N & P: End of Summer Edition

Friday, September 25, 2020

Summer is over. And what a summer it's been! Actually, I can't complain. Bozeman is a beautiful place, and I always felt like I had plenty to do. Luckily, I was at a stage in my book project in which just staying at home and writing was probably the best thing for me. 

Now the weather is getting colder. It's not crispy--the way it gets in New England around these times--but rather more like a big deep wind that brings darker and colder climes. 

N & P: Leonine Woes Edition

Friday, September 18, 2020

I'm having a difficult time masking my disappointment in the 2020 version of the Detroit Lions. Honestly, I figured that with the way this year has been going, it would kind of make sense for an historically inept franchise like the Lions to finally pull through. 

But no--and I should have known. Once again, this team would find ways to lose in some crazy way, as happened again versus Chicago in their season opener. And it seems like these collapses always happens against the Bears. Even the Lions' best player, kicker Matt Prater, had a bad day. 

Before Detroit's loss on Sunday, over the past 15 years NFL teams leading by 17 or more in the fourth quarter had been a combined 779-3. 

So, nothing has appeared to have changed with this team. But at least the Lions have managed to bring back some consistency--a sense of normalcy, you might even say--to our confused world. 

N & P: Early September Fire-and-Snow Edition

Friday, September 11, 2020

The big news in Bozeman this past week was the fire that broke out in the Bridger Mountains last Friday. The fire had started just over the big "M," a well-known (if a trifle Hoxhaesque) Bozeman landmark located outside of town, about six miles to the north of the MSU campus. 

I had, in fact, just gone for a hike at Drinking Horse Mountain, which is located across the road from the "M" (which you can see just to the right of the rooftop in the picture above). After riding my bike back home, I noticed small wisps of smoke just above it. By Saturday, however, the Bridgers had become an inferno. On Saturday night I could see the fires burning orange up top.   

Sunday was also hot, and the fire grew to over 7000 acres, but on Monday we got something of a reprieve. It being Labor Day, temperatures dropped by about sixty degrees to hit the low 30s, with rain turning into snow overnight. Somehow, we ended our 3-day weekend both freezing cold and on fire, but I guess that's pretty much the way things are rolling in 2020. 

N & P: Truculent Times Edition

Friday, September 4, 2020

These are truculent times. People's fuses are running short, a by-product of too much stress and, in some cases, maybe too much screen time as well. Now that I'm teaching full-time online, and all of my meetings are screen-based as well, I'm making more of an effort than usual to give myself large chunks of time offline either outside or on my balcony or couch with a book. 

Last weekend, I had the refreshing experience of reading Phuc Tran's Sigh, Gone. The book arrived in the mail on Friday afternoon and by Sunday night I'd finished it. Sigh, Gone  reminded me a bit of Elif Batuman's work through the connections it makes between overcoming feelings of social isolation, sorting out one's own psychological garbage, and engaging the big ideas found in classical literature. 

Sigh, Gone isn't one of the "great" books that both Tran and Batuman valorize so much, but it is quite powerful. Given the times, especially, it was nice to read something so absorbing and smart.