Every morning I wake up on

The wrong side of capitalism

Rhode Island Red

On General

by tim @ 4/8/2006 7:03 am

One of the advantages of America is that it’s so huge, travelling more or less anywhere takes a long time. I like long journeys; somehow the length of the journey always feels like extra time you’ve got for free from somewhere. On the flight over here, I managed to read a fair amount of Being and Event, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while without much success.

The metaphysical bargain that gives you this extra time has a price: airports. I’m not sure why they make me come over all Dave Spart, but watching lines of people shuffling forward towards security guards, meekly removing their belts and shoes, always makes me think of other lines of people being lead towards showers. And no matter how many times I hear them, I can’t bring myself to believe that the recorded announcements that “all service personal are welcome in the USO lounge,” are happening in reality rather than Starship Troopers.

Anyway, I’m in Providence for a conference. You can read my paper, if you like; it’s about Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (it’s very slightly more interesting than that suggests).

 

3 comments

  1. Hey mate, I’ve read this after a few ‘tinnies’ as we say in Blighty and am a little too beery to read your paper properly - but I will, if only cos Pete de Bolla wrote a lot about space (not exactly the same as geography, but there or there abouts).

    Comment by Richard @ 4/9/2006 3:02 pm

  2. That sounds interesting - do you have references? Incidentally, did you see that there’s a new film out about the Earl of Rochester? I’m not sure how much it’s about cunts, though.

    Comment by tim @ 4/9/2006 10:06 pm

  3. Any of the ‘early de Bolla’ - mainly Discource of the Sublime, which is the basis for his part 1 lectures (especially his discussion on people visiting art gallerys, but look at the whole book.

    The only thing I hate about films about libertines are the punchably annoying comments made by the actors (”X was really the first rock and roll star”).

    Comment by Richard @ 4/11/2006 3:53 am

Leave a comment

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.