Friday, March 24, 2006
(7:48 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Friday Afternoon Confessional: I was the worst hope of my generation
I confess that sometimes I still like to dust off my They Might Be Giants mp3s and give them a whirl.I confess that the subjunctive mood isn't half as hard as people make it out to be.
I confess that I'm starting to understand how graduate students can become socially dysfunctional. Sitting in the house all day, submerged in arcana (one imagines that the library would only be worse), I often find myself excited almost to the point of delerium when I get to see another human being. Even better is when it is a human being who is not a graduate student (or aspiring graduate student) and who thus finally does not care, on any level, about the "work" I have done that day. I can only imagine what it would be like if I lived alone and didn't have guaranteed human contact most days: I would be that guy cornering people at the party, not having talked to another human being for a week, eager to discuss Schelling or something.
I confess that I sometimes have already been that guy, though not with Schelling.
I confess that I often put off reading indefinitely when it's something I am going to have to "use" in some way -- the amount of work involved becomes much more intimidating. Yet maybe the pressure shouldn't be so high, given the shit that gets shoveled into academic discourse all the time. People can make whole careers as "scholars" or "critics" of a figure they demonstrably fail to understand. I confess that I'm afraid I'm going to be yet another hack. (I've gotten comments here at The Weblog, of course, to the effect that the ship has already sailed on that one -- and I confess that I took them to heart, even though they were "unfair" and "out of context.") I confess that I feel lazy no matter what I do.
I confess that sometimes my life feels out of joint.
I confess that I am glad I will be moving within the next few months.
I confess that the new round of construction on the Dan Ryan baffles me. Apparently the past two years of crippling delays were just preparation for the real construction coming during the next two construction seasons:
CHICAGO, March 2, 2006 – After several years of planning and preparation, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) is set to perform major surgery on the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94) in both directions from 13th Street to the Bishop Ford (I-94) / I-57 Interchange on Chicago’s South Side during the 2006 and 2007 construction seasons.I'm sure I'm not the only skeptical soul who is not convinced that taking Ashland or Stony Island that whole way is going to end up being faster than a congested expressway.
“Drivers of passenger vehicles should avoid the Dan Ryan entirely,” said IDOT Secretary Tim Martin. While many motorists will use public transportation or IDOT-designated alternate routes, truckers will be urged to stay on the expressway because their vehicles are too heavy for local streets. “Our message is ‘Cars Off, Trucks On,” said Martin.
IDOT has spent the past two years preparing the Dan Ryan corridor for the 2006 and 2007 mainline reconstruction work. Advance contract reconstruction has been or is about to be completed in many areas along the Dan Ryan, including exit and entrance ramps, cross-street bridges. The advance work also included the interchange with the Chicago Skyway (I-90), which was rebuilt and reconfigured to improve traffic flow and safety.
I confess that I love the fact that this is being spun as "investing more than $600 million in the South Side." I confess that I am never listening to Mancow again after a mentally disabled character claimed to be slow and one of the regular hosts claimed that this character was actually quite sharp by South Side standards. I confess that I am disturbed by the fascist "attitude" that lurks below the surface of a station that probably played all my favorite music back when I was in high school (or is at least the inheritor of that format). Hell, I'm disturbed at the fascist "attitude" that lurked below the surface of me back when I was in high school.
