What in the hell …

hey y’all (both of y’all), can I pick your brains a minute? I’ve been meaning to categorize my blog posts for ages now. I started off with categories actually (I started this blog with a pretty defined set of questions and reading list) and was pretty good at keeping my posts categorized but then my interests started to shift and didn’t fit the old categories. A while back I started again re-categorizing but then things shifted further and again the categories didn’t fit (they still fit better than the first set but not fully). Anyhow, question - got any suggestions on the sort of general types of posts that tend to appear on this blog? There’s posts about me (mostly music, exercise, food, and feelings, and maybe books/reading and people I like), there’s politics in the sense of actual work I do other than theoretical work, there’s theoretical stuff tied to politics, there’s stuff on Marx, stuff on philosophy, … uh… what else? Any suggestions? Anyone done much blog post categorizing got tips to follow or mistakes to avoid?

I’ve said before how much I like Nick Hornby writing on books. It’s less literary criticism and more about the experiential content of reading, which is only partly determined by the content of the books themselves. My friend the Stoopid (sic) Noodle has been doing similar stuff. I don’t really know why I like this kind of writing so much, maybe it;s because reading is such an important part of my life (even when I temporarily hate it, an occupational hazard of what I do - BUT NOT ANYMORE!) and so I like to read about this important part of my life. Perhaps it’s time to read If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler again. Hmm.

Brainy Noodle’s post also reminds me, I want to read more Borges! And I want to read Elbaum’s book.

Sheer fucking will. Against the weight of evidence and disposition I am possessed of a positive attitude and enthusiasm. I will it so! Begone dark clouds - having torn from your grasp your silver linings I now banish you from my presence! Hello glass half-full, fragrant and delicious. Good day to you, tasks to which I commit willingly and unreservedly, you enhance my life so.

I am a model of equanimity and poise.

Back to the Future is not only the title of a great piece of cinematic art but also a way of thinking about the present politically. (more…)

You know the image (more…)

No, no, not a cry for help! Negatron’s got a post up reviewing Massimo De Angelis’s book The Beginning of History, check it out. The post begins with a funny opening:

This is going to sound terrible, but I will say it anyway: the problem with any living philosopher, or political theorist is that they go on living. When a philosopher dies a space opens up between their texts and whatever contemporary problem or situation which one might want to address. It is debatable that Spinoza would recognize himself in the idea of the multitude, or if Bergson would embrace the vitalist accounts of contemporary society, but this does not matter. As long as a philosopher is still alive, capable of commenting on current events, then it is tempting to take their word as the last word on the matter at hand.

Post titling convention be damned.

I set a goal recently, trying to get more serious about climbing. Following on from that, a few fitness and medicine related things.

1. I’m going to finally call my old family doctor to see about getting my medical records re: my heart murmur.

2. After I have that info (or I know it’s unavailable) I will see a doctor here to make sure everything’s good and see what they say about long term heart health. When I go, I’m going to bring the info from the gym’s fitness assessment web site and have a conversation with the doctor about fitness. All the machines at all the gyms I’ve ever been to say “see a doctor first” and I never did. So I figure I’ll double check. I’ll also get my pertussis shot, as part of preparing for my daughter’s birth.

3. Then I will get a fitness assessment at the gym. I will use that to set some goals for working out, with the aim of making me a more effective climber. (That involves, among other things: losing a few pounds, getting stronger forearms, more ab/core strength, better endurance and cardio fitness over all.)

4. Then I will take the climbing techniques class at the rock climbing gym.

5. Then I will read the climbing fitness and technique book I got, and get something about Devil’s Tower to help stay motivated.

Done some more reading following from the stuff on mass work and trying to think about political organization. (more…)