cafes, cafe-bookstores, bookstores part II

a few more cafes for reading books, cafe-bookstores, and bookstores:

camarín de las musas .. mario bravo by córdoba, more or less. In the back there are rehearsal/class/performance spaces for modern dance and yoga, in the front tables and a few couches .. the food is good, the coffee is at least drinkable, and they have all handmade pottery to serve things on.  Very comfy.  Deserves special notice because it has a bookshelf with books if you forgot your own .. mostly in spanish, but a fair number in english as well.

the aroma (forgive me!) in recoleta by the cemetary – if you want a nice outdoor cafe in which to watch people between pages, this is right next to la biela, and when la biela is full this sometimes still has space.  they also have some pretty cozy couches downstairs in the basement lounge area when I’m in the neighborhood and it’s cold or rainy.  it is however the corporate aroma chain, so forgive me!

gandhi: I don’t care for it that much as a cafe, but it should still have made the other list being that it has a bookstore.  on corrientes.  a famously progressive/left wing intellectual bookstore that now has a small cafe in the front.  the problem is that the cafe feels very much the afterthought.  the selection of books is great, but the tiny little cafe in the front really doesn’t feel like a place to lounge in.

crack-up – also nice, very near plaza serrano in palermo, i don’t recall the exact street.  good selection of books in the bookstore, friendly sort-of-indoor-patio cafe in the front.

a bookstore I like that hasn’t a cafe, and whose name I’ve forgotten .. on callao between santa fe and cordoba, on the side of the street away from the center, is a little shop right next to a men’s clothing store, close to the corner, that specializes in philosophy, history, lit/cultural crit, unusual literature, etc. a rather large percentage seem like books translated from french/english/german/etc into spanish, which doesn’t appeal to me as much, but there is a decently selection written originally in spanish as well.

librousado.com – there are scads of used bookstores in BA, but most of them are pretty depressing .. lots of crappy unappealing books in really low quality editions that are falling apart already, and with a very tiny selection.  this site seems to be part of a network of quite a few used booksellers in BA, and when i did a search for a book I couldn’t find, including a “notes” type field where I could be more specific about what I wanted (this is all in spanish, btw), I got answers from half a dozen booksellers  from all parts of the city who had a copy of what I wanted.

also found some more bookstores here

http://lalectoraprovisoria.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/postal-de-buenos-aires-17/

and here

http://argentina-taxis.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html (warning on popups)

with some bookstores I hadn’t tried

oh, for english books, the usual selection is what you already foudn in the airport on your way here .. big bestsellers in cheap paperback .. go to walrus books in san telmo, a mostly-used bookstore that buys and sells english books, mostly I think from travelers .. you can get a lot of things you’d never otherwise find here, or unload the ones you brought with you and have already read

I was told of a bookstore near cordoba and callao that has a wide selection of books in french, but never foudn it.  if any of you know of other foreign language bookstores, do let me know!

yoga routine

I was trying to do a better job of noting what I do for my “yoga” routine (quotations because it’s not 100% yoga), and remembered having a few people ask me what I do, so am going to write it here.

I break my routine up into 4 or 5 groups. I hold things until I can feel them, but not that long, depending much on which exercise. I do everything in each group once, then repeat everything in the group, and do all of these exercises as part of one session. If I’m in good shape, the entire group takes about 1.5 hours. If I’m lazy or tight, it can take longer. I sadly remember very few actual pose names, so at some point I’ll come back and clean this up with names for the poses that have them, and maybe some pictures of the non-”canon” poses. The poses are all either from standard yoga, from my favorite teacher in portland Diane Wilson, or made up by me occasionally. Diane has a very non-traditional approach, and takes things from many styles of yoga, from pilates, and invents some.

Group 1

I start out with exercises and asanas focused on the hips and legs.

I have pretty tight hips, and my trochanter rotation is fairly poor. I start out with a hip-opener looks like doing cobra but with the trochanters rotated out, knees to either side. Sometimes I have the bottoms of my feet touching, sometimes not. I then move my torso slightly forward and back focusing all the while on maximizing the outward trochanter rotation.

Not-quite-lotus practice. This I got as a lotus trainer from one of my old teachers .. I tore something in my left knee doing lotus with poor technique once, and am doing this now instead. Sit as though in lotus, with the right leg down first, but don’t point the foot back towards you, allow the calf to sit parallel and in front of you. Almost at a right angle to the knee, probably more like 40 degrees. Then place the left leg overtop the right exactly the same way, allowing the calves to follow the same line and touch each other. If it’s a good day, your knees will touch your feet on both sides. Then reverse which leg is on bottom and which on top. Focus on rotating from the hips, as in lotus, and not in the knees.

Running splits, leaving rear foot on the toes, with ball of foot pointing towards floor, rather than rotated or with shin/knee to the floor. Light almost “bounce” while in pose.

Side splits. Move between having legs rotated such that sides of feet lie flat on ground and such that heels only touch the ground, toes pointing up. Light almost “bounce” here as well.

Rounded-back roll-up from bent over to slowly, vertebra at a time, standing.

Bend over with curve still in back until the back begins to flatten, and remain there for a few seconds, increasing the stretch in the hamstrings and keeping proper back posture until releasing and bringing palms down to touch the floor while still standing.

From this pose, wide stance and bring self partly between legs, hands coming through and around to cup heels from outside, torso trying to fit partly into space between legs.

Downward dog.

Pose with legs folded at the knee, calves folded under thighs, lying on back, forelegs slightly to the outside of the thighs and soles of feet almost cupping the buttocks, torso lying back on ground. Then sit slightly up, and try to lower the lower back to the ground as much as possible before lying again. Focus on quadriceps stretch and good lower back posture, and lengthening back.

Group 2

“Stretch pose”. Probably a variation of something from pilates. Lie down on back, then raise legs slightly above the floor, and the upper body slightly above floor, leaving arms up and pointing straight towards feet. I try and hold this 3 minutes at a time for each repetition of this group. When I’m in really good form I can go 4 or 5, but it’s been awhile. Diane used to have us do breathing exercises like breath of fire meanwhile, and I find this often helps me while doing the asana. This exercise is awful if you don’t do it pretty often, but if you do it a few times a week and stick with it, it gets better and better.

Diamond pose. “Stand” on forelegs/knees, not on feet, with knees bent and forelegs pointed backward. Hands in prayer position. Arch back while still in this “standing” position until your head touches the floor behind you, then return. I repeat this 5 times. I feel a lot in my lower back and quad muscles when I’m doing it poorly, when I’m doing it better mostly just in the lower back and abs, and not so much in the quads .. partly this has to do with trying to keep the exercise about the arch and not letting the thighs bend back much.

Chakrasana (hey, an actual asana name!) .. I do this starting by standing, slowly arching back without letting my head fall back, more and more until I finally allow the head to arch back, arms to go over head, and then drop into it. Then I increase the arch a little bit more at a time until I feel like I’m at my limit. Then I drop to my elbows in chakrasana, and work it a little more. Then back to hands, and rise back to a stand. If I’m a bit out of shape, I sometimes will get a wave of dizziness after standing, so I usually relax standing for a few seconds after just in case.

Reverse neck roll: Lie on back, use hands not at all or as little as possible on floor, and lift body up so that all weight is on feet and back of head, then walk feet back so that head begins to roll farther and farther back, allowing the neck to bend completely, and keep rolling until you’re on the top of the head, then the forehead, the nose, and then so that you can actually kiss the groudn with your lips. Then reverse completely, and repeat again, 2x per execution of the group. I can’t tell you how impossible this seemed (diane did something not exactly like this but similar, and always said “pretend as though you can get to the point of kissing the ground”, which I took literally until I could do it. Every single time I’ve had neck problems, doing this a few times a day fixed it. Every time. Do not use the hands to support you any more than you must, ideally not at all, let them float.

Headstand, scissor legs directly up straight rather than scrunching knees first. Try and take all pressure and balance away from the elbows and toward the head, and really try and feel a low center of balance, rather than milling with the feet.

Shoulder stand – first the traditional shoulderstand until I feel in position, then raise arms so they are parallel to torso for most of the time holding the position. Only the neck and back of head will touch the ground.

Straight-back plow – ditto, arms straight up.

Round back plow – work between walking the feet out as far as possible and back in, then drop knees and work between knee-ear pose and knees-down roundback plow.

Yogic sleep – bring knees aroudn behind shoulders, cross feet behind head, torso completely between legs, hands locked behind lower back.

Side bend – stand with feet apart, bending toward right and then left as far as possible from waist, upper arm straight out from torso.

Group 3:

Scissors .. from lying on ground flat, bring legs straight and arms and upper torso straight up to touch each other (ideally feet touching arms at top of scissor) and then lowering,a ll with control. I am doing about 30 of these each execution of the group right now, I think when I was doing more yoga we used to just do this for 3 or 4 minutes.

Handstand .. I’m not great at balance here, so I start against the wall and then take myself off of it trying to balance as long as I can without touching it.

Scorpion .. I can maintain this off the wall, but am having trouble entering it off the wall right now, so again start on the wall, move off it, and maintain it off the wall.

Handstand Scorpion – ditto as for scorpion.

Full-bound bow. This is the bow, but a much better (harder, but changes the effect completely) binding .. instead of arms essentially to the sides and remaining in the bow, this makes much more of a circle. You essentially start out in bow pose but for the hands .. instead, rotate the arm out, and grab hold of the ball of the foot / inside of the sole, then swivel the elbow up so that the arms actually form an arch over your head and the hand grips the front half of your foot. Try and keep the elbows directly over you, not splayed out, and work the full body arch. Then start rocking back and forth in the bow. This really helps my lower back problems .. after so many poses with lwoer back arches, this pose with this binding really forces the arch to be in the entire back. I find myself hyperflexible int he lower back and not enough in the upper back, and this really unlocks my upper back and takes some of the “kink” out of my lower back, even though it starts out seeming like the opposite.

Locust .. this name seems to refer to several distinct exercises. The one I refer to involves having the hands/palms in volleyball-serve position, underneath you, while you lie over them, then raising the entire torso and legs overtop of you until it arches up and over your head and approaches the groudn in front of you, with your weight mostly on your chest and a bit on your neck and chin. Stretch out the neck and relax it a bit int he pose before rising into it. There are several “cheaters” Diane used to use for this pose, including using a basketball under the chest at the beginning, kicking into it one leg at a time, etc .. the kicking into it was helpful, and the leaving the butt up before entering it and legs sort of squatting was helpful to me. I hate props, though. Now that I can do it without cheats of course it’s even better.

Full bound shiva lord of the dance .. stand on one leg, take free foot and arch back over the leg holding the foot. Use the same binding as for the full bound bow, not the half-bound aroudn-the-side, but twisted around up into a full over-the-top arch. I suppose theoretically eventually you can start out directly reaching over the top to your feet in these poses, but for normal humans rotating into the full binding works fine.

Tree pose .. on one leg, free leg straight out in front, bend over free let holding sole of feet. Same for other leg.

Group 4

Intertwine fingers behind back, bend over forwards and rotate shoulders out as much as possible while bending forwards. Then sit down, intertwined fingers behind you, raise torso so weight is on hands and feet only, and rotate shoulders as you work the stretch by pushing torso weight towards feet away from hands, and allow the angle of the arms from the shoulders to be steeper and steeper. Reverse the intertwine (there’s always one thumb on top) and repeat.

Behind-back grab. The “i can wash my own back thanks” pose .. One arm over and behind the head, reaching down back, the other coming up from behind, binding either by holding hands behind back or ideally holding each other’s wrists. Work which shoulder/arm is moving more into the pose to stretch both sides. Reverse for other arm over/under.

Reverse prayer position – prayer position behind back, really try and open/relax the shoulders and keep good flat-hand prayer position behind back.

Chest-opening lock .. essentially the same as the first exercise in this group, intertwine fingers behind back, but focus on using the binding and position to really open the chest. I can usually feel my chest crack a little if I do this. I actually often do this without the hands at all, just focusing on opening the chest with completely internal muscles until I feel something release, which sometimes causes the crack.

Group 5

Seated twist .. one leg out straight, the other foot down knee up on the other side of teh first leg’s knee, twist aroudn in direction of folded knee working spinal twist and not being too hunched in lower back posture. Use inside elbow to work against knee. Then fold the straight leg until the sole of foot cups buttocks and both buttocks are still down on ground, more like the traditional version of pose. Continue to work the twist. Then bring inner arm through the knee and behind behind back with the outer arm. Reverse for other side.

Standing twist. Stand with legs slightly apart, and move freely and dynamically to twist, with arms either straight out or with elbows bent and upper arms still out .. feel weigth of body carryingyou .. give initial impulse from core, then allow the weight, the momentum to carry the move. Try not to let the twist be in the legs at all, the twist is along the spine. Do this until you get farther and farther into it, then stop getting any farther. Then rather than letting yourself “end” a twist by simply letting your body slow down and then beginning the other direction, initiate the reverse twist from the base/core about 1/2 – 2/3rds of the way into the twist, completely divorcing the upper part of the body from the lower so that the upper part of the body is still going the original direction and the lower the new direction, making a bit of a snap when eventually it comes along. This simultaneous-contra-direction is great. It should feel like a good boleo, for you tango dancers. I developed it as boleo practice, and now I just like how it feels.

Garudasana .. not well grouped, but I alway sliked it. Twist right leg over and aroudn left leg until the toe hooks back around to be visible in front. Twist right arm over and aroudn left arm until hands are in prayer position again. Then lower self a bit, relax arms, then stand back up into it, relaxing into the position well. Reverse sides.

Cat-? exercise. There was another animal name, which I forget. “Stand” on palms and knees as though you’re going to have a kid ride horse on your back. Then arch back like a scared cat, convex, then concave completely. Let your head move with the arch of the back, continuing the curve. When the head is up (the back being arched down) open mouth like a tiger and breath out through mouth, when it’s down breath in through nostrils. I actually reverse this occasionally and breath in through the open mouth, but I don’t know why, I like the variation. I looove this pose. It seems simple, but if I do it really well for a good minute back and forth of concave-convex I feel a huge amount of energy, like a pump, pushing through my lower back, my lines .. it feels almost sexual, like blocked energy down there is getting completely freed up. My usual technique is to think of a rope tied aruond my lower back pulling my up from the back, not from the knees or buttocks or arms or upper back, but from the curve of the lower back, then another pulling me down from the same place. The legs begin to feel extremely light, and I start to feel slightly light headed, also in part due to the heavy breathing in and out, and i feel completely energized after.

That’s it!

bookstore-cafes

these are my favorite place to spend afternoons on the weekend, the bookstore-cafes .. if you or anyone else knows of any others, please let me know!

el ateneo – pretty well known, but deservedly, it is a gorgeously restored 1920s theater that’s been turned into a very large bookstore and cafe. the cafe, sadly, isn’t quite as good now since having changed ownership, but it’s still ok. there are two, but the really impressive one is on santa fe near callao.

clasica y moderna – on callao. the coffee is completely blah, but there is a very cute little bookstore in the back (yes, little) and the ambience is great during the days. there’s also a great buffet breakfast. avoid in the evenings, they have some sort of tango singing/music thing going there usually at night.

boutique del libro – in palermo viejo on thames. I love this place! I used to go there a lot. they have a great book selection, a little cd shop, a couch, wifi that sometimes works, a cafe, and those oldfashioned wheeled ladders you can use attached to the shelves. the music and ambience of the cafe reminds me of the northwest .. lots of indie folkrock. muy tranqui.

e. c. – this is my new favorite, but you’ll have to ask me personally to get the full name and address, i don’t want to stick it on the public blog, it’s already getting busy lately. also in palermo, with a lovely roof terrace, good coffee, bookstore that has some spanish editions I haven’t seen elsewhere, and friendly attentive waitstaff. I think they probably have wifi too. a really cool little back area with couches too, though it is occasionally reserved.

other cafes I like for reading books:

the establacemiento general de cafe on pueyrredon

terreneo across from la farmacia in san telmo

origen in san telmo

la biela in recoleta (mostly for the people-watching in between pages)

finding books

The difficulty finding books here compared with in the US has gotten almost funny.  There are a number of books – yes, I’m talking about books written in spanish, not US imports in english – I can find in the US more easily (or at least special order) that I can’t for the life of me find or order in any bookstore here.  For one thing, I get the feeling that the majority of books here are published in south america, and that there isn’t a huge selection of books printed in spain.  But my most recent example is trying to find a copy of something by Neruda as a christmas gift for someone .. I’ve searched everyone, and it’s not in print locally, people are out of stock of the spanish edition, and noone can order it.  Neruda, for god’s sake! In spanish! In any edition! But there have been things by Cabrera-Infante, Lorca, and others that I haven’t found here either.  I realize the exchange rate makes things expensive, but the books do have prices that appear based on euros anyhow .. a book I regularly read when I’m sitting in one of my favorite bookstore-cafes is 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, but I haven’t purchased it yet since it costs some 86 pesos .. admittedly, it’s probably 860 pages, but still .. someone earning pesos isn’t going to be able to buy literature at that kind of pricing.

changing how you look at things based on using a different turn of phrase in another language (part 1)

I was reading an essay from Mario Bunge a few months ago in spanish about the philosophical implications of a language like english using one word for “is” and a language like spanish using two distinct words: ser implies an inherent quality and fundamental state of something, estar implies a current state of something. Ser: soy de Portland: my birthplace is a permanent thing that won’t change. soy un hombre: my gender won’t change (though i suppose in some hypothetical place where gender change surgery was common the verb might change over time).. at one point, I was told ser was used for being married – soy casado, though now most people use estar: estoy casado, as it seems a bit more like a current state of being, that could change or shift, not so much a who-i-am thing. Estar: estoy embarazada (pregnant) .. obviously, a current state. estoy frio (cold), etc. I’ll dig out the essay when I write the second part of this, but the implications of consciously implying one or the other are pretty huge. I am fat, for instance .. you can say “esta gordo” en spanish, though people do use “es gordo” sometimes asl well, to imply it’s someone’s current state.  In english, you’re forced into the pretty strong suggestion of state of being, that to me seems like the default suggestion of “is” in english.  Or at the least it’s ambiguous which you mean, and indeed most important is that most people don’t even think about which they mean, because there is no linguistic distinction.  On the other hand, I am a maid .. there is a big focus in the US now about not identifying who you are with what you do ..  so it’s started to get an implication among many people of not being an inherent identification .. in spanish, you still usually use Ser, which implies it really is who the person is.

Another example, like.  To say “i like this” in spanish, you say “this pleases me”, essentially.  “me gusta xyz”.  This means that the action comes from the thing or person you like.  I would like it if becomes it would please me if.  i might have liked this girl becomes this girl might have please me. it’s used in identical situations to like, but the direction is different, it’s the thing or person giving you the liked-ness, not you actively getting liked-ness from something.

Another more difficult .. esperar is a word that frustrates me in spanish. Wait, wait for, expect, and wish are all defined as esperar in spanish.  What if I’m waiting for something but not expecting it? More likely, what if I’m wishing for something but not expecting it? How do I define the difference? And more importantly, as often happens in language when multiple distinctions are encompassed in one word, is the distinction really as strong in spanish as in english between these, or do they think of the concept differently? and does it imply something i should think about about the similarity of the concepts even when I use it in english? ???

lucky little shark

I learned the lyrics for a song by Mirah that I like the other day, lucky little shark, and there was a phrase always liked but don’t use too much, raising Cain (or in the lyrics, “raise a little Cain”). Which made me realize that other than remember that Cain was someone who “did wrong” in the old testament and that it had something to do with his brother Abel, I really didn’t know what I was actually saying when I used it (I was born in an atheist/agnostic family, so forgive me the ignorance). Then was thinking about how many phrases we use that call something else to mind, but without thinking about the implication, and how in fact sometimes the secondary allusion might help to reinforce our point, or might do exactly the opposite, or just might be funny. If you had said “he’s really been raising some Cain lately” in reference to Bill Clinton’s brother, the implication would be quite different or at least stronger if you realized the phrase’s implication of direct harm toward someone’s brother.  If you work at a fertility clinic and have a lot of new work to do, saying “more in the hopper” is much funnier realizing that it originally referred to putting grain in a hopper on a tractor to plant seed. Putting your batteries in, as they say sometimes down here in spanish to mean really applying yourself and putting energy into getting stuff done, might be well applied in an article to one of the campaigners for nationalizing the oilfield energy resources here.

ways of making mate

I love rituals, and traditional ways of doing things. There are probably dozens of different ways of making mate down here (look for yerba mate on wikipedia if you’ve yet to be initiated). My girlfriend Mariana is from Rosario, and she makes some of the best mate I’ve ever had. She uses a yerba from Kraus which is organic, which I’m sure is part of it, but also has her special way of preparing it. I’d been trained never to move the bombilla from the spot once it’s in the yerba, lest you disturb the leaves and clog the bombilla. She does quite the opposite .. uses it to form and maintain an empty space on one side of the mate into which you continue pouring the water, to help make sure that as much of the yerba as possible continues to stay dry, so it doesn’t get that washed/lavado taste too soon. She also adds fresh cedron leaves, which are incredible. Mm. The woman who helps the owner of my new apartment is from Uruguay, and has her own method, actually pretty similar. Uruguayans, as far as I can tell, are the ultimate yerba mate addicts .. they walk aroudn the street with their thermi (thermoses?) under their arms, giant mates in their hands, drinking it all day long. The method of prep is similar with the addition of a miniscule spec of room temperature water before the hot water to prevent scalding the leaves, and then that once the yerba gets to be lavado, you then start a new “insertion” point about 1/4 of the way clock-wise aroudn the mate, drink til it gets lavado, then again move it, then again, until you’ve made it all the way around, thus making maximum use of every spec of yerba in the mate. She seems also particularly careful with the packing and shaping of the yerba in the mate .. always using a bombilla that has a sort of spoon shape to it, the curve of which helps to pack the “corner”/edge between the “hole” part (into which you pour the water) and the yerba part in a nice way. Then also, she uses uruguayan yerba, which you can’t buy here, and is both “sin palo” (without the little stems), of a slightly finer cut, and with a slightly different flavor .. I’m told by others and by her that it’s essentially brazilian style, and often comes from brazil. They swear that being despalado delays the yerba getting lavado, which I think is probably true .. I also (perhaps it’s psychosomatic) find that I don’t get headaches as fast from drinking despalado (stem free) yerba. It really helps having a big mate, too! My little buenos aires mates that I’ve bought don’t really cut it too well. Mariana uses a nice big one from Rosario. So now I have a second-favorite (carla from uruguay) and a favorite (Mariana still makes the best).

procrastination

I’ve been battling a mix of procrastination and concentration problems since I was maybe 10, and I’ve noticed that the biggest problem I have with focusing on one task I ought to be doing is being aware of it. I often will get it done when I’m trying to avoid some other task, thus having my attention focused on what I’m successfully avoiding. I suppose I could constantly invent things to avoid in order to get the things done that I really ought to, or try and not be consciously/observationally aware of what I’m doing .. the stereotypically neo-buddhisty-powerofnow be/do what you’re doing, don’t analyze and think about it.

problems with cultural and linguistic assumptions as universal

When I moved here, I had no spanish at all, and thus there was an enormous and obvious communications barrier between myself and anyone else here who didn’t have a good grasp of english. But even after having gotten to the point where I had a majority of my conversations in spanish, and most of my friends here and people I’ve dated being spanish speakers, I still would find that there were lots of little things constantly being missed .. how we used the same word, cultural points of reference, et cetera. In particular, dating, with all it’s intense need for clear communication and understanding, was a challenge .. some little unintentional implication based on word choice, or missing some little implication in someone else, could cause any number of problems. But as time went on, I realized .. thinking back to my past close friendships and particularly relationships, that these problems of fine communications were actually really similar to ones I’d had between two native speakers of english. Using different words to mean the same thing, using the same word to mean very slightly different things, implications that are loaded in the use of a word or a choice of phrase, understanding the person’s cultural background probably not being as important as the person’s personal background (his or her associations for any given situation, word or choice being based on his or her experiences surrounding it) .. but not really being aware of this, due to the inherent assumption that we speak the same language .. after all, we both were born in the US speaking english .. not only that, but both from the west coast .. both from the northwest .. like the same movies, vote the same, however many things you can think of as common reference points in thought and language still leave a vast gulf of understanding. I think the experience particularly of being involved now in a long distance relationship with a spanish speaker, thus forcing us to talk a great deal (an hour or two a day, usually) as opposed to being lazy and spending a lot of our time together just hanging out, has really taught me a lot about understanding even what I mean when I say something in my own language, careful use of context and word choice based less on habit and more on lack of ambiguity. This gets particularly difficult when the whole point of much of the way I phrase things in a relationship is to take focus or impact away from one thing, or refocus it towards something else .. since I try to avoid the constant “little white lie” mode of relationship management, but still don’t want to sound harsh or overly critical, defusing criticisms and taking impact away from a negative while stressing a positive becomes extremely important. This same thing, as is oft noted, also makes a subtle sense of humor difficult in a foreign language, as intentional confusion between two or three meanings / ambiguity, irony, sarcasm, etc are all to some degree based on playing with misunderstandings .. but then we’ve all had the same problems with people in our own language not realizing something was a joke or not as well.

resolution 27c

I have a regular habit, not limited to New Year’s, of vast dated lists of resolutions.  Though I still haven’t conquered the hinterlands of eastern Mongolia, read Master & Margarita in russian (not having even begun studying russian), played Schnittke chamber  music with Gidon Kremer, nor scaled nary a mountain in Tibet, I persist in making more of these lists.  One of my perennial resolutions is to write more, and so here I am.  We shall see if this blog lasts longer than my earlier ones.