some big word that has something to do

today was my first day as a worker. first i was sitting with some basketball players and convincing them to fill out these papers. i am in charge of two students. one of them is from cameroon and says he will go to the olympics for his country. second i was sitting with an athlete that said "do you know how to do integrals?" and these were the integrals that are tedious. after we did the trigonometric substitution, and i wasn't sure if integration by parts would work, i said let's move to this next problem and come back here because i can show you how to do a heaviside expansion. this will boost your morale. but whoever assigned the homework felt like being a tricky bastard. on my break i went to the microfilm collection to find an article in the volume of Acta Eruditorum from 1691. one from 1694 as well. my sister asked me to find if the articles could be had. from this i learned that people like to use epithets like "the most learned geometer," "a man so sublime," "the ever glorious properties of the helicoid parabolae". the articles are titled in german, french, italian or english, then say id est, then the title in latin, and the whole paper is written in latin. that shows discipline.

then there was a wedding. everything was unclear.

St. Augustine's flip-flopping

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

? The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19?20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]

un cachito de lo nuestro

the students are back in town. i kept going out to social engagements on the weekend. there were few students involved.

episode 1. gary's house. watching TV with closed captioning. gary ordered a pizza and he said with a tear in his eye that austin's pizza, yeah, it's quality. he left, saying something about a grandmother. beltus came to my house and we made some brouchettes that turned out badly.

episode 2. we went to the swimming hole next to the highway. rhonda said that she built a dam and some people lounged in the pool formed thereby. she drank the last beer, then i said that i didn't like beer after all. the cops were walking around, four of them. we were on the opposite side of the stream so they wouldn't hassle us without getting wet first. they were likely enforcing the minimum drinking age.

episode 3. everybody agreed that it was time for a quiet night and no party. frank called and said come on so i said well let me ditch these losers and i'll go with you. they took offense and i said i was using reverse psychology. johnny got drunk. drunk enough that he tried out the pick up lines that i encouraged him to use. one girl he instigated the first conversation by claiming to be brasilian, and the second by apologizing for having lied. we were ashamed after eating those chicken wings.

episode 4. there was an argument about peeling yams. frank came over and brought some of the danish shortbread biscuits and we reenacted the yam peeling incident. we found a public swimming pool that allows vegans and is free.

episode 5. the vegan potluck. what happened there stays there.

cocaine, power and irresponsibility

here is a crackpot theory i thought of while reading stories about cocaine on the BBC website.

Exhibit 1:
By testing the waters of the river Po for the presence of benzoylecognine, a chemical formed by the metabolism of cocaine, Italian scientists find that the region with about five million people consumes at least 1 500 kilos of cocaine per year. Cocaine use is almost triple what officials had previously estimated. link

Cocaine use is higher than you think.

Exhibit 1a:
Similar research in Oregon showed that on weekends, the sewage from water treatment plants servicing affluent communities shows high cocaine and ecstasy use. link

Rich people like to use cocaine on the weekends.

Exhibit 2:
A European television station took swabs of toilets from toilets in EU parliament buildings, finding 41 of 46 toilets tested to be positive for cocaine (not benzoylecognine). People are snorting cocaine in bathroom stalls in the parliament building. They tested other buildings. Cocaine wasn't found in German high schools. link

People in government like to use cocaine.

Exhibit 3:
Researchers in Boston found that the amygdaliae (a part of the brain) of cocaine addicts were smaller than those of non-addicts. People with smaller amygdaliae are not good at identifying the possible consequences of their actions before they take them. It is unclear whether cocaine use shrinks the amygdalia or whether people with small amygdaliae are predisposed to addiction. link

Cocaine users' perceived bad luck is in fact carelessness.

Interesting questions:

Do people in power use more cocaine than the rest of us? Do people in power have smaller amygdaliae? (either a priori or because of cocaine use) What other factors correlate with small amygdaliae?

que los dias son eternos, y vacios sin mi

after his failed stint as a cocaine pusher and his continued scraping by as the manager of a moving company that falsely advertises his progeny, francisco garbiccio, esquire (as played on TV), got his first small break, winning an arts festival for a play he wrote and directed. i asked him if he was going to work early on monday and he said "i'm living the dream!" which means he will spend the money on rent. he's now been commissioned to write another play where the audience is children. my advice: "make candy rain from the catwalks. this will ensure a standing ovation"

dipping sauces

some of my friends and i dreamed up an idea to open a private supper club in kuala lampur. one night would be dipping sauce night.

the dipping sauces that i've been studying now

aioli: mayonnaise made with extra virgin olive oil and crushed garlic

mayonnaise with lime and sriracha sauce

piri piri: portuguese condiment, crushed thai chilis steeped in cold extra virgin olive oil for a month

it's such a good vibration, it's such a sweet sensation

shake that body
shake that body for me
people don't you know...

if i hear an old dance song on the radio, i tend to claim my uncle or dad or cousin wrote the song. not performed, wrote.

duylinh and i were bored sunday night and became self-critical and went on a discussion of the proper way to make friends and whether making friends forces old ones to be pushed away.

i can tell a man's guilty by looking him in the eye.

we walked to posse east. there were some men with mullets and cutoff jeans, in their thirties, slightly tipsy on cheap beers, talking about baseball and bruce who was the first person to invite them to listen to compact discs. a frail boyish type came in on one of the old timey motorcycles with the long body, fat wheels and no back fender. he had a leather helmet and goggles.

we talked about styrofoam. i start working tomorrow.

tuesday

the dark, depressive, turpid style of Onetti's characters has the novelty of a restaurant that is always packed because of the waiters who are famous for being rude.

... mientras los amigos destapan botellas y deshacen paquetes de comida; donde dormirá con un hombre cualquiera del que sólo podrá recordar, si algo, las predilecciones. Tal vez sea éste su paraíso y yo voy a arrancarla de él

... dijo Valle, y se rió una sola vez, con su risa habitual que nunca expresaba alegrí, que no era más que un subrayado a la frase anterior.

... dijo Medina, con una profunda voz indolente que se burlaba de sí misma en la inflexión última de cada frase...

Todo te da lo mismo con excepción de tu señora Seoane. Menos esa pobre sucia puta, Frieda Margot, si mis labios son dignos de nombrarla.

from Frank Rich's 29 July column

To be the "most credible" person in this war team means about as much as being the most sober tabloid starlet in the Paris-Lindsay cohort.

con tu mirada de fierro fundido

instilling order and discipline in my life. that is the reason i wrote on the form stating my intent to jog around the golf course each morning, at about eleven. the distance is 1.38 miles. the other measure of discipline was to wash all of the dishes each morning at about ten without moving away from the sink. this was to develop concentration. i changed this to a practice of writing 2000 words of prose at least once in each 24-hour period 10am - 10am. 40000 words would be the same length as a book so i have to do this twenty times.

duylinh and i have barricaded ourselves in the house and refused to pay income taxes. someone has brought it to my attention that neither of us will have earned more than $6000 this calendar year and will not be liable for any income tax. i will report a capital gains of $9.58. the recurring cost of making a pound of mozzarella cheese is $3.99. this is the same cost as a pound of the lowest quality mozzarella, pre-shredded. but the whey can be recooked to make ricotta, a pound thereof. ricotta means recooked in italian.

the reason i have to enumerate things in dollars and cents is that i overestimated my staying power in this bull market.

existentialism lite

There's always a way to understand the idiot, the child, the primitive person or the foreigner, provided that one has the necessary knowledge. In this sense we can say that there is a universality of man; but it is not given, it is perpetually constructed. I construct the universal by choosing myself; I construct it by understanding understanding every other man's project, in whatever epic it may be.

Sartre, L'existentialisme est un humanisme

because of the extra testing

guests came for the weekend. one whose name remains notorious said he came from houston.
-i thought you lived in dallas.
-no, for the summer i had to go to houston. i'm staying with my sister.
-that is why you didn't call back when i said i was in dallas.
-yeah, i had to get out of there. let's just say that ten minutes after i left, they told the cops that a certain sanjay kumar had been here and he was the one.
-sanjay kumar.
-yes, that man is wanted for multiple offenses.

everytime i am driving and i have to turn back and restart the trip i always announce 'ok this time for real.' we started to go to barton springs twice. the first time it turned out that duylinh needed palm sugar at a market on braker lane and this was the condition under which she'd agree to swim. she calls the koreans dirty kokos and has received word that they are the only people pretentious enough to enter a beauty pageant.
-i have never once said dirty koko. and besides, i have seen asian women hotter than the ones in that flier. much hotter.
-there are hotter ones in this parking lot, but it takes skills to win a pageant. you have to dance and sing. let's say you can't pout tea. you're fucked. tea ceremony is necessary.
-only japanese pour tea. i don't hate koreans. why do you make everything seem like a lawyer. i don't have to defend whatever i say. sometimes i just say because i feel like it. i don't need to explain.

this false start itself was broken up by a woman on the busy intersection at 38th and duval. maha said she was throwing away a smoker. i circled the block and put on the hazard lights (cum illae visae sint). it fit in the trunk and hadn't been used more than a few times. likely it was haunted.

there is a message on maha's phone that goes like this:
"look, let me tell you something. you don't ever fuck with a wrecker driver. because. i don't care what. i will find you and i will find out who you are and your car i will find your car. you better believe me. motherfucker. [sigh] you don't know what you're dealing with. i am going to find you. motherfucker."

the girl who came likes to dress nicely and dry her hair with a towel. there is a video of her break dancing on youtube.

Apports contre nature au pain francais, dans certains pays etrangers

But once we talk about french bread beyond the borders of l'Hexagone, we must note, with deep regret:

-that the flour in use is sometimes bleached at the mill by treatment with azodic peroxide or further modified by the addition of potassium bromate, as in the United States, England and certain anglophone countries; and that, in both cases, especially the former, its taste is profoundly denatured, profoundly crippled.
-that the dough itself, in bread called french bread, is often enriched with fat in many countries. This is often true in Belgium, in the United States, in Latin America, in Italy, and in Scandinavian countries.
-that it is often enriched with additives such as mono and diglycerides, fatty acids, as in Belgium, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil..., often with potassium bromate, at times an excessive dose, in the United States, in England and Argentina... And that such treatments, such additions, affect the taste of french bread, degrade it, denature it, warp it, often beyond recognition, no longer being french bread beyond its name and a vague shape, the form of a "stick", as Finnish bakers say. This does not exclude, alas, that the bread may be insidiously kneaded, through intensified kneading and lipooxygenase, associated, as we will see later, with affronts that are nearly as damaging, in France.

Calvel, Le Gout du Pain

strip

so and so and so and so were boycotting our house on account of the discriminatory policy against dogs until they became embroiled in another scandal and decided we can all unite under our common hatred for so and so, having an enjoyable dinner party. i was reading a recipe for fried oysters in a cookbook and it says "they are best served hot out of the pan, if your social situation permits. this reminds me of all the parties in cameroon where everyone eats the fried chicken cold except for the women who prepare it and embezzle part of it. really i don't judge anyone but i'm glad i don't get involved in the logomachy of bubble point's or so and so's corporate office because i don't work in an office.

ademas que no lo amas

there have been some interesting developments. rien n'est perdu pour l'histoire.

Dear Mr. Lovegren:



Attached is the information regarding our H-E-B/Hill Country Fare Flours.





Description Moisture (%) Ash (%)
Whole Wheat Flour 14 max NA
High Protein Flour 14 max 0.49 - 0.55
Self-rising All Purpose Flour 14 max NA
Unbleached All Purpose Flour 14 max 0.48 - 0.54
Low Protein Flour 13.5 max 0.33 - 0.39



We appreciate your interest in this product.

Suzanne
Senior Customer Relations Specialist

H-E-B Grocery Company

one more pieces of information:

1. the name for cocoyam in viet is khoai mon nho. a woman speaking in what i assumed to be yoruba was filling a shopping bag with khoai mon nho. we made curry with it in the evening and verily, they are cocoyams.

gravity rides

Favour is fair, in Luvis lair, by Alexander Scott

Favour is fair, in luvis lair,
Yit friendschip mair bene to commend,
Bot quhair despair bene adwersare,
Nothing is thair, bot woefull end.

Off men I mene, in scheruice bene,
Of Venus quene, but conforting,
Be Thame I wene, that mon sustene
The kairis kene of Cupeid king,

Continwance, in Cupeidis dance,
But discrepance, withowt remeid,
Sic was my chance, in observance,
But recompance, my lyfe to leid.

Hir court he jo, quhair evir thay go,
The lyfe is so, scho dois thame len,
Quhair his hes wo, withowttin ho,
He is sic fo, till faythfull men.

I speik expart, suppois I smart,
That scho hes gart me thus lament,
Bot this shame darte may causs hir harte
Heir estirwart also repent.

Sen so I se, to leif in le,
At libbertie, is weill but wo,
Happie is he, I say for me,
Quhen he is fre, can hald him so.

Congressman Thomas Davis (R-VA) on Pat Tillman's death

The tragic truth can only fall somewhere between screw-up and cover-up, between rampant incompetence and elaborate conspiracy.

NYtimes