Apparently, the recent entry Sad Songs Say So Much struck a chord with many of you. So, I thought I would continue the theme for a bit more… One of the many, many reasons that I think sad songs say so much is that they don’t actually “say”… they sing. There are a whole mess…
Read MoreI want to present an award. I’m calling it The Most Ridiculous (Yet Still Frightening) Article of the Week. And the winner is…. drumroll…. The Next Five States by Thomas Barnett (in Esquire magazine) The author begins his essay by bemoaning the fact that he will be the first Barnett in several generations to be…
Read MoreMy friend Kyle and I used to make up these games, in which we would try to list the top ten songs/artists in an invented category, mostly to keep us occupied in the culturally-vacant wasteland that was State College, PA. Often, determining the category was as fun as filling it out, and Kyle was particularly…
Read MoreOkay, so I am now willing to retract– or at least severely qualify– my earlier disavowal of psychoanalysis. My sincerist apologies to Sigmund. As you may remember, a few days ago I wondered (in a post entitled “Mind Over Mater“) what was so damn compelling about the Freudian reading of Sophocles’ inimitable tragedy Oedipus Rex?…
Read MoreLast week, Senator Joe Biden remarked of fellow Presidential candidate Rudy Giuiliani: “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11” Echoing Biden’s sentiments, The Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart suggested that Giuliani has a condition called “9/11 Tourettes.” Similarly, Sen. Chris Dodd lambasted Giuliani for accepting donations of…
Read MoreOn this blog, almost exactly a year ago, I posted an entry on the importance of what I called the work of mourning. That post was prompted by my attendance at the SPEP business meeting, which every year includes eulogies of the SPEP members who have passed in the previous year. I was disturbed by…
Read MoreApparently, Memphis is about halfway between Texas and Philaedelphia. Also, apparently, I am the hostess with the mostest. This week my apartment runneth over with friends on their way from one of those places to the other. So, please forgive my absence on this blog for the next couple of days. I’ll be back on…
Read MoreMy “Search for Values” class began our section on tragedy at the end of this week with Oedipus Rex. (We’ll read Antigone next week.) Sophocles’ “trilogy” is one of those works of literature that I always need to read again to remember how great it is. Part of that, I think, is due to the…
Read MorePrefatory disclaimer: I am fully aware that the following “crisis” only legitimately qualifies as a “crisis” for those of us in academia. Which, of course, means that it’s not a crisis at all. I hate, hate, HATE the practice of submitting panel or paper “proposals” for conferences. The way this always works out, or at…
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