Horus Hotel

The adventure continues. There was a problem with my door lock in Cairo (second time this has happened to me after returning from Amsterdam!), and since the locksmiths were all closed late on a Sunday night, I get to try the Horus Hotel nearby, which I always wanted to do. The Longchamps upstairs is well-known to European tourists, but always booked. The Horus is a bit less upscale, but hey– I’ll be teaching in a few hours anyway, so what do I care?

Actually, the first such story is worth relating. I was away on sabbatical for five and a half months– literally never set foot in Egypt once during nearly half a year.

Got back on a Saturday at 4 A.M. in February ’08 and found that I was locked out of my own place…. Turns out there had been a major accident in December, with a window falling off the place (9th floor) and nearly decapitating a pedestrian, who luckily called it the will of God and walked away immediately without pressing charges (it would have been the University’s problem, not mine, but still). In any Anglo-Saxon country that would have been a protracted lawsuit.

It did damage a care, however, though as just a tenant I wasn’t on the hook for that either. The point is, they had to break into my place to fix the windows, and had to break the lock to do it. They forgot to e-mail me in Amsterdam to tell me about it. It’s kind of funny now, but at the time was quite maddening to have my homecoming after half a year turned into a weekend hotel stay. The University was classy enough to pay me back for that, even.

This one isn’t the University’s fault– either mine or the building caretakers. Not worth explaining.

Besides, I do like it when circumstances force unusual or unexpected actions. Most interesting philosophy works the same way… You end up with conclusions that would never occur to any sane person, simply because the force of argument pushes you in that direction. It’s a classic Meillassouxian gesture, and in fact my favorite aspect of his work– you can tell he’s really delighted whenever rigorous logical premises force him to say something utterly counterintuitive. That’s all over Leibniz as well.