On the CCSU faculty listserv (to offer a brief respite from the incessant rants of a certain professor), a colleague asked about our present reading habits:
"What's on Your Night Stand?"
My answer was Peter Ackroyd's The Fall of Troy, Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, and A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh.
I humbly suggest these follow-up questions:
"What's under your bed?"
"What's in your trunk?"
"What's buried in your backyard?"
and, of course,
"What's in YOUR wallet?"
26 February 2009
25 February 2009
It's a Wonderful Life
My 13-year-old daughter and I have a little game we play each day.
She takes her lunch to school, so each morning I write a line or two or three from a song on her lunch bag, and she has to figure out the song and artist by day's end.
Yesterday the line came from my favorite Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends (Columbia Records 1968).
The line was "How wonderfully strange to be seventy" from "Old Friends"
It was one of the few she hasn't gotten, and I later learned why: she's not fond of Bookends so hasn't listened to it as much as Bridge Over Troubled Waters and the very early Paul Simon Songbook, et alia...
Dismayed, I popped it into the cd player in the car this morning to show her why she should LOVE this album, only to discover that I had misquoted the line from "Old Friends."
It's NOT "How wonderfully strange to be seventy!"
It's "How TERRIBLY strange to be seventy!"
I fear I am getting old.
She takes her lunch to school, so each morning I write a line or two or three from a song on her lunch bag, and she has to figure out the song and artist by day's end.
Yesterday the line came from my favorite Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends (Columbia Records 1968).
The line was "How wonderfully strange to be seventy" from "Old Friends"
It was one of the few she hasn't gotten, and I later learned why: she's not fond of Bookends so hasn't listened to it as much as Bridge Over Troubled Waters and the very early Paul Simon Songbook, et alia...
Dismayed, I popped it into the cd player in the car this morning to show her why she should LOVE this album, only to discover that I had misquoted the line from "Old Friends."
It's NOT "How wonderfully strange to be seventy!"
It's "How TERRIBLY strange to be seventy!"
I fear I am getting old.
23 February 2009
Dylan as prophet
Apropos of nothing (or everything) in American culture circa 2009, a little Bob Dylan:
They’re spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured.
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words.
From “Desolation Row,” Highway 61 Revisited, Columbia Records, 1965
22 February 2009
The problem with mandatory press conferences...
Yesterday, at a post-game press conference, University of Connecticut men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun was asked about the propriety of his annual salary. Essentially, "given the economic situation, should you be making as much as you do?"
He quickly, as is his wont, got angry.
He's right, of course, basketball makes a quite a bit of money for UConn both directly (the box office, the t-shirt and sweat shirt sales) and indirectly (the remarkable number of students who enroll because UConn teams have been NCAA champions, etc). Indeed, one could easily make the case that UConn basketball (men's and women's) IS professional sports in the state of Connecticut.
To be blunt, I've NEVER understood choosing a school based largely on their sports teams. If I'm not going to be playing basketball for them, why, when I'm selecting a school, would I care how good they are? I fear, as always, I'm in the minority here.
For example, in my first year in the doctoral program at The Catholic University of America in the mid-1990s (er, I meant mid-1980s...godd catch, Stuart!!!!), I taught freshman composition. On the first day, I went around the room and asked my students why they had chosen CUA? Over half said "Because I couldn't get into Villanova," who of course had recently won the NCAA Men's basketball title!
I attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, which had dropped its football program back in the 60s, before they became a credible national basketball presence. When I was enrolled, we'd have trouble beating Thomas More College from northern Kentucky! Sports simply never played a part in any decision about a school.
But I digress.
These post-game press conferences, I understand, are mandatory.
Why?
Rarely do the coaches really want to talk about anything significant, so why make 'em? They've won or lost. They played well or didn't. The coach got thrown out of the game or he didn't. (Remember: this whole thing started with Jim Calhoun.) Are there ever ANY insights at which the esteemed press couldn't arrive on its own?
I doubt it.
And let's not stop at college sports press conferences. The professional ranks have their own mandatory press gatherings. In the case of the esteemed/reviled Bill Belichick, for example, I understand that he doesn't even have to tell the truth in these exchanges ---- top secret strategy and all that.
Once again, that's fine (since none of this really matters to anyone but ESPN), but let's not force him to meet the press to "answer" questions, if, in fact, he doesn't have to.
Coaches have better things to do, I hope.
The press has better things to do, I hope.
And, most importantly, no one has EVER asked me, as I leave my classroom after an early American lit class:
"So, teach, were you pleased by how your class handled the spoon passage in Canto Three of The Hasty Pudding?"
"Do you think they'll be up for Greenfield Hill on Wednesday?"
"How does this class match up with the great Eng 340 classes of the late 1990s?"
If they ever do, then I'll reassess.
Of course, if I can answer in front of a Dunkin Donuts banner, how sweet it would be!!!!"
He quickly, as is his wont, got angry.
He's right, of course, basketball makes a quite a bit of money for UConn both directly (the box office, the t-shirt and sweat shirt sales) and indirectly (the remarkable number of students who enroll because UConn teams have been NCAA champions, etc). Indeed, one could easily make the case that UConn basketball (men's and women's) IS professional sports in the state of Connecticut.
To be blunt, I've NEVER understood choosing a school based largely on their sports teams. If I'm not going to be playing basketball for them, why, when I'm selecting a school, would I care how good they are? I fear, as always, I'm in the minority here.
For example, in my first year in the doctoral program at The Catholic University of America in the mid-1990s (er, I meant mid-1980s...godd catch, Stuart!!!!), I taught freshman composition. On the first day, I went around the room and asked my students why they had chosen CUA? Over half said "Because I couldn't get into Villanova," who of course had recently won the NCAA Men's basketball title!
I attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, which had dropped its football program back in the 60s, before they became a credible national basketball presence. When I was enrolled, we'd have trouble beating Thomas More College from northern Kentucky! Sports simply never played a part in any decision about a school.
But I digress.
These post-game press conferences, I understand, are mandatory.
Why?
Rarely do the coaches really want to talk about anything significant, so why make 'em? They've won or lost. They played well or didn't. The coach got thrown out of the game or he didn't. (Remember: this whole thing started with Jim Calhoun.) Are there ever ANY insights at which the esteemed press couldn't arrive on its own?
I doubt it.
And let's not stop at college sports press conferences. The professional ranks have their own mandatory press gatherings. In the case of the esteemed/reviled Bill Belichick, for example, I understand that he doesn't even have to tell the truth in these exchanges ---- top secret strategy and all that.
Once again, that's fine (since none of this really matters to anyone but ESPN), but let's not force him to meet the press to "answer" questions, if, in fact, he doesn't have to.
Coaches have better things to do, I hope.
The press has better things to do, I hope.
And, most importantly, no one has EVER asked me, as I leave my classroom after an early American lit class:
"So, teach, were you pleased by how your class handled the spoon passage in Canto Three of The Hasty Pudding?"
"Do you think they'll be up for Greenfield Hill on Wednesday?"
"How does this class match up with the great Eng 340 classes of the late 1990s?"
If they ever do, then I'll reassess.
Of course, if I can answer in front of a Dunkin Donuts banner, how sweet it would be!!!!"
21 February 2009
My "Bucket List" (Part I)
Not in any particular order:
Get my Dominican cousin to inject me with boli
Get a Dominican cousin with whom I'm comfortable enough to drop my pants for
Write a book on British singer Matt Monro
Re-subscribe to Mad Magazine
Get hired to be the non-famous member of the pair of hosts in a Time/Life music infomercial
Meet Phil Donahue and/or Elvis Costello
Write the liner notes for a John Wesley Harding cd
Get my share of the Obama stimulus plan
Get my Dominican cousin to inject me with boli
Get a Dominican cousin with whom I'm comfortable enough to drop my pants for
Write a book on British singer Matt Monro
Re-subscribe to Mad Magazine
Get hired to be the non-famous member of the pair of hosts in a Time/Life music infomercial
Meet Phil Donahue and/or Elvis Costello
Write the liner notes for a John Wesley Harding cd
Get my share of the Obama stimulus plan
20 February 2009
Getting by in Postsocialist Romania
On Wednesday, we had another Central Authors talk; this one by the ever-entertaining Professor of Anthropology David Kideckel on his new book Getting By in Postsocialist Romania.
As he himself admits, it's a depressing book, but his research for it sure sounded fun: sitting in bars with Romanian miners drinking, smoking, and bragging about one's sexual prowess.
Anthropology?! That sounds like an AAUP social to me!
As he himself admits, it's a depressing book, but his research for it sure sounded fun: sitting in bars with Romanian miners drinking, smoking, and bragging about one's sexual prowess.
Anthropology?! That sounds like an AAUP social to me!
My horoscope for today...
...if I had been born three weeks later (and if I believed Holiday Mathis).
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). You want to be appreciated, and with some measure of enthusiasm. No amount of praise will make you blush. In fact, you would respond best to thunderous applause. Encourage others to emote on your behalf.
That sure sounds like me.
I can only hope my birth certificate's wrong.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). You want to be appreciated, and with some measure of enthusiasm. No amount of praise will make you blush. In fact, you would respond best to thunderous applause. Encourage others to emote on your behalf.
That sure sounds like me.
I can only hope my birth certificate's wrong.
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