All articles filed in Musings

It’s 11:30 here; about an hour ago I woke up from a nap, completely disoriented, with no idea what day or time it was, and frantically worried that I was somehow late for work in the morning. When I regained some sense of personhood, I realized that I was not, in fact, late for work…

Oh hey, guys… So, I kind of like wine. A lot. Maybe a little more than is reasonable and/or appropriate. I’m trying to learn as much as possible about wine in as short a time as possible – to the extent that I went out and bought an MCAT book over the summer so I…

Is it a coincidence that “fall” (v) is synonymous with “diminish; tumble; crash; cascade; recede; regress; lessen”? –That “fall” (n.) is synonymous with “plummet; decline; lapse; downfall; loss; ruin; humiliation”? The last one seems especially apt. Fall has a terrible promise to it that I cannot escape, year after year. I am caught in the…

“Joy: I am burning with a passionate love. Reason: You are right to say burning. For love is a hidden fire, a pleasing wound, a sweet bitterness, a delightful disease, an agreeable torture, a charming death…” I love this guy.

“An epic of urban formation followed by dusty abandonment looks menacing next to millions of years of hunting and gathering, as though settled societies are inherently unstable.” — Steven Stoll. “Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America”. pp. 19 Does this explain the rise and fall of civilizations? Agriculture is inherently unstable;…

In the car, while listening to Muse, my dad said he had finally figured out what exactly it is that Muse does so spectacularly. He said they use the piano in a way that makes the piano sound “liquid”. This seemed to me a remarkably good way of describing their sound – listen to the…

I am walking down Eager Avenue in St. Louis, walking to Borders. I walk past this haven of suburbia past the fountains no one ever notices, past the flowers no one ever smells, across the hot black asphalt with no pedestrian crosswalk because, obviously, why would anyone ever want to walk here? This is dead…

[A collaboration by Joey Spadafora and Amira Makansi] A rose in the desert, the rain on the sea I can’t hear your name anymore The sound in my ears is drowned by the screams The voices, the far-distant horn Hold me by the heel and dip me in the Styx I died ten years ago,…