Well, this is certainly an interesting Thanksgiving. Instead of sitting around a nice, warm turkey with family and friends, I’m freezing half to death in a train station waiting for a train that doesn’t seem to be coming. Unfortunately, I’ve been here now for almost an hour, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s…

I was able to attend the last fifteen minutes of the panel discussion “Why I am a Zionist” featuring faculty members Sam Peltzman (department of economics), Linda Waite (department of sociology), and Mark Lilla (committee on social thought), and from what I can tell, the discussion was well-balanced and thoughtful. After getting out of class,…

Just rode my bike over to Bartlett to get something to eat and met this “homeless” man…again. The first week I was here, he came up to me in front of Rockefeller Chapel and something of the sort: “Excuse me, sir. I want you to know that I’m a very well-educated man. I’m new in…

Bought a copy of Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili from the Seminary Co-op Bookstore today. I had seen it earlier at a friend’s house in Austin and had been fascinated by the illustrations, especially since they seemed almost impeccable despite the fact that they had been made when woodcuts were quite new. Now, however, I am…

What do you do when you’ve come to the conclusion that one of your best friends is a bit of a phoney? Take his French. I had known from earlier conversations that he was not fluent in French at all, even to the point that he didn’t know what simple words like garçon meant. Yet…