Inside Out

This is an unusually insightful film, beautifully rendered. I don’t know what my children saw in it, though Number One Son said that it was the best movie ever, and Little Red wants to see it a third time. I am an emotional movie-watcher, sometimes embarrassingly so, and sure enough I cried at several points.

The development at the end of the film, where the new Core Memories are shown as being multicolored, is brilliant — and all the more so for being understated in how it is revealed. That’s the point behind the story, that growing up destroys those islands within us even as it replaces them with far richer rewards. We don’t get to experience it without cost, though. What a humane and compassionate way to present that truth!

I also appreciated the inclusion of Frank Oz and Dave Goelz voicing minor characters, seeing as the main characters are presented looking very much like muppets—and of course the credit sequence is brilliant.

This is why the best “children’s” productions are the ones that speak to the adults just as much as the youngsters. This is why we watch Pixar films.

“HOW WE SHOULD STRUGGLE WITH CIRCUMSTANCES.

It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat. In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.

Notes From: Epictetus. “A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion.” iBooks.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/fM8jE.l

The Idea of a University

Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work; and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its work,—that is, supposing, as the objectors assume, its direct end, like Religious Knowledge, is to make men better; but this I will not for an instant allow, and, unless I allow it, those objectors have said nothing to the purpose. I admit, rather I maintain, what they have been urging, for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself. For all its friends, or its enemies, may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts. Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it ever so much the means or the condition of both material and moral advancement, still, taken by and in itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for it such a power, they commit the very same kind of encroachment on a province not their own as the political economist who should maintain that his science educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life;—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless,—pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretence and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from their own fault, but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

—John Henry Newman (1852)

In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray

What happens when a professional degree program in our college of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences finds that its students can barely manage the language requirements outlined in the university catalog? The difficulty is putting some of these students in a bind because their time to degree, retention, and financial aid numbers are all affected when they have to spend several semesters satisfying the foreign language requirement.

The astute reader will note the flavor of language I am reduced to here: that of the higher ed administrator reflecting on student outcomes.

So how is this issue dealt with? One might expect, for instance, that the department in question do some collaborative work with the persons responsible for foreign language instruction. One might also expect them to look at entrance requirements for their degree program, or perhaps even to request a curricular adjustment through the usual and appropriate channels by which such adjustments are usually made (in this case, through curriculum revision requests that are examined by multiple administrative and faculty committees before being approved by the full Faculty Senate).

This department in question did in fact take the final option. They requested that all language requirements be waived, period. Their request was voted down in a meeting of the Faculty Senate. I was present at the meeting and it was a pretty hot conversation at points (including, alas, the times when I was speaking). Faced with this setback, the department in question attempted to resubmit the same request again, whereupon it was turned back because Robert’s Rules of Order do not allow for denied motions to simply be resubmitted.

Today I find out that this double denial (which, I may add, might legitimately cause one to question one’s course of action in the usual course of life) led the department in question to simply request a “Course Substition” (which we use frequently for students who are transferring credits, for instance) that was administratively granted by their dean and then by the office of student records . . . to apply to all of their students and for all university catalog versions. They then simply started officially (but quietly) advising their students to just not take foreign language classes. This came to the attention of our colleagues in the foreign languages division of our department only by accident . . . someone let it slip.

Now the issue is being addressed by our dean to the provost, and I imagine that it will get very interesting. If I am in his shoes, I call the responsible parties in and absolutely read them the riot act. But that’s probably why career advancement for me is a lost cause.

labor omnia vicit improbus

Nec tamen, haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores
versando terram experti, nimil improbus anser
Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris
officiunt aut umbra nocet. pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.
(Virgil, Georgics, Book 1.118-124)

I have developed a schedule this summer wherein every Wednesday I do the mowing and other necessary yard work inasmuch as I can get to it. It often seems zenlike in its completion — not because it creates in me a sense of peace, but because the act itself has to be the reward for all the lasting good it does. What I mowed two days ago will look untended by Sunday. The weeds will continue their inexorable march into the flower beds, and we will spray and hoe and pull and trim and dig to the best of our abilities, and the grass and the flower beds and the shrubberies will all require more of the very same treatment before we’ve managed to catch a breath.
Virgil says that the gods gave us agricultural labor to keep us from torpor, from sinking in laziness. I guess he must be right about that one.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 53

On Motivation

Every couple of years I am asked to serve on the faculty for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Humanities, an annual event at my institution wherein some of the brightest rising HS seniors come to campus to take college humanities courses and engage in other “nerd camp” type activities. It has a long history here and I am glad to be a part of it when my turn comes around.

I find that the greatest difference between these HS students and my average college students is that this group is extraordinarily motivated to study and to learn. Even when they are overwhelmed or at least unpleasantly surprised by the pace and the intensity of the work, they attack what’s in front of them. It is as if, mirabile dictu, they value the experience of academic work not just for the credit it will get them, but for its own sake.

Lost in all the yammering about “what shall become of the humanities? How shall we make them relevant” is the most honest truth about it: the experience of learning is worthwhile most of all for its own sake. Grappling with Hobbes, for instance, or the assertions of an american anthropologist from the early part of the 20th century, needs no argument for its relevance—not if one actually cares about learning.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 49

General parental updates:

1. Number One Son has continued his running this past month. He ran an obstacle course/mud run with The Triathlete over the weekend and was just as proud as could be. He has managed to score some sweet new running shoes in the bargain too (we did not pay retail for those, no way).
2. Little league has dragged to a halt recently due to all the rain. Little Red has managed one game in two weeks, I think, and Lefty’s schedule hasn’t been much better. There has been some notice of whether or not a certain little girl has been a spectator at Little Red’s games, though he insists that he doesn’t care whether she is there or not (though he asks every inning). He went to her softball game the other night —- only to see Ms. A, his beloved first grade teacher. So he says.
3. Now that the children are all out of school we have a bit of schedule-jostling to do. Number One Son can come to campus with me, but he’s not really old enough to silently occupy himself. . . he tends to break into song, wiggle all over the room, ask for food every 15 minutes, that sort of thing. Needless to say, I’ve opted to just sit with him at home even at the expense of my own work.
4. We are discovering that Lefty is SUPER DUPER talkative if given a chance. The last couple of times Grammie has been here to visit, he has chattered her ear off, obviously enjoying every moment. It may have to do with having an appreciative audience that he doesn’t have to compete for . . . she is very accommodating and asks lots of questions.
   
5. We are also about to enter into summer camp and day camp season, right as baseball season wraps up. Good timing, and good to have them occupied with things other than Minecraft.

Hands Down Winner

In an earlier post, I wrote that I was reviewing several books as part of this year’s Hugo Award voting packet. I have enjoyed most of the selections very much and find myself in a bit of a quandary as far as the novel selection is concerned. If, however, the above book were eligible this year, there would be no contest. I picked this up thanks to my Kindle Paperwhite (I am a late adopter, but I have to say that it is a fantastic little device…and makes it embarrassingly easy to buy new reading material). It is a brilliant example of hard science fiction, and would easily emerge as the best of this past year (it was a 2011 self-published volume at first, which is why it doesn’t qualify for the award). . . still, with a movie deal in the works, it looks like Mr. Weir is getting plenty of notice. Good for him.

In which Piers keeps up the Effort

Doing my level best this month to catch up on some writing that I’ve been leaving on the back burner for several months. I’ve looked at some previous stuff — things I don’t remember writing, but apparently are the result of the end stages of the sabbatical I had in 2014.

Everyone who does writing for a living says that the steady and incremental approach is best — that the thing is to steadily keep at it every day. That has proven to be beyond what my schedule or my discipline will allow. I’m not giving up yet, though.

A Wealth of Reading

Yesterday the voting packet for the Hugo Awards was made available for supporting and attending members of the 2015 Worldcon. I would not have normally paid any attention except for the recent hullaballoo surrounding award nominations . . . and my fairly muted reactions to recent winners of the novel award (for example, Ms. Leckie’s book, which swept awards last year but I found better in its conception than its execution. Likewise with Jo Walton’s book). Just doing my part to send recognition where I think it is deserved.

As a result, I am reading as many of the nominated items as I can. Meanwhile, other books have arrived on my doorstep, notably the newest Ishiguro and Stephenson novels. I would be tearing into the Stephenson one at this second if I didn’t feel obligated to give the awards packet a thorough perusal.

All this is to say nothing of my continued wrestling with Elizabethan church history and many of the pamphlets that mark the decades of the 1580’s and 90’s.

Thinking Long Term Part Two

From today’s reading, a reminder from long ago much to the same purpose I was writing yesterday:

First, needful it is that he which desireth to excel in this gift of oratory, and longeth to prove an eloquent man, must naturally have a wit and an aptness thereunto: then must he to his book, and learn to be well stored with knowledge, that he may be able to minister matter for all causes necessary. The which when he hath got plentifully, he must use much exercise, both in writing, and also in speaking. For though he have a wit and learning together, yet shall they both little avail without much practice. What maketh the lawyer to have such utterance? Practice. What maketh the preacher to speak so roundly? Practice. Yea, what maketh women go so fast away with their words? Marry, practice, I warrant you. Therefore in all faculties diligent practice and earnest exercise are the only things that make men prove excellent. --Thomas Wilson, The Art of Rhetoric (1553)

Thinking Long Term

Writing—serious writing of the academic sort—probably does more to focus my mind on metaphysical issues than anything else. I imagine it’s because I’m avoiding the hard work of actually putting useful words down in an essay form. Writing is also a discipline, however, that forces me to think in terms of small increments and long time-lines. Needless to say, it’s uncomfortable. I have interesting material to work on, and I’m putting in the time, and I’m learning a ton of stuff. Also, it rubs very much against the general cultural grain to have a task that works on a timeline of months rather than days or hours.

Without veering too far into the realm of generalized and, frankly, not-too-useful cultural maundering, I recognize that my children and I live in a time where having to wait for results (of a Google search, a YouTube buffer, or a Netflix loading screen) seems almost intolerable. We can do so many things so quickly, and we want that immediacy to translate to every aspect of our lives. Part of wisdom is recognizing that very few things worth having in life actually work quickly. I think of the time involved in learning to play baseball (so intricate the movements and permutations of each time the ball is put in play); the patient practice that makes a guitarist able to fly through his chords; or the easy pace of Triathlete as she runs, developed over about 17 years’ worth of running shoes.

I can certainly accept and appreciate such things in my own career…the rub is how to prepare my children for their inevitable confrontation with the same hard reality.

The Return of a Two-Wheeled Object of Desire

With the end of the spring semester and the arrival of the warmer weather comes the biking season for me, and this year is already special because it features the re-introduction of a fine machine:

The Raleigh Record Ace. It is no specialty bike, or a custom made race machine (Speedvagen is just a pipe dream for me). It’s just a really pretty steel bike that keeps it simple, that matches my ability level, and that I could upgrade with new parts from time to time. It also happens to be within the realm of financial possibility.

To be fair, it doesn’t match the glory of the 2011 version, but I would still proudly ride it.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 48

In which we see the beginning of the end of childhood for Number One Son, but also give thanks that he has not quite finished with it yet.

Over the weekend, Number One Son got to attend two birthday parties…a sleepover at one on Friday night, and then a party at Sky Zone on Saturday. He came home from both of them just a ball of ten year old energy and overstimulation. Fine, fine, we can deal with that as long as it’s the happy kind of thing. And at this age, there’s a lot of that happy kind of thing because the self-consciousness really hasn’t set in yet.

Later that evening, after the children have been put in bed and as The Triathlete and I are watching our nightly episode of Psych, in comes Number One in the “I’m sleepwalking” attitude (which he totally was doing, in fact), collapses headfirst into the blue recliner, and goes right back to sleep. I noticed an instructive similarity:

Library Fun for the Summer

I recently read Emily St. John Mandel’s end-of-the-world novel Station Eleven. I was lured in by the blurb premise that the novel is about a traveling troupe of Shakespeare actors in the wake of a deadly pandemic. As it turns out, the novel doesn’t really do much with the Shakespeare angle, but it is an effective piece of work. One of the interesting little set-pieces in the story is the way a group of survivors sets up a museum of sorts for relics of the world gone by: electronic devices, for instance.

And that got me thinking: of what use could a person such as myself be in an apocalypse? What service could I provide? I’m a professional bookworm! So, if I look at my view every afternoon this month...

...there’s my answer. What kinds of books would I retrieve and try to preserve if things began to go sideways? What in a moderately sized library would be worth saving?

• Shakespeare
• Milton
• Dante
• Homer
• Virgil

…the literary figures add up quickly. But say we had to choose things that are not poetry or humanities in general? What would we need to squirrel away? I immediately think of more technical, practical volumes to remind us of how to do things that we now take for granted:

• Mathematics texts
• Physics texts
• Manuals for horticulture and animal husbandry
• Manuals for building structures and roads
• Books for identifying plants
• Medical texts

I’m sure I’m missing something. There are also several categories of things we could utterly do without. That’ll have to wait for another entry in Library Fun For The Summer!

Believing and Behaving like it's a Crisis

Every day around lunchtime, this is the scene on the East edge of my campus; employees from all over campus have driven golf carts to lunch at one of the several restaurants adjacent to the campus. It is a pain for them, I am sure, that they have to get out of the motorized conveyances and shuffle the rest of the way across the street on their own two feet.

It is a small thing, I know. Yet all day, every day, I see people zooming around this little campus (and it is little—at least the classroom and administrative building area of it) on golf carts and Gators and what-not. The housing office. Admissions. The print shop. Housekeeping. Athletics. Computer services. The campus cops…I think even the key guy has one. Every office, it seems like, has a golf cart or something similar, and they appear to be constantly in use.

We are told, repeatedly, that money is tight, that we are in a period of financial crisis and need to make sacrifices. Yet people ride their little golf carts to lunch—to save themselves the time and effort of a ten minute walking round-trip. Seems that if Those That Make Decisions were serious about saving money, they would cut glaringly obvious costs like this.

One of many reasons I’m pretty sure they’re not serious.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 47

So we have entered into baseball season, with all the blessings that entails—late nights at the rec park, keeping track of uniforms (especially hats), and many pretzels and handfuls of bubble gum. Lefty is starting tee ball and Little Red is doing his first year of machine-pitch baseball. The latter is showing some promise at least at the hitting part of the game, having surpassed in four games the number of hits gotten by his older brother in three years of playing (Number One Son has unsurprisingly decided to give up the baseball for other pursuits). It is fun to watch Little Red out there, though he admittedly has some work to do in the fielding and generally paying attention category.

Number One, meanwhile, has decided to go all in on the running. For the past couple of years, he has joined The Triathlete doing various 5k runs, and apparently (I get this second hand because you’ll never see me out there on the course) he talks the whole way. In order to help him, he has been allowed to join the HS cross country team during their practices (we know the coach). He had a brilliant time on Monday afternoon and plans to go out there again on Wednesday. I’m thrilled for him.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 52

Research isn't the kind of thing it used to be, that's for sure.  Today I set my composition classes to work on their research assignment. We met in the library--I was there to help them locate stuff or answer questions, but otherwise I let them handle their research however they chose.

I remember my long searches standing at the electronic catalog in Davis Library, the obligatory filling out of ILL forms for books and articles the library didn't have, the checking out as many possibly relevant titles as possible so that--and perhaps I was uncharitable here--others couldn't check them out before me . . . and then plowing through those stacks of books to find what might be useful to me.

Today? My students sat for a good 15-20 minutes looking at their smartphones before they did anything else. They scattered to computers and the stacks afterward, but I got the sense that they were actually doing searches on their phones.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that in the 21st century . . . it's just not what would have occurred to me. I've certainly benefited in my own piddling research from the fact that so much stuff is available online.

"May you live in interesting times"

Even setting aside the general atmosphere of institutional rot at every societal level I can think of--

Even setting aside the specific problems of bureaucratic inertia and strategic drift at my particular university--

Even setting aside personal problems both circumstantial and self-inflicted--

Even setting aside the usual pressures of the academic year--

I could at least pretend to manage.  However, the news that came over the email today, i.e., that my department chair is retiring effective June, is a significant blow.  It means that in addition to the university-wide upheaval, this department will be buffeted by extra winds and rain. I do not begrudge her a well-earned retirement after serving this institution for the bulk of her adult life . . . I just know that it's going to be a difficult task to replace her.

The quote in the title? Its supposed Chinese origin is apparently apocryphal

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 46

Number One:  facing the usual spates of 10 year old harebrainedness.  I just had a conversation with his teacher, Ms. N, who informs me that he is having a hard time paying attention to his work from time to time, and that he tends to try the class clown routine with irrelevant and irreverent dry commentary.  We are having to remind him to  PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE HE IS AND WHAT HE IS DOING.

Little Red:  stayed home with a fever today. We have had battle after battle with him over everything from waking up to attending school to putting on his jeans.  It makes him sad when he makes us angry, and we try to be reasonable and remind him that he doesn't like the outcome of his stubbornness, but apparently it's not particularly easy to convince him of this.

Lefty:  just a few days from turning five! He says he will stop sucking his thumb at that time.  We are not convinced.

From today's teaching . . . and today's parenting

The Collar

BY GEORGE HERBERT

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;

                         I will abroad!

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free, free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

          Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

          Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn

    Before my tears did drown it.

      Is the year only lost to me?

          Have I no bays to crown it,

No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?

                  All wasted?

Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,

            And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,

             Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

          And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

          Away! take heed;

          I will abroad.

Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;

          He that forbears

         To suit and serve his need

          Deserves his load."

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild

          At every word,

Methought I heard one calling, Child!

          And I replied My Lord.

The poem so beautifully describes a person in the midst of a crisis that he has kind of made for himself, when he realizes that he is spiritually, emotionally, physically, professionally, stuck.  You've seen it, you've felt it.  In the end of the poem, the poet is so overcome with his own fit of spite and anger that he can hardly make sense . . . until he hears a voice saying "child."

"Child."  What a world of emotions and relationships there.  As is the case in so many other parts of life, you don't know something fully until you've been right there, in the circumstance.  I've been there many times in recent days with my beloved Little Red. He gets bent out of shape about so many things--having to wear jeans, having to take a shower, having to go to school, having to eat breakfast, having to wake up, having to go to bed--and he just doesn't know when to stop resisting and realize that we will win either way.  The heartbreaking part, and The Triathlete and I both know it's coming, is when he gets sad because he's made us mad.  And that's the moment for the hug and the reminder:  "Child."

and then of course the hug.

From this week's reading

there is a Herbert poem for every season of the soul.  This one struck me particularly deeply yesterday:

The Affliction (I)

BY GEORGE HERBERT

When first thou didst entice to thee my heart,

         I thought the service brave;

So many joys I writ down for my part,

         Besides what I might have

Out of my stock of natural delights,

Augmented with thy gracious benefits.

I looked on thy furniture so fine,

         And made it fine to me;

Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine,

         And 'tice me unto thee.

Such stars I counted mine: both heav'n and earth;

Paid me my wages in a world of mirth.

What pleasures could I want, whose King I serv'd,

         Where joys my fellows were?

Thus argu'd into hopes, my thoughts reserv'd

         No place for grief or fear.

Therefore my sudden soul caught at the place,

And made her youth and fierceness seek thy face.

At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesses;

         I had my wish and way;

My days were straw'd with flow'rs and happiness;

         There was no month but May.

But with my years sorrow did twist and grow,

And made a party unawares for woe.

My flesh began unto my soul in pain,

         Sicknesses cleave my bones;

Consuming agues dwell in ev'ry vein,

         And tune my breath to groans.

Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce believ'd,

Till grief did tell me roundly, that I liv'd.

When I got health, thou took'st away my life,

         And more, for my friends die;

My mirth and edge was lost, a blunted knife

         Was of more use than I.

Thus thin and lean without a fence or friend,

I was blown through with ev'ry storm and wind.

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took

         The way that takes the town;

Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book,

         And wrap me in a gown.

I was entangled in the world of strife,

Before I had the power to change my life.

Yet, for I threaten'd oft the siege to raise,

         Not simp'ring all mine age,

Thou often didst with academic praise

         Melt and dissolve my rage.

I took thy sweet'ned pill, till I came where

I could not go away, nor persevere.

Yet lest perchance I should too happy be

         In my unhappiness,

Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me

         Into more sicknesses.

Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making

Thine own gift good, yet me from my ways taking.

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

         None of my books will show;

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,

         For sure then I should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

   Her household to me, and I should be just.

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek;

         In weakness must be stout;

Well, I will change the service, and go seek

         Some other master out.

Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot,

Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

(1633)

In which Piers Thinks about Making Good Choices

Every day, no matter the season, there are the usual things to attend:  the slow decay of the house, arrested by fitful and makeshift degrees; the creeping and exponential entropy in the garage; the swarming clouds of little boy passions; the lockstep march of the school year on its way to semester grades; the minor insurrections among the various small, furry, and stinky creatures in the house; the drifts of papers with crayon, pencil, ink, marker, glue, and toner; the electronic alerts blurting in the background of every almost-quiet moment; the foggy outside, where there is time enough for decisions and revisions; the mostly inaudible sigh of the days as they fall one by one on our shoulders.

In which Piers Ponders Institutional Collapse

Looking around, and I think especially in the wake of some deeply disappointing revelations about things that have happened at Carolina over the past two decades, I begin to wonder what institution, if any, can be trusted.  I know, I know . . . as I write that, I shake my head.  Of course no institution can be trusted completely.  When in human history have we been able to rely on the edifices we construct?  It seems to me, though, that the more "advanced" we get in terms of interconnectedness and dependence on large systems, the more vulnerable we are when those systems break.  From where I'm sitting, I cannot help but notice the following:


1.  My department has a crisis of leadership.
2.  My university has a crisis of leadership and direction.
3.  The state university system that employs me doesn't even pretend to treat its member institutions with equity.
4.  My alma mater, where I spent those eight wonderful years in graduate school, has taken a mortal blow that shows a hollow core.  It breaks my heart.
5.  My academic discipline is intellectually and institutionally adrift, and though the grandees at the top of the heap may blame state legislatures, etc., etc., the damage is almost entirely self-inflicted.
6.  The national and state governments have proven inept in almost every way possible (this last is the least surprising).
7.  Church leadership, both at local and denominational levels, has Macbethitis:  full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
8.  Knowledge industries like publishing and news:  hollowed out and collapsing.
9.  The education schools that turn out the teachers who are teaching my children:  F

For starters.  These are merely my observations, and I recognize that large-scale trends are always mitigated by individual examples of excellence.  I could name plenty in my discipline, and even in my academic department, who are doing brilliant and rigorous work.  They are generally, however, not the ones in charge.  I have always been a skeptic, though perhaps not a vociferous one.  I look around and see that I have been mistaken to abandon that posture, at least when it comes to trusting the big bureaucratic systems that appear to control more and more of my life.

You know what they say about Knoxville

I remember how about five, maybe six years ago there was a major branding initiative that brought all UT system campuses under the same general graphical representation, complete with logos that were similar across the three major campuses and other institutes:  Knoxville, Chattanooga, Martin.

Now I learn that UTK has decided to set all that aside in favor of its own branding:

If they want to tie the identity of their university to their football program, more power to them.  I trust the boosters will love it.

I guess that means this branch of the university system is also free to choose its own independent logo too, huh?

Among the things I am deciding

1.  Teaching five classes in one term isn't happening again for me. They can't pay me enough to compensate for the extra work, and I am far less effective in the things I'm trying to do.

2.  I'm going to have to do something different--completely different--for my composition classes, because I've had enough of the way I've been doing it.  I am so very tired of the grind of that heavy lifting every week.  I never used to understand the griping about teaching comp . . . I do now.

3.  Withdrawal from some of the other facets of campus life is a necessity for me if I'm going to get the writing done that I need and want to get done.

4.  There are some sacrifices I'm not willing to make for the sake of my work.

41

Getting into middle age has its disadvantages, I will not lie.  I don't have as much energy as I used to, and I'm more impatient with stupid people and stupid things. I have more lines in my face, more gray in my hair, more quirks in my behavior.

On the other hand, being an older man means I don't have much left to prove. I don't get nervous about much any more in public settings. I don't feel the need to explain myself. I have perspective on things that I didn't even five years ago.  A lot of knowledge about myself, hard-won and precious. Also naps.

I was sitting at the bar the other night and some young guys were in there all peacocking for the cute little bartender. She didn't care, wasn't impressed, had a job to do . . . but they couldn't help themselves. I was glad to let them do their best . . . and fail. I just talked to my buddy and minded my own business.

Yup, glad to still be around.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 45

or, the closest I've ever been to fisticuffs.

I watched the kids badgering and taunting Number One son as he walked over to the sideline where I had been standing, watching the third of three soccer games for the day, this time of Little Red who isn't all that little anymore but the name has stuck at least for now--that red hair making him instantly recognizable not only to his father but to anyone who has been around this family for more than two or three minutes.

Number one was not doing well, I could see. He was hunched up and had the knit he gets in his brow when he is worked up about something.  So, I talked to him about it. Those kids had thrown a football at his head and had generally been jerks to him.  I wanted to intervene for his sake, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, and what's more, he does need to defend himself sometimes. That all changed a few minutes later when he had to go to the bathroom and had to walk past where those same kids were playing.  I told him it would be fine and I would be watching.  And sure enough, as he tried to walk past them, just as his back was to them, they pegged him with the football. I took off after him and told him to grab the ball.  He did, whereupon they jumped him and kicked him.

At that point I may have shed the usual self-control.  I grabbed the ball, and shouted at the kids to take me to their parents.  Well, they didn't need to, because he had heard the commotion, and as I approached the person it was clear that he was not prone to see things my way.  All he saw was a stranger shouting at his children.  I was hot and righteously angry, though, having watched them size up my son and deliberately target him, so though he leaned heavily on me and tried the whole intimidation-by-implicit-ass-kicking tactic (my thought, which I vocalized, was, "are you kidding me?"), I did not back down.  At that point, the heated voices had gotten the attention of others, and a casual friend of ours, JM, had to step between us and physically usher me away.

It took me a long time to calm down, though on the outside I regained my composure. In retrospect, I should of course have refrained from shouting at the other children--could have easily dealt with the situation without anger. But I saw red when I saw what they did.  I'm not yet so old that I don't have an ornery streak on occasion.  That said, I'm glad a much bigger man intervened between me and the other fellow . . . I would have lost that fight.

A gnawing hypothesis

Shorpy Historical Photo Archive.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:

--Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. 

Monday Update, tempo edition

In distance training, whether on a bike or in running shoes, there's a thing called a "tempo" workout, wherein you choose a moderately challenging pace and keep it up over a fairly considerable distance.  That's opposed to something like a sprint or interval workout where you vary the speed from quite slow to very fast.  I think a teaching term is much like a tempo workout, and for me, it usually takes me the first 45 minutes of a ride to get comfortable with what I'm doing--just like it took me all of last week to feel comfortable with what I am doing back in the full job.

The Triathlete and I had triumphs of our respective sorts this past weekend; she of course ran a superb race in her triathlon, winning first in her age division and 7th overall of all the women.  And she had so much fun that she has actually had a difficult time returning to normal life with the rest of us regular people.  I, on the other hand, received word that I've had an essay accepted at the 2014 Southeastern Renaissance Conference in Greensboro NC...which means that in early October we will be traveling back to our old stomping grounds for the first time since we moved to NTWN in 2005.  It also means another publication for me, and the start of the productive phase of the sabbatical study I've been doing.

So, although the sabbatical is over, and I've got a tighter schedule than I had just a couple of weeks ago, It seems that things will be okay as I adjust. Though I'm a slow starter, once I get going I do alright.

Plus/Minus

Plus:  Glad to be teaching this summer term--having the opportunity to make a little money to help out the bottom line of the family. Those opportunities are about to dry up completely.
Minus: Summer teaching is exhausting; there's no way around it. And I'm out of shape when it comes to the energies involved.

Plus:  I used the time well this past semester, learned a lot, did a lot of writing and editing work.
Minus:  Didn't do nearly enough.

Plus:  A couple of months ago I turned a corner personally and have been able to move forward in my life with a far more positive, constructive outlook.
Minus:  I mourn the five years during which I stagnated personally and professionally.  It is going to take a long time to get back to where I should be.

Adventures With Students, Vol. 51

Students on the first day of class when I'm making jokes:



GIFSoup

Monday Update, Back to Work Edition

Maya Desk--Dare Studio. Definitely not my office.

Sabbatical is over. I start teaching summer classes tomorrow. I don't know how it is at other institutions, but the summer teaching opportunities have just about completely dried up here. As in many other respects, the pace of change is leaving us grasping at straws, more or less unprepared for the transformations staring us in the face.

I am quite thankful for the time I got this past semester . . . I did an enormous amount of work, and I really do think it may have saved my willingness to be doing this career for the foreseeable future. Still planning to make our way to a new location, but for now I'm able to take the next step.

The Triathlete has impressed this summer with the intensity and variety of her workouts. It is pretty intimidating for a bookish sort like myself, but I'm also proud of how strong she is, i.e., ridiculously strong.  She says she looks forward to riding with me in a couple of weeks while the kids are in Atlanta; I think she will find me . . . slower.

Readjusting to a new kind of schedule, and trying not to let up the research and editing intensity.

Deus est Machina

"Cannot you see, cannot all your lecturers see, that it is we who are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops--but not on our lines. The Machine proceeds--but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die. Oh, I have no remedy--or, at least, only one--to tell men again and again that I have seen the hills of Wessex as Ælfrid saw them when he overthrew the Danes."

--E. M. Forster, "The Machine Stops"

A return

"How often it is the case, that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance."

--Hawthorne, "Rappacini's Daughter"

In which Piers Makes Progress

Word has it that a certain amount of stress is a good thing, and I'm inclined to agree. . . I've long since accepted that in order to really produce any meaningful work, I need to have a certain level of anxiety working to spur on the activity.  And so, this past week I really put my foot down and tried to make some headway.  So far so good.  The listed documents are of all different types and lengths, down to the actual typefaces involved.  There is a mixture of dialect and Latin along with what might be called straightforward 16th-century English.  I am able to say that I know a lot more than I once did, and I am also able to say that there are some details about 16th century orthography and terminology that I need more information on.  Progress, though, is a good thing, and whereas I still experience some nervousness at the scope of what I've taken on, I do anticipate having something substantial to reveal at the end of the sabbatical period.

Alas, even now there are tiny hints of the real world reasserting itself:  book orders and course descriptions for the summer and the fall semesters.  I imagine that I'll be ready to get back to it when the time comes, but I have really enjoyed the chance to immerse myself in work on something.  Good work takes hours of uninterrupted time, and a full teaching load doesn't allow for that . . . not if you plan on having relationships with colleagues or with your own family.

In which the road goes ever longer

At some point, this was bound to happen.  After what I considered to be a pretty hot start, and after possessing a considerable amount of confidence, I have now come across more information that indicates to me the actual magnitude of the task I have taken on . . .

 . . .and it's massive. 

I have not historically been the most apt to take on huge projects, nor have I been apt to give up once I'm in the midst of something that I think is important.  Still, it's a frightening prospect, and it's hard to be satisfied with the tiny bits of progress that make up a single day's work (or even a week's work, in many cases).  I need about 5x the number of resources I've got at my fingertips, and a much bigger brain.  Still, I'll have to work with what I can get.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 44

Around 10:00 this morning, The Triathlete got a phone call from Number One Son from his school. He was complaining about blurred vision and headache . . . Even that he was having trouble reading words at the board because the letters were swimming around. We thought it might have been some kind of ploy, since he has been acting funny this week...but she decided to go lay her eyes on him just in case. When she arrived at the school office, he walked in and his eyes were both unfocused and crossing. She decided to take him to our pediatrician. Meanwhile, I began to think of the worst possible scenarios involving blood clots on the brain, aneurism, cancer . . . Thinking about how we would make it work at St. Jude in Memphis, wondering about how we would manage the other two while he was in the hospital . . . Worried until it got to the point where I was sure I was going to vomit. I sat and tried to work for about an hour when in walk the two of them, smiling.

As it turns out, he was crossing his eyes while clowning around for laughs at school, and overdid it. Our pediatrician knew it almost immediately. So after lunch, we took him back to school, and all agreed that the eye-crossing routine hadn't worked out very well.

Neither of us told him what we both experienced in that hour or so: the worst fear--the coldest knot of ice in the stomach, the hottest knife in the skull--that either of us has ever felt.

Adventures in Parenting, vol. 43

Number One: has learned that he isn't the biggest (in fact he's about the smallest) or the most aggressive or athletic. The boys his age are already quite aware of who is good at which sport, and they compete (as they should). Number One is not competitive. He doesn't spend all day shooting baskets or throwing a ball. He flits from thing to thing and mostly makes up stories. Kids don't get a lot of street cred for being like he is, and even the academics have been on ya moderate success. The other night he asked me what advice I could give him to make him feel better about himself...I gave him the advice you'd expect, about patience and being the right kind of polite and hardworking person, but at nine, how can a kid understand? Hopefully it'll take if we are consistent.

Black Letter

One of the most daunting features of sixteenth century pamphlets is their tendency to use "black letter," a type font associated with early German printers.  Most of the letter forms are relatively easy to recognize, though it takes some practice.  I remember the first time I ran into this stuff when doing course work in graduate school, and how I did my best to avoid it. I'm finding that, predictably,  experience pays off in research as in other things.

Narrenschiff

Every day that passes I am more and more glad that I have this break--this distance--from the usual. It's already doing me a world of good.

Day Seven

I think I've figured out a schedule that will work for me, which is an enormous deal seeing as I need to find a way to spend my time wisely.  If I can spend the morning hours on campus, working at transcription, library oriented work, and so on, I can spend the afternoon hours at home with the dog, and whichever children I need to be watching at the time, while I read whatever book/article/pamphlet I need to cover.  I don't imagine I'll get away without changing my approach at least once, but for now it's good enough.

I was pleased to talk to my student intern today (unpaid; she's getting class credit for it) and she was remarkably quick and enthusiastic to join me in the work. I threw her in the deep end, giving her a black letter pamphlet to work on . . . and she is on it like a terrier.  A rare gem, she is.

Eventually I'll get back to posting on other stuff . . . it's just that I'm super preoccupied with this work at the time.

Day Five

After a weekend full of mundane family matters, I returned to the researches with a burst of energy today, reading (as I need to do a great deal of) primary sources from the 1570s-90s. I also started giving my "intern" (I have a very bright young woman who will be helping me out with some of the work) some assignments. I'm excited to be getting to the material itself, though every day I deal with it I'm reminded of the missed opportunities I had to seriously study this stuff when I lived in Chapel Hill.  It seems like too much to do from where I stand right now . . . but if I plug away at it, I may find that by the end of the month I've made some significant headway. A little momentum will go a long way.

Day One

My dear machine been idle so long 
Now it's time for another drive
Please can you take me where I wanna go
Though I let you rust
My dear machine--

Among the pitfalls I foresee in a semester away from teaching (the first, I might add, since 1999?):

1. The Errand:  I'm not teaching, and not required to be at the office, so it should be no problem to stop in here . . . stop in there . . . be out for two or three hours . . .

2. The Endurance:  How long has it been since I sat myself down and did serious study for 5-6 hours over the course of a day?  I have grown accustomed to entirely different work rhythms, and need to recover my ability to focus for long periods.

3. Where and When: This is a small town and it is difficult to disappear. There are Time Vampires lurking around who will consume all I have.

4. Confidence Crater:  Am I still capable of doing serious sustained work?

We knew it was a long shot

Today was the last day I could expect to receive a phone call asking for an interview at MLA.  Looks like that won't be happening.  I won't receive definitive rejection letters for quite some time, if at all, but the silence is indication enough.  I had an enormous amount of confidence in the Baylor application particularly--the post is one I'm well qualified for, and I would seem to fit their profile.  However, the academic job market being what it is, I'm sure they were snowed under with far more impressive portfolios than mine.  I'm frustrated that I was so unaccountably confident in what amounted to a pipe-dream, but can't dwell on it too much; there is still plenty to do in the coming weeks and months, and there is another job season next Fall.  The Triathlete has been helpful in coming up with all sorts of bright sides to look at, but some of this disappointment I'm just going to have to sit with for a while, especially since it's more than just me I'm concerned about.  Getting the family away from NWTN was always the better part of my motivation. That's still the aim, but it looks like it's going to have to be a longer-term process than I had hoped.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 42

After watching several unfortunate things happen in Number One's classroom over the first half of this academic year, we took our concerns to the principal at the elementary school.  My greatest concern is that his teacher appears to be relatively stupid and rigid, and relatively incompetent at math and science. We didn't say those things directly, and we did admit that he is not always the most detail-oriented child in the world, but we made it clear that we don't like the direction of the class.

She defended her teacher to a certain degree, as we expected she would. She also explained that the teacher in question likes to plan everything to the nth degree, and likes to have clearly delineated "black" and "white" areas in her classroom and her teaching.  Which may be a nicer way of saying that she is in fact not the brightest star in the MES sky.

Not sure what difference it will make, but perhaps it serves as a warning shot.  She also offered The Triathlete a spot on her "Parents' Advisory Board," which at least gives us a way to have an advocate more closely associated with the school administration.

Looking backward, forward

That ship has sailed, so to speak

I suppose it's the fate of a person who spends a lot of time studying that he should find it hard to inhabit the present.  At the very least, that's true of me.  I have studied for several hours today, and every line I read about the English Reformation makes me wish I had studied more of this stuff back when I had the resources of UNC at my fingertips.  I guess it's a truism that one doesn't know what one should have studied until one is finished with the project at hand--at least when "the project at hand" is a doctoral thesis.

At any rate, I'm glad I have spent the last several years studying this stuff, even if my progress has been far less speedy than I would like.  Until recently I had been hopeful that I would shortly have the opportunity to spend even more time and energy on it.  That does not seem to be the case anymore, alas.  I'll have to continue picking at it . . . though naturally I'll get to do a lot of picking this next six months.

Research Leave, Day 1

It's all about momentum.  I have plenty of books to read, and plenty of things to write, but they will not get done if I allow myself too much leisure. In other news, this comes along just at the right time.  I was tapped out this past semester, as can be seen by the month-plus between postings on this blog.  I would like to use this forum as a way to keep myself accountable.  To have to report on my progress: maybe it will help.