Tuesday, February 28, 2006
(12:10 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred: Curriculum Vitae of the Other
I hate it when people don't remember stupid jingles that I remember. (For instance: "Give a hoot / don't pollute / Help keep America / Lookin' good!") I hate it when I feel like I'm getting sick of coffee. I hate falling asleep on the couch when trying to read an unreasonably long book. I hate sitting up at the computer working on a proposal late in the evening, such that I won't be able to fall asleep. At the same time, having noticed that I am much better at staying awake when sitting at the computer than when reading, I specifically planned to do this proposal late at night to make sure that I wouldn't fall asleep too early. What I hate, that I do.I hate the equivocal use of the term "the other." On the one hand, "the other" is good. Yeah! I love the Other! On the other hand, "the other" is BAD! Boo! "Othering" is bad! Marking someone as "other" is bad! But wait -- I thought that we were supposed to respect the other in the other's otherness. Perhaps Luther had it right: "Here I stand, I can do no other."
I hate how long I sat and thought about whether that last pun sucked too much. I was well aware that it sucked -- it's just the degree of it that I wasn't sure about.
I hate trying to think of something that I can give up for Lent. Most years, I just figure that my life is too ascetical as it stands and that giving up one more thing wouldn't be good for anyone.
I hate that Scott Eric Kaufman wrote me requesting I help a friend of his find an Italian copy of Homo Sacer so she can track down what Agamben writes in the passage on page 108 which begins "the special proximity of werewolf and sovereign too." Scott's friend hates that she doesn't know what "special proximity" is in the Italian. I hate that this third-order acquaintance also demands help finding the Italian version of the last two sentences in the translation, which read: "The inevitable encounter with the ex-wife and the punishment of the woman follow. What is important, however, is that Bisclavret's final transformation back into a human takes place on the very bed of the sovereign." I hate the fact that Scott composed this poor ventriloquism himself and emailed it to me. I hate that he'd presume I'd publish it. Or possibly I hate that he tried to blackmail me into doing so.
Okay, anyway, if you guys have any information about that, you can comment or else e-mail Scott. Tomorrow afternoon or Thursday I might be able to check the Italian at the Joseph Regenstein Library, but if someone was able to do it before then, that would save me some time, which of course is very important.
I hate that the odds of my getting through the Latin book before the Augustine class starts are looking slim -- I'm on chapter 18 out of 40. I had a pretty good rhythm at first, but then I got into a vicious cycle where I got behind my self-imposed schedule and so started doing a lot of work all at once, then I started to put off working on Latin because I started to think of it as something that took a big time commitment all at once, &c. But my so-called "devotions" of reading Benjamin in German are quite manageable and have been very thought-provoking. Reading the small sections has really helped me to fine-tune my grammar skills by allowing me more leisure to look at it in detail -- but now I must say that I hate that the German Word Family Dictionary, which reportedly would really help me to work on the various roots and prefixes, is $60.00 used. I've put it on my wish list, though, so I'm sure someone will go over to Amazon and waste $60 so that I can have that.
I hate how much I still have to do before Wednesday morning.
I love the McElroy Family Experience.
