F Lengyel @flengyel@schelling.pt

I'm trying to warm up to Mastodon. Add the tedious, effluvial stream of didactic, presumptuously scolding, moralizing posts by the Arbiters of Thought into the mix and it's hard to stay interested. But aside from that, it's OK.

A philosopher fills out NYU's application form question on Taylor Swift.

"There’s no passion, no yearning, no life-affirming vulgarity, no grief, no regret in Swift’s songs. Instead it’s as if the sentiments of a jaded 25 year-old woman are expressed in the vocabulary and emotional armature of a 15 year-old girl. Swift’s persona sings as if ‘relationships’ are nothing but persistent irritants in an otherwise Instagrammable life."

https://johnrapko.com/blog/2023/8/5/reflections-and-responsesnbsp-on-tay-tay #taylorswift #nyu #application #wit

@bluknight @pluralistic I don't know that. I'm not sanguine about how this acquisition will "work out."

@pluralistic This four-minute NPR interview with Publisher Weekly's Jim Milliot about KKR's acquisition of Simon & Schuster strains credulity. Mr. Milliot thinks this acquisition benefits readers, writers, and the publishing industry. He remarks that, while private equity firms don't have the best reputation, "in the end [the acquisition] will work out." I'd wager that Mr. Milliot's optimism is misplaced.  https://www.npr.org/2023/08/07/1192579398/publishing-company-simon-schuster-was-sold-for-1-62-billion-to-investment-firm-k

Recurrent nightmares 3/3

Then I remember that I no longer live with my parents. They died relatively young. Still, I cannot banish that household's oppressive, angry atmosphere from memory.

In my family, either you had completed your chores or you had done nothing. It was virtually impossible to complete a task with the requisite fastidiousness. Since there was no question of incremental progress, it was pointless to participate.

Recurrent nightmares 2/3

In another series, I'm still living with my parents. My mother is angry with me for some reason–perhaps I didn't perform some chore perfectly or earn enough money. She demands reparations for my having robbed her of the years she spent raising me. If I run away, she runs after me.
Whatever the reason for her anger, I look forward to the day when I will have nothing more to do with my family.

Recurrent nightmares 1/3

In one series of nightmares, I remember having a second apartment and forgetting to pay the rent for several months. I go to Brooklyn to find the apartment. Someone else is living in it.

The street door of the apartments in my dreams never fit into the doorframe. The deadbolt won't align with the strike plate. The door chains won't reach. The ceilings leak. The rent outstanding is over $100,000.

Dream 3/3

"I have hundreds of books on mathematics and physics here–do you like mathematics?" He knew them by heart. He used a word I didn't recognize–his vocabulary was more developed than mine. "I'm going to have to look up the meaning of that word." He looked away.

My apartment became a house. My son's friends outside were affable, older, undemonstrative, and capable of violence–they had guns. He left to join them. I drove the house out of range of the guns onto the highway.

Dream 2/3

He asked me who I was. "I'm your father." He accepted this without comment. His nose was unusually prominent and hawklike, with numerous protruding red nodules and a network of veins and arteries connecting them. Was his condition operable? I cursed my genetics: why couldn't I have an ordinary boy instead of a mutant?

Dream 1/3

I dreamed last night that I had a baby boy in my dresser drawer for several years. I hadn't noticed him–how could I have been so self-absorbed? He was wrapped in a blue blanket in the second drawer from the top on the left. I took him out, and he aged instantly. He was now nine years old and had developed an independent history, a distinctive personality, and friends waiting to play with him outside.

😂

https://mathstodon.xyz/@flengyel/110007867567504201

"Biden needs to fire Victoria Nuland and perhaps others on his foreign policy team." Giving the odious Victoria Nuland the pink slip will advance Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's plan to tame inflation--not to mention inflammation.

https://policytensor.substack.com/p/biden-needs-a-foreign-policy-reset

@niplav Thank you. It's good to be back.

Back from Jazztodon.com. I decided that I wasn't cool enough. Forgive me.

Dream, January 21, 2023 2/2

"The room is nice."

I had aged and was now mentally diminished. I stood in the doorway, not knowing what to do.

Dream, January 21, 2023. 1/2

I was standing in one of the corridors of a hotel-like building with rooms furnished with a bed, a small desk and chair, and a lamp. A man in a jumpsuit was making a bed in one of the rooms I had been peering into. He stepped into the corridor to tell me that my room was ready.

"Why am I here?"

"You're here to die," the man said.

"I see. Do you know what my condition is?"

"I'm here to make the beds and clean up. Someone else will tell you."

Moving to jazztodon.com

@pseudoriemann How much do you plan to eat?