This post by (apparently) a professor at a British university highlights some of the aspects of Utopia of Rules that I found most striking. It also draws attention to a university protest in Europe that I didn’t know about. The More You Know and all … In keeping with the Graeber FanGirl motif, I recommend his recent Baffler piece about neckties and the strange gender/power language of business clothing.

My cultural quandary of the week: The novel Gone With The Wind and the film adaptation thereof were two formative cultural influences on my life. I recognize that both were appallingly racist and that no reference I make to GWTW will ever scan as culturally appropriate to a person of color. The issue is that one of my friends with whom I share a guilty love of GWTW is coming to work in my office next week. He occasionally addresses me as “Katie Scarlett” in a fake Irish brogue and I say “Pa!” If one is not an obsessive GWTW expert, this is a fairly obscure reference. Is this going to create a hostile work environment? Related question: is there a term of art for things one loves even though one recognizes that they are philosophically appalling? (Other than “grandparents,” of course.)

Binge-reading everything I can get my hands on by Erich Maria Remarque (except All Quiet On The Western Front for some reason). So far I have read two of three novels I found at the Alexandria City Public Library – Three Comrades and Arch of Triumph are the ones I’ve finished, and I still have A Time To Love and A Time To Die to go – and have had my heart broken by two. It’s just a festival of emotional catharsis over here. Does Philip Kerr channel Remarque’s heroes consciously in his Bernie Gunther novels?

Skipped biology lecture on Thursday night to attend an Art Jamz event at the Sackler Gallery with Turtleduck, marking the first time since grade school that I have attempted to actually paint a picture. Picture was awful and is living in the back of my car, but the process was fun. In related news, now procrastinating from my biology homework to write a blog post.