tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71583502024-03-14T04:42:18.250-07:00Darwin's California Cat Presents Last Days of My Career as a College Professor"But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice."
-- Charles Darwin, Letter to Asa Gray....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.comBlogger1888125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-56652410092196224432017-11-03T11:45:00.000-07:002017-11-03T12:03:43.739-07:00The Last Days of Robertson Also Known as the Two-Fisted, Fighting Poet Doc<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: right; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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First let us unpack the title of this post. "Two-fisted fighting poet doc" is from a Sinclair Lewis novel, though I don't remember which one, and the fact I can so easily look it up means I don't have to look it up. (1)<br />
<br />
Right?<br />
<br />
But yes these are the last days of my time as a professor in the Department of Media Studies with special responsibilities in the Journalism Minor at the University of San Francisco. "Last days" is figurative language - a metonymy, I think - in which the part stands for the whole. Days stand for months. I do not retire until May.<br />
<br />
Edith wants me to blog out this last seven months. Actually, she wanted me to start the first day of this semester - to create a bittersweet arc, recapitulating a 27-year career and ending on a note of sadness, gladness and/or madness, contingent on events. But I couldn't put my heart into it so I delayed. Somewhat too easy to turn this into an excursion through an archipelago of regrets since my time at USF has been sometimes very good and mostly pretty good and only occasionally not so good at all, though the last five years has been a little Eh a little Ugh and somewhat Oh Come On Not Really?<br />
<br />
I do not like regretting. Though it is irresistible to regret since implicit in regret is an assumption of importance and agency on one's part. The sea slug does not regret the operas it did not write. On the other hand, I did some good things, mostly in the classroom, and I always enjoyed teaching and never (Edith reminds me) taught a class the same way twice, which means I never served the same metaphorical meal twice. And some metaphorically feasted and others - not so much. But each day was bright, new, fragile.<br />
<br />
One occasionally gets kind notes from former students. One sometimes - oh you know - solicits kind notes from former students. Overall I conclude that over these years I did good. Not perfect. I'm sure if I keep at this journal of days I will not be able to resist identifying specific moments of misjudgment and malconduct. And yet and yet to the end - almost there; I can smell it - I enjoyed teaching and cared about it and could not resist throwing out what didn't work (and often what did work) and tweaking assignments and discarding assignments and writing new bits of lecture and bookmarking new websites and hyperlinking to new blog posts and news stories as if I were going to teach ethics and magazine writing and beat reporting again and again forever.<br />
<br />
That's what I have always liked about teaching: Someday I'll get it (almost) right.<br />
<br />
Footnote 1: Of course, I looked it up. It's from Arrowsmith, and it's wonderful:<br />
<br />
<i>Zenith welcomes with high hurraw</i><br />
<i>A friend in Almus Pickerbaugh,</i><br />
<i>The two-fisted fightin' poet doc</i><br />
<i>Who stands for health like Gibraltar's rock.</i><br />
<i>He's jammed with figgers and facts and fun,</i><br />
<i>The plucky old, lucky old son--of--a--gun!</i><br />
<br />
Footnote 2: The Google, like Suzanne, takes you down to her place near the river and you can hear the boats go by and you can spend the night forever and you know that she's half-crazy but that's why you want to be there and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China and you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind and you know that you can trust her for she's touched your perfect body with her mind by which I mean I looked for a nice "last days" quote and found this:<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.</i><br />
<br />
- <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="H. L. Mencken">H. L. Mencken</a><br />
<br />....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-88101912197843283902011-11-04T15:30:00.001-07:002011-11-04T15:30:41.885-07:00Occupy Oakland: Noon march 11.2.11<div style="padding: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 0; width: 500px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/6313407464/in/set-72157627929018631/" title="High Noon in Oakland" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6219/6313407464_8a3760355a_s.jpg" alt="High Noon in Oakland" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/6312886813/in/set-72157627929018631/" title="High Noon in Oakland" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6224/6312886813_e985344607_s.jpg" alt="High Noon in Oakland" style="border:none; 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margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/6313419304/in/set-72157627929018631/" title="March" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6035/6313419304_11f905949e_s.jpg" alt="March" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/6312898895/in/set-72157627929018631/" title="March" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6037/6312898895_bbac5f4758_s.jpg" alt="March" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/6313420468/in/set-72157627929018631/" title="March" style="display: block; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6236/6313420468_703f028db0_s.jpg" alt="March" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/6313421178/in/set-72157627929018631/" title="March" style="display: block; padding: 0 0 10px 0; width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6095/6313421178_bc62d79363_s.jpg" alt="March" style="border:none; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 75px; height: 75px;"/></a><br clear="all"/></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertson1944/sets/72157627929018631/">Occupy Oakland: Noon march 11.2.11</a>, a set on Flickr.</p></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-23904758032465814372010-08-28T11:58:00.000-07:002010-08-28T12:01:37.224-07:00Practicing on Charley: Playing with iMovie<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxCiNp5ZpOboEf2-C5dVcnZvauVlN8hS5R8V2oUd_jpyuOnaKniGWuaABS4vPHFkVpqLMchmIP79QY' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-21468186804642021222010-08-19T16:29:00.001-07:002010-08-19T16:29:27.593-07:00The Poker Party<object width="400" height="300"> <param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2F52999206%40N02%2Fsets%2F72157624724078824%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2F52999206%40N02%2Fsets%2F72157624724078824%2F&set_id=72157624724078824&jump_to="></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2F52999206%40N02%2Fsets%2F72157624724078824%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2F52999206%40N02%2Fsets%2F72157624724078824%2F&set_id=72157624724078824&jump_to=" width="400" height="300"></embed></object>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-18718315938981994912010-08-17T09:45:00.000-07:002010-08-17T09:52:33.703-07:00Letters to Alton: Eat the Rich<span class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28567825@N03/3450763854" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3605/3450763854_480c90f936_m.jpg" alt="Thomas Wolfe" style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="240" width="183" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28567825@N03/3450763854">cliff1066™</a> via Flickr</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >Alton</span></span></st1:city></st1:place><span style=";font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >, which formal address gives tone, and one thing we still have is *<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">tone</span></b>*. I will be teaching feature writing this fall – if my handful of students (just six) don’t slip away before classes start next week. It’s a class in which half of the students will get A’s because I will push them toward playing with the moment, selecting the details that set the frame (their frame) of the event, listening for the bits of high conversation, perhaps even putting their own POV in their directly – though never ever an “I.” In short, I encourage them to be "literary" and so generously reward the attempt that if you do the work, you get a good grade. This makes the class more fun, of course, and I am no longer interested in making them suffer in the name of rigor. The world rewards a lot of things, and good work is only one of them, and punishes a lot of things, and good work is *<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">certainly</span></b>* one of them. How jealous some are of excellence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >So I look forward to feature writing. The first exercise the first day of class will be sending them out to campus to (singly) pick a campus elevator and ride up and down for half an hour and bring back “the story.” Some of them will simply be an eye. Some of them will bring back a personal tail of how they were challenged or engaged by elevator riders wondering why they just keeping going UP and going DOWN. So, yes: fun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >Now you walked me through your politics, which journey I much enjoyed. My basic approach is kind of cynical but very personal. I actually wish the Democrats really were engaged in some serious class warfare! I just love seeing prosperous folk taxed because they live so rich and then they howl so loud when you claw some of it back. This comes, I guess, from my blue collar background. When I was in therapy back in the 90s – I had locked up on my progress toward tenure so I auditioned three psychologists and picked the mean one, the bitch. After some months said, with what seemed genuine surprise, “You really are serious about this class resentment.” Now, if she had added: “But I also think that you personally have the attitude that Churchill ascribed to the Hun -- ‘He’s either at your feet or at your throat,’” I couldn’t have denied it. I’ve always been too deferential to people with power simply because they have it. Now folk who make $250,000 plus a year – which we have done a time or two but only late in life – may work hard or they may be lucky or they may have inherited it or they may have stolen it, but in any case I am comfortable taking some of it (or giving some of it up) just *<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">on principle</span></b>*, which is that even Adam Smith would have puked at the sight of some of the self indulgence we now see among the mega rich. I think a lot of middle class people work pretty hard and deserve a decent share of things. *This is, among other things, a “moral” position, which means individual and arbitrary.*</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >How does this approach work out empirically? Are the wise stifled and the mob engorged, tick-like, with the blood of their betters?*<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >It’s case by case, isn’t it? It’s a question of how much waste you can tolerate to get a little good done? Every politician has a little bit of a con going on, some little self serving thing, going on, so let the horse trading begin. What this resolves into is all kinds of problems and resentments at the Democrats, those sanctimonious, self-serving bastards, and utter loathing for the Republicans who really are Know Nothings (in the modern misunderstanding of the term). I mean, denying global warming and defending BP and trying to deny Muslims the right to build a mosque on a spot they bought with good hard Yankee dollars<b><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></b>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >And so my rant is richly vague, not a political philosophy but certainly an attitude. The average politician is a nasty piece of sausage - bug bits, rat hair, flecks of excrement. Eydie was working for <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Oakland</st1:city></st1:place> when Jerry Brown was mayor, and every time she encountered him filled her with greater disdain. But I’ll still take him over the eBay lady intent on buying the election who is too scared of the press to talk to any. Oh yes I’ll take a Democrat over a Republican seven days a week. And, of course, in the long run we are all dead, and political enthusiasm is so much middle class self inflation. Yet I still think that some political decisions do make things better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >After recess, we will discuss this elusive “better.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;color:blue;" ><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></div><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com/2010/08/never-waste-good-letter-hello-north.html">Never Waste a Good Letter: Hello, North Carolina</a> (jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=bd8225eb-3070-4363-a967-cc2c146701a6" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-7377991645093664112010-08-10T09:48:00.000-07:002010-08-10T09:52:42.054-07:0015 Most Overrated American Writers?<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/huffingtonpost" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/resized/0004/4052/44052v1-max-250x250.png" alt="Image representing Huffington Post as depicted..." style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="156" width="250" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image via <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com">CrunchBase</a></span></p><a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-15-most-overrated-con_b_672974.html">Showed up on Huffington Post</a>. Boy Koppy, of the LA Koppys, started a conversation.<br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">From Michael, a journalism professor in San Francisco: </span></div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">(Yeah, yet ANOTHER "Michael" -- every fuckin' Johnny-come-lately Tom, Dick and Harry is named Michael, dammit....)</span></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">That was fun to read because of the apparently well-informed animus of the critic, well-informed in the sense that he makes big claims based on vast knowledge of books and theories and *<span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span>* don’t know enough to challenge him. As for the list, I’ve never read a single word by most of them, which is rather embarrassing. But I read all those other older books in grad school, the contents of which I promptly forgot, so I have no illusions about having missed much. I have read a little bit of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.bigsnap.com/billy.html" title="Billy Collins" rel="homepage">Billy Collins</a> and a little bit of Mary Oliver and rather like them. Criticism of poets asserting that most of their work is crap is not a legit criticism from my point of view. I don’t see a book of poems as a linear accomplishment to be judged intact. If you do a few poems that stand up, that’s enough. (You may say this is the lazy man’s approach to literature – the ‘anthology’ approach, which means you only have to read the stamped and approved – and I won’t argue.) But I’ve read some Collins and Oliver that gave me pleasure. And if the earth did not move in those instances of pleasure, somehow I no longer expect it to.</span></span></span></span></div> <div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashbery" title="John Ashbery" rel="wikipedia">John Ashbery</a>: Read again and again that he’s great and tried some poems in the New Yorker. Left me cold. <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Vendler" title="Helen Vendler" rel="wikipedia">Helen Vendler</a>: I thought she was poet and critic?? Doesn’t matter; haven’t read her either. Amy Tan? Confident I didn’t need to read her. Michuko Kakutani? The fact I have not gone to the trouble to spell her name right says it all. I do recall I have never been impressed by her reviews, though I never paused to figure out why. I knew the names of some of the rest of the list. But some of them I heard of for the first time.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What I was most impressed by was the effort on the part of the critic to grab some spotlight for himself. Perhaps, he will manage to start a few conversations. I now feel “prodded” to make an effort to read some of these folk again, or for the first time. Such over-the-top condemnation clears the field as it were, dynamites the dam, leaves some space for me to have a few modest opinions. Maybe I’ll come back and read the comments.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And Anis Shivani : my eyes are on *<span style="font-weight: bold;">you</span>*. I will talk about you at cocktail parties.</span></span></span></p></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">From Bob, a comedy writer and author in Berkeley:</span></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">I've heard of Amy Tan, of course, and read a short fiction by Foer in the New Yorker which I thought was okay, and The Something Life of Somebody by Diaz, which wasn't bad, but frankly I've never heard of any of these other writers. I get the impression that they mostly write for one another. I suspect I would enjoy almost anything by <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0117445/" title="Bill Bryson" rel="imdb">Bill Bryson</a> or Carl Hiaasen more than I would these writers, but it's a near certainty that I'll never find out.</span></span><br /></span></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">From Jerry, a travel writer also in Berkeley:</span></div> <div> </div> <div>I'm finding in my own writing that 'themes' I immerse myself in help me to at least get something down, esp w/all the travelling all over my peripatetic other half still wants to do. Like this, from my 6-word 'nevel' series: "If only now, then always now." Ersatz Buddhist or song-lyric in future, who knows, but it helps keep the creativity flowing. And as for poetry (which I was never a big reader of), I have recently discovered Mary Oliver. Fantastic! Inspirational, without all the pretense. Check her out!</div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">From Alexandra, a French reporter in Johannesburg:</span></div> <div> </div> <div>As always, the point of this is that just because (in this case all these 15 writers) win the accolades or have these books in print isn't guarantee of quality of writing. The critic is probably as much jealous as correct with his thinking. I don't know any of those American writers, but it doesn't matter. Awards, academic jobs, good reviews, money are not the result of talent except of sales talent. As you always say yourself, Michael, ultimately success is only selling. This is sad cold facts. Today more than in history but it has always been this. The unknown beautiful tree falling in the forest is most often decayed to unrecognizable when the remains are finally found and gathered for only firewood. But a known tree (a tree with a publicist) doesn't have to be beautiful.</div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">Thanks to all who contributed. </span></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">I should start a fuckin' blog on these questions.... </span></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">But there's still three ice-cold Buds in the fridge. THREE of 'em!</span></div> <div> </div> <div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;">And it IS a hot day....</span></div><br /><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/aug/10/anis-shivani-overrated-writers&a=22392588&rid=8115ebaf-64de-49fa-aa5a-91187d061835&e=d06e020f1a4ae415647f72bcda21cf96">Who are the most overrated contemporary writers in the world?</a> (guardian.co.uk)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.earlyword.com/2010/08/09/most-overrated-authors/">"Most Overrated Authors" and related posts</a> (earlyword.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/jezebel-to-huffpost-blogg_n_676651.html">Jezebel To HuffPost Blogger: 'Literary Critic Hates Vaginas'</a> (huffingtonpost.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-15-most-overrated-con_b_672974.html">Anis Shivani: The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers (PHOTOS)</a> (huffingtonpost.com)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=8115ebaf-64de-49fa-aa5a-91187d061835" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-87604837379324472112010-08-07T12:07:00.000-07:002010-08-07T12:16:43.323-07:00A Cat-Naming Contretemps as Captured on Twitter<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thenames_cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/61/Thenames_cover.jpg/300px-Thenames_cover.jpg" alt=""The Names" by Don DeLillo." style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="436" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thenames_cover.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span></p><br /> jmr1944<br /><br />Just Googled 'Leonardo da Kitty" and got no hits. Look like our new cat has a name. <span style="font-weight: bold;">31 minutes ago via <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.tweetdeck.com" title="TweetDeck" rel="homepage">TweetDeck</a></span><br /><br /> <br /> <br /> Oh noes. Pater da former student hit the Google and found multiple Leonardo da Kitty refs. Let's keep it a secret from our kitty, guys.<br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">7 minutes ago via TweetDeck </span><br /><br /><br /> <br /> Okay trouble. E. does not want new kitty to have name intended to be unique that isn't. Common name that we know is common is all right. <span style="font-weight: bold;">2 minutes ago via TweetDeck</span><br /><br />Stay tuned. <span style="font-weight: bold;">1 minute ago via me</span><br /> <div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.ashout.com/remove-twitter-usernames-in-rss-readers/">Best Way to Read Tweets in RSS Readers-Remove Username</a> (ashout.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/12/tweetdeck-15-million-downloads/">TweetDeck Turns Two, Passes 15 Million Downloads</a> (techcrunch.com)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=0eeb6d58-6974-49f5-b81a-d39bc760a575" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-3326351565494803612010-08-07T11:09:00.000-07:002010-08-07T11:29:21.082-07:00These are a Few of My Favorite Things: Two of Our Dead Kitties, Pat's Dog Rose<div style='background-color:#e9e9e9; width: 425px;'><object id='A64060' quality='high' data='http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=sMRisT8mI7qzZklM&service=sendables.jibjab.com&partnerID=JibJab' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='transparent' height='319' width='425'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'></param><param name='movie' value='http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=sMRisT8mI7qzZklM&service=sendables.jibjab.com&partnerID=JibJab'></param><param name='scaleMode' value='showAll'></param><param name='quality' value='high'></param><param name='allowNetworking' value='all'></param><param name='allowFullScreen' value='true' /><param name='FlashVars' value='external_make_id=sMRisT8mI7qzZklM&service=sendables.jibjab.com&partnerID=JibJab'></param><param name='allowScriptAccess' value='always'></param></object><div style='text-align:center; width:435px; margin-top:6px;'>Personalize funny videos and birthday <a href='http://sendables.jibjab.com/ecards'>eCards</a> at JibJab!</div></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-71535410832265257482010-08-03T09:47:00.000-07:002010-08-03T09:54:15.071-07:00I Don't Want the Future to Look Like Me, Just Think Like MeBy which I mean simply that ideas matter more than melanin, a thought prompted by <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/08/birtherism_writ_large.php?ref=fpblg">this "duh" quote</a> from the fabulous Josh Marshall.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">But more important it brings up the question upon which all of this madness, birtherism and the like turns. Will America forever be a white country? For any demographer, this question has answered itself for many years. But the very existence of Barack Obama has startled a significant part of the population into realizing what the rest of the world has known for some time--that the day fast approaches when America will no longer be majority white--not just in population, but in governance and culture. It is only through this prism that the the new political hysterics can be understood.</span><br /><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/08/birtherism_writ_large.php">Birtherism Writ Large</a> (talkingpointsmemo.com)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=13de82fd-5bee-4b20-8448-738dc9f59a47" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-85207048720603493812010-08-01T11:59:00.000-07:002010-08-01T12:02:58.290-07:00Never Waste a Good Letter: Hello, North Carolina<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0316346624" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iEG6VDU9L._SL300_.jpg" alt="Cover of "The Tipping Point: How Little T..." style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="300" width="200" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0316346624">Cover via Amazon</a></span></p><div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#0000ff;">Alton:</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"></span> </div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#0000ff;">God you read a lot in what seems to be a pretty active retirement. I *skim* a lot, wandering the net as I look for examples for journalism class -- examples of good writing, good reporting, good organizing, good gatekeeping and, of course, bad examples of all that and more. I save all sorts of things on the computer and use so few of them because teaching journalism is all about the basics, collecting some facts that may be "facts," understanding that having collected enough information to make a good judgment about including/emphasizing only some of that information is a clear and present manifestation of the inevitable imperfection of human knowing and human sharing .... But, hey, if you wade too deep in these waters, suddenly you seem to be teaching *against* the aims of a basic reporting course. You are suggesting it's too flawed an enterprise to attempt. Well, we don't believe that. We get out of bed in the morning and do our best. So should everyone else, including all the poor young journalists. There are limits on knowing but we should still try to know, right?</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"></span> </div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#0000ff;">*Right?*</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"></span> </div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#0000ff;">That's a long excuse for not reading much anymore in the long forms, either fiction or non-fiction or poetry or essays. I read news and news about news and some thoughtful analysis of news by scholars, though less of that than I probably should. God, I hate jargon but maybe only because I'm not very good at it. I don't play well with others when it comes to pitching scholarly ideas. I once had an article rejected by a reader because, as he wrote, Dr. Robertson "seemed to be under the misapprehension he should be entertaining." Ah. Enough of that.</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"></span> </div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#0000ff;">We are still pretty much yellow dog Democrats. As I like to say, the Dems are in the pocket of big business but the Repubs are an organ inside its body. The Republicans really are more vigorous in their "know nothing-ess" when it comes to science -- global warming and so on. We were talking about this after going to Biltmore with you. You really can sink into comfortable despair about modern politics and curse both parties and all parties. It really is an intellectually defensible position, particularly if you are older, with maybe ten years of decent life left, and money in the bank. But by temperament, I choose to think it's worth hoping that -- if the world is not going to move forward (in terms of my definition of such) -- perhaps we can slow things down as the world slides back into the abyss. So: an inch of difference between the D and the R, but I live in that inch! So: We give some money to the Ds and try to be ready to engage in rational poltitical discussion when given the chance in the hope that <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell" title="Malcolm Gladwell" rel="wikipedia">Malcolm Gladwell</a> is right and there is a <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0316346624" title="The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" rel="amazon">tipping point</a> and I will be the one who says the thing to the right person at the right time and thus the world will be saved.</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"></span> </div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="296251118-01082010"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#0000ff;">Well, there you go.<br /><br />Yours,<br /><br />Michael<br /></span></span></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=f394da6c-aeb6-4dc1-a5cd-bf9b518b4bc3" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-51690684453167868792010-07-31T12:05:00.000-07:002010-07-31T13:55:59.412-07:00F&*% You, I'm a Genius<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Banner_shakespeare.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Banner_shakespeare.png/300px-Banner_shakespeare.png" alt="banner Shakespeare" style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="156" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image via <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Banner_shakespeare.png">Wikipedia</a></span></p>Reading a review of a play in the NY Times this morning, I had an idea so amusing, so filled with promise of future pleasure, I really do have to write it down before it sinks into the boneyard of all those other little spritzes of inspiration that I thought I could not possibly forget, so wonderful were they.<br /><br />Because, so often, I would forget. I would wake up remembering the fact of being inspired, but there was no meat on the bones, just a memory of the moment but not the stuff itself.<br /><br />Anyway, as I read the review my thoughts ran on two tracks: admiration for the work behind the play being reviewed -- the patience; the suffering; the multiple rewrites -- and for the review itself, which was giving me such pleasure, second-hand but useful in all kinds of ways, including now having one little bit more of cocktail chatter.<br /><br />And the idea came to me. Why not write reviews of my own towering works of genius? I don't mean of my actual towering works of genius, but the ones I will write or might write or could write or at least can think about writing. Two for one! Efficiency squared!!<br /><br />So, yeah, I am going to be doing that from now on when I have the time and if I think of it and if someone reminds me. They don't have to be long reviews, after all. Some can be those little follow-up thumbnails you see when the book comes out in paperback or the DVD of the movies arrives or the community playhouse licenses the Broadway hit from seasons past.<br /><br />Thus:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-style: italic;">Two-fisted Fighting Poet Doc Scores Again<br /></div><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Encumbering a one-man autobiographical play performed by its author with the thumb-in-the-eye title of "F*&% You, I'm a Genius" is the sort of provocation that begs for a reviewer's most crisp rebuttal:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">No, you're not.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">But it's a mark of local teacher/scholar/playwright J. Michael Robertson's talent that this reviewer came to scoff and stayed to cheer.<br /><br />It's a critical chestnut: Show, don't tell.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> The facts are the argument -- when they are undeniable. And when it comes to charming the skeptic, that's what Robertson did last night in a three-hour monologue describing the initial resistance to his reintroduction of iambic pentameter to the Broadway stage and, quickly thereafter, to Hollywood itself, by letting his fists do the talking.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">From his first "F*&% you" to his final "and if you don't like it, you can kiss my a**," he commanded his audience, even though the performance was done in total darkness, Robertson's only instrument his thrilling baritone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Is this what it was like to be alive at the dawn of Shakespeare?</span><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com/2010/07/f-you-im-genius.html">F&*% You, I'm a Genius</a> (jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=80672f61-6a8b-4292-9e6d-ad327cec462b" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-63589131596891643292010-07-29T12:32:00.001-07:002010-07-29T12:34:46.265-07:00Movie Clips of Killing, Maiming, Typing with a Clever Song Underneath about Writing Mystery NovelsThank you, Gayle.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1LBfECGdGUc&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1LBfECGdGUc&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-3995480232992081672010-07-29T12:15:00.000-07:002010-07-29T12:24:46.971-07:00Cat on a Leash: Never Rely on Anecdote, but Still...<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99067413@N00/92328339" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/42/92328339_240caf5bf5_m.jpg" alt="IMG_0042" style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="180" width="240" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99067413@N00/92328339">Spencer9</a> via Flickr</span></p><a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/07/26/how_to_leash_train_cat?source=newsletter">A story in Salon</a> that at least made me rethink the possibility. And what a funny paragraph.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In five years of living in New York -- a city that prides itself on its vast parade of human experience -- I've only seen one cat on a leash. (Putting the ratio of strangers' penises to leashed cats at 2:1.) The New York Times </span><a style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/nyregion/thecity/22cat.html">wrote about a real estate broker on the Upper West Side</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> who leash trained his cat, which suggests just how remarkable the feat is. Even the phrase "cat on a leash" has a campy spark of the impossible, like something you'd see in a Farrelly brothers movie...</span><br /><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.happyclaws.com/training-your-cat-to-walk-on-a-leash.html">Training Your Cat To Walk On A Leash</a> (happyclaws.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37752330/ns/health-pet_health/&a=19576455&rid=6e1ee7c3-f2f0-4b52-a15e-d703ff140a1e&e=1825aacb2e92124c804313983e4be386">Proposed cat leash law sparks hissing match</a> (msnbc.msn.com)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=6e1ee7c3-f2f0-4b52-a15e-d703ff140a1e" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-29714900631959787592010-07-28T08:45:00.001-07:002010-07-28T08:50:05.092-07:00You Are an Old Person Who Probably Went to Graduate School If You Laugh At...<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right; width: 136px;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Gilda%2BRadner" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/126/95818.jpg" alt="Gilda Radner" style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;"><a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Gilda%2BRadner">Gilda Radner</a><br /></span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Rosenkrantz and Gilda Radner are dead.<br /> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=0df37eb7-9ea0-4fd6-b157-1d5c4b7a2f8b" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-74723907542554582882010-07-26T11:21:00.000-07:002010-07-26T12:34:06.591-07:00A Friend Thanks Us for a Gift of Tea<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_bernard_shaw.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/George_bernard_shaw.jpg/300px-George_bernard_shaw.jpg" alt="George Bernard Shaw expressed doubts about the..." style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="460" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image via <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_bernard_shaw.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span></p><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CROBERT%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} span.EmailStyle15 {mso-style-type:personal; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:blue; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; text-decoration:none; text-underline:none; text-decoration:none; text-line-through:none;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >Dear A:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >D left the nicest message on the answering machine yesterday. Too bad we weren’t home to glow with pride in real time. Where we were was at a matinee performance at the California Shakespeare Festival of Shaw’s “<a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Warren%27s_Profession" title="Mrs. Warren's Profession" rel="wikipedia">Mrs. Warren’s Profession</a>.” I have a notion you were exposed to that play during run-up to prelims, i.e., you came across a reference in a book saying it was Shaw’s first play and that the title character's profession was prostitute/madam and the play was controversial. And you (if you were like me) thought, “Well, that couldn’t possibly have been entertaining given the constraints of 1894 – couldn’t have been entertaining then or now.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >So it was curiosity that drove me to insist we add Mrs. W. to our CalShakes playlist, kind of “academic,” you know, feeding the knowledge center and telling the pleasure center to shut up and sit down. Thus, it was quite a shock to find so much pleasure in the production. Shaw was a champion of the well-made play, and this is well made (though a bit static in the setup: two folk sitting and talking at one another like talking heads on a news set). I don’t think it was just the acting that made it plausible that a Cambridge math whiz would excuse her mother for her life as a prostitute (an inevitable and appropriate accommodation to the oppression of women under capitalism) and then condemn her for her life as a madam (a morally indefensible embrace of the exploitation inherent in capitalism).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" > It plays better than it summarizes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:14pt;color:blue;" >The pleasures of living in the Bay Area in a nutshell: Too much good stuff. And we hope you drop by – singly, or with D, or (like <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dickey" title="James Dickey" rel="wikipedia">James Dickey</a>) with some woman you met on the plane. (But we would much prefer D.) </span> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=99f622ae-a402-4165-9ecf-3d4d981a258f" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-2805623110350327732010-07-24T10:38:00.000-07:002010-07-24T11:14:28.936-07:00Let Me Die Obscure and Forgotten<p class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brookgreen_reading_9739.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/Brookgreen_reading_9739.JPG" alt="Reading the newspaper: Brookgreen Gardens in P..." style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="225" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Image via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brookgreen_reading_9739.JPG">Wikipedia</a></span></p>Journalists do have their loyalties, to their former colleagues and thus, by extension, to themselves. A day or two ago the Chron ran an <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/22/BALC1EI0OE.DTL">obit for Bob Bartlett</a>, whom I remember from my own newspaper days. He quit in 1985 to practice law in Montana.<br /><br />But the wine remembers. Or maybe I mean the drinkers remember.<br /><br />For, indeed, I do not recall socializing with Bob in the newsroom but do recall having drinks with him at the old <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-12-13/entertainment/17221046_1_al-mcveigh-fond-memories-drinks">M&M</a>, my own dear newspaper bar my association with which plugs me into something greater than myself, that is, the damp lies of clever journeymen content providers from back in the day in which the providers actually went out there and waded in the content.<br /><br />He was kind of a blowhard, I recall, and *that's okay*. Modesty is ingratiating, but it's not very interesting. (And I will play the fool for you if you play the fool for me.)<br /><br />Anyway, he died and some old guys in the Chron newsroom followed the accepted practice: When a former colleague dies, you give him an obit -- which is more or less an act of giving the profession, and thus yourself, a valentine because, as you read the obit currently on the table, you imagine your own obit when the time comes and how noble the great enterprise was.<br /><br />I put in 11 years at the Chron and have stayed local as a "journalism educator" -- note the sly,self-effacing irony of the quotations marks -- so if I die tomorrow I will get my obit. (<a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://twitter.com/nanetteasimov">Here's looking at you, Nanette.)</a><br /><br />But as I wrote to old Chron colleague JC, in his retirement fortress in Arkansas, it is my goal (as it should be his) not to have such an obit, not by declining the honor, but by outliving the very newspaper in which it would appear. (Sad: We will be dust as will the horse we rode in on.)<br /><br />If we but only endure, it would seem the Chron will be a web-only enterprise, compiled by algorithm or<a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/11/business/fi-pasadena11"> outsourced to India.</a> A tree will fall in the forest, except it will be the last tree in the forest.<br /><br />And thus we will have the last laugh with no one to hear it.<br /><div class="zemanta-related"><h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em; margin: 1em 0pt 0pt;">Related articles by Zemanta</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/a-possible-new-business-model-for-obituaries/">A possible new business model for obituaries</a> (stevebuttry.wordpress.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/kay-powell-knows-the-power-of-details-in-obituaries/">Kay Powell knows the power of details in obituaries</a> (stevebuttry.wordpress.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/jul/15/us-press-publishing-paywalls&a=20944271&rid=5046e0db-7538-4196-a00a-461f9f5a4e5d&e=f167ae3e233da170bc406ec1aee9365d">US newspaper puts up a paywall for its obituaries</a> (guardian.co.uk)</li></ul></div> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=5046e0db-7538-4196-a00a-461f9f5a4e5d" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-22615336220089019662010-07-24T10:29:00.000-07:002010-07-24T10:31:05.152-07:00Among Other Things, This Would be Good for My Advanced Journalism Students to See and Ponder<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eS2TMdz0o1I&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eS2TMdz0o1I&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-81832022853892884612010-07-23T11:53:00.000-07:002010-07-23T12:13:40.212-07:00The Lady Rose and Her Attendants<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEnpUBpFNGI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/gPkHfnhx4cM/s1600/IMG_9859.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEnpUBpFNGI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/gPkHfnhx4cM/s400/IMG_9859.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497181350429799522" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEnpUBpFNGI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/gPkHfnhx4cM/s1600/IMG_9859.jpg"><br /></a><br />This is the continuing saga of our visit with Big Pat's dog Rose while he cavorts in Brazil, a big man in a small thong on a bright white beach. Rose (like the kids) is all right. She sleeps a great deal and eats quickly. Pat has Rose on a regimen: She eats at 8 a.m., noon and 5 p.m. She is to be given *slightly less* than one scoop of dry dog food moistened for exactly 20 minutes.<br /><br />She is to be given no treats and no table scraps, though any tidbit that falls to the floor is fair game for her, assuming we are not inordinately sloppy. She gets five walks a day for the purpose of elimination, though we take her out more often than that because we are both afflicted with "weak bladder," so we empathize.<br /><br />This visit isn't going to turn us into dog people, but we do appreciate Rose's individual appeal. She is a gallant little thing, given the fact she has epilepsy, and occasionally gets the quivers, and has some back problems, so she can "hardly wiggle" (as E's mom use to say at the end of a hard day).<br /><br />Rose in a nutshell: quivering but not wiggling, if you want to get technical.<br /><br />I don't know why this is, but when I take her out in the yard -- she likes being on her leash; it seems to give her security -- we do what needs to be done with dispatch. She sniffs, she eliminates, she totters back toward the house.<br /><br />But when E. takes her out, Rose is far more adventurous, leading E. down the walk toward the neighbors where The Madness That is Torri the Neighbor's Jack Russell Terrier jitters and yips behind their gate.<br /><br />E. says it is because E. is easily dominated, but I say it's a simple case<p class="zemanta-img separator zemanta-action-dragged" style="clear: right;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thelma-Louise-Susan-Sarandon/dp/B00007BKVC%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00007BKVC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; display: block; float: right; clear: right;"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61S0DB61K6L._SL300_.jpg" alt="Cover of "Thelma & Louise"" style="font-size: 0.8em; border: medium none;" height="300" width="219" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; clear: both; float: right;">Cover of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thelma-Louise-Susan-Sarandon/dp/B00007BKVC%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00007BKVC">Thelma & Louise</a></span></p> of Hot Girls Together, just another chapter of <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103074/">Thelma and Louise.</a><br /> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=e375a98d-06ee-413b-ba0a-2e63296065f0" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-3235744390609513252010-07-20T23:23:00.001-07:002010-07-20T23:46:39.628-07:00The White Squirrels of Brevard, North Carolina<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaXMY64yrI/AAAAAAAAA0Q/NMcBAuD4q7E/s1600/IMG_9488a.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 287px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaXMY64yrI/AAAAAAAAA0Q/NMcBAuD4q7E/s400/IMG_9488a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496246634355935922" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaXD3DdqGI/AAAAAAAAA0I/IfgNyFs6mVs/s1600/IMG_9487.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaXD3DdqGI/AAAAAAAAA0I/IfgNyFs6mVs/s400/IMG_9487.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496246487826147426" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaW37NpW1I/AAAAAAAAA0A/tRgsiHJspro/s1600/IMG_9489.jpg"><br /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaWsHPayYI/AAAAAAAAAz4/ghk0NjivrxY/s1600/IMG_9489a.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 340px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaWsHPayYI/AAAAAAAAAz4/ghk0NjivrxY/s400/IMG_9489a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496246079854397826" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_40qXvLxwKgY/TEaWbZLiVmI/AAAAAAAAAzw/K7VEFLSXXoE/s1600/IMG_9489a.jpg"><br /></a><br />I wasn't skeptical enough to think I was being "sniped" when our friends Al and Demi insisted one of the attractions of their new home town was its white squirrels -- not albino squirrels but offspring of the mating of local squirrels and an Asian white squirrel brought home by a serviceman after World War II that escaped into the woods.<br /><br />That's the local legend, anyway. (<a href="http://christywisty.tripod.com/whitesqrl.html">Here's another version</a>, with a carnival atmosphere.) I don't know what in the hell they are, but they're oarful cute.<br /><br />I don't think I was skeptical when they shared tales of ebony and ivory -- the regular squirrels and the white ones -- cavorting in the treetops. I don't think I seemed skeptical. But certainly our hosts were inspired -- driven, even -- to spend a couple hours taking us around Brevard until, dammit, we saw a white squirrel.<br /><br />Which we did. Look, see, marvel at some real Hollywood rats, ready for their closeup and/or the red carpet at a Hollywood premiere.....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-90332198059540924282010-07-19T10:53:00.000-07:002010-07-19T10:58:32.122-07:00The Renaissance Fool<p class="zemanta-img" style="margin: 1em; float: right; display: block; width: 217px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Man-Danny-DeVito/dp/B00008L3S9%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00008L3S9"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DyfWw0oEL._SL300_.jpg" alt="Cover of "Renaissance Man"" style="border: medium none; display: block;" height="300" width="207" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Cover of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Man-Danny-DeVito/dp/B00008L3S9%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00008L3S9">Renaissance Man</a></span></p>Better get that phrase out there so I can start collecting royalties. By it I simply mean that if the growth of the net is turning us all into shallow water fish, then the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Man-Danny-DeVito/dp/B00008L3S9%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00008L3S9" title="Renaissance Man" rel="amazon">Renaissance Man</a> who knew a lot about a lot has become the Renaissance Fool, who knows just enough to crack wise over a broad range of the topics.<br /><br />Oxymoron! One becomes vigorously lazy if you know what I mean, and you would if you felt like going to the trouble.<br /><fieldset class="zemanta-related"><legend class="zemanta-related-title">Related articles by Zemanta</legend><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/queer-renaissance-wedding">Queer Renaissance Weddings - Emmalyn and Gavin Make Their Nuptials Extra Special (GALLERY)</a> (trendhunter.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.brighthub.com/education/homework-tips/articles/75451.aspx">Study Guide on The Renaissance Time Period</a> (brighthub.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/sarah-palin-refudiates-criticism-declares-self-shakespeare-of-twitter/">"Sarah Palin ‘Refudiates’ Criticism, Declares Self Shakespeare Of Twitter" and related posts</a> (mediaite.com)</li></ul></fieldset> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=bfd3961e-b80c-4cab-b15b-878cebe80af8" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-23481062450651774882010-07-18T23:54:00.000-07:002010-07-19T00:05:11.015-07:00We Have a Visitor!<p class="zemanta-img" style="margin: 1em; float: right; display: block; width: 310px;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil-Pos.png"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Brazil-Pos.png/300px-Brazil-Pos.png" alt="Brazil-<span class=" error="" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brazil-Pos.png"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Wikipedia</span></a></span></p>Patrick is off to Brazil, and we are entertaining Rose while he is gone.
<br />
<br />She's a very quiet dog. She needs to piddle five times a day, an activity she does not like to undertake off-lease, which is interesting. Apparently, she likes the security of limits, which may (or may not) be analogous to child raising.
<br />
<br />Not having any -- dogs or children -- we are theoretical rather than practical. Because she is very old (and very short; she is a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">dachshund</span>), we are not supposed to let her sleep on the bed with us because she might fall off. That's our great fear: Rose expires through fate or illness while Patrick is gone.
<br />
<br />I'm not sure any friendship could survive that because there would always be suspicion.
<br />
<br />Well, possibly not in Patrick's case. He's a pretty good Buddhist. Anyway, we are scrutinizing Rose closely. Yes there she is breathing. I'm looking straight at her. And she just quivered. Unless it goes on too long, that's a good thing I'm pretty sure.
<br /> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=37ea378a-e60f-4528-9df7-1e91f6cec0fd" alt="Enhanced by <span class=" error="" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" />Zemanta"></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-72353787289195510782010-07-17T11:44:00.000-07:002010-07-17T11:57:21.748-07:00I Now Have an iPad<p class="zemanta-img" style="margin: 1em; float: right; display: block; width: 260px;"><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/product/ipad"><img src="http://www.crunchbase.com/assets/images/resized/0007/4404/74404v30-max-250x250.png" alt="Image representing <span class=" error="" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" />iPad as depicted in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">CrunchBase</span>" </a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution"><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"></span></a></span></p>... because I am fortune's fool? No. It's just that I am wondering if some device might make paying for news so easy or cool or glamorous or beautiful or convenient that, in fact, being a journalist will not become some version of the artist's life, something one loves but at which someone starves.
<br />
<br />I think it was <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Fussell" title="Paul Fussell" rel="wikipedia">Paul <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Fussell</span></a> who wrote some decades ago that being a journalist was one of the few bohemian life choices in America. But I don't recall what exactly he meant by that, if it was the low remuneration that drove his notion. I have certainly told the kids over the years that journalism did not pay well at entry level and not spectacularly at the higher levels -- unless you make it to the TV big time.
<br />
<br />And now things are even worse with -- from one point of view -- no hope at all. Whoa. When I say something like that I am allowing myself to mingle my worries about the willingness to the public to pay for "professional" journalism with my general despair over the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">public's</span> disinclination to want information that challenges its self-satisfaction at knowing enough -- Keep those nasty facts *away* from me.
<br />
<br />Step back and refocus. Let's see if the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">iPad</span> does what I have the read the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">iPod</span> did, that is, coax people into paying a little for what heretofore they were stealing.
<br />
<br />I will keep you posted. I am part of a group at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">USF</span> sharing perceptions of the value of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">iPad</span> in the classroom.
<br /><fieldset class="zemanta-related"><legend class="zemanta-related-title">Related articles by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Zemanta</span></legend><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://r.zemanta.com/?u=http%3A//www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jul/16/virgin-launch-ipad-only-magazine-maverick&a=21009721&rid=c59e4270-2b13-407d-ba82-8b1c877745af&e=7880d7053dcd16aef1f6a70795fb98bc">Virgin to launch '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">iPad</span>-only' magazine</a> (guardian.co.uk)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.asymco.com/2010/07/16/ipads-incredible-demand/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">iPad's</span> incredible demand</a> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">asymco</span>.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2010/07/ipad-kiosks.html"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">iPad</span> Kiosks</a> (adverlab.blogspot.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://kotaku.com/5588743/space-invaders-hits-the-ipad-with-a-bar+top-twist">Space Invaders Hits the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">iPad</span> With a Bar-Top Twist And Secrets [<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Ipad</span>]</a> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">kotaku</span>.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/6-creative-ipad-accessories">6 Creative <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">iPad</span> Accessories</a> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">techeblog</span>.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/07/when-believing-a-lie-is-beneficial.html">When believing a lie is beneficial</a> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">beliefnet</span>.com)</li></ul></fieldset> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=c59e4270-2b13-407d-ba82-8b1c877745af" alt="Enhanced by <span class=" error="" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" />Zemanta"></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-43872708928291319472010-07-15T12:00:00.000-07:002010-07-15T12:15:58.099-07:00Why Shouldn't I Start Blogging Again?<p class="zemanta-img" style="margin: 1em; float: right; display: block; width: 310px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Funny-People-Adam-Sandler/dp/B002PLPQLU%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB002PLPQLU"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PcTuAQ14L._SL300_.jpg" alt="Cover of "Funny People"" style="border: medium none; display: block;" height="300" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Cover of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Funny-People-Adam-Sandler/dp/B002PLPQLU%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB002PLPQLU">Funny People</a></span></p>It's not like my words are polluting the Gulf of Mexico (which puts the bar pretty low, but at least there's a bar).<br /><br />Anyway, here's a thought. Since Netflix uses one's movie ratings to predict which movies you will like, a feature I do find useful when I'm in doubt, I now find myself putting up an early "in mind" rating as I watch a movie. This corresponds roughly to the practice I assume most reporters follow of grabbing onto a tentative lead as they report a single-interview story.<br /><br />(You are not at ease until something is said or seen that would work as a lead. You do not want to become complacent and cease being vigilant for something better, but your anxiety level drops because you know you have, at least, *something*.)<br /><br />Point is as E. and I recover from the virus we picked up traveling in the Great American South for the past two weeks, I watched some cable TV, including <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0031976/" title="Judd Apatow" rel="imdb">Judd Apatow</a>'s "Funny People." In the first half hour it earned a tentative four stars with its sour portrayal of Adam<br />Sandler as a hack comic actor -- which may not have been Apatow's intended reading --suffering from a terminal disease. But then AS is cured, and it became a kind of domestic comedy of reclaiming a lost love by breaking up her family, and my rating slid back to three stars, as any surprises in the script evaporated.<br /><br />That's all I have to say, though (again) it applies to certain kinds of feature writing, which I will be teaching this fall. Better a flawed mishmash with bits of sparkle than coherent mediocrity -- for me anyway.<br /><br />Good summer fun: thinking about what I am going to teach in the fall and hoping this time I will get it right, though considering what I have just written, better to get it really right some days at the cost of getting it really wrong others.<br /><br />I can do that. I always have.<br /><fieldset class="zemanta-related"><legend class="zemanta-related-title">Related articles by Zemanta</legend><ul class="zemanta-article-ul"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.rateitall.com/i-2917293-funny-people.aspx">1 reviews of Funny People</a> (rateitall.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/johanna-schneller/the-challenge-of-generation-man-boy/article1617799/?cmpid=rss1">The challenge of Generation Man-Boy</a> (theglobeandmail.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/13/netflix-the-sequel.html">Can Netflix Reinvent Movie-Watching Again?</a> (newsweek.com)</li></ul></fieldset> <div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;" class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img style="border: medium none; float: right;" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=4f453128-62e5-4ae8-bd61-d402c9231e8c" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a><span class="zem-script more-related pretty-attribution"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" defer="defer"></script></span></div>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-34980671373906940622010-05-19T13:20:00.000-07:002010-05-19T17:22:12.896-07:00<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwQ8xRbRckQdMwpUbIw2zzwAtkoRAKbvQlhQtydS1Roc3szFtjoDwgJb8uBOzGV7o9X3lFM2mxVSlE' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br />Here is Big Pat's <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://files.me.com/fbks/ga8ghb.mov">video of the great parade.</a> I'd forgotten how many vehicles were chasing.....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-28370023419771877502010-05-08T13:10:00.000-07:002010-05-08T13:13:02.977-07:00Why I Love Mother Jones Blogger Kevin DrumHe says Obama will probably nominate Elena Kagan, whose written record is surprisingly thin. And just why will Obama nominate her?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Because Obama seems to have almost a sixth sense for doing things that annoy me </span><em style="font-style: italic;">just a little bit</em><span style="font-style: italic;">. On most issues he's roughly in the same ballpark as me, but in the end he always seems to end up just a notch to my right. Not enough to really piss me off, but enough to keep me perpetually just a little disappointed. A Kagan nomination would fit that pattern perfectly. So I'm bracing myself for yet another mild disappointment.</span>....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.com0