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This piece was originally published on Phantisocracy, the predecessor to this site. The name “Phantisocracy” is explained, in part, below. Byron’s Don Juan satirizes fluently and abundantly, often through the art of reversal. The titular Don Juan is no longer seducer, but seducee; Wordsworth the unhired elitist “season[s]” his poems “with democracy.” The poem was celebrated as a liberal masterpiece in its time, and it was reviled. It caused offense in its time, and it still does. Richard Cronin astutely sees it as a poem that “claims the right to give and to take offence, but it is also a poem … that extends that same right to its readers.” ...

The path that leads to the Carrières de Bibémus starts just past the Lycée Paul Cézanne. I took my first hike to the areas east of the Bibémus plateau on January 31, a month ago today: a bruising 15-miler that reminded me that I belong off the couch and on the trail. I had been living in France for just over a month by then. My partner moved here to take up a postdoctoral research position in Aix-en-Provence; I needed a change of scenery from Mountain View, California, so I moved on Christmas Day to France. After several hikes here, I realized that I’ve actually wanted to have more views of mountains and quiet, open spaces — and less frustration with living in the shadow of Google while contending with career moves and watching my well-heeled friends walk off to tenure-track jobs and fancy consultancies. Near the end of my time at Stanford and in the Bay Area, my hikes in the Santa Cruz mountains became a central pleasure of my life: As I filled my lungs with the conifer-tinged air of Provence, I knew I had found a fitting successor. ...