Ciao, Bella!

UPDATE: read my review of the Winter's Bone soundtrack over at Night and Day, the Spectator's Arts blog.

Yes, I am off to Rome today assuming all goes well. I have my boarding passes printed and surely I will be all packed and ready (!). I am not taking a computer with me (gasp!) except for Ianto the iTouch (mostly so I have music on the flight). So, I'm not sure how much I will be online. So I'm going to put the Twitter feed here as that's an easy way to check in and if I can, you will see what I am up to. I'm returning late on the 9th and I'm sure I will have much to share upon my return. Arrivederci, America!

Entertainments

I'm the guest today over at Amber Polo's WordShaping blog, talking about why I write in the fantasy genre. Drop by and leave a comment! Amber is a fellow Broad. I always find it interesting the things I figure out when interviewed. A lot of things never get articulated until somebody asks you a few questions. As we all know, I have to be prodded a bit to talk about myself.

Yesterday I dropped off my mixed-media art piece, "The Square Root of I is I." Here's a little preview of the piece sitting in the midst of clutter on the table before I packed it up to take to the Arts Center. I understand at present the idea is to put it on a pedestal. They're going to be hanging the exhibit tomorrow, I believe. While dropping off the piece I ran into my colleague who's also in the show. He has an installation that will require him to be there for a few hours at a time, being a writer at his desk. I am far too lazy for that kind of thing. I am looking forward to the opening event on the 28th. I will wear my beret so I fit in.

On Thursday -- in addition to a fabulous lunch with Crispinus (thanks for the map of Roma!) -- I headed off to see Rasputina in Hudson. This was my first visit to the newest incarnation of Club Helsinki and I have to say, wow! Swank! We got there early and had a tasty dinner and a front row seat. I was fascinated by Melissa Bell Dawn Miceli's drum kit which incorporated a djembe, tambourine and bells along with the bass drum and tom. She played the whole set with big beaters and gave a unique sound. Founder and guiding spirit Melora Creager introduced each song with her clipped delivery and dry humour. While the idea of a guy playing with the band seemed unthinkable, Daniel DeJesus showed amazing facility and his cello meshed perfectly as a complement to Melora's. It was no surprise to find their new songs like "Snow-Hen of Austerlitz,""Calico Indians" and "A Holocaust of Giants" intrigued with historical references and their signature ethereal sound, though with more of a "tribal" vibe, largely due to the drums and percussion. What really struck me was the covers, because they really highlight the uniqueness of Rasputina's style. Their rendition of "Wish You Were Here" has an amazing quality of longing that's entirely dependent on the warm cello strings. It is impossible to convey the sheer delight in their rocking version of "Barracuda" -- the cellos sounded like hoofbeats. It was amazing! And they out-mooded the Smiths with their rendition of "How Soon Is Now?" A delight through and through.  Voltaire opened the show with his unique brand of gruesome humour. His new turn toward kid's music and country music left a kind of disjointed feel to the set.

 I think it was fate on Friday night: I had an embarrassment of riches offered to me that made it hard to choose between. I was saved the need to choose by unexpectedly having to spend my Friday night in the emergency room at St. Peter's.

Don't worry: I'm all right!

I had gone to my doctor with a pain in my leg that's been there all week. Not so bad, but the leg had swelled up Thursday night, so I wanted to be sure it wasn't anything alarming. The doctor thought the same thing, but as it was already late afternoon when I finally got in and no imaging places were open.  The only option left to get an ultrasound was the ER. The folks at at St. Peter's are quite friendly, but they're also very very busy. Of the three hours I spent there, a large part of it was spent sitting on a stretcher in a hallway because there was no room available. I didn't feel too bad when I overheard the nurses talking with a (clearly much loved) doctor who used to work there who was waiting on a room for his wife. If he couldn't get a room, there were no rooms to be had for sure, so I sat on my stretcher and read Trollope on my iTouch. Several people referred to the ultrasound as "the doppler" so I was amused to think they were observing the weather in my leg. Surely something will come of that. In the imaging suite, someone was listening to "Imagine" which seemed apropos. The scan showed nothing alarming, so that was a relief, though it took another half hour or so before the doctor finally told me what the doppler-driver had already told me. So it may just be a bad muscle strain. Wrapping my calf and knee has seemed to alleviate the pain somewhat -- elevating it, too, rather than sitting hour upon hour at the computer :-\ also a good idea. I'll check back with my own doctor tomorrow. It should be fine.

BitchBuzz: No Girls Allowed

Yeah, you may have already guessed -- or seen -- my BitchBuzz column for this week. It's up early, in fact I shot it off to my editor while I was [cough] not attending the faculty meeting. Hey, I had pressing news to cover! Considering the quick hits it got, I'm glad I did.

Hat tips to pals Brad Brooks, who told me about the Start Trek connection, and to Dan Shea, who gave me an awesome quote to steal on Facebook (hey, maybe it can go in your tenure file):

I'm sure they did a lot of testing, but I just can't believe there was no woman on the team or at least one in an important enough position to say, "No, no, hell no!" when it came to naming it the iPad.

Read the rest, as always, at BBHQ. I have meetings in the morning, so maybe I'll post this now. Having got my column done early, I did a little reading tonight. I have Chris Anderson's Free out from the library, recommended to me by several folks. I find myself nodding a lot at what he says. We're undergoing a fundamental shift in our culture -- our culture in the global sense. At times I get a glimpse of the answers about where it's going, but it's just out of the corner of my eye. Exciting times we live in -- difficult, confusing and changing at an incredible pace, but exciting all the same.

New Media and My Life

The big announcement today was Apple's new tablet computer. I suspect there were no women on the design team, or else it wouldn't have ended up with the name iPad (on a related note, a trending topic on Twitter: iTampon). I was teaching at the time of the announcement and joked with my students about how hard it was not to just pop open a window on the computer to see how the press conference was going. So one of them came up and the end and showed me the news story on his iPhone. Gotta love it.

I'm teaching the Writing for New Media course. We do a lot of our assignments on line, so if you want to follow along, bookmark our blog. I'm hoping to learn a lot from them about their interactions with new media. My focus has been on what they actually do and not on what they think they ought to do when in class. For example, one student asked about using Wikipedia. I have colleagues who ban any reference to Wikipedia, but let's be realistic: students are going to use it. Why not teach them how to use it thoughtfully? For example, examine the results at different times to see whether -- and how -- the entry changes, determine what sort of sources have been used to establish the information, and whether there are controversies made explicit in the entry.

In the end, it's not about the information: it's about having the intellectual tools to critically examine it.