This afternoon, around 2 pm

Me: So Paul [my advisor] made a joke about how I should be researching feverishly on the next part of the diss.

Sam: How's the research going?

Me: Meh. Right now I'm working on establishing the relationship between these little snickers minis and the size of my ass.

Sam: Do you think it's causal?

Love!

According to wired.com, Banksy, the infamous yet anonymous British graffitist, has hit NYC, and it sounds like his biggest statement yet. Wednesday marked the opening of The Village Pet Story and Charcoal Grill, an installment featuring anamatronic creatures that directly cross the line between animals and prepared food, among other boundaries. I'm talking hot dog hamsters here, people.

The Wooster Collective published a statement attributed to Banksy. I can't vouch for its provenance, but it's funny, so here's some of it:

I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and the sustainability of factory farming, but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing.

I think we all knows what that feels like.

Debate 2

The general consensus (as far as I can tell) is that Obama won the debate. Several moments of note won't get much replay, but McCain's gestures and body language said a lot. Sam pointed out McCain's gesture of "hey, get a load of this idiot" when Obama was talking about helping small-business owners affording health care insurance for employees. (See minute 49 of the debate.) I'm sure we viewers at home missed McCain's other sighs, grimaces, and physically awkward movements.

You know it's bad when the New York Times's editorial scolds McCain outright: "Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember. They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions—into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia." The editorial further asks that McCain's team offer a better solution than "inciting more division, anger, and hatred." 

Even the right-wing bloggers over at the conservative National Review have just about given up (e.g., Andy McCarthy says, "We have a disaster here"). By comparison, the current president's first campaign looks like a tea party.

I can't say I was energized by the candidates' standard talking points, won over by the odd forum style, or delighted by Tom Brokaw's seeming inability to umpire. But the news coverage today and last night point out how poorly McCain is doing, both in the debates and in the polling, while they show a calm Obama who is able to take a few shots of his own without aggression. Obama won the debate. Now let's see him win the election.

What I found

When I was looking for my measuring tape this morning, I made some odd discoveries. One of them was not finding the tape. Here are some things I did find:

• A foot-peddle for a sewing machine I no longer own, which I got rid of because I couldn't find its foot-peddle
• A foot-peddle for a sewing machine I do own but don't often use because I keep losing the foot-peddle
• My college seam ripper (identifiable by its aging masking-tape label)
• A roll of stitch-witch (excuse me, "interface tape")
• About a yard of elastic
• Some dress-maker's tracing paper and (in a separate location) my tracing wheel
• Several different kinds of rulers (metal, plastic, right-angle, hemming, fascist)
• Dozens of blank notepads, in various sizes
• A yard of material I once liked
• Cord for making trim, which I made into a make-shift measuring tape
• The memory that at one point in my life I really liked to sew
• A variety of bobby pins and barrettes
• A ratting comb
• Five highlighters

Amazing. Now, I'm going to misplace a five-dollar bill.

Re-learning an important lesson

When hugging a kitty, don't squeeze it too much around its middle.

Also, FYI: It's snowing on Mars!

Dear Student*

Dear Student: I'm pretty sure that the word you want is "undertow," not "under-toe." Also, when referring to a woman, one should not use the word "female" as a noun. An animal can be "a female," but a woman is not. In short, use the word "woman." Finally, when you send an email to me explaining that you're "not feeling well," don't ask me if you're going to miss "any information."

*Please note that I do not intend for the "Dear Student" posts to be read by my actual students. As such, I limit identifying details and never use a student's name or description. Furthermore, 

nearly every error or problem identified in the "Dear Student" posts comes up in my response to the student(s)'s work—albeit in a much different form. So it's not like I'm just making fun of my dumb students and not actually trying to teach them.

***I am instituting a new class policy, I've decided. Each student earns 25% of his or her grade on the basis of class participation, as described in the syllabus. Clearly, I need to describe more fully what this means. It means that I'm paying attention to who's talking and who's prepared (as measured by our new, required 10-minute in-class writing assignment). Now, you can get a possible 5 points each class period, 2 of which are predicated on the substance of your in-class writing. This more specific method of measuring student performance will, I believe, benefit me and (possibly) the students. Not to make a fine point, but I've had enough. Whee!

A hard slog

I'm still working on the piece of writing that will eventually become my dissertation introduction. It's a hard slog through the first parts: laying out the various arguments between scholars in my sub-sub-field and constructing working definitions of my terms. In other words, the theory parts. (Being a little hung-over from backyard "camping" doesn't help a lot.) It's almost over.

The rest of it should be a lot easier. Because the theory arises from the films I've been watching, conveying how the theory applies to the films is just the same thing but backwards.

I've been confident before in a piece of work, only to get it back with significant, heavy critique, but this time, I think it really will be good. Or it will be horrible. My committee will let me know either way.

At this point, though, (like so many things in life) it's just a matter of doing.

Sorry, but this post is about our cats

My study doesn't get a lot of sunlight, so I keep a lamp on while I'm working. Each of our cats likes to sleep directly under the shade, which leads to some bickering because they don't generally like to be close to each other. Jane will nibble Dave's toes. Or Dave will move Jane out of the way by laying down too close to her. She'll lick the top of his head  (which he likes), then bite his ear (which he doesn't like). Lots of tail swishing happens. 

This time it didn't turn into a full-blown fight, but Dave got Jane to move out of the way and is currently snoring away under the warm light of the lamp. Jane is staring at him, as though she's planning a new stratagem. 

I'm waiting for the full-on, claws-out negotiation. They adopt identical poses: head back, eyes squinted shut, ears down, one paw raised. Weight balanced on the haunches, in case the argument heats up more. The sound of one hitting the other, though, is the best. Pop, pop, pop. Then they growl and yell at each other, which isn't as fun.

I've never seen it get too out of control, but when Sam and I go out of town for a long weekend, sometimes we'll find black Dave hair between Jane's toes.

Op. There they go.

Writing and writing and writing

Gene Fowler: "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

yep. 

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch: "Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."

yep even more.

upside

The upside of the JJ's terribleness was that I used a very edited version of it to drive home the importance of diction. (And I lied a little. I told them that when the angry weird old man swore at me, I told him to go fuck himself.) One should choose one's diction according to the situation and the audience. 

It almost always makes students laugh when I say the word "fuck" in the classroom. They don't expect it. Which further illustrates that classroom diction doesn't include words like "shit," "fuck," "asshole," "goddamn it," "pussy," or "doodoo." Unless the student is quoting a source text.