“I would like to swim against the stream of time: I would like to erase the consequences of certain events and restore an initial condition. But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts and each of these new facts brings with it its consequences; so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out, the further I move away from it; though all my actions are bent on erasing the consequences of previous actions and though I manage to achieve appreciable results in this erasure, enough to open my heart to hopes of immediate relief, I must, however, bear in mind that my every move to erase previous events provokes a rain of new events, which complicate the situation worse than before and which I will then, in their turn, have to try to erase. Therefore I must calculate carefully every move so as to achieve the maximum of erasure with the minimum of recomplication."

- Italo Calvino (1923-1985)

If on a winter’s night a traveler

I’ve been on a little blog hiatus. Perhaps during the semester this will become a weekly blog instead of a daily? Or maybe I should just make smaller entries?

One of my favorite students from last semester is in my 101 class this semester. She wrote me an email last night to tell me how much she’s enjoying the book we’re reading: the one with the quote up above.