first efforts

Visiting

Today was about visiting. I visited with two former students over lunch. While I chowed down on Antonio's avocado quesadilla pizza (yum) they told me about their visit last week to DePauw University for the Undergraduate Honors Communication Conference. They simply loved being around other students who also love to learn; I could see it in their eyes.

After lunch I visited my colleague Barbara's Philosophy of Art class, where she lectured about Hegel and aesthetics. It's been quite awhile since my own philosophy of art days and it was great fun to be a student again. Makes me think we faculty should all "visit" more often. There are formal ways to do this -- "study in a second field" is what they call it here -- but why not just wander into a colleague's class to see what's on deck for the day, or sneak into the back of a lecture hall just to absorb a little extra bit of knowledge?

Then, late this afternoon I visited with a graduate student who is thinking about coming here. This place is right up his alley and I hope he chooses us. I did my best to sell him on this place, of course, but not insincerely. As typically happens, when I rattled off all the great things about being here, I realized yet again that there are a lot of great things about being here. Call it Illinois talk therapy: "Illinois. We're good enough, we're smart enough, and goshdarnit, people like us."

Nefarious photo-geography?

Progressive blogs such as TPM and Daily Kos are buzzing about a California congressional candidate's claim that a photo he took of an apparently calm downtown Baghdad "proves" that the war in Iraq isn't failing. Folks have combed the photograph for proof that it was made in Iraq and the verdict seems to be that it was made in Turkey. Check out what BAGNewsNotes is offering on the subject. The blogosphere's dissection of the various facets of the image is fascinating. Strikingly, given our anxieties about digital manipulation, nobody's claiming that the photo is a lie; indeed, they are having great fun combing it for its "truth." It's the congressional candidate who's lying. Methinks an unpaid intern just got fired.

Peeps and political performance

Peeps, those beguiling but inedible marshmallow treats, are gathering by the hundreds in St. Paul's City Hall this week to protest what Bill O'Reilly has, I'm sure, already labeled "The War on Easter." Apparently St. Paul's Human Rights Commissioner took umbrage to a display of Easter bunnies at City Hall and asked that it be removed. According to an article in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press (thanks, Lu!), "The "Vision of Peace," a 36-foot, 60-ton onyx City Hall statue of American Indians, has become the stage for a peculiar form of civil discourse. Since last week's decision to kick the Easter Bunny out of a City Council office, a handful of employees have ringed the statue with the spongy chick- and rabbit-shaped candies. Two laminated signs even announce the statue's temporary new moniker — 'Vision of Peeps.' It began last week, when someone left a couple of Peeps boxes at the base of the statue. But over the weekend the marshmallow critters, as rabbits tend to do, multiplied. There are now about two dozen boxes."

Apparently City Hall has elected to take this all in stride; but I for one agree with St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman, who points out in the article that peeps are dangerous creatures. As many of you know, I suffered a horrible Peep Home Invasion at the hands of an unknown "peep-etrator" a few years ago. I returned home from a trip to discover that a horrible peep massacre had taken place in my house; there were dead bodies of peeps everywhere. Oh, the peepmanity! The vision of the carnage still gives me nightmares; I am permanently scarred. My house sitter (aka Brother Joe) claimed no knowledge of the incident; he suggested that it was simply a case of peep-on-peep violence. Thus I warn the folks at City Hall to be careful; you never know what can happen when mobs of peeps gather in one place. Tear gas may not be enough to disperse them. I recommend having a microwave oven on hand.

Criminal Kitty Cat Coda

I got home from a week with my beloved and his fuzzy creatures yesterday. And received this email from him this morning: "You're not going to believe this. Go to bed a little after 10. Cecil comes to bed. Lays down. Goes to sleep. Wakes up with the alarm. Sigh. Maybe your Dad's theory has some validity."

My dad's theory, in case you didn't see it, is that Cecil resents me.

When good things happen to Scandinavian people

I can be very annoying sometimes because it's hard to accept when good things happen to me. This year has, by all accounts, been A Very Good Year. Research and teaching awards. Successful and wonderful students. A great relationship. People I love are happy and healthy. And a few days ago I found out that I got a fellowship that was really a long shot. When I realized what getting this fellowship actually meant for my personal and professional life, I looked at my beloved and said, "Things are so good right now, I'm pretty sure I'm about to be run over by a truck."

For this I blame my Scandinavian heritage. Scandinavians aren't supposed to be *too proud*. Or *too happy*. After all, as my mother likes to say, "Just vait." You never know what's coming around the corner. But being too Scandinavian does have its drawbacks. It's hard to enjoy the great stuff (cf. paragraph above) when you are constantly thinking that something bad is inevitably coming. In addition, sometimes it's important to blow your own horn, an act of which Scandinavians do not approve. During my first year at Illinois I e-mailed my Brother the Dean for advice about how to write my dreaded Annual Report, the document in which you tell your bosses what you have (or haven't) been up to all year. His advice was succinct: "Don't be Swedish. Be Irish." By which he meant, blow your own horn and blow it loud.

Even though I do plan to be more careful when I step out into the street (I'll probably look both ways twice), I am determined to enjoy all of this Good Stuff, Scandinavian heritage be damned.

Athens, Georgia Crime Report Part Two

News flash: Tiny dogs held hostage by sunbeam!

The Abe Experience, Part Deux

Now, where were we? Oh yes...

Need a stove pipe hat? A Lincoln Halloween mask? Lincoln erasers for the tips of your pencils? The gift shop is your place. As the sign above illustrates, the Lincoln Museum "helpfully" dumps you into the museum store, which contains all manner of Lincolnalia. (Yes, "Lincolnalia" is actually a word; you learn all kinds of words like this when you jump into the universe of Lincoln scholarship). The museum store's web site tells us that the gift shop is "filled with a wide range of compelling and one-of-a-kind merchandise." And they're not just whistling Dixie...or whatever the Unionists would have whistled. Because my beloved and I are high-powered intellectuals, we eschewed the scholarly books, bronze busts and Civil War chess sets in favor of these one-of-a-kind gems:

1. Gettysburg Address tie. A must for teachers of American public address.

2. His and hers Lincoln magnets. Mine says, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." I will post this prominently in my office so that students can take it to heart.

3. His and hers Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg Address Action Figures. Who knew the Gettysburg Address was delivered from a scroll? I always knew that "on the back of an envelope" crap was a lie!

4. And the piece de resistance: Abe Lincoln's head on a stick. A little lever opens and closes his mouth. I cannot wait to bring this to a faculty meeting.

Athens, Georgia Crime Report

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you an important news flash...

WANTED: Cecil Cat

FOR: Late-night obnoxious behavior, including but not limited to periodic, loud swatting of the bedroom blinds at 3 am. And 4 am. And 5 am.

If you see this criminal, please call the authorities immediately. Do not attempt to subdue him yourself. He will attempt to woo you with his cuteness and sweet demeanor, but do not be fooled. He's a cat. He has an agenda. Consider yourself warned.

The Abe Experience, Part I

Last week I took my beloved to Springfield to see the brand new Abraham Lincoln Museum. At over 40,000 square feet and loaded with twenty-first century technology, it's not so much a museum as it is a "museum experience." I read a lot about it when it first opened last year and knew it would be a real trip. Instructed by Debbie to "blog the hell out of that thing," I came armed with my digital camera only to discover that photography is prohibited in all but two places: the giant open foyer (where I encountered Abe) and "Mrs. Lincoln's Attic," a playroom where you bring the kids to blow off steam after they've been either bored to tears by exhibits or scared to death by the lighting effects and battle sounds in the films.

Fortunately I have inherited my dad's ability to completely ignore the rules when it comes to prohibited photography. On guided tours to places like Jefferson's Monticello, my cagey dad would hang back while the guide led the rest of the group into the next room, then he'd snap away. I don't remember him ever getting busted. Because my beloved and I weren't on a guided tour, my photographic strategy involved two moves: (1) check to be sure museum staff isn't around, then (2) walk right up and photograph whatever you want while acting as if you own the place. Confidence is a must.

The museum definitely privileges the slavery story; Lincoln the Emancipator figures more prominently than does Lincoln Savior of the Union. Rhetoric does pretty well for itself, too. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address each get their own room, complete with giant reproductions of the texts; in the case of the Emancipation Proclamation, they even toss in a few floating holographic heads for good measure. We loved an exhibit that featured brutal cartoons and criticisms of Lincoln, and didn’t even mind the cheesy “Campaign 1860” faux-television coverage in which Tim Russert calls the four-way race for president.                  In the battle between words and images, however, it is the image of Lincoln that comes out on top. Visual representations of Lincoln are everywhere, from waxy statues to photographs to holographic ghosts. Most interesting of all, a “multimedia experience” called “Lincoln’s Eyes” actually instructs the audience in physiognomy, or how to “read” Lincoln’s face. Lincoln’s face, the narrator tells us, contains within it the full spectrum of comedy and tragedy that Lincoln encountered in his life; studying it closely thus tells us something about Lincoln’s character. Strikingly, this is exactly how people wrote and talked about Lincoln’s face more than 100 years ago. The pseudo-science of physiognomy was incredibly popular in the 19^th century because it suggested that mere appearance could reveal something about character—the length of your nose or the shape of your brow supposedly revealed what kind of person you were. Lincoln was a hugely popular subject for practitioners of physiognomy in the late 19^th century; in fact, a chapter in my next book discusses how people in the 1890s used physiognomic studies of Lincoln to make arguments about what constituted “American” identity. Apparently physiognomy is alive and well in the 21^st century, too.

So is crass consumerism. I'll talk about that in Part 2!

Flying Illini

In a cruel twist of fate, my beloved and I found ourselves scheduled to fly to Atlanta during last night’s Illinois vs. Washington basketball game. But we consoled ourselves that we were flying on AirTran, a Truly Civilized Airline that offers free XM radio to all passengers. At least we’d be able to listen to the game on the radio.

Nope. Apparently XM has contracts with every network *but* CBS. Trapped at 37,000 feet, we had to rely instead on score updates from ESPN, Sporting News Radio, and Fox. These outlets were completely and utterly unreliable, which made me totally insane. ESPN seems to believe that Duke is the only team in the tournament. I must have heard Coach K's post game comments about their *expected* second-round victory replayed at least six times, no exaggeration. Meanwhile, on Fox, news about NASCAR was privileged over updates on NCAA games in progress; another reason to hate those pesky red staters and their evil network. Finally, just when it seemed that these so-called "news" outlets might actually give us an Illinois score, the flight attendants would interrupt on the intercom with blather about safety, oxygen masks, and water landings and drown everything out. Didn’t they understand that I was going to die if I didn’t get an Illinois score and get it now? My safety and perhaps that of those around me was in jeopardy.

Of course, at the few moments when we actually did get updates on the Illinois game, they produced nothing but more anxiety and dread: the great comeback from 14 points down, then the seemingly comfortable 10 point lead followed by the painful 3-point loss.

All told, I was pretty bummed when we got off the plane. But, as Scarlett O’Hara famously said, “Tomorrow is another day.” Today the Bradley Braves fought to an unexpected Sweet 16 berth. Good news for my beloved (it’s his alma mater) and for Illinois folks looking for a home team to root for. And besides, the Illini’s loss didn’t bust my bracket. And really, isn’t that the most important thing?