My Yahoo! horoscope for today says:

Your logical mind might try to make rational sense of the strange metaphysical ideas, dear Capricorn, that are popping in and out of your head today. Some of them might be conclusions drawn from books you’ve been reading, but others might actually be messages from the other side. Write down whatever insights come your way. They might not seem logical, but they’ll make a difference to your life. In the evening: Discuss these ideas with a love partner.

So far today I haven’t had any strange metaphysical ideas. Instead, I was thinking about Bloomberg & Klein instituting a “uniform curriculum” citywide. As if there were anything “uniform” about NYC schoolchildren. Fucking fascists. What else was I thinking about? — that there are several new movies I want to see, among them _The Hours_ and _25th Hour_. Marianne tells me _Russian Ark_ is good, and I also wouldn’t mind seeing _Adaptation_. I almost never go see Hollywood or even major indie films, largely because my perma-date is such a purist. If it’s not virtually unknown or made in Kerala, he’s not interested. But anyway Gary, brace yourself for the metaphysical insights we have been instructed to discuss tonight should I actually have any.

Heriberto writes on his blog, which seems to keep getting more fiercely brilliant, that he hopes that po-blogs don’t become a ‘scene’. How I disagree with him! ‘Scene’ is just a nasty word for ‘vibrant community.’ Party over here! Party over there! I guess I’m a ‘sociophile’.

My jobs start soon and I’m going to have to tear myself away from blogging so much. Not fair!

One of the classes I’m teaching is an advanced ESL class for which I have to choose a novel. It’s hard, I know so little about contempo-fiction. I’m considering using _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ and showing Bladerunner. Other ideas would be most welcome. The book has to be something profoundly available at mega-bookstores.

I thought of using _The Sheltering Sky_, which I just bought and re-read after many years. It’s an amazing book but probably too dark and interior to appeal to students. I like the darkness of it. I suppose I like dark literature in general. My enduring love of Kafka. When I was 12 I used to read Sartre’s _The Age of Reason_ over and over again…

…..

Jordan has a link to Tim Griffin’s cranky but intelligent review of the Drawing Now show, in which he complains about the way the pictures were organized and argues that they are not all true “drawings”. When I went to that show I was so ecstatic about the artwork that I forgot to care about the categories and definitions. I think that says a lot about my sensationist approach. Immediacy, thy name is Nada.