This certainly speaks to my thesis that people would be better off ditching Walden and spending more time reading A Plea For Captain John Brown.
A scholar who, in an early-twenty-first century context and without a hint of irony, uses the phrase "hither and yon" should be forced to spend the rest of his life composing prose on nothing but iPhone.
Your friends' had expectations
This post was typed on a phone, wasn't it?
There was probably a brilliant earlier draft where friends' was correct.
I would fain do my part to correct the tone and punctuation of the bloggers.
Also, Natilo's right: Walden is pretentious rubbish.
Also, the students are just throwing reasons at him and seeing what sticks because they don't feel like giving up their goddamn phones. And neither would I.
They only seem super fearful because they think worstcase scenarios make the most convincing reasons.
To use the common parlance, this guy is a dick.
Faith In A Seed is surprisingly good though. It's like all the sciency parts that should have made it into Walden, but didn't.
I assume this guy is just hoping he can find some hott cell phone picks and evidence of sexting.
Wow. I dunno, Walden is pretty good, and people are obsessed with their phones these days, and the teacher may or may not be a dick, but come on. What's with the hyper-drama about giving up your damned phone for a few days? Is outrage really called for?
7: Because "hither and thither" conforms with house style.
The problem is not books like Walden (and On The Road, and Zen and the Art...., etc); it's the way a certain kind of prof wants to use these books. Just because a book is itself overtly pedagogical dosen't mean that the prof can abdicate their own authority and let so-and-so teach their life lessons to all of us.....
9 stole my thunder!
Really, though, everybody would be better off if that prof would just masturbate in the woods to the sound of his own voice and left his students out of it.
On a different note: I do think interpersonal contact has changed, somewhat. This was really clear the few times I dated younger women (they don't have to be that much younger for there to be a gulf of difference; my peer group left college right before facebook became a huge thing), and I am somewhat ashamed to admit I heard a decent characterization of this on NPR: the younguns seem more uncomfortable with unmediated, focused personal attention. Like, it's uncomfortable if you don't have some blinking typing device you can look at every five minutes, if you're not constantly doing 5 other things while you have a conversation. I think this is sad.
Also, that observation about not needing to be in constant contact with one's friends: isn't that a perfectly normal function of age?
Christ, what an asshole.
Also, 11 would be my first thought, too.
My Android goes with me wherever I go.
This guy is a tool. Nevertheless, having in my pocket the most perfect tool for distraction ever devised has changed the way I think.
I find leaving low hanging fruit around to be picked helps everyone stay in shape.
It's been said, but it can't hurt to say it again: Christ, what an asshole.
The only correct choice would be to give him the phone on the condition that he leave it on, and then call it every five minutes.
5: Sorry about that.
I don't think I could give up my phone for five days unless I had vacation plans. It's the only phone I have. I'd also like to see the reaction this teacher would get from older students.
Really, though, everybody would be better off if that prof would just masturbate in the woods to the sound of his own voice and left his students out of it.
In 2012, the human race comes to an end because the squirrels were driven over the edge.
Also, didn't Thoreau send and receive letters? I kind of wish I'd read Walden when I was younger and it merely seemed dull and boring. As I got older and tried again, it became clear that he's an asshole too.
This post has made me collapse into a quivering heap of mixed feelings, especially if I extend "smart phone" to include "netbook." The thought of giving up my constant drip of mostly superficial human contact is extremely attractive and extremely loathsome.
In one version, I regain my ability to concentrate on text longer than 140 characters and accomplish excellent things, meanwhile nurturing a rich non-virtual social life. In the other, I lie in bed a lot watching Friends reruns and talking to the cat in sentences of no more than 140 characters. And then I die of loneliness and my epitaph has no more than etc.
Shorter this: FREEDOM! HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FREEDOM!
Speaking of experiments in human behavior, David Brooks shows up in the New Yorker with a stunningly empty piece of reporting. When I read this, I laughed out loud:
That's in part because, while Pleistocene men could pick their mates on the basis of fertility cues discernible at a glance, Pleistocene women faced a more vexing problem.
The VELDT for the win!
The "Composure Class"? It's not really worth reading beyond the first few words of the first sentence. Actually, not really worth reading beyond the by-line.
It wouldn't be so bad, Smearcase. There's no reason you have to so limit your conversations with your cat.
My 1st reaction was, this has to be some different David Brooks. I flipped to the about the contributors page and it is the same fool. My second reaction was, I wonder if the fact checkers at this magazine made him cite anything? Nope. the whole thing is almost a parody of his writing. I wonder what he has on Remnick?
meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow #meow
I just looked up David Brooks because sometimes I think I should make a project of keeping track of the most reviled columnists here, who often I haven't really read. Brooks shares my birthday. This is a drag because I do not share a birthday with very many interesting famous people.
I'm with parsimon. The guy may be an asshole, but his students may also be, as the Reverend Spooner would say, shining wits.
Anyway, the author is so condescending that I want to dispel everything little thing he says:
There's no way not to be nosflow a dick about this, but ... is 'dispel' really the word you're looking for, here?
Also,
The thought of giving up my constant drip of mostly superficial human contact is extremely attractive and extremely loathsome.
Yes. I endorse this completely. Except I don't have a cat. And it probably wouldn't be a bad thing, compared to the status quo, if I spent a few days watching (German) TV.
And yes, he comes across as an asshole, but ... I dunno, doesn't this seem like the sort of "Dead Poets Society" stunt we'd think was heartwarming if it were in a movie, with a stirring score and a charismatic lead actor/ress?
The guy's a tool and weakling. I have managed to so arrange my life that even though I have a cellphone, it is never used, because I want to call nobody and nobody has any reason to call me. Now that is "giving up one's prejudices" as in that human contact is ever a good thing.
Oh. And I watched this doc last night on the mad monks of Bad Zitselfritzelberg or sumpin, ain't gonna look it up. The ones with the multi-multi-platinum Chant Pathway to Paradise. Or sumpin. Sellouts and tools, everyone of them, gagging it up on German Oprahs. Talktalk, laugh laugh, console console ping pong volleyball you call that asceticism? WTF ever happened to hairshirts flagellation silence self-entombment?
I have no role models anymore.
33: Never from Robin Williams. Maybe, at a stretch, from Edward James Olmos.
Why is it always English professors who engage in this "I will change your soul/this is more than just a college course" nonsense. Dude just teach your fucking subject.
If everyone gets the extra credit, does it really count as extra credit?
As for the veldt, there must have been some other topography during the Pleistocene. I suggest we start referring to the tundra, foothills, plateaux, etc., on a randomized schedule.
Maybe because the point of studying the humanities is, in fact, to change one's soul?
I know this might seem weird, because 'soul changing' isn't specifically included among the rights attaching to the author of a creative work... ok ok I'll drop it now.
Dead Poets Society is one of those movies I've liked less and less each time I've seen it, or part of it, or heard talk of it.
my 9th grade english tagher had us read the Seperate Peace and i still like it
"younguns seem more uncomfortable with unmediated, focused personal attention. Like, it's uncomfortable if you don't have some blinking typing device you can look at every five minutes, if you're not constantly doing 5 other things while you have a conversation. I think this is sad. "
Nah, olding is always about losing interest in having fun, and being concerned with things being "peaceful"
Mostly I read the backs of cereal boxes. How did such a wholesome combination of ingredients wind up in the same place? Dear reader, you will be astonished.
OT: I like disinterested, aloof journalistic understatement rather more than the next thwarted, frothing megalomaniac Internet commenter, but come on, Guardian:
I told you you'd be astonished.
besides, the phone with the must-have blinkers are blackberries, and those are used by 38 year old suits
You know-it-all whippersnappers would do well to live alone for a stretch in a small cabin by a pond. A pond full of alligators.
hm, on that page was headline "http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/17/tucson-shooting-survivor-arrested-threat"
i'm rather confused about who threatened whom, but it seems shouting "you're dead" and supporting gun control is a crime. I would think people who want wyld weste tymes would consider that just empty smack talk
That describes most of Northeastern Florida, for large enough values of cabin.
Since when do assholes forfeit the right to teach English? Whether or not it's obviously true that we're too plugged in, we're certainly plugged in enough that unplugging would be an instructive change. I like small-stakes, high-difference experiments like this -- the Artist's Way reading fast was a rewarding change, for example.
Since when do assholes forfeit the right to teach English?
Since Cromwell?
I happily give up my cell phone when I go into the wilderness for a week. But in day to day life? No. He should have just rented a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no electricity for a week and challenged his students to live in that.
I wouldn't take the challenge, and I'm someone who barely uses their cellphone (well, I do check the time a lot). But when I do need it, it's invaluable - cf. breaking down on the way to LA. Also, it is my only phone, and I assume it would be for most of his students as well - and that's actually asking rather a lot. So, in sum, while I understand some of you saying - eh, just give up the cell phone - I'm more on the side of "guy doesn't really understand what he's asking of his students."
Maybe because the point of studying the humanities is, in fact, to change one's soul?
Not really. The point is to be taught about, say, English lit. Most humanities teachers are shockingly under-qualified in the applied theology and psychology required to do much about one's soul. In fact, I think I have a strong moral objection to any course purporting to change anyone's soul for course credit --- my soul is none of your business mr lecturer man, and even if in principle this nutbar idea were a good idea, I still don't think he's entitled to foist it on his students.
The anxiety over whether someone else will be anxious on account of your being unreachable is easily avoided. You just put "Going off the grid for awhile" in your Facebook/Twitter/Skype/IM/email auto-reply/voicemail status.
The soul has nothing to do with theology.
Apolo Ono's soul patch doesn't, at any rate.
53: Yeah, I don't really get the anxiety about other people being upset that they can't reach you. That's easy enough to fix.
52: You sound like the end of the Breakfast Club.
Maybe because the point of studying the humanities is, in fact, to change one's soul?
Oh puke.
The point of studying the humanities is to understand how humans express meaning through signs.
(I don't know that I can use that purpose-of-humanities definition for history or law or philosophy, but I'll stick to it for all kinds of lit, performing arts, and visual arts.)
i think it mostly says somehting about about your narcisim if you think people care if you step away for a few days
although really i always read narcissus as a tragic hero more than villiian or whatever the archetype is suppose to be
or is that the wrong message
i read the classics when i was being homeschooled, not under the direction of a Liberal Arts Scholar
Umberto Eco and Ted Nugent gave a joint course on how humans express meaning with guns, that is to say, semiotomatics.
The last line is indeed particularly obnoxious. You will endeavor to give up your smartphone? Just give it up already, dumbass.
Also, in those days, the phone companies actually maintained the goddamn pay phones, and there was no HIPPA law making it fucking impossible to get in to see a sick friend or relative if you weren't right there when they were admitted. For starters.
59 strikes me as a pretty weird definition.
66: Would you like to borrow a rake to shout at the kids on your lawn?
Walden should be replaced with Into the Wild. The lessons are much more practical for today's youth, raised in a world full of safety nets and padded corners, never having a schoolmate eaten by a bear or a sibling poisoned by poisonous things.
It's much more alarming to be poisoned by non-poisonous things.
69: That was a great book, if an unhappy story.
70: Which is why everyone is all worried about peanut allergies.
Not to be confused with Call of the Wild, in which Farley Mowat learns how to effectively mark his territory by peeing.
65 and in general: Just reading the excerpts Heebie's quoted, I'd say the guy is writing humorously, tongue-in-cheek. See this, say:
It did no good for me to explain that there was a time, not long ago, when none of us had cellphones, yet we still traveled hither and yon, we missed friends at parties, and our cars broke down
It's pretty snotty -- condescending, even! -- but I give the guy a bit of a pass since I don't think the piece is exactly intended as serious pedagogical writing. Also I have a soft spot for what I think he intends as gentle mockery ... in response to which everybody seems to be clutching pearls and saying, "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"
Oh puke.
The point of studying the humanities is to understand how humans express meaning through signs.
(A) I'm not sure if I really disagree with you, and (B) I didn't take any humanities classes beyond freshman year 'Human Being and Citizen', but for the sake of anti-comity:
Well, ok, yes. But even if we're talking about how humans use English to express meaning, once we get beyond fairly instrumentally-defined exampes ('pure' writing classes with titles like 'Writing the Essay', &c.) isn't implicit in the choice of subject matter--implicit in their being a class on 19th C British Novels or what-have-you--a judgment that understanding how these authors used this genre to express meaning is, in fact, worth knowing?
What justifies this judgment? 'Changing one's soul' sounds tacky, and it wouldn't have been my first choice of phrase, but I would have thought that there's typically a belief that fully exploring these particular texts--appreciating the full range of ways they function as speech-acts or cultural artifacts or what-have-you--enhances one's capacity to appreciate aspects of The Human Experience.
But like I said, I really have no clue what literature is about. I only just started that Morelli book! (And I don't like the 2nd chapter nearly as much as the first.) The above is just my ignorant-outsider reconstruction of what I assume Teaching Literature would be, in order to be different from, say, sociology-with-literature-as-evidence, etc.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Your natural inclination to expel the contents of your bladder will, if acted on, leave you with insufficient pee to mark the whole of your territory. You must pee with economy.
I showed someone the old AT&T You Will ads, and it was amusing that the piece of futurism they got most wrong was that there would still be phone booths. I wonder how many of this dude's students have landlines?
Not to be obtuse, but if one can't condescend to undergraduates, then to whom can one condescend? Don't say graduate students.
26: I'm recording the first comment here for posterity:
it is actually only partly because of our culture. genetics found out many years ago that male and female brains are sort of preprogrammed trough evolution. man are stronger therefore they were more likely to survive risky endevors like hunting and in general experimenting. females in return had to cover the more manual, monotone and mostly repeating tasks without taking risks (collecting berries).
through this evolutional behavior men just have no fear "breaking" things and women are rather scared of breaking things and try to handle situations on the emotional level instead of putting in risk. a good example is that women are prefered in factories doind repeating work. our brains are just wired like that.
result of those many thousand years of human evolution is the devider in the work space these days. im not sexist or think women cant do a "mans job" but its just precoded and unlikely. if it happens its great but as you see on statistics the evolutional behaviors are true and should be accepted for what they are.
in a couple thousand years those treats will be gone... just gotta wait, fighting for it will not cut it
I'm sure Brooks can fix the spelling errors.
Sorry, that was Never Cry Wolf. Call of the Wild, of course, is about a dog who has no difficulty peeing in the requisite fashion.
Umberto Eco and Ted Nugent gave a joint course on how humans express meaning with guns, that is to say, semiotomatics.
Also taught by Andy Warhol and Dennis Hopper.
'Changing one's soul'
Should be done once every four thousand miles.
Wow, I feel like I learn so much just getting to spend time with you guys. Thanks!
65- I thought the last line was very funny, for pretty much the same reason.
I, too, have prejudices. I, too, have a box of stuff I've been meaning to take to the thrift store. I will endeavor to give up both.
77: I've never seen a machine that scans a whole shopping cart at once and totals up the price. That sounds fun.
If I didn't get on line at least once a day, I would be unable to do my job. And I have the same job this guy does.
If I didn't get on line at least once a day, I would be unable to do my job
I read this as needing to stand in line. Erm, in the cafeteria? I wondered.
But giving up your phone doesn't amount to being unable to go online, right? Now that I think about it more seriously, if the instructor's deal to the students for extra credit involved giving up their phones for 5 days just at some point in the semester (after having made necessary arrangements so that mom doesn't freak out if she can't reach you, and you're not expecting to go out of town for the weekend, and so on), most of the objections disappear.
When I began the experiment, I explained that I, too, had close friends, and that we remained close, in part, because we didn't make a habit of talking with or seeing each other frequently. I see two of my closest friends for only a few days every two years.A guy I know said something similar some time back, to which my reaction was "We clearly define 'close friend' differently." They know you will be there for them if necessary? In my world, a lot of the things that a close friend needs you to "be there" for require you to also have "been there" more often than a couple days every two years.
89.last: In which case, for at least some of us, the whole point of the exercise is moot. If I'm at home, I'm accessible to everyone via email, Skype, etc. Though I'd still worry about breaking down on my commute, but I suppose it's a well-traveled route.
91: I don't think that makes the exercise moot. Modified in that way, how many are willing to do it? For extra credit, baby!
Breaking down by the side of the road is a freakin' drag, man, but one survives. And it really doesn't happen very often.
92: It happens to me all the time, of late. Or at least, about once a year, this year, twice.
And I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this, since I've definitely gone 5 days before without using my phone, while at home. And without any silly challenge.
And the reason I think it makes it moot is that I wouldn't, in face, be giving up any of my connectivity or confronting the problem of being "too plugged in." Thus, it would essentially be a completely meaningless exercise (for me). I can't speak to how other people would find it, but yeah.
in face? I meant in fact. Gah. I better go unplug.
I have no objection to the five days, zero (cell) phones endeavor challenge in general; it's the extra credit in an English class while making up things for dead people to say about cellphones that I find irritating about this. I've had cranky professors who railed about the tyranny of e-mail, but it was understood that that was not part of the curriculum.
I do think it's remarkable how much the phone has changed the way (many) people experience being alone for brief moments in public spaces - like waiting in lines, waiting for transportation, etc. It's particularly noticeable if you're one of the few people in a waiting area reading quietly (possibly on your phone).
i'm more excited about when your fridge reads the embedded chips in the food you brought home, and automatically sends a request off once a week to the grocery store, where robots pick the food you're low on off the shelve, and box it for you so you just have to drive by and pick up your groceries.
96.1: Yeah, making it a function of extra credit in a course seems silly to me, given that it wouldn't be an overwhelming task for me; I guess it just seems less silly in this case if the students really find themselves unable to cope with the prospect.
Since the recent reading for the course had been Walden -- say whatever dismissive thing you like about that text -- the exercise seems apt. It's asking students to actually think about the subject at hand. If they feel like it. For extra credit.
Anyway, anyone who thinks Walden is shit should read Cavell's The Senses of Walden.
Yes, I should say that I think "unplugging" is an interesting exercise, but not in the context of extra credit for a class -- and I think I'd say it has to be more draconian measures to really force a change in perspective.
Maybe I should create an extra credit assignment along the lines of the "Colonial Days" PBS show, or whatever it was called.
Only keeping in touch with good friends every couple of years doesn't seem like a good plan to me. I mean, you don't need to tell everyone everything all the time, but it's nice to have a circle of people who care about you who aren't blood relatives with whom you get together on a regular basis.
It doesn't happen as much as people get older, but I also think that we wind up relying on our romantic partners for too much of our day-to-day emotional support.
98.2: I think I'd rather make then actually get outside. But that's probably bias on my part in regards to what I actually find interesting about the book.
But if I "unplugged" how would I ever finish listening to the audiobook version of Walden?
99.last: Do it! You will be mercilessly mocked, of course, because the point of studying history is ... well, I don't know, but I'm very sure it's not that, you monster.
99.last: I've mentally mapped how I'm going to improvise wood-burning heat in my fireplaceless house after all the fossil fuels are requisitioned to fight the Visitors and before the CHUDs are forced into a coal mining for corpses deal.
But like I said, I really have no clue what literature is about. I only just started that Morelli book!
Wow, so you found a third way to read Hopscotch...
. is 'dispel' really the word you're looking for, here?
It didn't feel right to me, either. I think I couldn't think of 'dispute'.
Those AT&T ads in 77 are awesome.
in response to which everybody seems to be clutching pearls and saying, "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"
Is it really pearl-clutching if you believe someone to be a tedious blowhard?
Yeah, roughly. I'll give up the term "pearl-clutching" if you like. It's the construction of a sense of outrage and affront over something that's actually fairly mild, somewhat amusing, has nothing to do with you, and which you actually said you were initially intrigued by.
Anyway, it's no big deal.
I've been reading Michael Chabon's posts over on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog. Interesting.
My plan is to pull-up the patio pavers for the firebox and use the exhaust pipe from the water heater as a chimney. The chimney would run out the sky light (Sheetrock and plaster covered with tin to keep out the weather) and I could run in fresh air from the garage right into the fire if I wasn't getting enough fresh air.
113: I may be unfairly attributing to Heebie what others said earlier on in this thread.
This is hardly the place to comment on matters that have nothing to do with you.
I thought it was good-natured mocking. Isn't that what we do here?
the difference between getting pants in a bunch and cool reparte is only in the relative status of the two people.
god just stop it.
something that's actually fairly mild, somewhat amusing, has nothing to do with you, and which you actually said you were initially intrigued by
See, if Heebie overheard this professor telling some colleague at the water cooler about his extra-credit experiment, then I might see your critique. But once the professor published it in the Chronicle of Higher Education, he signalled that *he*, at the very least, thought it had something to do with at least some of us. And criticism of written works is sort of the point of publishing those works in the first place. He implies a low opinion of his students based on their response to the experiment; commenters here suggested a low opinion of him based on the condescension of his attitude toward his students.
People seem to be going out of their way to read this in the most uncharitable way possible. The guy teaches Walden; it's perfectly reasonable that he ask his students to think about what self-reliance and disconnectedness mean. He's not talking about changing their souls, he's talking about understanding Thoreau (and it's not as though Thoreau was the only writer to deal with the idea). Given that his students have such a hard time confronting it, maybe it makes sense to present it as a challenge rather than just to ask what they think about it. So some of his essay makes him sound patronizing. Whatever.
Also, what parsimon said about Walden and Senses of Walden.
The sequel to Walden really sucked. You know, the one about the dystopia where people are replaced by malleable automatons, or something like that.
Which reminds me that my high school psych teacher had a weird obsession with the size of BF Skinner's head.
My high school psych teacher had a completely normal obsession with the size of BF Skinner's head.
119: Sure. My biggest gripe with the author is that, while he is critical of his students' resistance to disconnecting, he at the same time fails to fairly examine some of the sources of that resistance. He rejects their reasons out of hand as trivial without much analysis beyond, "Well, that's a silly concern."
Now, as I read it, he didn't offer them the opportunity to choose five days in which to give up the phones but rather made them choose whether or not to give up the phones then and there, on the spot. That's not a reflective retreat to Walden Pond. It's driving Henry out to your lake house without advance notice and then telling him you'll be back in five days. Or I suppose, since they would leave their phones with him, it's like driving Henry out to the lake house and telling him you will be staying together for five days. Whether or not I could live five days without my phone, there's quite simply no way on earth I would hand over an electronic device containing that much personal information to my college professor.
When you're ready for it, Walden finds you.
Whether or not I could live five days without my phone, there's quite simply no way on earth I would hand over an electronic device containing that much personal information to my college professor.
College professors, I understand, are hardly ever tempted to perv on their students' private information.
he didn't offer them the opportunity to choose five days in which to give up the phones but rather made them choose whether or not to give up the phones then and there, on the spot. That's not a reflective retreat to Walden Pond. It's driving Henry out to your lake house without advance notice and then telling him you'll be back in five days.
This is precisely why it's a disingenuous experiment.
it's perfectly reasonable that he ask his students to think about what self-reliance and disconnectedness mean.
Sure. I even did a similar thing when I taught Homeroom For College - we took a field trip and they had to find an isolated spot in the woods, out of sight and earshot of anyone else, and stay put for 2-3 hours. No electronics, just paper and pencil.
... So some of his essay makes him sound patronizing. Whatever.
Right. This is the part I'm mocking.
I would hope that he would have seen to that issue by, say, having them put their phones in sealed envelopes or something. But there's something to be said for forcing the decision instead of giving them five days of their choosing.
Also, some of my students found the experience really unpleasant because of the isolation. Others went to sleep. Others had whatever experience they had. But the ones who hated it, were totally good-natured and polite about the whole thing, and acted like adults about it. (I had them write journal entries where they admitted they hated it.)
That's the thing - his students are basically acting like normal adults who are having a rather disruptive surprise sprung on them, and he's super smug about it.
If you love your smart phone, let it go. If it doesn't come back to you, it was never meant to be yours.
131: The professor was going to shove the phones up his ass and e-mail a picture of it to the kids after they'd gotten them back and used them again?
You take photos with your toothbrush?
132 probably seems a bit less creepy if you recall this.
Disruptive experiences can be valuable educational tools:
The master holds the disciple's head underwater for a long, long time; gradually the bubbles become fewer; at the last moment, the master pulls the disciple out and revives him: when you have craved truth as you crave air, then you will know what truth is.It's probably just as well I didn't choose a career in academia.
At least the CIA taught you more than just a rote skill.
I didn't realize we were educating the Guantanamo detainees.
Not pwned, because I read Moby's comment, and somehow decided to make the same joke again, anyway. I blame growing up as the youngest child.
something something THE BEST something
||Ahahahahah. The Song Remains the Same is on my teevee. Pasty warlock dudes and cheezy head movie fx! |>
What justifies this judgment? 'Changing one's soul' sounds tacky, and it wouldn't have been my first choice of phrase, but I would have thought that there's typically a belief that fully exploring these particular texts--appreciating the full range of ways they function as speech-acts or cultural artifacts or what-have-you--enhances one's capacity to sappreciate aspects of The Human Experience.
Even allowing this --- which I think is a belief that many humanists would agree with, but not all humanities teaching is humanist, and one reason that one learns about Austen (say) is that knowing about Austen is an end in and of itself, without any further issue --- it still doesn't mean that because the class is about changing the soul, any way of changing the soul is appropriate. If you are unable to change your students' souls' through the English literature you teach, you aren't allowed to suddenly start teaching them something else.
I just think it's a wanky thing to do to people (& this particular thing is very wanky.)
141: That's my karaoke song! But I'm told I should probably have a backup because it's, well, a downer.
In next week's edition of the Open-Minded Professor, Dr. Brooks implores his students to stop taking the dismal and noisy bus from home to school. Trust him...it'll be an aesthetic eye-opener to avoid those packed crowds for a week or so.
146: Well I also found "Mad World" really congenial so maybe Downer Karaoke is just kind of my thing.
Oh man for a second I thought "The Song Remains the Same" was Smearcase's Karaoke song, which would be so, so, so awesome.
149: Yes! That totally blew my mind for like .5 seconds.
As I got off my plane tonight my rather aged iPhone would not turn on, which certainly brought this thread to mind. I did find myself somewhat frantic about it (but of course, business trip logistics all planned around having a functioning one). It finally yielded to the 10-second dual button hold down.
Was Thoreau not the archetype of the guy who goes and lives in a cabin in the woods but takes his washing home for his mother to do every weekend?
This 60 year old non-student is chiefly struck by the fact that Professor Shitwit dismissed the concerns of women who were afraid of assault in the same terms as everybody else. Yes, I know that not so long ago young women didn't have cellphones, and you know what, Professor, if they were assaulted in an empty space they couldn't do a damn thing about calling for help.
Ah, the good old days.
the point of studying the humanities is, in fact, to change one's soul?
At which point my inner Wooster splutters "But I don't want my soul changed. I'm happy with it the way it is. Leave the little chap alone, I say."
I frequently spend longish periods (>1 week) without phone reception, and I would imagine that the main anxiety is not that one would miss lots of calls, but that one would not miss any. One would not, in fact, be missed.
not so long ago young women didn't have cellphones, and you know what, Professor, if they were assaulted in an empty space they couldn't do a damn thing about calling for help.
What exactly are you supposed to do with your cellphone in this case?
I've been called by female friends because they're nervous about being attacked while walking home late at night, and believe that talking on their phones will make this less likely to happen. I tend to think (but not say) "yes, but if you're talking on your phone then you're surely more likely to be attacked, because you're not paying attention to your surroundings, and you're holding your expensive phone in an easily-grabbable position". During an attack, you don't really have time to use a phone. After the attack... well, whatever you do after the attack isn't going to stop you being attacked.
You could text pictures of sketchy looking guys before the fact, which would set up an adverse incentive.
It would give a sketchy-looking guy an incentive to protect you, because he'd know that if you got mugged he'd be in the frame for it.
I think the idea is that you've got someone calling the police to your location, so that any attack will be interrupted in a couple of minutes, and hopefully an attacker who knows this will split rather than continuing the attack.
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http://soundcloud.com/smithers_mr/valerie-slow
The pitch change caused by the slowdown is pretty cool.
>
I got fairly OCD about keeping the cellphone handy after that little stroke three years ago and moreso lately since I'm the only one here besides the two obligate carnivores. If I can talk I'd like an early rescue, if I can't, then screw it all.
I don't think I'm quite ready for the "I've fallen and I can't get up!" pendant or internet TV monitoring by my kids. I'd have to do some serious thinking about quality vs length of life if I ever get to that point.
"I've fallen and I can't get up!" pendant
I have an "I've fallen and I can't get up!" pedant. If I'm ever taken suddenly ill, at least I won't have to worry about EMTs with non-standard usage.
149, 150: "The Song Remains the Same" is in fact so not my karaoke song that I had to google it. I'm pretty sure the idea of me singing Led Zeppelin gets even funnier if you've met me.
The English professor sounds like a lonely guy attempting to connect with his students by making them appreciate the feeling of being alone - by making them feel like he does.
My initial reaction was to say something snide about the English Department - they are in some ways the Jersey Shore of academia - but his little challenge did seem to provoke some reflection, by his students, on how deliberately connected they are to society, and perhaps even made a little more real the point that this is a choice.
The article itself was a little light, but as a device to get his students talking, I think the stunt has some promise.
Why yes, I DO know the way to San Jose! Thanks for asking!
Oooh! Oooh! I had an anxiety dream related to this post last night: I was back in high school, as an adult, taking an English class with Mr. Krueger, and he was having us write an open-book essay final about a story from Wm. Gibson's collection Burning Chrome, which ordinarily you would think I would ace, as I have been reading that book for a loooong time. But! In the dream, it was a new story, that came with some kind of remote control thingy. So of course that was the one story that no one in the class had read, and I had to try to read through enough of it to fake the essay in the time alotted. The story was about a woman doing some kind of meat-puppet work, but not exactly like it is described in Neuromancer.
the English Department - they are in some ways the Jersey Shore of academia
This made me laugh, but I'm not sure I get it.
Also, next semester this professor should ask his students whether they would bet on a coin toss: heads, they have to give up their cellphone/pda/device for 5 days; tails, they have to carry around a bunch of other devices from the students who got heads* and respond to ever call/sms/email that comes through.
*Yes, yes, with the fruit and all.
158. The speeded up Otis Redding that the same guy has uploaded makes a nice contrast.
the English Department - they are in some ways the Jersey Shore of academia
This made me laugh, but I'm not sure I get it.
They're mostly fuck-ups and drama queens who contribute little else to their community but senseless provocation.
When I began the experiment, I explained that I, too, had close friends, and that we remained close, in part, because we didn't make a habit of talking with or seeing each other frequently. I see two of my closest friends for only a few days every two years. My students were stunned. I made clear that my friends don't need me in constant contact. At least, they don't need to know what I do every day. Neither do I require frequent updates from my friends, who are secure in the knowledge that, to use the common parlance, I would "be there for them" if necessary. Moreover, when my phone rings, I answer it sporadically and reluctantly, not out of spite toward whoever is on the other end, but because I don't feel compelled to jump when someone else is feeling whimsical. I told the students that I speak with my mother, who lives halfway across the country, once a week--sometimes once every two weeks--and that I like it that way.
Not to get all veldty, but the facebook, skype, cellphone lifestyle is closer to the real back to nature than what this guy is talking about. Humans lived in small tight-nit groups with everybody up in everybody else's business. There are solitary animals but people are not one of them.
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My friend showed up for her 8 am math class this morning, on the first day of school. (She's the instructor.) She was running late, and got there at, say 7:58. Only one student was there.
Friend: Where is everyone?
Student: They all left.
F: Why?!
S: Because of the note on the door.
F: What note on the door?!
(Gets note.)
"English 250 is not meeting in this room at 10:00. It will be in room X, building Y. Signed, Prof Z."
F: WHAT?! This is for some English class!
S: I told them that. They all went over there anyway.
A few more stragglers show up and she starts class. At 8:30 or so, the big group returns, all confused. She gave them a big lecture on ignoring notes intended for other classes.
Holy crap, she is in for some semester. These are seniors. (Who ignored their math requirement until their very last semester.)
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172: The student who stayed should get extra credit for not being an idiot. Which apparently might be a high bar to clear.
Do you sometimes feel there's a case for extremely rigorous selection in American universities. Something like a closed book exam, with questions such as: "This is a map of your body. Use it to find your own arse. (20% credit)"
Finding an "arse" would remove most of the population at American universities. Finding an "ass" might be a little easier....
This is possibly mean-spirited of me, but I would, without a doubt, make use of the fact that they were all seniors in a class they are required to pass in order to graduate. I would turn it into a master class on how not to be an idiot, using the Socratic method in the scariest possible way.
Assuming I had tenure, obviously.
I paid attention in math, but I was probably as oblivious in English class as these kids are in math.
These are seniors. (Who ignored their math requirement until their very last semester.)
I feel bad enough already, you know.
Tenuously on-topic, insofar as it relates to junior person/senior person interactions: my science hero is visiting my university and will be at coffee hour in the hosting department this afternoon. Obviously I should go and introduce myself, but I hate and avoid this part (undoubtedly to the detriment of my career), because what am I going to say? "Remember that paper, where you showed XYZ and established a major field of inquiry? ...That was great." Is this always just hard, or do you all have some way of psyching yourself up for such encounters?
I have no advice at all. I was always shit at that part, too. Definitely to the detriment of my career [I'm not planning an academic career anymore]. But, tasteful arse-kissing does seem to work wonders.
Remember that paper, where you showed XYZ and established a major field of inquiry?
That inquiry? "Where is my math class?!"
I've always been crap at that, too. I know one colleague advises that, at the cocktail hour type functions, she hovers around the buffet which invariable works as an ice-breaker. She also scans the room for someone looking equally lost and awkward and strikes up a conversation with them.
183.last definitely works, and has helped a lot with social gatherings in general. In this case, it's more that it's hard to convince myself that there's any reason this particular woman should give me the time of day.
IIRC, Thoreau dropped over to the Emersons for laundry, food, and conversation, but much of the conversation was the men laughing at the little woman for being so worried about how to stretch the soup. Surely I am embittering this in memory.
Are you doing anything scholarly based on her work? If you can say something like "Your paper X was very influential on what I'm doing -- I probably wouldn't have started working on X' if not for it," I think that's tasteful and flattering.
Well, sort of. I switched fields in part because of her work (though the work that I've actually done in the new field has gone in a different direction), and more generally have been trying to do science the way that she does science. That doesn't come off as creepy? I think it easily could.
There are solitary animals but people are not one of them.
I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man! Melinda was mine til the time...never mind. Sun going down. World spinning round.
187: "I want to do science the way you do science, except I won't be wearing pants."
Or were you trying to avoid sounding creepy?
187: Really not creepy at all!
To begin to approach creepy -- you would have to 1)have been trying to contact her in a variety of ways sounding increasingly desperate and needy and/or 2) started attempting to dress like her and imitate her mannerisms.
"I'm starting a tribute lab and we'll do cover versions of your greatest experiments."
188 could work as an icebreaker. Be memorable, that's the key.
I once yammered about pruno to a fancy academic and left him with the impression that I had spent a certain amount of time incarcerated. He knows who I am, though.
I notice that 195 does not say "false impression."
195: I have colleagues who will from time to time, based on my indigent defense work, introduce me to clients or other attorneys as someone with helpful criminal background. I always feel compelled to clarify "background in criminal *law*."
helpful criminal background>
Experience in aiding and abetting?
Obviously I should go and introduce myself, but I hate and avoid this part (undoubtedly to the detriment of my career), because what am I going to say? "Remember that paper, where you showed XYZ and established a major field of inquiry? ...That was great."/i>
"I loved you in the British Medical Journal! You should be in more journals like that!"
Alternatively, do what I did when I met (one of) my science hero(es) and drunkenly rant at him for an hour about the state of Horizon.
It seems to me that even relatively famous scientists are not, in fact, all that famous or widely adulated, and would probably be touched and thrilled to get a little praise. It's probably best to make it personal -- e.g., your work on X made me switch fields -- rather than just "I think you're great. No, really, so, so, great."
I mean, who wouldn't be glad to hear something like that?
187 - don't think it sounds creepy at all.
Alternatively, do what I did when I met (one of) my science hero(es) and drunkenly rant at him for an hour about the state of Horizon.
It's almost impossible to imagine you doing such a thing!
And from way upthread - yoyo was homeschooled? Yeah, that explains a few things ...
It's almost impossible to imagine you doing such a thing!
If you knew me better, it wouldn't be. Drunken rants are my forte.
Ah - perhaps more !!!!!! would have got the sarcasm across better. See, Unfogged Overlords, smileys are sometimes useful!
Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, internet's lack of irony semiotics!
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. If I wimp out now, I'd have to admit it to the internet, not just to myself; so I'm much less likely to wimp out. Good.
194:Well, I certainly wasn't going to seriously engage someone who asserts that essentialism or biological determinism justifies existing social structures like commanded socialization or Patriarchy. Even though, curiously, nobody else on the thread seem bothered by lemmy caution's explanation at 171.
Rather than waste my time on that, I have been thinking about whether commanded socialization inevitably leads to Patriarchy. Experience tells me it does, but I can't think of a logical, rather than veldty reason that, assuming that people can feel commanded, thereby creating a hierarchy of that which commands and that which obeys, women cannot be the ones that command. But it hasn't worked out that way.
As far as "But I like to be with people", that is of course the kind of place where self-examination to uncover cultural conditioning should begin.
The logic I was working on for socialization leading to Patriarchy went something like this:
1) You MUST be with other people, and like it a lot.
2) 50% of people are men. Command 1 makes no sense if you can exclude 50% of the race.
3) Socialization makes no sense if it is otherization, you must acknowledge other's subjectivity and try to accommodate their particular needs and desires blah blah see Berube's post today at CT.
4) Therefore women must serve men.
(But why aren't men the ones who serve?)
Not what I believe, but then I reject #1 categorically.
Hey, uh, speaking of freedom, there's a reading group happening at PublicReason on a Big New Book on liberalism that, from the first chapter at least, seems fairly interesting. Exciting, huh? I know! Anyway, if you email the guy running it, and say you can't afford the $100 book, he'll email you a copy so long as you promise not to give it to other people & to buy it eventually (I negotiated down to 'if CUP releases a reasonably priced paperback').
internet's lack of irony semiotics
Maybe one of these options will catch on one day.
Stories like the one in 172 make this report's findings, which are already not all that surprising, even less surprising.
@ Gabardine:
People like to talk about things they're interested in, themselves, and usually both. People also like compliments.
Make the compliment sincere - and avoid making it ridiculous ("your work saved my life, my dog's life, and increased the value of my real-estate investments"). And ask about things in which you're both interested. If you love her work, and are in the same field, this should be easy. Also, say a few things that give the impression that you're intelligent.
4) Therefore women must serve men.
Nicely reasoned [temherte slaqî]
Also, say a few things that give the impression that you're intelligent.
Do this by adding "As I was discussing with my friends on Unfogged" to as many of your sentences as possible.
212:Well, quoting out of context with malicious intent is exactly what I expect around here.
But given 207 1-3 I suppose women will serve. I reject #1 but I think the general pattern is to reject #3, that given historical and contingent patterns of privilege and power, women can justly abandon justice as fairness, equal treatment, kindness, generosity, etc blah blah. Schmitt again, distinguishing friend from enemy.
Separation followed by elimination will be tricky, but I hope enough women are studying biology and medicine to create the covert means necessary for success. Especially before the males come up with cloning or stronger social control techniques.
Back to Japan. Wow, a kimono with accessories and maintenance ran about 5-10% of an average middle-class income. Say, #5-10k each plus $1k+ a year. (I often see plotlines where family kimonos are sold to cover rent or medical expenses) Silk, needed to be broken down and resewn to clean. Plus a servant or family to get you into the damn cocoon. Slaves to fashion indeed.
Boohoo, Bob. It's not like anyone could scroll up 5 comments and see the context [temherte slaqî]. Is it malicious to think you're an ass?
Well, quoting out of context with malicious intent is exactly what I expect around here.
Fuck off.
215.4 cont:
And of course, at that price someone middleclass or below will not have many outfits fit to appear in public, which is also what I see in shomin-gekei (1-3). That has implications and consequences, don't go out very often, be very careful about where you go and what you do, etc. Note that cotton kimonos really didn't become available til after WWII, by which time western cotton clothes had become acceptable for workfare.
Married women and matrons were allowed to wear darker colors with more simple patterns, ie, cheaper kimonos. But they are controlled in other ways, it is the eligible young women who needed to be maximally constrained.
The Japanese were so good at this stuff.
As an aside, 207 makes no sense to me, even as a straw man representation. I don't see how #1 has anything to do with #4, #2 is too trivial to mention, and #3 doesn't seem to have any obvious meaning.
Disrupted the thread, though, so there's that.
troll on, brother bob. you're doing the lord's work.
But, the kimono stuff makes me happy that Lord Khaki invented trousers that come out of the washing machine looking more or less presentable.
re: 219
And, of course, depending on the age demographic you are looking at, 2 will be false.
Between Lord Khaki and Sir Boxer, I'm covered from the ankle to the waisst.
What with the holidays, my waist has expanded.
Wow, a kimono with accessories and maintenance ran about 5-10% of an average middle-class income.
This isn't terribly surprising by historical standards. A full outfit of men's formal clothing in 1900 - suit, shoes, shirt, tie, hat, coat - could easily have cost £7 or more, and that's 5% of a skilled worker's wage.
Even better, all the mass production of silk was subsidized and designated for the export market, which inflated the price of artisanal kimonos
So the kimono culture demanded that each be unique, and handmade in houses and small shops. Thus a huge agricultural/employment/business (the general pattern was that a rural village(s) would have silk growers, spinners, hand dyers, etc some families doing both depending on growing seasons) constituency was created that could politically resist any changes in kimono manufacture or culture.
at that price someone middleclass or below will not have many outfits fit to appear in public, which is also what I see in shomin-gekei (1-3). That has implications and consequences, don't go out very often, be very careful about where you go and what you do, etc.
Again, this is pretty much similar to Europe a century or so ago. How many dresses did the typical working-class woman have? How many suits or jackets would her husband have?
229: I remember reading (I can't recall the book) that during the potato famine some families would pawn all the clothes for all but one of the family or all of the adults of the family. Those without sufficient clothing didn't go out.
230: quite. If you were a non-struggling working man, you had your work clothes and your Sunday clothes and that was it. Clothing was a big-ticket item for the Victorian poor. Actually, everything was, pretty much.
128
But there's something to be said for forcing the decision instead of giving them five days of their choosing.
Why? I'm not going to get out the book and look it up, but I'm pretty sure Thoreau didn't have the decision forced on him at a random time. There's something to be said for giving class assignments that everyone has an equal chance of doing (not that everyone will try, of course, it's only extra credit, but I don't think expecting the chance is unreasonable), including people with jobs or prior commitments.
In general this makes me think that Luddism and simplicity are mistakenly conflated. It reminds me of (forgive the analogy) religious nuts who read a 1,400-year-old passage that says that women should dress a certain way, and assume that they must wear that exact style of clothing today, when it would be just as accurate to assume the passage merely means to dress modestly, which merely means not ostentatiously, which varies greatly depending on the culture.
For example, my life is high-tech - Droid phone with me wherever I go, check facebook fairly often, my main hobby is a MMORPG - but I have no kids, no debt, a social life centered on one significant other and two platonic friends, and a 9-to-5 job that's not very demanding, so if you think about it my life is really very simple. Thoreau would be mystified by it, but that's just because of the modern technology. Phaedrus' motorcycle would also have baffled him. My life was even simpler when I was single, but you know, I don't regret most of my time with my girlfriend.
And Thoreau went to Walden in 1845, so I'm pretty sure he didn't have a cell phone to turn off. For two years he avoided politics and left his usual career to do work that didn't require interaction with people other than close friends or buying and selling stuff. The professor's no-cell-phone challenge looks like a very superficial way to replicate that.
Shorter version: I agree with, um, almost everyone here, but for slightly different reasons.
re: 227
Yeah. Wouldn't even be that far off 5% of minimum wage now assuming a moderate level of quality, and it wouldn't surprise me if the average clerical worker [not on minimum wage] has more than that invested if you have a couple of suits and a range of shirts and ties. You could easily spend £500 on a suit, some shirts, an overcoat and a decent pair of shoes without even troubling the upper reaches of Marks and Spencer's range.
I don't regret most of my time with my girlfriend.
The gig for Hallmark is still going well, I see.
233: How many clerical workers wear suits and non-crappy shoes? This could be some kind of U.S./U.K. misunderstanding on the meaning of "clerical," but I rarely see a clerical worker in a suit.
For example, my life is high-tech - Droid phone with me wherever I go, check facebook fairly often, my main hobby is a MMORPG - but I have no kids, no debt, a social life centered on one significant other and two platonic friends, and a 9-to-5 job that's not very demanding, so if you think about it my life is really very simple.
I agree that simplicity should not be equated with being low-tech.(1) But I don't think simplicity should be equated with luxury, either.
(1) Out of respect for General Ned Ludd and his Army of Redressers, I will not equate being anti-technology for Luddism.
re: 235
It might be that khakis have colonised UK offices, but when I worked in a bank, and when I worked in a call centre (doing techy stuff) I had to wear a suit. I haven't worked, except for brief contracts, in a commercial company for a decade so I don't know what's standard there. These days I work in an academic office environment, so people wear whatever they like, which ranges from standard khaki trousers + shirt, through to all kinds of nerd-wear.
Meiji Japan had a HUGE development problem, in that the West was already developed, and it was grotesquely unprofitable to build a domestic steel mill when the US would sell rolled steel so cheaply. Private entrepeneurs wouldn't play (samurai clans managed the gov't industries). What to do. Gov't , of course. How to finance it?
Build the infrastructure to make the traditional and artisanal economy more productive (railroads, fertilizer, banks) and then tax the living shit out of it. And agricultural, land, consumption taxes did fund Meiji Japan.
But still not enough market to create a domestic steel (machine tool, shipbuilding, etc) industry. Silk and rice don't need steel. Railroads never more than 10% of budget.
Military spending ran around 50% of Meiji and Taisho, and the wars created the impetus and inflation for the spurts of modern industrialization.
all kinds of nerd-wear
"I do feel that the breastplate sets off the cargo shorts and black socks, yes, thank you. And all of my hats are octagonal, so how would you have me avoid that outcome? Mmm."
...all kinds of nerd-wear....
[Reference to Cory Doctorow, the wearing of Utilikilts of.] [Allusion to Jughead's hat.] [Recollection of "Nerd Stigmata" game at New York Comic-Con: point values to Venom T-shirt, neckbeard, fedora, Road Warrior chrome shinguards on Harry Knowles-esque shins.] [Wrap-up: nostalgia for eyeglass frames now co-opted by urban hipsters.] [Nerd weeds d'antan tag to close.]
237: I've never worked for a commercial company (except in the warehouse), so that might be it. When I worked for the government (15 years ago), nobody below management/professional levels wore a suit. Nobody told me what to wear and I had no obvious examples. My office was only women except for another guy who started the same day I did. Everybody working near us was clerical and unrelated to my work. I wore ties as a way to say "I'm not a clerk."
235: I think by "clerical" ttaM means "office worker". In which case, yes, you probably would be expected to wear a suit.
re: 241
I worked for commercial companies off and on* from age 16 till about a couple of years into graduate study. In pretty much every place suits were standard, although a pair of formal trousers and shirt and tie would have been fine in all of them, you wouldn't have needed to wear the jacket. I was junior management part of that time, so would definitely have been expected to wear a suit jacket much of the time, too. Most of those work-places trousers would have been dark, rather than 'Gap khaki', although if someone told me that had completely changed I'd believe them as I've no recent experience.
* a small IT contractor, hardware support, a bank, techy call-centres, any number of short term contracts doing IT support or development work, some DTP and clerical temping, all kinds of shit.
re: 242
Yeah, I meant office worker in general, rather than just 'secretarial and filing.'*
* which would be an anachronism now, I'd have thought?
What the last series of posts should demonstrate is the ways the economics and politics of kimono culture (etc), with a carefully modulated modernization to create a surplus then massively taxed to control consumption, financed the Meiji/Taisho industrialization, with the military as the consumption market.
Thus we can say the oppression of women enabled war.
I work in an office where I have absolutely no contact with customers, or really with any non-coworkers except the people from other offices I nod to in the hall as I walk to or from the bathroom. Yet we have to wear business casual, which most of us believe is simply so our boss has an excuse to buy the clothes she likes. Other similar offices within the company don't have the same standards, just aren't allowed flipflops or offensive t-shirts. When I manage the office, it's always casual Friday.
When your blog comments are all 100% off-topic, and you refer to them as "posts", it's time to start your own blog.
Here, I'm going to avoid talking about both kimono culture AND war by saying something anyone who cares has probably already read on my blog. Mara had her speech delays tested yesterday. She came to us in October measuring in the 8th percentile for her age, though we and that evaluator suspect that may have been a little low since she didn't want to participate in that evaluation.
She had no problem keeping up with yesterday's evaluation and we're so proud that she now tests in the average range. She's still on the low end and has some trouble spots and so she will be getting speech therapy, but it's been so cool to watch her language blossom. And we've gotten there without having to go all Tiger Mother on her, too!
You can get the same results as 1 Tiger Mother with two Wolf Mothers.
She had no problem keeping up with yesterday's evaluation and we're so proud that she now tests in the average range.
That is so great -- I was thinking that what you said about her sounded dead center normal for a three-year-old, but it's got to be very pleasing to have that confirmed by an expert.
246: I define a casual Friday zone around myself. For court, I wear suits (I need to buy a new winter suit -- I'm down to one that doesn't actually fit properly), but I figure that if the difference between business casual and the random (not actually stained or torn, mostly) shit I wear can't be described in a rule-based fashion, it's not my problem. This is why I will never get anywhere.
You can get the same results as 1 Tiger Mother with two Wolf Mothers.
One Wolf Mother achieves good results, but has a 50% failure rate.
Yay Mara, yay Thorn!
Re: the high costs of 'acceptable' clothing, I must say that one of the things I found most striking about the Ch4 adaptation of 'Any Human Heart' (bought for an Anglophile roommate; found it entertaining, though essentially a shorter, lower-quality, far more sex-focused 'Dance to the Music of Time') was how it portrayed the main character, having fallen on hard times in the 70s or so, eating dog food at his kitchen table while still wearing full tie/vest/etc. I mean, I get that this is someone struggling to maintain his upper-middle-class respectability, but still. Odd, to my eyes.
249: Ooh, do you have advice on how to figure out what kind of mother you are? How many hedgehogs equals one wolf? Or was that merely a Wolfmother joke? That would be okay, too, though I wouldn't get it.
250: She really perked up her speech fast, but she started out at a level that was obviously way too low. I went out of my way to not know what was normal and just nurture whatever she was doing, and that seems to have gotten her to normal.
Lee was baffled that my policy is that I don't particularly enjoy being at work and thus resent being expected to look good and wear nice clothes there. If I wanted nice clothes, I'd want them for the times I enjoy. And I do kind of want nice clothes, but not enough to go through the pain of shopping for them.
253: I saw a movie with a character like that in the mid-50s, who had people visit him in his apartment, where they were both surprised that he had running water, and surprised that he didn't own a top hat.
when I worked in a call centre (doing techy stuff) I had to wear a suit. I haven't worked, except for brief contracts, in a commercial company for a decade so I don't know what's standard there.
There's a techy call centre across the corridor from my desk (open plan) right now. At a quick glance, the men are wearing anything-but-jeans and open necked shirts, and the women are a whole degree better turned out. Also much better dressed than their immediate managers, although top management make a bit of an effort.
Really nicely made suits are lovely things. If I had the money I'd be quite happy to spend it on a couple of really nice ones, but yeah, it's great not to have to wear one.
As a rule of thumb, I'd say you're expected to wear a suit in an office job if you're EITHER dealing with the public face to face for much of the time OR pulling down more than 25K. May work differently in London. Another country.
which would be an anachronism now, I'd have thought?
"Clerical worker" in general is a bit of an anachronism, surely. I believe "desk jockey" is the preferred nomenclature. As for nerd wear, Think Geek is the motherlode.
I have a belief -- whether based on reality, I don't know -- that there is a European vs American difference in the quantity to quality of clothing ratio. That is, Europeans will spend much more on a given outfit, but have many fewer of them, whereas Americans have more, but cheaper, clothing.
The idea of clothing as a basically cheap and insignificant expense (unless you're needlessly purchasing luxury) is even more recent than the same belief about food.
Go Thorn family!
Also, men's business suits around here are basically an obsolete costume for certain professions -- lawyers when in Court or depositions, talent agents, funeral directors, and very few others.
re: 261
I don't know how true that is, tbh. A lot of people I know buy semi-disposable clothing from places like Primark. Even people who can afford to spend more. OTOH, I know that as I've gotten older I've slid from what you describe as the 'American' approach to the 'European', but I expect that's a standard part of approaching middle-age. I spend much more per item than I used to, and my wife forces quite expensive shoes on me.
re: 260
Yeah, that was sort of what I was getting at. Clerical tasks have been sort of subsumed into general office work with the rise of the PC. Although I'm probably out of step by referring to white-collar non-management jobs in general as 'clerical'.
lawyers when in Court or depositions, talent agents, funeral directors, and very few others.
Salesmen? Along with the fake tans and assisted hair?
men's business suits around here are basically an obsolete costume
Remind me where "around here" is?
but I expect that's a standard part of approaching middle-age.
I've actually gotten scruffier as I've gotten older. I should probably stop the downward slide at some point before people start thinking I'm homeless.
re: 268
I dressed quite flamboyantly in my late teens and early 20s. Then largely cheap and fuctional clothes since. But the last five or six years I've started spending more on things like jeans, shoes, and jackets as they i) look nicer, ii) last longer, and iii) come in a range of sizes to fit the fact that some bastard appears to have been feeding me pies while I sleep. I'm sure I still look scruffy, though. I do like nice things, though. If a lottery win happened I'd be swanning about in tailored clothes.
some bastard appears to have been feeding me pies while I sleep
Me too! I fucking hate that guy.
267 -- El Pueblo Nuestra Senora La Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula.
some bastard appears to have been feeding me pies while I sleep
Ah, the dreaded Pukkubus.
If a lottery win happened I'd be swanning about in tailored clothes.
I have scads of them all picked out. For everyday wear, it would be dark gray Yohji Yamamoto. I used to know a fair number of serious fashion people (people who made clothes, not fashionable people per se), and they swore up and down that Yamamoto's cottons were so awesome and well-made that you could throw them in the washing-machine. That is my kind of luxe. Also to purchase post-lottery: washing-machine.
Yamamoto's cottons were so awesome and well-made that you could throw them in the washing-machine
I'm obviously revevaling my deep ignorance of high fashion, but that seems like an odd standard, insofar as it would imply that Wal-mart's cottons are also so awesome and well-made.
What sort of cotton can't withstand a washing machine? I thought that was one of the primary draws of cotton.
some bastard appears to have been feeding me pies while I sleep
I haven't encountered him, just the secret head shaver.
If I were rich I wouldn't spend much more on clothes, just food, wine, and travel. And rent.
I haven't encountered him, just the secret head shaver.
They're in a Union, so that only one of them gets to attend to you and any one time. You get the other one later.
274.--The kind that you make fully lined three-piece suits out of.
re: 277
Buggers seem to be alternating with me, although, to be fair, I don't seem have to have gotten much balder [touch wood] in the past 10 years or so, after a sudden visit from the phantom barber around then.
some bastard appears to have been feeding me pies while I sleep
You think that's bad? I keep getting pregnant.
Buggers seem to be alternating with me
That's OK - makes it harder for the backache gnomes to book a slot.
279
Buggers seem to be alternating with me
So close to a really great typo. What a waste.
258: 25k in sterling is more than $35k, but still well below the income where you are likely to have to wear in suit anywhere I've ever lived.
278: oh, that makes sense. I'm completely unfamiliar with cotton as a material for suits.
284: What with having taste and all.
280: Sorry, my fault. I'll stop.
If you ever get a chance to fondle a high-end Yamamoto cotton suit, you may change your mind, Moby. They're incredibly thick, soft, and durable. I forgot the other part people said: you could throw 'em in the washamachine---and they'd still look like new for ten years.
That's what I hear, anyway. Fucked if I know from personal experience.
If I have to hear about this cotton one more time, I'm going to Ya Mo burn this place to the ground.
"Yohji Yamamoto cotton suit" (not in quotes) turns up nothing in google. (I mean, there are plenty of hits, but none of them appears to be a Yohji Yamamoto cotton suit.)
This is as close as I found, which, yeech.
290: And "Yamamoto suit" (also not in quotes) got me a couple of nice Yamamoto suits that were wool and a very cheap (sized S/M/L) cotton suit.
I'll stick to wool and, for variety, wool/silk blends.
Anyway, fighting a general trend toward not giving a shit, I've started buying sport coats in an attempt to improve myself in the most superficial way possible.
Sports coats and changing my socks every day whether they need it or not.
What I'm saying is that you may have been dreaming, JM.
293: If you get the ones with suede patches on the elbows, your IQ doubles instantly. True story.
Wait. This is something called a "romper suit", that is indeed 100% cotton, and it's pricey enough that I'll assume it's very nice. It doesn't look like anything that I would instinctively call a "suit", though.
296: Do they still make those? I haven't seen them in a while.
If that's Dsquared2 it really looks a lot unlike Dsquared1. Of course it may be Mrs Squared...
He did say he'd lost some weight about a year ago.
I won't be able to compete with that, so I'm going to go get some Swedish Fish.
Look: lots of suits. There were definitively a bunch made of cotton as of, uh, eight years ago.
Those did not look like suits to me. But, I have very little idea what women's suits are made of.
I still think that wearing a jacket with a dress or skirt doesn't necesarily mean you are wearing a suit, regardless of fabric. You need something a bit constructed (is that the word?) before you have a suit.
I'd like to add that I actively hate expensive clothing.
I have two cotton suits, both of them very stylish and excellent for hot weather. Unfogged proves itself to be, as ever, insane.
I was sort of wondering what had happened to seersucker and twill, both very respectable suiting fabrics.
I'm completely unfamiliar with cotton as a material for suits.
You've never visited the South in summer? (In fairness, ubiquitous air conditioning has made them rather less common these days.)
Actually, I might be totally wrong about that. Linen isn't cotton, who knew.
311, 312: You really have to have been born in the South to be able to pull that off correctly.
I wouldn't call seersucker "cotton". Even if that's technically correct, in a sense.
You could try this one to start out, urple.
316: I would like to know the sense in which seersucker isn't cotton.
Even if that's technically correct, in a sense.
In what sense is seersucker not cotton?
You really have to have been born in the South to be able to pull that off correctly.
There's a country club Yankee WASP variant as well.
I wouldn't call seersucker "cotton". Even if that's technically correct, in a sense.
You know, sometimes you're having a kind of lousy day, and then something just brightens it right up? Don't ever change, urple.
320: O.K. But, though my dad did have one seersucker suit, I can't say that he ever looked particularly comfortable in it. We weren't (aren't) southern, Yankee, Anglo, Saxon, or Protestant.
Seersucker isn't cotton in exactly the same sense that a yacht isn't a boat.
my dad did have one seersucker suit, I can't say that he ever looked particularly comfortable in it
Was it made by Haggar, by any chance?
324: so, seersucker is cotton, is what you're saying?
No. He also had (probably still has) a green suit. For St. Patrick's Day.
326: well, yes, technically. That's what I said. That's what it's made from. But it's also something distinct from cotton. You could clearly make two piles of things on a table, one of which was "cotton" and the other of which was "seerscuker", and no one would be confused.
The yacht thing was probably a bad analogy, since i'm not sure exactly what a yacht is.
no one would be confused
I'm pretty sure this is wrong.
To put it another, more direct way: you'd never walk into a store and see a rack of seersucker suits being displayed as "100% cotton suits". Even though it's technically correct.
329: I'd be confused. It's as if somebody said here is a pile of "apples" and next to it a pile of "fruit".
If somebody said they had a pile of seersucker and a pile of denim or terry or broadcloth, then I wouldn't be confused.
You could also make two piles of things, one of which was "clothes" and the other of which was "pants," and no one would be confused unless most or all of the "clothes" happened also to be "pants."
To put it another, more direct way: you'd never walk into a store and see a rack of seersucker suits being displayed as "100% cotton suits". Even though it's technically correct.
333: But, then you might have colors that bleed. Instead, one pile should be whites and the other dark.
I like pointless arguments as much as the next person, but it isn't like there are seersucker fabrics made with different fibers. If somebody says something is jersey, you don't know if it is wool or cotton or something from an oil well. But, to my knowledge seersucker is always cotton.
I'm not sure what 334 was meant to show? It's being sold as a "Double-Breasted Seersucker Suit", not a "Double-Breasted Cotton Suit".
Beneath that it's also described as a "A 100% cotton, unvented, navy-and-white seersucker suit with pleated trousers." That's all helpful additional information, especially since not all suits sold as "seersucker" are 100% cotton. (For the link-shy, the "seersucker" suit at the link is 54% silk/46% cotton.)
What if you made a pile of suits, and next to it a pile of seersucker suits, and you labeled the two piles "suits" and "seersucker", respectively? Did I just blow your mind?
but it isn't like there are seersucker fabrics made with different fibers.
I would direct you to the link in 337.2.
You guys sure do know a lot about clothes!
339: You get the strange exception now and then.
It's like taking a seminar in here! I just learn so much every day!
"What is Seersucker? .... Seersucker is made of cotton fibers, or of cotton blended with fibers such as linen, rayon or silk."
I will agree that this is a pointless conversation, but I'd like everyone else to concede that it's a pointless conversation in which I'm right.
343: Notice there is no cotton-less seersucker.
If 345 was intended to make me want to scream into a pillow, it was successful.
Just to play Devil's Advocate here, I see what urple is saying: while seersucker is made from cotton (and apparently, it's only mostly made from cotton), he thinks of it as distinct from cotton in general. As far as I know I've never worn seersucker, but I can see what he means; cotton is used in several different kinds of fabrics, but I wouldn't have guessed they included seersucker until this discussion. So lumping seersucker in with cotton seems as odd as lumping yachts in with boats one thing of a class with a very different form and function from most of the rest in with everything else of that class.
So, categories are distinct based on how ill-informed people are.
347: urple is often misinformed but I don't know that I'd call him the devil.
337.2: That assemblage of garments doesn't look like a suit to me.
Seersucker, like gabardine, is a weave, not a fiber.
Also, there are plenty of shops near St. Peter's where you can drop a lot of money on clerical garb. Your fellow desk jockeys might be surprised to see you turn up for work in a Roman collar, though.
346: A down pillow or a feather pillow?
Also 347 is correct.
Cotton, is what Wikipedia says. Clearly, somebody is using the name "seersucker" to sell fabrics that aren't all cotton, but that that doesn't change the history in which seersucker was cotton.
Silk seersucker is hard to find, but not a new thing. Not newer than my grandmother, anyway.
More detail on the weave.
Thread's dead, but w00t. Got to talk science with the amazing researcher for half an hour.
Did you ask her to define seersucker? But really, congratulations. How did you start the conversation?
Just said that I wanted to introduce myself and that I had a question for her. It was a good question, so we were off and running. Not exactly high drama, for all the preparatory angst.
It's nice to have the schmoozing work based on what you're both overtly interested in, instead of bizarre lifemanship status games.
348
So, categories are distinct based on how ill-informed people are.
Yes. And really, if a misconception is common, isn't the real problem that people who don't share it are overly-informed?
I think Megan McArdle would sign on to 361.
362: I think Megan McArdle would sign on to 361.
Noooooooooooooooooo! You didn't google-proof! Don't you know referring to her is like saying "Bloody Mary" three times into a mirror in a darkened room at midnight?!? Quick! Everyone make the sign to avert the evil eye.
Actually (my sense of humor about her is not yet in place), I don't google-proof her because if she wants to see references to herself, she's welcome to see mine.
The google hoo-hole is terrible for unfogged, anyway.
wait asilon what does homeshcooling explain?
also, i think cotton is terrible for summer. Linen and wool (in fresco weave, or lightweight undergarments) is the only thing slightly comfortable. more expensive though
Seersucker is also woven from linen and rayon, both of which I imagine would be mighty comfortable in summer.