those books are WAY too advanced for her
I'm working at home this week, trying to hammer this paper into shape, and it occurs to me that really I shouldn't be alternating bouts of paper-wrestling with evenings playing Oblivion, as my metaphors become rather unruly as a result. (Or, at least, even more unruly. My metaphors do lead weird and complex private lives of their own at the best of times). This is the paper I gave at the Ghent conference and which I was profoundly unhappy with, so it's basically being rewritten from the ground up. I am thus forced to rue my own basic incoherence on an ongoing basis, but also to realise that, unwieldy though it was, my argument was also rather unsophisticated - I am now trying effectively to level it up into new, elevated planes of density and implication. This has caused the damned thing to grow tentacles and about five extra heads, so that once more it's doing that grab-Will-Smith-and-thump-him-repeatedly-against-the-side-of-the-car thing. Particularly since one of the heads it's grown was the result of incautiously using the term "modernity" and then feeling the need to research exactly what I meant by that, as a result of which I am now buried in the writhing coils of social theory and suddenly Marx, the Frankfurt School, Foucault, Habermas, Lyotard and jolly old Baudrillard are lining up to have their wicked theoretical way with me. It's not all joy in here, I can tell you, although there's a certain grim satisfaction in wresting the odd coherent paragraph out of the morass.
Also, I have a Sid incursion, and the headache isn't helping. On the upside, since I last felt the need to use the grab-Will-Smith-and-thump-him-repeatedly-against-the-side-of-the-car image, some kindly soul has actually put it up there on the internet for these little moments of need.
In a neat juxtaposition of theme, the other thing I have to do this week is finalise my new car deal, and really the whole experience of car-buying and licence taking has not been unlike the grab-Will-Smith-and-thump-him-repeatedly-against-the-side-of-the-car experience. Hopefully both car and paper-writing experiences will shorty result in an adorable tentacled alien baby.
(Subject line is naturally Men in Black, Jay popping the cardboard eight-year-old girl in the shooting range on grounds of generalised suspicion).
Also, I have a Sid incursion, and the headache isn't helping. On the upside, since I last felt the need to use the grab-Will-Smith-and-thump-him-repeatedly-against-the-side-of-the-car image, some kindly soul has actually put it up there on the internet for these little moments of need.
In a neat juxtaposition of theme, the other thing I have to do this week is finalise my new car deal, and really the whole experience of car-buying and licence taking has not been unlike the grab-Will-Smith-and-thump-him-repeatedly-against-the-side-of-the-car experience. Hopefully both car and paper-writing experiences will shorty result in an adorable tentacled alien baby.
(Subject line is naturally Men in Black, Jay popping the cardboard eight-year-old girl in the shooting range on grounds of generalised suspicion).