i know this book very well, but i had forgotten this part of the exchange.

it rained this afternoon, and so i sat down to read, and i have to say this moment has always been one my favorite sudden shifts in narrative point of view.

y’all like merleau-ponty, huh?

Phenomenology Friday “But since, on the contrary, we are in and toward the world, and since even our reflections take place in the temporal flow that they are attempting to capture … there is no thought that encompasses all of our thought.”

good morning to every person of character trying to live out their principles in a corrupt and wicked world.

in these times, “the princess and the pea” becomes a dark parable. very sensitive, very powerful people are maybe not what you want.

Señor, señor, Let’s disconnect these cables, Overturn these tables. This place don’t make sense to me no more. Can you tell me what we’re waiting for, señor?

i was combing through my shelves looking for something else, but then i found this. i remembered how he came to our campus to read, how he had performed this character he had created for this series, and how grateful i am for our minor poets who capture our small moments just so.

heraclitus was right.

could the answer to male loneliness be strolling down to the Piraeus with the buds to check out a new festival?

The man always knew how to wear his hat.

Legend.

Heresy is a fraught term. And the long history of how power and authority have abused what is or is not named heretical is straightforwardly sordid and shameful. But I am increasingly convinced the notion of heresy strongly describes what is happening in Trumpism.

“It is strange to live in a time when philosophy has found so many ways to damage if not to destroy itself.” — Gillian Rose, Mourning Becomes the Law

me, animated, taking a breath as i describe how Wordsworth shows how the imagination grounds us in the body so that we can feel spiritually connected to the wider world: student: do you really feel that way about poems? me, pausing, smiling: yes. student: man, i wish i could.

this episode of pete and pete is called cleaning out the garage.

with all due respect to professor bright, both of these schools are inadequate to humankind’s sense of ultimate concern. instead, it seems to me, the secret third thing is to become a good gardener. that is to say, the great hero of our time may be Samwise Gamgee.

the cat heard me finally turn off the mower, and he came around the corner to inspect my work. he stopped short and gave me a look of such withering disdain as he realized i had cut a portion of the tall grass we leave for pollinators and where he loves to hide and hunt for crickets and cicadas.

kierkegaard could not have been dweebier (laudatory)

there it is again, that funny feeling.

out here in downtown huntsville with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels for a little banjo and mandolin from Shadowgrass.

dare we hope that this campaign can teach the professional managerial class they do not have to respect the delusions of plutocratic wealth?

it’s been a minute, but as my papa might have said, this headache of mine is like to beat the band.

A somber day. Our neighbor, Ms. Melba, died last week. Her funeral was today. A beautiful celebration of a deeply kind and fiercely independent soul. Even to her last week at 85, she walked herself to her little church house every time the doors were open, rain or shine.

Preguntaréis: Y dónde están las lilas? Y la metafísica cubierta de amapolas? Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba sus palabras llenándolas de agujeros y pájaros? Os voy a contar todo lo que me pasa.

Heresy is a fraught term. And the long history of how power and authority have abused what is or is not named heretical is straightforwardly sordid and shameful. But I am increasingly convinced the notion of heresy strongly describes what is happening in Trumpism.

we drove fifty miles for the 13 yr old’s swim meet, but it’s been delayed until noon bc of lightning. oh darn, we’ll just have to hang out at the bookstore for a while.

11 yr old and i out here on the driveway trading basket after basket after basket until we finally start slapstick fouling each other until we both fall in a heap belly laughing. keeps ya living.

all my favorite librarians are like the parent in the parable of the prodigal son: for these, my children, were dead, but now have come back to life! they were lost, but now they are found!

Noooooooooo

look. i understand some people talk about this platform as some kind of great big choir preaching to itself, but i’m just glad to hang around with some citizens who refuse to shut up about how this shit is crazy.

Let no one say the art of the book review is dead.

i'm grillin' in the rain, just grillin' in the rain . . .

back at home. reading back over what i already read so i can underline everything i wanted to mark in the first place.

wilding out on this long weekend away: i’m reading my book on the back porch. without a pencil.

i need to go lie down. but there is no time. now it’s time to go and talk about Candide.

Today, in class, I read Creon’s decree. Then I read the infamous dictum from the odious Carl Schmitt. Then I read from Agamben’s State of Exception. Then I looked up and I was more plain and more straightforward than I have ever been before: This is where we are now. And this is very dangerous.

i had accidentally let Willie Watson slip out of my regular rotation, but i have had the opening track of his new album on repeat since we saw him on tuesday night. i think i listened to it at least a dozen times today.

debate is sophistry.

two nights of live music in a row and i woke up feeling loose.

Amanda Shires and Brittney Spencer sang Crowded Table, and that was worth the drive right there.

out here in downtown nashville with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels for a little fiddle from Amanda Shires.

"Thus, hermeneutics is, as we have seen, a universal aspect of philosophy, and not just the methodological basis of the so-called human sciences." — Hans-Georg Gadamer. Truth and Method.

lordy. i do love that high lonesome sound.

if there were no music, i would not get through. i don't know why i know these things, but i do, i do. i don't know why i know these things, but i do.

Absolutely magisterial show by Alison Krauss & Union Station here in Chattanooga.

Willie Watson played us a bunch of story songs, and then, as he was telling us about shooting Buster Scruggs and singing “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings,” David Rawlings came out of the shadows to help him sing it!

out here in downtown chattanooga with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels for a little fiddle and banjo and dobro.