After getting home from work immediately appeared to be a traintastrophe in the making, went to see Esther Schor talk about her book "Bridge of Words". Kinda neat. The stalled train situation had resolved itself in the meantime, got home, had some ramen with K.

Thai curry leftovers for dinner. Got a copy of Hennessy and Patterson's textbook on Architecture, and I am enjoying catching up on all the low-level processor/memory hierarchy/etc. stuff I usually ignore as a theorist.

Finally the end is in sight for unpacking my books. Heartstrings are pulled over the desire to slim down and get rid of some of them, but so many are like cherished friends from ages ago.

Somehow I'd never heard of Julio Cortázar before, until someone on fb posted this short story "Axolotl", of his. Good and weird, not one whit surprised by Borges comparisons. I should try one of his novels.

Interesting book about "Legal Systems Very Different From Ours": http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems_very_different_12/LegalSystemsDraft.html

Finished "Welcome to Night Vale" the novel. Pretty good; I mostly got what I expected. Downside: dialogue/characterization never felt especially rich, and went way off the rails nearly into "ugh is this fanfiction or what" territory near the end. The thing is, I basically like the Night Vale schtick and worldbuilding, but I don't usually have the ( Read more... )

Departing for Berlin. Flight slightly delayed and slightly turbulent but otherwise fine. Watched Darjeeling Limited and Shawshank, read "The Martian".

Finished Miranda July's "The First Bad Man". I thought I was losing the thread of the story in the middle where the heights of intense sexually-charged awkwardness/discomfort/strangeness were reached, entirely comparable to several cringey scenes in "Me and You and Everyone We Know" --- but I think in retrospect they are integral to the whole piece ( Read more... )

Recently finished "A Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio", a short novel I picked up at random at the designer/architect-centric book fair for half-off, and I really loved it. It has the same delightfully fussy formalism that I wanted to like in Calvino, but its execution really helps carry the story along here, helps ( Read more... )

Got the air conditioners both extracted from the windows. Landlord came by to turn on the heat, and I gave him a rent check since I've been having ridiculous problems getting them to him in the mail. (1 out of the last 3 attempts worked) What the hell, the postal service ( Read more... )