O, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!

This morning, Angela and I were awakened at around 5:30AM by, of all things, people screaming at each other. Perhaps if we lived in another neighborhood this would be something de rigeur, but in Takoma Park, it's a bit unusual. It is even more unusual that I woke up at all: I am known, after all, for having slept through bombs and four-year-olds crawling over my body. This must have been some fight.

After I discerned what was going on, I thought to myself, Who the heck is this? Our neighbors? No -- it's definitely a man and a woman fighting. The new folks across the way with the baby? No no, and besides, her parents are staying with them, so why would they be outside? The relatively new folks behind us? The semi-redneck next door? No, none of them, because the voices were too... too...

"I can't believe you would say that!!"
"Oh yeah? Tell me: HOW COULD YOU FUCK HIM??!"
"Aaargh!!"

...young. Ah yes, the world of the young, when everything is overly dramatic and the world is going to end at any moment. Granted, there is clearly some infidelity going on here and, well, clearly some craziness is inspired, perhaps warranted. And goodness knows that when it comes to movies, I'm a total sap for over-the-top melodrama. To spar on a public street in quiet Takoma Park at 5:30 in the morning, however?

Well, that's something for the young, I think. Let 'em have it. I'm thrilled to be old. Let me go back to sleep.

Going against Amazon

Truth be told, I love Amazon. Not only do I have friends who work there (hi, Ted!), but it is an impressive space where one can find almost anything. I have found all sorts of obscure movies, CDs and books, many from used bookstores and bought at wonderful discounts. (Hour of the Assassin for 85 cents plus shipping! Woohoo!!) As a soon-to-be-published author myself, I will also admit that it has given me a minor kick to find my own book up there already available for pre-order, even as I am frantically in the midst of doing the index as I type this. (Although I am not actually attending my 20th high school reunion in a month, somehow the Amazon listing legitimizes my work for all my former classmates who otherwise could care less about academia.)

And then, on the blogroll to the right, I saw this: "Saving Shaman Drum."

Oh no, I thought. Not Shaman Drum.

The fact that Shaman Drum might be on its last legs probably should not be a surprise to me, but it fills me with great sorrow. I arrived in Ann Arbor right around the time that they moved into their current space on State Street, and I attended the opening party because it was a cool thing for a first-year graduate student in the humanities to do. I remember wandering around that party with my old friend Jack Chen (now atUCLA, apparently) as he made faces at a baby facing backwards in a backpack. I also got a phone call two days afterwards with a message that I had won a door prize: a new dictionary. I don't need a new dictionary, I have a perfectly good old one, I thought, and went in intending to ask to trade in the dictionary for perhaps a gift certificate so that I might be able to buy more textbooks. That is, until they handed me the gigantic, lovely American Heritage Dictionary, which immediately and inexplicably made me drool, causing me to say "thank you" and head for the door with a book that sits on the main floor of my house and still gets used regularly.

That book-love is what makes news of Shaman Drum's near-passing so sad -- and, as I read with horror, I realized that the reason it is probably failing is something I currently practice at my own institution: making my reading lists available to students early so that they can purchase them online. In my case, the reasoning is simply because the only option for our students at AU is the soul-less Follett bookstore which routinely has horrible service, never orders a sufficient amount of books and prices everything way over the list price. I have a number of saved e-mails where I tried to get someone to contact me about a book I had ordered that I was assured would come in, which never came in at all. This set my whole syllabus for that semester in a tailspin. I have not forgiven them for that. As such, I have actually recommended to students that they not buy at the bookstore, that they take the search into their own hands.

In part, however, my reasoning behind this was simply because our own university bookstore has a monopoly on the situation; at Michigan, I had the option of choosing between two more mainstream stores, or this little local one. I opted for the latter and loved it. At Dartmouth and UCSC, there were also other grass-roots oriented textbook-stores that successfully cut into the monopoly stores with better service and prices; in the case of the former, Wheelock Books, I was actually one of the first employees when they opened in the year after I graduated. I always wished I had another option at AU, but perhaps the large nature of Washington couldn't support that.

Shaman Drum, however, was much more than a textbook experience for me: they really do have an amazing commitment to the humanities and cultural studies in general, and I spent hours as a graduate student poring over their shelves for stuff that I should probably read. Given that my parents still live in Ann Arbor, I have actually gone there now that I am much older and done something similar (although doing it with a two- or three-year-old in tow is less of an idyllic experience, since he wants to visit a different section from the one I want to go to).

I miss Shaman Drum and it pains me that they might go. That said, I am now actively considering joining their Great Lakes Literary Arts Center solely to help them out -- and if there is a book I need, I may even bypass my own local bookstore (that would be Politics and Prose) to have them ship from Ann Arbor, if it will help them out. I certainly hope they stay alive, as that store helped shape me into the academic that I am in many ways. They deserve the support.

Would Disney-owned ABC show movies about leggy, murderous transvestites?

When The WB and UPN merged to become the WB, the leftover stations apparently turned into a network lamely called myNetworkTV. According to Wikipedia (and I remember this when they started up), they originally began as the place where English-language telenovelas started up; they didn't catch and, quite frankly, I am never sure what these stations are for except as literal way-stations from one of out PBS affiliates to the other.

Except that occasionally these networks show some pretty funky movies for network television.

I haven't been watching too much prime-time network TV, but it's fun to do while folding laundry. About a month ago, I remember channel surfing and discovering to my amusement that Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark was showing. Thinking that only PBS would have the nerve to show a long, difficult film with non-stop handheld camera punctuated by musical numbers all featuring Bjork, I was truly shocked when all of a sudden a commercial for fast cash appeared.

Tonight, they appear to be showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show.






Who is programming this stuff? This is great.

Why Zithromax and amoxycillin are welcome guests in our home this week

Upon picking up the boy at school today:

A: So who did you play with at school today?
X: I didn't play with anybody.
A: Really? I thought I just saw you playing with Shaya-
X (adamantly): No, I wasn't playing with him.
A: Why didn't you play with anybody today?
X: Because I have germs.
A (slightly worried, "is he being ostracized?"): Really? Who said that.
X: I did.
A: You did.
X: Yes. I have a hundred and fifty-seven germs.
A ("oh"): Really.
X: I have a hundred and seventy germs.
A: I see.

Dat's wat I'm talkin bout

Naturally, Angela and I are so out of touch, we hadn't heard of the original song before we laughed our heads of at this. The scary thing is that, as you can imagine, some of this regularly seeps into some of the papers I receive.

Plus, this (at least visually) features the amazing HotforWords, who has to be doing something for rising interest of English-language etymology among teenage boys.

Is it so wrong...

...for me to expect a candidate running for election to be able to pronounce "nuclear" as it is spelled?

Then again, what do I know. After all, the person I'm referring to is a rather accomplished poet.

Beware the Blob!!

I just got finished watching The Blob and all I have to say is that if the Republicans want a real reason to prevent climate change, perhaps they should consider what's frozen up there...

Scene: Int. Night. Somewhere on the blogosphere.

A door is in the middle of the screen. It is fairly non-descript, lacking adornment beyond a round doorknob and a small sign with a hand-printed sign that says "Summer 2008."

Slowly, the doorknob turns. The door slivers open, creaking ominously. An EYE peers out. Blinks once.

VOICE

Hm.

The door creaks open further, and a HEAD pokes out. This is MIDDENTO, a slightly frazzled guy with dark hair and glasses set askew on his face. Behind him, glimpses of a richly colorful, playful images can be seen in the background: a young boy and girl on a swing; a carousel horse; the Ann Arbor art fair; many, many road signs; a squirrel stealing a green tomato; Peruvian food consumed by many; The Dark Knight.

Quickly, MIDDENTO steps out of the door and slams the door shut. He brushes some dust off his hands and the top of his jeans. He looks around.

MIDDENTO

Well. I guess I should get back to blogging.

He looks around, offers a perplexed eyebrow.

MIDDENTO

I wonder if anyone is still here. Or will mind if I just jump back in after being away for so long.

He looks at the camera.

Cut to black.

A new set of eyes

I was perfectly happy with the old blog template, having had the same (Dots Dark) since the beginning with only a few modifications. Then Angela told me, luddite that I am, about RSS feeds to manage blog-reading more efficiently. I then discovered I could post the feeds on here, simply by adding a new form of a blog-roll. Neato.

Doing so, however, threw my whole template out of whack. Primarily the picture of Xan's eyes, which were now floating in Nowheresville instead of over the blog title, like I originally had it. And no matter what I did, I couldn't get it back to the way I had it.

Basta, I said, it's time for a slightly more radical change.

Truth be told, I really didn't care for many of the other template choices. It's the first time I've been peeved by blogspot for screwing up my original format. I was annoyed by the one I finally settled on as well, since it had this random orange star right at the top.

That is, until I discovered I could simply cover it up with a banner.

I think it will take getting used to seeing my blog this way, but change can be good. Tell me if you think agree that change is good (bonus points if you can identify the other set of eyes). Who knows: I might even post more often.

My school spirit goes to 11

Seven years ago, when I first got to AU as a sabbatical replacement, the men's basketball team was on the verge of entering the hallowed March Madness dance. They had played wonderfully well, the clear favorite as they played the final game in the Patriot League against Holy Cross. They had not been beaten. Life was good. ESPN was coming to campus. There was an air of destiny.

I wanted them to lose so very badly.

Why the ire? For one thing, all the voice-mail messages. There were about three-per-day on my machine, popping up randomly before I could delete them. I've also never been a sport guy and, after Dartmouth, I really haven't developed any sense of school spirit around athletics. If I never went to a football game when I lived in Ann Arbor, you know that I'm not the athletics kinda guy. Seven years ago, I went to the pep rally (seemingly odd in this non-football school) with my teaching assistant, Stephen; both of us dressed in black and raised our pom-poms with a disaffected lower-case "rah" when they told us to cheer. I went home and was thrilled when the team lost, because that meant the hullabaloo was over.

Seven years later, the school is poised again. This time, I became aware of it when they started talking about in on NPR as the school to look out for. Uh-oh, I thought, here we go again. This time, it's against Colgate, but there is a rally planed this afternoon and tickets are available.

Here's the difference: I actually care this time. I want them to win. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I've had athletes in my classes on several occasions -- including the entire men's freestyle swim team for a whole year in two films classes. (I referred to them as a group as "da boyz.") Maybe I'm developing school spirit after all.

Or maybe it's that I can finally have a reason to have a public screening of This Is Spinal Tap. Since there is, miraculously, a connection:



UPDATE -- Oh my God: they did it!

Stuck

Like Xan in playground equipment somewhere in Capitol Hill, it may seem like I'm stuck. Angela's aunt rightly is chastising me for having first asked who is reading this blog... only to then not post in forever. Believe me, I've wanted to. But right now I'm behind the 8-ball with a ton of grading to wade through and seemingly no time to do it in. (Mustard gas seems to be part of the problem. That will make a good posting.)

Which goes to say that I'll be back, soon. But for now there are a few more papers to go...

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

I saw this the other day and thought this was a great idea: so many of us read each other's blogs but then rarely comment. We lurk. Never participate.

So let's show ourselves. I'm going to delurk myself at the various blogs I read. I encourage you to do the same. Including this one: say hi! Wave! Introduce yourself! Ask me embarrassing questions which I'll try to reply! let's see how many people are really reading this.

Back to life

...as Soul II Soul once said. I have been very lax on posting, mainly because of a lack of a high speed connection (and, quite frankly, some time). But the vacation ends on Friday when I head back to DC with the boy and hopefully I'll be able to relate some fun info soon thereafter.

"Turn in your teasin' comb and go back to high school"

Yes. Well.

Her name began with an A. (I would love to offer the full first name and I so rarely blog about students because I don't think it's ethical, but this was a public enough event and, in fact, she's not one of my students at all.) She was in the back of the room of the New Student Orientation at the program called "Academic Transitions," where a whole roomful of students role-play a hypothetical situation where a student is overwhelmed with school, issues and life and they have to offer advice. Each group brainstorms ideas and a representative offers up the top three choices, including one that is meant to be "unique." This if the fifth of five of these sessions being held this summer and I attend as a representative faculty member who then offers advice as well. I have been doing this for a few summers now and generally enjoy it; I also know that the fifth is usually (a) the biggest and (b) the hardest. Students who wait until the end often self-select this session for a reason. Of note, it's also hot outside today.

Of the many groups, A went first. In order, her advice to the student who was just a little overstressed was that she needed to:

1. Get laid.
2. Find a student who had taken the class before and pay them to write the paper.
3. If that doesn't work, hire someone to kill the professor.

Ha. Yeah.

I should say that nearly every other time that I have done this kind of thing, the kids have been great and play along really well. And, in (some) fairness, I should say that this time A was one of three representatives this time that suggested offing the prof. (At least they didn't suggest sleeping with us, which we've heard a few times.) I also don't take this particular bit of "naughty posturing" as a comment on students as a whole who, as a group, I am not cynical enough yet to believe all think this way. In fact, to everyone's credit, all of these smarmy answers (including all of A's) were met with real unease by the rest of the group, not the laughter or cheers I'm sure they expected to elicit.

When it came time to give my spiel, however, I said to the entire group of around 150 students, "My first bit of advice is that A needs to not take any of my classes in the four years that she's here. Your orientation leader, who has taken three of my classes, can tell you that that kind of attitude isn't going to fly very far in my class. And, by the way, nice way to make an impression."

Ketchup, with relish

I know I've been very lax with the blog these days. Finishing the manuscript has taken its toll on extra-curricular writing. Indeed, I only started really seriously looking at the paper I delivered in Edmonton on Monday on the Saturday before. I resolved that I could not go to my workshop until I finished the manuscript -- and so it was that, with about three-or-four hours of sleep for several days before, I managed to finish it. You have not seen a man more relaxed.

Now it's time for a quick edit -- and a lot of catching up. Luckily, the summer class is going well and I've caught up with grading there. I'll have Xan to myself for the next week since our day-care person is on vacation and Ange's 10-month gig doesn't end until next week. I have a flurry of other activity due this summer even after this edit goes through, including the translation book, the final copy of this paper I delivered and a new course prep for fall. So bear with me.

Coming up, however, are a couple other things: a posting about Edmonton in general, and some new pics of the boy, who is splendiferous. And, on Tuesday, my posting for the event advertised here. Originally, I planned to talk about the very woman pictured here since I think Angela Bassett is kick-ass (literally) and I actually really enjoy this movie. (Hey, I even have an academic piece about it.) Either that or Buffy, natch. But this last weekend in Edmonton introduced me to a new, different heroine, which I think could be more interesting for the blog-a-thon. So, stay tuned. And I promise I'll write a bit more these days. No, really.

The dangers of working in a cafe

I am currently trying to get some work done at Mayorga, a cafe in Silver Spring where I occasionally write. I'm in a quiet room off to the side, which is generally where people work to get away from the mild roar that dominates the larger room.

I have to note, however, that there is a couple who have sat down near me who are clearly having coffee and snacks and seem to be having conversation resembling a first date. I am not eavesdropping; his voice is just semi-stentorian in this already somewhat quiet room. (It's distracting enough that I may move any moment now.)

I'm an Alpha Thetian (indeed, wearing a Dartmouth sweatshirt right now), so those in the know will get an extra kick out of me saying this, but an indication of how this date seems to be going (and why I'm trying to suppress laughter right now) can be summed up in the somewhat disappointed line the guy just uttered a minute ago: "Ah. I guess you don't watch very much Star Trek, do you?"

Ketchup

A quick run-down about what I've been up to (and why I haven't been posting as often lately):

• A couple weeks ago, I got flown out to give a lecture on Peruvian cinema at University of Kansas as part of an Andean and Amazonian Worlds seminar put on by their Hall Center for the Humanities. I got the gig thanks to my colleague and friend (and collection co-editor) Tamara -- and it marks the first time that I've actually been brought anywhere to talk about my specialty. I also got to give a talk to undergrads at the Center for Latin American Studies. And here's the thing: not only was everyone really nice, but people were genuinely interested in what I had to say. Except for Tamara, I don't know any of these people at all. And every so often in academia, you wonder if what you're doing is really of any interest to anyone else but yourself -- you hope so, but you never know. Watching people take notes on what I said was quite the boost. (Plus, Lawrence and Kansas City turned out to be a pretty neat place! Who knew?)
• Last weekend, I was in Chicago at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, giving a paper entitled -- wait for it -- "It's Not Easy Bein' Brown: Rita Moreno, Lena Horne and The Muppet Show." It's my second foray into writing about television (come to think of it, the second writing about racial depictions in TV, the first one having already been published at the e-journal Slayage), which I don't have formal academic training in, but am slowly gaining some know-how. The story behind my wanting to do the paper is intriguing: two years ago, I was prepping my course on Stardom and wanted to do a unit on Lena Horne. I went looking for a famous episode of A Different World, but that was unavailable at the time. Instead, I found The Muppet Show, whose first season had just been released on DVD. The episode was (for me, at first) unusually milquetoast -- but then on a whim, I watched the episode on Rita Moreno. (I do have an academic interest in Rita Moreno, but that's a later endeavor.) Seeing the episodes back-to-back led to the idea for the paper -- and a year-and-a-half later, I've now given it. I may even try to pump it up a little further at another point.
• Visiting Chicago also gave me the opportunity to call on one James Chadd, one of my 'shmen from waaaay back when I was a UGA at Dartmouth. The last time I saw him, he was just about to graduate in '96; just over ten years later, he's doing wonderfully well working as an ER doctor in Chicago proper. (And, had I contacted him earlier, his apartment was only eight blocks from the conference site. Instead, I stayed at a friend's palce way up north in Andersonville; they weren't around, so I cat-sit for them, even making friends with Loopy Lucy.) Next year's conference: Philly.
• At the conference, I got to talk to a couple presses, who at least seem interested in the book. That's all I'll say for now, but I just have to keep plugging away. It's so close to being done -- I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
• Last week, I found out that I'll be teaching my standard into film course for University College next year. This means that instead of 50 students from across the university spectrum, I'll get around 20 students, all freshmen who will live on the same floor. This is a huge opportunity that I didn't even know I was being considered for until after it happened, so I'm thrilled at the chance to teach it. My schedule for next year is a bit odd, but is shaping up to be very nice, with my spring featuring only my stardom class and my grad seminar on film. (This means, for once, my spring will not feature a class at 8:30 AM! Woohoo!)
• Speaking of teaching, summer plans thus far: teaching a course on Almodóvar in May and June; Cape Cod at Ange's parents in July; my parents in A2 in August before the fall begins. In between, a conference in early June in Edmonton (also a fly-out!) on Peruvian exploitation film, and possibly a trip up to Hanover for reunion (#15!).
  
• I still have to choose the movie for my class' final project, which has to come out over the next couple weeks. I'm narrowing the choices now, having already seen one good candidate.
  
• And oh yes, looky that: someone's having a birthday next week. And man, is he turning two. With all that implies.
  

Things Come Together

Sometimes, good stuff happens in a surprising way. Today, for example:

• Xan, incredible kid that he is, finally figured out that when I turned around in the car and stuck my tongue out at him, that I was playing a game and that he shoould stick his tongue out back at me. (I have been doing this for several days now and each time I did this prior to today, he would shake his head, "Noooo! Idon'twantit!" This actually made me laugh, which is why I kept it up at all.)
• I got an absolutely incredible e-mail from an old student who is currently attending Sundance, thanking me for introducing him to Atom Egoyan in class six years ago, which means that I actually did make a difference to someone's life.
• After reading that, I also got my teaching evaluations from last semester and did pretty well. One class was way higher than I thought it would be; the other would have been the same except I clearly pissed someone off royally. (For every question, 45 people evaluated me in the top two categories and one person gave me the lowest score possible. Whoops.)
• The Oscar nominations are tomorrow morning, which I will show live in class. For once, I have no friggin' clue who will be nominated, much less win -- which actually makes it exciting.
  
• The hiring meeting at work was surprisingly congenial.
• Xan had a good bath day and I was requested to read Kitten's First Full Moon, which is my favorite, too.
• I discovered that I'm a network executive's worst nightmare, due to my lack of TiVo. I had been dreading today, when 24 and Heroes would finally go up against each other, but thought I had solved the problem when Angela started taking a class on Monday nights. Fine, I thought, I'll tape 24 and watch Heroes since she is into the former and not the latter. Except while I was watching Heroes, I kept turning back to 24, even though I was taping it, because I wanted to know. So it appears that I have made a decision anyway about my own TV watching habits and (alas) can dump one. (Sorry, Hiro!)
• Upon going down to our library to find my "marked-up" copy of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, I instead come upon a signed copy. I didn't know I had a signed copy. I just sat here staring at it for a moment.

Oh yes, and I finished chapter one of the book. It ain't pretty (yet) but it's out of my system. (The third attempt at writing this chapter seems to have done the trick.) Which means I now have Introduction through Chapter 7. Eight down, one more to go.

Egad

Tonight, I stayed late at work to continue writing my mortal coil (also known as the book I'm trying to finish). I shut down at around 10:45 and went outside to wait for the 11:00PM shuttle from campus to the metro stop. No one was around, so I shivered - winter having finally arrived in DC -- blankly for a little while.

As the bus approached, three girls came out of the dorm near the stop, dressed in high heels and miniskirts. The parent in me thought, They should really wear more clothing. It's cold. The bus stopped and I got on.

At which point I remembered that it was Friday night. On a college campus. In DC.

The entire bus was filled with very loud, very young women. The scent of perfume mised with seemingly half-digested alcohol in the warm, cramped air of the bus. Girls yabbered on so excitedly with such shrill voices, I actually couldn't catch a single conversation. One of six people with a Y-choromosome on the bus (and one of two over the age of 25, the other being the bus driver), I sat in the front of the bus. I frantically looked around, praying that none of my students -- past or present -- were on board.

For some, the prospect of being in close quarters with all these young women would be exhilerating. Quite frankly, I believe there are just certain things a professor really shouldn't even know about, much less see. I found the experience mildly terrifying.

The bus opened the doors and I zipped out to run down the escalator stairs before the gaggle approached me, thinking as I went downward My God, I am so glad I'm not 20 anymore, because goodness knows I wouldn't be able to take this.

With that, I happily declare myself old.

Now THAT'S a wake-up call

While in Philadelphia for MLA, I'm staying at the Alexander Inn in a room on the 6th floor at the south end of the building. It also happens to have a bay window.

Which, because I left the window shades open last night, meant that I had the most amazing, unobstructed view of a sunrise this morning.