Super Bon!

Hi Folks – it’s vacation time in Florida for Jon and I, and I thought, being a special kind of thing, that I’d create a special guest entry.

Florida is both amazing and absolutely frightening. While flying in to Tampa (see J’s Feb 18 post on the intrigues of our flight), I read an article in the recent Harper’s on a young Democrat who went to Florida in late October 2004 through election day to go underground with the Republican party, all in the name of keeping an eye on the electioneering process. The article particularly emphasized the more loony and surreal aspects of Republican political canvassing, especially the lives of its canvassers and the very religious among them. With article fully digested, I felt I had some good insight into Floridian political life, and from the eyes of this tourist, the author’s take on Florida seems to be quite true. I’ve never seen so many large, full-service Christian churches, block after block in Bradenton, FL. The “prayer station” next to the beach really clinched for me how intimately linked daily life, evangelical Christianity and tourism are in the Gulf region – heck, probably all over Florida and most of the Atlantic south. Couple that with the XXX mega stores in the strip mall next to McDonald’s, the Christian bookstore, the funeral home and the liquor mart, and I feel I’m experiencing America in a nutshell. I know that’s a bit unfair as an assessment. But then again, put in relief, the selling of sex, death, God and burgers really does about capture it all.

First of all, in case anyone in the north has forgotten, the sun is actually hot. This means even relatively short periods of exposure after one’s body has been covered in sunblock can still lead to roasting. Both Carrie and I are a mix of lily white and totally burnt. There is not a “tan” patch anywhere on either of our bodies. But there are plenty of days left on the vacation.

My new favorite bird is the sandpiper. Mostly, they just run around, which is cool. They look like they’re running really hard. And I like their beaks.

After spending the first night on St. Pete beach, which is a crowded high rise family resort sort of place, we went down to Ana Maria Island, which is considerably quieter. We’ve got a place with a kitchenette and a separate bedroom which means we can stay in when we like and operate on our own schedule. The only hitch is that the smoke detector is too close to the kitchenette and is awfully sensitive. In fact, after ours went off, we would occasionally hear others going off in other people’s units. So it’s not just us.

The beach is amazing. The island is about 3 blocks wide, and we do have to cross the street to get to the beach, but this stretch really has almost nothing on it except furniture for us to lay down on, sand and sand sculptures, and beautiful crystalline waters that make that lovely swooshing sound they make. The Gulf of Mexico has that same calming effect as the ocean, and it tastes just as salty.

The towns nearby are all super conservative: tons of churches and tons of real estate offices, in case you wonder what the locals’ two big preoccupations are. There’s also the “mobile prayer station” and the stretch of highway that is being sponsored by the John Birch Society.

Mostly, though, we ignore all that like good consumers and go about our vacationing business.

We also picked up some Cds to listen to as we drive around. My capsule reviews (keep in mind we were not going to find the hip indie record store down here):

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead (latest one): track 2 absolutely 100% kills. It’s an amazing rock song. Bordering on prog rock in its high concept-ness, though they don’t overplay. That said, the rest of the album is the album that they were supposed to make. You know, the one where the band “matures” and takes a “giant leap forward.” Unfortunately, that may have been their EP “Secrets of Elena’s Tomb.” This one is just plain old uneven.

Arcade Fire: I know I am under tremendous pressure to like this one as a good Montreal wannabe hipster. There are a couple tasty tunes but the jury’s out because of the shaky singing. Will I get used to it or will I forever see it as an affectation that makes a virtue of a necessity? Also, I’m starting to get a feeling that there’s this whole Canadian indierock thing about having a lot of people and a lot of instruments in your band.

Queen Latifah: the jazz album where she sings. It sounds exactly like a very, very standard album of female jazz vocals accompanied by a competent backing band. Inoffensive, which is unfortunate in this case.

Zero7: Exactly like their first album “Simple Things,” except different songs. Which is to say that they didn’t try to mature. Extremely pleasing 1970s mellow, but perhaps not the ideal choice for driving around.

UNKLE: the new one. Very good, but whoever wrote the blurb from Rolling Stone that said it was a “dance” album is crazy. It’s very mellow.

DJ Shadow, Preemptive Strike: early singles. Lots of tasty beats. I asked Carrie at one point if, in the future, I were to do a DJ album, whether I could record her saying “Jon, I want you to play me some tasty beats!” She assented, but I think she is counting on this never actually happening.

D. Do not dally on the way to the airport.

The Montreal airport seems like the place where you don’t need to observe the “get there two hours early for an international flight” rule. But there are limits. Specifically, 45 minutes before departure time. We took a little too long getting out of the apt to the airport and when we got there I even thought to take a moment to check our coats. The result? We walked up to the counter exactly 40 minutes before takeoff. Now, there was no problem physically speaking; we could have easily made the flight. But Air Canada is pretty strict with their rule, so much so that it was not possible for the agents to get us on our flight. And yes, coat check was probably the difference.

Thus began the saga of the beginning of the vacation. We had to call United, through whom the tickets were booked. The kind agent on the other end then spent about 45 minutes looking at other flights he could book us on. The only ones he found were on Saturday and cost $1000 (CAN) each. Carrie was getting whiter and whiter and I realized her bloodsugar was taking a big drop, so she handed the phone to me about 40 minutes into the call and took a glucose tab or two. The agent on the other end of the phone kept looking and I started to ponder whether Thursday evening would find me at the Donna Haraway talk, explaining to my friends why I had actually shown up.

Finally, I asked about standby, which we’d never done before. The agent came up with a plan: fly to Washington DC (instead of Chicago, which was where our original connections were) and then try and get on one of two flights from DC to Tampa. There were four the next day. The deal is the United doesn’t charge you to be on standby if, like us, you screw up your flight plan.

Since it was $2000 and fly on Saturday or stand by for free (with the possibility of paying for one night’s hotel), we eagerly took the Washington DC option. And thus, we spent most of Thursday waiting around in the Dulles airport, like vultures, for two people to get themselves into the very situation we had gotten ourselves so that we could take advantage of their misfortune. I can tell you that the C concourse of Dulles is much more boring than the B concourse, and it is absolutely FULL of miserable, harried people. Including Wolf Blitzer (Carrie saw him, I didnit). The B concourse is nice and open but the shops are boring and so is the food. We spent a good deal of time in a bar that had ESPN Sportscenter, which is one U.S. show Carrie dearly missed (note: TSN’s “Sportscentre” bites in comparison).

The long and short of it is that we were the last two people allowed onto the last flight of the night to Tampa and we’ve never been so happy to get on a plane. Our total “lost” vacation time was about seven hours. At least I got most of my undergrad papers marked. I will say, given the generally low level of service in the airline industry, that everyone we came across was very helpful and went out of their way to help us get to Florida.

OK, another thing. “Ted” is the stupidest branding idea ever. “Ted” is the last three letters of “United” and it allows them to say things like “Ted would like you to fasten your seatbelt,” or “Ted welcomes you,” which is smarmy but not clever. Also, their safety video uses these flat orange backgrounds and looks like it’s straight out of The Matrix, so I guess that’s a point in their favor. It’s the first truly surreal safety video I have ever seen and I would happily watch it again just for its entertainment value.

Speaking of which, there is a small bone of contention about whether Oprah Winfrey was on our flight. The captain announced it before we took off (she was supposedly doing a story on the life of a flight attendant) they even showed a special graphic on the screens that said “Ted is going to be on TV” (you see how annoying the “Ted” thing can be?). When we deplaned in Tampa, there was a woman who could have been Oprah but since neither of us watch the show, we couldn’t be certain. Carrie thinks not, I think so, only because they were having people take their pictures with her and because of the LCD graphic, which seems like a bit much for making a joke of a flight attendant who just looks like Oprah.

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Note: while in Manatee County there was no internet access, but I blogged the vacation in word. I will upload it over the next days and postdate it — this is the first installment.

A. Do not watch 24 before going to bed. Bad idea. I actually had my first nuclear nightmare since childhood Tuesday night (we watched it a day late). Plus all that edge-of-your-seat stuff isn’t exactly relaxing.

B. Do not attempt to feed the icky outdoor cat.(1) It will keep coming around and mess up our cats’ private property. This particular icky outdoor cat has been coming around on the back patio. When the weather is warm, we let our cats out on the patio. We don’t want any conflict. Yesterday, it showed up wet with rain looking in at our very dry cats. There was much brandishing of large tales and growling through the patio glass. Carrie confessed that she took pity on the icky outdoor cat and tried to feed it one night. Luckily, it did not take the food.

C. If you are a faculty association, do not bash unions in your recruitment literature for new faculty. Especially do not mention that unions are a threat to “collegiality.” Some of your potential members may have been in unions at previous jobs and might recognize propaganda when they see it.

Off to catch a plane. My best hope is that the Montreal airport has lockers for rent. If not, new rule “D” is that the Montreal airport should have lockers so I don’t have to fly a winter coat to Florida or freeze my tail off waiting for the shuttle bus in extended parking.

The laptop comes with. Perhaps there will be installments, but no promises. I might just be on vacation.

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1. Charlie and Kim had an icky outdoor cat in Vallejo that they did feed, and it was okay. Different scenario.

You must know the feelings — getting into ruts and escaping them.

Right now I’m going through one of those periods where I see a whole body of literature in a new light — a “a ha!’ moment. In this case it’s cybernetics and information theory and it all started because one of my RAs came across a reference to Shannon and Weaver in some work she was doing for me. Not like I’m going to start walking around arguing that we should adjust the inputs and outputs on my cat or anything (though come to think of it, maybe I should adjust the cat) (1), but it turns out that there’s a “there there” I hadn’t noticed before. And all this readed I did in a reading group a couple years ago on autopoesis is turning out to be quite useful. Currently, I’m reading a really cool history of Soviet Cybernetics called From Newspeak to Cyberspeak (by Slava Gerovitch) that’s got lots of good little tidbits in it and also suggests some interesting reading strategies for the American material given Gerovitch’s attention to language and official ideology — which I suppose is an essential part of writing the history of Soviet science. I’m filling in some gaps in my knowledge and going back over stuff. Yes, of course the material is really dry, but that’s half the fun. Anyway, I don’t feel like I’m expressing this well, but there’s just no high like the moment you see a new connection among ideas. At least if you’re a geek like me.

Musically, on the other hand, I find there’s just a center of gravity in indierock that I keep going back to. This is all spurred on by the fact that I just ordered (a couple days ago) the new EP by the Joy Circuit, who have members of a bunch of other bands I listened to in the 1990s. It’s like I’m following a social group with which I have no personal connection through their musical careers. Or something. Anyway, I find my ears keep wanting it. Yeah, the Lesbians on Ecstasy CD is also on order and will be enjoyable, but I think I’m waiting for the next big subgenre discovery. Either that, or I’ll give in and just roll with it. Guess I’m just not satisfied with my own satisfaction.

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1. For those who don’t know, Norbert Wiener’s Human Use of Human Beings has a whole discussion of the inputs and outputs of a kitten. When I read it, it’s kind of cute and creepy at the same time.

So, some people at McGill were running Norton Realtime and claimed that a virus and trojan horse were coming off my homepage at http://sterneworks.org/index.html . If you feel like doing me a favor, and you run Norton Realtime or some other similar software, stop by the index page and see if you get an error message. My hosting service claims that they scanned all the files in my directory and found nothing. For the sake of completeness, I’ve changed all the passwords. But I never got an error message in the first place.

Anyway, if you go there and do get an error, let me know. Otherwise, I will assume the problem is solved.