EVENT: Michael Lerner Speaking in Tucson Tomorrow

Michael Lerner, the main man behind Tikkun magazine, for which I have been writing these past two years, and also the Network of Spiritual Progressives, which attempts forge political alliances across religious lines in an effort to combat the Right, will be speaking in Tucson tomorrow evening.

He's a forceful, stylish writer and speaker, who makes a great deal of sense, even to someone like myself who is more inclined towards secular pursuits. If you are interested in the prospect of taking back spirituality from its bondage in conservative ideology, you should make every effort to attend. Also, there are local chapters of the Network of Spiritual Progressives here. As I learn more about how they work, I'll keep you informed about ways of participating.

National Coming Out Day

I have this perverse urge to come out, Diana Ross-style, as something. But I don't want to sully what is actually a serious day of commemoration. So I'll hold those thoughts for a more appropriate time.

While I have you on the phone, though, doesn't it seem like that song was written to become a huge hit in the gay disco scene? Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers were pretty darned savvy. They knew who was playing their Chic records. At the very least, they had uncanny marketing instincts, especially given the way that song followed its predecessor off the Diana album -- "Boy/You're turning me/Upside down" -- up the charts.

Reveried

I'm sitting here, listening to Andrew Bird warble in the other room, imagining what it would like to be with you. The morning sun is making bright diagonals across the cream-colored wall in the distance. You're sitting, one leg crossed and one stretched out on the bed. I keep wanting to brush that strand of hair out of your eyes. There's coffee ready, but I'm not going to go fill my cup until your eyes are no longer lit up from the inside by that beam that catches them at just the right angle. You're wearing a light green top, cut to be loose and soft. I keep marveling at the seamless transition that brought us from then to now and, if I'm lucky, will take us back in time shortly. I have that tingly feeling surging up from the base of my spine. It makes my neck shiver. You don't exist.

Come See Me Talk About Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Tomorrow will be insane. The Rocky Mountain chapter of the MLA is holding its annual conference in Tucson, but I probably won't be able to go until Friday, because I have so much on my plate. There's the Michael Lerner talk in the evening. I'd like to rush over to Modern Languages to see the tail-end of the prose series reading afterwards, since my former office mate and generally wondrous colleague Aurelie Sheehan will be up last. I'm not sure I'll have time, though. And then there's this panel I'm on in the afternoon, right after I'm done teaching:

I can't promise greatness, but the preliminary discussion the panelists had on Monday suggested that our public conversation will be interesting. I might even get to mention Walter Benjamin! It should be over by 6pm. Oh, and the moth exhibition, which dances along the line between art and science, is impressive, bringing out the inner Nabokov in anyone who has an inner Nabokov.