The Back Pain Fairy

So for the past week, I've been visited by the back pain fairy. S/he comes around 2 am and shoots me in the upper back with some kind of evil death ray. Odd, you'd think laying down would help, but I'm better off standing.
Just needed to complain to the people who searched for Biff Turkle on google. I imagine you staring at this in some disappointment right before you click off to a more promising link.

What do cyborgs, Latin America, publication permissions and McOndo have to do with each other?

I'm so freaking tired.

Ironically enough

My blog on microblogs initiated an even more concise form of blogging: the non-blog. Of course now I've gone and ruined it.

So today I taught about: insane people and their coded ramblings, the importance of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions in Argentine literature (with extended detours through Rebel Without a Cause and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and aestheticized Hollywood violence in Argentine films that also evoke gaucho mythology.

And now I've done neither a micro-blog nor a non-blog. Which could be ironic. It could also be disorganized.

Micro Blogs

There's a genre in Latin American literature (probably other literatures too, but I can't be bothered with them) called the micro-cuento. They're very short stories, sometimes just a sentence, that wander between poetry and narrative.

I assume that they're difficult to write, I'm sure I couldn't without it coming out like the product of an unholy union of a haiku and a limerick.

So I thought I could micro-blog, though probably (hopefully) not for the same reasons artists write micro-cuentos. The prospect of writing a longer blog makes me tired, it's significantly easier just to provide pasty gems that stop shortly before (or after) the idea runs out.

Yerba Mate

Yerba Mate is an herbal tea from Argentina (and Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay...). It tastes a bit like burnt alfalfa and is terribly addictive. I've credited it with getting me through my dissertation and probably through parts of the tenure track, it's been a part of my life for over 15 years.

At any rate, I hate feeling like I'm dependent on anything, so I decided to give it up. It's been about 30 hours now. I have a lot more compassion for people who try to stop certain habits. Yesterday was full of headaches, today is full of brain clouds.

Maybe if I had a volcano handy?

Post Semester Crash

At the end of each semester I fall apart. The stress and scotch tape that keeps me together dissolves into a puddle once the teaching adrenaline substrate is removed. Time is spent watching TV and in full-on fiaca.

It's a bit of a ritual now.

On watching one's children grow up

I went to my daughters' piano recital the other day. Our beginner played that piece by Handel that's now more associated with grandfather clocks than with the composer of the Messiah and did wonderfully well as a first time performer. Our oldest played a couple of pieces beautifully and I was struck by the experience of watching my child do something better than I can. Around about adolescence, one's children begin to develop talents that go beyond what their parents can do, and it is awe-inspiring to see them grown into accomplished, dedicated individuals.