http://gnosticalturpitude.org/ en-us 2005-05-22T03:08:34-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000380.html In recent months, as my few remaining readers may have noticed, I’ve become much less active in maintaining this site. Since I arrived in Moscow in January, I just haven’t felt much interest in writing for this blog--partly because my... Movies Ed 2005-05-22T03:08:34-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000379.html I had mentioned before that I was enjoying the music of a band called Loquat, and that some of their songs were freely downloadable. I ordered their first full-length CD, It's Yours to Keep, before its release, and it was... Music Matt 2005-04-27T21:30:13-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000378.html [Note I've changed the site settings so 5 entries will always display on the front page, since posting is so infrequent of late.] As Language Hat points out, it is Vladimir Nabokov's birthday. There you will find an interesting bit... Matt 2005-04-22T21:59:18-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000377.html Tonight I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 film Spellbound (not to be confused with a documentary about spelling bees). I think I first heard of the film when Amazon listed it as a recommendation for me several years ago, but it... Movies Matt 2005-04-12T22:30:49-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000376.html The new Ishiguro novel, Never Let Me Go, is excellent. I read it more or less in one sitting tonight. Maybe I'll have more to say later, but for now, I'll just say that you really should go read it.... Books Matt 2005-04-09T02:43:11-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000375.html I'm just starting to read William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition, and I have this terrible feeling he named a character "Bigend" just because at some point later in the book the adjective "Bigendian" will be used. ("Big-endian" as opposed to... Matt 2005-04-04T22:59:40-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000374.html I just had a few minutes to kill while browsing the internet in a post office in Tver, the latest site in my search for a provincial archive that will show me the documents I want to see, and I... Links Ed 2005-04-04T05:49:04-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000373.html I had just written this entry when Firefox mysteriously crashed and I lost it. Part of it was an attempt at an excuse for not writing lately, in the form of uninteresting mumbling about what I've been up to. So... Music Matt 2005-04-02T23:12:29-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000372.html In theory, I realize, I'm in the midst of a break from blogging. Even so, little things sometimes succeed in drawing me back. One of my missions in life, you see, is to become sufficiently established that publishers send me... Links Ed 2005-03-12T03:43:06-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000371.html As anyone who's been to this blog lately has probably noticed, I haven't posted much of late. There are a number of reasons for this--ranging from a decline of interest, to a lack of internet time, to the growth of... Administrivia Ed 2005-02-27T04:36:28-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000370.html To whomever found our site via an MSN search for "positive points about earthquakes": huh?... Frivolity Matt 2005-02-24T22:51:48-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000369.html We haven't been keeping enough entertaining material up here lately, so go and read Christian's blog. (He of prion song fame, and if you haven't listened to that, do so now!) Recently he sets up dueling musical commentary on social... Randomness Matt 2005-02-24T22:24:00-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000368.html Once again I find our page empty, and so I'll ramble a bit. I know, this is what all my posts end up as, but for some reason the more carefully planned things I start are always abandoned or just... Matt 2005-02-15T21:12:28-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000367.html I have a lot of things I hope to do before I leave Russia in October, most of them related to my dissertation work. As things stand now, for example, I'm planning a six-week trip to Saratov, the traditional home... Russia Journal Ed 2005-02-06T05:04:57-06:00 http://gnosticalturpitude.org/archives/000366.html This weekend marked an occasion that I've been eagerly awaiting since I first arrived in Russia a month ago. As a bit of background, whenever I'm in Boston or Chicago, I experience a weird thrill whenever I hear someone speaking... Russia Journal Ed 2005-02-06T04:57:53-06:00