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Miscellany
Jan. 22nd, 2010 07:54 pm1. At ninety-plus years of age, my father's not quite as surefooted as he once was. Last night, he took a tumble which was serious-looking enough to warrant a 9-1-1 call. Fortunately, it seems not to have been as bad as it looks; some small fractures around his left eye, which is apparently pretty swollen, but no bleeding in the brain. Still, I'd appreciate any good wishes y'all have handy.
2. We're interviewing candidates for a position in the department, and one made his presentation today. His research talk was pretty impressive; he's working in an abstruse area of modern set theory. I think I got the gist of what he was saying, though I was hanging on by my fingernails by the end. Still, I'm pleased to note that I still have the ability to ask the occasional good question. (And the occasional bad one....)
3. I've finished three books in the last few days: Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter (nonfiction), and Yuki Urushibara's Mushi-shi 1. The Gaiman was a decent read, but not as creative, I think, as his best work, and I thought the ending was a bit old hat. Sobel's book was interesting, and I learned a few things about Galileo's work that I hadn't known, but it didn't have the flair of Longitude. Mushi-shi looks like a good series; the main character travels around Japan, dealing with the problems caused by mushi. I won't try to describe mushi, except to say that they're an interesting sort of threat. (It is several times emphasized that they aren't malevolent, any more than a poisonous spider is; they're just trying to live, like anything else alive would.) Some of the stories ("The Pillow Path", "The Traveling Bog") are poignant, and all of them absorbing.
2. We're interviewing candidates for a position in the department, and one made his presentation today. His research talk was pretty impressive; he's working in an abstruse area of modern set theory. I think I got the gist of what he was saying, though I was hanging on by my fingernails by the end. Still, I'm pleased to note that I still have the ability to ask the occasional good question. (And the occasional bad one....)
3. I've finished three books in the last few days: Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter (nonfiction), and Yuki Urushibara's Mushi-shi 1. The Gaiman was a decent read, but not as creative, I think, as his best work, and I thought the ending was a bit old hat. Sobel's book was interesting, and I learned a few things about Galileo's work that I hadn't known, but it didn't have the flair of Longitude. Mushi-shi looks like a good series; the main character travels around Japan, dealing with the problems caused by mushi. I won't try to describe mushi, except to say that they're an interesting sort of threat. (It is several times emphasized that they aren't malevolent, any more than a poisonous spider is; they're just trying to live, like anything else alive would.) Some of the stories ("The Pillow Path", "The Traveling Bog") are poignant, and all of them absorbing.
