Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

For those of you who enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...

Summer School

I'm finishing up my first ever semester of summer school teaching and I've been pleased with how things have gone. It has not been as grueling as I feared for either the students or myself.

One of the surprise hits of the semester has been using Zizek's The Pervert's Guide to Cinema in class. The movie is very long - almost 3 hours - but is split up into three parts each of which provides a nice framework for class discussion. Talking about movies seems to open up discussion much more quickly than simply reading Lacan's "Mirror Stage."

The only downside is that it means I have to inflict on myself almost every disturbing scene from every David Lynch film ever made. That's a lot of disturbing scenes.

Buddy Guy

Nostalgia. I was at this show way back when.

A Discovery

Lacan is much more pleasant to read while smoking a good cigar. He even seems clearer.

I think this may have something to do with the fact that he no doubt wrote while smoking. Perhaps it helps produce some sort of chemical affinity with the text. Then again, perhaps it just helps ease the pain.

In either case, it is an excellent discovery.

Happy 4th!!

Here's a pic I took tonight at my local fireworks display. And just for fun, here's some music for the day from Fry and Laurie as well. Happy 4th!

Unknown Zizek

Here is a video of Zizek speaking on ideology to Google workers. I hadn't seen this one. It repeats much of the material from other talks Zizek gave last year on the heels of his Violence book. But I find the setting of this one at Google's New York offices strangely compelling.

Synchronicity

One summer, I really want to make the trek out to the Smoky Mountains to see this: synchronous lightning bugs.

Academic Squalor

Inspired by Sisyphus' musings on office decor, I've started the task of cleaning out, redecorating, and steampunkifying my office. This is clearly all still part of my ongoing post-tenure and post-sabbatical recovery process, but I think it will help me and I may even enjoy the project.

Over the past 14 years, I've had 10 different offices. Before that, I had moved offices yearly for 5 years. That's almost 20 years of moving offices. I'm really good at moving now. I've had lots of practice. What I'm terrible at is unpacking. I've had no real practice at that. I have boxes which I still haven't fully unpacked from grad school. Partly, this behaviour is simply practical. If you know you'll be moving in a semester or two, then leaving some things packed will simply save time. The boxes will be ready and waiting for the next move. Partly, this behaviour is simply neurotic and my own personal physical symptom expressing the uncertainties that haunt contingent academic labor. Fine. With tenure, though, and with the recent threat of moving buildings yet again lifted, I'm determined to actually unpack and make my office my own. In order to help motivate myself to finish the job this time, here is a "before" picture of my squalid office as it looks today:

Awful. Note the generations of dead computer equipment and office furniture underfoot; the piles of papers; and the clutter on every possible surface. I must fix this. Here is my goal:

This is Freud's Vienna office circa 1938. I'm particularly fond of his desk chair. I don't think I'll quite make this goal, but any small steps in this direction are all to the good.

I'm going to try to be very intentional about the things I include in my office, and ruthless about the things I throw out. I have various objets d'art that I've acquired over the years that have never found a home. Some are very nice. Some have more sentimental value than artistic merit. Others are simply too horrendous to be welcome at home and so have been banished to my office.

I've also given up on having my university buy any furniture for my office. Even in times of flush budgets, that has been very hard to do. Now, it's simply impossible. Plus, institutional furniture is always too ugly anyway. So, instead, I will spend a little money of my own here and there to help things along. Wish me luck. I will need it.

Very Modern Times

This isn't new, but it's new to me. It's an updated version of Chaplin's wonderful nonsense song from Modern Times. I like it.



This video has inspired me to show Modern Times in my Marx class in the Fall. The feeding machine scene, the red flag march, the infamous prison cocaine scene, as well as the classic assembly line breakdown scene are all good grist for taking about capital. In the past, I've shown just pieces from this film, but I plan to indulge myself this time time around and watch the entire movie in class.

As a side note, the dark haired woman in the video with the flower in her hair is evidently Dolores Chaplin, Charlie's granddaughter. Nice touch.

Travel In The Time Of Swine Flu

Our three months in Mexico ends today and we're heading home. I'm not sure what to expect from our border crossings today never having traveled during a pandemic before. I assume we will receive some special attention at customs because we are coming from Mexico, although the state of Quintana Roo where we've been has not had any swine flu cases so far. Going through customs is never my favorite thing, but I imagine we'll make it through eventually. More posts once I'm settled back home. Happy May Day!