A recommendation for NEXT year's first year students' orientation...

...have them learn and sing repeatedly en masse the chorus to "Five Years," the opening track of David Bowie's landmark 1972 album Ziggy Stardust:

"We've got five years, that's all we got!
Five years, my brain hurts a lot!
Five years...
Five years..."

If that doesn't help the six-year completion rate stats, nothing will!

After one week as not chair, here's what I'm NOT doing nearly as much as I used to (most good, some not)...

1.  Answering my phone
2.  Signing my name and dating forms
3.  Being visited by students, faculty, and/or staff to sign and date said forms
4.  Making decisions about students not in my own classes
5.  Telling people no
6.  Talking to Darlene and Min   (: (
7.  Staying late in the office
8.  Teaching distracted by chair issues and, as a result, less effectively (or that's my perception thus far; my students may disagree!)
9.  Getting mail
10.Attending departmental committee meetings as an ex officio member

What kind of slogan is that?!

Driving behind a DATTCO bus recently an saw their slogan:

our buses

      our people 

              & you

Now, along with actually putting the customer LAST in this list (a bad sign, no?), the slogan also focuses way too much on themselves.

I say chuck the whole thing and go, much more simply and catchier, in a different direction:

Now DATT's a bus!

If some high-powered DATTCO official sees this, feel free to use it -- free of charge -- just give me some acknowledgement in the next annual report somewhere!

The friends of "Frank, Gil, and Friends" are BACK, baby!

Look at this WFCS "Total Listening Hours" on-line listener chart from August 2010...I was on air on the 3rd, out of town on the 10th, on air on the 17th, out of town on the 24th, and back on air on the 31st.

A question that came to mind while listening to it through on my 40-minute walk this PM...

...is there a more insightful -- and melodic -- depiction and critique of racism, alienation, and corruption in the South than Randy Newman's 1974 Good Old Boys album?
If there is, I'd LOVE to hear it.

I know nothing about the Republican candidate for CT Attorney General...

Martha Dean, but I must admit I like her campaign slogan, "Freedom.  Faith.  Fortune.", which I noticed today for the first time on a sign in the neighborhood.  It's alliterative, which is always a good thing, but, more importantly, it's decidedly unlike most current political slogans, which stress either one's experience or one's outsider status.  Candidate Dean's, however, is wonderfully opaque and raises all sorts o' questions:
Freedom of/from what? 
Faith in whom? 
Whose fortune exactly, and is that fortune as in $$$$ or fortune as in luck/destiny? 

I guess we should find out before November.

(On a somewhat related note, I love it when states ban together to sue some big entity just so newspeople can say "attorneys general," which is even a better plural than mothers-in-law...)

Frank Sinatra's TOP and BOTTOM 10 -- "Frank, Gil, and Friends" Playlist 8/31/10

I was asked to pick and play what I consider to be the best and worst songs of Frank Sinatra on today's "Frank Gil and Friends" (Tuesdays, 8-10 AM on WFCS 107.7 FM New Britain/Hartford and www.live365.com/stations/wfcs).   The bad are bad for a variety of reasons: a bad song, badly performed, ill-suited to Sinatra, maybe all three!

Here's what I came up with in no particular order (needless to say, you may disagree):

The Worst:


I Sing the Songs
I Went Down to Virginia
Catana
Siesta
Mrs. Robinson
God's Country
Satisfy Me One More Time
Tennessee Newsboy
Early American
To Love a Child

The Best:

Time after Time
I'll Never Smile Again
When the World Was Young
Don't Like Goodbyes
Angel Eyes
September of My Years
Learning the Blues
Monday Morning Quarterback
Soliloquy
I've Got You Under My Skin