Holy ABD, Batman!

First and foremost, I am now officially ABD. To my non-graduadte student friends, this means All But Dissertation. As of Wednesday morning, I have passed my proposal conference, my dissertation topic is approved, and I have completed every aspect of my graduate career except my dissertation. This will now take me roughly 2-3 years to write, barring a miracle or the cessation of financial support.

Wow, diet hot chocolate doesn't taste half bad. What an age we live in.

Also, as of Tuesday, bought Halo 3. As of Wednesday at 4:45, beat Halo 3. Would have beaten it much sooner if I hadn't had that pesky proposal conference Wednesday morning. The phrase "awesomely good" gets bandied around a lot these days, yet I find it applies very well to this particular entry in the Halo franchise. Plus, the four-player co-op mode redefines notions of greatness, particularly when you've got three tanks and a warthog on your side, all controlled by uber-weet killing machines and not dumb as bricks UNSC Marine AI. If anyone else owns this bright example of the glory of our times and wants to run some games over Xbox live, let me know.

So, having moved into my new apartment over a month ago, I've noticed some strange behavior on the part of my roommate. He's never really at home until late at night, claiming repeatedly to be at "the library" doing "work", and he's up freakishly early (7 a.m. every day, listening to NPR, keeping abreast of the current state of society in a rather suspicious way). He dresses very well, usually wearing at least a dress shirt and slacks and tie, if not a blazer or suit jacket. He was seen not too long ago by the Norwegian, walking the streets of Madison around 3 a.m., and when offered a ride home, he said he preferred to continue his walk. And, most tellingly, he is behaving in a decidedly un-gradschoolish manner, taking extra effort to cultivate his physique, to the point where he is what the common masses would refer to as "ripped," spending numerous hours at the gym "pumping his guns," as they say in the parlance of our times.

All these things combine to convince me that my roommate is, in fact, Batman. (Or some Batman-esque nighttime vigilante.) Consider the evidence: the odd hours and repeated absences, and the obviously false claims of "work" (no grad student works that hard--it just isn't done); the natty attire, as if openly cultivating the image of a millionaire playboy (or his grad school equivalent)--thus deceiving the masses about the angsty internal core; the nighttime wandering--clearly prowling the streets for muggers, pickpockets, or other scum; the intense devotion to the cultivation of physical strength--entirely unnecessary in the world of academia, but a vital component in the eternal hunt for justice and the battle against the forces of darkness and social decay.

I believe the evidence, as presented, speaks for itself. He's clearly Batman, and I shall refer to him as such henceforth on the blog. Needed a nickname for him anyway. In any event, I think the city is better off for his efforts. There's been a recent string of purse snatchings, not to mention the random armed suicidal mental institution escapee wandering te streets. So go forth, Dark Avenger, and protect the unwitting city! Godspeed, Dark Knight!

That about does it for tonight. Next time, I shall regale you with stories of Spousal Hire and my eternal struggle to not just leave lecture in disgust.

Oh, and in case anyone cares, I'm looking for a Wednesday night tv show to consider, now that Lost won't be on until February. Right now, my schedule seems as follows:

Monday -- Chuck (on a trial run) and Heroes. (No Journeyman, however. I liked that show when it was called Quantum Leap, and won't sully my memories.)
Tuesday -- Reaper. (This replaces my lost love, Veronica Mars.)
Wednesday -- ???
Thursday -- Smallville and Supernatural (the latter of which really started to bring it hardcore at the end of last season).
Friday -- Drinking.
Saturday -- Drinking.
Sunday -- Whatever I've got from Netflix

So till next time, I leave you with the following advice: You can't go around London asking people to pretend to be Gussie Fink-Nottle...Well, you can, I suppose. But what a hell of a life.

Two Questions

I promise shortly to blog about the Roommate = Batman theory, as well as telling you all of the wacky misadventures of Spousal Hire and the Lecture from Hell. But for now, two quick questions for the more knowledgeable out there.

1. What are your favorite places to take your parents when they come to Madison? Both for dining, and for entertainment, of course. My folks are coming in October, and I'm contemplating things they might enjoy.

2. Anyone have any recommendations for a good laptop? First and foremost, I'm not buying a mac. So don't suggest it. My folks want to get me one for Christmas, and they're contemplating the Dell Inspiron 1720 (my dad gets a discount on Dell computers through his work), so I wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts, as others are tech-savvy and I am not.

Thanks, and more enjoyable posts forthcoming.

Try to Remember the Kind of September

Today was very close to a perfect day. This, in spite of the many many things that seemed to conspire to make it less perfect, including:

-The severe cold in my apartment this morning, due to all the windows being open all night during the 40 degree weather.
-The five hours of drunken sleep I got the night before (congrats TGD on the ABD).
-My dissertation chair's note that he'd have to leave after the first hour of my proposal conference, but that he was sure we'd keep the conversation going without him.
-My continued confusion as to how exactly The House of the Seven Gables fits the traditional Romance genre in the way that my instructor seems to think it does.
-My students' confusion in lecture as our instructor seemed to assume they had read the entire novel already.
-My state of near exhaustion throughout most of the day.

Yes, in spite of all that, it was nearly perfect. For the following reasons, each of which is ok in its own right, but together conspire to make the day great:

-I had perhaps the greatest cup of chai ever after lecture. The kind where you're cold, tired, sore, and slightly hungover, and the hot beverage just seems to seep into every bone in your body and take away the pain and the lethargy. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I imagine this is how they feel every morning.
-I set up a CLC listserv, which makes me look both helpful and important, increasing my status in the department ever so slightly (very, very, very slightly, but hey, take what I can get).
-I booked the room for my proposal conference and filled out the appropriate form, after a flurry of e-mailing during my office hours.
-When the sun came out on my walk home, it was absolutely gorgeous to walk by Lake Mendota. Because I'm a pretentious midwestern academic, I really like walking along in the fall carrying a jacket slung over my arm. It's one of the few times I actually feel like a professional coming home after work, not just some bum who can't get a real job. Plus it's got this whole scholastic/aesthetic feel to it. Or at least it does in my mind. Don't take it away from me.
-It was really really windy, just cold enough to feel the chill, but sunny enough to take the edge off. The wind made the lake all choppy and white-cappy (or as much as it can on a lake the size of Mendota--I still miss Lake Michigan sometimes).
-What can I say? I love the fall. Love it love it love it.
-I took a nap. Just an hour, but still.
-I watched quite an intriguing and entertaining film called Metropolitan, on loan from T. It's all about snobby preppie college age kids during the debutante season in New York (Quantum's people, in other words). It's mostly a lot of talking, a kind of Jane Austen-esque intellectual romance set in the early 90s. The acting takes a bit to get into, as they are all largely unknowns, but not in a jarring way. There isn't really much plot, just a lot of character interaction. And it's loads of fun. Thanks to T. for the suggestion. (Though I now have an overwhelming desire to read Mansfield Park. I hate it when movies make me feel culturally illiterate, despite having read several other Austen novels.)

Oddly enough, I think my tiredness was the exact precondition I needed to really appreciate both the weather and the movie. In my sleep-addled brain, I was in just the right state to really stop thinking about school and my dissertation, and just enjoy what was going on around me. Today, in all the good things that happened, the day was about celebrating sensation, from the hot chai to the cool breeze to the sound of the leaves rustling madly outside my window or over my head as I walked. And I think my near exhaustion was just the right way to approach a day like today.

So huzzah for fall! Down with the tyrrany of summer!

Next post, I outline my new conspiracy theory. In brief, I'm fairly certain that my roommate is Batman. More to come.

Who Would Win in a Fight?

Well, the new semester starts up this week, and to celebrate, we've pretty much been drinking ourselves silly every night (beer margaritas = awesome; beer margaritas < scotch martinis). Madison, our quiet tranquil little town, is once again home to an infestation of young people, breathing my air and taking up my space on the sidewalks (sidewalk's for regular walkin', not fancy walkin'). I believe the situation was best summed up by the two obviously sketchy middle aged men I saw standing on State Street, one of whom remarked to the other "Well, all the co-eds are back." Yes, sketchy lecherous old guy, they are indeed. (See McJew's blog for further elaboration.)

I personally am looking forward to the new year, as I'm finally going to have a sit-down meeting with my advisor to discuss my dissertation proposal, and hopefully have my conference sometime early this month. And I'm apparently presenting part of a chapter from it in December for the CLC, so I should start writing it sometime in the near future. Plus, I need the structure in my life to counter the eternal ennui of being me.

My lecture this fall looks particularly promising. We're reading a book no one seems to have heard of called Rhapsody, my instructor has yet to give us a syllabus or tell us the theme of the course, and I have to teach The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which will both neuter any type of coherent discussion amongst my freshmen because of its obvious *gasp* problematic racial discussions and simply confuse them because it's a long, sprawling work that clearly is participating in and altering a dominant American tradition, which they won't care two licks about because they aren't familiar at all with that tradition. Oh, and the kicker: we're reading Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables. The title of the course? English 169, Introduction to 20th century American Literature. Yup, Hawthorne. He was in the 20th century, right? Right? Bueller?

Anyway, every semester I try to ask my students at least one pointless question on their "get to know you" survey. Traditionally, this question is "Who would win in a fight, Samuel L. Jackson or Batman?" (See here and here for past breakdowns.) But this year I'm contemplating breaking the pattern and finding a new question. Part of me wants to maintain the "fight" schema, as it provokes hilarious responses, so I need two new people to fight. But I'm hungover and unimaginative, and afraid I already peaked with the Jackson/Batman rumble. Any thoughts from you the readers? Or any other questions you're dying to hear answers to? (Nothing too obvious, either. I'm a huge fan of "What's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?", but that and questions of its ilk are a bit overused.)

A few other random notes before signing off:
-Happy Birthday to T. over at SpeakMemory, even if she didn't tell anyone. Drop over and send her a shout out.
-Read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is as awesome as T. says. Though I still feel more strongly about Everything is Illuminated, even though I recognize Extremely as the better book. (Quantum, you as the fanatic about everything New York should definitely read it.)
-Saw Superbad. Captain Americanist says it best with his recent post "Superbad=Superawesome!" Personal favorite line, "Yeah, they told us about that in health class."
-God the new M.A.s all seem so young. Definitely starting to get that "sketchy older guy at the party" feel that predominated my last year in Evanston, when I wasn't a student but still hung out with them all the time.
-Just noticed L.A. Girl has given me a link on her new and improved blog. My empire expands!
-Last, if you're the one recalling all my books, please stop. I need those to sit on my shelf and not get looked at ever again.

Random Madison Question

To my fellow TAs: anyone out there use GHC and wear glasses? I'm trying to decide if it'd be cheaper to buy glasses at the clinic, or go someplace like LensCrafters. Any thoughts or insights appreciated.

Also, if anyone knows how I can convince my landlord that it's his responsibility and not mine to pay for maintenance on the freakin telephone wires, please let me know.

Brian and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

You know that your day is going to suck when you wake up shivering on the floor of your friend's office after four hours of sleep with the stale aftertaste of a cigar in your mouth and an appointment at the mechanic's to prepare for.

Some background: Yesterday, I was homeless, and had been so for about 24 hours. All my things were in my new apartment, save a few scattered throughout my car and on TGD's floor, but I could not officially inhabit my new space until the 15th, due to the persistant inhabitance of the subletter. That night, after moving all morning (on about 5 hours' sleep), several of us went drinking and cigar smoking, which was awesome. I got loopy drunk, due more to the exhaustion than the drinking, as I only had 3 drinks (well, five including the two scotch martinis before we left, but to be fair I spilled half of those). But since we were at a cigar bar, we decided to go with the pure stuff, so I had me some very nice Basil Haydens and a glass of Macallan 12 year. We were out till 2, then stayed up till 3 to sober up a bit. When I went to sleep, it was pleasantly warm in the office, and I had my comfy comfy air mattress.

What I did not have, was a blanket. That really came back to bite me in the ass when I woke up at 7:00 and it was pouring down rain and it was freezing cold in the room. So I went to the Mitsubishi dealership to get my air system repaired (apparently it was so encrusted with gunk that the switches and whatnot couldn't even move). I was already irate with these people because they hadn't called me to let me know the parts I ordered two weeks back had come in (as they promised to do after taking $150 of my money). So it was with no small amount of shock that they told me it would take five hours to replace these parts. Apparently they had to pull out the entire dashboard to do so. Sadly, the dealership is far from my usual haunts, so there was nowhere to really go, and it was pouring down rain. So I sat, in their crappy waiting room, for four hours, attempting to read, and inadvertantly watching Live with Regis and Kelly as well as The View, both of which reconfirmed my hatred of morning television, and talk shows in general. Furthermore, as I was hungover, with cigar breath and taste in my mouth, I was particularly disgrunteled to discover that I didn't have any bills smaller than a $20, and thus the vending machines, not two feet from me, were woefully off limits.

After four hours, the rain stopped. Going slightly mad at this point, I decided to walk underneath the Beltline and go to the Culver's on the other side for lunch. Which was not bad, particularly since I've been dieting and thus not eating fast food for about 3 months now (all dieting restrictions went out the window during moving time, as I had no food and no patience to look for healthy alternatives). Unfortunately, as I began to eat my burger, it began to pour again. The dealership was a good 20 minute walk away (despite the fact that I could still see it out the window), because the closest crossing under the highway was that far. And I had no umbrella, as the two I normally keep around me were both in my car (the irony of which was not lost on me). So I waited at Culver's for an hour and a half, nursing my diet pepsi and cursing the heavens. (Seriously. We had a drought for two months. It couldn't stop raining for 25 minutes more?) Finally the rain stopped, and I made it back, to see my car sitting outsite, all ready to go. Again, they had not called my cell to let me know when it was done, as they had promised. For all I know, the car had been sitting there for three hours).

Of course, for the sheer time it took to pull my car apart and put it back together, I ended up paying over $500. Only to discover, as I was driving along the highway, happy as a clam, that the damn air system still didn't work. Turns out that the motor of the blower is on its last legs. Which is ironic, considering when I took the car in originally, I said I thought the motor of the blower was busted, and they should look at that first. How these professionals managed not to hear the deafening rattle it put out is beyond me, but I basically ended up spending about $775 to fix a problem that didn't even fix the problem I took it in for. Realizing their stupidity, they agreed to put the new motor in for me at no charge, once it gets here. Sadly, though, that won't be till at least next Monday, which means that I will be driving in St. Louis weather (highs in the 100s, lows in the 80s) with a busted air conditioner this weekend. Again ironically, this is the very thing I took my car in to avoid. I could live without a/c in Madison, as I never drive far and it isn't all that hot. But in St. Louis, especially on a 6 hour drive, it's a death sentence. Oh well, at least I paid a shitload of money to get screwed and then sweat a lot.

By this time, I could finally move into my new place, which I did. I've since been unpacking and organizing, which has been going well. The only downside is that none of the phone jacks work properly, thus negating the dsl and phone service I'm spending yet more money on. So I have no internet connection, which for me is like a slow kind of death. Hopefully this will be taken care of while I am out of town this weekend, or at least set in motion to be remedied at some nearby future date. But considering that AT&T is probably up to their eyes in service calls (considering everyone moves right at this time of year here in Mad City), I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, and there are lots of cracks in the paint in my bedroom. I had wanted to paint over these, but my landlord seems to feel his only contribution needs to be a single can of paint, left outside our door. No rollers, pans, cloths, brushes, or anything. We're going to have words. Unless the cracks drive me mad in the night.

Still, I've managed to survive the past two days for pretty much one reason. I just finished reading Everything is Illuminated; or, as I'm now calling it, The Awesomest Book in the History of Books. One of the plus sides of moving is that I don't have time for focused work, so I've put my proposal on hold for a week (considering my advisor told me to take the month of August off, I don't feel too badly about this move). As such, I've been reading for pleasure again, particularly books others have recommended. Finished Atonement (very good, even if it is British and made me deal with the fact that British Lit. is fundamentally different than American Lit., my professed love), finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (quite good, particularly if you have any interest at all in comic books), and then yesterday at the dealership I started Illuminated.

Now, as a scholar of literature, I've discovered I have different modes of appreciation for literature. There are the books you recognize as great and appreciate both aesthetically and intellectually (Atonement was like this for me); there are the books you see as stylistically or technically innovative, or genreically innovative, and thus merit appreciation (for me this will always be Ulysses, just because I can get no sense of poetry from it, a statement I know many of my readers will profoundly disagree with); there are books you see as important or enjoyable because of the way they deal with a particular issue or topic (much of my reading of Vietnam War fiction falls in this category, though the best transcend it); and then there are the books you see as important in some other way, but aren't really all that good (i.e. you'd never read them outside of a class or for a dissertation).

Then there are the books like Everything is Illuminated. Reading a book like this is akin to a sucker punch to the gut. The book takes your breath away with its beauty, its brilliance, its emotional or spiritual or intellectual resonance. You don't read these books; you consume them. Even if you take breaks between sections, or go off and do other things, you still feel like you're devouring the book when you return to it. Then, when you're finally finished, you can't do anything else for the day, at least not with any degree of mental focus. Finding books like these made prelims summer enjoyable, as they would be the gems within the pile, books that you could just love even before you began to analyze, dissect, or plan responses to. The Iceman Cometh was like this last summer; Catch-22 has been that way for me since high school; In the Lake of the Woods (along with pretty much everything else by Tim O'Brien) is basically the reason I came to grad school, and shoehorned a dissertation around a specific topic. This type of book demands a lot from the reader, but it also demands an audible silence at the end, a moment when you can't do anything but marvel at the fact that you just read something so wonderful.

All this digression is a longwinded way of saying that I liked the book.

Seriously. You should read it. It's awesomely wonderful. It's funny, poignant, sad, and devastating, and it's written in a style that is both technically innovative and accessible and not showy. At it's core, it's about a young man's journey to find a woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis in 1941. It's also a history of a Jewish shtetl in the Ukraine, and the tale of another man's relationship with his family, particularly his grandfather and his dog. It's about translation and mistranslation, the humor of the everyday and the complexities of memory. It has the best joke about the Burning Bush I've ever read. It made me laugh out loud more often than I could count, which earned me many weird looks at the car dealership. I could go on and on as to what it's about. Or you could just read it. I'd recommend the latter option.

Ok, it's late, and I want to leave my office and go eat, then go home and hang a few more pictures. Hopefully I'll return next week with wacky stories from St. Louis. And hopefully my car won't explode on the way there.

Historical Archives

This is pretty much a stopgap post, designed to fill the void until I can blog about tomorrow's experiences at Scotch Martini Night.

While cleaning out my closet in preparation for my move, I came across an old notebook. Amidst my own personal notes on Sebald's The Emigrants and my notes from my American History course, I find the following page, which I reproduce here for your amusement. I have attempted to conjecture explanations where appropriate, in italics.

***********************
Library Date (The page opens with this mysterious heading, which is crossed out vehemently. Given the location of said page within my notes, I believe we can safely place it within the context of English 100 Winter Semester Training. Furthermore, the crossing out of the heading indicates that we never did in fact learn when our library dates were at that time. Not surprising, given just how little we actually learned during that training.)

Gwen, are you sure I can't convince you to go see Tristan and Isolde instead of Kong? (I can only assume that I am speaking here to my colleague Gwendolyn Fungy-Phipps, a noted scholar of 17th century Polish folk music and deep lover of the works of Mozart's second cousin, Bartolomius. The movie reference of course indicates my desire [as yet unfulfilled, alas!] to see Tristan and Isolde, the epic tale where James Franco tries desperately to be a leading man and not just Harry Osborn or the child of some other, more famous actor [see City by the Sea]. At the time, I maintained that, given our proclivity for adaptations of famous works of literature, we should see this movie with all alacrity. Clearly, I was outvoted in favor of a giant ape.

I do, but I've seen it already. (Here Gwendolyn apparently attempts to entice me into seeing Kong by offering to show me her collection of spores, molds, and fungus which she keeps in the office we share, safely contained in half-empty Coke bottles. Having had to throw out several specimens at various points throughout the year, I was not to be dissuaded from my desire for brilliantly adapted medieval romance.)

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
And I feel fine. (Clearly I had just seen the film The Day After Tomorrow, in which I learned that if I just stayed inside, global warming wouldn't kill me, no matter how many ice storms and cgi wolves it unleashed. This most likely led me down my usual train of thought, how to survive inside Helen C. White during the apocalypse. Which, I do not doubt, led to its corollary, how to survive inside HCW during a zombie infestation. I often dream about fortifying our concrete bunker of an office building, as we could most likely defend it indefinitely against any kind of undead attack, provided we managed to secure provisions and weaponry at the first sign of trouble.)

SSSHHH! (I assume here I was deeply engrossed in the training, and Ms. Fungy-Phipps was talking incessantly, as is her wont. Either that, or I was again imagining myself to be a steam vent, or some kind of gas leak slowly suffocating the occupants of a small, two bedroom home with a leaky gas stove, in a race to see which would kill them first, the gas itself or some sparking appliance that would incinerate the gas and all occupants of the house. Such thoughts of murder and death being common during English 100 training, after all.)

Why do we care? (Here and with all notes following, I clearly actually started listening to whomever was speaking.)

No, really, why do we care? (My question remained unanswered, I assume.)

Will she ever shut up? (Here I deduce that the speaker was either female or a very effeminate male, either of which was talking too long. Sadly, this doesn't rule out anyone that tried to "train" us during 100 training.)

She's gotta be over time. (Time is clearly demarcated in 100 training, using the standard system of seconds, minutes, and hours. Yet during training an odd phenomenon has been noted several times: during each speaker, the space-time continuum manages to bend fractionally, localized entirely within a two foot radius surrounding the speaker. Within these temporal vortexes, time manages to flow more slowly, to the effect that each speaker is remaining within the allotted time while ensconced within the vortex; yet to everyone outside, time moves at the normal rate and thus the speaker inherently goes far far far over time. Such phenomena have been noted by Dr. T. Grant Dancer in his recent study "The Effects of Microscopic Black Holes on the Educational Institutions of America: A Study in the Mismanagement of Time and its Effects on the Quantum Mechanics of English Teacher Training.")

My God! Shoot the woman! (Clearly she was preventing us from going drinking. Or, perchance, just wasting our time with one inanity after another. Oh, wait, that would be every aspect of the training. In any event, I don't recall a shooting, so clearly no one listened to my writings.)

(The notes here break off into random drawings of yin-yangs and circles with arrows indicating which direction to trace the circle. These cabbalistic symbols bar any attempt at translation, lest I summon forth some kind of demon from the nether world to teach me more about how to not teach composition to freshmen. Peruse them at your discretion, reader.)

What Is All This Crap on My Head?

Those of you who know me understand that I don't embrace change all that often. Politically, ethically, morally, religiously, and culturally, I'm a somewhat conservative sort of person (though thankfully no longer culinarily so). Not freakishly so, and not flauntingly so (or so I like to think about myself), but fairly conservative nonetheless.

Which is why I can't stop thinking about this damn goop in my hair.

Last Thursday, I went out and got a haircut (as discussed previously), altering a hairstyle that has remained constant for about 14 years now. Post-barber, my hair is really quite short, with no discernable part, and I'll be damned if I don't contemplate my hair at least once an hour now. See, the beauty of my old hair style was that it was very low maintenance. As long as it wasn't in my eyes, I was fine with it. I could manage it, I knew what it looked like, when it was messed up, and how to fix it. Now, however, all reference points have been lost. My knowledge set has been lost, and have no clear understandings or viable points of comprehension. My head has gone postmodern.

I'm not saying I dislike the haircut. At times, I quite enjoy it. I just have no idea how it looks. I have no idea how to style it, and when I try to style it, I feel like a shmuck. Is it too flat? Does it look too styled? Does it look like I'm wearing a goddamn helmet on my head? Is it too messy? Or too stylistically messy? Or do I just look like a moron who can't figure out what to do with his head? (Currently, on the advice of the barber, I'm trying to "pop it up" in the front, which when she did it looked spiky and a bit messy and kinda cool, but when I do it largely involves several clumps of hair sticking together and sliding back along my scalp, as if I were trying to slick my hair back a la Friends' Season One Chandler Bing, which I'm not. Also, I think my hair still remembers the old style, as it still has a tendency to lean to the right, and look thinner on the left, which may just be my mind playing tricks on itself.)

Largely, it's this crap that goes into the process that I despise, what we in our era of infinite wisdom and lexiconical mastery have given the generic term "product". As in, are you using product? Do you have product in your hair? What product do you generally use? I really hate product. Hate hate hate. In the first place, something about its usage as a noun bothers me to no end. Why can't you just say gel or mousse or spray, or whatever? Product is such a generic noun that we can use it to signify just about anything (What's your product? We produce monkey tranquilizers!), and yet we also see fit to use it for the specificity of hair product (as opposed to say, Bucky Badger Cheese Product). I don't know why, but I get very irritated just by the word as a word.

And second, having expressed my distate for it as a signifier, I also can't stand using it in my hair. I never know if I'm using enough, too much, too little, the wrong kind, or how to use it to effectively style, as opposed to making my head look like a helmet of goop. And furthermore, my head now smells. I don't really know if it's a good smell or a bad smell. All I know is I'm aware of it in ways I never was before. But apparently, based on the advice of those much more fashionable and respectably stylish than myself, I need to use it. Damn it to hell.

So basically, through the course of this blog post, I've revealed the fact that I apparently am as self-consciously vain as a 16 year old girl. Do you see what happens when you ask me to change? I become neurotic. So if you have any advice on style or product, feel free to share it with me. If I look like a moron, tell me. I won't take offense. And if you have tips on what to use or how to use it more effectively, I'll be your friend forever.

And I promise, the next blog post will be something hilarious about drinking, not this whiny little girl crap about hair. My apologies to my readers.

A Sense of Style

So I'm told by numerous people (granted, many of them inebriated) that I need a new hairstyle. As I have no personal sense of style, I can only assume they must be correct (as many of them are, in fact, quite stylish, and not just a bunch of shlubs). And while I'm fairly certain I'm not going to follow one line of thought and get my head shaved, I'm in the market for a new hairstyle. So I open the floor to you, gentle readers, to solicit your opinions. Feel free to comment with links to appropriate pictures, vague descriptions, or any other feedback.

Homo sapiens senilius

I had the unique experience of encountering two very amusing old men yesterday.

The first, on library mall, was wearing black dress shoes, black socks pulled all the way up, khaki shorts, a white polo shirt, and a pith helmet. Yup, an honest to God pith helmet. As if he were preparing to breach the jungles of the subcontinent in search of Dr. Livingston. But he had the dark socks and dress shoes just in case a formal event broke out. Which they tend to do in darkest Africa, or so I'm told. Wasn't that the point of Heart of Darkness?

The second, a seemingly innocuous old timer, was hanging around a gas station I stopped at to get a bottle of water. As I was out for a walk, I had my portable cd player with me. This fine specimen of old timery wisdom noted my equippage, and informed me rather stridently that pieces very similar to my little Sony originally cost $1500. That was the entire bulk of our conversation, and yes, I can call it that, because he emphasized the point several times. You know, so I'd appreciate how valuable my cd player with the crappy radio reception really was. Or I'd just appreciate how old he was, as he can remember back to a time when these things were apparently made out of gold.

Nothing really more to say. I just find the elderly amusing.

Oh, question for my Madison folks. Do any of you know of any competent movers in this town?

Second question for my Madison folks. Do I want SSF as a third reader in my dissertation? TS seems to think this is a good idea, as she can fill in my large gaps in narrative theory. Of course, I could have printed his entire e-mail to me as a blog post in and of itself, as it is quite amusing in its brevity and its powerful use of all capital letters embedded in my own text. But that's another story for another day.

Monday Musings: The Efficacy of Lumber

Teddy Roosevelt famously said "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." I personally feel this would serve as a great mantra for my life. Specifically, my life in the dissertation proposal stage, where much of my existence is spent at libraries and coffee houses reading books. If I were to adopt this as a guiding rule, then I could nicely explain to all those around me that they, as well, should speak softly, and not in a loud, shrill, high-pitched voice that grates your senses until you just can't concentrate on the obscurely-written theory in front of you and you just want to scream. Or else, you know, I'd hit them with my big stick.

Recently my work at my coffee house of choice (Espresso Royale, home of the addictive chai) has become beleagured by addle-pated ninnies who seem to think that a coffee house is a great place for their loud, rambunctious, inane chatter. Never mind that there is a studious-looking individual reading a book about trauma theory right in front of them. But if there was a studious-looking individual reading a book about trauma theory with a big stick right in front of them, I bet they'd think twice.

I find myself fantasizing about that scene in The Untouchables, where DeNiro's Capone just clubs a man to death with a baseball bat. Seems like an effective way of getting some damn silence, or at least a muted conversation.

Other applicable uses:
-People who come to the Writing Center and demand you proofread their obscure scientific text. Learn the damn language or learn where to hire an editor, lest yet get smacked with my stick.
-People who feel that the perfect time to go for a long run is right before your Writing Center appointment, so that you reek to high heaven just in time for a studious-looking individual to sit very close to you and sit almost with heads touching while you together read your crappy personal statement that you clearly wrote the night before in about fifteen minutes. Seriously, on what level is that a good idea? Stick-whacking for you!
-People who talk in the theatre.
-Slow drivers. (This would be more difficult, as you'd have to account for windows, range, and uneven surfaces. Maybe some kind of hood-mounted car paddle.)
-People who have air conditioning in their public buildings and yet refuse to turn it up, even though it is insanely hot and humid.
-The organist at our church, who clearly has no sense of tempo, no idea of what genre of song is appropriate for a specific part of the mass, and who seems to delight in finding all the variations on the same melody, thus leading us to constantly singing the same tune with different words week after week after week. (Granted this is a religious institution, so the stick-beating would not be as fierce. Maybe a ruler-knuckle rapping, a la nuns.)
-Hugh Jackman.

I'm an Idiot

So I just got to the office, excited to finish revising for the day and actually send a draft of my proposal off to my committee members, when I realized that I hadn't e-mailed the file from my home computer to here. I wrote about 8 pages this morning, and now rather than sending them off in a timely manner, I have to go back home to do so. As I had planned to spend several hours on campus reading, this is a major inconvenience. All because I'm too stupid to realize that just because a file is on one computer, it may not be on the other. Yeah, I'm a putz.

Granted, this really in no way causes problems beyond the slight alteration of my schedule. I've missed no deadlines (other than a personal one), and will incur no wrath. So really I'm just whining at my own stupidity because it slightly makes me change my schedule. Feel free to mock me if you wish.

But on the plus side, I think I finally have a handle on what the fuck anything has to do with Vietnam. Or at least, I can bs my way into a convincing answer. Hah!

Oh, The Places I've Been

Well, there's really only two. Two places. Chicago and St. Louis. And not nearly long enough to warrant this Brownsoxian dearth of posts. Mea culpa, mea culpa.

Anyway, school's out now, and I'm in dissertation proposal mode full-time. But it wasn't always so. Once I traveled the world. And by the world, I mean the upper midwest localized around the Wisconsin-Illinois-Missouri area. Yeah, I'm just cool like that.

A few weeks back was the Freshman 15 spring concert, "Epic Show." Considering there were going to be more alumni at the show than actual members in the current group, I wasn't about to miss it. So I proctored my exam that Saturday morning (7:45am!), then drove down to good old Evanston, IL. This, I'll say, was kind of freaky, as for the first time Evanston felt like this strange town, rather than my college town. I guess five years away will do that to you. Not to say I didn't enjoy walking around campus, watching rehearsal for Shakespeare at the Rock, and then lazing around on the lakefill for a few hours. The shows were awesome, including an epic cameo by Hodgkins as Hades, and we would go on to prove that night that yes, we can still act like we're in college. Which means, of course, lots of beer pong, excessive drinking, and staying awake till 7:30am because someone simply has to talk with you once everyone else has gone to sleep (which was fun, granted, and there's no conversation like the 6:30am drunken conversation that you don't really know what the hell it's about and you won't remember it entirely the next day anyway), but the fact that I only got 3 hours sleep that night was sorely felt the next day when I drove back to Madison. Mad shoutout to all my F15 boys; you still know how to party.

A few days following, I returned to the place of my birth to celebrate my 3^3 birthday with my family. St. Louis, as I've said before, is always kind of odd now, because most of the folks I know who lived there have since relocated to better climes. So it was mainly me and my parents who, god bless em, can't quite party like they used to. But they did buy me a very excellent steak dinner. And I got to see my oldest friend from high school with his new house (awesome) and his new baby (which totally weirds me out, as my friends from high school should not be parents yet, regardless of how cute said baby may be). I had planned to blog from St. Louis during my massive downtime, but apparently DSL means "Damned Slow and Laggy" at my familial manse. When it's difficult just to check your e-mail, blogging is out. So I was stuck reading a lot of non-essential books (mostly Isaac Asimov robot stories, one of my dad's favorites that he had lying around the house) and watching their satellite tv (ah Veronica Mars, it was bitter to watch you end, but sweet to watch it on DVR, skipping mirthfully over commercials).

So now I'm back here in Madison, and will be until August (unless I end up jaunting to Chicago again to see Bluesman). We went out for the cubed birthday, and while we did travel to several bars, it was mostly because they were all too crowded to be fit for human occupance. We started at The Local Tavern, which promises "Good food, good beer, good friends, good cheer." Well, the food was mediocre, or so I'm told, but the beer was good, as were the friends and cheer (I imagine it didn't hurt that we were practically the only people there, and we were a party of at least 20 at one point, so the waiter was fawning over us). But then sadly, I led a valiant charge to Karaoke Kid. Unfortunately, apparently this Saturday was "Every Undergrad in the Tri-State Area Go to State Street and be Drunk and Obnoxious Night." There was no karaoke to be had, and we spent the majority of our time scouting out other possible bars, before walking almost all the way back to where we had started. We stayed out till closing time, then I apparently went home and made hot dogs and watched Batman Begins. I know this because there were two hot dogs less in the fridge, my grill was clearly used, and Batman was on the tv screen. I have no recollection of any of these events. But apparently I was cogent enough to hang my clothes up rather than sully my newly cleaned room (when you're only other option is to read dissertation stuff, you find ways to fill the time).

And now I spend my days reading about Holocaust survivors and thinking about Vietnam, trying valiantly to answer the Dude's question "What the fuck does anything have to do with Vietnam?" All I know is that I didn't watch my buddies die facedown in the muck to not write a disseration proposal. At least, I'm assuming they died in that muck. I never actually stopped to check, because I'm lazy and don't like to get muck on me. But then, Brownsox hasn't posted in a long-ass time, so he may still be muck-bound.

In closing, a brief representation of the kind of theory I'm reading these days, as illustrated by Saturday night / Sunday morning. I'm reading a lot of trauma theory, and this is what I gather from it: The traumatic event is something that the mind itself cannot cope with during the instance. For example, the cooking of hot dogs and the watching of Batman Begins. The mind is too scarred by the event, and cannot fit it into a linear framework of causality, and therefore rejects it, as clearly demonstrated by my inability to remember said events. However, the trauma does not disappear; rather, it constantly haunts the mind, forcing re-enactment on a literal and psychological level. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that, Sunday eve, I made more hot dogs and re-watched the end of Batman Begins, because I had no memory of doing so, yet I felt the compulsion to see the end of the movie I've already seen at least 20 times. So Sunday was, literally, a revisiting of the previous forgotten events in an attempt to reconstitute them into the awakened psyche. And now, this blog serves as the witnessing of the trauma, as I seek to cast my message and my testimony out in search of what Celan refers to as "an addressable you." My witnessing will neither be complete nor psychologically fulfilling unless it is heard and witnessed by others (i.e., commented upon). Whether the Other can ever really be addressed, or whether it is even desirable to find this Other, remains to be discussed by my dissertation.

Oh, and see Knocked Up. It's awesomely good.

May Madness

It's May, as you may have noticed (god what an awful pun). May always means fun things: the end of the semester (still no proposal, but a good idea what I need to do this summer), papers to grade without commenting upon, exams to grade in a laughably quick manner, a trip to Chicago next weekend for the F15 show (If anyone I know is still in Chicago, I need a place to crash Saturday the 19th since Bluesman is out of town. Any takers?), and my birthday, arriving just in time to place me within the triumphant realm of the May Geminis and not within the lesser, enfeebled ranks of the May Tauruses (Taursi?).

Today, to celebrate both the end of the semester and the onset of my 27th year, I went shopping. Rather than let my parents buy me things that I only marginally like, I just took their cash and bought things that I myself actually like. I have decided I'm a blue person. I enjoy the color blue, particularly in shirts. Now, shopping is something I traditionally abhor and shun as if it were a certain crystal-reading gorgon my New York friends will know all too well. Even when shopping for myself, I tend to be the "strike quickly and get out before the echo fades" kind of shopper. So what makes me go shopping, even when I have money to spend? Well, I found something I didn't want to do even more: grade papers. Yes, when it comes down to grading papers or shopping, I choose shopping. But it's still a close race.

For my birthday proper, I'm still planning what to do. And for that, I need your help, dear readers. Birthdays are traditionally a time of great, mind-erasing drunkening for me. I highly doubt I'll top last year's birthday, when the director of our graduate program bought me the glass of bourbon that sent me over the edge, but I still plan to give it my best. And for that, I've got three options in mind. Please offer your comments.

1. Dinner at Dotty's and drinking at a bar with larger seating afterwards. This plan has the beauty of being simple; I get to eat at Dotty's (some of the best burgers in Madison, for my outsider friends), and then lots of people will buy me drinks. Odds are I will get drunk and shout crazy things in the streets. Not much more to it, but what more do you need?

2. Drinking and then karaoke: This is a variant of plan 1, but with karaoke. I've never been karaoke-ing, but it sounds fun. And I hear some of the younger generation of grad students are hot hands on the mike.

3. 15 bars in one night. This is the challenge set forth by my New York friends, who tried and failed to do the exact same feat. I think they made it to 12, but then were sabotaged by both the need for food and the negative influence of their friends (correct me if I'm wrong, Quantum). Ours would be a slight variant, becoming 15 bars in one day, which isn't quite as cool, but we have a good deal of walking between. This plan has perks and detriments. The perks: my birthday becomes a day-long event, starting with brunch and drinks, and basically continuing drinking all day long. It will be an epic event, suitable for the last cubed birthday I'll have until I'm 64 (when I will be more worried about someone needing me and feeding me than I will about 15 bars in one night). And it'll be as much an intellectual exercise as it will be a drunkening. The detriments: it'll require a lot of scheduling, so people can join up if they want later in the day. It'll require a hefty time commitment. And we may die of alcohol poisoning. Plus, we may be so focused on getting to the next bar and staying on schedule that we might not be open to spontaneous fun (though I highly doubt that will be an issue the more we drink). Part of the joy of the birthday bar time is sitting in one place, gathering many many friends around, and watching them all drink with you (not to mention buy you drinks). I feel that if we're constantly hopping bars, we won't get that solid group effort that I really appreciate.

Ok, so those are my three options at this point. If you have other suggestions, feel free to add them. Or just offer advice, ideas, etc., on how to make sure my 3x3x3 birthday is quite spectacular.

Oh, and if you know you're going to be out of town for a time at the end of May, let me know. I'll try to schedule accordingly, but I can't accomodate everyone I already know.

Comeuppance?

So this fall, I actually do have a job (praise to Buddha and Colonel Sanders, who sits at the left hand of God feeding him popcorn chicken). I'll be teaching English 169, Modern American Lit. (yay!) at 8:50 in the morning (still better than the 8:00 slot I have now). It's a pay cut, but not much of one. Sadly, though, I'll be teaching for the professor that many of us simply think of as "Spousal Hire."

You see boys and girls, in academia, we have this thing called "spousal hire." It means that if your husband, wife, life partner, etc. is really talented and the university wants him or her badly, they will offer you a job as well, if you are in fact an academic. This can lead to good things, as several of my friends are (facetiously or seriously) contemplating their role as the spousal hire, despite the fact that they are all excellent scholars in their own right. It's often a great boon for the university, gaining two top notch academics.

Sadly, this is not always the case. I'm teaching for one of the exceptions come the fall.

Oddly enough, though, I was supposed to teach for this person my very first semester as a PhD student, but the couple went on leave for a year, and I was reassigned. Perhaps this is just the Universe's way of righting itself, in a bizzare academia-based version of Final Destination. Which will be awesome, but only if it has Ali Larter in it.

Stopgap Post

Longer post coming soon, but for now this brief post to appease my ravenous fans and keep me from going the absentee route of Brownsox.

First, we threw a kegger in our department building a few weeks back, to celebrate our conference. Highlights include the beer pong, the flip cup, and our immediate hush when campus security showed up at the building. Then magically we made it all disappear the next morning, roughly 20 minutes before we used the same room to run panels all day. Though I think the faculty is under the impression we were kicked out of the building, which we decidedly were not. Not that they'll tell us this openly, as that would admit that they knew we had a kegger, which violates the "don't ask don't tell" policy we all seem to have mutually agreed on.

Second, saw Urinetown this past weekend, which the University Theatre was putting on (two of my students were in it). The show itself is great, and is now added to my list of awesomely good musicals. The production was good, but not stellar. The director was going for some overly stylized stuff, trying to echo stuff like Threepenny Opera and The Cradle Will Rock; some of it worked, some didn't, and some just looked plain dumb. Not really the fault of the actors, just a director who wouldn't pull things back when they needed it. The male lead, while suitable for the part, wasn't really selling the higher register stuff, which seems necessary for the role. Although maybe that critique comes just because of my own girlishly-high vocal range. But if you're hired for a tenor part, you shouldn't look like you need to stop acting just to hit the high notes. And overall the sound was kind of messed up; the orchestra sounded like a recording for some reason, even though I could see them playing, and the choral numbers just didn't have that much oomph to them. Not to blame the chorus, as they were clearly putting their all into it and doing some very nice dance work. I think it was mainly a sound issue. Oh, and that theatre is a deathtrap waiting to happen. There are no aisles, people! It's just one long row that wraps its way around the entire house! Madness!

But the play itself is great, and you should see it if you get a chance. Very dark and yet hilarious at the same time.

Third, saw Spider-Man 3 last night. Again, good but not great. It wasn't Spider-Man 2, but then again, it wasn't X-Men 3 either. Everyone seems to have a different critique, though most seem to agree there are too many villains. I personally just don't buy Sandman. I almost laughed whenever he was on, as Venom and Harry Osborn made much better villains for me. I can see why they kept all 3 in there, but it was just too much. They should have focused much more on the Peter/Harry infighting, as that was my favorite part of the movie. But Bruce Campbell again rocked out his cameo, which leads me to point four.

Fourth, am in the process of renting and watching The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. If you've never seen it, this is a Bruce Campbell t.v. comic western that was on Fox for all of 26 episodes back in the early 90's. Phenomenal stuff.

Fifth and last, watch Heroes. If you aren't, you're a chump. Cause it rules. Quantum will back me on this, unless the ants have already taken over his brain (see Bourbon Samurai's blog for elucidation). New episode tonight, and only 2 more after that. Embrace your inner geek!

For next time, a meditation on what to do for my birthday. Should I accept the challenge of 15 bars in one night? Or save that for a more random time this summer?

Dubsgiving; or, One Man's Journey into the Abyss (Part II)

Rather than grade papers, and to get my mind out of the funk it's been in all day long, I offer you the conclusion of my recent sojourn to the city that never sleeps.

Day 4

Day 4 was the day that had been long prophesized. For on this date, my generous hosts had scheduled the second installment in their developing attempts to add new depth and coordination to drinking endeavors. Earlier in the year, I believe, they had hosted an event called "Let's Go to a Bar Night," in which they, to wit, went to a bar. To accomodate my schedule, they had arranged for the sequel to occur; thus, Monday became the day of "Let's Go to a Bar Night 2: Return of the Revenge of the Blood." My friends pulled all the stops. They arranged to get off work on a Monday (basically by telling their boss they weren't coming in). They had spread the word via that most inexorable scheduling device, the E-vite. And they had even made plans for at least one actual female to attend (a rare event, I'm told, and one of which they were quite proud). The stage was set for a truly wonderful soiree. But first, we had to go shopping.

The original "LGTABN" had, I was told, begun with a barbecue. We decided to continue this tradition, only it turned into grilling burgers indoors, as the weather was dodgy. That morning, then, Quantum, Bourbon Samurai, and I, took a trip to Costco, a magic land of bulk and wonder. There, one could make a meal on free samples of food (or so tradition tells, though this day the sample givers were few and far between). There, we ended up buying enough jumbo ketchup bottles to last several years, because you had to buy that many. There, the checkout man told us we could not buy the bag of bagels we had in the cart; we had to buy a second one, or they would not sell it to us at all. We were off the map, and my midwestern mind was blown.

Following that trek, we went to Teach's apartment, cooked the burgers (each of which ended up being roughly 1.25 pounds of meat per patty, and of which we each ate two), and then set off for the Continental, gleefully exclaiming "Let's go to a bar!" every few minutes. Now, there are high class bars and there are low class bars. Then there are dives. The Continental, unfortunately, was one of the latter. The place looked 5 minutes from falling down on us. The stall in the men's room was an excercise in contortion. There was only one tv, and a really crappy jukebox. They didn't take credit cards at all. Though, on the flip side, the bartenders (bartendresses?) were fairly attractive, and one of them appeared to be wearing a bandana rather than an actual shirt. We stayed there for hours, in spite of their lack of multiple televisions showing baseball games, for two very simple reasons. One, the e-vite said to meet there, and the rest of our party was staggering in at various points throughout the night. And two, they have an eternal deal where you can get five shots of anything for $10. So the four of us sat there, watching the Red Sox game, playing spades in our booth, and alternately drinking Bud Light and doing shots of Jim Beam. Over the next few hours, we were joined by Uber260, Brownsox, Sketchrock, Hubris, and multiple others whom I either had never met or cannot remember (and, lo and behold, there were several females over the course of the night, though one was a terrifying gorgon of mythic proportions).

Eventually, full of cheap beer and as many shots as we could muster, we crossed bars, rounding the block in order to go to a place that actually had food as well as boozeahol (I believe it was called the St. Mark's Alehouse, though my NY compatriots can correct me). We dined and drank, we had crazy conversations, we marvelled at the whimsy of Fate, who had basically recreated one of the most humorous and disturbing episodes of our college career in the form of a new couple, but with similar names (it's too complicated to explain here, and it might end up with the arrest of several of my friends). At one point, Bourbon and Sketchrock went outside to have a fistfight, because it seemed like the thing to do. Neither of them would throw the first punch, though, so Hubris socked Sketchrock in the ear in order to provoke the fight. Sadly, it did no such thing.

The evening boiled down, to the point where it was just Teach, Brownsox, Bourbon, Quantum, myself, and a latecomer female that Brownsox was apparently trying to engage in conversation (for the full and tragic details, see his post about that night). As we retired to the bar for one last round, my friends all turned into their conversations, while I, on the end, was engaged by the advances of who we would later refer to as "Crazy Carolina Girl." This Southern Belle was clearly under the influence of massive amounts of alcohol, and regaled me with the tale of her and her friend, Necktie Girl, who had travelled from the Deep South in order to seek jobs in some sort of Human Resources related field. Having worked in HR myself for a summer, I recognized immediately that anyone who would actively seek to work there is either A. moronic or B. batshit crazy. Though we did have a nice bonding experience when I mentioned I was from Madison, Wisconsin, and she immediately started talking about the joys of cheese curds, which squeak when you eat them, and are apparently the best or only memorable thing about this city that I love. This sealed the deal, and I tactfully withdrew to use the restroom rather than throttle her with my bare hands. As I left, I noticed she tried to engage Teach in conversation, who in turn introduced her to Quantum, but gave Q. his own name (i.e. Quantum was "Teach" and Teach was "Quantum"). Quantum, recognizing the crazy drunk, backed off quickly. As I returned from the restroom, I found Teach and Carolina engaged in what was unarguably the most one-sidedly offensive conversation ever. Teach was asking her point blank questions about how she valued human life, whose lives she would choose to save over others, and assorted questions, all of which seemed destined to pick a fight due to their obnoxiousness. But she never even noticed, and plowed gamely through the conversation, much to our amusement/horror.

Around this time, I retired to the other end of the bar, lest I burst out laughing in her face. Brownsox had ordered a beer, but the bar had a $15 minimun for a credit card purchase. Rather than actually reach into his wallet and get physical money, he bought me a glass of Macallen's 12 year. I toasted him, and he endeavored to return to his conversation. Unfortunately, as he notes, he was deftly cut out of the fair maid's attentions, and moved to join us, leaving poor Carolina girl all alone with her friends, to the great rejoicing of us all. Well, except for Bourbon, who had been chatting up the waitresses, sharing their contempt for the drunken Carolina and her friend. Brownsox, like a rampaging bull, crashed into their conversation and ruined all chances for our dear cohort to ever seal any kind of deal. Thus chagrined, we all fled into the night, where Teach and the girl ended up in one cab, and Bourbon, Quantum, Brownsox, and myself all together in another. Bourbon, in a show of rage, railed at all of us drunkenly for not capitalizing on our opportunities of the evening, blatantly ignoring the mediating circumstances and relative drunkenness of us all. But then we got home and watched the end of Galactica again, which soothed us all into sleep.

(This concludes my memories of LGTABN2:RotRotB. But my friends are free to add their own remembrances and qualifiers, as I basically drank from 2pm [giant beer at Teach's] until we left the Alehouse at around 2am [hefty glass of scotch].)

Day 5

The rest of the trip from here on out may seem anticlimactic, for the simple reason that my friends had to work the other days of the week. (Not that this would stop them from drinking in the slightest; it just meant we couldn't go on more all-day benders.) On day 5, they departed for work around 10:30am or so, further cementing my notion that they have the greatest job ever. I messed around their apartment for a bit, slept a while longer, did laundry at the laundromat, had a truly excellent bagel, and then went into the city. I was attempting to go to "Top of the Rock," the observation deck of Rockefeller center, as my mother had been telling me for months that I needed to go there. Quantum's directions were ever so helpful (take the subway to 5th Avenue, then go south a while), so I ended up very lost. I did find St. Patrick's Cathedral, and spent some time there admiring the temple to my risen lord, then found another subway station with a map. I made it to the Rock, where, oddly enough, I encountered one of my current students atop the building. She was there with her family, and we had a wonderful "What the hell are you doing here?" moment that was only slightly awkward, further testimony to my teaching abilities and rapport with my students. Quantum called while I was atop the building, having just gotten off work (around 4:30), so we met up for a drink or two.

That night we saw O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten with this man and this one, as well as a truly phenomenal actress who is apparently very well-known in British theatre circles, but not popular American film or tv shows. There was a snafu with our online ticket order, so we got better seats for less money (a Dubsgiving Miracle), and ended up about 10 rows from the stage. It was a spectacular performace all around, the best theatre I've seen in years (definitely the best since my last trip to NY and I saw Albee's The Goat). Not that this is all that spectacular, as I don't see much theatre, and most of what I saw was college productions of things. But still. Awesomely good.

After the subway ride back to Astoria, we met up some of our fellows at yet another bar (which oddly enough shared a name with our pal Irish McJew), and drank more cheap beer until around 1:30 or 2:00.

Day 6

Perhaps the most uneventful day of them all. It rained, so while my friends were at work, I stayed at their place and watched a lot of tv. The rain ended around 3:00, so I ventured into the heart of the Upper East Side, and went to the Met. This was not nearly as eventful as my last trip there, where Quantum high-fived a priceless buddha statue and set off an alarm. But it was still quite nice. Met up with Bourbon, Quantum, and Brownsox for drinks afterwards, as their work was nearby, then went to the theatre again. This time we saw a show called Spring Awakening, a phenomenal new musical that is most likely going to sweep all the major awards this year. I really liked it at the time, but I have since bought the soundtrack and elevated that "really like" into "outright love." The music is powerful, moving, and electric. The story concerns a group of 14-15 year olds in 1890s Germany, coming to terms with their developing sexuality in the face of their repressive schooling and parents. It's based on a play of the same name, written at the turn of the century, which was banned in Germany for years afterwards. If you get a chance, I highly recommend seeing it. If not, I can lend you the soundtrack.

To conclude the events of Dubsgiving, we met at one last bar, where we actually drank very good Czech beer rather than the cheap crappy beer my friends seem to guzzle like water. I also learned that I am awesome at Big Buck Hunter when I've had a few drinks. And that Brownsox can't not hit a doe to save his life, and he gets amusingly irate the further and further he falls in the standings. I learned the history of the bar, where Quantum had both been kicked out at one point and embraced by the owner at another (apparently he was an Eastern European man who admired Quantum because he "looked like Gestapo," an irony they still puzzle over). The beer was good, and though we clearly stayed much later than the wait staff wanted us to, we did tip well.

Day 7

On the seventh day, even God rested. But clearly, God didn't have to travel back to O'Hare and then Madison. Or if he did, he didn't go out of La Guardia or into O'Hare. After bidding a fond farewell to my most gracious hosts, I got one last bagel for the road (this time hot with butter, as Quantum ordered, though sans shmear), then caught the bus to L.G. Quantum said this bus ride would take roughly an hour. Naturally, it took about 10 minutes. So I was there about 3.5 hours before my flight, which ended up being delayed another 2 due to high winds in, you guessed it, Chicago (oh sweet irony). But it was all ok, because we got to spend the last hour's worth on the plane itself, sitting on the runway. I slept through most of it, as well as the bus ride back, and got to my sweet sweet bed at around roughly 10:30, Madison time. Mad props to Nittany Lion for the ride from the bus stop.

Conclusions

Thus ended Dubsgiving, though I did learn several key life lessons:

1. Bagels are in fact better in New York.
2. My friends, who taught me in college to be snobs of all things alcohol (unless drinking games are involved), now subsist almost entirely on cheap beer.
3. Cab drivers are crazy. Seriously.
4. Tall beers are better than regular beers.
5. The e-vite is considered a binding social contract.
6. You can apparently buy 1000 lb of sand at Home Depot for very little, and it doesn't cover quite as much space as one would imagine.
7. The prank value of 1000 lb of sand may still outweigh the drawbacks.
8. I can actually survive for a week in NY without getting shot, mugged, beaten up, or having my teeth stolen while I lie bleeding in a gutter. Though I still will check my back pocket every few minutes, just to make sure my wallet is still there. What can I say? I'm just a smalltown midwesterner at heart.

Dubsgiving; or, One Man's Journey into the Abyss (Part I)

Over spring break, I discovered the single most terrifying thing on the face of the planet: the New York cab driver. These men (and women, I suppose, though all of ours were men) race about with reckless abandon, ferrying merry bands of drunks (and others) to and fro. They don't seem to work strictly in the world itself. They certainly don't obey the laws of God or man. Lane markings? Pshaw! Street signs? Scoff. "Oh my God, you can't possibly fit between those two cars!"? A wry glance and a stomp on the accelerator. While I was very grateful for these brave souls (particularly that first night, as you shall read), I was kind of scared witless when I actually looked where we were going and how we were getting there. People say the subway's dangerous; clearly they've never taken a cab at 2am from the Village to Astoria.

This slight diatribe is my long way of introducing my trip to New York, which my merry band of reprobate friends named "Dubsgiving" in my honor. Dubsgiving has sacraments (mostly drinking-related), various feast days (Let's Go to a Bar Night 2), and a theme song, which they gleefully improvised my first night there. I'll attempt to chronicle these days as best I remember, but my memory is rather uncertain in places, so I invite commentary from my fellow celebrants.

Day 1
To begin, I got into La Guardia around 5:00pm, Friday. I was at Quantum's apartment by about 5:20. By 5:30, we were on our way to a bar.

The weekend was starting off so very right.

Along the way, we picked up one Hubris, fellow rapscallian and committed Dubsgiving celebrant, although he was not in fact drinking during our time there. This above all you must remember, dear reader, lest nothing else appear strange and wonderous. The three of us went to a place called "The Irish Rogue" several blocks away from Times Square, which is supposedly the bar from which one cannot be kicked out. Apparently my compatriots had, at various times, crashed private parties, started fistfights, and generally raised all manner of havoc, without ever being asked not to come back. So naturally this was as good a place as any to kick off our holiday.

En route, the lads sereneded me with an imprompteu version of "New York, New York," which they believed would foretell my week's sojourn in the Big Apple. I don't remember all the lyrics, but I believe it ended with me lying dead in a gutter, with someone running away, having stolen my teeth.

So at the bar, we began by ordering their traditional drink, the Beer Boat (or Beer Bone, or Beer Bong, depending on who you ask). Basically, the BB is a 74 oz glass tube, with a spigot on the bottom. You fill said tube with beer (St. Pauly Girl), and let gravity do it's work. This of course serves as a wonderful conversation piece; all manner of people will come up to your table and ask what that giant tube of beer is for, and then look both bemused and disgusted at your reply. This does not in any way make up for the fact that you're drinking cheap beer out of what is probably an unwashed glass tube, which slowly gets warmer and warmer as the night goes on. But then again, you're talking to men who used to combine tabasco sauce with various alcohols, and who once put gin and soy sauce in a glass together. We are not to be daunted by trifles like that.

Throughout the course of the evening, the cast of characters would grow and shrink, as various friends came and went. We three were originally met by Bourbon Samurai and his parents, who were going to the theatre. They left, and we were in turn met by Uber260. Later, Bourbon came back sans parents, to aid in our drinking. So, over the course of the night, note that the drinkers consisted of Quantum, myself, Uber260, and Bourbon, and that Bourbon was only really drinking during the later portion of the eve. Hubris, as noted, did not drink, but instead pounded diet coke and egged us on.

The result: 5 tubes consumed. 370 oz of beer, split between about 3.5 men. Over a tube a piece. Plus the shots, and Uber260's Irish car bomb.

Why did we drink five tubes, you ask? Why not stop after two, as I originally suggested? Quite simply, because our waitress told us that the bar record was four. Four tubes. I believe she told us this on our third tube, and by that point, we'd already drunk three tubes of beer. We were drunk with power (and St. Pauly Girl), and decided to go all the way. I don't remember if we finished the last tube. I don't remember actually leaving the bar. I do remember the drunken rendition of the St. Crispen's Day speech from Henry V that we all gave, huddled around our beer boat, glasses raised in the air (with photographic evidence taken by Hubris). I don't remember Uber260 falling into the table of frat guys, though I'm told it was quite hilarious. I remember getting into the cab home with Uber260 and Quantum, and Bourbon telling 260 to go ahead and sleep in his (Bourbon's) bed, as I was sleeping on their couch (Quantum and Bourbon live together, for all you non-NY folk). And of course, I remember thinking what a good idea it was that I had eaten dinner at the bar.

In hindsight, this last takes on special meaning, as we all concluded that food was the only reason a dire fate was not a shared dire fate. I ate dinner, and a large one at that. Quantum did as well. Uber260, sadly, did not. Therefore, it is only slightly surprising, in hindsight, that Uber260 ended up vomiting all over the cab floor. Luckily, for us, it was a mini-van-esque cab, rather than a traditional, and so we did not end up with vomit on our shoes. Even luckier, the cabbie was cool, so that when Quantum did what he does best and threw money at him, he was willing to wait and take us the rest of the way to Astoria. I barely hesitated when Quantum asked me for more money to pay the cab driver. Yes, I was on a tight budget. Yes, I had hoped to make my money last, and not blow it all the first night. And yes, I ended up adding about $80 onto Quantum's $120, to appease the cabbie.

It's amazing how things like this can instantly sober you. There we were, nursing our friend home, I cursing myself for spending so much money already, but figuring that this was how my friends rolled in the big NY. In my small-town mindset, I could see Quantum routinely paying cab drivers over $150 a ride. In my mind, Quantum's finances are akin to those of a decent-sized nation state. So we got Uber260 back to Astoria, where he promptly vomited on Bourbon's jacket (which, to be fair, was on the floor). This kicked off a streak of destruction, as Uber basically managed to vomit on everything Bourbon owned, including his bed during the middle of the night. Quantum's possessions, remarkably, remained entirely untouched, as did anything communally owned. Even the floor was spotless, said jacket having absorbed all regurgitation. It was as if there was a vendetta of vomit against Bourbon Samurai, and he was not there to fight against the tide, so to speak. We put Uber260 to bed, I crashed on the couch, and Quantum retired to his room.

Thus ended the first day.

Day 2

Day two is more of a sea of images than anything else. The most joy came from awakening and realizing I wasn't at all hungover. Again, dealing with a friend's breakdown really picks you up. The rest of the joy came from the absurdity of what had transpired the night before. This was where we realized the truth about Bourbon's possessions and their magnetic vomit properties. This was where Uber260, in the most shamefacedly way possible, laundered all of the despoiled goods. This was where Bourbon finally came home, to change to go see another play with his family, and Quantum's first words were "Don't be mad." Which prompted a look of brief caution, and then outright laughter. Bourbon was too amused to be mad, though I think the lingering smell of vomit on his bed was slightly 0ff-putting. Throughout the day, we took stock of the situation, rehashed the night before, ate delivery food, and watched a lot of Battlestar Galactica, as they had it and I needed to catch up on the season.

That night was rather more mellow. I met up with my high school friend The Baker and his new girlfriend (new in the sense I hadn't met her before), who took me out to a delightful Thai dinner in Hell's Kitchen. Supposedly one of the best Thai places in town, a claim I won't dispute. We then went to another bar (Divine, I think it was called) and, in a snobby way, drank flights of wine (rather than cheap beer, a nice contrast to every other night). We chatted, and they had to leave around 11:30, so I basically hung out in Times Square until my drunken friends were done with their late dinner. We met up in the Village (prompting once again my small town fears of riding the subway after dark), threw back a drink or two, then once again returned to Astoria. Here was where I first encountered my supernatural dread of cab drivers, as described above. Seriously. I thought we were all going to die.

Day 3

Day 3 was Sunday, and I sadly could not continue our streak of sleeping in until roughly 1:00. As it was Palm Sunday, I needed to find myself a Catholic sanctuary and holy myself up. Seeing how Astoria contains the second largest Greek Orthodox population in the world (after Greece), naturally there was a Catholic Church about five blocks down the road. After attending mass, I bummed around Astoria, as both of my hosts were out of the house. I got some reading done, explored their local coffee houses, wandered the streets, and ate a spectacular corned beef sandwich from the local deli. Quantum, returning from the children's theatre show he had just seen because a friend was directing it, encountered me outside a local coffee shop reading a book, drinking an italian soda and eating a scone. He quite rightly mocked me for being a pretentious academic, and we retired to their apartment to conclude the BSG season, which was 90 different kinds of awesome. It reaffirmed my faith in television, myth, Bob Dylan, the electric sitar, and the Easter Bunny. Seriously, if you like good tv, excellent stories, great acting, and kickass moments of transcendent brilliance (not to mention awesome lawyers who wear sunglasses and are Irish in space), please check this series out.

Following the viewings, Bourbon made meatloaf and a soup out of what appeared to be a pteradactyl bone, three kinds of bacon, and various other animal parts. I won't describe it further, but I invite him to do so in the comments section. Needless to say, it was all excellent, and we were joined by Rockstar and girl whose nickname I don't know, to feast and watch the opening game of baseball season. The Mets shellacked my poor Cardinals, and Quantum threatened that they also planned to burn my city to the ground. I'm not sure why, other than New Yorkers are apparently full of rage and like burning cities to the ground. Luckily, St. Louis still stands. I think the Mets' bloodlust was sated by stomping the Cards in every game of the series. (Oh, and Sergio, Quantum wanted me to give him your cell phone number so he could call and gloat. I rightly refused, so you owe me.)

I believe we watched the last four minutes of BSG twice more at the end of the night. This would be a recurring practice for the rest of the week.

(Ok, this is already unwieldy and long, and I'm not even to day four yet. I'll add more tomorrow, when I chronicle the events surrounding "Let's Go to a Bar Night 2: Return of the Revenge of the Blood".)

The Vigil Blog

I figure it's worth it to blog about something uplifting and soul-enriching, before I blog about the depths of hell we went through in New York. Plus, I'm at the office right now and have limited time before a student shows up. Don't worry, I'll blog the full experience of Dubsgiving in a day or so. But for now, the blog of Easter Vigil.

First off, this vigil differed from previous years, in that all of my Catholic friends chose to abandon me for lesser masses, due to baby, travel, family, etc., all of which are just excuses that lead down that slippery slope to Protestantism, or as I like to call it, damnation. So there I sat, alone, in my spiffy new jacket, hoping against hope that this mass would be just as amusing as last year, if not quite so heretical (see last April's "Where Was Moses When the Lights Went Out" for details). We began strongly, with a fair showing and a solid lighting of candles, with no small child arsonists this year. Sadly, the seminarian singing the Exsultant this year was not quite so strong as last year's singer, the little man they kept in the closet until Easter. He had a nice tenor, but it was relatively weak, and seemed rather wishy-washy about the ultimate salvation of mankind.

Until the fire alarm went off.

You'd think that Holy Mother Church, in its infinite wisdom, would have realized having hundreds of people holding candles might set off the alarm, and would take preventative steps. You'd be wrong. We stood there, with the lights flashing and the sirens blaring, listening to that one singer. But then, as if inspired by the Divine Himself, our cantor kicked it up a notch from "lame" to "Divine Champion and Herald of Christ's Resurrection." With a nod from the Bishop, he got louder, more self-assured, and infinitely more passionate in his singing. He challenged that fire alarm as if it were Lucifer and he was Piers Plowman, fighting at the Tree of Life. And he won out. Of course, to acknowledge his victory and the ever-present power of Christ, the alarm shut off right when the entire congregation came together for the "Amen." (For you non-Catholics out there, this was after about seven minutes of solo song.) It was as if God truly blessed our mass and silenced our opposition.

From there, the mass itself was much more well-constructed than last year. It was as if the Bishop had read my blog and responded to my critique. The trilling was present, but much less noticeable. The homily was not heretical, nor was it completely tied in with the bashing of the gays and the abortionists, as is his usual idiom. There was a fair amount of generic social critique, but nothing that raised my ire as a free-thinking libertarian ensconsed in a world of crazy liberal academics.

There were only two other main points worthy of notice throughout, as the bishop kept things to a sane 2.5 hours. First, while I acknowledge that it may be part of the ceremony to bless the cross with the incense, I could not help but imagining the Bishop going around and saying, a la Cool Hand Luke, "Holying up the cross here, boss." I nearly lost it when that popped randomly in my head, and stared at my feet resolutely for a minute after the fact. Though I do think that kind of speech would really bring the ceremony home to the common man. "Holying up the bread here, boss." "Transubstantiating the Eucharist here, boss." "Washing my hands here, boss." Etc.

Second, during the baptismal, it is customary for the Bishop to move throughout the church, scattering holy water onto the congregation. Our bishop. though, has not a mitre that holds water, as at my old church, but what is best described as a bundle of reeds tied together, soaked in water. This bundle manages to hurl large quantities of water out over the crowd in large droplets, and this year the Bishop seemed to take a kind of manic glee in aiming directly for the faces of small children. It looked like an insane Santa Claus bringing gifts, except instead of presents, you got a faceful of water flung in extreme violence. I myself caught the full brunt of one such toss, which nearly drove one of my contact lenses out of my eye. Though my eye did feel very holy afterwards.

That was pretty much it. Not as eventful or mirthful as last year, granted, but still full of its own unique brand of charm. I'll stop here, as my student should be here any moment, and leave you with my yearly Easter condemnation of the Hebraic people. That means you, McJew. See what happens when you mess with the Son of God? You're just lucky Jesus didn't bust out his mad vampire-slaying kung fu. Alleluia, bitch. (God, I'm going to Hell, aren't I?)

Blog! The Musical

After a very lengthy hiatus, I'm back to hit the ground running. Shortly, I plan to post about my recent trip to New York and chronicle the hilarity that ensued. But first, I must fulfill SpeakMemory's request and compile a list of musicals I find awesome. (As a side note, I'm looking for a nickname for her and Renaissance Man's newborn child. My question, to the more literarily-inclined of my brethren and sistren, is which author would you have if you combined Spenser and Nabokov?)

Ok, please note, this list is in no particular order, nor is it exhaustive. It's merely my impressions of shows that people should see, if they get the chance. Also, please note my own bias. I'm aware that there are many older musicals that people consider good. I just don't like them as much. Particularly of the era of Rogers and Hammerstein, whom I acknowledge as innovative for their time, but who don't particularly do anything for me. Also, please note I'm trying to stick to stage musicals here, thus excluding both older fare like the Fred Astaire movies as well as newer things like Disney musicals or Moulin Rouge.

Musicals that are Awesome

1. Anything by Sondheim. You really can't go wrong with the man, but I'll list here two that I've actually seen and enjoyed multiple times.

1a. Into the Woods: This fractured fairy-tale, as penned by the brilliant Stephen Sondheim, tells the combined stories of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and various other stock characters in more supporting roles. It centers around the quest of a Baker and his wife to have a child, and weaves between all the traditional stories, so that all are happily ever after by the end of the first act. Then, everything goes to hell. It's a profoundly beautiful piece of work that deals with storytelling, childhood and adulthood, magic beans, runaway cows, and all the issues of modern life. Probably my favorite musical of all time, and my favorite show I was ever a part of.

1b. Assassins: My second Sondheim choice, this play tells the stories of the successful and failed presidential assassins of our time. It questions the nature of what makes an assassin an important figure, the power we read into them through a historical lens, and the motivations of figures we might dismiss as merely crazy. "The Ballad of Booth" is a singularly strong piece, as is "The Gun Song," a four-part harmony, sung at times without instrumentation, that requires perfect timing and tone. Also of note is "Unworthy of Your Love," a duet between the guy who shot Reagan for Jodie Foster and the girl who tried to kill Ford for the love of Charles Manson.

2. The Fantasticks: A particularly simple and stirring play. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love, in spite of fathers' feud. Fathers actually staging feud to make boy and girl fall in love. Fathers hire man to rape daughter so that son may save her and end feud. Wackiness ensues. Feud ends. And, in act 2, all again goes to hell. This play is beautiful for its simplicity, for its earnestness, and for the openness of emotion that it isn't afraid to deal with. It examines the nature of growth, the necessity of pain, and the foundations of a lasting love. It's one of the most moving love stories I've ever seen set to song. But please avoid the film version, which is soul-suckingly bad.

3. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: The single funniest show I've ever seen (well, been in, technically). It's laugh out loud funny. Seriously, words cannot describe how funny this show is. See it.

4. Man of La Mancha: I love this show because it's different from anything else I've seen. The Spanish flair they bring to the tale sets it apart musically in a way I haven't seen duplicated elsewhere. And you can't listen to "The Impossible Dream" without feeling stirred in some way. Plus, it appeals to all the literary junkies out there, though the actual tale has very little to do with Don Quixote the novel.

5. Pippin: Pippin has some catchy songs, an interesting ending twist, and loads of fun. But really, you see it because of all the Fosse choreography. It's stylistic and slick, sensuous and seductive, and there are pyrotechnics in the end.

6. Wicked: Say what you will about Wicked. I can see why some people might have problems with the music. Or the dialogue. Or whatever. It's still one hell of a spectacle, which is half of what a good musical should be. I personally enjoy it, and think that when it's strong, it's insanely strong. The closing number of the first act ("Defying Gravity") alone overcomes most of the detriments of the show.

7a. and 7b. Andrew Lloyd Weber has precisely two good musicals in my mind. Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Superstar has a very distinct sound, and the rock elements of it make up in many ways for Weber's usual shortcoming, that almost all songs are variations on one another. I've seen it multiple times, and enjoyed it every time. Also, the roles of Jesus and Judas are a dream come true for a high tenor. Joseph, in turn, is just fun. You can't not smile while listening to it. It invites you to not have a care in the world while you're watching the show, and it succeeds more often than it fails. Like Fantasticks, it's a simplistic show, and gains strength from that.

Musicals that are Not Quite as Awesome, But Still Worth Seeing

1a. &1b. Les Miserables and Miss Saigon. By the same pair, whose names I don't have in front of me. These shows are constantly hyped, and musical snobs will often disdain them as being too popular (and thus not good). I can see this criticism, and I recognize that there are truly awful parts to them (the choreography of "One Day More" in particular comes to mind). But I've enjoyed them both times I've seen them, and I still occasionally listen to the music. Worth checking out.

2. 1776: John Adams was apparently a badass. And Thomas Jefferson? Nearly didn't write the Declaration of Independence because he was getting it on with Mrs. J. And there's a really cool song where the southern representative accuses the north's complicity in the slave trade. Only seen it once, and I don't have any of the music, but I remember really liking it.

3. Little Shop of Horrors: It's fun, what can I say? Check it out.

4. Rent: I love this musical every time I see it, and I'm torn as to whether or not to put it into the "Awesome" category. But it loses points for being too trendy, a bit too simplistic, and for a truly atrocious movie version. Again, see the snob category. But if you get a chance to see it with a decent cast, definitely do so.

5. Songs for a New World: This doesn't make the "Awesome" list just because it doesn't really have a plot. Or any cohesion. It's more of a collection of songs than a musical. That being said, the songs themselves are entertaining, energetic, and at times very moving. Give it a listen and see if you don't agree.

6. Godspell: I've been in this show twice, and seen it twice more. It's campy, good clean fun. The songs are nice, energetic, and occasionally beautiful. But avoid the movie version, which drains all the fun out of it.

Musicals I've Never Seen, But Whose Music I Enjoy

1. Avenue Q: Told by puppets, it's as if the muppets grew up and lived in New York. The opening number is entitled "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?" and goes on to meditate upon whose life sucks the most. Also includes such numbers as "The Internet is for Porn," "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," and "Schadenfreude." Also very stirring are "I Wish I Could Go Back to College" and my personal favorite "There's a Fine, Fine Line." Never seen it, hear it's awesome, and I love the songs.

2. Children of Eden: I still am upset that I didn't see this when it was done at Northwestern. The first act tells the story of the creation of the world, of Adam and Eve, up to the death of Abel and the banishment of Cain. The second act tells the story of Noah and the flood. It deals with fatherhood, children, and the price of freedom and creation. I love the music, and highly recommend it.

3. A New Brain: By the same man who brought us March of the Falsettos and Spelling Bee (I think), it's a musical about a neurotic songwriter who has to have brain surgery. (Also largely autobiographical, so I'm told.) The music is fresh and innovative, and the interplay of "Heart and Music" is particularly intriguing. Probably highest on my "check these out" list whenever I get a chance.

4. Cabaret: I tried to see this when it came to NU, but it was sold out every time I went. Cabaret singers, Nazis, what more do you want?

5. Ragtime: I've never seen it, but I have all the music memorized. I acknowledge the critique that there is very little actual ragtime music in it, but it's very stirring in its own way. Of course, part of that may be coming from my love of the source material, despite the fact that the musical ends on a much happier note.

6. Hairspray: I've only heard a few songs from this, but they were all pretty cool. Not cool enough to make me buy the soundtrack, but enough to make me anticipate the forthcoming movie. Of particular note is the closing number "You Can't Stop the Beat," which is just hands down a great way to end a show.

And with that, I end my lists. I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting, but c'est la vie. True aficionadoes out there will note that my list is somewhat mainstream. I apologize, but I don't get out to much theatre anymore, and most of what I saw at NU was bad dramatic theatre, not musical theatre. So I invite you to correct and augment my list via comments. Particularly those of you out there actually involved in the theatre industry.