like an NBA player

I’ve heard the anecdote that NBA players often can’t remember where thy are upon waking up in the morning: too much travel, and too many lookalike hotel rooms.

Well, this is by no means a lookalike hotel room, but I had the same weird sensation after waking up this morning of having no idea where I was for about the first 10 seconds. I had to think it through: “What was I doing yesterday that got me here?”, etc.

KC & The Sunshine Band

What a seventies nostalgia trip, that band! I downloaded some of their songs after being reminded of them for the unfortunate reason that co-founder Steve Finch (who hasn’t been on speaking terms with KC for 30 years, apparently) has been charged with molesting a bunch of teenaged boys.

But in any case, that led me to think: “hey, I seem to recall their songs weren’t that bad.” So I downloaded some.

And you know, they do have a unique sound even more than I had remembered: sort of a combination of disco, funk, and Latin.

But of course…

*the lyrics are idiotic

*KC just cannot sing at all. It is some of the worst singing in the history of successful popular music

However, the horn arrangements are commendable: always simple, yet crisp and dramatic. And their best songs are all very good grooves.

I think “Boogie Man” is probably my favorite of their songs, though “Shake Your Booty” has the best horn arrangements.

Despite KC’s awful singing, there was a certain unapologetic quality to it that made it workable. Nothing in that voice suggested the quavering tones of someone who doubted if he belonged on that big stage. As a result, he pulled it off despite a pretty bad voice and an awful delivery.

Dundee

That was a fairly remarkable experience… I walked into the restaurant where the pre-conference gathering was taking place, and I met about 5 people for the first time who I already knew from the blogosphere. A bit of a shock to the nervous system.

Most importantly, Levi is now the odd man out on editing! Nick Srnicek and I finally met.

Adrian Johnston there as well; never met him before, and now we are neighbors in this guest house.

Also there was a far more familiar face: ex-AUCian Reham El Nory, now at Middlesex. It was great to see her. She was never my official student for a class, but we had a super-fantastic Aristotle’s Metaphysics group in summer ’06 (along with Maisoon al-Suwaidan, now at Tufts). It was still probably the highlight of my teaching career, doing Aristotle with those two four years ago. And it wasn’t even an official class.

Conference begins tomorrow, and it’s a fine lineup of papers.

Obama visits my local bookstore

That would be PRAIRIE LIGHTS, IN IOWA CITY, perhaps the one business where I have spent the most money in my life.

It is also the site of a small but weird incident. I was in there one day a decade or so ago, browsing the philosophy shelves. I came across two books that I wanted: one by Fichte, another by Baudrillard (strange combination already). But I had absolutely no money on me and had to walk home to get it.

When I returned, the philosophy shelves were blocked by two joking friends who sounded like out-of-towners at the university for a conference. The row was too small for me to join them comfortably, so I killed time nearby waiting for them to leave, enjoying their witty conversation as I did so.

Suddenly, I was shocked and mildly dismayed to see that one of them had the Fichte book in his hand. Then the other started reading aloud a passage from a different book, mockingly, and of course I immediately recognized the style of Baudrillard. They made fun of it for several minutes as one friend read selections to the other– and then he decided to buy it anyway!

They headed to the cash register, each with just one book in hand: the very same Fichte and Baudrillard volumes I had returned to purchase. It gave me a sense of maddening futility. I never considered telling them. They wouldn’t have believed me anyway, and I didn’t want to sound like I was making a demand. It was more fun to roll with the friendly punches of fate that time.

If memory serves, I went and had a nice Indian lunch next door instead.

inspired by Issa

Board aircraft to Scotland.
Bronze Buddha watches.
Spring break.

Levi on Nathan on OOO

Actually, I had missed Nathan’s March 4 post too, until Levi JUST COMMENTED ON IT.

the pigeons of Far Rockaway

First word from Cameron in quite awhile, about PIGEONS riding the New York subway. (However, in this case it sounds less deliberate than the Moscow dogs.)

I’m too busy to blog anymore right now. What’s a bit weird is to think that one week from now, I’ll already have been back from Scotland for a couple of days.

Cairo’s a great place to live, but what I was told by a semi-cynical veteran my first year was true: to fully enjoy Cairo, it is necessary to leave it whenever you get the chance. It’s a city that takes a lot of energy to navigate, and one needs frequent battery recharges. One foreign trip every two months would by no means be excessive. Or at least up to Alexandria for a weekend. In my case, I haven’t left Cairo since Malta a couple of months ago, and the strain is starting to build up.

dogs that ride the Moscow metro

In response to my post on Zamalek cats, Scott from Melbourne sends this fascinating piece about stray dogs in Moscow, some of which ride the metro:

“Neuronov says there are some 500 strays that live in the metro stations, especially during the colder months, but only about 20 have learned how to ride the trains. This happened gradually, first as a way to broaden their territory. Later, it became a way of life. ‘Why should they go by foot if they can move around by public transport?’ he asks. “They orient themselves in a number of ways,’ Neuronov adds. ‘They figure out where they are by smell, by recognising the name of the station from the recorded announcer’s voice and by time intervals. If, for example, you come every Monday and feed a dog, that dog will know when it’s Monday and the hour to expect you, based on their sense of time intervals from their biological clocks.'”

There’s one sad story at the beginning about a stray metro dog being stabbed to death by a 22-year-old model (a statue was placed in honor of the dog), but otherwise it’s a nice read.

One other interesting point… The article says that there isn’t much genetic difference between dogs and wolves, but largely a hormonal/behavioral one given that humans obviously prefer less aggressive creatures. It follows that stray dogs would start to revert more toward wolf-like behavior quite easily. The story says this is true in Moscow, and I can promise you that the same is true of Cairo.

Peter Gordon reviewing Faye’s book

This sums it up:

“After reading Faye’s study, writes one critic, ‘it will be impossible to read Heidegger again naively.’ But the age of naïveté is long since past. Who reads Heidegger naively?”

The question is funny here, but also works more broadly against all “end of innocence” tropes, which have become incredibly tiresome.

blog checkout

This semester has already been the busiest of my career, and now comes the first of four trips in rapid succession, so expect a lot “dead air” here in coming weeks. Sorry.