the movers arrived; they’re already on their way to Connecticut. The apartment is mostly clean and echoingly empty. This evening I’m heading up to […]
Inspired by New Kid on the Hallway's pair of posts about "comfort reading," I've been thinking about books to read in times of stress and worry, or general upheaval, or even just vague fits of the blahs. Comfort reading, for me, means going somewhere very much elsewhere for a little while. If the situation that […]
I have way too many end-of-term projects to finish in the next few weeks, so in an attempt to force myself to write my upcoming conference paper on time, I’m going to put some of the points in my head into a post. With any luck, it’ll help me over the getting-started hurdle. Those of […]
I think I’ve mentioned my fondness for Librivox‘s audio books, both because they’re made in the open-source spirit and because they’re introducing me to a lot of unfamiliar books. Lately I’ve been branching out from their ghost story collections and P. G. Wodehouse novels into science fiction section. My latest train-listening download was Omnilingual, a […]
Several things: I stumbled across the work of David Bordwell, a film scholar who’s coined the term "network narrative" to describe the kind of multi-plotline ensemble drama where characters don’t all know each other but their paths nonetheless intersect, often by chance. Magnolia is a good example of this genre, which I hadn’t known there […]
I’m going to New York in a couple of weeks! My friend R. and I have plans to see Beckett’s Happy Days at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, starring the magnificent Fiona Shaw. I haven’t been to New York in way too long. Very excited. Will post a review afterwards.
On Monday morning I got to work only to find that the power was out, not just at the library but all over campus. Swarthmore was one of many places in the region whose electricity was knocked out by the nor’easter. We all figured it would come back on before long, but it didn’t. We […]