Back

I was in Newcastle over the weekend. Now I'm back. The return took 24.5 hours. There was a 2 hour delay out of Heathrow because the crew was stuck in traffic due to bad weather. I find this explanation suspect because the weather was no different that day than it had been the previous 2 days--rainy. If it is always raining, wouldn't one expect a transportation system that takes the rain into account? The explanation "crew struck in traffic" was also the one used by the train people when I went to Cardiff in September. Well, actually, not quite. The conductor took a cab (presumably because the trains were unreliable) and the cab driver kept falling asleep at the wheel. At least that's what I think I remember.

Anyway, the 2 hour delay out of Heathrow meant that I missed my connecting flight out of Chicago and so had to spend an extra 5 hours in the airport. I gathered more evidence for my thesis that communism is the highest stage of capitalism: most of that time I spent in lines, endless lines. I would finally get to the ticket counter only be told that I was in the wrong line, at the wrong airline. Back in Rochester, there were no signs in the parking lot for the exit. So I drove around and around in the parking lot for what seemed like hours. It was probably less than 5 minutes, but zombies have a poor sense of time--time slows down immensely for the undead because there is no end point any longer, nothing to keep time against, except perhaps flesh rot.

So, in Newcastle I met K-punk, Spurious, and Blah-feme. And Mladen Dolar, but he doesn't blog.  Blah-feme seems to be in the questioning stage of blogging, not quite sure if wants to commit and what commitment entails. K-punk has an energy similar to Kim Nicolini (Kim Dot Dammit)--and the same color hair or taste in hair color. Spurious is an incorrigible gossip. Sentences begin with a breathless, "well..." Of course we shared our true feelings about everyone and everyblog in this little corner of the blogosphere, our loves and hates, appetites and aversions.

We visitors really wanted to see Spurious's flat. Mladen Dolar was particularly intriqued by the stories of damp and squalor, particularly from the famous line "damp follows you like a dog" and Spurious's tales of slug trails and the sinking of the house into a mine shaft. Dolar had spoken of mushrooms in connection with comedy and the phallus, so there were plenty of enjoyable links and riffs to be made. From the outside, the building seemed quite ordinary. K-punk, Dolar, and I peered out of the cab hoping to see in as Spurious opened the door, but he closed it quickly.

Comments

[Amish Lovelock]

Mladen Dolar should blog.

[Jodi]

Amish--yes, he reads them from time to time (I think primarily when Steve Shaviro sends him something) but finds them a tremendous time-suck (surprising, I know). With all the cool kids at the conference blogging, though, I wouldn't be surprised if he joined in the fun (actually, that's a complete lie).