Schadenfreude or woman-hating? Naomi Wolf and the big mistake

2/26/21 Naomi Wolf is even more bats**** than you might have thought. Forget I ever said to give her the benefit of any doubt.

Content warning: False, crazy conservative lunacy about "nanopatticles" (sic). All I know is that if Apple can do this plainly bananas thing (spoiler: they can't), (1) people will be lining up to go and (2) it will cost $2000 more than the competition, because Apple. 

FALSE FALSE FALSE.

 

11/09/20 Updated to add: 

Forget what I said. This idiot (Naomi Wolf) has just once again proven that she’s a complete tool by protesting protective measures in the midst of a pandemic, and she deserves no attention or grace at all. None.

First, I already know this: #notallwomen

But Selina Meyer, the hilariously foul-mouthed VPOTUS on VEEP, had this to say when her staff tried to get her to say what she thought "as a woman":

“No, no, no, I can’t identify as a woman! People can’t know that. Men hate that. And women who hate women hate that, which, I believe, is most women.”

You watch VEEP and you like to think that she's kidding.

And then Naomi Wolf, who goes by @DrNaomiWolf [now naomirwolf] on Twitter, makes a gaffe, and you see what happens.

Now, I hold no brief for Naomi Wolf, whom I've never read or even read about except for seeing her name. I probably should, but I don't. Sue me.

Anyway, today she made a mistake.

A big mistake: https://twitter.com/naomirwolf/status/1131539758486827015

Short version: in an interview with the BBC to promote her new book, which argues that the number of gay men executed for homosexuality was undercounted in the 19th century, the interviewer, Matthew Sweet, called attention to her misunderstanding of a term:

When she went on BBC radio on Thursday, Wolf, the author of Vagina and the forthcoming Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, probably expected to discuss the historical revelations she’d uncovered her book. But during the interview, broadcaster Matthew Sweet read to Wolf the definition of “death recorded,” a 19th-century English legal term. “Death recorded” means that a convict was pardoned for his crimes rather than given the death sentence.

Oops. But the discussion that I saw unfolding on Twitter was gracious, with Wolf acknowledging her mistake and Sweet being gracious in return.  

It was altogether a model of how to behave. Yes, bad scholarship needs to be corrected. Yes, we need standards. I agree.

And then Caitlin Flanagan got into it to pile on the hate.   https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1132005856495702021.html

I used to read Flanagan in The Atlantic, so I wasn't exactly surprised, but somehow this ad hominem attack confirmed that she had drunk the Internet hatred Kool-aid.

You get used to attacks, from the ridiculous faked video of Nancy Pelosi that right-wingers created and that Facebook won't take down, to the "likability" test that has people, chin in hand saying, "Hmm, that Elizabeth Warren. Did you know that she wants to make money? You just can't trust a woman like that."

Maybe Wolf deserves to be dragged in this way for reasons beyond bad scholarship. Don't know. Can't say.

My point is this, though: Could we please stop proving that VEEP is as accurate with its bleakly hilarious view of who hates women (everyone) as it is about how the political system works?

Updated to add: Just read this about Naomi Wolf's career of truthiness and, okay, I get it now. 

Chronicle Forums feature going away

First question: Did you know that The Chronicle's Forums feature was going away? It is.

https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,264325.0.html

The Chronicle is moving to a new set of technologies to power Chronicle.com. While there are many upsides to that change, one downside will be the loss of support for our forums. The software that powers these forums is about a decade old, and we won’t be able to continue them after we upgrade to our new technologies. Those changes are scheduled to take effect in the fall of this year."

Second question: Do you care that the Forums feature is going away?

I kind of do, actually.

The Forums had some good advice, especially on jobs and teaching. I never posted there, but I did read them sporadically over the course of many years and even got to recognize the personas of the various commenters there. Yes, they were a clique, and they could be less-than-welcoming to newcomers, but they did have information.

The comments had been going down in number and relevance over the past year or two, probably because of some shakeup that only the regular readers were privy to and possibly because they'd already answered the questions that people had x1000. How many times can you tell people "Apply for the Damn Job (AFTDJ)" or tell them that search committees take forever to reach decisions? It was valuable, though.

Occasionally they'd refer newbies to the search feature, which was so beyond terrible that I referred to it here one time as a Ouija Board rather than a search feature. Tell the truth: have you ever been able to find Ms. Mentor on the site except by accident?

The Chronicle's move is probably part of the broader trend toward getting rid of comments; IMDB did it, remember, and so have most newspapers. On sites with comments, the Internet is like a Mr. Hyde Kool-Aid that people drink to release their vicious, base, and uncaring selves. You can supply your own examples without too much trouble.

Every place now wants to move the discussions to Facebook, the better to enrich Mark Zuckerberg and track our data for our overlords. But not everyone is on Facebook, and if we are, we know we probably shouldn't be.

(Side note: Facebook is the Diet Coke of the Internet. We know it's bad for us--heck, a guy at Costco the other day said "that stuff is terrible for you!" as I loaded a case into the cart--but we can't quit it entirely.)

Anyway. As each online space rises and gets destroyed in its turn (and I am an Old who remembers Usenet), there are two constants:

1. There's an airline-like consolidation that herds us into fewer and fewer spaces where we can be more intensively scrutinized and monetized.

2. There are fewer and fewer places to be multiple people--that is, playful and irreverent in one place and a Serious Professional in another.

Off-topic: a PSA about dementia in the elderly

My mind isn't on writing right now; it's about dealing with the last of the family members with dementia (the other three are now gone).

• Fun fact #1: you can beg, wheedle, and cajole the elderly person about signing a power of attorney (PoA) or living will or doing advance planning to help them with financial matters and decisions over the course of a decade, but if they get stubborn (they will) and furious (they will), they will flat out refuse. You will hear "I'm in charge of my own money and still pay every bill on time and always will and my mind is as sharp as ever." It isn't, but at this point they will not sign and there's nothing you can do about it.
• Fun fact #2: there's a stage of dementia when the person is still competent to sign a PoA but suspicious, stubborn, and paranoid, so good luck with #1. After that stage, of course, the person becomes more agreeable but isn't competent to sign a PoA.
• Fun fact #3: you'll see a stream of nurses, doctors, and medical assistants who will ask the person things like "Do you still drive?" "Of course!" "Still do your own cooking?" "Of course!" and you'll know that none of this is in any way true. 
• Fun fact #4: if nurses and social workers have said that the only safe place for the person with dementia is assisted living and a drama-loving family member has filled the elderly person's mind with Dickensian visions of it as The Home where residents are fed gruel, how likely is it that the elderly person will agree to consider such a step? And the elderly person ("sharp as a tack!") has total control over their finances, so good luck with that.
• Fun fact #5: If the elderly person has moved over a thousand miles away from every member of their family, can you guess where your airline miles and family bank account are going to be spent during repeated crises?
• Fun fact #6: You will feel like James Bond as you strategically disable things like the car and the stove in ways that the elderly person will not notice (you hope). 

TL;dr #1: It takes all the brainpower, cleaning power, and energy of one fully capable adult human being every day to keep a person with dementia going--all the doctor visits, phone calls, medications, and hours of conversations, not to mention keeping the elderly person from smoking near the oxygen apparatus that keeps them alive.

TL;dr #2 There is a miraculous pillminder  that locks and dispenses the right medication at the right time, because the person with dementia will otherwise spend hours rearranging medications that could kill them if they take too many. If the meds are in an openable pillbox, they will snap at you ("I know what I'm doing!") if you protest the rearrangement. The miraculous pillminder takes away all the arguments.

Anyway. I do love this person but had to express a little of what's been going on. I will probably *poof* this because it's not on topic. Sorry to be so gloomy, but thanks for reading!

Writing inspiration: Robert Caro, time, and age

I know I've written about Robert Caro before, but I'm about to dive into On Working. Here's a roundup of recent articles by and about him:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/01/magazine/robert-caro-working-memoir.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/the-secrets-of-lyndon-johnsons-archives 

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/15/713413916/biographer-robert-caro-on-fame-power-and-working-to-uncover-the-truth

First, a tidbit: Caro writes in longhand and then on a typewriter:

It's because of something that was said to me at Princeton by a professor, a very courtly gentleman, Southern gentleman, who was my creative writing teacher. Every two weeks we'd hand in a short story. I was in his course for two years. For two years he gave me high marks, but I always did these short stories at the last minute. ... I would always start at the last minute and just type, because I could write very fast.

At our last session, he hands back my short story ... and he compliments me, and as I'm getting up to go he says, "But you know, Mr. Caro, you will never achieve what you want to achieve unless you stop thinking with your fingers." ...

But when I quit to do a book, and I began to realize how complex the story of Robert Moses was; I said I must make myself think things all the way through, and the slowest way of committing your thoughts to paper is by writing in hand. So I write three or four or more — sometimes I write a lot of drafts in hand. Then I go to my typewriter and that's how I write.

 Now the age part:

As with George R. R. Martin, at some point in every interview, the interviewer comes up with something like "Mr. Caro, you're 83 and still projecting your next book on Johnson. Don't you think you ought to get a move on?" The one from the NYT is this:

What does it mean to know that there is a group of people out there having the somewhat morbid concern that you might not finish your book before you die? It’s hard to avoid that. Every time someone does an article on me it’s there.

Caro's response is basically this: "You've got me there, but really, that's your problem."  In other word, the process of writing takes what it takes. He's got 99 worries but mortality isn't one.

It's not so much that he's advocating slow writing for its own sake; instead, he wants to get it done the way he wants to get it done.

As I get back to writing after a month of various elder care crises and chaos, I find this comforting.

Handwriting and Cursive Handwriting: Once more, with feeling

The New York Times reports that cursive handwriting is making a comeback, and the headline is this: "Cursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment. Now It’s Coming Back."

I've written (though not by hand--hah!) on this blog about handwriting and specifically cursive handwriting, most recently in response to Anne Trubek, who has a lot of strong opinions about it. 

But I have a few issues with, well, this issue.

First--you see what I did there in the title?

Writing by hand is not writing in cursive.

Writing by hand means making marks on a piece of paper (or with an Apple pencil on an iPad, or whatever else isn't typing). It can be printing letters rather than connecting them. It could probably mean shorthand.

Cursive is a subset of handwriting in which the letters are connected. If I could draw a Venn diagram in Blogger, it would show a little circle inside a big circle.

Second,  what's the evidence?

The evidence is that writing notes by hand, not writing notes in cursive handwriting, is what helped students learn back in those studies done earlier in the century. Cursive may be faster to write, but it's not a defining factor. It'd be nice if students learned it, but no classroom has 18 hours a day.

Figure 1. My precious.

Third, there's an ominous political tinge to all this.

Now, I happen to like cursive, and yes, I think that, like languages, music lessons, and unpaid internships, it will become a class marker to separate the haves from the have-nots, if it hasn't already. I also like fountain pens. I mean, who wouldn't like to write with those beauties in the picture?

And yes, it'd be great to have students who could read cursive so that they can read letters from ages past, or letters from their grandparents, or handwritten notes on graded papers. (If they can't read the last-named, they will have a hard time in my class, but so far, no complaints.)

But the idea that they have to be able to read cursive in order to read the Declaration of Independence or other documents from the founders--well, those documents have been in print form for quite some time now.

Figure 2. Go ahead. Tell us what it says, cursive-reader.

And the idea that "Magna Carta" was "written in cursive" is kind of like saying that a tiger is a cat. Technically, yes, but its being written in cursive isn't as much of a stumbling block as that it is written in Latin, which the NYT doesn't mention. Let's not even get into the varieties of handwriting, like 5th-century Uncial or secretary hand, which have to be learned as a separate skill.

There's a fantasy going around now in conservative circles about how if students can read cursive, we can just get back to the originary documents, including the Constitution, written in cursive, that will mystically reveal extreme right-wing principles about how God hates the poor, the rich deserve to be richer, etc. and other principles dear to the GOP heart.

I do like cursive. I am glad it is being taught. But I don't agree with the reasons now being touted for teaching it. 

Figure 3. Something about "all men are created equal" seems to be missing from the reasoning of some state legislators who promote cursive handwriting.

Time management and the confetti bomb

Gwinne and Dame Eleanor have good posts up about time management and schedules and also links to people who write about time management and schedules. ("fabulous SHU" and "GetaLifePhD" and "Raul Pacheco-Vega" are three of them.)

Such charts! Such beautiful, colorful charts! I hunger for their time charts.

But then reality sinks in. As xykademiqz described so eloquently (and I posted, too), charts are not for the likes of us INTP types. And even if the MBTI is invalid, I'm claiming that it is because it fits.

Figure 1. Leuchtteurm1917 or . . .

For now, I'm sticking with the ex post facto method: the black notebook, in which I record what I'm actually doing, with a to-do list in the right margin, rather than how I think my day might unfold. I also keep the Excel spreadsheet for writing and noting events.

It's gotten so bad (or good) that if I do anything mildly work-related--write, read, grade papers, answer emails (especially answer emails)--I grab frantically for the black notebook to write down the time.

If I work, it's in there. If I waste time, it's in there. At least I know what I was supposed to be doing, because of the to-do list.

Figure 2.. . . Moleskine? Name your poison.

This is where the confetti bomb comes in. Suppose you're sitting in your office, as one does, grading papers, as one does, and keeping to your color-coded grading block.

Then, if you're a person in the world, and especially an administrative person in the world, someone walks in and says, in effect, "Congratulations! Here's a juicy, complex problem that it will take many phone calls, meetings, and a lot of thought to solve. Oh, and it needs a solution now."

That someone heaves a confetti bomb, which then detonates all over your desk.

Now, you could say this: "Now is my SACRED WRITING TIME or SACRED GRADING TIME or MY ORANGE BLOCK! Can't you see that it is my orange block and not a confetti block? Go away immediately. My chart says you can't be here."

Or you could do what most of us do.

Get to work cleaning up the confetti bomb, and write it in your notebook so you'll know why your best-laid plans gang aft agley. 

Random bullets of being incognito

I'm at a conference where I do not know a single solitary soul and where no one knows me. I'm incognito!

• This has advantages:
• First, I don't feel that I have to attend anything at all except my own session, so what I do go to is pure delight. 
• Second, I'm sick with a cold (feverish, coughing, feeling horrible, not sleeping), which makes me everyone's nightmare conference-goer ("please-don't-sit-near-me, PLEASE-don't-sit-near-me"), so I am staying away from everything possible and sitting far from everyone if I do go to something. 
• It is purely fine to give yourself permission to stay in the room, sleep, and get better, and no one notices if you're gone. Also: one splurge on room service.
• Third, since I know no one, I don't have to hunt up people for dinner or, conversely, explain why I am staying in so as not to be Typhoid Mary. 
• This has disadvantages: 
• Missing sessions that I'd like to see.
• Wanting to meet some people whose books I've read but realizing in advance the look of horror that would come over their faces if Typhoid Mary introduced herself. 

I am also extending the "incognito" thing via autoreply, since everyone back at Northern Clime took advantage of spring break to fire off complicated questions and land them on my desk instead of theirs.

I thought of going all Edmund Wilson on them or maybe "nope nope nope don't care right now leave me alone" but settled for a traditional, dignified "reply when I return."

Now I'm the one holed up in a Fortress of Solitude and firing flaming arrows of autoreply.

And I'm incognito.

On copyediting and Arrested Development

There's an episode of Arrested Development that perfectly encapsulates my experiences with copyedited material.

 

Michael: Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to give you a promotion. Welcome aboard, Mr. Manager. George Michael: Wow. I’m Mr. Manager. 

Michael: Well, manager; we just say manager. And you can hire an employee if you need one. George Michael: Do you think I need one? 

Michael: Don’t look at me, Mr. Manager. 

George Michael: Right, it’s up to me now. I’m Mr. Manager. 

Michael: Manager. We just say-- 

George Michael: I know, but you... 

Michael: Doesn’t matter who.

So which is it? Mr. Manager or just plain manager?

Dates in parentheses after a work is mentioned in the text? If I put them in, the copyeditor deletes them. If I don't put them in, I get an AU QUERY: "Please insert dates after titles."

Spell out "University Press"? If I do, it gets abbreviated to "UP." If I don't, it appears in full or sometimes as "Univ. Press."

Western, Eastern? I consult The Chicago Manual of Style and think I have it set, but if I have it capitalized, it's made lower-case and vice versa.

US or U.S.? If I use the periods, the copyeditor changes it to US--and vice versa.

Use a short form of the publisher's name? If I spell it out, it gets shortened. If I don't, it gets added back in.

Include the number of a journal that is paginated by issue? Don't get me started. 

I'm more amused by this than anything else.  I have heard of senior scholars who wax splenetic at the thought of changing a capital (think: Romanticism versus romanticism), but for me, that's not a hill to die on. I embrace a sort of learned helplessness since there's no point in fighting some of these.  Only if there's a change that creates a grammatical mistake will I shout "STET!" in the margins.

The new loosey-goosey MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, which is sort of Chicago-lite, doesn't help much.  I actually went to the session on this at MLA and asked questions that had been puzzling me, but they mostly said something along the lines of "Well, that is a pretty pickle, isn't it?" without answering the question.

Between MLA 8, Chicago 16 (and now 17), and various quirky house styles, I now take my best shot with the help of Endnote and Zotero, knowing that this is a battle that can never be won.

For I am Mr. Manager.

White male privilege: a poem. Or a rant. Take your pick.

If I have to endure one more lecture

        Or email

        Or posted screed

        Or self-righteous comment

        Or public online attack

From another tenured white male

         Who is eager to show how woke he is

          And how committed to “the struggle”

         By making every conversation about “the struggle”

         And derailing every conversation to show how committed he is

         Even though creating funding, safeguards, and equality is the process I’m trying to further

         And, in the process, making it all about him and his wokeness,

I just might lose it.



Updated: McSweeney’s nails it again: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-a-good-liberal-man-at-a-social-justice-nonprofit-and-i-have-advice-for-my-female-colleague

NYTimes tells you to answer your email. Okay, I'll get right on that.

In "No, you can't ignore email. It's rude", Adam Grant makes some good points about why you should respond, though. Here are some of his ideas and some of mine.

• First of all, unless you're so awash with self-importance that people only exist when you want them to, you pretty much have to. It's your job. 
• But according to Grant, "Your brain is not just sitting there waiting to be picked. You should not feel obliged to respond to strangers asking you to share their content on social media, introduce them to your more famous colleagues, spend hours advising them on something they’ve created or 'jump on a call this afternoon.'"
• What about rude emails? Just say no to answering them. If for some reason you have to respond, be as polite and clipped as possible--and save the email exchange in case you need it later.
• Some colleagues won't answer emails, and that's their prerogative. If I'm scheduling a meeting and they don't respond, keeping the original meeting time is mine. But what about people who ignore emails and then demand that you accommodate the request they couldn't be bothered to convey before? Just say "hell, no." 
• What about emails sent after hours? Me: "You can shoot all the emails you want at me after 5 p.m. on Friday, if that's what your heart desires, but to me they're just silent snowflakes drifting down to settle into my inbox snowbank  until 7 a.m. on Monday." Group emails sent on a weekend seem to devolve into a snowstorm, if you catch my drift (see what I did there?), and answering just draws you into the thick of it. 
• Grant: "Remember that a short reply is kinder and more professional than none at all."
• Grant:  "If it’s not an emergency, no one should expect you to respond right away. Spending hours a day answering emails can stand in the way of getting things done." Me: no kidding.
• Also, limit the number of times you apologize. Seriously. 

*You would think that the NYTimes would be in a complete shame spiral at even the thought of the word email, given that their blame-heavy "both sides" reporting on you-know-who's emails (along with Putin) handed the election to our current president, who just declared a national emergency to please his base.

In search of lost time: the Costco plan

Figure 1. Not Walden Pond.

Over at Inside Higher Ed, Michael S. Harris has a good essay called "The Zero-Sum Game of Faculty Productivity." Harris argues that"The best way to tackle the zero-sum game and better prioritize our time is to make explicit the trade-offs that exist in faculty work."

This isn't an earth-shattering idea, and in fact it reminds me of a post I wrote a few years back, "Groundhog Day: Mid-career Academic Choices."

But it's a great reminder that time is limited, and so are our choices.  Harris gives some examples, with my commentary:

1. "For example, what if you spent more time creating an interactive activity for class than revising the look of your lecture slides?" Great idea, although revising the look of lecture slides is 99th on any list of 100 tasks.

2. "What if you created an answer sheet with clear explanations to distribute to class rather than writing brief notes in the margin on each individual student exam?" This is a lovely sentiment. What would happen is that students would ignore the answer sheet and come to your office or, more likely, email you because they don't see why theirs isn't like the best answer. It's nice to believe that they see what you see, but many will not, and they'll feel injured at the depersonalized nature of the feedback and say so on your evaluations.

 3. "What if you checked your email three times a day instead of three times an hour?" Great suggestion for anyone who does not have time-sensitive things going on. Still, three times a day should be plenty. 

Harris quotes Steve Jobs, who reduced the number of product lines so that he could focus Apple's attention on a few of them. (That's also what McDonald's did when it started out: a few products done well rather than many done not so well.)

It struck me that what Harris is talking about is the Costco plan. A very long time ago, a student of mine related to a Costco executive wrote that its philosophy was not to give consumers endless choice but to choose the best thing and stock it. That's it.

Now, obviously Costco stocks more than one kind of toothpaste, one kind of shampoo, etc., although in my house we still kid about the Soviet-style choices that are made for us: "Costco loves us. Costco knows what is best. You WILL grow to love the Costco choices. Two plus two is five."

Figure 2. Thoreau, definitely not in Costco's mission statement.

But the reality is that if you trust the choices, and as a Costco cult member I generally do, your shopping is more efficient and you save time.

Applying this to your own work, as Harris suggests, makes sense.

What are the things you need to do?
What are the things you want to do?
What priorities do you have?
What are the things getting in the way of them?

I'm not saying that you should make your mind into a retail giant, but if you're trying to pursue 15 smaller things instead of figuring out how they fit into your plan of 5 big ones, the choices alone are distracting you and taking up time.

Or, to put it another way in the words of that old anti-capitalist Henry David Thoreau:

Simplify, simplify.

[Edited to add: More Thoreau posts.]

Writing inspiration and logjams

So a few days ago I started a post about how for some blessed reason (MLA, or Chicago, or finally getting so bored with this piece that I couldn't stand it) I finally broke through on the piece of writing that consumed my entire fall with guilt and dread. I could write! I finished it & sent it AND finished the edits they requested. Like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, my burdens fell from me.

And then I looked for an image and settled on the ice circle (below), because spinning wheels seemed appropriate.

And then I looked up "logjams" and realized that what I really meant was "icejams."

And then I decided to abandon the whole thing.

Isn't that the writing process in a nutshell--falling down an internet rabbit hole until you don't remember why you were there? (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has a song about Google-stalking that sort of addresses this, "Research Me Obsessively.")

But I didn't abandon the writing. I still want to work, mirabile dictu. Whatever malaise/logjam/icejam/dread had me binge-watching The Crown instead of doing any work whatsoever has broken at least for now.

The real source of writing inspiration in this post comes from Robert Caro's new piece in The New Yorker. It's about going down a rabbit hole of research and finding pay dirt at the end, to mix a metaphor.https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/the-secrets-of-lyndon-johnsons-archives

Stay warm, all of you in the polar vortex!

THE ice circle from  Maine:

Ice circle from North Dakota:

An ice circle from Washington state.

Brief and off-topic: Don’t stop believing

The 20th anniversary of The Sopranos is everywhere in the news, and HBO has been running a marathon of it, which ended tonight. I’ve been dipping in and out while taking a break from work and have found that I recall nothing. Tonight was the finale, though, and I do remember that.

From June 12, 2007: https://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-professors-in-english-should-be.html

When it ended, Spouse and I looked at each other, gasped, and laughed in delight. What a great way to end the series, with complete undecidability! It wasn’t until later that I learned that people were confused (did the cable go out?), then outraged, then as obsessed as if Lee Harvey Oswald was the man in the Members Only jacket.

David Chase said it doesn’t matter if (spoiler!) Tony is shot in the end or not, and I’d agree.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/arts/television/david-chase-sopranos-interview.html

But in rewatching the finale—Episode 6.21, “Made in America”—just now, if Tony did get shot, it’s a good time for it. He’s spent the episode tying up loose ends, including a sit-down with his enemies and the death of one of them. He talks to Uncle Junior, who doesn’t remember him.  Carmela has a spec house in her sights. The famously slacktastic A.J. Wants to go into the army and then be a helicopter pilot for Donald Trump (!), but he’s talked out of it by his parents and encouraged to be a gofer for an adult movie company instead. As Meadow utterly fails at parallel parking, Tony’s looking fondly at his family, sharing onion rings, and  playing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” on the jukebox. Cut to black.

If you want to see a breakdown of the scene, it’s here: https://www.vulture.com/2015/04/david-chase-analyzed-the-final-sopranos-scene.html

I don’t recall many moments from the series, but every time “Don’t Stop Believing” comes on the radio, I think of it. Do you?

Random Bullets of MLA 2019

Figure 1. A sunny Chicago in January--who knew?

Now it's the moment you've all been waiting for--MLA 2019 in bullet form!

The good: 

•  Weather. The last time I was in Chicago for MLA, the weather was, well, Chicago-ish: sleet, snow, ice, and long trudges up and down hill between the Sheraton and the Hyatt (or Hilton? it's a blur.) But look at those blue skies! If you were up early, the wind was biting, but some days got up to nearly 50. Also, after last year's snow apocalypse, there weren't as many people dazed from all the weather delays. Well done, Chicago weather gods.
• Great panels. I can't tell if MLA papers are getting more interesting, if I'm choosing which ones to attend with more care, or both, but there were terrific sessions. One trend: not only more DH panels, but the ones that were there were full. I tried to go to one early morning panel, but it was packed to the rafters and in a tiny room, so I left. After last year, I didn't attend any working groups, because once bitten, twice shy. 
• More panels than in previous years tried to follow accessibility and credit guidelines, with handouts or links, which is good. Here's a tip, MLA: maybe a space on MLA Commons where we can ALL post these papers so that people can follow along on their devices. I know that "not everyone has a smartphone" could be an issue, but it would help most people. 
• Also, I only heard one person try the "you can hear me without a microphone, right?" routine, which is privilege dressed up as false modesty, and he was gently encouraged to use the mike. 
• Book exhibit seemed more full and lively this year (possibly because of the snow last year) and just walking through there is enough to make you want to get to work. Lots of wine and snacks at booths, and I actually drank a glass of wine there at 3 in the afternoon. Don't let anyone tell you that academics don't lead a wild life. Also, some exhibits had the same deals online, which is helpful when you're traveling with a small suitcase (as most of us are these days) and don't have room to carry books back.
• Helpful convention staff. So, so helpful to have friendly people on hand to tell you which way to go to get to the rooms. There were 3 levels with multiple hallways (all underground), but all you had to do was ask and there were multiple people to tell you. 
• Jobs. Lots of conversations about precarious jobs and the lack of jobs, but not in the grim spirit of 2011.  
• Also noted: I didn't see a lot of obviously anxious job seekers--that may have been because interviews were at a different hotel--but in talking with people from departments that were hiring, I heard a lot of "We interviewed through Zoom/Skype and chose our finalists that way." MLA has encouraged online interviews to save costs and stress for job candidates, and it seems to be working. I'd be eager to see the numbers. Our 2014 dreams have come true!
• Great location, with easy walking to restaurants and also lots of cabs/Uber/Lyft. I liked being able to walk over the brass plates marking the original outlines of Fort Dearborn on my way to Starbucks.   

The okay:

Figure 2. We can see the wifi signal, but what's missing?

•  Wifi. Wifi was plentiful, and free, and good. What's wrong with this picture? After a momentary lapse into printing the password in the program last year, they didn't print it this year. You had to ask, or, as I did, consult the handwritten scrap of paper at one of the information desks, placed there by friendly people who nonetheless must have gotten sick of being asked for the password.
• Minibars.  The Hyatt hasn't gotten the memo yet that everyone prefers a refrigerator to a minibar, which is so 1993.

The not great:

• Nothing the MLA could control, really, but we had to walk by this every day. 



Figure 3. Hypnotized like a snake with a mongoose,
I couldn't stop staring at this.

 

 Other MLA Conference Posts:

• 2018 New York
• 2015 Vancouver
• 2014 Chicago
• 2013 Boston
• 2012 Seattle
• 2011 Los Angeles
• 2006 Philadelphia
• Conference tips no one ever tells you
• Random conference thoughts

Happy 2019!

Happy New Year! Wishing you a happy 2019!

I feel as though there ought to be a summing up, resolutions, and observations, so here goes. In past years, I've mentioned mindfulness and being kind (although being kind backfired this year).  Here's my question for this year:

What has made you happy or content this last year, and what would you do differently?

What I'd continue:

1. Staying away from the advice columns, on the "shun/unshun/reshun" method imposed by Dwight Schrute on The Office. I shunned them beginning September 1 and only unshunned them over this holiday. Conclusion: they really do waste time, and they don't make me happier. Reshun.

2. Another month's hiatus from Facebook, shunned on December 1. I went on this morning and was immediately deluged with happy news for others: book contracts! happiness at going to MLA! finished articles! I dutifully liked posts and congratulated people, because I am happy for them. Same thing on Twitter, except with bonus notices about articles completed, books read, fellowships gained. But I don't have a new book contract, or a fellowship, or a new article, due to slothful ways, and although I'm grateful to be going to MLA, I am not exactly happy about it. Staying off FB is a lesson I learn over and over again, Groundhog Day-like, but maybe like Bill Murray, I'm getting there. Reshun.

3. Reading the news that counts. Dave Barry's year in review reminds us that every time the cable pundits get all excited that this is the piece of treasonous malfeasance that's going to lead to the Republicans doing something about the massive corruption at the top, it never happens.  It's like Carrie Fisher in When Harry Met Sally, who keeps coming up with evidence for why her married lover is going to stay with his wife, and Meg Ryan says, "No one thinks he's ever going to leave her." In political terms, Spouse gets excited every time Rachel Maddow proclaims this, and we have a "this time they'll do something/they're never going to leave him" conversation a few times a week. My take: When Mueller's done, call me. Reshun.

These all sound so negative--sorry! Also happiness: being outdoors, walking, breathing morning air, family, cleaning out rooms and closets, teaching, reading things I'm excited about, and also those precious times when the writing is really flowing.

What I'd do differently:

1. When truly stuck on a piece of writing, do what I've done before and move to a different piece. This fall I decided to gut it out and keep hammering away, and I swear to you that my mind completely shut down on the topic. Write every day, even if it's junk, or notes, or something. Bonus: when I got well and truly stuck this fall, my solution was eating more to quell the anxiety over it. (Hint: not a solution, and you feel miserable and stuffed as well as inadequate and stuck.)

2. Be more bold in calling out rudeness, in meetings and elsewhere. No, it's not men doing this, although I now realize that my last 6 or so posts have been about horrid male behavior. It's women. I've been trying to be kind, and it backfired. My new resolution: if it's my meeting, I'm shutting it down, sisterhood be damned.

3. In general: do more of what makes you happy. I know that's a platitude if there ever was one, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

In summary:

1. More: outdoor walks, Frasier while doing laundry, books that I really want to read, regular writing, sleep.

2. Less: social media, putting up with nonsense, eating while stressed.

That's about it for me. What about you?

A note on Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

 I've been rereading Ruth Franklin's wonderful bio Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life and realized again that we should be reading more Shirley Jackson and not stop with "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House.

Franklin is equally good on Jackson's life and on the themes of her writing. Did you know that in the lean early days Jackson and her husband, the New Yorker writer, literary critic, and Bennington professor Stanley Hyman, had to share a typewriter? Can you make an educated guess about who got the typewriter the lion's share of the time? Their "open" marriage--guess who's the only person who took advantage of that and then was annoyed and puzzled at Jackson's distress and her late-in-life crippling agoraphobia?

Then I came across this in a discussion of Jackson's first novel, The Road Through the Wall (bolded for emphasis): 

Compared with Jackson’s masterly late novels, The Road Through the Wall, unsurprisingly, is a slighter work. But it is marvelously written, with the careful attention to structure, the precision of detail, and the bite of brilliant irony that would always define her style. There are wonderful moments of humor, as when one of the neighborhood girls, hoping to decorate her living room with high-class art, accidentally orders a set of pornographic photographs. And there is this astonishing aperçu from the novel’s prologue: “No man owns a house because he really wants a house, any more than he marries because he favors monogamy.” Both house and marriage are valued for the status they confer upon their possessor rather than for their intrinsic worth. In a novel that encompasses adultery, murder, and suicide, this may be the darkest line.

Franklin, Ruth. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (p. 215). Liveright. Kindle Edition.

House as status --well, sure, but house as control. That's Gaslight. That's The Haunting of Hill House.

I'm recalling the example of someone I knew years ago when we lived in a place with very, very  hot summers. The apartment complex had air conditioning. The person I knew was a professor, and she worked from home, and she was pregnant, which makes you even hotter. But only her husband, who followed his bliss by pursuing art or saving souls or something and was out during the day, got the benefit of the air conditioning. Why? Because he had forbidden her to turn it on during the day to save money. The air conditioning could only be on if he could benefit from it. Let that sink in: he forbade his wife, the person who was paying for the air conditioning, from using it. And even if she hadn't been paying for it, on what planet does he get to make that judgment?  Aren't they partners? That's pretty much what I asked her one time. She shrugged it off.


This is only tangentially related (Content warning: abuse), but the NYT ran an article last summer explaining the way that smart devices were being used by abusers to control their victims--stalking through smartphones and security cameras, turning the heat up and down to mess with victims' minds, locking keypad doors remotely and refusing to let victims move about at will. When women report it, they're dismissed--surprise!--as crazy or hysterical, especially when their partner explains how crazy they are. Fortunately, those who help victims are becoming more aware of such technological gaslighting and are getting restraining orders that cover it. 

But to have the person you're supposed to be able to trust turn against you, and to have that person turn the house against you--that's Jackson's metier, and were she writing today, she'd have whole new fields to cover.

Writing inspiration: John Steinbeck by his second wife, Gwendoline

To distract from my complete and total lack of writing at a time when I really, really need to (because of deadlines and MLA), I offer up another take on John Steinbeck's writing practices. These are described by his second wife, Gwendoline/Gwyndolyn/Gwen Conger, in a previously unpublished memoir that was published recently. (You can see highlights in a review here and at the book site here.)

Short version: Steinbeck was not a walk in the park to live with, and any acrimony in this book is more than balanced by his immortalizing Gwen, to whom he was married from 1943-48 after they lived together for about 4 years, as the sociopathic, murdering, purely evil Kathy of East of Eden. Jay Parini, in his preface to My Life with John Steinbeck, says that Gwen must have been challenging to live with, too.

Here, with some comments, are some notes from the introduction:

She notes his almost fanatical dedication to his work: ‘He began his same usual work schedule, the one he kept to whenever he wrote, no matter where we lived. He arose early and made his ranch coffee. He always wanted a good brand of coffee, and it was always ranch coffee. A little past daylight he began his day, and after our coffee and talk sessions John, with his pajama top and khakis, went into his nest, usually by seven or seven-thirty.’ He took a brief break for lunch at noon, although he rarely said much to her during these meals, not wishing to disturb whatever was happening in his head: ‘If he were going strong, he would only have more coffee. He never talked, never said a word and I would not speak to him. Usually, his average output in those days was anywhere from twenty-five hundred words to five thousand words a day.’ 

Lawson,  Bruce. My Life With John Steinbeck: The Story of John Steinbeck's Forgotten Wife (Kindle Locations 163-169). Lawson Publishing. Kindle Edition.

1. "Nest" is what they all called Steinbeck's writing room. This was before the last phase of his career when he had the octagonal writing cottage in Sag Harbor. That house, and the Steinbeck estate more generally, was the subject of a lawsuit that you can read about at the link, involving Steinbeck's two sons (by Gwen) and his third wife, Elaine. Like many writers' and artists' final (third, fourth, etc.) wives (Mary Hemingway, Carlotta Monterey, etc.), Elaine seems to have had a great sense of his legacy and of protecting it in ways that to outsiders may seem ruthless.

2. "Ranch coffee" is coffee made with an egg to clarify the grounds, which apparently makes good coffee and also a spectacular mess. (Guess who got to clean the pot?)

3. Words per day: 2500 to 5,000. Are you envious yet?

4. After finishing a piece of writing, Steinbeck, always restless, would want to move to another place, another state, another country: "And always he sacrificed everything for his work. When he worked, he became a superhuman machine. When a book was complete, he sank into states of depression and turned to a new location for his life: a new city, a new town, new people, a trip to anywhere that took his fancy."

5. "John loved to keep his writings neat. Almost all of his works were in old folios or books, or on legal pads. Only late in his life did he resort to the typewriter."

6. As mentioned in the East of Eden notebook, he wrote letters to friends to warm up each morning. 

7. Chronically unfaithful during their marriage, Steinbeck was furious when Gwen started dating after their divorce. Like Philip Roth and Theodore Dreiser, he practiced the double standard: "you have to stay faithful, but I don't, and you belong to me forever."

8. He also blamed her for problems with East of Eden: 

One night, after the divorce, he yelled at me, ‘It’s all your fault!’ John stood outside the house and had awoken me by throwing stones up at the window. It was about the time he wrote East of Eden. I shall never forget seeing John standing there, saying, ‘My editors say that I have to rework this whole book, and I have never rewritten anything in my life.’ He calmed down, and I invited him in.

I told him, ‘John, dear, you are one of the greatest writers in the world, and maybe you have two books in one?’ ‘

Harold Guinzburg has never turned me down before, and they’ll never buy this book as it is.’

‘What did you come to me for then?’ I was irritated.

‘It’s your fault!’ he snapped back.

9. Gwen was a singer and wrote songs as well. When she had recorded about 24 of them, Mark Hanna, a theatrical agent, was interested in publishing them, but Steinbeck told her there should only be one writer in the family, so, "[t]o keep peace in our family, I reluctantly gave up my efforts as a songwriter. Sometimes now I wish I had continued writing songs, but then I just had to stop."

I hope there's more writing inspiration than the chronicle of a raging ego in this post, but even if there isn't, it's time for me to get back to work and try to emulate the level of concentration and productivity, though definitely not the behavior, that Steinbeck showed in his writing life.

St. Lucy's Day

St. Lucy's Day isn't the shortest day of the year any more (because science, and maybe John Donne knew better even back then), but it feels like the shortest right now because of all that we're all doing. 

We're working from fairly inflexible lists at home and at work, and the "self-care" guidance dispensed in the popular press--eat more kale! get more exercise!--somehow isn't cutting it right now, at least for me. It's the Sheryl Sandberg broccoli approach to self care. With apologies to the original cartoon in the New Yorker, I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

And let's just say this: getting ready for Christmas or other holidays is not helping with the stress levels. 

So what does or has helped? Well, television, including The Good Place and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I knew that  MMM might be for me when Emily Nussbaum said she hated it. Nussbaum hates shows that don't wallow in cruelty, horror, and violence and where nice things occasionally happen. By the transitive hate property, I therefore thought that there might be something in MMM for me. For an hour every night, I get to live in a gorgeous technicolor 1950s fantasy where problems are mild and solvable, not like the horror comedy of watching the posturing fool in the White House energize his base."Cloying fantasia," I am there for you.

What else helps? Saying no to the things you can. Making cookies. Looking up new recipes for scones. (Food is big in the "what else helps?" department.)

And remembering that this will turn around eventually or on December 22, when we start getting more light again.

A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day

By John Donne

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,

Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

         The sun is spent, and now his flasks

         Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

                The world's whole sap is sunk;

The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

Read the rest at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44122/a-nocturnal-upon-st-lucys-day.

Not news to you all, of course; but today I remembered this from a long-ago course I took in metaphysical poetry. 

-->

Random bullets of December 1 and the "quit cooking" genre

Figure 1. Knickers the cow, the Mona Lisa of internet attention.

•  Someone on Twitter posted that all the news should just be giant cows, always. Everybody wants to explain Knickers the cow ("a steer, not a cow, you ignoramus!" says the New York Times), but I just want to look at all the giant cows, kittens, sloths, dogs, and otters all day, at this point.
• I saw a headline the other day stating that the president was in a "terrible mood" on his way to the G20 summit. I am "voted for George Washington" years old and have never before seen presidential moods reported, as if he's a toddler being picked up from day care and we're the harried moms being given the slip of paper with a smiley or frowny face.
• Is it heresy that, just for a minute every December 1, I wish they'd cancel Christmas and all the other winter holidays and just let us have a good, long rest? A Rest Holiday, where you eat whatever's in the house instead of cooking and read and watch old movies? Heresy? Okay, moving along.
• Liz Lenz's "I'm a Great Cook. Now That I'm Divorced, I'm Never Making Dinner for a Man Again" is getting a lot of attention on the interwebs. It's a good essay, but who would ever cook twice for a man who rates every meal 3/5 stars--or indeed, any man who ever rates a meal at all? What kind of  partner greets any meal that someone cooks for him/her with other than profound thanks? It reminds me of those scenes in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel when Midge puts on a fetching negligee and full makeup to go to bed, then sneaks out to the bathroom to put in curlers and apply face cream after he's asleep. 
• Someone should write about "cook until you drop for ungrateful men and then stop" theme in women's writing.  
• Mrs. Dalloway has glimmerings of this. 
• Nora Ephron's Heartburn famously has her dumping a key lime pie over the head of her lying, cheating husband with the greatest reason of all time. Paraphrased: "If I hit him with a pie, he won't love me, but he already is cheating on me and doesn't love me, so I have nothing to lose"--and bam! I hope that really happened, and I would love to see any picture with Carl Bernstein dripping with key lime pie. 
• In Marilyn French's The Women's Room the main character has a similar realization re:cleaning the house. 
• And in Joyce Maynard's At Home in the World, she throws an entire Christmas buche de Noel and the rest of the dinner in the trash because she's fed up. 
• Let's also not forget Mad Men's Megan Calvet, who throws a plate of spaghetti at the wall when Don shows up drunk. (Why did they eat the spaghetti without any sauce in that show? That's a question for another time.) 

Sadly, we do not have Rest Holiday. Instead, we have "grade all the things" and "write all the things," so that's enough with the reveries about women who have just plain had enough and are ready to throw something, which I now see is the real theme of this post.

Writing inspiration from Jonathan Franzen

Figure 1. Jonathan Franzen on Lithub.

It's time to check in with our bird-lovin', Oprah-scornin', Edith Wharton-hatin' friend Jonathan Franzen again.

Franzen published 10 rules for writing on Lithub, and Twitter has been having, um, a little fun with them.

The rules themselves are not that bad. They're pretty sententious, like Franzen's fiction, and pretty humorless (ditto).  Here's one of them:

"It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction."

A couple of thoughts: 

1. "his workplace." Should we let it go? 
2. So Joyce Carol Oates isn't writing good fiction? 

I have a feeling that this is actually a burn against unseen adversaries, designed to make them feel, as the young folk say on Twitter, "seen." 

At least it's a list and not an endless paragraph in 6 volumes, and at least he isn't telling you to get rid of your dog if you want to be a great writer.  

The Guardian collected the responses to his list, and some of them are pretty funny. Not to be outdone, Lithub published a collection right after they published the list from Our Boy.

But how different are these, really, from the lists that we all make from time to time or that wend their way around Twitter? 

Does he deserve this level of mockery, or is it because he takes himself so seriously?

I'm not holding any brief for Jonathan Franzen. (I have read Jonathan Franzen.) But we put up with Captain Obvious statements all the time, including a fair number in obscurantist language from literary theorists, and all we say is, "Yes, emperor, those clothes are stunning." 

My guess is that hating Jonathan Franzen is like a meme, and maybe like some others, he'd rather be hated and talked about if he has books (or a political persuasion) to sell than to be ignored. 

And he's not on Twitter. He's . . . writing. So even if his advice isn't inspiring, I stick by my guns that his example is.