random thoughts

I was going through old photos in my iPhoto folders and found this, which I took about one year ago today on one of my then-frequent train rides up the Hudson. I love this photograph. It has nothing to do with my following observations, which, while random, have all been inspired by recent reading and observation.

• I think Frank Gehry is totally overrated. His buildings are just clever surfaces over decidedly unimaginative interior spaces. Plus they leak, they blind passersby with their metal roofs; and they are already looking totally mannered.

•I was filmed for a piece on my school yesterday. For about 80 minutes I answered questions about the school's past, my own past, my views on teaching, and so on. It came up during the interview that when I finished school (after getting my doctorate at UChicago) I was debt-free. Now that I look back on it, that is miraculous and I am very lucky. I guess I was a good student after all.

• I would love to see George Bush and John McCain holding hands and riding off into the sunset to disappear forever.

• I don't understand, on an ethical level, how any intelligent person could defend the policies of the Republican party since Ronald Reagan's reign.

• On the train going to my ear doctor yesterday I was listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on my iPod and I thought I would pass out from the sheer beauty and terrible power of that music. He was a master of a kind sufi sacred music, qawwali. Check him out if you can.