Fr.   Un blog complètement gluxène.

I expect every single technological innovation to bring me two things:

1. Tinkering.
2. Coffee.

As of today, the contract is incomplete, and I am not signing until the options change.

(sinon elle n’est rien)

Soundtracks+Bach.

• Overnight — Gonzales, Solo Piano (2004).

  Touch of Satie. Love, L*.

• I Want to be a Good Guy — Chan Kwong Wing, Infernal Affairs (2002).

  The film itself is absolutely brilliant.

• (Prelude to) Bach Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010 — Mstislav Rostropovich.

• The Wasteland Massacre and the Reminiscence of Geisha — Suzuki Keiichi, Zatoichi (2003).

  The film itself is a masterpiece of contained violence and ridiculous excess of dancing and forced smiling.

• Love Remembered — Wojciech Kilar, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

• El Que Se Tenga Por Grande — Talegón de Córdoba & Jorge Rodriguez Padilla, The Limits of Control (2009).

  The film has received mixed reviews. I enjoyed the deadpan atmosphere and Jarmusch clinical touch—flesh and fire brought to mere script, and, perhaps, unintended.

• Ice Dance, Edward Scissorhands (1990).

  It came as the most pleasant surprise that two hearts sent me that track at the same time.

It just happens that Jon Elster’s Explaining Social Behaviour book (2007) uses the same painting in its cover as Diego Gambetta’s Trust volume (1988). Both are, mutatis mutandis, analytical sociologists, who speak French and have taught at the Collège de France in the last two years. I personally discovered Elster before Gambetta.

The implications for social inquiry are, naturally, obscenely intimidating.

Add. Because of their interest in all social things analytical, I was expecting both of them to be members of the September group. I knew Elster to be a member already, but was disappointed not to find Gambetta in the Wikipedia list. However, this comes from a 2005 seminar by Gambetta:

And a force that brought me to become a social scientist was my dissatisfaction with Marxism, the dominant approach of the 60s and 70s. It was hopelessly naïve when it came to making its macro views match with a plausible notion of individual actions. When I discovered the existence of analytical Marxists, who became known as the No bullshit Marxis[m] group, which included scholars like Jon Elster, Adam Pzreworski, Jerry Cohen, I felt the world was a saner place. The analytical revisitation of Marxi[s]m was a major step forward for the social sciences.

So now, your job is to connect analytical marxism with a predisposition to enjoy the artwork of Georges de La Tour.