Month: March 2010

Esse est percipi

I once wrote the following mock-horoscope:

Philosopher Bishop Berkeley once claimed that all material objects—indeed, all of space and time—are merely illusions—to which the famous critic Samuel Johnson remarked, “I refute it thus!” and promptly smashed Berkeley’s head against a nearby rock. We think there’s a moral in that for all of us.

Which I bring up only because my Forgotten English desk calendar informs me that today is George Berkeley‘s birthday.

You know, if not for that, and the fact that today was Friday, I don’t know that I’d have anything to say about it at all.

Random 10 3/12

So we had less than remarkable results with this last week. Will this week prove to be better?

  1. “Collecting Rocks” by Super XX Man
    Is that what you call a somber tune?
  2. “Sidedish Friend” by Rachael Yamagata
    And we can stay together separately and we won’t be lonely at all
  3. “Double Takes” by Christine Fellows
    I don’t think life just happens to you
  4. “Eyesight to the Blind” by the Who, guessed by Generik
    You know her daddy gave her magic
  5. “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley, guessed by Clayton
    Where broken-hearted lovers do cry away their gloom
  6. “Valentine’s Day” by Hello Saferide
    And I won’t see you looking at that girl’s butt
  7. “I Can’t Help it If I’m Still in Love With You” by the Holmes Brothers (feat. Rosanne Cash)
    A picture from the past came slowly stealing
  8. “The Drinking Song” by Moxy Früvous, guessed by Chris McLaren
    We lived in the noise and the sweet amber poison
  9. “Slide” by Ani DiFranco
    And her feet were the pedals while her appetite steered
  10. “The Best of Jill Hives” by Guided by Voices
    Every child of God’s a brat

Guess the lyric, win no prize! Good luck!

Thursday

I’d be lying if I said today was particularly exciting. We had a team meeting this morning, mostly to discuss the books still in the pipeline, and not yet in production, for 2010. We have about a six-month production schedule, so it’s going to be a mad scramble to make the year with some of these titles. After that, I spent most of the day reading a revised chapter on counseling older adults, with lots of statistics about depression and suicide rates and all that fun stuff. With luck, I’ll finish with the chapter tomorrow and then receive the final chapter in time to put the book into production by the end of next week. I’d like to get it off my desk before I head off to a conference in San Jose in a couple of weeks.

And meanwhile…no, sorry, that’s really about it. Just your typical boring Thursday.

The city that never sleeps (though I do)

No weird sandwiches for lunch today, I’m afraid. At the office, we had one of our regular “brown bag lunch” talks, where they invite a guest speaker and give everybody free pizza or sandwiches. Today was a pizza day, which was okay, though I wish I could say the same about the talk. Ostensibly it was about New York, the love-hate relationship the rest of the nation (and New Yorkers) have with the city, and moreover how that relates to the current economic crisis. Wall Street fat cats, that sort of thing. And I guess it was that, but I just found it meandering and a little preachy, even when I agreed with some of the anti-corporate points the speaker was trying to make. In all, the free pizza was the best part of the deal.

This evening, though, I actually had a regular (albeit open-faced) Reuben for dinner. My mother and I picked my father up at the eye doctor’s — he’s doing well — and we had dinner at a pub/bistro around the corner. We actually just got home a little while ago, and I think I’m going to use this hour before bed to watch last night’s Lost. I tried watching it last night, but it just didn’t work out.