tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-107756472011-04-21T16:51:52.851-04:00An (already failed) attempt to end the navel-gazing, surpass the whining and whingeing, and write about anything but myself. See also entry under "books", "music", "literary theory", "academia", "pop culture", and "drivel".itinerariumnoreply@blogger.comBlogger581100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1159464782120577522006-09-28T13:30:00.000-04:002006-09-28T13:33:02.136-04:00

Again and again and again I begin things. This time, however, hopefully the cycle at least repeats itself a few times. A colleague passed away, far too young, the other day. One of my dearest friends was diagnosed with a tumor (benign, thank god) on his pituitary gland that he's been carrying around for years, which explains many and sundry ailments. Surgery, through the forehead, scheduled

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1159291529284277552006-09-26T13:18:00.000-04:002006-09-26T13:25:29.300-04:00

Long time, no audience, a blog that resembles my intermittent friendship. We start late here at West Coast U, so classes haven't quite begun. And I'm in that space today, panic mixed with intense resolve, a sense of failure rubbing up against hardened ambition, FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) tempered by The Knowledge of What Has To Be Done. Contradictory day, then, spurred by waking up

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1144894459690681412006-04-12T22:10:00.000-04:002006-04-12T22:14:19.720-04:00

Ah, the welcome chorus. The email containing an offer to rent soon-to-be-colleague's house in Really Dreadful Neighborhood whilst colleague is on sabbatical for the year. The parcel from Other Colleague containing an inscribed and nicely dedicated copy of Other Colleague's hip hop happening oh-so-slick hipster Non Fiction Paperback. A rousing chorus of "Welcome, oh Junior Colleague. What shit

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1143219972579616342006-03-24T12:02:00.000-05:002006-03-24T12:06:12.600-05:00

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by credit card debt and student loans, starving hysterical urban outfitted, dragging themselves through hipster 'hoods at dawn looking for a pinot...

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1143045927614735952006-03-22T11:42:00.000-05:002006-03-22T11:45:27.650-05:00

Yes, it's been linked everywhere, but Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog is hysterically funny. A grad student, likely, given the fact it's on Friendster, and has such tidbits as "reading #%$#%^%ing secretary hand" - someone well up on her Chauceriana. But the truly priceless line, and I do wish I could take credit for this, but alas, it's me, but not by me: "And thus, take two pintes of hagen dasz

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1142878713298209302006-03-20T13:16:00.000-05:002006-03-20T13:18:33.316-05:00

Perhaps one of the most genius song lyrics, ever? Up there with the Pixies' "You're so pretty when you're faithful to me." So much to say, no forum in which to say it. Suffice it to say my inner Polish teenage drama queen has temporarily assumed control of my life. Suggesting, yet again, it will be exit, pursued by [a bear of a past].

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1142546218091483972006-03-16T16:49:00.000-05:002006-03-16T16:58:54.830-05:00

Or not. Mimesis, good, my first meme, well, it had to happen eventually. Radio Oracle, I used to call it, and it was excellent for predicting the present. Thank Crazy as the source here. Ask the question, put the music player on shuffle, see what happens. And, remarkably, I didn't cheat. Most unlike me.1. How does the world see you? :Wumpscut: Embryodead. Oh jesus. that's what I get for this

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1141694416818492872006-03-06T20:15:00.000-05:002006-03-06T22:14:25.536-05:00

That is not to say my time's not filled - this pesky teaching gig fills it to the brim and then some. No, I'm filling time before heading out for dinner with a woman who essentially is a complete stranger. We met through my cousin a few weeks ago, got along (in an un-sober kind of way) and decided it was just-add-water friendship time. After delaying (for reasons both valid and other) actually

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1140067161687732992006-02-16T00:14:00.000-05:002006-02-16T00:19:21.700-05:00

A few pints in me, so I'm probably not as self-censorious as I usually am. If that's even a bloody word. After an exceptionally fucking generous offer from institution of the aforesaid, and a few minor questions I asked via email this afternoon, which (in the run-on sentence I'm crafting here) were responded to in a matter of hours, I formally accepted the offer earlier this evening. Of course,

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1139865448895753872006-02-13T16:14:00.000-05:002006-02-13T16:17:28.906-05:00

The call came Friday. I was walking down the steps of the posh house of a friend's parents on my way somewhere else entirely. The giddiness, although compromised somewhat by the sheer exhaustion induced by this whole "blizzard of all time" thing, is giddy.I did it! Formal offer yet to come, but negotiating this is hardly going to be the most onerous proposition in my life.So, no snow next winter

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1139355359996380882006-02-07T18:31:00.000-05:002006-02-07T18:53:42.370-05:00

Getting a touch annoyed with my complete inability, or rather, my disinterest, in using the blog genre as anything other than a cheap, partially disposable confessional. Perhaps I lack the discipline to become the essayist I once fantasized about becoming (whilst young, naive, and reading the complete essays of Montaigne. Heady stuff.). Or lack the interest. Or lack the discipline to resolve

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1139225361306743342006-02-06T06:26:00.000-05:002006-02-06T06:31:13.776-05:00

Random hypothesis. In English academic writing, the onus is on the reader to understand what is written. In American academic writing, the onus is on the writer to make what is written understood. This generalization should be applied to oral presentations, as well.And, as a last minute series of observations by friends pointed out, I was falling down the trap of the one and presenting to the

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1138767284716162782006-01-31T23:08:00.000-05:002006-01-31T23:14:44.733-05:00

I almost managed to forget the single piece of advice that was the glue that enabled me to hold it all together in the last round. The advice that one could identify as "whatever I was smoking that morning" or "the crack-packed Wheaties" I've been describing as the magic ingredient that made it all work just 4 eternally long weeks ago. Advice associated with an ex-lover proclaiming the words as

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1138574604467721672006-01-29T17:37:00.000-05:002006-01-29T17:43:24.480-05:00

I thought the "job talk" was close to done. I read an almost complete draft to someone in my field last night, who had good suggestions for changes, but also thought it was "brilliant." As opposed to an audience of three, today, none in my field, and only one academic in the lot. And the commong criticism in the English vs. American wars - "more signposting! Tell us what your argument is! It's

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1136850134529149912006-01-09T18:42:00.000-05:002006-01-09T19:00:08.066-05:00

Well, that worked better than I ever could have imagined. Remind me to whinge impatiently more often...(just kidding). Regardless, I've got a job-talk to write, now. Yay me.

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1136822554915217382006-01-09T10:39:00.000-05:002006-01-29T17:44:59.803-05:00

There is something fundamentally inhuman about this process. I was speaking with a friend of mine yesterday, tenured at a big research university here on the east coast. She changed jobs a handful of years ago, from a similar institution on the west coast. We were speaking of the silence, the wait, the responses and replies and timetables of all that comes next, after the interview. She had

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1134864196807155662005-12-17T18:58:00.000-05:002006-01-03T09:34:31.823-05:00

Edit: Hoaxed, hax0red, whatever. A true shame, in some ways, but the story is a fake. oh well.This is crazy. Absolutely fucking ape-shit. Article here. Summary: A Dartmouth senior requested via Inter Library Loan a Chinese language copy of Mao's Little Red Book for a history class on Communinsm. Upshot: a visit from two agents from Homeland Security, as the student's record included

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1134532449730415212005-12-13T22:47:00.000-05:002005-12-13T22:54:09.750-05:00

All admit it - I'm lame. Or a geek. Or whatever. Yesterday I worked in a library here in the Big City with Open Stacks. Gasp. It's been a long time since I've had that particular, not-to-be-underrated luxury. My primary libraries in the UK were non-circulating request libraries, and the public library I've been hobbling along with is similiarly closed-stacks. Yet, joy of joys, I needed

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1133783427942119952005-12-05T06:44:00.000-05:002005-12-05T07:19:44.260-05:00

Well, the snow has been gritted, shoveled, rained, walked, ploughed, and otherwise summarily dismissed by the inhabitants of this fine metropolis. Shame, really. And it wasn't a proper panic attack, more of what one would call a "wobbly" in the UK. So the snow's mostly gone, and last night's wobbly, as well. I'm facing an alarming amount of work between now and the end of the month, what with

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1133705307463349352005-12-04T09:05:00.000-05:002005-12-04T09:08:27.476-05:00

I've woken up to snow today. Not that much, really, but enough to make the trees and the sidewalks and the fire escape railing outside of my window white. Perhaps it's because i'm a west coast transplant, but there's something so profoundly wonderful about this white stuff that falls from the sky. Don't even have to pay for a lift ticket to see it.

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1133583990195566202005-12-02T23:23:00.000-05:002005-12-03T09:16:16.306-05:00

One,I haven't listened to Big Black in far too long. Two, the right place called with the right interview offer. It ain't wrapped up yet, by a long shot, but being the fame-whore job-whore whore-whore that I am, bring it. No offense intended to whores, by the way, as I abuse the noun: I have no idea, and couldn't and can't. But they called, and my mind is willing to entertain anything, while

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1132963590815063562005-11-25T18:48:00.000-05:002005-11-25T19:10:56.353-05:00

Why is it I do what I do? Or, better perhaps, why is it I've done what I want to be given the chance to keep doing? The news trickles in, the first hoops or hurdles cleared as MLA approaches. With only three days left before I'm free from my current shite job and looking towards teaching high school come January, the question remains: why does it feel to me like failure to teach high school?

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1132713976930882162005-11-22T21:32:00.000-05:002005-11-22T21:46:16.943-05:00

fuck it, I want to whinge instead. I specialise in it; no need to try and order my thoughts and construct some sort of coherent argument and essay when I can let the fingers fly and the drama flow. Or lack thereof. Or whatever. Coming from a UK academic background I just look different, on paper, than my American-educated peers. Or competitors, in this charming industry of ours. And it's

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1132575445499765482005-11-21T07:14:00.000-05:002005-11-21T07:17:25.516-05:00

I'm actually shaking, having just finished reading the NY Times piece on gifted children here. And thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's recent bit on the discontinuities between children identified as gifted and 'mature' performance. Alas, I need to shower and get my sorry ass to my sorry job (to give notice, natch, but still), so cannot write it now. But there is a lengthy post whirling about in

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1131933661724201542005-11-13T20:52:00.000-05:002005-11-13T21:59:39.790-05:00

Nigh, I tell you, nigh! But that's a good thing. The psychopathic, manipulative, senile, abusive old fuck for whom I've been working for 7 long months will be getting a polite two-week notice letter on Wednesday. Around which time the last of my tenure-track job applications should arrive at their various destinations. And should the old fuck fire me, oh happy day - unemployment! My exit

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1130106584056983272005-10-23T18:20:00.000-04:002005-10-23T18:29:44.066-04:00

There's something of the feeling just before taking a standardized in all the preparations I've just completed - pencils sharpened, confirmation letter in hand, nought to do but take a deep breath and wake up early the next day. The cover letter, in its various incarnations depending upon institutional demographics, is ready. The writing sample, a re-write and Americanization of a portion of my

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1128988853152502142005-10-10T19:53:00.000-04:002005-10-10T20:03:31.170-04:00

Drinking and posting. Not that I've drunk enough to drink and dial, and therefore I'm not intoxicated enoguh to drink and post. But just enough to come home and blast the music that I've composed over the last two+ years, enough to sing along and dig up the sad, pathetic, anti-poetic lyrics I've scrawled and somehow been unembarassed by because they're sung rather than written. Fully 8 months

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1128271349624712672005-10-02T12:28:00.000-04:002005-10-02T12:42:29.633-04:00

Damn blogger for being down. My rather rare impulse to post has been thwarted repeatedly over the last few days by a combination of fever, exhaustion, work, and blogger. One year and two days ago I submitted my thesis. It seems impossibly long ago, in so many ways, and just yesterday in others. Application season is upon me, and I'd like to ask a perhaps overly reasonable question. Why do

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1127096560186352632005-09-18T22:16:00.000-04:002005-09-18T22:22:40.193-04:00

Is it a healthy thing, this ability as an academic to focus on one thing, one topic, to the exclusion of all else? I haven't had a space in which to work since leaving the UK last December. But today, the delivery men lugged the components of a brand new desk up 5 flights of stairs. I lugged a shiny new laser printer up said stairs. And a chair. And now, for the first time in 10 long months, I

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1126660148535292262005-09-13T21:05:00.000-04:002005-09-13T21:09:08.540-04:00

It makes me ecstatically happy to live in a city where a Korean shop keeper gets into a heated discussion in Spanish with an ethnic Spanish speaker (Mexican? Puerto Rican?) that he doesn't need two bottles of Italian salad dressing, 'para ensalada' because the Italian-esque pizza joint where the latter works doesn't serve salad. Apparently they mix it into the tomato sauce...

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1126566751673432602005-09-12T19:09:00.000-04:002005-09-12T19:12:31.686-04:00

Application season is upon me. Abstract for conference talk this week, post-docs in two weeks, job list out this Friday, strange foreign deadlines in less than a month. On and on anon. Trying to get into the swing of things, for which read: panic has set in, works best under deadlines, and time is always on my side in a sick and twisted way. Plus work-work is ludicrously busy, so even the small

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1126307786702346652005-09-09T19:07:00.000-04:002005-09-09T19:16:26.706-04:00

I really have to build up to the expression of more substantive thoughts in prose. It's not an unnatural medium for me, but neither is it one without a certain inertia to conquer. Yet the whole point of this blog was to prevent myself from whingeing and avoid overly personal subjects, and spend more time disciplining myself to write Proper Things. Unfortunately, I have an Irish work-mate who

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1126220270029162392005-09-08T18:54:00.000-04:002005-09-08T18:57:50.036-04:00

A friend and mentor of mine once chastened me, several years ago, on the issue at hand here, in relation to Old English University. 'There is no inside', she said, 'at an institution that predates you and will outlast you. You've been preceded by a large number of incomparably great minds over 800 years, and will be followed by a greater number still. OEU doesn't know you exist. If you're

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1125324593968613672005-08-29T10:09:00.000-04:002005-09-08T18:59:21.253-04:00

So, in the ever increasing randomness of the narrative of my life, I received a phone call yesterday evening about 9 pm. From a young woman who was acting as a broker for an UES studio available for a 1-year sublet. She was eager to see if she could find me something else in case the studio didn't come through. It turns out , quite bizarrely, that she's a graduate student at Ivy U in 20th C

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1125068540035376162005-08-26T10:45:00.000-04:002005-08-26T11:02:20.043-04:00

I relocated to NY figuring the odds were at least not against me. Of the interviews I had for tenure-track positions, 2 were in NY. I was moving from London, had never lived here...hell, why not move to the next most expensive city in the world? Plus I had friends here, and thus a place to stay. Which brings me to my next point. I've been subletting for the last 8 months now, in 3 different

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1124499915959957472005-08-19T21:02:00.000-04:002005-08-19T21:05:15.966-04:00

You know, the new improved me, arrived at in a satori-like moment about three weeks ago, and then clawed back to last weekend whilst a friend was visiting from the West Coast, well, leaves a bit to be desired. As in the solemn self-oath 'I will not go out 7 nights a week anymore'. Monday, Tuesday - father; Wednesday - break-up; Thursday - patch rocky friendship; Friday....well....Shabbat Shalom

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1124489431192541972005-08-19T18:02:00.000-04:002005-08-19T18:10:31.200-04:00

I got in a discussion a few weeks ago with a woman I was dating at the time, a fairly dark conversation on her part, though more memories of things dark on mine than actually dark. But I was using Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Lautreamont, etc. as examples of the very peculiarly French celebration of the rational irrational, exuberant desolation, despondent elation, etc. The phantasmagorical, as

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1124318725193448192005-08-17T18:35:00.000-04:002005-08-18T13:38:03.580-04:00

Upon finishing Proust, I inscribed in the cover the date. And then my mobile phone rang, and due to the complex emotional and social circumstances, and a question of timing, I answered it and spent a few minutes on the phone making plans for later this evening. I was thus deprived, in some ways, of that moment of reflection, of pause, of pondering that follows finishing a book. But how perfect

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1124200192686543182005-08-16T09:48:00.000-04:002005-08-16T09:49:52.690-04:00

A friend of mine accused me of being self-obsessed. How am I supposed to ask for second opinions on this? Do you think I'm self-obsessed? Enough about me, what about my clothes? Sigh.

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1124153433180624152005-08-15T20:43:00.000-04:002005-08-15T20:50:33.186-04:00

So, continuing the previous post, how does one create an academic social community whilst detached from academia? Alternately, how to insinuate myself into an existing academic social community? My in-betweeness doesn't help, to some extent - on the cusp between senior graduate student (though done) and junior faculty (though job-less). Both camps, it strikes me, view me with some suspicion,

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1124113663406138862005-08-15T08:43:00.000-04:002005-08-15T09:50:46.493-04:00

Hello, me! As no one else will be reading this long-defunct site. Or perhaps not so long. I switched employment days after the last post, from the hell of temp-ing to the hell of a permanent full time position in a technical field at a rather dodgy company. C'est la vie. But today's episode, brought to you by the letter 'V' and the number '1', is a question of what happens when you strand an

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1112482113238311642005-04-02T17:38:00.000-05:002005-04-02T17:48:33.240-05:00

From the NY Times, 'With all but three of the cardinal electors appointed by Pope John Paul II, nearly all his potential successors fit his mold of doctrinal conservatism on issues like abortion and euthanasia, birth control, homosexuality and the ordination of women.' Phew. That was close. And here I was worried the Church might shed a few of its tendencies towards its 'cretinous medieval line

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1111697308597380892005-03-24T15:28:00.000-05:002005-03-24T15:48:28.596-05:00

Success, as Dr Crazy pointed out in the comment(s) to the previous post, is harder to re-channel into productivity. I think of my own tendency to be extremely prolific in creating - academic writing, non-academic writing, music - in those transitional periods surrounding failure. Around the dawning point in relationships that they're not working, but before the crisis of disjunction has been

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1111608270486670722005-03-23T14:59:00.000-05:002005-03-23T15:06:42.000-05:00

I'm annoyed I can't hang on to my 'me vs. them' mentality at the moment. I've been offered a side-door fast track to a book contract with Big English Press (no points for guessing when it's 50-50, sorry). Which is, of course, a Good Thing(tm), and might do something in the future to assist in redressing this 'unemployed academic' problem. On the other hand, the work is precisely what it was

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1111532672897541412005-03-22T17:54:00.000-05:002005-03-22T18:07:31.976-05:00

OK, I can't actually remember the last time I've been in a 'branch library' before today. University libraries, repository libraries, hell, academic bookstores, even big chain bookstores. But walking home this evening, I decided to stop in at the branch library a mere block from my current place of residence and break in my new City Library Card. It's fucking awful. I was thinking some Hegel,

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1111088423216633402005-03-17T14:29:00.000-05:002005-03-17T14:44:02.066-05:00

Part of my ongoing annoyance with academia at the moment stems from a minute, yet hugely significant, aspect of the search for employment: the ever-present awareness of transience, that this too, shall pass. I moved from The City (UK) to The City (US) (one of only three places in the world I know of with the sheer hubris to use the definite article and nothing more to denote itself) intending to

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1110819603309590022005-03-14T11:55:00.000-05:002005-03-14T12:00:03.376-05:00

At a bar last night, stepping outside for a fag, only to over hear a man on his mobile utter this priceless gem, "Remember when we took Fallujah?". From his build and posture, he quite easily could have been military. But 'we'? And who on earth was he speaking to with that line? For that matter, speculating it was an army friend, what are the odds of not remembering that whole urban siege

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1109366184960822182005-02-25T16:04:00.000-05:002005-02-25T16:21:11.186-05:00

Long pause. Such is life, particularly with new endeavours. So, as I've made it fairly clear, I went 'on the market' this year with a freshly-minted, freshly-printed PhD. Such a dreadful phrase, that, redolent of the meat-market that academic hiring is. Which is a different rant. The point being, there are some obvious steps to take to change the result in the next round, namely publish more

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108672735757219232005-02-17T15:21:00.000-05:002005-02-17T15:38:55.760-05:00

Not the self-involved and self-obsessed that plagues me today. Nay. It's that most horrifying of terms to contemplate: "Independent Scholar". If adjuncts are invisible, how much further down the food chain is the Independent Scholar? At large job-acquiring-conference not long (enough) ago, and, in fact, at conferences generally, there's the namebadge phenomenon. Not that any given academic

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108586332844252582005-02-16T15:08:00.000-05:002005-02-16T20:25:28.186-05:00

'The truth is that men can have several sorts of pleasure. The true pleasure is the one for which they abandon the other. But the latter, if it is apparent, or rather if it alone is apparent, may put people off the scent of the other, reassure or mislead the jealous, create a false impression. And yet, all that is needed to make us sacrifice it to the other is a little happiness or a little

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108568114913681642005-02-16T10:19:00.000-05:002005-02-16T10:41:23.003-05:00

I had a coffee with a senior professor in my field, spending his last years before retirement at a prestigious university here. I'd worked with him, to some extent, whilst completing my degree in England, so it wasn't totally out of the blue. It was, nominally, a 'good to catch up' coffee, although it was clear from the outset that I wouldn't have contacted him if there hadn't been a fairly

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108482798194719012005-02-15T10:32:00.000-05:002005-02-15T10:53:18.196-05:00

Despite primary job season in my field being over, there remain two outstanding markets. One is the drips and drabs of small and local US institutions. Second, of course, are the English institutions, who post positions for next fall as and when they feel like it - typically between now and late May. Which, on the one hand, puts those of us with bi-pond-ite interests in a bit of a quandary, as

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108417252120010012005-02-14T16:31:00.000-05:002005-02-14T16:40:52.123-05:00

OK, I started a far more sophisticated post on alone-ness, urban space, a slick reading of a Bob Haas poem that nods to both Gary Snyder and The Who, with some Interpol references thrown in for good measure. But it wasn't quite coming together, so instead we have this fine tidbit from the Beeb - 'Gay groups insisted that penguins had a right to form couples without human interference'. So

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108400323095952902005-02-14T11:54:00.000-05:002005-02-14T11:58:43.096-05:00

Quote of the day? Seems a tiresome possiblity, in some ways, and there is (sigh...) a fine quotation I've encountered somewhere regarding quotation as a useful substitute for intelligence (or wit, but I'm fast and loose with the obscuring of serial numbers, re-packaging, and re-purposing (ugh) as necessary). But the inimitable Charlus, in Proust's Soddom and Gomorrah, had me laughing out loud on

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108259459123417332005-02-12T20:30:00.000-05:002005-02-12T22:09:53.900-05:00

An experiment, then, suppressing the urge to write the 'I' and, despite lit fag and red wine to hand, write this instead. Christo's Gates were unfurled though not unveiled in Central Park today. Which was, of course, a mob scene: ars brevis, vita longa, as it were. Thousands of them, all scrabbling to the high points to try and get a sense of the installation. Which, of course, removes them

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108225711298915492005-02-12T11:16:00.000-05:002005-02-12T12:37:08.846-05:00

Although the caffeine/nicotine balance remains precarious, a reminder to myself that not all English television is shite: Nathan Barley. Chris Morris at it again. Alas, as I'm not currently in the UK, I missed the show itself, but the write-up in the Guardian linked above perfectly evinces the Morris aesthetic at its most perfect. He captures not only the surreality of the every day (is it

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108159984777092982005-02-11T16:59:00.000-05:002005-02-11T18:02:19.206-05:00

I don't think this will consciously be an academic blog. For a number of reasons. Having just bailed/failed on the job market, I don't have students, grading, etc. at the moment to whinge about, so I don't tidily fit in the category. Moreover, I'm an academic-without-portfolio, as it were, and thus the invisible adjunct phenomenon that seems to have given rise to a group of blogs prominently

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10775647.post-1108154978645098702005-02-11T15:33:00.000-05:002005-02-11T15:49:38.646-05:00

Not in the sense of that oh-so-charming French novel written a decade ago without the use of the letter 'e'. Nor, mind-numbingly, the English translation. Rather, almost all of my writing tends to two extremes: writing with semi-colons (read: academic prose), or 'i'-text, which is essentially overly self-indulgent musings, babblings - variations on the narcissistic. Thus this is an attempt to

itinerariumnoreply@blogger.com0