More specifically concerning: work
25.09.01
25 September 2001, around 16.47.
Gainful toil + useful work = wasted time. No reading. Only joy in Monteverdi & a bit of Horace and Pindar and Epicurus (‘Send me a little pot of cheese so that I can indulge in extravagance when I wish’, as per Diogenes Laertius) and Epictetus (Τῶν ἡδέων τὰ σπανιώτατα γινόμενα μάλιστα τέρπει – Those […]
Of Academics
22 January 2003, around 11.05.
For the words and facts of the ancients are as bricks, from which we build the fortresses of our arguments, ever quarreling over the lines of the walls. These walls are torn down and rebuilt with such haste and such fury, that it does not seem strange when they are torn down again, or prove […]
against nature
23 January 2003, around 13.44.
His innate conservatism, extreme caution, and habitual temporizing were possible obstacles to the achievement of true political virtuosity, and in a state and age dedicated to war his failure to display military talent or to become a soldier of distinction may have been no less a hindrance. Of the seven premier statesmen of the century […]
A dark and stormy night
3 May 2003, around 8.04.
It is a melancholy thing, which none but those educated at a college can understand, to see the debilitated frames of the aspirants for academical honours; to mark the prime—the verdure—the glory—the life—of life wasted irrevocably away in a labor ineptiarum, which brings no harvest either to others or themselves. For the poet, the philosopher, […]
Citation (10)
12 July 2003, around 8.05.
a glimpse in the mirror.
Citation (16)
1 February 2004, around 8.32.
the author disinterested in finances…
miaros
25 February 2004, around 16.07.
fragment of a dialogue Is there a reason you haven’t bathed in almost a week? Is there a reason you consider my personal hygiene to be of general interest? Answer the question. Yes. There is a reason. Would you care to elaborate? When have I ever cared to elaborate? Let me rephrase: please share your […]
lost illusions
20 August 2005, around 17.10.
& gout
these days
7 January 2007, around 21.46.
These days I spend a lot of time crossing bridges. Partly because we moved across the river from practically everything we are interested in; partly because, well because my feet are getting itchy again. It’s amazing how deadlines work – one puts things off, doesn’t think about them, and then the time creeps up when […]
27.12.2007
27 December 2007, around 18.35.
Up, coffee, tofu, e-mail, cook lunch, read book about world with no people, bicycle to work in the rain, make rude gesture at driver who runs stop sign at cross street, data entry, knit, drink hot chocolate, data entry, eat lunch, read book about emotionally confused people, shuffle papers, knit, shuffle papers, data entry, bicycle […]
all the baggage
25 March 2008, around 17.38.
So I was reading Paul Fussell’s book about travel, Abroad. Of course it’s not just about travel, though he does spend some thirty-odd (or more or less, I’ve returned it to the library and cannot refer to it now) pages lamenting the impossibility of true travel1 in this degraded age of tourism, it’s about literary […]
the kind of day
9 May 2008, around 19.27.
Started the new job today, the sort of thing that sounds interesting and civic-minded, but is merely ordinary: the good manager gone, no one understands the new equipment, the ‘we’ll muddle through somehow’ approach to training. A passage of time, of limited duration. Come evening I tumble down to a local favored restaurant and grab […]
teacher’s house
30 April 2009, around 0.17.
shnorhq
30 December 2009, around 7.06.
We’ve been waiting for the school to be remodeled for a long time. We were supposed, at first, to move in on the first of September 2008; this was quickly adjusted to 1 Sept. 2009. Knowledge day1 came and went and the building was still not ready. The director clenched and fretted in her tiny […]
new vocabulary
4 October 2011, around 9.12.
The other sign in the classroom says ‘Knowledge is essential to freedom’.
talent
16 November 2011, around 16.42.
Getting ready for the talent show. It was the last day of the fall vacation, and the teachers competed in a talent show. Each of the departments put together as many performances as they could, in the least amount of time. I think the foreign language department started working on their act on Monday. Luckily […]
clearance
18 November 2011, around 9.20.
Four men in orange vests clean the street. Two men work with overgrown spatulas – or worn down snow shovels – tapping the surface to break up the compacted snow, then scraping it towards the side of the road. They work together, each working on half of a lane (with, meanwhile, a clear lane of […]
loose ends
11 July 2014, around 16.10.
Out and about. It’s been warm and that brings with it vexation. I’ve been filling out paperwork for other people and then carrying it hither and thither because it can’t be emailed, but only faxed; fax machines and I have a long-standing disagreement, so walking it is.1 I could use the exercise, anyway. I sometimes […]
to the swift
31 August 2021, around 5.49.
This is a quotation from a writing manual about the tangled skein of thought, buttressed by two images of winding yarn.
rust unburnish’d
10 October 2021, around 18.17.
The sort of lazy Sunday on which one has to work because one was having a sort of lazy Friday and a lazy Saturday, but Monday will come with its deadlines, and one does not like to disappoint. Somehow, last week, I managed to write my to-do list on the wrong day in my planner, […]
9.i.2022
9 January 2022, around 12.08.
‘There are, first of all, people who have homes without offices: these are, paradoxically, either the very rich or the very poor.’ —Fredric Jameson, Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality
towards the mean
8 June 2023, around 9.28.
διὸ καὶ ἀπορήσειεν ἄν τις, τί δή ποθ᾽ οἱ μὲν ἰατροὶ βουλεύονται περὶ ὧν ἔχουσι τὴν ἐπιστήμην, οἱ δὲ γραμματικοὶ οὔ; αἴτιον δ᾽ ὅτι διχῇ γινομένης τῆς ἁμαρτίας (ἢ γὰρ λογιζόμενοι ἁμαρτάνομεν ἢ κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν αὐτὸ δρῶντες) ἐν μὲν τῇ ἰατρικῇ ἀμφοτέρως ἐνδέχεται ἁμαρτεῖν, ἐν δὲ τῇ γραμματικῇ κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ πρᾶξιν περὶ […]
procedural
11 August 2023, around 4.37.
…only a particular concatenation of circumstances will reveal that one man always acts in a good way because his instinctual inclinations compel him to, and the other is good only in so far and for so long as such cultural behaviour is advantageous for his own selfish purposes. But superficial acquaintance with an individual will […]
Adversaria (9)
31 December 2023, around 4.28.
An awareness of over-interpretation needn’t imply a kind of unattainable (and undesirable) objectivity, but rather a thoughtfully subjective approach, which does not involve second-guessing the artist. When content and materials are interpreted and combined in a balanced way, the result can be greater than the sum of its parts. A transformation of the given matter […]
contraindicated
1 January 2024, around 4.39.
Even now, many hard-working, dedicated people frown on the activities subsumed under the concept of flow; the look upon these activities as hedonistic and decadent. Enjoyment is suspect; work is godly. It is very difficult for these people to realize, let alone admit, that the serious work they do is more enjoyable for them than […]