Serendipities

I don’t know about your summers, but here in The Netherlands we are experiencing a stifling heat wave. July is set to become the hottest month in the history of Dutch metereology. I just took a short break from editing my dissertation after lunch, lingering in the small shaded courtyard of our university building with Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. John Aubrey’s description of a typical Hobbesian day’s work caught my eye. His schedule seems very attractive, especially the power nap after lunch:

He rose about seven, had his breakfast of bread and butter; and took his walk, meditating till ten; then he put down the minute of his thoughts, which he penned in the afternoon. [...] He was never idle; his thoughts were always working [...] His dinner was provided for him exactly by eleven. [...] After dinner he took a pipe of tobacco, and then threw himself immediately on his bed [...] and took a nap of about half an hour. In the afternoon he penned his morning thoughts. [Introduction by J. C. A. Gaskin, Oxford World Classics, 1996]

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

I just came across an interesting call for papers on how digital media (blogging among them) are changing forms of memory. I couldn’t find a website for the project, so here is the call in its entirety: Read the rest of this entry »