Things to do on Christmas Vacation

1. Get really sick. Thanks, Jake.

2. While sick, drink a lot and drive up and down the Eastern seaboard repeatedly. Drink an entire bottle of champagne to cure sore throat. Take cold medicine intermittently, frequently at the same time as bottles of champagne, wine and/or 30th birthday party shots.

3. See awesome friends who politely ignore hacking, feverishly nonsensical comments, and general lethargy and who instead provide kickass hugs (germs be damned!), stories, entertainment, food and fun. R., A., C., K., M. -- you are all excellent and very tolerant people. It was great to see you!

4. See family and wonder if it is the fever making you imagine that they actually fucking said they're going to join a cricket club this year. Cricket club? I can't be related to you. You're Catholic -- stop aspiring to be WASPs!

5. Watch a lot of cooking TV while recuperating and finally figure out what all the fuss is about Project Runway. Why haven't I been watching this all along? Apparently I had to fly across the country and get consumption to find some quality reality TV shows.

6. Drag self to the Tesoros exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Very worth it. My favorite was the painting of an angel with a gun, from the 18th century.

7. Fly while sick. This is so. much. fun.

8. When home, refuse to go to the doctor, just like a little kid. I'm feeling better! I don't have to go! The cough will go away soon!


I actually had a great break, and great visits with everyone -- fingers crossed that I didn't spread the Christmas plague too much. I hope you all had wonderful holidays as well!

Happy Holidays!

I'm leaving this afternoon for the East Coast on a holiday whirlwind tour of Philadelphia, DC and New York. For those of you back East, I'll see you soon! For everyone else, have a wonderful holiday break/wintry two weeks! I hope there is lots of merriment and joy!

Before and After

Some random shots from the last few days -- babysitting, dinner party, and much, much crafting:


Crushing the candy canes (baby helper joined in for this -- he refers to it as "hamo nandy!"). It is very satisfyingly violent and effective to smash up candy canes with a wee craft hammer.


And the finished product is pretty tasty, too. I call them peppermint mocha-cakes.


This is what happens when I first attempt to arrange magnetic letters on a stamper to read a holiday message. I have crafting-only dyslexia. I think it's like playing an album backwards -- it's some sort of message from the dark powers that there will never be peace on earth (or "no ecaep htrae").


When I arrange them the right way, it all works a lot better.


Baby self-portrait. He got ahold of my camera and went to town. I think his eye for photography surpasses mine, which isn't really too hard to do. Toward the end of the dinner party this little guy took every pot and pan we own out of the cupboards and walled me into a corner with them.

The Terror of the Thames

I went to the office this morning to do a little scanning for the professor I'm R.A. for this quarter, and I brought my newly-refurbished Ipod with me for background music. When I got it back from the fine folks at Apple a few days ago, I realized that when they installed a new battery (I was part of the class action), it got rid of all my music/playlists/etc. So I updated it last night, and brought it in today. I scanned a few pages, turned on my Ipod (name: Sharky) and discovered that it is actually a weird little mp3-playing demon creature with a bizarre sense of humor. It updated, but for some unknown reason, it only updated 5 songs out of the thousands on my computer, and those five songs are: Don't You Forget About Me, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and three songs from the original London recording of Cats. Growltiger's Last Stand (The Terror of the Thames), Gus: The Theatre Cat, and The Moments of Happiness. I swear on my beading pliers I have not listened to the Cats soundtrack in years, nor is it on any playlist, so I have no idea why the Ipod decided to update only those songs, along with the entirety of my Learn! Spanish! Now! CD's. I think it's a cruel tech-geek/hipster joke by Apple employees who have programmed the refurbished Ipods to seek out the lamest music on your computer and sync only that.

And for what it's worth, after I got desperate from the Tears for Fears/Simple Minds medley extraordinaire, I listened to Cats for a bit. And Gus? Made me teary, so it's probably best I don't listen to it regularly. Come on, the cat was old and thin, and his coat was all shabby, and he had the palsy! So his little paws shook! Palsy! I cannot deal with a homeless cat suffering from palsy, it's too much. Especially when the graduate director comes by to bug me about something when I'm in the middle of my Gus+palsy emotions.

Slavery Was A Bummer, But Hey -- Capitalism!

Conclusion from student paper today (the second one along these lines):

"The use of slaves has been around far longer than any one could actually imagine. It is very unethical and it is great that it isn't still legal in today's society. However, it was one of the main building blocks for the expansion of the economy in the past. Slaves had much involvement in the growth of mining and especially sugar production in Latin America. This diversity offered the Latin American culture with a constant source of labor and growth in the economy. It is especially shown by the dominance of the sugar industry in colonial Latin America, which would have been impossible to obtain without the help of the African slaves. Slavery has hurt many people over its years of existence, but if there was one good thing that came from it that would be the economy that it helped to create, which is still going strong today and should be for the centuries to come. Slavery is a horrible thing but just look what it helped build!"

OK -- he's not factually wrong, I just live in such a bubble that I forget sometimes that we're supposed to be happy to have an engine of global capitalism that feeds off human bodies and blood in order to provide some people with unlimited access to sugary soda and diamonds and cheap plastic toys. I'm sure the slaves of the past (and present) are just thrilled they could help with the construction of such a system. Sometimes in education it just feels like, as they say, throwing jell-o at the wall. Some stuff sticks, some doesn't. Slavery bad? Yep, everyone seems to agree on that. Any connection to capitalism itself as a questionable and morally bankrupt framework? Not sticking. Anyway, at least grades are done.

Weekendiness

Weekend highlights:

-- Hot springs (almost) all to ourselves. Apparently the piles of snow scare the bears off, but not me. I am officially a cold tub slut. Much like a Thai salad roll is to peanut sauce, the hot pool for me is just a conduit in order to get to the cold tub. The Breitenbush trip involved a lot of sleeping (bedtime at 8:30, up for breakfast and morning pools, then nap, then more pools, then second nap), a lot of eating from their delicious, communitarian, made-with-love hippie vegan buffet, and the rest of the time alternating between hot and cold amidst the snow and the fir trees with the river raging a hundred feet away. At one point Erin was concerned I may have had a heart attack because I'd been in the cold tub so long -- but I just like it that much (after the first time, granted that's a bit painful, but once you're warmed up, it's goodness). Damn, it's just so relaxing. I was like a pile of mush when we left.

-- I chopped more than eight inches off my hair in Portland. Haircuts are one of the things I've put off for the last several (six?) months, so getting "shorn" as Erin described it and getting lots of kicky layers makes my whole head feel lighter.

-- Homemade Indian feast was a terrific success -- dahl, cauliflower masala, curry naan, tamarind sauce, cilantro chutney, jasmine rice, and many, many, many samosas. I felt like a curry-scented fry cook by the end of the afternoon, but the birthday boy loved it and it was even topped off by his favorite, lemon meringue pie. I love other people's birthdays.

-- Back in the hometown, I was touched that the Christmas street decorations are still the same lighted tinsel candles my town has used since I was a little kid. This is no doubt partly because it's really freaking poor and there's no way they're ever getting new ones, but I found myself feeling fonder of my little community than I have in many years. The canned food warehouse outlet (our only grocery store -- just try to find produce there), the espresso drive-thru that cropped up just after I moved away and is still kicking, and especially the lights on the trailers in the parks -- I find them far more loveable and comprehensible than say, the mansions around here with their fields of lights arranged by fleets of undocumented gardeners, or the $7 price of a bunch of grapes at the yuppie grocery stores in town. That's right, even when I'm in a great mood, I can't stop ripping on the rich, yo. That's just how I roll.

-- Police blotter in my hometown paper listed as stolen recently: "A mounted bass, Dale Earnhardt alarm clocks, bedspread." Multiple Dale Earnhardt alarm clocks, people.

-- One of the most enjoyable typos I've ever seen in a student paper:

"After Pedro Alvares Cabral's shit hit land in Latin America, which was considered the first discovered sea route to Brazil, Portuguese settlers introduced sugar cane to the surrounding areas."

Indeed.

Many Items/With Slashes

I'm about to go pick up seventy 7-10 page take-home finals in a few minutes that have to be graded this weekend, and when you have a pile of finals to grade, that's when you should take a day off and go to The Hot Springs. Or such is my thinking. Today we head up for a little hot springs in the snow/end of term action (where'd I put my bear spray?) and then on Friday continue on to throw a homemade Indian food feast/birthday celebration for my sophomore English teacher/adopted father figure/roommate's dad back in our hometown/economically depressed ghost town. Whew -- that's a lot of variant terminology. I'm sure I will complete much of my grading at his house, because it's the home of two public school teachers. They don't have time to shilly-shally around about this stuff -- that spirit of overworked and underpaid efficiency will rub off on me, right? Right? Besides, I want to finish the grading fast so that I can have time to make wreaths and my adopted stepmom can teach me to knit. So much to do! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Cake, Joe

Last night was a lovely evening of cake and Everclear jell-o and birthday celebrating, in costume, as is the way of things. I take special pride in my exacto-knife stencil-creating skills, as seen below (and no fingers lost to the knife -- probably because I did it pre-jell-o). Happy birthday Saggitarians!



If you would like to start your day the right way, with a little This American Life, I recommend listening to the streaming audio of Act 3 of the 10/6/06 episode, With Great Power. All hail Joe! Joe sees all! I wish Joe could come write this syllabus that needs to get done today. I'm sleepy from staying up till 3:00 making earrings. Apparently Everclear lime jell-o + pink champagne + vodka tonics turns me into a scarily efficient factory of one. That, or my body clock has decided to reset itself to Hawaii time, in hopes I will take it there someday.

Shameless Self-Promotion

So I have a shop now! Finally, you can fulfill all your dangly earring needs! Big thanks to E. and R! for their work on the pictures, which look fabulous and undoubtedly deserve most of the credit for the following. I am having a very good Monday morning, because after staying up late last night grading, I finally posted all the photos and descriptions just before midnight (along with some temporary images -- my graphic design team is currently otherwise occupied). And I woke up having sold 8 pairs while I slept! There is seriously no better way to wake up than to find that a bunch of strangers like the stuff you enjoy making and want to pay you money for it and it all happened while you were happily dreaming about Italy. I think it's partially due to the way Etsy works, kind of like Ebay, where if you're browsing for jewelry, whatever is most recently listed pops up. Still, I am revelling. That's almost as much as I make in a week of grad-studenting! Cheese for everyone tomorrow!

Weekend of Festivities!

Friday was a day of Christmas tree getting and decorating at the BCC -- there was soy nog and the smell of fir needles and a kitty amongst the piles of ornaments.

Jake placing his ornaments at the back of the tree. We saved him a special space for Spiderman! Many more pictures of all the following, including tiny Santa hat portraits, on E's photo album.


Saturday was a day of fabulous double birthday celebrating with E & M -- multiple wineries, good food, good conversation, good friends, and some post-structuralism/deconstructing heteronormativity. We ended with a partial playing of The Game of Life, which is disturbingly accurate:


The birthday blondes, being adorable:


Wine makes everything hilarious:


Despite the hangover from the twelve hours straight of drinking yesterday, I still woke up this morning and made my sister-in-law a birthday brunch, which I am proud to have managed, again, given the twelve hours of drinking. I seem to have lost my voice, however. I blame Descartes. This afternoon Erin and I are attending a student's memorial on campus that requires either formal dress or pirate costumes -- this was a young woman that knew how to embrace life. There is no excuse not to celebrate the magical moments life occasionally gives us -- and this weekend has been a nonstop train of those moments. Yay for festivity! The real world will return soon enough. And we will meet it wearing prom dresses.

Joyce Appleby, That Noise is Loud!

Yesterday was the last day of classes and as such I have three largely unrelated things to mention:

1) I offer you the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management prevention and control handbook. In case you encounter loud shuffling and chewing noises in the ceiling right above your head in the middle of the night, I want to save you from doing endless internet searches at 1 in the morning to learn about termite head-banging (which I must admit, made it kind of worth it -- that link refers to the termite noise as "street performers") and voles and feral dogs and magpies. At least the alligators portion of the handbook was unnecessary. I think my attic may house a few mice. I will sleep better if it's mice and not rats, due to some reading-the-last-50-pages-of-1984 adolescent trauma. It may also be squirrels. My ideal is bats. They're just cooler.

2) Based on various annoyances with a book read for a faculty seminar/discussion yesterday -- James Scott's Seeing Like A State -- and with the Atlantic article and its historians referenced below, I've decided to try using historians' names as curse words for a while, a la Jack on Will and Grace. I need to get out my irritation in some meaningful, yet also meaningless, and completely nerdy way. James Scott, that's a great idea! It's all in the inflection. Gordon Wood, that list was stupid! Kenneth Pomeranz, Scott's book is an apologia for neoliberalism that uncritically romanticizes the local! Yeah, I win the nerd hat for the day.

3) I registered for a metalsmithing class at the craft center winter quarter! Yippee -- metalsmithing!

Magazines

Last night the BCC did some collective magazine reading. We determined that the New Yorker subscription has paid for itself with this one recent set of Thanksgiving covers. We received the Family one, with the favorite scene of "Check that guy out, he is so emo. DUDE, YOU ARE SO EMO!" Fantastic.

I also concluded that I don't know why I'm subscribing to the Atlantic, though I usually like it okay (it's no Harper's, but it'll do.) This month's cover story is on the one hundred most influential Americans. They amassed a panel of historians to put it together. It shames me that these are my people. And some of them I respect a great deal, so I'm just hoping they got outvoted by the overwhelmingly white maleness of the rest of the panel. Yeah. 82 out of the 100 "most influential Americans" are white men. Malcolm X doesn't even appear, and there are no women of color of any kind. Fannie Lou Hamer? Sojourner Truth? Seriously, nothing? No Cesar Chavez? Bayard Rustin totally unmentioned, so they can tokenize MLK as the sole non-white man in the top ten?

Nor, as one of the women historians acknowledged, are there any Asian Americans, Native Americans, or Latinos at all. Are we supposed to conclude that not a single Native American influenced our history? At least not "majorly"? J.P. Morgan, Walt Whitman and Walt Disney are ranked well above W.E.B. DuBois and Frederick Douglass? I know I'm probably taking it too personally -- it's a magazine! -- but, as is constantly being pointed out to me, I am the eternal optimist. I expect better of people. The fact that the inside story begins with a full-page spread entitled "They Made America" kind of says it all. And here I thought slave labor and Chinese railroad workers and immigrants made America. I really hate the great man theory. I don't think there's any way to do an arbitrary exercise like this list without it becoming a pointless reiteration of the majority culture's self-absorbed idol-worshipping. Rant over.

Snowsnowsnowsnow!

Erin busted into my room a few minutes ago, shouting excitedly for me to put on some pants, get my camera and come outside! (I was wearing shorts! The pellet stove is hot! Yeah, there's no way that doesn't sound weird.) When I got out there, here is the magic:




This is very exciting, given that we got basically no snow last winter at all. Those of you on the East Coast are rolling your eyes right now. All both of you. It's very exciting! A blanket of sparkles! It's like flair for the earth! OK, I'll stop now.

Light a Candle

I don't trust them, but this issue is too important:

In honor of the upcoming World AIDS Day on Dec 1st, Bristol Myers Squibb will donate $1 for every person who goes to their web site and lights a candle (simply clicks) to fight AIDS, up to a max of $100,000.

Please go here.

I Am The Tower

You are The Tower

Ambition, fighting, war, courage. Destruction, danger, fall, ruin.

The Tower represents war, destruction, but also spiritual renewal. Plans are disrupted. Your views and ideas will change as a result.

The Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." You have been shaken up; blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Keep on Shoppin' in the Free World

Market has been...interesting. Sales haven't been great, but I'm letting that roll off me by attributing it to people's lack of fashionability around here (and in particular, the crowd who shops there). Yes, I make myself feel better by criticizing others. I'm also in the side room (cheaper to rent space there) which few people even realize is there, so we don't get a lot of foot traffic.

But what I've found most interesting is that the majority of craftspeople who sell there do this as their full-time job and are otherwise living in pretty much total poverty. Like, in a warehouse without any heat, or raising three kids on 12,000 a year from disability. And none of them charge for their labor. I mean the hours of time they put into making the item they're selling, I'm not even going to go there with the hours of time sitting at the market. You literally cannot charge anything for your labor costs and have a price that most people will find anywhere near acceptable. So they make a dollar for every hour of labor they put in, not including selling time. Yet again, the globalization of capital screwing over the ability of local groups to form productive, supportive economies of their own.

To Market, To Market

Off to market I go! I have an irrational fear that I will be asked to leave, I've suddenly lost all confidence in my product. But still I go! Home again, home again, jiggity jig. The rest of you are probably enjoyably sleeping off your tryptophan/sugar comas. I envy!

Cheer Camp

I was in a bad mood yesterday, for a variety of reasons I won't go into, but like most of my bad moods, it passed quickly. It's the redhead thing, I think -- quick temper, but quick to pass. And it didn't hurt that I had my last LSAT class (for SIX MONTHS, baby!) last night, and because it's the last session it was basically three and a half hours of them asking me what law school is like and what interviewing is like and why firms are bad and what are my opinions on the world and generally hanging on my every word. I have to admit, it's hard to stay in a bad mood in that scenario, and I realized afterwards that test prep classes are to me now what cheerleading was to me in high school, a way to "act happy" in order to be happy, even when you're not. It's my cheer crack, if you will. I don't quite know if it's going to be as great as I think it is to go the next six months without it, since I get the opposite of constant attention and deference and validation in grad school most of the time. I need my performative peppiness outlet! I'm going to have to go all cheer camp on my comps committee. I'm not sure how they'll take that.

Hope you all have a happy holiday and safe travels in the next several days!

Miscellany

I am the Thanksgiving Grinch. When I'm feeling grumpy about something, I like to make it into a political position. Much like I can't afford to travel anywhere right now, so I'm actually boycotting flying because of the carbon emissions. One flight is worse than driving an SUV, people! While I wouldn't wear diamonds or fur or eat veal even if I had more money than Oprah, I would NOT turn down a plane ticket to anywhere-but-here at the moment. Especially because Thanksgiving is also the National Day of Mourning. It's also the ideal day to host an Oxfam Hunger Banquet. I think the three people getting the gourmet meal should be the people who would actually feel crappy about watching the rest of their loved ones eat rice, though, because there are definitely plenty of folks who would just eat their fancy food and laugh at the other suckers.

In a completely random link, this article is hilarious. Which of our grad cohort will channel the themes of our thesis/dissertation into a subversively offensive comedy routine in the future? I'm guessing Matt, he's already started with his shockingly inappropriate performance of Smokey the Bear. If Chris dresses up as Simone de Beauvoir next Halloween, though, he might be another strong contestant. Actually, I think it could be almost any of us. What does that say?

Polling Station

I need some assistance, people. Most of you know that I am no good at making choices. I like to keep all my options open until the Very Last Minute (this is called something, maybe Perceiver, on the Myers-Briggs scale). Anyway, I am the girl who will take twenty minutes poring over a menu even though I can invariably only eat two items on it -- but how to decide which one? So we've been trying to name my holiday market booth and we've come up with a list of options, some silly, some quirky, some...I don't know. You may recognize some inside jokes. So vote, and save me from the horror of making decisions on my own. Here are the options so far (feel free to make suggestions -- I'm trying to market to a cross-section of aging hippies and snobby yuppies):

1) PRoF
2) The Rambunctious Unicorn
3) Jewelris Doctoris
4) Spiritual Materialism
5) Truth or Flair?
6) Narcissus' Mirror
7) Little Miss Moonshine
8) Veritas Earrings

Sample of the merchandise:


Kitty investigates, mid-setup:



P.S. Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's are HIGHLY recommended. Little bits of candy cane inside a mock-Oreo cookie. I don't know why a cookie like this hasn't been created before.

We Will Soon Take Over

Yay! Best news in weeks -- the awesome V. has joined the blog brigade. Genius, passionate convictions, somewhat unwilling Midwestern migration, adorable daughter...she's answered the call for scathing political critique and cute pictures that our group of grad students has set. Soon the internet will be indistinguishable from the hallways and doorways of McKenzie. If only the computer would enable coffee-breaks...

Somebody Unionize Me

I've been working in my personal earring factory all weekend, and I have to say, the conditions are not ideal. It's pretty cold in here and the boss won't turn up the heat. No coffee breaks (and like E., no coffee!). My hands are too cramped from all the wire-twistiness to type much. But for all the complaints, it's awfully nice to be doing creative work that has no relation to academia. All grad students (or former-and-still-suffering-from-post-grad-school-stress-disorder) need some artistic outlets or hobbies. I'm selling at the holiday market right after Thanksgiving, so I now also need to let my inner capitalist out -- or technically, since I am my only employee, my inner marketing director -- to merchandise my table effectively. Sadly, I love making pretty things, but I am much more comfortable giving them away than trying to sell them. But I've definitely spent enough money on beads at this point that I need to recoup some costs, so to market I go!

Fewer Than Four Items on My List

Because there are exactly three things:

1. This story about neanderthal DNA reminded me of some highly enjoyable books that everyone should read and I should totally reread soon: The Eyre Affair (and three follow-ups -- apparently the fifth book will be published next year and set around Pride and Prejudice) -- set in an alternate history of England in 1985 where characters can be kidnapped from novels and there is a whole branch of police that deals with literature crimes. Cloning is normal -- people clone dodos and Neanderthals, the latter of whom they then oppress and exploit, in a nice nod to realism. If you enjoy wit, clever literary allusions, silliness and smart, non-cliche characters, you'll enjoy it. Um, if you don't like those things, I don't know what to tell you. Read something else.

2. Last night Jeff and E. and I, with roommates joining later, had a mini "yearbook-party" -- gin was involved. Mostly it just made both Jeff and I feel old. However it also highlighted some seriously ridiculous hair in the 80s, and how, in small towns, that got carried happily right through the 90s without much change. When you've reached the point where you identify the people who've died in your yearbook pages (as both Jeff and I did), I think it's time to put it away and never open it again. Because that number is only going to get higher as you get older.

3. And just so we're all clear: "less" and "amount" refer to noncountable things (like stress or hunger or gin) while "fewer" and "number" refer to countable things (like papers or french fries or bottles). My tutoring student yesterday argued with me about this for a good half hour. You don't say "there were less students in the room." You just don't! I'm not the grammar dictator by any stretch, but if I tell you something AND it's printed in many places in the book, believe it! Apparently I seem very untrustworthy, or perhaps I have a reputation as someone who makes up false grammatical rules just for fun. He already suspects me of doing this with math, though, so I guess it's no surprise. Maybe he's related to my fifth-grade friend Cindy's mom who had a deep and violent distrust of redheads. Seriously, we couldn't be friends anymore after her mom met me and saw my hair.

If?

This is disgusting. I don't know why I am constantly surprised by how low people (TV networks, lawyers, whatever) can sink. Probably because, as my roommate claims, I am the eternal optimist. For reasons unknown. Those poor kids.

Handing Out Ass-Kickings and Pop-Tarts...

And I'm fresh out of Pop-Tarts. Normally paralyzed by a combination of self-doubt, guilt and postmodern angst, I am currently surprisingly productive. Stuff whose ass I kick this week:

1) My minor field syllabus. Submitted in draft form yesterday. In keeping with my running cycle of spending every fall quarter for the past four years studying slavery (unintentional, but it just keeps happening, and once I start actually teaching U.S. history, it will probably keep happening for the rest of my professional life), I spent this quarter writing my own syllabus on slavery in the Atlantic world. Sure, it gave me nightmares (I probably need to stop engaging in sixteen-hour-straight work binges on topics like this), but it also reminded me every single second of how fucking fortunate I am. It was a little disturbing that I've reached the point where I watch videos on the Middle Passage with an eye to what they're leaving out, not to mention sipping my cup of sugary caffeine (irony!) while doing it, but it's one of those topics I always come back to studying. All things can be traced back to slavery, as far as I'm concerned. Capitalism? Slavery. Enlightenment philosophy and modernity? Slavery. Race? That's the more provocative chicken and egg question, but definitely modern notions of race. OK, I'm a little obsessed right now.

2) Preliminary dissertation proposal. Out of nowhere, I have a lot to say, and opinions likely to piss off many people. This is undoubtedly astonishing to most of you. Anyway -- I totally have a topic! And it's...not really even that different from my thesis topic! Just broader and allowing me to do lots more of my patented "law is crap" analysis. The people, I give them what they want. Plus I'll probably change it twenty times in the next year or two.

3) All LSAT students. You will shut up and listen. Especially the old-man ones who try to challenge my authority and make serious comments like "white men get screwed by the system!" (see #1, above) I have no patience for that crap.

4) Finally quitting a job that is sucking up too much time. As roomie said, "He wasn't terribly abusive, but you could do better." I am now shockingly left with enough time to actually do my comps reading. Part of me will miss putting on the standardized-test dominatrix persona several times a week, especially since it was a nice break from the kicked-puppy persona that is standard-issue to all grad students. But who am I kidding, I'll totally go back to him in the summer when I'm broke and desperate.

5) Algebra. My math students are always acting impressed at my "quick and dirty" version of math, even though I think they know might the "names" for the the legitimate versions of what I do. Initially I reacted with "crap, maybe I should be teaching them the 'real' stuff, except I don't know it" but this week I am temporarily convinced I have all the answers, so I am totally the boss of algebra right now. I crack my whip at you, quadratic equations!

Whose ass have you kicked lately?

I Should Be On Baby #10

This article is pretty disturbing. But here's a quote I find amusing: "feminism made wage slaves out of women who had once been slaves to God; it made "unpaid prostitutes" out of women who should have been godly mothers and wives." It's the "unpaid prostitutes" part that I don't really get. I mean, I get it, unmarried sex = dirty, dirty whore and all, but when I read this I just immediately made the connection back to being a "paid" prostitute, i.e., married, so I thought the speaker was basically saying single women were dumb because they should be demanding adequate compensation for their services. Seriously, I live in my own little discursive framework, so it really took me a minute. (No offense to any married folks, I just have judgments about the "purity" of the institution and its supposed opposition to the institution of prostitution -- but it certainly has legal benefits. Partial props to South Africa for the civil unions today.)

I also find the tale of thirteen children broods extra-disturbing in relation to one of the countless sociological studies I've been reviewing, this one about intelligence levels in children (I know, I know, sociology -- pah!). Apparently if you have more than three siblings your intelligence is lower, though the oldest and youngest are still at the expected level, due to more attention, presumably. So we're just generating armies of patriarchal, fundamentalist, war-happy kids with sub-par intelligence. Great!

Teachers

I understand that it's partly a reaction to the structuralized violence of grading perpetrated on students by our system of education, but it's pretty sad that the response seems to be the open denigration of teachers, to the point where many are ready to quit the profession. The last line says it all -- "they're just teachers." As if low wages, exhausting work, and cheap administrators weren't tough enough? I complained about some teachers growing up, but this is sinking to a new low, because it's done in a public forum with the knowledge that the person you are mocking, by name, can read what's being said. If I weren't such a coddled lightweight I'd be teaching underprivileged public school kids as opposed to entitled middle-class white kids. There's only so much of a social justice mission you can have when you're teaching at a college, the land of the privileged. So whether they do their jobs perfectly all the time I have nothing but the utmost respect for what real teachers do every day. This is just sad.

Sociologists: Telling You Stuff You Already Knew

To be fair, one could make the same criticism of most historians. But, here are two studies I've come across recently that I enjoyed, precisely because they confirm (in the solid, utterly unbreakable and undeniable proof of statistical sampling and experimental control groups!) stuff I already believe to be true. Really, I'm just a little jealous that historians don't get to run tricky experiments on people. Because I would be doing it all the time.

1) The first study examined the effects that a belief (or disbelief) in the meritocracy had on women subjected to gender discrimination. Women who experienced gender discrimination but didn't believe in meritocracy had higher levels of well-being after the event than those who did believe. Unsurprising. And, in the control group, those who didn't experience any discrimination and did believe in the meritocracy had higher levels of well-being. I'm just going to sum this up for future students as, if you believe in the meritocracy, it's because your life has been a big fucking cakewalk. I'm such a great teacher.

2) The second study, from a law review article on behavioralism I read a few weeks ago, examined people's reactions to watching other people be subjected to painful shocks when they answered various trivia questions incorrectly (this is, by the way, how I envision the comprehensive exam process working). In one group, the observers were allowed to give input into the process, in other words they were allowed to tell the shockers to use non-painful positive reinforcement stimuli instead in order to encourage the test subjects to learn and remember the material. When given this oopportunity, all the observers choose the positive reinforcement option (that's the part I actually find shocking). Their opinions of the test subjects afterwards were also positive, they found them likeable and intelligent and able to learn.

The second group of observers was given no option of input. They just had to watch the test subjects get shocked, painfully, repeatedly. At the end, their opinions were negative. They believed that the subjects were, essentially, to blame for their own pain -- they weren't smart enough or were refusing to prevent themselves from getting shocked. Basically, the conclusion is, if we feel like we can actually change something, we're more likely to have empathy for the victims, but if we feel like we can't do anything? We blame them for their own situation.

Confirming what we already knew, at least about Americans, but in a creepily scientific way.

Endnote = Evil

Having spent the last six hours attempting to get OneSearch citations to download into my Endnote database, I can officially say I have wasted the entire morning. I'm going to spend the next six hours retyping each one. Academia feels like a tedious, technologically-impossible suckfest today, so I'm going to take a moment to meditate on one of my favorite quotes from my readings yesterday:

"There are two principal ways in which reflective human beings try, by placing their lives in a larger context, to give sense to those lives. The first is by telling the story of their contribution to a community. This community may be the actual historical one in which they live, or another actual one, distant in time or place, or a quite imaginary one, consisting perhaps of a dozen heroes and heroines selected from history or fiction or both. The second way is to describe themselves as standing in an immediate relation to a non-human reality. This relationship is immediate in the sense that it does not derive from a relation between such a reality and their tribe, or their nation, or their imagined band of comrades. I shall say that stories of the former kind exemplify the desire for solidarity, and that stories of the latter kind exemplify the desire for objectivity." -- Richard Rorty

Though I don't agree with Rorty on everything, and though we could always problematize the project of binaries, this speaks with nice clarity to a powerful (constructed or not) division. Since I've alternated between spending my life with revolutionaries, then law students -- or with activists, then academics -- I'm always wishing for a way to break down what feels like a very real barricade between these conceptions. Solidarity!

Random Closeups of Mundane Things

I didn't get much sleep Wednesday night, so Thursday seemed like a great day to haul my camera around with me and document my day. Especially since I can usually be relied on to have an embarassing or klutzy incident (in this case, two!). My roommate at NYU was a photography major and used to do stuff like this, only infinitely better (and more interesting, because let's face it, New York). Like sands through the hourglass...


I start off with a cup of yerba mate and almond milk and finish my slave trade syllabus movie-screening with the rest of Quilombo, about the Palmares maroon community in Brazil. It was OK, but the production quality wasn't as good as La Ultima Cena, still my favorite.


Paola decides that if I'm not going to fold my laundry, she's just going to snuggle up in it and be cute.


Waiting for my bus. The gray sky will remain until approximately June. At least the torrents slowed down in the last few days.


I love my green wool plaid coat.


Passing by the Red Barn in the lively downtown area. This is shortly before I spilled water all. over. my. lap.


The glorious hallway leading to my glorious office for glorious office hours. No students come for the first hour. I'm OK with that.


Reading for my subaltern seminar tomorrow. This is the founding statement of the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group -- this paragraph talks about "uncovering the social semiotics of the strategies and cultural practices of peasant insurgencies" and that the subaltern while "not registrable as a historical subject capable of hegemonic action...is nevertheless present in unexpected structural dichotomies." Really, it's one of the clearer documents and I like it. But then I like theory generally, while simultaneously having a deep distrust of my liking for it. I'll never leave my trailer park anti-intellectualism behind. Nor should I, probably.


I go to lecture for my grading class and come back. My office is the same. Tiny. No elves have come to finish my reading for me. We discussed Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and the Virgin of Guadalupe in lecture, and I have stories about both, for another time. Three students come see me, nervous and seeking grade changes. Mostly, they just need to be talked out of it. I feel mean.


I grab some devil juice to help stay awake during the lecture at the library on memory and forgetting in Pinochet's Chile. Fittingly in line with Esperanza Rossi's kick-ass post on history and memory yesterday. It's a great lecture, but unfortunately the caffeine doesn't fully kick in, so I'm kind of in and out. Until he played the 80s Chilean pop group "Los Prisonieros." Wild to think that the 80s were a decade of revolutionary movements and protest generations in other countries. Not so much here.


The grad students all showed up for the free food at the end anyway. This is why they pay us so little, to ensure we come to all the lectures.


The fancy bar/restaurant/hotel I walk past every time I go to my teaching gig. I've never gone in, so I have this whole Little Match Girl, nose-pressed-to-the-glass obsession with going there someday. It'll probably be a total disappointment.


Post-formal logic equations for 3 1/2 hours. My hands are covered in those damn markers, like my middle school algebra teacher. My students are sleepy and whiny. I take my use of the Socratic method to new heights, which is fairly hyprocritical of me.


The heel of my boots snapped right off in the middle of LSAT class. I didn't fall on my face or anything, but I did have to maintain my authority while balancing on one foot and holding on to the podium for the last hour. Yeah, that's what I get for trying to be taller than I already am (or so my friend Courtney would probably say). They were my favorites too! I demand a refund.


I come home (finally! it's 9:30!) to have my boots pulled off by one person (I can't do it myself!) and a plate of freshly made pad thai put in my hands by another. E., who has stopped by to borrow something, calls me "pampered." It's true. I love living in a community that takes care of each other. Then we watch that Deal or No Deal show and marvel at how the entire thing relies on powerless people not being able to calculate their own interests when they are in a perceived position of power for the first time in their lives. Under any kind of cost-benefit analysis, that lady should not have kept saying "no deal." Whatever.

That was it -- incredibly prosaic, as are most days. Next time I'll take the camera along with me to the WinCo, which is a good time.

Bus-Ridin' Fool

I don't know what it is about me and the bus. This morning I had my closed (it was closed I tell you!) water bottle laying on my lap and then 3/4 of the way into the bus ride, I realized it had suddenly started leaking all over me. Sooooo, I am now at my office hours, waiting for students to come talk to me with a nice big wet spot on my lap. Classy. I don't even know why I go out in public.

In other news, I highly recommend the following movie for any film/history connoisseurs: La Ultima Cena (The Last Supper), directed by Tomás Gutiérrez-Alea. Here's the Times review from 1976, when it came out. I've been screening various movies over the past few days for my minor field syllabus on the Atlantic slave trade, and it's one of the best. The owner of a Cuban sugar plantation invites twelve of his slaves to feast with him in order to teach them about Christianity -- you can imagine what happens from there. The political, social and religious parable elements are subtle and impressively done and it raises many of the most important issues/questions regarding New World slavery and its inherent contradictions. My imaginary students for this imaginary class are so going to be watching this. Putting together a syllabus is hard, but I have to say it's pretty fun, too.

Let Them Drink Cake

Roomie's birthday festivities were a success last night -- there was some 80s dancing (sadly my photos of that are too blurry, but E. showed off some very nice moves), some Thai salad roll and pad see ew munching, and, thanks to my paranoia after the pot pie incident, I didn't even drop anything on the floor.


The black forest cake, four kirsch-soaked layers of dark chocolate gateau, layered with buttercream frosting and sour cherries and frosted with whipped cream, was the real German version. That supposedly means, if made correctly, the room should spin when you stand up. It did. The "cherry blossom" cocktail invented for the occasion (roomie loves cherries) probably contributed to that as well. Liquored-up by both cake and drink, after the company left the B.C.C. started brainstorming about potential holiday card images for this year. Don't be surprised if something involving the following disturbing image reaches your mailbox this December:


We're going straight to hell. But at least the Monty Python cast will be there to keep us company.

The Day That Shook The World

I am not going to discuss the elections today. I've expressed my feelings on that subject, in probably tedious detail. Anyway, today happens to be the day on which three of my favorite things happened:

1) In the current Gregorian calendar, the October Revolution of 1917 started today, November 7, when the Red Guard in Petrograd took over government facilities in a virtually bloodless overthrow of Kerensky's regime. The act of workers rising up to overthrow the exploitative ruling class -- and successfully maintaining their own state, however deformed it became -- has given hope to other oppressed groups for decades. RIP.


2) Fittingly, Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky -- he took the name of a former jailer whose passport he stole when he escaped) was also born on November 7, 1879 in the Gregorian calendar, and went on to lead the Petrograd Soviet during the Revolution and become head of the Red Army. This is a picture from when he was sentenced to four years in Siberia, before the revolution. I think of it as "foxy Trotsky." Yeah, I'm a little twisted.

3) My roomie was born today, a lot more recently. She has not led any revolutions (yet) but I don't doubt she will at some point. She has a pretty powerful loathing of the bourgeoisie. After the pie-dropping incident of last weekend we decided that the world can be divided into the people who would eat the pie off the floor and the people who wouldn't, and that we didn't really have time for the people who wouldn't. She added that she can also make this decision "as soon as someone says the word 'golf.'" We get along very well. :) I'm alternately finishing this post and frosting her cake while humming the Internationale. That may be a little Marie Antoinette of me, but you can't live an uncontradictory life under capitalism...

Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit

I find this BBC article hilarious. Don't dwell in blue-sky thinking! We need to drill down until we're outside the box and we can push the envelope into the helicopter view! It's sad that this actually makes anyone feel inferior. It should just make you feel like you work for tools, which I guess in a way also makes you feel crappy.

As my (blissfully) brief re-entrance into the world of office work yesterday showed me, I am very very very lucky to work in academia. Sure, instead of this jargon we use phrases like "heteronormativity" or "syntagmatic relata" or "diachronic versus synchronic" -- um, where was I going with that? Right! Well, at least I only find academic-speak to be embarassing sometimes, as opposed to the full-time absurdity of management-talk.

I think the test should be that unless you can explain an idea to a drunk Irish guy in a crowded bar and actually make him understand (S. is the queen of this), you shouldn't get to talk about it, period. In order to play the career game you have to use academic-speak and I will be the first to admit that it makes many ideas both more nuanced and more direct -- for those of you not in academia, I know that's hard to believe, but it takes a lot more words to explain the dialectic or hegemony than it does to just say the word -- but if we're only talking to ourselves, we're losing the war. Plus, you know, mark of insanity and all. We need more joined-up thinking in order to pick the low-hanging fruit!

Basically, I've got nothing. Time to go make a cake! A real one, not a metaphorical one.

Whiny Dante

"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

I'm not! I'm at work, have been tutoring math for the last several hours as a favor and will now be receptionist-ing for the next several hours as another favor because our front desk person just had a sudden illness in the family. And I'm a nice person. But not so nice I don't feel like channeling Dante. Not the vengeful one, the whiny one. Seriously, I don't even think I'm that nice. Why am I here again? Normally I identify far more with the vengeful Dante. I would offer some Smarties from the jar on this desk to whoever can name the quote, but I doubt it's that hard and frankly, I don't want to have to mail them. They'd end up powder anyway. No candy for you!

Academic Rant #571

After reading several essays with variations on the theme "the Spanish conquest was necessary to create our wonderful modern world" with a range of kickers like "if the natives hadn't resisted Christianity, there would not have been the need for so much bloodshed," I have a few reactions.

I teach math for the GRE and GMAT and verbal/reading/writing skills, as well as logic problems for the LSAT, and I am well acquainted with the feeling when a student doesn't grasp a concept or can't seem to learn it in the way I would prefer. It can be frustrating, but it's not taxing in the same way that reading crap like that is or attempting to find a response to it that will actually challenge the student to learn or open their mind a crack. There is a real difference in the nature of the work, and it is rarely addressed in the academic community.

This reminds me of a conversation I had a week ago with a friend who teaches Ethnic Studies at the local community college. She commented that she often feels like she should be getting hazard pay for the personally grueling work of having to (as a woman of color) teach the mostly white classes of hundreds about racism or sexism or classism. I'm the last person to get on board with a "grad students/professors' lives are so haaaard"-fest, because we are incredibly privileged, comparatively, but the treatment of the humanities in relation to the sciences is pretty disturbing. What is our real goal in providing an education? Frankly, I enjoy math and I may like getting a faster computer every few years but I wouldn't really give a damn if everyone in the world completed their education unable to calculate the area of a cylinder. Especially if they did graduate with a comprehension of their privilege or the resources to organize resistance, an understanding of the implications of their choices, and enough knowledge of the history of capitalism, imperialism and oppression to make different choices in the future. If we actually graduated people that had become better human beings with empathy and a comprehension of their position in a larger community, I wouldn't care if they couldn't chart formal logic problems or reverse-FOIL a quadratic equation. The first set of qualities is simply more important.

But creating better and more socially responsible human beings is not our goal. So the humanities teachers -- who do the actual work of making citizens, as best they can -- not only don't get supplemental pay to recognize the importance of that work, they actually get astronomically less funding and resources than the sciences. And as per the comments from A. yesterday, with the current funding situation all we can do is teach giant lecture courses that are by nature designed to limit or destroy any possibility of critical thinking. Again, I'm not trashing the sciences. But our priorities are all kinds of fucked-up if this is the kind of "education" we think is the most important to provide. I seriously question whether it is possible to work towards revolutionary change while also working within an education system that is designed to maintain the status quo.

Don't even get me started on the grade inflation and consumer commodification of education that means that these racist or otherwise narrow-minded students will still graduate with a degree in liberal arts having never opened their minds an inch.

Script-ure

I'm more than 1/3 of the way through these exams. Apparently "Quetzalcoatl" and "Christ" are synonyms. I have now read more exams that contain some variation of the phrase "Cortes was seen as Christ (or Jesus) returning by the Aztecs" than the phrase "Cortes was seen as Quetzalcoatl returning." Of course, BOTH of these statements are actually inaccurate, which was discussed at length in lecture, but so far only one student has commented on that (there are not many A's in this bunch). It's kind of amazing how strongly people will cling to their scripts. If we spent days and days in lecture (and in the texts) discussing the way in which the conquest largely hinged on the indigenous allies of the Spanish and was not this "great man" narrative wherein twenty white guys defeat thousands of natives because of various areas of superiority, what 90% of the students seem to have heard or taken away was "the conquest was this great man narrative wherein twenty white guys defeated thousands of natives." Whatever version of the script they learned in high school, or grade school, or Disney movies, they just carry forward. It doesn't matter that the entire class is an attempt to disrupt that precise script. They simply block out the parts that problematize it and hear any restatement of it, even in the negative, as a reaffirmation of its truth. It's really quite astounding. I seriously have no idea how one combats the ability of people to hear the exact opposite of what you are saying. Back to grading warrior mode. (Thanks, C.) Slash, burn.

Blatant Hatred No Longer Favored by Majority!

Apparently voters are not quite as enticed by hard-core hate speech and violent homophobia as they were just a few years ago. How touching! Salon article on the GOP's attempt to court libertarians by being more subtle with the hate (a strategy American politicians have learned over many years of couching anti-black racism as "economic" or "tax" or "family values" concerns). Sad that it's supposed to be heartening that many Americans now want to keep their hatred for LGBT folks on a low simmer instead of a full boil. I don't think it's so much a sign of growing "tolerance" (I hate that word!) as much as it is a sign that many right-wing voters currently want to focus the full blast of their hatred on undocumented laborers and pretty much anyone who looks like they weren't born in the U.S....or, to make it easier, just anyone non-white. Since middle-America's image of gay people is typically the flaming white guy from New York who is now the staple sidekick character on countless movies and TV shows, this puts homophobia slightly under anti-immigrant xenophobia on the scale of Which Group Do We Hate More at the moment? These are still the two major civil rights issues of our generation, and I think, much like the rape case indicated yesterday, we're going to keep seeing a growing backlash after a brief period of liberalism and seeming cultural openness.

On another topic entirely, I beat a large group of LSAT students with my giant formal logic stick last night. That just sounds dirty, but it's the most appropriate metaphor for what happened. They were like deer in headlights. I felt bad for them and kind of wickedly enjoyed it at the same time. Now I need to beat up these midterms today. Formal logic goes back in the drawer, because using that standard...weeeelllll, let's just say they'd pretty much all fail. I'll just use my consistency twig and my accuracy wrist-slap. They still better watch out! Happy Friday!

Maryland is for Rapists.

This is revolting. This is why I cannot fucking stand the law.

Maryland Court Rules Consent Only Needed Prior to Sexual Act in Alleged Rape
Cases.

I cannot believe the sick appropriateness of this, but Maryland's state motto is "fatti maschii parole femine," loosely translated as "manly deeds, womanly words." In the sense that "womanly words" have no ability to stop "manly deeds," I guess this ruling is consistent. The only word this court is able to hear from women (yes, I'm essentializing) is "yes." Can they not conceive that you cannot say a meaningful "yes" unless you can also say a meaningful "no?" It reminds me of the rape case in Italy when I was studying there where the judge said rape could not have occurred because the woman was wearing jeans. Jeans = consent. Yeah...I have no words. Which I guess is really their goal, in the end. Fuck you too, Maryland.

Quote of the Day

I am feeling sick today (I blame my job) and I have a long day of class and standardized test teaching ahead. The most pathetic part is that I am actually looking forward to a quiet weekend after this so I can actually grade the remaining 60 of these greenbooks (they're green here, trees or something). Here is this morning's quote from a student's midterm:

"After the concering (sic) of the Inca people and the transport of the gold to Europe the Spanish wanted more. You could say that they were greedy."

Love the understatement. I'm still waiting for one of them to discuss the religious reasons for the conquest. I guess they'd like to pretend that wasn't part of it.

I Vote for Dead People.

This morning, fittingly, I need to vote. I welcome the opportunity to vote on certain issues (parental notification of abortion?) on the ballot this year and I abhor the notion of voting for individual candidates whose affiliation begins with a "D." It reminds me of trying to wash a dirty dish with a dirty sponge -- sure, it may look a little cleaner, but would you really want to eat off of it? You may just have removed some of the obvious crusty bits and left behind some nice flesh-eating bacteria. (Yes, I also need to wash the dishes this morning -- we had a late night yesterday. Just embrace the metaphor.) This is a vestige from my days in the party, this loathing of voting for reformists and thereby taking responsibility for their almost inevitably horrible actions once in office. Democrats are the party of war in this country -- Republicans might start them more, but Democrats are the ones who drag them out. I dwell in skepticism.

On the other hand, skepticism that is not also skeptical of itself risks becoming its opposite. I don't want to be like the abolitionists who refused to donate some of their money to buy Frederick Douglass and other runaways out of slavery because doing so would "taint" them with participation in the slave trade -- that smacks of a self-indulgent, bourgeois (you knew it was coming!) need for purity, something most people in dire situations cannot afford. So I never entirely know what I'm going to do on the individual elections until it's actually time to mark the damn ballot. Unless it's the presidential election -- then I just write in Jon Stewart.

So that brings me, on the day of the dead, to the question of who, alive or dead, I would actually vote for with all my beliefs at least mostly intact? Nelson Mandela and bell hooks are about the only ones I can come up with who are alive. As for the dead: Trotsky, Lenin, Che, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin (nonviolent, sure, but at least he'd end the war), Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxembourg, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Toussaint L'Ouverture...all activists, I left the theorists off because much as I love them, they can be unpredictable and, let's face it, academics are soft. I am bizzarely tempted to add Jane Austen -- what can I say? -- I have an inexplicable love for her. Anyone with that much ability to see through the BS would be nice to have around.

Who would be on your dream team ballot?

My Cat is an Oppressor.

The weather got very cold here last night, down to the mid-20s. What was our cat doing? Sitting in her toasty warm (yay wood-pellet stove!) living room window, licking her paws and staring out at one of the neighborhood strays sitting on the front porch. Our next-door neighbor feeds the strays, but a lot of them love to sleep in our yard, and this one, known as "Big Boy," is huge and loud and chatty and affectionate. So he's sitting on the porch morosely, staring straight inside, directly at Paola who is sitting on the couch looking down on him like Marie Antoinette. If a cat could smirk, she would have been. This stare-off of cruelty went on for about ten minutes before we removed Paola and tried to give her some empathy by taking her outside for a few minutes. It didn't do much. Seriously, how do you train a spoiled housecat to not completely throw her good luck in the face of the less fortunate? I think cats might just be fascist by nature. I'm not sure if that makes dogs communist or not.

Anyway, Happy Halloween, y'all!

Just Scary, Not Cute

The Thirteen Scariest People in America. I find the judge and the academic to be particularly scary, for obvious reasons (Kevin MacDonald seems to be a good argument against tenure).

Class rant ahead: I have a theory about Halloween that's been percolating for a few weeks now. Halloween is the holiday of the poor and disfranchised and dispossessed in the U.S. This is aside from all its Saturnalia connotations or pagan elements. It's the time when we actually acknowledge that the world is a scary, fucked-up place full of monsters under the bed and capitalists in the closet and warmongers and acts of violence and cruelty committed for their own sake. Compare this to Christmas*, when we are expected to spend frantically in order to prove some notion of universal love and peace and brotherhood -- nothing's scary, everything's beautiful and pure! Classic bourgeois denial mechanism and an annual chance to make yourself feel better (yearly visit to the shelter or church collection plate), along with providing a "much-needed boost to our economy." Halloween on the other hand is cheap and easy -- it's a fun holiday in the trailer park or housing project because most people with access to 99 cents for candy and a needle and thread for costumes can afford to participate in some way (and food stamps work for pumpkins -- later they become pie!). Again, compare this to Christmas (or Thanksgiving -- both falling unfortunately at the end of the month) when those without money or feasts or presents for their kids invariably feel like crap in comparison to the highly commercialized, shiny, sparkly, non-scary lives they're supposed to have. And bags of donated food or old clothes do not make that feeling go away. Goblins of the world, unite! (I also have a theory that working-class folks are more likely to dress up in scary, as opposed to cutesy, costumes -- admittedly based solely on my series of Halloween parties this weekend, but that's another story.)

*Disclaimer: For all my trash talk now, I will totally be rhapsodizing about Christmas and decorating like crazy in approximately a month, because I am a contradictory person and because I have a huge overcompensation thing going on for my own years of donated food Christmases. Plus I am a sucker for pretty things and Christmas is all about the pretty. But I also know that my experience of a pretty Christmas now comes at the price of all those who live in a scary world 365 days a year. So Halloween still feels a lot more real.

The Cute and the Scary

Yesterday was a day of much festivity and fun. We spent the bulk of the day making crafts and cupcakes, then attempted to run a gauntlet of three separate Halloween parties.


I think the kitty is my favorite.


We ran out of vanilla with the white frosting, so we used (apparently copious amounts of) rum. A dab on your finger was kind of like taking a shot. Let's face it, Martha would totally approve.


What I made yesterday pre-cupcakes: I don't understand how I can wield kitchen shears and wire cutters on the above candy and bead concoctions and never manage to hurt myself but tomatoes foil me. I think it's psychological. I secretly hate tomatoes! We also watched The Neverending Story while I made these. My next animal is named Atreyu.


This boy got hit on by a weird old man at party #2. It's the blond curls. Very Cindy Brady, if she were a Eugene barista from Maine who hadn't shaved in a while.


Little Miss Sunshine, complete with cotton batting barrel-chest, and a cat. Sadly, people mostly could not guess this one at all (and most of them hadn't seen the movie -- I ask you, what are they doing with their time that they are not seeing this movie?). At party #2, someone thought these might just be her normal clothes and tried to politely compliment her on her glasses. Others thought perhaps she was an aerobics instructor.


Olive attacks a pumpkin at party #1.


Pumpkin guts. We managed to spill the bucket of seeds on the floor a moment later. People love it when we come over.


The second "Hell House" variation spotted on the drive to the last of the festivities. There was an ambulance parked out in front -- we were trying to decide if it was for the folks that fainted after seeing the horrors that await sinners, or whether it was part of some reenactment of What Happens When You Drink. Or Dance. Or Smoke. Or Laugh. Laughter is of the devil!

As is the photographer's way, I totally forgot to get a picture of my costume. Picture a cross between Annie Oakley and Jessie (because of the braids) from Toy Story and you've got it about right.

OK -- I need to do some non-crafting work today, like on my slavery syllabus. Sometimes I would like to be sponsored to make crafts and cook and decorate all the time. And that, I know, is where I've completely bought into the domesticity script. I don't deny it. Just because gender is performed doesn't make it less powerful. I'm sure there's a special room in Hell House for feminists.