Has it really been a month since the last blog post? Of course lots of stuff in that time, books arriving and being wolfed down and at least partially digested, various end-of-year summings-up, and the plunge into 2022. Staying home, minimizing f2f encounters, watching It All Go Down. <\/p>\n
\nPreparations for the weekly Convivium have supplanted blogging to some degree, and <\/p>\n
tell the tale of my wandering attentions pretty well.<\/p>\n
By way of paying attention to the world outside the many comforts of home, I’ve been following Heather Cox Richardson<\/a> and Umair Haque<\/a>, both sort of paywalled (or anyhow I’m not sure if hyperlinks to their posts on Substack and Medium are readily accessible), and both painting not-rosy pictures of what’s just around the corner. <\/p>\n …and I’ve revisited Joan Didion and Jorge Luis Borges profitably, and lately discovered Unflattening<\/b><\/a> (Nick Sousanis) and The Secret To Superhuman Strength<\/b><\/a> (Alison Bechdel), among (many) others. <\/p>\n \nReacquaintance with Borges reminded me yet again of the charms of his Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge<\/a>, and The Library of Babel<\/a> (see Jonathan Basile’s obsession<\/a>: The Library of Babel<\/a> and about The Library of Babel<\/a>) … and if the Work itself is unknown to you, there’s a pdf available<\/a>). Among the additional resources I’m now navigating, The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges’ Library of Babel<\/b><\/a> (William Goldbloom Bloch) and The Cambridge Companion to Jorge Luis Borges<\/b><\/a> (Edwin Williamson)<\/p>\n …and then consult The Aleph<\/a> (pdf), when you’re ready for the next thing… Hell of a ride. I’ve just ordered The Total Library : Non-Fiction, 1922-1986<\/b><\/a>, so The Future Is Assured for the rest of January. And of course other things will appear, seemingly out of nowhere.<\/p>\n