i always get reading done when i have to get on airplanes. even during this trip to l.a. which is a quick flight still got reading done in airport, on airplane, in slow cab ride to hotel, after arrival, etc....

i finished lindqvist's exterminate the brutes and grew more and more fond of it. the ending has this discussion of darwin mixed in with his dreams. very strange space. and the more i read, the more i forgave him the desert which worried me at first.

and then the latest New Left Review. good article by peter hallward on the invasion of haiti. an interesting article by emilie bickerton on rouche which made me want to finally hook up the vcr on the television i have borrowed for the summer and watch his movies. and then a decent but very provisional article by benedict anderson on jose rizal and how he might have been influenced by french decadence.

read a few chapters of raymond williams's the politics of modernism which i've never read which is embarassing and it would have been completely and totally helpful at any point of my life. i might have absorbed most of it from other sources by now. but his work is so clear i'm annoyed i had to piece all the information together over the years rather than just getting it from this one source.

read carrie noland's "bataille looking" from modernism/modernity on the way back. she has an argument about bataille's interest in the cave paintings. i find her work helpful.

workshop on poetry, pedagogies, and politics in l.a. was fun. read several good papers. interesting conversation about a lot of issues. good food. the lunch was nepalese food. very buttery. good company also. a little less buttery but just as pleasant.

while i was in l.a. i saw raising helen which has strange christian theme. good clean fun one might say. but i didn't have many options for movies because i didn't have a car so i had to go to something close enough that i could walk home from it at midnight.

came home and got nothing done today but did see the a's beat the bluejays in the sun. now i've got sunburn on right arm.

plan to spend the morning collecting myself and doing one more week on this essay i've been working on. then i hope to switch to creative piece and do some reading for that.