NAVEL ATTACK!: Hooray–tagged for a meme about me! What I was doing ten years ago: Making a complete fool of myself, in the most traditional undergraduate ways. Also, enjoying my first month as a Catholic! Oh, that first Confession comes so depressingly quickly…. Five things on my To-Do list today: 1. Laundry2. Personal and work emails3. Dinner4. Preparation for week-long trip: Do dishes, take out all trash, make hard-boiled eggs for the journey, check when Metro opens, reset alarm, and... Read more

YEAH. Read more

MEET ZE MONSTA: A reader writes: Eve, Just saw your post on monsters. I just finished a terrific commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics by Michael Davis, The Poetry of Philosophy. He makes the point that Aristotle’s contrast of epic and tragedy at the end has this function: epic presents the strange to us (monsters, e.g.) so that we wonder at its strangeness, and then are led to the contemplation of ordinary life, which comes to light in the contrast with epic’s... Read more

KITCHEN ADVENTURES: PACK YOUR KNIVES AND GO! OK, so I’m a total geek, and decided to do modified, cheapjack versions of some of the challenges from “Top Chef.” Thus far none of them have turned out ridiculously well, so I’m also giving you guys a bonus adventure at the end, from several months ago…. season 1, episode 1, “signature dish”: I… don’t have one, you know? I just cook stuff. So I made spicy squid with capellini. I blanched 1/4... Read more

TWEED FOR WEED. Photos from a Yale anti-Drug War protest. Yeah, I was pretty fond of the sign reading, “I couldn’t protest the Drug War on 4/20 because I was in church.” Families Against Mandatory Minimums“Battlefield Conversions”Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Read more

HOW DO YOU SAY “WOOT” IN BRITISH?: Go congratulate the Rattus!!! (more blogging soon btw) Read more

AMY WELBORN, ON POPE BENEDICT ON THE SEXUAL ABUSE CRISIS. Read more

CERVUS AND LEADERSHIP: Tonight’s work at the pregnancy center made me realize I need to think more about the ways in which counseling is leadership. I tend to think–almost certainly over-dichotomizing–that there are at least two possible paradigms for what we do, leadership and social work, and I need to work in the former category. There are ways in which that’s true. Leadership requires creation of an individual persona–the mask of command. It requires personal relationship and intimacy. Although I... Read more

THE CHEATIN’ SONG AS FRACTAL: This post made me think of the fourth section of this one. And check out section five for an entirely Eve-approved use of the term “distilled”! Also, me vs. realism. Read more

PITY THIS BUSY MONSTER, MANUNKIND: This post about Junji Ito’s horror manga Uzumaki (h/t Sean Collins) made me think about a couple of things. First, I realized that I have a harder time with cosmic-horror than with small-scale horror, and so realized that if I went back to Uzumaki knowing that cosmic horror was on its way, I wouldn’t be disappointed by the later volumes, and might get a lot more out of them. But also! There’s this: In his... Read more