October Weekend

[soid]

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8

Woke up around 7:40am at B's place; she was heading to a cafe. I had strange dreams gluing circle's circumference to one point and getting a sphere from it, but surprisingly I felt fresh, so I quickly got up and joined her. It was super sunny and quite cold outside, only 50ºF; I missed that weather, it's like San Jose, California in January. 

At Brookside cafe I finished a post about the Middle East before 1800. Some other work. Called mom, she turned 70; she's one day younger than Mr. Putler – I know that's why she used to feel some strange affinity for him. Reading about his birthday gift Crimean bridge.

In the evening B was feeling sick, Covid negative, so we decided to watch a few episodes of the House of the Dragon. The TV show was recently getting interesting as far as Rhaenyra was more powerful and ambitious, but then she became a stupid mother and now I'm disappointed. 

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9

I woke up around 9:40am in the living room because we were isolating with B since she had a fever last night. Now she felt fine. I made an avocado toast, and we decided to go watch Iranian "No Bears" at the New York Film Festival. But we missed the train, and we were already late, so then we decided not to go. Then B went home because she still felt weak and decided to rest.

I went to Paper Cafe on 29th St. and 6 Ave, a cafe in a lobby of an edgy hotel. It was good, but no internet. Quiet atmosphere; tourists are nicer people than laud New Yorkers in local cafes. I read NLG papers for a couple of hours. A paper on story generation proposes to breaking story timeline with flashbacks using content planner before generation. A similar task of sonnet generation solved by various planning and constrain satisfaction steps. I spent some time trying to understand what a sonnet is: turned out I already know The New Colossus. Amazingly, the rhyme follows the structure ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. I did not think about it before. I love the sonnet. 

Then got tired. I walked around, ran into a flea market, then a Halloween store, and other shopping, buying nothing. It was sunny, cool temperature in the high 50s, yellowish trees, crisp air, very pleasant Sunday in New York. I sat on a bench in a park and looked at dogs, then I read something more.

I spent the evening reading Zürcher's Modern Turkey history of 1908 constitutional revolution and the details of the WW1. Very engaging book, and I was highlighting too many sentences and annotating; I don't remember highlighting so much. It's unhealthy doing it so much. I look down at those who are highlighting more than 2-3 lines per page. But I couldn't help myself; almost every paragraph was too interesting. 

The Young Turk intellectual movement developed ideas abroad for the future of the Ottoman Empire; then a revolt in remote Macedonia that amazingly caused the Sultan in Istanbul to accept the constitution and create a parliament. Then failing liberal reforms, rebelling ulemas, formation of two party system (CUP and Unionists), a gamble allying with Germany just before the WW1, various successful and unsuccessful episodes of the war, finally Armenian Genocide by the CUP, occupation of Azerbaijan (the start of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?). Three main intellectual movements: Ottomanism, Pan-Turkism, and Islamism. Ottomanism is quite attractive, a sort of multicultural society transcending religion, ethnicity, and language. But that failed, as the empire was torn apart by nationalism, and Pan-Turkism prevailed.

Good stuff. 

Bed around 1am. In bed, I read the news of the Russian missile attacks throughout Ukraine, then I kept doomscrolling until 3 or 4when I passed out.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

How do people manage to read the whole book in one day? Can't imagine, I never did.

[soid]

Yeah, I wonder how? Some people are so good at it: they just glance a paragraph and start commenting on its main ideas, while skimming the next page, and I can only blink an eye in that moment. I bet it has something to do with enough reading experience. I did read some books in one day, but some other books are worth reading for a year.