Syllabus #222

Fall Break has come and gone.  Now we're on a slow, cold, march to Winter Break.  I got a new phone (well, the oldest model of new phone that (very little) money can buy), got a haircut, visited the parentals.  All while the world burns and lives are falling apart over in Israel and Gaza.  I don't have anything worthwhile to add to the discourse, but it feels wrong not to acknowledge it at all.  I remember when it was a catch phrase in the early 90s to go around saying 'peace in the Middle East,' and I'm sure kids were just repeating it because it vaguely rhymed, not because we really had any ideas about the ongoing conflict, but it's sad to think a whole lifetime has passed and people are still killing each other about the same things.

 

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I am very anti-gun.  I am SO anti-gun that I would love to round up every firearm on the planet and throw them all into the mouth of an active volcano.  But if I thought a grizzly bear was gonna take me out on the way to the mailbox?  I am walking out my front door strapped to the nines like m.f.'ing Rambo, y'all.

Not me over here googling DOD school librarian jobs.  Fully stocked supply closets?  Higher pay?  Students who all have their basic needs met?  What is this fantasy land?

This article about the origins of 13 as an unlucky number failed to mention one of the most salient manifestations of the number - The Jersey Devil.

See also, Stephen King's (shockingly brief) 1984 essay on reasons to wrap yourself in bubble wrap and hide out in a bomb shelter whenever a Friday the 13th hits the calendar.  Nothing truly bad happened to me on this Friday the 13th, of October, no less, but I DID endure 7.5 hours of driving that should have been only 5.75.  I could have walked from one side of Chattanooga to the other in less time than it took me to process through the city limits on I-24.  

Analog Reading:

Sped through Laura Dave's The Last Thing He Told Me.  It really took some twists and turns, as a good thriller should.  

Savoring Zadie Smith's The Fraud.  I expect to finish it today.  There's so many layers of meaning.  It's so good, but I feel like I'm missing some of the historical references.