• This New Adulthood

    Woke up this morning, and after reading The New York Times, I bought symphony tickets and then logged in to my IRA/investment accounts to check on the numbers and make a couple of transactions. Now I need to create the… more ›

  • The Impossibility of Possibility

    When I began writing this post, my first sentence was, “My grandmother will die within the next twenty-four hours.” In the time it’s taken me to complete this post, I can no longer claim such prescience. Let us begin again.… more ›

  • Into the Past, Part II

    Several months ago I signed up for an account on Ancestry.com, but I left everything but my most basic information empty knowing that I did not intend to return to this project that has haunted me for the past several… more ›

  • Into the Past, Part I

    I spent a few hours the other day cleaning out my study, throwing out, shredding, and recycling various papers I’ve collected over the past several years in anticipation of a much larger purge during the new year. Among these sheets… more ›

  • Notes on the Fortieth Anniversary of Mishima’s Suicide

    It’s difficult not to feel somewhat overwhelmed with ambivalence regarding Mishima: a gifted writer and a sensitive thinker as well as a fascist and an imperialist trapped by nostalgia for a Japan long extinct. I want to adore him like… more ›

  • In vino veritas

    In a year of Thursdays, today remains the greatest Thursday of all. Today is not only World Philosophy Day but also the day on which the Beaujolais nouveau is released. I continue the endless and thankless editing of my dissertation, effectively… more ›

  • 5000-Word Check-Up

    So I haven’t spent much time on this blog over the past several months. I’m writing my dissertation. Enough said, probably. If not, then I can tell you that even well into my fifth (and final) chapter, I still love… more ›

  • Around the World in 80 Songs

    Song 2: “God’s Child” – David Byrne and Selena This is what I remember about Montréal: Spring Break 2001, drinking Turkish coffee (by way of Beirut) at Salam’s flat. Later drinking Porto at the bar. Walking in the snow to… more ›

  • 8:15

    Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe writes about Hiroshima, moral responsibility, outrage, and aging in today’s The New York Times op-ed section. It’s an oblique essay about the travesty of Japanese policy that allows the US to maintain a military base on… more ›

  • Diēs caniculārēs

    In these dog days of July, I feel the heat dissipating every ounce of strength my body once contained. My mind has grown stagnant. And for the past six months, I have felt an anxious midlife crisis creeping in. Memory… more ›