A Sleeping Scholar

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So, season 2 of heroes is out on DVD today. If you haven't seen it yet...DON'T READ THE BOX! There's a spoiler on the back of the goddamn box for the climactic moment of the season finale. AAARGH!

So, in 40 minutes, I check out of my final Bloomington apartment.
I leave this place after 7 years, 2 months and 27 days.
I came to this place unknowingly riding a retrospective prophecy, laboring under a potential metaphysical death threat and knowing absolutely nobody in town.
I leave a community, a group of people that are in some ways more than friends. I leave a home.
For adventure.
We are Chicago bound, damaskrose9 and I. Living in Pilsen, She will be schooling in Hyde Park, I'll be teaching on Goose Island.
All in all, I'll miss this place, these people. But I've run out of Bloomington lessons. I won't learn more by being here, and to continue for me would be a Woodersonian existence, trying to relive past glory, not creating new glory.
I meander through life in such a way that I tend to be bad at goodbyes. It's mostly that I believe in seeing people again so vehemently that I never really entertain the possibility of not.

And so, adieu.

Best name for a skin care company EVER!

EDIT: Link works now, definitely check it out.

In 34 days, I leave Bloomington, my home for longer than any other place I can remember.
When I moved here, I lived alone, knew nobody, and feared I was in over my head academically.

Over the course of my 7 years here, I have made more friends than enemies, found homes both physical and metaphorical, nurtured my creativity and allowed it to blossom, come into my own academically, and learned a million things that I didn't know before I came here.

Still, I can't help but feel that the end is going to be anti-climactic. Not with a bang but with a whimper. Pessimists will tell me that everything really ends this way, that nothing really gets to have a big or satisfying ending, that this is a conceit of narrative, that somehow the idea that life can be divided into chapters or volumes is worthy of ridicule.

I say that the moment we started telling stories, we started living them. Life is a series of stories, that's the only way homo narrans can make sense of disparate experiences. And so I really want the end of this volume in the series of my life to end distinctly, to have some sort of climax, a moment of clarity before I head North into adventure.

So, Bloomington, want to be remembered in my life as something more than an educational pit stop? give me a reason to remember you in the next 34 days. Hang out with me, come to my final party, help me pack the truck, surprise me on the street, give this story an ending.

I have to say, the opening monologue from the Godfather is among my favorite movie monologues ever. Partially because it is shot so well, but also because it is just such a beautiful summation of a life story in so few lines.

I haven't said much on here of late. I haven't said much anywhere of late. Things are going well, but busy. I am working 3 jobs currently, preparing for an interstate move, trying to get a dissertation finished(it's in the revisions stage, and I have an end in sight), while still living life. It's going well, all things considered, but I'm a little strung out by the stress of it all. At least, strung out for me, which is a different standard than most would apply.0
I have a few things coming up, but for now, let me give you two dates.
8/2 farewell dance party at knightridge
8/10 moving to Chicago (could use help the day before packing the truck in Bloomington, and that day unpacking in Chicago, Beer and Pizza provided)

"The Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country," McCain said.

So, for those of you who are unaware, "The majority found that the constitutionally guaranteed right of habeas corpus review applies to persons held in Guantanamo and to persons designated as enemy combatants on that territory. If Congress intends to suspend the right, an adequate substitute must offer the prisoner a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate he is held pursuant to an erroneous application or interpretation of relevant law, and the reviewing decision-making must have some ability to correct errors, to assess the sufficiency of the government's evidence, and to consider relevant exculpating evidence."

In other words, people detained by the US government have the right to challenge the legality of their detentions in court, whether though habeus corpus or a meaningful substitute. This is intended to prevent the government from simply grabbing people and holding them indefinitely without trial in the legal gray area known as Camp X-ray, Guantanamo Bay.

McCain, in saying what he said, indicates that upholding the right to trial is tantamount to declaring that "[african americans are] beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.(Dred Scott v. Sandford)" or "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.(Plessy v. Ferguson)" or "...the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit ... not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion. (Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio)*"

Is the guaranteeing of US prisoners habeus corpus the same as denying black people rights, or ignoring the inequality of government enforced segregation or threatening censorship in order to control media? NO. It is not one of the worst decisions, it is the closing of a legal loophole in the way in which international conflict is settled that allows recourse to the court, the basis of any modern system of justice.

I bet McCain wished he had some legal protection when he was being tortured in a Vietcong prison camp. Fuckin' sellout.


*a personal favorite, it led to the production code through threatened censorship of motion pictures

I love Order of the Stick. It is one of the funniest things produced at present. Today's punchline, a combination X-Men/Odyssey reference, epitomizes why this comic just continues to blow me away.

So, I haven't really mentioned that I am directing the Tempest. That's mostly because I've been busy...directing the Tempest. But I am.
It goes up next weekend, I still need to make the curtain, make the posters, make the programs, paint the set, learn the part of Antonio in case he doesn't show up for NO APPARENT REASON!, and deal with all the various and sundry things that will go into this show. All so some goddamn critic from the H-T can come and pronounce it unprofessional. Of Course it's unprofessional you pompous windbag, we're not professionals, we're volunteers.
Sorry, rant mode cancelled.
Anyway, if you want to come see it, it's 7pm Friday 6/6 and Saturday 6/7, Friday 6/13 and Saturday 6/14 in 3rd st. park.

"Battlefield Earth's primary colors are blue and gray, adding to the misery. Whenever we glimpse sunlight, the screen goes all stale yellow, as though someone had urinated on the print. This, by the way, is not such a bad idea."
From the Providence Journal

One thing that bugs me about linguists is represented well in This Wikipedia article. The way in which avoidance speech is represented in this is ritualistic and primitive, as if it is some strange superstitious thing to use a different lexicon with formal relations.
This is a generalized characteristic of language, using different words with acquaintances in formal positions, not something confined to tribal societies. When I go with damaskrose9 to visit her parents, I use more formalized language to describe everyday things, because of the formal nature of the relationship. It's as simple as that. That is avoidance language, not just for the Zulu anymore.
It just bugs me to no end when linguists or anthropologists observe "strange" behaviors among other people without relating them to western culture in a way that might help people understand human universals.(I'm not saying that there are large scale universals of culture, but I think that variable word choice based on listener status is one that applies across the board) Part of the point of cross-cultural study in my mind is to help people understand those universals(you mean the terrorists are nervous around their in-laws too? maybe they are human?) to help promote a more sympathetic approach to world problems.
But then, I'm just a latte-drinking, European-car-driving, east-coast liberal academic.

So, we're leaving for Chicago, no later than August, likely no earlier either. It's official. It's settled. It's daunting. It's exciting.
So, leaving Bloomington seems to be my future. It's kind of odd. If you will permit a video game metaphor, it feels like I'm leaving a zone without finishing all the side quests, leaving games behind, things I could be doing and such. However, at the same time, I feel like I'm advancing the main plot, revealing new things more crucial to the heart of the story.
So, now, I need to figure out how I'm doing this. Most of my life has involved leaving home. I've moved every few years my entire life. In a lot of ways, I've lived in Bloomington longer than anywhere else. But I still need to leave it. Looking back, I know that there will be things and people I keep, things and people I leave behind, memories, nostalgia, regret, and a fair amount of sadness.
It's a pisces thing, partially, though one I try to curb in myself. I can get lost in nostalgia, easily spending days looking over old journals, photographs and mementos. To oppose this tendency, I don't take photographs, I don't keep journals, I try to actively compartmentalize my mementos.
So, in many ways, I don't know what I'll be keeping. I don't know what 5 years down the road looks like in terms of my relationship to Bloomington. I'm embarking on the new and trying hard to not be one of those people who talks about the good old days as the happiest time of my life. I'm damn determined to have a moving now be the best time of my life.
So, what the hell does this mean for the present? It means I want to spend sometime with Bloomington folks in advance of departure, maybe wrap up a few more side quests and so forth. Got unfinished business with me? let me know. I'll try to do the same.
Meanwhile, expect my final dance party in Late May/Early June as a farewell party for those leaving Bloomington over the summer.

One thing I find interesting about the recent Democratic debate is how one aspect of the whole thing is being overlooked by even the critical media, George Stephanopolous' ties to the Clintons. One of the 'moderators' for this debate was one of the directors of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign and had his career launched by his association with the Clintons. Given his outright smear questions for Obama, how is nobody crying foul on ABC and journalistic neutrality.
I mean, I am the last person to imply journalistic objectivity, but there is expected to be a lack of direct bias in the news media. Letting him moderate the debate is putting the fox in charge of the hen house and because of that, we get questions about Obama's association with Ayers and the fucking flag pin.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

spattered with
blood

wedged against
the door