Since I’m determined to strengthen my practice of daily blogging (and turning away from FB), I’ll take just a minute or two fifteen thirty sixty away from reading about Lyotard in French to sketch … | Continue reading
In the preface to my first book, the ‘What Is…?’ Book about postmodern biblical criticism, I allude to a neon installation on the façade of the Lenbachhaus in Munich. Working by memory, before the … | Continue reading
I’m reading material in which authors make a great deal of the difference between textuality that one can apprehend readily, without hesitation or uncertainty (on one hand) and textuality that thro… | Continue reading
I had no initial inclination to take up the psychodynamic of biblical interpretation; my research in hermeneutics just kept driving me that way (this way). And yes, I am self-conscious enough to re… | Continue reading
I’ve written before about my restlessness about naming my project. In that post, I describe my eventual contentment with the designation ‘differential hermeneutics’; it’s fair, it does the trick, a… | Continue reading
Having placed two articles that I’ve been wanting to publish for a while, I’m forging ahead with the plan for my monograph on Differential Hermeneutics. If I devote a first chapter to what I take t… | Continue reading
For about seven years now (!), the very generous Christopher Russel has been hosting this blog through intervals of activity and inanition, updates to WordPress and waves of spam comments, with nev… | Continue reading
I set out at an ambitious pace (inspired, I must admit, by the sight of a young runner bounding past the end of James Street at a rapid clip), and though my glutes and my lower back were resisting … | Continue reading
I know nothing about the physiology of running. Zilch, nil, nada, nul points. I’m getting the feeling, though, that the cap on my time (or whatever the opposite of a cap is when you want to make th… | Continue reading
Makes no sense at all. This morning, I felt all right — as comfortable as I ever feel when I’m out running — and my breathing was no more constrained than ever, but today I came in at 10:31. I was … | Continue reading
Honestly, this morning I felt almost immobile. My legs were heavy, my breathing was laboured, and my running estimate for time would have come in at about 10:40 or so. I did push the pace in the la… | Continue reading
Somewhere I lost fifteen seconds, because I’ve been consistently running around 10:30 for the last few weeks. This morning I settled into a sluggish pace early, and when I tried to stretch out and … | Continue reading
After missing Wednesday cos of the rain, I didn’t expect today to be a great run. My expectations were fulfilled, as an ambitious pace settled down to my ordinary wheeze and stumble. No specific im… | Continue reading
Not going to run in the rain this morning. I have work to do. | Continue reading
I did not beat Wednesday’s four-second mile this morning, but I did operate the timer correctly, and I did make it home under 10:30. The temperature was only 3°, which combined with the phlegm stil… | Continue reading
No time today, as I evidently bumped the lap timer button shortly after I started (either that, or a just ran a four-second mile). I set a more ambitious pace than on Sunday, and it was a hard push… | Continue reading
The weather is grey and chilly; I’m already early, as I’m fighting off a head and chest cold; and, of course, I just don’t want to run. Writing my feelings out this way, however, helpfully obliges … | Continue reading
I skipped Sunday, cos Saturday was busy and late, Andre I only had four hours sleep (apart from patches of snooze on the coach from London). So today it had been a week without running — and the ru… | Continue reading
Running — ‘not my favourite’, as we taught the children to say instead of ‘I hate…’ I set a strong pace this morning, a bit warmer than it’s been recently, and felt pretty good throughout, though m… | Continue reading
Another 0° morning; honestly, April is more than half gone — a bit of warmth would be welcome. It felt as though I were trying to inhale crystalline frost, unable to draw enough air to keep myself … | Continue reading
I’ve been ranting about the importance of waste, the value of uselessness, for a while now — at least since I had the task of introducing a programme of Graduate Attributes at the University of Gla… | Continue reading
In case anyone has forgotten, I hate running. This morning was cold (4°) and I would much rather have been doing one of a thousand other things. No special impediments (except the air temperature, … | Continue reading
Not quite as chilly as Wednesday, but my breathing was ragged and my quads were reluctant. I got off to a brisk pace that I had to ratchet down as I ran, to the point that my last quarter mile was … | Continue reading
The weather outside was foggy, chilly (0°), and quiet, apart from my wheezing and the jingle of my keys in my pocket. I wasn’t expecting much, but when I staggered home I had shaved another ten sec… | Continue reading
This morning I was (as usual) casting about for excuses to avoid running, and the best I could come up with was a generally unsettled feeling in my stomach, and of course my general disinclination … | Continue reading
The weather this morning was more chilly than Sunday; I rolled my ankle slightly at the elbow of James Street, and my breathing was laboured, my legs felt heavy. I felt more like breaking stride at… | Continue reading
I set a brisk pace this morning, and that was okay for almost a half mile, but my calves began to resist as I turned off the Iffley Road, so I dialled my pace down for the rest of the mile. Overall… | Continue reading
This morning’s run went fine. My breathing was rough, but I was pushing my pace, so I have to expect to get winded. The run took 10:33, which gets me back squarely at the sort of pace I ran when I … | Continue reading
Adele E. Goldberg’s Explain Me This provides further evidence that scholars in biblical interpretation, especially but not exclusively those who pay attention to hermeneutics, should keep at least … | Continue reading
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic massacre in Christchurch, several reports have called attention to groups of people performing a haka to express sorrow, solidarity, frustration, and various oth… | Continue reading
It was the breathing this morning — ragged and desperate — partly (I expect) because it’s colder this morning, and partly because I set a more demanding pace for myself. This reminded me how little… | Continue reading
I think I ought to be able to publish my annotations to other people’s works as [non-]independent works. I imagine the posthumous publication of The Collected Post-It Notes of A. K. M. Adam, in thi… | Continue reading
In Rowan Williams’s The Edge of Words, he cites George Steiner to the effect that modern accounts of truth provide little insight into falsity (p 45). I’m open guard when I see scholars expressing … | Continue reading
Most aspects of this morning’s run were agreeable enough — no part of my body felt achy or unresponsive, my breathing was OK — but it’s very windy this morning, and at times the head wind practical… | Continue reading
I missed several days’ running due to weather, health, and general wear and tear on my well-being. This was Eighth Week, and a variety of academic debts came due at the same time that I had particu… | Continue reading
Back to the mile. My legs were a little stiff, a little weak, but I made the whole mile (that’s three in a row, something that will quickly become routine, but for now still feels like a miracle). … | Continue reading
Not with this virus. Not today. | Continue reading
I felt queasy and aches yesterday, so I took things easy and went to bed early. When I woke up this morning, I felt better but not great; still, I didn’t want to lose ground after my triumphant mil… | Continue reading
It didn’t feel like much of anything, but this morning I set out to run my mile, and (as it turns out) I just didn’t stop. I mean, I stopped after a mile — I’m not crazy — but I didn’t break stride… | Continue reading
As (relatively) easy as Wednesday’s mile was, this morning’s was unpleasant. My legs and torso were heavy, my breathing was desperate, and it was sheer bloody-mindedness that enabled me to get as f… | Continue reading
The weather cooperated this morning, so I made my circuit as usual, with the same time as my last mile (10:51). The encouraging news came as I pushed my break-stride point to Henley Street — gettin… | Continue reading
It is -6° outside, and I’m sure there are some icy patches on the pavement. I’ll report back in fifteen minutes or so. [pause] Nope, turned back. I saw ice-covered pavement, and that’s not worth ev… | Continue reading
Last Sunday promised cold air, rain, and icy pavements, so I gave it a miss again (making two running days in a row that I had skipped). I was not enthusiastic about runnning this morning, but sinc… | Continue reading
Call me a wimp, but when the Oxford Mail identifies the outdoor conditions as ‘bitterly cold and icy’, I’m not running. See you Sunday. | Continue reading
Not much to say about this morning beyond ‘-1°’. I couldn’t warm up and stretch out at all — every time I tried, my muscles all contracted into as close to the fetal position as a running per… | Continue reading