What A Weekend!

 Saturday, I decided to follow Paul S' advice and get internet at home. Well, off I went to Verizon and came home with a modem. (After lunch at Jersey Mike's — not bad, but I still prefer Jimmy John's). The salesperson at Verizon was not so happy I did not want a new smartphone. You might have thought I had insulted the flag, his mother, and kicked his dog.

Only thing is that after turning on the modem and having a wonderful session from Verizon with a South Asian accent about setting up the computer, the connection failed. I still have not been able to get the Wi-Fi going. I admit to not having the energy to speak with their tech support.

I hoped to make the AAUW book sale, but was too late for that. I got home after 3 and decided no more going anywhere else.

I started a possible law review article on Indiana's Bill of Rights. I worked on that Saturday. There was a trip to the Village Pantry.

Sunday, no church. CC hinted that she might be by. I wanted to do off to Ball State, but my knee hurt too much. I hoped Cc would get me to Staples. We had a monsoon hit. After that, I walked over and did my laundry. Then back to reading and writing. I'm pretty sure I talked to my sister yesterday.

Today.

This morning was spent writing, reading articles downloaded, washing dishes, fixing food, putting up laundry, and putting off leaving the apartment.

I walked over to Bracken Library around 2:30, it is now 4:19. Email has been thinned, and I did some checking on materials for my possible law review article. And I started this update.

Some items from my email follow:

Do give a look at The Worst Town Names in America—And Other Useless Maps, if you are like me and find maps fascinating.

Scotland had Nessie, and Indiana has The Elusive Beast Of Busco Has Kept Indiana Residents In Terror For Decades!

I was gone to New Jersey, and was doubly curious about What Happened to Lauren Spierer? College Girl, Missing Seeks to Answer the Years-Old Mystery (Exclusive). Yes, there is particularly interesting about missing persons cases. Right, Mr. Hoffa?

I knew architecture students when I was an undergrad at Ball State. The only book of Tom Wolfe's books I have read is From Bauhaus to Our House. I assumed Stephanie Schoellman's review of Here Be Monstrous Architects: On Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing’s “Horror in Architecture” for the Los Angeles Review of Books would take me back to that same territory. It did and it went further.

Comaroff and Ker-Shing use horror as the lens through which to view these structures and the language by which to describe them—aptly so, because the conditions that summon their rise (often from the unhallowed grounds of stolen or abused land) are themselves horrific and, importantly, foster yet more horrific conditions. Horror may seem a bit melodramatic until one recalls the hypnotic and numbing flicker of fluorescent lights stacked upon each other in gray corporate skyscrapers, reddening eyes and blocking stars. Or perhaps, more disturbingly, one witnesses news stories featuring the remains of Gaza, consequences of settlement colonialism and global complicity. The horror of those settings lies not in exaggerations but rather, as the book proclaims, in the tangible—and accurate—expression of extremes, for we live in an era of extremes.

As Comaroff and Ker-Shing note, “Horror is one by-product of modernity and thus mimics its advanced forms”; it manifests immoderations and indulgent extravagances. Hence, when we see buildings bloated, deteriorated, mutated, duplicated, or dislocated, often a dereliction of ethics is the remodeling contractor at work. By interpreting buildings in horror mode, the authors unveil the systemic greed, unsustainable growth, and unchecked power embedded in their foundations.

Something to think about.

Chrome crashed, so I switched over to Firefox. I have about 50 minutes before the library closes.

Pay stubs downloaded. I double-checked my YTD. I should have no problem with Social Security this year.

I want to finish read Beamed from Within: On Harlan Ellison’s “Greatest Hits” from LARB, download a case from Google Scholar, and send off an email to my PO.

Let us see how I do.

9 more months of me being 64.

sch