This is a very first seriously flawed video. It is a synthesis of various pictures and clippings from video. It has a soundtrack, and a very fragmentary badly recorded commentary that make the sequence of images somewhat meaningful. I also fear that it may have some odd breaks filled with nothingness, the result of problematic editing. It is in short a test. To see if I can produce compressable and editable text. It took some time to produce but it was fun even if you think it is not worth much. Let us now see how it shows on the big (well... small) screen.

We're experiencing growth in the Vancouver Ann Arbor contingent. More members arrive and proper dinner part numbers have already been reached. On another front, papers have been corrected and grades will be submitted tomorrow. I can now fully dedicate myself to research and to playing with my new camera a Canon Powershop S5IS. It is fully automated as I did not feel ready for the digital SLR experience. This already has enough options to make me happy, plus 8 megapixels and a 12X zoom. I am looking forward to the summer and the archeological tour. For now however, I am ready to leave for dinner with members of the Ann Arbor contingent.

I want to write a story on stargazers; on Byzantine men looking at the stars seeking meaning. I want it to rise from the pages of one document and intertwine itself with well known stories about other book-writers their interests and their occult activity. I want it to tell us something about how those few people sought answers to the mess which they experienced, as the empire in the eleventh century collapsed around them. I want it to be compelling and funny. I want to make it into a paper, I want to present it at some conference, and then go for dinner or drinks with my colleages, talk like those Byzantine stargazers about the mess we are facing in our own world, and feel as if we maybe hold the answers to all the problems surrounding us.

Rain, endless rain. Vancouver is treating us with its finest rain. Tea time, paper correction time, film time and library visit time. We have to start, however, from the waking up time. From the hard, not nearly hang-overed, yet still nearly impossible task of getting out of bed on a day when there was no sun there to greet you. Under those conditions you deal with reality in a not particularly enthusiastic fashion. You think of things you need to do and of those you are already mechanically doing, you add to those some other things you feel that maybe you would actually love to do, things which in themselves are not truly pleasant but could potentially allow some of the things you need to do, to be done more easily, therefore relieving you, and you take a coat, you get in the car and drive to the...spaceship. You can easily miss this spaceship. It exists in a universe encased by cement and glass, yet if you ignore the modern architecture and peek in, through the square windows, windows like any other square windows, which could be leading into a world of cubicles, watercoolers and animated officetrons, then you will be rewarded with a scene from the best SF cinema. The UBC Barber Learning Centre is a storage facility from outer space. A mechanical wonder of book taxonomy. Dt from order of book to delivery on the circulation-desk counter, less than three minutes. You collect the book as well as your scatered thoughts on modernity and step out in the rain once again. Arcade fire infiltrates the scene, but this is from hours later when you are at home, sitting at the couch writing this account. The intrusion of the future in the rainy past is pleasant, the walk is to the burger joint and to marking of students' papers. The hours pass, the white pages with the inkjet-spurted wisdom aquire their small, relatively orderly marginalia and the time comes to take a break. You go to the movies and travel to Paris and to couple paranoia and reality. Good to know that Julie Delpie is actually smart. Two days in Paris packed in less than two hours. Pas mal.

Woke up after a very nice, active evening at the Vancouver Commodore. We had predrunk, twoo gin and Tonics and home over dinner and a manhattan at an overpriced dive close to Granville. Then we just went to the venue early not knowing what to expect of the place. The Commodore is a nice venue. elevated, near cinema balcony style areas with seating and the possibility of dinner and then a large center stage before the stage where groups perform. The group took its time, and of course we were early so we waited 1,3 hours for the beginning of the show. It was worth it though. The geriatric DJ was a gem and the show, once started, was great. There are caveats though. The Vancouver crowd took 45 minutes to get into the music and still significant amounts of people behaved like calvinists in a church. Still by the encores which lasted as long as the main show the crowd was happy and active. As for the group they were characteristically rampant and happy. I enjoyed it as much as the show at the Magic Stick in Detroit, though the novelty made that show more interesting.

This is an effort to support Persia. Consume its Baluchi rugs and keep its economy alive in view of the coming deluge. In other terms, keep consuming, only with the broader world as the market place. Here is the hallway in the apt and the cat. The books just make it in the mirror like like the viewer of the couple in the Arnolfini wedding. For more hedonism I add the following picture of gorgeous lamb from a dinner we had at home a few weeks ago. Just as an attempt to distract the mind from the greyness of this day and the coming political mess of September. In a few hours we will go see Gogol Bordello in downtown Vancouver. If the concert is anything like the show at the Magic Stick in Detroit it will be excellent. More to report later. Now I need to consider the logistics for the creation of a class blog for my seminar. Mouble mouble...

Mutability is good. Makes things interesting, and ultimately is a principle built-in in life. Yet mutability is one of those things that you learn to hate when living in Vancouver, when you are unable to plan a weekend because rain follows sun, pretty much with the same probability (though not certainty) that a night trails the day. So, here we are, on a Sunday I was to take off work and use for some hiking, sitting at home and looking out at what can at best be described British bleakness.

Energy is another word of interest. If I do not muster some energy I can see myself sitting on this chair and checking the news all day. I am bound to chat with some blogger on things Iranian and guaranteed to be depressed by more news of forest fires in Greece. Can we not please send them our rain? Yes the story goes that September is going to be the month for all things Iranian. I can already see the sad faces of my students and the good folk in North Van when our neighbors in the South decide that not having enough on their plate, what makes most sense is to attack Persia.
It has to be wondered whether it is power that makes people crazy, or whether this, the American Empire, is more peculiar than every other one before it. It is probably the first imperial state to be abducted by a clique of people using it solely for their own interests. Every imperial state to some extent does that. Rome expanded to offer commands and enriching opportunities to its senatorial elite, England expanded to serve a number of commercial interests and in order to provide legitimacy for a number of succesful pirates (I know history redux). You could even argue that as those states expanded, at least their populations benefited alongside the elites from the reality of empire. Yet all those empires had a sense of what their limits were and eventually, when they reached them, simply scaled down their activities. The US has reached its limits yet, it faces an interesting reality. While its influence, both economic and political is becoming increasinly limited, it still has the means to project force.

And here is where it gets interesting. It would be to the interest of the general population of the US for its elite to realize they are no longer an empire (call it superpower if you will) and go through a voluntary process of demobilization. In the case of the US there is no India or Rodesia to be abandoned. What should rather be mothballed, if not outright scrapped are at least half of its aircraft carriers, half of its airforce and at least half of its armed forces. The US has to become like France and England, even better, like Germany after the second world war. A country that has enough troops to send on a peace mission but no more. This would naturally create an automatic economic boom as resources waisted in non-productive investment in the wasteful defense industries, would go to fuel a services economy based on innovation, education and welfare. Yet this is a pipe dream, as the strength of the armed forces, allows the tiny plutocratic cabal ruling the country to make one last attempt at looting society before the inevitable turn towards new forms of Keynesianism shows its face.
We are dealing with a class of a few hundred men with stocks and stock options in positions of power, using the most powerful military machine ever to act on earth, to amass loot, as much loot as possible, before they are faced with some sort of popular reaction. What is interesting, in our case is that those men, the ones most wrapped in the flag of all Americans, are also the ones who will be the first to take their money and live in some Caribbean island or, as the case may be, in Southern France; a place most suited for rich retirees with a history of imperial overstretch. So the sooner we realize that we are no dealing with Americans per se, but with accummulative barbarians, the sooner we will remedy the situation and will lead this great neighbors of ours, and with it the world, to a safer path, where real concerns, from famine and human rights to the environment can be addressed.

Been a while. Have to wonder what spurs the communication bug. Is it simply lack of company? Possibly. Highly likely in fact. Anyhow. NAY approaching (New Academic Year) and things are bound to get busy. AS for me I am still escaping with bad writing in world I am sure I would not like to live in. Escape from what you ask? Who knows. Things are more or less optimal and yet Byzantine fantasies keep me occupied. Have a taste of bad prose:

The professor paused and turned to his students. It was early in the morning and a good 10 out of 17 were still in Morpheus' world, present bodily but absent in every other sense from the classroom. Two of the younger ones were looking at him with bright eyes. It was to be expected. Attaleiates’ great grandson Theodore and Psellos’ great granson Basileios Malesis sat on the front row proud to hear their professor read from the famous history of Skleros Seth, the foremost historian of his generation, still alive though impossibly old, and prolific like few others. Seth, who had been the son of a friend of their great grandfathers and one of Psellos’ last students had grown to become a sensation in Constantinopolitan letters. His Historia Leptomeres was a model of historical composition and was taught in every classroom. The professor turned to Theodore and before he could address him the 15 year old opened his mouth: "it is Thucydidean master. Seth starts with Thucydides’ staged dialogues, only he does something very interesting. This is not simply a set piece with each side presenting a dialogue to the agora. This is more novelistic. It is as if Seth wants us to know everything about the event. Clothes matter, tables and rolls of paper, even what the people felt, their hesitations. I have not seen this in Thucydides. I have not seen it in my great grand father’s work either. He cut straight to the chase. Not with Seth. He seems to have taken Achileas Tatios and the other Greek novelists and stole their techniques of detailed description. And I have to admit, he seems to have read a lot of Malesis’ great grandfather as well. All this emphasis in their inner thoughts is Psellos, it cannot be anything else." The master was once again awestruck. The young man before him was showing acumen that few mature readers, let alone students had shown in the many years of his teaching. He took another careful look at Theodore, clapped his hands to awake the two sleeping students at the end of the class and threw a reed stylus at a third who had fixed his gaze at the rear of Artemis’ statue standing at the crossroads just outside the school. He then addressed the young man with warmth that rarely escaped his body. "Theodore you’re truly right with this, and I may even argue that there is more. We are no longer in the realm of historiography. This class, by reading Skleros Seth is not just talking history. With Skleros we have politics weaved elegantly in the text. Have you noticed the configuration of the dialogue? Have you thought of the participants? Why does Skleros introduce devolution with those men and in the form of a dialogue? What does it mean that a man in a monk’s dress, known as a philosopher, a judge and ultimate authority are discussing politics? Do you see how the most important moment for the reform of our great empire’s system of governance is rooted by Seth in religion, philosophy, justice and victorious imperial power? Am I getting through to anyone of you? Does anyone other than Malesis and Theodore get it?" The silence was disappointing. The master started thinking that his classes would have to meet later in the day. The students before him were too sleepy, or simply too dumb.

Doors offer access even as they block it. In my apartment-building doors are what keeps the world outside and firedoors what creates a notion of safety inside. You see the building had suffered a fire years ago and like London post 1666 the psychosis among the natives is palpable. I buy it, I understand it, but I also, as a Greek feel odd about it. Fire hazzard drills were non-existent in Greece where cement just makes us assume a posture of hubris; that is till the forest next to us burns... Meawhile in my own abode, the logistical possibility of hosting people has just been created as my couch-bed has arrrived making my space more friendly to visitors. And even as my place is ready to be lived-in, I have to abandon it in order to play tour-guide for 29 young Canadians. Good luck to me and to them.

A new day brings me closer to the departure, but also directly into a new kind of work and life arrangement as by now I am getting to test-live my new place. I have not used the bedroom yet but I am settled on my desk and dealing with the bureaucratic and research issues that constitute my life at this stage. It is not the brightest of days, which is an understatement for :it has been raining all day and I just saw a bit of light from the south east," yet it feels good listening to the Band and editing a future article. The new work area is pretty good and well positioned for Vancoveur's grey reality, just under the main living-room windows. More work to be had, not more procrastinating.

Here I am in new environs. This posting will have the mundane but necessary function of guiding you through my new abode. It starts from the middle. We skip the entry and the front door as I simply did not photograph it. Maybe a sense that the name "Oakcrest" written on the translucent door window would invite mocking comments. Or maybe just a haste to drag you into the very inards of my world. What you see here is the living room with emphasis on the windows and the Audio-visual equipment. Should you wish to escape this second picture shows you the way towards the corridor. One could argue that the breadth of this hall is space wasted. To be frank, in my previous space this hall would have made up a bedroom. Still should you wish to leave here is the door. So, you are still here. Let us then turn towards the food preparation laboratory. To reach it we have to go past the dining room. One is linked to the other and both are connected to the living room as is plainly evident from this next picture. To the left side of the dining room just before the windows there is space for a bookcase. Unfortunately it simply did not fit the stairs up to my aprtment. It patiently waits dismantling and reassembly. Glory and curses to IKEA. So you arrive to the dining room, which has pretty decent light. In fact the apartment in general has very good light, which I am afraid may mean that I will be warm in the summer. Contributions to global warming are expected as an airconditioning unit may be purchased. Smaller than my previous kitchen, this one is less kitsch and at the same time has at least as many cupboards and storage. Overall an improvement though I will miss the in-kitchen table. On our way out of the kitchen we get the opportunity to look at the living room from the very corner of the dining-space and get the full size of the windows looking on oak. I should be getting pictures of the mountains to the north-east. Yes I can see them from my windows. I lack balconies though. We move to the bedroom. This is the view from the bathroom accross the hall and into the bedroom. As you can see the light is pretty good in this area of the apartment as well. The bedroom is also used as an office and yet it does not seem as if this makes it crammed. So this is it. I may post more as paintings go up the walls and as my desk and bookcase are positioned in place. More of the bedroom will also follow. For now a break. Health.

The early morning rise has its rewards. You see a world untouched yet from the fretfulness of the day that runs on coffee. I drove N to the airport and then took the bus to campus. Some work to be done on my course and a medical kit to collect for the field -school. Even as I ride the bus I feel my self getting aggravated by the bumps on the road shaking my note-taking tablet. Even as the day grows older I feel anger seeping in me. I have to wonder whether life is mostly a process of anger management. The ones of us who do it best are the either successful or quietly irrelevant. Those who fail are incarcerated, killed in a blaze of rapid machine gun fire or simply rise to become Attila the Hun. The day however, is still young and the sun pierces the dense forest on the hill to my work. Not a bad moment even if I feel the urgent need for sleep, or maybe more coffee. I have arrived at the office and among other things I am once again facing a naked door. Someone removed my name tag from the door. It is the second time and it is a bit annoying. You assume that once you got your F you turn to self-reflection and work harder. I need to be careful however, who knows how one moves from stealing name tags to shooting the professor. Maybe this will be the next form of academic attire. Please excese the gratuitous use of sexy bullet proof vest model.

There is something reassuring in seeing an electorate learn. The French are certainly still in an existential crisis regarding the direction of their republic, they have nevertheless learned an important lesson: if you do not want the fascists in the game and if you want to have a choice between slightly different visions of the future, you need to vote. Apathy is not a political statement. With participation in the order of 80 t0 85% the French have made this Sunday a celebration of the political process, with football games on the side as a refreshment to boot. So Lyon is winning the championship for this year in France and the Sego-Sarko shootout will entertain us in two weeks time offering a true clash of distinctly different ideas rearding France's future direction. Whether we like the two clashing visions or not is another story. At least for now we can be consoled in the existence of la différence.

To return to a tired subject I will quote people I normally dislike, the Economist: "Americans are in fact queasier about guns than the national debate might suggest. Only a third of households now have guns, down from 54% in 1977. In poll after poll a clear majority has supported tightening controls." I will stop at this point writing about guns in the US. I am not exactly sure what prompts me to even bother. Maybe the feeling that this constitutes one of the more egregious violations of reason on the part of our neighbors in the south. For now then lets leave it at that and focus on writing a biography of a medieval Byzantine bureaucrat and meeting my students for punch and chatter. The new big question is the following: how to put the life experience of your friends in a biography of a medieval man and make it relavant. To offer a hint, it is the big man in the City whose life I find useful for historical analysis.

Tim Kaine noted with an air of righteousness worthy of a medieval pope that he has "nothing but loathing for those who take the tragedy and make it political." Well, not that it matters, but I have nothing but contempt for people like Tim Kaine. People who have been instrumental in converting the term "political" into a slur only to themselves score points in a political board-game. By making this statement Kaine was embarking in this most "Bushian" of activities: pre-emptive strike. Not politician of note in the US made a statement linking guns and the crime on VTech's campus, not one, that itself a sad reminder of the collapse of meaningful debate in the US, and of the sterilization of politics from anything like substantive discussion. Yet the Democratic governor struck and made a hyper-political move by attacking those who had not expressed themselves, i.e. the cowed, defeated majority of Americans who want gun controls. Like a nasty tyrant unleashed on the hopeless majority, Kaine created a false enemy and then savaged that imaginary foe, so as to strike a chord with the demented pro-gun electorate he serves in Virginia. As if the gun-control majority has not been savaged enough over the years by representatives too weak to take a stand and legislate. It is Kaine who deserves loathing for libelling the gun-control majority and scoring political points with the gun-totting nuts. It is Kaine who is a sad reflection of what the future of the Democrats and the country as a whole looks like. I would be ready, if not too happy, to accept this type of Democrat if at least they were truly liberal in issues of class, if they represented an odd gun-slinging ABBA-style scandinavian economic vision. Yet I think that we can safely discount this. Just because Webb is a populist, it does not mean we are in for a new New Deal. Be pessimistic people, Tim Kaine is evidence of days to come. And I loath the days and the governor.

The domestication of happiness. It could be a title of a Ph.D thesis. A semicolon would be essential and the inevitable gerund structured subordinate clause would appear. Thus "gendering the house," or "housing serotonin," would be added to create catcy and sexy title that all hiring committees associate with cutting edge BS and automatically respect. Be that as it may - an expression I had to hunt down like a Seljuk raiding party in the open plateau of Anatolia after unarmed Byzantine peasants, throughout the breadth and length of my own thesis pages - it seems that domestic bliss matters. I have always been a proponent of this version of higher existance and it now appears that others are going through the same realization. The past two days have not been bad. What with the nice sunny skies and announcements from beyond the oceans that domestic happiness has been successfuly reproduced in controlled laboratory conditions, what with the reading of a good book and the steady if tedious progression towards the reading of a German article, I have been feeling well. It also helped sitting out and drinking quality Belgians. Now, a new day, a move for coffee and here we go.

So here I am once again angry. Angry at the inability of a whole culture, a literate culture at that, to deal with facts. Guns dont kill people, people kill people is the comment, and yet there is not way any European, knowing fully well that we have 100 times fewer gun deaths than the US, will ever be convinced by the fatuous argumentation coming out of the mouths of pundits all over the US political spectrum. Naturally, I am not concerned about the conservatives. By now the word conservative, when dealing with US politics, is synonymous with two not necessarily contradictory notions: a) idiocy, b) hypocritical and highly immoral dedication to profiteering. What is thoroughly problematic is the response on the so-called left; the Democratic response. Or should I say, lack there of. There has been a loud silence on the democratic side. The party of the "reality based community" has entered as a result of its electoral strategy a period of numb silence on the issue of guns. Because Democrats need to win in the south and Montana or some other godforsaken place the Democratic party is increasingly falling under the spell of pro-life, pro-gun bible thumpers with a penchant for economic populism. OK I am being a populist myself here. Webb may be all that but he is eloquent and the closest you could get to a New Deal Democrat. It seems, however, that this will lead to the ultimate castration of the truly liberal North Eastern and Californian voices. Not that those really exist in the Democratic party. Ultimately the question is: how much will we sacrifice for class to re-enter the US political discourse. It seems that a lot is the answer. And it is not even guaranteed that the reintroduction will take place. So meanwhile prepare yourselves for more gun deaths and dumber responses to the problem and don't coun't on a health system to be there for support of the victims.

This list does not appear in chronological order and may even not be complete. It is, however, as complete as I could make it. Those are the films N and I watched in the course of the past six months. It includes some real flops, but also pretty decent cinema. I think we will keep this up.

1. Malena
2. Jesus Camp
3. Children of Men
4. Good Shepherd
5. Le Couperet
6. The Missing
7. The Lives of Others
8. Pan’s Labyrinth
9. The Science of Sleep
10. Shortbus
11. L’emploit du temps
12. Death of a president
13. The Departed
14. Stranger than Fiction
15. Wag the Dog
16. Half Nelson
17. Hustle and Flow
18. Crash
19. The Good German
20. The Holiday (super flop)
21. Tideland
22. Blood Diamond
23. Don Juan De Marco
24. Pirates of the Caribbean
25. The Saint (flop)
26. Snakes on a Plane (absurdly bad)
27. Z
28. Death of Mr Lazarescu
29. Fuse
30. 300 (So much wrong with it)
31. Casino Royale
32. Crank (silly)
33. Bon cop Bad cop
34. Souvenir from Canada
35. Volver
36. Borat
37. Only human (Seres Queridos)
38. A simple Curve
39. The Illusionist
40. Howl’s Moving Castle
41. Tristram Shandy
42. Un fil a patte (Why did Béart do that?)
43. The Confederate States of America
44. Do the right thing
45. Scoop
46. The decline of the American Empire
47. The Smell of Canfora the fragrance of Jasmine
48. Marie Antoinette (flop in cool dresses)
49. The prairie home companion
50. The Oh in Ohio
51. Hedwig and the Angry inch
52. A very long engagement

It started as an innocent trip to the grocery shop and it ended as a lucious meal. The magic of trout cooked in aluminum with lemon, ginger, garlic and parsley unleashed itself on my pallet. It was enough to make the evening pleasant, the siple creature that I am. Since last night things have gone downhill. The cold I was almost avoiding has taken over me and my nose is sore from its intimate affair with tissue. Still hopes are up that I will be able to run on Sunday. For now bedtime

Live - Shop - Work. This is the advertising gimmick offered by Crossroads, a housing, office, and shopping development at the Northwestern corner of Cambie and Boradway in Vancouver. The location is indeed great and the suites are bound to have decent north shore views, at least until some one else decides to build a highrise just next to them. What is, however, pathetic is the accurate in terms of description, but vile in terms of its implications for modern humans, motto chose by the advertisers. I mean, this is a building placed on a major crossroads location. Instead of emphasizing the great location, the food and etertainment aspects of life at "Crossroads," instead of highlighting the aspect of meeting people, interacting and creating meaningful relations in a nicely urban setting, in a city, which is well designed in terms of the combinations it offers for life work and play in tolerably humane conditions, the advertisers chose: Live - Shop - Work. It is as if human life is all about shopping and working. As if the first thing you should be doing after the end of work is shopping at Lululemon and Wholefoods and then going home. No interraction with people, why do that? No enjoyment of a great city and its opportunities. No, you have to live so that you work so that you shop and keep the building boom alive.

Eating like renaissance bog wigs, consuming like Medici lors, driving a market like fifteenth century elites. This is the status of our existence. It is an odd state to be in but we have to think about it occasionally. Not to self-flagellate, but rather to take stock of the directions in which the human experiment has taken us. Went out last night with a coleague and N. Visited this Vancouver Indian fusion restaurant, a description which in itself is misleading, as there was nothing specifically Indian in the food other than the Pakoras. Still the story lies in the nature of the experience. It lies in the economy of food of which we became but a part of last night. A beautiful space was arranged for the clientele, nice combination of falling faded blue plaster, exposed brick, wood beams, and modern clear cut shaped defining the bar.
All this beautifully arranged and constructed by some interior designer who probably makes money doing restaurants, setting trends and following trends at the same time. Then of course there is almost no reason to talk of the supply line that goes in kleeping a restaurant going, the ordering of food and drinks, the trucks moving around cities and the planes around the world, to strategically position more or less scarce goods on spots convenient for pick up by local consumers. So let us leave the banality of logistics aside, this careful dance of movement and timing on a global scale and let us move to the food.

What are we to make of the cook who spends his time developing new tastes? What are we to make of the R&D that goes behind my culinary experience? What of the investement of time and money in generating the new, the exciting, the pretty and elegant perishable pile of food that I will consume in a manner of minutes? What will the philosopher say of our hedonistic devotion to the new, the sensorily promiscious? What is beauty? What lies behind our pursuit of the exciting in food and beverage? And above all, how amazing that this experience is shared by a large percentage of our society, and yet it remains a mystery for the billions of the people outside our world. No, this is not a guilt tripping exposé. This is just about questions. N noted that we are all Medici's now, how true and untrue.

Back in pain, neck still stiff, and a lot of writing. Still, mostly done. I have earned the right to a film. Sunny day in Vancouver for a change, just to make the backpain more tolerable. News of sailing trip plans moving forward and items ticked off the stress board. Semester coming to a close and the time of departures approaching. Looking forward to it with some degree of trepidation. For now a bit of Walkabouts for the time of anticipation before the film.

Stiff. I am not talking of a drink. I am talkingof my neck. It feels stiff like a led pipe and it is not pleasant. Little hints of a head acke are lingering in the general vicinity and the hypochondriac is already thinking of ways in which the knots on my neck can actually be malignant growths intent upon destroying my joyous existence. At home working. It is going well. How to compress 100 years of history in one lecture and not simply talk about facts. The semester is coming to a close and it feels odd to have almost completed a whole period of teaching at my new school. It feels good, but of course there is always stress and this is I guess the main contributor to the neck stiffness. Anyhow, back to work. The greyness has to be used.

Grainy weather. If Hollywood, or rather imperfect visual media, created griny television images, then the Vancouver microclimate has generated the amazing phenomenon of "grainy weather." A situation which leads to impaired visibility and foggy vision as a result of grey, low light conditions generated by low altitude cloud cover, combined with a misty fog, that blend together to create a translucent soup of a day. This is where we are today. We are also faced by a white screen slowly filled with letters on the topic of Byzantine weddings. Once again on the popularizing front satisfying the demands of old friends for non-conspiratorial approaches to history. The rest of the day to be dedicated to student papers. Little to report on this front.

Sometimes epiphany comes late. This was one of the times. I had heard a lot about the film, but somehow never looked into renting it. Never saw it. September 11 happened and then all the GWT tragedy and only this year, from the misty rainforest of YVR did I finally watch Wag the Dog. And it was better than expected, funny and more real that Kassandra's worse nightmares. Only difference?
The GOP equivalent experienced at the present moment is in no way that funny. Other than that, a horribly boring day spent learning basic first aid. Some genious at the university's administrative quarters has decided that after spending 7 hours bored out of my mind with 11 other equally bored people I would be more qualified to lead a field-school. Anyways, all is quite in my kingdom at this stage. Boredome replaced with entertainment and good beer. I just had the first truly worth-while Canadian beer: Amnesiac from a brewery in Victoria. Hops to die for and yet a bitterness that is pleasant and not overpowering.

Here we are in solid domestic settings with student's papers on my side. The space in the room is filled by the sounds of the newest Arcade Fire record. I have to pay tribute to the quality of their work. So solidly written and executed. I think it is an instant classic. Even as their older albums show corkyness and vibrant interpretation of new music, this one feels more serious and instantly recognizable as both new, but also as part of a longer tradition of good rock.

Beyond the history of rock I have been riling myself with American politics and the submission of every single democratic candidate to the dictates of AIPAC conformity. The spinelesness of American politicians in the face of lobbying linked to the newest of Crusader states is simply pathetic. In my optimistic days I feel that a candidate who would have the "orbs" to state the truth and stand as a friend of the State of David in favor of just peace and 1967 borders would be able to dominate the debate. In fact a candidate with such a position would be able to open a debate and get all the support that the cowed academics and media critics are unwilling to express for as long as this would mean being alone in taking the dangerous position. While I respect research on the power of the AIPAC and the rest of the groups like AIPAC I do not share the conspiracy-like fatalism that goes with this assumption. I do not believe that there is no way to break the grip that AIPAC has on the US discourse. Carter's book and the recent academic memo on the power of this lobby has shown that the time is ripe for the debate. One can no longer fear the politics of smear. Dirt will only stick on the weak. If GWB has taught us one thing is that commitment to one opinion without wavering pays up. Then again, this is my assessment on a good day, when I do feel optimistic about the state of the US political discourse.

It seems that blogger is facing some problems. It annoys me to no end not having control over the posting mechanism. Maybe I have reached some sort of posting quota. There is little to report other than the recent development of home ownership. Yes I have put a deposit down and I have entered the large pool of people living the petit bourgeois dream of mortgage dose repayment. Or maybe we should say nightmare. The interesting thing in my case is that homeownership is one of those counterintuitive things that my conservative economic nature should warn me against. What if US housing collapses (it has already started)? What if the US stops lowering interest rates and increases them in order to attract fleeing investors who go to stronger Euro? What if in five years we are in major world recession with high interest rates and I have no longer the protection of a steady 5.09 rate. What if the sky falls on our heads? Even as those thoughts go through my head the domestic me says: what if all that does not happen? What if it keeps rising? What if Vancouver is kind of an exception tied as it is with the Pacific rim economy (bolocks, it is truly too close to the US not to be affected)? What if by 2010 he Olympics make it appealing for even more people to flood it and by then a one bedroom condo costs more than 20 years of me serving as a slave at a silver mine for 40 years. So following my metrosexual desire for beautiful dark floors, stainless steel appliances and space to unflold my rug, I made the decision with which I now have to live. I do not think it will be that difficult. Let us see.

Classic Vancouver. Woke up in grey and grey it is now at 5:30 AM. And yet that misses the story of the day. It misses my walk to the pub where I had lunch while preparing for tomorrow's lecture. It misses the moment when the sun came out and everything seemed spring. It misses the rolling up of the pub's fascade and the breeze, still a bit wintery but with unmistakeable strokes of April, coming in the dark beer serving establishment. It misses the gorgeousness of the walk back home at the end of my Crusade's lecture arrangement. So grey it may be now, yet the story of the sun over my town on this March day has at least been recorded. Listening to a new CD and following some news as a break from reading new book. The trip to Greece is now closer to me, feels closer to me. With it the union with friends and numerous students appears so real as well. Good!

Apartment mania. Domesticity overdose. I saw the place once more. I love it. N was as impressed as I. I am proceeding with paperwork and if things pan out I should have keys by April 30th. the Byzantine home owner should be a new subject of study. Already today I offered my class a taste of Byzantine family strategies and they liked it. A good day over all. Tomorrow some work awaits me on organizing the home purchase. Anyhow, this post is uninspired. To be left at this.

I am developing super BS skills. I think I have my lecture on Byzantine intellectual culture, to be delivered before an audience of friendly philhellenes, ready after half an hour of scribbling on a piece of paper and making notes. My main points are there and I am ready to give them all my enthusiasm in the process of delivery. Speaking of delivery I am already dreaming of pizza and comfort food while I sit with friends to see whether mr cardboard, currently repackaged into the Goracle, will get an Oscar, proceed to Oslo for the peace Nobel and then run for president. Still the food is not here yet and it is not clear that one should even wish for Gore to run once again. My only company is a furball on my side and the desire to check the news once more for more insigt in what appears as an inevitable slide towards US war against Iran. So I leave this for more news.

It is odd to find oneself in a situation which makes posting on the venue feel like a novel experience. It has been a while since I have been active here and I still wonder as to the reasons behind my silence. In anycase, on a grey day, sitting at N's dinning table, itself a French-Canadian's family heirloom, I am writing a lecture for Tuesday, while bemoaning the fact that I am not out with N and her friends eating lunch at a fancy restaurant. I have to think that I am saving money and that I actually need to work, in order to justify to myself my domestic status. My home search is still going on, more properties appear every day and more are turned down on account of one or another concern. Work is going well, though I need to be filling forms for a whole spate of bureaucratuc issues, and teaching has improved dramatically after the sluggish begining of this term.

I now feel they are enjoying the lectures as much as I do. I am now looking forward to my trip to Greece, to seeing friends, checking out my new property and just spending time with a bunch of young people, who may or may not have the energy to work after all their partying. Beyond that I feel I need to see friends, but I am too reluctant to pick up the phone and call as it simply is not the same. Hopefully sailing will pan out. On other news, it seems I have an in with the ministry of culture to get free Greek books for the program. I will be submitting quite a budget for that. It makes me happy to even think of the shipping list.

It has been a while. I do not know what makes a medium desirable over one specific period of time and then less so over another one. What is it that led me to not write for all this while. And of course, what is it that got me back on it? Well, I have been doing what Vancouverites are supposed to spend most of their times doing. I have been looking at real estate and have been gaging my options. So much so that I have finally submitted an offer and now I am on the receiving end of an email or phone line which in a few hours could land me my first apartment. Chances are it wont, as there are some issues that are not resolved yet on the money front, yet this process has been enough to divert my attention. It has also been somewhat interesting as you get to know the city better and decide what it is you like and what not of it as you make your choice. Phone rung, I am informed I am on a bidding war with someone. Hopefully it will not become too excessive. This is realtime. I do not foresee that I will be a home owner by tomorrow, but who knows.

Here I am sipping cocoa and feeling as if I have worked for the day. The paper I am editing is progressing slowly and I may have it ready for publication in time indeed. On the side today was State of the Union day. The one time of the year when the political establishment in Washington practices synchronized applause. Like pioneers in a Maoist parade the two sides of the political divide practice contrapuntal applause and symphonic acclamations in the best tradition of Byzantine court ceremonial. You would be hard pressed to find a democratic spectacle so steeped in fascist ideas of consensus and respect of authority. In any case W's speech was predictably vacuous and meaningless, even as it conveyed the message of a defiant but practically defeated politician. It is those we need to fear most of course. Then Jim Webb, the junior senator from Virginia delivered a speech steeped in old-style Democratic populism that was a joy to follow. I dare not believe that it is genuine. Yet, unlike the cynical lefties I will say that if rhetoric like his starts dominating, soon, one way or another the practice has to follow. Words, even if initially empty, become part of the public discourse. Then suddenly from a republican full spectrum rhetorical domination, with the theory of bad government filling the air like an overweight American fills an economy class seat, we may find ourselves in a very different world where a lefie type of rhetoric becomes the new common sense. Optimistic? Sounds so, yet I hope it is also true. Realistic? I do not know.

I have been sloppy and lazy. Its been a while since I wrote here and I am not sure what the reasons for the silence really are. I am sitting at a black IKEA couch, postponing the beginning of my lecture writing with this activity. My whole back and neck ache. Have no clue why. Posture is one thing yet it feels as if there is something else. Could it be that I managed to stress about the article I want to submit in ten days for publication? In any case it makes you wonder what your mind can do to your body. Then it makes you want to explore your insurance options and see how you can get those legendary free massages that supposedly our insurance plan at SFU include.

Yesterday went climbing. Did better than ever before. 5.10b appears feasible at times though overhangs are still problematic. Now I need to work

Evidence of immense shallowness and emphasis on appearance rather than substance comes with the latest rearrangement of this blogger's apartment. It came out of a whim and out of a subliminal desire to destroy my back, which I nearly did. Interrupted I did my reading on Polybios and here I was moving furniture around to create a novel space. I was apprehensive as to the effect of the change for I felt that the ideological underpinning of the re-arrangement was bound to draw criticism. I was moving my couch around to make it face my new Flat Screen Monitor. Basically I was creating a standard American home, centered around the TV. On the other hand, the adept diplomat in me consulted his long line of effective escapes from the aforementioned castigations and decided that the re-orientation was rather an attempt to properly enjoy the leasures of this apartment's fireplace. Yes, I was not facing a TV screen, but rather I was getting a window to honorable pyromania. Here we go then with the result. I am happy with it. On other news I climbed after almost a month and did much better than expected.
This called for celebration which included stuffing self with a double bacon cheeseburger at the Moderne Burger join in Kitsilano. I felt the effects of the indulgence for a few hours. I did not regrat it however. The night was completed with the screening, on the said new Flat Screen, of a film called the "Weather man." Better than expected. Nothing great, but good. So, that is all. Tonight is going to be dedicated to Spike Lee and "Do the right thing."