i really have no time to be posting here, but i just heard the all things considered review of franz ferdinand's album (no atc links, right now. i'm protesting npr's decision to fire* bob edwards, a groundswell of the worst sort).
which reminded me...
in seattle, the best hosts in the history of people visiting other people, brian and sky, took us to see franz ferdinand at the crocodile cafe, the one jet city venue i knew anything about before visiting. it's worth noting that the show was damn good and that franz ferdinand deserves your attention.
that is all for now. much more on the epic seattle spring break when i get a moment.
*right. i get it. he wasn't fired. but he's being taken off morning edition. same bad news.
Swamped with papers to be graded. Someday I'll be a more efficient grader. For now, forty-five minutes to an hour on each of forty papers.
Can't stop listening to that Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, "Maps." Thanks, KEXP. Thanks, JM.
Going to Seattle next week. I've never been to the Jet City before. I'm happy to note that, according to Delta's current information, we will, in fact, arrive on a Boeing. I suppose one doesn't proudly land at SeaTac all Airbus style. Natalie and I have not taken a trip together (excluding holiday visits to hometowns) without work involved in two-and-a-half years. And my man Brian has been singing the song of Seattle for so long... I imagine he'll be the best host ever.
The first days at the new job have been good. I'm going to be exhausted by the end of the semester, though.
Finally saw Dogtown and Z-Boys last night. I skated for most of my middle school and high school years but didn't really know the earliest history of the SoCal scene. I've always loved the skating genre, though. My friends and I could gape at Bones Brigade videos for hours, knowing we'd crack our skulls if we tried anything we saw. "Dude! Lance Mountain just pulled a McHawk! Christian Hosoi got 14 feet of air! Rodney Mullen sucks, and he can take his freestyle nonsense back to the playground! I'm totally getting the new Caballero!" Dogtown has plenty of vintage footage, but its emphasis is on the biographical and the historical. Plenty of nostalgic bravado, but enough thoughful reflection to let a good story make its way through the racket of sliding wheels tearing across empty swimming pools.
We saw 21 Grams at the AFI Silver a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been that rattled by a film since Dancer in the Dark. Go see Chuck's observations, which, as usual, are both graceful and reliable. I'd only add that the film's graininess reminds me of Robby Muller's work for Jim Jarmusch on Dead Man. Come to think of it, Stranger than Paradise has a similar aesthetic. Of course, both are black and white, unlike 21 Grams. I digress.
Buses and trains have been pretty reliable lately. The commute is down to an average of sixty minutes. I drove to campus the other day, only to find the garage I wanted blocked off for all but Job Fair recruitment types. Thanks, Department of Campus Parking.
And finally, I'll join the chorus of crazy leftists recommending a visit here. Look, I think Rumsfeld is the most articulate of the lot. Compare his stage presence with Bush, with Rice, with Powell (yes, the Powell who snapped at at Congressional staffer for shaking his head during the Secretary's testimony before the House International Relations Committee), and Rumsfeld wins handily. But he got stuck this Sunday.
I'm going for another glass of wine, now. I'd prefer a beer, but that South African Cote du Rhone is what we've got.
This afternoon, I saw a guy so angry at a car half-blocking the crosswalk at Georgia Avenue and Wayne Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland that he kicked the car's very shiny bumper as he passed by. When the car's driver flailed about, shouting something-or-other about "don't kick my car, dude," the angry, kicking pedestrian put his several things down on the sidewalk, threw his arms up, and ran toward the car, hurtling himself up against the passenger-side window, banging on the roof with his fists.
And I didn't even think to think of Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy. Damn. Because it was just like that.
...from one of a set of course evaluations that arrived in my box today, some eight months after the end of the course:
"...to substitute autharian rules for actual teaching is pathetic." "I found the fachist bullshit least helpful of all." "...making the english department feel important and powerful while discaraging any creative thought." "...subjectivist bullshit."
Perhaps, one might fairly note, this student's frustration was so intense, so thoroughgoing that he or she found himself or herself unable to communicate clearly.
In fairness, I concede that a misspelled word here or there does not a weak argument make (though it sure helps). I also acknowledge that a few of this student's observations were more eloquently conveyed than those above.
Then again, these critical fragments seem to undermine their own work rather nicely. This course asked students to learn and implement the methods of rhetoric, and this unsubtle thrashing of the course (for what it's worth, the evaluation's author insists that his or her beef is with the department-wide curriculum and not the instructor) demonstrates that its author seems not to have gotten it at all. I imagine the evaluation's intended audience found itself less than entirely persuaded. I, for one, would have happily entertained a more thoughtful attack of my profession. I do it all the time.
Just so I don't tear my hair out every time I stumble on this post, I'll point out that a student from last fall's course on the novel offered the following: "DAVE ROCKED!"
Aw, shucks...