Multilingual poetry!

I found this bit of gorgeousness via languagehat, a blog I've only just started reading.

Antoine Cassar writes in five different languages, but rather than write one poem in one language, he has attempted to "braid" all five together into single poems, called Muzajik or Mosaics. The results are intriguing. The first and third link will take you to some of his poems, and while you're there I'd recommend listening to the posted recordings. I've found, in my brief encounter with them, that the different languages gel well with each other and form very interesting poetry. He's woven the sounds of the different languages together wonderfully in the poems I've heard so far (Go listen).

In the Chimera piece(first link), Cassar says:

"...the mosaics are more than a mere linguistic challenge. Having lived in five different European countries and languages, I find it difficult to decide which tongue I feel more at home with. Although I still write monolingual poetry occasionally (particularly in Maltese), I believe that selecting one, or even two, would mean sacrificing others, and to a certain extent, I feel that making a choice would also imply a political decision. Why the fixation with one as opposed to many?"

I think that's what immediately appealed to me. Being multilingual, one tends to code-switch - or at least want to code-switch - quite a bit, and it is sometimes frustrating to have to limit oneself to just one language when another would fit a particular situation so much better. Given that there are probably more bilinguals and multilinguals in the world than monolinguals, it is worth asking why the majority has to limit itself for the sake of the minority. (And the over-generalized answer, probably, is that the minority is more powerful or influential - neither of which is to be construed as pejorative.)

There are more things to address here, not the least of which is Cassar's project to include languages he does not speak into the mosaics, but as the project is, as far as I can tell, still gathering steam, I expect there will be more opportunities to do so. In the mean time, I'm just going to go enjoy what there is.

It's official

I'm enrolled in the PhD program. Till 2012. And I'm being paid to do it, which is utterly cool.

There were delays, of course - it's taken almost a month and a half to process everything. You'd think, with an unconditional offer and two full scholarships, there'd be no reason for any holdups, wouldn't you? I thought so too. I have seldom been so horribly wrong.

See Australia requires international students to have health insurance while they're in the country. In itself, this is not a problem. It becomes a problem, however, when you want to switch insurance companies. They don't like each other and while they're happy to have you, you need to be punished for ever going over to the competition in the first place. Once they work you over good and proper and make you swear a blood oath to never ever leave the fold again on pain of torture by red tape, you are finally redeemed and accepted into the fold.

You can imagine, then, what the company you're leaving does to you. Honestly, if my parents had divorced when I was 12 and I'd been forced to choose between them, it could not have been worse.

The incompetence of the people who are supposed to 'handle' us international students  was the next hurdle. Yes you need health cover for three years. No you don't. Yes you do. No you don't. Unfortunately, it was 'yes you do' when I went to accept my offer and I was sent packing straight to the insurance company with offerings of money and vows of eternal fidelity. They were in a benevolent mood - and hey, who isn't when you give them money - and back I went to finally, finally accept my offer. And then, naturally, I find out that the department of immigration only requires you to have cover for the first 12 months of your degree, after which it is your responsibility to keep it updated.

That stupidity aside though, it's done and I'm ready to start. I'm quite excited and nervous, but I have about four years to get over that.  I've started exploring German on my own, though I'll sign up for proper classes once I sort out where to go. I'm also sorting through what resources I've found at the library and looking for stuff online, though the amount of material searches turn up is a little frightening. Ah well, as I said, four years to go through it all.

I realized something else that's 'official', or at least will be by the time I finish: in 2012, I will have lived in Melbourne for just under six years - that's longer than I've ever lived anywhere before.  Who'd'a thunk?

Russell revisited

I didn't rush to read Dawkins when The God Delusion came out and I've only read the first chapter because it's available online. That isn't because I don't want to read him - I do and I think it's important to do so if only because his writing has, for better or worse, formed a lot of the basis of what is, at least in the US, being dubbed 'new atheism'. Vocabulary and focus shift over time, I suppose, and it's good to stay current. That said, I re-read Bertand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian" this morning after doing a random search and it struck me how little one would need to change his arguments - first articulated in a speech made in 1927 - to apply them to today's so-called 'debate'. For example:

On 'First Cause'
I may say that when I was a young man...I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught me that the question 'Who made me?' cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question `Who made god?'" That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause.

On the 'natural law' argument, which today could be applied to the 'intelligent designer' argument and which served as an unwitting precursor to the inane 'it's just a theory' statement:
the whole idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. Human laws are behests commanding you to behave a certain way, in which you may choose to behave, or you may choose not to behave; but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave, and being a mere description of what they in fact do, you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that, because even supposing that there were, you are then faced with the question "Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?" If you say that he did it simply from his own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted. If you say, as more orthodox theologians do, that in all the laws which God issues he had a reason for giving those laws rather than others -- the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, although you would never think it to look at it -- if there were a reason for the laws which God gave, then God himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You really have a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose, because he is not the ultimate lawgiver. In short, this whole argument about natural law no longer has anything like the strength that it used to have. I am traveling on in time in my review of the arguments. The arguments that are used for the existence of God change their character as time goes on. They were at first hard intellectual arguments embodying certain quite definite fallacies. As we come to modern times they become less respectable intellectually and more and more affected by a kind of moralizing vagueness. [my emphasis]

He tackles the 'design' argument directly as well, though I think Russell's use of the word is slightly different from what we mean today:
...since the time of Darwin we understand much better why living creatures are adapted to their environment. It is not that their environment was made to be suitable to them but that they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaptation. There is no evidence of design about it.

When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists?

On the moral argument:
Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say there would be no right or wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are in this situation: Is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.

There are more arguments than just these, naturally, and I recommend them highly not just for their content but for the elegance and wit with which they are made. Russell talks about how religion is based on fear and emotion and argues that it has retarded, and continues to oppose, progress. While parts of the essay feel a bit dated now, it is remarkable that they only need a tiny bit of trimming to be applicable 81 years since they were first written. Also, although Russell speaks of Christianity specifically and devotes part of the essay to Christ, it should be obvious from what I've quoted above that his argument is quite portable and argues against religion in general. And, despite the title, the essay is a positive one that ends on a hopeful note.
We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world -- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

Blogs

At Ameel's insistence, I finally started using Google Reader a few months ago. It was a bit weird at first because one of the things you lose is each blog's individual look and feel. But although there are a few blogs that I still mark as read in GR and then go and read at the actual site, I'm mostly over that and am quite happy to say that it's very handy. It's also somehow made it easier to keep adding blogs to my list now that they come to me. And that is what this post is about. My blogroll is out of date and I've been meaning to fix that, but as I do, I thought I'd write a bit about the blogs and feeds I read, particularly the new ones. In alphabetical order, too!

Ameel's Career & MBA Exposition(ACME): This is Ameel's "professional" blog, in which he talks school, career, and tech. I find it interesting not just because he's my husband (of 4 years as of today) but because it's full of information and links to information on technology, particularly as it relates to the WWW.

Arts & Letters Daily: As the name suggests, AL Daily is a listing of articles of note concerning books, writers, current events, education and culture. The articles come from a range of sources and represent differing opinions. If I'm at a loose end, I'll usually go there and browse through the archives or go through the links on the left - I don't know how many there are but I can safely say I have not looked at them all and probably won't be able to. There is seriously tons to read.

Bad Astronomy Blog: I probably would not have found this blog if Phil Platt (the Bad Astronomer himself) had not written about the bad physics in the Transformers movie. I've been hooked pretty much since I read that. The posts about astronomy are interesting enough on their own, specially given the enthusiasm with which he writes, but there's also quite a bit of coverage about the religiosity against which scientists and skeptics have to fight in the US. Some is scary, but mostly it's just very funny. The website also debunks such conspiracy theories as the moon hoax and tackles astrology and pseudoscience among other things.

Bitchitorial: Written by Natalie P., owner and webmistress of Heartless Bitches International, this blog replaced the Bitchitorial section of the site itself, although the site is alive and well. It's not updated very often, but I find her straight-talking, no-nonsense perspective on everything wonderful to read.

Eglantine's Cake: Author Penni Russon maintains this blog, where she writes about things that she wants to write about. This can range from writing about writing, books, work, kids, teaching, projects, home, cooking, people, research, issues or anything else, really.

Pharyngula:I heard about PZ Myers on the Bad Astronomy Blog and eventually followed a link to his blog. Myers is a biologist and a leader in the charge against nonsense like 'intelligent design' and other pseudoscience that seems to be gaining increasing currency, particularly in the US. Tangles with creationists and right-wingers are common and very entertaining.

PunkAssBlog: I've only just started reading this one, but it's quite interesting. Written by a number of contributors, its commentary on current events is sarcastic, intelligent and very entertaining.

Random Tangent: Ameel's personal blog.

Science Based Medicine: This is a vey interesting and informative new blog written by five regular contributors and a few guests. All writers have medical credentials and some are fairly well known online already. The point of this blog, as laid out here is to "scientifically examine medical and health topics of interest to the public. This includes reviewing newly published studies, examining dubious products and claims, providing much needed scientific balance to the often credulous health reporting, and exploring issues related to the regulation of scientific quality in medicine." Today's post about 'Alternative Flight' is well worth a look.

Stephen Fry: To quote a friend, "Stephen Fry has a blog? Stephen Fry has a blog? Stephen Fry has a blog? Heart of my heart, Stephen Fry has a blog?" And he's a geek. *swoon*

The Happy Feminist: This is another new addition to my reading list. I've been going through her posts as thoroughly as possible because what she seems to routinely make good points about women in (American) society. Take a look here, for example. She's articulate, interesting and thoughtful, which gets my vote.

The Little Professor: I don't remember where or when I came across this blog, but it's become something of an old friend. There are posts about novels, the Victorian novel, teaching, universities, teaching at university, grading, academics, and so on. I particularly like the lists of books and the 'numbers' posts.

I think that's it for the time being, though in the course of writing this I managed to find at least a dozen more blogs that look interesting, so I may be back with a new list once I'm done getting to know them a bit.  In the mean time, if I've misrepresented anyone's blog or got anything wrong, I apologize and will fix it if I catch it or if you let me know where the eff-up is.

Thursday music

Fiction Plane this time. They closed their set at the concert with this song. Lots of energy, great performance, fun to watch...but it's still kinda freaky. I suppose I'll get over it eventually. No sense not enjoying the music till then though.

The Police in concert - and a few surprises

So we saw the Police live in concert at the MCG last night. I'm still not over it, but at least now I can speak and write about it. It was absolutely amazing not just because they rock but because it was so weird to see them at all - they did break up in '85/'86, after all. Seeing them up there after being a fan for almost as long as I can remember and knowing that it was all over for most of that time was simply surreal. And I can't honestly say I know any other band quite like I know the Police. I actually have everything they've ever done as a band, plus a lot of what they've done solo. I know the band history. I even spent enough time poring over their biographies as a teen to have random details at my fingertips years and years later. But most of all, I know their songs so intimately that each time they'd vary the chords or beat slightly to start a new one, I'd know the words even before I registered what the song actually was and basically sang along with the whole concert.

On the whole, they didn't vary the songs very much from the album versions, and even where they did I knew where they were going because I've listened to so many concert recordings. Most of the variations were the kind the Police themselves made back when they played, but some were more Sting-y. Interestingly, they didn't really play any of the songs Sting has sort of absorbed into his own repertoire. I'd have loved to hear Bring on the Night, Low Life, Demolition Man or Shadows in the Rain, for instance. I don't know if that was deliberate or whether they just didn't feel like doing them. The set list itself was the same they've been playing throughout. They opened with Message in a Bottle and then went into Synchronicity II, following that with Walking On The Moon. Then came Voices Inside My Head, When The World Is Running Down. Don't Stand So Close To Me, Driven To Tears and Hole In My Life. Everyone went suitably mad for Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and Wrapped Around Your Finger was really really good with Stewart Copeland using gongs, chimes, bells, xylophone, and all manner of percussion to give it that air that it has. De Do Do Do De Da Da Da was a fun follow up. Then we had Invisible Sun, which was accompanied by lots of images of children living in poverty. That theme continued with Walking In Your Footsteps, but then they changed the pace again with Can't Stand Losing You followed by Roxanne and then 'closed' with King Of Pain ( I think). They came back with So Lonely and Every Breath You Take, and then came back again to do Next To You before leaving the stage for good.

Fergie opened for the Police. Yeah. It was odd at first, but she was actually quite good - she's one hell of a performer and sings her guts out. Yes there's lots of posturing and posing - that's what her music is like after all - but along with that she did a Black Eyed Peas medley and, what was most surprising, a few covers of Guns and Roses-type music that were actually quite fun. I could have done with a little less ass-shaking (Yes, you have a bottom. Wow. I'm thrilled to bits for you. Really I am.) but that's really my only gripe and even that's a bit forced because it was, as I said, good fun.

The big shock though, was Fiction Plane. We weren't seated yet when they started playing so I couldn't see the stage, but I remember thinking, man, that sounds a lot like Sting, only it can't be because that's not a Police song. We might not have gone down at all, only the music was echoing horribly in the hallways so we thought we'd go ahead even though it was about 7pm and we knew the Police wouldn't be on till 9:30. I vaguely remembered that there were two opening acts listed on the ticket so I figured this was whoever it was that wasn't Fergie and thought they sounded pretty good once we got away from the hallway echo and started making our way down the steps to the ground (did I mention that we were on the ground? Not in the prime, thousand-dollar seats, obviously, but not too far from the stage either and the perfect distance from one of the big screens.). And there on stage was someone who was clearly not Sting by my god did he look like him. And sound like him. This is what he looked like. Go look. It's uncanny. And then I remembered that yes, Joe Sumner* has a band and yes, there was something about him touring with the Police. But it was weird to actually see someone whose existence I've been aware of pretty much as long as I've known anything about the Police. Anyway, I got over the weirdness enough to quite like the band and want to hear more. They're playing tonight at the Ding Dong Lounge in Melbourne and while I don't know if I'll make it, they're definitely worth a look.

* To clarify: I assumed that anyone reading this would be aware that Sting's actual last name is Sumner, and that his eldest son's name is Joe and would therefore get the reference. Obviously that wasn't entirely reasonable given that not everyone was a 14-year-old Police fangirl.

AKC's top ten dogs

The American Kennel Club has released a list of the ten most popular dog breeds in the US. Beagles have been on the list since 1915, apparently so that wasn't a surprise. Neither were the Labs and Retrievers, but I was quite happy to see German Shepherds at number 3.

This just makes me want a dog even more, but we can't at the moment - we don't have the space and even if we did I don't think the our building allows pets. When we do, though, I'm thinking of adopting a shelter or rescue dog instead of getting a puppy. While I love raising puppies and I think they're quite possibly the most adorable things in the world, I want a grown up dog. Of course it'll probably have to be trained to some extent and will need time to settle in too, but that's easy enough to do with all but severely traumatized dogs (and I don't think shelters would be handing those out by the cartload anyway.). Plus, with a grown up dog, what you see is what you get. Whatever the breed characteristics and parents' temperaments, a pup will develop its own personality and it may end up clashing with that of its owner. It's easier to gauge whether you'll get on with a grown up dog

Ideally, I'd go for a German Shepherd, but really any big, sturdy, intelligent and preferably slightly goofy dog would do. Dogs generally aren't stupid and generally are at least slightly silly, so that's not a tall order, really. I may also have to reconsider the size because of space and time constraints (though really if you can't give a dog the time it requires you might not want to get one at all). Jack Russells have recently tripped my radar and I've found the ones I've met absolutely adorable. And even though they're little, they've got tons of energy and I've seen them keep up with much bigger dogs. Beagles have some appeal too, though I tend to prefer sharp-muzzled dogs - I feel for some reason that I can read them better, but that's probably because those are the kind of dog I've always had. While I might consider adopting a Lab or a Golden Retriever because of the two lab mixes we had back in Islamabad and because they're such incredibly sweet natured and intelligent animals, I just don't see myself connecting with them the way I do even with random Shepherds or Russells (yes I stop to pet dogs on the street if they approach), much less my late, wonderful Shepherd, Pooks.

Some places I'll be looking at when the time comes (or now, really - no harm just looking, right?) include:

The RSPCA's adoptapet site which lists animals awaiting adoption in its shelters across Australia and allows you to search by animal, state, and shelter. On the left nav bar, you'll also find information on the adoption process, animal selection process, pet care and maintenance, as well as good reasons why shelter animals are the way to go.

Another great site is Pet Rescue, which lists a large number of independent shelters across Australia. It's not owned by any one shelter but is instead a volunteer-run service that enables shelters to place their rescue animals up for adoption online. The amount of information provided about each rescue animal is, from what I've seen, pretty thorough and they'll tell you right off whether the animal can be moved interstate. They too have lots of other information available and also put forward a good argument for adopting rescued animals.

For a straight list of Australian dog rescues and shelters, there's always About.com's list.

The price of happiness

In his article In Praise of Melancholy, Eric G Wilson writes:
I for one am afraid that American culture's overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations. I am finally fearful of our society's efforts to expunge melancholia. Without the agitations of the soul, would all of our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?

My fears grow out of my suspicion that the predominant form of American happiness breeds blandness. This kind of happiness appears to disregard the value of sadness. This brand of supposed joy, moreover, seems to foster an ignorance of life's enduring and vital polarity between agony and ecstasy, dejection and ebullience. Trying to forget sadness and its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos, this sort of happiness insinuates that the blues are an aberrant state that should be cursed as weakness of will or removed with the help of a little pink pill.

He goes on to talk about the role of melancholy in creativity. He's not advocating the kind of depression that can be self-destructive or dangerous to other people, but talking about a kind of sadness or melancholy that comes from the knowledge that we are essentially fractured ephemera, but which makes us appreciate what time we do have and makes us strive towards some kind of wholeness.

That reminds me of something Coleridge said about the necessity of opposites. If we didn't have sadness, how would we appreciate joy?

Wilson's book, Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy will be published this year.

Thursday music

The Kooks. I first heard this at least a year ago and scribbled the song title (She Moves In Her Own Way) on a piece of paper so that I'd remember to get it. I found that little scrap of paper a few days ago - having forgotten completely about the song and the band - and since then have been addicted to this song.

"Morality"

I've heard the terms 'moral' and 'morality' thrown around often and what irks me is that it is assumed that these must flow from some kind of religious foundation. So it was heartening to read Steven Pinker's article The Moral Instinct in the New York Times yesterday. It's a fairly long article and just about all of it is quotable so I'd suggest just going there and reading it from beginning to end. It talks about what we perceive as moral, why we do so, how the 'moral sense' can be tricked, and how it evolves as we adapt to changes in our world. It's a very interesting read that will probably surprise, interest, and possibly upset you, all for good reason. I'll be looking into his books in the mean time - I've spotted a few titles that sound like they'd flesh out my own research into language rather well.

Realism

Ian McEwan on literary realism:
The kind of fiction I like and the kind of fiction I most often want to write does have its feet on the ground of realism, certainly psychological realism. I have no interest in magical realism and the supernatural--that is really an extension, I guess, of my atheism. I think that the world, as it is, is so difficult to capture that some kind of enactment of the plausibly shared reality that we inhabit is a very difficult task. But it is one that fascinates me. I have just re-read a couple of Saul Bellow novels, Mr. Sammler's Planet and The Dean's December. I really get a thrill from his engagement with the momentous task of what it is like to be in the 20th century in Chicago or even Bucharest, what the condition is, what it's like, how it is now. This is something that modernism shied away from--the pace of things, the solid achievement of weight in your hand. So I remain rather committed to that. But also to what is psychologically real--the small print of consciousness, the corners and vagaries of thinking that when you read them in another writer, and they are done well, you just know they are right. Not only because you had this thought to yourself, but because that way of thinking seems so ineradicably human.

From The New Republic.

Thursday music

Gosh the week passes by fast when you're not doing much of anything. Well ok, I'm reading a bit, but I'd do that anyway so it doesn't count.

This came out when I was in DC and is one of the songs that remind me most strongly of it, even though I hate the ending about as much as I like the beginning (of the song, that is).

In with the new

Overall 2007 was a pretty good year. I finished my MA and found out I'd got the scholarship for my PhD the day after I graduated. I presented a research paper at a conference, taught an undergrad course, read my brother's first book, worked with students with disabilities, saw the Cure live, dyed a quarter of my hair purple, did some translation work, wrote a fair amount, blogged reasonably often, managed to swim a bit, moved house, and bought a bike that I'm (re)learning to ride. I also met some wonderful people who, along with the people I met last year, have all made Melbourne feel like home.

It wasn't all good though - most notably, the political situation back home went from bad to worse, with Bhutto's assassination capping it all. I'm still not sure why 'protests' are so self-destructive, at least in South Asia, but the apparent sway emotion seems to have over reason is a bit frightening.

Politically, 2008 doesn't seem like it'll be any less scary, at least for the first few months. It is unlikely that there will be a move towards issue-based politics in Pakistan - personalities and dynasties are where it's at and, to be fair, where it's always been.

Personally, I'll be starting my PhD (have I mentioned that enough yet?), probably learning a new language as well as improving my reading speed in a couple I already know, learning to ride that damn bike, writing more and developing the ideas I've been kicking around lately, and maybe seeing the family at the end of year.

Ameel and I (well mostly Ameel) will be updating our Things We've Done section in the next few days, chronicling our activities of the past year. We also realized while at a friend's new year's eve party last night that it had been exactly six years since we'd first met, which was quite a nice note to end the year on.

Oh.

Looks like I'm doing a PhD then. Details need ironing out but hey, I got that scholarship. I guess it's a good thing I graduated on Monday then, huh? And I remembered when to doff the hat and where to look and how to get off the stage. We took lots of pictures, some of which Ameel has put on his blog, and only realized afterwards that I had the hat on backwards for a lot of them.

Moving music

We move in four days so, naturally, I've only sorted about one set of shelves. But that's because I've been doing something far, far more important: making a playlist. I don't think I can stress the importance of the playlist in moving enough. Sorting, packing, cleaning, moving heavy things around - all must be done to music. And not just any old music, either. The right kind of music.

For me, that means Springsteen. Oh yes. From Dancing in the Dark - which I danced around to in our half-empty living room in Geneva - to the gorgeous Radio Nowhere which I have on repeat at the moment and pretty much everything in between. It's probably because I've been listening to him my whole life that I associate Springsteen with moving, but there's also something about the songs. Think of Badlands, Thunder Road, Born to Run, Brilliant Disguise, Murder Inc., Glory Days, Human Touch, Lonesome Day, Worlds Apart, and most of the other songs like them - don't they seem to require some kind of movement? You can't just sit there, and it's not just happy dancey music either. You need to be doing something, preferably something that involves lifting heavy things and traveling.

There are others, of course. Some, like We Built this City by Starship (or were they still Jefferson Starship back then?), Fleetwood Mac and Foreigner seem to always have been there. But over the years the playlist has expanded to include Jackson Browne's Running on Empty, Cher's Walking in Memphis, The Passenger (both Iggy Pop's original and Siouxsie and the Banshees' cover), Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper and Burning for You, Leonard Cohen's First We Take Manhattan and, of course, Everybody Knows, Melissa Etheridge's Bring Me Some Water, the Indigo Girls' Galileo, Least Complicated, Closer to Fine and Hammer and Nail, pretty much everything by the Police, and the La's There She Goes. Currently, they're all sitting lined up with Sisters of Mercy's This Corrosion, Placebo's Bitter End, Gin Blossoms' Hey Jealousy and Found Out About You (gotta love the intro), Dallas Crane's Curiosity, the Cars' Magic, the Stone Roses' Waterfall and She Bangs the Drums, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' Royal Oil  and The Impression that I Get, and Something with Numbers' Apple of the Eye.

I'm still looking for the old Sponge and Killing Joke songs I used to listen to but haven't had much luck so far. Found the video for Plowed which I loved listening to while flying. There's some videos of Millennium here and there as well, which is encouraging. But these are simpler songs more suited to actual traveling. With sorting and packing, you need - I need - a good, strong beat first of all, but then lots of instruments doing something else entirely. I'm not a fan of lead guitar - I'd rather a great bass line and lots of piano and horns instead.

So there you go. The actual playlist has many many more songs in it, but these are (or look like they're going to become) staples. I'm still mining my mp3 folders for songs with that something extra going on in them and will hopefully have an even longer list by the time I'm done. In the mean time, suggestions are welcome.