two weeks notice

My friends are starting to shame me by calling this "Andrew's blog", so I thought I'd better poke my head up and say something. Two weeks remain of my two years in Boston, and I am eagerly counting the days. Not that I haven't enjoyed my time here, but the things that I love can be carried away with me, and there are one or two things that I don't love that I am prepared to jettison. (I didn't mention the Tufts philosophy department. Did you hear anyone mention the Tufts philosophy department? Not me.) One must be circumspect about these things: no Boston, no Andrew. Enough said.

Needless to say, I am not going to be a political blogger or an intellectual blogger or a photography blogger. If I have a propensity as a blogger it might be towards the food blog... but this sort of thing will have to wait until my life in Sheffield and Andrew's digital camera. I'll leave all the bells and whistles to Andrew and trust that those of you who read my posts are satisfied with occasional thoughts from within. And my thoughts lately have been largely about change and transition and moving... what to take with me in the practical sense, and what to take with me in some other sense that I don't quite know how to define.

Here is a list of things that I have done whilst in Boston:

1. Learned to knit (thanks to Eleanor Howat and my tuesday night knitting girls)
2. Taught my first classes.
3. Found my philosophical feet, so to speak. (no thanks to the Tufts philosophy department)
4. Found my Andrew.
5. Made friends with Jessica Darling.
6. Been a graduate student/nanny/writing tutor.
7. Learned to make the perfect apple pie (thanks to Anne Wanderman)

I can take all of those with me. Check. So what is it that I can't take? Why is moving hard?

Subjectivity in Science

Listening to Radio 4's excellent All in the Mind this evening I heard in the article on 'survivors poetry' another encouraging sign that scientists and doctors in the West might be starting to take the subjective aspects of illness - mental illness in this case - as seriously as the biological and physiological bits. The program goes even farther, by suggesting that an appreciation of literature might make a substantial difference, especially to the unusually large numbers of writers who succumb to mental illness. And they say we highfallutin academic types can't make a difference in the world! (Overlooking the fact that teaching people's kids to write, think and generally communicate better might actually be a good way to make a living).

There is hope?

There's an interesting testament to the real significance and possibilities of the 'blog' here. It's also the first vaguely optimistic thing I've read about the US Democractic party since W stole the country.

Little Gregor

Isn't my nephew incredibly cute?

Pretty Mundane

What constitutes news in my life - mostly thanks to my interminable PhD - has become alarming in its mundanity. I caught myself regailing my friends Jane & Neil (back from New Zealand, and lovely to see them again) with a story about the fate of a tub of beans last night. Just to cement this impression I thought I'd share the latest bit of excitement, which is that my landlord Nick finally came round to take away the huge pile of unwanted furniture that's been in our living room for about two weeks now. It's exciting for me because, well, almost anything that doesn't relate to philosophy is right now, but also because it makes our front room look vastly more spacious, as you may be able to tell here...



It's not that I never leave the house though. For example, wandering around Sheffield this afternoon in the unusually warm evening sunshine, I was noticing how many trees we have in our neighbourhood that have been sometimes savagely trimmed back, presumably to prevent them doing any damage to people's houses. I took this picture of one, later modified to black and white to emphasise the interesting, vaguely ominous elephantine character of trees rudely stripped of their limbs.



At least my weary academic eyes aren't yet completely closed to the world around me...

Spring in Sheffield

Some fairly random sights around my house on a suddenly sunny day in April.

I think the Gargoyle belongs to Tom, along with the thermometer thingummyjig. It's so hideously kitsch I almost like it.









Tom's pet fish Thor, who has been entrusted to our care while Tom is away in New Zealand.

Civilisation

I thought this was an unusually good example of Radio 4's rather hit and miss attempts at comedy. Perfect to brighten up a dreary day's lunch break (just give it a minute or so to load).

Excellent Chilli* Recipe

My lovely housemates Steven and Jane cooked us this fabulous chilli the other night and even baked home made banana bread and served it with fresh blueberries for dessert. I really do live a life of the utmost luxury! I wanted to share the recipe because it had an unusually authentic Mexican flavour to it - although not having been to Mexico, this is based on my limited experience of decent Mexican restaurants (this one in particular). Oh, that plus what Laura tells me about it when she waxes lyrical, as she often does, on the joys and wonders of the world's peasant foods (she's quite right you know). In particular, it's the addition of dark chocolate that gives this a 'mole' like texture and flavour.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp Olive Oil
3 Onions, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 red chilli, deseeded and diced (we used two, but obviously it depends how spicy you like it)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp allspice
1 cinnamon stick
3 tsp ground cumin
25g chocolate (I think we used more of this too, just for fun)
2 sticks celery, sliced
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
250g (8 oz) pinto beans, cooked weight, or 1 x 400g (14 oz) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
250g (8 oz) red kidney beans, cooked weight or 1 x 400g (14 oz) can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 x 400g (14 oz) cans chopped tomatoes
salt and pepper

TO SERVE: salsa of spring onions, avocado and fresh coriander; soft tortillas, grated cheese.

- - - - - -

1. In a large pan or casserole, heat the oil and gently fry the onion and garlic until soft but not coloured.
2. Add the chilli, thyme, allspice, cinnamon, and cumin to the pan and fry for about 2 minutes.
3. Then stir in the chocolate and let it melt.
4. Add the celery, carrot and green pepper and cook slowly for 7-10 minutes. Then add the beans and mix in well and cook for a further 4-5 minutes. Then add the canned tomatoes and bring the mixture to the boil. Season well, cover the pan and simmer for 40-50 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Adjust the seasoning and serve hot with a range of accompaniments.

(This is from an excellent book called 'Sarah Brown's World Vegetarian Cook Book' published by The Book People (Ivy Press) in 2004.)

- - - - - -
*Any American folks who may think I'm misspelling this word might be interested to know that the US spelling 'chili' derives from the Spanish version 'chile'. The Spanish corrupted this word - during the conquests - from the original Nahuatl word (the indegenous Mexicans, who spoke a dialect of Uto-Aztecan), which was also spelled Chilli.

Oh What A World

Grim news about the US and Iran in the British press today, especially here and here, along with Andrew Brown's piece for the Guardian today. An excerpt:

The reports from the Pentagon and the White House are somewhat chilling. Not only do they suggest the president is prepared to use a tactical nuclear weapon to hit underground bunkers, but that he hopes that "saving Iran" will be his legacy.

This follows on from Symour Hersh's piece in the New Yorker, whose reporting though unknown to me is very highly regarded by other sources I trust.

Since I'm not ready to live in a world where people are even talking about using nuclear weapons never mind actually using them, I've sent a short e-pistle to the PM voicing my concern. I recommend that any other British citizens who share my concern for the fate of planet, never mind the middle east do the same. And you US citizens? Well apart from voting for someone else - which I know many of you have tried, twice now, without success - it looks like it will take some kind of national uprising to stop the increasingly psychotic GW. Or you could just continue to pretend you're canadian.

The Cult of Relativism

I'm currently reading an interesting book on the broad topic of relativism by Paul O'Grady (Trinity College Dublin). This is both because relativism seems to be in vogue in philosophy at the moment, and because it contains very accessible discussions of some issues I deal with in my thesis.

His Preface won me over immediately, so at the risk of violating copyright (I'm sure he won't mind, I thoroughly recommend anyone interested buy the book!), here's a short quotation:

Philosophy is an abstract and theoretical discipline. Because of this, many outside it (and not a few within it) think that it has little impact on the everyday life of people. This has been especially accented in recent years, as increasing standards of professionalisation mean that philosophers tend to write explicitly just for others in their field and leave the general public in the dark. Nevertheless, philosophy has always had an impact on human culture, shaping currents and tendencies, supplying ideologies, vocabularies and concepts and offering ideals that penetrate to all aspects of society. For example, the works of Aristotle and Aquinas influenced a great number of people over many centuries through the mediation of the Catholic Church. The dialectics of Hegel, turned on their head by Marx, reached a multitude through various socialist movements. The existentialists' analysis of nihilism, meaninglessness and boredom pervaded the literature and cinematic culture of the twentieth century. (From 'Relativism' by Paul O'Grady, Chesham: Acumen, 2002, page ix)

After forgetting all about this for some weeks, I was listening to a show on Radio 4 recently about Pope Benedictus. One of his catchphrases when he was first inaugurated (or whatever is the appropriate obscure ecclesiastical term) was that the world was in the grip of a 'dictatorship of relativism'. The programme went on to explain that Benedict's problem with relativism (apart from its being inconsistent with Catholicism I imagine) is that its natural companion is totalitarianism (hence the 'dictatorship' reference). Supposedly this harked back to Benedict's reaction to German National Socialism in his youth. This caused me to remember Dr. O'Grady's preface.

Here are three very rough premises. (1) Relativism is in vogue philosophically, (2) philosophical ideas eventually filter down into culture at large, (3) relativism's natural companion is totalitarianism. The rough conclusion is that culturally, society is heading in a very worrying direction, towards some kind of totalitarian way of thinking - or at least a way of thinking whose 'natural companion' is some such political system. (Maybe the dying interest in democracy in many countries is a symptom of this?)

This 'natural companion' business - apart form being horribly vague - seems counter-intuitive to me, and I wonder what other people think about this. In a dictatorship, the people - assuming they are genuinely loyal to the state - put all their faith in the words and actions of one person. That person is the political and perhaps even the moral and spiritual authority. But how is this like relativism?

My own encounters with relativism both in the classroom and round the dinner table have been of a doctrine that's either (as someone I know calls it) a 'lazy man's answer' to excessively difficult problems or of an apparently benign diffusing of tensions between people who radically disagree on some highly emotive issue. The first manifestation is like this: you get someone who finds it hard to see how there can be a right answer to a problem saying 'it's all relative innit?'. The second is like this: John and Cynthia are violently disagreeing about politics/religion/morality or whatever, and someone says 'well what works for you John won't necessarily work for Cynthia, everyone is entitled to their own opinion'.

Now obviously I don't think these experiences exhaust the social manifestations of relativism (neither do I think their being pretty harmless is any kind of argument in favour of them), but I find it hard to draw a line between these apparently benign phenomena and the totalitarian state. Can anyone help me?

Moreover, consider this analogy. Christians, I take it, by and large, are not relativists, but absolutists. Christians generally hold that there is one true moral code, namely the one codified in Christ's teachings. But if God were the leader of the state, wouldn't it be a totalitarian one? I mean, at least in the sense that what the leader says goes on any given question. Matters wouldn't be up for a vote or a discussion, this is God after all.

Then there's the Euthyphro contrast, which without boring the pants off you - which I may have already done by now - goes thus: are actions good because God commands them? Or does God command actions because they are good? If you lump for the latter, then you don't get relativism. Moral and political truths aren't relative to whatever the dictator says this week. Instead, the dictator is just exceptionally good at picking up on moral truths, better perhaps than anyone else, and therefore fit to be a leader.

Suffice to conclude I'm confused about these questions: is relativism as a cultural phenomenon a bad thing? If so, is it really because it somehow leads us to totalitarianism? Comments gratefully received.

Spring Forward

I was thinking this afternoon about how best to write my first blog entry... Those of you who know me well will know my aversity to most forms of technology (well... 'incapacity with regard to' more than 'averstiy to') as well as my love of words and writing. So it is not entirely without some sense of wonder that I embark on an enterprise that involves the two together. I have a feeling that there is some very apt metaphor here for my relationship with Andrew, but let's not go too far in my very first entry!

Anyway, it is not long now until I move across the water to live with Andrew (53 days, or thereabouts), and this countdown is the inspiration for my post title. (I am so glad that I get to title my posts. I like naming things.) The pieces are in play. Planning a transatlantic move is a bit like preparing an elaborate meal with lots of dishes. You have to time things very carefully. When should I ship my books, and where? (storage with Mom, or Sheffield) What should I bring in my two airline-allotted suitcases? Can I bring my favorite tea cup, or should I just find a Sheffieldian substitute? I have found a replacement housemate for my apartment here in Boston, and she moves in on May 15th. That date marks the end of my time in Boston and the beginning of my time in transition to a new life. If only Andrew could somehow manage the logistics of the situation for me. He's so good at that...

It's sort of funny, the way that we divide up our time, isn't it? I mean, speaking of the whole "spring forward" thing, did you know that Britain moved its clocks forward for daylight savings time a whole week before the States? Andrew and I were six hours apart for a week. It was very strange. That extra hour makes a lot of difference in a transatlantic relationship between two academics who like to go to bed early. And I was reading that President Bush has met with his energy advisors and decided, in his infinite wisdom, to change the date of daylight savings time in the future quite dramatically. Is this how we determine how to divide up our lives? On the advice of GW and his gang? Political rants aside, I think it is really funny that we depend so much on the time and divide up our lives based upon these demarcations that seem almost arbirtrary. As to whether it is funny-peculiar or funny-haha... I am still working on that one.

Environmental Ethics

Now here is a vivid and depressing illustration of just how complicated it can be trying to save the planet.

But for all you fish-eaters out there, help is at hand. I recently discovered this site's excellent species to eat/species to avoid resources designed to help us make good, ethical choices at our local fishmonger (well, for those of us who still have local fishmongers).

Jack Winter on How He Met His Wife

Okay, so this is recycled from my Sheffield PG blog, but nobody reads that, and it's worth recycling.

How about this for a mind-straightening, genious bit of writing?

- - - -

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated--as if this were something I was great shakes at--and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

(Jack Winter, "How I Met My Wife," The New Yorker [25 July 1994])

RSS

For those of you who don't already know, there's a thing called 'RSS' (Really Simple Syndication) which will automatically tell you the number of new posts on our blog (so you don't have to check regularly only to discover there's nothing new). It does this by displaying a number next to the site's bookmark.

Using RSS will involve one of two slightly different but easy methods.

(1) Look in you browser's address bar (where it says andrewandlaura.blogpsot.com right now). If along at the end of that bar there's a little blue RSS icon, then all you need to do is this. Click on the icon and you'll go to our site's 'feed' - this site's content in a slightly different format. Bookmark this feed by adding it to your bookmark bar or menu. Each time I add a new post a number will appear next to that bookmark, telling you there's one or two or however many new posts to look at.

(2) If you don't have that little icon, scroll down to the bottom of this page's sidebar (the links on the right) and click on the link to 'RSS/XML Feed', which has the same result. Bookmark the feed that appears and the bookmark should alert you with a number whenever there's a new post.

Because I've set the site to print whole blog entries in RSS view, you can just read the site's feed if you like. If you'd like to comment, say hello or simply like the mellow colour scheme I've chosen however, you'll have to go to the site itself. This can be done by simply clicking the title of the post you want to comment on.

I hope that makes sense, these things are pretty difficult to describe. Improvements on this post are welcome, as are any queries from those who are still horribly confused.

For anyone who is already tech savvy and just wants to know the feed's address, then here it is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EvaLuna

Bokeh

There's a link already posted (to the right of this message) for Richard Wanderman's page. Richard is a big photography buff and when Laura and I took a trip up to Connecticut a few months ago he taught me some cool stuff about taking photographs. Much of it was basic but extremely useful insights about composition and light, while some of it was only really for those who have really sexy cameras and a selection of stunning lenses (like Richard). Still, it was one of the latter insights that was especially interesting, about the Japanese word 'bokeh', meaning 'confusion'. This picture (by Richard, not me, I hasten to add) is a good showcase. It's hard to describe, but the bokeh is the swirl of unfocused background - the stuff behind the subject you may not want to focus on, but which nevertheless provides a rich backdrop, even (or especially) when it's not in focus. Richard has more and better examples of nice bokeh in his many other pictures, which is one reason among many you should check out his page. HIs stunning aerial shots are another. I had no idea you could take such good shots from inside a regular passenger plane.

Cutout Cathedral

Cutout Cathedral
Originally uploaded by andrewhowat.

Okay, so that post was disappointing, but this one is better! This is because it is meant to remind you all that you can see our pictures (of Laura and me and our many beautiful friends) on Flickr at this address:

www.flickr.com/photos/andrewhowat

But many of you knew that already. Drat. Okay, I'll go back to the drawing board and come up with something better I promise.

Welcome All

Dear everyone,

thanks for coming along to our blog. I'm sorry there's nothing worth reading right now. I'm sure Laura will get right to writing something interesting for y'all (did I just say 'y'all'? Sorry). In the mean time, here's a really weird picture of me, which I venture to suggest is mildly amusing.

Bookmark us! And come back soon. Or you can RSS us, if you're comfortable with that sort of thing.

Oxen,

Andrew (and Laura (in absentia/Boston))