November 3. Freezing point in the morning. Scraped car windshield. Swam. Sun rising in the thicket of bare branches. Multiple errands, driving through town. Newburgh means always driving in circles, says J. Cute traffic jams on residential streets at five. The trees. J shows me a picture on Facebook of Palisade Parkway, taken a few days ago. The trees. The more beautiful I find the trees, the older I feel. The trees.

November 2. First piano video in almost a year. I actually just wanted to try out the new camera, played something random and was surprised when I listened to it. My son also thinks it’s great, but he would like to point out that you can play also play it back twice as fast and then it takes on a completely different character.

November 1. Now in the fall, the yellow school buses stand out even more. The only vehicles that really look the same everywhere in this country. Police cars and fire trucks don’t, not at all. When you watch these school buses – right down to the notes in the windows: this vehicle has been checked for sleeping children – you’d think it must be the best education system in the world here, the only thing everyone in this country really agrees on. A beautiful fairy tale, as beautiful as the school buses.

October 31. And I just understood why they are using a clapperboard in film.

October 30. Successful evolution to smartphone human. How proud I am of my cameras.

From one day to the next, an autumn, a November with nothing to complain about. Yellow leaves on the asphalt, rain all day, cold.

The laundry room was to be closed for repairs for a week. During the second week, property management was just waiting for the Department of Buildings to sign off on the repairs. They waited day after day, and every day they said that tomorrow the inspector would come. The inspector did come on Friday. But the laundry room could not be opened – not until the papers had been submitted to the Department of Buildings and signed off on, and that would be on Monday. Today is Monday. Around noon another inspector came. In the afternoon at twenty past two, finally, an email – the laundry room would now open again. I gathered up the laundry as fast as I could and ran to the elevator. But the student I met there with an empty laundry bag only said that all the machines were already occupied. It wasn’t until eight in the evening that I found a free one.

October 29. J lies next to me in the semi-darkness and looks like a constellation of stars.

October 28. The theory goes something like this: the number of visible people explodes. As a natural defense reaction – an instinct – us vs them thinking intensifies. An elementary conservative instinct. We intensify our efforts to divide these many new people into good and bad.

October 27. When I finally give up and realize I can no longer fall asleep, it is – oddly – still dark now.

This half of the year started with us buying the scooters and riding along the Hudson in still freezing air. These are now the last days of this year in which we’ll use the scooters before I move them to the bike room next week. It is warm, close to eighty degrees. Stunned by  the empty evening sky.

October 26. Just jotting this down very briefly: I want everyone to be able to think what they want and say what they think. With very few exceptions – as few exceptions as possible. With fewer exceptions than there are in Germany – one of the reasons why I am glad to be here.

Apart from the usual individual law – libel, slander, etc. – American law recognizes only the direct incitement to violence as an exception. To be considered direct, the targeted person must be physically present and the violence imminent.

There is a difference between what the law requires or allows, and what a university or organizer allows. That’s at their own discretion, but I’m always on the side of those who allow more and permit more.

I think that’s a major cultural achievement.

Why do I have this insane view that almost no one seems to share anymore, and that disqualifies myself as an unwelcome person? Because I myself have changed my beliefs several times in my life. Because all my beliefs seem so variable to me that I find it nonsensical, if not unjust, to be pegged down to any of them.

Because, moreover, I do not see how by forbidding someone to speak, one can change or even weaken their convictions. On the contrary, it makes those convictions stronger. And more aggressive.

Maybe it’s also because I studied philosophy and it is the most natural operation of my mind to construct arguments, to compare their structures, to question premises. I can experimentally switch sides in a conversation at any time, exaggerate an argument, think through the most unspeakable consequences without feeling guilty about it.

And I am continually amazed that most people apparently can’t do that, don’t do that, and don’t think it’s necessary.

October 25. Customer escalation shortly before five. It is not before ten at night that the cow is off the ice.