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!