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Unexpected Pleasures
Remember Christmas? Birthdays?
I mean the real excitement of Christmas or Birthdays when you were between 5-8? The anticipation for everything you said you wanted and the surprise as you opened presents. More specifically, do recall that joy of opening a present and getting just what you wanted – only you’d asked for it so long ago that you’d forgotten it, or you’d just recently realized you wanted it and hadn’t remembered to ask for it. It’s easy to forget about those moments, about how joyous it can be to get the “perfect” present. I’d really and truly forgotten what it was like to be so surprised.
Then today I got a box in the mail. Last week a friend asked for my address and told me he was sending a graduation gift. Completely unnecessary I told him (and meant it), but he said he’d ordered it months ago and was sending it anyway. Since items have a tendency to go missing from our porch I’d been keeping an eye on the mail, but had pretty much forgotten it. (This is the same friend it took me two years to give a present.) I figured the next time we saw each other would be soon enough.
Then, like I said, when I walked in the door there was a small box on the book shelf. Sure enough, the return address was from the ‘boro. When I opened the box I am pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot.
BSG “Elite Pilot” Flight Pin
For those of you who weren’t around for the previous incarnation of this blog. I LOVED the new Battlestar Galactica. Perhaps, even, I was a wee bit obsessed with the show. (Viewing parties at my house, incessantly pressuring friends to watch.)There is even a colonial fleet propaganda poster currently hanging in my office. (Another gift from a good friend when I passed my comprehensive exams.)
I had to blow this up and lighten it. Not the best picture, but this is what I have instead of a window.
I didn’t even know these pins existed, but this is by far the best present. Anything that makes you feel 8 again qualifies as the best ever!
The watch Bradley let me pick out as a graduation present is nice, and sweet. (And he says he will eventually engrave it with something.)
The story of how I picked it is a different post, but I do love it.
The Keurig machine the DH’s Brother & Sister & their respective spouses went together to get me is definitely the most useful graduation present I received.
These wings though, these wings are by far the most fun present I’ve received. I’m still smiling like an idiot.
I didn’t even know I wanted them.
Writing Prep
When the alarm went off at 5:15 this morning I quickly silenced it, spent a moment thinking about what I would write, and then rolled over to sleep for another 45 minutes.
Early morning is definitely my most productive writing time, but I am just not sure I am ready for early morning again.
What I did get done today is some good writing related reading. This fall our writing center will expand, and by expand I mean basically become two centers. Of course I get to run both without an increase in salary, but … well, that’s a different conversation. As we put together this new program, I am trying to be more deliberate about what the assessment of this program will look like.
Now, I know there are people out there who like to think about programmatic assessment because I am reading their books; however, I am not so excited about this topic, and sometimes it makes for some slow reading. The book I’m currently working my way through, Building Writing Center Assessments That Matter is good, and I am finding helpful information. The only problem is (and this is my issue with most assessment discussions) as I read I keep asking myself, “When? When does all this happen?”
Maybe it is just that with the addition of this new center I now run three different programs throughout the year. Maybe it is just that I have not become a Pomodoro master yet and therefore have not reached the zenith of my productivity. Whatever it is, I am left unable to imagine squeezing one more thing into my day.
NBC’s Hannibal pt. 1
In Red Dragon Hannibal Lecter has already been apprehended and tried. He is a bit character to whom Will Graham turns for help as he searches for this new killer. During their interactions the reader/audience learns that Lecter had served as a consultant for the FBI and that Graham was instrumental in catching him. The television show functions essentially as back story for Red Dragon by showing the audience Graham and Lecter’s relationship while Lecter was killing. As such, by choosing to make Hannibal Lecter the titular character and focus the show on his relationship with the FBI the writer’s have built in a finite timeline for their show. Eventually, within a season or two, Lecter has to be caught and the show either risks having to re-tell/revise Red Dragon, or trying to re-tell an already established book and movie. While Will Graham is certainly an essential element of this show, had the writer’s chosen to begin with him, to make his character or Jack Crawford, the central element of the show, they could have bought themselves a longer time line.
The other thing the writer’s have done is contemporized the story. Characters have cell phones and iPads, and that has led to other important changes that are problematic, and make the show a prime example of embedded feminism. Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs were products of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, and while it might not seem that long ago, the period is important to their stories. Red Dragon is a boys club of a novel. Jack Crawford entices Will Graham back to the FBI to solve one more case. Graham visits Lecter, consults with psychologist Dr. Alan Bloom, and works with a reporter Freddie Lounts to help entice the Red Dragon to attack in order to catch him. The only major female characters in Red Dragon are Francis Dolarhyde’s dead domineering Grandmother and his co-worker Reba McLane. This boys club is important for two reasons – one it is an accurate representation of the time, and two it lends importance to Clarice Starling’s appearance on the scene in Silence of the Lambs.
Starling’s struggle to break into this boys club is one of the most essential elements of Silence of the Lambs. For me, the two most striking scenes in the film the opening shot of Jodie Foster making her way to Jack Crawford’s office and entering the elevator with a crowd of men towering over her, and when she explains to Crawford that how he treats her in front of local law enforcement officials matters. His treatment of her is important because it demonstrates to the other men how to treat a woman in a male dominated field.
NBC’s show is populated by a nearly equal number of men and women. Dr. Alan Bloom has become Dr. Alana Bloom, Hannibal’s own psychiatrist is a woman, Freddie Lounts is also now a woman, of the supporting cast of technicians a woman has also been added, and in the FBI classes Will Graham teaches also represent a gender parity. This parity in representation functions as embedded feminism, making it appear that women have at the very least achieved significant representation in the work place. This is problematic for me because the universe this show is establishing does not pave the way for Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. Starling’s gender set her apart from the rest of the investigators, and it is what gave her the insight and ability to find Buffalo Bill. In the world this show is creating, those elements would not be essential in the same way.
Re-runs
In an effort to get back into the swing of blogging, I read through some of my previous posts. I think these two posts about Rizzoli and Isles deserve a re-run. I will re-post them over the next couple of days.
As a fan of Tess Gerritsen’s books, when I learned TNT was giving two of Gerritsen’s central characters a show of their own, I was excited, and set my dvr accordingly. Then, I set about waiting to see who had been cast in the titular roles. Don’t ask, it never really occurs to me that I could, you know, use the internet to find out stuff like that in advance. It was obvious from the first commercials I saw that whatever TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles was going to be, it wasn’t going to be too much like the books. For about 7 books I’d imagined Rizzoli, as she is described, with a mop of unruly dark curls, and as good looking, but in a unconventional way; Dr. Isles was, as she is often described, the queen of the dead, a little goth, with red lipstick and straight black hair cut in a bob with straight bangs – which is, as it turns out, how Ms. Gerritsen looks (well, not exactly goth, but you get the idea). While there was never any doubt in my mind these women would be beautiful in their own ways, um … Angie Harmon and Sasha Anderson were not exactly the faces that lept into my mind as I read these books.
To paraphrase Mr. Gump, casting is as casting does. It was silly to have any hopes that these women might be cast differently. This is a review of the show not the books, so this is the last comparison I will make between the two. One of the most compelling aspects of these characters as written are their insecurities, and Jane Rizzoli’s insecurities are tied to her place in a male profession, and what she sees as her inability to meet feminine standards of beauty; it is impossible to make those insecurities play when the woman playing Rizzoli is Angie Harmon.
Like I said, although I’d initially hoped for something a little different, this review isn’t about comparing the television show to the books. The characters, stories, and tone of each is distinct enough that a real comparison is impossible. The books are detective fiction, pure and simple. The television show walks the genre lines between serious police procedural and comedy. It is almost as if the producers really wanted an hour long comedy, and knew stretching a sit com that long would grow tedious, so they decided to incorporate a police procedural to bump up the story. I’ve never seen an episode of Nash Bridges, so I could be wrong, but Rizzoli & Isles makes me think it is like a female version of that show.
It might surprise you, but the light nature of the show is not really what bothers me. A lot of police procedurals err in the opposite way, taking themselves too seriously. What bothers me about Rizzoli & Isles is that the light tone is achieved at the expense of the title characters. At every turn the show undermines the power of two strong women working together, and becoming friends by making every second conversation between the two about getting, or having, a relationship, every third conversation about the case – as if their jobs are an afterthought, and the remaining conversations about clothes and shoes. There has to be some sort of heterosexual romance for at least one of the women in nearly every episode because the writers are working overtime to ensure that it is clear Rizzoli & Isles are not lesbians. (Well, except for those episodes where they pretend to be lesbians – you know, for laughs. Because apparently that is funny.) As a viewer it is impossible to take either Rizzoli or Isles seriously because at every turn we are reminded that Rizzoli can’t get a man because she is not feminine enough, and that despite looking like a fashion plate Isles can’t function socially because she is just too smart.
I keep watching, hoping, for that moment when instead of going for the obvious – undermining women stereotype or joke, the writers will surprise me, but it never comes.
Change of Pace
I am still working more at night, but it has been a little bit of a trade off. The more I work at night, the less likely I am to get up in the morning. Since I’ve been good about writing on my lunch break at work, and I’ve gotten at least two hours of work in each night, I’m okay with that.
I’m still getting up a little early, which is good because then if I need to switch back to the 5 am writing it won’t be so tough. The problem, however, is that I’m usually left with about 15 minutes between the time I’m ready and the time I need to catch the bus. In the summer, I might just head down to the bus stop and use the time to get in some extra reading. It is too cold to spend any extra time at the bust stop right now. And, while I am a master at writing in small chunks here or there, 15 minutes isn’t really the best at this point in the morning. The answer: morning blog posts?
Maybe, but you’ll probably have forgive some missing words and grammatical errors, since I won’t have much time for revision. Just chalk it all up to stroke-brain, and we’ll get along just fine.
The Evening Stand
I’ll be over reporting in about the standing business soon, I promise. For now, it is really all I have to write about.
One of my hopes when creating this standing space was that it would motivate me to move away from the couch/television, and get some work done in the evening. Having spent 8 hours at work sitting in front of a computer screen, the last thing I want to do is come home to sit in front of yet another computer screen. For some reason the television is different. I think it has something to do with those pretty moving pictures. 😉 My thinking was that being in a different position in front of a computer screen might help.
For tonight at least, I was right. Once I’d sat down to eat my dinner it was difficult to get back up. However, once I stood here for a while working on the dissertation, I felt a lot better. True, that might have more to do with making progress on the dissertation than standing, but I do think my change in latitude had a little to do with it.
I got quite a bit of work done tonight, which will hopefully help me sleep a little better.
Standing Day 1
This morning was the first time I tried working from a standing position. It will probably take a little adjustment, but I think that I will like it. To get everything at the right height, I bought three, two shelf closet organizers from Target. Two are 31inches long, and one is 24, and I left the top shelf off of one of each. It gave me just enough room to stack up some books to get the right height for the monitor and keyboard.
What I noticed working today was that having the ability to fidget just that little bit actually helped me to stay a little bit more focused than typically. There are two things I do not really like about this set up. First, I have to keep my laptop shut and tucked away on a shelf to make room for the keyboard and monitor. This means I lose the two monitor set up, I’d grown to really like. Second, I no longer have enough room to keep a document holder set up to easily see the papers I’m working with. I’m sure I’ll figure something out eventually, and if I keep this up for three months or more then I’ll spring to make a real set up with stuff from Ikea. When I do that I think I’ll get back some of the space that I’ve lost.
Here is a picture of the current set up. Ignore the rest of the mess.
New Year
I may have dropped off the grid a bit in November, but this year will eventually see more consistent posting from me. I am not sure when, but eventually.
Right now I’m trying out a standing desk hack. The way I have it right now will work for tomorrow morning, but I think I’ll need to make a couple of adjustments for long term use. When I have it really workable, I will post pictures.
Never thought I’d be writing this …
Seriously, all in all you’d be hard pressed to find something I care less about. Admittedly, I read one Twilight book. In my defense, I bought it in a moment of homesickness, because really how often do you get to read about the Olympic Peninsula in a novel? At least I made it through that first book, then I read the second. Even after traumatic brain injury I could see how insipid that book was. The only thing that I am less excited about than the Twilight books, would be the Twilight movies, and any media story about those movies.
That said, I don’t live in a cave, so I do inadvertently know more about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson than I care to. Funny, though, it is still not enough to ensure I’ve purposefully seen any movie they’ve been in. Before I knew who Kristen Stewart was, I watched “Speak” on Lifetime.
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D5 Creation