November 2008 Archives

Read it and weep, people.  I've been on the Hugh Jackman train for years - nice to know the folks at People Magazine have finally seen the light.

Or something.  Tony tagged me, and I haven't checked my inbox in a while...sorry!  I wasn't ignoring you on purpose--that you know of, anyway.

Here are the rules:

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write 6 random things about yourself.
Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So I'm supposed to tell you 6 things about myself that you don't know.  Huh.  That's actually a poser, since I've sort of been the Queen of Overshare on this blog, and I'd like to keep this somewhat clean.

Here goes nothing--stop me if you've heard these before:

• I was almost chewed on by a rat as an infant.  This is a long story involving a crawlspace at my grandparents' house, a nearby creek, industrious rodential gnawing, and my mother awakening suddenly in the middle of the night to see a large shadowy figure on the rail of my crib. Thwacking and screaming and wall-patching apparently ensued. There may have been a shotgun involved.
• My thumbs are double-jointed.  You would think this would be cool, and you would be wrong.  I cannot do any sort of manual sewing, because holding the needle forces my thumb joint into strange and awkward positions that quickly become painful. This is why when buttons fall off of our clothing, they stay gone.  Alas, our familial dreams of sartorial splendor are dashed by my thumb joints--at least that's what I'm telling myself this week.
• In 8th grade I won an award in a Pop Warner-sponsored essay contest for submitting an essay wherein I described my ideal parents as Alan Alda and Carol Burnette. There's really nothing I can add to that statement that will make it okay, is there?
• I dropped creamed spinach on General Westmoreland when I waited on his table at the Eseeola Lodge.  He was quite gracious about it.
• My best friend in second grade gave me head lice.  She had short, thin, fine blonde hair, so the infestation was no problem for her.  I had approximately 4,000 tons of extremely long, thick, coarse brown hair.  That was the worst two weeks of my life. And even after everything, neither family ever acknowledged the fact that their daughters had caught lice.  It was like a secret scarlet "L" of shame, never to be spoken of again. I feel cleansed now.
• I once had a palm reader tell me that I had an actual guardian angel looking after me. I know. However, the aforementioned rat story did stop me from laughing out loud at this tidbit of information.

Um, I'm supposed to tag people now.  As I have no friends, I feel that I am exempt from this portion of the game.  I know!  I am such a rebel!  However, I'd like to invite any readers who feel inclined to leave a little-known fact about themselves in the comments, because I am nosy.

Via, what else - Vanity Fair.

Because the only reason for that magazine to ever talk about the direct-to-video The Christmas Cottage and its subject, Thomas Kinkade, is so that its readership can reassure itself of its superior taste, intellect and politics.

And since this is VF, the article does deliver.

You can tell by reading the comments.  My favorite is the one that draws chilling parallels between Thomas Kinkade and--wait for it--FASCISM!  Because, (and I quote):

"The 20th Century's most radical and murderous ideologies were all built out of kitsch and endorsed by "mom". Even if people are too dumb or lazy to embrace the notion that nothing so easy to understand is worth contemplation, condoning it or giving it a pass is the equivalent of taking your kids to an Indian restaurant and letting them order grilled cheese sandwiches."

I'm not exactly sure how we got from Kinkade to Stalin to grilled cheese, but it was a fun ride, no?  And I amuse myself further here because I realize that for this guy, Stalin probably WOULDN'T be an example of the creator of a murderous ideology--my bad.  Should have substituted Billy Graham.

And then there's this odd paean to mother issues by way of ee cummings and a G.E.D. (punctuation and grammar are unretouched):

"the column does not go far enough in trying to understand the kinkade formula and its appeal. or more importantly why a reader of vanity fair should deign to care. some of the comments nod in passing to good old mom (i guess she got out of that horrid black dress and off the rocking chair, and then finished baking the apple pie). but maybe even if mom does not know best, she manages to have her pulse on popular taste in her own white wine sort of way. so, she likes kinkade and floods all the surfaces of her home with pictures and more pictures of her beloved family members, on the walls pretty pictures of gardens--maybe an impressionist masterpiece or two. and because it is good old mom, we know that she plays golf or bridge or goes to church or shopping and sounds like a thoughtful republican when she talks about social issues. the edges of her life are now softened too. no new york critic will call it high art, but it works for all those moms and would be moms."

I think I wrote something similar in my angsty teenage trapper-keeper/journal when I was 14 and trying to be deep. Except even when I was in the depths of intellectual self-regard, I still managed to capitalize and punctuate correctly. Guess I never really was the rebel I fancied myself to be.  

Squeaky, the cow-herding pig, to be precise.

I've been asked to attend three hourlong presentations by candidates for a VC of research position.  Yes, I know.  My heart sank when I received the news, but I dutifully trudged off to the first one this week, and actually managed to a) pay attention and b) stay awake -- which was more than quite a few of our faculty were capable of doing.

Note to dozing faculty:  the auditorium is small.  The presenter can SEE YOU.  Also, you have just forfeited your right to get pissy about students sleeping during your lecture.  Seriously, people.  I cannot help you if you won't help yourselves. 

Anyway, the candidate in question had intriguing ideas, and correctly pointed out that research universities would not be seeing an increase in federal or state funding in the coming years--in fact, that the opposite would be true--and that the downward trend would probably continue even after our current financial woes abated.

So the proposal was to focus on research that translates to the marketplace, which could provide a revenue stream for the university, attract funding from private sources, and increase the stature of our faculty and students.

Win-win-win, right?

If you've ever been on a hiring committee, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this--directly to the Q&A portion, wherein the candidate was questioned about his commitment to the humanities and was accused of abandoning pure science in favor of corporations!  The implication, of course, being that the eeeeevvillllee taint of money from corporate America would somehow cause our brains to shrivel up and fall out of our heads, and then the faculty would turn Republican or some damn thing equally horrific to the earnest chick asking questions from the third row.

Serious charges, indeed, my friends.

Had these oh-so-concerned questioners bothered to STAY AWAKE, they would have realized that the candidate had explained both that humanities faculty are involved in these research projects AND that without pure science, the other research wouldn't be possible, but whatever.  Never let the facts stand in the way of a good opportunity for uninformed grandstanding.  I think that might be our faculty motto...

And so it went.  As someone more on the admin side, I was flabbergasted that these science faculty, who are supposedly all about the grants and the funding, couldn't see the writing on the wall in terms of where their cash will be coming from in the future.  This is a land grant institution.  We've been asked for a sizeable budget cut THIS YEAR, with more to come.  And when things get better, do you think that money's gonna magically reappear? 

Given our state's history, my Magic Eight Ball says, "Signs point to no."

The icing on the cake?  As I was leaving the auditorium, earnest chick was behind me speaking sotto voce to her companion.  Her major complaint (other than those previously aired, that is)?

"He kept saying 'guys' a lot.  I think that sort of gendered language bodes ill."

Right.  Keep on keepin' on, sister-girl.  You'll have no funding, and the university will have no coherent vision for staying competitive, but at least the Vice-Chancellor won't use pronouns in an offensive manner.  Thank God that you're able to save us from ourselves!

And thank God that I'm not the chair of this hiring committee.

So it's the end of the day and I'm hanging out in The Boy's room for the requisite "FIVE MINUTES, MOM!" before he goes to sleep.  We're having our usual conversation, which ranges from playground politics to theoretical discussions about who is the strongest Jedi to comedy theatre starring one stuffed Knuffle Bunny, and I tell him that it's time for me to go so he can get some sleep...

The Boy:  It's been five minutes ALREADY?

Me:  Yep.  Time flies.

The Boy:  It doesn't really FLY, like flap around.

Me:  No.  It's just an expression.

The Boy:  Like, "raining cats and dogs."  It's a...a...

Me:  Expression?

The Boy:  No.

Me:  Saying?

The Boy:  No, mom.

Me:  Hyperbole?

The Boy (frustrated):  NO!  It starts with an "I."

Me (moment of confused silence, followed by moment of "he couldn't mean this, could he?"):  Idiom?

The Boy:  Exactly!  Idiom!

Me:  You're talking about idioms.

The Boy:  Yeah.  And really, the fact that Amelia Bedelia thinks idioms are real?  What is up with that, mom?

Me:  Well, it's just a humorous device the author's using to make the books funny.

The Boy:  Idioms aren't real.  And Amelia Bedelia is not very smart.

So today I'm exiting the breakroom in our building, Diet Dr. Pepper in one hand and baggy with slices of pepper jack cheese in the other, and I run into Cal Ripkin, who asks me where the board room is.

He's a very tall man.

Trust me to have a brush with fame whilst gripping a bag of cheese.  There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere...

A conference I would have attended in grad school - the topic?

Faking it.

Yeah, I was pretty familiar with faking it after a semester of grad school, and by the time I got the MA, I had elevated it to an art form.  I wonder how much meta these folks would tolerate, though?  Because that would be a fun submission to make.

Voted last week, and I'm glad I did.  No wait, great weather, etc.  Hublet and The Boy have the day off today, so I am anticipating excessive amounts of stir-crazy second grader when I get home this evening...

Enjoy your election day.  I'll be spending it beating the snot out of Darth Vader as I play the Force Unleashed.  It's a lot of fun on the Wii, with all of the control waving and whatnot.