Stalking Mr. Vollmann

I have scrounged up a few links that may be of interest to folks who may have an interest in Rising Up and Rising Down, which becomes more astonishing with every page.

An interview with William Vollmann, October 2000.

Another interview , done in Fall of 2002.

Letter from Afghanistan , published in the New Yorker, May 2000.

New York Observer review of Rising Up and Rising Down.

An Oral History of Rising Up and Rising Down.

In other news, today was the first day of the Kendall Class, and, well, I choked. I missed my cue, forgot my lines, and had technical problems with the fvcking overhead projector, so for most of the half hour I was greeted with blank stares.

So much for impressing the locals.

Four Days

Four days until I begin teaching a college class. I am looking forward to it; the two weeks at the beginning of this past semester merely whetted my appetite for public humiliation and corporal punishment the dispensation of education.

This weekend I will re-open the class.eccesignum.org subdomain and make available to the public all of my/our lecture notes and resources. If some little po-dunk place like MIT can do it , then so can I.

Politics and Poly-Ticks

Seeing as this is an election year, I feel that now is the time to air one of my pet peeves: Re-election campaigns.

The year is still young, and I don’t pay that much attention to the current administration, but I do know that Bush is interested in a second term, and I know that he has quite a good chance of being re-elected. If that is what the Majority wants, then that is what the Majority gets.

It is not that I don’t think incumbents should run for a second term; rather I feel they shouldn’t be allowed to campaign for a second term. The work they do while in office should be more than enough exposure.

Particularly right now, what with the state of the country and the world.

But eventually Bush will start to Ride the Rails and Press the Flesh in his bid for re-election. He will take time off from doing his job in order to convince us that we should give him another 4 years. He will stop doing the job for which he was elected in order to get the chance to do it again.

I am not the most politically astute of citizens, but I know irresponsibility when I see it.

Lest I be accused of partisanship and Bush-bashing, I felt the same way when Clinton hit the campaign trail back in 1996. Democrats and Republicans are equally full of shit.

So, for the rest of the year I would like to see this: Bush just doing his goddamn job. No campaigning, no political rallies, no supporting of persons a or b or c. Just run the country. If he does well, he will be re-elected. If he chooses to skip out for an afternoon to hold a fundraiser, then he demonstrates that he doesn’t take his job seriously and doesn’t deserve to keep it.

Movin’!

Not me this time. Today I spent several hours helping a couple’a friends move into their new house just up the street. Yesterday I helped a couple’a other friends pack for their upcoming move to the apartment upstairs from me. Therefore, this weekend I have consumed much pizza and beer, and inhaled enough dust to…umm… hurt something which is endangered by dust.

Nearly forgot to mention the most importantest reason I rebuilt the Flash Photo Album ( viddy well, droogies ): Christmas present for Mom this year was a narrated walkthrough of the trip I made to India three years ago.

A New Project II

Well, thank the dark lemur-headed gods that THAT is over. 2003, I mean.

I work close to the river, so I see it practically every day. And I almost always have my camera with me. Therefore I have decided to begin a project which has been floating around in my head for a long, long time: A series of photos of the river , one a day, for a year. This, in part, has driven me to completely re-create the Flash photo album; providing for some easier navigation, dramatically simplifying the creation of new photo projects, and allowing for greater flexibility in the display of the photos.

Well, what really drove me to re-do the Flash application is, I hate hate hate making thumbnails.

I should also mention that this project is inspired in part by the Daily Oliver .

There you have it. The Kendall class starts on January 12, the same day my free time ends. I am working like mad to complete the rebuild of the Yoga Studio site before then.

Words II

Apophthegm A remarkable saying; instructive sentence.
Bilbo A rapier, a sword.
Cucullate Having the shape of a hood.
Eighteen Twice nine.
Frale A basket made of rushes.
Glaire The white of an egg.
Grumous Thick, clotted.
Guaiacum A physical wood.
Malversation Mean artifice; misconduct in office; prevarication.
Mammock A shapeless piece.
Marasmus A consumption.
Mesentery That round which the guts are convolved.
Neoterick Modern, novel.
Neal To temper by a gradual heat.
Negro A Blackmoor.
Phleme An instrument to bleed with.
Phlogiston A chymical liquor extremely flammable.
Phrenzy Madness, frantickness.
Phthisick A consumption; a wasting of the body.
Piaster An Italian coin, about five shillings sterling, or 110 cents.
Tabefy To waste by disease.
Ultramundane Being beyond the world.

Taken from the following, c. 1804:

Yup. No Surprises Here.

After a marathon eleven hour stretch of coding, ending at 7pm today (21 hours of coding in 2 days), the project from hell is out the door. And the client called at 6:30 to say, “You know, when I said I would be in on Christmas Eve for a several hour long meeting to look at the thing, well, I have decided to wait until after Christmas. Hope you didn’t work too hard.”

God. Dammit.

At least now I don’t have to work on Christmas Eve. Maybe I will have time to start my Christmas shopping. On a happier note, I am taking the rest of the year off of work. I don’t have to go back until January, um… 5. 13 days off. I haven’t had that much down-time since I was unemployed one summer back in the college days.

Got my packet in the mail from Kendall. Classes start January 12 and run through the end of April.

So to all of my readers – who I hope were appropriately awed by the amazing fractal- snowflake- wreath thing – Happy Holidays!