Random sortie of lame bullets:
• Over the weekend I was riding my bike through the city and ended up right in the middle of an attack by a large hawk on a cat. It was very strange to see this in the middle of a city. The cat got away without harm, escaping to a drain tunnel. I think my sudden appearance disrupted the attack. The person I was riding with said that we just saved the cat's life. I replied that maybe we just starved a big bird.
• What the iPod shuffled as a playlist while I just washed the dishes a few minutes ago:
1. Fruit Bats, The Wind that Blew my Heart Away
2. Rolling Stones, Wild Horses
3. Hank Williams, Long Gone Lonesome Blues
4. Wilco, I Must Be High
5. Old 97's, St. Ignatius
6. Destroyer, Beggars Might Ride
7. Lyle Lovett, This Old Porch
8. LCD Soundsystem, Disco Infiltrator
9. David Cross, a comedy routine about The Simple Life, Terrorism, and Freedom
10. Johnny Cash, I'm So Lonesome I could Cry
• Why do we have to always turn in all of those annual reports and self-reflective apologies about our student evals and publishing records right in the heart of the Spring semester?
• My chair did not seem amused when I pointed out that I taught more students this school year than all five full professors combined. I was just trying to make the case that I'm worth a couple thousand extra dollars. Collectively, those professors make about 12 times my salary. Throw me a bone.
• I almost never go shopping, but I needed new shoes. I went to the shoe store and came back with four pairs: one for exercise, one for hiking, one for hanging out, and one pair of sandals.
• Even though many of my students aren't doing well in my classes, they don't seem to be blaming me for their bad marks.
28 March 2006
23 March 2006
23 February 2006
on the gravity of perception
Don't you hate it when the first time you see or hear something, you misperceive it. I hate it necause there is an almost automatic sedimentation of the wrong perception, so it haunts you forever and always immediately as a misperception. It's just like all those funny stories of misheard song lyrics (I want to wrap you up in nylons; cheadle eye cheadle eye cheadle eye see you cryin', etc.).
Here's the blogging related one for me. It's luckybuzz's photo ID:
I know now that this is a cut-open pomegranate. But the first time I saw this picture on someone's comments, here's what I saw: a grotesque, festering corpse face. I know, ewww. But that's what I saw. See if you can do it, too. The little stem thing; that looks like a tuft of hair. That dark patch behind the fruit: more hair. The skin of the fruit looks like a discolored forehead. The rest of the fruit? Well that looked like a bloody missing part of a face. I mean, ewww, what the hell is wrong with me?
Here's the blogging related one for me. It's luckybuzz's photo ID:
I know now that this is a cut-open pomegranate. But the first time I saw this picture on someone's comments, here's what I saw: a grotesque, festering corpse face. I know, ewww. But that's what I saw. See if you can do it, too. The little stem thing; that looks like a tuft of hair. That dark patch behind the fruit: more hair. The skin of the fruit looks like a discolored forehead. The rest of the fruit? Well that looked like a bloody missing part of a face. I mean, ewww, what the hell is wrong with me?
21 February 2006
how do i choose books to read?
This has always been a difficult question for me. I'm not a literature student, so I don't choose novels based on my professional life. Plus I'm not a good critic, at least the kind who discerns symbolism or archetypical themes or a plague of fantasies. I suppose I notice familiar philosophical themes when they appear, but I basically just take the naive approach of following the narrative. This tends to give me a (blind?) freedom to enjoy a wide range of literature.
My exposure to English courses was very limited in college. As an undergrad I took basic composition and an English language poetry survey. As a doctoral student I took a course on Kenneth Burke from David Blakesley and a team-taught literature and philosophy course with Paula Geyh (a great experiment in juxtaposition: Homer and Adorno, Dickens and Marx, Cixous and Wittig, DeLillo and Baudrillard, Derrida and Foucault and Calvino). But, that was it. I actually felt a panic of my literary ineptitude after graduating with my BA, and I started reading everything I thought might be important. I read everything Faulkner wrote that was set in Yoknapatawpha county. I read the Russian Masters and a bunch of Nabokov and Mishima and Joyce and Kafka and Garcia-Marquez. For lighter fare, I started reading Tom Robbins and John Kennedy Toole and Naipaul. I realized I hadn't read any women authors, and felt ashamed. After a short while gorging on all-male literature, I got hooked on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, then Foucault, and then into the whole postmodernism scene as endlessly debated in the early 1990s. Then I studied philosophy of art for my MA before going on to work with Deleuze, rhetoric, space, and phenomenology during my doctorate.
All of this biographical rambling brings me to two points based in the comments in that book meme that has been going around, and both are related to the question posed in the title of this post. The first has to do with a large set of classics of literature that I said I probably won't read. I don;t suspect I'll read these books, not because I have something against their greatness, but because I feel like I missed my opportunity to experience them as a younger person. I just feel like a lot of books have a best chance of being read as a high school student or while in college. I didn't read much fiction at that time (humanities courses were my academic weakness in high school). And now I tend to read things that are very recent, so I don't know if I will ever get on a classics kick again.
The other issue has to do with an interest in both literature and philosophy from the first part of the 20th Century (before WWII). For some reason it seems that a lot of interesting things tend to happen before periods of gigantic crisis that relegate literature and philosophy to obscurity. A lot of work by philosophers like Husserl, Scheler, Whitehead, Bergson, and Benjamin prefigure a lot of the ways of approaching phenomena that we see in contemporary cultural studies and humanities work. And I suspect that the same can be said for literary authors of that time, who were living responding not only to the crises of economic depression between two world wars, but also the rapid changes of industrialization, new modes of representation and communication, urbanization, immigration, propaganda, and commercialization. So, I have books on my shelf by people like Bulgakov, Nathanael West, Nella Larsen, and Kafka. I think that the two sets of books will probably have a lot to say to each other, not to mention the way they will surely be seen to have been influential in one way or another on the 60s and 70s authors that have so influenced my own thinking and research.
My exposure to English courses was very limited in college. As an undergrad I took basic composition and an English language poetry survey. As a doctoral student I took a course on Kenneth Burke from David Blakesley and a team-taught literature and philosophy course with Paula Geyh (a great experiment in juxtaposition: Homer and Adorno, Dickens and Marx, Cixous and Wittig, DeLillo and Baudrillard, Derrida and Foucault and Calvino). But, that was it. I actually felt a panic of my literary ineptitude after graduating with my BA, and I started reading everything I thought might be important. I read everything Faulkner wrote that was set in Yoknapatawpha county. I read the Russian Masters and a bunch of Nabokov and Mishima and Joyce and Kafka and Garcia-Marquez. For lighter fare, I started reading Tom Robbins and John Kennedy Toole and Naipaul. I realized I hadn't read any women authors, and felt ashamed. After a short while gorging on all-male literature, I got hooked on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, then Foucault, and then into the whole postmodernism scene as endlessly debated in the early 1990s. Then I studied philosophy of art for my MA before going on to work with Deleuze, rhetoric, space, and phenomenology during my doctorate.
All of this biographical rambling brings me to two points based in the comments in that book meme that has been going around, and both are related to the question posed in the title of this post. The first has to do with a large set of classics of literature that I said I probably won't read. I don;t suspect I'll read these books, not because I have something against their greatness, but because I feel like I missed my opportunity to experience them as a younger person. I just feel like a lot of books have a best chance of being read as a high school student or while in college. I didn't read much fiction at that time (humanities courses were my academic weakness in high school). And now I tend to read things that are very recent, so I don't know if I will ever get on a classics kick again.
The other issue has to do with an interest in both literature and philosophy from the first part of the 20th Century (before WWII). For some reason it seems that a lot of interesting things tend to happen before periods of gigantic crisis that relegate literature and philosophy to obscurity. A lot of work by philosophers like Husserl, Scheler, Whitehead, Bergson, and Benjamin prefigure a lot of the ways of approaching phenomena that we see in contemporary cultural studies and humanities work. And I suspect that the same can be said for literary authors of that time, who were living responding not only to the crises of economic depression between two world wars, but also the rapid changes of industrialization, new modes of representation and communication, urbanization, immigration, propaganda, and commercialization. So, I have books on my shelf by people like Bulgakov, Nathanael West, Nella Larsen, and Kafka. I think that the two sets of books will probably have a lot to say to each other, not to mention the way they will surely be seen to have been influential in one way or another on the 60s and 70s authors that have so influenced my own thinking and research.
31 January 2006
30 January 2006
paste-up fever
Here's a giant paste-up (pun intended). I love its placement on the run-down building.
note the detail, in which Andre appears on the star of Mao's hat:
note the detail, in which Andre appears on the star of Mao's hat:
11 January 2006
word of the day: stare decisis
STARE DECISIS - Lat. "to stand by that which is decided." The principle that the precedent decisions are to be followed by the courts.
Edited to add that those of us in the know call this principle "Starry D."
Edited to add that those of us in the know call this principle "Starry D."
08 January 2006
luminous public art
Yidg and a couple of friends and I went to a cool public art event in Tampa tonight composed mainly of light installations.
Highlights included:
Erwin Redl's Fade III, in which an entire side of a building is covered with tightly arranged LED lights that fade between red and blue.
Wendy Babcox's Taking Breath, a video installation that is rear projected onto front windows of both sides of a corner art museum.
Jorge Orta's first US light performance, Luminographic Concert, which ran about 30 minutes and was choreographed to vibrant piece of experimental sound composition. It was like paste-ups of light, but they moved and transformed. Here's a few pictures to try to convey the visual part of the experience:
The building is Plant Hall, the centerpiece of the University of Tampa. It was originally a resort hotel built in 1890. I have no idea who the guy in the last picture is, but he is well illuminated himself.
Highlights included:
Erwin Redl's Fade III, in which an entire side of a building is covered with tightly arranged LED lights that fade between red and blue.
Wendy Babcox's Taking Breath, a video installation that is rear projected onto front windows of both sides of a corner art museum.
Jorge Orta's first US light performance, Luminographic Concert, which ran about 30 minutes and was choreographed to vibrant piece of experimental sound composition. It was like paste-ups of light, but they moved and transformed. Here's a few pictures to try to convey the visual part of the experience:
The building is Plant Hall, the centerpiece of the University of Tampa. It was originally a resort hotel built in 1890. I have no idea who the guy in the last picture is, but he is well illuminated himself.
21 December 2005
all cable news is now fox news
I'm going to have to stop watching the 24-hour news channels if I'm going to remain sane through the next year. I am nearly in disbelief at the extent to which CNN has started to morph into Fox News. There seem to be only two sorts of stories: sensationalist breaking news and smirking contemptful advocacy. I just saw a white panic segment about Mexico "moderated" by (I am not making this name up) Kitty Pilgrim. 
The segment follows the structure that used to be isolated to Fox: frame it in terms of a predetermined judgment, smirk your way through the interview with the person representing the view of the opposition (but present the interviewee as a straw man), then end by commiserating with the second and final interviewee who simply validates the point of view of the interviewer.
An abbreviated example concerns the white panic of illegal immigration (i.e., poor people with a better work ethic than white Americans who are willing to work shitty jobs in order to help their families survive), specifically Vicente Fox's aggressive (progressive?) stance at trying to persuade American lawmakers not to build a giant fence across the border.
1. Kitty frames the issue as "shameless"
2. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes through an interview with a representative from a PR firm Fox hired, all the while asking questions in full panic attack mode. She fails to listen to a relatively complex and detailed argument about historical, economic, and social trends and structures.
3. She abruptly ends the first interview and goes straight to commiseration mode with an equally white-panic-oriented congressman and they shake their heads and perform outrage that a foreigner could dare tell America what to do (implying, I guess, that nations should not meddle in the affairs of other nations--which, of course, is even more ironic than the name Kitty Pilgrim).
In other news, Michael Bloomberg said this about the striking transit workers (who can only strike for a better contract by breaking the law): No one should be able to break the law in order to make personal gains. I'm glad he wasn't a leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
The segment follows the structure that used to be isolated to Fox: frame it in terms of a predetermined judgment, smirk your way through the interview with the person representing the view of the opposition (but present the interviewee as a straw man), then end by commiserating with the second and final interviewee who simply validates the point of view of the interviewer. An abbreviated example concerns the white panic of illegal immigration (i.e., poor people with a better work ethic than white Americans who are willing to work shitty jobs in order to help their families survive), specifically Vicente Fox's aggressive (progressive?) stance at trying to persuade American lawmakers not to build a giant fence across the border.
1. Kitty frames the issue as "shameless"
2. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes through an interview with a representative from a PR firm Fox hired, all the while asking questions in full panic attack mode. She fails to listen to a relatively complex and detailed argument about historical, economic, and social trends and structures.
3. She abruptly ends the first interview and goes straight to commiseration mode with an equally white-panic-oriented congressman and they shake their heads and perform outrage that a foreigner could dare tell America what to do (implying, I guess, that nations should not meddle in the affairs of other nations--which, of course, is even more ironic than the name Kitty Pilgrim).
In other news, Michael Bloomberg said this about the striking transit workers (who can only strike for a better contract by breaking the law): No one should be able to break the law in order to make personal gains. I'm glad he wasn't a leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
07 December 2005
why is Bruce Willis after me?
the current miscellany:
1. Why is it that end of the semester grading brings out the worst procrastination in me? The level of aversion is unparalleled. Rather than simply replacing grading with time-consuming tasks like cleaning up my office or doing chores, instead I give a wholesale rejection to the task and replace it with doing nothing at all.
2. I had a dream the other night that Bruce Willis was trying to kill me.
3. It has finally gotten cold enough around here to wear a sweater!
4. I started reading The Ongoing Moment, by Geoff Dyer, yesterday and came across a line that I need to adapt and place somewhere in every future article that I submit for blind review:
5. I've decided to remove all academic books from my nightstand. From now on it's reserved for fiction, Harper's, and the Utne Reader.
6. I love it when students get riled up and offer passionate comments without that sense of disinterestedness that masquerades as decorum in the classroom. I just wish it wouldn't all hinge on a wrongly interpreted passage.
7. It has been almost 4 years now since I last had a haircut (when I swore to myself I wouldn't cut my hair again until after I had obtained a tenure-track position). It has also been four years since I've written on topics that I know and care about, as opposed to trying to reinvent myself as what I think I need to be to get the t-t position.
8. I have a ton of grading to do today. I think I feel the need to do the laundry and the dishes and some yardwork instead. No, I absolutely promised that I would return these papers by tomorrow. But , I saw some algae on the wall outside and the dogs need walked (and probably bathed). I guess I could always get on the blogs . . .
1. Why is it that end of the semester grading brings out the worst procrastination in me? The level of aversion is unparalleled. Rather than simply replacing grading with time-consuming tasks like cleaning up my office or doing chores, instead I give a wholesale rejection to the task and replace it with doing nothing at all.
2. I had a dream the other night that Bruce Willis was trying to kill me.
3. It has finally gotten cold enough around here to wear a sweater!
4. I started reading The Ongoing Moment, by Geoff Dyer, yesterday and came across a line that I need to adapt and place somewhere in every future article that I submit for blind review:
I suspect, then, that this book will be a source of irritation to many people, especially those who know more about [name of subject] than I do. I'm sympathetic but, if we're to make any progress at all, there's one type of criticism I'd like to rule out of court straightaway. This is the 'But what about X?' or 'Why didn't he mention Y?' charge of inadmissible omission. Can we agree, in Whitman's words, 'that much unseen is also here', that it's not necessary to discuss--or even mention--every [instance of topic ever produced] in order to learn something interesting about [topic]? I hope so, because the person doing the learning is the person writing the book as much as the person reading it. The driver is along for the ride too. (7)
5. I've decided to remove all academic books from my nightstand. From now on it's reserved for fiction, Harper's, and the Utne Reader.
6. I love it when students get riled up and offer passionate comments without that sense of disinterestedness that masquerades as decorum in the classroom. I just wish it wouldn't all hinge on a wrongly interpreted passage.
7. It has been almost 4 years now since I last had a haircut (when I swore to myself I wouldn't cut my hair again until after I had obtained a tenure-track position). It has also been four years since I've written on topics that I know and care about, as opposed to trying to reinvent myself as what I think I need to be to get the t-t position.
8. I have a ton of grading to do today. I think I feel the need to do the laundry and the dishes and some yardwork instead. No, I absolutely promised that I would return these papers by tomorrow. But , I saw some algae on the wall outside and the dogs need walked (and probably bathed). I guess I could always get on the blogs . . .
13 November 2005
she may not have a fancy name, but she's got mad skills
Thanks to Julie for her javascript tutorial and randomizer script! Now my blog's changing surface features can help make up for the lack of compelling content. Hooray!
Now I have 10 mastheads. Just reload the page to see another.
Now I have 10 mastheads. Just reload the page to see another.
10 October 2005
dr. m needs all the accoutrements
Seen at Scrivenings.
According to google, I need the following:
a bit more flesh
some juice
to feel loved
dependable adults in my life
open lines of communication
a neck massage
a loving single or two parent family who will accept me
to focus on new trends
close ups of the face that are well lit
to learn that there is a man for every condom
to go shopping
to lie down after two days in bed
to go on with my life
to understand that I will stand before Almighty God
photographs of both sides of the animal
something which is inventive and new
to work on my own now
to get back on the air
to discover and write my stories
to read more frequently
assistance in developing fast and accurate word recognition strategies
to just be a recluse for awhile
to obtain
to contact Eunice for more information
some Rustoleum
a job that keeps my mind busy
floorspace
free play time, too
another attorney to help me get on with this
a favor from a real estate developer
to go ahead and work
to feel safe and secure in order to ask for assistance
to calm down before NASCAR black flags me
help with my daughter who is being spoiled rotten
a strong male role model
it all
some good material to write about
no scientific basis for my work
a family that is consistent in its expectations
understanding and patience
to take this as a wake-up call
more athletic/play shoes
to change my image
a wife
to be spanked
to keep my fee consistent
all of the accoutrements
his rest
to pick up some milk
to become reacquainted with the world again
some expert help
24 hour monitoring
to be honored today, tomorrow, and always
your support
According to google, I need the following:
a bit more flesh
some juice
to feel loved
dependable adults in my life
open lines of communication
a neck massage
a loving single or two parent family who will accept me
to focus on new trends
close ups of the face that are well lit
to learn that there is a man for every condom
to go shopping
to lie down after two days in bed
to go on with my life
to understand that I will stand before Almighty God
photographs of both sides of the animal
something which is inventive and new
to work on my own now
to get back on the air
to discover and write my stories
to read more frequently
assistance in developing fast and accurate word recognition strategies
to just be a recluse for awhile
to obtain
to contact Eunice for more information
some Rustoleum
a job that keeps my mind busy
floorspace
free play time, too
another attorney to help me get on with this
a favor from a real estate developer
to go ahead and work
to feel safe and secure in order to ask for assistance
to calm down before NASCAR black flags me
help with my daughter who is being spoiled rotten
a strong male role model
it all
some good material to write about
no scientific basis for my work
a family that is consistent in its expectations
understanding and patience
to take this as a wake-up call
more athletic/play shoes
to change my image
a wife
to be spanked
to keep my fee consistent
all of the accoutrements
his rest
to pick up some milk
to become reacquainted with the world again
some expert help
24 hour monitoring
to be honored today, tomorrow, and always
your support
26 August 2005
03 August 2005
27 July 2005
wednesday door blogging
This is the point in the summer when my brain becomes all jelly-like and I feel it is best to just look at some pictures. These doors are from the Williamsburg (aka Hipsterville) section of Brooklyn.
20 July 2005
15 July 2005
nerdy feminist sex workers
Here's an intreresting article from indymedia about rich college students who are part-time sex workers ("hobby whores"). The rub (no pun intended) is that they pimp themselves over craigslist. One of the women in the story is a urine fetish specialist.
Here are some key moments in the story:
"They began with lower-caliber jobs like massage and run-of-the-mill cleaning. They soon realized that they could get away with quicker jobs if they only eroded their boundaries. 'It takes two seconds to pee on someone, and three more seconds to get their money and leave,' said Phoebe, the hardest part is pretending its normal for me to do it."
"Like 70% of the workers on the report, the girls want to abandon the business eventually for legitimate career plans. In the meantime their biggest fear is neither rape nor the police, but their parents. 'I dont care who knows it. In fact I kind of like talking about it,' said Phoebe,' 'But if my parents find out Im fucked."
Here are some key moments in the story:
"They began with lower-caliber jobs like massage and run-of-the-mill cleaning. They soon realized that they could get away with quicker jobs if they only eroded their boundaries. 'It takes two seconds to pee on someone, and three more seconds to get their money and leave,' said Phoebe, the hardest part is pretending its normal for me to do it."
"Like 70% of the workers on the report, the girls want to abandon the business eventually for legitimate career plans. In the meantime their biggest fear is neither rape nor the police, but their parents. 'I dont care who knows it. In fact I kind of like talking about it,' said Phoebe,' 'But if my parents find out Im fucked."
27 June 2005
bouillon de culture questionnaire
Since James Lipton will likely never interview me (nor will Will Farrell), I thought it was about time that I answered the questionnaire made famous by Bernard Pivot on Bouillon de Culture:
1. What is your favorite word?
Cattywampus.
2. What is your least favorite word?
Debt.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
The need to experiment when I don't know an answer to something.
4. What turns you off?
The ideology of "paying your dues."
5. What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck.
6. What sound or noise do you love?
Ocean waves.
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Car alarms.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Graphic design and/or starting an independent record label.
9. What profession would you not like to do?
Surgery.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"First round's on me."
1. What is your favorite word?
Cattywampus.
2. What is your least favorite word?
Debt.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
The need to experiment when I don't know an answer to something.
4. What turns you off?
The ideology of "paying your dues."
5. What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck.
6. What sound or noise do you love?
Ocean waves.
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Car alarms.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Graphic design and/or starting an independent record label.
9. What profession would you not like to do?
Surgery.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"First round's on me."
26 June 2005
the secret wisdom of students
I love it when a student writes something seemingly simple which actually cuts through a lot of the denisty of theory and gets to the bright, shiny point. In the middle of an essay exam answer (about the relationship between rhetoric, the free market, globalization, and US power) one student tweaked the invisible hand metaphor this way: "the hidden (secret) hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
