. . . when the customs agent at Dorval looks at all the stamps on my passport and says “you sure are a busy guy.” But hey, what’s a little extra search on your way home?
Maastricht was wonderful. Mr. Bean’s Holiday on the flight home was so terrible that I almost broke my “always get the movie on the long flight” rule. I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out whether I’d be looking at my watch less if I were to start reading again or if I just persevered with the film.
So it took me this long to actually listen to the new Radiohead CD since downloading it. Well, I started listening to it about a day ago and haven’t really stoppped since then. It’s excellent.
So all I have to say is this: anyone who is complaining about the sound quality simply isn’t listening to the music.
and with that, I’m off to Maastricht tomorrow night for a very interesting-looking Sound Souvenirs workshop, where I will get the joy of combining the fog of jet lag with dwelling entirely in the world of ideas for a couple days.
As I may have mentioned somewhere below, writing has been my most daunting task since becoming chair (to be fair, this was complicated in the summer by virtue of moving). Mostly it’s a time issue, but though it is also something of a concentration issue. To write well and creatively, one must forget (if momentarily) the other demands in one’s life and immerse oneself in text. I find it intensely pleasureable, but also intensely difficult since thoughts about this or that aspect of the department occur to me at all sorts of odd times and I feel the need to be more accessible to others for certain things than I did in the past. For instance, I now go into the office almost every weekday. Theoretically, I could write at school but I’ve never mastered this skill: in eight years and change as a professor, I’ve probably written less than 5 pages of my own prose in my university office. It’s hard for me to, well, forget my surroundings while at work.
So it is not without some irony that I just completed a draft of a piece on forgetting for a conference on sonic souvenirs in Maastricht next weekend (several weeks late), and wishing I still had more time to work through Marc Augé Oblivion and Paul Ricoeur Memory, History, Forgetting, but that will have to be for the version in the edited collection. Lest you think I simply sublimate my own psychological issues into my writing and dress them up as theory (okay, I probably do that), the paper was promised and the abstract written long before I knew I’d be moving or chairing.
In the meantime, I followed a link discussed in a fascinating essay by Melanie Swalwell entitled “The Remembering and Forgetting of Early Digital Games” (Journal of Visual Culture 6:2, 255-73 if you’re looking) and found this rather amusing project, which I am sharing with you. It’s another kind of effort to forget. “‘Delete’ is just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Okay, I know I’m probably the only person who reads this blog who likes anything approaching heavy metal (well, except for Carrie, except she doesn’t often read this blog). But hey, Steven always writes about TV even though half his readers don’t watch any, so I guess it’s fair play in blogland. Anyway:the best rock shows are surprises. Last night I went to see Tim Hecker open for Jesu: these are two acts I know and like and both delivered in their own ways. Tim’s music sounds great loud and there was this cool low end that you don’t get listening to his albums on earbuds, which is how I mostly have done it. Jesu had a much much better mix than when they opened for Isis. But inbetween was a band called Torche (pronounced “Torch” but the extra “e” makes it extra heavy, also the cross in the band’s logo helps). I’d never heard of them. They were savagely heavy. And yet familiar. About 3/4 of the way through the set they played a Floor cover and it sounded, well, so good. Floor, you see, is a now-defunct metal band from Miami that achieved semi-legendary status in the 1990s without releasing a single album. Well, they did release two albums and some EPs, but it’s complicated. I love Floor. Carrie loves Floor. When something good happens, we have sometimes cranked up the Floor to celebrate. So anyway, after the show, I go over to buy the band’s CDs, and it turns out that the singer and rhythm guitarist was in Floor. So it extra special, because it was a little like getting to see a band I’d previously had no hope of ever seeing, and in addition to a couple Torche albums I picked up the “missing” Floor CD. A good time was had by all, except Carrie, who was home sick.
I’ve been home all day writing. It’s great, wish I could do it more often these days. Back to that.
…for one of my most important posts ever. At least I’m in good company.
I often say that I went to graduate school to become a grad student, and not a professor. And that my goal as tenured prof is to approach the state of graduate-studentness as much as possible (minus, of course, the poverty and angst). It is fair to say that during my stint as department chair I’m not doing so well on that particular goal but I’ve got a whole life ahead of me. In the meantime, it is my students who keep me connected to the reasons why I got into this business. That and a few good books, public lectures and conferences here and there.
That’s why I read with horror this column in the Chronicle of Higher Edutainment. The author claims that the problem is that the “bad apples” don’t “get” the “purpose” of graduate school, but I think that it is she who does not understand the role of the graduate teacher. Sure, it’s wonderful when my students write brilliant dissertations and go on and get good academic jobs and contribute to their fields of study. But there are about 1000 other things my students might hope to do with their lives, and my job as graduate teacher, is to — within the range of the reasonable — facilitate that. Presumably students are in grad school because they love the material and have a passion for some set of intellectual questions (if those are lacking, one ought to ask why one’s in school), but that doesn’t always translate into a single career narrative upon finishing. Sure, all I’m equipped to do is to train people to be college professors. But that doesn’t mean I have to expect every student’s life to follow that narrative arc.
Most importantly, a PhD takes a long time — an average of 7 years in the humanities. Leaving aside the very real necessities of professional mentoring, is it really wise to focus single-mindedly on a desired end result for one’s students, or perhaps is there also something to be said for enjoying the ride? The point of teaching graduate students is the process, not the results. Now that I’m busier than ever as department chair, my students often apologize for taking my time, perhaps not believing me when I say that meeting with my grads to talk about their ideas and their work is one of the best parts of the job.
I confess that when reading sports sections, I tend to prefer to read stuff about the business of sport over the stuff about players. For the past few weeks, there has been a buzz in the Canadian press (especially the Globe and Mail) about the possibility of a group of Toronto businessmen purchasing the Buffalo Bills and working out some deal where the NFL and CFl could co-exist in Toronto.
Friday, it was revealed that the Bills are planning to play 3 “home” games in Toronto over the next two years. Today, it warranted an op-ed. Oh the horror! Let me get this straight: it’s perfectly fine to swarm like vultures over a small-market team that has historical roots in a given city because its owner is near death. But when the same team looks to expand its financial base by playing in neighboring city — a city where there are people interested in buying the team, no less — people cry foul because there’s already a CFL team there. First, we’re talking about 3 games, two of which are exhibition games. Second, either the NFL and CFL can coexist or they can’t. Make up your minds, sportswriters.
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One of the worst parts of moving is the change of address and switching utilities. This afternoon, I spent somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes on the phone to 1) convince Rogers to stop billing us since we haven’t been their customers since August; 2) get Bell to send the “free” calling cards they promised in August (I’m paying for them as part of my service plan) and send our TV bill for service at the new address TO the new address (instead of the old address), at least until they can get around to consolidating our bills — which may or may not ever happen. There is no way that should have taken more than 15 minutes in total. Bell took 3 calls, since I was cut off while waiting on hold twice after 15 minute waits.
