This was a day of relaxation, of culture consumption, of some writing and a little reading and more writing.<\/p>\n
Back from Boston, I went to bed late, and so awoke early enough (Jyoti getting up early, Cindy and her mother getting up early, though I haven’t seen Cindy since that first night) but went back to sleep until I felt it was time to role out of bed, 7 hours of sleep later.<\/p>\n
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I’ve had the weirdest dreams recently, and last night’s was no different, combining distant friends, colleagues, family, and different locations — home, vehicles, and hotels — into one semi-coherent dream plot. Among other things Amy (Boston) managed to vomit on my back, ruining my “good” black, long-sleeved “over-shirt” but fixing or changing it was delayed. There was a conference coming up, a grad student sort of thing, and Lynn was organizing it, as she did this year, and I was putting on an important key note type presentation, but as all the guests were arriving to stay — at an expanded version of “my” old home, I discovered that what had been my room had been converted into a room for guests and I was left roomless if not homeless, and this angered me more than anything. But fixing this injustice had to wait, for I ended up stuck in a car with some out of town guests, with me riding shotgun, but then we’re parked, waiting for the driver, when someone from the backseat starts f**king with things and the car is going this way and that way in the driveway, and here I am trying to get control, but I still have the vomity shirt on … alas.<\/p>\n
It was one of those dreams.<\/p>\n
I reread the Whedon \/ Cassidy run on Astonishing X-Men<\/em> (to day: 21 issues) this afternoon and evening before deleting it from my drive. I’d brought it along to give to Amy. The art is gorgeous, and the dialog sparkles in a way that it hasn’t since Morrison to an extent, but with a love that Morrison never had — only Claremont had that love for these characters. And as weak as Astonishing<\/em> is in terms of being a good serial, monthly comic, well-paced, etc. (the problems? delays, slow schedule, drawn out arcs, retread territory), some of the characterization is the best some of these characters — no, perhaps all<\/em> of them — have had in years or decades. And for Scott? Perhaps ever. The only comparable run was, I feel, after Jean’s first death, when he left and went to sea. But here, once he loses his powers, he becomes fun<\/em> in a way that he’s never been in any<\/em> of the comics, cartoons, or movies. And if for nothing else, for this Whedon should be praised.<\/p>\n I have the first Fantastic Four movie to watch; the other one is out or coming out. I suspect the latter, but soon.<\/p>\n In the process of doing some other writing today I came across a bunch of great links, some of which I could not incorporate into that other writing, but I can put them here.<\/p>\n Such as some history of the Reeperbahn<\/a> in Hamburg<\/a>, the name for which stretches back in the 17th century, with its reputation as an “entertainment” region going back about that far, too.<\/p>\n The Economist<\/a> has a great article about results seeming to show a connection between genetics, and racial subgroups in particular, and tonal vs. atonal languages. I’m not a Whorfian, but this is not really a Sapir-Whorf result. It is, however, interesting, though the matters of cause-and-effect are still problematic.<\/p>\n And I’m growing to like Google Books … it makes it easy, with certain texts, to find relevant passages that regular bibliography searching in a library would never reveal. I found Styles of Enlightenment<\/a><\/em> (by Elena Russo), for example, with sections on the etymology of “ingenium.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was a day of relaxation, of culture consumption, of some writing and a little reading and more writing. Back from Boston, I went to bed late, and so awoke early enough (Jyoti getting up early, Cindy and her mother … Continue reading