Daily Office: Thursday
¶ Matins: Sabrina Tavernise writes about the microcosm of Pakistani confusion that threatens the University of the Punjab. (NYT)
¶ Lauds: Ann Midgette’s good time at a recent triple bill of Terrence McNally plays about opera ended, as good times so often do, with a hangover. (Washington Post; via Arts Journal)
¶ Prime: The Epicurean Dealmaker surfaces to pronounce rough justice on Goldman Sachs. As for the SEC lawsuit, “the criteria which ultimately determine the nature of Goldman’s alleged offense will be legalistic ones, akin to judging exactly how many mortgage CDO investors’ brains can be fitted onto the head of a pin.” But the firm’s reputation is toast.
¶ Tierce: Carl Zimmer brings us up to date on the zombification of cockroaches by Ampulex compressa. Come on, the zombification of cockroaches has to be a good thing, right? (Discover/The Loom; via 3 Quarks Daily)
¶ Sext: “That was no critic; that was my wife!” Orlando Figes, a leading British academic specializing in Russian studies, announced that the author of some rather nasty online reviews of books by other specialists in Russian studies was none other than his wife, senior law lecturer (Cambridge) Stephanie Palmer. Professor Figes says that he “only just found out.” (Guardian; via Brainiac)
¶ Nones: Russia’s need to rent a Black Sea naval station from Ukraine is the result of bad imperialist map-making (the Soviet empire’s, in this case), but all is sweetness and light at the moment, because the new president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, is a good friend to Moscow. But wait — the Ukrainian opposition challenges his authority to make nice. (NYT)
¶ Vespers: John Self unearths yet another interesting-sounding novel that we had never heard of, Keith Waterhouse’s Billy Liar (1959). (Asylum)
¶ Compline: New novelist Deanna Fei writes a drolly bittersweet memoir about how she found her book when she stopped worrying about herself — while discovering that “Chinese American” is a lot more alien in China than it is in the United States. They knew that she wasn’t Chinese (appearances to the contrary notwithstanding), and they didn’t believe that she was American. (The Millions)