First, to a brilliant post by Dave Noon.
Second, to a History of the GEO. I was working on my opening lines for NYU this morning and went looking for my own grad union’s history and there is was. It took us 10 years from start to recognition, and I was involved Fall of 1993-Spring of 1999. So I left not Illinois not knowing whether our efforts would ever come to fruition. I should write something about that whole project, but for now, the official history will have to do.
Hey, thanks for the props. I was especially proud of the unicorn questionnaire….
Quick update on the MoA article and its reception in SSCI 102: Most everyone seemed to like the piece, as well they should have. I told them that you began the article as an undergrad — the sound of bowels loosening was nearly audible. (I must admit, I shit myself just a little bit myself when I told them.) What was really funny, though, was the number of students who couldn’t get past the assumption that you were writing about the efforts of merchants to subliminally entice their customers to buy more, more, more. I tried to explain that while somebody, somewhere is probably thinking about that question seriously, Jonathan Sterne had other ducks to fry here. A lot of them, though, actually seemed to understand the whole “acoustical space” argument, for which they received a high five and a Charms blow-pop.
Beyond that, all the anthropology students (about 60% of the class) thought you were an anthropologist; the rest figured sociology.
And they were all quite interested in the outcome of Atari baseball.
Thanks for the report! But what I really want to know is: what did you tell them about the outcome of Atari baseball?
Well, my memory is a little fuzzy about the ACTUAL outcome, but I seem to remember losing, which would pretty much be consistent with my path in life.
I also told them that you had a system in place that rendered you pretty much unbeatable at Realsports baseball.
Oops. I mean that you had a foolproof system for FOOTBALL…
Yeah, even on the “difficult” setting. But that was Atari.
Now Madden, that’s another thing entirely.
Truth be told I don’t remember who won in baseball either; just that we were evenly matched.