b l o g o s

file under signs of bad

1. a gigantic high speed industrial fan directing air away from the women's room at the train station
2. the words "ladies and gentlemen" over the loudspeaker on the train
3. men who, upon seeing that I am traveling alone, offer to help me with my (tiny) bag. wtf? (I admit this isn't bad as much as it's just plain weird, especially when, while standing, as I was each each time a (different) man offered assistance, I can see the tops of everyone's luggage on the overhead rack--including theirs.)
4. the words "did you ever watch Benny Goodman?" from a fellow passenger, who is trying to reach over me to plug in his laptop

5. a waiter who sits down at the table with you to take your order. (though hell, maybe his feet hurt.)

memories in teeth

An elbow, a knee, a bagel. These are what spun through the backs of my eyelids, squeezed tight at the bright noise of dental drills and grinders (yes, grinders). Tooth number 8 (right front) took the elbow and, later, the bagel.

The elbow was courtesy of a player at Erwin High School--or was it Mountain City? (they're rather close if I recall)--a tall player with big eighties hair. I think she resembled the character Glory from Season Five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and her elbow flung me about as far across the floor. But things are a little fuzzy up to the point where I was screaming and rolling. The scream definitely got more deathy when I spit out half my tooth, and I was a little embarrassed later about how loudly I screamed. But it fucking hurt.

Tooth number 10 (two left of 8) took a knee in college. If that sounds odd in a basketball situation, that's because it wasn't a basketball situation exactly. For some reason my teammates and I thought we could be gymnasts in our spare time--spare meaning the few minutes between class and practice, when we usually goofed off in the locker room. That day's goofing was more elaborate than the usual dashing off of letters or flipping of channels or playing of tapes. A few of us decided Lisa Harrison would achieve an assisted back-flip. So someone--I forget who--got on her hands and knees, and  as the assist person, I was supposed to help flip over her legs. Gymnasts don't need this, but that's probably because none of their legs are nearly as long. Lisa came tumbling in and I leaned my head in along with my spotting arms. Her knee caught me on the jaw mid-flip, and my lower tooth chipped the upper tooth, #10. I never got it fixed because I liked how it looked.

Ten years after the elbow, #8's bond came off in a big chewy Irving's bagel right before I was to teach my second or third class ever as a new TA. I thought I would just write on the board the whole class, or stare at my students unsmiling, but the humor of the situation won out, and when I finally exposed my half-tooth the three hockey players in the class developed an instant, collective crush on their TA.

And so today, numbers 8 and 10 got "updated" to the tune of "Make a Wish, Baby" and about a dozen other equally forgettable songs.

the new

Today in the midst of a pretty fun and productive day, I got an extra deluxe bonus involving two new arrivals: a friend's tattoo and another friend's baby. Both arrived yesterday, and both are intricate and lovely. Only one (the tattoo) required pain medication. And only one was planned (also the tattoo).

Happy congratulations to the bearers. Let's hear it for strong awesome women!

[UPDATE] This morning my dad called to see if I was thinking about getting a tattoo. Huh.

the long 18th-century title

Hey you history-of-the-book and 18th-c scholars (eg Z and David): what is up with the long ass titles from the early modern period up through the (long) 18th century? They're overcrowding my EndNote.

I'm going back to bed.

For a Short While Today, It's President Cheney

I'll bet DC's copy of the 25th amendment looks a little like this:

birthday outlook

when the archive reads like a horoscope

Most historians (esp. those who muck around in archives) have heard stories about how the archive speaks, and how it starts to produce its own narrative arc ("arc" being not unrelated etymologically to "archive"). But occasionally, the archive will even toss up some words to live by, words that resonate beyond their moment. Today's sessions yielded one gem in particular--this one designed not by Kenneth Burke but for Kenneth Burke. 

It's worth saying here that one of the distinct pleasures of working on Burke is the regular engagement with Malcolm Cowley, Burke's lifelong friend and most candid critic. Burke used Cowley as an editor, taskmaster, and secular priest (the number of alcohol-related confessions is astonishing). And unlike Burke, Cowley is quite a prose stylist: his writing is as deliberate as it is vivid.

In this instance, Cowley is losing patience with Burke (which he did many times, and me-oh-my do I understand where he's coming from). In any event, in the letter in question (dated February 28, 1952), Cowley orders Burke to stop moaning and pissing and finish his book already. The book in question, incidentally, is KB's book on ethics that--you guessed it--never showed. So much for Cowley's advice.

But not only is Cowley's diagnosis of Burke spot on, I think it is quite relevant for those of us who agonize over our work and won't let go--and this goes for dissertations too! Here's Cowley:

Also there’s something I’ve told you before and am telling you again and this time you had better listen while the hand is laid gently on your shoulder and before the hand takes you by the collar. Set finite and measurable limits now to the “on Human Relations” and stick to those limits and finish the book. Otherwise you will have so projected yourself into the book that it becomes your life and can’t be finished for fear of ending your life. And furthermore it won’t be as good a book as if you held it at a little distance and worked on it as an object or organism outside of yourself, because large parts of it will be too subjective and obsessional. It’s not you after all, but only something that you’re making, and the you has other sides that also have a right to be made clear.

Let's give it up for Father Cowley.   

lounges and letters

Leave it to me to take the Newberry special collection librarian's advice ("Get here early to get a seat; July is our busiest month") so seriously as to arrive a full 40 minutes before the reading room even opens. Which means I'm eating into precious laptop battery in the library lounge.

The Newberry houses Malcolm Cowley's papers, and I have reserved a box of his exchanges with Burke. Wait, you say, didn't Paul Jay publish those letters? Yes! He did. But those are excerpted, and Jay didn't seem all that interested in the long exchanges the two had about their various bodily creaks and twitches. But I am. And Jay donated the entire extant Burke-Cowley correspondence to the Newberry, which adds up to (again, doing this by memory) about 10 feet of paper. I'm looking mostly at their 1950s letters today and (if necessary) tomorrow.

in praise of good, strong midwestern thunderstorms

They stretch across Illinois and move at a pace that combines an amble with a woosh, a steady rainy rumble with irregular flashy rippy-roars. A little like summer itself.

pace and leisure

I find it difficult to blog when the weather is so nice, and prit-tee boring to write about nice weather.

How about cities, then? We were in Philadelphia for part of this weekend--totally fun. My new favorite appetizer is blackened green beans served with some delish caper dip, consumed here. Elsewhere Elsewhere, I had my first paiea: paella: whoa. Thanks to our awesome host for steering us toward the good eats, for offering his loft's human shelf for us to sleep on/in, and also for just bopping around with us.

And this coming week I'm going to Chicago for a couple of nights. It'll be just me, for a meeting at UIC and a dip in the Newberry. Given that it's the height of summer, you'll allow me to make research sound like a swimming pool, right? Thought so.