Fair Trade Caffeine

There is a machine in the library that gives you sort of half a cup of fair trade chocolate coffee for 60 pence. It’s worth it. It’s good and it’s the only caffeine you’ll get in the library.

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19th

Why did I get so many views on February 19th?
The Opera (in case this is why I got so many views) wasn’t very good at all. Remember when Andrew and Bennett and Edan had a film club? This was an opera for that film club. This was an opera for [...]

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Reading

Someday I’ll not have another job and I’ll be able to spend the whole day, 9:30-8:00, just in the British Library. Maybe the British Library will even stop being lazy and open earlier.

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Pancake Day

In Britain it’s Pancake Day. I know, what the hell is Pancake Day. Weirder still, they actually mean Crepe Day.

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Adults

Well, one of my first friends to be happily married is also one of my first friends to be happily pregnant, and the whole scenario seems way adult to me.
However, she’s not got her BA yet (because she comes from the world of fundamentalism, where it’s just as good to be happily married and pregnant [...]

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For Stephanie

This is an interview with Aaron Kunin, who made my senior undergraduate year in literature.  Stephanie will appreciate it.  Other people may well, too.  He’s great.

1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why?
The problem with admitting that you love a poem is that it leaves you open to all kinds of [...]

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Renaissance Self-Fashioning

This will be a key book, I believe, in many papers, I’m afraid.

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A Night Less Ordinary

London, to bail out the theater industry, is buying a huge amount of shows tickets and giving them for free to 16-26 year olds, first come, first serve. I got a lot of fancy tickets yesterday through this program, but they’re going quite quickly, so if you think you might be coming to visit, [...]

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Vladimir Jurowski in Vita Nova

That’s right, I got 4 pound opera tickets that were by one get one free, so essentially 2 pound opera tickets, and we’re going to the opera tomorrow. Who’s going? Me and David (we’ll have been dating for two years), Julia who is very nice, Sam Lees (called Slees, who is also very [...]

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Aliens

As I was running in the heath today I passed three women:
Women 1: No, that was the ionic stratusphere.
Woman 2: No, I’m telling you, it was too low for that.
Woman 1: What could it have been, then. It was a rough landing.
Woman 3: I didn’t think it was so bad, and I [...]

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Stats

Also, the announcement that I was reinvigorating the weblog has not increased my readership at all, which must mean that those loyal readers I have reviewed old material with the same loyalty that they read new material.

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Moleskin

Moleskin notebooks are expensive. I can’t aford to keep notes in them, though I love them and I keep my calender in one (because that’s a calender, it’s important and it’ll last the whole year and a half). When you buy a Moleskin, it comes with an insert called “The story of a [...]

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Badger People

Me:  What else is up there?
My Mother:  Well, we’re switching from Dish to Direct TV because I want high definition and this way we can get away from those disgusting badger people.
Me:  Badger people?
My Mother:  Yes.

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Ice Driving

In London, if they can see snow, they don’t use their breaks. This means that when it’s slushy (but it’s above freezing and there’s no ice) many people run off the road because they’re afraid to break so instead they just take their chances and plow onto the sidewalk. It’s unnearving.

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Rugged

Today’s run was rugged and slushy and though I set forth to discover new territory, it is probably not territory I’ll seek out again, any time soon.

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Warning

On an apparently not-brick (it looks like bricks, but it must not be) building near my dorm:
Warning: Anti-Climb Paint.
Glad to be warned.

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Mr. Johnson

Sent to me by the lovely Ms. Latimer:
“Mr Johnson said: “I think we’ve done pretty well in what are absolutely extraordinary circumstances.
“There’s no doubt about it, this is the right kind of snow, it’s just the wrong kind of quantities.
“My message to the heavens is: ‘You’ve put on a fantastic display of snow power but [...]

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Mad

Apparently Europe is mad at the American stimulus plan, because it’s America-centric. Apparently the plan says that if you take government money to keep your business from bancruptcy, then you must buy American raw materials. Europe doesn’t think that’s fair because they want to sell us steal.
I’d say, what makes it not a [...]

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Guarded Response

In response to my previous complaint regarding the avant gaurde, I was sitting in Starbucks today, listening to one boy say “Well if none of us matter then of course neither does Nietche”, and another girl say “well, if you ever read Checkov, you’ll find it’s just about how the world is rubbish and live [...]

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Rooms Closed

Once there was a sign at the Rare Books Reading Room saying “Room Full; No further readers will be allowed into rare books, as all desks are taken”. Disappointed, I headed towards Humanities Reading Room 1 (a room for people whose books aren’t that special, anyway, filled with undergraduates and others who aren’t as [...]

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The point

The point of the last post is:
1. Unlike at Pomona, the people in my program rank themselves in the world literally by which works they’ve edited (i.e. the girl who thinks she’s super-smart thinks she’s smart because she re-edited an edition of Henry V, not because she’s watched a lot of Fallini and Antoni Oni [...]

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The Changing of the Avant Guarde

I guess in London there arn’t hipsters in the way there are in California. Here, anyone who is wearing a cordory jacket seems really to be wearing it because it is cold, and no one is willing to put patches on the elbows. Similarly, scarves are warn for warmth and glasses are functional, [...]

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Library Quest 2.1

February has started with quite a bit of snow in London, for which they were not prepared.
The day started with a tenous journey down the hill in my down very Londoned sage and baige cowboy boots, which involved a certain amount of slipping as the powdery four inches turned entirely to ice. [...]

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By Popular Demand

Well, I’m embarrased how neglected I’ve let the weblog become, and I’m thankful to my followers who demand further webloging, and London’s quite frusterating at the moment, so weblog go!

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