tanyaclement.org

It seems I’ve fallen off the face of the planet. Trying to write a paper while tending to a newborn means the floors don’t get swept, the milk goes bad without notice, and the blog . . . well, let’s just say I’m sitting her trying to figure out how to work in “throwing out the baby” but . . . I’m experiencing what my beloved husband calls “mushy brain” . . . a chronic prenatal, postnatal disease. If writing is the baby I so incautiously threw out with the bathwater that was everything else in my thinking life, then this becomes my first attempt at getting back–as it were–the baby.

I can’t claim the words in the title as my own, because I’m just that kind of scholar. They hail from Seth Stevenson who explains The Creatures From the Sandwich Shop Behind the singing rodents in the Quiznos ad in Slate. It’s one of many articles that analyzes that plethora of completely silly ads that were played over the Super Bowl broadcast–a “played” subject, granted, but I missed this article was just posted (perhaps it took an exorbitant amount of research to uncover?). He makes at least one good point:

Also, believe it or not, there is some classic marketing strategy going on here. As others have pointed out, this spot—unlike shock-spots with, say, flatulent horses—actually centers on product attributes. We’re told that Quiznos subs are tasty, crunchy, warm, and toasted.

Interestingly enough, he points out an eariler Quiznos Ad for which the company recieved a lot of, well, comments. Turns out that a character’s revery in the ad recalls sucking a wolf teat. People didn’t like that.
Other Slate articles this week include Who Killed Jesus? and How do you join an Indian tribe? Perhaps, me thinks I should read Slate more often.

If you’ve ever had doubts about the humor of scholars . . .

I went to see the Triplets of Belleville this weekend, which is a phenomenal animated film, not only for the wonderful visual artistry, but the fabulous music, both of which were so expressive that I didn’t even notice there was no dialog until half way through the film (please, no comments about my lack of observation–I was just enthralled by other input). Perhaps just as compelling was the showing before the film of the short piece Destino , a creative collaboration between (of all people) Salvador Dali and Walt Disney. This Wired article from September tells a little about the odd friendship, but equally interesing are the contemporary politics that brought the project to light. A recent article in the Washington Post about Roy Disney (the creator’s nephew) by Frank Ahrens quotes Disney who implies that unearthing the project was, in part at least, a poke at Eisner. So, it goes from the collaboration between a Spaniard who proclaimed that he “believed only in the supreme reality of tradition” with an American the Spaniard called a Communist to the conflict between two American capitalists, one the largest individual stockholder in a multi-billion dollar company, the other its CEO. Hmmm. . .

Even if Roy Disney does not win the day at the March 3 shareholders meeting, he may receive some very public vindication in this year’s Academy Awards, broadcast three days before the meeting. One of the Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short film is “Destino,” a 1940s collaboration between company founder Walt Disney and surrealist painter Salvador Dali. Left unfinished for years, Roy Disney dug into the Disney archives and spent more than $1 million to finish the film last year — without telling Eisner, angering the chief executive.
“He was sore at me for that,” Disney said. “I didn’t tell him about it because he either would have told me I couldn’t do it or he’d want to be a part of it and micromanage it like he does everything else.”

This is weird–John and I were driving in the car yesterday in rural PA (just one of those things a young married couple with a child on the way likes to do I guess) when a jazz tune came on the radio, and he asked me what the name of it was. (I’m not sure why he thought I would have any clue, but I was momentarily proud that he thought I might know the answer). The question immediately reminded me that I could know the answer, because one of the most wonderful classes I took as an undergrad was an “Introduction to Jazz” class by a professor named Graeme M. Boone. The class was part of the core curriculum and was about the history of Jazz. It included lots of reading, tons and tons of listening (some of my happier undergrad hours were spent in a a big faux leather chair in a little library in the old–built in 1931–dorm where I lived). In fact, we did live listening as well; every Friday the professor would have a live band during class hours, including bands like Sun Ra. So, on our drive looking for snicker-doodles in Western PA, I was about to mention this guy’s class, but then I thought–I’ve told John all this before and it has little to do with the fact that I have no idea who is playing this song or the name of it. I said “no” and looked out the window.
Much to my amazement, this morning I saw that The Chronicle of Higher Ed had an article called From Harvard to Homeless to Ohio State by Piper Fogg on professor Boone that was kind of depressing in a happy-ending for Boone kind of way. The thing is, he was so amazing and the class was so amazing that it is so hard to believe that a guy in that position who was such a successful teacher was out on the street with his clothes in a garbage bag.
Worse yet, we didn’t even buy any snickerdoodles. John had a chocoloate chip cookie and I had a soda instead.

I’m starting to feel a little stressed out in my corner of the basement of a large public institution’s large library where I’m a little concerned that I’m doing nothing. There are feet and books and coffee cups teeming over my head somewhere above . . . people moving. Life going on. But then, when you skip (school?) work, you always feel like the world is a little deserted. But then you see enough people around that you wonder what the heck they are doing out in the middle of the day? If you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be out shopping for a chopping block at Bed Bath and Beyond midmorning, you wonder who the heck that guy is buying pepper mills and kitty-cat napkins–why is he here and not at work?
And that feeling of fun always fades mid-afternoon anyway when the soaps come on and you’re kind of tired and a little bored, but you don’t feel all that sick anymore, at least not physically ill. You start to crave a faux chocoloate popsicle sick. Then, you wish you were at your desk in the corner of the basement of the library waiting for the whistle to blow so that you can go home and watch tv or go shoppping at Bed Bath and Beyond or better yet do nothing with friends.

For some reason, I thought I wouldn’t subject people to this. I thought I would keep my personal life and professional life completely separate. But, the thing is, I’m paid so poorly and my personal life has suddenly become so . . . INVASIVE, that, well . . . you know . . .
here she is.

For some reason, we never had Atari, but like every kid I liked Ms. Pacman, and I liked Centipede. I especially liked the computer games I could play at home on our Apple IIe, pong, some weird centipede-like game, bowling, and of course, the choose your own adventure Adventure, but in my teens, twenties and now thirties, I haven’t liked gaming that much (sorry Jason!) except for a brief interlude in which I was addicted to Tetras. But, here I am now addicted to the silliest game (if you can even call it that) of all . . . .and I don’t even dislike penguins.
Can you beat this?

There are two really interesting articles in the The Uncertain Fate of Scholarly Artifacts in a Digital Age and talks about a topic very close to Matt K’s heart: the preservation of the products and technology of the digital information age. (Ah, I see that he’s already covered it; but, alas! This is what I’ve come here to say today so I’ll mention it for my own records. . .). One very interesting mention that I see in this article is a quote from Nicholson Baker, who is not known for his technological savvy, but has been known recently for his foray into newspaper preservation. It seems that he has an aversion to the librarian practice of dumping old print. As the Library of Congress librarian Deanna Marcum notes, “Libraries were never designed to store everything,” but Baker writes in his book Double Fold (a book i’ve had by my bedside for two years in the hope that sleeptime osmosis might give me the opportunity to consume it) that they should at least try.
The second article by John Unsworth, The Next Wave: Liberation Technology, is a read that requires (for me) more than a cursory glance. The topic–“Open” initiatives (“open source, open systems, open standards, open access, open archives, open everything”)–is not one i’m too familiar with, but one that will have a huge bearing on my interests and work. Perhaps I could work the topic into my independent study this semester on digital Shakespeare? Hmm . . . probably not the same kind of copyright issues.
Regardless, good day for the Chronicle.

of Steve Jobs, that is, is a great book about the rise and fall and rise again of Steve Jobs–the Apple Computer cofounder, also of Pixar fame–and the cult around his iconic identity. It’s a really enjoyable read (I should say listen since I’ve been enjoying it on my commute and while making dinner) for someone who was too young or not paying attention to business news at the time to even know that Steve Job was a computer guru of movie-star-esque fame. I mean he had a huge following. And then, a huge fall. But the most interesting part (besides the fact that he’s author Mona Simpson’s biological brother–how cool is that?) is this first-time marriage between the world of computers and the “scene” that is popular fame. I mean how does that happen? The XEROX guy ( there must be one, right?) doesn’t have that kind of status, yet photocopies revolutionized our world. O.k. Perhaps not a comparable scenario, but still, it makes me wonder, does the same personality that makes you think so far “outside the box” like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Einstein for that matter also make you the kind of person that the the public notices?

Perhaps, not when you think of Ada Lovelace or . . . the XEROX guy and the countless others I can’t name . . . but, it’s a good read anyway.