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Stumpage Reports
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Friday, May 30, 2003 :::
Fun With Capital Punishment: FInale
Today I did what I think was the last of my research for the death sentence commutation project. The guy who contracted me to do this wanted a list of everyone who had their death sentence commutated by the governor between 1909 and 1952. About 15 hours of work got me all the way through 1949. The last three years I came up dry. Governor's papers, commutation books, Advisory Parole Board, Board of Paroles, Department of Corrections, Prison Department, Capital Case Statistics, I followed all these boards, agencies, and comissions, etc through all their various name changes and couldn't make the last inch. But I had some fun, got paid for it, learned a lot about doing research in government agency records, and got to know a few folks in the State Archives search room.
The last couple sickening / amusing tidbits from this project: While looking through one box of Governor's correspondence, I saw a file labeled "Negro Segregation" and couldn't resist looking through it. I find humor in some pretty odd places, and I'm still continually surprised when I'm confronted with evidence of outrageous and what I consider wrong-headed thinking. This file contained some of the most vile, hateful, I-wanted-to-wash-my-hands-afterwards stuff I have seen in my brief career in history. This file was from the early 1950's and contained letters to the governor both pro and anti-segregation. There was some sickening, illiterate, racist, stuff in there. Outrageous comments I didn't even feel comfortable copying down for inclusion here.
Speaking of finding humor in strange places, while looking through some parole records I found someone who had been sentence to two years for "attempted castration."
It did not say if the castration was self-inflicted or done on someone else.
Quote of the Day:
"To the very end," I said shakily, "I heard his very last words..." I stopped in fright.
"Repeat them," she murmured in a heart-broken tone. "I want --- I want --- something --- something --- to --- to live with."
I was on the point of crying at her, "Don't you hear them?"
The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind.
"The horror! The horror!"
--- Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness, 1899.
::: posted by tom at 11:09 PM
Thursday, May 29, 2003 :::
Blurbing Big Ed: or, Burglarizing Blogs
While doing yesterday's post, I wanted to link to a certain entry in Ed's blog. I couldn't remember when he did it and to avoid wading through his archives, I did a Google search for some phrases I thought were in there. The search I did returned a long list of hits all on Ed's blog. As I scanned through the little two or three sentence samples Google puts in there to highlight your search terms, I kept coming across phrases that cracked me up. I thought, "Damn, Ed's coined some good phrases." I went ahead an extracted some of my favorites. The ellipses and sentence fragments are Google's, not mine. Sometimes I think phrases like this are even funnier when taken out of context, and Google did that for me. A nice example of that phenomenon can be found here.
Without anymore blathering on my part, here's a list of phrases that cracked me up from the poison pen of Ed:
Mimes are Satan's dingleberries, as we all know
I've suggested rubber gloves but she doesn't listen to me
... One more missing person and your carnal lusts are satisfied
I starts shouting at me, stuff like 'homo,' 'fag' and 'queer' and 'what are you looking at?'
"I don't know but it wasn't me.". The freckled dork is stumped.
... caused me to wonder if they purposely included a pig that was terrified of water so the monkeys in the bleachers could have a good laugh?
To know me is to know that I love blasphemy in all its forms. ...
I do know that she is very tiny and bubbly because she has a new job and she makes me feel gigantic, clumsy and old. ...
I'm surprised he never kicked my ass or at the very least gave me a nipple twist. ...
I'm not saying Pat Conroy is a crazy fuck, he's just a fella like you and me.
Before the Romans come and get me I want to celebrate a last orgy. ...
Quote of the Day:
This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it,�or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door,�we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.
--- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850.
::: posted by tom at 11:18 PM
Wednesday, May 28, 2003 :::
Terminally Unique
If you're any kind of a regular blog reader, you know a popular type of post is a list of "Ten Things You Didn't Know About Me." There is even a website full of links to such entries. Big Ed even jumped on that bandwagon once.
As a bit of a twist on that, here's a couple lists about me, complete with asinine parenthetical comments :
Things I've Never Done That I Feel Like Everyone Else Has Done:
1. I've never been to New York City. (I'd love to go)
2. I've never seen the movie Forrest Gump. (I'll be fine if I never see it)
3. I have had lots of public service jobs, but never worked in any kind of a retail store. (Please God, no)
That was kind of a short list, maybe I've had a fuller life than I thought. I could list a bunch of movies and television shows I've never seen like There's Something About Mary and Friends but the hell with it.
A Few Things I've Done That I Bet No One Reading This Has Ever Done, Let Alone Attempted:
1. Properly arranged and described the papers of the N.C.F.F. and got paid for it. (Actually, I'm still working on it)
2. Flew to Paris, France for my honeymoon. Arrived on the morning of July 14 (Thats Bastille Day for you yokels out there), got to our hotel, walked three blocks to the Champs-Elysées just in time to see a zillion people and tanks jamming the street and seeing three fighter jets streaking low down the boulevard spewing out plumes of red, white, and blue smoke. (We got divorced 2 years, 11 months, and 2 weeks later, but who's counting?)
3. Threw a television set out of the ninth floor of a dormitory. (It was Cramer Hall if you looked at that last link. We didn't get caught. I actually met a guy who threw a television out of the seventh floor of a dormitory. I promptly informed him of my two-floor advantage. He was suitably awed.)
4. I have seen in concert two of the three Spiders From Mars: I caught Trevor Bolder when Uriah Heep warmed up for Jethro Tull and saw Mick Ronson when Ian Hunter warmed up for Heart, both in the early 1980's. (I've never seen Mick Woodmansey warm up for anyone.)
Am I unique? Can anyone match the above lists? Let me know.
Quote of the Day:
This book aims to put killing back into military history.
--- Joanna Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face to Face Killing in 20th Century Warfare, 1999.
::: posted by tom at 10:28 PM
Tuesday, May 27, 2003 :::
Colonial and Revolutionary War Sites I Have Visited
In an earlier blog entry, I listed all the Civil War sites I have visited. As a follow-up, here's a list of Colonial, Revolutionary War, and antebellum sites I have visited.
Ash Lawn, home of James Monroe. VA.
Brandywine Battlefield. PA.
Charles Pinckney National Historic Site. SC.
Concord Battlefield. MA.
Drayton Hall. SC.
Fort Mackinac. MI.
Fort McHenry. MD.
Fort Michilimackinac. MI.
Fort Niagara. NY.
Fort Wilkins. MI.
Fort Wayne. MI.
George Washington's Birthplace. VA
Jamestown. VA.
King's Mountain Battlefield. SC.
Lexington Battlefield. MA.
The Lost Colony. NC.
Martin's Hundred. VA.
Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. VA.
Ninety Six National Historical Site. SC.
Overmountain Victory National Historical Trail. SC.
Paul Revere House. MA.
Plymouth Plantation. MA.
Salem. MA.
Valley Forge. PA.
Williamsburg. VA.
Yorktown Battlefield. VA.
This list is longer than I thought it would be. Embarrasingly, I haven't been to Moore's Creek, Guilford Courthouse, and Cowpens, all battlefields in my own backyard.
Quote of the Day:
It was an oddly clear night when she went out, with slanting particles of thin sleet making white of a blue-black sky. This was the same bus that had taken her into town but there seemed to be more windows broken now and the bus driver was irritated and talked about the terrible things he would do if he caught any kids. She knew he was just talking about the annoyance in general, just as she had been thinking about the annoyance of an alcoholic. When she came up to the suite and found him all helpless and distraught she would despise him and feel sorry for him.
--- F. Scott Fitzgerald, An Alcoholic Case, 1937.
::: posted by tom at 10:29 PM
Monday, May 26, 2003 :::
M-Day Weekend
I took a trip to Charlotte last weekend. My Sunday afternoon was remarkably similiar to Dutch's. Except I watched parts of To Hell and Back and Objective Burma!. As part of the E! True Hollywood Story child actor extravaganza, I saw "The Curse of the Little Rascals."
Saturday was helping the Pennsylvania Jew paint her dining room and I enjoyed grilled chicken salad that night. We also watched The Others and King of New York. King of New York was a perfect "movie night movie" and I personally blame Sammy the Movie Guy for the fact that I haven't seen it. He's exposed me to other fine Abel Ferrara films such as Ms. 45 and Bad Lieutenant. Sunday was dinner and board games with the Lady I Can't Think of a Nickname For and her Mom.
N.C. Back Roads Redux: or, In Praise Of Wadesboro, N.C.
I took a different route to Charlotte this time, U.S. 1 to Rockingham and then 74 into Charlotte via the hellhole that is Monroe along Independence Blvd. Downtown Monroe is nice, but good god, that stretch of Independence is the epitome of everything that is wrong with this country.
I hustled on the way in, but took my time going home via the same route. I got to go through bigger 'burgs like Rockingham and Wadesboro, plus small towns like Hoffman and Vass. I always liked Wadesboro, they have two, count 'em two, nice Confederate Monuments, they were particularly ornery during the Civil War, and have a nice little local history room in their town library. So, wanting to drop some money while in town, I stopped and had two eggs over easy, country ham, and hash browns at the Omelet Shoppe. It was a neat little restaurant. I was the only male in there without a hat advertising farm machinery. One wall had a bizarre mural of Disney and Warner Brothers' cartoon frolicking in the woods, and Loretta Lynn was blaring on the jukebox. It was great, if there was a non-smoking section, I couldn't find it.
It was right next door to a stop-and-rob convenience store called "The Markette."
::: posted by tom at 9:15 PM
Thursday, May 22, 2003 :::
Not-Yet-On-The-Job Training
Today I had my first bit of training for the job I don't have yet. It involves working in the rare book section of the Special Collections Department at the university library. The collection's real strengths are in the subjects of Entomology and Forestry. Also Architecture and the History of Science. There are also little odd-ball gems squirreled away, like a nice collection of Horatio Alger first editions. I'll end up noticing and becoming fascinated with stuff like that, which doesn't really fit into the collection policy.
I learned the workflow of the department, which I'll be in charge of managing, from ordering to accessioning and cataloging up to housing and shelving. I forgot almost all of it in two hours, but the rare book lady is writing it up and the guy who used to do this job is still there. I also learned about phase boxes and clamshell boxes.
Its too bad, the rare book lady is really, really nice, and she's leaving the end of this month. The way the hiring goes at this place, I'll probably be running the show for the next couple months.
::: posted by tom at 4:11 PM
Tuesday, May 20, 2003 :::
Ent or Endocrine?
Inspired by Michael's recent riff on the xiphoid process, here is a quiz. Your task is to guess if the following terms are parts of the human body, taken from the On-Line Medical Dictionary,
Or...
Are they place names from the J.R.R. Tolkien Atlas?
Answers below.
1) Canal of Nuck
2) Circle of Willis
3) Mouths of Anduin
4) Cohnheim's Field
5) Pass of Aglon
6) Canal of Guyon
7) Flowers of Benzoin
8) Rainbow Cleft
9) Firth of Drengist
10) Gap of Rohan
Answers:
Human Body: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7
Middle-Earth: 3, 5, 8, 9, 10
Quote of the Day:
The juke box was blasting away with something black and bouncy and I half watched the barmaid as she danced her way from the juke box to her place behind the bar. And I watched her face as she laughingly responded to something someone said to her, still keeping time to the music. When she smiled one saw the little girl, one sensed the doomed, still-struggling woman beneath the battered face of the semi-whore.
--- James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues, 1965.
::: posted by tom at 11:31 PM
My Parents: or, The Battle of the Boxes
I don't think I've mentioned my folks much in this blog. They both live here in town and are in their mid-seventies. I usually have dinner with them once a week. My Dad is retired after working at IBM for 30+ years. My Mom has stayed home ever since my older brother was born. They have a condo and Dad volunteers at a listener supported radio station and Mom volunteers at the library.
This is an example of something about them that can either irritate the shit out of me or make me realize how much I love them and how much they've done for me. I'm getting ready to move so they've been saving boxes for me from their respective volunteer-places. I tend to like the liquor boxes and these nice little Staples boxes they've been getting. They're just the right size for books but they're not too heavy when packed. For some reason, Dad just loves the photocopy paper boxes. You know, the big ones that have two stacks of paper reams in them with the nice big lids. I don't care for them, they're heavy as hell when filled with books, hard to tape up, and a pain in the ass to break down.
I was over there last weekend and Dad said "I got some of those good boxes with lids." My Mom called today to find out if I still needed boxes and she told me "Your Dad got some more of those paper boxes with the lids." I went over there tonight to scarf up some boxes, and Dad mentioned his boxes-with-lids four times as I was grabbing the other boxes. For two seconds, I thought about saying "Damnit I'm stressed out as hell trying to find a place to live and move and find a job I don't like these boxes please stop talking about them!" Instead, I paused for a minute, smiled at Dad, and said "Yeah, those are some damn fine boxes." I took five of them and made him happy.
It was really pretty easy. They do a lot for me and don't ask for much in return.
Quote of the Day:
Monday is no different from any other weekday in Jefferson now. The streets are paved now, and the telephone and electric companies are cutting down more and more of the shade trees -- the water oaks, the maples and locusts and elms -- to make room for iron poles bearing clusters of bloated and ghostly and bloodless grapes, and we have a city laundry which makes the rounds on Monday morning, gathering the bundles of clothes into bright-colored, specially-made motor cars: the soiled wearing of a whole week now flees apparitionlike behind alert and irritable electric horns, with a long diminishing noise of rubber and asphalt like tearing silk, and even the Negro women who still take in the white people's washing after the old custom, fetch and deliver it in automobiles.
--- William Faulkner, That Evening Sun, 1931.
::: posted by tom at 12:47 AM
Sunday, May 18, 2003 :::
I Did Not Puke, and Other Positive Events
Saturday afternoon I went to my departmental graduation where I got a real diploma. The usual cast was there. I walked across the stage and got my diploma and fulfilled all of my criteria for a succesful public appearance:
1. My fly was zipped up.
2. I didn't throw up.
3. I didn't fall down.
I got together with Gaffa Chick Saturday night. She was in town for some conference. I hadn't seen her for a year and a half and we enjoyed coffee, good conversation, and too many cigarettes until the wee hours. Then this afternoon I met up with Former Boss Guy From Charlotte and we enjoyed coffee, good conversation, and too many cigarettes, but not until the wee hours. A damn good weekend, and I even put in a few hours at work.
Quote of the Day:
Up from the skeleton stone walls, up from the rotting floor boards and solid hand-hewn beams of oak of the pre-war cotton factory, dusk came. Up from the dusk the full moon came. Glowing like a fired pine-knot, it illumined the great door and soft showered the Negro shanties aligned along the single street of the factory town. The full moon in the great door was an omen. Negro women improvised songs against its spell.
--- Jean Toomer, Blood-Burning Moon, 1923.
::: posted by tom at 11:00 PM
Thursday, May 15, 2003 :::
The Last Thing I Need
I'm going to be moving the end of June. As Michael and James know, I have a lot of books and they are very heavy. I've started packing them up and squirreling a couple boxes away in my storage room every week. The last thing in the world I need to be doing is spending money, and even more last than that: spending money on books.
I've been in a weird reading place. As I posted earlier, I read a John Grisham book awhile back and that turned my brain into mush. I've been enjoying Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, I read about 20 pages a day on it. But I'm looking for something with some narrative drive but not some pulp bestseller.
So I stopped by Reader's Corner today. I picked up a 12 volume set of children's books: The American Heritage Book of the Presidents and Famous Americans. It was such a good deal, only $9.95 for the whole set and it will go nicely with my American Heritage Junior Library set.
I also picked up The Collected Jack London. For some reason, I wanted a Jack London quote yesterday, and found this great web site. Last night I dug out To Build A Fire in an anthology I have and read it. Probably most of you have read that, its anthologized up the wazoo and is always assigned in school. I hadn't read it since the seventh grade and was completely lost in the story for 45 minutes last night. I have not been that into a work of fiction for a long time. The book I bought today probably has the ugliest dust jacket of any book in my collection. Also, anyone that writes an alcoholic memoir called John Barleycorn gets my vote.
I also got Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. I've never read it, but I've heard its the best thing on the Spanish Civil War next to For Whom the Bell Tolls.
The last addition to the library was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I never got around to reading that one, Big Ed will probably disown me for that.
If you're still reading this, thanks for sticking around.
Quote of the Day:
The Facists were firing, our people behind were firing, and I was very concious of being in the middle.
--- George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 1938.
::: posted by tom at 10:16 PM
More Fun With Capital Punishment
Wednesday found me again down at the state archives poring through capital punishment records. Usually the forms are pretty dry, with the type of crime filled in with words like "murder," "operating a car while intoxicated," or "breaking the prohibition laws." But once in awhile, for some reason, some clerk will have a spasm of verbose creativity. The best of these I found today was "operating a farm truck under the influence of whiskey."
I found I good place to live I can afford. I filled out an application for it today. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Some different fingers than the ones you have crossed for me about the job I haven't heard about yet.
Finally got all my grades today, graduation Saturday, I really feel like I'm done.
Quote of the Day:
When a man journeys into a far country, he must be prepared to forget many of the things he has learned, and to acquire such customs as are inherent with existence in the new land; he must abandon the old ideals and the old gods, and oftentimes he must reverse the very codes by which his conduct has hitherto been shaped.
--- Jack London, In a Far Country, 1900.
::: posted by tom at 1:46 AM
Tuesday, May 13, 2003 :::
Culture Corner
I've basically just been babbling about school lately, and with yesterday's poop-laden entry, I figured it was time to bring some culture into this thing. Here's a list of common, hackeneyed expressions, that were either invented, first written down, or popularized by William Shakespeare.
"Fight till the last gasp." -- King Henry VI, Part 1, I, ii, 127.
"The better part of valor is discretion." -- King Henry IV, Part 1, V, vi, 120.
"He hath eaten me out of house and home." -- King Henry IV, Part 2, II, ii, 82.
"I bear a charmed life." -- Macbeth, V, vii, 41.
"Not a mouse stirring." -- Hamlet, I, i, 10.
"But, for my own part, it was Greek to me." -- Julius Caesar, I, ii, 288.
"Then westward-ho!" -- Twelfth Night, III, i, 122.
A Bonus from John Milton:
"All hell broke loose." -- Paradise Lost, l. 918.
More...
Sometimes someone will ask me if I'm going to a movie or a concert or some other event and I'll answer "If someone wants to buy my ticket, come pick me up and usher me to my reserved seat, sure I'll go." Like everything, if Shakespeare didn't say it first and better, then Samuel Johnson did:
"Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see."
--- Samuel Johnson, from James Boswell, Life of Johnson.
::: posted by tom at 10:04 PM
Monday, May 12, 2003 :::
From the Best Picture of 1946 to Dog Poop.
Do you ever get in a conversation and wonder how you got on that subject?
When I�m on trips with the Lady I Can�t Think of a Nickname For that frequently happens. We wonder how we got to be talking about what were talking about and then trace the conversation back. When you spend 15 hours a day with someone for 4 or 5 days, that�s what you talk about.
There was an interesting occurrence of this at work last Sunday. It was really dead that day, and I went in the back and got a lot of work done. The two real employees scheduled to work sat at the front desk and shot the breeze all afternoon. I reached a good stopping place about 15 minutes before closing time and wandered out to join in their reindeer games.
They were talking about the movie The Best Years of Our Lives that aired on Turner Classic Movies Saturday night. I had seen it and I really like that movie so I joined in the conversation. Within 5 minutes, the conversation had turned to canine colostomy bags. I�m not sure how that happened, but I was responsible. I felt like saying, �My work here is done,� and then leaving. But I had to stick around until closing time.
Some Interesting Sites I Found While Doing Google searches for �dog poop� and �canine colostomy bags�:
Strange Foreign Objects in Dog Feces. You got it, people can post there own tales about things they found in their dog�s poop. I particularly liked �Evil Knevil's greatest stunt ever!�
Embarassed to Ask a Dog Poop Question?. A newsgroup string about the pros and cons of using dog crap to fertilize your vegetable garden.
ePet Pals. Your one stop shop for dog poop control tools.
DogDoo.com. Arrange to have a package of dog poop sent to a friend or enemy.
The American Asshole Association. This group is about the subject of sphincters, not unlikable people.
The Poop Report. News about poop and pooping.
Quote of the Day:
One minute alone with him is all I ask; one minute alone with him, while you�re runnin� for the priest and the doctor.
--- Sean O�Casey, The Plow and the Stars, 1926.
::: posted by tom at 10:25 PM
Saturday, May 10, 2003 :::
End of the Semester Social Whirl
Thursday night I had dinner with Romanian Neighbor Lady. She cooked Moussaka, some kind of marinated beef, and potatoes with cheese. Russian History Boy was there, but he left right after we ate. Little Redneck Girl That Always Gets Pregnant was there too. After a while the two girls cracked the second bottle of wine and Redneck Girl started whining about some guy she's hung up on and I left at the point.
Friday night was our little grad student together. We met at William and Mary Married Guy's apartment. We ate chili dogs, potato salad, nachos, and carrot cake. Also in attendance was: UVA Debutant Girl, Could Be A Punk Rock Girl and Mr. Could Be A Punk Rock Girl, Antebellum Manure Science Girl, Tobacco Museum Girl, Too-Smart For You Texas Lady, and the Lady Who Would Have Graduated With Us But She Got Pregnant.
We figured it out. There are six of us graduating. Two of us are going on for other Masters or PHD, two have jobs, and two do not have jobs. I am among the "do not have jobs" group.
We had a fun time, it started at 7 PM. I had told someone that wanted me to call, "Hell, I'll be oughta there by 9 PM, I don't wanna hang around." I ended up staying until midnight. We relived all the horrors of class, particularly the various idiots. Heard lots of good dirt on which professors hit on the girls. I like to think I'm not much of a gossiper, I'm usually out of the loop and the last to know, which is fine with me. God, I heard enough dirt last night to last me for a year. I think that is part of the reason no one left early. They knew they would get savaged as soon as they walked out the door. I basically like all these folks and we had fun, but I'm glad we're not going to be hanging out a whole lot.
These last two nights pretty much took care of my socializing-with-more-than-two-people-at-once quota for the next six months.
Quote of the Day:
Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
--- Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln , edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, "Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment" (March 17, 1865), p. 361.
::: posted by tom at 9:47 PM
Friday, May 09, 2003 :::
The Dork Knight
Its been a comic book couple a days. I mentioned buying a couple comics in yesterday's blog and heard from Hopper on that and had a little comic book exchange with him. Then today, Big Ed emails me talking about some comics he just read and he posts about comics today too.
What I wanted to say, this is probably pretty obvious, but Batman is just the coolest comic book character there is. I've read everything from stupid superhero comics, to Robert Crumb, Peter Bagge, and Italian sex comics, but Batman still rules.
The comics I bought the other day were two issues of some thing called "Batman: Nevermore." Its a DC imprint called "Elseworlds" or something like that, I guess maybe thats where they do weird Batman stories that don't fit in the canon or something. I bought them because they had covers painted by Berni Wrightson.
I just kind of flipped through them, looks like they take place in the 1840's and some Batman type guy and Edgar Allan Poe. It got me thinking about how Batman could work in almost any time period. I know they've done stuff with him with Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper before. He just really fits in the nineteenth century for some reason. In this series I just bought, Batman is a little different looking, not so hi-tech, his costume looks more homemade and he has on a long duster kinda coat. I could even see Batman cavorting around witch-haunted Salem in the 1700's. I just don't see Spiderman or Superman working in another time period. I think it is because Batman is such a primal character, and so damn cool when he's done right.
It felt good to go on a comic-book rant.
Quote of the Day:
Nearly two and a half centuries had passed since twenty black men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship. From this tiny seed had grown the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery, which, in profound and contradictory ways, shaped the course of American development. Even as slavery mocked the ideals of a nation supposedly dedicated to liberty and equality, slave labor played an indispensable part in its rapid growth, expanding westward with the young republic, producing the cotton that fueled the early industrial revolution.
--- Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unifinished Revolution 1863 - 1877.
::: posted by tom at 12:07 AM
Wednesday, May 07, 2003 :::
Literary Junk Food
When I was at the public library a couple days ago, I said to myself "I'm getting a really mindless book to read when I'm done with school." I suceeded beyond my wildest dreams. The King of Torts by John Grisham. I will admit it was readable, a real page-turner as they say. It was really formulaic, had big print and bigger margins, and the characters were caricatures. I wasn't suprised. I equate books like that with potato chips. They're not that good for you, you know what you're getting, and they go down easy. I don't know though. Either this book was so bad or I've attained some new standards. I kind of felt embarassed reading it in the privacy of my own home. I heard someone refer to books like this as the literary equivalent of masturbation: it feels good while you're doing it but you feel kinda guilty afterwards. I'm not going to touch that one.
Don't think I'm some kind of elitist snob, I bought two comic books today.
Next I'm going to try and read all 690 pages of Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863 - 1877 by Eric Foner. Its not even for a class. Maybe reading that will wash the taste of Grisham right out of my brain.
Quote of the Day:
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
--- Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: an Autobiography Revisited, 1947.
::: posted by tom at 11:15 PM
Tuesday, May 06, 2003 :::
Done Finished Over, No More Thinking
Tonight I took a final exam for my automation class and got back my big project for that class. I feel pretty good about the final and got a good grade on the project.
I just put the final keystrokes on my take-home exam for Constitutional History. I still have to print it and proofread, but the thinking part is over. If I pass everything, and I'm pretty sure I will, I'm done with school. The Constitutional History class is a little iffy, that big paper I handed in a couple weeks ago was a real piece of crap.
For tonight, I will confine my celebration to a frozen pizza and finding something really dumb to watch on television. That shouldn't be too hard.
The exam is due tomorrow, and right after that I have a job interview for a part-time job helping the rare book lady in the university library special collections department. That's nice the way that worked out, done with school and a job interview two hours later.
Quote of the Day:
Why do you hate the South?
I don't hate...I don't hate it...I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!
--- William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, 1936.
::: posted by tom at 10:52 PM
The She-Beast
I know I usually come across like a saint in these blog entries. But people who know me well know I have a temper. I�m usually pretty introverted and don�t like to make waves. Once in awhile I�ll blow up at someone, and usually that means I�m bugged about something else and some poor slob has wandered into my sights. The following is a case where the blow-up was well deserved, this person would�ve pissed off the Pope.
I used to have a job where five of us sat in a room together all day. It was essential to our sanity that we all got along, and we usually did. We had a part-timer. I�ll call her the She Beast. She didn�t know what in the hell she was doing. She talked constantly. I have a vivid memory of her babbling away, me praying for the phone to ring, and James with his head buried in the 643 page Brothers K. She would ask for help and then interrupt you and argue when you tried to answer her question.
I tried embarrassing her with snide comments. We tried to retrain her. I took her aside and talked to her with a sincere interest to help. I was reduced to praying for her.
One day she asked me a question and then started arguing when I tried to answer. A fellow staff member later said: �There was a pregnant silence. And it gave birth.� I wish I could remember exactly what I said. It was something like this: �We have tried to help you. We have trained you at least twice. I have tried to embarass you. I have tried talking to you. Every time you ask for help, you argue with us and interrupt. You won�t shut up. If your hair was on fire and asked for help, I wouldn�t listen to you.*�
She quit about two weeks later.
Several months after that she applied for another job with the same organization.
She used me as a reference.
*I think the correct phrase is �If your hair was on fire, I wouldn�t piss on you to put it out.� But I didn�t say that, it would have been rude.
Quote of the Day:
He was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip forever.
--- Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 1765 - 1769.
::: posted by tom at 12:41 AM
Friday, May 02, 2003 :::
Could Be Worse, Could Be Raining
Another long-winded explanation leading to my point...
I've been talking to Romanian Neighbor a lot lately. She's been regaling me with tales of life under the Ceausescu regime and the Romanian Revolution in 1989. This reminds me how good we got it here. Sure, my friends and I have had our share of personal tragedies: divorce, death in the family, things like that. But from a stable government point of view we got it pretty damn good here. Sometimes when I'm pissing and moaning too much I do try and think about what is good in my life, and there is a lot.
However, you can take that a little too far. The following is statement from a staff meeting at a job I used to have. Jobs were being cut, the boss was evil, we were getting tons of new computers and no training or people to take care of them, and morale was in the toilet.
The evil boss said:
"I used to work at a library in Africa during a Civil War. Our library was under artillery fire. No matter how bad your job is, tell yourself 'At least I'm not under artillery fire.' "
I kept my mouth shut. But in my head I was screaming, "If the best thing you can say about my job is that I'm not under artillery fire, then f*ck you."
That is, unless you're in the Army.
Quote of the Day:
Recently, I went through a bunch of correspondence of Jefferson, Madison, etc. for a research paper. I love the way those guys used to sign off on letters, here are some samples of their sign-offs:
"I have the Honour to be, with the greatest Respect, Your Excellency's most obedt. & most humble Servant."
"I shall therefore only add assurances of the esteem and respect with which I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient and humble servant."
"Health and affectionate salutns to Mrs. M. and yourself."
"But do not let them so entirely engross you as to forget that you have one here who is with the most sincere esteem and attachment Dear Madam your most obedient & most humble servant."
::: posted by tom at 11:01 PM
Thursday, May 01, 2003 :::
Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'....
Friday is my last regular day of class, and what better way to celebrate than having my song request appear on Michaelcosm.
Tonight in preservation class we gave presentations on our projects and it was pretty much a nightmare. Not my giving the presentation part, but listening to a couple of them, especially, the last, endless, running-past-the-end-of-class one. Don't gotta do that again anytime soon!
One lady did her paper on "deep time preservation." By "deep time" they mean like around 10,000 years. It was pretty interesting, here's some web sites associated with it: The Long Now Foundation and The Rosetta Project.
Quote of the Day:
"Hold the fort! I am coming!"
--- Signal from General William Tecumseh Sherman at Kenesaw Mountain, to General John Murray Corse at Allatoona Pass, October 5, 1864.
::: posted by tom at 10:31 PM
Zeno Metcalf, Pistachio Heaven Hell, and Weird Friends
Finally, I finish a paper before 1 AM. I'm getting the hang of this school thing. I even had time today to go to class, take a nap, have coffee with weird friends, and go to the grocery store. I bought a big bag of pistachio nuts to celebrate finishing my paper. I will dive in as soon as I post this.
Couple things today: A week or so ago there was a fire in a wing of the school library. It was in a coffee shop in a little food court annex and thank god no smoke or water got into the books part of the library. I am happy the bug collection survived unscathed. Working on that's gonna be part of my meal ticket this summer. Since the little food court is shut down, they have been giving away free chicken sandwiches and drinks on the brickyard. Today, while waiting for class I saw the distribution of free food to college students. I initially thought of refugee people you see clamoring for food. But the sight of literally hundreds, (I mean hundreds) of students crowding around two little trailers looked exactly like a crowd scene from a Cecil B. DeMille movie. I didn't even try for a free sandwich. It was really mind-boggling. I have just never had a view of a crowd like that.
I had promised strange Romanian neighbor lady I would go to some meeting tonight to vote for her for student council or something like that. I told her I'd go but warned I had to be somewhere at 8 PM. The meeting was supposed to be at 7:15, I showed up at 7:10 and waited until 7:35 and the meeting didn't start yet and I saw no sign of her or the other guy that forms our small anglo-european triumvirate so I boogied on to my eight o'clock. I stopped by later that night to apologize and find out what happened. When I knocked she barked real sharply (in a Natasha-like voice) "Who is there?". She came to the door all disheveled and I could tell she'd been crying. She said "That's okay, I'm not in best mood and will talk to you later. Do you have a beer in your fridge?"
A long time ago I accepted the fact I couldn't date a normal woman. Now I'm realizing I can't even find a normal woman to be friends with. I've always been attracted to, and attractive to, misfits, goofballs and ner' do wells. So if you're my friend, take a look in the mirror.
Quote of the Day:
Omar Sharif, commenting on the chances of Lawrence of Arabia getting the money to be made these days:
If you are the man with the money and somebody comes to you and says he wants to make a film that's four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to go film it in the desert, what would you say?
P.S. (4:33 A.M.) If you eat half a bag of pistachio nuts at 1:00 AM, you will be awake at 4:30. I'll spare you any further details.
::: posted by tom at 1:18 AM
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