Blue. Different.

So there's this new Blogger version I just signed up for that lets me move page elements around without having to go into HTML.

The upside is that I can now easily put a picture, text, a feed from another site, or other things on the righthand side of the blog (more webliterate people might find this basic, but I'm happy). So if you have a pic you think deserves right-hand-column status, send it to me - otherwise we're stuck with Sacvan Bercovitch, so act quickly. We can also start using labels for each post, like tags on flickr, which would be really fun to do. I also like the collapsible archive listings.

The downside is I can't figure out how to make the thing list our aggregate names as it did before - instead it wanted to list only my name, which I didn't like, so I just took it off and now we're authorless. The other downside is I hope you guys can all sign in without needing gmail accounts. I'm not sure how that's going to work. Keep me apprised as to possible problems.

Guess what? Polar bears are in trouble...

and they are SO CUTE! And the White House knows it! They're finally being considered for threatened status, and the admin. admits that they're threatened because of thinning sea ice caused by climate change. It's all very well and good (and quite Christmasy! is this one's name Tiny Tim?) but they still won't officially say that *humans* cause this thinning ice, because then we'd be responsible for changing our daily actions and not having SUVs...which not even a polar bear with its paws tucked under its chest can make us give up. Idea: let's just name an SUV after it, and then we'll be squaresies.

MediaCommons

MediaCommons is a project for media scholars, students, and anyone interested. One of the people behind it is one of the Flow founders. It's worth perusing, even if you're not into media studies, just to see a fairly innovative use of web publishing for academic ends. Or, you know, to read about the homonormativity of Project Runway. C'mon, homonormativity. They have a "call for papers," but they're using the term "paper" conceptually -- they're really after "works of digital scholarship."

Having worked with Flow as well as a host of non-academic web publications, I'm pretty interested in efforts like this. One good thing with web-based things is that it can really cut down on the time drag in academic publishing, which is totally disruptive to things like television studies -- by the time people can publish about shows, they've gone off the air.

"MediaCommons is a response to the host of systemic problems that afflict academic publishing today. Scholarship -- and particularly scholarship in a field as fast-moving as media studies -- is hindered by the often debilitating time-lag between the completion of a piece of writing and its publication, and by yet more delays between the publication of that text and release of any reviews or responses to it. ...

The combination of such structural problems in academic publishing has resulted in an increasing sense of disconnection among scholars, whose work requires a give-and-take with peers, and yet is produced in greater and greater isolation. These problems are particularly acute for media studies scholars, who need the ability to quote from the multi-mediated materials they write about, and for whom form needs to be able to follow content, allowing not just for writing about mediation but writing in a mediated environment."

Writing in a "mediated environment" sounds fantastic. I'll be interested to see how this plays out. I know I've really valued being able to bring video and images into conference presentations; being able to do that easily with my papers/writings would, I believe, be really advantageous.

Rocky's Great Chinese Ancestor

Once again the NYTimes has run an article about the discovery of a new animal complete with action painting. Who are these artists and how did they get into this fantastic line of work?

As for the newly discovered mammal:
"...the scientists say it shows that mammals experimented with aerial life about the same time birds first took to the skies, perhaps even earlier."

YouTube - Barack Obama Announces Candidacy for President

YouTube - Barack Obama Announces Candidacy for President

I can't figure out how to have the clip up on the website.

Global Jeremiad?

I haven't seen the full text, but from the description in the NYT it seems like it.

East Austin's gentryfickashun makes the nat'l news

In case anybody missed this from the NYT yesterday.

Dinosaur Comics

Carly. I just started reading them a couple days ago (see how behind the Internet times I am?) and I cannot stop. Here is one that goes right along with my dumb "Jurassic Park" paper. Click on the link to see it in actual readable form. May you all procrastinate as I have procrastinated.

The usual term is "creative writing"

So, Ian McEwan got accused of plagiarism. The case against him seems pretty weak, and he winds up defending himself. His defense is basically a definition of "research," amounting to an admittance that he learned various historical details from reading other books. The really interesting part of this, though, is that a lot of writers, including the notoriously reclusive Thomas Pynchon, have rushed to his defense, saying that this level of scrutiny says very bad things for their art, and detailing the ways that their own works involve "plagiarism" at McEwan's level.

This has some relation to the current debates over copyright legislation/enforcement, and is of course, interesting due to the types of discussions still happening in the wake of the James Frey scandal and the Kaavya Viswanathan debacle and that whole James T. LeRoy thing. As much as I find Viswanathan's actions dubious, I'm ambivalent about Frey, and pretty nonplussed about LeRoy. How "original" do new works have to be? How exposed should their sources be? And, really, who gets to decide if things in creative works are true?

Random postmodernism generator

Sorry to make this the me-blog again (briefly), but my friend just sent me this, which randomly generates a theory-heavy essay every time you refresh from the link at the end. Is funny/funny/anti-intellectual/funny.

Against Said

On Salon today, a review of a book by Robert Irwin: _Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents_. Salient quote: "Irwin maintains that Said's thesis is false, the arguments he made for it dishonest, distorted and weak, and his theoretical framework self-contradictory and evasive. He charges that Said engaged in a counterfactual rewriting of history, attacking figures from earlier eras because they did not say or do what Said thought they should have. Said's entire project, in his view, is 'a work of malignant charlatanry in which it is difficult to distinguish honest mistakes from wilful misrepresentations.'"

The article holds Irwin up as a bonafide scholar in the field (and thus touts the book as a major reimagining): "Irwin teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has written on Arabic literature and art, and is the Middle East editor of the Times Literary Supplement." Sounds credible, though "written on Arabic literature and art"? That's a little weird. I've written on nudists and forest porn and am no expert in sexuality...Still, the book sounds like it could be important. Anybody else heard anything about it?

Oh, now I'm pissed.

The Bush Admin. has apparently begun shutting down libraries run by the EPA, with the flimsy excuse that they need to save some money. The agency says they're going to digitize the lost material, a lot of which is data re: the effects of industry on the environment, but there's no money allocated for that (see previous sentence re: saving money) and the Union of Concerned Scientists say they doubt it'll happen...

2 is coincidence, 3 is a trend

The Baltimore Sun says that "Does Your Chain Hang Low" is actually just the latest iteration of a subgenre of hip hop called "minstrel rap" (I might argue against the conflation of hip hop and rap, but that's not really the point here). The story references a few other songs, and points to a New York Times article discussing the "Zip Coon" connection.

On Longing by Susan Stewart...I need it.

Does anyone have a copy of Susan Stewart's On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection? The PCL's lone copy is checked out and "on request." If you have a copy, can I please borrow it? I'll be deeply grateful.

Surely somebody must know this

Looking for a book recommendation:

ISO a book that will explain, delineate, etc, narrative forms in film in the 1920s and 1930s.

Should be easy, right? Anybody out there taken a film theory class? John, maybe there's one on your visual culture list or something?

Some friend

James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, was going to help counsel Haggard out of his dreaded and painful homosexuality, but he backed out. "Uh...I'm just really busy right now," he hedged. "It's not that I don't like you. I'm just really busy. Too busy. To focus on your GAYNESS. Gay."

speaking of infections...

you can get $5 flu shots (with student id) today until 4pm at mccombs school of business
and tomorrow noon-4pm at the student services building on dean keaton.

Further Haggard tidbits- the jeremiad never ends!

Click on the title of the post for a great Salon article about Haggard's congregation's reaction to the demise of their pastor. Seeme like the jeremiad is alive and well, at least in Colorado Springs...

Here's a dissertation topic for you...

Can we come up with a name for this style? Redneck chic, anyone?

There was talk of getting t-shirts printed up for the course. I think Waffle House just did it for us.

Jonesy

Wales Millennium Centre - Jones Jones Jones!
I hope your family represented!

Can't hide, sinner

So last year, when I wrote that paper about evangelicals who pray for the souls of cities, this man, Ted Haggard, who is the head of the Natl Evangelical Assn, and the founder of New Life Church in Co. Springs (huge megachurch, I think maybe over 10,000 members), was the author of three of my sources.

In some of those books he recounted experiences sitting outside of "adult bookstores" and gay clubs, waiting to ambush people who came out with the force of his pitying prayer. Sometimes, if the people who came out were members of his church, he'd approach them and see if they "needed his help" getting out of the spiritual pit into which they'd dug themselves.

Now a CO man has come forward telling the world that he and Haggard had sex (that would be GAY sex), and that he helped Haggard score meth. The guy's story is pretty credible - he has recordings of some of the conversations he had with Haggard.

I'm not sure whether to be surprised or not. What makes me mad is that this will probably make no difference in the midterm elections, even though it should, because Haggard has had unprecedented access to the White House (he used to talk to the President or Rove like once a week - that phone line has probably been cut off at this point!). Access which he used to push anti-gay and abstinence-only agendas. Ah, the dark, hypocritical miasma at the heart of that whitened smile...

It's going down

Eat your fishes now, kids. Your offspring will only have your memories.

What's everyone taking?

Through my sinus headache haze, I realize I need to figure out one more class to take next semester (if my working does indeed interfere with food class, which it freaking might). I am at a semi-loss. What are you guys signing up for, and why?

New Edward Abbey book

Postcards From Ed: Dispatches and Salvos From an American Iconoclast.

Also in this article, a quote, from a 1954 Abbey journal, about Texas: "Why pick on Texas? Because it typifies, concentrates and exaggerates most everything that is rotten in America: it's vulgar -- not only cultureless but anti-cultural; it's rich in a brazen, vulgar, graceless way; it combines the bigotry and sheer animal ignorance of the Old South with the aggressive, ruthless, bustling, dollar-crazy brutality of the Yankee East and then attempts to hide this ugliness under a facade of mock-western play clothes stolen from a way of life that was crushed by Texanism over half a century ago. The trouble with Texas: it's ugly, noisy, mean-spirited, mediocre and false."

Damn.

Didn't they see "Mean Girls"?

God, the NYT cultural reporting section really needs me. In other news, I hate Halloween, and this is part of why.

For those of us doing orals...

I'm loving Virginia...

Built to Spill

So Pete just realized he's not going to be able to go to the Built to Spill concert this Friday at Stubb's because of work. I'm still going to go and wanted to see if anyone wanted to buy the other ticket from me.

happy birthday john!

sorry for the crease in your face,
but newspapers come folded, you know?

Um, so, in conclusion, blah blah blah, thus, etc.

A very useful paper:"How To Give An Academic Talk", by Paul Edwards. I just found it on the Society for the History of Technology site. I wish I had found it before our conference (not that all of our speakers weren't Brilliant). Becky, can we have an Intellectual Community on this?

best cat

here's a photo from the statesman today of cali, the best cat from the 2006 cat fanciers' association championship.

party time

saturday night (21 october) my co-op is having a party, mostly organized by me (as part of my co-op labor (= ). you and all of your posses are invited and encouraged to attend. we'll have 2 kegs of beer (one high quality, one not-so high quality), and fun times. i'll email out more information later.

asa dispatches?

any sensational news from asa?

The immigration debate goes comic

A fun view of recent events. This would be a good resource for any classes we're teaching. Or otherwise.

A rotten Baldwin

Did you guys know about this? Click title of post. Choice bit: "Baldwin writes that 'God has called me to go and make disciples of the youth of America. That is what I am going to try to do, and if you try to stop me I am going to break your face.'" You and what army, Stevie B?

Grupo Fantasma

Anybody happen to have any of their albums?

being politically active? what's that?

so. my friend who's in the harvard english program just wrote me an email about an idea he's been kicking around with some friends/colleagues in the same, about starting a political action committee in academia focused on the idea of changing american foreign policy. he wanted me to see whether anybody in my program would be interested in being in on it.

his basic idea is to try to start a force in academia that's interested in changing american foreign policy - a group that would be unafraid of appearing lefty or crazy or whatever. he writes: "the model for this group is essentially the NRA. Forget about public opinion and focus your attention on campaigns and putting pressure on politicians directly -- if most of the country thinks you're nuts, who cares? If the general population thinks an academic political group is nuts, so what? They think we're nuts anyway. The advantage, though, is that academia is a sprawling social network that's already in place."

(he also points out that it's disgusting how the torture bill's outcome got shoved aside by all this foley stuff. which is true.)

it's all true enough. the question is, what would we do? i think it's even more interesting to think of how we, as AMS people, would understand our own responsibility to integrate our positions on foreign policy into our work. anybody interested in talking about this more?

aq

how about that latest issue of american quarterly, eh?

I freaking love y'all

For coming to so many conference events, and presenting, and moderating, and propping us up in general. "A rising tide lifts all boats." - Becky D'Orsogna, August 2005.

The universe is trying to tell you something

What? You don't have the info anymore? God doesn't accept excuses.

come to the conference, all

maybe if you click it, it will get bigger

Exploring the unexplored

Dear cohorts 1 and 2: Come over tomorrow evening; penetrate the nether regions of this, my new backyard; write about the natives you meet; convert them or oppress them, I won't judge. Bring beverage and folding chairs. Email me if you don't know the address.

total undergraduate moment

this is somewhat in conversation with the previously posted poem.

i was just minutes ago walking across the main courtyard-courtcrete area in front of the tower when and where i witnessed an undergraduate moment. in a space between the bushes, at the edge of one of the grassy patches, a young couple was lying on the ground. the boy had his head resting on a football; the girl had hers on his shoulder, but was lying sideways as she still had her backpack on. they appeared to be fascinated by something in the sky, pointing and chatting, but when i looked up i could see nothing for the floodlights all around. perhaps they were admiring the tower and talking with pride about how great it is to be longhorns... unclear.

Building a case, one grumpy old white man at a time

Remember this? Here's more:

Samuel King, school superintendent of Portland, OR, about written examinations (quoted in the 1870s):

"System, order, dispatch, and promptness have characterized the examinations and exerted a helpful influence over the pupils by stimulating them to be thoroughly prepared to meet their appointments and engagements. Next to a New England climate, these examinations necessitate industry, foster promptness, and encourage pupils to do the right thing at the right time."

See? That is why I am so industrious, prompt, and apt. New England climate.

"I don't think I'll sell."

Please, please, please. Do yourselves a favor. Check out these Youtubes of the Kids in the Hall Gavin skits.

A question of immunity

Can a concept as timeless and perfect as Talk Like A Pirate Day jump the shark? It's on Yahoo's front page right now.

Oh yeah, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day.

The American undergrad immortalized in verse

Student

The green shell of his backpack makes him lean
into wave after wave of responsibility,
and he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,

paddling ahead. He has extended his neck
to its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,
breaks the cold surf. He's got his baseball cap on

backward as up he crawls, out of the froth
of a hangover and onto the sand of the future,
and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library.

-Ted Kooser

Is this poem: Utopian? Deluded? Stupid? Discuss.

RIP Ann Richards

They just did an obit on NPR and interviewed Molly Ivins, who told a story that went somewhat like this (but is way better with accents, so you gotta go to the link):
Richards was in Scholz's, and she was chatting with an African-American state employee (I think this was in the 1970s). A good-old-boy judge came up to the two, and when the employee stuck out his hand to shake, and said "I'm John Miles," the judge kind of touched it with one finger and said "How's it going, boy." Then he turned to Richards and said "And who is this lovely little lady?" And Richards said "I am Mrs. Miles." (Only in the Ivins accent it was more like "Ah'm Mrs. Mahles," said like sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth.) I love it.

Speak for yourself, Wooderson

"A very good team is coming to our house and wants to steal something that we own . . . a national championship . . . when the University of Texas Longhorns play for the love of his brother lining up next to him, for the pride of giving his personal best every down, for the honor of every grandparent that could AND could not be at the game, the final whistle will blow and we will be victorious . . . the wannabe thieves will be sent home hurting, humbled, and with a respect for our character."
--Matthew McConaughey, before Saturday's Buckeyes-Longhorns game. We all know what happened.

Austinist's pre-ACL party

Could be mobbed, could be awesome, could be both. Y'all should come.

cooking like a peasant

here's an interesting bit from the nytimes on changing perceptions of simple/local/normal/traditional in cooking (particularly in new england,
in this case).

The Wire

Big Cable is holding the new season of "The Wire" hostage from me, demanding that I pay them or they won't release the prisoner. Said prisoner was just described by Virginia Heffernan of the NYT this morning as "incandescent," "the best season yet," and other infuriatingly positive adjectives. Is anybody else - anybody who has cable - as into this show as I am, and does this person want to host me every Sunday night to watch it? I make a mean...food.

Mickey v. Clinton

So by now, I'm sure y'all have heard about the new ABC miniseries that points the blame at Clinton for 9/11. From what I hear the miniseries actually reenacts Osama being cornered by the CIA, the CIA officer calling the Clinton White House, followed by the Clinton administration doing a big fat zero. Additionally, while Albright and Clinton have requested advanced copies (which were denied), rightwing bloggers were given early copies and a promise that despite some edits the overall anti-Clinton message would still make the final cut. DailyKos is blowing up with the info.

Here's the question, can I still take my baby brother(2) and sister(4) to Disneyworld without feeling really terrible about myself?

NYT peeks into our world

I didn't want to post because I wanted to savor the fact that, for once, the top post wasn't authored by me (seriously, I'm not a megalomaniac), but I read this in the Times today. I think it's really interesting to see how the MSM is covering the debates we go over all the time (with relentless frequency, and to the point of boredom). Of special interest to the new cohort will be the discussion of the concept of exceptionalism, which I believe you must be talking about this week in your Meikle class.

Jonesey's Two Cents: Movies

So I just watched "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" and was quite mesmerized. The film centers on a quasi-quest, quasi-documentary narrative that sees folk singer Jim White traverse the highways and byways of Southern Louisiana and Florida. It's beautifully shot, has a great soundtrack and comes highly recommended.

I'd say more, but I'd ruin it for you. To the top of your Netflix queues, folks!

Laboring Day

Just heard a story on All Things Considered about the republishing of all of the Wobblies' tunes in an updated Big Red Songbook, this fall. You can hear some of the music too. Hallelujah, we're all bums.

Cross-cohort consorting

I just emailed everyone, just in the highly improbable case that people don't check the blog on a regular basis. The text of said email:

"saturday night, if you rookies aren't too psyched out by the weighty syllabi gestating in your brand-new binders, we were thinking maybe we could have a cohort-to-cohort hangout sesh at some local watering hole tbd (is lovejoy's still around? lisa?) what do y'all think?"

Warren Jeffs gets nabbed

Weren't we just talking about Warren Jeffs on Saturday at Pokemon's? It's as though our collective psychic energy, directed toward him, actually caused his capture. Next Saturday: we find Osama bin Laden. (This is the pic the Times ran of the Jeffs compound...adorable.)

James and ghosts

Review of a new book about William James and the Society for Psychical Research, in Salon. I would recommend it to whoever it was I was trying to convince of the awesomeness of the nineteenth century, on Saturday night (Eric maybe?) You have to watch a site pass to see the article, but the nineteenth century is totally worth it.

The Onion nails it, yet again

Sometimes I Feel Like I'm The Only One Trying To Gentrify This Neighborhood

I realise the Onion is a little hackneyed, but anyone who lives in my neck of East Austin will nod sagely/cackle/weep at this...

Hook 'em hard

We're the number one party school in the nation, no doubt due to our cohort's fine, if sporadic, efforts at the Crown and Anchor last year. Ready to keep up the good work, my friends? See you Thursday!

ASA

Hey gang,
So I'd feel guity about not posting/reading the blog, but it's summer and it doesn't look like I missed much. I was just wondering who is planning on going to ASA. If it's a lot of us and it looks like we'll all be staying at the hotel, instead of at our medicinal marijuana smoking friends' house, maybe we should try to plan a block of rooms.
See y'all soon

The lawn is over

You see, I am not the only one in the world who thinks that the American lawn is an environmental travesty! (And contrary to popular belief, it's not just because I am too lazy to mow.)

Dempsey busts one

Check out this guy. He's from Texas! He raps! He scored a goal today against Ghana! I'm trying hard to be posi.

Football! Football! Football!

Say it three times and it sounds like soccer... yes, the World Cup is upon is, which, unlike the World Series, actually includes teams from other continents. Forget the Olympics or the Superbowl (I heard some NFL players calling this "the biggest sporting event in the world"- pish) this is the real deal, and is an excellent start for those of you wishing to develop an interest in the beautiful game.

I'll be heading off to Fado (on 4th/Colorado) at around 7:45am to catch England vs. Paraguay. Much as it pains me to say it, I will be cheering England on despite the rampant jingoism now prevalent across England (the St. George's cross sort of offends me). It's all about the home nations. Do come and join me if you can- Fado will be full of beered-up expatriates shouting merrily at the screen., and I guarantee merriment.

conference nagging

hey folks-

just a reminder to send in your abstracts and bios for the conference by 30 june (sooner always works too (= ). we need to have 'em to put panels together and to publish in the conference program. somebody yelp if we need to send out the cfp again.

thank you muchly!

dog puncher in the yukon

quote from _a dog-puncher in the yukon_, by arthur walden (1928):

"The theaters [in the Yukon during the Gold Rush] were good, bad, and indifferent. We had a troupe that was wintering there, and they gave a series of old plays that were really very well done. Of course 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' had to be given. I had seen this several times in my life, but I never saw the parts of Eliza and Simon Legree so well done. I can't say as much for the pack of bloodhounds. They were represented by a Malamute puppy, drawn across the stage in a sitting position by an invisible wire and yelling his full displeasure to the gods. The ice was represented by newspapers. Eliza acted her part exceptionally well on the newspapers, having seen people actually cross floating ice."

is anchorage the world's most depressing city?

i think yes, if only because it's surrounded by wildly beautiful mountains, yet has negative 14 degrees of charm. to wit:



public "art" outside my red roof inn.



commentary on the sad mixed up state of modern america.



my nightlife options. note: picture taken at 10:30 pm.

i'm off to homer tomorrow. thank GOD.

for everyone who's going to write an m.a. report...

What would be helpful?

Hey y'all. So in the next couple of weeks I'm helping to plan next year's orientation. For those of you coming in, what would you like included in the program? For those of you who went through it last year, what do you wish the department had done differently?

Some ideas:
EndNote training
PCL database overview
Center for American History
HRC
Blanton Art Museum
Hogg Foundation Library
Benson Latin American Center

Obviously, it is not feasible to do all of these things in a day or two, but if there is enough interest, I can probably arrange meetings throughout the first month or so that people are here to get this stuff done.

nerd heaven

from today's nyt mag cover story on the soon-to-be-reality digital universal library:

"Once a book has been integrated into the new expanded library by means of this linking, its text will no longer be separate from the text in other books. For instance, today a serious nonfiction book will usually have a bibliography and some kind of footnotes. When books are deeply linked, you'll be able to click on the title in any bibliography or any footnote and find the actual book referred to in the footnote. The books referenced in that book's bibliography will themselves be available, and so you can hop through the library in the same way we hop through Web links, traveling from footnote to footnote to footnote until you reach the bottom of things."

omigod, omigod, omigod!

Off Home

Hooray I'm nearly done with all of my work and ready to jet back home. I'll be back on the 1st June, so summer shenanigans will ensue.

If anyone wants anything bringing back from the old world, drop me a line.

Last dance

Marvin made a good suggestion in the comment to that last post - we should have happy hour tomorrow (weds) or thurs, so we can see each other before we all disperse. (Well, there's Mark's party, but I think some will already be gone for that.)

Weds is better for me, but I could probably do either in the end. What do you say?

I just passed in my last paper...

and now I am officially ALLOWED to procrastinate. Thus, take a look at this cool site. It's all about book cover art.

suzan-lori parks

I am supposed to be interviewing her next week. Does anybody 1) Have a copy of Top Dog/Underdog for me to borrow? 2) Have any ideas for questions I should ask her?

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

From today's Times, a story about a 60s Chicano radical which definitely highlights the continuing relevance of said treaty in people's lives...

Koalas: Losers

Via Mannahatta, a very convincing essay about koalas, written by an eighth-grader. Do we think it's a fake? Who cares? It's hilarious. No Joni Mitchell footnotes in this one. Excerpt:

"If a koala goes in the water it won't be able to breathe
with its little short ass. It'd fucking drown soon aas it take
one step into the water. While they at the river trying to get
something to drink a bear could just come to him and snatch its
ass up. It doesn't know protection because they don't have
protection. What they little ass going to do? It can't scratch
him. The bear will beat his fucking ass."

Obviously...

I invited the virgin landers (aka the new cohort) to join us. Welcome.

I am reaching my nadir

So I have just managed to get a footnote about Joni Mitchell into my paper on ruins/stripmalls/parking lots: even paradise was paved in "Big Yellow Taxi".

For any of you wanting a pop culture reference for discussions of Silent Spring look no further than the second verse:

"Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But LEAVE me the birds and the bees
Please!"

On non-cognates

This just across my desk via the austinist listserv: Lance Armstrong movie being filmed; Matt Damon (?) in the lead. Directed by Frank Marshall, whose other credits include Arachnophobia and Eight Below. It's gonna be very. As somebody on the list pointed out, wouldn't it be awesome if Affleck played Sheryl Crow, and just as visually appropriate?

A favor

Would anyone be able to give me a ride to Mark's house tomorrow? I'll be on campus all morning as I'm at work.

Muchos gracias!

A favor

Would anyone be able to give me a ride to Mark's house tomorrow? I'll be on campus all morning as I'm at work.

Muchos gracias!

Procrastination

If you want a break, check out Steve Colbert at the White House Press Corp Dinner. It is hysterical, how uncomfortable he makes everyone.

peace cat

here's the peace cat picture from coyote corner's site... i meant to add it at the end of the paper for those who had expressed interest in seeing it, but, well, i didn't.

thinking about texas

so, the other day i IMed with that girl who's doing the academic research on what-it's-like-to-be-in-texas (remember, lisa jaskolka sent us her email address?) she's really hoping to interview some more UT grad students, both texan and non-texan. here's her email address: tlsmith at ucdavis dot edu. and here's the address of the blog she started on the topic. in the interest of good journalist karma, i told her i'd post here and see if anybody else wants to talk...

drunk people+crayons+pricey art=blanton opening at 3am

anyone else go to the blanton tonight?

Field Trip

So, I friend of mine just told me about the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health - what does this have to do with us, aside from the mental health counseling we will perhaps all need after end-of-semester paper writing? Apparently they have a library/database/librarians who work on finding people grant money. That's right there is actually a physical space where people are paid to help people like us find some cash.

I thought this would be a great place to take the new cohort as part of their orientation, but I also thought it would be worth testing out (by which I mean, find my own money before sharing the potential bounty with strangers). Anyone up for a little field trip?

partial liberation

anybody want to meet after turning in papers tomorrow & have happy hour? i know i'm not going to feel like going back to work...

has anybody else been totally foiled trying to get to jstor and/or academic search premier from the ut library's website today?

i think the problem has to be with ut, because jstor.org comes up fine (of course, we can't use it because we have to access through ut).

U.S. Grant

It's his birthday. Has anybody ever read his memoirs? Apparently Mark Twain published them, on a subscription basis, and he had ex-Union soldiers go door-to-door in uniform to try to sell people on the idea. Marketing genius! Made tons of money.

Why have I never heard of this/had to read them in class?

This is reinforcing, once again, my perception that I need to be forced—bodily, if necessary—to take a hardcore intro-to-American History seminar.

no der.

really.

Tell me again?

How are we turning our papers in? We're putting a paper copy in Mark's box; Blackboarding to the rest of the class? Email communication has been interpretable multiple ways.

Shameless

Why not just build a secret underground tunnel between Fox News and the White House and be done with it?

RIP Jane Jacobs

She looks a really nice lady, doesn't she?

Invitations

So do y'all think we should invite the new cohort to join Neverending Jeremiad. I think it would be a nice jesture.

Update: Yikes! EndNote has turned against me

So it wasn't Endnote, but Microsoft Word that betrayed me (shaking fist at Bill Gates). For future reference, if undesirable field codes are showing up in your Word document press ALT+F9 and it should go back to the normal view.

My opinion on Chilean movies

If you want it, check out Austinist. I started writing film reviews for them as of today. My first post is like a million pages down, but you can search for my name.

Now I must work again, or Becky will chastise me.

knitting can save the world!

if anyone had any doubts....

knitters are suiting up penguins for oil spill recovery.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Knitters-save-endangered-penguins-lives/2006/04/07/1143916701251.html

13 Ways of Seeing Nature in LA

Well. This is an article I like very much but have not had time to finish. It's by Jennifer Price, who wrote a book called Flight Maps and is a yale history PhD (wm. cronon protege) who ended up deciding to work outside of academia, as a writer.

The piece addresses many of what I see as extremely pertinent questions for those who would be environmentalists and writers/historians: namely, what kind of "nature" is it that we choose to write about? If we really want others to examine/refine their relationship to the environment, shouldn't we talk about/prize the nature that most people see and work with every day, instead of canyons and hawks and dolphins?

Or, as Jennifer Price would put it far better than I just summarized:

"If L.A. symbolizes 'the end of nature' (to use Bill McKibben’s dangerously catchy phrase), it actually has more than enough real fodder for such tales, if you want to write about the sunset on Broad Beach in Malibu or the hawks soaring in Temescal Canyon or the dolphins leaping just offshore or how your heart soars like a hawk or leaps like a dolphin as you watch the sun set offshore from atop the trail in Temescal Canyon.

But there are so many more kinds of nature stories to tell here. I head for L.A.’s wild spots when I can, and delight in hawks, dolphins, and sunsets as much as the next nature lover. I have a special soft spot for ducks. But the anthologies ignore about 90 percent of the nature in L.A. and all the other places we live, as well as most of people’s encounters with nature on Earth. What the crisis of nature writing amounts to, in a few words, is that Thoreau really, really needs to Get on the Bus.

And my own list of favorite representative topics for a more comprehensive, on the bus nature writing in Los Angeles would have to include mango body whips, the social geography of air, Zu-Zu the murdered Chihuahua, and Mapleton Drive near Bel Air. And, of course, the L.A. River, where all the possible kinds of nature stories in L.A. converge."

Dogs and bears and horses

Y'all, please come to the roundtable I'm moderating on Saturday. It's at 1:15 pm, in the Governor's Room, in the TX Union.

Don't miss the opportunity to hear the story of Balto the wonder dog, who appears here lovingly cast in bronze and immortalized in Anchorage! The tale will be told and then deconstructed, ams-style! Frozen men of the North will make multiple appearances, only to be chastised for their paternalistic attitude toward "Esquimeaux"!

Also, two other people from my class are presenting - so you'll also get to hear about grizzly bears and racehorses. What the hell else are you going to do of a Saturday?

Next semester classes

Hey MA-ers,

Anyone know when we're "supposed" to take our 3 credit Master report section? I figured it would be good to know before meeting with Steve tomorrow.

bun run

this sunday is the schlotzky's bun run at auditorium shores.
i'm gonna do it, but it will be more like a bun walk, as the only
running i've been doing lately is to pcl to get some book before
the circulation desk closes.

www.bunrun.com

addendum:
for those with aversion to the word "bun," there is a 5k called the "ashdash" on saturday.

Great Spirit, help me to be strong

At my roommate's gentle prodding, we just got cable TV. My plan is to pretend like we didn't until May 8. Then, y'all have to come over one night so we can sit and watch it for six hours straight.

I think someone wanted to see this, so here it is...

Mack Brown reprazentin' in Norman, OK: 10/31/05.

crazy cat lady

the title links to an article about a local woman who just had 77 cats removed from her backyard.

it's going to take a lot to earn the title "crazy cat lady" after this.

i do like that the statesman named the article file "meow.html"

(and yes, i edited the title... as much as i tried to get over it, both who and whom
bugged me, for their own reasons)

Ruination Day

Oh, it's April 14! It's the anniversary of A. Lincoln's assassination, and of Black Sunday (when a big windstorm hit the Dust Bowl in '35), and of the sinking of the Titanic.

Should we all stay home to forestall disaster? Or to write our papers? Or both?

On the upside, Steinbeck published _The Grapes of Wrath_ on April 14, too, in 1939. And Gillian Welch got what I think are a couple good, melancholy songs out of the events of the date.

But I guess maybe if you don't like her music, that just adds to the disaster for you.

Collyer disease

Not that anybody wants to think of acquiring any more books at this point in the semester, but there's a big used book sale next weekend and the week after. I will probably go, because I am addicted to paper matter and thus doomed to die like those pack rat brothers in New York who were found smothered under the weight of their own hoarded newspapers.

american psycho

On a more sobering note, here's the text of that drunken lacrosse email, which was, indeed, sent post-party...

"Why look at fish?"

You mean besides the fact that they're awesome? Here's that aquarium article from the Believer that John was talking about today in class.

Further information on "Scout's Honor"

Here's an interesting *cough* response.

Boy Scout movie

If you googled that, I bet you'd get something gross. Anybody watch it yet? How long is it?

AMS 394 Final Paper

If anyone has one of the good papers from last year could you tell me approx. how many sources they used? This is probably not how I should approach my research for this paper, but I thought that Mark, when he originally explained the project, implied that it was good to have a lot of sources, but not that many pages.

hi

so, for all who have the time/inclination, let's bring some snacks to class tomorrow. anything is fine, bag of chips, whatever. i have been sitting in the dark and desperately need to go somewhere to purchase a lightbulb, so i will plan to get some trail mix bars while i am at the store.

except for those who have their own strong inclination to do so, we'll skip the mass going to showdown after. perhaps in may....

Frank Hamilton Cushing

The supp. article this week calls him an "oddball," so I googled him. The dude was born in 1857 and was the curator of the ethnological dept at the National Museum in DC by the time he was nineteen. He went on an expedition with John Wesley Powell to New Mexico in 1879 and then just up and moved in with the Zunis. He initially pissed them off because he was so inquisitive, and then they accepted him and made him part of the Priesthood of the Bow. After all that, he died in 1900 after choking on a fishbone in Maine. I love these weirdos!