Thoughts about Thoughts

Like all sentient beings, I hate email and receive absurd amounts of it. So I have the following request: please don’t send me an email. We must stop doing this to each other. It used to be the case that if you make it clear it's not spam, I'd get back to you in a reasonable amount of time. But now the amount of email requests I receive are just too much to manage while still getting any work done or being some semblance of a human being. If you need me to respond, feel free to send a followup reminder. I’m not trying to make any judgments about email, I’m just telling you an observation I’ve landed on: I am incapable of keeping up with the flood of emails. Nevertheless, here’s an email address I begrudgingly check

emandelbaum@gc.cuny.edu

(My Baruch email goes to the same place, but has more letters in the address).

I get far less snail mail. It’ll be slower to arrive to me, but I am still probably more likely to see it and read it closely (except if it’s manifesto-sized, or manifesto-toned for that matter).

Snail Mail:

365 Fifth Ave., Rm. 7113
New York, NY 10016

Or

Box B5/295, One Bernard Baruch Way, New York, NY 10010 

(CUNY email is bizarrely temperamental. If I don’t write back quickly either that most likely means that your email got immediately buried among the ridiculous mounds of correspondence. So you can try me again to get a more accurate reading. I really do try to respond to everything I get for better or worse, but the longer your email the less the likelihood is of me responding. For more on how we can fight the scourge of email together, check out the Email Charter.)

You can also try me on social media, though I rarely check Twitter (which is a sign of mental health I think). If you’ve befriended me on Facebook, I have some bad news for you: I’m not on Facebook. Apparently there’s another Eric Mandelbaum who is a Harvard alum (I’m not btw) and lives in NYC, and also likes befriending CUNY students and god knows who else. I only found out about him bc one of my former students asked why I didn’t go to this party, which I had no clue had happened. Anyway, it’s not me. I would never use Facebook (I’m a Myspace guy).