10/19 Brahms 2nd at GNSO. Russell calls it an idyll at a time when idyll was not possible anymore, and that this shows in subtle undercurrents in the music. The possibility that Brahms himself wasn’t even aware of that.

10/18 Newburgh protest. A few hundred, maybe a thousand. My sign ANYONE CAN BE NEXT, which I’ve had for the last two protests, does seem out of place by now. It was the only warning sign that I saw. All other signs were declarations and demands.

10/17 Newburgh it is. I carried our signs through the subway and Metro North, and this time I decided not to hold them upside down, half ashamed, as if an ordinary day was not a forum for political opinions, no, I carried them upright over my shoulder, and did get a few looks, and a woman at Grand Central said, cheerfully: you are one day early.

10/16 Still making up our mind whether for the protest on Saturday, we should join 100,000 people in Manhattan or a handful in Newburgh.

10/15 If the arc of humanity is now steady or pointing downward, something must have changed, because for considerable time, it has been pointing upward. Are we really going to argue that something has finally broken us, and as it just so happens, barely a few years ago, so close we can’t even fully comprehend it? Just like the young people of today are always the worst they have ever been?

10/14 Having an intellectual debate with Claude is like playing chess against a computer. You may contemplate your next move for hours or days, the computer will always respond within a fraction of a second, and you will be surprised and slowly begin to understand what just happened.

10/13 The middle option, which Claude calls cyclical, is not cyclical. That would suggest some kind of stable repetition, following an inherent principle. It is more likely a random walk.

10/12 Discussed with Claude whether we are experiencing (a) a glitch, an accident during humanity’s general, and inevitable line of progress, or (b) an example of a regularly occurring slide back into a more primitive state, or © a sign of humanity’s ultimate failure and decline. Claude agrees this is one of the fundamental questions of our time and says there are serious thinkers defending each position. It adds that “we’re in a moment of genuine uncertainty where intelligent people can’t agree on which story we’re in. That ambiguity might be the most unsettling part.” It also wants to know which of the three options I favor.

10/11 We bought this fully automatic, bean-to-cup coffee maker so that we wouldn’t have to do anything at all to get morning coffee – not even filling a drip machine. That problem it does indeed solve, if you don’t count the various rinsing and cleaning cycles which the machine does largely on its own, but sometimes directs us to do. And yet – the entire universe of barista-grade coffee that this machine opens up is mildly intimidating. Even if you knew which of its twelve drinks you want (a ristretto, an americano, a caffe latte, not to be confused with a café au lait or a flat white), each of them has more parameters than you have fingers to count, from the kind of beans you brew it from and the amount of water you push through them, at what temperature, and how fast, to the type and texture of the milk that is poured, sorry, foamed on top or below it. We will of course never figure all of this out, we have just been placed on another lifelong journey.

10/10 Brought the Jeep to inspection. Rather than waiting in the shop, I got driven home, and later picked up again, by the shop’s shuttle service: a driver who was amused when I was about to open the rear door, and insisted I’d sit in the front, he wasn’t an Uber, after all. I was surprised at my ability to make smalltalk for the 10-minute ride, although I’m sure he must have realized how strangely hollow everything is I come up with. We talked about the roads in the city and how it’s clear to him that nobody ever fixes anything – I can see how that decides elections. He was intrigued by where I come from, and utterly pleased when I taught him the word Arschgeige.