Zugenia's Procrastination Salon

In Canada they call Columbus Day Thanksgiving. For an American living in Canada, this means there are TWO THANKSGIVINGS. This is the most glorious cultural development since Second Breakfast. Last night we had some friends over for food and merriment, and today we are meeting more friends for Chinese food. Here is something you should know, though: Yellow yams are not substitutable for sweet potatoes in the context of mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle. I now have a big batch of not-disgusting-but-not-very-good spicy mashed yams. What does one do with such a thing? Can it be fried? Put in a pie?

In other news, the new volume of Eighteenth-Century Fiction is out. Guess who chose the sexy color. Guess!

Not procrastination per se, but ever so much more interesting than my insomnia: my article on Pope and Swift has seen the light of day! Follow link and scroll down. If you're on a university network with a Project Muse subscription you can click through to the piece itself. (If not but you're dying to read about the "poetry of subjectivity," send me a note.)

This article is also a chapter in the Book That Will Be Finished Any Day Now Or I Will Lose My Mind.

Me to students, as I pass out final exams:

Sorry I'm late, guys. Copier issues. You can have an extra 5 minutes at the end of class time if you need it. But you shouldn't. [pause] Which is not to say that if you do, you're stupid. [pause] I'm trying so hard today not to sound like an asshole.

Okay, I've returned all the paperwork and informed my department chair, so I guess it's officially out.

( News! )

Happy new year!

I've been having a pretty blecchy week, for reasons both personal and professional not worth going into, and was sitting here privately feeling sorry for myself about the nonstop stream of student conferences I was in the middle of, when one of my students made a point of saying how much she was enjoying our seminar, and another actually gave me a Thanksgiving card thanking me in detail for all the things he has learned from me this semester. I swear to god, it was, I believe, my first actual Hallmark moment. I have been moved right out of my slump into heights of counter-gratitude.

So, as we move toward Thanksgiving week, I'd like to extend a general, heartfelt thanks to all students, past, present, and future, for making my job so extraordinarily gratifying even when it seems like it sucks.

I'd also like to thank Tristram Shandy for being so totally wonderful and always a joy to talk about.

First day of classes. Lady Z, waiting in line for the office copy machine, attempts to make small talk with those standing around.

Lady Z: So D and I are on day two of the Abs Diet—we're trying to get hot for the wedding.

Secretary: How is that going?

Lady Z: The hardest thing for me is eating high-protein snacks regularly. I'm used to just drinking coffee all day and then wolfing down a plate of spaghetti at night. But now I have to eat protein all day long ...

[Student wanders into the office looking for administrative assistance.]

Lady Z: ... so, it's like, lately I'm shoving nuts in my face at every opportunity. It's exhausting.

[Student turns around and walks out.]

Lady Z: Hmmm. That's really not the kind of thing I should be declaring in the office, is it?

Secretary: No.

If you're wondering about the spotty posting lately, I regret to inform you that the reason is the same as always: Lady Z has actually been too busy to devote a respectable amount of time to procrastination. There is no way, in the three minutes I am currently allowing myself to make this post, adequately to convey how unrestful my summer has been—but here's a brief synopsis:

Since June 30, I've been teaching two classes, with a total of 40 students, every weekday. In one we covered British literature from 1700-1900; in the other, the British novel from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen. I made the students in the latter (and myself) read a novel a week. My friends think I am a sadomasochist. On July 31, D and I flew to Rochester for my grandparents' birthday family reunion. We reunioned. On Monday, August 4, we flew back to Fayetteville. I taught three more days of classes, covering Austen's rewriting of eighteenth-century tradition into the nineteenth-century novel (see Venn diagram:

)

and the whole of the Victorian Empire. On Wednesday, August 6, D ran a screening of the DVD he did for the Oxford American 2008 Best of the South issue (on newsstands now). We drank to his success with friends and editors. The next morning, August 7, also my birthday, I wrote final exams, which my homeless colleague Shelia Collins administered the next day. Why did I not administer them myself? Because as soon as I was done teaching and writing exams, D and I threw a bunch of clothes back in our bags and drove down to Crossett, where some friends picked us up the next morning to drive down to New Roads, Louisiana for a wedding. We stayed in cabins on the False River and drank beer and waved handkerchiefs in the Second Line. Good times. Sunday, August 10, we drove back to Crossett and played with D's 2-year-old niece. Monday—yesterday?—we drove back to Fayetteville, and now—Tuesday—I am reading final exams and papers and entering grades before running home and throwing a bunch of clothes back in a bag before getting in a car with Shelia to drive to Little Rock to have dinner with her family tonight before catching a 6am flight to Hartford, where I will catch a ride to Providence for karaoke before heading to Massachusetts with NKB before heading to Cape Cod for my bachelorette party which will last through Monday unless I fail to survive that long.

Please remember that I am also in the throes of planning a wedding. I field several emails and calls a day from anxious mothers. I deal with the perpetual guilt of avoiding our priest because I'm sure there's something I'm supposed to be doing for him but I can't remember what it is. Thursday I need to carve out an hour en route to the Cape to try on a dress at the Providence Place mall.

So send me whatever vibes of sympathy you can, or don't, because I'm too busy to really accept them right now. My grades are due in an hour and I need coffee and a shower.

Having slept poorly (which is to say, not at all) the previous two nights, last night I slept soundly and dreamt of being reunited with my puppy, only to wake at 8:52am to the horrible realization that my first class was starting at 9:10.

I was in the classroom at exactly 9:10, with lipgloss on.

I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of myself.

A review I wrote for The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation has just gone up on their website. To be honest, it is not very interesting, and the book was not very good, but it's there and you can look at it if you're looking to kill another few minutes staring at your computer. Go here, click on "Essay-Reviews," and then on "Imagining the Female Nation."

My phone rang "Baby Got Back" in the middle of my morning lecture on Oscar Wilde.

I am so ready for summer break.

Me: I can't believe I'm teaching Sade. It's like 600 pages of sodomy and incest.

D: Awesome. Sounds like the Bible.

The only thing I enjoy about being sick is taking it personally, as if it's a plague being visited upon me by a cruel, cruel higher power. That way, I can supplement my general whining and moaning with a regular dose of cursing my fate.

I have been sick since last Thursday, when, against my better judgment and D's sound advice, I taught all day with a burning throat and a temperature of 101, because we're in the last stretch of the semester and I refuse to fall behind. Following that experiment in masochism, I went to bed for three days. Since yesterday I've been presentable, but still full of snot and generally unhappy. Since I cannot face Elizabeth Barrett Browning in this state (I can only too well imagine myself falling into a DayQuil-induced trance while reciting The Cry of the Children, during which I become possessed by the spirit of a consumptive child mine-worker imploring the nation—i.e. my students—"Oh! We are weary! How long? HOW LONG???") I believe we will watch some of Simon Schama's "History of Britain." It's raining, so half of my students won't come to class anyway. That's how they do.

Basically, the point of this post is to:
A. Solicit sympathy
B. Convince myself that it's okay to let Simon Schama do my job today
and C. Post something non-wedding related, for once.

The following are actual transcripts of things I said while teaching today:

1. [Fumbling with the podium computer, trying to play an online recording of Robert Burns's "To a Mouse"] "For the record, this is not my fault. If you were up here, you'd see how ridiculous this setup is. There are two competing keyboards. [Fumbles some more] Ah! There it goes. ["To a Mouse" starts blasting at ear-shattering volume] AAAH! NO! STOP! [Bangs on keys and such] SHIT!! STOP!!! [somehow makes it stop, revealing peals of giggles coursing through the room] OK—bets on whether I get fired for incompetence or profanity in the classroom?"

2. [In the course of a very erudite explanation of something in my graduate seminar] "...and in that way, the text, makes an, um, what's the word?—equivalentness—which is not the word, because that isn't a word—but, OK, fine, an equivalentness between these two—EQUIVALENCE, that's it—thank you—um, I just said thank you to my own brain—an equivalence between these two terms..."

In other news, I have posted the VERY FIRST PODCAST of The Pop Tart on my new Pop Tart website—stop by and listen to the show at your leisure.

How strange: I seem to have taken an inadvertent hiatus from procrastinating for the second half of February. I have been busy, folks—reviewed a book, finished an article, wrote a conference paper, attended two conferences (one in Auburn, AL, the other in New Orleans), all the while teaching, writing recommendation letters, reviewing applicants to two different graduate programs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now I'm grading a pile of exams, writing more recommendation letters, planning my graduate seminar for tomorrow, and getting to work on both another article and a book chapter.

But that's not what you come here to read about.

So what have I got to say for myself extracurricularly? Auburn was fun; New Orleans was funner. I ate no fewer than two dozen raw oysters in my time there. Half of those were shucked for me, one by one, by the self-proclaimed "Baddest Shucker on Bourbon," who continually yelled, "YOU KNOW ME! I WAS ON CNN!" as he worked. I drank a hurricane. I danced in a jazz club. I ran out of money. Huzzah.

Last night D showed two amazing Jean Renoir films at Girl & a Gun: The River (1951) and The Golden Coach (1953). Stunning, both of them. D and I were the only ones there. People have no idea what's good. Oh well.

I am still totally, completely, and utterly sick of this stupid cast on my stupid arm. It's supposed to come off a week from today, and I plan to bitch about it until it does. I dreamt last night that I figured out how to squeeze out of it and I felt very clever indeed.

That's really all I can muster right now. I realize that I'm not very entertaining when my head's in my work, so I leave you with some poetry and animation culled from the internet and sent my way by a star student:

If you're wondering why my posting in the Salon has been so spotty lately, the only excuse I can offer is that I've actually been working. Absurd, I know. But those of you more committed to La Procrastination than I can see what I'm up to over at the Work Blog (the dark and, frankly, feeble twin to this, the Procrastination Blog). I just posted some images of Yuan Ming Yuan, the once glorious Summer Palace of the Chinese emperor, before and after its destruction by European troops during the second Opium War.

The following are actual emails sent and conversations had in the halls and classrooms of my department.

Me to my "Satire and Humor of the 18th Century" class:

Dear class,

Our end-of-the-semester party is officially on. I have reserved the back room of Jose's on Dickson Street from 6-8 pm next WEDNESDAY, DEC. 5. You've demonstrated your ability to reckon with the greatest minds of the 18th-century literary scene; now show me you can take your peers in the karaoke face-off of the century. Dr. Collins: YOU'RE ON.

The event organizers make the following request: "Please make sure to have your students arrive a bit before 6pm to start selecting songs and get situated. I'd hate for them to not fully utilize the time frame." These people are clearly professionals. I would hate for us to waste precious karaoke minutes as well.

Drs. Gertz and Tucker: you and your students are also invited. Please join us, if you dare.

All best,
EZ, a.k.a. Lady Z, Karaoke Queen

Dr. Collins to her "African American Literature" class:

Dear class,
I told you earlier that Dr. Zuroski challenged us to, and I quote, a "karaoke face-off of the century." Well, she has reserved a time and a place for said event--the back room of Jose's on Dickson Street from 6-8 pm on WEDNESDAY, DEC. 5.

If you would like to join me as I teach her a thing or two, we will be glad to have you all. I include at the end of this message what Dr. Zuroski or as she refers to herself, EZ, a.k.a. Lady Z, Karaoke Queen, said to her class about us. She has clearly been reading too much 18th-century literature. So, if you are free, come prepared to get down with the get down.

According to Dr. Z, the event organizers make the following request: "Please make sure to have your students arrive a bit before 6pm to start selecting songs and get situated. I'd hate for them to not fully utilize the time frame."

Oh, and for those of you who are taking both of us this semester, you have no choice. YOU ARE ON MY TEAM!!!!!!

Dr. Z's challenge to her class:
"You've demonstrated your ability to reckon with the greatest minds of the 18th-century literary scene; now show me you can take your peers in the karaoke face-off of the century."

Yes, you should be insulted and ready to sing like you have never sang before. Do it for all of those oppressed, disenfranchised, invisible African Americans you read about this semester.

Student to me in class:

"I'm really sorry, but Dr. Collins said I needed to be on her team for the sake of invisible, disenfranchised African Americans."

Me to student in class:

"What? Who has more invisible, disenfranchised African Americans than the 18th Century? In fact, have you seen ANY African Americans at all in the literature in this class??"

Student:

"Um...no?"

Me:

"Exactly."

Leave it to D to find a website that is not only fascinating enough to keep me occupied for an entire afternoon, but also arguably related to my actual work:

The Musical Cliché Figure Signifying The Far East: Whence, Wherefore, Whither?

Compiled by a mysterious Mr. Martin Nilsson, a man on a curious mission, this site tracks the evolution of that little tune we Westerners use to signify the Orient. (You know what I'm talking about—that "do-do-do-do/do do/do do/dooo" tune.)¹ He writes of his project:

What is the point of gathering this information? Why is it interesting?

Well, to begin with some people might find it fascinating simply to regard the manifold of instances of the cliché, with a collector's mind, and admire the variety: "hardly two instances are alike."

And the project provides for a bit of a challenge since computerized search methods for musical material aren't quite as developed as those for text.

But more to the point it feels from some perspective curiously peculiar that a certain very short, concentrated musical figure (that might not be directly in opposition to the way actual Chinese music sounds, but which in any case I wouldn't think is especially typical of traditional Chinese music) can become representative of something to such a degree that everybody will think or feel "Chinese" as soon as it's played. Especially since there doesn't seem to be a clear famous earliest instance which establishes the association and which all subsequent instances are citing; rather the process seems very gradual and evolutionary.

For those of you who wonder what I do when I'm not procrastinating, I pose similar questions about material chinoiserie, or "Chinesey" things, in eighteenth-century British culture. But I've always been curious about the little Kung Fu Fighting melody, and Nilsson's research is very interesting indeed. So procrastinate away, folks—you won't even notice that you're learning something!

---

¹ Those of you lucky enough to meet D in person some day can ask him about his million-dollar idea, the "Pocket Ethnomusicologist," which puts such little ditties to work transforming everyday cultural encounters into full-blown exotic fantasies! Is it racist? Shouldn't you be asking, is it brilliant?

I've decided to make an ongoing list of Things That Are True. One day I will publish my findings and you will all thank me. Hopefully with presents.

Things That Are True, Item #1: If some evening you are bored enough to set your cell phone to ring Salt n Pepa's "Push It," the next morning, you will forget to turn your phone off before your morning lecture, and it will ring in the middle of your explication of "The Rape of the Lock," and hilarity—at your expense—will ensue.

Does putting all the crap piled up on one's desk into a series of arbitrarily labeled manila file folders and shoving the folders into a drawer with the intention of never looking at them again count as "work"?

Because if so, I have been "working" diligently all Friday afternoon.

This morning, as I refilled my coffee cup at Common Grounds, I overhead this breakfasting middle-aged good ol' boy say to his wife, "The thing about the Yankees is that they simply have no sense of history," and I had no idea whether he was talking about my team or my people.

My apologies to those of you unable to tune into The Pop Tart last night—our internet stream was all messed up for some reason. I'll look into it and try my best to have it fixed ASAP. By the way, as long as you've got your KXUA feed set up in your computer, you should tune in Mondays from 6-8 (Central Standard Time) for Derek's show, Mystery Train, which features Blues, R&B, Rockabilly, & Doo Wop, and describes itself on the station website thus: "The Mystery Train came 'round the bend long about 1953, pulling behind it sixteen coaches of raunchy decadence and earthy heartache. Blind Derek Jenkins unpacks the musical load that gave birth to Rock & Roll every Monday night." Filthy boy!

I taught Swift's Tale of a Tub today—a feat which involved performative digressions on Britney's VMA debacle, the mere fact of Perez Hilton's career, my own sick penchant for E! news and catty celebrity-watch blogging, and the time I inadvertently dismantled a friend and colleague's newly hatched professional persona with an admirably Swiftian email—and I'm exhausted. Tonight Derek's giving a talk on the camp legacy of Irma Vep for TheatreSquared's production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep." I feel like I need a coffee just to get me through his schedule.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!

That's all.

I've gone and started constructing a new blog: A Confused Aggregate of Rays. It won't replace the Procrastination Salon; I just needed something more connected to my work to crop up when people look me up in a professional context. It's very much under construction right now, but y'all are welcome to stop by and offer suggestions. (Eventually it will include pieces of writing; right now it's just odds and ends. I'm experimenting with Mac iWeb.)

I'm reading Penelope Aubin's The Noble Slaves (1722), in which a Spanish princess transplanted to Mexico by her father ends up shipwrecked on an island where she is saved by an Indian who is actually a Chinese-speaking shipwrecked Japanese tradesman and where she meets a couple of similarly shipwrecked star-crossed French lovers before finding her (also) shipwrecked lover Don Lopez and the whole lot of them try to get back to Mexico via Japan but end up (guess what) shipwrecked and then there's this, as they explore an ancient temple made by "some Chinese or Persians, who had inhabited that Place in antient times":

They descended by some Stairs, and entered a large Room, where a Lamp was burning before a hideous Image, whose Face was bigger than a Buphalo; his Eyes were two Lights like Torches; his Mouth stood open; his Limbs were proportionably large, made of burnished Brass; on his Breast was a Lion's Head; his Feet were like a Camel's: He had a Bow and Arrow in his Hands, a Mantle of curious Feathers hung over his right Shoulder: He stood upon a Crocodile of Stone, whose Jaws seemed open to devour all that entered: Skulls and Jawbones, with Locks of clotted Hair, hung up against the Walls of this dreadful Vault, and Skeletons of Cats, Wolves, and Screech−owls: Several Grave−stones were in the Floor. As they entered the Bones began to rattle, the Image shook, the Crocodile's Teeth gnashed, and distant Thunder seemed to roar. The Christian Heroes, tho' surprized, went not back, but falling on their Knees, besought God to assist and keep them. As they prayed the Lightning flashed from the Image, the Graves opened, and Voices were heard in the Chinese Language, which they understood not. At last the Lion's Mouth opened in the Image's Breast, and a Voice pronounced these Words in French: 'Christians, you have conquered: Adored by Pagan Indians, long I have been worshipped here, and human Sacrifices offered to this hideous Idol, by which I was honoured. But now my Power is taken from me; the God you serve has silenced me. Depart, through this Room you will find a Way leads under the great Hill, by antient Persians made. There are Christians will assist you to depart from this sad Place and Isle. Avoid the Indian Shore, and Men. It will be long e'er you will see your native Country, and Friends again. My fatal Hour is come, and I am henceforth dumb.' Here the Image fell in pieces, the Graves shut, the Lamps in its Eyes went out; and by the Light of the Lamp before it they departed, full of Wonder…

It looks like Lady Z may have the opportunity to edit and publish the first edition of this text since the eighteenth century—quick poll: should she do it?

I'm nearing the end of my first day at the Newberry, where I've been reading Johannes Neiuhoff's Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperour of China (1669). I don't really have anything to report; I just came across this awesome passage on the natives of Java and had to share:

The Natives of this Island, who call themselves Javaners, are generally of a middle stature, and round visaged; most of them go naked, having a cloth only about their middle to cover their secrets. They are counted the most civilized people of all the Indians, but yet they are great Gluttons, Proud, Deceitful, Impudent, and not to be trusted when they have passed their words. For when a King of Java had falsifyed his word and his promise, and was handsomely rebuked for it, he gave for answer, that the Tongue of a Man was not made of Bone; as if he had said, it ought to be more plyant to the flexibilities of the mind and various resolutions. They are also represented to be Cruel, Blood thirsty, and hardly appeased when once offended: As also that they were wont to eat the dead bodies of their Friends.

I love "to cover their secrets," and "passed their words," as if they were gas. God, ethnography is weird.

ETA: This digression on the history of Holland's settlement in Java only gets better. Check out this account of the Hollanders' scatological defense strategy against a native siege on one of the forts of Batavia (Jakarta):

The greatest attempt which the Enemy made, was upon the 20. of September in this night, but they were likewise forced to Retreat with a great Slaughter, whose dead bodies was no small annoyance unto the Besieged: Against this inconvenience they burnt several odoriferous Gums, to prevent Contagion which might proceed from thence. Amongst the remarkable passages which happened during this Siege, is that Storm most to be admired, which this Enemy made upon a Fort situated at the furthest corner of the City, which was only guarded by sixteen Souldiers, who shewed far greater Courage in making their Defence, than the Assaulters in the Attempt with their whole Army; for after that they had spent all their Powder and Shot, they untiled the very Fort, and with the shards thereof did the very great execution upon the Enemy; which Ammunition being likewise spent, and having nothing offensive, they at last emptied the House of Office with Chamber-pots, and flung the Excrements, and so at once perfumed and painted the naked bodies of the Enemy; who at last perceiving that those of the City intended to Sally out, and relieve their Fellow-Souldiers, they raised the Siege, and cryed out in their Language, O you stinking Holland Devils, You fight with your Tantoblins, and your Arms are Turdy Pistical.

(According to the OED, "tantoblin" is a 17th-century word for turd, and "pistical" refers to "pistick nard," or "spikenard," "An aromatic substance (employed in ancient times in the preparation of a costly ointment or oil) obtained from an Eastern plant, now identified as the Nardostachys Jatamansi of Northern India." We are doing so much learning, people! Now go use "turdy pistical" in a sentence of your own devising.)

I finally finished grading the final exams for my 18th-Century Novel class. This semester I taught them Oroonoko, Robinson Crusoe, Pamela, Joseph Andrews, Evelina, The Castle of Otranto, Northanger Abbey, and the Utter Cultural Importance of National Karaoke Week. The last question of the exam was this:

If any one of the characters we've read this semester could experience the glory of National Karaoke Week, what would he/she sing?

Some of the best answers:

"Leonora [from the embedded story 'The Unfortunate Jilt' in Joseph Andrews] would undoubtedly sing 'Achey-Breaky Heart' by Billy Ray Cyrus. And if she were too depressed to sing, I'm sure that Pamela would step in and sing 'Like a Virgin.'"

"Joseph Andrews: 'On the Road Again,' 'King of the Road.'"

"Oroonoko: 'Buffalo Soldier'—Totally!"

"Evelina would sing 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey because she is just a small town girl."

"Mr. B would sing 'She Bangs' (think the Hung boy from American Idol) to Pamela at his happiness of being able to finally have her."

"I believe Robinson Crusoe would sing 'All By Myself' by Celine Dion."

"Robinson Crusoe would sing Styx's 'Come Sail Away.'"

"Robinson Crusoe would sing 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns n Roses."

"Robinson Crusoe would have sung 'Eye of the Tiger' while killing the cannibals."

"Mr. B—'Let's Talk About Sex, Baby.'"

"Evelina: 'Who Is that Girl I See' from Mulan." (One of the identifications on the exam was the passage from Evelina in which she has her hair dressed in the city fashion for the first time, and she feels alienated from her own image.)

"Get ready for this. Imagine: Catherine and Henry Tilney are at their wedding reception party, which is, of course, a karaoke party. They say they have a special performance for their friends.... The orchestra starts to play the music from Grease, 'You're the One that I Want,' and Catherine and Henry sing and dance and look extremely adorable. The performance is a big hit, especially with General Tilney, who decides to become a back-up singer. :)"

"Oroonoko—'Love Stinks' by the J. Geils Band?"

"Theodore: 'Stayin Alive' by the Bee Gees (because this character actually lived)"

"Catherine—'Just a Girl' by No Doubt"

"Pamela would probably sing 'I'm Every Woman,' but her tune would change to Beyonce's 'Crazy in Love.' I also think Catherine would probably sing 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley."

"I think Pamela may have sung 'Eleanor Rigby' by the Beatles, but only during the part that she's locked away. Maybe after the marriage she would have sung something by the Beastie Boys, the fight for your right to party song...'cept she didn't really get to party with all those rules..."

"Robinson Crusoe would sing 'It's My Prerogative' by Bobby Brown."

"Evelina—'I'm Coming Out'"

"I believe Robinson Crusoe would sing The Police's 'Sending Out an S.O.S.'"

"Evelina's cousins, like our wonderful instructor, would sing 'Naughty Girls [Need Love Too].'" (I believe T. T. Tucker was responsible for releasing this information to the student body.)

I particularly enjoyed how the suggestions for Pamela were pretty evenly split between a Richardsonian Pamela (Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman," Aretha Franklin's "Respect") and a Fieldingesque Pamela (Kanye West's "Gold Digger," Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps"). Could it be they actually learned something? ;)

I'm back from Atlanta. Of course, most of you had no idea that I was in Atlanta. Well, I was, presenting papers on Bishop Berkeley's "New Theory of Vision" and 18th-century interior decoration and the surprising rewards of reading lewd Restoration poetry with evangelical Christians, and now I'm back.

In just under two weeks, I leave for 10 days in New Zealand for yet another conference. I say that now in case you don't hear from me for a couple of weeks as I try to finish my piece for New Zealand and polish my pieces from Atlanta for publication and grade a stack of papers and a stack of midterms and another stack of papers and write class lectures and enjoy the weather and find a better apartment to live in and then I pop in and say, "I'm back from New Zealand," so I won't have to follow up with a "I bet you had no idea I was in New Zealand," because, of course, now you will have known.

But I really stopped by to inform you that one of my favorite new blogs, Regarding, has explained why Lost is so great better than anyone else has done to date.

It's a great show. The anti-show. So much weirder than anything that has ever been on TV. It's a mixture of Twin Peaks, the nightmare you had last night, and "Dallas."

Read the whole thing. It's a relief from the whole "Do the writers really have any idea what's going on" debate that's currently preoccupying fans—because, frankly, I don't care if anyone's in charge. I like that the plotlines remain narratively compelling while stubbornly refusing to Make Sense. That's the nature of dream logic, the Logic That Is Not One.

And last week's Locke episode, which I just watched on DVR last night, was freaking awesome.

I was about to inform you that I made it back safely from Tulsa, when I realized that you, imaginary reader, probably had no idea I was ever in Tulsa. Well, I was, doing nerdy 18th-century stuff, and I had a fantastic weekend. I entered Monday with an unlikely post-Tulsa glow about me. If you're interested in the nerd content, the panel I chaired received a very nice shout-out over at The Long Eighteenth. Knock yourself out.

But for those of us more vehemently committed to La Procrastination, I offer some choicer morsels. Astute reader Tracy E. kindly sent a link to the following Superbowl ad for Emerald Nuts, featuring one of my favorite nuts of all time, one Mr. Robert Goulet:



(Tracy, who works with my father, wrote that this ad reminds her of my dad, "not because he reminds me of Robert Goulet, but rather because we sometimes find your dad at his desk in a vaguely comatose state." My dad himself confirms that he has often suspected Robert Goulet of surreptitiously messing with his stuff as he sneaks in a late afternoon desk-doze.)

And it would be sheer heresy to leave the subject of Robert Goulet without directing you to Will Ferrell's impersonation, plugging his collection of hip-hop covers, "The Coconut Bangers Ball: It's a Rap." Will Ferrell, you win; you always do.

Thanks a lot, Pierre Bayard. Whatever happened to honor among thieves? However will I keep my professional cocktail-party credibility, that certain je ne sais quoi about the epically well-read English professor that is my only cultural compensation in crowds of better-paid citizens, now that you've explained to the layman Comment Parler des Livres que l’on n’a pas Lus (How to Talk about Books that You Haven’t Read)?

Yes, folks, the scholarly world of letters is all abuzz about Professor Bayard's latest book, which gives the lie to the hallowed belief that well-read people got that way by actually reading books. Adam Sage reports in the Times Online:

A distinguished professor of literature at Paris University has become a bestselling author with a work explaining how he comments authoritatively on books that he failed to finish, has forgotten or has never read.

Pierre Bayard, 52, who specialises in the link between literature and psychoanalysis, stunned specialists with the admission that he is anything but an assiduous reader.

He says that he often makes references in lectures, meetings, reviews and conversations to works that he has not read — without being found out.

However, Bayard — who has never finished Ulysses by James Joyce and forgotten what Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse’s classic novel, is about — claims that this in no way devalues his opinion.

“It’s possible to have a passionate conversation about a book that one has not read, including, perhaps especially, with someone else who has not read it."

Well, duh, Pierre. If this turns out to be literary criticism's break-out, sell-out, million-dollar crossover idea (the book's publisher Minuit, according to the Times, "now wants to get it on supermarket and airport bookshelves"), I am going to be so pissed. Not because of the betrayal, the exposure, the way it inadvertently confirms to the world that we are all the frauds they always suspected we were, but just because Mr. Big-Shot Tenured Frenchy Pants published it before I did. I'm sitting here slaving away on a manuscript on 18th-century British literature and I could have ended up on the bestseller list by revealing that it's possible to talk about a book one hasn't read, including, perhaps especially, with someone else who has not read it? What's the next big idea in literary scholarship going to be? It's possible to talk shit about a movie one hasn't seen, including, perhaps especially, to someone else who has not seen it? It's possible to wax nostalgic about an experience one hasn't had, including, perhaps especially, to someone else who has not experienced it? It's possible to laugh at a joke one doesn't get, including, perhaps especially, with someone else who doesn't get it? Did Bayard just get high for the first time? Is that what's going on?

Personally, I'm with Sarah Vine, whose commentary also appears in the Times:

The book that I’d part company with hard cash to get is this: How to Avoid Talking About Books You Shouldn’t Have Read — But Have. Such as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, or anything by Jackie Collins, or Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus — or the ultimate literary embarrassment, The Da Vinci Code. I don’t know anyone with an ounce of intellectual pride who will confess to having read it, and yet statistically some of them must be lying. Maybe I should start a Da Vinci Anonymous association. All welcome, even French professors.

Now, you may recall that, as I am entirely devoid of intellectual pride, I have actually admitted to reading The Da Vinci Code. Nevertheless, I think I'm a pretty good candidate for some kind of book-disavowal therapy, as are most academics I know. Our problem is clearly not that we haven't read enough books, but that we have consumed all manner of disgraceful cultural dross, and that it occasionally surfaces at inopportune moments. Did I mention that I extemporaneously invoked an early interview with Britney Spears in order to explain Ian Watt's reading of Robinson Crusoe in my 18th-century novel class the other day? Well, I did. Such are the perils of knowing too much.

And now I must excuse myself; it's Sunday and I have to go not read something.

What sucked: When I started the day by tossing my keys into the dumpster along with the trash.

What was cool: When a colleague complimented me on my "Lorelai Gilmore pants."

What is slightly disconcerting: The group of construction workers currently taking pictures of the cracks in the walls of my 7th-floor office, who assure me that even if the walls of the building collapse, the floor will probably remain partially intact.

What remains to be seen: Whether I can get all my shit together by sundown.

Actual dialogue from this morning's class:

Student 1: I'd like to invite you all to come see the university orchestra perform next Monday. Tickets for students and their spouses are $1 each.

Me: What about faculty?

Student 1: Also $1.

Me: What about faculty spouses?

Student 1: Also $1.

Me: What about those of us without spouses? What about life partners? Why should married people get all the breaks?

Student 1: Ummm...

Me: In my experience, that usually works, actually. I can't tell you how many one-night "life partners" I've had.

Student 2: WHAT??

Me: No, not like that... [Students, overcome by collective hysteria, fail to heed feeble protest] ...never mind. See, this is why I should just never say anything in the classroom.

...me. For not only invoking but quoting an ani difranco song to illustrate some point about a poem by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea. To a group of students who looked at me like they'd maybe like to beat me up in the locker room, or whatever the kids do to nerds these days.

When I asked the class (98% women) if any of them listened to ani difranco, one lone hand went up, belonging to a boy in the corner of the room. He looked as embarrassed as I should have been.

Wow, I'm just posting like there's no tomorrow today. Well, I'm calling it a day, because nothing I ever write, ever, will be as funny as the post by antarcticlust on the TMI Amazon book review. Go read it; thank me later.

ETA: My apologies; I forgot that antarcticlust's LJ is friends-locked. It won't be the same as reading her piece, which is a magnificent compilation of a single author's Amazon reviews, but you can read the reviews yourself here. For the full effect, scroll down to the bottom and read up in chronological order.

EA[gain]TA: Our heroine has unlocked her post for us! Read away, folks.

From Pepys's Diary, on the Coronation Day of King Charles II (23 April 1661):

...I went in with Mr. Thornbury (who did give the company all their wines, he being yeoman of the wine-cellar to the King) to his house; and there, with his wife and two of his sisters and some gallant sparks that were there, we drank the King's health and nothing else, till one of the gentlemen fell down stark drunk and there lay spewing. And I went to my Lord's pretty well. But no sooner a-bed with Mr. Shiply but my head began to turn and I to vomit, and if ever I was foxed [i.e. trashed] it was now—which I cannot say yet, because I fell asleep and sleep till morning—only, when I waked I found myself wet with my spewing. Thus did the day end, with joy everywhere...

Ah, yes. "Joy."

Dear Whoever's In Charge,

I would like to discuss the awkward position in which you have placed me as an educator and scholar of American ethnic literature. Specifically, I would like to know whose idea it was to adopt the term "tossed salad" to describe a certain recreational activity, and why you allowed this coinage to catch on. This was a bad decision for several reasons. First of all, it doesn't make any sense. That particular phenomenon in no way resembles a "tossed salad" from any possible perspective. A tossed salad is leafy and crisp and doused in vinaigrette or possibly ranch dressing. Sometimes you find a cherry tomato or a crouton. The so-called "tossed salad" involves none of these things. Or maybe it does, and I'm aging myself by not being able to imagine how this is possible. If that is the case, I prefer to be ignorant.

Okay, I can imagine how vinaigrette or possibly ranch dressing might be involved, but like I said, I'd really rather not.

Secondly, and more importantly for my professional purposes, by allowing this term currency in the contemporary American lexicon, you have enabled the occurrance of such scenes as the following in my daily life.

Setting: My Asian American Literature class

[The class is discussing R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's, which, incidentally, is a totally fantastic book that everyone should read. A student refers to a moment in the text that counters the image of America as a "melting pot" with the image of Hawai'i as a "volcano." I move to the chalkboard to offer a visual representation of how the volcano inverts and upsets the melting pot.]

Me: Now, you may recall that earlier in the semester we discussed the concept of the "melting pot" as a model of American diversity, and some of the critiques of that model.

Students: [Blank, somewhat sleepy stares.]

Me: For example, some proponents of multiculturalism in the late 20th century suggested that America was less of a "melting pot" than a "tossed salad." Which, unfortunately, is also the term for a certain other thing, which is dirty, so I won't explicate. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Students: [Big, wide-eyed, very awake stares.]

Me: What? You do know what a "tossed salad" is, right?

Students: [A few weak, frightened nods. Mostly more staring.]

Me: Good, because I'm not going to tell you. That's not my job.

Student: Is this really happening?

Me: Apparently it is. Look, I just want you to know that I know what is coming out of my mouth. It's not my fault. Now, back to the issue. First there was the "melting pot," then then there was the "tossed salad."

Student: You're not going to draw that, are you?

Me: No.

So no, it's not my fault, it's your fault that this is the kind of thing that happens to me when I'm simply trying to educate the youth. And, frankly, I would like to know how you're going to make it up to me.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Lady Z

Good news for anyone else out there who happens to find herself stranded on the Main Line for any amount of time: there is now an honest-to-god coffee shop offering solace and stimulants in the heart of this cultural wasteland. It's called Milkboy Coffee and it's in the middle of Ardmore. What's more, the coffee is good, it has a free wireless signal, and there are two "take a book / leave a book" shelves against the wall which I intend to turn into something of an unofficial BookCrossing Zone in the near future.

I spent the weekend at a conference in Montreal, at which I presented a paper on Swift that allowed me to say "shit" a lot from a podium. Z and I stayed at the fancy-ass hotel where the conference was held and, when we weren't edifying ourselves at panels or turning credit into wine at the hotel bar, we roamed the streets of the city and wished we lived there. It hardly needs to be said, but Montreal is a cool, cool city. It's like Brooklyn would be if everyone spoke French and hipsters weren't annoying. We ate breakfast one morning at a Mont Royal patisserie that indicated (in the way an American bakery would indicate "low-fat" items) which pastries were made with "100% beurre." This, as far as I'm concerned, is the measure of a healthy civilization.

Speaking of hotel bars, I decided today while waiting for my luggage in the airport that there are 3 things I really like:

1. Hotel bars
2. Airport bars
3. Dive bars

There are probably more things that I really like, but those three are officially official.

Now I'm flying solo again in the Philly suburbs, facing a week full of gangsters and opium-eaters. Karaoke tonight and a flight to Providence on Thursday. There is a strange man leering at me from the cream-and-sugar counter and a book group sitting next to me holding copies of The Alchemist and discussing their "personal dreams," which all seem to involve physical fitness. Things are fine, but I sense a thick fog of Main Line ennui on the horizon.

Earlier today:

Me: None of you has seen the movie Mimic?
Students: [silence]
Me: But it's so good! It's about assimilation, and multicultural anxiety, and giant bugs eating people in the New York subway!
Student: Was it ever even out in theaters?
Me: Of course it was. It was popular. It came out when I was in college.
Student: ...so, like, in the mid-seventies, right?
Me: Oh look at that. You just failed my class.

In my Asian American literature class, with ten minutes to go:

Student says something intelligent about race.
Me: While you were talking, I thought of a good response to what you were saying, but then I got distracted by a thought about Alias.
Student: ...
Me: Yeah, I just started watching season four, and in the first two episodes there's this totally hot villain, and I was all excited, like, yay, Sidney's finally going to dump that boring-ass Vaughn guy have a hot evil boyfriend—
Student: What is going on? What are you talking about?
Me: No, see, it's relevant to our class. 'Cause the hot evil guy is Asian.
Student: You do have a Ph.D., right?
Me: Yes. Yes, I do.

Well, the whole sun-and-sprawling thing didn't exactly work out, as the powers that be decided for some reason that I'm a wicked little thing who deserves to be rained on during her Florida escape. But screw the powers that be, as I always say, which must be why they rain on me in the first place. I bravely lay out by the pool in almost total cloud cover Saturday morning, insisting that the chilling wind off the ocean was that relaxing thing the brochures call a "seabreeze," and so enjoying the very occasional blast of sun making its way through a hole in the clouds that I managed to get my nose a little pink, like I really was on vacation.

I also dined alone at an octogenarian hot spot Friday night and had several drinks sent my way courtesy of an old gentleman who claimed he was a retired CIA agent with the gunshot scars to prove it, and he'd tell me more but then he'd have to kill me. For reals.

The conference itself—at least the part of it I attended, which included my panel, a plenary talk, a large dinner, and an open bar—was more fun than I'd anticipated. I don't know why I hadn't anticipated it, seeing as how the reason I keep going back to this conference is that it's always fun. And it's often located on a beach—that too. So no tan for me, but several new brilliant friends and acquaintances, which is better anyway.

As for my cyber travels, in the interest of getting in touch with some friends from whom I've drifted, I've colonized a page on MySpace. If you drop by, please note that I am now officially "Friends" with Rhett Miller. The boy is playing right into my hands.

Well, friends, it appears Lady Z is off to pastures (both figurative and literal) of one shade or another come fall. I will be more forthcoming with details ("Deets!" I hear elpresidente demanding; "I want deets!!") once I've made a decision. For now, let us just revel in the fact for the first time in a long while, I have a decision to make.

Merry late Christmas, everyone. I had a loud and lovely time at home. Meats were cooked, gifts were gifted, wines were imbibed. Santa brought me The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I've already read through Volume 1.

I leave tomorrow for Washington D.C. and a full roster of job interviews. My first one is tomorrow at 5:30, and I'm more than a little nervous, so if you could all spare an intellectual thought for me I'd appreciate the extra brain waves. I'm spending the evening making lists of books to talk about, recalling what the hell my dissertation was about, and trying so very hard not to succumb to the flu that has my sister (with whom I shared a bed last night) knocked out upstairs, and which I can feel making a home in the back of my throat.

Interview this, buddy!

I figure if I can stay healthy, remember what "English literature" is, and envision myself as an ass-kicking vixen from planet Smarter Than You for the next few days, I'm home free.