This is water

This morning I woke up at 10 a.m. to a soundtrack of Top 40 R&B slow jams, courtesy of a guy sitting outside my window in his car, drinking a 40 ... windows rolled down, no regard for those of us trying to enjoy a slow Sunday morning. After two hours (I'm not kidding), he walked across the street and peed on the apartment building across from mine. When I left my apartment at 1:00, he was still there; though the soundtrack had changed from Rhianna to some sort of Mexican polka.

Sometime during this whole debacle, I collected myself enough to sit down and read the NYT online ... only to discover that David Foster Wallace committed suicide on Friday.

I think this is as good a time as any to break this out: 2005 Kenyon University Commencement Speech. My mantra for the past several years. Ringing especially true these days of new and rude and dirty and uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

This is water. This is water. This is water.

R.I.P. D.F.W.

Obama does Columbia

So, the 24,900 of us who weren't awarded tickets to Thursday's sit-down with Obama and McCain scrambled for a piece of concrete outside.

But I will share this

An email from the CU President this morning ...

Dear fellow member of the Columbia community,

I am delighted to welcome you back for the new academic year with some exciting news. Columbia University has been selected to host "ServiceNation Presidential Candidates Forum" next Thursday evening as a partner in the ServiceNation Summit that will take place in New York on September 11-12.

On September 11, a day of remembrance that ServiceNation organizers intend for nonpartisan reflection on our obligations as citizens, we look forward to welcoming both Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama back to our campus for a nationally broadcast conversation in Alfred Lerner Hall about the future of national service moderated by TIME Magazine editor Richard Stengel and PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff. Governor David Paterson is scheduled to provide a welcome to the event.

It is entirely fitting for us to become part of this two-day conclave that will bring together so many admired leaders in our country to consider ways to expand the scope and scale of successful service programs throughout the nation. Public service and active involvement in the issues facing our society have always been an essential part of Columbia's identity and academic mission. As a leading research university in our nation's greatest urban center, ours is a campus of robust engagement in the life of our neighborhood and City, our nation and our world.

Each year, thousands of Columbia students across all our schools, colleges and affiliates participate in hundreds of service learning, volunteer action and social entrepreneurship programs here in New York and across the globe. We look forward to having this very public event spark an ongoing conversation within our own University community about strategies to further enhance the role of service and citizenship in Columbia's academic mission.

Given our limited space, we will ensure that all seating available goes to students in our University community. Students will receive a follow-up email tomorrow with details regarding how to register for the ticket lottery.

While it will not be a presidential debate, but rather two individual conversations, this nonpartisan Forum is one of only a few times that John McCain and Barack Obama are scheduled to appear on the same stage during the general election campaign. We are delighted to be part of an event on a theme so important to all citizens and to Columbians.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger

President

And on October 21st, the education advisors for both campaigns will debate at Teachers College ... Linda Darling-Hammond, in the flesh. My brain might explode.

I love my school.

Fact

I'll write soon. Hold yer horses.

In the meantime, I HAVE been sending things to my tumblr ...

Never too early to talk about yule logs.

Those who know me well know the fervor with which I celebrate Christmas. It is the apex of my year. In fact, just the other day, I was thinking "Wow, summer is almost over. It's almost Christmastime!" That's right, in my mental calendar fall is not fall, but rather the prelude to "Christmastime."

I'm not too proud to admit that one of the main reasons I'm excited about living in New York this next year is being there for the month of December. The Christmas decorations, the Rockefeller Christmas pomp and circumstance, the department store windows, the lights on the Empire State Building, the Rockettes, the general feel of the holiday hustle on a scale larger than I've ever seen before. This is a town that does Christmas.

So, imagine my surprise, nay goddamned falling-out-of-chair-with-excitement-ness , when I read this:

The campus Tree-Lighting Ceremony is a relatively new tradition at Columbia, inaugurated in 1998. It celebrates the illumination of the medium-sized trees lining College Walk in front of Kent and Hamilton Halls on the east end and Dodge and Journalism Halls on the west, just before finals week in early December. The lights remain on until February 28. Students meet at the sun-dial for free hot chocolate, performances by various a cappella groups, and speeches by the university president and a guest.

Immediately following the College Walk festivities is one of Columbia's older holiday traditions, the lighting of the Yule Log. The ceremony dates to a period prior to the Revolutionary War, but lapsed before being revived by University President Nicholas Murray Butler in the early 20th century. A troop of students dressed in Continental Army soldiers carry the eponymous log from the sun-dial to the lounge of John Jay Hall, where it is lit amid the singing of seasonal carols.[7] The ceremony includes readings of A Visit From St. Nicholas' by Clement Clarke Moore (Columbia College class of 1798) and Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus by Francis Pharcellus Church (Class of 1859).

The more I learn about Columbia, the deeper in love I fall.