I've returned to my parents' apartment in New York to feverishly work out my applications, find a new job, and move out as soon as possible. I finished Immigrant Acts in the Oakland Airport saturday morning, and while i agree with others' observations regarding the imprecise and at times self-defeating diction and sentence structure of Lowe's prose, i think she makes some very strong points about empire and subject formation, and probably doesn't care if I don't like her writing because she is very clear about her complete dismissal of aestheticization anyway. This, i take issue with. While there's certainly a very serious and very obvious danger in reducing cultural production to the 'purely' aesthetic, reifiing it into a dissassociated and isolated objet d'art linked to nothing but the singular genius of its creator, does resisting aestheticization to the degree which Lowe does ultimately ignore the extent to which aesthetics become a site for the kinds of contestations she lauds? And is there a greater danger in the de-aestheticization of any and all works by people of color in order to better integrate them into one's theoretical framework? I wonder about this.



I also started reading the Stuart Hall reader which i didn't get to finish two years ago. Hopefully, when i finish, I'll be coherent enough to write that response to Katie I promised. But in the meantime, i have personal statements to write, and applications to work on.



San Francisco was generally good. The debrief was hard at times, but i am doing what i believe io need to be doing right now. Still, it was good to see the other folks from the first wave of coordinators again and to meet the newer recruits as well, and to hear how much ass those folks are kicking. My replacement is going to be great, i think. Seeing John Wilhelm not in the context of the Yale fight was very odd. Good to hear him talk about the fight though. It's a very exciting struggle, and one i want to help out in whatever way i can, but right now, i guess that doesn't include being a boycott coordinator.



Alek and Camille's cat is really cute.



Last night, I watched The Wizard on TV for the first time in maybe twelve or thirteen years. You remember it - kind of like Rain Main meets nintendo, with fred savage, christian slater, and beau bridges. Makes a lot less sense now than it did then, but still enjoyable.