Words that Work

"I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own jokes, and everybody else's; called Steerforth to order for not passing the wine...

I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any wine was needed...

Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears...

Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom-window, refreshing his forehead against the cool stone parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as 'Copperfield,' and saying, 'Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn't do it.' Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair -- only my hair, nothing else -- looked drunk."

-"David Copperfield"

It's nice to know that there are some constants--even if one of those constants is the idiocy of too-much-wine.

Something Intriguing

This link will keep you going for the rest of the day. Promise.

DMV = 2, james = 0

The computers were down. No processing today.

I'm off to the NYC DMV

Round II, bitches...

So, you play a lot of characters at once

Definitionally Speaking

"My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence - the unseen, unfelt progress of my life - from childhood up to youth! Let me think, as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with leaves, whether there are any markers along its its course, by which I can remember how it ran."
-"David Copperfield"

I am always meeting interesting, informed people in (and not in) this profession. They tell good stories, they share charming anecdotes, and they quote philosophers. I get the feeling, alot of the time, that I am definitely (and definitionally) not-in-the-loop... I find myself wondering, as I listen to these charming, philosophically grounded anecdotes--do these books get read for fun? Is there some big, fun book club in which people discuss these things? How do I become a member?

Maybe this is not a definitional issue; perhaps it's disciplinary. Because you know what kind of books I read for fun? FUN BOOKS. Like Fitzgerald and Austen and "The Red Tent" and "Lord of the Rings" and stuff about traveling Swedes. The other stuff, the Agamben-Levinas stuff--that's work. And I have no problem with those two classifications-in fact, I kinda like the typology (I know, I know, E! is going to have a moment with this)... So I read work books during work time--and, apparently, retain none of the cute anecdote material. And I read fun books during fun time.

Oh, I can quote Dickens. Yes, I can.
Not so much with Heidegger.

Roll Tide

I love football season, but we should probably leave before Zack starts calling everybody bitch.