Okay, everyone who's not bored or ridiculous, skip this part. If you don't have some reason to prioritize TOTALLY gratuitous pet footage, this is not for you. I'm determined to put it up though, since I spent 40 minutes trying to edit the thing. Anyway, here's Smokey rolling his girth around in some catnip:

He's a hostile bundle of love. We've got the night-biting down to a minimum though, which was necessary. For a while he was waking me up at 5am with his teeth. He never broke the skin or even bruised me, but that is not a nice way to wake up. I've cut him down to 2/3 cup of kibble a day (as you can see, he's very overweight and the only exercise he gets is jumping on my bed for a 6 hour nap) and it seems to run out around that time of the morning. So, I now sleep with a spritzer bottle under my pillow. He doesn't seem to like being sprayed in the face. It really only took two tries, which is encouraging. He's 10, so I can't have the wildest expectations, but there are some things that are pretty basic, like don't bite the hand the feeds you. Anyway, enough with that.

All you busy people can come back now, let's get down to business. My birthday was last Monday, which was a bit of a bummer, as I have class at 9:30 Tuesday morning. Nonetheless, I went home on Friday night and basically just reveled in the love (and booze) for three days. I love my friends, ya'll are awesome. Far and near, but it was particularly great to celebrate my birthday in Ithaca for a change. This time of year, for the last three, I've been getting to know new people and new places and I've been mostly alone, except for the wonderful 25th birthday party Andrew threw for me two years ago. I was looking at the framed picture Leah and Melissa gave me that year, sigh. Anyway, Sunday was the real celebration day, my Mom made pot roast with all the trimmings, and afterwards I hung with everyone at Madeleine's. So many people came, it was wonderful, all the more so since Amy just got back from her Boca trip.

The point is, you're all awesome. Thanks from the tips of my toes.

Academically everything is going rather swimmingly, despite the fact that I'm constantly shirking the full depth and breadth of my responsibility. It's not that I do nothing, I just don't take a solid shot at everything. A failure of motivation, as ever. Nonetheless, I am enjoying my classes, so let's have a rundown:

Tuesday I have Prof. Miller's Philosophical Foundations of Western Religion course, which I thoroughly enjoy. The level of discussion in these seminars is like nothing I've ever seen before, people actually talk and have evocative ideas. I try to contribute as best I can, but I still get shaky and discombobulated when I speak in class. This too shall pass. We're reading Plato, Plotinus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa... those are the books on the shelf in front of me. We do weekly response papers which I remember from Prof. Steele's Boethius class last year. They're good to do, in the sense that exercising is good to do, but I still find myself gritting my teeth every Monday night. No pain, no gain. There's a pithy bit of traditional wisdom for everything.

Wednesday at 9am I have Prof. Caputo's Levinas and Deleuze class, we're reading (among other things) Totality and Infinity and Difference and Repetition. What's going to kill me in this course is the pace. I don't even have time to formulate questions before we're on to the next bit of text. Makes me feel like an idiot actually, but I think it's a matter of training. I need to brush up on my scan and summarize skills anyway.

For lunch on Wednesdays I am treated by the department, for the Master's seminar. Basically what happens is the new Masters students are given a paper to read in advance, and then the faculty member comes in and talks about it for an hour and a half or so. It's required, and I get lunch. Does it get any better? I don't know. The only problem of course is that I often fail to come up with good questions, which I am also required to do. Again, I shouldn't let the calming effect of food undermine my basic fear of public humiliation. Priorities.

On Thursdays I have Prof. Watts' Idea of Scripture class, which is my first up and down religion course. I have to cut down a sapling to print out all the readings each week, but overall I'm finding it really interesting. I still have no idea what I will write my paper on, but Dr. Watts assures me I still have time to think about it.

In other news I've been spending more time with the other graduate students. I actually sang karaoke the other night! A bad mishmashed version of Mr. Bojangles, but I did in fact "sing" and got a hug from a man that assured me I would find my voice, and had complimented me on my Bettie Page bangs. Ultimately, I think I win. Everyone in the department seems really great, once again, everything's coming up Cake.

I'm even getting a handle on my work, doing it several days in advance. I'm still taking too much time on it, not working smart but merely hard, but I'm sure eventually I'll get the hang of it.

At any rate, I miss all of you that aren't here. I hope all is well wherever you are.

Esse

Czeslaw Milosz

I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of metro
stations flew by; I didn't notice them. What can be done,
if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects
ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the
void of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified
from the drawing of an animal or bird? A slightly snub
nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed-back hair, the
line of the chin - but why isn't the power of sight
absolute? - and in a whiteness tinged with pink two
sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous lava. To
absorb that face but to have it simultaneiously against
the background of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its
weeping, its laughter, moving it back fifteen years, or
ahead thirty. To have. It is not even a desire. Like a
butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more
mysterious. And so it befell me that after so many
attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat,
harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowel
beyond which no power can attain: I am, she is. Shout,
blow the trumpets, make thousands-strong marches,
leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the
immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering
because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering
because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds
and trees.

from Uncollected Poems (1954-1969)

Ahh the blogosphere... I've been away for a while, but in a sense, this is something of a sideshow, and I will remind everyone that even the freaks need a hiatus now and then.

I've been moving around a lot. Ithaca, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Toronto, Long Island, Syracuse, all more or less in the span of three months and I am bone tired. It doesn't help that the Syracuse religion department throws you on your feet as soon as you step in the door, but of course it bears mentioning that they do everything I've never expected a department to do to support their graduate students. It literally feels like I just walked into someone's living room, and I'm supposed to find my place and contribute... An odd combination of hospitality and capture. That being said, life is good.

Let's begin at the beginning. Coming home was even more than my nostalgia made it out to be. I have a high capacity for idealization, as is readily apparent, still I failed to imagine what awaited me. Ithaca is one of those places that you're lucky enough to find, let alone be from. I actually get anxious trying to describe it, because it's so experiential. It's not anything I could list about Ithaca that would convey what it is, so of course my arsenal fails. I'm a great lister, I like modifiers. To put it in an utterly banal way, I'm recharged, ready to go.

Going back to Pittsburgh was a trip. I miss the people. It was great hanging out with everyone, catching up, one dollar pints of PBR. If you put a lime or a lemon in a PBR, it's a totally different beer. I thought I would miss the Belgian beer, and I do sometimes, but honestly it's all beer to me. I have a very utilitarian view of it. Don't get me wrong, Belgian beer is way better, but in the end I think I'd rather socially drink four beers than drink one too fast and pass out uttering strings of unintelligibles.

At any rate, Pittsburgh too is a special place, I wish it was closer so there could be a more ready exchange. People are doing exciting things and I miss being a part of the conversation. I can't handle the environmental factors though. The industrialization, pollution, lack of infrastructure, economic depression and terrible grocery offerings make me feel like I'm stooping all the time, avoiding blows and becoming bitter by the minute. Some people thrive in that atmosphere, but I'm a hippie at heart, I'd rather be surrounded by farms and relatively clean air.

Toronto was bittersweet. I will love the city until I die, but I have made a hostile atmosphere for myself in certain quarters and so the feeling of homelessness is dramatically exacerbated. Gotta deal. It's a big city, and all the things I love about it are still the same, thank god. Seeing a few really close friends made it more than worth it. I'll be going again soon for others I didn't get a chance to see.

The big event in Toronto, of course, warrants its own paragraph. Leah and Ian got married. It was unlike any wedding I've ever been to, though naturally when two creative and beautiful people get married, it's usually likewise beautiful and creative. Claire and Luke's wedding was also an event for the books, as it were. (I delight in American idiom, I defy anyone who says English isn't a philosophical language.) So Leah and Ian got married, literally surrounded in a many layered circle of family and friends, and everyone cried and was happy. Leah's vow was utterly beautiful in sentiment and her unique spirituality, and the whole ceremony had a kind of joyous solemnity about it. The food was good, the bar was open, and I have great pictures out in the ether. I'll post the pic of the David Niners here, it's good to store historical records in more than one place. Well, different pockets anyway.

(Tina, Leah, me, Melissa)

Coming to Syracuse was a many staged process, and I still don't feel completely here yet. But this is one of the milestones: getting back to a writing (and reading) routine. I am so far behind of any schedule I could propose for myself that there have already been a few hundred-meter dashes. I don't mind really. There's been a big shakeup in Ashleyland and I have to get back to full speed a few baby steps at a time.

Speaking of shakeup, I'm not the only one. Old Smokey has joined me from Grandma's house and twice (!) he was dropped, including once -- on his head -- by me. It took him a few days to do anything but hide, including eat or go to the bathroom, but now he's levelling out. I bought him some treats and accomodations and he's getting less nervous every day. He's discovered my bed, and now thinks it's his. It forces me to make my bed at any rate, and he's cute when he's sleeping. I got him this pink basket -- it was the only color they had -- with imitation sheep's wool as a bed, and put some catnip in it. Now it's like his girlfriend. He hardly even lays in it, just rolls around and talks, kneads it with his clawless paws. I'm sure the catnip is gone by now, it must be the association.

Meantime, I've been trying to get comfortable in the new place. My apartment is easy, it's just time and money. I love living alone. No demands, no one else to worry about ('cept Smokey), I leave the dishes as long as I want, I put everything where I can reach it, it's glorious. The department is a different story. Trying to find a place for myself in a tight-knit, highly congenial academic atmosphere -- in a different discipline -- is like coming in from the cold and getting dirty snow on someone's authentic persian rug. It's unnerving to misread situations here. I put my foot in my mouth on a daily basis. I think it's part and parcel with my social anxiety: it's relatively assured that I will make an ass of myself as soon as I get comfortable. I'm far too forthcoming with half-baked speculations and sentimental excess. My friends accept this about me, even if they're not consciously aware of it. Friends are rare, I try to keep them, but I'm not awesome at it.

I think I'll end it there. It's time to figure out what to do next. I wrote a paper and gave a presentation last night and this afternoon, so I'm taking the rest of the day off reading and writing. I need to put pictures and mirrors up, and generally get this place in working shape.

I hope everyone is well.

Cake

Well, it's all over. In an hour and 19 minutes I'll head to the station and get on a train, three planes and then I'll be home. Unbelieveable. I did really well here, which I didn't expect. Proclamation yesterday was totally absurd, but also incredibly fun. Huge buffet, free booze (of course) and all the faculty that wouldn't talk to you the whole year suddenly clap you on the back and offer their congratulations. Marianne, Shane and I warmed up at my place with a bottle of Maker's Mark, which made the standing and waiting a lot easier. We were all pretty nervous, so we drank the rest of our bottle in the hall as they started to read out the Flemmish graduates. It was glorious when we heard our names, just glorious. Rocky made a speech with his usual wit and harried charm, he's one of the ones I'm really going to miss, even though we never really hung out. We didn't stick around for the rest of it, there was celebrating to do and "solemn" proclamations frown on hoopin' and hollerin'. In a truly bizarre moment, the string quartet played U2's "One" during one of the segues. This place is a trip.

Then we went and got our grades. I did so well on my thesis I had to sit down for a minute. I never thought I would do that well, but I worked damn hard, so it feels good. REALLY good.
I'm done here, and though I am certainly mangled, I think once everything heals I'll be just a little more solid than I have been. Marianne's going to the London School of Economics (where allegedly they have Bentham's head rolled out for meetings), Shane's going to Fordham (I'm insanely jealous) and I'm going to Syracuse, which I think may finally be my Shangri La. I am so proud of us, we did so well and it was such hard work.

Of course when the party thinned we all went to Libertad. To be honest, I don't remember much, but there was lots of laughing and hugging even though everybody was also a little sad. Apparently I took lots of pictures, so I'll post those soon. Everything's changing for most of us. I'm looking forward to my transition, I can't wait to be home, but I'm sure I'll get a little weepy on the plane.

Anyway, life is good. I'll see all of you stateside.


A.D.C. Cake, M.A.

I'm always talking about how I love feature length animated movies. One of the best guys out there is Brad Bird (the Iron Giant, the Incredibles) and this is a super awesome video tour of his work (via Boing Boing and Slate).

For all you Husserlians out there, I think this is pretty cool:

Sense of touch is crucial for empathy

Well, I'm leaving in two days. Of course it doesn't seem real, but my room is almost all packed. I've been walking around for weeks taking mental pictures, as soon as my camera charges up I'll put some of that in Jpeg. For now, I'm just enjoying being lazy, going to the happy place twice a day (pictures to follow as soon as Hemain gets off his duff) and generally not doing anything but pack and smoke and read and mess around on the internet.

Things I will miss:

1) The food. It doesn't get any fresher, though it's damned expensive.
2) The clothes. Fashion here is just so much better.
3) Rainy day sunshine. It thunderstormed three times yesterday, and you can just wait it out. The sunshine always reappears in ten minutes or so.
4) The architecture. The Stadhuis never gets old, neither do the backs of monastaries.
5) The beer. It makes me sick, unfortunately, but I don't think I'll ever enjoy any other beer after being here.
6) The Institute. Don't get me wrong, I don't ever want to study here again, but it's still a beautiful and eminent place. Nostalgia will ensue as soon as I get some distance.
7) The people. This should really be number one, but as I didn't really seem to mix with that many Europeans (with notable exceptions whom I will miss immensely) I hope to see most of my North American friends on the other side.
8) The markets. There's nothing like olive bread, theekoekes, fresh produce and aubergine spread. Not to mention americanos with Marianne on Fridays.
9) The Jimi thing. No I don't mean Dave Matthews. And that brings us to...
10) Maastricht. Besides Ithaca and Toronto, I've never loved another geographical space so much. I will live there someday, yes I will.
11) The chicken shack. I can't spell or pronounce the Dutch name. Stav, you make great chicken. I'm going back to being mostly vegan when I get back, so I think I'll have to eviscerate another poultry before I leave.
12) The smell. Leuven is a small place with a lot of food and greenery. Mixed with passing rainstorms and world cuisine, it just smells good all the time. Nevermind car exhaust, I try to stear clear of the thoroughfares.
13) Sidewalk culture. The Oude Markt booms with jovial voices whenever it's not totally freezing outside.
14) The concerts. Sooo much better than in the States. The acts come on like clockwork, the venues are small, beautiful and more or less affordable. Plus EVERYONE comes through here. I saw Badly Drawn Boy, The Decemberists, Sparklehorse, The Album Leaf, Sonic Youth, Do Make Say Think and Tortoise here and in Brussels. There were tons more I wanted to see, but you know... gotta make choices. Chris and Marianne went to see Motley Crue, which still strikes me as fabulous.
15) Copyright lassitude. These people don't bat an eyelash when you photocopy a whole book. Look, I'm a student. If I can't pirate, I can't do all the things I'm capable of doing. Besides, I more than make up for what I don't pay in word-of-mouth advertising if I like something.
16) The languages. I think this would be higher up on the list if I wasn't so utterly embarrassed by the failings of my American education. Yes, federal government, I'm pointing at you. There are a lot of other reasons too, but it really seems that it's a total liability to be an American academic in the Continental field. I still can't utter a sentence in Dutch. My French is only slightly improved in terms of reading comprehension (I got to put that sweet line in my thesis that "all English translations of this work are mine," but really I was just showing off and moreover couldn't ignore the source).
17) Erasmus. Mieke, Bart and Harry have been very good to me this year. Mieke never judges me when I ask for two coffees at once. I think she's possibly the best server I've ever witnessed in action.
18) Smoking in bars. I know, I know, but it's nice for smokers.

I'll add more later. I have to go drop stuff off at the dump.

I'm done. It went well, I "defended" myself. And I'm done.

Ummm... I agree with Pat Buchanan, what does this mean? Moreover, I picked this article from American Leftist.

On the escalator to War With Iran

You will not believe this. If the "gay bomb" was seriously considered as a non-lethal weapon... do we laugh? do we cry? do we resort to lethal weapons? I got this from the "queen of media" Perez Hilton.

Pentagon Confirms it Sought to Make a "Gay Bomb"

Also: Requiescat in pacem.

Mr. Wizard died today, he was 90. I have fond memories of childhood science because of his show, he will be missed.

There are all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't be allowed to write blogs in the middle of the night, least of all when I'm indulging some demonic wish to make myself tired tomorrow simply because I can. I finished my exam paper for Bernet today, so that's the last major piece of writing I have to do in Belgium. Things slow down a little from here, which is just good in every possible way. I need a break, I won't get a real one until the exams (only 2) and the thesis defense are over, plus I have this book profile that I was given to do almost a year ago and should have been done months and months before now. Such is the nature of things, I'm done beating myself up over it. I made a schedule and it's getting done on time, what more can be expected of me shall not be mentioned.

All this being said, I am writing a blog whether it's a good idea or not, because I have stories to tell that are already late (see above forfeiture of self-upbraiding). Number one, H.A. Nethery came to visit me. He came at what others might think was a bad time, but honestly, I don't know if I would have made it through those 9 excruciating days without him. With grace, insight and generosity -- as is his natural disposition, which I maintain against his irrepressible modesty -- he read the entire damn thing and commented on every page. He even sat through verbal rehearsals of my intro and conclusion, and without that interlocution I think my thesis would have suffered from the inevitable pitfalls of my otherwise self-enclosed ideality (for any Kierkegaard readers out there, is this enclosing reserve? or am I still just a depthless aesthete?)
He fit in Europe like a hand in a glove, though I think the likes of him should take up residence in Berlin or Prague. Leuven is many things, but it is not cool. I won't rant, but let's just say metal shirts, tattoos and mirrored aviators were like a breath of free air in this stifling sea of sameness. [Too much alliteration? Maybe. I found a note to self in the submitted version of my thesis. In the introduction, no less. It reads "Put something else in here." Dave drew my attention to the Freudian connotation, no further comments needed.]

Second on the list was the Kierkegaard weekend, hosted by my promoter, Paul Cruysberghs at his sister's summer house in Trou de Bra, a gorgeous hilly region in Wallonia. The house was the presbytery of a church (congregation 15) and between the church and the presbytery -- where I was sleeping -- is a hugely elaborate grotto immitating in its way the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, but with a touch of Belgian nationalism and ostentatious (gold) kitsch. I was struck by it, and a little afraid. Religious zealotry has always given me pause, which is not to say I think its irredeemable.
There were ten of us, 6 grad students and 4 others, some professors, a priest, and an author by the name of Sarah Miano, who wrote Encyclopedia of Snow which I remember being recommended to me a while ago. It was really a very intense weekend. Kierkegaard by day, drinking and talking and chess at night, it was a little strange, and I had trouble adjusting at first, but Margherita was there, and Viktor as well, so it didn't take me long to get over my incredulousness and join in to the best of my ability. I can't drink like these Europeans though, so much is certain.
The Sickness Unto Death is a brilliant little book. It's little and huge at the same time. So direct, like a doctor giving a diagnosis to another doctor. Reading Kierkegaard seems to be all about preparation. You have to prepare yourself to understand him, no matter how obscure he seems at times. It's like you have to will that it makes sense, and then suddenly you're standing naked before everyone who's ever read this text. His descriptions are profound multi-layered distillations of religious, philosophical and psychological experience and there seems to be nothing that escapes his tireless, even obsessive insight. He was a force of nature, and I stagger to think that I have just submitted a commentary that pairs him with Lacan, who, in his way, has the same kind of power.

I am driveling. Was there something else? Not that I can think of. And so, photos:



Yay! Blogspot fixed the photo formatting!! Cut and paste freedom! This is H.A. and I, doing what we do best in the Blauwe Kater. Nevermind why I'm holding the candle, that beer was 11.5%.


My friends Dave and Astrid that same night. Dave is the one I play MarioKart with, his company is always refreshing, even Arnis notices. As it turns out I just tuned into the HTML obviousness, so it wasn't Blogspot's problem at all.

There are many, many reasons why I love Maastricht, but this is just one. From what we can muddle out of the faded Dutch inscription, a guy was there on that bridge for 70 years, somehow distributing cigarettes to the townsfolk. Statues, like time capsules right out in the open. I wish we had more in the States.
This, is another. It's a bizarre installation in an old zoo cage, in the middle of the municipal park. I touched it up in snipshot.com because it was horribly washed out, it didn't come out of the camera this way. As it turns out the oscillation between html editing and "compose"ing is still a pain, so Blogspot's back in the fire of my frustration.
and H.A. and Charles on the platform in Liege. Charles and I had turned in our theses that day, so we all went to Maastricht. God how I love that place, nothing but escape and celebration. If I make it through my PhD I think I'm going to apply for a post-doc in Maastricht. Somehow, some way, I will live there someday. Does it rhyme? Good, now I have a mantra.

Okay... tired. It's ridiculously late for me. I will forego the alarm, just because I can.

Love,

Cakes

People of the world, I have finished my thesis. I think in many ways I am a changed person. It may seem grandiose and bombastic of me, and despite my proclivity for such tones, there are now 89 pages worth of commentary in the world that weren't there before. I wrote them, interspersed heavily with rephrasings and blockquotes. I could tell you how I've changed, but that might be too much. As it turns out, over-determination is just the noisy road to despair. I think perhaps that's not my preferred route, despite the fact that it will take me time to remember why and how to go about avoiding it.

I cannot remember being this tired, and certainly not for such a sustained period. I still have so much work to do. It's bizarre, really. I think I may get 4 days to pack at the end, but the day before I leave is the all-encompassing "proclamation," which it makes me laugh to think about. Oh, the pomposity. They will call my name, and then they will "proclaim" on what scale I have been lauded. A more ridiculous social gathering I cannot imagine, all of which is ameliorated by the fact that it is simultaneously a BBQ. It's like the twilight zone here. Or maybe I'm just looking out of the psychedelic lenses that being this tired and this overwhelmed by the all-important mystery of their expectations have given me. Un-freakin-believable. I better be unconsciously psychic, that's the only way I'll make it out of here without being mangled.

All the more so, let me say that I am looking forward to spending the weekend with my promotor (Dr. Paul Cruysberghs) and a dozen other graduate students for the purpose of examining The Sickness Unto Death. Apparently Dr. Cruysberghs does something like this every year. We're going to a cottage and we're going to read Kierkegaard, all weekend.

I gotta go be outside for a while ... even though it's raining.

Lates!

Cakes

Again through Boing Boing, this is really simple and powerful. An art professor at the Art Institute in Chicago, who's Iraqi, locks himself in a room and lets people shoot him with a paintball gun through the internet. Momento the human.

Interview with Wafaa Bilal
by Brian Boyko

Mr. Boyko makes a point about dehumanization in IT, but after thinking about the more deadly connotations, that sounds a bit nerdy. Granted, it is from "the network performance authority."

Once again, I found a cool thing at Boing Boing. I have to resist the temptation just to repost everything they post, so awesome are the peeps over there. For some reason I've always been interested in the regional differences that seem to crop up in the terminology for carbonated beverages, and once again, the omniscient virtual realm has provided neatly organized answers to my questions. Alan McConchie is responsible for this, and you can look at the info and contribute to the information via his survey.

Yesterday I had the very fortunate experience of travelling to one of my favorite places of all time (Maastricht, NL) to attend a very small and intense conference on freedom in Psychoanalysis. It was held at the Jan Van Eyck Academie which seems to be a small group of independent artists and scholars who do what they do and then host lots of cultural and academic events. It was a really great day, I was all aquiver with new information and they provided lunch! I wasn't confident enough to say anything, but talking to some of the scholars I think Lacan's interpretation of Kierkegaard indicates the way the modern paradigm is forced to conceive human freedom negatively in terms of our freedom to die/defy the law. It is certainly the case that Adam's freedom in the garden is limited to the possibility of sin, which is of course unlimited, but once he takes that "qualitative leap" and eats of the fruit, we're all condemned to that distance from God that allows us to rattle around anxiously and do all kinds of things that seem contrary to nature. This is the account Haufniensis gives in The Concept of Anxiety anyway. I think that this corresponds to the distance that the symbolic order (language etc.) gives us from Lacan's sense of the Real, as an utterly meaningless transcendent element we need protection from. So says Lacan, the dilemma is now: "Your Freedom or your Life." You can be free, but that means giving up everything that makes your life meaningful.
Yee ha!

This is just plain cool.... A 2,100 year old computer. The picture above is of course only a replica. The original spent two millenia at the bottom of the ocean.

Hilarious! I think our paranoia is getting the better of us? Not to mention a bizarre degree of cultural isolation.

Wireless spy coin was just a Canadian poppy coin

AND, I found this through BoingBoing and now I'm totally hooked on Bibliodyssey, such amazing stuff goes up there, even though pk insists he's very busy. Some people can do it all... I thought of Phoebe when I saw these skull people.

I found this following a mention of Borges' Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. Xul Solar was an Argentinian "everythingologist" and this link leads to an incredibly beautiful blog (and what looks like a very fantastic blog) post by misteraitch.