{"id":201,"date":"2006-07-03T02:59:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-03T02:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/?p=201"},"modified":"2006-07-03T02:59:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-03T02:59:00","slug":"life-approaching-stability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/?p=201","title":{"rendered":"[life] Approaching Stability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I finished <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0375727019\/\">The Elementary Particles<\/a> by Michel Houellebecq, a depressing commentary on contemporary society and sexuality.  I saw the movie in Germany (in German) and as much as I understood of it seemed fairly sober and introspective, but I was unprepared for the all-encompassing and mood of the unrelenting decay, redeemed only by too-late and a powerless self-knowledge.  I&#8217;m now reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0345349571\/\">A Distant Mirror<\/a> by Barbara Tuchman, a excellently written history of the fourteenth century, with some conservative overtones.<\/p>\n<p>Monday I had a free one-on-one dance lesson at <a href=\"http:\/\/fadsbelmont.com\/\">Fred Astaire in Belmont<\/a>.  Tell me if you want one and I&#8217;ll hook you up.  I&#8217;ll be taking occasional classes there for the next few months&#8211; which means I can also go and use the space anytime.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday I had the first meeting of my salon.  We took a while to get going, but discussed late into the night: historical and global trends, postmodernism, cultural relativism, economic models and their cultural implications, and the considered life.  Room for improvement (on my part, as a host), but a very enjoyable success.  I let the group in on the first level of my ulterior visions for it.  The next salon will be this Friday, July 7.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday was the last SCA dance practice of the season; I enjoyed a new height of suspending disbelief in the flirting game.  Thursday I hung out with <a href=\"http:\/\/smurf24.livejournal.com\/\" class=\"lj-user\">smurf24<\/a>&#8212; including watching more &#8220;House&#8221;, a very clever medical\/detective\/genius-style show.  Friday I had a great discussion with Diana of Olin, of Olin, travel, the Salon, my center ideas, and women.  Saturday I went up to Lowell for my brother&#8217;s birthday (and kitchy Superman Returns and delicious sushi).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I finished The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq, a depressing commentary on contemporary society and sexuality. I saw the movie in Germany (in German) and as much as I understood of it seemed fairly sober and introspective, but I was unprepared for the all-encompassing and mood of the unrelenting decay, redeemed only by &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/?p=201\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">[life] Approaching Stability<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesrising.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}