For He Himself Has Said It, and It's Greatly to His Credit

I believe I have arrived at a solid New Year's resolution finally. Upon great reflection and deliberation, I have decided to spend the year 2009 further exploring my oft-neglected cultural heritage.

In this multicultural, homogenized, globalized world in which we live, we often feel the pressure to try new things, to embrace ideas and traditions from cultures outside our own. Often this leads to great advances in a more tolerant, more understanding world. Like Laotian restaurants. And margaritas.

But far too often, as well, the plethora of choices available to the modern man or woman leads to ignorance of one's own cultural heritage. As we learn more and more about the world, we find less and less time to delve deeply into the traditions that once bound our ancestors together, the shared knowledge base that provided community and a sense of purpose. My resolution is to rectify that neglect.

Too long have I ignored the simple truth of my past. As a white, upper middle class, private and prep-school educated member of the intelligentsia, I feel it is my duty to my people to learn more about our great and glorious past, to gain a firm grounding in the traditions of our forefathers. So my resolutuon is to spend the year acquainting myself with all those traditions that I have shamefully neglected in my first twenty eight years upon the earth.

Therefore, in the month of January, I am beginning to compile a list of things to accomplish. Things that will bring me closer to the inner Anglo-American snob that has too long remained suppressed within me. The shame I have brought upon my noble lineage shall finally be overcome, and I will be able to hold my head high amidst the glorious accomplishments of the past.

As such, I am soliciting suggestions from you, my readers and peers, as to things I can do in pursuance of this goal. Texts, activities, knowledges to pursue--any advice is welcome as I strive to bring myself closer to my heritage. So far, I have comprised a preliminary list, which is admittedly brief at the moment, but will hopefully grow as the year develops.

1. Read classical texts, particularly Greek and Latin tragedies. Read The Iliad and The Odyssey as well as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Other suggestions welcome.

2. Read Dante's Divine Comedy.

3. Watch Gilbert and Sullivan operas, particularly H.M.S. Pinafore and Pirates of Penzance.

4. Learn something about wines.

5. Read something by Proust.

6. Listen to more classical music. Suggested composers/pieces I can get from iTunes welcome.

7. Continue education in fine Scotches. Maintain snobbish disdain of blendeds.

A short list to be sure, generated solely upon one night's brief reflection. Further suggestions and advice are welcome. Remember, any insight you offer will not only be for my personal edification, but will aid greatly in the preservation of a noble tradition in the modern world.

Reason to Believe Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than the Last

Looking back over my resolution from last year, I realize that 2008 was an epic fail on my part. I did not manage to break up a single set of my attached friends. Seriously, I set myself one lousy goal, and totally neglect it. Epic. Fail.

So it's January, during that magical time when school hasn't started, deadlines are still blissfully out of sight (excepting the fellowship deadline on Wednesday and the article I planned to send out by Christmas), there are no obligations other than what I set for myself, and Batman is out of town. All these things add up to a wonderful existence that I only achieve for about two weeks out of every year. Basically, my life becomes a complete inversion of normality. I wake up later and later each day, go to bed even later every night, so that eventually I'll be waking up at 3pm and going to bed around dawn. "Surely he can't be serious!", I can hear the naysayers naysaying. Well, I am serious...and don't call me Shirley.

Yes, I can achieve this total transformation through a series of machinations designed to fill my days with an endless succession of activities that require no real time schedule, just time commitment. Largely, they involve my tv and Xbox. My bautiful, beautiful Xbox, that brings me such wonderful things as 30 Rock episodes (via Netflix online!), Left 4 Dead online, and Bioshock, on loan from the Mixologist, which is perhaps the most freakily terrifyingly awesome game ever played. It's a horror/shooter/mystery game set in an underwater society with 1950s decor and an Ayn Rand philosophy. And it's terrifying. Particularly when played at 2:30am with all the lights out.

Beyond that, my blessed friend of Netflix constantly brings me movies to cure hangovers (Tropic Thunder) and season three of The Wire, which is leaps and bounds better than season two. I'm perfectly willing to admit that this is the better show, though I think I still enjoyed Deadwood more just because of the more colorful characters. But season three has sold me. Other than that, my marathon Lord of the Rings viewings and enjoyment of season one of Entourage (a gift from my brother) provide enough variety for when I don't feel like watching one of the other things on my list.

So yeah, I've been spending a lot of time in front of the tv. Eventually, this is all going to crash and burn, and my reckless abandonment of sense will bite me in the ass. But, like most good Americans, I choose to recklessly ride out the good times rather than anticipating the bad.

Other than that, break has been fun thus far. Went to my 10 year high school reunion, and I totally staved off the patheticness of still being in school by recognizing that I was one of the few of my class who didn't look like they had swollen in some way. Small compensation compared to their wives and jobs and homes and success, but in many ways I'm a small, petty man.

Plus, a ton of my classmates are now lawyers. So I am set if I ever break the law in St. Louis. And given my feelings for St. Louis, that's probably where I'm most likely to break the law in some way, shape, or form.

New Year's with TGD, Red-Headed Stepchild, et al. Good times, don't really remember the ending. If I did anything embarassing, I'm totally shifting the blame onto the Mixologist for giving me that manhattan with absinthe in it. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Lastly, I'm in the market for a New Year's Resolution. Since I did so poorly with my last one, I'm thinking of aiming much much lower. This year is guaranteed to suck already, at least in the period between September and January when I'm on the market, so low expectations will be a blessing. Any suggestions?

Ok, it's 2am and I'm bored. I guess I'll go kill some zombies or something.

So May It Be Said Of Us, And All Of Us

Just finished Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy. Loads of fun, though I liked Brideshead more. But the version I have features an intro by Frank Kermode, with perhaps one of the best statements ever:

"Meanwhile he [Waugh] grew more and more pugnacious and unreasonable in his dislikes and in his desire for vengeance on his enemies."

I think I want that on my tombstone.

For All You People Struggling Towards Semester's End

I offer this gem.

It's been a busy few days. And by busy, I mean I've been doing a lot of things that aren't in any way work, but have kept me hopping nonetheless. To catalogue:

-Last Friday, we celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition. That's right, we're serious drinkers up here. And we didn't do any kind of namby pamby drinking, either. This was a night of straight up, hard-living cocktail drinking. And not just mixed drinks, but actual cocktails, with bitters, and grated orange peel, and fresh-squeezed lemon juice, etc. TGD and The Mixologist were our bartenders, and they did right by us, with a varied menu and very stiff drinks. My personal favorites were the Aviation, the Martinez, and the Ward 8. Highlight of the night was the Mixologist's request that we bring actual ice to the party, since he didn't like to use store-bought ice in his shakers. Note that: the ice wasn't even going into the actual drinks. Just the shakers. And it still had to be proper ice. Damn, that man's an artist.

-Saturday we had a going away party for Boots and Hambone, as they prepare for their six month South American tour. From Friday night's classy drinking, we transferred to the much-more plebian atmosphere of the Come Back In, with its boots of beer, and free popcorn and peanuts (large baskets, still in the shell). Bars with an endless supply of free food are inherently great, and I firmly attribute my lack of a hangover to that fact. B&H put up a fine show for their departure, and I expect to hear good things of their travels. Either that, or Hambone will be kidnapped and forced into white male slavery. Which, if that's the case, dibs on his Playstation.

-Finished Season 2 of The Wire. Good, but no Season 1. I just never cared as much about the overall arc as I did with the boys of the Pit. Though it did have a lot of very fine moments. But I hear good things about Season 3.

-Spent the bulk of the non-drinking weekend watching the short-lived Cupid, which aired for a season in 1998. Made by the guy who would later make Veronica Mars, and which is currently being rebooted (slated for airing starting in March on ABC). It's a very fun little show starring Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall, about a man who thinks he's Cupid and has to match up 100 couples before he can return to Olympus. It's sweet, romantic, and clever, and the banter between the two leads is phenomenal. It only ran for about 16 episodes, and you can get them all on youtube. If you're looking for a time-waster, I'd really recommend it. And I'll plug the new version, cause hey, Rob Thomas always needs a hand.

-They're cancelling Pushing Daisies. This saddens me, particularly after last week's wonderful episode. Damn the man.

-Heroes, however, continues, even as it continues to suck. And yet I still watch it. Largely because it follows directly...

-Chuck, which is all kinds of awesome this season.

-Oh, and I guess I've been doing some work, too. Gave a guest lecture today, which didn't seem to go too poorly. So I've got that going for me.

-Lastly, if you're not a Madisonian, you may not be aware that it snowed a fuckload today. God bless the winter.

-That's about it for now. As a signoff today, here are a few clips to put you in the holiday mood. From one of my favorites as a kid, the Claymation Christmas Special. You can find the full thing here, here, and here, but here are two of my favorite clips. Again, just to whet your whistle and encourage you to waste a full 22 minutes watching the whole thing.

Carol of the Bells



We Three Kings



And, though I couldn't find it on youtube by itself, I'd really suggest you watch for the rendition of "Angels We Have Heard on High" featuring ice dancing walruses and penguins. Shit cracks me up every time.

I Don't Even Know What the Posthuman Is...

Nice relaxing and thoroughly uneventful Thanksgiving. But I think that my home has become some weird kind of conduit for my dreams, specifically my dreams of what I wish the profession were like. Last time I was home, you may recall, I dreamed that all the English grad students were ninja assassins competing for a magical dagger. Well, nothing quite that odd this time.

Instead, this dream was all about theory. For those of you not in the academic world, there's this "hot" topic currently in vogue, called the "posthuman." No one is quite sure what it means, but I think it has something to do with how we relate to shit like dogs, and zombies, and robots, etc. You know, win them over so they don't try to enslave mankind. (But forget about the dolphins. There's no placating those bloodthirsty fuckers.)

Well, in my dream, all of academia was abuzz because someone had just written an article that supposedly clearly solved the problem of the "posthuman." Not just a debatable article, either; this was the "key to all mythologies" of the posthuman, something that definitively settled the problem forever. But for some reason, I had the only copy of the article (I didn't write it in my dream, I just had it), and all these competing factions wanted it. Some wanted to embrace the posthuman, others wanted to destroy the article and thus erase all records of the problem ever being solved. Massive conspiratiorial shit was going on in my dream. I guess the original author was dead, or lost his backup copy, or his hard drive got destroyed, who knows.

No real resolution to the dream, sadly. Just yet again a sense of increasing competition and espionage within the academic world. I guess I subconsciously find our lifestyle boring, and could do with some more ninjas or spies or whatnot.

And the kicker? I couldn't even figure out the article in my dream. I guess I don't even subconsciously understand theory. All I knew was that it had something to do with WALL-E. Figures.

It's a Paul Rudd Weekend!

Watched The Great Gatsby last night (the 2000 made for tv version). Was about as ungood as expected. Paul Rudd, as I predicted, made an admirable Nick Carraway, and the film did do some things right by including a hefty dose of Nick's narration verbatim from the book. But Gatsby was laughably unimpressive, Daisy seemed mildly mentally challenged, and the whole movie felt like someone was doing "The Great Gatsby: The Highlights" rather than building an overall film. Guess that's the drawbacks of tv. Of course, I hear the Redford version is similarly awful but for different reasons.

Seeing Role Models tonight. I hear good things. And again, Paul Rudd.

Teaching Philosophy

For those not in the academic world, part of applying for a job involves writing up a philosophy of why you're a teacher. I'll have to do this next year, so I'm taking a preliminary stab at it now. Let me know what you think.

Teaching Philosophy

I teach because I can.

I teach because I abhor stupid people. This way, I get to put a face to my enemies.

I teach because stupidity fills me with contempt. And contempt for others allows me to forget my own insecurities.

I teach because the stupidity of others validates me.

I teach because it is one of the few professions left where people come to you as supplicants.

I teach because they pay you for the privilege of being your supplicant.

I teach because I fear the real world.

I teach because I have no idea how to do actual things.

I teach because I believe the children are our future. I must mold that future in my image.

I teach because the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. It's my job to inform them of that.

I teach because I can write like the wind. This is a skill with few practical applications.

I teach because I can do it hung over.

I teach because I can do it drunk.

I teach because I crave attention.

I teach because I am a ham.

I teach because it combines performance with the arrogant display of knowledge.

I teach because I am smart.

I teach because I am smarter than most of the rest of the world.

I teach because I am smarter than your children.

Except M. & B. C.'s children.

Those kids are freaky smart.

Like, superintelligent crazy children of the corn smart.

Seriously, Mr. N.S. probably taught them Latin at age 4.

Where was I?

Oh yes.

I teach because I loathe the summer and want nothing to do with it.

I teach because I enjoy having Christmas off.

I teach because there are few things more wonderful in this world than the face of a young adult.

Particularly the look they get when you tell them their work isn't good and they have to start over.

That shit is priceless.

I teach because it is priceless.

Blog for the Asking

So hey there, blog world. 'Sup?

I know, been a while since we last spoke. Been a lot of speculation going around. Talk of panda love. Some kind of voting thing went down. Might have been some drinking takin' place in the old Mad-City. Might have been a trip home in there somewhere. And all that's cool and all, I ain't gonna lie. Just haven't been in a blogging place, lately, since I been too busy livin' my life.

Like a guy I recently had the pleasure to meet told me: The Game's out there, and it's play or get played.

Fella name of Omar. Some of you might have heard of him. Badass out of Baltimore, has a tenuous relationship with the five-oh.

So that's my longwinded way of saying I've been spending a lot of quality time recently with season one of The Wire. Which, unlike most things in life, really does live up to all the hype. I'm still not convinced it's better than Deadwood (it'd take an act of God to dethrone Al Swearengen), but it's unarguably one of the top three shows I've ever seen. And Omar is indeed a badass.

Ok, life update. Full of anecdotes, lots of sound, little fury. Since last we spoke, numerous things of various consequence have been happening. First, and most time-consuming, I'm applying for fellowships this semester, one of which is due in under a week. My life has been a suck-fest of writing a dissertation abstract (transforming what will be a roughly 250 page document into five pages) and editing down 49 pages of dissertation chapter into 25 pages of writing sample. Yeah, it sucks. And yeah, my friends and colleagues on the market currently will tell me how much easier this is than what I'll be going through next year. To which I respond, the promise of future suckitude does not lessen the suckitude of the current moment. I think Gandhi said that. Or maybe Socrates Johnson.

Ok, on to amusing things! We like amusing things, right? As I noted above, I went home for a weekend back in October. My brother recently got engaged, so this was the big meeting of the families (and when I phrase it like that, it sounds like some kind of mafia deal. It isn't. Or so my lawyers say.). Her parents and brothers, my parents and me, the bride and groom, various other significant others and children. Twas a night of fun and merriment. The Dubs clan upheld itself well, though we did end up waiting outside in the cold cold car for about 10 minutes waiting for my bro, rather than going into the restaurant to meet these strangers awkwardly. I triumphed by not getting plastered and embarassing them all. My parents were shocked, shocked I say, that I could actually uphold my end of a conversation with strangers (the bride's older brother and his wife). Granted, my current schooling has basically weaned me away from ever talking with people who are not also English grad students or scholars, their lack of faith wasn't all that surprising. But they didn't need to seem so shocked when they told me I was actually "charming." I guess all those years of cynicism and contempt for my fellow man may have colored their expectations a bit.

Still, the Clan Dubs did get kind of served in the meeting, due largely to a matter of preparedness. The bride's grandmother came, and she's apparently famous for making her own caramel and giving to her grandkids at holidays. So, to make a good impression, yours truly ended up with a shit-ton of caramel. This was bad enough, but apparently the daughter of my dinner conversationalists is some kind of crafts prodigy. So it being near to Halloween, this fifteen year old girl brought my parents a pumpkin hollowed out and stuffed with wildflowers in an absolutely stunning arrangement. Seriously, kid's got mad skills. But between that and the candy-making granny, my side of the family looked like chumps, comparatively. I was tempted to start juggling the candles on the table while singing some Don Gionvanni just to hold up our end. Who knows, a few more drinks and I might have. Or maybe I'll just bust that out at the wedding.

Also, while home, I dreamed that all my fellow grad students and I actually lived in our office building, but it was some kind of Wudan-esque dojo, and we were all ninja assassins. I had a magic knife, and everyone else was trying to steal it from me. They did not succeed, because, hello, ninja. Luckily, Ninja Scholar wasn't there. She has magic authentic ninja powers, strength beyond my dream ninja powers. And that Hapa Ninja Baby, he'll cut your ankles off before you even hear him coming.

Speaking of NS, she, myself, the Hillbilly, and one other colleague have all submitted papers to a conference for next year (Boston in March of '09!). I believe we're in a competition to see who could submit the worst paper proposal. But since the judges are NS and myself, I think we've got a fair shot of getting in. Though I can be a fair critic, and may reject myself on principle. All the swearing in my proposal may be off-putting.

What else, what else? Halloween party this year, awesome times, went as Igor (or random hunchback). Surprisingly, being hunched over all night did not result in a sore back. But drinking all that wine did result in a sore head. And apparently me yelling at passers-by from the balcony. Which I don't remember at all.

Hmm...election night, election night. I'm happy it's over, so people will stop asking me if I know where my polling place is, if I'm registered to vote, blah blah blah. Yes, it was an exciting night. Yes, the folks here in Madison marched spontaneously from the capital to the university after the results were announced. Yes, even my cynical heart felt genuine stirrings of emotion with the realization that we had witnessed an historic moment in our nation's history, capped off by an extremely moving speech from our new president-elect.

But that doesn't mean I didn't want to throttle the obnoxious woman at our election party who kept yelling things in triumph. Like, awkard yelling, solitary yelling, like she was drunk on Obama or something. Seriously, yelling when everyone else is yelling and clapping is cool. Yelling out things in the middle of Obama's speech, as if he can hear you and will answer, is annoying. I imagine Brownsox was in a similar state. If he wasn't wedded to his iPhone, that is.

And I will admit, I'm a touch sad that I didn't get to see a democratic loss. But only because I thrive on the misery of others, and there were few funnier moments than four years ago when W. got re-elected, and the entire grad program here became a collection of the most depressed m-f's in the world. Made me laugh from deep in my cold cold heart. But I don't miss it that much this time around; after all, I did vote for the man myself.

Also, seriously, why did multiple people just assume I voted Republican? Even Batman asked me if I was feeling alright, since my candidate had lost. I like to think I've been fairly vocal (for me, at least) in my McCain-Palin bashing over the past few months. So really, do I come off as that conservative? Is it the Catholic thing? The white male who mocks the misfortune of others thing? My prep school ways, my disdain for public school systems and public universities? My affection for fine scotches? My cocky stride and my musky odors? Oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called city fathers, who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about what's to be done with this Dubs...where was I?

Anyway, enough politics. What else, what else? Hmm... Just read all of Y: The Last Man, a ten volume comic series about a plague that wipes out all mammals with a y-chromosome except one dude and his pet monkey. Conceptually it sounds ridiculous. In execution, it's one of the best things I've ever read. Check it out; Quantum can vouch for it's goodness.

Is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?

Yeah, I got nothing else. Future updates to hopefully come more regularly. But for now, I'm off to spend some quality time with Jimmy McNulty.

I May Be Naked and Reeking of Panda Love...

I believe I referenced this poster several times last night. It followed naturally from the panda drawing on my beer margarita cup. Yup, good party.

Don't Fuck With Me, Greenblatt

This shit is hilarious.

Day of Suck

Today is going to be a day of suck, I can already tell.

I slept for about seven hours last night, and yet I feel like I've been awake all night. My alarm woke me up right during the middle of a dream (about Hogan's Heroes, I shit you not), and now I feel very disconnected, as if not all the synapses are firing properly.

Damn brain.

Good weekend, though. Friday was bowling and drinking. Hambone (formerly Boone's) was celebrating his birthday, so we got him stupidly drunk. I believe he had at least one shot of every major type of alcohol, not to mention a shot of Goldschlagger to top the night off. Saturday was a sweet little party where I got to remember how horrible red red wine can be the following morning. And on Sunday, H's actual birthday, we had cake. With oreos crumbled up and mixed in. Not in the batter, mind you, but in the middle layer of frosting between the two sections of cake. And not only oreos, but mint oreos. Boots, Hambone's significant other, really outdid herself in the baking of this masterpiece. Though we did mock her slightly for the chipper little face she drew on top of the frosting. But all in all, cake on a Sunday night is definitely a good thing. Maybe even the best thing.

Now working Writing Center on both Sunday and Monday nights. That kinda blows.

Watched the season premiere of Heroes last night (mild spoilers ahead, so be warned). All in all, seems like a nice start after a craptacular season last year, though it did feel like they were just throwing plot after plot after plot against the wall, just to see what stuck. I think too much was happening too fast, with very little setup, which worked for the plots they had laid groundwork for last season (Nathan, Peter, Claire), but very poorly with the new plots that just felt thrown in for the sake of having new plots (Hiro, Mohinder the Abysmally Stupid). I think they got so much flak for moving too slowly last season that they tried to counter that right from the get go, but they still need to find a happy medium.

Some specific gripes and thoughts:
-The whole Mohinder-infusing-powers Spiderman/The Fly subplot is already irritating me. It came about far too quickly, and seems like an ungood way to go. And it seems to offer further testimony to the fact that Mohinder is, without question, the stupidest scientist ever to live. Ever. Plus, it has Maya in it, who deserves to die.

-Whatever happened to the Haitian? I'm ok with the fact that we got no Micah thus far, since he always annoyed me. But the Haitian? Where's he at?

-How the hell did Sylar (last seen fleeing Mohinder the Abysmally Stupid's lab in NY) manage to get to California in what seemed to be in series time about two hours, let alone find Claire's house, where she was supposedly living incognito? That irked me.

-Since when do Peter's powers involve the ability to put someone in someone else's body?

-How awesome is it that Weevil and VM are hanging out again as supervillains? Loved that.

-Seriously. Mohinder = Stupid. Can't emphasize that enough.

-Linderman! Whee! I really hope they're taking a page from BSG and making him like the Invisible Six. But please, no red dress for Mr. L.

Ok, that's all for now. Still trying to fight off lethargy and finalize paper prompts. Peace out, blogodrome.

After the Boys of Summer Have Gone

That's right folks, it's the start of a new school year. Sorry I've been away for so long. I wish I could claim I was busy. I wish I could claim I was sick. I wish I could claim I was just too drunk and hungover to post. Ok, I can kinda claim the last one. But even with that in mind, there's been a criminal negligence of blogging on my part. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I'm still working on a post dealing with Dr. Church's wedding (seriously, I have a partial draft saved), and I promise a post on Cryptojew and Hillbilly's wedding and my subsequent New York debauch. But tonight's about the start of the school year, not the end of summer, so those tales will have to wait.

I'm just gonna say it. The start of this school year has been majorly majorly odd. I'm teaching a class for a postdoc that none of us could contact until the week before school started. We had no idea at all what we were teaching. No idea who this person was. Not that we would have prepared, mind you. But we're educators. We like to be in the loop.

I'm teaching sections on Wednesday afternoons, with lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That also is massively screwed up, since I'll be leading discussions on texts we haven't finished yet, or forcing the students to remember stuff we talked about the week before. Now, I'm not sure about you, but when I was an undergrad, I never remembered stuff past the week we read it. There's like a rule or something--once Friday afternoon hits, you are entitled to forget that week's work until the midterm comes around. So that should make sections interesting.

Also, my student rosters have changed about 90 times over the course of the week. I'm now back up to 29 students, when at one point I was down to 27 (out of two sections, when usually you have between 35-38). At least I'm back up to even numbers (14 and 15), as opposed to this weekend, when I was at 11 and 16. I guess I can run a section with those numbers without too much trouble. Excepting, of course, the trouble from the whole Wednesday afternoon thing.

Finally, I'm teaching an extra workload in the Writing Center this semester, so I need to constantly be double checking whether I'm scheduled to be working at the time. I believe, right now, that schedule boils down to working Sunday and Monday nights, and Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Which means that Wednesdays and Thursdays, between WC and section or WC and lecture, will be extremely stressful. Of course, that still only amounts to roughly 5-6 hours of work on each of those days, as opposed to the usual 8 hours or so most people work.

God I love being a grad student.

On the plus side, some good stuff has been happening as well with the start of this school year:

-I keep getting asked to do stuff. Which is really awesome, since it lets me pad out my CV further. And since the bulk of my energies this year involve me getting ready to go on the job market next year, every line is a little bit of help. Though that does mean that I have to keep doing things for people. Oh well.

-We now have a new office mate, Woodford Reserve (or possibly just Woodford for short in future posts). Despite the loss of the Red-Headed Stepchild, this is still very good news, since WR rocks quite a bit, and is actually a good friend of mine, as opposed to getting stuck with some noob that KH and I need to smack around.

-I'm doing fairly well at not meeting the new people. I've met a few, and the few I've meet seem sociable enough. But I've met enough people. No more new people. Unless I've already met you and we exchange pleasantries (like the new person who is one of my fellow T.A.s for lecture), then don't plan on establishing any meaningful relationship with me. I'm sure you're very fine people, but I'm not going to be around long enough to make it worth your while to know me. Which is your loss, since I'm awesome.

-I handed in a draft of my second dissertation chapter today. Fuck yeah!

-Captain Americanist is squatting in the office across the hall this semester, since the usual prof there (Spousal Hire) is on leave. I foresee many idle hours wasted as we throw shit at each other across the hall.

-We drank five boots of beer last Friday, after spending several hours at the bar with $3.00 pitchers. All in all, drunkenness seems to be at its usual September levels.

-The tv I'm watching is really stellar at the moment. Burning through Dexter season two with the Norwegian, and tearing up Deadwood season three on Netflix. Really doesn't get much better than that.

Finally, per usual at the start of the semester, I've asked my students the staple "Who would win in a fight, Batman or Sam Jackson" question. I'm assuming the awesomeness of The Dark Knight is really stacking the deck against old Sammy, since Gotham's defender won handily, 21-6 (of course, these numbers reflect the students who were there last Wednesday, and may in no way correspond to my current students). Some choice responses, with blogger comments in italics:

-Batman. Dude's got heart.
-Jackson, because he's Mace Windu and jedis would destroy Batman. Loses points for referencing Star Wars prequels, but leads to an interesting intellectual exercise. How could Batman ever beat a Jedi?
-Batman, because Christian Bale is amazing and has Heath backing him up. Umm, maybe they didn't actually see the movie, where Heath did his damnedst to kill Batman. Plus, Heath? Dude's kinda dead. Although a zombie Heath Ledger might well help beat up on Sam Jackson.
-Batman has Morgan Freeman on his side. Now that's another fun question. Of the wise, badass black superstars, would Freeman take down Jackson?
-Batman, because Samuel L. Jackson is whack. Did they change the meaning of "whack" since I last checked? I thought whack was a good thing...
-Batman, b/c SJ doesn't have a cape. Clearly this person never saw The Incredibles.
-Jackson. He was eaten by a shark and is still alive to talk about it. At least until "Deep Blue Sea 2: Deep Blue Sky (Sharks on a Plane)"
-Batman, b/c Dave Chappelle is a better Samuel L. Jackson than Samuel L. Jackson is. Ok, that's kinda awesome.

Ok, that's all for now folks. I'm off to have some bourbon to celebrate the end of this chapter. More posts promised on a much more regular basis.

(Oh, side note for my Northwestern friends. One of my students this semester is from a little town called Minnetonka, MN. I nearly burst out laughing when she told me this, and could only respond that I knew someone from there. I didn't have the heart to tell her that my drunken college buddies and I had made a pact to burn that town to the ground and salt the earth. Which we still need to do, by the way...)

Quick Solicitation

I promise, I'm currently writing a post about my trip to Tennessee. But for the nonce, I'm soliciting advice. Another wedding to go to this weekend. Do I wear:

A. The more traditional gray two piece (slight herringbone pattern)

Or

B. The charcoal pinstripe three piece that makes me look vaguely like either a mobster or a fat cat from the 20s?

Poor quality pictures below.

And, just as importantly, what color shirt works?

Look Away, Dixie Land

This weekend I'm going down to Chattanooga for Dr. Church's (a.k.a. Sergio's) wedding. Given that this wedding is going to feature the convergence of Uber260, Quantum, Brownsox, (I believe) Irish McJew, and myself on a small town in Tennessee (a tiny hamlet called Signal Mountain), I'm expecting hijinks to ensue. Largely because of the presence of Brownsox, a thoroughly obnoxious Bostonian, and Quantum, a New York snob of epic proportions; McJew has at least a passing familiarity with the South, I believe, while Uber knows his ways around small towns, and I myself originally come from a border state. But still, there's something about the concept of "the South" that should prove to be off-putting for a bunch of yankees like us.

In fact, I'm fairly sure we're going to get drunk and act like a bunch of carpetbaggers. (Particularly Quantum, whom I'm now encouraging to bring an actual carpet bag and buy up some Southern land with his epic wealth.)

In consequence, I anticipate several drunken brawls, many re-enactments of the Civil War (which I refuse to consider as the War of Northern Aggression), at least one shotgun wedding, and us being run out of town on a rail. In other words, typical fare for a bunch of drunken former Northwesterners.

So to prepare for this trip, I'm inviting you, dear readers, to contribute things we can do to really offend the Southerners there. I'm beginning a list below, but please feel free to add with your own comments.

1. Refer to everyone as "Johnnie Reb."
2. Affect a faux Southern Accent.
3. Constantly be humming the banjo motif from Deliverance.
4. Ask how many of them are born of incest.
5. Faulkner jokes. Lots of them.
6. Act surprised by any evidence of modern technology, constantly repeating "I had no idea you had x this far South."
7. Narrate every event with the following opening: "Now folks in Hazzard County..."

That's about all I've got thus far. Other suggestions?

I Have a PhD in Horribleness

So if you're one of the three people on the interwebs who has yet to hear about "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," then what the heck have you been doing with your time? Why are you even still reading this blog, when you could be going to this site and seeing it in all it's horrible-ly goodness.

Still not sold?

Fool.

Ok, so it's a live-action musical comedy in three acts about a wannabe supervillian who blogs about his attempts to conquer the world, join an exclusive club called the Evil League of Evil (led by the tyrranical Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin, he of the terrible death whinny), and defeat his nemesis Captain Hammer.

Still want more?

Ok, it's created by Joss Whedon, and it has Nathan Fillion in it.

That just sold half of my readership right there.

It stars Neil Patrick Harris.

That just sold the other half.

Seriously, go check it out. It's broken into three parts, each for free viewing only this weekend. Part three debutes on Saturday, I believe. Each part is roughly 14 minutes long, and each part is comic gold. And the music ain't half bad.

But really, go check it out for all the NPH goodness. "It's about destroying the status quo. Because the status...is...not quo. The world is a mess and I just....need to rule it."

Ok, go.

These Eyes Have Seen a Lot of Love, But They're Never Gonna See Another One Like They Had With You

And so today was one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

I was doing an outreach for the Writing Center this morning, where I go to classes and teach a bunch of high school students how to prepare for and write in-class essay exams. This particular group was a bunch of high school juniors, nice enough folks, but at the end of the session they somehow raised the issue that, to use their words, I "looked like that dude from Superbad."

Yeah, they couldn't get over that.

So apparently I look like Michael Cera, because this isn't the first time someone's thrown that my way. Could be worse, I guess. They could have thought I looked like "that fat dude from Superbad" or "that McLovin dude from Superbad." Michael Cera, pretty ok in my book.

Luckily, this seemed to give me cache with the youngsters, including the several who wanted their pictures taken with me. God bless the digital age, when every high schooler has his or her own camera with them at all times. I expect to be showing up on Facebook in the not-too-distant future. (Though they didn't seem to catch my Iron Man reference when I told them I didn't want to see this popping up on their MySpace pages. Oh well.

But I drew the line when they asked me to sing "These Eyes" and do the dance. That's just not how I roll.

Of Weddings, Brakes, and a Moratorium

As promised, this week was a highly elaborate event of blogworthy proportions. This past weekend, my very good friend the Puncher got married in mid-state Michigan, which prompted a road trip, an excellent time, and the further destruction of my car.

Day One: Thursday, myself and Sarah drove up to the tiny little town of...someplace. Yeah, I don't even remember the town's name. It may have been Springfield Township. Population like 25. Not sure exactly. But the Lady in Black lives there now (her hometown), and she had volunteered to drive Sarah up to Midland for the bachelorette party, thus cutting roughly two hours of travel time off my trip. For I, instead, was headed back down to Ann Arbor to visit Irish McJew and see this other college town that claims some kind of rivalry with Madison.

Needless to say, McJew pulls it through when his boy comes to town. Granted, he lives right in the heart of downtown Ann Arbor, thus violating the cardinal rule of being a grad student: Never live where the undergrads live. Equally granted, this made parking a bitch, as everything was metered, and I ended up parking in a garage that I had to vacate by 6:00 am the next morning. I, of course, was horribly hung over and missed this deadline, and was trapped in said garage until a maintenance man came to collect more money from me to let me out.

But just as equally granted, living at the heart of downtown makes all the downtown stuff all the closer, particularly the bevy of bars that we went to. We met up with some friends of his and hit up 3-4 different places, including a truly spectacular place that had $.55 PBRs and Big Buck Hunter, as well as live karaoke. We easily matched his mates drink for drink; indeed, we did them one better and showed how we partied Northwestern-style. This means that, while they had about 5-6 beers, we had about 5-6 beers after we pre-partied by consuming a half a bottle of Bushmills (while killing things that were different than us), and we closed the party with very stiff Crown & Cokes. That's just how we roll.

Day Two: Friday, after hungoverly watching The Simpsons for about three hours, we went out to this extremely dive-y greasy spoon that wasn't so much in a building as it was a trailer. But the food was excellent, and the tons of potatoes included were more than adequate for staving off the death of a PBR hangover. This more than mitigated my earlier parking difficulties.

Bidding McJew adieu, I commenced my journey to Saginaw, land of the wedding and the affordable hotel (not to mention a fairly high crime rate, so I would later learn). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had been upgraded from the room I had reserved--single room with a king-sized bed--to one of the larger suites. Said suite, of course, was bigger than my old apartment, with two king sized beds, a fully-stocked living/dining room, two tvs, a pseudo-jacuzzi in the bathtub, etc. In a word, it was decadent, and I took full advantage of it by napping and tv-ing my hangover away. Red-Headed Stepchild was splitting the room with me, but as she didn't arrive until roughly 3:00 am, I got to lounge around and feel like a big man. Which I did.

Day Three: Saturday was the wedding. Slept in until 12:30, had a rushed lunch with Red and Sarah, and then got our wedding on. I of course was a bit unnerved by the Presbyterian-ness of the church and the service. Particularly the church. No icons, no stained-glass, no statutes, no false idols or graven images for me to worship at all. The writing on the walls was in English, not Latin. There were notepads in each pew for churchgoers to take notes on the sermon. For a Catholic such as myself, it was very unsettling. I managed to perform several moments of sacrelige just to calm my nerves.

The wedding of course was wonderful, and the Puncher looked absolutely gorgeous. There were brief moments of hilarity in the vows section, when the minister's love of pausing led to some egregiously-oversimplified repetition on her part (e.g. Minister: [husband's]...... ; Puncher: [husband's]....., with just enough of an ironic eyebrow lift on her part to evoke a giggle from the row of Madisonians). But by and large, the wedding itself was very tasteful, and the Madison crew of course came looking respectively dapper and smokin' hot, as is our want.

Reception followed shortly, as is the style of the times, where we drank, danced, enjoyed multiple desserts and a late-addition nacho bar. Turns out the Hillbilly and Crypto-Jew can really cut a rug together, the Puncher can walk like an Egyptian with the best of them, and drinks at reception bars are always, in fact, significantly watered down. Unless you order a white russian. Then you apparently get a glass full of rubbing alcohol. Sadly, though I drank and drank I did not get drunk. Though I guess that's just as well when you have a seven hour car ride the next morning. Side note: the groom got the best job ever, since the tables' names were all derived from "Stuff He Thinks is Cool." We personally were split between the Vampire table and the Bear Grylls table, but they also had the Chuck Norris table, the Bacon table, etc. Good times.

Day Four: We returned home, after breakfasting at a local eatery called Tim Horton's, which is apparently the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin Doughnuts. Tasty stuff, I suppose, though I'm told it's kind of a big deal if you live up north.

The entire way back to Madison, including a side detour in Lansing due to Mapquest and US Interstate idiocy (seriously, Sarah can back me on this, for some reason the exits changed numbers and skipped a few), my brakes were grinding something fierce. That combined with the general strain of the drive led to some severely short nerves and shorter temper on my part, which I adequately vented on the moronic drivers of downtown Chicago who caused me to slam on my brakes every 20 seconds. I believe she thought I was going to either have a heart attack or start murdering people. Truth be told, I wasn't all that far from either.

Anyway, long story short (too late), we got back, I took my car in, and now I'm spending a small fortune to get my brake pads and rotors replaced. Given that I just spent a fair amount on one wedding, with two more to go this summer, I can tell already that my lavish expenditures are all to be curtailed for a while. No more crack for me, I guess. But along with that, I'm placing a moratorium on weddings. No more weddings for a while. Seriously. Stop getting married, people! I forbid it!

Ok, got that out of my system. But really, don't do it. All it does is cost me money and remind me how horribly sad and lonely my life is. Oh, and I suppose the married couple gets something out of it, but really, who cares about them?

Notes from the trip:
-Ann Arbor, while cool, is not "Madison" cool. Suck it, McJew. Advantage: Badgers.

-The Lady in Black seriously lives in the middle of nowhere.

-Seeing LiB and the Puncher reminds me just how much I miss them both and how awesome they are. More trips to Madison are demanded. I'd come to you, but apparently my car will fall apart.

-Michigan has a town with the largest Christmas store in the world. I'm proposing a winter road trip right now (in someone else's car).

-No more weddings. Just live in sin like decent, god-fearing folk.

Pnin!

Because I have nothing new to report, I offer you these selections from Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin, which will most likely only be funny to grad students. Sorry, everyone else. Drunken escapades coming this weekend.

On the start of a new semester:

"Again in the margins of library books earnest freshmen inscribed such helpful glosses as 'Description of nature,' or 'Irony'; and in a pretty edition of Mallarme's poems an especially able scholiast had already underlined in violet ink the difficult word oiseaux and scrawled above it 'birds.'"

"And still the College creaked on. Hard-working graduates, with pregnant wives, still wrote dissertations on Dostoevski and Simone de Beauvoir. Literary departments still labored under the impression that Stendhal, Galsworthy, Dreiser, and Mann were great writers. Word plastics like 'conflict' and 'pattern' were still in vogue. As usual, sterile instructors successfully endeavored to 'produce' by reviewing the books of more fertile colleagues, and, as usual, a crop of lucky faculty members were enjoying or about to enjoy various awards received earlier in the year."

On teaching:

"You may laugh, but I affirm that the only way to escape from the morass...is to lock up the student in a soundproof cell and eliminate the lecture room."

"Tom thinks that the best method of teaching anything is to rely on discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss for fifty minutes something that neither their teacher nor they know."

Seriously. I think I may try that soundproof cell idea. Regardless, Pnin is wonderful, a real joy to read. I strongly suggest everyone do so.

No TV and No Beer Make Dubs Something Something

The other day on the phone, Quantum asked me what I've been doing with myself recently. Now, anything that I come up with is comparatively going to already be inferior to what they're doing out in New York, because those boys are crazy drunks, while I... am a slightly older, no-longer-quite-so-crazy drunk. Sadly, it occurred to me then that my days of having "hijinks" are diminishing. I'm not necessarily distraught about this, given that my last night of debauchery led to a bruised tailbone (that still hasn't completely healed), several unexplained cuts and bruises, and a cold that incapacitated me for several days. I wouldn't do anything differently, mind you; but I'll be the first to admit that my days are no longer filled with martinis, dizzying action, and seductive women of mystery secretly spying for foreign agencies (man, were those a crazy couple of months).

Of course, most of the blame for the more-sedentary lifestyle I've recently been enjoying stems from two factors. The first is that I somehow hurt my foot last week; I have no idea how, or when, but it pains me to walk. Given that my beloved Madison is a very pedestrian town, I've been ranging out less than usual (and given that I got snookered last Tuesday and walked home on said hurt foot in my drunkenness probably didn't help). Hopefully, this problem will have remedied itself by next weekend, when I venture to the great desolate wastes of upper Michigan for The Puncher's wedding and open bar extravaganza.

The second, and far larger problem, is my frighteningly growing addiction to serialized television on dvd. For this, I wholeheartedly and totally blame t., whose constant recommendations of truly excellent shows has crippled my work ethic these past few weeks. When I was on Deadwood, things would progress nicely; I'd work during the day, and watch one or two episodes at night. Then came the Dexter incident, wherein I watched all of Dexter season one in about three days. That's not the end of the world, given that the season was only 12 episodes long. But it whetted my appetite for the serial mystery in a way I haven't seen since Veronica Mars-gate 2006. Which set the conditions for the knockout punch:

Twin Peaks

Have you ever watched this show? Part soap opera, part mystery, part character study, part weird supernatural drama, part crack, part crystal meth. "Who killed Laura Palmer?" seems like a fairly straightforward question, right? Wrong, skippy. Dead wrong. This cursed show is a maelstrom of cracked out midgets and giants, ghosts, spooks, doughnuts, and unending mysteries, a vacuum that sucks you in and destroys your ability to function in the real world. On Sunday, I watched over eight hours of Twin Peaks, and I still didn't know who killed that damn girl. All I did know is that I really really really wanted a piece of cherry pie. That night, I couldn't sleep, because I was thinking about the show. I dreamed about it. I pondered it all the next morning, and I'm fairly certain I advised several students in the writing center that the owls were not what they seemed.

Anyway, my point is that I'm a sucker for serialized shows that constantly end in cliffhangers, and I'm a sucker for mysteries. So this show is like my holy grail. I've watched at least five episodes today, with another six or seven yesterday. Thanks be to Krishna, it ends after the second season, which I'm told gets increasingly poor right around the point I'm now at. I figure it'll be like getting to the poorly cut and most likely toxic cocaine after you've been flying high on the good stuff for a while; eventually I'll crash, run out, realize I've been poisoning myself, and have to go into withdrawl. I'll try to resume my life, my work, and reintegrate myself into polite society. I might get the shakes every once or twice, and sure, I may feel the temptation to rent Fire Walk With Me, but deep down I know there are no answers that way.

Which is for the best, really. Cause Deadwood season two is currently at the top of my netflix queue. And then The Wire is shortly after that, and I hear there are at least five seasons of that beast.

In other words, good luck finding me anytime this summer.