sometimes I think about new york a handful of years ago, and what it was like to sit at a table and order ragu, and the buzzing sensation of the world, and dark nights, and a city in which nobody truly seemed to give-a-shit, which was a little bit like dropping a rock down a deep pipe and hearing the pings as the rock skitters its way down. people lazily smoking under scaffolding outside an absent neighborhood that cherishes that desolation feel, evening openings taking an ugly fetishized advantage of chinatown's diligent daytime schedule, the aesthetics of abandon, withdrawal, irony, cloaked nervousness, disguised trepidation.

whose new york was that, I wonder, and if in soho I bite my lip a little then it is because I recognize one of the many epicenters of its grasp, and I do not envy those who have decided to be fully within it.

--

on teaching: the idea of duty, not responsibility but duty, ripples up into the surface, becomes present, not at all an unpleasant feeling.

what is it to be a good teacher? what is it that you are trying to teach? or better yet, or truer yet - if one does adhere and believe ranciere's idea of an ignorant schoolmaster, or a gym trainer, then what is it to facilitate the process of learning? where does teaching happen? how is one ignorant schoolmaster more valuable than another? how do you create a context in which you exchange words, in the right kind of way?

I feel stretched, elastic, like putty, full of equal parts gratefulness, exuberance, admiration, and concern, responsibility, stewardship.