September 8. Feeling like I have been away too long, I visit Warsaw to meet up with Zygmunt Bauman’s people; Budapest to catch up with Agnes Heller and her son, Yuri; Prague, just before the deluge; Leeds, to work further with Bauman; Chicago, for the American Sociological Association convention; New Haven; and Boston, where my sanity is restored, my daughter having arrived to stay with me in Cambridge. Today we are upstate New York, on the Hudson; yesterday we were in downtown Manhattan, where the aura of September 11 is strong, and more than a bit spooky. We walked down Broadway, stayed in Greenwich Village, and decided to visit the site of Ground Zero another time, if ever. The whole of America is flagged – a weird show of strength, defiance, patriotism and anxiety. The shops, in particular, all seem to bear compulsory flags on the windows and doors. You get the sense that there is not much room to move here.