7/12/2004
my finger's on the pulse
So now after a couple of days, I'm thinking that I'm going to try the Roomba. So I sat down at the computer to look over the different models once again -- and, as of today, IRobot has announced a new line of Roombas set to ship in September. So you can expect to see the old ones on sale. But I'm thinking I might wait for a new one -- bigger dustbin, faster charging time, and they can take themselves back to their charger when the battery runs low.
7/10/2004
it is still summer
It is still summer. It is.
If I repeat this phrase often enough it will seem true, yes? Actually I'm feeling better today despite the fast slippage of my summer away from me because I took yesterday off. I realised that since it's summer, and I'm not on a teaching schedule, I also haven't been paying enough attention to time off. Everything is more relaxed in summer, thankfully -- but unless I specifically say a certain day is off, then I have some nagging anxiety about all the things I ought to be doing. So yesterday was my first intentional totally off day, and it was great. Went to the downtown library and stocked up on some free reading. I'm currently slurping my way through Gibson's Pattern Recognition -- this indeed feels like summer, to be able to gulp a book in a couple of days. I haven't read any Gibson in several years, and I'm enjoying this one so far (though Scribblingwoman's comments about the end are lurking in the back of my mind, pressing the brake pedal as I get closer to the finish). It's all about pop culture, internet subcults, the semiotics of fashion -- loads of fun. Weird tic, though: he's used the word "scrim" at least three times in the first 157 pages. In a novel where none of the other words stick out, that's kind of odd. Perhaps intentional; I can't say yet.
If I repeat this phrase often enough it will seem true, yes? Actually I'm feeling better today despite the fast slippage of my summer away from me because I took yesterday off. I realised that since it's summer, and I'm not on a teaching schedule, I also haven't been paying enough attention to time off. Everything is more relaxed in summer, thankfully -- but unless I specifically say a certain day is off, then I have some nagging anxiety about all the things I ought to be doing. So yesterday was my first intentional totally off day, and it was great. Went to the downtown library and stocked up on some free reading. I'm currently slurping my way through Gibson's Pattern Recognition -- this indeed feels like summer, to be able to gulp a book in a couple of days. I haven't read any Gibson in several years, and I'm enjoying this one so far (though Scribblingwoman's comments about the end are lurking in the back of my mind, pressing the brake pedal as I get closer to the finish). It's all about pop culture, internet subcults, the semiotics of fashion -- loads of fun. Weird tic, though: he's used the word "scrim" at least three times in the first 157 pages. In a novel where none of the other words stick out, that's kind of odd. Perhaps intentional; I can't say yet.
7/09/2004
30 second diversion
Alien in 30 seconds, done by cartoon bunnies. (via Miscellaneous Heathen) They also offer The Shining and the Exorcist.
Room-inating
I am tempted by the Roomba, the first mass market robotic vacuum. There are others (some available only in Europe) that are no doubt fancier, sturdier, smarter -- but this is the only one even remotely within my price range (and that only because I have a store credit from returning a well-intentioned relative's gift that I couldn't use).
In favor:
Against:
*"would-be father-in-law" -- that is, he would be my father-in-law if my gf and I were allowed to marry. The discussion of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment started today in the Senate. I know some people think this is just about party politics, and that it can't actually pass, even in the Senate. But it feels like a hostile cultural moment to me.
In favor:
- It's a robot. I mean, come on. Of course, I think it was on the Death Star where they had those cute little vac bots, but still. It's a robot. In the first half of my lifetime (just barely). At Target.
- We have two active dogs (sometimes 3 since we babysit my would-be father-in-law's* dog frequently) and a yard that has, um, a lot of dirt where more fastidious folks would have grass. We do have a fair amount of grass, don't get me wrong. But where the rotten deck was ripped out is basically just dirt. Dogs go outside; dogs come inside; much sandy dirt on the floor, no matter how much I sweep.
- I Swif frequently. But unless I do it every day, then it also means getting out the dustpan and broom to pick up the piles of hair and sand.
- I don't really enjoy vacuuming and tend to put it off. So having a little robot to do it while I'm cooking or, even, reading, would be great.
Against:
- I don't know anyone personally who has one. So it might suck (by not sucking, as it were). User comments on Amazon and Epinions seem generally more positive than not, but everyone has different tolerance for ease of use, efficiency, etc.
- Maybe I should wait a couple of years until the really good new robots come out.
- The dogs might freak out about it. Especially since apparently people are treating Roombas like pets. None of us are ready for a new member of the pack, even if s/he spends much of the day recharging. (actually, that does sound kind of like the dogs: sleep...charge outside barking at squirrel...sleep...)
- If I have the robot to vacuum the floors, what will I do when I need to procrastinate when I'm writing?
*"would-be father-in-law" -- that is, he would be my father-in-law if my gf and I were allowed to marry. The discussion of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment started today in the Senate. I know some people think this is just about party politics, and that it can't actually pass, even in the Senate. But it feels like a hostile cultural moment to me.
7/08/2004
FrankenWendell
Wendell is recuperating from her surgery very well -- thanks, everyone, for your good wishes -- she is sporting a line of metal sutures across her chest, giving her a kind of monstrous look for a week. After an evening tripped out on morphine, she's doing very well, her usual alert self. She's currently barking at the thunder hoping to prevent another rainstorm.
the way we eat now
If you saw (or read about) Super Size Me -- here's an article that provides an informative overview of the evolutionary perspective on nutrition and the current rise in obesity in the United States. Good range of sources, and written in a fairly well-balanced way. (to my mind the political critique could be much stronger (i.e., how the current administration spoke out against the WHO's plan to combat obesity), but you can find more on that elsewhere)
7/07/2004
Wendell update
Wendell's surgery went well, although the tumor isn't as well defined as one would wish (this might mean cells have spread elsewhere). She's waking up right now and I can go pick her up in about two hours. So that's a huge relief.
think good thoughts
Think good thoughts today for Wendell, who is in surgery to have a mass cell tumor removed. Her third tumor this year.
Right now I'm waiting to hear from the vet about how the surgery went. I should be able to pick her up this afternoon. We won't know the full biopsy results for a few days -- what grade of tumor it is (i.e. which kind of cancer).
She has a very strong constitution and hopefully it's going OK. But I'm an anxious dog mom right now.
Right now I'm waiting to hear from the vet about how the surgery went. I should be able to pick her up this afternoon. We won't know the full biopsy results for a few days -- what grade of tumor it is (i.e. which kind of cancer).
She has a very strong constitution and hopefully it's going OK. But I'm an anxious dog mom right now.
7/05/2004
food ads
I've never really seen the point of those ads that are not for a specific product, but for a category of food: eggs, milk, pork. I understand that our government is highly invested in promoting Agriculture (more so than in regulating food safety) -- but do they really think that these ads will affect people's actual eating habits? For instance, in our city we have many billboards for avocadoes -- the most bothersome one says "We also have a support group called AA." I think I find this kind of offensive, on the part of people who are in the real AA (which I'm not) -- and it certainly doesn't make me feel like eating more avocadoes. Does this strike anyone else as odd?
Even more pointless are the ads that are stamped across the actual food packages (as opposed to billboards or magazine ads for milk etc). I was at the store a couple of days ago and went to pick up a bag of potatoes -- across the plastic sack it proclaims "A DIET FOOD". The old man next to me also getting potatoes snorted and said, "Ain't no such thing as a healthy potato." Now that just seems to illustrate the problem. Potatoes can be healthy, or not -- depends on who's eating them, in what quantities, and most importantly, how they're prepared. But it's not like anyone is going to see that slogan and think, "well, I'm going to pick up two sacks today, since they're a diet food." It'd be far better to put money into educating people in how to cook the darn things. Reminds me of a few years ago when low-fat was all the craze -- I bought a bottle of vinegar that said "NO CHOLESTEROL." Anyone with any sense would know that there is no way that vinegar could possibly have cholesterol.
Even more pointless are the ads that are stamped across the actual food packages (as opposed to billboards or magazine ads for milk etc). I was at the store a couple of days ago and went to pick up a bag of potatoes -- across the plastic sack it proclaims "A DIET FOOD". The old man next to me also getting potatoes snorted and said, "Ain't no such thing as a healthy potato." Now that just seems to illustrate the problem. Potatoes can be healthy, or not -- depends on who's eating them, in what quantities, and most importantly, how they're prepared. But it's not like anyone is going to see that slogan and think, "well, I'm going to pick up two sacks today, since they're a diet food." It'd be far better to put money into educating people in how to cook the darn things. Reminds me of a few years ago when low-fat was all the craze -- I bought a bottle of vinegar that said "NO CHOLESTEROL." Anyone with any sense would know that there is no way that vinegar could possibly have cholesterol.
nanowrimo
Somehow I'd never heard of National Novel Writing Month until today. At the most basic level, it's kind of inspiring: basically a bunch of people pledge to each try to write a 50,000 word short novel during the month of November. Quantity, not quality, is the goal. Not everyone makes the word count, but along the way there are local meetups of the participants, t-shirts, discussion boards and other community support -- something writers can always use. Just in terms of all those people actually sitting down and writing -- getting past the fear of the blank page, the endless procrastination that so many of us know so well, this seems inspiring. Sure, many of the novels written during that month might be junk, but so are many first novels written over the course of ten years.
Every so often, a curmudgeonly critic will opine something along the lines of "the book is dead, people don't read anymore, it's all the fault of tv/movies/the internet." Print culture changes every century -- as do most other aspects of human culture -- and we are in the midst of a profound technological transition. Undoubtedly there were people who complained when the codex book (what we think of as a physical book: pages stitched/bound together that you turn to read two sides of each leaf) began to displace the previous form of the book, scrolls (like the papyrus scrolls of the Egyptians, or the traditional form of the Torah) (one long piece of writing surface that can only be read from one end to the other -- difficult to find a specific place in the middle). There are similar profound changes in the ways that people read now, with the increasing presence of digital texts and electronic formats for accessing those texts. But because of digital technology, many people are reading -- and, even more significantly -- producing/publishing texts every day. That's what's really exciting to me -- blogs, fan fiction, and all sorts of other venues that are something more formalized, more like publishing writing than, say, chat forums. I hope someone has written a study of the word processor's impact on writing over the past 15-20 years -- I know as a writing teacher I've seen a lot of changes in the way my students compose, and in my own writing habits.
So, who cares if November's novels might not be the best works ever? what a great boost for the participants -- and as any writer knows, getting started, and getting in the habit, can make or break a project. If only my Novembers weren't always so filled with grading and conference preparation, I'd try my own hand at it. Who knows, maybe I will someday.
Every so often, a curmudgeonly critic will opine something along the lines of "the book is dead, people don't read anymore, it's all the fault of tv/movies/the internet." Print culture changes every century -- as do most other aspects of human culture -- and we are in the midst of a profound technological transition. Undoubtedly there were people who complained when the codex book (what we think of as a physical book: pages stitched/bound together that you turn to read two sides of each leaf) began to displace the previous form of the book, scrolls (like the papyrus scrolls of the Egyptians, or the traditional form of the Torah) (one long piece of writing surface that can only be read from one end to the other -- difficult to find a specific place in the middle). There are similar profound changes in the ways that people read now, with the increasing presence of digital texts and electronic formats for accessing those texts. But because of digital technology, many people are reading -- and, even more significantly -- producing/publishing texts every day. That's what's really exciting to me -- blogs, fan fiction, and all sorts of other venues that are something more formalized, more like publishing writing than, say, chat forums. I hope someone has written a study of the word processor's impact on writing over the past 15-20 years -- I know as a writing teacher I've seen a lot of changes in the way my students compose, and in my own writing habits.
So, who cares if November's novels might not be the best works ever? what a great boost for the participants -- and as any writer knows, getting started, and getting in the habit, can make or break a project. If only my Novembers weren't always so filled with grading and conference preparation, I'd try my own hand at it. Who knows, maybe I will someday.
7/04/2004
movies part 2
So last night I finally saw Michael Moore's latest. And, as I expected, had sort of mixed feelings about it. I'm totally on his side and usually agree with his message, if not his methods. My issues with the film mostly were about rhetoric and craft. He's grandstanding for our laughs and our attention -- which people on the left don't do nearly as frequently it seems (or maybe not as visibly in the larger pop culture) as those on the right -- which to me sometimes comes across as sloppy, or simplistic, or just cheap. For instance: it's really easy to find pictures of W looking stupid. But Saturday Night Live has been doing this for years -- you can do this for any public figure who's frequently in front of the camera. Moore intersperses these images to punctuate his critique with our laughter -- and I laughed too -- but it's not argument, and it tends to reduce his message to the simplest common denominator. Ditto for his use of music in the film -- again it gets the laughs from the audience (since the film is playing mostly to people who already agree in advance (at least in my city)) but it weakens the power of the facts exposed in the film. Most glaring omission in the film: any mention of religion. A month or two ago, I happened to see a really powerful Frontline piece on Bush's religous beliefs that offered compelling lines of interpretation that many journalists aren't willing to open up. It's called The Jesus Factor and can be viewed online.
I wish, too, that there had been something else at the film's close. Moore defends the working poor (although with no mention at all of the increasing Hispanic presence in the US and how that may affect political and military outcomes) and skewers the "haves and have-mores" (that's a Bush quote) who run everything. But the middle class is virtually absent from his film's representation of class warfare in the US. He shows us military recruiters in depressed Flint MI combing the mall for young men who have very few other options, asking them to fight a war that Moore shows to be directly increasing the wealth for some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the country. But what about the middle class? it's middle-class people's willingness to vote for Republicans who really don't have their interests at heart that are at least partially to blame for the mess things are in. And it's also educated middle-class Americans like many of my friends who vote Democratic but feel largely disenfranchised because in our states our votes don't really count, except on the local level. Moore's film does little to help his viewers figure out what to do with their frustration with the way things are. Good exposure of problems, no suggestions of solutions. At the film's close, to list a few websites like Move On would have been something. (Even if, again, most of his viewers already know this stuff.)
I wish, too, that there had been something else at the film's close. Moore defends the working poor (although with no mention at all of the increasing Hispanic presence in the US and how that may affect political and military outcomes) and skewers the "haves and have-mores" (that's a Bush quote) who run everything. But the middle class is virtually absent from his film's representation of class warfare in the US. He shows us military recruiters in depressed Flint MI combing the mall for young men who have very few other options, asking them to fight a war that Moore shows to be directly increasing the wealth for some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the country. But what about the middle class? it's middle-class people's willingness to vote for Republicans who really don't have their interests at heart that are at least partially to blame for the mess things are in. And it's also educated middle-class Americans like many of my friends who vote Democratic but feel largely disenfranchised because in our states our votes don't really count, except on the local level. Moore's film does little to help his viewers figure out what to do with their frustration with the way things are. Good exposure of problems, no suggestions of solutions. At the film's close, to list a few websites like Move On would have been something. (Even if, again, most of his viewers already know this stuff.)
movies
There ought to be a rule for young filmakers not to have a main character who's an artist, writer, or filmaker. It's just so easy for the writer/director's surrogate to take on far more existential suffering than the character can really sustain. Or when that's not the issue, then it's the problem of how do you represent the creative process on screen. (At least in the Kunstlerroman you get hundreds of pages to try to show the growth of the Artist -- but it's still potentially tiresome.) Watched Washington Heights a few days ago on DVD -- it's a good enough film all in all -- warm but not too cheesy in its portrayal of the Washington Heights neighborhood in NYC, and the lives of first-generation young people struggling to define themselves in relation to their parents' culture and their own. The always watchable Manny Perez plays the main character, a cartoonist who has to take over his father's bodega. So far so good. But the parts of the film that deal with his drawing are just so predictable, and so unrealistic. He's a good artist, but his comics aren't great comics (i.e., Art) until he starts to write about his father, and the immigrant experience. Since the filmmaker is already doing that, it just seems like a heavy-handed lesson. Then he's able to sell his comic right away, to the hot Latina executive who just happens to be newly single... Actually I'm making the film sound much worse than it is -- which is precisely my point. Without the strain of the "Art" theme, it'd be a more solid film.
Yet, watching him draw his comic isn't half as painful as, say, listening to the god-awful prose supposedly written by the Jenny character on the L-Word series, which thanks to a friend who'd taped it, we just got to see. It's positively embarrassing to watch her "write" her short stories which are supposed to be so artistic and thoughtful. Argh. Overly Romantic in the capital R sense -- navel-gazing about her feelings, talking about ripping her bleeding heart out. Ugh.
I'm trying to think of a movie where I liked the artist/writer character. I'm sure there are a few but the negative examples are popping up faster.
Yet, watching him draw his comic isn't half as painful as, say, listening to the god-awful prose supposedly written by the Jenny character on the L-Word series, which thanks to a friend who'd taped it, we just got to see. It's positively embarrassing to watch her "write" her short stories which are supposed to be so artistic and thoughtful. Argh. Overly Romantic in the capital R sense -- navel-gazing about her feelings, talking about ripping her bleeding heart out. Ugh.
I'm trying to think of a movie where I liked the artist/writer character. I'm sure there are a few but the negative examples are popping up faster.
7/01/2004
superagent? -- uh, no.
One of the bits that stuck with me from the film of The Bourne Identity (didn't read the book) was a twist on the usual amnesiac story: he wakes up not knowing who he is, but realizing that he has these amazing skills of observation, martial arts, escape, and all sorts of other things that show him that he's really a superagent. (I'd wake up and what skills would I have to deduce my original identity? I know what pentameter is, I have a lot of black clothes in my closet, and books by Foucault on my shelf: aha, I must be an English professor!)
Well, I would suck at being a superagent. For all sorts of reasons -- but among them apparently I have lousy observation skills when in a difficult situation. (As do most people -- basic sociology and criminology experiments show this all the time.) I got rear-ended yesterday -- I'm fine, and my car isn't too badly damaged -- I was stopped at a red light, and the car behind me was stopped. Then a fourth car hit the third car which hit the second which hit me. So I got the least amount of impact, thankfully. My neck was sore last night but after ibuprofen and a nice hot Bikram class this morning I'm feeling fine. (Which I think has to be due in part to the yoga -- my neck having been in better alignment to start with, after 8 months of yoga.)
We sat there for 90 minutes in the rain waiting for the police officer to come and file the report. You'd think I'd have every detail memorized. But, no. Talking to the insurance guy this morning I was like: we were in the right, no, the left lane. No, I don't know what make of car the third car was -- but I have his DL number. Etc.
The other weird thing is the intimacy an accident suddenly creates among total strangers. I have all their names and phone numbers (and more) -- we were sharing our frustration at the slowness of the police to arrive -- bonded in some small little way. Thankfully no one was hurt, we weren't really stranded, we weren't far from civilization --so the forced bonding was limited. But kind of a weird experience nonetheless.
Well, I would suck at being a superagent. For all sorts of reasons -- but among them apparently I have lousy observation skills when in a difficult situation. (As do most people -- basic sociology and criminology experiments show this all the time.) I got rear-ended yesterday -- I'm fine, and my car isn't too badly damaged -- I was stopped at a red light, and the car behind me was stopped. Then a fourth car hit the third car which hit the second which hit me. So I got the least amount of impact, thankfully. My neck was sore last night but after ibuprofen and a nice hot Bikram class this morning I'm feeling fine. (Which I think has to be due in part to the yoga -- my neck having been in better alignment to start with, after 8 months of yoga.)
We sat there for 90 minutes in the rain waiting for the police officer to come and file the report. You'd think I'd have every detail memorized. But, no. Talking to the insurance guy this morning I was like: we were in the right, no, the left lane. No, I don't know what make of car the third car was -- but I have his DL number. Etc.
The other weird thing is the intimacy an accident suddenly creates among total strangers. I have all their names and phone numbers (and more) -- we were sharing our frustration at the slowness of the police to arrive -- bonded in some small little way. Thankfully no one was hurt, we weren't really stranded, we weren't far from civilization --so the forced bonding was limited. But kind of a weird experience nonetheless.
6/30/2004
oppose the FMA
The Human Rights Campaign has a form to make it easy to contact your senators to indicate your opposition to the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which will come to a vote in the Senate in early July. Perhaps useful for some readers to note: many conservatives also oppose the FMA (see quotes) for a variety of reasons.
6/29/2004
community
I didn't blog at all over the weekend because my friend M was visiting from out of town. Somehow my blog life and my real-time social life haven't yet fully intersected. Probably because most of my close "real-time" friends live in other cities. One such friend is also a blog pal who's recently posted some good thoughts about rediscovering the good qualities of the internet through blogging. I kinda feel the same way.
About a year ago I was really involved with Fotolog, which is a community for people to share a daily photo -- a blog without words. It was an amazing thing -- for a few months. Then as word spread (via NY Times and others) then the numbers expanded phenomenally and the sense of a knowable "community" all but vanished. It's based on a simple system of favorites lists -- so you can browse from one person's pictures to see those of people who they like -- which does still create small clusters of like-minded individuals (or rather, like-aesthetic'd individuals). But a lot of people spend a lot of time bemoaning the loss of the good old days when Fotolog was only a few thousand people. I share a lot of those feelings -- though I've also spent less and less time on Fotolog for other, more personal reasons. But when I go back, I can still visit some of the same people and learn from their photographs -- which for an image novice, has been an amazing resource. But it serves in my mind as an example of both the very best of the internet and the worst -- and how they can coexist, and shift, within a few months. The best: connecting people who would never otherwise meet, and tapping in to basic human generosity -- people's willingness to share advice on photo technique, hardware, software, etc. The worst: abuse of the comments system, people trying to post porn, etc (as if there weren't already plenty of places to see and share porn on the internet).
So it's been nice to start reading and writing blog and find the good parts of the internet again. To be fair, there are other good parts: the VICTORIA listserv for people involved with Victorian Studies (my field of specialization) has been an active, helpful, and mostly thoughtful community for over ten years. As someone working in a department with limited 19thc colleagues, it's been very sustaining to have this virtual group of colleagues to draw on for advice and ideas.
I realised recently that I haven't really "come out" as a blogger to very many people in my real-time life -- Tony Pierce's list of blogging do's and don'ts says:
I know everyone has different opinions on this, but I basically agree. My gf reads my blog, and a couple of friends do who also blog. But most of my real-time friends don't blog, don't read blogs, and besides, I talk to them in real time. And I started my blog to give me a different kind of space in which to think about things -- something other than my already-defined professional work which seems to easily take over almost all reading and writing. I like having my blog life separate -- it's a space of freedom that way. Especially as an academic -- the academic world has only two or three degrees of separation, which can get really claustrophobic. (Like what happened to Tracking Tenure, who discontinued her blog because a colleague started reading it and writing his own copycat version.)
so, yay for blogs. Now I have to go catch up on my reading.
About a year ago I was really involved with Fotolog, which is a community for people to share a daily photo -- a blog without words. It was an amazing thing -- for a few months. Then as word spread (via NY Times and others) then the numbers expanded phenomenally and the sense of a knowable "community" all but vanished. It's based on a simple system of favorites lists -- so you can browse from one person's pictures to see those of people who they like -- which does still create small clusters of like-minded individuals (or rather, like-aesthetic'd individuals). But a lot of people spend a lot of time bemoaning the loss of the good old days when Fotolog was only a few thousand people. I share a lot of those feelings -- though I've also spent less and less time on Fotolog for other, more personal reasons. But when I go back, I can still visit some of the same people and learn from their photographs -- which for an image novice, has been an amazing resource. But it serves in my mind as an example of both the very best of the internet and the worst -- and how they can coexist, and shift, within a few months. The best: connecting people who would never otherwise meet, and tapping in to basic human generosity -- people's willingness to share advice on photo technique, hardware, software, etc. The worst: abuse of the comments system, people trying to post porn, etc (as if there weren't already plenty of places to see and share porn on the internet).
So it's been nice to start reading and writing blog and find the good parts of the internet again. To be fair, there are other good parts: the VICTORIA listserv for people involved with Victorian Studies (my field of specialization) has been an active, helpful, and mostly thoughtful community for over ten years. As someone working in a department with limited 19thc colleagues, it's been very sustaining to have this virtual group of colleagues to draw on for advice and ideas.
I realised recently that I haven't really "come out" as a blogger to very many people in my real-time life -- Tony Pierce's list of blogging do's and don'ts says:
5. dont tell your mom, your work, your friends, the people you want to date, or the people you want to work for about your blog. if they find out and you'd rather they didnt read it, ask them nicely to grant you your privacy.
I know everyone has different opinions on this, but I basically agree. My gf reads my blog, and a couple of friends do who also blog. But most of my real-time friends don't blog, don't read blogs, and besides, I talk to them in real time. And I started my blog to give me a different kind of space in which to think about things -- something other than my already-defined professional work which seems to easily take over almost all reading and writing. I like having my blog life separate -- it's a space of freedom that way. Especially as an academic -- the academic world has only two or three degrees of separation, which can get really claustrophobic. (Like what happened to Tracking Tenure, who discontinued her blog because a colleague started reading it and writing his own copycat version.)
so, yay for blogs. Now I have to go catch up on my reading.
6/23/2004
hangin' at the Depot
So I'm the one wearing the butch pants in the house today: I replaced our bathroom faucet, which had been leaking from the base for probably 8 months. The final straw was that one of the plastic handles cracked, making it inoperable. So it was time to do something. And I think I succeeded: no leaks so far. It's actually not that difficult, if your house is pretty modern and things were put in correctly the first time. Neither is true of our house, so it did require a couple extra trips to Home Depot (only six minutes away, another good thing about our neighborhood!). (also replaced the drain/pop-up assembly and the P-trap-- which before today I didn't know what it was).
The internet has increasingly become for me the handy parent I never had -- neither one of my parents ever fixed anything in our house, that I can remember, except for torn book pages, and the occasional hem. Nothing mechanical. But you can learn how to do almost any home repair online. Which at least gives me enough to go on when I go to the HD. I'd much rather ask the guy "I need a basin wrench, right?" than just have to blankly ask "how on earth do I do that?" I don't have any idea what the working conditions are like at a place like HD, but I hope it's satisfying to at least some of these people who work there who know a heck of a lot about their particular area. People come in, you help them, they get what they need and learn something too.
Now if only there was an Article Depot for my now overdue writing project:
Clearly, I need to get back to work.
The internet has increasingly become for me the handy parent I never had -- neither one of my parents ever fixed anything in our house, that I can remember, except for torn book pages, and the occasional hem. Nothing mechanical. But you can learn how to do almost any home repair online. Which at least gives me enough to go on when I go to the HD. I'd much rather ask the guy "I need a basin wrench, right?" than just have to blankly ask "how on earth do I do that?" I don't have any idea what the working conditions are like at a place like HD, but I hope it's satisfying to at least some of these people who work there who know a heck of a lot about their particular area. People come in, you help them, they get what they need and learn something too.
Now if only there was an Article Depot for my now overdue writing project:
"Well, you see, I have these two ideas that have to fit together -- yeah, I've got about 20 pages of space."
"You just need this idea connector. Comes in plastic, brass, or surgical steel. How long you want this thing to last?"
"Well, up until now, it's been held together with sentences, but some of them are kind of fraying around the edges...I don't know if they're strong enough for the pressure of publication."
"Oh, you got an antique style article? You want to use sentences? That's more work. But you do get a nice effect when you're done. I can show you some adverbs over here..."
Clearly, I need to get back to work.
the hierarchy of fantasy
So we just finished watching Underworld on DVD tonight -- fully enjoyable for its genre. Sort of Matrix + Lost Boys + The Hunger + X-Men -- stylish and stylized battles between vampires and lycans (werewolves). Easy on the eyes (Kate Beckinsdale in hypertight leathers) and on the ears (the industrial soundtrack not quite as cool as Bauhaus in the Hunger, but good).
In this film, vampires are the aristocrats who formerly had the Lycans enslaved. Centuries of Lycan rebellion and warfare ensued after a cross-species romance was forbidden and punished. Now, a hapless human gets caught in the battle...
And of course, it's the vampires who are cool, sexy Eurotrash Goths. The werewolves (when they are not transformed) look like Eastern European mobsters. And there are no female Lycans shown in the movie -- but plenty of sexy vampire babes... And it's nearly always that way -- in Stoker's Dracula, and J.S. LeFanu's Carmilla (a great lesbian vampire story published in 1871-2 that inspired Stoker as he planned his novel), vampires are sexy. Their power over their victims is seductive, enthralling -- thus Stoker's novel so easily melds with our society's concerns about invasion, infection, and the blurring of social boundaries. My students are usually shocked when reading Stoker's Dracula to realize his Dracula is old and kind of repulsive -- our film versions are usually so slick and suave.
Most fantasy worlds have similar structures -- vampires are sexy-cool, werewolves are not; elves are cool, dwarves and hobbits are not. Etc. It's the same old idealization of the upper classes, remapped. (ever seen a fat elf or vampire?) It's worth remembering that most of us would have been dwarf-equivalents in previous centuries...
At its best, SF/fantasy offers new ways of thinking about social structures, gender categories, the meaning of intelligence. But the versions most popular in our current culture rely on the same old binaries. I'm as susceptible as the next viewer -- who wouldn't want to be a cool elusive elf? Go ahead, get your own Crappy Little Elf Name from Rum & Monkey. I'm Tealeaf Horsebeard. That's Mistress Tealeaf, to you...
In this film, vampires are the aristocrats who formerly had the Lycans enslaved. Centuries of Lycan rebellion and warfare ensued after a cross-species romance was forbidden and punished. Now, a hapless human gets caught in the battle...
And of course, it's the vampires who are cool, sexy Eurotrash Goths. The werewolves (when they are not transformed) look like Eastern European mobsters. And there are no female Lycans shown in the movie -- but plenty of sexy vampire babes... And it's nearly always that way -- in Stoker's Dracula, and J.S. LeFanu's Carmilla (a great lesbian vampire story published in 1871-2 that inspired Stoker as he planned his novel), vampires are sexy. Their power over their victims is seductive, enthralling -- thus Stoker's novel so easily melds with our society's concerns about invasion, infection, and the blurring of social boundaries. My students are usually shocked when reading Stoker's Dracula to realize his Dracula is old and kind of repulsive -- our film versions are usually so slick and suave.
Most fantasy worlds have similar structures -- vampires are sexy-cool, werewolves are not; elves are cool, dwarves and hobbits are not. Etc. It's the same old idealization of the upper classes, remapped. (ever seen a fat elf or vampire?) It's worth remembering that most of us would have been dwarf-equivalents in previous centuries...
At its best, SF/fantasy offers new ways of thinking about social structures, gender categories, the meaning of intelligence. But the versions most popular in our current culture rely on the same old binaries. I'm as susceptible as the next viewer -- who wouldn't want to be a cool elusive elf? Go ahead, get your own Crappy Little Elf Name from Rum & Monkey. I'm Tealeaf Horsebeard. That's Mistress Tealeaf, to you...
6/22/2004
seen on the way home
We now have a Spam billboard in my neighborhood. With a huge picture of "Huevos Spamcheros." Ugh.
Nearly every week in the Chronicle of Higher Education there's an ad from Xerox asking readers to please not use "xerox" as a generic verb -- making the point that although their trademark is casually used in this way, it's not technically correct. (there must be a specific linguistic term for such words, right? but I don't know what it is -- like "let's get a Coke" when you mean any soda.) I wonder if the makers of Spam are similarly upset by everyone calling junk email spam.
Nearly every week in the Chronicle of Higher Education there's an ad from Xerox asking readers to please not use "xerox" as a generic verb -- making the point that although their trademark is casually used in this way, it's not technically correct. (there must be a specific linguistic term for such words, right? but I don't know what it is -- like "let's get a Coke" when you mean any soda.) I wonder if the makers of Spam are similarly upset by everyone calling junk email spam.
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