The Unremarkable Life of a Dissertator

MLALA

2011-01-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

I attended my first MLA this last weekend. For those of you who don't know, the MLA is the Modern Language Association, the major organization for all things scholarly having to do with language and literature. Most people know it as the organization that told them how to make a bibliography.

For a graduate student of English Literature, it is the high court of the Gods, where meer mortals like myself go to have our fates handed down to us. In other words, it's the place where job interviews for English Professors happen.

Unfortunately, I was not myself there for interviews. Last year, I somehow managed to get myself elected to a regional delegate position within the organization's government. So when asked, I had to tell people I was there on "assembly business," the importance of which was greatly exaggerated by the special ribbon I wore displaying the word DELEGATE in gold stitching.

Basically, my job was to attend a six hour long parliamentary session, complete with Robert's Rules of Orders, where we discussed professional issues and voted on the official opinions of the MLA, also known as "resolutions."

One thing I can say with confidence about MLA is that it's massive. Before arriving, I was sent a map with a layout of the conference and places where guests would be staying. Group discounts for the conference were secured at eleven hotels, spanning the entire financial and jewelry districts of downtown LA. The proceedings of the conference itself took place in the combined meeting rooms of the Marriott and the Los Angeles Convention Center, both of which are enormous. I believe that the head count for the conference as a whole was around 8,000. So many professors.

Despite the horrors of MLA--the dramatic intensity of careers in the balance, the sense of being a small fish in an oceanic pond, the underdressed, the overdressed--I did enjoy the small world vibe. Every time I turned a street corner, I would run into someone I hadn't seen in years. It was like a city in a dream, completely filled with familiar faces. Thank god there is something to look forward to next year, and the year after, since this delegate position is a three year term.

Bobos

2011-01-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

While cleaning out the closet today, Jen and I got around to sorting our pile of shoes that has been growing for several years now. Once we'd ditched or marked for donation what we didn't need, I challenged Jen to a friendly competition of Who Owns the Most Shoes, a competition which is only won or lost depending on how you feel about shoes. For us, and I'm speaking for Jen here, too many shoes would be frivolous since we pride ourselves as simple people who don't use or buy more than we need.

So let's see how well we live up to our standards. The final score was Jen's 16 to my 15. So apparently I only own one pair fewer shoes than my wife. Most men, I'm guessing, would be embarrassed by giving their wives a run for their money in the shoe department. After looking over my shoes, however, I think I've discovered a reason not to be. It seems to me that shoes only become excessive when their purpose is limited to matching outfits. In my defense, almost all of my shoes have a very specific practical function. My Bike shoes are for biking; my running shoes are for running; my winter boots are for snow storms; and my flip flops are for the beach, or days when I'm too lazy to wear socks. At least 8 of my shoes have such a purpose, leaving me with only 7 duplicates in any category for the frivolity of matching. One of these duplicates are my two pairs of winter boots, the stylish duck boots for work and the heavy, wool insulated work boots that I needed for Habitat in the winter. There's nothing excessive, or, for that matter, unmanly, about having armored foot attire for building houses in sub-zero temperatures... is there?

Admittedly, my shoe selection tends to the be the vainest in the Summer months. Somehow, I ended up with three pairs of different colored old navy flip flops, converse, and a pair of vans. Maybe I just need to admit that I have a shoe problem.

The worst part about having a shoe problem if you're a man, especially a rather tall one? Size 13s are not small by any standard, and most shoe stands and bags barely fit them, since they're mostly designed for the shoe hoarding needs of the finer, more petite sex. If only some genius would invent a multi-purpose shoe that could be worn all year, trotted out for any occasion, and strapped on for any sport, then all our problems would be solved. Or at the very least, someone would have invented a very ugly shoe.

In conclusion, I leave you with a little diddy from my childhood that occurred to me today:

Bobos, they make your feet feel fine.

Bobos, they cost a dollar 99.

Bobos, they are for hobos.

So get your bobos, for hobos, today.

Good Morning, 2011!

2011-01-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

This year's resolution is to gradually lower my consumption of sugar and caffeine, while finishing my dissertation, at least that's what I came up with last night. But then I woke up this morning with the realization that my resolution breaks the first law of thermodynamics (if, as I'm assuming, that law can be applied to people). Apparently, I've decided to slowly shut off the flow of energy, while ramping up activity. Wish me luck.

For everyone else, and their New Year's Resolutions, Happy New Year!

Freedom?

2010-12-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

My curiosity got the better of me today and I found myself on Wikileaks watching the notorious video known as "Collateral Murder" in which an American gunman kills a group of Iraqi civilians. Like any video featuring live footage of someone dying, it was terrible to watch, and I was left feeling callous for even having seen it. Once I overcame my gut reaction to the recording, it occurred to me that my callousness as a viewer was partly due to my lack of surprise that an event like this had taken place. To me, if the video proved anything, it proved that volatile situations such as Iraq (especially in 2007) create a set of conditions in which accidents, mistakes, and bad decisions often lead to the unnecessary deaths of soldiers, and yes, civilians.

The experience of watching this video left me very shaken up and uncertain about certain points of view which I, and I think many of us, take for granted. Foremost among these is the freedom of speech amendment that we hold so sacred in our society. Watching this video helped me to realize why, with so many supporters of a site like wikileaks, there are probably equally as many supporters for shutting down the site.

It has me asking myself whether America is really on the side of freedom of speech, and if the majority of Americans are really ready to live with the fullest consequences of what that entails. The worst case scenario of full freedom I can imagine is one where wiki-leaks presides as the new media in which every atrocity and mistake that puts stable countries like our own in a bad light is paraded around at home and abroad. I can't but think that this would undercut our sense of safety, leading to a growing sense of panic and chaos in the decisions that we make. Isn't there a limit to the amount of real word carnage one can witness and process before before everyone starts to lose their reason?

On the other hand, there is the argument for free speech and the unlimited right to transparency in the affairs of all organizations charged with our safety and protection. This argument has always resonated very deeply with me, and it's one that W.H. Auden best articulates in the lines:

"Only the truthful have the interest to be just,/ Only the just possess the will-power to be free."

I guess this argument is the flip side of the government secrets position; the more we hide our wrongdoings, the less motivation we have to refrain perpetrating them ourselves.

The best I can do is simplify the question, really. Which morally bankrupt society do we prefer, the one where we live under the pretense of innocence, but live like slaves, or the one where our misdeeds stare us squarely in the face, yet at least we have our freedom?

MHS

2010-12-28T21:09:00.001-08:00

I spent the last three days reading and finally finishing Henry James's The Wings of the Dove. While this isn't meant to be a criticism of the novel, it has to be one of the slowest reads in literary history.

One of the more amusing obstacles to understanding James's prose are his metaphors. As many people are aware, this is the register of language at which he's most comfortable, at least in his later works. In fact, it's pretty uncommon to stumble upon a description that describes an object or person directly. If one's not careful, reading James can result in an attack of Metaphor Hallucination Syndrome, a syndrome, which I'm just going to treat as a real thing, where the victim imagines metaphors everywhere. For instance, whenever characters in a James novel find their actions and behavior directed by someone else, James likes to employ the metaphor of a carriage, as in, "being in the carriage," (or "brougham," or "cab") of someone else. The problem arises when a character really does get into a carriage, and the reader, if that reader is me, spends a minute or two wondering whose sinister plan the character has just accidentally stepped into.

This is not to say that James, if you have the time, isn't rewarding. In no other writing that I can think of are the significances of events so thoroughly investigated. If James can teach us anything, it's how to be mindful of our experiences. Or as he liked to say, to be the kind of person on whom nothing is missed.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart

2010-12-26T14:25:00.000-08:00

Last Christmas I had a revelation of Ebenezer Scrooge proportions. When academic jobs were hit as hard as any profession by the meltdown, my prospects (at least in the short term) for becoming a literature professor nearly vanished. As you might imagine or may yourself already know, this didn't feel very good at all. So when Christmas came I threw myself into the season like I never had before. My biggest solace of all was singing carols--in the shower, in the car, inappropriately when my wife wished for quiet. In the end I came out of it all, if not a Christian, a total convert to Christmas--an atheist for Santa, or, if you must have alliteration, a secularist for Saint Nick.

This year, I opted of my own free will to bring my parents to a Christmas eve mass at the local episcopalian church. It's a beautiful church, with a gorgeous service, and the singing and feeling of good will, despite my being an interloper, was deeply uplifting.

Amidst all this warmth, I couldn't help but spot the loners, especially when the Reverend mentioned the few who felt not joy but loss during the holiday due to strained or broken relations with family. It made me think of the people that I've loved, so closely as to consider them family, and yet know that I will never see or be so close with again. Maybe it's just a sign that I've broken the thirty barrier, but along with all the brimming, bursting presence I've associated with Christmas, I felt the absence at its center. It occurred to me then that that's part of the meaning; the birth is, after all, only made present to the extent that it is remembered across the vast abyss of history.

In a way, it puts last year into perspective. I took it all for granted until the moment I realized it could disappear so quickly. The thing is though, I wouldn't swap this insight for the world. It's brought a new passion and determination to my relations with the people, and yes, I'll say it, the "things" I love and that love me in return.

Santa's Little Helper

2010-12-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been looking up from my book or computer with the sense that things are happening all around me. A phone call here with breathless questions of "what do I bring, what do I make?" A wife sitting there, picking through a stack of cooks illustrated. As always, the full effect of holiday meal preparations hits me when half the work is already done. I just look on dumbfounded and in awe of all the work that's slipped beneath my notice, kind of like the drool collecting along my lip.

Jen recently had a similar realization that led her to comment that, "Christmas is for women." Thinking myself witty, I replied that "Christmas is for men." Joking aside, she's entirely right. I know perfectly well what I see when I look at a table full of food. As a runner, my mind starts up a calculation of the calories that I'll be replenishing by sitting down to this repast. Pork becomes protein, and cake sugar and starch. There's no appreciation in my conversions. But I can't help myself. I've got the taste buds of a gadfly. I'll say this though, it's a much quicker eat.

In the meantime, I try to help out where I can. It's my personal opinion that every decent chef needs a humorous sidekick to lighten the mood. So I stand by like Statler and Waldorf with an unlimited supply of unhelpful quips and witticisms. Because what is christmas dinner, if not a meal made with love, joy, and laughter. I sprinkle cupcakes with chuckles, entres with double entendres, and ho hos with ho ho hos. See, men aren't completely useless.

much better

2010-05-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Now that I never leave the apartment, the arrangement of my surroundings seems to direct my daily activities more than ever. Like lately, I’ve been watching a little more TV than I should, and I became quickly convinced that there were certain Feng Shui related reasons for this.

Our TV, a 40 inch HD gleaming hulk of polycarbonate sat squarely in the center of our home. It was the first thing I saw coming out of the bedroom each morning. A trip from any one place to any other in the apartment meant walking past it--and by any place, I pretty much mean the bathroom. To even just sit on the couch for a short break meant staring into its inviting vastness. It’s even the first thing to greet us when we enter the front door, except of course for her lordship our cat.

So, on a whim yesterday, I decided to rearrange the entire apartment.

On requesting permission from my wife—which I was told later sounded more like a statement of intent—she replied, “Can’t you clean out the closets or something instead?”

But even she admits that things are much nicer now. Our living room is now oriented towards the large sliding glass window, which offers a lush treetop view that mostly cancels out the appearance of a Schoeps Ice Cream factory. Another added benefit is that we can again see our plants, which have struggled over the years through a combination of neglect and the unsupervised access of the cats.

Of course, we’ll have to figure something else out when the Wisconsin winter leaves its annual six foot snow pile on our balcony. It might get chilly staring at the wall of our igloo all day.

An auspicious first week

2010-01-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

And there goes the first week of 2010! What might the events foretell about the new year?

Well, I did make a remarkable effort to stick to my New Year's resolution of scaling back a few bad habits. With the help of other bad habits, like pastries and pizza.

Jobs dropped again in December, spawning another round of irony-free debates about what letter of the alphabet will best describe the shape of the economic recovery. Will it be a V, a W? A writer for the economist recently went so far as to say that no letter will suffice, and in fact the recovery will take the shape of a reverse square root sign!

This week I managed to rewatch the first six episodes of Glee. Now if this is any sign of what's to come, I'll have watched every episode of the first season 26 times by 2011. It's also a sign that I'm going to be really, really happy.

Oh, I almost forgot, I learned how to play "Mexican Train." And since there was the usual talk of how the game probably has racist origins, I thought I'd google it. Besides a boring copyright origin and a bunch of people saying "probably racist origins," there wasn't much out there. Whatever you do, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT read the definition at urban dictionary.

So Happy New Year!

Famished!

2009-11-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Billie--our tiny, smart, and feisty tuxedo cat--had to be rushed to the vet this week. Over the past few months, we noticed a change in her behavior. Her once precious trait of mewing at us when she had something to say had since escalated into a shrill and constant yowl that we just couldn't bear any longer. So slowly that we almost hadn't noticed, she had morphed into some little Hitler or diminutive Darth Vader, parading and barking orders around our nice, quiet home.

To make matters worse, she had become totally fixated on food to the point that much of my life at home (where, by the way, most of my life takes place) had become an ongoing battle against food scraps. If I failed to remove a single crumb, Billie would discover what was in her mind a feast and redouble her efforts at prowling through the kitchen. We even once caught her licking the droplets of oil off the dials on the stove.

So we finally wised up and carried her off to the vet, where we discovered that Billie had dropped three pounds. She went from being a tiny eight pound cat to an even tinier five pound one. We had no idea. After a day's worth of tests looking for things like a tapeworm and hyperthyroid disorder, we learned the true cause of the problem. Jen and I were basically terrible owners who were slowly starving our cat. Okay, so we're not that despicable, but it turns out that, a few years back, when the vet switched Billie to a hypo-allergenic brand of kibble, she forgot to tell us that it contained fewer calories.

This whole time, I had been attempting to deter her by shaking cans of pennies, cleaning non-stop, and carefully sealing anything with a smell. I even almost succumbed to purchasing a motion-sensor spray-can online, and I won't deny that I took a cruel pleasure at the thought of Billie flipping out when this thing activated without a soul around. When instead, what I should have done was just opened the fridge and said 'here you want some ham, how about a turkey.'

Anyway, she's better now. We're feeding her a half can of the heaviest, fattiest, stinkiest cat food I've ever had to dish out. It didn't take but a day for her behavior to revert back to normal. She's like, "aah, that's better, now I can go back to my life of sleeping and opening all the closet doors." The answer was that simple: she's hungry, feed her. Sometimes, I wish Billie could speak, I think I could learn a lot from her.

Before

After

2009-11-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

The reality of the job market: you find yourself drawn to the simple, happy things. Seriously, the other day I was watching Glee and my eyes nearly welled up with tears of joy. There's also the fact that I can't stop singing neighties* music in the car and the shower. Also, blankets. Because being swaddled helps too.

*A neologism I coined to express my nostalgia for music from the eighties and nineties.

Now I See What Mid-Western Cabin Culture Is All About

2009-07-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

When I ask my class composed mostly of students from Wisconsin where they’re going on vacation over break, one response comes up more frequently than any other: “a friend/relative of mine has a cabin in the woods.” At this I always wonder why one would want to take a vacation somewhere less comfortable than where one currently is. Instead of sitting in the bug-free, perfectly temperate climate of my apartment, I’m supposed to choose of my own free will to be too hot, too cold, covered in bugs and/or rodents of various sizes in a cabin with very little in the way of insulation between myself and a semi-wilderness? I also wonder what there could possibly be to do out in the middle of nowhere. When I ask, my students usually tell me that they drink, a lot. So the answer, basically, is nothing.

About a week ago, some friends of mine managed to lure me out to one of these middle-of-nowhere retreats. The lure came in the form of hours of board games to which I have recently become addicted. I figured suffering through the cabin-part wouldn’t be too bad if it meant playing games like Dominion and Agricola to my heart’s content.

While there, something remarkable happened. Like some sort of revelation in the tradition of Ebenezer Scrooge I was overcome with the spirit of the cabin vacation. When I could have been playing board games, I was out foraging for kindling with which to build the evening fire or just enjoying a beer on the porch. What I discovered is that there is nothing quite so awesome as doing absolutely nothing. The full effect of it didn’t hit me until I returned home to realize that I hadn’t checked my email in three days!

You might say that I had a fever and the only cure was MORE CABIN. Of course, thinking of Christopher Walken anywhere near that cabin gives me the willies.*

*If you don’t get this reference, go watch the SNL “more cowbell” skit. It is an essential part of any cultural education.

2009-04-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

The other day I picked up some "Habanero Horseradish Mustard" put out by the Mt. Horeb Mustard museum. I think I've fallen in love.

Three independently kick ass ingredients brought together at last. Plus, the label reads:

"Your chances of finding a better mustard are Slimm and Nunne."

Oh yeah! Yet another brilliant invention from the think-tank of Poupon U.

clothes reading

2009-04-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

This is another post in the spirit of conveying something about grad student life to those of you who are for the most part unacquainted with our kind.

Saturday night, I decided to invite a few friends over to play Mario Kart, two of whom brought their 6 month old along (baby James, as I like to call him). Since my guests arrived all at once, we of course started things off by cooing, smiling, and generally giving all our attention to the amazing baby James.

Okay, so far so good, right? Nothing out of the ordinary here.

But then, someone points out that baby James is wearing a rainbow striped onesy with a picture of a giraffe driving, of all things, a backhoe. After quickly noting its odd cuteness, we slid naturally into a discussion of what crossed the designer's mind when he or she chose to combine these two specific objects.

Here's a quick selection of answers:

"maybe since the animal is exotic, they thought the vehicle ought to be as well"

"I'd like to attribute the backhoe to a desire to toughen up the child, but the rainbow background rules out that possibility"

"hmmm... a giraffe and a backhoe... an animal and a vehicle... are they making a point about nature and technology?"

In literary studies, this is what we like to call "close reading." Things don't, as the great Young MC once said, just make us go hmmmmm. Instead, they make us totally geek out. All the while baby James mainly thinks that we're mesmerized by his cute little baby belly.

So there you have it, a pretty typical example of what us grad students (as well as their spouses and partners - unless they're faking) consider to be a good time. For another example, I invite you to go back to the title to be either amused or slowly tortured by my attempt at a pun.

market blues

2009-04-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

Anybody remotely connected to an English graduate program knows how horribly shitty the job market was last year. Today, there was a headline in the New York Times that went "recession anxiety seeps into everyday lives," accompanied by the picture above.

You might not think it, but the hiding under the covers is pretty accurate, though we have yet to stoop to cowering together in groups. Then again, what goes on in those shared graduate residences is beyond my knowledge. You also have to love how this picture illustrates economic woes with a picture of people attending a what is probably a pretty pricey relaxation seminar.

Seriously though, I have noticed that a general malaise has fallen over our department. Conversations periodically turn towards the subject of the market, since it's what we're all thinking about anyway. Knowing that two of, say, ten students who applied for jobs last year actually received them makes things look pretty dour. When the subject arises, there are varied levels of dispirited talk with fun facts like "1/3 of the jobs I applied for were cancelled mid-search." These discussions are often followed by a chorus of sighs or a prolonged moment of silence. Luckily, since we're for the most part used to being penniless, we mostly just resign ourselves to waiting things out till the situation improves.

2009-03-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

If you have yet to read Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon, then what are you waiting for.

For those of you who have:

Do you think that Brigid deserves what she gets?

And, what's the point of the Flitcraft story, really?

2009-02-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

I am getting the sense that it's become fashionable to be a critic of the oscars. And since it is also fashionable to be fashionable, I'm going to do just that.

The jokes about putting on the oscars in the midst of tough economic times were a little hard to take seriously when delivered on a stage bedecked with hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of the Swavorski crystal curtain. Maybe someone should have told the writers that the budget concerns were a tad overinflated.

While they're at it, they should also talk to the group of editors who choose the clips that best illustrate the award category. At least that's what I thought was the purpose of these clips.

For "special effects," the clip from Dark Night featured a few of Joker's clown-masked minions posing maliciously inside a freight truck. Okay, Freight trucks are admittedly not cheap, probably even to rent. But what exactly is "special" about this particular effect? How about the bat-mobile turning into a bat-bike? That was pretty special.

One of the clips from the nominees for the screenplay award (for those who "don't just write screenplays, but movies") went something like this: "What are you having sir?" "The steak" "And you, mam" "I'll just have what he's having." Now I can see including this in a movie. People are required to place orders when at restaurants, after all. But if this is Oscar-quality writing, then I think I found an occupation that requires even less effort than being a disserator.

At least Benjamin Button didn't win best picture.

Yes, another link

2009-02-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

One more reason why I love the onion.

class cut short

2009-02-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

The apology I emailed to my students says it all:

Hi Everyone,

So first of all, sorry that you had to witness the breakdown of my vocal chords in class today. I'm sure we can all agree that that was kind of unexpected. In case you're wondering (some of you did look a little worried), I'm not seriously ill in any way. The bad part of this cold passed a week or so ago. My recovering throat was just agitated to the point that it became difficult to speak. I'll make sure to bring some water to our next class, at which my throat should be back up dispensing writing advice, rather than broken raspy speech.

Thanks so much for understanding.

For now, enjoy the free time and your much envied ability to use your voice.

Best,
Kevin

p.s. You should know that I resisted the temptation to place throat-clearing "ahems" throughout this email.

A colleague (Dubs) helped me feel less embarrassed about it when he said "It could have been worse. At least you didn't vomit phlegm all over them"

Wouldn't we have been better off not knowing...

2009-01-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

That men stink of cheese and women of onions?

Then again, maybe it's just the Swiss.

Follow Up

2009-01-29T13:53:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so, the humidifier turned out to be a piece of junk. Its so called humidistat was more like a timer that turned it on and off at intervals. I'm not exactly sure how that gauges a varying quantity like humidity. Its also not fun to have next your bed. At one point, I asked Jen to turn on our wave soundtrack, and she replied that it was already on. I just couldn't hear it over the loudly whirring fan.

After quite a bit of research and a little shopping I discovered that all the good units are sold out just about everywhere in Madison. We opted to overnight a nicer Honeywell model which will be here tomorrow. Meantime, I've taken Katie's advice and am using Jen's "facial spa"--it's like a small portable humidifier that's intended for cosmetic purposes. Not only is it a mask that you hold over your face, but Jen recommends I throw a towel over my head to keep the steam from escaping. I imagine I look like a cross between darth vader and the emperor. The cats seemed a little freaked out and wouldn't stop staring at me. I'd be tempted to say I look twenty years younger if it didn't make me ten.

making water

2009-01-27T15:28:00.000-08:00

I don't need to remind anyone that winters in Wisconsin are cold. Lately though, the freezing and frequently subzero temperatures are not my biggest concern. My biggest winter bugbear is the dry air that settles in my apartment after running the heat for weeks at a time. The complete absence of humidity lays waste to my respiratory system leaving the surface area of my sinuses, throat, and lungs a cracked and barren landscape--an environment unsuitable to all life except maybe the occasional virus that happens by.

Lately, I've been waging war against the dry air in my apartment by setting out the humidifier at night and sometimes during the day when I'm home. The one we had was made by honeywell. Somehow I got it in my head that that was a good brand. I'm not sure where I picked up that information, or if it's even valid, but the name just seemed to inspire confidence--probably something to do with the word honey. Recently, though, the honeywell stopped working, most likely due to my own incompetence. I left it on while empty and never really scrubbed off the minerals that had completely overtaken the heating coil and grown to nearly a centimeter in thickness.

So today, I ventured out to Target to purchase a new humidifier. Let me start by saying that this is something I refuse to research on principle, since I have a tendency to research every other little detail of my life. Completely random, I know, but I've decided to draw the line at humidifiers. Plus, if it's going to break in a year or two anyway, I probably shouldn't think too hard about it.

The only brand they had at Target was called Holmes, a name that (to me anyway) doesn't sound nearly as trustworthy as honeywell. Something that's intended to create moisture probably shouldn't have such a dry name. It should probably be something, you know, juicier. But like I said, I'm not being picky. I also went in for "cold mist" instead of "hot steam." When I pulled it out of the box, I noticed that it's much bigger and more complicated looking then my last one. It kind of resembles a Frank Gehry building. It has several sections that don't look as if they should fit together but somehow manage to. Instead of just an on/off switch, this one has a full blown panel, with settings. When I told Jen, she asked if it "goes to eleven." It turns out there's a built in "humidistat" that not only detects the current humidity level but automatically turns the machine on and off to keep the humidity at the level that you desire. The technology is a little crazy, actually. It's just reservoir filled with stagnant water with a fan over it. Honestly, I would never expect something like that to work.

All this gadgetry convinced me that I should probably know something about humidifying one's apartment. So I got over my ridiculous research aversion and checked the internet. I learned that a "humidistat" is practically required among those who know about these things. Without one, you run the risk of turning your apartment into a tropical rain forest where all manner of mold, spore, and bacteria can grow. As you can imagine, this has me a little nervous about my history of humidifying to my heart's content. I guess it's okay. I mean, I'd rather create life than destroy it, right? Anyway, thanks to my new mechanical friend (the cats also seem to have taken to it), the humidity in my office is holding at a comfortable 50%, well within the recommended range. Now I just have to contend with the cold, dry world outside my apartment. I'm seriously tempted to carry it around with me. Maybe, with my big hair and all, people will think it's a boom box if I carry it on my shoulder. That way, instead of an invalid, I'd just be that guy who never recovered from the 80s.

2009-01-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I taught my first class of the semester: intermediate composition. The group of students who signed up are continuing a tradition that has been established over the last four semesters. Every semester, my students seem to alternate. They are either entirely white, like blankets of Wisconsin snow, or heavily multicultural, [I don't think it would be appropriate to use a metaphor here]. For example: last semester, most of my students were white and midwestern. In fact, they were mostly men from Wisconsin. This semester, my students are hailing from all over the world. Cultural representation in my classes has swung back and forth like this for the past four semesters. It must just be the luck of the draw. I mean, I guess it is. It's not like they plan it, right? Do fraternities and sororities target classes? Have I become a guinea pig some kind of F-ed up segregation experiment?

On a lighter note, here are some short cuts I took while making soup of which I'm proud.

1. When told to cook squash two ways and combine both, I just roasted it all!
2. Instead of a bouquet garni, I just dumped a bunch of dried herbs in the pot! I always thought bouquet garnis were a little pretentious - and not just because they're French!
3. When I was supposed to filter the soup through a sieve, I just bypassed the sieve all together!

For some reason, the exclamation marks seemed necessary. Sorry if you felt shouted at. And guess what else, it tastes exactly the same!

what I've been watching

2009-01-18T13:32:00.000-08:00

To respond to t's request, here's a list of the various movies and television shows that I've been watching the entire week I've been sick. Having been medicated during the viewing of most of these films, I will refrain from commenting on their quality.

Gone Baby Gone
Ben Affleck's directorial debut.

Next
An action-thriller in which Nicholas Cage can see two minutes into the future.

Tropic Thunder

Exiled
A Johnny To Spaghetti Western set in Macao, Portugal. A group of thugs find that their bonds of friendship are stronger than their loyalty to their boss.

Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
I only watched the first ten minutes.

The Constant Gardener

Black Book
About a female agent for the Jewish resistance in Nazi Germany.

The Duchess

Mad Men
Last two discs of season 1.

Babylon A.D.
Two words, Vin Diesel.

Star Trek: Voyager
Season 1

not so hard to swallow now

2009-01-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

Oh the woes of being ill. Three days ago I came down with a sinus infection. At first it wasn't so bad, just some congestion and some tiredness. Nothing, I thought, that a few hours on the couch in front of the teli couldn't cure. But then last night happened. My throat grew so sore and swollen I could barely swallow. Being something of a hypochondriac, I decided to page a doctor, who recommended I head to ER! She scared me a bit with her concern for a long wait due to accidents on the iced-over roads. Luckily, the horrific scene of crushed and bleeding victims being wheeled through the emergency room door was not a reality. As far as we could tell, Jen and I were the only people there. The only evidence of other patients were the handful of cars, neither dented nor totaled, in the parking garage.

All around, it was a highly uneventful visit. Two nurses checked my vitals and threatened to do a strep test (of which I'm terrified). An unconcerned-looking doctor then came and countermanded their order, basically dismissing the test as worthless. He also assured me that I wasn't going to suffocate any time soon. In the spirit of House, he skipped the diagnosis and went ahead with treatment. Now, I figured they would give me antibiotics, but what I did not see coming were the prescription-strength pain relievers. That was an unexpected delight. When going over my list of prescriptions, the nurse asked,

"Have you heard of vicodin?"

My initial thought was "Have I?!"

I went with the somewhat more considered answer of, "yeah, that sounds familiar."

So here I am the next day. My throat slightly less sore and swollen and I am experiencing a dizzy-woozy feeling, which is markedly improving the quality of the crappy movies I'm downloading from netflix.

Great...

2009-01-07T11:24:00.001-08:00

The moment I finally build up the nerve to do work and people start pounding on the building with hammers and shit. This of course has riled up the insane barking dog across the street, who is now calling for every neglected backyard dog in the neighborhood to join in.

Now I have to change into something winter-proof, pack up all my things, and drive to a coffee shop. If all goes well, the desire to be productive will not have passed by the time I get there.

On a lighter note. Here are two headlines from "The Capital Times" that illustrate why I love local news:

"Dog that bit man sought." - nothing to do with said dogs above.

"Couple did not fall for scam." - I like the implication that couples always fall for scams. And that at last, finally, one particularly perceptive couple managed to slip the noose.

Seriously, Stanley Fish?

2009-01-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

Groundhog day? One of the top ten best films EVER?! Double Indemnity and Vertigo I can handle. But "Groundhog day"! This is the only movie worth mentioning in the last 20 years?! Why not "Ghostbusters"? And "What about Bob?" I'm beginning to think you really are insane.

jedi knighties in tighty whities

2009-01-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

For the last five days I did nothing but play the star wars role playing game "knights of the old republic." Every once in a long while I succumb to the the temptation to stop everything and throw myself, body and soul, into an rpg. Seriously, in the morning I would start the coffee, turn on the xbox, and sit down to endless hours of zany jedi adventure. I finally finished last night. Jen, as I'm sure you can imagine, showed visible signs of relief.

The game was entertaining in more ways than I could have imagined.

Among the many side-quests, there's one that involves returning a run-away droid to its distressed female owner. The droid, you learn, was programmed by her deceased husband to provide all of the "functions" that the husband provided when he was alive. When you return the droid, she eagerly responds "I just can't wait to get you home!" She then chases the droid, who runs like C3PO, off the screen. I thought this might be crossing some kind of line. But then another character exceeded all of my expectations of video game decency when he quipped, "That droid's sure going to service its master tonight!"

Another aspect to the game that amused me immensely was the clothing-optional feature. Like most such games, you can change your characters' apparel, dressing them in robes, body armor, or even plainclothes. But you can also set their outer-wear status to "none." Doing so doesn't just mean that they're defenseless. Oh no, it's far better than that. Instead, they traipse around the star wars universe in their underwear! Even in the cinematic sequences, in which some of the most momentous events occur, they appear scantily clad. For example: during the awards ceremony, one of my characters accepted her medal of recognition for saving the galaxy in her bra and panties. It was like somebody's nightmare.

What's even stranger to me is the fact that the men in the game all wear very stylish bodystockings that kind of resemble 1950s bathing suits. While the ladies' underwear isn't even matching!

Now that my party of underwear models has made the galaxy safe, I feel comfortable allowing things to go back to normal.

A few reactions to the Wii

2008-12-28T14:19:00.001-08:00

It's strange to say that my back is sore after a few bouts of boxing with the wife.

Jen is a much better boxer than I am.

I find it a little freakish how closely my parents resemble their "mii" characters.

Bowling would be a better sport if it were more like wii bowling.

As it turns out, my mother is a champion bowler.

Sadly, my parents' wii didn't have the cow racing game in which cows can run and even jump over other cows.

Never knew my parents to flail wildly knocking things off bookshelves before.

The Japanese are genius.

I want a wii right now damn it.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-24T17:28:00.000-08:00

So Christmas eve 08 has arrived at last. Jen and I are not as festive as we have been in the past but we're still holding up our end of the good cheer.

Jen's happy that she has not one but two days off work, today and tomorrow. And she tells me she has a "jeans day" pass for Friday. To her mind, if she can get out of wearing slacks then it doesn't count as real day of work. Jeans are like the next best thing to vacation.

There's no tree. Not this year. Our beloved neighbors got a real one and their place smells like fresh pine. We were just too lazy to put up our fake tree. We decided to decorate the apartment with a new tv instead. It's a lot like our usual x-mas tree. It takes up a lot of space in the living room. It's pretty. It lights up. It's made of plastic. It serves as an idol of worship. And you can put whatever you feel like on it. So take that all you x-mas critics who think the holiday is just about consumption. Maybe I'll even top our tv with a nice star.

For tomorrow's dinner, I've got a nice selection of holiday cookies from Trader Joes. My favorite are the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Peppermint Joe Joes. Three Joes in that title, nice. Pair them with a cup of coffee and you've Joe's Joe Joes with Joe. Four Joes! That beats even Major Major Major. The box describes them as "bathed in an all natural ocean of deep, rich chocolate... These chocolatey, minty sensations dissapear as fast as they appear and won't return until next year!"

And the gingerbread cookies I got, well the package says it best when it describes them as "any time sweet treats." Sometimes, I think the writers forget that they're describing cookies.

We'll also be attending a midnight mass tonight at Madison's Anglican church. We're going to support a friend of ours (one of the the neighbors I spoke of above) who will be carrying the thurible (the thing that releases the incense). I've very excited at the prospect of a little pageantry, a little ceremony, this evening. It's a little strange though too, seeing as I haven't been to church in, oh, say, 12 years. This was back when the father of a friend, Rashad, would literally make me go after sleeping over at his place. Not for religious reasons, but because it was the only time he ever had the house to himself.

Anyway, hope everyone else is having as much fun as we are. So have a merry... er... happy holiday!

jazzy... yeah...

2008-12-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

I just bought a jazz album by Terrence Blanchard called "A Tale of God's Will: Requiem for Katrina." Is it wrong that I find this makes for an enjoyable listening experience?

"That chick's as cold as the dead flesh of a stripping zombie"

2008-12-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

How much can a person expect from a movie called zombie strippers? My worst fear was that the film, if one can call it that, would be simply intended to arouse 13 year old boys who manage to get access to R movies. That it would be one scene after another of women taking their clothes off and being dismembered against an endless soundtrack of bad metal bands. But in the end it would all be worth it. Because there would also be some hilarious, unforgettable, cult-film-like moments. Well, all of the above is true, but there is also something even sadder going on. Watching this movie, one gets the sense that Jenna Jameson is trying to break out of the porn industry on the back of social satire. Yet this attempt to take the moral high ground comes across as shrill, desperate, and unconvincing. The evil military-industrial corporations that make the zombie serum are oh so subtly named "W" and "Cheneyco." The lab-coated doctor speeds incomprehensibly through a totally unprompted confession that his company masterminded the whole stripper club endemic. Any mention of a moral and the actors drop the whole ruse of sexiness and address the camera, blankly informing us that we're blind to the world's ills. On the upside, the sleep induced by this high handedness did up the shock factor at moments like Jameson's shooting of high velocity pool balls (that's right, pool balls) out of her vagina. Imagine getting hit with a lame moral and then getting hit with that! Usually, I can watch a stupid movie and laugh and then just forget about it later. This movie, while hilariously bad, also left a bad taste in my mouth - having nothing to do with the the club's "famous face dance." Basically, I am left deeply disturbed by the fact that the porn stars in the film look worse (i.e. dumber) for their attempt to say something smart. I honestly want to be glad for these zombie ladies getting long-awaited revenge on their depraved clientele, but ended up feeling sorry for them instead.

one bottle of beer on the wall, one bottle of beer...

2008-12-16T21:30:00.001-08:00

Well, as some of you may know, I don't really drink much anymore. Just something here and there on special occasions. So my tolerance, well, we all know what happens to tolerance when you're not drinking. Today happens to be a small occasion, since I finally met a long put off deadline of finishing the final edits on my article. When I told Jen I was done, she started da da da-ing the melody of a famous victory song. I, appropriately, danced a little jig. And then we decided that I needed a treat and that that treat would be a beer. Ahhh... beer. At this point, I was deeply chagrined to discover that it was five past nine; that is, five minutes past the time one can purchase booze in Wisconsin. My wise and sagacious wife suggested that I bug my neighbor, M, some of you know her as just "the vicar," to see if she had a beer. Which she did. And what a beer she had! Something called Dogfish Head, Palo Santo Marron. The bottle tells me that it is a "malt beverage aged in Palo Santo Wood." M warned me that this was a special beer with an alcohol content of 12 percent. That's like 24 proof, right? If I remember correctly from my days of flirting with girly drinks, that's nearing the alcohol content of coconut rum! Don't quote me on that. The state that I am in is not one that I would describe as quotable. One beer later and here I am feeling quite a bit "tipsy" (as my mother used to say). Isn't that a funny word, tipsy? I imagine some poor fellow swaying this way and that spouting things in a deep sonorous voice like "Well now!" "Hello there!" and "Lovely day we're havin'" You know, back when drunk was, like, endearing. Personally, I should be in bed but instead I'm making a fool of myself blogging and rampaging through facebook commenting on everything in sight. Yep. There it is. The wave of sleepiness. M also warned me that this stuff can knock you out. That someone she knew drank one of these bottles of joy, laid down on a couch for just a moment, and woke up the next morning. Well, off to Bedfordshire!

gotta love the bad

2008-12-13T10:18:00.001-08:00

I watched the first episode of Mad Men last night. Not sure what I think yet. But I'm going to keep watching the show because of Vincent Kartheiser. In "Angel," he played Conner, Angel's son, who grew up in a hell dimension and came back savage and a little paranoid (wouldn't you?). He's one of those actors that has nailed a personality down, in his case: the defensive, falsely confident asshole. As might be expected, the show's appeal, seems to lie in its ability, like most shows on HBO and Showtime, to garner sympathy for repellent people - cause, well, repellent people are usually charming and lovable in their own slimy way. So far in my TV watching habits I've become smitten with a serial killer (Dexter), a thieving pimp (Al Swearingin from Deadwood), a man who steals from gangsters (Omar), a polygamist (Big Love) and many many bloodsucking vampires. All so much more interesting than all the namby pamby, goody two shoes, god fearing men of honor and morals. I guess Milton got it right when he made Satan the most magnetic figure in the story of the fall.

the one who started it all

2008-12-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

Facebook has me hooked. And Mrs. D, I blame you. It was your friend request that peaked my curiosity just enough to decide to open an account. I mean how hard could it be? But little did I know that Facebook was a wolf in sheeps clothing, a hungry ravenous beast waiting to gobble me whole. At first, I wasn't even concerned with having a profile picture or with making sure my information was accurate and complete. But now, now, I can't be off the site for thirty minutes before some update, correction, or photo album idea sends me running back to my desk. In fact, I actually wrote captions for photos. Never assembled a photo album in my life. Never. In. My. Life. And yet here I am wondering if this one's too riske or if this one shows my best side.

But seriously Mrs. D, thank you for putting me back in touch with old friends and making me show photos of my wedding and honeymoon to the people who have been begging me, nagging me, to point of almost blackmailing me to finally send them evidence that I didn't just make it all up.

snow shoes

2008-12-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

Ah, yay... It's only early December and the snow is already piling up outside. Soon, I'm sure, it will cover most of the sliding glass door at the back of our apartment. Worse still is my shoe dilemma. After six years living in Wisconsin I haven't purchased a pair of boots for trekking through the snow. Well, no, that's a lie actually. I do have one pair. But they're from back when I was volunteering at habitat and they're more like construction boots than snow wear. They're made of industrial-strength rubber or something and make my feet look twice as big as they already are. They also take off my socks when I walk. Honestly though, the real reason I don't wear them is that they look a little ghetto, though it is a wierd sensation to be sockless in a pair of insulated work boots. So I guess its time to brave the outside in my sneakers. By the end of the day I'm sure it will feel like walking around with my feet in buckets full of snow. Steeling myself for this task isn't easy. Here we go. Upsy daisy. Picture the cup of tea later. That's right. You can do it...

anal sand

2008-10-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Microsoft word keeps telling me that in my chapter on Sigmund Freud I continue to misspell the word "analysand." As a correction, it suggests "anal sand." Anal sand? The more I think about it, the more it seems to work. Being an "analysand," that is, lying back while Freud plumbed your mind for repressed memories, probably felt a bit like having sand between your buttocks.

one of NPR's more macabre moments

2008-10-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

This morning, NPR was advertising a conservation that will follow the VP debate this evening. To describe it, they strangely chose the word postmortem: "a postmortem discussion." Since I'm only familiar with the literal meaning of this word, and am pretty sure no one is slotted to die during the debate, I decided to check and see if there was a variant definition that explained this particular usage. Here's what I found:

postmortem: an analysis or discussion of an event after it has occurred, esp. in order to determine why it was a failure.

Awesome, NPR, our most objective news source is referring to the debate as a catastrophe before it has even taken place. I love NPR and usually find them very sophisticated, so I have to wonder how deliberate this word choice was.

2008-09-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

My niece came to visit this week. For a three-year-old, she has developed quite a resourceful vocabulary, especially when it comes to expressing anger. There was one point when she singled out a bic pen as her latest foe. Summoning up all her fury, she thundered:

"I want that pen... because I hate it. I am going to throw it out of the window. And then, I am going to pick it up and throw it into the sea!" By sea, she meant the lake that was visible from the window.

She's smart too. To the question, "are you a clown?" she shot back, "no, I am not a clown because I do not know how to juggle." Aristotle couldn't have said it better himself.

It's good to know she's on my side.

waning curiosity

2008-08-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

Lately, reading drafts of my writing has become one of those activities that I look forward to with trepidation. This is especially true with drafts that I haven’t seen in awhile. They read like the ravings of a very calm madman. Something must be important to the hell-bent speaker of my determined prose, but it is not exactly clear what that obsessed-over object might be. Descriptions zoom in so close to mind-staggeringly minute points that its like this person is writing from within a can of tuna (and can’t seem to write himself out it). This sense of claustrophobia is what bothers me the most. I wait impatiently, with bated breadth, for a sentence, a word even that gestures outward to some bigger picture. And slowly it dawns on me that there’s going to be quite a wait before this guy says anything to give the remote impression of any relative importance. How can something that once seemed so urgent suddenly lose all semblance of being a matter of importance after a period of a mere seven days?

My writing isn’t always like this. It’s Freud, I tell you.

So I pulled a book off my shelf to see how the pros did it. The book I grabbed probably wasn’t the best choice, considering that the author specializes in comparative literature, a field requiring a pretty wide breadth of knowledge (just everything ever written). It was helpful regardless. The subject matter was no less obscure and esoteric than my own, and possibly more so since people have at least heard of Freud. But this guy had taken measures to combat this complete lack of interest. In every single paragraph about his palpably boring subject (J.C. Powys’s, A Glastonbury Romance) he took the reader in hand and led him carefully to a place where there stood, staring you plainly in the face, the answer to that timeless question: “who gives a shit?” Seriously, he did this like two to three times a page. All it took to hold my interest was the frequent return to profound, bold, and quotable statements that rolled an idea up into a little gift of portable wisdom. Yeah! You’re right! It is really interesting that this pretty forgettable author (Powys, in case you forgot already) just used a modern aesthetics to express an anti-modern sentiment. Then again, what do I know? My ideas for what counts as exciting are clearly warped by years of education.

a morning without jen

2008-08-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Having no obvious topic to write about, I’ll just provide a narrative of my day. After a late night of reading a book aesthetic philosophy (chosen for its soporific effects), I somehow managed to rise early this morning. Livy did not break her routine, either, waking me up for food around 5:30 but producing the somewhat contrary result of getting herself thrown into the bathroom until I’m awake enough to feed her.

I should pause over this for just a second. Later, when I let Livy out, I had a vision of her one day catching on and realizing that her morning yowls don’t actually make the kibbles appear. But then I worried that were this to happen it would happen in the worst possible way. Livie would continue to wine with the slight difference that she wouldn’t then follow me, lemming-like, into the bathroom so that I can lock her inside. Instead, deciding she’s no longer going to play my little game, she’d evade all attempt on my part to capture her. I guess this hasn’t happen because of how disingenuous I really am. You see, when I lead her to the bathroom, I act totally awake, putting on my responsible face with a look that says “of course, I’m going to feed you, silly, just step into this small room first, and I’ll get right on it.” Once she’s safely shut inside, I throw myself back on the bed and am asleep in a flash. I guess I could complain that Livie isn’t smart enough to notice she never gets fed when she shouts for food, but then again, I haven’t really done much to set the matter straight.

After feeding the cats, which I’ve been doing since Jen is away. I set off for EVP to sit across from Brian and make several decaf runs to the carafe. Since the danishes were all snatched up, I had to settle for a Pumpkin Scone. I then discovered that the very mention of this phrase “pumpkin scone” makes Brian put on his gag-me-with-a-spoon face. To be honest, I didn’t even know he had that face within his repertoire. But really, if you can do the voice and mannerisms of a pixie serving tea in the land of the Faerie Queen, what face can’t you make? So I set out to work… work which had nothing, actually, to do with my dissertation. With Obama’s unclear political leanings, yes; with the Swiss architects who built the Olympic stadium, swiftly become known as the Bird’s nest, yes; with a writer and artist as comfortable with children’s books as he is with erotica, yes. But not a bit with Freud. I basically read the New York Times for four hours.

zap

2008-07-15T08:31:00.001-07:00

At Octopus car wash yesterday, I happened to catch something disturbing on the TV in their waiting room. On CNN Headline news there was a story on "woman struck by lighting while recording storm." The TV was showing live footage of a storm. At first I didn't know what I was seeing until I heard a crack and watched the screen shake suddenly. They had actually aired the electrocuted lady's footage. Then the headline changed to "woman survives and camera still works." Wow, they've become so sensitive over there at CNN.

Strange Dietary Habits

2008-05-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

List of things I ate today in the order that they were consumed:

A Brioche
Mussels
Les Frites
Movie Theater Popcorn
Burdock Root
Nettles
Hard Boiled Egg
Croutons
Curiosity Cola

a blessing

2008-05-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's best I'm not writing, since this is the kind of thing I've been reading:

"To be covered in ape-shit... is to be blessed with the... experience of oneness with animal life."

A New Low?

2008-04-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about the degrading things we've been asked to do in different jobs. Like: having to wear sandwich boards, singing for tips, soaking the coffee stains out of someone's clothes as they wear them, being asked to turn around so customers can read the punchline on the back of your shirt. Office space may have said it best with its jokes about "flair." But today I think I have found a new low. How low have you had to go?

this always cheers me up...

2008-04-01T13:13:00.001-07:00

http://home.earthlink.net/~sfrancis/entryofgladiators.mid

The virgins, they keep calling me

2008-03-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you already know this, but my new phone is a virgin mobile. And like any relatively inexpensive phone service they like to flood me with company promotions in the form of text messages. Unfortunately, the tiny screen can only contain about three words. So I have a whole inbox full of messages "from a virgin," and a pretty desperate one at that.

daylight savings

2008-03-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

That one hour really messed with my sleep schedule. For some reason, I woke up at three this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. The math doesn't add up, I know. So to be productive with the extra time, I dressed myself and left the house around 5:00 for a coffee shop, where I've been for the past three hours. Jen seemed a little shocked at first when I nudged her awake to say that I wouldn't be there when she officially woke up. I'm just glad she didn't think that I was leaving her two weeks before our wedding.

A Defense of Gallagher

2008-02-25T16:02:00.001-08:00

In the company of friends the other evening, I happened to mention my desire to sit in the front row of a Gallagher show and be one of those happy few holding up umbrellas and plastic sheets to shield myself from the rain of fruit and vegetable matter. My initial excuse that my enjoyment was ironic wasn't well received. I guess they've had enough of charlatans trying to sell bad entertainment by dressing it up with classy terms like "spectacle" and "carnivalesque." And they're right, so screw the irony, it's time someone gave Gallagher the credit he's due. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason people rank Gallagher at the ass-end of the comic scale is that he can come across as a one-trick pony. If you've watched one piece of fruit get smashed by the "sledge-o-matic" you've seen them all, right? Wrong. Because every great art-form began as a crude invention. Take the piano for example. Someone somewhere must have plucked that first taught string and felt themselves stirred by the noise it made. And for awhile after that, probably plucked it again and again to the annoyance of anyone around. But little did these early critics know that the beautiful art of the piano had been born. With Gallagher, we are witness to something much the same. Ever since a smile passed across the lips of little Gallagher as he smashed that first berry with the palm of his hand, his art has evolved. To date, he has done 16 shows featuring the "sledge-o-matic" each with its own variation on the theme of food-bashing, nuances and subtleties like does the big-mac come before the cottage cheese or after? These are the choices that can alter the entire tenor of a show, every bursting object the equivalent of a delicately pressed piano key. Such mastery of form is not the work of a one-trick pony wielding an over-sized mallet but a musician fine-tuning his instrument.

caw freakin' caw

2008-02-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

Today something horrible happened. While walking to class today, I was drinking up sunlight like that family in Ben Hur who emerges with leprosy from a windowless dungeon after several years. And that was when I first heard it: the cry of seagulls. This, of course, made me glance around frantically to discover that there were no seagulls in sight. For some reason, my mind had decided to play tricks on me by recalling the thing that I associate most with warm beaches. Aahhh! Sometimes I hate you, mind, I really hate you. So today as the images of every beach I have ever visited or lived by flashed across my mind's eye, it became official, the winter has finally succeeded in making me crazy.

yes, but do you have a flag?

2008-02-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

There was an article in the New York Times today about how the "Russians" have planted a flag in the arctic seabed - like literally underwater. Am I wrong in being confused about whether or not the cold war actually ended? Is this common knowledge to everyone but me? The picture showed a flag not flying in the wind but swimming, kind of limply, in the water. Though I have to admit it is more majestic than the cardboard cutout we put on the moon. Now that I think of it, did we leave that there? The real problem I have with this aquatic land-claim is that it doesn't really work symbolically. Place a flag in a newly discovered country, and, well, more land. Place a flag on the moon, and you've reached for the stars. But place your flag underwater, what are you trying to say, really? That your country has sunk to a new low? Been deep-sixed? I guess there's that whole oil thing, but come on, if you're that serious, place a minefield around it and don't tell anyone. On the bright side, as far as we know, there are no exploitable mer-people down there who will have the pleasure of being conquered and finally liberated so that they can go on to enjoy decades of bloodshed and civil war. In fact, maybe it's better this way. If we're going to have a dick-slinging contest we might as well do it in a place where there are few, if any, innocent bystanders do be hit by our flailing projectiles.

o-drama

2008-02-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

I understand that rallies have to be held in stadiums because they are the only venues big enough to hold an audience of 20,000 w/ overflow, but it made it difficult to tell last night's Obama speech apart from a sporting event. A good 70% of the audience were red-shirts who demonstrated a mastery of wave mechanics. I only know this from the number of variations on the wave that we did: the slow wave, the even slower wave, the quick wave, the regular wave, the standing wave, the sitting wave, the lackluster wave, the big wave, the itty-bitty wave, and one that I can only describe as the "hand-jive wave."

I was also amused by the failed meticulousness of the stage-hands. After about ten rounds of checking every cable, mike, and camera, turning the main-stage into something of a crime scene, Governor Doyle stepped up and started speaking into a microphone that hadn't been switched on. Someone must be kicking himself for not going in for that eleventh look.

As for Obama, well, he did a lot with the little time he had. Between the clapping and the "I love you Obamas," total speech time clocked in somewhere around 15 minutes or so. I think I even picked out an "I want to have your baby obama," which has a kind of poetry to it. My favorite part was the resounding applause for the simple statement of fact: "George W. Bush will not be on the ballot in November."

grosser than gross

2008-02-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

If someone had related this story to me, I would have though it was hog-wash. They actually refer to the procedure as "brain blowing."

exactly what I need...

2008-02-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

I feel like jotting down a list right now of all the things in the world that I've ever longed for. And at the very, tippety top of that list, just before "joy" or "world peace," I would reserve a special place for that one thing that would put a big fat maraschino cherry on top of my ice cream sundae of a day. And do you know what that specialest of special things would be? Let me tell you. All I've ever wanted is for some truck, piled high with jackhammers, electric drills, sledge-hammers, and saws, to pull up outside my window and for the men inside that truck to get out and to start pounding and buzzing and rat-tat-tatting away at the foundations of the building in which I'm doing everything in my power to stay focused on a set of not-very-riveting freshman papers. Yeah, if that were to happen, everything would be much better.

Just a Comic

2008-01-26T11:52:00.001-08:00

Ever since Buffy was released as a floppy (what? that's what they call them now), I’ve been apeshit about comics. I can’t resist stopping by CapCity along my weekly shopping route to Trader Joe’s, where the proprietor dispenses such sage advise about the biz, he washes away any doubt that my interest might be that of an over-grown child.

“Y the Last Man,” “Astonishing X-Men,” “Runaways,” “Angel,” the list keeps growing. But yesterday, after two months of peaking curiosity, I invested in the last five issues of “The Umbrella Academy,” made popular by the underground fame of the writer’s band, “My Chemical Romance” (to which I’ve never listened). But the series, with some very artful drawing from Gabriel Ba, is blowing me away. Unlike a lot of other small bands of heroes, and families of heroes (like the un-incredibles), for that matter, this posse has a style all their own. The only way I know how to describe them is as super-human royal Tenenbaums; a quirky collection of depressed, over-talented, and yet over-rated children whose lives are shaped by feelings about father. And to top it off, the setting is a world where monkeys, yes, Monkeys!, have been assimilated into the human population. After throwing down fifteen dollars for four back-issues, I discovered them for free download online. Have a blast and try not to rub my face in your inexpensive enjoyment. In fact, let’s refrain from rubbing my face in any form of enjoyment.

Writer's Woe

2007-11-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Where have I been these last four weeks? Right here, in front of the computer, writing, like the salvation of my soul depended on it. Somehow, I managed to let all my deadlines pile up to the point where the only remaining option was to disappear for a month into the thankless, endless-seeming silence that is written composition. If only my students understood this; or else, they do understand this and that’s why they’re afraid of me so. Those who have seen me here in Madison can attest to the fact that my ghostliness goes beyond the death of my blog. I’ve had to wear band-aids to cover the tips of fingers, skinless from excessive typing, and my scalp is visible in places where I have pulled out tufts of my hair in frustration. And the self-pitying stink clearly evident in the tone of this post lingers wherever I roam. Woe is me, I moan. Woe is you, Jen sarcastically replies. Just thought I would let you know that life still stirs on this end of things, if only a little.

Ah, Stanley Fish...

2007-10-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

"To be sure, stimulation is perfectly fine in a classroom, but not stimulation of any old kind. Taking off one’s clothes or throwing things at students would surely produce stimulation, but no one would argue that it was academically appropriate to do so."

...

2007-10-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my ninja friends, who will remain nameless. They are ninjas after all.

These days I look forward to every haircut. I even look forward to waiting for my haircut. At my current salon of choice, Blues Studio, you don’t just wait for your haircut but sip a hot beverage around a large coffee table covered in style mags, comic books (like Green Lantern!), and the occasional curiosity. During my last visit, one of these curiosities was a book entitled ___________________. To view the book, visit: The book who's name must not be uttered. As I flipped through this fascinating manual filled with strategies for including invisibility within your self-defense arsenal, I saw a number of things that I immediately thought everyone should know. First off, the author is, as Wikipedia describes him, “Caucasian.” Not only is he white, but he is a white mustachioed man dressed in camouflage. Secondly, I’m sure that you are all on the edge of your seats just waiting to hear how you can actually make yourself vanish like a ninja. So was I. In the section on “vanishing,” I discovered a page with a series of illustrations. It seems that the first rule of disappearing requires a very specific situation. Someone, a guard most likely, needs to be standing at least three feet forward of a darkened doorway. This provides a stealthy ninja with the opportunity to creep up, oh so sneakily, behind the guard. Once in place, the ninja can then “vanish” by stepping in between the guard and the darkened doorway (the text is not clear about how the ninja got past the guard unnoticed in the first place – another ancient secret, I guess). Thus concealed within the shadows, the ninja is in position to strike. The next illustration depicts the ninja’s hand appearing above the shoulder of the unsuspecting guard. Jen and I have dubbed this move “Ninja tap! Hyyyaaa!” and have taken to performing it all over the apartment. What’s so great about the ninja tap is that it is a diversionary tactic. You’re not, and I repeat, not trying to get the guard to notice you, like you do when you normally tap someone on the shoulder. Instead, the next illustration depicts the guard looking in the wrong direction, leaving the ninja with a golden opportunity to strike, using my next favorite move, ninja-punch-in-the-face!

I have left out all direct reference to the book so as to avoid being the next target on the author’s “shit list” – check his Wikipedia entry for further explanation of this perplexing ninja practice.

I would also like to mention that I have often been the victim of “Ninja tap” at parties. Though I have never caught her in the act, there is only one person who has been consistently nearby as I look around desperately for my attacker. We will refer to her as B_cc_. Do not be deceived by this person! Beneath her innocent appearance crouches a cunning warrior adept in the ninja arts.

wait, you mean I really am trapped in side the belly of a corporation...

2007-10-09T10:06:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it astonishes me how long I can take to put two and two together. Lately, I have taken to riding the bus on the rare occasion that I have to go to campus, which is usually to teach my bizzarely scheduled 5:30 - 6:45pm composition class. Each time, two things inevitably catch my attention. The first of these happens when I'm at the stop and the bus comes into view. I become extremely agitated at the mural-sized ads that have suddenly appeared on its sides. The most common one is a Sprint ad for a deluxe package that includes cable, internet, and phone. To demonstrate this, the ad features giant, futuristically dressed people holding devices that relate to these services. I get especially ticked-off at the man aiming a remote control the size of a microwave in my direction. Every time I see this ad I'm reminded of how much I prefer the old Madison Metro colors which were pleasingly municipal and a constant reminder that the high taxes payed by Wisconsin residents, who are not myself, are going to a good cause - the cause of carting my state-dependent ass around town. The other annoyance occurs while on the bus. In past experience, I took great pleasure in gazing out the greasy windows onto the general freakiness that makes up the city of Madison. But lately, my vision has been rudely obscured by some strange sheet of metal mesh that now covers the whole window. In my absent-mindedness, I would begin to wonder what possible purpose this sheet of metal could serve. At first I thought, as is my habit, that its purpose must somehow be to benefit myself. So I began to think about how it is probably intended to better regulate the temperatures on the bus, which, depending on the season, can range between frigid and over-heated. I had these thoughts, not just once, but many times, until one day the upsetting truth, like one of our careful bus drivers, came to an abrupt stop within a hair's breadth of my face: these two separate observations, which in my mind were entirely separate phenomena, were one and the same. Yes, as I'm sure you've already guessed by now, the mesh is the medium for one messed-up marketing campaign. Not only has the Madison Metro system sullied our city with enormous in-your-face ads, but it has literally hindered my view of the city in the process. To even see the city, I now have to peer through the itty-bitty holes of a corporate promotion. As I write this, the metaphorical potential of this experience is beginning to set in. Anyway, irateness aside, it turns out that I'm so unsuspecting as a person in general, that this betrayal did not occur to me until just the other day, having ridden the bus under these worsened conditions for several weeks at least.

This is a test...

2007-10-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

I was just listening to a classical radio channel from Washington on my headphones, when the host announced a "test of the emergency broadcast system." But unlike all the other times I have heard that phrase, the "test" was proceeded by total silence. Afterwards, the radio lady returned and business continued as usual. Doesn't that mean the test failed miserably? What kind of test is it where the outcome is unimportant? Is it my responsibility to call and tell them that their emergency "tone" isn't working as well as they'd like to believe? Is this in itself cause for more emergency?!

Now that I think about it, in the case of a real emergency, things will grow eerily silent, won't they? Maybe they've updated the system and I somehow missed the memo.

Bandanna?

2007-09-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

In its full-grown splendor, my hair can be somewhat unruly at times. And some mornings I just can't be bothered to wet, gel, and separate my mess of curls only to then wait the half-hour for them to dry. Now I have observed that many other lazy hair-doers out there have turned to the bandanna for a temporary fix - and quite a few of them do so to passable effect. Could I be one of these lucky few?

In making up my mind, I've been wondering the following.

Do I look like...

a. Lucille Ball
b. a miserable failure of an hombre (uh, hello, esse)
c. a parody of Jen (it is her bandanna after all)
d. a douche bag
e. all of the above
d. other

2007-09-17T07:54:00.001-07:00

If you saw a man die of "gaming exhaustion" in an internet cafe, would you leave or continue playing?

Chinese man dies from 3 day gaming binge

wishful thinking

2007-09-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

The summer, which was long and sort of endless seeming, has caught me off guard by coming to an end. Damn you, summer. And with its passing comes the return of teaching. I have been moderately excited about teaching this semester, at least, I put in a lot of work, so I guess I fully expect to get a lot out of it. First law of thermodynamics and all. I'm teaching introduction to composition, which basically involves helping freshman adjust to college-level writing and sometimes college in general. In the past, myself and other instructors have designed the course around a theme or topic. The idea being that writing is less fun when you have nothing to write about. The last class I taught was on "espionage" and besides the three or four people, humorless feminists mostly, who felt alienated and objectified by 007, it was a blast. In the effort to be a little more democratic, I decided this year that I would leave topic selection up to the students. I thought, yeah, that will be fun, I'll have students writing on such a wide variety of wonderful topics like stem cell research, tourism, election reform - and, for the less ambitious, harmless pastimes such as coffee, dogs, and fetishism. Boy was I surprised when my students' list of things that "interested them deeply" looked something like this: sports, sports, sports, white sox, sports, sports, music and sports, sports, sports, sports, sports injuries(!), music, sports, sports, travel (I love you, person!), and extreme sports. But really. What did I expect?

This morning I decided to check the status of my apple "buy a mac get an ipod free" rebate. Lo and behold, no rebate. After being misled by the obligatory, unhelpful support person, who's advice was, "just start the whole rebate process over again from the beginning." Without realizing that a. the deadline was passed and b. I didn't have the original barcodes because they had lost them. In fact, I actually began to believe the lady on the phone to be directly responsible. I imagined my barcodes, meticulously cut from the product boxes, falling between the grooves of her couch. The second, smarter lately impressed me by becoming a little peeved at first. Is there a dumb cop, smart cop routine that I don't know about? She seemed to know all of the computer's secrets that the company must only release to their most valued of employees. So now the form is due by the 14th or else the offer is expired and I can kiss my rebate goodbye. This is when it occurred to me what rebates actually were: a great hassle imposed on consumers to keep the less persistent ones from actually saving the money they were promised. And once again, all of my basic expectations turn out to be wishful thinking.

The latest joke from the "joke of the day" widget on my google homepage is called "juicy squirt" - tempting, isn't it? But with my track record for unmet expectations, I think I might just pass because I don't think I can handle another disappointment.

2007-08-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

Sounds like there are a few humps involved in owning a camel.

Pet Camel kills Australian Woman

Whoever said disc golf was boring

2007-08-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

For the most part disc golf is an ordinary and uneventful sport. You take a set of scaled-down Frisbees to a scaled-down golf course and when you’re not teeing off or putting, you’re searching around aimlessly in the overgrown rough for an overpriced piece of plastic.

But today’s outing was different thanks to “The Murph” and a truck-stop diner called “The Pine-Cone.” Trust me, this is a pair that fully deserve the honor of an article before their names.

“The Murph”

Some of you know Rob and some of you don’t. But those who do, don’t have to be told about his Labrador companion, Murphy. Murphy is one of those youthful and energetic dogs that, due to some mystic force, obey every command they’re given with an attitude of unflagging glee. When Brian showed up this morning, I could immediately see that his car was full. Over-full, in fact, with good-old Murph sitting bitch in the back seat, his head towering above the rest. If the sun-roof had been open, he could have been likened to the scoobster himself, but darker and with better posture - or is it Dino who’s head goes through the roof? If so, then like Dino, but less pink and prehistoric. When Thom volunteered to lesson the load, I jokingly asked if Murphy could come… and before I completed the question, he was bounding towards me. So Thom and I took him into the parking garage where he ran back and forth in cluelessness about where his new master, whom he seemed to be heeding with the same happy loyalty of the old, was leading him. Like a person, he hopped into the back of my van and actually sat upright in one of the bucket seats. All that floor, and he chose a chair! I think I actually paused to see if he would buckle up. During the ride, he was so well-behaved, I almost forgot he was there until I checked the rear-view mirror to see his over-excited expression beaming back at me. At that moment, “the Murph” won a place in my heart. Either I’m really a dog-person responsible for two very un-doglike cats, or Murphy has the charisma of Tony Robbins.

“The Pine-Cone”

The Pine-Cone is a truck-stop located a ways North on Stoughton Rd (for you cuisine-curious Madisonites). The building is rimmed round with well-nurtured and carefully spaced hanging plants. It looks as if some doting mother had opened the place so that her beloved truck-driver son could get a home-cooked meal. Needless to say, “The Pine-Cone” stands out from the rigs. Inside, one immediately stands face-to-face with a case filled with over-sized (trucker-sized?) pastries. There were giant candy-apples, fritters the size of a dinner plate, and a crème-puff so tall, that when Rob purchased it, the clerk had to pack it in a half-shut Styrofoam take-out box held closed by a thin piece of scotch tape. Imagine a refrigerator in the trunk of a Saturn tied shut with bungee cords. The waitress was a surly woman who seemed to enjoy giving orders to young men such as ourselves like: “careful with that cream” and, having dropped a spoon, “would you mind helping a girl out.” Surely, this was no "girl". When the meals arrived, Rob and I were not served, and our waitress explained that the new cook, in demonstrating a remarkable lack of knowledge about the meal we call ‘breakfast,” had put the hollandaise sauce for Rob’s benedict on my corn beef hash.

All in all, I’d say it was a surprisingly full day for disc golf.

Innocent, I tell you!

2007-07-31T16:23:00.000-07:00

When Jen returned home from New York last week, I could have done a better job of breaking the news about the sudden crash of her hard drive. After raising her worst fears with my solemn, “Jen, I’ve got bad news,” I then told her what happened with the omission of one essential detail: that I had last used her computer to watch an episode of Stargate on one of those less than legit websites. To make matters worse, I was pretty sure that I had left the explorer window open for at least 24 hours, plenty of time for a virus to get in and take over her system. It wasn’t until the next day, as I sat next to Jen, who was listening to the chunk-chunk-chunk of her deceased drive that my confessional nature brought out the other half of the story. Funny how any delay in admitting fault can secure without a doubt your guilt in the matter. In desperate self-defense, I argued that hard drives are hardware and there is no way that a virus could cause it to make that pathetic clanking noise. As it so happened, Jen’s co-workers further got me off the hook by completely denying that my recklessness could have had anything at all to do with it – though this may have been out of male solidarity, and if so, it proves the adamantine strength of the bond since it was with men I have never even met. Cutting to the chase, my sole purpose for writing this post is simply to announce to the world: I have been wrongfully accused and am aghast that I was ever doubted!

Why I love Jen: An Email Exchange

2007-06-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

Me:
I hope you're having an eventful and confidence instilling day at work. It can't be worse than my day of trying to work an insane philosopher into my chapter. Just to give you an idea of how crazy he is, he's famous for saying that "there is no poetry after the holocaust."

Jen:
If you think your philosopher is crazy, you should have heard this lady in the bathroom stall next to me this morning. She sat there grunting, but also talking and singing to herself as she took care of business. I'm glad she was having a good time, but man, there's not much poetry after that experience, either.

I think I need a new man

2007-06-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Everyone says that the first chapter of the dissertation is the hardest. To this I can attest. I've been working on chapter one for almost a year now. I think the official anniversary is some time next month. Every couple of weeks, I think I'm almost done but then I realize, or my advisor tells me, that it needs just one more round of tweaking to be good.

The hardest part about being near the end but not quite finished is the anticipation of chapter two. I've been reading, thinking, and writing about Henry James for probably an average of at least 8 or so hours a week for the last 12 months. My next chapter is most likely on Freud. And to tell the truth as much as I love the fat old man who's practically there next to me when I lie down to sleep at night, Sigmund Freud is starting to look very tempting.

Another problem with writing a chapter for so long are the thoughts about how much more quickly I'll complete the next one. Everyday, I discover a mistake that I'm sure I'll just calmly step over the next time around. But it makes having committed those errors that much more unbearable. For example, in my first few drafts, I wrote too much about small details that weren't all that important for the larger argument. When I should have just started by writing out the main idea. This is why my first drafts were around 60 pages, plus 30 or so pages of crap, when my final will be around 40. It's like I waiting till the end to build the engine of a car and then doing so from scratch on the inside.

Anyway. Soon I'll be able to break it off with Henry James. And once I'm done writing a chapter on him maybe I'll actually get around to all those novels of his I haven't had time to read because I'm too busy reading passages in the one book that really matters for the 100th time.

Brain Drain

2007-06-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

Not only am I a victim of it, but now it's news.

Brain Drain at University of Wisconsin

Princess Raccoon

2007-06-04T18:40:00.001-07:00

When the rare occasion comes along that you find yourself craving an insane Japanese folk musical, I recommend Princess Raccoon. This movie is great for two reasons. First, it's a pretty good film; even though the scenes consist mainly of cardboard cutouts, there is some beautiful cinematography and it plays with genres like rap and rock opera! Second, it doesn't translate all that well into English. So the curses come out the other end as "I won't give him a damn" and the subtitles for lines that are sung contain contain words like "facilitate" and "associated."

I think my favorite moment is the part it took Jen and I at least five minutes to figure out after the film had ended. When the Prince first enters sacred mountain, where raccoons and humans happen to be indistinguishable, he is chased by a lady as she grows larger and larger, yelling to the prince that she needs him for her raccoon soup. But we were pretty sure by this point that she is herself a raccoon. So after much deliberation, we decided that she is only pretending to be a human chasing raccoon, who is actually a man, so as not to betray her true identity. Either we're right about this or this movie is entirely without logic.

It's one of those foreign films that is interesting because once you come to such absurd explanations for what seems at first like total nonsense, it actually starts to make sense, making you feel just as crazy.

Functuation? Functuation?

2007-04-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.... I'm working at the writing center at the moment. Correction. I'm not working at the writing center at the moment. Just got done teaching The Heart of Darkness. I actually had a student say that "Apocalypse Now" is a better version of the story than the book! Thank god we could at least agree that "Redux" was the worst of the three.

In discussion we talked about what the "heart of darkness" actually was. And since I couldn't come up with a subject heading for the email containing the question, I just labeled it "the horror? the horror?" Isn't it neat how anything, no matter how serious, becomes funny once you place a question mark behind it and say it twice? Take "pedophilia" for example:

Pedophilia? Pedophilia?

I think its because you have to pronounce it slowly the second time around. Pe-do-phil-i-a?

Things Fall Apart, The Center Cannot Hold

2007-04-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

In the last three months my body has shown more signs of age than in the last 20 years. A trend seems to have begun where things are starting to fall out.

In February, while eating broccoli and watching American Idle, I bit down on the tine of a fork, leaving a small hollow in the enamel, kind of like a tunnel in the side of a mountain. It would only take a small train emerging to complete the picture. This metaphor may be a more apt expression of my horror than of the damage itself. At the dentist, I was given a choice: a lesser of two evils kind of deal. I could have the indentation filled at the risk of it falling out again or have it filed down, leaving one gimp tooth that was slightly shorter than all the others. Pardon the sports allusion, but it would be like the Mugsy Bogues of my mouth. For those of you who don't know, Mugsy Bogues is a tiny Basketball player. Honestly, I don't like being given choices by any medical practitioner; it is his job after all! Luckily, when he was out of the room, the hygenist nudged me in the direction of the filling, which seems to have stayed in ever since. Out of the whole affair, the most horrifying moment was the sensation of my tooth giving way to metal. Without even biting down very hard, it just started to crumble. The dentist informed me that this was perfectly normal; that at "my age," (said he, as if I were 80) the edges of my teeth are bound to grow brittle.

The other part of my body that's been falling out lately is a bone in my lower back. According to my physical therapist, my sacrum (the bone connecting the pelvic bone to the spine) was lodged in a forward position. Now I have to enlist Jen to place pressure on the back of my leg in order to "knock my sacrum back" as we've taken to calling it. And she's gained leverage in our relationship by being able to say, "you better shape up, or I won't knock your sacrum back later tonight." The only upside to this is the fact that I now have a "trick back." Though it isn't quite as cool as in the movies when it takes a complex wrestling hold to restore a character's posture. I vaguely remember something like this from an old Jean-Claude Van Damme film. But I like to think that those back popping maneuvers are just exagerations of my own. Sort of like the way JC's muscles are just more swollen versions of my own.

All in all, I feel as if I'm falling to pieces. It makes me think of the line, "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" from Yeats's "The Second Coming." Of course, in this version, the "beast" won't be "slouching to Bethlehem" because his doctor recommended that he stand up straight.

Physical Humor

2007-02-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was leaving my apartment for the gym. Usually, instead of bringing a gym bag with all my stuff, I just throw my sweats on over my running clothes before venturing out into the cold. But this time around, it felt a little breezier than usual as I headed towards the door. Luckily, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to put on my shorts under my sweats. Now this in itself was pretty unremarkable. But then I got to thinking. One of these days I'm going to forget completely and strip down to my boxers in the middle of the gym. And then it occurred to me what would be worse, not the nudity in a public place - the track team uniform is skimpier than my skinnies - but the look of embarrassed horror on my face as I stand stooped over holding my pants around my knees. Knowing me, I'd probably even panic and fall over.

Infomercial Maniac

2007-01-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

Though this will be a short post, I thought it about time that I wrote something. My apologies for the hiatus. This holiday break was truly a vacation. I decided to put all chores and responsibilities aside, and somehow, though the blog is neither of these, it got put aside too. Anyhow, there are a number of new loves in my life.

First of all, there is the diet that I mentioned in the last post. For Christmas, I asked my parents for a diet book about balancing blood sugar, what I'm sure was first on everybody's Santa list. Now, I know what you're thinking: Kevin! You're a stick figure for God's sake, what can you possibly gain by shedding pounds. Honestly, the diet isn't for weight, but about eating healthier. Since I came to graduate school, I watched the well-balanced diet fed to me on my mother's kitchen table slowly regress into frozen pizzas, hefty bowls of pasta, and junk-food cereal. I've also become addicted to foods that are not only unhealthy, but just not right. Like liverworst and salami, which I had been eating in white-bread sandwiches every day at lunch for weeks. And I really had to ask myself why I often felt like the living dead. So anyway, my new diet is a little fascist, but the high level of nutrition and the balancing of my blood sugar has done wonders for my mood. The nice part is that things I've always loved but never thought to eat are now everyday snack food. Such as: berries, pumpkin seeds, hummus, cottage cheese, plain yogurt. Yes, I like plain yogurt - especially if it's organic. It reminds me of the dairy products in England. I'm also off caffeine, though I'm not sure how long that will last - and down to three alcoholic beverages a week, more or less. These last two probably explain why the blog has fallen into such a state of disrepair. Because I know we all get jacked or liquored up to blog. With almost no sin whatsoever, I've had to settle with being hooked up to an herbal tea IV. Jen personally likes the seed part of the diet. Not for the taste, but because she finds it pretty. In order to get my EFAs (essential fatty acids - you know, the omegas), I keep flax, pumkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds mixed together in a sealed container. Through the clear container it makes for a lovely medley of shapes and colors. Every morning I grind this potpourri and mix it into my oatmeal, yogurt or whatever. Surprisingly, it's very flavorful. All in all, the diet is really just high protein sans red meat with mounds, and I'm talking big green mounds, of vegetables.

One other new thing. I have a sunrise alarm clock now that I wake up to in the morning. It's lovely. It connects to my lamp and turns it on over a period of 30 minutes.

Now that I'm writing all of this down, I think I've realized what happened over break. I've become something of an infomercial maniac. Seriously, all of these products I've mentioned are the kind of thing they advertise at two in the morning.

2007-01-17T15:41:00.000-08:00

Boy, does a month and a half go by fast. Sorry about the delay. Those last, dissapointed comments knocked me back to my senses like that flick in the nuts in 40 Year Old Virgin. Stay tuned for a post all about the silly fascist diet that I just recently went on.

2006-11-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

From this week's Law and Order (CI): "On the blogosphere everyone can hear you scream."

Well, I just needed to scream and for someone to listen.

2006-11-24T15:41:00.000-08:00

Why is my niece like an English graduate student?

Because like many of us she has pretended to read Djuna Barnes's Nightwood...

and to have pondered it deeply.

2006-11-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

Jen and I celebrated our 6th anniversary this past Saturday. We walked in the Arboretum (a forested area in the middle of Madison) and ate at Bon Appetit, a cozy little restaurant that prepares simple meals extremely well. I think we shocked ourselves when we realized that we couldn't remember what we had done on past anniversaries. This seems problematic to me since the purpose of this yearly event is to help you keep track of the number of years as they accumulate, like an abacus.

Jen and I call this an anniversary, though it hardly counts. When we got together, neither of us realized it was happening; we were both taking part in what we were denying all along. It was one of those affairs where everyone but yourself seems to know your status. In fact, you're already an item all along the grapevine before you come to acknowledge it yourself. Basically, Jen and I went from love-struck oblivious to consciously comitted over the course of a number of conversations (among other exchanges) that took about a month.

So about five years ago, when Jen decided she wanted to celebrate our first year of pre-marital "bliss," she looked into her journal, found the part where she started referring to me as her beloved and picked a date. And presto, November 20th is the day we got together, which will at some undecided date in the not so near future be superceded by the day we tie the knot.

Unfortunately for me, the feeling of stability that a 6th year anniversary provides is not accompanied by an equally stable nomenclature. Ever since we, how shall I put it to offend all those individualists out there, 'fused' together, I've never known how to refer to her in conversation: partner? companion? buddy? domo-pal (now that I've seen this written down, I'm seriously considering it)? Part of the whole engagement thing was driven by the need for another term, so I could continue to mix up the various publicly acceptable labels I have for my stalwart pony*. But as I have found out in the near year we've been engaged, the term "fiance" comes with about a 6 month grace period at the termination of which you become guilty whenever you pronounce it.

In fact, I've often referred to Jen as "my partner" when I teach. At one point, a student, whom I was on friendly terms with, told me that it "sounded like I was gay." Now, she wasn't a homophobe, a fact of which I'm pretty sure. So I guess she thought this was a problem because it might distract the class by driving them crazy with the attempt to suss out my orientation. Nonetheless, I couldn't stop. I won't say my "girlfriend" because both words in that phrase are false and it just isn't the same as the astonishment produced in my students by words for relationships that are not marital, yet which express lifelong committment.

So Jen, my domo-pal for six happy years and counting, here's to you!

*This descriptor was the result of fishing for compliments, so be careful what you wish for.

Why teaching and clowning are near cousins...

2006-11-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm teaching a class on Gender, Literature, and Sexuality. But like many classes, I don't feel like the students are stepping back to see the connections between the reading material and the larger themes of the course. So I've decided to "come out" and ask them. Of course, being always ready to share my thoughts, I had to come up with an answer of my own. Here's the somewhat peculiar lesson that came of this query. I'm basically saying that some of the literature we've read helps us to think of gender as a believeable fiction instead of just a fact we take for granted.

So if Audre Lorde can sucessfully use literature to redefine gender, does that mean that gender, like literature, is a fiction? Is it something real or something that we only imagine to be real? One way we talk about the reality of fiction is as its believability. After reading a book, one might criticize it by saying 'that wasn't believable', meaning that it didn't create a 'temporary suspension of disbelief'?

As a sidenote, I love this phrase 'temporary suspension of disbelief' because it implies that for the good part of the day, we're skeptical but occasionally we let something slide and choose to believe it - like food, right? - we have to take a break from disbelief for lunch, otherwise we'd starve... if there is such a thing.

But back to my point. What if gender, like literature, also has do with believability? What if gender is a fiction that only lasts as long as others believe in it. If this is the case, if gender is partially a product of the imagination, then with a powerful enough imagination it might be possible to re-write one's gender as long as the re-writing is believable. Note that this also suggests that, like literature, gender depends on an audience.

Here's an example involving yours truly. On the one hand, if I were to tell you that I'm the reincarnation of Beowulf. A kind of warrior-man. And that I'm searching for a King to which to pledge my allegiance with the hopes that he will give me a chest full of treasure for every red dragon that I slay, you probably won't believe me - since that definition of masculinity is no longer acceptable (which probably happened around the time that dragons became extinct). So if I were to tell you this today, you probably wouldn't believe me. In fact, you would probably avoid me.

On the other hand, I could say, like other men, I'm brave, but not pick up a weapon and get myself killed brave, I'm just brave enough to cry, admit when I'm wrong, or even that, yes, because I spent a lot of time with my mother growing up I developed a fussy taste in clothes. And this might believable because these admissions are a form of bravery - they are manly in the sense that they possess a sliver of heroism. In fact, this is one subtle adjustment to masculinity that occurs in Barker's Regeneration. It's feasible that one could slightly modify a convention of masculinity this way, with nothing but the use of the imagination. And why, because it's believable.

Of course, a more common example of this is a male who passes as a female or a female who passes as a male, a transexual. Here's an instance where the 'technical' sexuality doesn't match up with the perceived gender of the individual. And, by passing in public, by persuading an audience, his or her sexuality becomes just as much a fact as anyone else's.

2006-10-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry my blog has been a ghost town lately. I've been working on the ol' diss, which means that life has been less remarkable than usual. Here's something that distracted me.

In the Woodman’s liquor store, I saw a brand of wine called “Cleavage Creek.” It showed a picture of a woman leaning forward and hunching her shoulders to accentuate her cleavage. She wasn’t very pretty and looked like some groupy from an eighties rock band. I though about purchasing it just to show Jen but it's for my parents who are coming this weekend. I'm just glad Fat Bastard doesn't put a picture on their label.

I wish we still wore suits so I could wear Spade's hat...

2006-10-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ever notice how Bogart’s love-making always borders on interrogation. It would make for an interesting marriage:

Where were you tonight, honey?

At work, darling.

No you weren’t, you were at bridge club, why did you lie to me?

Well, I was at work, then I went to bridge.

Say it, honey, say it! You didn’t tell me about bridge because you wanted to come home tonight to another inquisition. Because you find it a turn-on when I give you the third degree.

No, Sam, honest. I just forgot, that’s all. Come, on, no more questions. Why don’t we call it a night.

Not tonight, dear. And you know why? Because I won’t play the sap for you, baby.

2006-10-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

It's 1:00 in the morning, and I'm still writing my paper for the MSA conference. Trying to find an adjectival form for Hemingway, I found this amusing dialogue. I'm still puzzled about where to insert the 'v':

a: Google return for "hemingwayian" about 15 and 1700 or so (plus a dictionary entry) for "heminwayesque".

b: Since "hemingwayian" can't even be pronounced -- you would probably have to insert a "v" -- that settles it for me. But I would avoid either term.

a: As an aside, it's interesting to me that Google can be used in just this way. Since usage, over time, wins all arguments about how a language is defined, it seems important that we have this new, unusual ability to measure usage in this way. Lexis/nexis would probably be better for it though.

b: Note that the use of either "Hemingwayesque" or "Hemingwayian" would in itself be decidedly un-Hemingwayesque.

Secret Bomber

2006-09-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

Found this in my miscellaneous file from my days living in a dorm. I had to post it on our bathroom door to ward off a stinky shit bandit.

If you’re planning on leaving a big and stinky in this toilet, and you do not live in rooms 4, 5, or 6, then, by all means, DON’T!!!

If you are bursting at the seams, there is a toilet downstairs that would be happy to accommodate your little, brown men.

Just brutal

2006-09-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

While rummaging around on Wikipedia, I discovered that the building I work in is an example of “brutalist” architecture. Now I know that these styles were invented to express certain social ideals – efficency, functionality, etc. But I’m having trouble seeing it as anything but a big, ugly block of concrete. The concrete part only makes matters worse because I know that it will be there forever and ever. What strikes me as even funnier about this, however, is the fact that they (don’t ask me who, I’m just too lazy to look up the architect associated with the movement) called it “brutalist.” Even “critical regionalism” beats that. Not to mention someone having to okay the project and say, "Hey, let's build something brutalist! They say that shitty is in." To name something “brutalist” is just resigning yourself to the fact that it’s not very pretty. I’m going to start a new architectural style if I can get the funding. I’m going to call it “ugly.” And it’s going to be just that. Ugly. And when I’ve built several “ugly” structures and everyone grows sick of them, having realized that they crap up their cities, I’m going to take it to a whole new level, the only logical next step, and create buildings in the spirit of “dumb.” And people will walk by and say, who’s the idiot who thought that up, it’s really the “dumbist” thing I’ve ever seen. And they won’t be wrong.

2006-09-06T16:28:00.000-07:00

Worst

case

of

helmet

head

ever!!

A couple of things

2006-08-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

An honest to god hot air balloon floated past my balcony the other day. When it made its way just above the Ice Cream factory, it felt for a second like I lived in Candyland.

Lately, I've been thinking that graduate students and professors should consider overhauling their image. Right now, we're too scary and lend ourselves, all to understandably, to being portayed in the movies as villains and sexual perverts. Although we don't have it as rough as the Albinos, our image could definitely use a little softening. Let's take the term academic, for example. Much too serious. We might think about emphasizing our cartoonish absurdism and go instead with Acadamiac. Or, we might lean more on our silly eccentricity and maybe a bit on our susceptibility for attending conferences in more tropical climes, opting instead for 'Acadamia nut.' There, now isn't that better.

It's time for Acadamiacs, and we're brainy to the max...

Aloha without the Luau

2006-08-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

I've only been back from Hawaii for about a week, and I can't stop thinking about it. The slopes of Haleakala, the Pali and I'ao valleys, all of these breathtaking views of volcanic rock, tropical flora, and the Pacific Ocean in all directions, aren't easy to forget. But this is the part of Hawaii that anyone can guess; yes, it is eyecandy that leaves a pleasant and lingering aftertaste.

But I also had some other experiences worth remembering and recounting. First of all, a little background. I visited Hawaii to see the islands, but foremost to visit an Aunt, Uncle, and cousin from my father's side of the family. I stayed with my Uncle M and Aunt K on Oahu and my Cousin K on Maiu.

To start, I almost didn't make it to Hawaii. When I woke up Tuesday morning the day before my flight, I had a sore throat and felt sick to my stomach. Of course the Gods would wish upon me something so awful as 20 hours of sick travel, one of the most uncomfortable tortures I can imagine. So when I arrived at the airport, I had my coughdrops, my tissues, my gatorade, and my gum (to keep my ears from popping). I had prepared myself to stay relaxed and hydrated on the plane in order to arrive healthy and revived in Oahu. Instead, the ticket person at United's desk very nonchalantly told me that I had two choices: I could reschedule or I could attempt to take a one-way rental to Chicago and hope that I catch my connecting flight. This is what I love in an airline: "Really, there's nothing we can do for you, Sir. Honestly, you're totally fucked and will have to find your own method of transportation. Thanks for not flying United." Ahh, if only Midwest would come along, sweep me off my feet, and land me gently in Hawaii, but, alas, I don't need to restate here the obvious limitations of a regional airline. So after almost succumbing to the pressure to reschedule until after I recovered from whatever wasting disease I had contracted, I took the rental option. Two travelers standing in line, a Korean-American woman, returning to San Fran, and an international student from Thailand going to stay with a friend, volunteered to share the cost. We talked about International cuisine for much of the trip. The woman seemed very intent on making her flight. Obviously, we all were since nobody wants to be delayed. But while myself and the other guy expressed that we didn't want our vacations shortened, she didn't really say why she needed to be back in San Fran with such urgency. So I made my own deductions about her situation from what the rest of our conversation was concerned with: how her biological clock was ticking. She kept reminding me that women, when they turn 30, really do become overwhelmed with a biological urge to give birth. So I couldn't help thinking, the entire time speeding her down Interstate 90, that I was ensuring her arrival home on time to make an appointment to conceive with her husband. May she be fruitful and multiply.

On Oahu, being as I was told the "honored guest," (which is quite an enjoyable position to be in - wink, wink to any of you who don't live in Madison) my Uncle M, deciding that I was "layed back" enough, brought me to see his chums at the B_____ Marina. I'm not mentioning any names or places for fear of finding myself fitted with a pair of concrete shoes. Arriving at the said Marina, I immediately noticed a large boat hanger with the garage door open; inside which are seated a motley crew of men of all shapes, sizes, and styles of facial hair. My Uncle M points me towards a bald, respectable-looking, Japanese man with shoulders broad enough to compare with the width of the deep-sea fishing boat behind him. His facial hair, coupled with his baldness, made him resemble the monopoly guy on the cover of the board game. He was referred to by all present as the "chairman of the board." After introductions, I was seated, handed a beer, asked where I was from, and offered a morsel of dried Octopus from the bounty of exotic sea specimen covering the table. While I listened to these men tell "fish stories," and I mean literal fish stories about their recent biggest catch and where to find Swordfish, I was offered a series of Ocean-dwelling delectables: smoked blue marlin, raw tuna, raw salmon, and finally, after much fussing from my Aunt who didn't want me to be nauseous on the plane, I was offered seasoned raw crab from a large transparent bag that held something which looked a lot like guts. I was told that in order to eat this crab, I would have to take the piece that joins the legs into my mouth all at once, crunching the cartilage with my teeth, while simultaneously sucking the raw meat. Luckily, having a father from the islands who also had experience with weird food, the sucking came natural. While most people are already impressed when you devour their freaky ethnic cuisines without batting an eye, it seems I won extra props by commenting that "it's like sucking the guts from a crawdad." If not props, I at least raised questions about who was grosser. Since my hands were covered in raw crab juice, they pointed around the corner to where I would find a faucet to wash them. Immediately upon standing up, I felt a sharp sensation in my brain that left me feeling a little floaty for about half a minute. Asking my cousin later if raw crab had any hallucinogenic side effects, she told me that they soak the crab in fermented Ku Kui nut, which can give you a nice buzz. After somehow fending off all the requests to take the remainder of my beer for the road, my Uncle and Aunt surprised me in the car by saying that even they wouldn't eat that stuff.

To keep this post from being overly long, I'll reserve some stories for later. For now, you can amuse yourself with the pictures below.

View from my Uncle's front freakin' yard!

Me at the Pali Lookout (Oahu). I have a pained look on my face because of the 80 mph winds. If you look closely you can see how I'm trying to keep my shirt from coming up. Supposedly, my father and his brothers used to hang out here and wait for women's skirts to blow entirely over their heads. Weeee!

The view from I'ao valley (Maui). Both this valley and the last were the sights where both the islanders of Maui and Oahu respectivelly had their last stand against King Kamehameha. They're both supposed to be haunted with the ghosts of those who died there.

Me, imitating a Giraffe carved out of the stump of a Koa tree.

And finally, the view from the slopes of Haleakala.

An Uneasy Peace

2006-08-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

When I returned from Hawaii last week, I entered the apartment to find that Billie and Olivia had been reunited! Yes, our cats, whose stories of bitterness and rivalry have travelled far and wide have drawn up a temporary cease fire. Yet things are far from perfect. Billie still hunts Livie out of boredom. But this has its upside, since Billie is the only one who hates Livie’s meal-time mewing more than myself. Occasionally, I would put her in the bathroom or shake a can of pennies to shut her up. But now Billie takes care of everything for me by boxing Livie into the bedroom and chasing her at the slightest peep. A hundred cans and a thousand pennies couldn’t keep her as quiet.

Livie is getting pretty used to being the hunted. She’s developing street smarts and is beginning to understand how the territories are drawn. She now knows that she’s okay as long as she doesn’t mew, move near Billie or faster than a snail. Only the possibility of food can make her venture out into the red zone. Last night, for example, while I was reading about the Irish Civil War (a similar historical event), I noticed Livie sneaking stealthfully up behind Billie – how the tables do turn! But still, I wondered, what has gotten into her? Jen piped up and hit the nail on the head, “I think Billie’s about to cough something up.” And upchuck she did. Now you may think that cat vomit hardly sounds appetizing, but to Livie, it is a rare delicacy. And since puking makes Billie miserable, she didn’t have the energy to fight Livie off herself. We had to chase her away several times while cleaning up the stain. One cat’s trash is another cat’s treasure.

Here's Billie standing guard outside the bedroom. Stay tuned for pictures of Hawaii.

Garden Partiers

2006-07-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

While biking home today I came across an interesting sight. Standing outside tending to a garden plot was a shirtless man with pink spiky hair and a tatoo of a rose across the side of his stomach. It struck me as funny that not only did he sport a rose but resembled one. The guy must have coordinated this flower-punk style completely on purpose. That way, he could look totally bad ass while tending to his tulips. Though I know of several hobbies commonly taken to extremes to the point of marking oneself with their indelible effigies, gardening is not the first that comes to mind. Bikers, sportsfans, and medievalists strike me as likelier candidates. Gardening just seems too lah dee dah to be die hard.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the man for his flower power. Let him do whatever plants his bulbs. But it has led me to imagine other hobbies that might be surprising if taken to extremes. Like a hard core knitter for instance. There are definitely those Pretty in Pink knitters out there who make everything they own. But a devil’s lock made of yarn and a circular needle nose ring. Now we’re talking serious. How about a hell bent thrower of tea parties or a raging ex-alcholic?

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

2006-07-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me today whether I was a night person or a morning person. Although i'd never given it much thought before, I responded that I am a night person posing as a morning person. So now I'm trying to figure out why I shy away from the night. For one, while it's full of pleasant surprises the night presents too many distractions (which I'll leave unmentioned in the hopes that my blog might be read in India). Remembering back to my halcyon days in high school, when I roamed Va Beach with the other night hawks flitting from diner to diner, I never really knew when to stop. Three, four, five in the morning? The other problem with the night is that nothing is ever open. So you're really limited to bars, diners, and wal-mart. Although, I must admit that wal-mart can be a cornacopia of fun after staying up all night, especially once you've mastered the art of alternating playing with toys and hiding from the employees. So how does one cope with nostalgia for the night? Should I just embark on the occasional all-nighter or even the sleepless 3 day binge?

Careful what you wish for

2006-07-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

As it turns out people don’t want “the real world” in their neighborhoods (gasp!). Now wait a minute, isn’t the show popular because the people who watch it either want this reality or already imagine themselves to be living it? That’s why lines wrap around buildings when auditions come to town. We call it “real” because we can relate, because we can easily imagine ourselves, or at least our less inhibited (totally nuts?) friends from college and high school on these shows. But when it moves into our own backyard we heckle and throw beer bottles at the cast? For as “real” as “the real world” is, did we forget that it’s still TV and still escapism, the kind of reality that we fantasize about in short sittings because in the long term it tends to disrupt our lives? I think it’s poetic justice that shows on TV claiming to be “real” have to be shot somewhere outside of Hollywood, in some “real” town other than the tinsel one. It makes the irony clear as day that people love the show until they have to face up, god forbid, to its reality.

Sanctuary

2006-07-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

When I woke up today, no power in the 'verse the could make me work, and I decided my morning should fittingly be a total waste of time. So I went and had a long, langorous stroll in the gardens. If you don't live in Madison, let me catch you up. The Olbrich Gardens are your standard botanical gardens, maintained by private donations and free to the public. I hadn't discovered them till last year, when I took a long walk from my current apartment shortly after moving in. To my pleasant surprise, I learned that I was only 20 minutes away from paradise. Like most gardens, the grounds are divided into separate areas aptly called things like the Rose Garden, the Herb Garden, or the Tranquil Pool. Unlike other gardens, however, Olbrich, in September of 2001 acquired a Thai Pavilion.

Now, many may disagree with what I'm about to say, but it occurred to me today that the wonder of the Pavilion is not by virtue of being breathtaking. In fact, to give you some sense of scale, the Pavilion is only about the size of a two-story garage. Most visitors, showing up to ooh and ahh at the stucture, tend to stick around for about 2 minutes before turning back. Personally, I find there's something very modest about this incredibly ornate piece of craftmanship. It does nothing but stand there like a large parasol to be passed underneath. But if you sit there with it, and realize that it's not going anywhere, that it's built to stand, you can't help but feel comforted by its presence. So I guess I don't really return regularly to look or oggle, but to be in good company.

Having felt reconstituted by my stroll, the thought occurred to me that places like Olbrich are sanctuaries. Inside, there are spots where you can stand and see nothing in any direction but carefully maintained landscaping, little bubbles devoted to removing all discomfort from your immediate surroundings. There's no sign of the busy road beyond the garden's front entrance or its two flanking rivers down which people cruise their noisy pleasure boats. Just layer upon layer of delicious eye candy. This feeling of protection from the harsh or, if not that, at least abnoxious reality of our daily lives is, though I apologize for the use of such a schmultzy word, priceless.

But sancturaries don't come cheap as the story behind the Pavilion reminds us. On the day of 9/11, the plane carrying the pieces of this gift from Thailand was one of the last granted permission to land in the States after circling for hours. These little pockets of tranquility must be built, paid for, and maintained in the midst of a political climate that doesn't always welcome them.

But we should welcome them. These pleasant places, while isolated and withdrawn, radiate peacefulness. Once I had left the gardens, I found myself lightly touching the tips of hedges as I walked home, hardly bothered by the traffic to my other side (Don't worry, in Madison, you have to do a lot more than look distracted to be mistaken for a maniac). But really, if all sanctuaries, like Olbrich, rub a little bit of their contentedness off on everyone who roams there, shouldn't that be enough to argue for their necessity.

What kind of man am I?

2006-07-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

Since the world cup kicked off in the beginning of June, I can't even begin to calculate how much of my time it's wasted. More importantly, I've felt something stirring inside me, a strange unfamiliar presence: my manliness. Yes, there's nothing like sports spectatorship to confront an unmanly male with his testosterone. "Yo, Kevin," they say, "I wish that guy would go to goal already." "Don't I know it," I say. Jen noticed as much when she witnessed my inner-hooligan during the Czech, Ghana match. I find it necessary to coach from the couch, directing professional soccer players when to "cross" and make the "Big Switch!"

Those of you who know me can attest to the fact that I'm mildly athletic, only playing sports socially, not watching them professionally. So this sudden obsession with the World Cup has split my personality down the center, driving a wedge between the gender blind gentleman and the sports barfly. On the field (or "pitch" as I now know it), Thom had a little humor at my expense (although I may have been the only one laughing), which sums up my recent identity crisis. After scoring a goal, which to my own unending surprise actually occurs on occasion, he shouted to the goalie, "Come on! Don't let him past you. It's Kevin, for God's sake, he's a feminist!"

One last thing. Remember when you used to put "in bed" at the end of fortune cookies to make them funny. Well, here's one that made me laugh out loud:

"Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes open... in bed"

Georgia Peach

2006-06-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

This is the funniest thing I've seen all week.

From Salon-

"Their ringleader, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, is also the sponsor of bills that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in the House and Senate as well an of amendment to the Constitution to justify these sorts of displays. On June 14, he ventured forth to explain his proposals on Comedy Central, where comedian-interviewer Stephen Colbert asked him a trick question, "What are the Ten Commandments?" "You mean all of them?" Westmoreland stammered. "Um. Don't murder. Don't lie. Don't steal. Um. I can't name them all."

Well no wonder he wants them on the wall.

2006-06-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Kevin - I think I'm gonna work for three hours this evening at a coffee shop.

Jen - Will they pay you?

Zero Productivity

2006-06-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

For some reason, since I woke up today, it's been one stupid mistake after another.

I left my apartment with three errands to run: cash checks, purchase a new bike tire, and pick up a new pair of frames for my glasses.

Well, I forgot the checks at home, didn't write down the size of my tire before leaving the garage, and my optometrist was closed. 0 for 3.

I then realized that I took Jen's keys instead of my own, which caused me to freak out because I assumed I also had her garage door opener. I didn't, of course, since it broke off her keychain three weeks ago. I just forgot. This one actually turned out okay. One stupid mistake cancelled the other out.

I then took a wrong turn. Left my wallet in the car after walking across an entire parking lot to a coffee shop. All to finally arrive here at campus where I just now looked down to see that my fly is open. How appropriate. That's how much I've done today. Zip.

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

Usually my posts refrain from discussing serious issues. But today, I think that I'd like to give voice to a recently gelled conviction. This afternoon, at the local art cinema, Jen and I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth," which, if you haven't heard, is a documentary of Al Gore's slide show on global warming. Before seeing this film, I admittedly hadn't given too much thought to the environment; it's one of those topics, about which I decided to let other people do the thinking. Yes, I've been green... as long as it was easy. It was always a matter of convenience. Give me a large bin with legibly printed labels, and I'll recycle.

Due to my ignorance, what I mostly expected from the film was a counter-argument to the claim that global warming is a ruse made up by leftists to grab votes from easily panic-stricken constituents. So it was a surprise to find that the film only gave 5 minutes to this debate, proving (or more accurately, informing us), once and for all, that it's nothing but a red herring. Not only is it downright misinformed, but it creates just enough confusion and indecision to enable us to ignore the issue all together.

I feel somewhat indebted to Al Gore and this clear, witty, and fetching film for bringing these facts to my attention--mainly, because I'm too lazy and too busy to seek them out for myself. In the past, environmentalism has been nothing but a patchwork of disconnected notions and options. You can go green on your gas bill. Hybrid cars are slowly becoming available. There's the green party, the Sierra Club, and plenty of paper with recycling symbols that you can see when you hold them up to the light. But to be perfectly honest, I never really saw the point. For me, all of these expedients pointed toward some vague, underlying environmental attitude, which you either signed on with or not. It boiled down to individual choice and not a very urgent one at that. This film rid me of that misconception. Environmentalism is not just about being a tree-hugger, but having an awareness of the elephant in the room. People are dying and more will die, and it's our responsibility to do something about it. Luckily, however, the film isn't just a downer. Gore leaves you with a sense that not only is disaster around the corner, but so are fairly common sense solutions, which we keep waylaying in our effort to disprove the existence of an actual threat. This movie does a fine job of bringing the problem of global warming to an unmistakable, irrefutable head, so big that no one leaving the theater could ignore. So I strongly encourage you to see this film; it's horrifying, surpisingly funny, and a welcome kick in the pants.

www.climatecrisis.net

My Buffy Problem

2006-05-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd go ahead and try to put my finger on it. Why do I love Buffy so? Those of you who know me well enough to know my personal interests have on more than one occasion been informed of my obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For example, in a conversation with Taryn the other day, I mentioned that my Buffy viewing habits, which have flared up in the last month or so, are now down to a negligible one episode every other day. Although in the last year, Buffy and I have kept some distance between us, the pressure of finishing up the semester brought about last month's relapse.

During the less frantic times of the semester, Jen and I usually spend our evenings watching independent films, musicals, sitcoms like Seinfeld or Father Ted that we haven't seen before. But due to some idiosyncrasy in my personality, I find it impossible to absorb new media during stressful periods. Hence, the return of the slayer into my life. But this time around, as I rewatched numerous episodes, beginning with the picky criteria of watching only the quirkier stand alone episodes, I began to wonder why this show, unlike any other, has won my life long affection.

First of all, the fact that the show is endlessly rewatchable must have something to do with it. I've seen, and purchased, many films before that I found extraordinary, even breath-taking, but realized I couldn't bring myself to watch them again and again. For example, Muholland Drive is an amazing film with several beautiful shots that fascinated me the first time through. But on a second watching, I found the movie's mood a little suffocating. Once you know that the exciting mystery of the dream is only a dream in the mind of a depressed and washed up Hollywood extra, Muholland loses its drive and just becomes downright depressing.

Despite the wonkiness of linking Lynch to Whedon, I think there's something to it. Buffy is the opposite of suffocating. It's a breath of fresh air, a wide open vista. You would not expect this not to be the case in a show about a handful of characters guarding something called the "hellmouth" that releases all order of evil into the world on a regular basis. But I think that's just it, the show shines in the face of darkness.

For example, my favorite episode of all time is one called "lover's walk," which takes place in season three. In this episode, Spike, a British vamp, who dresses like the lead singer of the sex pistols and is particularly bad ass (as opposed to generally bad ass, I guess), who has just been spurned by his psycho vamp lover, Drusilla, returns to Sunnydale (the venue of the show for all seven of its seasons) to make Willow, Buffy's friend, who's been dabbling in the black arts, concoct a love potion for him. First of all, this is wonderful because the rebel without a cause comes crawling home whining and not very dangerous in his temporarily neutered state, a perfect example of the fragility of villainy. But a quick dose of the action in always happening old Sunnydale provides a much needed restorative, and he drives off into the sunset (with his windows spray-painted black to avoid immolation of course) to chain and torture his mad X until she sees reason.

Remarkably, minus the girlfriend torture, this is very close to how I feel when I watch the show. I might start in a pouty mood but after a full shot of its wit, pep, and action, I become a new man.

Here are some other passing observations I've had in attempting to account for the show's magnetic attraction:

The heroes are all highly self-critical; that is, humble. But this means that they're not always raring to go. And the show deals with this constant battle against the demons of motivation in addition to the ones that draw real blood.

Lines like Buffy's "I didn't jump to conclusions. I took a small step, and conclusions there were." or Spike's "If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually there it would've been like Woodstock. I was at Woodstock. I fed off a flower person and I spent six hours watching my hand move."

The fact that the characters manage to be more than their occupations, their objectives, or their desires. Sometimes the show lets you simply enjoy their company as they dally.

And finally, the presence of magic. I'm normally not a massive fantasy fan although I take in the occasional otherworldly flic. But the episodes premised on magic lead to some highly amusing situations, like a botched love spell that makes one man the scarily obsessed over crush of every woman who comes near him; an invoked amulet that makes everyone burst out in song, turning Sunnydale into Brigadoon; or another spell gone wrong that makes the scooby gang (as Buffy and her friends are often called) all forget their memory and stand around for half the episode figuring out who they are. Not only do these episodes that are based on a slightly tweaked or completely eliminated law of nature provide oodles of entertainment, they somehow manage to further explore the personality of the characters and further move the plot along.

I'm sure that it will never become perfectly clear why Buffy so captures my heart, and I probably won't ever know since my inability to judge it with a level head is part of the reason I love it. It does something emotionally that no technical masterpiece could ever do intellectually.

Now you listen

2006-05-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, I turned in a 13 page seminar paper that basically argued how Freud wasn't a charlatan, but a genius. Despite the obvious problem with this argument (that it's a big lie) the paper contained a special significance: it was the last paper that I will ever turn in at the end of a seminar. 20 odd years ago, when I was a dumb kid, I struggled to write my first sentence. Now look at me, I can whip up a load of crap over the weekend. You want sentences? I've got them coming out my ass. What's even more special about this piece of coursework was that I turned it in for my last course ever, the capstone of my class-taking career, the end of my education, the final flippin' feather in my credit-earning cap. I've come so far--from Mrs. Freedman to Prof. Dharvadker, from Mr. A (I will never forget the dear letter people) to Mr. Modernity. The feeling of liberation that comes with this is quite big, big as a... schoolbus even. I've spent 20 years of my life in classes to finally reach a point where I never have to take one again. That's it. No more sitting in tiny uncomfortable chairs that grew ever smaller, as I grew ever bigger, and the classes ever longer. No more rolling my eyes at annoying classmates. And most importantly, what I find to be most emancipating about being done with classes, no more being lectured to. No more listening to people who know better. And I'm serious about this last one. I firmly believe that being done with classes permits me to plug up my ears and never listen again. The next Joe off the street who steps up to tell me a thing or two will promptly receive a "Listen buddy, you must be misinformed, I'm done taking classes. In fact, I'm a dissertator now so sit down and prepare to be dissertated to." Now that I think about it, us classless dissertators ("classless," of course, as in not taking classes, not as in being unfashionable, which in no way describes the almighty, all knowing, all well-dressing dissertator) should take our title more seriously. If we really lived up to our occupational descriptions, we'd be dissertatin' every chance we get. At parties, at home, at church, at weddings, at funerals, at our children's birthday parties. Really, being a dissertator is basically tantamount to having something to say that everyone else must listen to for their own damn good. It's a kind of noblesse oblige; it's having class without classes.

Tony's Vision

2006-05-12T05:48:00.003-07:00

I had a hunch people thought of me this way, but I never knew for sure until now. Here's the "vision" Tony had when I told him my new apartment had a fireplace:

"I have a vision of you, Kevin, in a burgandy robe, drinking single malt scotch in this huge rimmed, bulbous glass with a cigar in the ash tray, reading some Dostoyevsky by the firelight in that huge wooden chair of yours."

Close, but no cigar.