Another thing that helps: on a computer you can endlessly go back and tweak stuff, move stuff around. And I do still cross things out etc. But writing by hand gives this constant forward momentum. You have to just pick up where you finished, and continue

The metaphor he used: he sees himself as a jockey, riding his mind when he writes, and to let it gallop he tries to restrain it as little as possible, tries to sit on it lightly in the saddle

He spoke of his 'mind' as the thing that's activated when he writes, that makes itself known through writing, rather than through his conscious thought

Cărtărescu was very likeable, made some interesting comments about the distinction he draws between himself - a normal, even boring man - and his 'mind' - something strange and deep and capable of generating constant surprise

The Institute has done some nice events over the years. A while back they ran a series of screenings of classic Romanian cinema, e.g. 1968's The Reenactment (Reconstituirea)

Very ornate building in Belgravia, one of the most sinister parts of London, body-in-a-suitcase-in-a-bathtub, bone saw territory

'[Keeping] oxen alive year-round required a
substantial investment in feed and maintenance. That may not have been possible on a large scale until the Chalcolithic. For the same reason, beginning in the Chalcolithic, ownership of oxen probably began to define the differences haves and have-nots' [79

'the impacts of the secondary products revolution extended beyond livestock keeping... In particular, grain production received a major boost... Attached to a plow, a pair of oxen could increase the amount of land brought under cultivation about tenfold.' [79

'The association of sheep, goats, and cattle with wealth... took root in the wake of the secondary products revolution [when] communities in Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent [went] from production strategies geared primarily to meet subsistence needs to... production of commodities for exchange'[79

Nice pig vessel

'Pigs' absence from ritual contexts might have been due not so much to the development of negative attitudes towards pork as to the elevation of the status of mutton and beef... I argue this reflects a developing association between ruminants and wealth.' [78-9

Not everyone hates US intervention! Business leaders love it!