s. wallerstein

I'm a huge Godfather fan, less part 3. I'd put them on my list of favorite movies, not just favorite gangster movies. They're so much part of international popular culture that a Chilean podcast on politics used them as their paradigm for how politics really works.

Better than the Godfather 1 and 2?

Something went wrong with the zeitgeist. All of us on the left assumed we were going forward with regard to giving women the recognition they deserve among other issues, but we seem to be going backwards. So, no, they don't even hypocritically try to the send the right signal just as Trump doesn't.

It's impressive that in 2025 this kind of discrimination takes place. You could organize an alternative conference for women. In general, building an alternative culture works better than fighting to get your foot into the door.

Social gatherings of academic philosophers are awkward, not because philosophers are necessarily awkward, but because they're in competition with one another and that competition is not completely transparent as it would be among, say, salespeople.

Almost everyone I'm close to, including my two sons and myself (not my wife), are either academics or have taught in higher education for some time. I don't find them to be awkward, but maybe that's what I'm used to. My brother-in-law did graduate work in phil and he's socially very likeable.

that's an answer that only a philosopher would give. you're a "natural" philosopher.

The famous opening scene of Saturday Night Fever shows Travolta walking down the street with a paint can.

I got that from a book that might interest you, A Short History of Stupidity by Stuart Jeffries. It has interesting stuff on Socrates, on Eastern views of stupidity, on Flaubert, some stuff on eugenics and IQ that didn't interest me and stuff on social media and Trump that I haven't gotten to.

Flaubert said that stupidity consists in seeking a conclusion.

"Yes, I taught English, how did you guess that?", I said.
"Only teachers say things like that", she answered.

I used to buy bread every day and one day I greeted the cashier with "good afternoon". "It's Mr. Good Afternoon", she replied. "Doesn't everybody greet you'", I asked. "No" was the reply. "Greeting someone is the minimum of respect we owe others", I said. "Teacher", she said. cont

Don't good manners have a moral dimension? I don't mean eating your peas with a fork, not a spoon, but saying "thank you", "you're welcome", "excuse me", "´please", etc., in the right circumstances.

At midnight I send a bunch of whatsapp to friends and family wishing them a happy new year, take the stronger of my two sleeping pills, put plugs in my ears to drown out the music from the neighbors and go to bed.

Yes, and that's one of the reasons for Trump.

When I say I "saw the Beatles", that's literal. We bought the cheapest tickets in Shea Stadium. My friend John and I spent the whole concert guessing at what song they were playing because of all the girls screaming. We had binoculars so we could see the Beatles clearly

The Beatles 1965
Rolling Stones 1965
Miles Davis 1970
Chick Corea 1974
Keith Jarrett 1976

It's interesting that Hendrix has stood the test of time. He's very 60's.

My parents didn't use them either, at least during that part of childhood I recall clearly, let's say, from 5 years old on. Maybe they did when I was 2 or 3, but I suspect not.

I've never used any of those words in my lifetime, neither as a child nor as an adult.

I was hardly a juvenile delincuent, but I was once suspended from high school for a couple of days for sneaking out of a boring documentary movie my class was seeing and sneaking into a neighboring room where they were showing the movie "Grapes of Wrath".

Some weirdos thrive. Others sleep on park benches. For a weirdo to thrive, they need basic 9-5 discipline, to get up when the alarm clock rings, to commute to someplace they don't want to go, to smile at people they detest, to jump when they're told to jump. Otherwise, the park bench.

The perfect Christmas gift would be that Trump and Vance both resign. Trump commits himself to a psychiatric hospital while Vance enters a Zen monastery. New elections are held and someone reasonable and honest is elected.

I was so out of it during hi school that I, except for a dance movie like Footloose, don't find the genre appealing. Hi school was the low point of my life, the most lonely, the most despairing, the most self-hating. At the end of hi school I began to reinvent myself and college was fine.

I saw Footloose with Kevin Bacon. Good music, great dancing, not much of a plot. In any case, entertaining.

Grease?

It's about a kid in high school. It's one of the few films I know that deals with the traumas that highly sensitive teenagers go through, because in my experience at least, adolescence is the most sensitive stage of life. The so-called high school movies don't reflect my experience of those years.

How about Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford?

In Chile you enter directly into a university career. No one wanted to study to be an English teacher (low pay, low status), but they were kids who didn't score high enough on exams to study medicine, law, economics or engineering, which pay better and are high status. So zero motivation.

I taught college in Chile in the 80's, English to future English teachers. Everybody cheated. My Chilean colleagues told me not to create problems, that everybody passes unless they attack you with a deadly weapon. So I did what they suggested.