As the process of writing my dissertation nears its end, it may be time to begin thanking those persons and institutions who made the whole process possible, bearable and occasionally even fun. Today, I would like to thank Chicago’s fantastic indie coffee houses. You have given me much joy, necessary caffeine, free wi-fi and a psychologically healthy work atmosphere for a long time now. You indiscriminately house the masses of poor graduate students and allow them to be “social” (i.e. fight isolation by having a common workspace), provide them with a living room (since most of us live in studio apartments) and in certain cases even feed us for free by giving away day-olds at closing time (at which point it is VERY clear that only grad students are left in the building). So, my thanks today go out to: Intelligentsia (on Broadway–used to be indie at least, still kinda is, but definitely has the best coffee), Dollop (a fantastic place with good coffee, good people and a great atmosphere for studying), Pick Me Up (not as great if you’re in it for the long haul in terms of studying, but good and cheap food), The Fixx, Filter (at least back in the day when you could still smoke there) and, of course, my current home Noble Tree (which is where I am writing this post while enjoying a large glass of Metropolis dark roast–aaahh…). In fact, here is a short segment on Noble Tree Coffee & Tea that was recently featured on Metromix TV (you can see me working a few times and my friend Eugene was even talked into commenting on their coffee/food). You can also see the video on Noble Tree’s chronology site: http://nobletree.tumblr.com/
Day 384: World Pillow Fight Day 2008–Chicago Event
March 22, 2008 is World Pillow Fight Day. A number of cities around the globe are organizing events you should definitely attend. Pillow fighting is a recent phenomenon that emerged out of flash mob culture and has become increasingly popular. Most major cities have local “Pillow Fight Clubs” and organize events regularly. Some of the most popular events are the annual Valentine’s Day pillow fight in San Francisco (video below), or the biannual pillow fight organized by Columba University as a means to relieve stress before finals week.
On World Pillow Fight Day all events are synchronized and should start at the exact same time. Here the website and a list of events in major cities: http://www.pillowfightday.com/index.php.
Join me and many others at the Chicago event:
March 22, 2008 @ 2 p.m. in front of the Art Institute of Chicago (Monroe & Michigan)
Bring a feather pillow, a trash bag, and lots of peace and love. Spread the word (without using paper).
If there need to be wars in the world, this is what they should look like!
Here the 2008 SF Valentine’s Day pillow fight:
and one of the early ones in SF:
Day 383: Almost
But still not yet. We’re still in the Blochian phase of things. I am still holding my breath. However, the Blochian phase is really not so bad. After all, forward dawning is not just the location of utopia but also the birthplace of desire and enjoyment (or so I’m told by people who evidently are not as chronically impatient as I am–but I can see what they mean–it also explains the link between pleasure and pain when considered from the perspective of the paradox of desire). Less cryptically: the contract is in the mail. It will get here by the end of next week. Only then, once my signature is actually on the paper, will I allow myself to celebrate, and only then will I reveal what has happened/is happening/will be happening. Should the contract get here before next weekend and should all go well and should I have signed it by next weekend, all of Chicago’s north side better put on a helmet, because this boy has a lot of celebrating in him that needs to get out (for a detailed discussion of why this is necessary see Bataille’s discussion of the concept of squandering excess for an economic system in The Accursed Share, Vol.1) . But until then the official part line remains: no congratulating and no celebrating yet. I’ll keep you posted.
Day 374: Packingtown Review Contest in Critical Writing
Department of English, UH 2027 MC 162, University of Illinois at Chicago, 601 S. Morgan,Chicago, IL 60607
Packingtown Review Prize for Critical Response
Acclaimed poet and UIC alumnus Paul Hoover has donated his poem “The Windows (Speech-lit Islands)” to Packingtown Review’s contest for the best essay on the poem. This poem can be accessed via the contest page at http://www.packingtownreview.com/contests.
Please submit a critical response between 1500 and 2500 words discussing Paul Hoover’s “The Windows (Speech-lit Islands)” in light of the poet’s aesthetic and in the context of contemporary poetry.
The winning critical response will be featured in the first issue (November 2008) of Packingtown Review alongside the poem, as well as on the Packingtown Review web site. The winning author will receive two copies of the journal. Two runners-up will be posted on the Packingtown Review web site.
The jury will consist of the current editorial staff of Packingtown Review.
The deadline for the submissions is March 31, 2008 (postmarked). Winners will be announced on the Packingtown Review web site on May 31, 2008.
The contest is open to the public and there is no fee.
Please mail your submission to our journal address or e-mail it to: contest@packingtownreview.com.
Day 370: NIU Shooting and UIC Threat
Another shooting. Another set of guns that were legally purchased. Another round of useless arguments about gun control that leave the status quo unchanged due to assinine arguments that claim that the problem will be solved by teachers carrying guns to defend themselves and their students.
Here a massmail we just received at UIC:
SECURITY ALERT FROM UIC POLICE
This afternoon, an anonymous e-mail was received by a number of people at UIC,
threatening violence on campus sometime this spring.
While we have no way of knowing at this time whether this is a genuine threat, the
UIC police department is pursuing it very seriously. A full-scale investigation is
underway in conjunction with the Chicago police, and patrols on campus, already
stepped up in the wake of Thursday’s tragedy at Northern Illinois University, have
been increased further.
In the meantime, all campus operations will continue as normal. However, we ask
everyone to be attentive, and as always, if you see criminal or suspicious activity,
please notify the UIC police immediately at (312) 555-5555 (or 5-5555 from campus
phones), or, if you are off-campus, dial 911. For general questions about safety and
security, the number for UIC police is (312) 996-2830.
Please also be aware that an update from me on campus security in the wake of
yesterday’s shootings at NIU was transmitted earlier today and should be arriving in
e-mail boxes sometime tonight or in the early-morning hours, and already is posted
on the UIC Emergency Information page (link on the UIC home page). This note gives a
further overview of security measures in place on the UIC campus.
Sincerely,
XXXX, Chief of Police
To all those opposing gun control: what am I to do in the face of a threat like this? Should I arm myself, just in case there will be an attack? Even if this were the logically correct thing to do, consider this: I am not a U.S. citizen. I educate your children and am one of those people who will not be able to purchase a gun to defend themselves from those people you refuse to disarm for reasons I do not comprehend.
There is no reason on earth why any civilian in any highly developed country should carry a gun. There is no reason why civilians should have access to guns, especially not legally. It will never be impossible to get a gun, but we can sure as hell make it harder. If you do not agree with this logic, we must also stop trying to regulate access to illegal drugs and instead provide all cilvilians with methadone syringes–in fact, if we claim that regulating guns makes no sense because people will always be able to get their hands on guns we would have to abandon any commitment to law and justice just because people will always be able to break the law. Most highly develped countries understand this. How long will fanatical devotion to tradition (which in the U.S. actually just describes cultural practices that are little more than 200 years old) stand in the way of logic and progress?
Day 369: I’m Back…
… in the country. Turns out that traveling the north via airplane in February is not a good idea. Fundamental realization arising out of this trip: Dramamine really works.
Other really disturbing news about the U of Illinois: yesterday a U of I sociology grad student opened fire at a lecture hall at Northern Illinois (which he previously attended). Here the latest version of the reports we’re getting: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080215/ap_on_re_us/niu_shooting
Day 352: Things Are Happening
I can’t really talk about what specifically is happening, since I don’t want to jinx it, but there may be at least a little bit of excitement in the future for me.
Other than that I am writing a lot–an article I am hoping to turn in by the end of this week, as well as dissertation stuff (putting the finishing touches on the first few chapters).
Giuliani and Edwards dropped out of the presidential race today.
The temperature here in Chicago dropped over 50 degrees in 9 hours yesterday (one of the most significant drops in temperature ever–we were below zero this morning and are still only slightly above that mark with windchills reaching minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit). I stupidly did not check on the weather online, so I left the house with a light jacket (and without any gloves, hat, scarf, decent shoes,…) when it was still in the upper 30s. After sitting in a coffee shop working for about 6 hours, I wanted to walk home last night at about 10 p.m. only to find that the outside had radically changed without letting the inside know and without asking it for permission. What I encountered when leaving the coffee shop was the most severe snowstorm of the season and the effect of the above-described temperature drop. Awesome! Consequently, the 20 minute walk home was accompanied by insane laughter on my part for the last 5 minutes, since I was honestly as cold as never before–ridiculously so. Result: I actually got pretty serious frostbite on my hands (which I used to periodically cover my face in order to keep the wind-induced tears in my eyes from freezing) and on my ears, which have already begun to peel. But I am not complaining. This is exactly why I love Chicago. Who wants to live in one of those entropic states where every day is the same with a stable temperature of 78 degrees?
Day 333: The Last MLA Post for the Next Ten Months
Even in times of postmodernism, it seems as though irony will not have to fear for its life as long as the MLA continues to host its annual convention.
I just got this link from a friend–it’s an alternative MLA site that lampoons, impressively accurately, this year’s program, MLA behavior and even, also quite accurately, the floor plan of one of the headquarter hotels. I also love the alternative Chicago poster–this would have been a lot more fun, had they adopted it as the official convention poster. Go Chicago! here the link:
Day 306: Bad Ideas
Bad Idea 1:
you decide to base your carreer decision not on concerns such as money, potential for fame, or marketability in social situations/pick-up lines in bars, but you go with your conscience and make an entirely ideological/idealistic decision. Hence, you choose academia and a life of the intellect, which you try to justify and desublimate from its lofty realm of what to MBAs appears to be splendid isolation from reality by formulating massive counter-interpellation based on the attempt to revive ideals such as critical thinking and social justice as the ultimate goal of your life. Thus far this seems like a good idea. What transforms it into a bad idea, however, is that the corporate university is being restructured in a way that it will be almost impossible to actually find a job that will allow you to do all these things. Becoming an assistant professor in marketing, engineering, biology… : easy. Becoming an assistant professor in the humanities: not that easy. Result: you train for the day that you will be able to start a carreer and make all your goals a reality and are then forced to sell out on alternative job markets, because capitalism quite paternalistically bars access to your object cause of enjoyment (which is not so much deferred as it is rendered illusory).
Bad Idea 2:
There are a few remaining jobs in academia for humanities professors each year, i.e. there is a slight chance of getting a job. In the field of English, choosing to specialize in composition and rhetoric (i.e. jobs in “writing across the capitalist curriculum” and “neoliberal service learning”), 18th and 19th century literature, etc. = good idea. Choosing to specialize in 20th/21st century literature, combined with a rigorous commitment to critical theory (however, not to deconstruction and poststructuralist postcolonial studies) and American Studies = bad idea. Just in case you were wondering, the chances of getting a job in this field are, depending on the position, between 250:1 and 350:1. Buying a sratch-off, low-win lottery ticket for each application you send out is therefore a good idea. If you get a job you’ll also win a few thousand bucks.
Bad Idea 3:
There is a German saying that says that sharing your pain with others means that you will only have to deal with half the pain. This may generally be a good idea and therapeutic to some degree. If, however, the only people you can share your pain with are living through the same pain, this turns into a bad idea. The equation in this case changes to: shared pain creates a closed set/system that escalates until everyone in the system reaches a state of emotional death, therefore consolidating the entropic equilibrium of disillusionment indicative of the closed system of the pool of humanities Ph.D.s on the job market.
Bad Idea 4:
Attempting to hold on to Oedipal, binary definitions of subjectivity meant to stabilize your emotional constitution. All such attempts will eventually reveal themselves as merely temporally stable, hence Oedipalism in the end also loses to the inevitability of job-market-induced entropy. An example: I had my mock job talk on Thursday (which went relatively well). After the talk I ran into a colleague who was waiting for his turn. My job talk had ended with the usual combination of encouragement and devastation (professors telling you that “you have a fantastic project and you will definitely be a professor–maybe not this year, but eventually–you know, it just such a crapshoot”) and I thus left the room caught in the usual combination of elation and utter depression. This mood, however, immediately changed upon seeing my colleague: haggard, shifty, his eyes barely able to look away from his feet that constantly, nervously and poignantly moved in place, he asked me: “so, have YOU heard anything? Have you gotten any calls?” “No,” I replied, then quickly adding, “but they just told me it’s still early. Most calls won’t go out until the 17th this year. There is still hope.” “Whatever,” he replied, surprisingly loudly, for a brief moment of strangely energetic spinal erection casting off that rock that up until that moment seemed to have weighed him down, “I can’t wait that long. I’m going nuts, man. Every time the phone rings I sprint across my apartment, knocking over all kinds of shit, just to find out that it’s someone else again. I don’t think I can last until the end of next week. I’m ready to walk into traffic, man.” That last sentences was followed by a nervous, desperate chuckle and the return to his previous habitus, that was simultaneously reminiscent of a Morbus Bechterew patient and an old rubber boat leaned against the side of a wall that was just punctured by the pocket knife of the small town’s richest family’s snotty 8-year-old. Thus, looking into his eyes that quickly returned to staring at his feet as if in a desperate attempt to hold on to the last remnant of a quickly fading idea of the potential for positive progress and movement into the future, I knew he was serious. The bad idea on my part was this: I felt strangely proud of myself for keeping it together so well, for not yet succumbing to complete depression, for dealing with this insane stress and existential insecurity so rationally. This was the binary I attempted to construct and hold on to. Turns out, however, that there was no binary, just temporality. Turns out he was just one day ahead of me.
Out of solutions, not even repression working any more at this point, the possibility of distraction by focusing on the insane amount of work I have before me (first grading then writing) disappearing increasingly, bad ideas appear to be all that remains at this point: heavy nightly drinking, followed by Tylenol PM to get to sleep, aspirin, a vitamin pill and coffee to clear the head for work in the morning…lather, rinse, repeat until head feels less/completely numb.
I managed not to smoke again, though.
Day 299: I’m Sorry
I know I’ve been increasingly digitally (as well as physically) anti-social for the last, well, weeks and months, actually. My thoughts are just completely colonized by job market and writing issues and this to the extent that I am finding it hard to sleep at night. This week I’ve in fact been trying to contact Sam Elliott, asking him to read me Cormac McCarthy novels to help me fall asleep (which seems like one of the most effective forms of relaxation to me–it’s a voice thing). Alas, it seems as though this plan will not work out. He’s busy with some movie.
Apart from harassing actors, I am currently trying to write an article on 9/11, the desiring structures the event produced and their effect on contemporary cultural production. I also gave my first finals this week and have to grade them along with my first stack of final papers (I’ll be getting more next week–those that are still in preparation will probably be sent to me in draft form over the weekend for comments and suggestions, so I’ll have to do a round of pre-grading as well). Additionally, I have to start working on two other writing projects, which I may initially have to put on the back burner for a while, since I have my departmental mock job interview on Thursday. Our department sets these up to prepare us for the real thing. They assemble a committee that will simulate real conditions (or ideally, conditions that are tougher than that). Fun fact about my committee: one of the members will be Gerald Graff. Despite the fact that this scares me somewhat, I figure if I am able to do half way well in the eyes of the actual PRESIDENT of the MLA, the actual MLA interviews should not freak me out too much any more, right?
Ok, that’s about it for now. I’ll try to be better about posting in the future–the overall pace of my life surely has to slow down sometime and leave me room for posting etc. again, no?
Cerebral Jetsam 