Steampunkery

Tami and Pete enlightened me as to the existence of the “steampunk” genre — folks who write books and make stuff that celebrate the kind of victorian machinery of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.  Check out this website to see all sorts of steampunked computer stuff — really impressive.

Insight into German culture

A very intriguing post over at Forschungsjahr about hidden swastikas in a German clothing store.

Back from vacation

As has been perhaps obvious, my brain has been on vacation for the last month. Finished the Nz book, went to Disneyland, played Wii, drank the kool-aid, etc. Now I’m expecting my brain back any moment. I’ll need it, since as I finished writing the syllabi for my classes in the upcoming term, I realized that I’d better get some thinking into motion. Short-term projects include two scholarly essays on Nz (on his perspectivalism and naturalism). Medium-term project is the book on Spinoza’s theology. Silly, long term project is a history of the philosophy found in a neighboring possible world. (I might contract out to Erudité Ridiculosis for that one.)

Of course: only now do I realize how I should have spent my sabbatical

“Code 7″

A drama both exciting and very, very subtle:

“You always run away from trouble in a butcher shop.”

From “Butcher,” Tom Chiarella, Esquire, September 2008:

One morning, tossing trim onto the tray, he turned on the grinder and said: “Look, the rule is, if you feel anything tug, anything at all, you hit the button and run.” He poked the rubber-covered stop button with his thumb. We stood in the walk-in, the compressors humming like a train. “You put your hands in the air and you run,” he said, “like a little girl. I’m as serious as a sock. This stuff will humble you. Get away from it. You always run away from trouble in a butcher shop.”