Thursday, June 01, 2006
(1:13 PM) | Old - Doug Johnson:
Beer and Pingpong
[Updates: (a) Was also intending to offer this as an open thread if Amish or Jodi were interested in continuing our leisurely-for-the-blogsphere conversation on State Racism. (b) Looks like U of Toronto will be opening up a new jr. faculty position (to start fall '07) in Religion and Globalization. I'm thinking Discard might be interested, but perhaps others as well? (c) Along the lines of the McCarthy bit, anyone see and have a response to the NYT bookreview poll (article partially available here - not Tuesday, but I hate, hate, hate, the new NYT regime whereby I'm constantly asked for $3.95 to see the full text of a single article) that named Beloved the best American work of fiction in the last 25 years and listed works by McCarthy, DeLillo, Roth, and Updike as runners up)?]A couple months back, Anthony criticized a commenter to one of my posts for taking much too seriously remarks made more in the genre of a group of friends sitting around a garage while playing ping pong, drinking beer, and watching 24. Hence a Beer and Pingpong post (not necessarily intended to replace our former label of such occasionals as 'shit and garbage').
Met a couple of Long Sunday folks at the Learneds here in Toronto earlier this week: Craig (also of Theoria - blogroll?) and Jon (Posthegemony). All too brief and I unfortunately both had to miss their Pirates as Nomads session as it conflicted with a session J. had to go to in order to make up for previously missing a paper by one of her classmates and had to cancel our meeting for coffee the next day as J. was both sick and trying to meet a CFP deadline. I already liked Craig a helluva lot before I met him. Camraderie as he works with several of the same figures of interest to me and the fact that he and Matt came to the defense of my admittedly somewhat lame first offering at Long Sunday awhile back. Craig is such a machine at what he does that I was expecting someone a little less laid back, a little less smart as hell and still wonderfully hippie (beard, longish hair, totally casual dress even though he was moderating at an academic conference; no posing whatsoever). I'd only checked out Posthegemony once or twice previously, so meeting Jon (tall, I think - he was sitting the whole time I was there, exactly the type of British accent that always makes Americans think someone is 10 points higher on the IQ scale than they actually are no matter how dumb or smart) was a good excuse to go over and check out some of his recent posts on Dylan and Bruce Cockburn and an interesting Deleuzian critique of Negri at Brock.
Anyone read or know much about Cormac McCarthy? I'm halfway through my first book on the recommendation of the executive director at my work. The Crossing. Terrific so far.
Back to Badiou in July now? I'm out in California (and briefly in Oregon) from June 10 to the end of the month.
Dave B., any word on where you'll be at in the fall yet? (certainly can answer privately if you'd rather).
The recent post by Tom JJ (Mortimer's rudeness aside - a little respect? even from those of us who disagree) has given me more interest than I've ever had in reading a bit more Death of God jazz. I've only briefly skimmed the collection of the major figures in the movement that includes a piece by Taubes. I can't remember where I read it, but apparently that piece (or was it another?) was taken as a withering blow against 'Death of God' from within the movement (Taubes initially moved in such circles during his sojourn in in the U.S.).
Have some other shit and garbage stuff racking around my brain somewhere, but will have to update I guess.
