Writer's Block

The Deadline looms. (Thunder rolls, lightning strikes, etc. etc.)

Yet I am sitting here deconstructing terms as if in the midst of that deconstruction I will suddenly unearth what I'm writing about. I'm trying to write a state-of-the-field essay on the biggest, broadest, most useless topic I can imagine (well, that's not entirely true--I could imagine worse topics). I have moved through the following thought process:

1. Only people with gray hair (entirely gray, not just a few strands here or there) should ever be asked to write such a thing.
2. All meta-discussions of field directions are extended exercises in making shit up.
3. Why exactly did I agree to do this?
4. Perhaps juniorprofs are peculiarly suited to see new directions?
5. Wouldn't it be cool if I could use this time to read all those newly published books that I have failed to get to?
6. Who has time to read?
7. Putting the covers over my head seems like a grand idea.

Juniorprof Goes on Vacation

I have lost the art of vacationing. It happened somewhere after my comps in grad school. I'm not sure where it went, but suddenly all of my travels became work-oriented (research, conferences, more research, more conferences). So when it suddenly came to taking an actual vacation, I was stumped. I slept through my alarm clock, woke up fifteen minutes before departure because (thankfully) my juniorprof friend decided to find out if I needed something from McDonalds, put my deodorant into my bag instead of my blackberry, and thus arrived at my vacation spot with no ability to communicate with the world. And thus (being deprived of email and phone), I accidentally took a vacation.

A Socratic Dialogue: Ben Franklin and The Duck

The scene: a pleasant pastoral setting. Ben Franklin sits on the shore beside a pond. The Duck passes by him.
"Hello, Ben Franklin. What are you pondering today?"
"I am pondering the nature of industry."
"What is industry?"
"That, my duck friend, is the question."
"Can I help?" quacks the duck.
"I don't know. I think not. You always look so serene."
"Does serene mean 'paddling like hell to stay afloat?'"
Franklin pauses. "Yet, you are so unruffled," he muses. "Thus your industry is concealed. So serenity is concealed industry. Whereas I, though I wish to be industrious, do not even seem serene."
"You need to paddle?"
"Perhaps. Or need to seem to paddle."
"That's weird."
"Yes, I live on land. But in human terms, my efforts must be visible to others."
"That's weird too."
"Industry is not work itself. But the appearance of labor. Your pond conceals your labor; my effort shall conceal my sloth."

In actuality, Ben Franklin wrote, " I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. And, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores thru the streets on a wheelbarrow."

What do you think constitutes industry?

[post written in conjunction w/risatrix]

Posting on juniorprof

So I'm bemused by the level of silent traffic through this blog (visible through google analytics, which tracks numbers not people). Speak up! We all fear that if we express our perspectives then our universities might not want us after 6 or 7 years. Could happen. Probably won't. And why live in a state of fear? If any university cared that their junior folk were improving each other's skills, then I can also post Stallybrass and White's interpretation of the carnivalesque...

A reminder that "anonymous" is "anonymous."

Writing through Metaphor

A good metaphor can do wonders for whatever project. With my book, I like to imagine that I am tending to a garden: weed a bit here; plant seeds there; add some tasteful flowers; layer some mulch; contemplate sticking in a half-grown tree. Metaphors provide a sense of process, a rhythm that can sustain long months of revisions and re-revisions. But I'm in dire need of a new one to help me get started with a review essay that was due, like, yesterday. I think I hate review essays. Any advice?