my chair is better than your chair

Music: Prince: LotusFlower (2009)

One of the many glories of working in the Communication Studies department at the University of Texas at Austin, as I've written before, is having Barry Brummett as your chair. He floods your inbox with information, and about every week, a "report" of his meetings with the deans and chairs of the college. Today's "report" from Barry was particularly hilarious (they're all pretty funny, but this one had me laughing aloud, and hard):

This morning was the monthly meeting of only the Chairs/Director, Associate Dean, and the Dean. It was the most boring meeting imaginable. It was a meeting underwater. It was a meeting on a morphine drip. I wrote down not a single thing to tell you. Even the Big Dark Secret that we were instructed not to take out of the room was the most boring Big Dark Secret I ever heard and I wouldn't bother you with it even if I COULD take it out of the room.

Imagine 7 old, grey, vultures sitting in a circle over a pile of questionable roadkill. They discourse thus:
In a nasal whine: Meeeeeeep
[long, long pause with silence]
In a basso profundo: Meep Meep Meep Meep
[the sound of crickets chirping]
Staccato but drained of energy: Me e e e e ep
[the sound of wind blowing in the branches]
and on and on in this manner. Not enough to keep the mind alive, I tell you.

For these inbox chuckles alone, bigods, we'll never let Barry step-down.

blood races . . . ssca is on . . . there's a fire . . .

octulpemama: paranoia and foreclosure

Music: Broken Social Scene: Feel Good Lost (2001)

Nadya Suleman, the now infamous Alien Breeder who spawned eight children in January, has fired her free nursing help. Today the Associated Press reports that Suleman believed the nurses were spying on her, presumably to collect information to report to authorities about her unfitness to mother. To the psychosis of overproduction, then, we can add another classic symptom: paranoia.

In general, paranoia is a symptom of the enflamed ego. Because of its onerous role, the ego is fundamentally a paranoiac agency and this quality is exacerbated in psychosis. From a Lacanian perspective, obvious paranoia is a classic consequence of foreclosure, which is the denial of the paternal metaphor. In plainer English, foreclosure is a denial of the daddy function (the "no" of language) and an inability to separate from mommy. Foreclosure is akin to refusing that the father exists (imaginary, symbolic, and real). It's akin to never wanting to leave the womb, metaphorically speaking. This results in a disavowal of speech and the symbolic.

This week for the psychoanalysis seminar we are reading Julia Kristeva's challenging tome, Black Sun, where she advances a theory of melancholia and depression. It's tough reading both because Kristeva can really get her jargon on, and because the material she's working with is . . . uh, depressing. As I was reading along, it occurred to me that (a) I've been depressed before, but I've never had melancholia (as if I have ever lost my speech); (b) I've known a few, severely depressed melancholics in my life, two of whom were my "significant others" (reading Kristeva describe the symptoms, I was frequently astonished by how vividly they were demonstrated to me in real life); and (c) Suleman's overproduction is probably indicative of a psychosis brought about by a deep depression; or, she is simply a melancholic. Of course, I could be wrong since I don't know the woman, but at least the media reports about Suleman are indicative of a depression fantasy. That is, the "script" of depression is definitely being trotted out to help explain Suleman's behavior.

Black Sun is heavily indebted to Melanie Klein and her focus on primary identification. In particular, the narcissism of a tacit psychotic sadness is specified vis-à-vis projective identification (sorry, that's jargonish; projective identification is the underlying logic of scapegoating; think here of Burke and community belonging via exclusion and overprotectiveness). A key passage:

In order to better account for it, we must come back to the notion of projective identification suggested by Melanie Klein. The study of very young children, and also the dynamics of psychosis, leads one to conjure that the more archaic [that is, pre-Oedipal] psychic processes are the projections of the good and bad components of not-yet self onto an object not yet separated from it, with the aim less of attacking the other than of gaining a hold over it, an omnipotent possession. Such oral and anal omnipotence is perhaps more intense as certain biophysiological particularities hamper the ideally wished for autonomy of the self . . . . The behavior of mothers and fathers, overprotective and uneasy, who have chosen a child as a narcissistic artificial limb and keep incorporating that child as a restoring element for the adult psyche intensifies the infant's tendency toward omnipotence.

To recontextualize: Octuplemama's overly protective stance toward her many children is a "replay" of her own infantile fantasies of omnipotence. These children are hers to hoard; paranoid fantasies about having them taken away proliferate until, of course, they are actually taken away and she is forced to actually confront loss, a loss imposed by the Law. Where, oh where, is the imaginary father?

birthday booty!

Music: Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman (1970)

For my birthday, I treated myself to the candy I liked as a kid. I didn't know they still made this stuff, but they do. I bought myself some Fruit Stripe gum (both bubble and sugar free varieties) and some Charms (hard candy). It arrived while I was out of town. I had a pack of each last night, and now I'm absolutely sick of it. So, if you drop by my office next week you can have some candy. Yes, there's a dirty joke to be made. (Here's a gallery of the goodies; initially I tried to photograph outside, but Jesús insisted on being in the shots).

goodbye illinois!

Music: FENNESZ: Black Sea (2008)

I'm lounging at O'Hare in Chicago waiting for a late afternoon flight back to my home in Austin. I've had a lovely "tour of the Midwest" to compliment last Spring's "tour of the Northeast," visiting libraries and friends in Minnesota and Illinois. It has been two years since I've enjoyed the Midwest and its friendly people, and it is so nice to be back. I got snow; I got sub-zero temps; I got sunshine and the budding of spring, too! Last night, as I was about to lay down for sleep, I got to thinking about how this place is no longer "home," how that feeling has shifted to Texas (and how remarkable it is that I call Texas home---I would have never predicted that), but how many of my "peeps" are still here, in the Midwest. As a Georgia boy, having this scattered identity---having these roots in so many disparate places---is just a teensy bit confusing. It is a difficult feeling to describe. As facebook has become the equivalent of a high school and grade-school reunion, I get a sense from my "old friends" of the Great Teenage that Georgia feels like "home," that the roots are deep and anchored, and so forth. I don't have that feeling about any place I've lived, really. Austin is becoming that, and I suppose if I'm promoted the roots will start to sink and maybe, one day, I'll have that "this is it feeling." Austin is unquestionably home (I mean, I keep thinking about seeing the dog), but I still seem to get my "recharge" in different places.

I suppose I might try to express my feelings today a different way: only by traveling does one become convicted in the geography of a "home." Only by being away from Austin for some time does it have the gravity. And I think spending time in the hospital there---you know, being scared shitless---makes Austin a deeper furrow.

But, enough of the contemplative navel gazing of traveling romanticism. I left Urbana for Chicago on Wednesday, and then hopped a bus to Evanston where I hooked up with Harold. I then got to see the headquarters of Northwestern's College and Department of Communication, which surprisingly I have never seen before. Ok, that's not true: I remember the college when it was in a different building in the 1990s. This was the first time I've seen the new "relocated" school and department in the "Death Star," the craziest new-agey building you've ever seen. The layout of this building is pretty wacky, and you get lost easily. Harold toured me the building, and then we met-up with Angela in the newly relocated rhetoric and public culture program into the remodeled Annie May Swift Building, which is beautiful.

We retired to Skokie for conversation, pizza, and dog love! Monty and Abby showed me their dinnertime tricks (Abby is particularly hilarious, who twirls in place until she gets dizzy at dinner time).

Thursday Angela and I drove to Humboldt Park for lunch at "Bite," a very tasty, very artsy eatery. We hooked up there with Johanna, who then carried me back to DeKalb. Zack and Johanna were the most marvelous hosts (and man, can these two cook!). They pried me with bourbon and put me to bed. I awoke the next day for fun time at Northern Illinois University. I sat in on Johanna's "free speech" class. A group of students did a presentation on commercial "sex," a commercial about sperm and then one PETA commercial in which women are licking pumpkins and fondling broccoli stems.

I did a little sharing to the department, and then we went to HAPPY HOUR! I love me some happy hour. I got to spend some time with my old "grad buddy" Rob Brookey, whom I hadn't seen in a while (Rob was just as funny as he ever was, always laughing). The Communication folks at DeKalb seemed a tight-nit and collegial bunch, and I really enjoyed meeting them. I'm also so happy for Johanna for ending up in a department like this, a department that understands her awesomeness and celebrates it.

After a fantastic meal prepared by Zack last night (and a film, something called Nick and Nora's Endless Mix-CD or something like that; it was cute) I crashed fast. This morning, however, I awoke to a full-blown awesome breakfast of champions and Johanna reading a Swedish cookbook! Awesome.

And so here I sit; my flight departs in about an hour. My laptop battery rapidly depletes. And I muse. This has been a fabulous, love-filled trip. I return with research materials and a bag of books that I didn't start out with. But more importantly, I return with memories of friends whom I expect to have the rest of my life. Yeah, call it "nostalgia" if you want, but it's my birthday and I'll be nostalgic if I want to. So bite me.

Oh, yeah: full gallery of my visit in Chicago here; full gallery of my visit with Zack and E! in DeKalb/Naperville is here.

a song i really like

I am coming home. I miss home. I miss the dog and the cats. I miss the garden. I've really, really enjoyed my tour of the Midwest, but it's clear to me that Austin has really dug itself in that place. I've been playing the Brothers & Sisters on the way to sleep; a band that reminds me of home, a voice that reminds me of that romance of living in patio gardens. "I Don't Rely" has been something of an anthem this year, I just played it trying to wind down for bed, but I thought it might be nice to share, too:

I need to see a live show, and soon, and not be driving.

How did I let a city get that deep in? Damn you Austin.

Goodnight.

urbanarama, part two: bon voyage edition

Music: David Bowie: The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)

I am sad to leave the folks at UIUC, where the love-bombing and beer-feeding was fierce. On Monday evening I dined with Kassie, Ian, and Peter at a fabulous place called Radio Maria. I had a frog leg. I then gave an undergraduate talk on the love essay, followed by pints with Peter and Kassie. It is really enjoyable to get a feeling for what other programs are like, which gives one a better perspective on one's own in return.

While very different in a number of respects, the Communication Department here is also very similar in structure and "feel" to my home department at the University of Texas---something I didn't expect. We have around the same number of students (although their faculty felt much larger outside of the rhetoric area, and they have an affiliated cultural/media studies "center"). We have a similar storied history stretching back to the early twentieth century, and so on.

One of my charges was to locate Richard Murphy's office and check the bottom right drawer for bourbon. Bob Scott (my advisor) said that when he was a beginning graduate student here, his first encounter with Murphy involved opening his drawer and offering Scott a nip of bourbon. Incidentally, Murphy was a graduate of the Cornell rhetoric program, which means my intellectual lineage can be drawn from that "school" of thought (humanistic rhetoric, vis-à-vis the scientistic turn Woobert advocated for Speech). Murphy's old office is 128 Lincoln Hall. I didn't get a chance to get in there, but Debbie is going to try after my departure.

Cara Finnegan was simply wonderful with mentoring advice (how to mentor high numbers) and suggestions for my upcoming course on publics/celebrity. She also provided some department history for me (also, props to Kassie for the blue book!). She had been given a file of letters written by Murphy that detail some of the discussion about the department name and curriculum, which was exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for in writing the second chapter of my book in progress (which is on the history of the field). I'm so grateful for the useful nuggets Cara gave me!

Yesterday begin with a delightful lunch with Ned O'Gorman (whose completed book on early cold war discourse sounds awesome). Ned probably didn't know I was already a big fan of his until I told him so noshing on roast beef (anything on the sublime in our field gets read; such an important concept). I then had a good chat with Cara and went to spy the Mandeville Collection in Occult Sciences one last time (I was less successful on the second trip). The extent of the collection is pretty much in the photograph to the left: one wall of stuff. Combined with the database, it didn't take long to finish perusing the volumes.

Last evening began with a delightfully delicious dinner with Debbie, Cara, John Murphy, and Pat Gill. I was especially excited to meet Pat, whose work in film (and especially slasher films) and psychoanalytic criticism overlaps with my own interests; we had a chance to talk about the "Gorno" movement and whether or not it was overall a positive filmic development. I didn't get a strong sense of her opinion, but I did learn that "Saw IV sucked!" Pat rocked!

Finally, the evening ended with "reading group," a venue in which faculty and graduate students read a few of a person's articles and then discuss them. This is quite the love-bomb ego boost, of only because you're guaranteed someone is reading your work! We spent a lot of time discussing the scholarly invention process, how one was led to write this way as opposed to that---generally, the sorts of questions you never get to ask of a piece of writing. Oratorical Animal helped to draw out the marvelous observation that one cannot avoid the desire for "mastery," even if one eschews the disposition of mastery. I think this is the predicament of the critic. Also, John and Ned helped me to underscore that this theory/criticism divide is a false one, that you can do both, that public address without theory doesn't make sense (I mean, I would call KKC a theorist-critic, for example). Anyhoo, one could quickly get addicted to this sort of engagement! Perhaps the best thing about the experience, however, is that I came away with some awesome suggestions and ideas about how to move on with my current project (and again, Cara was there with some fascinating information about speech as the index of authenticity in early photography).

It's been simply a marvelous visit with a heaping dose of warm fuzzies. I'm happy to have seen where my own educational lineage has come from, as well. I will miss Michigan Avenue in Urbana. John and Debbie have been marvelous hosts, and I feel a bit of a dork for dropping in on them during a very busy time (they're preparing to sell their home and heave toward State College, PA!). Now, it's on to Chicago to see Angela and Harold, and then Dekalb to play with Zack and E!

urbanarama, part one

Music: The Action: Rolled Gold (1968)

Well, it's just gorgeous here in Urbana, where I visit with Debbie and John on a sort-of research junket (I say sort-of, as the lavishness is supplied by friendship and love, and thus not at the public's expense). My hosts live in "historic, west Urbana" which has cobblestone streets lined with huge trees. Their house is charming as all get out (they've done a ton of updated to this 1920s hardwood wonder), and just a fifteen-minute walk to campus. Since I've not really been in a neighborhood like this in many, many years, it is sort of like living in a movie about a professor's life (except that John and Debbie are living that life)—but better than the stereotype, because this so-called life have two beautiful, charming whippets! I love me some whippet.

Saturday night Debbie fed me some martinis (which was delightful; I got the third one just to flirt with our waitress one more time; I confess I like braids almost as much as I like whippets, and had she on argyle socks I think I would have been done in). Sunday we did some leisurely exploration and brunching and seeing Lincoln's bust-ing. Apparently students rub Abe's nose for good luck on exams, although I couldn't resist picking it.

I dined and drank last night with the most excellent Troy, George, and Peter (props!). I learned about grad student culture and, more importantly, musical tastes (Troy agreed with me that Of Montreal is way overrated, and Peter impressed me with his love of Koko Taylor.) George had to leave to write a paper. I didn't have the heart to tell George that that feeling and sense of guilt never ends---unless, of course, you have that extra pint. Then, if you still have that feeling you end up writing Burkean critiques of the 1040 tax form and rhetorical criticism of James Brown's grunt (I drunkenly penned them for R.L. Scott's rhetorical theory seminar in two different quarters).

Today I had lunch with Darrell (who is coming to UNT! w00t!), who fed me delicious clay pot chickenness. I forgot to take a photo---dang. Then I got down to the business I am primarily here for (well, I at least have to say that): The "Mandeville Collection in the Occult Sciences," which is an endowed collection in the Educational and Social Sciences library. Basically, it’s a huge section of books on the occult that began with a donation from Merten J. Mandeville (about 400 books). Since then the thing has grown to 16,000 volumes. Mandeville was a professor of commerce in the business school, but apparently had a big, personal interest in the paranormal and occult. I spent about 45 minutes talking to the librarians about the collection itself, who comes to research in it, and so forth. To me, the collection is fascinating because of the stipulations Mandeville set in place for the collection: the books should be scholarly, and they should be "positive." This "positive" criterion is in the collection literature too. A very attractive and friendly librarian (I need to learn to flirt better—any tips? I'm going back tomorrow) said that by "positive" he meant "no, uh, no black magic." Apparently this is also the collection from which the most books are stolen.

"So, how do you determine what is and isn't black magic?" I asked.

"Well, that's the problem; there's a very fine line," she said, speaking of acquisitions. "For some religious people all of it is black magic."

This got me to thinking about my own career path and the difficulty my dissertation topic posed for me on job interviews. I always did a presentation on Satanism because, I figured, if people were going to object to my work on the "label," then I might as well go ahead and bring out the spooky shit. Of course, my talk was designed to alleviate precisely that kind of worry, as if to say, "see, I'm not a devil worshipper." In any event, it would seem the Mandeville collection has a similar problem: things get stolen not simply because they are unusual, but also to protect those malleable and impressionistic college kids.

So, here we are: Mandeville's secret obsession has brought me out of the (janitor's) closet to the University of Illinois. Who knew a curiosity in magic would eventually lead to an expense paid trip to play with friends (and make some new ones too)? I managed to locate some stuff that will prove helpful on my current book project (a book on "disembodied voices" by a British scholar). Tomorrow I'll see what else I can scrounge up, and maybe just maybe that librarian will be working.

(Oh, I almost forgot: a gallery of my visit thus far is here!)

so long twin cities . . . for now

Music: David Helping: Sleeping on the Edge of the World (1999)

I'm sitting in Debbie and John's dining room as Debbie launders and John naps, here in beautiful about-to-be-spring West Urbana. I departed from Minneapolis yesterday afternoon with some sadness. I had a great visit and got some quality time with people I miss with some ferocity. For my birthday my advisor Robert Scott took me to see Shakespeare's The Two Gentleman of Verona at the Guthrie, which was very well done (in a 1950s idiom). I also got a little research done (and Ernest Bormann's history of the department saved me a heap of time). And I got some great feedback on my book project (I shared the chapter on EVP and backmasking).

My only disappointment: grads don't apparently go out after seminar for happy hours like we used to. I really didn't get a good sense of the graduate corhort (though I loves me some Jon and Kristine and Tim B; props!).

While in airports and on planes, I've been reading The Origin of Speech by the UT psychologist Peter MacNeilage. It's quite well written and interesting. He really goes after the "Universal Grammar" people and a goodly number of structural linguists, hammering away at a Neo-Darwinian theory of speech as a consequence of adaptation. I find it quite persuasive, but was wondering if anyone else out there is reading this book?

Well, this post is really just a delivery device for photos I wanted to share of my Minneapolis trip leg. The gallery is here. Come back later in the week for UIUC imagery!

the snow

Music: Coil: The Snow EP (1991)

I miss Minneapolis. I lived six, very important years of my life in this city. And just in time for my return, it snowed. I'm staying with Karlyn for a couple of days, then RLS (for those not in the know, these are my mentors from grad school daze, "mom" and "dad" respectively . . . though I'm mindful of the problems of the paternal metaphor). Karlyn and I went to dine at a mutual favorite Thai place on South Washington Street. It was flurrying on the way. When we came back, snowing was in full force. I cannot describe how cheered I was to walk back in the snow, it hitting my face, the stinging, the crunch sound when I walked. I miss the snow. I know you who live in the stuff tire of it; for some reason I never did for six years (ok, but for a couple of very memorable evenings, about which some other time--remember the blizzard, David and Kate?). But I miss the snow. So I said so. "Spoken like a true northerner," said Karlyn. "If you can say that in this" she followed, because the snow was hitting our faces pretty ferociously. We laughed. It's good to be "home."

After dinner we played with the cats (two adorable Burmese). I snapped a photo from her balcony (click on it for a larger version). It's a comforting scene; I remember when Karlyn and Paul moved here and this balcony. Since that time, downtown has experienced a revitalizing. Things are fixed up. The train station was restored ("Old Milwaukee"—you can see the clock tower; now it houses a hotel, some shops, and a ice rink). The flour mills lining the Mississippi were restored and/or built into condos. The red neon sign flashes "Gold Medal Flour."

"There's something comforting about that Gold Medal sign," I said.

"I've grown to adore it," she said. "I'm so glad they keep it up. When a bulb goes out, they've got it replaced within a few days."

Something about the sign reminded me of the sound of trains, which I used to hear in the middle of the night while living in Baton Rouge. At first, the trains woke me up. But after a few months, they became comforting. After a couple of years, I couldn't sleep without them.

I'm glad to be here visiting. I have my snow. Now, I need my trains too.

it's fart friday!

This English clip is funnier, but YouTube won't allow an embedded link.

a pomo pubspeak tease

Music: Synaesthesia: Desideratum (1995)

As some of you know, I've undertaken a public speaking textbook. At the moment I've been revising my proposal, which includes a rationale for my approach (all top secret, though I bet the lot of you can figure out my angle) and a sample chapter. So far I've had a lot of fun writing the sample chapter and trying to imagine what will keep the interest of today's undergraduate student. One thing I do know is that most public speaking texts are too wordy and long, explaining common sense with too many examples (some of which are condescending). Writing this week, however, it's also clear to me how textbook writing is a difficult line to walk. My tendency is to write to smart adults, as opposed to "dumbing down" anything, which, when I was a undergraduate, I thought was insulting (the one textbook that stood out as not insulting to me was Stephen Littlejohn's Theories of Human Communication).

Now, the press I'm working without would be upset if posted a whole draft of anything, however, I thought I could post a little taste of what sort of thing y'all can expect. When this puppy hits the market in a couple of years, I hope you'll consider it because I just got my hospital bill from last week (can you believe it is $34,000? That's before insurance kicks-in, of course, but holy big-ass bovine!).

(Oh, a health update: an echo last week and check-up on Friday revealed no heart damage; I am almost fully recovered and the doctor says I should be back to "normal" in another week or two.)

Ok, so, medical bills and dreams of new Vespas in mind, here goes:

Audience Analysis Part One: Before You Open Your Gosh-Darn Trap

[FEATURED IMAGE, FULL RIGHT PAGE: Back of a naked woman facing an audience; no frontal nudity, however, we can almost see her buttocks; photo should push the envelope.]

PLAYLIST: Bauhaus: "Spirit"

House of Love: "Audience with the Mind"

The Who: "Who Are You?"

Yaz: "Situation."

You just knew we had to talk about naked people at some point, didn't you? If anything, public speaking arouses anxieties of vulnerability, and nothing symbolizes vulnerability more than nudity-especially public nudity! Heck, we might as go ahead and re-title this book On Public Nudity: Clothes for the Neophyte.

If you are human and not an android, then you probably have had a nudity nightmare at some point in your life: you are in a crowded cafeteria and about to accept a giant trophy and prize-winning pet goat for capturing the Strawberry Shortcake Bandit who has been greedily eating everyone's just deserts (remember, this is a dream), when you abruptly realize you're nekkid and standing in front of a large audience. Audience members point at your various body parts and whisper furtively to each other. Suddenly cold and flapping in the breeze, you cover your private bits and slowly slink, inch-by-inch, toward the exit . . . .

The "nudity dream" is a good allegory for public speakers who have not carefully studied their audience before a speech. [SIDEBAR definition, poking fun at texbooks: nudity dream: a common dream in which the dreamer realizes she is naked in front of a group of people]. In general, what we fear most about public speaking are the negative judgments of an audience. When speaking, we often asked questions like, "are they following what I am saying?" or "is this making any sense at all?" or "can they tell I'm nervous?" or "do they think I'm smart?" When we let these kinds of questions overwhelm us, we can feel as if we are naked! Audience analysis, or the process by which you come to understand your audience before and during a speech, is one sure-fire way to combat metaphorical nudity. [STARBURST: audience analysis is the process by which a speaker comes to understand his or her audience before and during a speech.] That's why the next few articles are designed to provide you with some virtual clothes, so to speak: by anticipating audience reactions and gathering information about them, you're much more likely to avoid public speaking anxiety. In short, analyzing the audience is like putting on clothes.

CASIN' DA JOINT

The slang phrase "casin' a joint" refers to checking something out, usually a building or a place. In Hollywood film, "casin' a joint" sometimes refers to scoping out a bank or a museum so that one can prepare to burgle it. Some folks think that the phrase "casin' a joint" is derived from a popular, 19th century card game called Faro, but really, who gives a flip? We don't. What's important to us is the notion that "casing" or "casin'" means to scrutinize or study closely. [SIDEBAR: casing or casin': to scrutinize or study closely.] In any public speaking situation, you'll have to scrutinize the audience and their physical arrangement first before you can make any decisions about what to do or say. In other words, to be a good speaker you gotta (1) case da' joint (the space, location, and so on) and (2) case da' peeps--or the audience--in order to get a sense of what is and is not possible to say and do. Sometimes the room size of your speech will impose limits on what you can say or do; for example, a small room would make it difficult for you to do an interpretive dance with your eulogy. Sometimes the age of your audience might limit your ability to make South Park references and jokes. It all depends. Lets look at da joint before we move to the more complex topic of the peeps to get a better sense of how to "case."

[LAYOUT: omitted for secrecy].

Physical Location

Where and when you give a speech directly influences how you will relate to your audience. Suppose, for example, you had to give a "pep" talk to classmates about a group project you are working on for a sociology class. Suppose, further, that the only space you can find to talk is a small bathroom. Obviously, this location would demand that you keep your voice down, perhaps even that you whisper, since bathrooms are typically regarded as quiet spaces in our culture. If the bathroom is not unisex, your meeting may even need to be somewhat clandestine. Indeed, the location of this impromptu potty speech might also be a little stinky, which means a short speech is probably better than a long one. Although the bathroom example is extreme, you can see how the physical location places demands on what you can and should say as a speaker to your audience.

Most formal speaking situations will be in spaces created for public speaking: an auditorium, a reception hall, and a boardroom are familiar examples. For this class you have been (or will be) speaking in a classroom, which is a space designed specifically for speaking and listening. This means that the acoustics, or sound transmission properties of a given space, are probably optimal: you won't require a microphone; distracting noise from outside or the hallway is muffled by sound-defeating doors and windows; and so on. [SIDEBAR: acoustics: the sound transmission properties of a given space.] Further, most classrooms are designed to accommodate an average of 20-30 students. Even before you enroll in a public speaking class, you probably had some idea of your future audience based on your past experiences in classrooms.

There is, however, a certain danger in taking a public speaking course at a college or university: many of your practice speeches are taking place in a classroom, which is not the typical environment for a speech in daily life. In general, a classroom is an ideal space for speeches because it is easier to hear and speak, the audience size is known in advance, and so on. As we noted in the first chapter, however, most of the speeches that you will give in your life will be at a restaurant or bar (toasts), a reception hall, church, mosque, or synagogue (union service), many of which are characteristically noisy places. For this reason, it's always very important to scope out your speaking location before your speech if you can. If it is not possible to literally case da' joint, ask others more knowledgeable of the setting about what to expect.

Technological Needs

Just as the physical space of your speech directly affects how you relate to an audience, so does "technology," by which we usually mean computers and sound reinforcement machinery. [SIDEBAR: sound reinforcement: the use of microphones, sound processors, and amplifiers to enhance the quality or volume of sounds.] Sometimes you might want to present a series of Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint slides to accompany a speech; if so, you better make sure the physical space in which you are to speak has a computer, a projector, and the software necessary to show slides (we will discuss the use of computer-generated visual aids in depth in a later article). If your speaking space does not have the electronic equipment you need, you may need to supply your own or plan to prepare your speech without visual aids (like, duh!). It may also be the case that you are asked to speak in a very large auditorium or to a bigger audience outdoors. In these situations, you may have access to a microphone and a sound amplification system. It is always good to know if you will be amplified, because this influences how you choose to deliver your speech orally.

Audience Size

If you are giving a pep talk to five classmates in a bathroom, the situation demands an informal, causal speech-and the more speedy the better, especially if the talk is right after lunch! It is not likely that you would prepare for days, nor is it likely that you would carefully practice the speech for hours before you "deliver" it. If, however, you are asked to speak to an audience of 500 in an auditorium, you will probably want to prepare your speech very carefully and much more formally. In general, the larger the audience, the more prepared you should be. Indeed, the larger the audience the more you must reign-in informality, slang and inside-jokes (you should have seen this textbook before the editors go a hold of it! Man did they take the author to town for not practicing what he preaches!).

For this class, of course, you'll be speaking to a group probably no larger than 30 people. In your life outside of class, however, your audiences will vary widely. At a wedding or civil union, for example, there may be a hundred or more guests listening to your toast to the happy couple. If the union was a small affair with familiar guests, you could craft an intimate speech full of inside-jokes; however, if the nuptial crowd was rather large, you'll want to decrease any inside jokes. As the old saying goes, "size matters." Whether or not you think that "bigger is better" in terms of audience, however, depends on your personal preference.

Stay tuned throughout the year for periodic teasers as I write this puppy. AND let me add: if you have any suggestions or input as I write, feel free to share. As anyone who has written a textbook knows, it's not just children that "take a village." Oh, and Eric: I'm totally titling the vocalics chapter "Tongue Foo."

octuplemama

Music: Distance: Repercussions/Chestplate (2008)

Nadya Suleman has been under a MSM spotlight for over a month now since giving birth to eight children. Suleman already had six children, between the years of 2001 and 2006. Hungry for more hungry mouths, somehow Suleman convinced physician Michael Kamrava to impregnate her with an additional five embryos (three is standard limit for her age). Kamrava is now under investigation by the Medical Board of California and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Suleman has been the target of death threats a great deal of negative publicity, since she has been using food stamps for many years. Public resentment has largely focused on Suleman's use of the welfare system to support her brood; many feel she is irresponsible for having so many children without the financial means to raise them.

Although Suleman is the unquestionably the poster child for the "Welfare Mama" fantasy, I think most of us can agree that deciding raise fourteen children without adequate resources is irresponsible. And despite the criticism hurled by pundits at the MSM, I also don't have any difficulty with the publicity she has received: Suleman's story raises important issues about parenting in postmodernity, the relationship between the medical-industrial complex and social reproduction, and the ethics of parenting. Her story raises so many interesting issues it's difficult for me to decide what to focus on the most. I'm especially interested in the lack of a second parental figure, and how this may impact her children (I have come around to believe that two parents are always better than one, irrelevant of their gender and sex). Ultimately, however, what gets me the most is motive: why the hell would anyone want to have fourteen children by themselves? What, in other words, is goading this woman toward living in a shoe?

Well, you just know I have to consult daddy Freud first. As most of y'all know, Freud's views on feminine sexuality have been met with much scorn and critique, but let's rehearse them briefly and them discuss how they have been refigured; I promise you they do shed some insight into the Suleman's excessive pregnancy.

In the New Introductory Lectures of Psycho-Analysis first published in 1933, Freud summarizes his theories about female development. Initially Freud didn't have much to say about women at all, however, by the 1920s it was becoming apparent that we could not assume girls come to selfhood in the same way as boys. Freud supposed that castration anxiety in boys led to identification with the father, the "deal" not to have mommy all to himself, and so forth. For girls, however, it all starts when they discover that they do not have penises. I cite Freud at length (since he's a much better writer than I am):

As you hear . . . we ascribe a castration complex to women as well. And for good reasons, though its content cannot be the same with boys. In the latter the castration complex arises after they have learnt from the sigh of the female genitals that the organ which they value so highly need not necessarily accompany the body. At this the boy recalls to mind the threats he brought on himself by the doings with that organ, he begins to give credence to them and falls under the influence and fear of castration, which will be the most powerful motive force in his subsequent development. The castration complex of girls is also started by the sight of the genitals of the other sex. They at once notice the difference and, it must be admitted, its significance too. They feel seriously wronged, often declare that they want to "have something like it too," and fall victim to "envy for the penis," which will leave ineradicable trances on their development . . . . The girl's recognition of the fact of her being without a penis does not by any means imply that she submits to the fact easily. On the contrary, she continues to hold on for a long time to the wish to get something like it herself . . . . The wish to get the longed-for penis eventually in spite of everything may contribute to the motives that drive a mature woman to analysis . . . .

Freud says, in other words, that overcoming penis envy is the major challenge of feminine development. Girls respond in one of three ways: "One leads to sexual inhibition or to neurosis; the second to change of character in the sense of a masculinity complex; the third, finally, to normal femininity." In the first response, failure to overcome penis-envy can lead to neurotic (obsessional) forms of repetition compulsion and substitution. This is where Freud would likely locate Suleman, about which more below. The second response is, of course, various forms of female masculinity (not reducible to lesbianism). And the third response is "normal," heterosexual development which includes a socially sanctioned substitution: the longed-for penis becomes . . . you guessed it . . . a baby.

Of course, Freud's theory of female castration anxiety as "penis envy" has been met with much critique, represented well by Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1970) and well-known critiques by Luce Irigaray and others. Particularly offensive to some critics is Freud's argument that, in the infantile unconscious, feces, money, and babies are associatively linked. As I've argued elsewhere, Freud suggests that in childhood the penis functions fundamentally as a "gift," and it takes on this status from the experience of potty training. Basically, the story goes like this: when the child is old enough to control its shit, the parents start training it to eliminate in a potty. From this experience, the child learns that it gets praise for poop or pee-pee. Elimination---or "anal erotism"---thus becomes associated with love for the child; if she produces this stuff, she gets cheers from mommy and daddy. The child also sees daddy and mommy exchanging objects and getting praise from one another (money, jewelry, food, and so on), so, putting two-and-two together, the child comes to understand (at least at an unconscious level) that poop is an object offered in exchange for love.

Now, as Mitchell explains, later developments lead children to attribute other objects with this "exchange" value, principally among them, money and babies. How so? She resorts to an explanation of the "primary process" in the dreamwork:

The language of the primary process is symbolic, it makes use of condensation, displacement, and symbolization and all may occur concurrently, as they do in the instance we are now considering. Children believe that babies are born anally, like faeces: the straining, the release, the production of something new out of oneself is a prototype of birth. The faeces produced for the mother, or whoever cares for the child, are offered as a gift, from here one train of "thought" leads to an equation with money, but another to reconfirmation of the production of a baby which is also always "given," a gift ("he's given her a child," "she's given him a son"). At the same time the faeces, a column that stimulates the membranes of the bowel, is---in psychic terms---a forerunner of the penis---and unfortunately, like the faeces, the penis is also thought to be a part of the body that can be lost, given up, renounced (castration).

Notably, in her defense of Freud, Mitchell is leaning more and more on a metaphorical or associative---that is, formal---reading of Freud on penis envy: this "little thing," the penis, is just a signifier for a "gift," and is roughly equivalent to any gift that can be produced, given, or lost. In short, to little girls and boys, penis is baby is shit. Lacan and others will later solve the problem by simply referring to all this stuff as a phallus, a signifier of value whose meaning is formal, not necessarily specific.

With penis envy as the crucial thing to overcome, then, let me summarize Freud's theory of female sexual development, which moves through these stages (from Laplanche and Pontalis' The Language of Psycho-Analysis):

1. realization that she doesn't have a penis.
2. resentment toward the mom, who won't give her a penis.
3. realization of mother as inferior, cause she ain't got a penis either.
4. giving up on masturbation and the clitoris in favor of vaginal pleasure
5. realizing the infant is a substitute penis

Ok, now: few folks buy Freud's model. What psychoanalysists have subsequently done, however, is lean on the more associative/formal functions of the phallus and have reinterpreted "penis envy" as a errant outcome of childhood. Karen Horney, for example, argued that penis envy "was not inevitable but only occurred when the oedipal situation is not resolved and the daughter flees from libidinal investment in the father, fears competition with the mother, and defensively identifies with the father" (Christine C. Kieffer, "Selfobjects, Oedipal Objects, and Mutual Recognition"). In other words, object envy is a neurotic result of failing to give and receive love to and from a father figure.

Post-Freudian and object-relations folks reject the Oedipal scenario altogether. They tend to focus on primary identification, which simply refers to a time in child development when the genitals don't come into play (e.g., prior to castration anxiety and so forth). For these folks, the phallus represents an object that frees the child from the omnipotence of mama: The father represents a power independent of mother; the phallus is an object that takes on value independent of the mother. This scenario is somewhat Lacanian in the sense that identification with father represents an entry into the social world: dad arrives, and the child thinks, "oh, there's more to my world than mama!" From this scheme, especially the one outlined by Jessica Benjamin, penis envy is actually the name for frustration caused by an absence of the father, in whatever form. To wit: penis envy---or better, "phallus obsession"---is the female consequence of a lack of paternal love: an absent father, an abusive father, a neglectful father, and so forth.

Having trotted all this out, the armchair analysis of Suleman would go something like this: Suleman's desire to have children is a neurosis that represents a failed or frustrated relationship with a father figure. Although Suleman did make the symbolic shift from shit/penis to baby, the move is neurotically hysterical, indeed, a form of repetition compulsion (and, however ironically, goaded by the drive toward death) in which she has over-invested in the "normal" resolution to envy. Because each child is valued as a phallic object (a phallus is anything that seems to move on its own, representing independence from maternal omnipotence), Suleman's infantile motive is gifting: the more children she produces, the more love (recognition) she will receive. For this reason, people have been saying Suleman is "addicted" to having children, despite the fact there is no clinical support for such a claim (the desire to have children is "normal"). In psychoanalytic sense, Suleman is "addicted" because having children has become a compulsion irrelevant of their survival, irrelevant of the so-called "reality principle."

Whatever vocabulary we use to describe Suleman's pathology (classical psychoanalysis; object-relations; etc.), her own words seem to support a psychoanalytic reading. In a painful-to-watch interview with NBC's Anne Curry, Suleman said:

All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family. . . . I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up, . . . feeling of self and identity. . . I didn't feel as though, when I was a child, I had much control of my environment. I felt powerless. And that gave me a sense of predictability. Reflecting back on my childhood, it was pretty dysfunctional.

In an interview in Us magazine, Suleman's mother said "she always blamed me for only having her. She was always upset I didn‘t have more . . . ." Apparently Suleman believes her only-child upbringing had something to do with her abnormal lust for motherhood.

Almost (but not entirely) absent from the media reportage, of course, is any discussion of Suleman's father. Apparently he and her Suleman's mother divorced in 1999. Ed Doud appeared on Oprah to discuss his daughter. Oprah asked him about Suleman's statement that her upbringing was "dysfunctional." His response: "We gave her so much love. No child has so much love. I thought what she meant is because she is the only child. I'm sure that's what she meant. She really wanted a brother or sister." Doud nevertheless said that he found his daughters decision to have eight more children "irresponsible" and that he worried about her mental stability.

Perhaps Suleman did have "so much love." Perhaps. Brain chemistry, however, only goes so far to explain this kind of obsession, this excessive production of children without any realistic sense of their survival needs or welfare as people. These babies are objects for Suleman, overproduced gifts that, as we all know, keep on giving. Suleman is looking for recognition; she's definitely getting it, although we'd be hard-pressed to call it "love."

jindal's sneech logic

Music: Murder by Death: Who Will Survive, And What Will Be Left of Them? (2003)

Last night's speech by Obama set a new precedent: although we have had many eloquent politicians in the past, Obama is the first to establish the benchmark for what is possible in a heavily mediated political culture. Style and substance were balanced in equal measure; details danced with dramatic displays; and the modeling of his immediate audience was infectious. That glint of "hope" longed for by MSM commentators made an appearance (and it didn't see its shadow). Indeed, the speech was so well done there's simply not a lot to say.

Jindal's canned Republichristain response, however, was so captivatingly bad I'm not sure where to begin---or even if I should begin at all. The trouble with his speech is likely emotionally obvious to most; it just felt wrong! He was so juiced on his own rising stardom that he read the teleprompter at a lightening pace, replete with sing-songing intonations than imparted an absolute lack of sincerity. Some commentators remarked the speech "read better" than it sounded, but I beg to differ. In fact, not only can we use Jindal's speech as a textbook example of "canned delivery" (with nods to MM), but it serves as a particularly naked example of pandering. Pandering generally refers to the gratification of someone's otherwise unhealthy or immoral desires. Plato's original condemnation of the art of rhetoric hinged on pandering as the province of sophistry: rhetoric catered to the "basic instincts" and bodily pleasures, at the expense of the "soul."

At first blush, it would seem Jindal pandered on two levels. Substantively, he took one of the many republican stances on non-governmental interference: the government should not be involved in propping up the economy. This caters to a black-and-white, cognitively simple understanding of how the world works. Frankly, this way of thinking in the Republican party seems long discredited, even by movers and shakers in the party, so why Jindal continues to stroke this conviction is baffling to me. In the wake of a sweeping, epic Presidential speech one would think pandering would go in a different direction. I suppose we should keep in mind that Jindal believed his message was directed at the "soul," while Obama's plan is, in fact, a form of pandering. In other words, bucking the trend is understood sympathetically as an anti-pandering gesture.

The real pandering, however, happened at the beginning of the speech. We know we are in panderville when tone doesn't quite align with word. Jindal began:

Good evening. I'm Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana.

Tonight, we witnessed a great moment in the history of our republic. In the very chamber where Congress once voted to abolish slavery, our first African American president stepped forward to address the state of our union. With his speech tonight, the president completed a redemptive journey that took our nation from Independence Hall -- to Gettysburg --to the lunch counter -- and now, finally, the Oval Office.

The opening gesture acknowledges the historical significance of the speech in terms of racial strife. The term "redemptive journey" is, of course, a signature of post-racialism. I gag a little.

Regardless of party, all Americans are moved by the president's personal story---the son of an American mother and a Kenyan father, who grew up to become leader of the free world. Like the president's father, my parents came to this country from a distant land. When they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 4½ months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a "preexisting condition."

What? Is this a dig at the insurance industry? I'm not quite sure what this latter statement is going for, except that it seems to cast Jindal an "unwanted" light. Moreover, the explicit simile is bald pandering: "see, I'm foreign and dark skinned like Obama!" How Jindal's personal story relates to the republican response to the stimulus bill is not apparently clear, unless, of course, this is grooming for future office.

To find work, my dad picked up the yellow pages and started calling local businesses. Even after landing a job, he could still not afford to pay for my delivery -- so he worked out an installment plan with the doctor. Fortunately for me, he never missed a payment.

Or as Annie Lennox once sang, "Indians are doin' it for themselves."

As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country -- and they instilled in me an immigrant's wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: "Bobby, Americans can do anything."

I still believe that to this day. Americans can do anything. When we pull together, there is no challenge we cannot overcome.

The achievement of wonder is, apparently, fifteen different brands of soap. As for fortified levees, not so much . . . .

From here Jindal's speech moves into familiar territory most readers can easily anticipate. The auspicious opening remarks, however, are those that elicited a collective facebook groan. Why? The reasoning that links Jindal's many claims to his evidentiary support (which is, of course, just more claims) is what we might term a "warrant of equality" or a "warrant of erasure": I am black like Obama. If viewers agree that Jindal is included in the same "class" as Obama, then presumably he speaks with the same "authority" and justification of past experience. He gets to declare "redemption" (white people do not). Like a mixed race child in the United States, Jindal is asserting his status as a "preexisting condition" is functionally racial. Consequently, the implied argument Jindal advances in his opening statements is this: I am of color too, and had a challenging life story like Obama. Thus, our racial authorities cancel each other out. We are consequently forced to consider the economic stimulus plan on principle, not character. Or something like that.

The leveling of racial difference in "watercolored" or "not-watercolored," of course, waters-down historically particular, materially specific differences associated with the sight of skin in the United States. To be African American in the United States is unquestionably radically different---in experience, in reception, in response---than an identification as Hispanic, Native American, or Indian. Discrimination against racialized others has taken many forms: in the states, some were marked for genocide, while others, temporary internment. The logic that cordons off all racialized others into a given class or set, as Jindal does himself, is precisely the form of generalized instrumentality that leads to barbarism. The historical significance of Obama's presidency is not that he is "of color," it is rather that he is "black" (and the complexities of his light-skin have thus far escaped discussion in the MSM, another sticky point), and that his blackness is irrevocably tied to slavery and genocide. Sorry Jindal, your father may have seen abject poverty in India, and that is truly horrible, but different horrors lead to different responses. In short, the warrant of erasure that animates Jindal's republican response is not simply stupid; it is the logic of instrumental reason.

For almost seven years now I've been studying psychoanalytic understandings of the world. I'm still thinking through what I believe, which school I find most persuasive, and so forth (recently I've been taken by Klein's work). One thing that the whole enterprise has taught me, however, is that many of our arguments and complicated justifications for policy are built upon very basic, classically infantile affects, many of which are unconscious (to ourselves). I think many of us cringed last night watching Jindal's speech because those affects were so palpable. As one commentator noted, Obama seemed like a man, while Jindal appeared like a "boy." The truth to that statement is made plain by looking at their respective deliveries and words. Jindal's race-canceling logic seems like playground politics on the surface. Dr. Seuss wrote a kiddie book on this whole thing titled The Sneeches: some critters have stars on their bellies, while others do not. The starless seek to erase their difference by getting stars, while the star-bellied critters seek to remove theirs. And so it goes until, in the end, the Sneeches realize there is no savior to create homogeneity; they accept their differences, even celebrate them, and have no need for a Messiah with a Machine.

Jindal's remarks appeal to a post-racial homogeneity, drawing on what folks are already saying about Obama to make his case. Obama don't "go there"---that is, he's not pandered to the post-racial--- but I also worry that others put Obama into that space, forcing a Sneech logic and casting Obama as The One who can homogenize us into, um, das volk.

The context is totally ripe, y'all.

public and private, again

Music: The Food Network (dunno the cook, cute tiny woman with really big teeth who does Italian food)

I started this post with a long, academic-ish hand wringing about disclosing personal information on a blog. I wrestle with the issue---indeed, it's a fundamental dynamic of the RoseChron. I just deleted that because I don't have much free time these days, as I'm in a hospital at the moment. I just got my laptop today.

Now, the hospital bans certain websites and facebook.com is one of them, so those of you have been sending messages for the past few days: sorry, I cannot answer you. That sort of motivated this post.

I'm being hospitalized for acute, viral pericarditis ( read here), a painful condition that feels like a heart attack. Indeed, I thought I was having a heart-attack on Monday night (heart disease runs in my family), so I woke my neighbor up and had her take me here.

It's been a long and at times very painful diagnosis, but after lots of nitro and cardiac catheterization (it's not very fun, and more than a little weird to be awake as a doctor looks at a screen of your insides), what happened was this: On Saturday I came down with a norovirus ("stomach flu"), which is no party. On Monday I thought I was all but recovered (which is typical), but then that night the chest pain started. Apparently, the virus "traveled" to my heart and attacked this too. Ugh.

It seems that this strain of virus is going around Austin. You'll know you have it, believe me, if you think you're having a heart-attack on what seems like the last day of symptoms.

Anyway, so I'm here in my "butt-free" gown eating delicious food prepared by a recent reject of Piccadilly Academy of Reheated Cuisine through at least Friday. There is some good news out of all of this: my attempts to keep my heart healthy have been, apparently, working. When I turned 30 my doctor then and I started working to prevent my genetic destiny. I remember sitting in the operating room and---when I wasn't scared shitless---getting angry: "if I have a blockage," which they thought I had yesterday morning, "it's so friggin' unfair!" During the procedure the doctor said the arteries were "smooth as a baby's bottom" (he also kept saying, "where's Waldo? where's Waldo" when searching for clot; charming, huh?). He told me my heart and surroundings look great, so that was nice.

I guess.

Well, I reckon I'm thankful to still be here. Thanks to everyone who emailed concerns. I hope to get back to blogging, my work, and teaching on Monday. This ETA, I think, is realistic. And the next post will be less Josh, more concept.

on admissions and advising

Music: R.E.M.: Dead Letter Office (1987)

We have recently completed our graduate admissions here at the University of Texas. For my "area" of the department, "Rhetoric and Language," all seven faculty vet every application (this year we had 70), which I understand is unusual. Other programs have an admissions committee, while others may have the director of graduate studies make the decisions. Needless to say, the process is time consuming and sometimes quite pained, as there are more strong applications than we have "slots." This year we effectively had three funded slots. That's it. 3 slots, 70 applications. The fairest way we have come up with is to rank each application with a zero (no admission), a one (admit), or a two (admit and fund). These rankings are then assembled on a spreadsheet from highest rank to lowest. Then we discuss every candidate.

How does the process shake down? Typically, we admit more than we can fund with the idea that not all un-funded people will come. Last year was an exception, which is why this year we had to admit less. Part of the process includes "tentative" advisors: unless one of us says that we will advise a given student, they are not admitted. There are often stellar applications that do not get admitted because there is no faculty person to work with him or her. For example, say someone was interested in legal rhetoric, and more specifically, legal rhetoric in the military. While it's conceivable such a person could successfully get by here, he or she would probably do much better with someone that has a background in legal rhetoric, the military, and so forth. Someone who was interested in popular culture would be much more likely to be admitted because a lot of us claim that area of expertise. In short, admissions are based on "fit."

Yet "fit" is also constrained by advisorly workload. When we make admissions and assign a temporary advisor, the idea is that the student will gradually gravitate toward that faculty who they want to work with. Typically, the advisor is the temporary one assigned, but not always. Regardless, the idea is that if a student is admitted that they will not be stranded; if all else fails, the temporary advisor agrees to see them through. Now the potential problem should come into view: if a faculty is not "growing" in size, there comes a point at which a given faculty cannot take on more advisees (unless a bunch of folks matriculate, and this tends to come in waves).

Since I've been at the University of Texas, I have purposefully not taken on advisees the first couple of years, which means I didn't speak for anyone during the admissions process until relatively recently. When it appeared I was going to be promoted, I took on two folks already here without an advisor, and then two new incoming students last year. This year I have agreed to take on four, which brings my total advisorly load to eight students if all four come this year (keep in mind I am not tenured yet). My gut feeling is that I am at capacity here, although thankfully only about two at a time will be dissertating. This means that I don't believe I should take on any more students for a while.

Some weeks ago I asked four very productive, full professors what they thought of admissions and advising loads. One of them said that faculty can easily carry a dozen or so, as long as they are "staggered" and not finishing at the same time. Another warned about this observation, saying that some take longer, some get done sooner, and some stay right on track, which occasionally creates a "log jam." One of them said the average load of advisees for associate professors was 6-7 students, while for full professors the number cold be as high as a dozen. Finally, one of them said she only takes one advisee at a time, and tells others that she will sit on committees but will not advise.

Since I am relatively new to advising (I had one MA, the fabulous Roger Lamar, at LSU), I'm trying to fumble through it as best I can, balancing the service needs of the department, the mentoring needs of students, and my own need to get my own writing done. Everyone I've talked to has said the advising process is immensely rewarding and one of the best experiences of this job. I don't doubt that. I'm wondering how other people negotiate these dynamics: how do you navigate your advisee load? When do you say "no?" Does your department have a system of protection in place for juniors? What advice do folks have to share?

happy/pissy vd!

Music: Antony and the Johnsons: The Crying Light (2009)

It's that time of year again, and you know, I always come through for you. If you want my love, I deliver. If you want my cynicism, I deliver. I deliver it all unto you. Yes, bitches, it's time for the annual VD mixes! Didn't get a Valentine this year? No worries, I have a dose of sonorous affection for you! Did your significant other fail to properly commercialize your commitment by buying you clichéd shit? I have the song for you. Are you coming off of a bad relationship? I have ditty to make a fist to. I've got all the bases covered! (Although I should underscore some of this stuff is not safe for work or the virgin-eared.)

First up, I have the most popular annual volume, Philophobia 2009. This mix taps into all of love's unpleasantness, and only one song is particularly naughty ("Good Bye Mary Lou," which sports the chorus "Good bye Mary Lou, fa-fa-fa-fa-fuck you!"). You can download a CD-length MP3 file here. You can also download and print-off the CD-insert art here. The tracklisting is as follows:

1. hall & oates: maneater
2. benji hughes: you stood me up
3. dresden dolls: lonesome organist rapes page turner
4. black kids: hit the heartbreaks
5. dear & the headlights: i’m not crying, you’re not crying are you?
6. xtc: i’m the man who murdered love
7. this is ivy league: love is impossible
8. martha wainwright: you cheated me
9. aimee mann: looking for nothing
10. magnetic fields: not that crazy
11. editors: smokers outside the hospital doors
12. and also the trees: stay away from the accordian girl
13. angels of light: good bye mary lou
14. antony and the johnsons: the crying light
15. chris pureka: dryland.

Next is the less popular yet nonetheless enjoyed mix of love songs, lil' heart-shaped beasties 2009. Can you believe I've been doing these mixes since 1996? And for these lo thirteen years, the pro-love CD has never been favored! This year I dipped into a little lust to perhaps change the popularity of this lesser mix. With the exception of the Whale song, this is mostly work safe. You might gag on the m83 "rocket" metaphor (heee-larious if ob-vious!), but if you like the film Barbarella you'll love it. Download the MP3 file here. Download and print off the CD-insert here. Tracklisting is as follows:

1. timothy leary: root chakra
2. sigur ros: godan daginn
3. beach house: heart of chambers
4. m83: up!
5. sebastien tellier: kilometer
6. justice: valentine
7. the faint: get seduced
8. whale: i’ll do ya
9. old 97s: the fool
10. ulrich schnauss: as if you’ve never been away
11. u2: with or without you
12. the watson twins: just like heaven
13. american music club: all my love
14. antony and the johnsons: one dove

Look, the commercialized holiday is really just that, and we should critique it. At the same time, my inner-Plato says we ought to recognize, every now and again, the affects that make this whole thing go. Music captures this affect the best. Let's deal . . . and have some fun! Or as Marvell said, "though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run!"

radio free mirko

Music: Marconi Union: A Lost Connection (2008)

For a special interterm course my friend and co-author Mirko Hall recently taught in Iceland. The class was a cultural/critical studies approach to understanding the iPod. A friend and student of Mirko "facebooked" me and said the class went quite well and created lots of buzz. Iceland's equivalent of NPR interviewed Mirko for a program that was broadcast nationally, which I've uploaded here. Don't worry, Mirko's responses are in English, and they start about a fourth way into the file. You can also read a gloss of our essay "Stick it In Your Ear: The Psychodynamics of iPod Enjoyment" by surfing this current.

bed and breakfast décor

Music: Robin Guthrie: Imperial (2006)

Last week I visited with peeps at the University of Missouri, where I got to hang out with my friend Melissa Click, her family, and a number of folks from the department of communication. I shared some of my work in progress on the object of speech---specifically, the influence of vocal tone in the last presidential election. I got some great questions and feedback. Folks were so friendly and smart, and walking around the beautiful campus in a real winter environment was refreshing. Ok, well: it didn't snow and was in the 60s on the weekend, but still, it was good to feel a midwestern winter!

I stayed in a delightfully charming but strange bed and breakfast right off campus. My digs were clean, the breakfasts delightful, and the bed soft. This past year, in fact, I've stayed in a number of B&Bs and started noticing something peculiar. It seems for the owners there is a strong desire on to decorate every nook and cranny with something, sometimes thematic, but usually random: plastic flowers, forlorn stuffed animals, playing cards missing key royalty. I don't know why there is an impulse to cover every section of wall space and every shelf with some knic-knac or another, but there is. And the choices for décor are, well, sometimes astonishing, sometimes even downright creepy. Take this curio cabinet/writing desk, for example. It was in my room. Open it up and what do we find? Various shit that seems, at first glance, pretty random.

First up is a trinity of trolls on the upper left shelf. I remember these from grade school. You could play with their hair and sort of mold it, and I think there were pencil topper versions. Note, however, these are no ordinary trolls: they are all sporting nurses uniforms. Moreover, each nurse uniform is different. One is a pull-over, which would render him/her a patient were it not for the hat. One is a skirt, and one looks sort-of like a diaper. These happy troll nurses seem primed to help in the event of an accident in the room.

To the right is a nurses hat with a Missouri tigers logo. On the next shelf there is a lonesome stethoscope. On the bottom shelf there is a flashlight (which was actually in a socket on the wall, but I had to remove it to plug in my computer). Finally, on the bottom right there was a box advertising a "genuine, wireless ice bag." I don't know what that means. To my surprise, when I opened the box there was the icebag---stiff with age, but assuredly wireless!

So, it appears this stuff is not quite as random as it first appeared to me. Obviously, we're dealing with a medical theme. I got to thinking why the owners would choose to thematize this desk in such a way. I could only come up with two conjectures. First, medical care is a form of hospitality, and on the associative, paradigmatic axis serving strangers in one's home is also a form of hospitality. Such a collection of detritus nevertheless is suggestive to visitors that they are being cared for (there's a connection to be made between the hosts and the trolls, but I'm going to play nice).

Second, of course, is the sentimentality of kitsch. Once one goes down the road of kitsch, there is no turning back. As Robert Plant once sang, there are two paths you can go by: the path of knowing embrace, signaled by pink flamingoes and crazy shoes, or the path of "taste," in which kitsch is only allowed in muted tones and absolute earnestness---the way of irony and the way of literalism.

In the dining room I spied three requisite signatures of literalist kitsch: over the dining board there was a woven tapestry of a cottage image by Thomas Kincade. On the top of a china cabinet was a patriotic ceramic flag sculpture. And just outside the dining room, in the hallway, was a sign that pleaded for the Lord to bless "this house." Of course, the entire home was littered with countless signatures of kitsch, but the holy trinity is God, the American flag, and Thomas Kincade.

Needless to say, I was delighted with my lodging. And I must say Columbia was a wonderful place to visit. A gallery of photos from my visit is here (the little boy is Trey, my buddy's cuter-than-words toddler).

r.i.p.: brad the foster kitty, june 20, 2000 --- february 9, 2009

Music: Black Heart Procession: 2 (1999)

Today is another sad day. I just "put down" Brad the wonder kitty after a many weeks of battling liver failure. An ultrasound revealed today that he had a bile blockage, either caused by a stone or a tumor. Owing to his age and health, cancer was most certainly fatal. If there was a stone, owing to the organ damage he might not make it through surgery, which would be thousands of dollars and painful for him. I learned Brad was in much pain, and that there could be a rupture any day now that would cause almost unbearable pain. The rescue folks and I decided it was best to put Brad's pain to rest. Needless to say, it has been a tearful day.

I know many of my friends out there will have the impulse to send a card, and I love you for that. I was just a foster home for this fella; I cared about him, but he was not my little guy. Instead of a card, then, I would ask you make a two or five dollar donation to the Devonshire Rex Rescue League, for all the good work they do. Because of the DRRL, Brad's final months of life were mostly happy (and at least half of that in my lap!), and he passed on with dignity. We did not keep him around just to make ourselves feel better, which is a normal human tendency. We tend to project how we would like to think of ourselves on to our pets, and so, letting a little friend go is like losing a little bit of one's own life. As I've learned this year with Obi's passing, sometimes goodbyes are incredibly fast. I think all deaths are unjust in the end.

You can make a donation by clicking here.