Go See It.

On a whim this weekend we went to see the movie "Young at Heart" at our friendly local indie theater. I had expected a light and enjoyable flick that provided moderate entertainment. In fact, it was the best movie I've seen all year (something all my fellow moviegoers agreed on). It's really just a documentary about a choir of elderly folks in Massachusetts who sing punk songs and rock songs and their quirky director. Seems simple, but it's the kind of movie that will make you belly-laugh-out-loud for 2/3 of it, and cry (while still laughing) for the other 1/3. One of the most beautiful scenes I've seen in a long time is set at a prison in the middle of the movie. And I don't think I ever really understood the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" until I saw the choir's music-video-esque version of it. I know it's cliche, but it's one of those movies that leaves you feeling inspired and alive and profoundly moved as you walk out of the theater.

In other news, I cannot wait to finish grading these oral histories (after that it's the take-home final, but I'll take one beast at a time). And if anyone is going to be in DC between June 16-27, why, so will I, thanks to a nice cheap ticket on Delta I found this weekend. See you Capitol Folks then!

Movie and Smoke

Some movie reviews from the past week. Also, four hours of secondhand smoke (heavy smoke) exposure has made me sick for two days straight. Pathetic. I hope to kick the cough by tomorrow.

Once is as good as they say. Not even like a movie, like something else entirely. Just watch and enjoy. The music is awesome, but the way it functions as a not-movie is its own kind of brilliant.

Marie Antoinette was also really enjoyable, I was suspicious of it ever since it came out, but the history and the costuming were just fun to watch. On top of that, I actually ended up liking it. It took this figure who clearly profited from excesses in her lifestyle that depended on the deprivation of many others (the degree of excess might be debated, but when other folks are in breadlines, I think excesses is a safe word), made you sympathetic to her and made you enjoy watching the absurdity of the court, and then ended with a nod (not lingered upon too much) to the Revolution and the deposing of the monarchy. I liked that because I think it is a pretty accurate appraisal of how I feel living in this country most of the time. We are all a bunch of Marie Antoinettes running around, consuming in a desperate confusion, profiting from an accident of birthplace, and living excessively by the delegated deprivation of people worldwide. To the point that however nice and charming many of us are, whatever happens to us on a societal scale might go down in history as justice.

The Ground Truth -- wow. This documentary is the best thing I've seen, read, or otherwise been exposed to on the current war. The brutality of some of the cadences these soldiers are trained to (singing about killing kids while they're at prayer), along with their stories told so honestly, and with no sense of entitlement, it's amazing. It ends with a tearful apology to the Iraqi people that is completely self-implicating. And the song they use is Patty Griffin's "Mary," which will make you cry even in a happy setting.

I saw the new Narnia movie. I actually did NOT like the first one, mostly because everything felt so Jesus-related. I know, I know -- it's not like I hadn't read the books as a kid (and loved them) so I had full warning, but somehow twenty years has made me much more jaded about Christ allegories. This one was much less so, with a sassy Narnian dwarf nonbeliever thrown in (another point over the first movie, which had the low-level creepiness of Mr. Tumnus).

Not Blogging for a Month? Priceless.

It's really been a month? I...honestly don't know what happened to that month. I think maybe I should look under my bed. Or in my garage, which was cleaned out entirely by me in order to create a new, functioning craft room. Oh, that's where. That, and the garden, from which I ate a delicious radish seedling salad for lunch today. Snooty types call this "microgreens," I call it the only way I can bring myself to justify thinning seedlings that are otherwise perfectly healthy and happy. And apparently, nutritious and delicious. I realized today that I would be a terrible cheetah, I would never be able to bring myself to thin the herd. OK, so I did a lot of time-wasting things this month too, but overall it's been a very productive and efficient month except for the whole totally-dropping-the-blog-ball thing. Turning over new leaf...now!

Random run-down of stuff to report and/or endorse:

- Visited Eastern State Penitentiary on my most recent trip to Philly for the conference. This brings my number of prison audio tours for the last three month period to two, a number that makes me wonder if the universe is telling me something. The most priceless moment in this trip was when one of the wings of the prison was closed off (it almost looks like a Panopticon design, which made me absurdly excited, but alas, apparently it's slightly different or whatever). It was closed off for an Anthropologie catalog photo shoot. I do not lie. If you look at my pictures, you will see the crumbling, ruined prison cells that will eventually serve as a backdrop for $168 embroidered skirts.

- Beer is good. I've discovered I totally, sincerely (unlike when I lie and say a beer tastes "pretty good" every other time I drink one) love the house-made Flemish sour ale at a Belgian restaurant in Philly. Oh, I'm sure they have that on tap everywhere.

- Square dancing is awesome. And I'm so totally good at it. OK, "good" in the way I say most beers are "good." Square dances are becoming a Eugene hipster/old coot mixer tradition lately and I couldn't be happier.

- Glen Hansard and the Swell Season concert with some fine folks was a night of total fun. Glen Hansard is adorable. Tomorrow I get to finally see him in action in the movie "Once." I cannot wait.

- The Grocery Outlet. I'm finishing this post having just returned from a trip there, my second in a week. At most stores, you find the same things week in and week out, ever predictable. Boring! Where else but the Grocery Outlet would you find Smoothie Flavored Skittles, or Smoked Bacon Pringles, or "Factory Seconds" Almond Roca? You may not always like everything you find there, but you'll always find something you like, even if you never knew you liked it until that moment. Your favorite discontinued flavor of Haagen-Dazs or perhaps some chili-lime pistachio nuts? I feel sorry for those who have not enjoyed the good times of buying your groceries in outlet form. In my hometown, it's the only grocery store around.

- Books. I'm going to take a real stand and say, they're a good thing.

Run Away! Run Away!

I have a confession to make about one of my weird tendencies. When things go well, I run away. As for example please, after I took my exams and got gladhanded by all the smiling profs at the end, I bolted as quickly as possibly out of the building. After defending my prospectus, which was essentially a love-fest, I literally ran to the bus station so that I could leave campus before accidentally doing something to ruin it. I have some deep-seated fear of the other shoe dropping, or of screwing something up (especially pronounced when I've just done the opposite of screw up). So this weekend I presented at this conference, which I was really nervous about doing since the bulk of the panelists and attendees were professors and the paper is in the early stages and is a very rough version of the first part of my nonexistent first chapter. So let's say, it's at the VERY early stages.

Anyway, I presented, and things went well. Surprisingly good attendance at the panel, no grilling, lots of "comments" from audience members that consisted of them trying to add whatever special subject they know about to my topic in order to attach to it and marry the two ideas, rather than trying to use what they know to tear it down (if that makes sense). Finally, the last speaker was a professor in the audience -- this guy for you Americanists, who is pretty much a rock star -- he gave a very complimentary analysis of my paper and one or two mild criticisms of the others. Then after the panel, two professors came up and asked if I could send them a copy of my paper, one professor asked me to give them advice on sources (seriously), and Professor Rock Star waited patiently to talk to me and say nice things and then asked if I could send him a copy of the paper and gave me his card. I managed to stutter out some gibberish and frankly, after talking to him, I fled. Like, fled the building in case I ran into someone and said something stupid, which seemed unavoidable. Unfortunately my session was in the morning so I had a bunch of lunch, afternoon and plenary panels to attend the rest of the day, along with a banquet at night, which were all kind of torture. I had to stop myself all day from bolting the conference, and managed to only because they were actually paying for me to attend, so I thought it would be pretty bad form. I realize this is absurd, and since I managed to get through the remainder of the day without excessively foolish behavior I disproved my own fear, but I doubt that will stop me from freaking out again in future. Am I alone in this behavior? I probably need to adjust my expectations or some psychobabble thing, but so far, fear and anxiety have served to get me where I am, and I have trouble letting go of them as motivational tools. :)

In other news, I found out this week that I got this fellowship for next year, which was a terrific surprise and which means I don't need to teach and can just write all year. I feel very, very lucky, especially because I know what a total crapshoot these applications are, and in particular, that this is evidence of the way in which certain educational pedigrees (or previous fellowship awards or particular formulations of projects at a particular political moment) serve to open the door for more benefits and privileges in an ongoing cycle. Of course I'm happy, but after reading the email notifying me I did have to recheck it every five minutes for about an hour to confirm I wasn't imagining things, at which point I fled campus and the sneaky computer that had informed me of the good news.

Home Again, Back Again

Home again for the first week of classes -- still enjoying the memories of Cambridge and Philly and NYC. Thanks for the excellent company and the super find on the cheap B&B, S.! And thanks to M. for giving me the whirl of many fantastic NY experiences in a few short days, even as I was watching historians do their thing during all the daylight hours. I wish I could have stayed up even later! As it was, I did kind of-almost-barely-there fall asleep during the presentation of, naturally, my former professor on Sunday afternoon. I blame all those cake mix drinks Saturday night.

Watching historians do their thing reminds me of my favorite random quality of these conferences: the inspiration. And I don't mean that I get inspired by the amazing level of the papers (though some were quite good, of course, but many are sort of ho hum), but that there's some psychic impact to being surrounded by a bunch of really smart people who are doing work that's both different enough and similar enough to yours to get your wheels turning. I feel this much more at the OAH, less at the AHA where it's every kind of field. It reminds me of my law school years with the brilliant and crazy and beautiful and terrible folks from my section and beyond, and of my recent time in the history department with my staggeringly intelligent cohort and the adopted members thereof, Trust in Steel and Dolce Vita. Now, it's a little more...distant. Everyone's so spread out! So there's something to be said for the gathering together to talk about some stuff, and this is true even though I knew barely anyone at the conference. I have all these jotted-down notes on my own research or my own project that I took during various paper presentations at the conference, most of which had no relation to my momentary inspiration. The papers on adoption after the Korean War or whatever were conduits for my brain to briefly channel a few seconds of the combined group historical intelligence in the room and apply it to my own work. Seriously, I think that's how it works.

And now I go back to the East Coast to present my own paper at a conference! Well, maybe I can give someone else some random inspiration on 19th century cultural studies or something else completely unrelated to what I'm doing. I have to say I'm looking forward to not flying anywhere for a few months after this trip!

Also -- check out LinkTV. Interesting stuff.

Uncle Harvard's Largesse

(For some reason, this didn't post on Saturday when I wrote it...)

Back in Cambridge for a few days this week, researching and getting into a small amount of trouble with S. So far we've gotten to eat at some of our favorite restaurants here in town, hear our favorite Irish music played by Mr. Ronan Quinn, and receive what were in fact too many free drinks (as in, we left several of them sitting on the table untouched because we were pretty far gone already by then). Tonight we will partake of 80s night at the Phoenix, though it looks like most of the Irish carpenter community has fled the dying dollar to return to the Celtic tiger. But the thing that's really defined this trip has been the reminder of the kind of bounty you get at this type of institution. Particularly the law school. It did not train us well for how humanities programs are treated in the rest of the academy.

Example 1: The copy center, where you (or the guy who wanders in looking for a bathroom and decides he wants some expensive readings on jurisprudence) can pick up for free the coursepacks for all your courses and anything else that looks interesting. They photocopy it for you, bind it, stack it on a counter and you just walk by and get it. Like socialism.

Example 2: The coffee. Every day, even though you are kind of a nobody, just a student, some people show up and make a fuss about fixing free hot coffee for you and your classmates. The free gourmet food which is around and available 90% of the time is just an added perk.

Example 3: The quarters. In Special Collections at the Law Library, they have lockers for you to put your stuff, lockers that charge you a quarter to open them. Except that Harvard provides the quarter. They all already have quarters in the slot for you, ready to go. Of course.

Example 4: The alcohol. Constant, constant free alcohol. At a minimum, weekly free happy hours, and, more often, parties sponsored by firms with free-flowing top-shelf tequila or whatever the party theme dictates.

Example 5: The ice skating rink. They actually build an ice-skating rink outside the law school commons building every winter. With skates provided, of course.

The main thing we've noticed being back in this nest of free crap is that most of the stuff provided by Uncle H is of the luxury or convenience variety -- tunnels to keep you cozy walking between classes in winter, free shuttles to drive you all around in the evening, fancy snacks and wine at the most menial of club or classroom gatherings. None of it is essential, because people here are assumed to not need such things. It just goes to prove that the rich just get more and nicer free stuff, while the poor don't even get access to basic life necessities. Ultimately, HLS' brand of socialism made us both a little sick, even as we simultaneously took advantage of it. It's a love/hate relationship, definitely.

Stuff Made While Sick (And Shortly Thereafter)

I call it Scarfy. I taught myself how to cast on, bind off, and make the fringe (previous knitting projects have required much assistance from the wise A.). Plus, pink! And alpaca, so super-duper soft.


Glitter eggs. Thanks, Martha.


I am currently obsessed with making pysanky. Partly this is because no other crafty-folk seem to make them, so I feel a little more cutting edge than when I copy something Martha did (not that I don't like to do that regularly). Partly it's because my Mom used to make them, really elaborate ones with tiny woodland scenes of deer on them. Yeah, I'm not there yet, but I like this site as visual inspiration. I won't even tell you how long the two below took to make.


We learned to make tamales last weekend (the tamales were made when we were all no longer sick, of course), and produced probably over a hundred with three different kinds of fillings and fresh tomatillo salsa. Awesome! And they are actually all gone now, that's how yummy they were. Not as hard to make as I'd thought, though they are definitely a team production.


Finally, not anything I made, but I enjoyed this bit of news. Yes, extreme wealth is a mortal sin. Thanks for that.