Dead Academics

This strikes me as odd: Michael Berube's new book Rhetorical Occasions.. Note the cover. Really, really unusual for an academic to make it onto the cover of his own book, even if that academic is as prominent as Berube. Unusual, of course, unless that academic is dead. Creepy.

Oh, and you can go to Berube's blog, where he is probably writing about you even as we speak.

A Tumbler Full Of Rocks

The time was more or less right. We gave up our hopes for burgeoning limbs and set out one-footed into the Westchester lights, the crowd-breath at our back, and t-shirts cut and rearranged as sails. It was summer-autumn, lodged at the top of the turnover point of the day's last second, we teetered, subdividing seconds into halves and halves of halves, until we could no longer resist the fall. It was the quarter of our resurrection and we stumbled forward, the crowd-sighs gliding us forward and forward. The autumn was autumnal, and thus it fulfilled its promise.

Draining the Tributaries

I get off of the train and a crowd from a Queens-bound F Train is pouring down the train. I can feel the wind from the pressure shift, and I wonder if I can catch the train about to pull out of the station, but then also I'm thinking, My God, all of these people have had sex. Ok, not all of them, but like 95% of these people have had sex before - especially because it's around 3:00 and most of the people coming down the stairs look like either the type of people who don't have to work that much (lots of time for sex) or students of some kind (ditto, maybe).

There are a few who look downturned, I'll say harassed maybe, but their harassments are leisurely - these are the harassments of dry cleaning not being ready, or bad service at a restaurant, as opposed to the kind of harassments that come from .gov email addresses. And to them I say, good for you for not being virgins.

Pedagogical Devices

Things I Have Said To My Students So Far This Semester:

1. It's like when you leave the house without brushing your teeth. You know something's wrong, but you don't know what it is until you see the bus coming.

2. I don't want to grade your finals.

3. Because you're late. All the time.

4. Just pretend that Barbara Ehrenreich is a murderer.

5. Yeah, you should check out some Norman Mailer. He's good. And he's an asshole.

6. Ok, well answer this question, then: is it early, or am I just totally boring?

7. No. Nope. Really close. Uh ... no. Yes.

8. Obviously the physical thing is not working out for me.

9. This is the Newton end of things. I just thought you should know.

10. Candid teacher moment. So, uh, are you guys learning anything?