review of Morton

Here’s A REVIEW of Tim Morton’s The Ecological Thought.

throw the book at him

Absolutely, positively no tolerance for trash like this guy. Something needs to be done to help the cab driver, who comes from Bangladesh. I shouldn’t read the news in the morning. Bad to start the day angry.

Rider Asks if Cabby Is Muslim, Then Stabs Him

Gifford update

Latour confirms that the date for his Gifford Lectures is 2012-13.

Too bad, because my sabbatical is in 2013-14. It would have been nice to go up to Edinburgh to hear the whole series.

signing off from Paris

Unless something bizarrely interesting happens in the next 11 or so hours, the next time you hear from me will be from Egypt. It was a great signoff here in Paris with an old friend and a new one à la fois, and I simply wish this had been a few weeks longer.

I return to Cairo as Associate Provost, a completely different job from any I’ve had before. It’s going to be beyond super-busy, and it’s too early to say how the frequency of posts here will be affected.

Maoz

Speaking of vegetarian food, the whole Maoz chain is meatless. And the falaffel is always very, very hot. Almost too hot to hold. Just had one earlier.

(The word means “banana” in Arabic, by the way.)

lunch items

Incidentally, the lunch items were interesting today:

*a hollowed-out cantaloupe with a bit of port poured in

*mixed potatoes and vegetables

The latter item is amusing only because the first time I had lunch at Latour’s, I was in the embarrassing position of having to decline the potatoes, which he had cooked together with rabbit for himself. Sometimes, non-vegetarians just don’t get vegetarians and our hangups…

Actually, for those few who have been solo vegetarians since early childhood as I have (age 7, years before anyone else in my family, let alone outside the family) life feels from early on like a social minefield. Every time you get invited somewhere for dinner, you have to worry about a faux pas of some sort, or about coming off as ridiculously finicky. There was one birthday party at about age 9 when my friend David’s father tore into me because I refused to eat from a pizza that was half pepperoni. He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t eat the non-pepperoni pieces. Not a nice thing to do to a 9-year-old kid who’s trying to enjoy a birthday party. He then ordered me a pizza just for myself and made me eat it, after a few choice sarcastic remarks about how special I was. (And this guy was a university professor of mathematics, not some redneck.) Utterly mortifying, though he was always sort of like that. But the 1970’s were still not very vegetarian-friendly, and so I probably came off as a legitimate weirdo.

But perhaps even worse is when people overcorrect for your vegetarianism and prepare some incredibly ornate dish with hyper-exotic vegetables. I’d rather just have some low-profile rice or potatoes or something, though I appreciate the effort. Dinners ought to be an easier part of life than that, and I’m sure this long history has left some sort of permanent mark of apprehension on my character.

an argument seen surprisingly often

It’s remarkable how often I’ve been seeing versions of the following in various places:

“Yes, what I just said may sound incredibly jerkish, selfish, and in human terms utterly obtuse. But I can’t help it. I care too much about the truth.”

Sorry, but that doesn’t work. And in such cases you can almost always be sure that “the truth” is not what has preceded the self-congratulatory statement. The truth can generally be stated in terms that don’t insult one or more of the addressees. And even more importantly, people who are truly committed to it don’t need to tell you so.

how to spend a final day in Paris

Otherwise…

*corrected my Dundee lecture proofs for Society and Space, again finding the iPad ideal for that exercise. Should appear in October.

*went to see the Bruskin tapestry one last time. It’ll be shipped out of here next week, I suppose either to New York or Moscow, his two homes. It remains a staggering piece of work even after three long visits, and I wish it were already on line so I could send you a link. (All right, looks like I found literally 5% of it on the web. See below.)

*am limping around the city, having massacred my right little toe during that endless Lille walkathon the other day.

*it’s threatening rain, but no actual rain yet. Dinner with friends again shortly.

Latour to give Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh

Wonderful news during lunch this afternoon with Bruno Latour. He has been invited to give the GIFFORD LECTURES in Edinburgh (in 2012 or 2013, something like that), joining the likes of Hannah Arendt, Henri Bergson, and William James, among many others. [ADDENDUM: Whitehead’s Process and Reality almost goes without saying, but I should mention it too.]

He said he plans to speak on topics related to his new Souriau-inspired “modes of existence” system, though the main book itself will surely be published long before then. He said he’s on Chapter 12 of that work. Since there are 14 modes of existence in Latour’s new system, I would guess there are 14 chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion, so maybe 16 chapters total (that’s just a guess, though).

sad thought

Already time to start packing a bit. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be on the ground in Cairo in about 36 hours. It will be an exciting year at AUC (new office, new job) but I could have used two or so more weeks in Paris.