Wow, I really hadn't been keeping up with his recent activities.
The post title comes from Simon Barnes, as quoted in the John Julius Norwich's 2008 Christmas Cracker.
If you get bored by the video, skip ahead to around the 10m mark. It's funny.
ALL OF A SUDDEN LIGHTNING BOLT SOUNDS LIKE ESQUIVEL.
I would be interested in trying a pencil that had been really well sharpened.
A really sharp pencil would hurt less.
If it reaches an artery, you'll get lead poisoning.
you'll get lead poisoning.
From graphite? You're made of carbon.
I still have the visible tip of a pencil stuck in my wrist from when I accidentally stabbed myself with a pencil at age 7.
We deal in lead, friend.
Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little boy like you could destroy my beautiful sidebar?
Yeah, Ali McGraw got mad with you for giving lead to Steve McQueen.
Crazy! The pencil guy was in SLC yesterday and my husband wanted to go see him perform. If work hadn't been so hectic, we would have watched him sharpen pencils.
11: I've one of those marks. Dueling with sharpened pencils is a rite of passage on the veldt.
We dueled with compass and protractor.
If work hadn't been so hectic, we would have watched him sharpen pencils.
I hate this godless culture.
I still have the visible tip of a pencil stuck in my wrist from when I accidentally stabbed myself with a pencil at age 7.
Weird how the marks don't go away. I have one in each palm, like stigmata from elementary school.
Because you didn't wear shoes to school.
You're all lucky you didn't go to school with the Joker.
22: My sister was using them that day.
[L]ike stigmata from elementary school.
I'd buy that satirical novel about public education. In paperback, at least.
Every time you fantasize about buying imaginary books from Amazon, God pretends to kill an independent bookstore.
Wait, wait. Jim Jarmusch? Jim Jarmusch is odd-looking and David Rees is super hot. Or was last time I googled him anyway.
Someone sent me a link to GYWO right after it came out and I was extremely grateful. That and the Susan Sontag piece in the New Yorker and Molly Ivins were my proof that not everybody had lost their minds after number/other-number.
"Bring back Janet Reno! Let's return to killing people in Texas, please!" was one of the phrases that most kept me sane in the post-9/11 era.
BOGF fell and skinned her knee on a gravel walkway in a park, and the bits of gravel stayed in her knee for years. AFAIK, they're still there.
I've been told that cyclists go after road rash with stiff wire brushes. I hope never to learn this first hand.
DR: Raised in Chapel Hill, College at DFH college.
I met Rees at a party in New York once, and I remember him making fun of my shoes. (Given the mutability of memory, he probably just mentioned my shoes and I took him to be making fun. But still!)
We can't properly evaluate this anecdote without knowing more about the shoes in question.
||
I was at a student presentation this morning, about the physics of golf, and specifically it was all about the wrist-cock angle. No one in the audience thought this was funny at all. What is wrong with these people?
|>
What is wrong with these people?
An unhealthy level of interest in golf?
34: At some point someone here said "You have to remember, normal people are not like you guys. Their minds don't immediately leap to the most obscene interpretation of every sentence." I have to remind myself of that quote a lot.
Relatedly, the kid bagging my groceries pulled a good "that's what she said" on me. I had brought my own bag, so I said "just put it in here."
I wonder if he feels confident enough to "that's what she said" all of the grocery store customers, or if I just look like the kind of guy who would appreciate it.
34: At some point someone here said "You have to remember, normal people are not like you guys. Their minds don't immediately leap to the most obscene interpretation of every sentence." I have to remind myself of that quote a lot.
The other day while walking across campus toward a café a youthful student handed me a little flyer upcoming student government election, asking me, "would you like a flyer about DP?".
DP is the name of the the party she was representing, see—"democratic process".
I suppose they also wouldn't see anything funny about these authors of a paper about the physics of lacrosse.
In another document, I'm trying to promote "inter-course collaboration" which is of course hilarious.
37: Also the first and middle initial of a coworker, appearing on the nameplate outside his office. I blame Unfogged for the fact that this makes me want to snicker.
34: Like my Ann Arbor street names from the other thread: Felch St. one block parallel to Hiscock St. And then once you go there, you can't even see nearby Cherry St., Fountain St., Miner St. the same way. or at least I can't.
I find it hard to believe that the authors in 38/39 didn't decide to collaborate first, having been introduced at a party, quite late in the evening, and then thought about what they might collaborate on.
Uranus takes a pounding more frequently than previously thought.
I find it hard to believe that the authors in 38/39 didn't decide to collaborate first, having been introduced at a party, quite late in the evening, and then thought about what they might collaborate on.
"Ooh, and let's see if we can work the phrase 'rigid body' into the title!"
44: As discussed here previously.
The author of the article in 45 clearly wasn't even trying to be subtle.
Uranus isn't just gassy, it's also tilted completely sideways, such that instead of rotating like a spinning top, it rolls around the plane of the solar system more like a giant ball. Now astronomers think they know how this happened, and it means that Uranus has been pounded really, really hard not once, but twice.
I was recently astonished to learned that some people who lock their bikes together closely adjacent, facing opposite directions do not call that sixty-nining their bikes. For the love of all that is good and holy, what else would you call it?
OT: Most of you are probably not too interested in Polish politics but it's gotten seriously weird and fucked up lately. The opposition has dialed the paranoia and craziness up to eleven.
When the Smolensk disaster happened I was initially pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of conspiracy shit and the general civility in its immediate aftermath. We're talking a deeply polarized society where the main political actors were once close political allies and friends within an illegal political movement and now hate each other. Put in a horrible disaster that takes out much of the leadership of the opposition on the territory of the despised former imperial power whose shady ex intelligence operative leader is known to hate the chief victim, a disaster that happens while traveling to Poland's most important symbol of national martyrdom, all in the midst of an election campaign and you'd expect worse.
Well, it took a while but know we have the opposition going full blown nuts about bombs in the plane placed by the prime minister in collaboration with the Russians, supported by truther style 'evidence' (birches are soft trees, a plane slamming into a bunch of them shouldn't crash at all, and isn't it suspicious that the plane broke up, not to mention that there were no survivors? Clearly it was a bomb, and the numerous survivors were then killed by the Russians at the behest of the Polish government). They're also debating whether or not they'll declare war on Russia when they get into power. Big demos with opposition crowds chanting 'murderers' and 'traitors' referring to the PM and current President. The ruling party, after initially ignoring the increasing hysteria, is now talking about criminal prosecutions of the opposition leaders for insulting the symbols of the state, and under Polish laws protecting the sanctity of state symbols, including the PM and President, they have legal grounds to do so. Ugh. At least there are no elections scheduled for a while.
50: Is one of the bikes also upside down?
52: IIRC, Smolensk was classic Controlled Flight Into Terrain (probably the most chilling phrase in aviation technical terminology), not much room for a bomb in such a scenario. Of course facts never deter the convinced conspiracy monger.
The opposition has dialed the paranoia and craziness up to eleven.
So the Poles are struggling to keep up with the Hungarians, as usual.
The opposition promised to bring Budapest to Poland if they won in the elections last fall. More recently they organized a big convoy of buses to appear at a big pro-Orban rally during the winter. Further back, Fidesz was admiringly studying PiS when they came to power promising a new 'Fourth Republic' in 2006. Fortunately for Poland PiS had a shaky majority, the now governing and then main opposition party was also a post-Solidarity party, and thus had no ties with the corrupt ex-communists, and their leader is a very talented politician (and a deeply cynical neo-liberal, but a hell of a lot better than the alternative). PiS got slammed in the early election, and last fall Tusk managed to get reelected, the first time a government has done that in Poland.
The Hungarian stuff is just bloodcurdling.
I think it's time to admit that democracy doesn't work.
||
Someone who was in the audience tonight at the queer performance art thingy said he had slept with someone who had slept with Allen Ginsberg, who it turns out had slept with Neal Cassady who had slept with Gavin Arthur who had slept with Edward Carpenter who had slept with Walt Whitman.
|>
Actually, given the size of the economic downturn, the wacko political reaction world-wide has been surprisingly small. We're a long way from the 30s.
"Huh, this worldwide economic collapse has not yet resulted in widespread genocide or world war. Good job, everyone! Bonuses all around!"
All incumbent world leaders are then given the Better Than Hitler Award for not having screwed things up quite as much as it would have theoretically been possible for them to do.
You're young, teo. Eventually you'll see "not as bad as Hitler" is the best we're ever going to get.
I think it's time to admit that democracy
doesn't work.
If the Unfoggedecadecon does indeed have TED ish presentations or panels, this will of course be the theme of mine. Or rather: elections don't work.
Can I semi-seriously suggest that the correct formulation is: Democracy is a good idea, but pluralism is more important.
Or rather: elections don't work.
Sometimes the tree of liberty must be watered with the urine of focus-group coordinators.
58: Ginsberg frequently bragged that he was only a few degrees of sexual separation from Whitman. So that much of the story holds up.
All incumbent world leaders are then given the Better Than Hitler Award for not having screwed things up quite as much as it would have theoretically been possible for them to do.
Perhaps my favorite that that Yglesias ever wrote is that Merkel is lucky that the bar for "worst German leader ever" is set so high.
65: Exactly. Elections aren't the defining characteristic of democracies; it's Bills of Rights and similar institutionalization of minority rights and majority constraints.
Merkel is lucky that the bar for "worst German leader ever" is set so high
Wait, what? Jesus, he really is an idiot.
70: And just to connect two recent themes of this thread: The term "Uranian" was quickly adopted by English-language advocates of homosexual emancipation in the Victorian era, such as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, who used it to describe a comradely love that would bring about true democracy...
71: How so? I would have thought that Merkel, as a conservative politician pushing painful austerity measures on Greece and other countries, would not be a popular figure with the Unfoggedetariat. But you obviously know German politics far better than I.
64: I want to see ttaM give a presentation that combines photography, martial arts, archival work, jazz guitar, and philosophy of medicine.
Merkel has been terrible. The most optimistic spin you can put on her performance is that her political coalition is terrible, the Bundesbank and ECB are run by madmen, so maybe she's making the best of a bad situation.
69:Mebbe
I used to think so, but now I think Charters of Rights are in practice used to protect the oligarchy (mostly from each other) and ignored or irrelevant for the powerless.
Wealth always trumps Law. The language of rights (Beard?) has become hegemonic precisely to prevent the emergence of a language of care and need.
Religious and ethnic protection is small comfort to the 99%
Charters and so forth are just one tool among many in the fight for and against plurality; they're not magic. Sometimes they're a good thing (Charter 77, anyone?), sometimes not; it depends on context.
Religious and ethnic protection is small comfort to the 99%
The only thing that will bring much comfort to the 99% is taking power into their own hands, and that will be a lot harder as long as they're divided against themselves. So to the extent that religious and ethnic protection makes it harder for the 1% to foster that division, yes, it is a small comfort.
They're also debating whether or not they'll declare war on Russia when they get into power.
Rule 1 of Polish politics: don't get into a war with Russia. Rule 2: like Rule 1 but with Germany.
Anyway, that's hideously stupid. It's as stupid as you'd expect from a political party created by a man who thought cajoling the pilot of his plane into trying to land outside the weather minima was a good idea...(they found the head of the Polish Air Force's body in the cockpit - you fill in the rest, especially as Kaczynski sacked the previous pilot for not getting him killed over Tbilisi during the Georgian-Russian war).
re: 74
Heheh. Kick the door in and rollerskate in playing the guitar like George Benson in the Gimme the Night video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFyq-v-hf1U
There actually isn't any evidence for the theory that the pilots were pressured into landing. The previous pilot was indeed fired as you say, but he was also given a medal and a promotion. On the other hand, the pilots certainly would have been aware that the president would not be happy if they chose not to land.
One of the reasons why some of the conspiracy theory stuff is getting traction is that the investigation was handled badly. For example, the head of the air force doesn't seem to have been in the cockpit, contrary to earlier reports. The autopsies were not done correctly, and the Russians seem to have been more interested in making sure no blame at all falls on poor decisions by the airport personnel than on actually doing a proper investigation that would determine the exact reasons for the accident. As a result, we don't actually know if all the blame falls on the pilots' decisions or not.
Rule 1 of Polish politics: don't get into a war with Russia. Rule 2: like Rule 1 but with Germany.
Nah, that's Rule 1 and 2 of Polish statecraft. Talking trash about our beloved neighbours can be quite good politics, as long as the electorate is willing to believe that you're not going to push things too far when in power. PiS has run into problems with the latter, but there's also clearly a large segment of the electorate that feels that Tusk's careful avoidance of the former indicates insufficient patriotism.
58: I just barely missed out on sleeping with someone who'd slept with Alan Cumming. So probably also just a few degrees of sexeration from Walt Whitman. Or Rimbaud.
81: Clearly there needs to be a Whitman number along the lines of the numbers Erdős and Bacon. And now I find myself wondering if there is anyone who's got a hat trick.
The only important minority is big property-owners. the minority rights of slaveholders were very well protected by the Constitution.
Democracy hce been neutralized and we're returning to misery and disenfranchisement.
I should point out I read the investigation report. I'm not sure what could be wrong with it that would change the conclusions except for "literally making up the entire factual section out of whole cloth without the Polish investigators or the other international participants* noticing".
*NTSB were involved as some of the retrofitted Western avionics came from Honeywell.
No, the truly important elections -- American Idol and Dancing with the Stars -- are open to everyone. It's a small d democratic paradise.
to the comment linked in 70: One of the lessons of the performance piece I saw was that "Uranist" was coined by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a big history-crush of the performer. Carpenter (the link in the Ginsberg chain) adopted and popularized it.
It is after Aphrodite Urania, an older counterpart of the love goddess, patron of same-sex loves whose offspring are "children of the mind."
Oh man. BBC radio had a documentary a few months back on how the Polish body politic was fracturing in the wake of the disaster, but I hadn't realised it was getting that bad.
84 The investigators admitted that they'd gotten the presence of the air force chief in the cockpit wrong a few months ago. There were also plenty of reports in the very anti-PiS left-liberal (Polish definitions) newspaper I read about Polish investigators being not allowed to speak to the airport personnel, and various other issues. None of which casts any doubt on the idea that this was an accident, but it has created problems for the government.
Democracy hce [sic] been neutralized[.]
And not a moment too soon. You hippies are kidding yourselves if you think satisfactory physical infrastructure, healthcare and education can be provided to anything like a plurality, much less a majority, in sustainable forms without authoritarian intervention.
I feel like Flippanter has been reading a lot of Heinlein lately or something.
|| For those following the AWB job drama, I am probably going to be offered, next week, both the Eraserhead baby and the puppy, which oudemia assures me by email is not even just a puppy but more like OMFG a wolf cub. I already know what I will do, but good Jesus it is hard to do knowing how that will make people think I'm an idiot. |>
I can't even start to remember what the metaphors mean at this point, but best of luck.
Eraserhead baby is the deathless pet that I would try very hard to love and the wolf cub is perfect and amazing and dies after a year.
knowing how that will make people think I'm an idiot
So do what I did yesterday: try to think of some kind of mentor-figure who won't completely agree with the consensus and call them, give some indication of which way you're leaning, and let them say the words you want to hear to reassure you.
93: I've had pets and dying after a year really would have improved them.
95: If you've had multiple pets like that you might want to consider whether the problem lies elsewhere.
94: My advisor would tell me that he loves me and wants me to be happy, and if that means wolf cub it just does. The second reader would tell me that it's really simple: deathless = better, end of story. But I'm in loooooooove.
96: If you wait too long, dog meat isn't tender.
97: Nothing is deathless. Go for the love, at the very least you will have some great memories afterwards.
I'm not sure what this means. Did they catch somebody? Did Zimmerman show-up and start shooting suspects as a way to fund a legal defense? Or did they finally realize that maybe ignoring this shit is the only reasonable way to handle it?
97 My advisor would tell me that he loves me and wants me to be happy, and if that means wolf cub it just does.
Call him and let him say that! It will make you feel better, even if you already know what he'll say.
AWB, are we supposed to be helping reassure you over here? I'm inclined towards Team Biohazard, but it sounds like you have two good options, and I can batter up for either one. Even if one looks like a rotisserie chicken filled with squid ink. Which suddenly sounds appetizing. See? I'm already helping. Or fucking up.
I don't know what I want from you. I just can't see taking the Eraserhead baby. It's not in my nature. I'm not often offered love. Never, actually! So when it happens, I am inclined to seize the opportunity. It's far from all my loved ones on the east coast, unlike the baby, which is close. But that wolf cub--I don't even know how they or I made it three days without revealing some resentment or nastiness or failure. We felt really really good about each other.
Oh, the food there is TERRIBLE. Terrible. But I know how to cook.
Now I'm curious where they could have both universities and terrible food. Uppsala?
I have no idea what these metaphors mean now.
Go with the wolf cub and work really hard on your essay on wolves in Dog Fancy. Just because you're in the market for a pet doesn't mean that you have to take a guppy if you don't really want it.
Wolf cubs eat kibble, but Eraserhead babies dine at restaurants with Michelin stars?
Assuming wolf cub = even more ferociously adorable than a regular puppy, you've got to take that one. Unless you can see a reasonable route to trading in Earserhead baby for at least a nice ferret or something after a few years.
"Guppy" is obviously a position at the University of Akron but the rest still confuses me.
I have no idea what these metaphors mean now.
Sexual practices, obviously.
I just can't see taking the Eraserhead baby. It's not in my nature.
Wolf cub! Easy.
Damn that Unserious person who started this nonsense.
90: I feel like Flippanter has been reading a lot of Heinlein lately or something.
Right. Jubal Harshaw would never hire Lena Dunham as a secretary.
114: Right. If it's not that motherfucking fitness cult it's cute impenetrable animal analogies. The horror! Kurtz was fucking right, exterminate all the brutes.
I think Eraserhead babies are good for people who are ready to settle down with the whole Eraserhead family. (For the record, the one time I tried to watch the movie, I got really freaked out about the baby, and had to turn it off.) If you aren't settled with an Eraserhead family, there's no need to settle for the baby.
(I think that made sense.)
You may as well aim high and not be discouraged by setbacks. It took Hitler less than 10 years to go from being on trial after a failed coup to running the country. I assume someone told him to take the Wolf's Lair.
What if he could implant his brain in Lena Dunham's body?
AWB, knowing zero details, I'm going to be contrarian and recommend you look at the deathless mutant baby, unless you think it will actively drive you to murder it with scissors. Having an offer on a pet that is going to be yours to keep is fantastic, and unless, like Essear's puppy, it's a recognized stepping stone to getting a permanent guinea pig, I have to say that even a hideous cow fetus is a pretty good get.
I mean Unserious's puppy. Essear would never inflict these metaphors on us.
You should try to find the most attractive cow fetus on offer.
Without knowing anything whatsoever about what's going on, snark out certainly seems like a sensible fellow.
Thank you, iPad. Of course "snark" and "out" are two words.
Team Wolf Cub!
(I'm loving these out of control metaphors.)
It's true that the puppies have different lifespans. One downside of a one-year puppy would be that you might be too distracted by trying to find a replacement pet to properly enjoy it.
I thought "snarkout" was supposed to be pronounced like "parkour".
(Note: I did think this at one point)
What I expected, was
Thunder, fighting.
Long struggles with men
And climbing.
I assign reading Russo's Straight Man to all aspirants (and Moby).
I thought "snarkout" was supposed to be pronounced like "parkour".
A friend once suggested that the "out" be pronounced as in "ragout". (But it is in fact simply "snark out", as in this wonderful book but sleeveless pineapple author du jour Daniel Manus Pinkwater.)
I assume you have tried the begging for a one-year deferral? Or you know it's not likely to work? Or you can't bring yourself to do it? No judgment either way, but it does seem to be the standard elegant solution.
Sorry to take so long; I was on the phone debating these issues with meatfriends. One suggested the deferral option, but I can't see that happening under the circumstances. The obvious problem with the Eraserhead baby is it's not even in my field, so if I took it and wanted to go elsewhere, it wouldn't help me, and if I took the wolf cub, it would greatly improve my application for guinea pigs in my field. So I think even in a base careerist sense, the wolf cub might be the right choice. Certainly the wolf cub would write me a fucking great recommendation.
I strongly think that it's unethical for schools to offer one-year pets. That said, I'm happy to hear that it looks like you'll have options!
Could you use the baby to negotiate for an extra year with the wolf cub?
It's covering for someone who is taking a few years off in admin, so I don't think it's negotiable. Certainly I'll be open to it if it comes available, but I don't think it's something I can make a case for.
And they're ending their admin stint next year?
That is what I am led to believe? It's not really a question I can ask.
It would be a question you could ask once you had an offer from them, though.
I guess I don't think it would change my answer. Once you're on team wolf cub you can't really... Jesus I love them. I was lovesick on the plane the whole way home today.
Somehow 130 led me to purchase All Day Permanent Red, because it's not as if I don't have a ton of books I'm not reading already. But hey! I'm (obviously) not really doing anything tonight, maybe I can get to work on that!
139: Go for it. You don't have bear cubs to feed and to keep you in a cave, gambol with the wolf and see what happens.
A pleasant gambol, but a gambol nonetheless.
If it involves giving tests she can proctor & gambol.
But NMM to or gamboling with Charles Colson.
Dont we have an analogy ban here? At least my fitness bullshit is straight up. I'm happy to offer reassurance, but this impenetrable and coy cub/puppy/baby stuff makes me want to call out the sniper team. Frankly it wouldnt be hard to anonomize in a way more clarifying and less annoying way.
/grouchy. I blame my neighbors.
Are people seriously confused by the job search metaphors? They're not that complicated. Coy, yes.
Those of us outside husbandry could use a refresher on just what makes these wolf cubs so much better than the guinea pigs.
I've just been taking that part on faith.
Team wolf cub, unless there's a serious possibility that the eraserhead baby will grow up to be a swan. AWB can take comfort that the survival skills of her kind have been seriously underestimated.
So, searching around after [topic of thread redacted] I saw that a friend of mine from grad school who took a 4-7 year [metaphor omitted] seems to have successfully moved on to faculty at [different, also very good school]. Not sure if it came with tenure, which wasn't likely with the [metaphor omitted], and which my friend knew quite well going in.
It does mean that the school my friend is leaving is now, something like 15 years after announcing a search in that subfield and attracting attention by doing so, as it was taken as a sign that that subfield was important again, without a tenured person, or apparently any person, in that subfield. But I guess that's how they want to run a department.
"now" s/b "still" - I don't think they've had anyone tenured in that subfield since the 1960s.
AWB can take comfort that the survival skills of her kind have been seriously underestimated.
That study is really fascinating. (Or at least the implications of it are, based on the media reports I've seen; I haven't read the actual paper.)
AWB, I'm glad there are people who want you to raise their pets! That seems like a good choice on their parts.
Actually, I quite like dormice.
Actually, I quite like dormice.
Especially prepared like this.
152: Also something of a cautionary tale on the surety (or lack thereof) of what we know at any point in time about evolutionary matters even in the relatively recent past.
155: I did not realize dormice were actually much more squirrel/chipmunk-like thing than a mice-like things. The Edible Dormouse.
You assign me whole books while you have these huge holes in your vertebrate biology.
You assign me whole books while you have these huge holes in your vertebrate biology.
They're called "subluxations".
You know who had huge holes in their vertebrate biology?
JFK.
And working link to the Edible dormouse (Glis glis).
On 147: oh I don't know. I think it's more or less: you can work for life at Mid-State Office Supply as a manager, or you can serve a year-long (or multi-year-long) highly-paid internship at Google as Assistant Director of Creativity and Innovation. Google won't hire you afterwards, but similar companies would be very interested, and you'll meet amazing people, not be bored, and get to live in New York with only occasional trips to Mt. View. If you take the Mid-State Office Supply job, you will be able to... hmm... buy a house and tend a vegetable garden, and possibly install solar panels, and never get laid. You can be straight-up Director of Creativity and Innovation at Mid-State Office Supply, but you will be very aware that you're not working for Google, and in the worst case you will drunkenly take a swing at S3basti4n Thr^n at a conference, whereupon he will switch his driverless car into panic mode (panic mode triggers the rockets) and flee over the treetops.
I don't think this is exclusive to academia as a problem of What First Major Job to Take. It's just that academics aren't usually facing it in their early 20s.
Let me thus gently propose fake industry analogies to replace the pet analogies.
This is indicative of being a bad person, but while I fully understand, sympathize with, and support Halford's hatred of the coy pet analogies, I love them. Extending the scale from guinea pig, through puppy, to wolf cub is the sort of thing that I find endlessly amusing.
150: I thought about mentioning this to you, as it seemed likely you might care -- if only a bit -- but then I realized that I didn't know how to reach you, and also that I well might have been overestimating your level of engagement with the topic at hand. Looking at this comment, I think I made the right decision by keeping silent.
150, 164: could you guys rephrase your conversation in terms of metaphors so it's easier to understand?
163: I'm getting off this train before it runs into a sparkly unicorn foal. Can't say I found the conversation all that difficult to understand tho', and I'm a cranky person of age.
I just realized the puppy metaphor was probably stolen from my Unserious's roommate at high school Statewide Nerd Camp, who told everyone about how SNC was like being given an adorable puppy to play with for five weeks, at the end of which they shoot the puppy. And the SNC reunion in January of the next year was like having the dead puppy thrown back to you to play with for two days, but it just isn't the same.
167: It's an old story I heard about Nazi elite forces training and it's undoubtedly from before then and then passed forward. Standard tough-guy stuff.
Wait, Nazi elite forces training was like a puppy?
This has now gone in a totally unexpected direction.
They lost because the Soviets trained like moderately aggressive goats.
I'm still trying to figure out where the food's no good. Some regional cuisines require more of an omnivorian orientation, sure, but what's objectively bad?
Fundamentally, Gallipoli was a contest between people who had been given Dingos and people who had been given chewy confectionary. It is only natural that the former were torn to shreds.
169: Look straight down, towards the center of the earth. Nazis are there....
Some regional cuisines require more of an omnivorian orientation, sure
Its more extreme than that. There is basically nothing to eat in Lubbock that isn't red meat.
163: and support Halford's hatred of the coy pet analogies,
So my hatred* gets no love?
*116
I haven't been in Lubbock since before 1973,* but would guess that a pretty good chicken enchilada could be had. And that the grocery stores stock pretty much any vegetable you can get in any city smaller than the 10 largest.
* You know, when all the food changed.
(Lubbock has been hosting red meat eaters since 10,000 BC at the latest.)
164: Every now and then I look up friends from grad school to see how they've fared. But I haven't been in touch with anyone in the field except my adviser for a few years and I'm barely in touch with my adviser.
Calling Stranded in Lubbock! Are there salads?
Ugh, now it seems like loved ones and advisors are arguing that I do some kind of elaborate three-dimensional chess with this situation and I just can't. Where is the academy for people who don't lie, manipulate, bluff, threaten, etc? "Everyone does it" is really not an argument that makes me want to do something.
There are plenty of places in Nebraska where the food is straight-up awful, I bet.
Where is the academy for people who don't lie, manipulate, bluff, threaten, etc?
You know, in the same place the rest of the world for those people is. I think there are ways to present your situation to people in ways to try to get them to give you what you want that are less awful than others. Just telling people what you want and the bits of your situation that are likely to make them feel they should give it to you, without necessarily telling everything you know ("But, of course, I'll come there even if you don't give me any of it!"), doesn't seem so terrible to me.
But I don't really want anything other than for the cub not to die, which is sort of the whole point of the cub.
"You can always ask," as my advisor likes to say. What other things are people trying to convince you to try to get? (A two-year cub, for example, is a LOT better than a one year cub.)
181. If somebody offers you a pet you want, take it.
What do you stand to gain by playing silly buggers? Is there any game plan by which you have a good chance of transmuting the guinea pig into a capybara, with zero risk of the wolf cub becoming anaemic and sick as a result in case the transmutation fails? If not, why would you want to play?
Hm. I could try to ask. I'm not sure whom to ask. I don't even have a salary range quoted to me yet, but I have good reason to believe that will be decent, if somewhat less than my current income. The benefits are better and housing is about half the cost of here. I have to buy a car, probably.
When you say a capybara, do you mean one like this? Because that would be awesome.
It could go like this:
- AWB gets offer from one-year job
- AWB gets offer from t-t undesirable job
- AWB talks to chair at one-year job and says, "I love your department, your students, and everything about this position -- but I also have a tenure-track job offer from somewhere else. Your department is so great that I am really tempted to come to you instead. Is there any way that you could make the position last longer than a year?"
"I love your department, your students, and everything about this position -- but I also have a tenure-track job offer from somewhere else. Your department is so great that I am really tempted to come to you instead, but one year is really brutal. Is there any way that you could make the position last longer than a year?"
This, I'm afraid, is why some people tend to shy away from wolf cubs altogether. I am not sure the gamesmanship is worth it. But various people's mileages vary.
Wait, on preview: 187: I don't even have a salary range quoted to me yet, but I have good reason to believe that will be decent, if somewhat less than my current income.
I'm confused now: I thought this was the wolf cub scenario, which I thought would have come with a better salary. Mayhap I should have followed the development of the metaphor more carefully.
That is definitely an awesome capybara. I'm not sure how the monkeys fit the metaphor, but then again do they have to.
Rfts makes sense to me. I'm also kind of averse to asking for things, but it works sometimes.
189,90: OK, yes, you're making this sound more appealing as a strategy.
191: That's in comparison with my current salary, which is really high for my job title. Also, the difference in rent between here and there is seriously half. For what I'm paying now for a two-bedroom apartment, I could get a 5-bedroom 2.5 bath house with a garage and a huge yard. (I don't actually want that, but it's shocking.) I think salaries there just don't have to be as high as they are here to afford one a very cushy life. The big issue for me is going to be buying and maintaining a car.
Something like 190 doesn't even seem a little bit manipulative or grasping. In fact, it's more honest than just doing nothing.
Personally, a defined-end 1 or 2 year gig in a field with zero job security in a declining profession seems like a terrible bet UNLESS you have strong reason to think it will lead to much better contacts/opportunities down the road. I just don't know enough about academia to weigh the options, of course.
Rfts's suggestion allows for the possibility of hearing something that might be worth hearing: the answer might be, "Well, no, that really happens very rarely, I'm afraid."
I myself eventually noticed that I am not ambitious -- not if that involves extreme gamesmanship -- so I would go for the tenure-track option. Adrenalin or sheer lust ("I am in loooove!") isn't a great approach as one matures, especially if one is generally financially challenged and is stressed by that. That sounds horribly pinched and conservative. Depends on how much time you feel you have left to play.
Or, what Halford said in 195.2. I don't know how much a 1-year stint with a wolf cub would reward in future.
194: Maintaining a car is not hard. Change the oil every 5000 miles. Check the tire pressure on occasion. This is all very much easier if you don't get a very old car, as they tend to be more reliable. And if you're in a state that requires inspections, you have someone doing a once over every year for you.
And I agree the 190 solution is very sensible. Good luck with your decision making process.
My JJWU friends won their case. Now the Mulligans will probably appeal and appeal, but still: procedural liberalism, still good for the occasional morale boost.
Calling Stranded in Lubbock! Are there salads?
My favorite restaurants in town are a steakhouse, an Indian/Pakistani place, and a barbecue joint. There's decent Korean and Lebanese, too, but if you're looking for reliable, fresh(ish) vegetable-based dishes, the vast majority of the time you're out of luck. Also, there are very few good Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurants, which surprised us a lot when we moved here. Shorter: Lubbock has a growing variety of food options, but the overall quality level is depressingly low, red meat excepted.
Re: Wolf cubs v. Eraserhead babies, I'll just chip in to say that if I were on the academic market, the main consideration for me would be research opportunity. If the wolf cub has a reasonable teaching onus and high enough prestige, I would be very much inclined to adopt it, even if only temporarily--especially if I were in love with it as much as AWB seems to be. But that really does depend on personal priorities and tolerance for risk. Nothing is guaranteed, obviously.
The thing that I have seen happen to way too many friends is that they take miserable TT jobs and then become so profoundly depressed and self-loathing that they can't even bring themselves to apply for a different job. When the teaching load is extremely high and not related at all to one's research, and in an environment in which no one is supporting you, mentoring you, etc., because they're too busy and miserable, at best, and actively hostile and undermining at worst, it's pretty awful trying to convince yourself that you deserve anything better.
199.2: Yes, also about the research. The baby will not allow me time, energy, or context to do any more publishing. If I stayed there, my career as a scholar would virtually end.
Sounds like you -- not everyone, but you -- should foster the wolf cub. I think your mind is made up. Have the conversation Rfts recommended.
Yes, also about the research. The baby will not allow me time, energy, or context to do any more publishing. If I stayed there, my career as a scholar would virtually end.
I agree with parsimon, it doesn't (just) sound like you're in looove the wolf cub, it sounds like the baby is, objectively, a bad choice and that it's that you have another option.
I don't understand why these places hire people for one-year jobs when they know the people they hire will be spending 70% of their time trying to line up their next one-year job.
Because 1) they don't have the option of hiring someone t-t to fill that position and 2) the one-year is going to work her/his ass off anyway.
How about ... a two-year job?
Or three?!!
182: True, but the university jobs are mostly in Lincoln and Omaha. Lincoln has O.K. food and Omaha has very good food if you like Italian.
When the teaching load is extremely high and not related at all to one's research, and in an environment in which no one is supporting you, mentoring you, etc., because they're too busy and miserable, at best, and actively hostile and undermining at worst, it's pretty awful trying to convince yourself that you deserve anything better.
Hear, hear. That said, for me the job insecurity was destroying my marriage and my confidence in my research abilities, and the beta fish really has made everything better even with all of the drawbacks.
The one advantage of your baby, I think, is that it's near an area you like and people you know, right? That is not to be underestimated.
I'm kind of confused by the metaphor. The wolf cub is supposed to be cute, right? Does it then turn into something scary?
No, it's taken out and shot after it's realized that, because of contact with humans, it can't be reintroduced into the wild.
One of the things they don't prepare you for in graduate school is the effect of really seriously organized wooing. So many schools take for granted that you are a desperate self-loathing job supplicant that they can spend the whole visit asking you how, exactly, you intend to become the kind of person who could even begin to fulfill the most basic requirements of the job. That's what I expected.
What I didn't expect was having to ask the department secretary to please stop walking me from where I was staying to the department building, which I could see from the door, and up a flight of stairs, in case I got turned around, etc. I didn't expect every man and woman who drove me somewhere to unlock the passenger door first--something that hasn't happened to me since I was a 16-year-old going out with a nervous boy for the first time--or that everyone would pull me aside individually and say, "Hey, I just wanted to say, here's my card, and I really want you to email or call anytime if you have any questions about things here." Or that the students would spend lunch asking some of the most engaging questions I got, having apparently memorized my CV.
I don't have defenses for this kind of behavior. I was taught to expect abuse at this phase of things.
I was taught to expect abuse at this phase of things.
By whom?
208: Right, and I think the job insecurity is totally wearing on me, but not as much as my fear of signing a contract that will make me commit suicide. Yes, the baby is near beloveds, and I have a kind of cool possible roommate situation already in discussion for that scenario.
Oh, just go for it, AWB. After the year, you'll be expecting everyone to walk you up the stairs.
212: By everyone who has told me how disorganized committees are, that they don't know what they want or how to get it, and it's all in-fighting, so you can't expect that they will be decent or thoughtful. I think that is something that every single person who has talked to me about the job market from experience has said. The only people who have ever suggested otherwise are the people who interviewed me here, who said that I should be looking for a place where I will be wanted.
Well, ask the wolf cub if the job can be extended to 2 to 3 years? That's what you want.
The only people who have ever suggested otherwise are the people who interviewed me here, who said that I should be looking for a place where I will be wanted.
You had to interview to comment on Unfogged? That's harsh.
Seriously though, anybody who has ever worked for a dysfunctional employer in any field could recognise all the signs shining through your anecdotes over the last period. There are a fucking lot of dysfunctional employers out there, in all fields, and the situation is probably getting worse because everybody is under so much pressure. But, believe it or not, there are still a few who aren't - yet, and it sounds like you may have chanced on one.
I found the whole "the candidate can't be left alone for a single second or else they'll get lost and we'll never find them again" experience very amusing, if bizarre.
Rfts gets the phrasing and timing right. There's no harm in asking, they can always say no. And the moment they make an offer the power dynamic changes, because people don't like getting turned down. Also, keep in mind that there's three parties here: you, the department, and whatever dean is approving the expenditure. Asking the department for another year gives them the opportunity to try to get money from the dean that they otherwise wouldn't have.
207: Omaha has very good food if you like Italian
Watch out for the calamari though, Natilo said, cryptically.
I had some pizza in Lubbock that was okay.
Actually, there are quite a few fairly decent restaurants in Omaha -- nothing like you get in a real big city of course, there's just not enough population density for a really culture of chefs -- but many places you wouldn't mind eating every week if you had to. Ahmad's was probably my favorite, and the Indian restaurant, and the snooty one where I only ever got the salad and filled up on the free bread. I was not impressed with the big vegetarian place, Indigo Girls patronage notwithstanding.
Watch out for the calamari though, Natilo said, cryptically.
Oh, do decrypt. I expect the calamari in Omaha is frozen. So is most of it in Barcelona and Naples. What do they do to it in Nebraska that's so bad?
Also something of a cautionary tale on the surety (or lack thereof) of what we know at any point in time about evolutionary matters even in the relatively recent past.
Yeah, that's actually what I like most about it. Although the bear-specific part is also interesting to me now that I live in a place (and work in a context) where bears are a really big deal.
Because I have nothing better to do, and nothing to add to the pet shopping discussion, I'll point out again that I was infuriated by the coastal reviewer who, in describing the farewell dinner scene at the beginning of About Schmidt, which is set in a hilariously gaudy steakhouse, of exactly the kind in which you would expect to find middle-managers from an insurance company getting drunk and maudlin, as "the best restaurant in Omaha." C'mon dude, really? You don't think Payne has any more cultural sense than that? Film reviewers are mostly all idiots.
222: There are some places in Omaha where you could probably get decent calamari, and a lot of places where you'd get the bog-standard frozen breaded-at-the-factory type. When I was editing down there, we had to send THREE separate reviewers to some hole-in-the-wall red-checked-tablecloth Italian joint, because the first one complained that the calamari was especially rubbery and flavorless. We even sent a guy whose parents had OWNED an Italian restaurant, but the fucking clueless, utterly corrupt publisher insisted on sending people until we got a review that was nice enough that he thought he could salvage this dump's advertising dollar. It was basically the last big kerfuffle before I moved away, so it looms large in my memory. It wasn't quite as shocking as the time we went to review haunted houses and the owner of the biggest, most popular one said something along the lines of "Now, I bought a full-page, color ad, so the publisher guaranteed me you would write an overwhelmingly positive review." That was the place that had an actual double-amputee dangling from a meat-hook in its "butcher shop" room. Ah, Omaha.
My Omaha-born grandma made calamari every Christmas Eve after she found out that my dad liked it. It was frozen, but for a while (between the weakening of the Italian neighborhoods and the rise of the modern foodie) it was both frozen and a special order.
I had some pizza in Lubbock that was okay.
West Crust?
Also, keep in mind that there's three parties here: you, the department, and whatever dean is approving the expenditure. Asking the department for another year gives them the opportunity to try to get money from the dean that they otherwise wouldn't have.
This is a very important point!
228: He missed a real opportunity to call it "Cosa Mia".
I'm not at all sure that there is an actual guy from Italy involved.
229: Right. I am thinking about this issue.
231: That's the spirit. Deny and obfuscate.
Let me be the gazillion'th person to vote for the wolf cub. And for gently asking if you can have it for two years. Honestly, the people who are offering you the cub sound awesome, so you shouldn't be afraid to ask.
I don't know, walking you up and down the stairs lest you get turned around seems like a little much. The last person I saw being walked up the stairs in an academic environment was Quine, for heaven's sake, and he was like 90.
Also voting for the the natural, non-undead cute killer. Yeah, you're going to have to go through this all again next year, and that will suck, but with the other one it's going to suck all the way through. If you end up needing to take one of the eraserhead babies, wait until you can get one in a location you really love, with half way decent compensation.
At least it isn't like the place I interviewed last year where they insisted on driving me to my hotel on the other side of campus, saying I would probably get mugged if they didn't. Way to sell your school, dudes! Also to make me think you're totes racist.
Yeah, you're going to have to go through this all again next year, and that will suck
Well, it's important to recognize the real possibility that next year will bring no babies at all. But that might be fine! Maybe it would be better to raise beautiful plants than to settle down with a baby you hate.
Maybe it would be better to raise beautiful plants
Okay, now I know there's a reason for the analogy ban.
Or you could raise hideous, spiteful plants.
Just don't eat the plants, lest poison control mock you (probably for not having a pet).
Maybe an ornamental version of something that is supposed to be tasty. Ha ha, fooled you!
Sad, dusty, fake flower arrangements.
I hope 240 doesn't suggest that 239 was spiteful. Not at all -- just stretching the metaphor.
250 Dandelions? They piss in your bed.
I wish you all were theater dorks and we could have this discussion in terms of the Ballad of Jesse and Lucy. It wouldn't help anything but the song's stuck in my head. I have nothing else to add. I have biases based on geography and my total inexperience of the academic job market, so there's really nothing useful I can contribute.
Speaking of, what the fuck is a Canuck and why does Vancouver draw it life a whale-panther?
That's what Canadians look like in their natural form. We usually only see them in their human suits.
This evening I was eavesdropping on some Canucks in a bar discussing the virtues of Jägermeister and the stupidity of people who would consume inferior drinks like martinis.
Whale-panthers are t-t jobs in Canada. Very rare. Toothless unfortunately.
Were-panthers have less job security, and are often equally toothless, but that's because of the meth.
I recently learned the (most likely) etymology of "Canuck." It is not at all what you would expect.
I wasn't aware having expectations about Canada was required.
They're not required, but I bet you have some anyway.
I've been to Canada twice, excuse my bragging, so I know to expect the unexpected.
264: No, although that's an interesting idea.
260: If so, could you update this? It's super confusing. Also, the connection to Hawaii seems like bullshit.
266: Agreed that that article is confusing, but the Hawaiian etymology (via Chinook jargon) is actually the one I find most convincing.
Come on, there's no way. The Wikipedia article says that you have a reference from as early as 1835, plus I'd bet anything it was on the East Coast first, plus that just seems farfetched. I'm asserting that it was coined by some drunk guy somewhere and then people just liked how much it sounds like "Canadian Fuck"
That same Wikipedia article links to a detailed discussion that finds the Hawaiian etymology the most plausible. Both the Northwest fur trade and South Sea whaling were well under way by 1835, were conducted largely by New Englanders, and hired large numbers of Hawaiians as laborers. The term kanaka in the meaning "Hawaiian" is attested in Chinook Jargon and seems to have spread from there into the English of settlers in British Columbia. It's really not that big a leap from there to the meaning "Canadian" among American sailors, although the specifics of the semantic shifts are admittedly speculative.
There's a canyon near here named after a Hawaiian man who was killed when Blackfeet set upon the party of trappers he was in.
I do not believe that the word Canuck came from the Hawaiian term.
Both the Northwest fur trade and South Sea whaling were well under way by 1835, were conducted largely by New Englanders, and hired large numbers of Hawaiians as laborers.
Indeed, I found all these instances hard to believe when first finding out about them last year or so.
(I see that actually, the Blackfeet wanted to set upon the trappers -- a brigade working to the HBC, probably in 1846 -- but someone got excited when the first horse in the party came around the bend, and shot the rider, the afore-mentioned Hawaiian. The rest of the party was able to fall back, avoid ambush, and fight the Blackfeet off.)
There was all kinds of crazy shit going on in the Northwest in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Britain and Spain almost went to war over Vancouver Island in 1789.
Anyway, I'm not going to claim that the Hawaiian etymology is necessarily the right one, just that it's a lot more plausible than any of the others I've seen. It's quite possible that the actual etymology is something else that happens to have been completely undocumented.
And let's not forget the incident that gave the world the quote "It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig".
The California-Oregon border is like the British/Spanish border, right?
This also seems like a good time to once again mention Laperouse, whose story I've always found fascinating, and by always I mean as soon as I learned about it.
The late 19th century Pacific coast was fascinating and sort of up for grabs and then the French Revolution cleared a lot of the field. I don't anymore, but for a while I sort of regretted not looking harder at my pacific area fur trade dissertation idea. It was probably the most manageable history research project I've ever thought of. But no, I had to go with railroads, which I'm not even studying anymore.
275:
The pig was the only casualty of the war, making the dispute otherwise bloodless.
The late 19th century Pacific coast was fascinating and sort of up for grabs and then the French Revolution cleared a lot of the field.
Assuming you mean "18th," yeah, it's really fascinating. At the same time you had the Spanish moving north from Mexico, the Russians moving south from Alaska, and the British and French poking around all over despite not having had any settlements in the region beforehand.
Hmmm. I guess the Oregon/California border was officially set up in 1819, when claims to Oregon were still unsettled. But a distinction between New Spain and Oregon seems to have pre-dated that, with Oregon being in dispute.
It's really striking how many Spanish placenames there are in Alaska to this day as a direct result of voyages during that period.
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Yippee! Allie Brosh is getting better!
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Yeah, 18th. The other thing I love about it is that people kind of think California is nice and all, but it's a stepping stone to other places. The Russians first showed up to try to use it to supply Alaska, the Spanish used it as a way station in the Pacific trade. I really liked this collection.
Come on people, it's valuable in it's own right! This is why the industrious Americans deserved it.*
*Richard Henry Dana says something along these lines a few times in Two Years Before the Mast
Well, in their defense, neither the Russians nor the Spanish realized there was gold there.
Heck, the Russians didn't even realize there was gold in Alaska, which, I mean, come on.
I'm kind of confused by the metaphor. The wolf cub is supposed to be cute, right? Does it then turn into something scary?
I am completely stuck on the assumption that AWB is living the Game of Thrones life, and is therefore about to be offered a job on the Wall, or pushed out of a window, or something equally unpleasant.
"Joining the Night's Watch is a tenure-track position. The job as the Hand of the King, however, is effectively a one-year contract - if you're lucky."
"You know nothing, AWB."
re 288: That was a GRRM reference, for those who haven't slogged through the whole epic. I vote AWB goes to train as an assassin for a wacky religious group in an exotic foreign city. Which job was that?
"I have a tender spot in my heart for untenured academics and intellectual property lawyers and other broken things."
287: This would certainly accord with the cynical, back-stabbing world AWB has regretfully come to expect, but the description of the campus interview implies a portal into a much sweeter, kinder fantasy world. I haven't placed it yet, though, it's neither Blackstock College or Greenlaw.
"Successful applicants are expected to send at least three ravens a year."
"Citations!" croaked the bird sitting on Maester AWB's shoulder. "Citations! Citations!"
Halford at 195 seems right to me, but then I'm pretty risk averse. AWB seems to be forgetting her revealed preference for suffering. Take the eraserhead baby. It's what you really want.
