The Big Day

I expect there will be very little in the way of communication today -- perhaps the occasional burst of annoyance or alarm on Twitter or Facebook, but not much more. It all must be dealt with today. So I've got my kick-ass on and I'm ready for disaster-solving.

Of course I'm writing this from the relative luxury of yesterday because I am a Time Lord (or else I just know how to set posts to appear at a later time), where I can take a moment to say thanks to everyone (because I ache all over and it feels good to sit down for a moment). Thanks to everyone who helped (hopefully today that means Bertie is up here), who had brilliant suggestions or calming words as the need may have arisen, who listened to my endless whinging on Twitter (>_<') and everyone who took things! Grateful, grateful, especially grateful to Barb and Catherine for duty above and beyond with the precious things.

By the end of the day Kipper should be adjusting to his new foster home; he's a tough guy despite his pampered lifestyle. After all, he was tossed over a backyard fence as a baby, so it's all good since then. I should be down in Hudson with my two bags, computer and kantele, quite likely getting a nice meal from my brother and solace from Connor who will probably be licking my face as I fall asleep (I am so tired) perhaps even in my dinner. But all this will be done (oh yes, yes, it must).

I will miss all my friends in the area so much! Sad to be leaving you for a time, but so very happy that I have such wonderful friends to miss. And you know I'll be back -- all my stuff is here!

Kipper Help!

At the eleventh hour, I need to make new plans for Kipper's care while I am in Ireland. If you can help out, please email me! He's seven, very timid but very affectionate once he gets to know you. He's a cuddler and completely an indoor cream puff. I had hoped to save him the trauma of a long flight since he's been traumatised on the rare occasions he had to be in a car -- and that was with me right there beside him. Argh. He's been an only cat for some time, but he was fine with Maggie when she was alive (she, however, was less thrilled with the big guy who could stand over her!). My pal Barb has offered to take him, but she has a couple of dogs (including Oisín the Irish Wolfhound!) and we're not sure how he'll be with dogs. Any help, let me know. I am grateful.

A Song for You

Actually, a song for me. Something to sing while the endless packing continues. Just a few more days, just a few more days -- where did all this crap come from...

Looking forward to tonight at the Point! See you there.

BitchBuzz: Should Writers Abandon Social Media?

Three guesses what I'm going to say -- what's that? You only need one? Yeah, go on then. Read it anyway:

Should Writers Abandon Social Media?

By K.A. Laity

Is social media getting to be too much to manage?

This week over at Publisher's Weekly, Andrei Codrescu castigates the use of social networking as a complete waste of time. His interactions with his 5,000 "friends" has left him bitterly disappointed, complaining that "the camaraderie utopia of Facebook and every other social network is just pixel puff, literally a u-topos, the nowhere place where data bots work overtime to reduce you to a brainless consumer" and further, it's "nothing but lies and fake grins," so you can't even get good material out of it.

Codrescu declares, "The time has come for writers to become inaccessible again." Not, he says to cultivate a mystique, but because "no real writers ever lay down anything real in public." Anis Shivani's "New Rules for Writers" (which may or may not have been "satire" as belatedly claimed) likewise suggests avoiding publicity and shunning crowds. Writers need to be solitary iconoclasts: not a good match for social media. Most writers, however, are not likely to follow their urging because social media still offers the best way to get the word out in an ever-expanding market. But many do feel a sense of exhaustion from keeping up with everything.

Read the rest: http://tech.bitchbuzz.com/should-writers-abandon-social-media.html#ixzz1CuWn5VbU

Codrescu ought to have looked around a little more, because apparently "real writers" do "lay down" something real in public, especially when they think they're talking between friends (h/t Simon Mason) and don't expect their words to be lifted from Facebook and printed by a newspaper. You may know how to use the privacy settings, but does everyone you know know?

And Codrescu? If you can't get good material out of Facebook, you've really got to get more interesting friends. I'm surrounded by passionate, funny, knowledgeable and fascinating folks who inspire me. I love the internets!

--and have you checked out the latest pages of JANE QUIET? Awesome work by Elena! We finally gave the new arc a title, too.

Twice as Fast

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

I shall now attempt to run twice as fast...

Sorry for being so quiet lately: I am a victim of my own fabulousness. I'm hoping that by the end of the week I shall have a couple of things sent off and will be able to relax a little more.

Ironic

Today in the New Media class, we're talking about blogging. I, however, have nothing to blog. Instead I already have a bunch of grading to do, teaching to prepare, schedules to finish working out for the rest of the semester (now incorporating visits by prospective new faculty -- hurrah!), a proposal to get sent off (also hurrah!), a website to update, a meeting to schedule, and a mind to recover in the process (ha!).

And though I thought it was over, there are a few more hours to vote for my voodoo zombie western "High Plains Lazarus" in the P&E poll. Short stories are not the most lucrative market, so this may be the most I 'earn' from this one until I can turn it into a novel (it's in the queue, but the queue gets ever longer).

So I leave you with a link to a story in The Saint Rose Chronicle by one of my students from last spring's version of the New Media course. Good to see she continues to pursue her interests. I take credit for nothing.

The word "ironic" still makes me think of that song. You know the one -- the one that's not actually ironic.

Time

I woke up with this song in my head. Tick, tick, tick; is it already the middle of June? Must find a way to stay here...

Weekend fun with the Brookses: Sophie and I played footie in the back garden because the air is full of World Cup fever here. Yes, we even watched the England-US match (very poor!); well, Liz and I drank some wine and giggled a lot while Brad watched it. Fun!

Anxiously Waiting

At present, it looks like the flight is on. We shall see things develop as the day rolls on. I realise that I never got a new camera after breaking the viewing screen on mine last summer. Hmmm. In the meantime, here's my theme song for the flight.




Wish me luck.

London, Books and Catching Up

After all the stress of getting away from the snow, it was a relief to get to London and sigh with happiness. My favorite place in the world. So much to see and do: unfortunately, almost all of the pictures I took were for my friend Darlene's second grade class, who gave me a Flat Stanley and a disposable camera. Stan had fun in Kensington Park and at the usual tourist destinations, where he ran into an Irish Stan near Trafalgar Square, so they got their pictures together. Consequently, here I offer you a picture from last year (still lovely).

I'll do a proper round up (I hope) once I'm caught up: Van Gogh, the V&A's new medieval wing, Richard Hamilton, JG Ballard inspired CRASH exhibit at the Gagosian, Sir Ian in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Jane Bown at the National Portrait Gallery, the Argentinian film, La mujer sin cabeza and comedian/magician Jerry Sadowitz. In between was a lot of pub food, beer and idling -- well, a lot of it was work-related, like meeting with my editor and brainstorming. Also I was planning for the student trip in May, so while I'm in the habit of always making myself sound like a loafer, I did accomplish things.

Lost in the shuffle -- I was guest blogger over at Unbound, where I wrote about bibliomania and my plans to cure it. Please drop by and leave comments! Also see Adele's terrific write up of the Writing Industries Conference.

While frustrating at the start -- and a little bit at the end (those three dread words, "rail replacement service", meant a bus between Hammersmith and Osterley; status computers going down meant that the employees were bored, so gave a lot of complete searches at the gate; and seated with a gaggle of teens for a seven hour flight is always lovely), it's always worth it.

I love London.

Facebook Philanthropy & Mediocre Mush

My latest column for BitchBuzz contemplates whether Web 2.0 is a failure. I know, I know -- I am a real booster of Web 2.0 interactivity and trying to get people on line, but the results can be disappointing when that pack mentality gets transferred to the digital world:

Has Web 2.0 failed?

It's supposed to be the break-through moment, when the web frees us of our chains and allows children to hold hands across the world and sing songs—at least virtually.

More people are online than ever: Facebook is the single biggest time suck out there for people with computers and more sign up for Twitter every day. You can sit down to your keyboard and have the world at your fingertips.

But not everyone thinks this is working out for the best. The Guardian interviewed web guru Jaron Lanier this week, who was talking about his new manifesto, You are Not a Gadget. This self-described digital optimist was one of the earliest promoters of the possibilities of the web, but now he finds it mired in a kind of "digital Maoism" that flattens the efforts of the truly inspired into monotonous product and noise...

As usual, read the rest at BBHQ and if you have time, leave a comment (or share it on your blog or Facebook, or retweet it). Help get the buzz going.

I'm hoping to get my own buzz going -- keep your fingers crossed that I will be off on spring break today. With the weather, I'm not so sure. I'm supposed to fly out at 6pm tonight. Let's see if that happens...

By the by, Happy Birthday, Pirate Bob :-)

Ring Ring Goes the Bell

Classes begin tomorrow; as usual, I face that fact with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Just like the students, I prefer to be on holiday. Every new semester makes me wonder if I know what I'm doing.

Birthday boy Robert (Happy Birthday, again!) says the same thing he always says, "Make them stand on their desks and tear pages out of their books," because apparently Dead Poets Society is the only thing teaching means to him (yes, he does work at Bard).

As usual, I regret not making a better use of my time off. I figure there's got to be some way of getting around the whole need for sleep thing; I did find that drinking tea all day while I wrote did lead to not sleeping, but it was not a very productive not sleeping. Some sleep is required.

I have a course release for heading up Women's and Gender Studies; that "free time" will likely be eaten up by preparation for our conference in March. I'm teaching the Medieval Texts on Film class and also our brand new, never-before-taught Writing for New Media class. Another experiment; why do I do this to myself?

Yes, there's a new episode of The Mangrove Legacy: Alice learns the exciting history of the ghost, Miss Wychwood. Drop by and read for yourself. It's a fun Sunday ritual to dive back into the strangely Gothic adventures. I hope you continue to enjoy it (yes, Cranky -- looking in your direction).

Wish me luck -- we all need it on the first day of classes!

Midpoint

I'm midway through the most stressful month of my academic career, so this is why I have been a little neglectful of the blog (though I've been on Facebook and Twitter plenty). I wish I could be as relaxed as Kipper, but in between teaching my classes (including a grad class and a team-taught course) I'm reorganizing the Women's Studies program with a new name, new certificate and some events to get us back in the public eye.

Then there's the whole tenure package: due October 1st, this includes all my evaluations from both faculty and students for my time at Saint Rose, my CV and a letter which explains why they should give me tenure and (in my case) promotion to Associate Professor. While much of the package is assembling things that I (hopefully) already have, that letter is a very difficult piece of writing that has to boil my twelve page CV down to the essentials for a committee of scholars who know nothing about the kind of work that I do and explain succinctly why it's important and what I've accomplished and why they should value my work -- without putting them to sleep with excessive length.

Easy, right? And if I fail -- well, I'll be looking for a new job.

Good Stuff

Thanks to Lisa and Lori, I had my first visit to Capital Q Smokehouse, home of great BBQ in the capital region after the usual Tuesday at Mahar's (the best bar in the world). Wow -- some very tasty brisket, cornbread, coleslaw and home fries. Good sauce, too. Huge portions, of course, so there's a lot left over for tonight, too. Lori is returning to North Carolina the end of the week, so she will be missed -- although we will probably have months of continuing to chuckle over Lisa's "rack" remark...

And ages ago I meant to put up this picture of the lovely finger puppet The joey Zone sent me of the fabulous Oliver Reed from the Hammer film The Curse of the Werewolf. Gorgeous, ain't it?

Second day of teaching: the bookstore did not get my texts in for the sophmore medieval course and now I find there's a new edition of the Broadview anthology due to come out the middle of this month. Argh! Meanwhile deadlines continue to nag at me -- just grateful Monday is a holiday. I know the semester's just started, but I need it!

Back to School

Yes, the dread day has rolled around again -- the beginning of the semester. I'm half joking, of course. It's always good once it starts, but there's always so much nervousness about the semester before it starts -- how will the classes be? how will I be? have I lost my touch?

Add to the usual stress the fact that I am now officially director of Women's and Gender Studies (and all that entails, including a bunch of things that need doing now) and I am applying for tenure -- package due October 1! -- and well, it's a more heavily freighted first Monday than usual. This semester is all medieval, including my sophomore level gender in medieval course, the upper division course I'm team teaching with my History colleague, Jenise, and the grad medieval class.

So much to do!

Wrapping Things Up

Well, that's the theory anyway. I tried to get important things done today -- when not running off to see Robert's new cottage and have lunch at Mexican Radio. I had papers and posts to grade, email to which to respond, reviews and short essays to write, blog posts to keep up with (eep -- not exactly doing that now), but my flight's not until 6pm (why was I thinking 4pm?), so I have a bit of time tomorrow. Anon -- too tired at the moment (and no, not packed yet).

I'm supposed to be guest blogger at Sia McKye's blog, but I haven't heard confirmation from her that she received my post, so we'll see.

Crazy Haste

The next interview will be up later today; naturally, I have all the interviews at home while I'm here on campus and running like mad today, because I plan to head down to Bard to hear Liz Hand read between my classes. I will be announcing a new writing gig later this week. I just got interviewed by the Schenectady Daily Gazette regarding Watchmen, which I suspect will NOT result in a quote because I can't seem to learn to talk in sound bytes (work on it, work on it). There's a new podcast interview with Moore by the folks at Disinformation. Gotta run --

UPDATE: Gaah -- too much snow. Didn't go to Bard, waah!

Phoning

Why does telephoning make me nervous? Always has. I've been putting off a phone call that I was actually looking forward to having -- it's just that the idea of it made me nauseous, so I delayed, wrote more questions and thought, "maybe tomorrow."

But I did it! At last I did. I'm sure he didn't notice how strangled my voice sounded. He was quite charming and pleasant.The interview itself won't happen until February March because they both have to be there. I did manage to run both Skype and GarageBand, so I could test the recording tech -- worked fine.

Yes, I am being a bit mysterious, but I'll tell you about it afterward. It may be a bit of a hint to say, thank you again, Pádraig! I owe you big time.

Vote Today!

I don't usually focus on politics, but today all USA-ians have the opportunity to change our country and our influence on the world. It is your duty as a citizen to get out there and vote. Of course, I have definite opinions about who are the best candidates, but my haranguing you here won't affect your vote. I will say that I'm voting to end the horrors of the last eight years, a culture of deceit and cynical war-profiteering by old men who can't remember how many houses or factories they own, who show contempt for their fellow citizens and got us mired in an illegal war based on lies and personal aggression.

I am tired of fear-mongering fools who use their own mental faculties to disparage intellect and education, to the extent that the education system in this country has reached a crisis of over-management and discouragement to both instructors and students. I despair at a nation that values the arts so little, obsessing instead about their own fifteen minutes of shallow fame.

Vote! Your life, your job and the survival of the world may just depend upon it.

I should have known better...

Yes, I was a glutton -- three medieval classes in one term. I should add, I'm teaching three medieval classes with at least two different textbooks, so I am teaching some of the same texts in different translations (as if conveying the complexities of different parts of the Middle Ages were not hard enough!).

I can't tell if it's more perplexing to teach the same text at the same time with very different translations and aims (medieval lit for non-majors v. gender in medieval lit for sophomore majors) or the same text at different times -- so I always catch myself saying, "Did we already talk about this? No? Oh, well -- let me explain..."

My third class of the day -- the upper division one -- bears the brunt of this exhaustion and inevitable confusion. I'm always making them laugh as I get stuck stammering on a word, because suddenly I've lost the one following it as my mind races to check:

1) is this the right text?

2) have we already covered this?

3) am I confused because I said something similar in the previous class?

4) or was it in this class last week?

5) and now they're all staring at my sputtering and thinking I'm crazy!

I generally recover quickly (I can always vamp on just about any medieval topic for a fair space of time until I recall where we're supposed to be) but I'm beginning to think the Medieval Texts on Film class thinks they've signed on with a lunatic. Fair enough.

Nonetheless, it's better to have this embarrassment of riches (teaching the field I love and have been trained for) than to be stuck with the dread thousand year survey. In my last position, I had to cover the class that lumped together everything from early Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry to transitional Anglo-Norman texts to Chaucer and the late Middle Ages to Elizabethan drama to the English Civil War to Restoration drama and the roots of early journalism. In a semester!

It's like having a huge banquet and a half hour in which to eat it. You can cram your mouth with stuff, but you won't digest a lot of it and you won't even get to taste some of the signature dishes (I am so not going to teach Spenser! Just not qualified). You get the academic equivalent of heartburn.

Why do it? Often it springs from a desire to teach 'foundations', the explicit recognition that all writers stand on the shoulders of the giants who have come before. But it also devalues those foundations with the suggestion that a mere semester of running through that thousand years will sufficiently acquaint students with the complexities of these wildly varying texts and cultures. The often unspoken assumption is that the students can then be ready to move on to the 'important' (i.e. post-1800) texts -- argh! Medieval literature is not just 'background' for modern literature.

October Country returns...

I will put aside for a moment the anxiety I feel that my Halloween cards are not even conceptualised, let alone ready to send (HA HA HA). Instead I will think of all the lovely fall colors beginning to appear -- more slowly up here, but much further along in Connecticut. I can't get over how beautiful the leaves are there -- more colors than I remember anywhere else. I know Vermont is supposed to be the foliage queen, but Connecticut wins every time. As we drove through the Berkshires back to New York, you could see the palette shift and change, growing darker and more green.

It's the time of year Dark's Carnival returns and you think, maybe this year you'll run away and join up. What could you do? Maybe a juggling act -- or performing as a geek, or maybe once you join you'll find that there's something weird about you that you never acknowledged before. Something that will make people stare, something that will provide a living as the carnival moves from town to town, old hands slipping away into the darkness as new recruits join up. Doesn't matter -- they've always been there, even if they just arrived last night.

The bonfire of dead autumn leaves perfumes the air. It's October again.