Last night, I attended a Crossfit party. During the party–held at Crossfit South Brooklyn–two very strong and fit women, Annie Thorisdottir and Lindsey Valenzuela, performed a grueling workout for ten minutes. (Perform as many rounds as possible of the following combination: five shoulder to overhead movements of a seventy-five pound barbell, ten deadlifts of theContinue reading “A Crossfit Party with Strong Women”
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Killing American Citizens Without Trial: The NYPD Way
The New York City Police Department is always ahead of the curve. They have aspirations to be a domestic surveillance service–after all, why should the FBI have all the fun?–and to secure all the budget increases and prestige that goes with it. Besides, don’t the movies tell us that ‘secret agents’ always get all theContinue reading “Killing American Citizens Without Trial: The NYPD Way”
The Glamorous Life: Waiting Tables on the Upper West Side
In the summer of 1994, broke and increasingly desperate, I roamed New York City, or rather, just Manhattan, looking for work as a bartender. I had worked as one before, in Newark, and hoped that I would find an employment venue which would provide me with the Holy Grail of bartending work: an interesting barContinue reading “The Glamorous Life: Waiting Tables on the Upper West Side”
Nietzsche on the Lazy Faithful
Those who read Nietzsche often find him very funny. (Some of those who read him find him extremely unfunny too, especially when the joke is on them.) His humor sometimes sneaks in on you in the most unexpected of places. A good example is found in the following: On the future of Christianity. – As to theContinue reading “Nietzsche on the Lazy Faithful”
Reflections on Facebook, Part Three
Facebook statuses are legendary. They have been indicted ad nauseam as archives of exhibitionism, narcissism, boring and pointless navel-gazing, repositories of TMI, and many other sins. But they still repay some attention. The Facebook status typically includes a prompt. The current one is ‘What’s on your mind?’ The one before that was ‘How are youContinue reading “Reflections on Facebook, Part Three”
Babies and Gender Construction
When I look at my daughter, my baby girl, I don’t detect her gender. I am aware of her sex, for it was announced to me, rather loudly and emphatically, by nurses and surgeons, when she was born, ‘It’s a girl!’ I am aware of her sex too, when I change her diapers. Other thanContinue reading “Babies and Gender Construction”
Here’s Looking At You, Sherrybaby
The narrative lines of movies about addiction, substance abuse and recovery often follow a predictable arc: protagonist at the bottom of the pit, clambers up its steep sides, slips back again and again, a moment of truth, a new dawn. Sherrybaby (written and directed by Laurie Collyer and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as Sherry) doesn’t work quiteContinue reading “Here’s Looking At You, Sherrybaby”
The Mind is not a Place or an Object
Last week, I participated in an interdisciplinary panel discussion at the Minding the Body: Dualism and its Discontents Conference (held at the CUNY Graduate Center, and organized by the English Students Association.) The other participants in the panel included: Patricia Ticineto-Clough (Sociology), Gerhard Joseph (English), and Jason Tougaw (English). As might have been expected, with that group of participants theContinue reading “The Mind is not a Place or an Object”
Reflections on Facebook, Part Two
Facebook’ problematic relationship with privacy issues infuriates most of its users; it has ensured that no contemporary discussion of online privacy can proceed without a Facebook-related example. This has largely been the case because Facebook set out to provide a means of social networking and communication with an architecture designed to induce behavior in itsContinue reading “Reflections on Facebook, Part Two”
Reflections on Facebook, Part One
This post is the first of several posts I intend to write on my Facebook experiences. Like many (very many!) people, I’m a Facebook user. And like many of those people, I have a vexed relationship with it, a fact best demonstrated by my decision to leave Facebook a couple of years ago, close myContinue reading “Reflections on Facebook, Part One”
Samir Chopra 