November 18, 2002, 5:26 p.m.
01.
Mark jokingly says I'm getting old as we walk past a new crop of
punk rockers sparechanging on Telegraph with a "FUCK YOU GIVE ME MONEY"
sign. I say I'm just bored with the same old tune.
02.
I am reading Materializing Democracy, edited by Russ
Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson. Mmm, political theory goodness. It eases
my pain in these tough times.
03.
A few weeks ago Mark and I realized that there are abandoned kittens
living in the brush and concrete debris between our apartment building
and the parking lot of the Thai and Chinese restaurants. We made an
attempt to rescue the meow-meows (as I like to refer to them) but
they were too small (and frightened) to nab from beneath craggy cement
slabs. Instead, we've been leaving food and water out for them in
plastic containers set out by the dumpster and recycling bins. I've
tried to be sneaky about it, because I'm not sure how the restaurant
people feel about the kittens. At night, after the lot is emptied and
locked, we see the kittens playing on the asphalt, chasing weeds and
munching our daily donations.
04.
At a reception held at the journalism school, I
ran into an acquaintance who revealed that our mutual friend had taken a
rightward turn in the aftermath of 9/11. I felt sad but not
surprised.
05.
So, so close to being done with my second chapter, or done
enough.
September 17, 2002, 12:35 a.m.
a. I am reading about Andy
Warhol and Pop art. A former professor of mine edited a collection of
essays about Warhol. Once, he called me a "vulgar materialist" in class,
which was funny because I'm not really, but I was stung all the same.
b. I am sitting in an uncomfortable plastic
chair in the Media Resource Center, watching on a small television
set the 1974 documentary film Hearts and Minds (dir. Peter
Davis). listening to General William Westmoreland discuss "Oriental"
fatalism, when it suddenly occurs to me, "I don't know nearly enough
about fascist modernism and the avant-garde!"
c. I am searching for an intellectual community, but
I sometimes feel hampered by the interdisciplinary nature of my
training. Can I participate in a visual cultures writing group if I am
not a film or psychoanlytic theorist? Should I take this political
science seminar even though my knowledge of European political
philosophy is scattered and selective?
d. I am wondering if persons who are in bounded
disciplines ever have these secret thoughts of intellectual insecurity,
of feeling as if they do not know enough.