k
Let us hypothesize there is a person I know who we can identify with the initial K. I really like K. Quite a great deal. And I think K really likes me. Also a great deal. Sadly, K is in Chicago. Well, sad not because of Chicago but because I am decidedly not in Chicago. And this is problematic. Because I desperately want to be in Chicago. It is where my thoughts are … and where my heart is as well. I write this not in self-pity, but because I know K has looked at this blog on occasion, and I want to be clear for both myself and him that there is little doubt that he still occupies my thoughts and feelings … even in the midst of an impractical situation and in the midst of a kind of awkward juncture between he and I. The QEs are demanding of my time and concentration, and that I should have met K this summer is … cruelly inconvenient. But that doesn’t mean I have any doubts that meeting him and being able to spend the time I have with him have been immensely fulfilling. I just don’t know how to make that clear in any material way at the moment … words seem so impotent at the moment.
nvm. spoke too soon
Back and forth. Happiness again. nvm the nvm above.
jibba jabba
Nonsense title today. This is not a real post. It is a frigment (fragment + figment) of your imagination. Just a couple of note for things I want to expound upon at a later date.
- Diss idea: rhetoric, philosophy, good societies, utopian dreams, where liberalism (maybe) has failed
- Clown, etc: Pagliacci, Facebook, personae, Batman, Chicago, Lookingglass Alice
- Teaching assessment for S/S 2010
- Music
One of the reasons I’ve wanted to renew my blogging energies is that I’m looking forward (as in looking head, not like … “oh, hurray, pony rides!”) to writing the diss over the next couple of years. I’ve too long let writing fall to the side and focused instead on textual consumption rather than production. I want to push myself a bit more to write about things that I *want* to write about so that–during those days of dissertating when I find myself writing about things I *don’t* want to write about–I have the habitus of writing back. So the new … I hesitate to say “improved” … maybe reinvigorated Foolscap will be kind of a collection of random scraps and thoughts for a while. Some academic, some not. Some comprehensible, much not. Some idiosyncratic, some networked.
So … a blog.
we be enjambin’
Please pardon the awful allusion to Bob Marley’s “Jammin’.”
A blogroll addition! Please welcome KMC’s blog The Enjambed Line (all poetic and junk) to the blogroll.
Hail and well met, KMC.
what’s the haps?
Hi there, blog. Long time, no write.
As you know (not that anyone still reads this) it’s been far, far, far too long since I last wrote here. I wish I had a clever suggestion of why that might be, or even some kind of tortured-artist narrative of crippling writer’s block, but … nope. Mostly, just sheer compositional inertia. An entire semester went by without a word from me here! Shame, shame, shame.
But why shame? That is, the blog is ostensibly a space to write without obligation, without necessary scrutiny. Of course, why write publicly if one didn’t want the scrutiny? From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
early 15c., “a vote to choose someone to decide a question,” from L.L. scrutinium “a search, inquiry,” from L. scrutari “to examine, search” (as through trash), from scruta (pl.) “trash, rags” (see shred). Meaning “close examination” first recorded c.1600.
My interest here is in the second two definitions. Scrutiny not as critique or evaluation (as suggested by the c.1600 definition, perhaps) but as inquiry, examination, search. I like the idea of searching through trash as a rhetorical practice–what treasures await in the dustbin of rhetorical history? In a sense, this is Rice’s method in RoC, of course: seeing what gets left out of the field’s own historiography. But isn’t there a difference between “left out” and “cast out,” as we might say trash or rags have been? What kinds of things do we think of as rubbish in rhetorical scholarship today?
I’ve been reading for the QEs. I’m about to (re-) read Aristotle’s Rhetoric for, god help me, the bazillionth time. My interests in ethos are well known. I wonder if we can’t think of ethos as something that contemporary rhetoric has cast out as a legitimate site of practice or invention. It gets taught (I teach it this way, admittedly) as a question of credibility, authority. But in the Rhetoric that hardly begins to cover what ethos means. It is an appeal to character, but not strictly in the sense of credential. For Aristotle (and classic rhetoric more broadly perhaps) ethos connected the speaker to the values and mores of his society: ethos wasn’t simply a matter of saying “trust me.” Rather, drew attention to the habits and customs that a speaker cultivated outside of the text. Ethos is inseparable in this sense from the practice of right living; it is as much moral as textual.
I raise this because I’m trying to pull threads together from QE reading to possibly look ahead to the diss. My list is … kind of disparate … but centered largely on questions related to rhetoric, citizenship (not in terms of immigration, but in terms of citizenship training), liberalism, and public sphere theory. Liberalism essentially does away with the importance of ethos: if all men are equal under the law, the question of a communal evaluation of one man’s worth (implying by necessity that some men might be valued more highly than others) isn’t relevant. Quintilian, Isocrates, Plato are especially relevant here. We could also track this in line with Crowley’s work in Methodical Memory: as method imposed itself as the only legitimate form of invention, appeals to personal qualities were likewise made irrelevant.
I dunno. I’m not committed to these ideas yet. But I missed you, Blog, and wanted to give you something to do. I paid for the server space, after all.
did you hear?
Hallo all. First post of the new year, eh wot?
Please welcome EA’s blog, Generation Gossip, to the blogroll.
Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth!
end of days … well, 2009 at least
(Cross-posted at the Book of Faces)
The setup remains the same as last year: 12 thoughts about the year that is drawing to a close, but not necessarily in chronological order. The goal is not to account for the year in narrative detail, but to draw attention to those moments that mattered most this year, for good or ill. (Mostly ill, in my case but that’s because I am who I am.)
1) I was involved, in detail, with the appointments committee this year. A fantastic learning experience! Immensely useful for when I hit the job market in a number (two?) of years. Not just the bureaucratic side of things, but a rhetorical learning experience as well: the job talk & the interview & the grad student lunch are all rhetorical moments: pitching yourself to an audience of potential colleagues and students. It looks intimidating at this distance, but I think all of our interviewees acquitted themselves well. Having said that, welcome aboard again Jim, and I look forward to being in at least one of your courses before I move into ABD status (Fall 2010, with any luck).
2) So … in my last Year in Review (2008, for those keeping score at home), I mentioned certain essential life goals that had not yet been fulfilled at the time, and which I felt were unlikely to be met by the time of my 30th next year. I have taken action on that front and those goals have been met several times over. The point is not that these particular goals were met, but that I recognized the fact that I couldn’t just wait for these goals to be fulfilled by the fickle finger of fate. So … being proactive can work. I guess. It’s still not something that comes natural to me, but, as always, I’m learning.
3) As many of you know, I had to put my cat Schnickelfritz to sleep earlier this year. I don’t feel quite as awful as I did for the first few days after, but every once in a while I find myself thinking I catch him walking down the hall or laying on a bed, only to realize its one of the other cats. I mean, I don’t get to the point where I believe its actually him, but I find that for just a second I could say “Hey, Boo” only to realize that, no, it is not my Boo nor will it ever be my Boo again.
4) I presented at my first CCCCs this year. San Francisco was nice, but I’m not enthralled by the notion of cities that have so many damn hills. Why weren’t all the places we wanted to visit *downhill* from the hotel?!?!? And, friends, you are sorely mistaken if you think I am eating so much Chinese food when we go to the 4Cs again next year. Anyway: I made an ass of myself around Nonny Mouse at the conference. The SNAFU with her still weighs heavily on my heart, but at times I can see myself being ready to write her off. But I don’t want to, all the same, because she’s written me off and I don’t want to end up doing the same to her. Hrm. This will continue to be a thorn in my side for the foreseeable future.
5) As long as conferences are on my mind: I got into C&W for this year, but ended up having to scuttle my appearance there due to cost & SCT obligations. I did get a very complimentary comment from a colleague about my (aborted) paper title though, which she encouraged me to preserve for a future project. I’ve also been accepted, with a whole passel of peeps, to RSA for next year. w00t! It looks like I should be okay for another year when funding renewal letters come due.
6) What was *up* with that meerkat thing?
7) It would be remiss of me not to mention this, but it’s the first time I’ve been so open about it so I feel kind of awkward addressing it. I met and lost my first boyfriend this year. We weren’t together very long (six months, for those of you who have a bizarre obsession with trivial details), and I admit my own anxieties about the relationship were probably the root of a lot of the conflict between us. That, and, in retrospect, maybe he and I were not so well suited to one another as I would have liked. But, alas. This is the kind of thing one learns along the way, I suppose.
SCT! Ithaca! Carl freaking Schmitt! Although at times I felt a bit disengaged from some of my literary colleagues at SCT, the theoretical work there really engaged me and has given me many new avenues for pursuing work within rhetorical studies. Much thanks to the Wayne State English Dept for sponsoring my participation, and much thanks to the SCT staff and faculty, as well as my SCT peers, for making this summer a great one.
9) I didn’t think it possible, but I think I’ve seen even fewer movies this year than last. Of course, this year didn’t have anything like *The Dark Knight,* which galvanized me for the better half of the year last year, before I even saw it. At the moment, the two standouts from the few I have seen this year would be *Star Trek* and *Up.* *Watchmen* was … meh. I miss seeing more films, but at the same time, I don’t really feel like I need to see them the same way I used to. More than anything, I guess I see the steep drop in my filmgoing as evidence of the fact that I’m (gasp!) moving into “official” adulthood, with responsibilities and a profession and all that jazz. WTF?!?!? … On a similar note, I’ve not heard much new music this year, but I’ve fallen madly in love with Lady GaGa. She can do no wrong with me so far. The hip-hop experiment lanuched this fall is still continuing, and for the most part I’ve liked everything my friends and colleagues recommended. And I’ve discovered, much to my admitted surprise, that I really like Jay-Z. Who knew?
10) This semester’s teaching has seemed much less of a burden than the original 3010 syllabus did. I’ve got one class in particular that is a really great collection of students: they do strong work on their projects and have thoughtful, detailed responses to the issues I’m asking them to think through. We have very good camaraderie together and it is always a pleasure to come to class and work with them. Thanks bunches, guys. You won’t get a chance to read this, I imagine, but you kind of saved teaching for me. Seriously.
11) So, there’s this guy I just met. I don’t want to say too much. He touched my neck in a cafe. I could be very happy if things go well. I feel much more comfortable being with him in general than I did with SM from #7 above. More importantly, I feel more comfortable with *myself* with this guy than I did with SM. (Which, admittedly, is more about me than SM).
12) All in all, I feel like 2008 has been an okay year. I’d give it a B- at this point (understanding that maybe that grading this year is a little premature). The rough things that have happened have been more or less balanced out by the good things that have happened. I mean, granted, losing Boo does weigh heavily on the grading scale for the year, and breaking up with SM was rough but I think I’ve come out relatively unscathed on the other side. I have a report from a reliable source that I’ve been described as seeming “more vital” lately (or something to that effect). That seems like an able way to describe how I feel.
13) As before, one to grow on (looking ahead to the coming year): I’m pleased that I’ve been able to befriend at least a couple of the new GTAs in the dept. I want to continue building on those friendships and offering advice and support where I can. I need to lighten up and take myself less seriously, perhaps. I’ve been unpleasant to many people too often this year for reasons that more often than not had little to do with those people–and if you’re one of the persons concerned, please accept again (or for the first time) my apologies.
jottings down
Just a quick note to myself about a possible future research project: consider the phrase “rhetoric of happiness.” I tend to eschew “rhetoric of” projects (the recent “rhetoric of the closet” thing is kind of an aberration) but I’m increasingly interested in the question of how happiness has come to be understood as something people (admittedly, within wealthy postindustrial societies) think they have a right to. Note that the Declaration of Independence, a wonderfully Enlightenment document, only speaks to “the pursuit of Happiness.” Hmmmmm.
radio gaga
I’ve been mixing up my radio listening habits lately. For quite a long while, I pretty much listened to NPR exclusively, either via WDET/Detroit Public Radio, or Michigan Public Radio out of Ann Arbor, but for some reason, I started getting bored with them toward the end of last year. For a while, I kind of rotated between the NPRs and WDRQ/DOUG-FM, one of the new-format “random playlist” stations (“We play everything”) … but eventually the fact that Mr. Doug has a rather limited view of “everything” got really annoying.
I happened to chance upon 93.9/The River as they were playing The Killers’ “Human” some time ago and was hooked by both the song and the station. For those of you who don’t know, The River is what, in an earlier age, might have been called a college rock station, and in an earlier but more recent age would probably have been labeled an alt-rock station (in fact, their bumpers still trade on this, describing the station as “Detroit’s real rock alternative”). The River kept me interested for quite a while and I can still listen to it without complaint but a month or so ago I again became bored with what I started to recognize was a fairly limited playlist. To be fair, the jocks at 93.9 seem to have fairly individualized and eclectic tastes, but since I’m a creature of habit and happen to be listening the radio during fairly regularly patterned times, I only ever got to hear the same 1 or 2 jocks (and, really, wtf kind of name is Gnyp, anyway?).
All of this is background to the fact that I’ve been branching out and switching mostly between two stations lately: 97.9/WJLB and 106.7/The Beat. WJLB (“The Strongest Songs in Detroit”) is the pre-eminent rap/hip-hip/urban/r&b station in the Detroit area. I’ve started listening to it as part of my ongoing project (launched on Facebook some time ago) of developing some greater appreciation for these styles of music. On the whole, that project has been a mixed success. To my surprise, I’ve discovered I really like Jay-Z, but some of the other things I’ve tried have met with kind of a resigned “meh.” Anyway … the JLB playlist is refreshing if only because I haven’t heard many of these songs before–even if they’re not all going to end up as personal favorites (like, say, the execrable Robin Thicke track they debuted this morning, “Sexual Therapy”) I’m enjoying the novelty of the different format. Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” which I first heard on JLB, is maybe the best song of this year. I also find myself delighted by the sheer balls-out ego of Trey Songz’s “Invented Sex,” whose chorus goes as follows:
Girl let me get u to the crib (let me get u to the crib)
Upstairs to the bed (upstairs to the bed)
Girl you gonna think (x4)
Girl when I pull back them sheets
And you climb on top of me
Girl you gonna think (x4)
You gonna think I invented sex (x3)
These lyrics are remarkably stupid, and yet, danged if I haven’t been humming this track to myself (incessantly, to the point of madness) for two weeks now.
The other station I’ve been listening to, more than I’d like to admit, is 106.7/The Beat of Detroit. I guess this used to be a country station until about two months ago, when it relaunched in its current format as a … urgh … dance music station (or, as Michiguide calls it, “Rhythmic Adult Contemporary”). This station was suggested to me by the ex, and while he might love it, I remain skeptical. I am not a dancer, nor am I prone to rhythmic movement. But … I will admit to grudging enjoyment of this station at times. Those times are when they play just about anything by Lady Gaga (I really dig “Poker Face,” but I suspect it is about fellatio) or that kind of cool remix/cover of “Time After Time” (though I have no idea who performs it). It’s also reminded just how idiotic the song “It’s Raining Men” really is, since I think they’ve played this song once an hour on the hour in the scant few days I’ve been listening. Observe:
It’s Raining Men! Hallelujah! – It’s Raining Men! Amen!
I’m gonna go out to run and let myself get
Absolutely soaking wet!
It’s Raining Men! Hallelujah!
It’s Raining Men! Every Specimen!
Tall, blonde, dark and lean
Rough and tough and strong and mean
There’s not subtext here. There’s barely even text. I’d say the best way to appreciate this song is as an artifact of camp culture, but I think that’s doing a disservice to perfectly good pieces of camp. Ah well.
boo
So, yes, we did put Boo to sleep today. I feel as awful as you might imagine, even if (as I keep reassuring myself) we Made the Right Choice.
To my baby, Boo (1991-2009): Sweet dreams, pretty boy. See you soon.
loss
Sorry for the absence everyone. Most of my readers are also on Facebook with me, so it’s too easy at times to forget to maintain the blog when I can use FB for quick status updates or letting people know how cool meerkats are. Tonight I’m taking the rare step of using the blog to address two kind of personal issues rather than reflecting on scholarship questions. The blog is a medium, not a genre, but I try to avoid admitting I have a personal side whenever possible, although long-time readers of the blog know I don’t always keep up that distinction very well.
As the subject line suggests, I am concerned with loss tonight. I won’t go into too many details, but it looks like there’s a very real possibility that either tomorrow or Tuesday we might be putting my cat to sleep. Please note the distinction here: not “one of my cats” (since most of you know I have several), but “my cat.” I love all of my feline friends, of course, but Boo (his full name his Schnickelfritz Abraham McGinnis, usually aka Nick, Nicky, or Nicky-Boo) is mine. And not mine because I chose him, either; we adopted him when from a litter born to a cat owned by a workmate of my mother, but after a few years it was evident that he’d adopted me as his favorite human member of the family.
He’s had a recurring kidney condition for a few years, and now it seems as though the episodes of his illness are coming closer together. There are treatment options, but they basically amount to little more than keeping him from being in complete misery; there aren’t any options that make recovery possible. At that juncture, it becomes a question of a) quality of life for Boo, and b) the expense of maintaining his current condition for us. So I think that unless he makes a turn for the better in the next day or so, it is likely that while he might be taken to the vet this week, he might not be coming home.
Boo with Your Humble Narrator
Loss is also on my mind because I am confronting the very possibility that I have lost one of my very best friends, perhaps for good. Not that she’s died, or anything, but my own self-absorption and bad behavior led her some months ago to cut me off as her friend. While I had thought that maybe that decision would be a temporary one, I’ve sent her a number of e-mails asking for forgiveness the last few months and tried to explain how much I’ve been missing her. Neither of those amount to being grounds for forgiveness, I know that, but I guess I didn’t realize how deeply I had hurt her. I sent her a long e-mail this weekend, again asking for reconciliation and forgiveness, but as yet, no reply. I don’t even know whether she reads the e-mails I send her or not. I suspect that they either get deleted right away or she has her filters send them to Trash automatically.
(Some of you, I know, will recognize who I’m talking about here, but I will keep her a nonny mouse all the same.)
But anyway, in my most recent e-mail, I tried to describe to her how losing her friendship has felt to me. I want to put up a small section of it here, not because I have any interest in airing private business publicly (except to claim my own responsibility, as I’ve done here, for hurting her in ways deeper than I knew) but simply in the vain hope that even if she doesn’t read my e-mail she might, on a whim, decide to visit the blog and see this small portion of a much (much!) longer e-mail and give a second thought to reconciling our differences with one another:
We are both of us now within two years’ time (or just slightly more) of being finished with our studies. I am being wholly honest with you when I tell you that I would not have made it past my first semester, much less my first year, of graduate school without you. Nor, even more definitely, would I ever have found my way into rhetoric and composition without your passion for the field to guide me. There is so much of who I am now that is owed to you that losing your friendship was like being amputated from the better part of myself. I have tried, as much as possible, to present my appeal to you here as an appeal to reason and decorum rather than to emotion and pathos. My past appeals to you for forgiveness have failed, perhaps because they relied too much on pathos and too little on reason–hence the shift in tone here. The fact remains though that this is for me an emotional issue, despite what claims I may make for the reasonableness of beginning a process of reconciliation. The metaphor of amputation is a useful one for describing my distress: not only have I lost part of myself, but I still feel your presence in my life like a phantom limb every time I find a book, or idea, or conference paper, or question, or song or whatever that I wish I could share with my friend and I find myself overcome by an aching sense of her absence. I can not … can not … believe that the [Nonny Mouse] with whom I used to share so much is gone forever. And if she is not, then, please … please … let her read this. Let her respond.
So: I suppose this is a public admission of my guilt for hurting you, Nonny Mouse, as well as a public apology for so doing. If you read this, which you probably won’t, please–reconsider.