For the past two weeks committee chairs have been performing the twice-yearly Dance of the Scheduling Fairies as they try to determine a day and time on which every member of the committee can meet. It's sort of like those logic problems on standardized tests: if the peas must be on the shelf above the corn but the beets can never abut the brussels sprouts, where should you put the celery?
Professor A teaches four classes back-to-back TTH and can meet only MWF, except for alternate Fridays. Professor B teaches all morning and Professor C teaches all afternoon, right up to the moment when Professor D has to leave campus to drive his offspring to hockey practice. No one wants to meet at lunchtime or early in the morning, and everyone wants to get off campus before 5, but there are only so many hours in the day so someone will have to bend. It's the same dilemma we face when scheduling classes: if the students had their way, all classes would be offered at 11 a.m., but we don't do that, do we?
Last week a committee chair sent out an Excel spreadsheet and invited committee members to block out the times when they definitely could not meet. The result was a nearly black spreadsheet with one open hour glowing cheerfully in the lower left corner, so that's when the chair scheduled the meeting. The next day he received an e-mail message from a faculty member senior enough to know better: "I know I said I could meet at that time," he wrote, "but I was an idiot."
Back to the drawing board. I say toss that committee member in the bin with the brussels sprouts and if he doesn't like it, let him eat corn.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Out of the bendy byways
It's not often that a student introduces a word I've never seen before, and when it happens, it's generally the result of inventive spelling. Very rarely does a student offer up a useful and satisfying term like the one I learned yesterday when a freshman writer gave me "circumbendibus."
Say it out loud: it fills the mouth deliciously, and it sounds like what it means--a circuitous, bendy route. Michael Quinion over at World Wide Words explains that circumbendibus "was created in the late seventeenth century as humorous fake Latin from circum-, around, plus English bend, plus the Latin ending -ibus." Goldsmith used it in She Stoops to Conquer as a noun meaning something like "roundabout way" with overtones of "wild goose chase." Quinion produces only two examples (from Goldsmith and Walter Scott) and asserts that writers continue to employ the term occasionally, but I found so few instances that I have to wonder where a freshman came up with such a rarity.
The answer, of course, is in the box--the little hand-held translators many of our Chinese students use to help them find the words they need to communicate in English. Sometimes these translators offer up words that are denotatively correct but inappropriate for the context--too earthy, too formal, too archaic. In this case, the student was writing about different approaches to writing tasks. Americans, he says, tend to get straight to the point, while Chinese writers use more circumbendibus.
For which I am grateful, because a word that wonderful ought not to be relegated to the bendy byways of the English language.
Say it out loud: it fills the mouth deliciously, and it sounds like what it means--a circuitous, bendy route. Michael Quinion over at World Wide Words explains that circumbendibus "was created in the late seventeenth century as humorous fake Latin from circum-, around, plus English bend, plus the Latin ending -ibus." Goldsmith used it in She Stoops to Conquer as a noun meaning something like "roundabout way" with overtones of "wild goose chase." Quinion produces only two examples (from Goldsmith and Walter Scott) and asserts that writers continue to employ the term occasionally, but I found so few instances that I have to wonder where a freshman came up with such a rarity.
The answer, of course, is in the box--the little hand-held translators many of our Chinese students use to help them find the words they need to communicate in English. Sometimes these translators offer up words that are denotatively correct but inappropriate for the context--too earthy, too formal, too archaic. In this case, the student was writing about different approaches to writing tasks. Americans, he says, tend to get straight to the point, while Chinese writers use more circumbendibus.
For which I am grateful, because a word that wonderful ought not to be relegated to the bendy byways of the English language.
Monday, January 19, 2009
On the stuffness of things
At the moment my mental life seems to be dominated by stuff--things, objects, all that ordinary everyday stuff that gathers dust around the edges of life. Just last week the prof admitted that the photography class I'm taking is "stuff-intensive," and this morning my American Novel class considered the impact of all that stuff that crowds Mrs. Peniston's parlor in The House of Mirth. So it's only natural that I should read a book on the meaning of stuff: The Thing Itself: On the Search for Authenticity by Richard Todd. This elegantly written and highly accessible collection of essays delves deeply into the human tendency to fetishize our stuff, to endow certain objects with special meaning.
Todd considers the stuffness of art, asserting that a work of art is a physical object that at once draws us away from the material world and directs our attention back toward it. Art is different from mundane stuff because its value is not determined simply by its materials but is instead constructed within a community that fetishizes objects because of their origins, their rarity, or their ability to transcend stuff. "Art is to objects as sainthood is to people," he explains. "Most people can't be saints, and most objects can't be art, but in each case the extent to which they are marked by an impulse toward grace is a measure of their worth."
Even ordinary objects, though, can gain an aura after they have outlived their usefulness. Todd examines the power of nostalgia to endow antique tools and tractors with new value when these objects no longer serve their original purpose. Nostalgia even influences the relative value of places as urbanites seduced by nostalgic narratives of simple country life move to the countryside only to transform the agrarian spaces that seemed so appealing. "All places are stories, stories we tell to ourselves," he says, adding that no matter how apparently pure and untouched a place may appear to be, "all inhabited places... are in fact polluted with meaning."
If natural places are polluted with meaning, what of artificial places? Todd describes trips to Las Vegas and Walt Disney World, reveling in the self-conscious artificiality of the first but finding Disney's dream world oppressive and claustrophobic. Walt Disney, asserts Todd, "is what we had instead of Hitler. He gave us a fascism of smarm. If real fascism ever comes to this country, can one doubt what it will look like? It will not be goose-stepping legions and blaring music. It will be cute, like a Disney movie. There will be country music and laconic heroes and lovable dogs."
The idea that our stuff says a lot about us is so obvious as to be a cliche, but Todd makes the topic fresh and treats it in unexpected ways. This is a very stuff-intensive book, but like the works of art, places, and objects Todd writes about, the book directs our attention to the tyranny of stuff while also endowing it with an aura of grace.
Todd considers the stuffness of art, asserting that a work of art is a physical object that at once draws us away from the material world and directs our attention back toward it. Art is different from mundane stuff because its value is not determined simply by its materials but is instead constructed within a community that fetishizes objects because of their origins, their rarity, or their ability to transcend stuff. "Art is to objects as sainthood is to people," he explains. "Most people can't be saints, and most objects can't be art, but in each case the extent to which they are marked by an impulse toward grace is a measure of their worth."
Even ordinary objects, though, can gain an aura after they have outlived their usefulness. Todd examines the power of nostalgia to endow antique tools and tractors with new value when these objects no longer serve their original purpose. Nostalgia even influences the relative value of places as urbanites seduced by nostalgic narratives of simple country life move to the countryside only to transform the agrarian spaces that seemed so appealing. "All places are stories, stories we tell to ourselves," he says, adding that no matter how apparently pure and untouched a place may appear to be, "all inhabited places... are in fact polluted with meaning."
If natural places are polluted with meaning, what of artificial places? Todd describes trips to Las Vegas and Walt Disney World, reveling in the self-conscious artificiality of the first but finding Disney's dream world oppressive and claustrophobic. Walt Disney, asserts Todd, "is what we had instead of Hitler. He gave us a fascism of smarm. If real fascism ever comes to this country, can one doubt what it will look like? It will not be goose-stepping legions and blaring music. It will be cute, like a Disney movie. There will be country music and laconic heroes and lovable dogs."
The idea that our stuff says a lot about us is so obvious as to be a cliche, but Todd makes the topic fresh and treats it in unexpected ways. This is a very stuff-intensive book, but like the works of art, places, and objects Todd writes about, the book directs our attention to the tyranny of stuff while also endowing it with an aura of grace.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Learning the ropes
For a week or so I've been slowly allowing my new camera to show me what it can do. It's not easy. I used the same old film camera for so many years that my fingers keep reaching for buttons that aren't there, and I'm always half afraid that I'll press the wrong button and wreck everything.But what's to wreck? So far, I've taken a bunch of pretty lousy pictures. One problem is that I've always been better taking available-light photos than shooting with flash, but it's just too darn cold to spend much time taking pictures outside. But this afternoon I had to get out and see what winter is bringing to the upper meadow, so I bundled up and went up the hill and saw...well, not much. Deer tracks. Lichens. Dry brown thistle and desiccated goldenrod.
My dog spent the entire time hiding in her doghouse, but the neighbor's dog Duke joined me on my short jaunt up the hill. I took a bunch of badly exposed photos of Duke before I finally
realized what a stupid thing I was doing: when I tilted the camera to see the readout on the back and adjust the shutter speed and aperture, the light meter was "reading" my dark pants instead of the scene I was trying to photograph. I finally managed to get a few decent shots but I dumped a lot of images--after learning what they wanted to teach me. That's the great thing about digital photography: the instant feedback lets me know exactly how dumb I'm being.The first three-hour session of my scientific imaging class left me really excited about what I'll be learning this semester, including all the ins and outs of Photoshop. For now, though, I'll just be happy if I can get my fingers to stop reaching for buttons that aren't there.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
A surreal conversation
The phone rang and the caller identified herself as the mother of one of our students.
"My daughter is in a literature class," she said, "but I don't know the name of the professor."
I asked her for the course's name or number.
"It's just called Literature," she said.
"We're offering several literature classes this semester, but we don't have any classes just called Literature," I said.
"Well, if I tell you my daughter's name, can you look up what class she's enrolled in?"
"No, I really don't have access to that information."
"All I know is it's a literature class that meets at 1:00 three days a week."
So I looked at the online course listings and found only one course in our department meeting those criteria and I told the caller the name of the professor.
"That doesn't sound right," she said.
"Sorry, it's the only literature course we offer at that time," I said.
She paused. "I really need to contact the professor," she said.
I pointed out that there are literature courses taught in the Theater department, but she said no, it had to be an English class.
"Why do you need to reach the professor?" I asked. "Maybe I can help."
"I just need to know whether tomorrow's class will be cancelled."
"Okay, let me just get out my crystal ball" is what I probably should have said, but instead I pointed out that our college almost never cancels classes because of weather (and besides, tomorrow's weather is supposed to be quite cold but not too snowy) and if the professor has some other reason to cancel the class, it would be difficult for me to ascertain that information without knowing which class we're talking about.
She was disappointed but I'm just annoyed and puzzled. I can imagine several scenarios to explain this surreal conversation:
1. Mother wants to make sure we won't force her precious little snowflake to venture forth when the wind chill is -15.
2. Mother wants her precious little snowflake to come home for the weekend and hopes to persuade professor to cancel class.
3. Student has told Mother that Friday's class is cancelled and Mother is checking up to make sure Student isn't feeding her a line.
I vote for 3, although I could be wrong. I'm certain of only one thing: that's five minutes of my life I'll never get back.
"My daughter is in a literature class," she said, "but I don't know the name of the professor."
I asked her for the course's name or number.
"It's just called Literature," she said.
"We're offering several literature classes this semester, but we don't have any classes just called Literature," I said.
"Well, if I tell you my daughter's name, can you look up what class she's enrolled in?"
"No, I really don't have access to that information."
"All I know is it's a literature class that meets at 1:00 three days a week."
So I looked at the online course listings and found only one course in our department meeting those criteria and I told the caller the name of the professor.
"That doesn't sound right," she said.
"Sorry, it's the only literature course we offer at that time," I said.
She paused. "I really need to contact the professor," she said.
I pointed out that there are literature courses taught in the Theater department, but she said no, it had to be an English class.
"Why do you need to reach the professor?" I asked. "Maybe I can help."
"I just need to know whether tomorrow's class will be cancelled."
"Okay, let me just get out my crystal ball" is what I probably should have said, but instead I pointed out that our college almost never cancels classes because of weather (and besides, tomorrow's weather is supposed to be quite cold but not too snowy) and if the professor has some other reason to cancel the class, it would be difficult for me to ascertain that information without knowing which class we're talking about.
She was disappointed but I'm just annoyed and puzzled. I can imagine several scenarios to explain this surreal conversation:
1. Mother wants to make sure we won't force her precious little snowflake to venture forth when the wind chill is -15.
2. Mother wants her precious little snowflake to come home for the weekend and hopes to persuade professor to cancel class.
3. Student has told Mother that Friday's class is cancelled and Mother is checking up to make sure Student isn't feeding her a line.
I vote for 3, although I could be wrong. I'm certain of only one thing: that's five minutes of my life I'll never get back.
A novel theory
Yesterday I heard (for the third or fourth time) the story of an esteemed senior colleague who won $6500 on one hand of cards at a casino over break, and another esteemed colleague--a psychology professor--offered a novel theory to explain the gambler's persistent good luck:
"He's very religious," explained the psych prof.
I pointed out that many religious people never win six dollars at cards much less six thousand. Like me, for instance.
"Yes," said the psych prof, "but he also tells the world's dirtiest jokes, and that gets God's attention."
Someone ought to put this theory to the test. Do you suppose there's a grant available?
"He's very religious," explained the psych prof.
I pointed out that many religious people never win six dollars at cards much less six thousand. Like me, for instance.
"Yes," said the psych prof, "but he also tells the world's dirtiest jokes, and that gets God's attention."
Someone ought to put this theory to the test. Do you suppose there's a grant available?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A paeon to parking
Early this morning as I walked to the garage I saw snow sparkling in the moonlight along the deer-track-pocked path--but anyone unfamiliar with our immense complex garage saga has no idea why that statement is so remarkable.
We have a garage! And for the first winter since we moved out to the woods, I can park my car in the garage every single day if I want to! Which is a really good thing, because last week one day when I left the car outside in some wet weather followed by a hard freeze, my car doors froze shut and then froze open, refusing to latch despite all our efforts. "I can drive to work holding on door shut," I said, "but it's hard to drive while holding both doors shut!"
When I get home from work these days I'm so exhausted that I function on auto-pilot: drive halfway up the driveway, get out of the car, open the garage door, get back in the car, pull into the garage, close the garage door, walk the rest of the way up the hill to the house....I do it without much awareness. But early in the morning when I walk back down the hill, I am grateful for my garage. No more scraping, no more doors frozen shut, no more wondering whether the car will make it around that last steep icy curve; just snow sparkling on moonlight and the sound of woodland creatures scurrying into the undergrowth and a car safely stowed where ice and snow can't go.
We have a garage! And for the first winter since we moved out to the woods, I can park my car in the garage every single day if I want to! Which is a really good thing, because last week one day when I left the car outside in some wet weather followed by a hard freeze, my car doors froze shut and then froze open, refusing to latch despite all our efforts. "I can drive to work holding on door shut," I said, "but it's hard to drive while holding both doors shut!"
When I get home from work these days I'm so exhausted that I function on auto-pilot: drive halfway up the driveway, get out of the car, open the garage door, get back in the car, pull into the garage, close the garage door, walk the rest of the way up the hill to the house....I do it without much awareness. But early in the morning when I walk back down the hill, I am grateful for my garage. No more scraping, no more doors frozen shut, no more wondering whether the car will make it around that last steep icy curve; just snow sparkling on moonlight and the sound of woodland creatures scurrying into the undergrowth and a car safely stowed where ice and snow can't go.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Some opening-day observations
1. I know classroom space is at a premium, but is it really wise to schedule a technology-intensive class of 20 students to meet in a broom closet? Even if they overturn all the mopping-up buckets for seats, most of the students will end up sitting in the hallway--and where will they plug in their laptops?
2. The ability to work out on a step machine does not necessarily translate into an ability to walk up long flights of steps.
3. If 22 students are enrolled in the class and the bookstore orders only 10 copies of the textbook, someone is bound to suffer--but why does it have to be me? The bookstore should provide a gopher to run around the library finding materials and putting them on reserve so my students can complete their assigned reading.
2. The ability to work out on a step machine does not necessarily translate into an ability to walk up long flights of steps.
3. If 22 students are enrolled in the class and the bookstore orders only 10 copies of the textbook, someone is bound to suffer--but why does it have to be me? The bookstore should provide a gopher to run around the library finding materials and putting them on reserve so my students can complete their assigned reading.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sleepless in spring semester
My first class of the semester is at 9:00 this morning but I was wide awake at 4. Why? No forgot-to-write-the-syllabus dreams, no teaching-naked nightmares, just a lot of excitement about the new semester.
There's plenty to be excited about, starting with an excellent schedule. I have only one section of freshman writing two mornings a week, and I'll be teaching two American Lit classes back-to-back three mornings a week: a sophomore-level survey and an upper-level class called Later American Novel, starting with Edith Wharton and ending with Toni Morrison. Last year I taught overloads in both spring and fall semesters and also taught a J-term class and a summer independent study, for a total of 10 classes (while chairing the department); teaching only three classes this semester will feel like a walk in the park.
I'm also excited about the return of the students, without whom the campus is entirely too dull. I want to know what my wonderful English majors have been reading over break, what they're talking about, where they've been.
I'm thrilled about taking my freshman writing students to the new library--or taking anyone to the new library, for that matter. Just having a new library is enough to make me happy.
Unfortunately, the library isn't open at 4 a.m., and the students are sleeping (I hope) and the classrooms are empty, so there was nowhere to channel all that excitement. I tried to sleep for a while but finally gave it up as a lost cause. Now I'm chomping at the bit, ready to get into my first class and get this exciting semester off to a good start. Here's hoping I don't fall asleep in the middle of class!
There's plenty to be excited about, starting with an excellent schedule. I have only one section of freshman writing two mornings a week, and I'll be teaching two American Lit classes back-to-back three mornings a week: a sophomore-level survey and an upper-level class called Later American Novel, starting with Edith Wharton and ending with Toni Morrison. Last year I taught overloads in both spring and fall semesters and also taught a J-term class and a summer independent study, for a total of 10 classes (while chairing the department); teaching only three classes this semester will feel like a walk in the park.
I'm also excited about the return of the students, without whom the campus is entirely too dull. I want to know what my wonderful English majors have been reading over break, what they're talking about, where they've been.
I'm thrilled about taking my freshman writing students to the new library--or taking anyone to the new library, for that matter. Just having a new library is enough to make me happy.
Unfortunately, the library isn't open at 4 a.m., and the students are sleeping (I hope) and the classrooms are empty, so there was nowhere to channel all that excitement. I tried to sleep for a while but finally gave it up as a lost cause. Now I'm chomping at the bit, ready to get into my first class and get this exciting semester off to a good start. Here's hoping I don't fall asleep in the middle of class!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Library magic
The shelves in our new library are moving and sensitive: press a button on the end of the row and a whole series of shelves scoots silently out of the way so patrons can walk between them, but if a patron steps into the path of a moving shelf, it stops at once. How does a mere mass of metal sense the presence of a patron? I suspect magic.
Our new library opens to the public on Monday, but I paid a visit today to pick up some books, and one of the librarians gave me a private tour. The flat, monochromatic design we viewed so often on blueprints has become an attractive and functional building flooded with light and full of wonders: shelves that move, high-tech classrooms where students can learn research methods and faculty can try out new technology, a center for teaching excellence that houses our brand-new instructional technology expert.
And books--lots of books. Most of the library's books have come back from remote storage, and the special collections will return in the coming weeks. The warm, inviting tones of the woodwork and paint make the library a welcoming place, and amenities include an outdoor amphitheater, a small coffee shop, and lounge areas featuring faux fireplaces, but all those things would be irrelevant if it weren't for the books.
Jorge Luis Borges envisioned Paradise as a library, but his Paradise was not dependent on moving shelves, faux fireplaces, or high-tech classrooms. Borges knew that the library's magic lives in its books. Now that the books are back, we can all pay a visit to Paradise.
Our new library opens to the public on Monday, but I paid a visit today to pick up some books, and one of the librarians gave me a private tour. The flat, monochromatic design we viewed so often on blueprints has become an attractive and functional building flooded with light and full of wonders: shelves that move, high-tech classrooms where students can learn research methods and faculty can try out new technology, a center for teaching excellence that houses our brand-new instructional technology expert.
And books--lots of books. Most of the library's books have come back from remote storage, and the special collections will return in the coming weeks. The warm, inviting tones of the woodwork and paint make the library a welcoming place, and amenities include an outdoor amphitheater, a small coffee shop, and lounge areas featuring faux fireplaces, but all those things would be irrelevant if it weren't for the books.
Jorge Luis Borges envisioned Paradise as a library, but his Paradise was not dependent on moving shelves, faux fireplaces, or high-tech classrooms. Borges knew that the library's magic lives in its books. Now that the books are back, we can all pay a visit to Paradise.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Picture-perfect delivery
In the midst of a week crammed full of class preparations, meetings, and sudden unexpected hiring of adjuncts, I received a phone call from UPS informing me that they'll be delivering a package tomorrow between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. and someone needs to be at home to sign for it.
So it looks like I'll be staying home tomorrow, but I don't mind. I brought my laptop home and I have all the info I need to work on my final syllabus, and I don't have any more meetings until Thursday. And besides, I'll be delighted to stay home and wait for UPS since they're delivering MY NEW CAMERA!!!!!!!!! (Oops, it's a little early in the year to use up my annual quota of exclamation points....better calm down.)
Lest you think that I'm a tad too excited about this event, I have my reasons. First, my current camera is 15 years old and served me well during my years as a journalist, but it has a serious light leak and Nikon doesn't make the parts for that model anymore. Second, photography has been a serious hobby of mine for going on 30 years and I can't imagine greeting the spring birds and wildflowers without camera in hand. And finally, this camera will enable me to do something I haven't done in nearly a decade: take a college class.
I've been eager to take this class for some time. It's listed as a 300-level biology class, but the title is Scientific Imaging and it is taught by an expert in bird and insect photography. The class will refine my skills in nature photography, introduce some interesting software, and help me to view nature through a scientific lens.
This last goal is important because I am part of a group of three faculty members who will attend the College English Association conference in March to present a panel on how cross-disciplinary experience influences our practice and teaching of creativity. Last semester, a creative writing professor and fiction writer took a drawing class, and this semester, an art professor is taking creative writing. The Scientific Imaging class will give me experience with various methods of observing and representing nature, which ought to spark creative ideas as I design a summer special topics course in writing about nature.
With so many good things depending upon the arrival of this camera, I'm happy to stay home and await the special delivery. Freezing rain and ice are in the forecast, but as far as I'm concerned, tomorrow will be a picture-perfect day.
So it looks like I'll be staying home tomorrow, but I don't mind. I brought my laptop home and I have all the info I need to work on my final syllabus, and I don't have any more meetings until Thursday. And besides, I'll be delighted to stay home and wait for UPS since they're delivering MY NEW CAMERA!!!!!!!!! (Oops, it's a little early in the year to use up my annual quota of exclamation points....better calm down.)
Lest you think that I'm a tad too excited about this event, I have my reasons. First, my current camera is 15 years old and served me well during my years as a journalist, but it has a serious light leak and Nikon doesn't make the parts for that model anymore. Second, photography has been a serious hobby of mine for going on 30 years and I can't imagine greeting the spring birds and wildflowers without camera in hand. And finally, this camera will enable me to do something I haven't done in nearly a decade: take a college class.
I've been eager to take this class for some time. It's listed as a 300-level biology class, but the title is Scientific Imaging and it is taught by an expert in bird and insect photography. The class will refine my skills in nature photography, introduce some interesting software, and help me to view nature through a scientific lens.
This last goal is important because I am part of a group of three faculty members who will attend the College English Association conference in March to present a panel on how cross-disciplinary experience influences our practice and teaching of creativity. Last semester, a creative writing professor and fiction writer took a drawing class, and this semester, an art professor is taking creative writing. The Scientific Imaging class will give me experience with various methods of observing and representing nature, which ought to spark creative ideas as I design a summer special topics course in writing about nature.
With so many good things depending upon the arrival of this camera, I'm happy to stay home and await the special delivery. Freezing rain and ice are in the forecast, but as far as I'm concerned, tomorrow will be a picture-perfect day.
Can't curb my enthusiasm
As a department chair and a member of the committee that makes recommendations about tenure, I get to read a lot of course evaluations, and I'm puzzled by a statement that pops up frequently across the campus: "The class would be better if Professor X realized that not everyone is excited about Topic A."
I get that comment occasionally on my own evaluations and I see it on many others, and I wonder what I'm supposed to do about it. The fact is that I already realize that not everyone is as excited as I am about the topics I teach; indeed, if everyone in the world were as excited as I am about American literature or writing or poetry, I wouldn't need to teach it: students would be knocking down the doors of the library in their eagerness to soak up everything they could discover about the topic.
So I understand that many students are not excited about the things I teach, but I'm puzzled about what they want me to do about it. How should this realization affect my teaching? I could stand up in class on the first day and say, "I realize that many of you are not excited about Topic A; therefore, I'll be teaching Topic B instead." Or I could take a poll and see what topic excites the most students in the class and teach that, but I can envision some problems with this approach. What if I don't know anything at all about the topic that excites them the most? If I could teach a class in how to be rich, thin, sexy, and popular without any effort (Topic C), I wouldn't be an English professor. And then what do I do with the outliers who really aren't excited about Topic C? Regardless of the topic, some students are bound to be bored by it.
Maybe students just want me to curb my enthusiasm and pretend that I'm as disgusted with the topic as they are: "Class, I know American literature can be a real drag and writing about literature isn't your idea of a day at the lake and studying poetry isn't going to make you rich or thin or popular, but we're all in the same boat so let's just be miserable together like those four unnamed guys in Stephen Crane's 'The Open Boat,' and speaking of 'The Open Boat,' don't you just love the way Crane manipulates perception so that the boat seems to be standing still while the beach rises and falls? And how about those shadowy sharks? And what the heck does he mean by the 'sacred cheese of life' anyway?"
No, I'm afraid my excitement about Topic A is incapable of being held in check. But if I can't curb my own enthusiasm or teach the topic that excites the most students, then how am I supposed to respond to that puzzling comment? What do they want me to do?
I get that comment occasionally on my own evaluations and I see it on many others, and I wonder what I'm supposed to do about it. The fact is that I already realize that not everyone is as excited as I am about the topics I teach; indeed, if everyone in the world were as excited as I am about American literature or writing or poetry, I wouldn't need to teach it: students would be knocking down the doors of the library in their eagerness to soak up everything they could discover about the topic.
So I understand that many students are not excited about the things I teach, but I'm puzzled about what they want me to do about it. How should this realization affect my teaching? I could stand up in class on the first day and say, "I realize that many of you are not excited about Topic A; therefore, I'll be teaching Topic B instead." Or I could take a poll and see what topic excites the most students in the class and teach that, but I can envision some problems with this approach. What if I don't know anything at all about the topic that excites them the most? If I could teach a class in how to be rich, thin, sexy, and popular without any effort (Topic C), I wouldn't be an English professor. And then what do I do with the outliers who really aren't excited about Topic C? Regardless of the topic, some students are bound to be bored by it.
Maybe students just want me to curb my enthusiasm and pretend that I'm as disgusted with the topic as they are: "Class, I know American literature can be a real drag and writing about literature isn't your idea of a day at the lake and studying poetry isn't going to make you rich or thin or popular, but we're all in the same boat so let's just be miserable together like those four unnamed guys in Stephen Crane's 'The Open Boat,' and speaking of 'The Open Boat,' don't you just love the way Crane manipulates perception so that the boat seems to be standing still while the beach rises and falls? And how about those shadowy sharks? And what the heck does he mean by the 'sacred cheese of life' anyway?"
No, I'm afraid my excitement about Topic A is incapable of being held in check. But if I can't curb my own enthusiasm or teach the topic that excites the most students, then how am I supposed to respond to that puzzling comment? What do they want me to do?
Monday, January 05, 2009
Timeless
My very favorite comment on last semester's course evaluations: "One of those classes where when you look at your watch the first time you're surprised to find that the class is almost over."
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The tulle turn
We were halfway home from the Bridal Extravaganza when I finally figured out why I had found a particular wedding gown peculiar: it looked like a dribble castle.
You know when you're at the beach and you keep dribbling wet sand out of your hand until it makes grotesque, lumpy shapes? That's exactly what that gown looked like: a dribble castle.
In four hours of rambling amongst vendors of wedding stuff, we saw plenty of dresses that didn't look like dribble castles. The typical wedding gown looked like a little girl's princess dream, complete with yards of tulle, sweeping trains, and glittering tiaras. It was a little jarring to see these Princess Barbie dresses modeled to the tunes of "Brick House" or "Bringing Sexy Back," especially since the amateur models had clearly had little experience in flouncing about in spike heels and unwieldy gowns. We kept seeing one particularly unprincesslike maneuver: in order to make her turns properly without stepping on the train, the model would reach around as if getting ready to scratch her behind and then grab the train and fling it furiously in the right direction.
We've already bought my daughter the perfect wedding gown so we weren't terribly interested in the fashions on display, but we did spend some time sampling the caterers' wares and tasting various types of wedding cake and frosting. It was a brilliant marketing strategy: after trying every conceivable variety of canape, shrimp cocktail, chocolate fountain, and cake, attendees would be in such a glucose-induced stupor that they'd agree to anything. Yes, we need to have the happy couple's name in lights on the dance floor! Videographers? We'll take two! Camouflage tuxedoes, satin-draped folding chairs, live doves released at the door? Sign me up!
We managed to resist all these temptations with one exception: we fell in love with a trio playing classical music on violin, cello, and piano. There will be no tiaras at my daughter's wedding (because a bride is not a princess), no camouflage tuxedoes (because if the groom wants to be invisible on his wedding day, who needs him?), no "Bringing Sexy Back" in the ceremony (because it's a worship service). But we will have beautiful music and classy clothes and interesting food--and, best of all, not the slightest hint of a dribble castle.
You know when you're at the beach and you keep dribbling wet sand out of your hand until it makes grotesque, lumpy shapes? That's exactly what that gown looked like: a dribble castle.
In four hours of rambling amongst vendors of wedding stuff, we saw plenty of dresses that didn't look like dribble castles. The typical wedding gown looked like a little girl's princess dream, complete with yards of tulle, sweeping trains, and glittering tiaras. It was a little jarring to see these Princess Barbie dresses modeled to the tunes of "Brick House" or "Bringing Sexy Back," especially since the amateur models had clearly had little experience in flouncing about in spike heels and unwieldy gowns. We kept seeing one particularly unprincesslike maneuver: in order to make her turns properly without stepping on the train, the model would reach around as if getting ready to scratch her behind and then grab the train and fling it furiously in the right direction.
We've already bought my daughter the perfect wedding gown so we weren't terribly interested in the fashions on display, but we did spend some time sampling the caterers' wares and tasting various types of wedding cake and frosting. It was a brilliant marketing strategy: after trying every conceivable variety of canape, shrimp cocktail, chocolate fountain, and cake, attendees would be in such a glucose-induced stupor that they'd agree to anything. Yes, we need to have the happy couple's name in lights on the dance floor! Videographers? We'll take two! Camouflage tuxedoes, satin-draped folding chairs, live doves released at the door? Sign me up!
We managed to resist all these temptations with one exception: we fell in love with a trio playing classical music on violin, cello, and piano. There will be no tiaras at my daughter's wedding (because a bride is not a princess), no camouflage tuxedoes (because if the groom wants to be invisible on his wedding day, who needs him?), no "Bringing Sexy Back" in the ceremony (because it's a worship service). But we will have beautiful music and classy clothes and interesting food--and, best of all, not the slightest hint of a dribble castle.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Collecting garbage
I don't recall how the topic came up but at some point during the MLA conference I found myself proposing that I ought to teach a course about the literature of garbage. We already teach literature courses called Concepts of Nature, Concepts of Progress, Concepts of Gender, and so on, so why not Concepts of Garbage?
I was only half joking. Every year in American Lit Survey I teach a section of the A.R. Ammons poem "Garbage," which asserts that garbage is the poetry of our time, and I always enjoy the moment when I write on the blackboard "garbage = poetry" and ask the class whether the equation works both ways. It makes for an interesting conversation, particularly since at that point we've already read and discussed the Robinson Jeffers poem "Shine, Perishing Republic" in which he asserts that we're all heading eventually for the compost bin.
I'm tempted to design a Garbage Lit course every time I re-read Our Mutual Friend, the wonderful Dickens novel in which garbage links every level of society, cutting across social strata and providing the hidden foundation for the sparkling lives of the privileged. Don DeLillo borrows this conceit for his massive novel Underworld, in which garbage links the worlds of art, politics, sport, and entertainment.
I'd love to juxtapose these readings in a class and see what comes from the combination, but two poems and two huge novels do not make a coherent course. I'm sure I'm overlooking some relevant works, and someone out there knows what they are. So come on: send me your garbage. It is, after all, the poetry of our time.
I was only half joking. Every year in American Lit Survey I teach a section of the A.R. Ammons poem "Garbage," which asserts that garbage is the poetry of our time, and I always enjoy the moment when I write on the blackboard "garbage = poetry" and ask the class whether the equation works both ways. It makes for an interesting conversation, particularly since at that point we've already read and discussed the Robinson Jeffers poem "Shine, Perishing Republic" in which he asserts that we're all heading eventually for the compost bin.
I'm tempted to design a Garbage Lit course every time I re-read Our Mutual Friend, the wonderful Dickens novel in which garbage links every level of society, cutting across social strata and providing the hidden foundation for the sparkling lives of the privileged. Don DeLillo borrows this conceit for his massive novel Underworld, in which garbage links the worlds of art, politics, sport, and entertainment.
I'd love to juxtapose these readings in a class and see what comes from the combination, but two poems and two huge novels do not make a coherent course. I'm sure I'm overlooking some relevant works, and someone out there knows what they are. So come on: send me your garbage. It is, after all, the poetry of our time.
Friday, January 02, 2009
There Will Be Papers
The chief advantage of attending the MLA without having to spend hours doing interviews is getting to attend a lot of sessions. This is also the chief disadvantage, because more sessions = more papers = more opportunities to hear bad papers. I heard my share of bad papers at the MLA.
But I heard my share of good papers too. The best paper I heard was in the smallest room, a tiny, cavelike conference room that could accommodate maybe 24 people. Lars Erik Larson delivered an outstanding essay on Frank Norris's McTeague, a novel I have always loved without often finding others who share my enthusiasm. Larson's paper was insightful, original, beautifully written, and well delivered, with lots of enthusiasm and a little drama. He made an interesting connection between McTeague and the movie There Will Be Blood, and it was easy to tell who in the audience had seen the movie and who had not. Best of all, his paper and the others in the same session provoked some real discussion in which ideas were exchanged in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding, with no rancor or grandstanding. That's an ideal MLA paper.
The bad papers were less memorable. One paper was particularly unmemorable because the grad student delivering the paper spoke tentatively and kept backing away from the microphone as if afraid that it would bite her, so the text of the paper vanished into the ambient noise. I attended several pedagogy panels and I was not surprised to find that pedagogy papers tend to be less formal and less theoretical than literature papers, but I was surprised to find that several of the pedagogy papers I heard were just sloppy: poorly written, poorly organized, poorly delivered. It's always shocking to discover that purported experts on teaching writing are often not particularly good writers.
And my paper? It went well. The crowd was small but enthusiastic, laughing in all the right places, and afterward I was approached by someone interested in publishing my paper, which was encouraging. But you never know...probably there's someone out there right now blogging about all those awful MLA papers--including mine. When it comes to the MLA, you never know whether the papers you hear will be good, bad, or mediocre, but if nothing else, you know There Will Be Papers.
But I heard my share of good papers too. The best paper I heard was in the smallest room, a tiny, cavelike conference room that could accommodate maybe 24 people. Lars Erik Larson delivered an outstanding essay on Frank Norris's McTeague, a novel I have always loved without often finding others who share my enthusiasm. Larson's paper was insightful, original, beautifully written, and well delivered, with lots of enthusiasm and a little drama. He made an interesting connection between McTeague and the movie There Will Be Blood, and it was easy to tell who in the audience had seen the movie and who had not. Best of all, his paper and the others in the same session provoked some real discussion in which ideas were exchanged in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding, with no rancor or grandstanding. That's an ideal MLA paper.
The bad papers were less memorable. One paper was particularly unmemorable because the grad student delivering the paper spoke tentatively and kept backing away from the microphone as if afraid that it would bite her, so the text of the paper vanished into the ambient noise. I attended several pedagogy panels and I was not surprised to find that pedagogy papers tend to be less formal and less theoretical than literature papers, but I was surprised to find that several of the pedagogy papers I heard were just sloppy: poorly written, poorly organized, poorly delivered. It's always shocking to discover that purported experts on teaching writing are often not particularly good writers.
And my paper? It went well. The crowd was small but enthusiastic, laughing in all the right places, and afterward I was approached by someone interested in publishing my paper, which was encouraging. But you never know...probably there's someone out there right now blogging about all those awful MLA papers--including mine. When it comes to the MLA, you never know whether the papers you hear will be good, bad, or mediocre, but if nothing else, you know There Will Be Papers.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Back to the real world
The first thing I did when I got home from San Francisco was take a shower; the second was sleep. I feel as if I've been sleeping on and off all last night and all day, but airplane sleep doesn't count: a few winks, a few snores, and a sudden jerk when the plane hits turbulence. No wonder I'm exhausted.
But happy. I had a great time in San Francisco, both at the conference and away from it. On Tuesday morning an old friend picked me up from my hotel and whisked me away to Muir Woods for a hike amongst the rampant damp greenery, followed by lunch, shopping, and a visit with her family of tall young men who were cute little boys last time I saw them.
I spent the entire day away from computers and e-mail and I haven't read a whole newspaper since last Friday, so I feel as if I've emerged from a coma or I've spent four days in an alternative universe incommensurate with ordinary life. I paid $5 for a cup of tea, ate avocado every day, schmoozed with strangers wearing nametags, delivered a paper to a dozen people, shopped in a store where a sign proclaimed "50 percent off jewelry priced from $200 to $19,990," all experiences generally unavailable to those of us who live in caves in Appalachia.
But after a day of hiking and visiting and a night of traveling and occasionally sleeping, I'm happy to be back to my cave. If I had to live the MLA life all year long, I'd be a basket case by April, but for a few days it felt great to visit another world.
But happy. I had a great time in San Francisco, both at the conference and away from it. On Tuesday morning an old friend picked me up from my hotel and whisked me away to Muir Woods for a hike amongst the rampant damp greenery, followed by lunch, shopping, and a visit with her family of tall young men who were cute little boys last time I saw them.
I spent the entire day away from computers and e-mail and I haven't read a whole newspaper since last Friday, so I feel as if I've emerged from a coma or I've spent four days in an alternative universe incommensurate with ordinary life. I paid $5 for a cup of tea, ate avocado every day, schmoozed with strangers wearing nametags, delivered a paper to a dozen people, shopped in a store where a sign proclaimed "50 percent off jewelry priced from $200 to $19,990," all experiences generally unavailable to those of us who live in caves in Appalachia.
But after a day of hiking and visiting and a night of traveling and occasionally sleeping, I'm happy to be back to my cave. If I had to live the MLA life all year long, I'd be a basket case by April, but for a few days it felt great to visit another world.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Nametag Bingo
I had just been griping that I never see anyone I know at MLA when, for the second time in 24 hours, a total stranger sitting nearby looked me straight in the nametag and then held her nametag up to my eyes. The first time this happened, I finally met the chair of my panel; this time, it was JM, who blogs over at Battle of the Ants. The funny thing is that I had just been trying to call her on the phone and when she didn't answer, I grabbed the first available chair in the Hilton lobby--and sat down right next to her. Small world.
Given the large number of people here, I'm always surprised at how few look familiar. The passing crowd blurs into a sea of black and gray, my eye drawn to the occasional flashes of color; instead of faces, I see a brilliant orange bow-tie, a pair of sunshine-yellow pants, and slick pink spike heels. A woman in the lobby asked if a particular distinguished-looking fellow might be Stanley Fish, and when I said I couldn't tell, she said, "Lean over there and read his nametag." But the print is so small that I can't get close enough to read the names without feeling as if I'm preparing to plunge into a stranger's chest, an uncomfortable prospect for a reserved midwesterner.
Fortunately, others are less shy. I had a terrific chat with JM today--something that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't noticed my nametag.
Given the large number of people here, I'm always surprised at how few look familiar. The passing crowd blurs into a sea of black and gray, my eye drawn to the occasional flashes of color; instead of faces, I see a brilliant orange bow-tie, a pair of sunshine-yellow pants, and slick pink spike heels. A woman in the lobby asked if a particular distinguished-looking fellow might be Stanley Fish, and when I said I couldn't tell, she said, "Lean over there and read his nametag." But the print is so small that I can't get close enough to read the names without feeling as if I'm preparing to plunge into a stranger's chest, an uncomfortable prospect for a reserved midwesterner.
Fortunately, others are less shy. I had a terrific chat with JM today--something that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't noticed my nametag.
Of laughter and dread
I took myself out to breakfast this morning to try to shake off the effects of a lousy night's sleep. Normally when I travel I take along a stash of granola bars so I can eat breakfast on the cheap in my room, but this morning I needed a little pick-me-up so I headed to the Cafe Mason for pumpkin crepes and a cup of Earl Grey. The tea was delicious, the crepes adequate, and the service slow. But after such a rough night, everything seems a bit slow.
The fact is that I'm a little nervous about giving my paper today. I'm not nervous about the paper itself--it's on teaching humor writing, a topic on which I could talk all day long. The problem is that I'm not sure I can talk about it all night long. My session starts at 9 p.m., which will feel like midnight to me. I'd rather speak at 6 a.m. than at midnight, except no one would show up for a 6 a.m. session.
Not that anyone will show up for a 9 p.m. session either. Last time I gave a paper that late at the MLA, the presenters outnumbered the audience--and one of the audience members was the spouse of a presenter. We like to pretend that size doesn't matter (I'll get a line on my vita regardless of whether anyone shows up to hear my paper!), but we're lying. I don't know anyone who enjoys speaking to an empty room. It's an interesting topic and I had a blast writing the paper, but what will I do if no one shows up to laugh at the funny bits?
I want everyone to attend. I want to see people sitting on the floor and spilling out into the hallway, and I want random passing people to be stopped in their tracks by the sound of laughter. I didn't travel all this way just to hear myself talk!
So come to my session, okay? Nob Hill A, Mariott, 9 p.m. If my lack of sleep leads me to self-destruct in a particularly memorable fashion, I'd like to know that someone will be there to see and write about it. The least I can do for the cause of humor writing is to sacrifice my dignity so that others may laugh.
The fact is that I'm a little nervous about giving my paper today. I'm not nervous about the paper itself--it's on teaching humor writing, a topic on which I could talk all day long. The problem is that I'm not sure I can talk about it all night long. My session starts at 9 p.m., which will feel like midnight to me. I'd rather speak at 6 a.m. than at midnight, except no one would show up for a 6 a.m. session.
Not that anyone will show up for a 9 p.m. session either. Last time I gave a paper that late at the MLA, the presenters outnumbered the audience--and one of the audience members was the spouse of a presenter. We like to pretend that size doesn't matter (I'll get a line on my vita regardless of whether anyone shows up to hear my paper!), but we're lying. I don't know anyone who enjoys speaking to an empty room. It's an interesting topic and I had a blast writing the paper, but what will I do if no one shows up to laugh at the funny bits?
I want everyone to attend. I want to see people sitting on the floor and spilling out into the hallway, and I want random passing people to be stopped in their tracks by the sound of laughter. I didn't travel all this way just to hear myself talk!
So come to my session, okay? Nob Hill A, Mariott, 9 p.m. If my lack of sleep leads me to self-destruct in a particularly memorable fashion, I'd like to know that someone will be there to see and write about it. The least I can do for the cause of humor writing is to sacrifice my dignity so that others may laugh.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Don't touch that doughnut!
In a session this morning, an English department chair spoke about positive results of certain departmental changes: after a few years, he said, "our majors had tripled in size...."
Do you suppose he meant "tripled in number"? When the majors start tripling in size, it's time to cut the doughnut budget.
Do you suppose he meant "tripled in number"? When the majors start tripling in size, it's time to cut the doughnut budget.
Mastering the MLA labyrinth
After a full day of sitting and more sitting, I relish the opportunity to do some walking today in San Francisco, but it's not easy. I walked over to the Hilton this morning for a few sessions and I kept trying to take the stairs instead of those horrible MLA elevators, but the hotel is a labyrinth: stairs go to this floor but not that one, dumping me in odd corners far from comforting MLA signage.
Conference hotels, I am convinced, are designed to disorient the visitor, keep us trapped in a labyrinth that leads inexorably back toward the gift shop and the restaurants. I counted 27 people standing in line at the Starbuck's in the Hilton's lobby this morning, and the line kept growing while I walked past. Visible just across the street is a local coffee shop with no lines whatsoever, but to get there, you'd have to find your way out of the labyrinth.
I fought my way out this morning at 6 a.m. (because my body thinks it's still in Ohio) and walked down Market Street to the Embarcadero and back, accompanied only by the snap-crackle-pop of the streetcars, the snoring of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, and the occasional frantic flutter of a flock of pigeons. Walking on hard pavement is jarring to feet accustomed to gravel roads and mud, but on the other hand, I found plenty of interesting things to see. Store windows sparkle with dresses I can't imagine wearing, though it doesn't hurt to look; I've been lusting after a pair of boots on display in a store window a block from my hotel, and one of these days I'll go in and try 'em on, even though they look a little beyond an English professor's budget.
Down in the Financial District I walked past the Federal Reserve building, which looks the way a bank ought to look--as if it would be the last building standing after the rest of the city is reduced to rubble. Massive columns and acres of marble rise imposingly into the sky, and the street level is surrounded by large protective planters strong enough to repel the advances of a truck bomb but still capable of sustaining life in the form of azaleas, impatiens, and ornamental ficus.
This combination of power and vulnerability keeps cropping up in the sessions I've attended, most of them focusing on pedagogy. Everyone agrees that pedagogy in the humanities is in a vulnerable state, and everyone keeps trying to articulate reasons that the humanities are powerful and important and essential to human life as we know it, but it's a difficult proposition. Humanities pedagogy is powerful and must be protected--but if what we do is so powerful, why can't it protect itself?
And how can we protect something we don't know how to pronounce? In the three pedagogy sessions I attended this morning, there was no consensus on whether pedagogy ought to be pronounced with a long o or a short one. One scholar pronounced it two different ways in the same paper. There may be a way out of this labyrinth, but the signs are ambiguous, the stairways are hiding, and no one knows how to pronounce the words.
Conference hotels, I am convinced, are designed to disorient the visitor, keep us trapped in a labyrinth that leads inexorably back toward the gift shop and the restaurants. I counted 27 people standing in line at the Starbuck's in the Hilton's lobby this morning, and the line kept growing while I walked past. Visible just across the street is a local coffee shop with no lines whatsoever, but to get there, you'd have to find your way out of the labyrinth.
I fought my way out this morning at 6 a.m. (because my body thinks it's still in Ohio) and walked down Market Street to the Embarcadero and back, accompanied only by the snap-crackle-pop of the streetcars, the snoring of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, and the occasional frantic flutter of a flock of pigeons. Walking on hard pavement is jarring to feet accustomed to gravel roads and mud, but on the other hand, I found plenty of interesting things to see. Store windows sparkle with dresses I can't imagine wearing, though it doesn't hurt to look; I've been lusting after a pair of boots on display in a store window a block from my hotel, and one of these days I'll go in and try 'em on, even though they look a little beyond an English professor's budget.
Down in the Financial District I walked past the Federal Reserve building, which looks the way a bank ought to look--as if it would be the last building standing after the rest of the city is reduced to rubble. Massive columns and acres of marble rise imposingly into the sky, and the street level is surrounded by large protective planters strong enough to repel the advances of a truck bomb but still capable of sustaining life in the form of azaleas, impatiens, and ornamental ficus.
This combination of power and vulnerability keeps cropping up in the sessions I've attended, most of them focusing on pedagogy. Everyone agrees that pedagogy in the humanities is in a vulnerable state, and everyone keeps trying to articulate reasons that the humanities are powerful and important and essential to human life as we know it, but it's a difficult proposition. Humanities pedagogy is powerful and must be protected--but if what we do is so powerful, why can't it protect itself?
And how can we protect something we don't know how to pronounce? In the three pedagogy sessions I attended this morning, there was no consensus on whether pedagogy ought to be pronounced with a long o or a short one. One scholar pronounced it two different ways in the same paper. There may be a way out of this labyrinth, but the signs are ambiguous, the stairways are hiding, and no one knows how to pronounce the words.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
For your in-flight reading pleasure...
I thought I was prepared for my flight to San Francisco today, but I badly underestimated my reading needs. I was fine on the first leg of the trip, the four-hour flight to Las Vegas that featured a lively floor show by the Two Screaming Toddlers ("Step right up and take a look! They can scream all day without stopping to take a breath! They're going for the Guinness World Record for Non-Stop Screaming!"), but I finished my only available book (Born Standing Up by Steve Martin) before boarding the second flight, which featured a floor show of a different kind, i.e., flooding toilet. How can any sentient being sit on the tarmac waiting for a toilet to be fixed for thirty minutes without any reading materials at hand? I stooped to dipping into the in-flight magazine, where I encountered an article about salt, a substance in short supply on the flight since the airlines charge $5 for a few crackers and some cheez-like substance. Hungry? Read about salt! But don't have anything to drink, because if you do, you might be forced to venture into the Flooding Bathroom of Doom!
Next time I fly, I'll stuff the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica in my carry-on bag. That way I'll never run out of reading material and I'll have a way to fight back against the pestilential purse-swinging populace, those clueless ladies who sashay down the aisle with shoulder bags swinging right at the height of my head. When I get walloped in the noggin by a purse that appears to be stuffed with bowling balls, I'll accidentally drop a volume of Britannica on the purse-swinger's foot, and maybe I'll even allow a few volumes to tumble out of the overhead bins just as those Screaming Toddlers start winding up for an encore.
Next time I fly, I'll stuff the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica in my carry-on bag. That way I'll never run out of reading material and I'll have a way to fight back against the pestilential purse-swinging populace, those clueless ladies who sashay down the aisle with shoulder bags swinging right at the height of my head. When I get walloped in the noggin by a purse that appears to be stuffed with bowling balls, I'll accidentally drop a volume of Britannica on the purse-swinger's foot, and maybe I'll even allow a few volumes to tumble out of the overhead bins just as those Screaming Toddlers start winding up for an encore.
Friday, December 26, 2008
To sleep, perchance to drive
I once had a student who frequently missed class and wasn't always entirely alert when present, a habit that wreaked havoc on his grades even though he was a smart kid and a good writer. When I approached him about the problem, he admitted that he had trouble getting up for an 8 a.m. class. "If you want to know the truth," he said, "the only way I can be sure to get up in time for class is to never go to bed the night before."
I'm reminded of this student as I ponder over the best way to prepare for an early flight to San Francisco tomorrow: if I have to leave the house at 3 a.m. for a two-hour drive to the airport, why bother going to bed at all?
I would happily try to stay up all night if I didn't have to do the driving. This afternoon my adorable daughter left to spend some time with her future in-laws, and the husband has to take his wares to the Farmers' Market tomorrow morning, so the only one left to drive me to the airport at 3 a.m. is my son, who is delighted with the opportunity to spend some time gawking at airplanes. "How about if you drive first?" he said. "That way I can sleep on the way up there and then I'll be awake enough to drive myself back home."
I had been hoping to catch a few winks myself on the two-hour trip, but I suppose I can sleep on the plane. Besides, I've already experienced the peculiar joys of riding in a car driven by my son in the presence of airplanes: he's pointing out the features of whatever spiffy aircraft hovers into view while the rest of us are hollering, "Look at the road! Drive the car!"
So when the car pulls out of our driveway in the wee hours, I'll be the one behind the wheel. I'll pump in the caffeine and crank up some rowdy music and do everything I can to keep awake--which means I really ought to go and catch a few Z's right now.
Will someone wake me when we get to San Francisco?
I'm reminded of this student as I ponder over the best way to prepare for an early flight to San Francisco tomorrow: if I have to leave the house at 3 a.m. for a two-hour drive to the airport, why bother going to bed at all?
I would happily try to stay up all night if I didn't have to do the driving. This afternoon my adorable daughter left to spend some time with her future in-laws, and the husband has to take his wares to the Farmers' Market tomorrow morning, so the only one left to drive me to the airport at 3 a.m. is my son, who is delighted with the opportunity to spend some time gawking at airplanes. "How about if you drive first?" he said. "That way I can sleep on the way up there and then I'll be awake enough to drive myself back home."
I had been hoping to catch a few winks myself on the two-hour trip, but I suppose I can sleep on the plane. Besides, I've already experienced the peculiar joys of riding in a car driven by my son in the presence of airplanes: he's pointing out the features of whatever spiffy aircraft hovers into view while the rest of us are hollering, "Look at the road! Drive the car!"
So when the car pulls out of our driveway in the wee hours, I'll be the one behind the wheel. I'll pump in the caffeine and crank up some rowdy music and do everything I can to keep awake--which means I really ought to go and catch a few Z's right now.
Will someone wake me when we get to San Francisco?
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Our venerable squiggles
Around midmorning on Christmas day I'm sitting in front of the fire wearing my silly snowman socks (meaning I and not the fire am wearing the socks, and if I can't wear silly snowman socks on Christmas morning, when can I wear them?) while my daughter reads aloud all the warnings printed in the manual for her new cell phone, including helpful hints about the inadvisability of putting the cellphone in the microwave or feeding it to the dog and one sentence stating, in essence, that "cell phones should not be used where cell phones should not be used," the sort of tautology that normally inspires me, at the very least, to emit a moist snort of despair over the future of the human race, but not today. I am undistractable today, unassailable behind a wall of brand-new Christmas books, including Toni Morrison's new novel and Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ismael Beah and Steve Martin's memoir, Born Standing Up (and if that odd collection doesn't suggest a little something about the odd state of my brain cells, then nothing does), but the book that is currently making me entirely undistractable is the delicious Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount Jr., worth reading for its subtitle alone: "The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof: Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics,and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory."
An unusual abecedarius is Alphabet Juice: a little of this, a little of that, and a lot of attitude. Blount's delight in the English language is clear in his entry on consonants:
Fiddling with letters is pleasant to me, but the pleasure is not as pure as my father's in his basement workshop, scratching around in his store of nuts, bolts, tacks, nails, brads, woodscrews, lockwashers, sockets, grommets, early-American fasteners inherited from his father or his father's father, and other doodads conceivably functional enough, or curious enough, to be held on to....He was a man of large, stressful business and civic affairs, but I like to think of him rattling small hardware bits in the bowels of our home, the way a less reliable man might jingle his pocket change as he sets out on the town.
Alphabet Juice reveals Blount going about his father's business, except the small hardware bits he rattles about are words, letters, roots, and sounds. His many lists and peculiar juxtapositions jingle like pocket change, but he'll also introduce each coin's family tree and show how to spend it effectively. He explains the book's title thus: "Alphabet juice. The quirky but venerable squiggles which through centuries of knockabout breeding and intimate contact with the human body have absorbed the uncanny power to carry the ring of truth."
"If you handle them right," begins the next sentence. For anyone seeking some tasty advice on correctly handling our venerable squiggles, I can do no better than to suggest a large serving of Alphabet Juice.
An unusual abecedarius is Alphabet Juice: a little of this, a little of that, and a lot of attitude. Blount's delight in the English language is clear in his entry on consonants:
Fiddling with letters is pleasant to me, but the pleasure is not as pure as my father's in his basement workshop, scratching around in his store of nuts, bolts, tacks, nails, brads, woodscrews, lockwashers, sockets, grommets, early-American fasteners inherited from his father or his father's father, and other doodads conceivably functional enough, or curious enough, to be held on to....He was a man of large, stressful business and civic affairs, but I like to think of him rattling small hardware bits in the bowels of our home, the way a less reliable man might jingle his pocket change as he sets out on the town.
Alphabet Juice reveals Blount going about his father's business, except the small hardware bits he rattles about are words, letters, roots, and sounds. His many lists and peculiar juxtapositions jingle like pocket change, but he'll also introduce each coin's family tree and show how to spend it effectively. He explains the book's title thus: "Alphabet juice. The quirky but venerable squiggles which through centuries of knockabout breeding and intimate contact with the human body have absorbed the uncanny power to carry the ring of truth."
"If you handle them right," begins the next sentence. For anyone seeking some tasty advice on correctly handling our venerable squiggles, I can do no better than to suggest a large serving of Alphabet Juice.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Butter up!
A headline in the New York Times proclaims, "Butter Holds the Secret to Cookies that Sing."
Well, duh.
The whole point of baking Christmas cookies is the opportunity to bake with butter, pounds and pounds of it. I used three pounds of butter last week without blinking, and before you ask "How can you eat all that butter?!", let me remind you of the other point of baking Christmas cookies: to give them as gifts to our friends and loved ones. The neighbor who gave us his windfall lumber to warm our house definitely needs more butter in his life, and so do the neighbors who watch out for our dog.
So butter is necessary--real butter, no substitutes--but as an expert the Times article also points out, "home bakers don't always follow instructions properly." Here is a common experience: I take a plate of chocolate-chip cookies to some event--a bake sale, a church dinner, a piano recital--and it sits on the table with a whole bunch of other plates of chocolate-chip cookies, all looking pretty much alike. But at some point during the event a bunch of people, mostly men, will sidle up to me and say, "These are the best chocolate-chip cookies I've ever taste. You have to give my wife the recipe."
"Tell you what," I say. "How about I give you the recipe and you can tell your wife?"
He has been transported to cookie nirvana, so what can he do but agree?
"Okay: you start with the recipe on the back of the Toll House Chocolate Chip package, but you make a few substitutions. You have to use butter--real butter, not Crisco or margarine or imitation butter-flavored fatty substance, got that?"
"Use butter. Got it."
"And then you have to use pecans instead of walnuts--and get some nice fresh ones, okay?"
"Pecans. Got it."
"And then you have to use vanilla--real vanilla extract, not artificial vanilla-flavored fluid--and be generous with the vanilla. Really dump it in there."
"Real vanilla. Check."
"And that's it. Anyone can make these cookies," I say, but I know it's a lie. Anyone can make these cookies, but most people won't. They'll use Crisco and walnuts and a few drops of imitation vanilla flavoring, and they'll end up with the same old ho-hum cookies they've always made. That's why I don't mind sharing my best recipes: people who understand cooking will make the recipe their own, while the vast majority of people will make some cheap imitation that will never live up to its potential.
Here, as my Christmas gift to anyone willing to work with real butter, is my very favorite Christmas cookie recipe, courtesy of the King Arthur Flour catalog--but you have to follow directions!
Nick-of-Time Cranberry-White Chocolate Drops
1 cup butter, very soft but not melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp orange oil (4 to 5 drops)
1 large egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chunks or chips
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 cup chopped pecans
Cream the butter. Add the sugars, salt, vanilla, and orange oil, and stir well. Add the egg and stir until blended. Add baking soda and flour, mixing until blended. Stir in the chips, cranberries, and nuts. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets; flatten slightly. Bake at 375 for 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest on pans for 4 minutes before cooling on racks. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
It's that simple. Anyone can bake these cookies--that is, anyone who knows that butter holds the secret to making cookies sing!
Well, duh.
The whole point of baking Christmas cookies is the opportunity to bake with butter, pounds and pounds of it. I used three pounds of butter last week without blinking, and before you ask "How can you eat all that butter?!", let me remind you of the other point of baking Christmas cookies: to give them as gifts to our friends and loved ones. The neighbor who gave us his windfall lumber to warm our house definitely needs more butter in his life, and so do the neighbors who watch out for our dog.
So butter is necessary--real butter, no substitutes--but as an expert the Times article also points out, "home bakers don't always follow instructions properly." Here is a common experience: I take a plate of chocolate-chip cookies to some event--a bake sale, a church dinner, a piano recital--and it sits on the table with a whole bunch of other plates of chocolate-chip cookies, all looking pretty much alike. But at some point during the event a bunch of people, mostly men, will sidle up to me and say, "These are the best chocolate-chip cookies I've ever taste. You have to give my wife the recipe."
"Tell you what," I say. "How about I give you the recipe and you can tell your wife?"
He has been transported to cookie nirvana, so what can he do but agree?
"Okay: you start with the recipe on the back of the Toll House Chocolate Chip package, but you make a few substitutions. You have to use butter--real butter, not Crisco or margarine or imitation butter-flavored fatty substance, got that?"
"Use butter. Got it."
"And then you have to use pecans instead of walnuts--and get some nice fresh ones, okay?"
"Pecans. Got it."
"And then you have to use vanilla--real vanilla extract, not artificial vanilla-flavored fluid--and be generous with the vanilla. Really dump it in there."
"Real vanilla. Check."
"And that's it. Anyone can make these cookies," I say, but I know it's a lie. Anyone can make these cookies, but most people won't. They'll use Crisco and walnuts and a few drops of imitation vanilla flavoring, and they'll end up with the same old ho-hum cookies they've always made. That's why I don't mind sharing my best recipes: people who understand cooking will make the recipe their own, while the vast majority of people will make some cheap imitation that will never live up to its potential.
Here, as my Christmas gift to anyone willing to work with real butter, is my very favorite Christmas cookie recipe, courtesy of the King Arthur Flour catalog--but you have to follow directions!
Nick-of-Time Cranberry-White Chocolate Drops
1 cup butter, very soft but not melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp orange oil (4 to 5 drops)
1 large egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chunks or chips
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 cup chopped pecans
Cream the butter. Add the sugars, salt, vanilla, and orange oil, and stir well. Add the egg and stir until blended. Add baking soda and flour, mixing until blended. Stir in the chips, cranberries, and nuts. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets; flatten slightly. Bake at 375 for 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest on pans for 4 minutes before cooling on racks. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
It's that simple. Anyone can bake these cookies--that is, anyone who knows that butter holds the secret to making cookies sing!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Signs of the season
After the intense end-of-semester marathon of grading and paperwork, I have a little trouble winding down and acting as if I'm really on break. Today, though, I see signs that the semester is loosing its insistent grip on my person. To wit:
I wake up before 6 without an alarm, but instead of checking e-mails while eating breakfast, I enjoy a cup of hot chai and some short stories by Elizabeth McCracken before diving into the grand and glorious mess of baking Christmas cookies--and I don't even get properly dressed until the morning's half over.
When the Texas kid finally gets out of bed, I encourage him to lick the last remains of rich chocolate frosting out of the mixing bowl--for breakfast. I'm just happy he's here in one piece. He's been chortling about the patch of black ice he hit in Little Rock, Arkansas, which sent his car (my car!) into a skid and a slide and a 360-degree-spin in the middle of heavy traffic on a bridge, resulting in nothing worse than a paint smudge (0n a 14-year-old car that is more smudged than painted). Under the circumstances, chocolate frosting for breakfast seems appropriate.
Later we're shopping in a quaint little store in our historic downtown shopping district when the relentlessly cheerful "Jingle Bell Rock" comes on the sound system, and even though I find the song grating, I disobey the First Rule for Mothers Shopping with their Adolescent Sons and start to bob and sing along--in public. You'd never catch me doing that in class.
Later still, I'm back on campus but instead of clawing through stacks of papers I'm climbing steps to nowhere in the Rec Center to the incomparable accompaniment of Porky Pig singing "Blue Christmas," and that's just fine with me.
In fact, today just about everything is fine with me: leftover soup and salad for supper, a half-decorated Christmas tree, a sweater two sizes too big--it's all just fine. The Texas kid is home and the Kentucky kid arrives tomorrow, and as long as the next semester stays over on the other side of Christmas, I don't intend to think about classes for at least a week. Farewell, cruel campus! It's party time.
I wake up before 6 without an alarm, but instead of checking e-mails while eating breakfast, I enjoy a cup of hot chai and some short stories by Elizabeth McCracken before diving into the grand and glorious mess of baking Christmas cookies--and I don't even get properly dressed until the morning's half over.
When the Texas kid finally gets out of bed, I encourage him to lick the last remains of rich chocolate frosting out of the mixing bowl--for breakfast. I'm just happy he's here in one piece. He's been chortling about the patch of black ice he hit in Little Rock, Arkansas, which sent his car (my car!) into a skid and a slide and a 360-degree-spin in the middle of heavy traffic on a bridge, resulting in nothing worse than a paint smudge (0n a 14-year-old car that is more smudged than painted). Under the circumstances, chocolate frosting for breakfast seems appropriate.
Later we're shopping in a quaint little store in our historic downtown shopping district when the relentlessly cheerful "Jingle Bell Rock" comes on the sound system, and even though I find the song grating, I disobey the First Rule for Mothers Shopping with their Adolescent Sons and start to bob and sing along--in public. You'd never catch me doing that in class.
Later still, I'm back on campus but instead of clawing through stacks of papers I'm climbing steps to nowhere in the Rec Center to the incomparable accompaniment of Porky Pig singing "Blue Christmas," and that's just fine with me.
In fact, today just about everything is fine with me: leftover soup and salad for supper, a half-decorated Christmas tree, a sweater two sizes too big--it's all just fine. The Texas kid is home and the Kentucky kid arrives tomorrow, and as long as the next semester stays over on the other side of Christmas, I don't intend to think about classes for at least a week. Farewell, cruel campus! It's party time.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Incoming!
So I'm driving down my wet, muddy driveway in the darkness of early morning on the way to my mechanic's shop so I can get a new brake master cylinder and proportioning valves (because yes, I resolved yesterday's dilemma by making my careful way on icy roads to town in order to buy interfacing and take lunch to an ailing colleague and pick up a check to pay for the brake work, except that when I got to the cashier's office the cashier said, quote, what check?, and it quickly became apparent that the minor functionary who had promised that the check would be ready for me yesterday had failed to execute the paperwork properly to make that happen, and besides, everything was at sixes and sevens because many campus functionaries, both minor and major, had taken part of the day off to attend the funeral of the college trustee whose financial problems inspired him last week to blow his brains out, so the long and short of it is that the check was not available, but after I pointed out that it had been promised and by whom, then some wheels were turned and elbows twisted and the check finally, to make a long story short, appeared) when my progress is impeded by what looks like and indeed turns out to be a large Christmas package wrapped in plastic and standing smack in the middle of a particularly wet and muddy part of my driveway, positioned in such a way that I had to either drive right over it or get out in the mud to retrieve it, which I did.
It was a lovely package of fruit and other yummies from Harry and David, but that's beside the point. The point, in case you were wondering, is that the last place it would occur to me to look for a large Christmas gift is in the mud at the end of my driveway. I suppose it's a better location than the one our mail carrier chose earlier in the week--next to the tractor in the carport, where we weren't expecting to see a pile of Christmas boxes and therefore indeed did not see it until the bottom box was soaked through by snow-melt dripping across the floor.
Let me just admit right here that being my mail carrier can't be an easy job. She has to contend with the skinniest, twistiest, nastiest country roads in this part of the county, and if that's not bad enough, she has to deal with our mailbox out at the road, which sometimes freezes shut, and then when she has packages too big to fit in our mailbox, she has to contend with our driveway, which is difficult enough for those of us who drive it all the time and must look really daunting to those who are unfamiliar with its idiosyncrasies. When the weather drops snow or freezing ran on our driveway, it look impassable, and sometimes it is. So I don't blame our mail carrier for her reluctance to drive up to the house.
But: if she's going to leave a package in a puddle in a place where we would never think to look for it (the carport), then she ought to at least let us know; and if she's going to leave a package in the mud at the end of the driveway, then what's to stop the local dogs from peeing on it or tearing it open? And what's to stop the local rednecks from grabbing it as they drive by in their pickup trucks? And what if I hadn't been venturing out at the crack of dawn this morning to obtain a new brake master cylinder and proportioning valves--would the package of fruit and other yummies from Harry and David have ended up feeding the neighbor's annoyingly bossy basset hound? (If so, I can console myself with the fact that the chocolate would have killed her.)
This incident is not doing anything for my Christmas spirit, but fortunately, the Christmas package season will be over soon, and then my mail carrier can go back to contending with the icy roads and the freezing mailbox and forget all about figuring out new ways to drop off packages. Until next year, that is. Maybe we should get her one of those cannons they use to shoot T-shirts into the crowd at ballgames: she could sit out at the road and propel the packages up the hill toward the house. They might land in places where we would never think to look for them, but at least the spectacle would provide some holiday entertainment.
It was a lovely package of fruit and other yummies from Harry and David, but that's beside the point. The point, in case you were wondering, is that the last place it would occur to me to look for a large Christmas gift is in the mud at the end of my driveway. I suppose it's a better location than the one our mail carrier chose earlier in the week--next to the tractor in the carport, where we weren't expecting to see a pile of Christmas boxes and therefore indeed did not see it until the bottom box was soaked through by snow-melt dripping across the floor.
Let me just admit right here that being my mail carrier can't be an easy job. She has to contend with the skinniest, twistiest, nastiest country roads in this part of the county, and if that's not bad enough, she has to deal with our mailbox out at the road, which sometimes freezes shut, and then when she has packages too big to fit in our mailbox, she has to contend with our driveway, which is difficult enough for those of us who drive it all the time and must look really daunting to those who are unfamiliar with its idiosyncrasies. When the weather drops snow or freezing ran on our driveway, it look impassable, and sometimes it is. So I don't blame our mail carrier for her reluctance to drive up to the house.
But: if she's going to leave a package in a puddle in a place where we would never think to look for it (the carport), then she ought to at least let us know; and if she's going to leave a package in the mud at the end of the driveway, then what's to stop the local dogs from peeing on it or tearing it open? And what's to stop the local rednecks from grabbing it as they drive by in their pickup trucks? And what if I hadn't been venturing out at the crack of dawn this morning to obtain a new brake master cylinder and proportioning valves--would the package of fruit and other yummies from Harry and David have ended up feeding the neighbor's annoyingly bossy basset hound? (If so, I can console myself with the fact that the chocolate would have killed her.)
This incident is not doing anything for my Christmas spirit, but fortunately, the Christmas package season will be over soon, and then my mail carrier can go back to contending with the icy roads and the freezing mailbox and forget all about figuring out new ways to drop off packages. Until next year, that is. Maybe we should get her one of those cannons they use to shoot T-shirts into the crowd at ballgames: she could sit out at the road and propel the packages up the hill toward the house. They might land in places where we would never think to look for them, but at least the spectacle would provide some holiday entertainment.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Snow day
The radio weather dude informs me that we're under a Level I Snow Advisory. "Roadways are snow-covered and icy," he says, "So drive carefully!"
This ought to be good news. I've already turned in my grades, so I ought to be able to start a fire in the fireplace, put on some hot cocoa and Christmas tunes, and decorate the tree. But (and you knew there would be a but) instead I'm trying to parse that statement from the radio weather dude: How much snow? How icy? How many roadways? And why do weather dudes always say "roadways" instead of "roads"?
The problem is that I want to stay home today but I need to go to town. I need a piece of interfacing so I can finish sewing a Christmas gift before a certain young person arrives home from college. I promised to take lunch to a colleague recovering from a painful medical procedure. I need to pick up a check from the cashier's office so I can get the brakes fixed on my car first thing tomorrow. No check = no brakes, and no brakes = no driving on any roadways, icy or not.
So I'm torn: stay home where it's warm and cozy and comfortable, or venture out into the elements? Right now there's not enough light to reveal whether my road has been plowed, so I suppose I'll stay in for now, but later--who knows? This may be a good time to finally figure out who keeps hoarding the faculty helicopter.
This ought to be good news. I've already turned in my grades, so I ought to be able to start a fire in the fireplace, put on some hot cocoa and Christmas tunes, and decorate the tree. But (and you knew there would be a but) instead I'm trying to parse that statement from the radio weather dude: How much snow? How icy? How many roadways? And why do weather dudes always say "roadways" instead of "roads"?
The problem is that I want to stay home today but I need to go to town. I need a piece of interfacing so I can finish sewing a Christmas gift before a certain young person arrives home from college. I promised to take lunch to a colleague recovering from a painful medical procedure. I need to pick up a check from the cashier's office so I can get the brakes fixed on my car first thing tomorrow. No check = no brakes, and no brakes = no driving on any roadways, icy or not.
So I'm torn: stay home where it's warm and cozy and comfortable, or venture out into the elements? Right now there's not enough light to reveal whether my road has been plowed, so I suppose I'll stay in for now, but later--who knows? This may be a good time to finally figure out who keeps hoarding the faculty helicopter.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Time to feed the night mares
The good news is that I've finished my grading for this semester!
The bad news is that I've already starting having nightmares about next semester's classes.
Apparently my subconscious mind has washed its hands, so to speak, of this semester's anxieties and has moved on to the next set, attempting to work through some issues related to my Later American Novel class while I sleep. In my dream I'm struggling mightily to teach Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in a room equipped with a whiteboard but no markers, a chalkboard but no chalk. Even worse, I have to share the room with a horse auction. I'm trying to draw a diagram of the novel's narrative scheme (difficult enough in a normal classroom--you try it!) but I keep bumping into the mangiest, scrawniest, most spavined hunks of horseflesh that ever set foot in a college classroom, and I have to yell so my far-flung students can hear me over the persistent bark of the auctioneer.
The good news is that I'm not teaching Invisible Man next semester and that despite our current classroom space crunch, it's unlikely that I'll be asked to share a classroom with a horse auction even if such an event should ever occur on our campus. In fact, I've never actually encountered a horse on our campus, particularly in an upstairs classroom, so there's no real need to spend my sleepy-time trying to determine the best practices for horse-auction pedagogy. Nevertheless, that's how my mind occupies itself while I sleep.
The good news is that I finally woke up.
The bad news is that a bunch of mangy horses followed me and I don't know what to feed them.
The bad news is that I've already starting having nightmares about next semester's classes.
Apparently my subconscious mind has washed its hands, so to speak, of this semester's anxieties and has moved on to the next set, attempting to work through some issues related to my Later American Novel class while I sleep. In my dream I'm struggling mightily to teach Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in a room equipped with a whiteboard but no markers, a chalkboard but no chalk. Even worse, I have to share the room with a horse auction. I'm trying to draw a diagram of the novel's narrative scheme (difficult enough in a normal classroom--you try it!) but I keep bumping into the mangiest, scrawniest, most spavined hunks of horseflesh that ever set foot in a college classroom, and I have to yell so my far-flung students can hear me over the persistent bark of the auctioneer.
The good news is that I'm not teaching Invisible Man next semester and that despite our current classroom space crunch, it's unlikely that I'll be asked to share a classroom with a horse auction even if such an event should ever occur on our campus. In fact, I've never actually encountered a horse on our campus, particularly in an upstairs classroom, so there's no real need to spend my sleepy-time trying to determine the best practices for horse-auction pedagogy. Nevertheless, that's how my mind occupies itself while I sleep.
The good news is that I finally woke up.
The bad news is that a bunch of mangy horses followed me and I don't know what to feed them.
Friday, December 12, 2008
On onomastic gender confusion
On two different final exams this week, students repeatedly referred to the authors Wendell Berry and Etheridge Knight as "she." It's easy to determine an author's gender simply by reading the brief biographical notes in the anthologies (or by paying attention to class discussions), but even a student who happens to overlook that information ought to be able to discern gender from the names--unless Wendell and Etheridge have suddenly become common women's names.
Maybe the problem is that they're not particularly common names at all. I've never known a Wendell who wasn't male, but I've known only a handful of Wendells, all elderly people, and I've never encountered an Etheridge. Both names sound pretty male to me, but I am reminded that not so long ago it was not uncommon to encounter men named Beverly. So maybe my students are familiar with a whole host of female Wendells and Etheridges.
Still, there's no excuse for not knowing the gender of an author when the information is readily available right there in the anthology and it's an open-book exam. When in doubt, read the bio! It's got to be less complicated than performing a spontaneous sex-change operation in the middle of a final exam!
Maybe the problem is that they're not particularly common names at all. I've never known a Wendell who wasn't male, but I've known only a handful of Wendells, all elderly people, and I've never encountered an Etheridge. Both names sound pretty male to me, but I am reminded that not so long ago it was not uncommon to encounter men named Beverly. So maybe my students are familiar with a whole host of female Wendells and Etheridges.
Still, there's no excuse for not knowing the gender of an author when the information is readily available right there in the anthology and it's an open-book exam. When in doubt, read the bio! It's got to be less complicated than performing a spontaneous sex-change operation in the middle of a final exam!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A welcome contagion
I've finally figured out what to give all my friends and family members for Christmas--a gift scientifically proven to increase their happiness. But first, some background: A recent article on "Social Networks and Happiness" (read it here) explores the phenomenon of contagious happiness. Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler report on their research into how social networks (both face-to-face and online) influence personal happiness. They conclude that "each additional happy friend increases a person's probability of being happy by about 9%."
An effective way to increase the happiness of others, then, is simply to be happy oneself. Since the goal of Christmas gift-giving is (or ought to be) making others happy, then it seems that the best gift I can give my friends and family is my own happiness. Therefore, I think I'll take all the time, effort, and money I would have spent on other people and just devote it to improving my own happiness. Shall I start with a massage and manicure or head straight to the Bahamas?
There's a flaw in this plan, of course: few things make me happier than making and giving gifts to my loved ones. If making others happy is essential to my own happiness and making myself happy improves the happiness of others, then we're all entangled in one big network of contagious happiness.
I hope no one ever discovers a cure for this disease!
An effective way to increase the happiness of others, then, is simply to be happy oneself. Since the goal of Christmas gift-giving is (or ought to be) making others happy, then it seems that the best gift I can give my friends and family is my own happiness. Therefore, I think I'll take all the time, effort, and money I would have spent on other people and just devote it to improving my own happiness. Shall I start with a massage and manicure or head straight to the Bahamas?
There's a flaw in this plan, of course: few things make me happier than making and giving gifts to my loved ones. If making others happy is essential to my own happiness and making myself happy improves the happiness of others, then we're all entangled in one big network of contagious happiness.
I hope no one ever discovers a cure for this disease!
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Gifts of music
Being serenaded by an off-key version of "Happy Birthday" while driving 70 miles an hour on a pitch-dark and virtually empty interstate highway may be a surreal experience, but that's how my birthday celebration started. After 10 hours on the road yesterday, we made it home just before 3 a.m. and crashed for a few hours before getting up and starting the whole birthday thing all over again. I am thankful for my nice new warm gloves, fuzzy socks, and sweater, but more than anything else right now I'm thankful for the gift that arrived the day before my birthday: my daughter's senior recital.
The first time my daughter sang a solo in public, I think, was in a church Christmas program. She was dressed as a cow--Holstein, if I'm not mistaken. Fortunately, her senior recital did not require any bovine costumes: She sparkled up there on the stage and her rich voice filled the room with wonders. She sang some impressive works by Handel and Bach and Henri Duparc and Jules Massenet, and then she closed with a soulful performance of "Some Children See Him" by Alfred Burt, which is pretty high on my list of favorite Christmas songs.
My husband and I married while still in school and grew accustomed to doing without a lot of luxuries, but we decided from the start that no matter what else we had to live without, we would always fill our house with music. Last night I saw the results of that decision up on the stage, and the knowledge that my daughter will devote her life to sharing the gift of music with her own students fills me with happiness. I couldn't ask for a better birthday gift.
The first time my daughter sang a solo in public, I think, was in a church Christmas program. She was dressed as a cow--Holstein, if I'm not mistaken. Fortunately, her senior recital did not require any bovine costumes: She sparkled up there on the stage and her rich voice filled the room with wonders. She sang some impressive works by Handel and Bach and Henri Duparc and Jules Massenet, and then she closed with a soulful performance of "Some Children See Him" by Alfred Burt, which is pretty high on my list of favorite Christmas songs.
My husband and I married while still in school and grew accustomed to doing without a lot of luxuries, but we decided from the start that no matter what else we had to live without, we would always fill our house with music. Last night I saw the results of that decision up on the stage, and the knowledge that my daughter will devote her life to sharing the gift of music with her own students fills me with happiness. I couldn't ask for a better birthday gift.
Monday, December 08, 2008
An offering in righteousness
At a pivotal moment in Charlie Wilson's War, scenes of exploding warplanes are choreographed to music from Handel's Messiah, its prophetic text drawn from Malachi: "And he shall purify the sons of Levi that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." The irony is delicious: a handful of corrupt, godless politicians and arms traders aim to "purify" Afghanistan of Russian invaders by presenting to Afghan rebels an "offering in rightousness"--i.e., shoulder-mounted missile launchers. The result is that I am now incapable of hearing Handel's majestic melody without picturing plucky Afghan freedom fighters shooting down Russian aircraft and rejoicing at the results.
I really wanted one of those missile launchers last night during the annual community performance of Handel's Messiah. I would have aimed my first offering of righteousness at the person whose cell-phone blared out a jangly tune just as the choir was singing "And He Shall Purify," and the next one would have gone to the person very nearby whose cell phone buzzed repeatedly throughout the performance just loudly enough to be heard within about a six-foot radius. The flaw in this plan, of course, is that it the attendant explosions would be far more distracting than the noise that inspired it--not to mention that I might get blood-stains on my colorful holiday ensemble.
And so I opted for a different type of offering in righteousness. I don't know whether prayer is effective at purifying public places of cell-phone rings, but in the absence of missile launchers, prayer was the only weapon of mass destruction-of-distractions on offer. Handel would have been pleased.
I really wanted one of those missile launchers last night during the annual community performance of Handel's Messiah. I would have aimed my first offering of righteousness at the person whose cell-phone blared out a jangly tune just as the choir was singing "And He Shall Purify," and the next one would have gone to the person very nearby whose cell phone buzzed repeatedly throughout the performance just loudly enough to be heard within about a six-foot radius. The flaw in this plan, of course, is that it the attendant explosions would be far more distracting than the noise that inspired it--not to mention that I might get blood-stains on my colorful holiday ensemble.
And so I opted for a different type of offering in righteousness. I don't know whether prayer is effective at purifying public places of cell-phone rings, but in the absence of missile launchers, prayer was the only weapon of mass destruction-of-distractions on offer. Handel would have been pleased.
Friday, December 05, 2008
A brilliant plan to rule the faculty
This week one of my committees came up with a brilliant idea that will make me rich--filthy rich, I tell you!--if only I can figure out how to make it work without inspiring multiple lawsuits. As with most committee-generated ideas, this one was constructed out of an odd conglomeration of apparently unrelated but nevertheless salient facts:
"We could also equip the jump drives to administer electric shocks as necessary," suggested the SAPP, a mild-mannered man in whose hands it is impossible to visualize a cattle prod. Imagine the possibilities: a faculty member says he can't attend a meeting because he has jury duty, but the GPS tracker shows that the little dot representing Dr. Delinquent is actually camped out at a local bar; administer a quick zap and watch that dot jump!
It's brilliant, I tell you. Rarely does a committee conspire to create such a universally useful plan. The trick, of course, is keeping the controls in the hands of people who can be trusted to use the system responsibly. Imagine, for instance, that you are one of several finalists for a big teaching prize and you somehow gain control of the faculty monitoring system while the prize judges are visiting your rival's class...who could resist the temptation to administer a series of well-placed shocks?
So the system would have to be kept strictly secret and the password entrusted only to a select few reliable people. Me, for instance, and possibly you--but just keep this between you and me, okay? The rest of 'em don't need to know--until they feel that first big shock.
- The committee is currently organizing the annual January pedagogy workshop.
- In previous years, the committee has attempted to lure busy faculty members to workshops by presenting them with various promotional items, including tote bags, jump drives, and lanyards marked with the college's logo.
- The Special Assistant to the President and Provost (SAPP) is obsessed with ferries, particularly those serving the Seattle area, and monitors the progress of his favorite ferries on his computer desktop, where each ferry appears as a slowly-moving dot on the monitor.
"We could also equip the jump drives to administer electric shocks as necessary," suggested the SAPP, a mild-mannered man in whose hands it is impossible to visualize a cattle prod. Imagine the possibilities: a faculty member says he can't attend a meeting because he has jury duty, but the GPS tracker shows that the little dot representing Dr. Delinquent is actually camped out at a local bar; administer a quick zap and watch that dot jump!
It's brilliant, I tell you. Rarely does a committee conspire to create such a universally useful plan. The trick, of course, is keeping the controls in the hands of people who can be trusted to use the system responsibly. Imagine, for instance, that you are one of several finalists for a big teaching prize and you somehow gain control of the faculty monitoring system while the prize judges are visiting your rival's class...who could resist the temptation to administer a series of well-placed shocks?
So the system would have to be kept strictly secret and the password entrusted only to a select few reliable people. Me, for instance, and possibly you--but just keep this between you and me, okay? The rest of 'em don't need to know--until they feel that first big shock.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Another holiday tradition bites the dust
Some advice for those benighted souls unfamiliar with traditional holiday customs:
- A Christmas tree is not a weapon. While it's true that the process of erecting and decorating a tree may lead to some familial stress, it is never appropriate to assault your father with a Christmas tree--even if you're a 37-year-old still living at home. (Read it here.)
- Likewise, a sweet potato pie is not a weapon, especially when it's fresh out of the oven. There is some debate about the purpose of sweet potato pie (some folks actually eat it!), but it is never appropriate to slam a hot sweet potato pie into your sweetheart's face, even if you are a 46-year-old man disappointed with your girlfriend's culinary skills. (Read it here.)
- A Christmas decoration is not an invitation to vandalism, even if it's hideous. Every day I drive past a gigantic inflatable Santa with the globe-shaped transparent belly full of gifts and reindeer and I wonder when Santa started ingesting the goodies, but while the temptation to puncture or purloin the mutant beast is sometimes overwhelming, so far I've managed to restrain myself--unlike the 51-year-old woman recently arrested for stealing a 4-foot-tall Santa and other decorations from neighbors' yards. (Read it here.)
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
The gift of glee
Last night before the faculty meeting, the library director came up to me chortling with unconcealed glee: he had caught the English department in a spelling error. Several, in fact. Someone who shall remain nameless had sent out a message to the entire campus announcing that senior English majors will present the results of their research into manuscripts located in the library's "archrival" collections, including a presentation on the editing of a certain early settler's "dairy."
"If we have any archrivals, I'm not aware of it," said the library director. I'm delighted that my department has offered the rest of the campus an opportunity for laughter; it's the least we can do in this season of joy and goodwill. It's a gift, really. And considering all the times we have poked fun at the solecisms of our colleagues in other departments, it's only fair that this time around the gift of laughter should come from us.
But they'd better enjoy it while they can, because we don't intend to repeat this gift any time soon.
"If we have any archrivals, I'm not aware of it," said the library director. I'm delighted that my department has offered the rest of the campus an opportunity for laughter; it's the least we can do in this season of joy and goodwill. It's a gift, really. And considering all the times we have poked fun at the solecisms of our colleagues in other departments, it's only fair that this time around the gift of laughter should come from us.
But they'd better enjoy it while they can, because we don't intend to repeat this gift any time soon.
Monday, December 01, 2008
My wish list
Peace on earth, of course, and some fun free time with my family, but what I really want for Christmas is a qualified adjunct to teach one section of freshman comp starting in January. In fact, I'd like to get that gift lined up well before Christmas because every day that passes with no one to cover that course makes me really nervous.
A brake job would be nice too (although it's hard to squeeze that sort of thing into a stocking) and I'd like my son's student loans for next semester to be approved posthaste. I really want to get my resized wedding rings back from the jeweler, and how about warm fuzzy socks? The warm fuzzy sock season is upon us and I find myself all unprepared!
The new college library is already under the tree (metaphorically speaking) but I'm always in the market for more books. There's noplace like prose for the holidays, as long as it's not the sort of prose that asserts that "less wealthy people would be who is to be thought of to live in cities," whatever that means.
To prevent the proliferation of prose like that, what I really need is a competent adjunct....but even as I wrote that last line, the phone rang with a query from an adjunct desperately seeking work. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he favors coherent prose! If Peace on Earth is out of the question, I'll be happy with an adjunct.
A brake job would be nice too (although it's hard to squeeze that sort of thing into a stocking) and I'd like my son's student loans for next semester to be approved posthaste. I really want to get my resized wedding rings back from the jeweler, and how about warm fuzzy socks? The warm fuzzy sock season is upon us and I find myself all unprepared!
The new college library is already under the tree (metaphorically speaking) but I'm always in the market for more books. There's noplace like prose for the holidays, as long as it's not the sort of prose that asserts that "less wealthy people would be who is to be thought of to live in cities," whatever that means.
To prevent the proliferation of prose like that, what I really need is a competent adjunct....but even as I wrote that last line, the phone rang with a query from an adjunct desperately seeking work. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he favors coherent prose! If Peace on Earth is out of the question, I'll be happy with an adjunct.
Friday, November 28, 2008
A holiday footnote
Firmly ensconced behind a thick wall of student drafts needing immediate attention, I've made a point this morning of blocking out most news from the outside world. Thus, I am aware that something horrible is happening in India, but I refuse to think about it until after I've reduced the wall of drafts to a mere speed bump on the highway of my life's journey, just to mix a few incompatible metaphors.
But somehow a little whiff of news came wafting over the walls and I can't quite bring myself to ignore it: a Wal-Mart clerk trampled to death by a horde of impatient Christmas shoppers. What am I supposed to do with this bit of anomalous info?
Images come in all unbeckoned: pilgrims to Mecca and other holy sites trampled to death by passionate worshipers eager to achieve spiritual enlightenment. On the day afterThanksgiving, there is no holier site in America than the big blue box, which makes this clerk's death a sacrifice to our national religion.
But what sort of spiritual experience were the frantic shoppers seeking? Were they so enrapt by the visions of discounts dancing in their heads that they failed to notice the suffering body under their feet? Or is the sacrifice of the clerk a necessary part of the ritual?
And where in the Christmas story do we find the foundation for the traditional dash to the discount store on the day after Thanksgiving? Maybe I've overlooked a footnote exempting Wal-Mart shoppers from the whole "good will toward men" thing. Peace on Earth could be right around the corner, but we'll never notice unless it carries a tag promising "50 percent off!"
I don't have time for this: I need to exercise a little good will toward student drafts instead of obsessing over the enigmas presented by our national obsession with greed, but this news has disturbed my peace. Would someone hit the "rewind" button, please? Let's go back and start this day over, this time without the bombings and tramplings and worshipings of greed.
But somehow a little whiff of news came wafting over the walls and I can't quite bring myself to ignore it: a Wal-Mart clerk trampled to death by a horde of impatient Christmas shoppers. What am I supposed to do with this bit of anomalous info?
Images come in all unbeckoned: pilgrims to Mecca and other holy sites trampled to death by passionate worshipers eager to achieve spiritual enlightenment. On the day afterThanksgiving, there is no holier site in America than the big blue box, which makes this clerk's death a sacrifice to our national religion.
But what sort of spiritual experience were the frantic shoppers seeking? Were they so enrapt by the visions of discounts dancing in their heads that they failed to notice the suffering body under their feet? Or is the sacrifice of the clerk a necessary part of the ritual?
And where in the Christmas story do we find the foundation for the traditional dash to the discount store on the day after Thanksgiving? Maybe I've overlooked a footnote exempting Wal-Mart shoppers from the whole "good will toward men" thing. Peace on Earth could be right around the corner, but we'll never notice unless it carries a tag promising "50 percent off!"
I don't have time for this: I need to exercise a little good will toward student drafts instead of obsessing over the enigmas presented by our national obsession with greed, but this news has disturbed my peace. Would someone hit the "rewind" button, please? Let's go back and start this day over, this time without the bombings and tramplings and worshipings of greed.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Five reasons to be thankful
It's snowing! Once I get home this afternoon, I have no urgent need to leave the house until Sunday--so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
My daughter is coming home (and bringing my wonderful future son-in-law)! So, okay, maybe the snow can stay light until she arrives this evening, but after that, let the sky fall!
My MLA paper is done! Well, the draft is done...it's 10 pages long with a weak conclusion, so I'll need to revisit it after I get some distance. But still: next month I'll get to attend MLA to give a paper about a topic I love, and I won't have to spend any time in the big ugly interview room entertaining candidates desperate to work here. That's right--for the first time in four years, we have no search in our department, so I get to do MLA the right way: attend sessions, give a paper, be a scholar, and goof off, all on the college's nickel.
I'm done reading freshman drafts! I do have a pile of upper-level literature paper drafts to read this weekend, but from this point until the final exam, I won't need to read or comment on another freshman draft.
And did I mention that it's snowing?! That ought to be enough to make anyone thankful.
My daughter is coming home (and bringing my wonderful future son-in-law)! So, okay, maybe the snow can stay light until she arrives this evening, but after that, let the sky fall!
My MLA paper is done! Well, the draft is done...it's 10 pages long with a weak conclusion, so I'll need to revisit it after I get some distance. But still: next month I'll get to attend MLA to give a paper about a topic I love, and I won't have to spend any time in the big ugly interview room entertaining candidates desperate to work here. That's right--for the first time in four years, we have no search in our department, so I get to do MLA the right way: attend sessions, give a paper, be a scholar, and goof off, all on the college's nickel.
I'm done reading freshman drafts! I do have a pile of upper-level literature paper drafts to read this weekend, but from this point until the final exam, I won't need to read or comment on another freshman draft.
And did I mention that it's snowing?! That ought to be enough to make anyone thankful.
Monday, November 24, 2008
All-Star Non-Slackers
I'm sitting in my afternoon classroom enjoying the sound of students busily following instructions. They're good at this, these students. It's an upper-level literature class full of juniors and seniors, so I shouldn't be surprised, but still, I have to confess that I brought an extra activity to class today just in case some of the students didn't follow directions. I should have been more confident. These, after all, are my star students! They've been doing things right all semester long! Why should I expect any less today?
The cloak of visibility
These days my primary goal as I prepare for a walk is to look as un-deerlike as possible. Of course I want to stay warm and dry and I need enough pockets to stash my essentials (pepper spray, lip balm, tissues, keys), but what I really need is outerwear that screams one simple message: "I'm not a deer!"
That rules out my new winter coat: it's warm and waterproof and a bit skimpy on the pocketage, but its chief flaw is its color, a shade of taupe that could accurately be described as Bambi-esque.
Likewise I rule out the big green leather coat: it's warm and waterproof and amply provided with pockets, but its color suggests leaves--not a terrific choice for walking by woods during deer season. It's also about four sizes too big and bulkier than a leather sofa, and who wants to carry a leather sofa on a walk?
The red wool coat that kept me comfortable one windy July in Auckland is as close as I'll ever get to Hunter Orange, and it's plenty warm, with pockets you could smuggle a sheep in. However, it's not even close to waterproof, and all that heavy wool gets pretty uncomfortable when wet, like trying to lug a drenched sheep on your back. Moreover, that coat is sized to fit the much larger me who visited Auckland six years ago (in fact, you could probably fit me in one of those pockets), so I reject it outright.
That leaves the last coat in the closet: it's warm and waterproof and well equipped with nifty zippered pockets and all kinds of velcro straps, and best of all, it's bright red. One problem: it's not my coat. It belongs to my son. The fact that my son is a good seven inches taller than I am suggests that this coat can't possibly fit me, and it's true that I can pull my hands right up inside the cozy warm sleeves, but aside from that, it fits me perfectly--and it definitely says "Not a deer! Not even close! So don't shoot!"
So that's why I've adopted my son's red coat, and I intend to keep wearing it as long as he's not around to object.
That rules out my new winter coat: it's warm and waterproof and a bit skimpy on the pocketage, but its chief flaw is its color, a shade of taupe that could accurately be described as Bambi-esque.
Likewise I rule out the big green leather coat: it's warm and waterproof and amply provided with pockets, but its color suggests leaves--not a terrific choice for walking by woods during deer season. It's also about four sizes too big and bulkier than a leather sofa, and who wants to carry a leather sofa on a walk?
The red wool coat that kept me comfortable one windy July in Auckland is as close as I'll ever get to Hunter Orange, and it's plenty warm, with pockets you could smuggle a sheep in. However, it's not even close to waterproof, and all that heavy wool gets pretty uncomfortable when wet, like trying to lug a drenched sheep on your back. Moreover, that coat is sized to fit the much larger me who visited Auckland six years ago (in fact, you could probably fit me in one of those pockets), so I reject it outright.
That leaves the last coat in the closet: it's warm and waterproof and well equipped with nifty zippered pockets and all kinds of velcro straps, and best of all, it's bright red. One problem: it's not my coat. It belongs to my son. The fact that my son is a good seven inches taller than I am suggests that this coat can't possibly fit me, and it's true that I can pull my hands right up inside the cozy warm sleeves, but aside from that, it fits me perfectly--and it definitely says "Not a deer! Not even close! So don't shoot!"
So that's why I've adopted my son's red coat, and I intend to keep wearing it as long as he's not around to object.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wastelands R Us
A small group of students and professors hiked through a remote section of woods nestled in a slight depression in the mountaintop, quiet winter woods surrounding us as far as the eye could see. Through the trees we could see the tops of mountains in the distance, some of them looking flatter than one might expect, but this small area of natural beauty felt safe, protected, remote from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
Then we walked up a steep rise to a point where the surrounding mountains became visible. No longer protected from the bitterly cold wind, we found our senses assaulted by the weather and our souls assaulted by the devastation surrounding us. Behind us was a safe and serene haven of natural beauty; before us was a vast unnatural site drained of color and life.
This is what mountaintop removal mining looks like, and it's a sight not available to many people. Located a mere 45-minute drive from Charleston, West Viriginia, Kayford Mountain might as well be on the dark side of the moon. Mountaintop removal mining is practiced far from the prying eyes of a public so addicted to coal power that we don't care that this method of mining recovers only a tiny percentage of the coal from the area--while transforming wilderness areas and inhabited hollows into land on which nothing can grow or live.
On a snowy day in November we visited Larry Gibson on 50 acres of land his family has owned for more than 200 years, property now surrounded by 7500 acres of mountaintop removal mining sites. The mountaintops are sheered off and the rubble dumped in hollows, polluting creeks and other water sources with arsenic and mercury while removing wildlife habitat and acres upon acres of trees, mushrooms, wildflowers, and other living things, all sacrificed to feed our national addiction to cheap energy.
According to a 2007 New York Times article, "From 1985 to 2001, 724 miles of streams were buried under mining waste," and "If current practices continue, another 724 river miles will be buried by 2018." There's no hope of recovering a stream buried under millions of tons of polluting rubble; mountaintop removal chews up and spits out the land, leaving it uninhabitable and incapable of reclamation.
We visited on a Sunday when Massey Energy's mining operations were suspended, but Gibson described the relentless noise of constant explosions that make his small cabin shake, explosions that sometimes send debris and rocks as big as cars tumbling onto his property. He described the coal trucks that barrel along his gravel road taking thousands of dollars' worth of coal from the area every day. "Look at the houses you pass by on your way out of here," he said. "Does it look like any of that money is staying here?"
The answer is no: it looks as if mountaintop removal mining is removing everything of value from the region and leaving a vast wasteland in its wake. If wastelands are what we want, then mountaintop removal ought to be encouraged; otherwise, it has to stop. But how?
We couldn't look at the view from Kayford Mountain for long: the wind was too cold and the sight too appalling--we couldn't quite wrap our minds around the enormity of the devastation. But one thing I'm sure of: it doesn't take an expert to look at Kayford Mountain and conclude that what's happening here is just plain wrong.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Preview of coming attractions
Beauty and devastation coexist within a few feet of each other--but where? Coming soon: a full report on my recent field trip to an undisclosed location.
Progress
This week workers have been taking down the ugly blue barriers, removing heavy equipment, and putting the finishing touches on the exterior, and in just two weeks they should be moving books.
It's been a long time coming, but we're getting a new library for Christmas!
Popping wheelies
An article in today's Orlando Sentinel (read it here) explains that "Brevard County deputies on Friday arrested a man in a wheelchair they say robbed a credit union on Merritt Island and hid the money in his prosthetic leg."
Okay: the wheelchair robbed the credit union and hid the money in a prosthetic leg? That's a mighty powerful wheelchair.
Okay: the wheelchair robbed the credit union and hid the money in a prosthetic leg? That's a mighty powerful wheelchair.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Just one stupid thing after another
Juncos arrived Saturday so naturally snow arrived this morning, creating a slushy, slippery mess all over the sidewalks and roads, making this a really bad day to be wearing high heels--but considering the progression of stupid moves I've made over the past few days, the Imbecile Footwear Fiasco was just par for the course. In a mere 24 hours, I have:
- Driven home without my purse on a day when I needed to pick up groceries along the way.
- Driven home without my books on a day when I needed to spend the entire evening prepping for the next day's classes.
- Tottered out to the car in the snow on high heels in the pitch blackness of the early morning so as to get to campus by 6:30 a.m. to prep the classes I couldn't prep the night before due to lack of books.
- Walked to the bank to deposit a check at 8 a.m. even though the bank doesn't open its doors until 8:30 so that the only way to deposit the money that would prevent my account from being overdrawn was to walk up to the drive-up window on foot--in the snow--in high heels.
- Opened the driver's side window of my car in order to pick up the mail (which my husband had already picked up), remembering too late that while that window may open without much trouble, it really does not care to close (and a new motor costs $276 so don't even suggest it).
Monday, November 17, 2008
Syllabus serendipity
Sometimes a set of syllabi can create remarkable serendipity so that separate classes consider similar ideas at the same time. I didn't intentionally plan it this way, but my morning Concepts of Nature class is currently discussing Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood while my afternoon African-American Lit class is discussing Colson Whitehead's John Henry Days, and the two novels keep conversing with each other in my head.
In both classes I find myself talking about strange relationships between human beings and their tools and the consequences of treating people as mere cogs in a machine. This morning I found myself quoting a chilling line about an Atwood character who uses language as "a tool, a wedge, a key to open women," while this afternoon we looked at Whitehead's portrayal of a capital-T Tool that subsumes human beings into a meaning-making machine and eventually makes people obsolete.
Both books deal with the creation and function of myth in human societies, and both consider the consequences of treating life as a contest to the death. The two novels address the same question in different ways: What's the point of winning if the prize is a wasteland? What's the point of beating the machine if the prize is death?
A half dozen students are taking both classes, so they may be noticing this serendipitous overlapping of ideas. I'd like to have a separate class meeting with those students alone and see what they make of the parallels--parallels I never expected to find in two works so very different from each other.
For now, though, I'm enjoying listening in on the conversation between the two books. Serendipity is an unexpected bonus, an accidental gift that cannot be earned or expected--an experience of grace in a place where it's least expected. The only thing to do is accept the gift because there's no telling when it might happen again.
In both classes I find myself talking about strange relationships between human beings and their tools and the consequences of treating people as mere cogs in a machine. This morning I found myself quoting a chilling line about an Atwood character who uses language as "a tool, a wedge, a key to open women," while this afternoon we looked at Whitehead's portrayal of a capital-T Tool that subsumes human beings into a meaning-making machine and eventually makes people obsolete.
Both books deal with the creation and function of myth in human societies, and both consider the consequences of treating life as a contest to the death. The two novels address the same question in different ways: What's the point of winning if the prize is a wasteland? What's the point of beating the machine if the prize is death?
A half dozen students are taking both classes, so they may be noticing this serendipitous overlapping of ideas. I'd like to have a separate class meeting with those students alone and see what they make of the parallels--parallels I never expected to find in two works so very different from each other.
For now, though, I'm enjoying listening in on the conversation between the two books. Serendipity is an unexpected bonus, an accidental gift that cannot be earned or expected--an experience of grace in a place where it's least expected. The only thing to do is accept the gift because there's no telling when it might happen again.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The cruelest day
If April is the cruelest month, Thursday is the cruelest day. The weekend is so close I can smell it, but I have to climb a mountain of student papers, meetings, and class preparations first. As of this morning two of my 20 or so advisees still hadn't managed to put together a spring course schedule, which gets more difficult as time goes on because courses are filling rapidly. I just spent 30 minutes juggling classes and times and searching for general education requirements with an advisee before finally producing a workable spring schedule, but then he told me he's planning to transfer at the end of this semester so he probably won't be needing those classes after all. Cruel, I tell you. Very cruel.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Prone to wander
I woke to the sound of a knock on the door and jumped up out of my chair. "Who's there?" I said, which was a better choice than all those vague, unformed questions that generally pop into mind in the moment of confusion that follows a sudden awakening.
Usually I confront those questions in the privacy of my own home; today, though, I was in my office. Yes: a student came by for his advising appointment and found me sound asleep with my head on the desk.
I guess I'm glad it was a student and not the provost, say, or a certain member of the Board of Trustees who likes to drop in for a two-hour chat every time she's in town. Students understand what it means to be overwhelmed by work and weather and sinus congestion, so they shouldn't be shocked to discover that those forces affect professors too. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Surely the student won't make some snide remark on my course evaluations, will he? "Sleeping during office hours--tsk, tsk!"
Some of my colleagues throw things at students who sleep in class--erasers or chalk or whatever comes to hand--but I've never had the guts to do that, which is just as well, because I wouldn't want to be suddenly awakened by a well-tossed cellphone or backpack. It's bad enough waking up to a sudden knock at the door, a knock that calls my self back from wherever it went wandering while my body was asleep.
Note to self: stay awake! No more wandering in the office.
Usually I confront those questions in the privacy of my own home; today, though, I was in my office. Yes: a student came by for his advising appointment and found me sound asleep with my head on the desk.
I guess I'm glad it was a student and not the provost, say, or a certain member of the Board of Trustees who likes to drop in for a two-hour chat every time she's in town. Students understand what it means to be overwhelmed by work and weather and sinus congestion, so they shouldn't be shocked to discover that those forces affect professors too. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Surely the student won't make some snide remark on my course evaluations, will he? "Sleeping during office hours--tsk, tsk!"
Some of my colleagues throw things at students who sleep in class--erasers or chalk or whatever comes to hand--but I've never had the guts to do that, which is just as well, because I wouldn't want to be suddenly awakened by a well-tossed cellphone or backpack. It's bad enough waking up to a sudden knock at the door, a knock that calls my self back from wherever it went wandering while my body was asleep.
Note to self: stay awake! No more wandering in the office.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Scarlet A (for Atypical)
The recent alarming onslaught of unexpected health care has finally resulted in a definitive result delivered today by my doctor: "The lab found nothing atypical."
"So typical is good?"
"Typical is good," he confirmed. "Typical is just what we want to see."
I was so giddy with relief that I briefly considered having the phrase "nothing atypical" tattooed on my forehead, but that in itself would be an atypical act and thus a self-contradicting gesture.
Maybe I'll embroider a bid gaudy patch--a scarlet A (for Atypical!) with a black slash through it--and wear it wherever I go. "Nothing atypical about me!" I'll say. "I've got it in writing!"
"So typical is good?"
"Typical is good," he confirmed. "Typical is just what we want to see."
I was so giddy with relief that I briefly considered having the phrase "nothing atypical" tattooed on my forehead, but that in itself would be an atypical act and thus a self-contradicting gesture.
Maybe I'll embroider a bid gaudy patch--a scarlet A (for Atypical!) with a black slash through it--and wear it wherever I go. "Nothing atypical about me!" I'll say. "I've got it in writing!"
Answers to life's persistent questions
How many PhDs does it take to send a text message?
If yesterday's experience is any indication, my guess would be nine.
Why were nine women with PhDs trying to figure out how to send a text message on a Sunday afternoon?
To get the answer to a compelling question, a question so vital it could not wait for an Googleable moment: Was Lawrence Welk a Norwegian-American?
Did we ever find the answer?
That's a question I simply cannot answer.
If yesterday's experience is any indication, my guess would be nine.
Why were nine women with PhDs trying to figure out how to send a text message on a Sunday afternoon?
To get the answer to a compelling question, a question so vital it could not wait for an Googleable moment: Was Lawrence Welk a Norwegian-American?
Did we ever find the answer?
That's a question I simply cannot answer.
Friday, November 07, 2008
My new mantra
Way back in January at a campus teaching workshop, a specialist in something-or-other told a bunch of faculty members that our students won't be aware of the importance of critical thinking unless we keep reminding them--and that, in fact, we should print the phrase on every syllabus and mention it frequently in every class. I suggest a series of classroom posters: "Have you hugged your critical thinking skills today?" "This is your brain. This is your brain on critical thinking skills." "When life gives you lemons, make critical thinking skills."
Okay, maybe I'm being a little facetious, and maybe critical thinking is so serious a topic that joking is not permitted. That, at least, is what one of my colleagues suggested today. We were in a committee meeting discussing a topic that touches only tangentially on critical thinking, and when someone suggested that we should revise a particular document so that it wouldn't use the word "critical" three times in the first three sentences, I piped up: "But if we say 'critical thinking skills' in class every day, our students will be geniuses!"
Everyone laughed...except one colleague, who found my levity misplaced and offensive. "That's not funny," he said, setting off on an impassioned plea for serious attention to critical thinking. "Critical thinking is nothing to laugh about!" he said--and he meant it.
Well, yes, but it's Friday and it was my second meeting (out of three for the day) and I've got to laugh at something so I won't just lay my head down on the table and weep, and if there's nothing funny about the claim that merely reciting the mantra "critical thinking skills" will improve our students' critical thinking skills, then I need to find another line of work.
Love means never having to say you're sorry for joking about critical thinking skills.
See? I said it. Don't you feel smarter already?
Okay, maybe I'm being a little facetious, and maybe critical thinking is so serious a topic that joking is not permitted. That, at least, is what one of my colleagues suggested today. We were in a committee meeting discussing a topic that touches only tangentially on critical thinking, and when someone suggested that we should revise a particular document so that it wouldn't use the word "critical" three times in the first three sentences, I piped up: "But if we say 'critical thinking skills' in class every day, our students will be geniuses!"
Everyone laughed...except one colleague, who found my levity misplaced and offensive. "That's not funny," he said, setting off on an impassioned plea for serious attention to critical thinking. "Critical thinking is nothing to laugh about!" he said--and he meant it.
Well, yes, but it's Friday and it was my second meeting (out of three for the day) and I've got to laugh at something so I won't just lay my head down on the table and weep, and if there's nothing funny about the claim that merely reciting the mantra "critical thinking skills" will improve our students' critical thinking skills, then I need to find another line of work.
Love means never having to say you're sorry for joking about critical thinking skills.
See? I said it. Don't you feel smarter already?
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Advice for job candidates
If you've been meeting with the search committee for 45 minutes and they've asked only three questions, someone is talking too much.
(Here's a hint: it's probably you.)
(Here's a hint: it's probably you.)
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Much more what?
"This is a factor that makes the book much more relatable to."
The evolution of this appalling phrase is evident (I can relate to the book, so the book is relatable to), so just for fun, let's apply that same process to some other verbs:
I can conceive of the concept, so the concept is conceivable of.
I can put up with the problem, so the problem is put-uppable with.
I can submit to the requirement, so the requirement is submittable to.
I'd rather not go on with this exercise, so this exercise is not go-onable with.
The evolution of this appalling phrase is evident (I can relate to the book, so the book is relatable to), so just for fun, let's apply that same process to some other verbs:
I can conceive of the concept, so the concept is conceivable of.
I can put up with the problem, so the problem is put-uppable with.
I can submit to the requirement, so the requirement is submittable to.
I'd rather not go on with this exercise, so this exercise is not go-onable with.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Free advice for all!
For doctors: You know that moment when the patient describes a really alarming symptom and you try to make your face a complete blank so the patient won't worry? It's not working. It's also not helpful when you say "It's probably nothing serious but let's run a few very expensive tests just to be certain," because I stop listening after "probably nothing serious"--and I'm certainly not interested in spending a pile of money on such a negligible problem. I'd prefer that you put a name on the monster and tell me how to tame it.
For my Platonic mechanic: In an ideal world, I would allow you to fix everything you ever find vaguely wrong with my car so as to transform it from a good-enough car to the Platonic essence of automotive excellence, but in an ideal world I would also have an unlimited amount of money to spend on car maintenance. In the real world, I can afford to fix exactly two items on your eight-item list--and let's assume that I already feel awful enough about that so you can stop with the guilt trip already, okay?
For women: When the cocky state trooper young enough to be your son swaggers up to your car and wants to know where you were going in such a hurry ma'am, do NOT say "I was really desperate for some Midol," because (a) you're not getting any sympathy from him and (b) you've now given him another reason to hate women drivers. Just accept the ticket and move on (and if you need to cry, wait until after the helpful woman at the courthouse informs you that the fine plus court costs will put you back $150).
For the stupendously unhelpful non-humans responsible for Sallie Mae's non-information telephone line: Answer the phone. And if you can't answer the phone, provide an alternate method for me to obtain the information I need. Do not (repeat NOT) send me a letter stating that the loan for my daughter's final semester at college won't be approved unless I send certain additional information unless you are willing to reveal to me what specific information you need me to send. I can't read your mind! (Assuming that you have one).
For schedulers of important meetings: If you schedule meetings from 10:30 to 11:30, 11 to noon, 11:30 to 12:30, and 1 to 2 all on the same day and insist that I attend all of them, you're going to be disappointed, so let's try not to overlap, okay? I hate to run out of one meeting early so I can get to another meeting late.
In fact, if you must make my day that difficult, I may just stay home and take the phone off the hook so doctors, mechanics, traffic cops, student loan robotic voices, and schedulers of important meetings can't find me. Advice to everyone: if you need me this Thursday and you can't find me, take a chill pill. That's certainly what I intend to do.
For my Platonic mechanic: In an ideal world, I would allow you to fix everything you ever find vaguely wrong with my car so as to transform it from a good-enough car to the Platonic essence of automotive excellence, but in an ideal world I would also have an unlimited amount of money to spend on car maintenance. In the real world, I can afford to fix exactly two items on your eight-item list--and let's assume that I already feel awful enough about that so you can stop with the guilt trip already, okay?
For women: When the cocky state trooper young enough to be your son swaggers up to your car and wants to know where you were going in such a hurry ma'am, do NOT say "I was really desperate for some Midol," because (a) you're not getting any sympathy from him and (b) you've now given him another reason to hate women drivers. Just accept the ticket and move on (and if you need to cry, wait until after the helpful woman at the courthouse informs you that the fine plus court costs will put you back $150).
For the stupendously unhelpful non-humans responsible for Sallie Mae's non-information telephone line: Answer the phone. And if you can't answer the phone, provide an alternate method for me to obtain the information I need. Do not (repeat NOT) send me a letter stating that the loan for my daughter's final semester at college won't be approved unless I send certain additional information unless you are willing to reveal to me what specific information you need me to send. I can't read your mind! (Assuming that you have one).
For schedulers of important meetings: If you schedule meetings from 10:30 to 11:30, 11 to noon, 11:30 to 12:30, and 1 to 2 all on the same day and insist that I attend all of them, you're going to be disappointed, so let's try not to overlap, okay? I hate to run out of one meeting early so I can get to another meeting late.
In fact, if you must make my day that difficult, I may just stay home and take the phone off the hook so doctors, mechanics, traffic cops, student loan robotic voices, and schedulers of important meetings can't find me. Advice to everyone: if you need me this Thursday and you can't find me, take a chill pill. That's certainly what I intend to do.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Your Guide to the ORRF of the SPV
Yesterday we learned that Sarah Palin will be speaking at a rally on campus Sunday afternoon. Normally this kind of thing would have no impact on me because (a) I don't like crowds; (b) I don't like politics; and (c) I don't go near campus on Sundays. However, Sunday is also the day when a horde of prospective students and their parents will visit campus, and I'm scheduled to meet with those interested in the English major at approximately the same time that the candidate will be speaking to the gathered multitudes (who will have already taken up every parking space within five miles of campus by the time I get there...)
Moreover, my building has been designated the Official Rest Room Facility for the Sarah Palin Visit. My building is playing host to a speech tournament today, and since the custodians don't work on Saturdays, every trash can in the building will be overflowing by the time the building switches roles to become the Official RRF for the SPV.
(I wonder whether I ought to mention that fact to the prospective students and parents who manage to beat their way through the crowd to find my session? "Welcome to the Official Rest Room Facility of the Sarah Palin Visit! Souvenir toilet paper squares will be available at the gift shop, and if you're lucky, maybe you can get them autographed!")
The rally will be held in the Rec Center, so late yesterday afternoon we were told that the Secret Service will be cutting off all locks in the locker rooms during their security sweep, so if we want to keep our locks, we'd better get them off our lockers. I do not intend to drive all the way to campus today just to take my lock off my locker, so I went down there before I left campus Friday and took it off. I brought home my shoes but left everything else in there unprotected; anyone desperate enough to steal my shampoo, deoderant, or feminine hygiene products is welcome to them. ("Welcome to the Official Unprotected Locker Room of the Sarah Palin Visit! Help yourself to any personal items you see in these unlocked lockers, and don't forget to pick up a souvenir toilet paper square on your way out!")
I suppose I ought to be delighted that our little town is being visited by both VP candidates so close to the election (Joe Biden was here two weeks ago), but frankly, I'm tired of the entire election season and I'd just like to get some work done. Instead, I'll be serving as Your Guide to the ORRF of the SPV, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to wear.
Hey, maybe this would be a good time to break out that tiara....
Moreover, my building has been designated the Official Rest Room Facility for the Sarah Palin Visit. My building is playing host to a speech tournament today, and since the custodians don't work on Saturdays, every trash can in the building will be overflowing by the time the building switches roles to become the Official RRF for the SPV.
(I wonder whether I ought to mention that fact to the prospective students and parents who manage to beat their way through the crowd to find my session? "Welcome to the Official Rest Room Facility of the Sarah Palin Visit! Souvenir toilet paper squares will be available at the gift shop, and if you're lucky, maybe you can get them autographed!")
The rally will be held in the Rec Center, so late yesterday afternoon we were told that the Secret Service will be cutting off all locks in the locker rooms during their security sweep, so if we want to keep our locks, we'd better get them off our lockers. I do not intend to drive all the way to campus today just to take my lock off my locker, so I went down there before I left campus Friday and took it off. I brought home my shoes but left everything else in there unprotected; anyone desperate enough to steal my shampoo, deoderant, or feminine hygiene products is welcome to them. ("Welcome to the Official Unprotected Locker Room of the Sarah Palin Visit! Help yourself to any personal items you see in these unlocked lockers, and don't forget to pick up a souvenir toilet paper square on your way out!")
I suppose I ought to be delighted that our little town is being visited by both VP candidates so close to the election (Joe Biden was here two weeks ago), but frankly, I'm tired of the entire election season and I'd just like to get some work done. Instead, I'll be serving as Your Guide to the ORRF of the SPV, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to wear.
Hey, maybe this would be a good time to break out that tiara....
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