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I think the time has come for the Black Sea circumnavigation bike tour.  This summer, I would like to do a trip which vaguely resembles the route on the map above.  I want to spend more time in Georgia, traveling in the mountains, and in Armenia and Azerbaijan as well.  I would probably spend a month or more in these three countries, so the trip could potentially take as much as 3-4 months.  Is anyone interested in joining me for a section of it?

Overdue campaign slogan.

 I had this idea in class last week, the day after the elections.  My pun fell on deaf ears, unfortunately.  Maybe this can be used next time Mittington Romulus runs for office:


ROMULUS WILL REMUS

 I busy myself with the tasks which I've deemed worthy, which have been the worthy ones for months, those things which are sensible to undertake when living in a city that invites antipathy. I play accordion, I read the news of the day, and in seclusion I study the language which whirs in every corner of the vast swarm of humanity which surrounds me. I paw at my face and scratch my head, I have visions of artwork and the lack of resources which precludes its creation. I fantasize about creation and long for destruction. I have a vision of a canvas, and painted images of a long row of buildings in vertigo perspective, reeling, swooning. There are coils of wire, a crosshatch of wire, above a street bustling with savage activity. There are cracks in the concrete of the tall block buildings, birds on the wires, shit on the sidewalks, and the name of the canvas is Bucharest. Then there's a crumbling stadium, concrete bench rows in an oval surrounding a decrepit concrete field in the center. There are young men standing in a row in short shorts, white t-shirts, and they are bent down and touching their toes, a perfect vision of disciplined socialist athleticism. They stand before the inscrutable titular placard of the disused, shit-strewn stadium: COSMOPOLITAN. The dissonance and irony scream out, and still the men stretch and twitch with focused deliberation, the calm strength of Serbian athletes in their glorious capital. The title of this blank canvas is COSMOPOLITAN.