1. Was packing yesterday and lost track of the time, so this is Saturday Flotsam again.

2. As of this writing, I still haven’t gotten final confirmation on my apartment. Last time I spoke to them the application is in the final stages, but that was a day or so ago. I don’t anticipate it falling through (it would be a huge problem if it did, but more in a ‘expensive and inconvenient’ than a ‘unmanageable disaster’ kind of way), but it’s still annoying and nerve grating to not have it down in black and white. From they told me, the delay is a matter of lack of staff and many applications, which is at least better to think than that they’re finding problems in my application, but it’s annoying either way.

3. I’ve been obliged to schedule my movers regardless (hence the ‘huge problem’ if it falls through). I spent much of this afternoon packing up framed pictures and other delicate things, wrapped up in paper, bubble wrap, and exercise mats. Hopefully everything survives, though fortunately the most uncertain situation (a few mirrors and a glass top for a dresser in a cobbled-together box) is the most replaceable.

4. I finished Musashi this week. I have to say, the ending was more abrupt and less satisfying than I had hoped. It might read better on a second pass, but I was hoping for a bit more of an epilogue, of giving a bit more closure to some of the plot lines.

It was still a spectacular book. I don’t know if it’ll turn out to be a ‘golden’ book for me, though certain passages (mostly involving Musashi encountering and meditating upon the various arts) will definitely be ones I return to again and again.

5. In between packing and the like, I watched a few 80s movies. Notable, I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the first time. I didn’t know really what to expect from that film, so I was a little surprised and pleased to find that it’s essentially an illustration of the Trickster archetype. Bueller is a middle American high-school version to a T: thrill-seeking, irreverent, willing to break any and all rules for his own satisfaction, and using a combination of wit and bravado to constantly surf the edge of disaster. Though, like many such figures, he’s also fundamentally well-meaning and fiercely loyal to his friends, and the rules he bucks are usually the kind that are bucking for a bucking. The story is all about him turning the world upside down to try to snap his friend out of the straitjacket of anxiety he’s been living in.

6. I was also delighted to discover that this is clearly one of the chief inspirations for Phineas and Ferb: the all-powerful and carefree brother who violates the rules with impunity pursued by the high-strung, bitter sister. PnF, of course, has two pre-teen brothers instead of one teenager, and their antics skew far further into cartoon fantasy levels. Phineas and Ferb are also less morally questionable than Bueller, since they don’t actually ‘break’ the rules so much as just not consider the idea that they aren’t allowed to build a roller-coaster in their backyard, and they almost never actually do anything that they know for sure they’re not allowed to do (even if they skirt on a technicality: “We’re too young to drive a car, so it works by remote control”). Which is to say, the Flynn-Fletcher brothers aren’t tricksters and Bueller definitely is.

Phineas and Ferb could be thought of as more or less Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Brundleflied with Calvin and Hobbes.

7. If you’re going to give someone a Nobel Prize in economics, shouldn’t the standard be “their economic policies were put into practice in a certain community and worked as intended to the benefit of the said community”? Because otherwise, isn’t it just judging who has the most appealing theory? Which is to say, fiction being written and judged by people who don’t realize it’s fiction?

Just a thought.