From Dan Drezner:
Boston is a tough, resilient town. This sort of thing will shock us in the moment. As shock fades away, what is left is something stronger and more substantive, something that a few homemade bombs cannot destroy. That's the narrative that will hopefully emerge, and it's the one that does the best job of defeating the psychology of terrorism. The next thing that will happen is foolish, uninformed speculation about who or whom was responsible.
Well, amen!
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It is a slow posting week just because it's my birthday soon (Saturday).
So don't worry I'm not dead, I'm just enjoying life and trying to recharge my batteries.
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Obama won!
So? I have no idea, but Obama kicked Romney's you know what by showing him that he may not be able to run a country, but he knows how to run a campaign. I'm impressed!
For the sake of the US, let's hope Obama II is better than Obama I.
Wow, I expected it to be closer. I guess Romney just learned that to be inauthentic and successful in politics, you have to be a transcendent figure and be willing to stand for something.
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Well, I'm just back from the wilderness for I spent four long days stranded in an underdeveloped part of New York without electricity, water, food patiently waiting for civilization to return and at last, it did.
New York is no longer New York for there are just certain things that shouldn't happen, no matter what the circumstances, in the once best city in the world!
Somebody needs to get the Big Apple its groove back.
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Words to munch on this weekend from Simon Schama's essay in the Financial Times on why he writes:
Orwell’s four motives for writing still seem to me the most honest account of why long-form non-fiction writers do what they do, with “sheer egoism” at the top; next, “aesthetic enthusiasm” – the pleasure principle or sheer relish of sonority (“pleasure in the impact of one sound on another”); third, the “historical impulse” (the “desire to see things as they are”), and, finally, “political purpose”: the urge to persuade, a communiqué from our convictions.
To that list I would add that writing has always seemed to me a fight against loss, an instinct for replay; a resistance to the attrition of memory. To translate lived experience into a pattern of words that preserves its vitality without fixing it in literary embalming fluid; that for me has been the main thing.
The best essay writing since Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), who invented the genre, is where this reanimation of experience is shaped by the purposeful urgencies of thought. It is not the thoughtless recycling of experience for its own sake, the fetishising of impulse, which these days is what mostly passes as “blog”; a word well suited to its swampy suck of self-indulgence.
I must the most self-indulgent person in the word! For some reason, I think that it is my greatest and most fruitful trait...
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I'm taking a week off to rest before the start of my favorite season, fall.
It is always tough to take a break from blogging so I may cheat and blog during my vacation.
If you miss me too much, you can watch this interview I did with TV5 monde and email me suggestions about how to learn to be more zen but be charitable and keep in mind that I am excitable because je suis pressée d’écrire.
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I' m dealing with some fairly serious health issues, which make it impossible to blog until I get better. So blogging will be nonexistent until June or it may not be if I recover quickly.
A sugary excerpt to say au revoir from Cornell West on Barack Obama:
When you mobilise the legacy of Martin [Luther] King and put a bust of Martin King in the Oval Office, people elevate their hopes. Martin King is not just every brother (...) It’s like a novelist being obsessed with Tolstoy or Proust and then he ends up writing short stories that can barely get into some middlebrow magazine. Hey, you got our hopes up man! I was expecting Proust or Tolstoy, instead it would barely get in Newsweek.
I agree with West! Saying it obliges me to come back quickly for it bugs me that they are a part of what might be my last blog before a while.
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I'm starting the weekend early, but here is a song, Depois do prazer (after love), from Danny L., to enjoy. Kizomba! Kizomba!
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I'm not dead, just undead for a few more days.
To reassure yourself that I'm not just saying it, you can watch my interview on TV5 by clicking here.
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If you are missing me or just want to hear my voice in French, you can listen to an interview I did with the sublime Yasmine Chouaki here or just click on the embeded links below.
I'll be back soon.
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I liked Christopher Hitchens even when I disagreed with him. He had the elegance to resist conventional wisdom, easy arguments and the temptation to be agreeable and blandly likable.
In short, Hitch was boldly relevant and I will miss him because he was substantively and abrasively authentic!
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Taking the rest of the week and Monday to celebrate my birthday.
Where? Agassiland! It's important to enjoy the simple things in life!
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It's going to be a slow November.
Life is catching up with me, which in this case, is a good thing.
So be patient, email me to yell at me (elegantly) or just to vent, but try to be understanding. Oh, by the way, if you read French, you may want to read this, it's an article on slate africa about me (in part) about me, me, me.
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Unbelievably, it is hard to find my words in English to express what I feel on this tenth anniversary of 9/11. It has to do with the fact that English is my working and analytical language. I don't do feelings and poetry well in English or at least not to the level I do in French.
So? 9/11 is a hard moment to remember, but it's the one that made me come to terms with my Americanness and cherish that part of me. I'm trying to say that I took America for granted before 9/11 and that it was only after that I realized that it has been like a nurturing parent who gives you all you need to blossom and never asks for nothing, not even for a thank you.
9/11 reminds me that I owe America too much to accept when others or even its citizens sell it short.
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I'm going to my hut in the desert to meditate the usefulness of the examined life !
I'm not stopping to blog, although I have been blogging with less frequency and will continue to post when I have something to say, which doesn't ruin my meditative vacation.
See you soon or tomorrow for I''m leaving although I'm not really leaving ! Now what does that say about me that I'm an adrenaline junkie or just too me for my own good?
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Shameless, but needed self-promotion. If you read French, you can read my latest interview here.
Thanks to Idriss Linge.
My reaction: I don't like to look at my navel.
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I will start to blog again on Monday. I've been all over the world, well, kind of. I'm not back in New York yet, but I will back to a place where blogging is possible tomorrow.
There is so much to say. I'm just wondering how to say it....
By the way, it's funny, almost frightening how much L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées, my book, is devouring my life and my being. Unhelpful confession: I love being devoured.
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I'm in a place where it isn't possible to blog, but I used my one wish for the last day of the year to grab the opportunity to say happy new year to you all especially to my favorite economist. I hope that he will forgive me and understand that after Paris, life took me some place else, which means that I will have to make the time to keep my promise in a few weeks.
Happy New Year !!!!!
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I'm done with Paris or rather Paris is done with me. So what did I learn? A lot, too much, but all of it is helpful.
I know I haven't written, but hey, sometimes a writer has to do what a writer has to do. I'm trying to say that Paris taught me to love myself and to love writing in itself without questioning my love for it and its usefulness. Paris forced me to mature in a few days and to learn that love is overrated and even dangerous when it becomes existential...
Am I going to blog more before the end of the year? I will try, but the end of 2010 is magical and I have to clean up some of the mess that came with my fresh enlightenment. If you are worried about me, don't be, I'm just crossing the Gobi and I will be back stronger.
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I'm still in Paris, bravely facing the cold even though it is kicking my you know what.
I had my 'presentation' for my book on Friday and I have to admit that I have no idea how things went. I'm mentally exhausted so it will take me a while, or not, to blog again. In the meantime, be patient for I will be back with a vengeance.
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It's after 5 am in Paris, but still my birthday in the states. I'm in such in terrible shape physically that I'm not sure how I should feel about being a year older...
The most important information is that my public event in the Lucernaire is canceled until further notice (it will probably happen at the end of January). The bad weather in Paris and my cold forced me to realize that it was too much to ask people, especially those who wanted to come to listen to me, to get out on a hellish winter weekday when they know they have to work the next day and would be worried about how to get home. Thus, I have decided to do a closed event in the Pavillon Élysée around the same question : are africanity, sexuality, and identity broken things?
The new event will be in the Pavillon Élysée, but by invitation only on a week from Friday. If you really wanted to come to hear me talk or that you really want to come to this event, email me and we will talk.
Yesterday (the Eight, my birthday) was such a moody day because of the snow, the icy roads, and the impossible conditions that truly, I felt like a New Yorker in Paris, I missed Manhattan and my fellow villagers can do everything attitude.
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I'm in Paris. Sick, cold, anxious, and trying to prepare for my event. That's the only thing that could have prevented me from blogging. In short, life is just as messy as I am with this cold that is beating the hell out of me. But I'm back not for good for I'm not in my 'natural' environment (a hotel room in Paris), nevertheless, I will be blog as much as I can.
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I appeared on a show called le débat africain (in French) on RFI in which I asserted that there isn't such a thing as Africanity. It is a position on which I will elaborate on December 13 when at last, I'm having, at the Lucernaire in Paris (7 pm), a soirée to present my book, L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées and of course to sign copies. So if you are in Paris or just want to pick a fight with me or just to listen to something fresh on identity, sexuality and les choses brisées, come and bring a friend.
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If the contemporary right is an uneasy fusion of conservative and libertarian articles of faith, the contemporary left is an uneasy fusion of technocratic progressive and liberal-democratic conviction. One sees progressive managerial elitism most clearly in the left's public-health and environmental paternalism. The rarely uttered idea is that the people who know best need to force the rest of us to do what's good for us. Whatever you think of this sort of state paternalism, it isn't liberal or liberty-enhancing in any non-tortured sense. The progressive technocrat's attitude toward liberty is: "Trust us. You're better off without so much of it." The more the left is inclined to stick up for this sort of "activist government" as a progressive, humanitarian force, the less it is inclined to couch its arguments in terms of liberty.
It is the fact that I value too much my liberty and that I hate to be told what to think that I am more than uneasy about the American left; it is too self-righteous and increasingly shallow because it wants to be fashionable, which makes it too complacent for it is convinced of its grandeur. So what will 'change' (ah the magic word, America is discovering doesn't mean anything) after the left gets a spanking tonight? Not much, it will just wait for Republicans to overreach and Obama will remain at the center right of the political spectrum and get reelected if he doesn't get in his own way.
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In an act of shameless self-promotion, here is a podcast of me talking in French about my book, L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées. I speak too fast, but that's because I was forced to do it by my very own Frankenstein... there is melodramatic music playing in the background, which you may enjoy even if you don't understand French.
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I'm back in New York. It feel different, but I have to say that I was impressed for the first time in a long time with Paris. When I write "impressed," I'm trying to say that I have been in love with Paris for so long that I had forgotten that it was a magical place where dreams can come true even though crashes can occur.
I'm back. My vacation is over. My book is still out there.
I'm going to see how it feels to live in New York as a published author and a happy person. Une vie nouvelle commence...
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My reaction to reading this from Paul Sagar is no, you don't say!:
The claim or insinuation that campaigns for women’s rights and equality are rooted in a lack of family to cater for (“no homes”), rejection by men (“no husbands”) and infertility or barrenness (“no children”) are apparently as old as the hills yet very much alive and kicking.
Unfortunately, Sagar misses the mark by focusing on the omnipresent reality without asking the key questions about the the issues 'women's right' and feminism and what it says about them that they haven't been revolutionary or even solely effective in accomplishing their aims! To be blunt, I'm tired of the same realities being examined as if the convenient acknowledgment of their unsavoriness were enough to change it or to make one feel good for not being part, at first glance, of the problematic and everlasting statu quo. Assez de bons sentiments et un peu d'actions please!
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Ghana lost yesterday. I had predicted that the Black stars would win if they were capable of ignoring the symbolic "crap" about Ghana representing the whole African continent and some type of imaginary "Africanity." Ghana lost yesterday mostly because the pressure of representing something other than itself crushed its players. Asamoah Gyan, the poor guy who missed the penalty that would have sent his country to the semi-final, thought undoubtedly about all the fluff, about the idiotic and anti-intellectual notion that he was carrying the hopes of 'Africa' on his shoulders instead of calming himself down to remember that Ghana isn't 'Africa' and the game against Uruguay wasn't another absurd and futile identity struggle.
Next time, because there will be a next time for Ghana, its players should just think of themselves, their country, and ignore the burden of a nonexistent common identity and of a idealized history. Ghana isn't 'Africa' and remembering it can only be productive for it is a liberating reality.
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Passing and short remark: I'm enjoying my boring vacation. It forces me to realize how fast and often unnecessarily loud, things are in New York. This kind of boredom feels great for I know that it shall pass and because it reinvigorates my brain.
In short, ennui can be fruitful.
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I was unapologetically for the US yesterday in their match at the World Cup against Ghana. Somebody asked me how I couldn't support the Ghanaians and I have to admit that I was puzzled by the question because the assumption was that identity is 'racial' and I had to identify with Ghana rather than with the US because I share the color of their skin. My answer was that I have never been to Ghana while I love the US and that I am too cultured and too well read to make the stupid assumption that race skin color trumps everything else including experience. I am proud to say that I wanted the Americans to win against Ghana yesterday and that it broke my heart that they didn;t win. Their loss hurt me because I 'identify' with the American players, because I know America more than I know Ghana and because I love America not in the shallow way people from afar do but in a Tocqueville way: I admire its strength and acknowledging its ills.
In a time, when people are drunk with the disturbing sacrality of race while forgetting conveniently that for everybody, even those with a darker skin color, existence precedes essence, I refuse to follow the majority and to let the past or whatever else define who I am or rather whom I should be. To quote once more time Hannah Arendt quoting René Char: notre héritage n’est précédé d’aucun testament.
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I'm back from nointernetland. I spend a week in a little corner with no internet, which explains my long absence. Stupidly, I had assume that even in my own surreal Macondo, I would be able to blog. That assumption should show how passionate I am with blogging that I often fail to take into account practical things such as internet access.
I'm back and I will write as much as I can while enjoying my vacation.
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Deaf from all the sound of the Vuvuzela while I'm watching all the world cup game. That said I'm addicted to that painful noise and believe that I'm going to miss it after it is going even though I suspect that it is bad for my health.
I can't believe that Spain lost, but I'm grateful that it was to my new favorite country, Federeland Switzerland. I'm hoping that this world cup will get better. So far, the games have been forgettable. Can somebody please beat Italy, Brazil, and all of those teams who have won it all so that we have so some exciting novelty or something other than monotonous continuity?The problem is that in football, very few things are offered to you, you need to take them or die with regrets.
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I'm taking full advantage of my vacation and watching the World Cup in a surreal atmosphere. I feel as though I'm in in another time for life goes by so slowly here that I'm always have to resist the urge to rush it along and to get caught up in the modern notion that time is money.
To talk about serious matters, football that is, I'm happy the US tied England, that Ghana (which is the most down to earth team, I've seen so far) won, and I'm expecting France with a somewhat heavy heart to lose to Mexico.
To put things simply, I'm having a good time and trying to take things easy while working on pleasurable things. Sometimes, the unexamined life can be delicious.
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I've started my vacation slowly and I'm enjoying it even though it's hot as hell.
I'm watching Argentina play Nigeria and I have the feeling that the Argentine cannot win the World Cup, but I wouldn't bet on it because they have the talent to overcome the limits of their coach, Diego Armando Maradona.
I had a great time in my brief stop in Zurich. I bought some Cuban Rum, and realized how nice the Swiss are.
For now, I'm relaxing. I love being away from New York... I'm taking it easy, while getting myself ready to work differently.
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I'm starting my vacation today, well not really for I'm going to spend the afternoon and most of the day tomorrow in airports and planes. I will be a few hours in Federerland then go to a destination that is almost as disturbing as it can be exhilarating. In any case, although I won't write tomorrow and more than likely Friday, I will resume blogging this weekend and if everything goes well, my blogging won't be light as it has been for the last two weeks.
Thus, my location changes, but I will keep on blogging wit the same frequency as I usually do. My goal is to rest mentally while doing what I love to do.
By the way, have I said how much I love Switzerland? It is a country that is too eccentrically good just to be enjoyed by the Swiss and the well-to -do.
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I'm preparing my summer. It explains the fact that I haven't posted as much as I wanted to for the last few days. I'm going away for the summer for a working vacation next Wednesday; I have so many things to do before I leave and I'm disorganized because my perfectionism is paralyzing me. Nevertheless, everything will should back to normal after next weekend when I will be in my new and more 'exotic' environment. So please be patient with me and forgive the lack of post. I will post relentlessly this summer, but right now life is just too chaotic for me to write for I have neither the time nor the mental energy to think.
By the way, I'm going to spend a few hours in Switzerland and for some reasons, that excites me more than it should even though the short stay will be expensive. But I love the Swiss especially when they speak Romansh, German, or Italian.
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