Table of Contents

  1. Biography: About myself and this webpage.
  2. To-Read Lists: What I'm interested in reading.
  3. Featured Writing: Amateur prose and poetry.
  4. Artwork of the Month: Pictures I like.
  5. Rolodex: Other webpages I like.
  6. Read/Watched Log: Chronological entries of books I've read and movies I've watched.
  7. Music Collection: My CD collection.
  8. Birdwatching Lifelist: Every bird I've ever seen.
  9. Appendix: Miscellaneous objects and links.

Biography

My name is Aaron. I am currently a student of Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. My other interests are varied and include:

  1. Topics in natural sciences, especially ecology, evolutionary biology, and more recently ornithology.
  2. Grappling sports, weight training, and other sports
  3. Language learning
  4. Literature and film
If you don't yet have my contact information, you can find it below. Please feel free to contact me about anything you encounter on this site that you'd like to dicsuss.


email: adivsin "at" protonmail "dot" com
discord: aivsin

To-Read Lists

These lists are meant to be suggestive of the topics I'm interested in. They are not comprehensive.

    Biology, Evolution, Ecology, and other Natural Sciences
  1. Evolution - Zimmer
  2. Guide to Flowering Plant Families - Zomlefer
  3. On the Origin of Species - Darwin
  4. Annals of the Former World - McPhee
  5. Life Fantastic - Gould
    History and Politics
  1. Nature's Metropolis - Cronon
  2. Ecological Imperialism - Crosby
  3. Fanshen - Hinton
  4. Rice in the Time of Sugar - Perez
  5. Carbon Technocracy - Seow
  6. Capitalism in the Web of Life - Moore
  7. Sweetness and Power - Sidney Mintz
    Theory, Criticism, and Philospohy
  1. Capital - Marx
  2. Science of Logic - Hegel
    Literature and Film
  1. Wizard of the Crow - Ngugi wa Thiongo
  2. Petersberg - Andrei Bely
  3. Native Son - Richard Wright
  4. Paradiso - Jose Lezama Lima
  5. Collected Poetry - Derek Walcott
  6. The Passion According to G.H. - Clarice Lispector
  7. The English Understand Wool - Helen DeWitt
  8. The Red and the Black - Stendhal
  9. The Carnival Trilogy - Wilson Harris
  10. Gargantua and Pantagruel - Rabelais
  11. Poems - Elizabeth Bishop
  12. Crab Ship Cannery - Takiji Kobayashi
  13. Three Streets - Yoko Tawada
  14. Water Margin - Shi Nai'an

Featured Writing

I hope to write more in response to what I read, and to think more systematically; I hope you find these exercises interesting or useful.

  1. Two Poems
  2. An American Utopia - Frederick Jameson
  3. The Triple Helix - Richard Lewontin

Artwork of the Month

April, Natalia Goncharova, "The Blue Cow"


See previous entries.

Rolodex

A number of my friends have webpages of their own, which may be of interest to you. I will also store other interesting websites here:

  1. Olivia's neocities page: a friend studying the history of capitalism and the japanese railroad network.
  2. Alex's neocities page: a friend who hosts some interesting artwork and poetry.
  3. Advith's neocities page: a friend with an interesting blog.
  4. Iris' neocities page: a friend studying Chinese history and Tiantai buddhism.
  5. Richard's essays: an incarcerated penpal writing about capitalism, colonialism, and waste management.
  6. James' essays: a friend studying 19th century German philosophy.
  7. The Phenmoneal World newsletter: some great writing on various topics in modern political economy.

For 2024's entries

Read/Watched Log, 2025

  1. 5-Jan-2025: Film: All For The Winner (1990)
    A spectacular comedy with great slapstick. Instantaneous recommendation from the very first scene. (100 minutes)
  2. 9-Jan-2025: Fiction: Journey to the West, vol. 1 (2012) Wu Cheng'en
    translator Anthony Yu. What a fantastic story. I love the comedic bits between Eight Rules and Sun Wukong. I'm looking forward to finishing this, although I don't anticipate being able to do so soon. I'm also interested in reading Water Margin and The Plum in the Golden Vase. (379 pages)
  3. 12-Jan-2025: Film: Sound of Metal (2020)
    A pretty good film. At times it accomplishes some really interesting effects with the sound design - I think of scenes where it is ambiguous whether it is simply a silent environment, or we are "hearing" Stone's deaf perspective. And the sonic congruence between the final party scene, when the experience of total social alienation overwhelms him, matching the total dissonance of the roaring distorted metal songs, is really striking. Underwritten and formulaic in many of its early beats. Lukewarm recommendation. (80 minutes)
  4. 14-Jan-2025: Fiction: The Idiot (2017) Elif Batuman
    A really superb novel. Truly a feat that something so boring could be so quick-witted, so funny, and so intense and crushing. A definite recommendation. (423 pages)
  5. 14-Jan-2025: Comic: Dykes To Watch Out For (1986) Alison Bechdel
    Spectacular. (77 pages)
  6. 29-Jan-2025: Fiction: Klara and the Sun (2021), Kazuio Ishiguro
    An enjoyable novel, which was kindly gifted to me. I really admire a work of science fiction more interested in exploring a novel and unique subjectivity than poorly posed social-political questions. Really bruising in its final passages. Recommend. (303 pages).
  7. 27-Feb-2025: Nonfiction: Emptiness and Omnipresence (2016), Brook Ziporyn
    My mind is like a sieve lately, so I feel like I got very little out of this. When I'm more powerful again I'll try the lotus sutra and the mohochikuan. Recommend. (336 pages)
  8. 13-Mar-2025: Nonfiction: Age of Revolution (1962) Eric Hobsbawm
    A fantastic book. The wide breadth of topics is really stunning, and it leaves a lot of interesting topics I feel compelled to follow up on in greater reserach. Particularly interesting subjects to me were the political details of the French Revolution; the ambiguous relationship between scientific advancement and social, economic, political developments at the time; the process of deindustrialization in colonial India; and the history of the Greek revolution. A strong recommendation. (366 pages)
  9. 27-Mar-2025: Fiction: The Adventures of Augie March (1953) Saul Bellow
    It took me a long time to like this book - I first tried reading it in my junior year of high school. At the end I really was wooed by the kind of idiotic, charming psuedishness of the character. I was also a little dissapointed in its self-seriousness and self-importance. Sometimes very well written but other times way too taken by syntactical excesses, or by pastiche. Would recommend, to some. (536 pages).
  10. 3-Apr-2025: Fiction: Three Streets (2022) Yoko Yawada
    translator Margaret Mitsutani. A very good little set of dream-ghost stories. Liked it better than "The Emissary". Recommend. (80 pages).
  11. 17-Apr-2025: Fiction: Four Short Novels (1966) Kenzaburo Oe
    translator John Nathan. Really, really good. "Prize Stock" and "Aghwee The Sky Monster" were my two favorites. Strongly recommend. (261 pages).

Music Collection

These are all albums I have on CD. I started a little collection from some old, scratched up discs my mom gave to me and have been adding to it slowly. Hopefully, I'll add a little radio station or music player here soon.

Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else - 1958
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - The Big Beat - 1960
Clifford Brown - Memorial Album - 1956
Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares, The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir - Ritual - 1994
Ray Brown Trio - Black Orpheus - 1992
Chakra - Chakra - 1980
Chakra - Satekoso - 1981
Chakra - Nanyo De Yoisho - 1983
Ornette Coleman - Something Else! -
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come -
Ornette Coleman - Tomorrow is the Question! -
Ornette Coleman - Change of the Century -
Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz -
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme - 1965
Copland - Symphony No. 3, Danzon cubano, El Salon Mexicano - 1986
Miles Davis - Miles Ahead - 1957
Dvorak - Prague Festival Orchestra, Hungarian State Orchestra - 1988
Glenn Gould - The Glenn Gould Edition: The Well-Tempered Clavier II - 1994
Joe Henderson - Mirror Mirror - 1980
Mishio Ogawa - Mishio Ogawa - 1984
Oscar Peterson - plays Count Basie - 1956
Los Hermanos Rosario - Los Duenos del Swing - 1995
Schonberg - Pierrot Lunaire Op. 21, Op. 29 - 1991
Nina Simone - The Blues - 1991
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish - 1991
Smashing Pumpkins - Pisces Iscariot - 1994

Visiting Discs: I checked these albums out from the library and listened to them at home.

Amy Winehouse - Frank - 2003
Robert Ashley - Automatic Writing

Birding

I started going birding this winter, being newly enrolled in an Ornithology course and making some friends interested in the hobby. Here is my life list, organized by order and family. Within this list you can find a list of prospective birds I would love to try and find this year. My eBird is here

    Accipitriformes (dirunal birds of prey)
  1. Bald Eagle
  2. Cooper's Hawk
  3. Northern Harrier
  4. Osprey
  5. Red-Tailed Hawk
    Anseriformes (waterfowl)
  6. American Black Duck
  7. Blue-Winged Teal
  8. Bufflehead
  9. Canada Goose
  10. Common Goldeneye
  11. Common Merganser
  12. Greater White-Fronted Goose
  13. Green-Winged Teal
  14. Lesser Scaup
  15. Long-Tailed Duck
  16. Mallard
  17. Mute Swan
  18. Northern Pintail
  19. Northern Shoveler
  20. Red-Breasted Merganser
  21. Redhead
  22. Ring-Necked Duck
  23. Wood Duck
    Cathartiformes (condors and vultures)
  24. Turkey Vulture
    Charadriiformes (shorebirds)
  25. American Herring Gull
  26. American Woodcock
  27. Caspian Tern
  28. Greater Yellowlegs
  29. Killdeer
  30. Lesser Yellowlegs
  31. Ring-Billed Gull
  32. Solitary Sandpiper
  33. Spotted Sandpiper
  34. Wilson's Snipe
    Columbiformes (pigeons and doves)
  35. Mourning Dove
  36. Rock Pigeon
    Coraciiformes (kingfishers)
  37. Belted Kingfisher
    Falconiformes(Falcons)
  38. American Kestrel
    Galliformes (landfowl)
  39. Ring-necked Pheasant
    Gaviiformes (loons)
  40. Common Loon
    Gruiformes (rails)
  41. American Coot
  42. Great Egret
  43. Sandhill Crane
  44. Sora
    Passeriformes (perching birds) (internally alphabetized by family)
  45. Northern Cardinal
  46. Brown Creeper
  47. American Crow
  48. Blue Jay
  49. American Goldfinch
  50. House Finch
  51. Purple Finch
  52. Barn Swallow
  53. Purple Martin
  54. Rough-winged Swallow
  55. Tree Swallow
  56. Brown-Headed Cowbird
  57. Common Grackle
  58. Eastern Meadowlark
  59. Red-Winged Blackbird
  60. Brown Thrasher
  61. Black-Capped Chickadee / Carolina Chickadee (integrade zone)
  62. Black-capped Chickadee
  63. Tufted Titmouse
  64. Northern Parula
  65. Orange-crowned Warbler
  66. Palm Warbler
  67. Pine Warbler
  68. Yellow Warbler
  69. Yellow-Rumped Warbler
  70. American Tree Sparrow
  71. Chipping Sparrow
  72. Dark-Eyed Junco
  73. Eastern Towhee
  74. Field Sparrow
  75. Song Sparrow
  76. Swamp Sparrow
  77. White-Throated Sparrow
  78. House Sparrow
  79. Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher
  80. Golden-crowned Kinglet
  81. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
  82. Red-Breasted Nuthatch
  83. White-Breasted Nuthatch
  84. European Starling
  85. Carolina Wren
  86. American Robin
  87. Eastern Bluebird
  88. Hermit Thrush
  89. Eastern Phoebe
    Pelecaniformes (large waterbirds)
  90. American White Pelican
  91. Black-crowned Night Heron
  92. Great Blue Heron
    Piciformes (woodpeckers)
  93. Downy Woodpecker
  94. Hairy Woodpecker
  95. Northern Flicker
  96. Pileated Woodpecker
  97. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
  98. Red-Headed Woodpecker
  99. Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
    Podicepediformes (grebes)
  100. Pied-Billed Grebe
  101. Horned Grebe
    Strigiformes (owls)
  102. Barred Owl
  103. Northern Saw-Whet Owl
    Suliformes (cormorants)
  104. Double-crested Cormorant

Appendix

My button:

My memento: a certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune...

Additional Object #2: New Years Resolutions 2025

Additional Object #3: Page Counter

Website Updates: 18-April-2025: Spotting lots of birds
Currently Reading: Theory as History, Jarius Banaji; Journey to the West v2
Status: Senioritis