The Professor: an Academic Tragedy

Once upon a time there was a university.

It was a good school, and many of its departments were well-known and respected. One department in particular had international strengths in two programs and was a magnet for talent, not least because of its professors and their reputations.

One of these professors wanted to advance himself. He was already the world’s expert in a particular writer, and much in demand at conferences. He had published several books, and been promoted to a higher salary than most. Ambition did not leave this man. He needed more.

what happened then, uncle substitute?

a million little pizzas

A large-scale brain failure today caused me to believe that it was Thursday. Not much harm occurred, but I didn’t go in for my weekly in-person day at the office. I’m glad that I work with nice people who don’t scream at me for stuff like that.

I use cologne. I had two 99 cent start spray things of this stuff for a few years and then they ran out. I do not use very much cologne. The cologne was good, so I ordered an actual bottle of it. When I first bought it years ago, it was called “Prince Matchabelli New Musk for Men Under 30.” I was already over 30 but I cheated. They have since removed the bit about under 30. Vindication, cologne-wise.

This article and picture of Hillary with Scaife is something else: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/185608.php

Buy Ernest Hardy’s books. He’s a great writer, passionate and thoughtful. I don’t know who else is writing about music from a queer black perspective, but he’s sure good at it!

I probably won’t be there, but anyone who attends the last day of Dutton’s bookstore wake party please pour a little on the curb for me. It’s a big part of my L.A. life gone. LA Observed says it’s this Sunday at 5.

The Los Angeles Times has a new “Innovation” exec and he is broadcasting motivational gibberish from Planet Zinfandel. I had no idea that journalism was the new rock ‘n’ roll.

Took them off the autodial, 2008 version

I just cleaned up my instant messenger list. This was a strange experience.

Mostly I pruned multiple service accounts for people I only talk to in one place. A surprising number of my friends had three or four old IM names from their pasts, some of them five years gone.

A few of the nicknames had been used once because of one incident: a temporary breakup, avoidance of one person or another, a joke. Some were from friends’ previous jobs.

Two of them were dead. The collision of instant messenging and death was unexpected.

None of them were people I don’t or shouldn’t or won’t talk to any more, which was a relief.

And then I left a few in because I could not remember what they meant. Accidents? One-time work contacts? A stealth name of someone I forget? Keep it in there, I guess.

Peppermint Stick year ’round

Thanks to klikitak I experienced Hans’ Deli & Ice Cream today. It’s been there 30+ years but it’s buried in a giant strip mall and I’d never even heard of it, though it’s a 15 minute drive from my house.

Ice cream made daily in house. Lots and lots of flavors you’ll never see in a typical ice cream store. Also, pretty good deli food. Next time I’m gonna try the gorilla cheese, today it was hot pastrami on rye.

Ice cream: yes. It’s not transcendent as some people claimed, but it feels that way because it’s a bolgia above the hell of supermarket and chain ice cream, and limbo feels like heaven.

I have a fetish for peppermint stick ice cream and since nowadays it’s only seasonal here I never get it, unless I want to go to the other supermarket and get the crummy kind.

Hans has it right there, in front of me, hand made today, face plant into bucket.

Oh and some of my friends were there too and that was nice.

QOTW

I start with the recognition that we are at war, and that war is not simply a hot debate between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp over which economic / political / social arrangement will have hegemony in the world. It’s not just the battle over turf and who has the right to utilize resources for whomsoever’s benefit. The war is also being fought over the truth: What is the truth about human nature, about the human potential? My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth. That ain’t easy… We have rarely been encouraged and equipped to appreciate the fact that the truth works and it releases the Spirit and that it is a joyous thing. We live in a part of the world, for example, that equates criticism with assault, that equates social responsibility with naive idealism, that defines the unrelenting pursuit of knowledge and wisdom as fanaticism… — Toni Cade Bambara

Via Ernest Hardy’s Blood Beats