Fall • 7 October 2007

Textpattern went on strike this week. It’s a young program and still wily, but I like that. Having this outlet sealed off ought to have narrowed my life right down, but it did not. Turns out that I have a long way to go before I achieve sociological one-pointedness (thank god: I’ve witnessed what damage that can do to a person). Conclusion: it helps to have this bin for orthogonal thoughts.

Thanks to those of you who asked whether I was allright, fussed about the error message (for those who do not want to hear there are multiple errors in your root elements, maybe you need to work on that), and especially for the generous offer of server space.

Anyway. It is fall.

I keep taking people for walks on the palisades. It’s the time of year you can see Catalina Island in detail. I am listening to Bat for Lashes, eating pomegranates, and going tonight to the premiere of Control, the Joy Division biopic. Should be good and dreary.

Meantime, am looking for autumn-appropriate occult reading for bedtime. (I think it’s in A Whistling Woman where A.S. Byatt has the gorgeous tangent about November being for creepy fairytales, but I prefer the Editor’s version. A good scientist, he tends to go in for the dark side of rationalism in the fall. But he’s already advised me not to reveal what embarrassing creepy Alastair Crowley nonsense he’s been bringing home from the library this week.) This brings me to the questions DZM sent over, about books. So, ok: no playing around here.

? The total number of books I own? Yeah right.

? The last book I read was, no kidding, The Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson. I actually have about 100 pages left in All Tomorrow’s Parties. His work often reads like product placement for the Wired Magazine set, but since the Trilogy is now a decade old I can just enjoy it as speculative sociology. A guilty pleasure, yes, but damn well written in its way.

? The last book I bought was Gregor Maehle’s Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy.

?  Five meaningful books. Whatever. Five. Ok.

    1980s: Ecclesiastes, by God (a possible misattribution)

    1990s: I and Thou, by Martin Buber

    Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect by Baruch Spinoza

     2000s: Pascalian Meditations by Pierre Bourdieu

     When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

In other news, my parents (who are obsessed with National Parks and frightened by The Urban—the first time they visited me in LA someone stole my dad’s Bible out of their car) just announced they have a conference week after next in San Diego. They asked if I’d meet them next weekend in my choice of the three following locations: Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Torrey Pines. Real difficult decision there.

Not that the Canyon and the Desert don’t have their charms.

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