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Tag Archives: Temperance/Prohibition
Summer Anthems, One More Time
I let my students out of their final and told them all, “Have a good summer.” I had to come down on them, this morning. There was a thing with grading, and grades, and whether they had to complete the … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged girls, grad school, I wish, pop life, Temperance/Prohibition, vacations
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Problems with Authority, Part II
To recap: Eskimo wisdom — “By gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs.” Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Behavioral economists. This is what I’m thinking about, lately. In this talk, the behavioral economist Dan Pink, a behavioral economist, … Continue reading
Problems with Authority, Part I
A friend of ours, R., experimented with walking a certain number of steps every day. He said during the experiment he would look at his little device, realize he needed another ninety seven steps, and walk out to get a … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged freak out, getting old, magic pebbles, Temperance/Prohibition
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hair of the dog
At the Museum of Jurassic Technology, in the section on folk remedies, there’s a little display for “Hair of the Dog”–dog hair was meant to cure the animal’s bite–right next to “Mice on Toast.” I don’t remember what the Mice are … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged dream life, getting old, Temperance/Prohibition, the morning after
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Mondegreens
A “Mondegreen” is when they play Owner of a Lonely Heart, and you hear “Omar was a lonely horse.” I learned Home, Home on the Range when I was very young. I didn’t know what “seldom” meant when I learned the … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged dance dance dance, getting old, pop life, Temperance/Prohibition
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Index
End of the quarter: 9 days from now Hours on the train: 2 Hours commuting: 4 Hours out of the house: 11.5 Predicted height of stack of student portfolios: 2.5’ Number of things in the media that made me cry: … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged dream life, grad school, public transit, Temperance/Prohibition
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Match point
Scotch after dinner vs. swimming laps at dawn. The moment the sky turns gray-pink like the underbelly of a river dolphin and the fluorescent lights around the pool switch off vs. the moment the hot water hits my skin in … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged dollars and sense, dream life, I wish, Temperance/Prohibition
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Dear FB,
Admit it. When you change the site, you have an equation that predicts the socioeconomic profile of every annoyed user who will leave. Each vaguely annoying shift purges the unwilling, those refusing to shape themselves to the technology instead of … Continue reading
Cocktails: Part II — Bacchus
Bacchus commands that everything be hard For him who abstains from wine, and Bacchus says The troubles that wear away our days are not Made easier by any other means. This is Horace, translated by David Ferry, on the god … Continue reading
Cocktails: Part One — Recipes
I welcome the return of classic cocktail, and I enjoy recreations of the bartending culture we destroyed with Prohibition. But I am not a purist. I see no reason not to improvise, infuse, muddle. It’s not a living art if … Continue reading
Posted in 300 words a day
Tagged city of angels, getting old, Temperance/Prohibition, vacations
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