(Off-topic) Postwar hauntings: Dana Andrews and Don Draper

 Reposted from 2013 because this is Dana Andrews's birthday. The original post has a comment by Carl Rollyson, who wrote a great biography of Andrews. 

This is probably truly not of general interest to anyone except old movie buffs and Mad Men fans, so if you're neither, feel free to skip it.

If you think about a postwar character, a handsome, modern, alienated sort of man, one whose dark moodiness occasionally gives way to a smile that masks an inner sadness, you may think of Don Draper. As I was rewatching The Best Years of Our Lives a few weeks ago, it struck me that the actor Dana Andrews is the prototype for this character.  Like Don Draper, he's a creature of the time he's been born into yet always distanced from it. 

Andrews is probably best known as the detective in Otto Preminger's famous noir Laura, where he's a detective in the Raymond Chandler Lite mode--that is to say, cynical, hardboiled, with a few light wisecracks masking a serious attempt to get at the truth. This film defines the Andrews persona of the haunted man: here, what haunts him is a portrait, but elsewhere, there are other memories that haunt him. 

The part that Andrews pays in The Best Years of Our Lives is that of a returning war veteran whose high status as an officer disappears once he returns. The only job he can get is his old job, as a soda jerk, in a drugstore that's undergone a corporate takeover. He seemed to have everything--good looks, status, a bombshell of a wife (Virginia Mayo)--but now there's no place for him in this world. His skills as a bombardier are obsolete. Earlier, we've seen his PTSD, nightmares of a fire on a plane, a dream that he apologizes for. One of the movie's themes is that no one wants to remember the war, now that it's over, but that those who lived it can never forget. 

Near the end of the movie, Andrews  sits in the midst of an airplane graveyard, surrounded by the junked metal that a postwar world doesn't need.  He sits in the nose turret of one of the junked bombers, hearing the sounds of the bombing missions he made and realizing that he's also one of the nation's discards.

His reverie is broken by a voice from the future: the foreman of a construction crew that's turning wrecks into prefab housing. If he wants to live, he has to forsake the past, abandon his old identity, and start a new life. There's a happy ending of sorts for the film, but that haunted look is there to stay, along with the inner torment that inspired it. 

Last days of 2025

• Grades were turned in a few weeks ago, and I didn't get much AI slop, as far as I know. How do I know? Their writing was consistent with what they'd been doing in earlier (in-class) papers and daily in-class writings. 
• What did surprise me were a few students who had clearly dictated something vaguely related to the class into their phones or into Word, didn't read it, and slapped it into Canvas as-is.  I'm not sure whether this meant that they ran out of time and turning in something was better than turning in nothing, or whether they wanted to express a not-so-subtle resentment about the class. 
• How do I know? It looked like the raw results I get when dictating into Word. Word used to do a fair job of transcribing from dictation, but now it is AI-ified and makes a lot more mistakes, such as the lack of tense endings even when I'm clearly articulating. They should just have put "dictated but not read" at the bottom of the paper like the bigwigs of yore used to do with their correspondence. 
• I had vastly underestimated how tired I was from incessant travel and commuting, or rather how tired my brain was, over this endless semester, but I finally rallied to get a piece of writing out the door.
• The Christmas work (baking, shopping, cards, etc. etc.) is all done and was worth it for the result: a happy Christmas with family. And now I have a stack of lovely books to read and a recovering brain to read them with before school starts up again.
• No MLA for me this year. I didn't submit anything this year but hope it goes well for all who celebrate. 
• The first MLA I ever attended was in Toronto (as it is this year), but I'm not in a rush to travel across borders right now. 
• Also, going to each conference costs about $2200, even if I eat granola bars for some meals, and we are funded for $2000 a year. Are we expected to go to more than one conference? Yes. Are we reimbursed for more than one conference? Not on your tintype. 
• At this time of year, do you all review your productivity over the previous year? I spent Wednesday doing that and discovered that I have a lot more notes toward my next book project than I thought. That's hope for the future!

Wishing you peace and joy and happiness in 2026!

Mark Twain, AI, and the "Big Thoughts" Lie

It is Mark Twain's birthday--happy birthday, Mark!--and I am reading, or rather listening to, Ron Powers's biography of Twain as I drive and walk each week. I'm now in 1907, when Twain is basically past his authorship phase and well into his very creditable phase of anti-imperialist writings. And since it is 1907, an epic brouhaha is about to ensue with Isabel Lyon, his secretary/companion whose motives & actions have caused considerable debate for Twainiacs over the past many decades. 

But one of the key takeaways from any Twain bio is just how convinced he was of his own smarts as a businessman and just how much money he lost from that belief, from investing hundreds of thousands first in the Paige Compositor (which bankrupted him), to the miracle food Plasmon, to a new Jacquard loom printer for which there was no market. He would say he'd been a fool before, but this new thing would really work and make his fortune--once it was perfected, of course. 

I'm reminded of this because one of the big tech bro billionaires asserted recently that AI would revolutionize learning because we could teach children to focus on all the big picture stuff--big thoughts--and leave all the random junk like facts to AI. Since AI spreads literal fabrications like Johnny Appleseed on a mission, I thought he was kidding, but no. 

I've heard this "teach kids to reason abstractly and the rest will follow" stuff for 30 years, and you know what? Without actual facts or contexts, they can't draw any "big picture" abstractions that are worth anything. No one can. The reasoning that happens without a grounding in facts and contexts is nonsense.

And since nature abhors a vacuum, metaphorically speaking, we have become all too aware of what happens when we stop dealing with facts, and the news media stop reporting them to become either a mouthpiece of Jeff Bezos or worse. If we don't have facts and teach people how to think critically about the inferences we can draw from them, here's what happens: they make up their own, with "big thoughts" that emerge from their worst fears and impulses. (Insert your own example here.)

But the tech bros and ed tech bros aren't buying that AI can't do it all. As Michael Clune says in The Atlantic, trying to warn us about its limits: 

We don’t have good evidence that the introduction of AI early in college helps students acquire the critical- and creative-thinking skills they need to flourish in an ever more automated workplace, and we do have evidence that the use of these tools can erode those skills. 

There's that pesky word again--"evidence." 

And Charlie Warzel puts it even more bluntly: 

We are waiting because a defining feature of generative AI, according to its true believers, is that it is never in its final form. Like ChatGPT before its release, every model in some way is also a “low-key research preview”—a proof of concept for what’s really possible. You think the models are good now? Ha! Just wait. Depending on your views, this is trademark showmanship, a truism of innovation, a hostage situation, or a long con. Where you fall on this rapture-to-bullshit continuum likely tracks with how optimistic you are for the future.  

 So do we believe our own lying eyes about the effects of teaching "big picture" versus facts, or do we believe the tech bros? Or do we just plunge ahead while we wait for the AI rapture?

Twain believed that the Paige Compositor would outclass the Mergenthaler linotype machine once it was perfected--that is, to quote Warzel, "You think the models are good now? Ha! Just wait." 

TL;dr. At this point, AI in the classroom is the Paige Compositor, and we all now know how that turned out for our birthday boy. 

 

Why I am teaching like it’s 1990: no phones, no bikes, no motorcars—not a single luxury

Whether you recognize my subtitle from Gilligan’s Island or from Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise,” you’re still getting the gist of it: teaching old school style. What does it mean this semester? 

First of all, a disclaimer: my students this semester are smart and eager to learn, so these things might not work everywhere if, as happens to us all, you have a lethargic or uninterested class. But here are a few changes that evoke the 1990s Days of Yore:

• They write something short every day, on paper, and I collect it. I comment on and return their writing the next day, with handwritten comments, though it’s sometimes only a word or two. These are low-stakes assignments, but they (1) help with attendance, (2) provide guidance (through questions) on the kinds of things that are significant in the reading, and (3) act as a springboard for discussion.
• They also present their findings in class a lot, either alone or in groups after discussion. I listen and take notes and comment.
• If it’s not written in class, it didn’t happen. I’ve had a few try to AI & upload their way to an assignment after it’s been written in class, but nope—in class or it doesn’t count. There are dropped grades to account for absences, etc. Also, those in-class assignments aren’t posted until after the class. 
• They’re writing their papers in class, as I mentioned in August and September, and there are usually only a few weeks between some kind of activity or campus-based field trip. 
• Said papers (the final drafts) are printed out and returned with handwritten comments. 
• If they’re doing group or individual work before coming back to discuss something with the class, they can use their laptops/phones to look things up. Okay, that’s not a 1990 thing to do—but I am walking around & talking with them, making suggestions, and talking with them about what’s on their screens. If they don’t want me to see it, they shouldn’t be looking at it in a class space while working on class work.
• Remember transparencies? (Remember what?). No, I haven’t gone back to those, but I do print out passages for class-based close readings using the doc camera and mark it up as we talk.
• And, of course, there’s the whiteboard notes for discussion. Armed with markers and energy, I still make notes on it (recording their comments)  rather than standing at a lectern and doing the same thing on a piece of paper. Why? I’m not sure. It’s something about the space of the whiteboard and moving around in the classroom and darting to the back of it and making eye contact with them rather than with a sheet of paper. I get ideas from them as I’m synthesizing their ideas & asking questions. 

The general idea of all this is that I am engaging with them in real time and real life. I’m paying attention, and I hope that they are as well. If it can be done in person, that’s what we’re doing. 

I’ve explained to them that I’m trying to provide a space where we can talk, and where they can write, without being called to everything else in their lives. It’s busy out there, and there’s a lot demanding their attention. 

So there you have it—my pre-web (though not pre-Internet) 1990 class strategies in 2025. So far, it’s been working. 

Random bullets of September

•  First, the stuff you know: the news has been terrible and keeps getting worse. I thought we were a nation of laws and, you know, checks and balances, but All This is terrifying because laws are for the chumps like us that believe in them. We volunteer, and give money, and I canceled Disney (small victory there, as nicoleandmaggie have pointed out), but nothing's enough right now.
• But the old-school-style classes I set up for this year are going well, so that's good news. Lots of short-form writing assignments and lively class discussions make me want to go to class. 
• Side note: Sure, I can read their handwriting. Back in the olden days they wrote a lot (and longer papers, and more papers) in class regularly, and we all survived--even thrived. It goes against the sacred doctrine of multiple revisions for a paper, but have you ever noticed that sometimes their writing on the essay part of an exam is clearer and more direct and insightful than their out-of class work? I've seen this many times & thus don't worry too much about the sacred doctrine any more. 
• The students seem eager to connect, somehow. They chat with me after class, or when we go on our little library trips, or whatever. It's a human connection that (to me) is welcome after the Covid years. 
• The prep work is astonishingly a LOT. Rereading, prepping, grading, writing assignments--why, after all this time, am I surprised at how much time everything takes?
• I am on the road or away from home at least four days out of seven, and it is wearing me down. All those miles are making me tired. 
•  This means that on days I am not in the car (Sunday, maybe, or Monday if there's not a Costco hunting & gathering trip planned), I don't get much research done.  
• This also means that I'm getting a little testy with comments like "hey, I know what would be good! Let's all meet on [day when Undine isn't on campus] for some community building." Yeah, no thanks. 
• I did one of these extra trips early in the semester because I'd been asked to give a small local presentation, but "oops! we ran out of time! sorry" meant that it was a wasted trip. I'm now more careful with my time. 
• Long emails debating things are a complete waste of time. Have a meeting or shut up.  
• The weather is finally cooling off, so I guess that's the good news for now.  

 So, as Ishmael says--"time, strength, cash, and patience." I wish them all for you in October. 

Ready for another year?

 So, amid all this stuff (cutbacks and much, much worse), are you ready for another year? 

I think I am, despite what I'm hearing and seeing.

1. The AI train has truly left the station. From what I see around the news and at r/professors, there's kind of an arms race going on with professors trying to prevent AI use (white text, anyone?) and students keeping one step ahead of them. If you have an in-person class, the blue book solution is staring you in the face, but aside from that, we just have to figure it out, I guess.

2. Speaking of an in-person class, I'm excited to teach a course in the literature of a previous century that I haven't taught for a while. In addition to having them write drafts and exams in class,  I am devising hands-on activities so that they can really experience reading & writing back then. Think about these: 

(1) library scavenger hunts in regular and closed stacks for copies of the magazines and books that they're reading; 

(2) bringing in copies of the original manuscripts so that they can see and decipher what it looked like when it went to the printer; 

(3) bringing in some stick (dip) pens, paper, and ink so that they can try their hand at writing sans electronic technology.  Maybe they could try their hand at crossed writing? At writing in the style and with the method (pen & ink) of an author? We'll see how it goes. 

3.  Worried about whether the course will have enough students to run? I'm concerned about this, but admin doesn't seem to be, so as my mother used to say (she said it was from George Washington, though I doubt it): "Worry is the interest you get when you borrow trouble." If they give me a little notice, I'm game to teach (though with varying degrees of aptitude) anything except Chaucer or linguistics, so I won't worry about it. 

4.  What's concerning you this year besides the obvious?  

Edited to add: Anne and Gwinne, your comments are there now; sorry for the delay! 

AI is to Writing as Cheez-Whiz is to Cheese (File under “cranky rantsmanship”)

 

Hear me out. I promise you that this is written by a real person, and possibly a Cassandra.

Exhibit A: A long time ago, I had Feelings about the incessant cheerleading for Twitter that first the media, and then colleagues, were going on and on and on about. (That was in the Before Times, before Twitter became Evil X.) My academic compatriots all but posted signs saying "Twitter will save the world, or academic discourse anyway." Now we are all on Bluesky, which alarms right-wing pundit Megan McArdle, she of the "If you're old and poor, sucks to be you" school of economic growth, because there is no profit in it for her, but for a time it did seem that Twitter could be great, and Bluesky, pace McArdle, might get there yet. 

But the point was, the cheerleading was too much, as it had been for other tech that was supposed to transform teaching. 

Exhibit B: Enter the MOOC. Remember them and the quaint old days they represented? They too were going to transform education in all the best ways--turning us into glorified tutors for the MOOC 'n' Bake classrooms we would all be grading for--not teaching, just grading, because that is why everyone wants to teach. UCLA is already going there: an AI + MOOC combination that will transform the world. 

Now to Exhibit C: AI and writing. I've already complained about the mind-numbing effects of reading AI-generated prose and the lengthy knuckling under that the MLA has done in bowing to our new environment-destroying overlords. 

But now I'm seeing professional writers (no names, of course) embrace it as an idea factory. All they have to do is clean it up a bit to mimic their voice and bingo, there's a Substack or blog post. 

I read a few, and the whole "idea factory" thing? Not so much. If that's what ChatGPT 4.0 or Claude or Grok or any of the other idea factories generate what you  consider ideas, then okay. Whatever helps to monetize the site. You do you. If your idea of writing is tweaking some very anodyne non-content, then go for it.  

But all AI-generated prose, in a perfect world, would have a disclaimer: "AI wrote this, so decide whether you want to spend 3 or 5 or 10 minutes of your only precious brain life in reading it." 

Oh, and is it good for your brain to use AI to write for you? Maybe not.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202506/how-chatgpt-may-be-impacting-your-brain 

If you want to eat Cheez-Whiz, it definitely has its uses. But don't pretend that it's a true aged cheddar like you'd eat with fresh apples. 

Same goes for AI writing.