[apparatus] Hither and yon

So, what have the intarwebs served up for us lately? From me to you, the latest stuff that made the Unsorted Bookmarks.






First, here's another collection of future-from-the-past inventions that will likely make their way into the Steampunk GURPS (if we ever play it).



In that same vein, her's a little clip from a documentary about Paul Otlet, who was describing something a lot like the World Wide Web - in 1932.



(Here's the Wikipedia entry for more info.)

And some of that can-do, visionary spirit is still making itself felt today - check out this story on a real-life Rocketeer.

And to finish off with a complete non-sequitur: here's the theme from The Flintstones in Polish:



Late breaking news: Wheylona's boyfriend is going to be even more famous, now that he will be in a comic book!

[4-color ma] Miscellany: enthusiasm and indifference

I have been pretty busy with the start of fall quarter, and I'm not teaching any comics classes, so I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the funnybooks lately. I did, however, see a student reading Persepolis on campus and when I questioned her, she said it was a coursebook for Politics of the Middle East, a poli sci course. Coolness!

I did drop in at the LCS yesterday and grab a couple of the books. Messrs. Van Lente & Dunleavy over at Evil Twin have brought out Comic Book Comics #2, continuing their history of the medium into the war years and beyond. I was more than a little disappointed in the initial issue, and I have to say that I continue to be underwhelmed by the project. The comic does seem to be developing a bit more integration between the text and the graphics to relay the information, but there are still some swaths where the pictures seem superfluous and the text is shouldering all the narrative burden. More importantly, I can't yet see what this history is adding to our understanding of the story; books like Comic Book Nation, Men of Tomorrow, and The Ten-Cent Plague have covered a lot of this ground in detail. There's always room for more analysis, of course, but I'd like to see a fresh perspective or a new take. For example, CBC takes the easy path of framing the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings as a grudge match between Bill Gaines and Frederic Wertham; the reality of the situation was much more complex (and interesting) than that. I guess I'll follow it for a while, but I'm still not sure.

My other purchase was Tranny, produced by Steve Lafler (through Manx Media) in his cross-dressing identity of Fiona Mallratte. I was intrigued by early coverage of this part-autobiographical, part how-to, part fantastical rumination on cross-dressing, but once again, I have to say that I am sorely disappointed. Part of my response is merely toward the art; Lafler has a rough-hewn style with a sort-of underground sensibility that has never appealed to me on an aesthetic level; on top of that, I found his stories to be rambling and nearly incoherent, with unengaging characters and implausible plots. Maybe I'm just not hip enough to get them, but they hardly seemed worth the effort to try. Overall, the book is noteworthy for its honesty and effort, but is ultimately a failed attempt. I have to say, though, that Fiona looks terrific, both in the photo spreads from the book and on her YouTube channel.

Lest you think that I have been just stomping around in crankiness all week, let me recommend something wholeheartedly and without reservation. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a masterpiece. In this young adult novel, Alexie takes the vernacular of teens and transforms it into poetry and in the voice of his protagonist tells a story that is at once passionately personal and universal. This is the sort of book that you have to put down every once in a while, because the tears in your eyes keep you from reading any further. Alexie's prose, complemented by some wonderful cartooning from the great Ellen Forney, will open you up and expose your heart to an intensity of emotion that is wonderful to feel. Go read this book, whatever your age.

[men in kilts] Skirting the issue

Last time out, I outlined the variations of the Kilt Response, and mentioned that this phenomenon alone was not enough to put me off kilt-wearing, but that there were other considerations involved.



The first of these underlying issues for my not wearing kilts this summer was a purely practical one: my everyday kilt hasn't quite fit like it used to. I bought my first kilt, the khaki Neo-traditional, about eight years ago. With the passage of time from barely-forties to hittin' fifty, I got a little broader in the beam; to be fair, the kilt has shrunk a little as well. My size and shape has been somewhat modified by my recent exercise regimen, but the kilt still doesn't quite fit the way it once did. My dark green Neo-trad hasn't shrunk as much, but it's just a little dressier, and doesn't quite feel like everyday clothes (it looks better with boots than with sneakers). In slightly larger sizes, my maroon Spartan sport model is only suitable for extremely warm weather, which we didn't have much of this year, while the tan Workman's kilt is too heavy unless it's cool out and the grey twill Mocker is clearly too formal. These workaday concerns were a part of my switch to biking pants over my vacation.

A less tangible issue for me to deal with was over-identification as the Kilt Guy. It got to the point last year that if I failed to wear a kilt, some people were disappointed or would berate me. It was as if I had become more than just a person making an unusual wardrobe choice; I was a symbol of something else. When I put on sweatpants sometimes, it was because I felt like Glenn Ford at the end of The Sheepman, when, after fighting long and hard to force the cattle-raising community to accept his sheep flock into the landscape, he just wants to have steak instead of mutton for once.

But perhaps the biggest source of reluctance to continued kilt-wearing was my growing discontent with the materialism that they came to represent in my mind. Look at that rundown of five kilts above: that represents about $800 worth of clothes. It's ridiculous. I could get enough clothes from Value Village for that money to last me ten years; a good pair of pants might run me five bucks (I got my Carhartt's for three!). Why the heck was I committing all this money to clothing, more than I had spent since I was a police detective in the Miami Vice era, just because they were kilts? Wouldn't a true minimalist just wear whatever was cheapest, preserving resources for things that really mattered? It bothered me.

But, they're there now, hanging in the closet, so I guess wearing them isn't doing any more damage to the universe or to my soul. That's why I made the decision to wear the kilts to school once again this summer. So far, I've overheard the whispered "that guy looks cool in his kilt!" from a passing crowd of students; I was chatted up by a young fellow (proclaiming his Scots-Irish heritage) who was thrilled by the kilt (he told me it was "sick," which apparently means "really cool"); and one student asked me "What's up with your trousers?" during class introductions (I told him I wasn't wearing any and the class laughed). So, That Teacher who Wears a Kilt is back, at least for now.

[blockhead] The dark night instructor

The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller's flawed classic that, along with Watchmen and Maus, breathed life into the graphic novel, was originally released as four individual books in 1986.



Book Two concerns an older Batman's return from retirement and his struggle against the Mutants, a criminal gang of body-modified, psychopathic thugs terrorizing Gotham City. In his first, brutal, ill-considered encounter with the mutant leader, a hulking bruiser with huge muscles and filed teeth, he loses miserably. The leader taunts Batman - "Ha! You slow, man!" - as he beats the hero senseless, the carnage stopped only by the intervention of a new Robin.

Batman retreats to his cave and regroups, both physically, with the aid of the loyal and competent Alfred, and mentally, through rededication to his original purpose.

Filled with a new resolve, he engineers a rematch with the leader, this time with a better strategic plan and precise tactics, and humiliates him in front of his gang: "You don't... get it, boy... this isn't a mudhole... it's an operating table. And I'm the surgeon." This act disperses the gang, ending their power in the city.

Why is this summary in Blockhead Rhetoric, a place for thinking about teaching, instead of in Four-color Ma? Because I returned to The Dark Knight Returns not out of my interest in comics, but because yesterday I needed a story about failure and redemption.

After Monday and Tuesday, I had taught the first session of all three of my classes at Cascadia, and I was not happy. I felt vaguely dissatisfied, with the nagging conclusion that Things had not gone as well as they could have, and should have. For the first time in a long while, at least in the classroom, I felt that I had wrestled with Failure and been thrown to the mat. The feeling was severe enough to make me begin to question myself and my career choices and my very competency.

I retreated to my own cave and cast about for some solace and guidance from myth and story, some narrative that I could hold onto and make meaning from. I recalled this episode and pulled it out to re-read. There it was: abject failure, followed by renewal and success.

The parallel with the story extended beyond just the narrative I hoped to create. In the comic, Batman fails because he had been inactive for some time and acts without consideration for his no longer being the young hero. His old ways wouldn't necessarily work; he succeeded when he grew and adapted. Similarly, I have been out of action: this summer was the first time in four years that I went for more than two weeks without being in a classroom, and I was rusty. Moreover, this particular summer has been a time of change for me, and I realized upon reflection that my discomfort in the classroom came from within, not without: I am not the same person I was back in June, and I was not quite sure how to act in a classroom.

Heartened by the model of childhood hero, I started today with vigor. I went into campus early and planned out my lessons with this new perspective in the forefront, consciously and deliberately letting the present me inform my praxis. The creative juices flowed and I felt in control of my decisions; I could visualize how I wanted my new relationship with the class to look.

And in the afternoon, I went into my lit class and grappled the mutant thug of Self-doubt to the ground, throwing him, pinning him, and defeating him. The lesson sang like a diva; it sailed like a yacht on a clear day and raced like a Formula One car. The discussion was robust and productive, the students were alert and interested, my contributions were minimal, precise, and well-received, and, boon of boons, we had more material than time to cover it - always a good sign. The class was an operating room, and I was the surgeon. I left the campus tonight renewed, eager for tomorrow morning's 101.

I'm not the Batman. But the Teacher Returns.

[pc monk] Paul Levitz and me

In addition to observations and reflections on the practice of Zen itself, I think this might be a place to record navel-gazing of all sorts. There's some Epicurus coming up sometime, and Long, Quiet Highway soon for Zen and writing, but for now, there's this rumination.

A while ago, I ran into this profile of Paul Levitz, the current president and publisher of DC Comics, in the Wall Street Journal. He's 51 (my age), from Brooklyn (my hometown), and has gone through most of his professional career without a college degree (as did I, until fairly recently). I have always thought that Levitz was a fairly decent guy - at least that's how he comes across in interviews - and fairly conventional at that. And when I read this piece, I thought, "Y'know, I could have been Paul Levitz." Or could I have?

Let me elaborate. When I was in high school, DC Comics had their headquarters at 555 Broadway in Manhattan; my daily subway ride to high school on the upper east side passed within a few blocks. Had I tried, I'm sure I could have been an intern or a mailroom employee or something like that there; I was a smart kid from a good school. I was a responsible guy with a good work ethic thanks to my folks, and I'm sure I would have done as well there as in the jobs I actually did get. I was also creative, with some verbal aptitude (if no art talent at all), and would have fit in nicely in editorial. I've had some success in administration and management over my work life, and know enough about my skill sets to think it's not much of a stretch to imagine that if I had gotten into the business 34 years ago (as Levitz did) that I could have made a successful career of it.

So why didn't I?

There are a few reasons, the first external. I have often said that when I was growing up, my mother and father were very supportive, and encouraged their children to believe that we could do whatever we wanted in life. Much - most? - of my self-confidence comes from that support, and I have taken some pretty risky steps because I felt that I could accomplish my goals. I feel lucky to have had such consistently encouraging parents, who made me feel from and early age that I could be a lawyer or a scientist or a businessman or a teacher or a cop, whichever I chose.

At the same time, perhaps because of our working class background or a lack of sophisticated cultural awareness in our household, there were certain career choices that never even appeared on my radar. It wasn't that I thought I couldn't do certain jobs, but there were jobs that I never even entertained the notion of considering. These choices included anything that smacked of "fame," such as acting or any position associated with being on television or in the movies. I never gave a thought as to how anyone became newscaster, for example; in the world of my youth, those people just came from someplace else. Of course, for me, this other-people category included working in comics, which I considered cooler and way more famous than television. There's was no way I would ever be part of that scene; I would no more have applied for a job at DC than I would have run for mayor.

Now, of course, I realize that working for a comics publisher is just a job, and often a pretty crappy job at that. Now I understand that there are numerous positions in any organization that have little or nothing to do with the public content and plenty of people working in "cool" industries that have little or no interest in the final product. Now I see that my working for DC would have required little more than picking up an application from a bored HR clerk and getting through an interview with some low-level supervisor. Now I see all that; back in the day, I couldn't even imagine it.

Of course, even if I had been guided by someone into breaking down that imaginary barrier and getting my foot in the door, would I have stayed on track? Levitz cites "dedication, focus, and loving what I do" as how he got to where he was. I have always tried to do things that I loved, but in the thirty years of my adult working life, I have had over a dozen jobs in at least seven different fields. While I have usually been dedicated to the task in front of me, it seems that I haven't been able to maintain focus for very long.

Perhaps that might have been different if I had indeed gotten into comics as a career at an early age. Comics have been a consistent element of my life for a long time and may have been the source of focus if they had been my livelihood as well. But maybe not; consider this, an article in response to some comics history that I found shortly after I saw the profile on Levitz. The pertinent quotation: "Comics is an industry built on exploitation." The article is a clear expression of the dirty little secret of comics: that far from being a wonderland of talent and creativity and inspiration, it has always been a seedy, shabby, and dishonorable industry, and the writers, artists, and other creative folk who have worked in it have more often than not been poorly treated, if not abused. I wonder if I could have lasted as long as Levitz has. I have left positions over matters of conscience much smaller than some of the offenses committed by the big two comics publishers; I wonder how many compromises Levitz has had to endure to follow his youthful dream. I wonder if, in the same position, I would have made the same compromises; I'd like to think that perhaps I could have been an agent of change in the system, but I realize that's unlikely.

In the end, in real life, I made the choices that I made, and at any rate the train that could have taken me to a profile in the Wall Street Journal left the station a long time ago. Speculation on what might have been is fruitless, and I have no complaints about they way things turned out. It's just that sometimes I wonder.

[jet city] Community organizing

Ah - the joy of diary blogging: talking about us, the gang, the collective. Here's some stuff that's been going on and coming up.




First of all, today was not just the first day of fall, nor merely the first day of school; tonight marked four years since Otis and I had our Official First Date™ at Jai Thai in Fremont, and so it was there that we returned to celebrate that anniversary with another lovely dinner. After our Pad Thai and Phad Kee Mao, we came back home for a dessert intime: seasonal cupcakes.



Thanks so much for four years of being my Honey-T, Otis.


In other news, members of the collective have uploaded stuff! First of all, we find to our delight that TomCat has a blog! His latest post links to his Picasa album of photographs from his and NatDog's recent hike to the top of Mt. St. Helen's.

Also, Sylvio has a blog! I knew this, but have never remembered to link to it, prolly because half the time he posts in Portuguese and I feel lost and inferior when I try to read it. Well, I have corrected that situation now, prompted by his sending me a link to his Picasa album of his recent trip to Hawaii.

Finally, we need to be thinking of plans: the currently-proposed date for this year's Librapalooza is Saturday, October 11; the venue has not yet been chosen (our place here in the RD?) or any details hashed out. Ideas? And Halloween is on a Friday this year: it's perfect timing for a costume party, but O was leaning toward a scary movie fest. Opinions? And Tuesday, November 4, is Election Day: we'll be spectrating the broadcast coverage on the Big Wall if anyone is interested - we might even have a special (expatriate) guest star!

[apparatus] Just a few links

I haven't had as much time to slide through the intertubes as I have had recently, but I still have some interesting stuff to share. Well, I have some stuff; I guess you get to decide whether it is interesting.


I have always tried to avoid politics on my blog(s), but with the economy going in the tank and the imminent nationalization of our finance system, it's hard to stay away from it. Here's just one of quick hit from a few I have bookmarked recently:


I have long thought that one of the keys to the Republicans' successes lay in somehow getting average people to vote against their self-interest and for the elite. This is a chart from the Washington Post comparing the McCain and Obama tax proposals. (Click the chart for the full story.) Everybody I hang out with gets a bigger tax cut under Obama's plan than under McCain's, and Obama raises taxes only on the top 1% of families (by income) in the country. If people do tend to vote their pocketbooks, why would anyone outside those families pick McCain's plan? Do people really believe in the trickle-down theory (what George Bush I once famously called "voodoo economics") or do they just think that someday they, too, will have an income of $3 million a year, and want to protect that imaginary money? How else to explain voting to give a quarter of a million dollar tax break to people who already have more money than god?

Of course, if the Wall Street bailout goes through, I guess all this is subject to change anyway, no?

/serious


Okay, so if they have any of these in Seattle tomorrow (the day of the official launch), I may just be down on Stone Way with my debit card, economy be damned...


If face-to-face roleplaying and multi-sided die are not for you, here's a chance to experience all of the sophisticated intricacies of a fantasy RPG in an online format. Click the pick to play.


Tired of trying to determine how well you would do in a zombie invasion and how you might improve your chances? Just for a change of pace, have a go at this quiz: How Long Could You Survive Chained to a Bunk Bed with a Velociraptor?

[jet city] Still not a lobster...

Those in attendance at that specific, immortal game of Guesstures some years ago will recall a vain attempt by a certain individual to put his teammates in mind of a particular maritime crustacean by scissoring his fingers over and over. But I am not here to rake over old coals.


That individual was Johnbai, and I bring him up merely because he is the thread that connects our topics tonight, and I saw him earlier today, when he strolled down the alley in the rain for a brief visit while he gave O some privacy.

Johnbai is actually homonymic with Jon of Monmouth, with whom I just had a long conversation via the miracle of wireless telephony. I am happy to report that Jon, despite his withdrawal of sorts from blogging, is hale and hearty, and full of vim and vigor. That's thread one.

Thread two is connected to Johnbai because it also concerns something lobsterish, but not quite. Do y'all remember the Chicken of the Woods mushroom from the Farmer's Market last year? Well, I went out looking for some recently, and came up empty, but picked up a Lobster Mushroom instead. I neglected to take a picture of it whole, but it looked a lot like this.

It turns out that besides the reddish color, Lobster Mushroom is nothing like Chicken of the Woods. First of all, it's not even a real mushroom: it's a fungus that grows on other mushrooms. Who knew? It's also not as woody as the Chicken of the Woods, and the shroom-hunter told me it had a way different taste. Still and all, it looked pretty substantial, so I got one about the size of two fists.

I finally cooked it up tonight. I sliced it in pretty good-sized chunks (the stem made medallions) and sauteed it in a reduction of onion and vegetable bouillon (my cupboard was a bit bare). During cooking, it gave off a fishy aroma, not unpleasant but certainly distinctive. Cooked "Lobster" doesn't have the corky consistency of "Chicken"; it got limp like most mushrooms do, but stayed solid. I served it over plain brown rice.


The fishiness didn't really extend to the taste, at least not so much as I noticed; it really tasted a lot like regular button mushrooms, just a bit richer. It really went well with the nuttiness of the brown rice; I don't think white rice would have been as good an accompaniment. All in all, Lobster Mushroom was filling and fine, but not a patch on Chicken of the Woods. It did, however, serve to class up my bachelor evening at home with The Swing Years and my syllabi.

And remember: lobsters horizontal, crabs vertical.

[4-color ma] Not just monkeying around

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang was published by First Second Books in 2006 and garnered all sorts of attention. I finally got around to reading it the other day.



I have a special fondness for Gene Yang, because his day job is teaching, making him a colleague of sorts. In fact, all I had read of his work prior to American Born Chinese was an academic article on using comics in the classroom (done in comics form, of course). I had heard of ABC - there was almost no way not to have, what with its being in the running for a National Book Award, and winning the Printz award, and being reviewed by the New York Times, and all that - but I hadn't read much more of it than a few acontextual panels here and there.

After devouring the entire novel, I have to say that it is every bit as good as all the hype would have one expect.

I was not aware that Yang tells three different tales - that of the Monkey King, a figure from Chinese mythology; Jin, the titular Chinese-American youth; and Danny, a white American high schooler - and pulls them together in a most surprising way. To say any more - except that these threads form a story that is emotionally compelling and artfully told - would risk ruining for others the sheer joy I felt when reading the book. Suffice it to say that he addresses the big questions of personal identity from several perspectives.

Yang's somewhat cartoony style combines with a straightforward and masterful storytelling ability to pull the reader into the narrative completely. Yang takes one big aesthetic risk: in the Danny sequence, a Chinese character is purposely drawn in a caricatured style (oddly reminiscent of Chop-Chop in early Blackhawks) that is a bit jarring, but which pays off with patience. It would be remiss not to mention the contribution of Lark Pien's colors to the book; the bright, saturated palette goes a long way to helping to create the world of ABC.

Yang also provides one wonderful exercise in formal play, which, of course, caught my attention immediately. The powerful Monkey King, on his magic cloud, is fleeing from the godlike Tze-Yo-Tzuh:

The use of panel borders to represent the "boundaries of reality" is pure genius; the following pages are completely borderless, continuing the conceit quite effectively.

Gene Yang gives us narrative and visual excellence in American Born Chinese; I can't wait for a chance to use it in class.

[pc monk] Moving meditation

So, this summer, instead of riding my bike a lot, I started running Green Lake regularly. Actually, I started walking Green Lake regularly, and then worked up to running it. And that's what this reflection is really about - the process as well as the act itself.


I started when Otis was in Hawai'i at the beginning of July. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I just started walking down to the lake (a half mile), around it (three miles), and back (a half mile) to kill time. We were graced with a fairly good summer this year, so it was usually pleasantly warm and sunny, and I enjoyed the community of the lake - walkers, runners, dog-walkers, skaters, the whole scene. It was a chance to shake off some cobwebs, move around a little, and take the air, as we used to say. I went just about every day.

After a while, I noticed I was moving a little faster than a stroll, and getting back home a little more quickly. I switched from sandals to sneakers and started walking a bit faster, a bit more deliberately. I was still just taking a walk, but it was with purpose, and my heart told me I was working a little harder.

After a while more, I figured I would run a portion of the route, just for fun. First, I only ran a short distance - from one arbitrary landmark to another. Then I started running from one major landmark to another - a mile, since the lake path is conveniently divided into thirds by the boathouse, the bathhouse, and the community center. Then I started running two-thirds of the route consistently, and one day I ran all the way around, and there I was.

I now seem to have settled into a nice routine of running the lake three times a week and walking it a few more times. About thirty years ago, a friend (who was running before running was cool) told me that three miles three times a week was the optimum running schedule for general health - do more than that and a person gets better at running, but no healthier, and the risk of injury goes up. It feels good to have reached that level, and that it has become a habit.

What also feels good it the manner in which I have moved to this place. Unlike some of my usual OCD-filled enterprises, I have not kept a spreadsheet recording my days run, my mileage, or my times - I haven't even ever clocked myself. I try to run or walk every day, but not because I feel I need to - I actually want to, but I don't beat myself up if my schedule doesn't let me, either. I have a general idea of when I leave the house for the lake, and I can look at the clock when I get home to get some idea of my time, but the time doesn't seem important. What does seem important is that I feel good when I am running and I feel better that I have run.

I have also tried to engage the running itself in a different way. Just as I haven't gotten a watch or any other device to track my "progress," I haven't taken an iPod or a radio with me, either to set a pace with music or provide a distraction during the run. I like being at the lake while I run - seeing the sun or the moon or the mist, feeling the air and the ground, hearing the sounds of the traffic and people and animals and my own feet on the gravel, smelling the plants and the water. I don't want anything to take me from that; I want to be there. I don't want the running to be all I am concerned with; I want to be a person who is running.

Mindfulness is an element that has come up frequently in this ongoing discussion of Zen practices, and it is mindfulness that I try to cultivate while running. In a manner similar to my engagement with top ramen, I try to just be in the moment when running, to experience each sensation as it comes, without judgment or evaluation. It's hard to do; notwithstanding our friendly not-a-monk, I'm not sure that running can replace zazen, although it might be more accessible. My main stumbling block is the usual: the chattering of my all-too-verbal monkey-brain, which wants to narrate and comment on each unfolding instance.

Once in a while, though, my inner voice goes silent and I can find myself just feeling an itch on my leg with no desire to scratch it, or experiencing the temperature of the air without calling it too cold or too warm even in my mind; maybe then, in those little moments, I am someplace a little closer to where I want to be.

In any case, I am going to keep running.

[blockhead] Fresh start

NatDog and I were northbound by the dawn's early light today: it was the first day back on campus for fall quarter. Most of the day was taken up by the all-campus convocation, but I did get some other stuff done.


The convocation seemed to move along quickly and have an awful lot of content; I guess that's the sign of a good meeting, so I can't complain about this year. Some of the best bits of the day were the casual conversations with colleagues - it was amazing how quickly we could get right back to work and the business of figuring out how to teach better. Some of these contacts were made at the staff barbecue, which thoughtfully included veggie burgers. There are more meetings and training sessions scheduled for the rest of the week, but I am optimistic about them.

I am pretty optimistic overall this fall - I feel pretty charged up by the day, and I have some exciting new ideas for my 101 classes that I am eager to try out. My new office has been prepared, and tomorrow the previous tenant will clear out her stuff so I will have a new, pirate work space. Man, it's all good.

I even participated in a (rather small) drum circle to celebrate our community!

In that spirit of cheeriness, I offer this slightly silly but still pretty cool look at English orthography:

[jet city] Fauntleroy Follies

What a glorious late summer day this has been! To try to take as much advantage of it as possible, Otis and I wandered our way from the U District to the wilds of West Seattle in search of merriment and were on the whole extremely successful.



Our early morning walk took us to the University Farmer's Market, where we found a veritable cornucopia of goodies, to wit:

Yellow summer squash, green beans, lobster mushroom, golden beets, slicing cucumber, lemon cucumber, and a huge sweet onion

The afternoon took us over to the shores of Puget Sound: Ned's place off Lincoln Park.

The guardian of the property, Lady Flavia, reluctantly granted us passage to the barbecue patio,

and Neds was certainly the hostess with the mostest,

providing a heckuva spread

that created a contented crowd.

The weather was hot enough to bring out the local bathing beauties

but not too hot to prevent the badminton sharpies from hustling the rubes.

There was contemplation,

utter relaxation,

and satisfaction.

My chair was broken and threatened to eat me several times,

but I had a great time anyway.

[4-color ma] Some of my favorite things

If you Google "50 things I love about comics," you'll get over 1500 responses; the meme has been floating around the comicsweblogosphere for a little while now and there have been some pretty cool responses. I haven't jumped on the bandwagon until now, and I think I will offer my list one by one, as they occur to me.

50. Self-portraits of cartoonists that show them surrounded by the characters they have drawn.

When I saw an advert for the second issue of Stay Tooned magazine (click the pic for a link), I knew this convention had a place on my top fifty list. I have always loved this approach, especially back in the day, when comics creators didn't have websites, fanzines were strictly low-tech and small-press, and such pieces were rare treats. There is something about the whimsy of them, the brownie nature of the comics characters clambering over the furniture, the odd juxtapositions of individuals and genres, that makes me smile - and, I think, gives some insight into the creator's sensibilities. I can't resist them.

[pc monk] Still dealing with that whole sprituality thing

So, I'm still thinking about how much of a gap there is with my understanding of Buddhism, the internal/external perspective that came up in the comments of a previous post, and my teacup full of resistance to religion. Here are some perspectives from others.

How's that for cherry-picking?

As funny as that is, I know that it is not exactly on point for a discussion about Buddhism. But here's an essay from everyone's favorite Buddhist atheist, Sam Harris, called Killing the Buddha. In it, he both gives me pause, articulating some of my concerns, and provides some measure of optimism for a fruitful engagement with Buddhism.

On the question of religion v. system of thought, Harris says that "[w]hile it may be true enough to say (as many Buddhist practitioners allege) that “Buddhism is not a religion,” most Buddhists worldwide practice it as such, in many of the naive, petitionary, and superstitious ways in which all religions are practiced." Harris's argument for this statement is persuasive, even setting aside his claim that "there are college-educated men and women who apparently believe that Guru Rinpoche was actually born from a lotus." There's no escaping that there's just a lot of this religion-y baggage attached to Buddhism.

Harris goes on to explain how, in his view, the methodology of Buddhism can be used to increase our understanding of humanity without needing the aegis of religiosity, and how, in fact, it would be more useful as a completely secular tool, "an utterly nonsectarian way of talking about the full spectrum of human experience and human aspiration." Harris refers to this application of meditation and other practices as contemplative science, which he calls "a modern approach to exploring the furthest reaches of psychological well-being" completely compatible with the empirical approach.

Contemplative science: now that sounds like something I could grab hold of without reservation. Maybe that's the just the little key I needed.

[jet city] Last summer weekday

I guess I just realized this is the last day of my summer vacation. I have to be at the All-Campus Convocation bright and early on Monday morning, and that's the official start of my annual contract. Of course, I still have tomorrow and the next day off, but that's a weekend anyway so it doesn't really count.

So, what I am doing on this final day of freedom? Walking and laptopping, of course. I made my run around Green Lake this morning, and since Otis has appointments all day, I am wandering my way down through the U-District, just being lazy and touristy. Right now I am in what used to be Cafe Wannabee just three months ago, but which is apparently now Seattle Gold Coffee. I'll head further south in a little bit, looking for lunch, comic books, and trouble.

Although I just wanted to share this last little piece of summer sunshine with the blogosphere, I'll take the opportunity to give you some actual content.

This photo might better be categorized under Rhythmic Gymnastics with Apparatus, since it's pretty darn close to that event, but herewith is Annis P., mother of Otis, in her glory days, fresh from her tenure as a Princess of the Lilac Court, when she was a baton twirler extraordinaire:

(I am totally digging the Mary Tyler More vibe she's putting out in this photo.)

I think that many of the world's problems would seem a lot smaller if we just had more baton twirling in our daily lives, don't you?

[apparatus] Link farm!

Ah, the myriad joys of the internets! What flotsam and jetsam (and even lagan) has washed up on the shores for us to examine today? We have some interactive gizmos, some pictures, and some miscellany.


This World Names Profiler gadget lets you enter in your family name and see how common it is across the globe - and you can drill down to the country and regional level. I was able to make a good guess at the actual identities of the few individuals associated with my name; try yours and see.

Umbrella Today? bills itself as the world's simplest weather report. It probably is.

I use essay generators in my composition class from time to time as a fun distraction as well an illustration (by their absence) of organizational principles. I think I found another one based on one of my favorite writers.

I guess Dingo is lucky she still has hers; I don't think O will sell my Geo Metro back to me at this point.

[blockhead] Woe unto the adjunct

I was lucky enough last year to get a tenure-track position at my college after only three years of working as an adjunct faculty member - or as I like to call it, temporary part-time staff. It's a good feeling to have a home, but just because I'm out of the adjunct grind, doesn't mean it has gone away.


Take a look at this video from someone with a lot more impressive qualifications than I have.



What gets me more than this particular individual's story is the tone and tenor of the comments on this blog entry from Alas, a Blog, where I first encountered the piece. I was astonished at the lack of love in the room for adjuncts, and for the level of buy-in to the Invisible Hand determining everything for the best for everyone.

Not only am I not persuaded that "the Market" will make everything all better if we just leave it alone, but the reduction of education to merely commerce is specious, and short-sighted at best. The future of our country and the world rests in no small measure on the education we deliver today; college is not just another business, it is an investment in building tomorrow. And that so much of the work done to that end is the responsibility of underpaid, insecure, poorly respected but qualified and talented educators is a shame.

There were many benefits to my becoming a tenure-track faculty member, but one of the losses was my standing in the adjunct community. The divide between full-time and part-time staff is so great that it's hard for any full-timer to be taken seriously as an ally by the adjunct corps. When I was an adjunct, no amount of supportive language from a full-timer made any real difference; now that I am on the other side of the divide, how can I expect to be taken as genuinely in their corner?

Sometimes I wish I could just teach and ignore anything else, but as long as I am working alongside talented peers who are being treated worse than I am, I guess I can't. I'm just not sure what to do.

[jet city] Town and country

The last couple of days have been filled with business - I spent a day on campus even before the pre-week that comes before the quarter-start - and with a some pleasure as well. Here's the latest on two recent endeavors, dinner in the heart of the city and a trip to the cabin out in the woods.

Town

Ms. Matcha makes her only Humpday appearance at the final dinner

Wednesday night marked the last of the Summer Humpday Dinner series. For twelve weeks, we have made an open invitation to all our pals to join us for dinner on Wednesday nights. We had to cancel one, and converted one into an art opening party, but we still managed ten splendid dinners over the course of the summer.

Here are some stats!

I was the only one to attend all ten dinners; Otis and Dingo tied at eight dinners, with Merry close behind at seven. Johnbai clocked in at six, and BK and Myrtly get special mention for making four, even though they have to come in all the way from Enumclaw.

Tacos Guaymas in Green Lake drew the biggest crowd, thirteen; Teapot Vegetarian saw the most intimate crowd, at only five. Overall, 88 people came to the dinners; the mean and median attendance were both about nine.

Four dinners were 100% vegetarian; the lowest vegetarian percentage was 40%. Overall, 70% of the 88 meals were vegetarian (and people who didn't eat at all were counted as non-vegetarian).

Four of the ten restaurants were north of the ship canal; only one was south of downtown.
Three of the ten restaurants were on Capitol Hill; only one was outside the city limits.
Six of the ten restaurants had Asian cuisine; three of those were Vietnamese.

That all pencils out to a successful show, in my opinion! If you'd like to read a narrative history instead of spreadsheets, check out the Summer Humpdays blog.

Country

Otis and I were out of touch today because we headed out to the Wenatchee National Forest to do some required maintenance on the Putnam Cabin. Most of it consisted of clearing away needles and debris to mitigate any fire hazards. It was fairly straightforward work, but hella dusty.

This doesn't mean the cabin is closed for the season, though. It can be used all throughout the winter, even when Chinook Pass is closed and the only access is from Yakima; anyway, there's plenty of good weather left - it was hot up there today!

As a matter of fact, the long-range weather forecast looks promising for sun around October 3, so I might try to arrange to get out of town that weekend and chop some winter wood. If that sounds like fun to you, drop me a hint.