A. > Recent Status Updates

All the pieces are in place. Bertie is Gussie, Gussie is Bertie, and Catsmeat is Meadowes. Interestingly this is the first Jeeves & Wooster story that doesn’t revolve around some article of clothing Jeeves hates.

Done with the immune system. Crohn’s is getting worse. Autoimmunity is sexist. The hygiene theory—no wait, the old friends theory. CAR-T and Checkpoint therapy.

Catsmeat & Corky Potter-Pirbright. Five Deverill Aunts. I feel like this is a LOT of front-loaded exposition

Finished some very abstract chapters — on equilibrium, chemistry, homeostasis. Unit 731. 12% of Earth inhabited. Surface area-to-volume ratio is incredibly important and why children can survive falls.

Done!

Past the biographical stuff. Engels was pretty cool tbh. Marx lived in terrific poverty.

Finished The Chemistry Department. Horrific description of ancient lithotomy; of Halsted’s first cholecystecomy.

The heart! Apparently the Framingham study coined the term “risk factor”.

Just finished the chapter on the Brain.

On the vanity of words. On frugality.

Just finished "On Democritus and Heraclitus", the question of whether to laugh or cry at human absurdity. But this is the first essay where Montaigne has overtly confronted not only the kaleidoscopic multiplicity of human nature but the surprising power of his own ability to grasp it by studying his own motivations and idiosyncrasies. I think this is a watershed moment in the Essays.

Caught back up, finished Session 4. Krishna describes how knowledge, and the way it allows us to sacrifice our actions, cleanses them of karma, as fires change offerings into ashes. Differences, not hierarchies. This book is dizzyingly smart.

Lieberman fellating himself over the “triumph of pluralism” that is the DSM-5, which by sheer coincidence came out while he was the head of the APA

The struggle continues.

Finished Part I. Interesting enough, but the Emperor of all Maladies it ain’t

Laboring through this

Finished. A lot of weird elements but the "no hugging, no learning" approach to the ending rang true to me.

Wait, I listened to 43% of this book? Then again, a lot has happened. Bobbi found out; Philip found out; Nick told Melissa; electrifying exchange of emails. And now everyone’s...cool with it?

Got through a lot tbh. Frances’s affair. Rifts with Bobbi (a great argument email AND a description of how people react to upsetting emails). They’re in France now.

Started it; loving it. Rooney is, again, a ruthlessly observant writer, nobody’s fool. And she gets her set of characters arranged so speedily. Rooting for Frances even as I can tell she’s flawed.

Session 2. Krishna’s words about being free of the senses, of what cannot be killed even in death, of the “steady mystic”. Arjuna keeps asking questions.

Finished first ~session~ in which Arjuna makes some very good points about not wanting to kill his family members. The accompanying listener’s guide is wonderful.

Onward to Gooseberries!

Done with the pleasantries (actually a really interesting preface by Majmudar). On to the Gita

Saunders on The Nose. Scaz voices. The game of telephone in dialogue.

Started on Gogol’s nose. Finally some absurdity.

Continuing through "Master and Man", just as Vassily Andreiivich loses his way alone. It's interesting that Saunders included this one, which is...so much longer than any other story in this collection.

Halfway through. Lots of simmering class tension. Tolstoy’s signature command of simple but unshakeable description.