Honest conversation [with Dorothy’s dissertation supervisor Judith] was pointless, because a declaration of feeling (I hate you / I love you) could never account for the myriad complications that manifested as emotional, even spiritual conflict, but were rooted in something material and intractable – their positions in the game. Judith was a teacher and a foster mother and an employer, and more than that, she was a node in a large and impersonal system that had anointed her a winner and Dorothy a loser, and due to institutional and systemic factors that were bigger than either of them – not more complicated, no, because no system is more complicated than a single human being – no one of Dorothy’s generation would ever accrue the kind of power Judith had, and this was a good thing even as it was an unjust and shitty thing. Judith was old and Dorothy was young, Judith had benefits and Dorothy had debts. The idols had been false but they had served a function, and now they were all smashed and no one knew what they were working for. The problem wasn’t the fall of the old system, it was that the new system had not arisen. Dorothy was like a janitor in the temple who continued to sweep because she had nowhere else to be but who had lost her belief in the essential sanctity of the enterprise.
From Christine Smallwood’s The Life of the Mind 📚
Dorothy looked out the window. I am leaving Las Vegas, she said to herself. That was a movie she had never seen. She thought of the book Learning from Las Vegas; she owned it, of course, but she had never read it. It was just another false start, another purchase toward the identity of a person she had turned out not to be.
From Christine Smallwood’s The Life of the Mind 📚
Fall on the bluffs 🍂
Loyalty 🤍
For a long time [Dorothy] had loved karaoke. Honestly, she had loved it too much. The love was frantic but also complex, a complexity born of her desire to expose herself and be known, and her concomitant dread of exposing herself and being known. Of all the forms this conflict had ever taken in her life, karaoke was the purest.
From Christine Smallwood’s The Life of the Mind 📚
Beach phone
I recently hibernated my linkedin (🎉). But I still have a professional presence online if I need it thanks to read.cv. One of my favourite finds online over the last year or two. That first link is a referral link; you might prefer to explore first or check out my (minimal) page.
The three of them represented the three potential paths of the graduate student: the one who wins, the one who leaves, and the one who does whatever it was Dorothy was doing.
From Christine Smallwood’s The Life of the Mind 📚, a story about the academic precariat that, honestly, hits just a little too close to home.
Did a very “idle parent” thing this evening: sent the two older girls down to the basement to play while we cleaned up dinner and finished with the little one. Came down later to see the results of them playing school: the 5yr old had written numbers in yellow that the 2yr old then traced in green. Playing “school”; pretty special.
Fun fact: Google Lens on iOS (via the app) does a better job at transcribing text than the much lauded native “copy text” functionality through the camera.
Random Shopify store idea for a Sunday morning - basic fan gear (hats, tees) for non-top flight European (and other) football teams. Lots of clubs, lots of great design, lots of history. I guess the biggest barrier would be licensing? ⚽️
Training 📷
Fall dawn on the wall 📷
Transition 📷
Beach find 📷
Skeptical 📷
Yahtzee! 📷
New business cards 📷
[Oakeshott] admires those who, whether humble or exalted, poor or rich, ordinary or brilliant, in different ways achieve a sense of themselves and a style that shows their success in achieving individual humanity. There are no collective achievements in these matters. We are to each other not role models but additions to the variety of human possibilities to be enjoyed.
From Timothy Fuller’s foreword to Rationalism in politics and other essays 📚.
📷
📷
A paper Discovery morning 📷 🚀🧑🚀
Lounging with logos 📷 🍏
