This was on Saturday:
Lotsa links/reader round-up
I have been procrastinating from cleaning my office by a) teaching (well, that’s kinda my job, so that doesn’t count as procrastination), and b) looking through some piled up google reader links. So in an effort to put off office cleaning a bit longer, here’s a bunch of links in no particular order:
- 3×3 from prof hacker. I actually end up doing this sort of thing pretty regularly on my blog. Pretty good advice, I think.
- From The Rumpus.net, Conversations About the Internet. I got here because of conversation #5 with an Anonymous Facebook Employee, but there’s a lot of cool ones here, all things I’m really interested in.
- Star Wars Burlesque via Boing-Boing. Hope Andre sees this one….
- Harper’s Index “index.” Also via Boing-Boing. This is super-cool: enter in a search term and you get back Harper’s Index stuff. It has to be in their database, of course; Michigan was, but Ypsilanti wasn’t.
- “Blindness Organizations and Arizona State University Resolve Litigation Over Kindle.”
- “Textbooks for Rent… Everywhere.” From Inside Higher Ed; among other “fun facts” from the article is that the claim is that the textbook industry does $7-9 billion in US sales annually. Whaa???
- From jill/txt, “ethics and guidelines for personal bloggers: advertising, privacy and honesty” is really good advice for kids and grown-ups alike.
- “Facebook blocks ‘Web 2.0 Suicide Machine,’ now a cease-and-desist reported,” from Boing-Boing. Might include it in the unit in 516 on Facebook.
- Cory Doctorow: Close Enough for Rock ‘n’ Roll, which is summed up as “New media don’t succeed because they’re like the old media, only better: they succeed because they’re worse than the old media at the stuff the old media is good at, and better at the stuff the old media are bad at.” It makes a lot of sense, actually.
Okay, cleaning will commence. Soon….
So, how was 2009 for you?
The conventional wisdom is that 2009 was bad for folks, mainly because of the economy. I know very directly two folks who were laid off as a result of the bad economy– maybe three, but the details there are a little more sketchy. But on the micro/family level, I think 2009 was a pretty good one for us. A few highlights from last year’s blog posts/life:
- We were all pleased to see Obama inaugurated, though we didn’t go to DC then.
- I had yet another comcast customer service fun fest.
- Annette and I got iPhones, though I still don’t have any fart apps.
- Our annual Mardi Gras party was great (and this year’s will probably be February 12 or 13)
- We had a great family trip/vacation to DC and points in Virginia, including Richmond, Harrisonburg, and points beyond.
- I am still not the editor of the CCC online.
- Will and I went to the final game of the “Final Four” in Ford Field (thanks to tickets from my parents!).
- We started a square-foot garden.
- I upgraded my office and (unexpectedly) bought a new computer— and I’m still very happy with both.
- The search committee I chaired was successful— more “work” than “life,” but the lines are fuzzy with these things.
- More gardening….
- We took a road trip to Columbus to see a movie about Jeff Smith and Bone.
- I went to C&W at UC-Davis, and posted about it here, here, here, and here.
- Even more gardening….
- Took a Krause extended family trip to Missouri followed by a stop in Chicago.
- We went to Traverse City and I taught a class that ended up being great fun for everyone involved.
- The bumper stickers came off the old Saturn and it sold on Craig’s List in 3 or 4 days.
- We went to a special screening of Where the Wild Things Are (which was awesome!)
- I might have been (or not) a bit of a jerk in the Food (W)hole.
- We made squash ravioli.
- The National Day on Writing was cool, but I’m not planning on doing that again anytime soon….
- Will was in the play The Revenge of the Space Pandas.
- Will and I went to see the puppet show The History of Ypsilanti as part of the Shadow Art Fair.
- And then we went to Avatar, and it was okay.
And that was the year that was….
Bonus post: On Avatar
I wasn’t planning on writing anything else here until after the holidaze, but Annette, Will, and I went to see Avatar this afternoon and I felt compelled to write some thoughts before going off to bed.
Before I get to the (potential) spoilers, let me say this: I enjoyed the movie quite a bit– perhaps not as much as Will and Annette, but still quite a bit. It’s certainly worth seeing in the theater, preferably in 3-D and in an I-Max theater. It looked absolutely fantastic and that in and of itself made the whole thing worth it. Though one problem I have with the 3-D is that I wear glasses, and I have to say I don’t think the glasses over the glasses thing works that great. I’m looking forward to the not so distant future in which the glasses are not necessary. Go and see it, you’ll be glad you did.
That said, I’m not sure this was a “great” movie or this generation’s Star Wars or whatever other hyperbole you want to apply. I think the main problem/limitation I saw in the movie is that is completely derivative of so many other movies over the last decade or so. More on which movies– along with many MANY spoilers– after the jump.
Note to self: cookie recipes (including pepper nuts)
It’s the season for making Grandma Krause’s Pepper Nuts again, and the first thing I did to recall the recipe was search my blog. I was surprised that I hadn’t included it here, to my current blog, so here it is:
Grandma Krause’s Pepper Nuts
1 cup dark karo syrup
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup butter, softened (or margarine or crisco or, in the old days, lard)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup hot water
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp anise oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
7 cups (or so) flour
1.In your trusty KitchenAid standing mixer mix together the syrup, molasses, butter, sugar and hot water until well combined. If you lack a standing mixer, you can do this with a large bowl and a hand mixer.
2. Add everything else but the flour and continue mixing until combined.
3. Start adding the flour, about a cup at a time, mixing each time until the flour is well incorporated. If you have a trusty KitchenAid standing mixer, lucky you! You can keep mixing this until all seven cups of flour are combined. I shifted from the regular mixing paddle to the bread hook attachment after the fifth cup of flour.
If you don’t have a standing mixer (unlucky you!), you’ll probably have to give up on the hand mixer after the fourth or fifth cup of flour and knead the rest of the flour in as you might with the making of bread or pizza dough.
Either way, you may have to add a little more or a little less flour to get a dough that is moist but not sticky.
4. Take about a handful of the finished dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface in long snakes that are about the width of your pinky. Lay these out on a cookie sheet. You can create different layers of the dough snakes by separating them with parchment paper or plastic sheeting.
5. Chill these dough snakes. Grandma Krause’s recipe said to chill “overnight or for at least a couple of hours.” I have done this before by putting them in the freezer or outside (which is as cold as the freezer, of course) for an hour or so, though in the movie, I left them out overnight with no adverse effect. They do need to be chilled and even a bit dried out.
6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350-375 degrees. (It kind of depends on your oven, but while Grandma Krause said 350, I think 375 is probably more accurate). Take each snake and cut them into tiny bite-sized pieces of dough. Put the little dough pieces onto a cookie sheet, being sure to spread them out so they don’t touch either. The cookies will expand slightly in size.
7. Bake about 9 or 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool them on a clean counter or a clean cookie sheet and store them in a sealed container. Serve them in little bowls as if they were nuts. Makes a pailful.
And here’s a link to last year’s post about baking cookies, which includes recipes to chocolate kisses cookies and rolo and pretzel “cookies.”
I dunno, perhaps in the new year I’ll start a recipe category….
Puppets and (Shadow) Art
Actually, there were shadow puppets too….
Anyway, here’s a not very good set of clips from the Dreamland theater production of “The History of Ypsilanti: A Puppet Show” and walking around at the Shadow Art Fair from yesterday:
“The Revenge of the Space Pandas”
A lot of family life and energy around the house lately has involved Will’s participation in the Greenhills Middle School production of “The Revenge of the Space Pandas, or, Binky Rudich and the Two-Speed Clock.”
Here’s a link to a Flickr set of a few pictures and videos.
Now, I’m not going to critique the actual performance/production, because my son was in it (basically as an extra, though he did have one scene as “cameraman”) and hey, it was a middle school play! It was both cute and a bit “rough,” with some very charming and entertaining moments. But of course it was wonderful, at least from my point of view. Still, the play itself– wow that was weird.
It’s a David Mamet play he wrote in the late 1970s. Binky (along with his friend Vivian and his sheep Bob) invents/discovers a “two-speed clock” that somehow allows the trio to travel to a different planet or dimension called Crestview which is ruled by George Topax and which is populated with Crestviewians and Space Pandas. Topax wants to take and keep (and kill?) Bob the sheep because he wants a sweater. Hijinks ensue.
Now, on the plus-side, there are funny and absurd moments, and some moments of that staccato Mamet dialog. No f-bombs or other vulgarities obviously, but there were moments where you do have some of the kind of rhythms of language you see in other Mamet work. But what’s the deal with the Space Pandas? What’s the relationship between them and the Crestviewians? And couldn’t they just, you know, sheer Bob and give the Topax guy a sweater? And so forth.
Like I said, weird weird weird.
But like I also said, the Greenhills folks did a fine job of it. Originally, Will wanted a bigger part, but to be honest, I’m not sure he would have had the energy for it. He’s been pretty pooped this week, and his was a small part. And he’s not crazy about the make-up. But there will be some production next year, and we’ll see what he decides to do then.
A few miscellany
For the first time in what seems like a month, I feel “caught up,” almost. I think ever since the “National Day O’ Writing” thing, I’ve been bailing water. Anyway, I haven’t thought through much in terms of anything too interesting to say, but thought I’d post a few links, a few updates:
- My English 505 class goes well, and it took a somewhat surprising turn the other day: Richard Vatz, the author of “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation,” contacted me after coming across the class online. Which is just another one of those examples I suppose of the pros and cons of putting an online class truly online and “out there” for the world to see.
- Utah State UP will live another day with a different model, as a (mostly?) electronic press.
- “Are we naked in the cloud?” from the Atlantic. I think the answer is “well, yes,” which is why cloud computing will only go so far, at least until these sorts of ownership/privacy issues are sorted out.
- Just got on Google wave; we’ll see how it goes….
- Maybe I haven’t been writing enough lately because I haven’t been feeling grumpy.
- I tried to comment on this post about imagining an online composition platform at Alex Reid’s blog (and that didn’t work), so I’ll post something here:
For starters, I don’t think online versions of first year writing is a good idea– at least not entirely online, and at least not at EMU. We admit a fair number of first year students at EMU who are “at risk” in some fashion, and what I see in my current section of freshman comp is a real mix in levels of responsibility and maturity. Some students would be fine with a completely online class; many would not. Hybrid first year writing classes is another issue though.
Second, the online platform that I imagine is probably something like a wiki. I’ve been using media wiki for this term and I used a wetpaint wiki for my spring 2009 term class. Of course, this isn’t an online class, but I like the interface for publishing student work and class materials, and I think that students like it too. There is a level of “individuality” with this set-up because I have organized the site by having each student have a page, but at the same time, all the stuff is right there together. The down-sides of these sites are they don’t foster ongoing conversation that well (though I suppose that’s in part because we haven’t tried– it is a face to face class, after all), and there are different technical issues. Mediawiki is a little unwieldy for students; Wetpaint is super easy to use, but there isn’t much you can do to customize it.
Halloween 2009, the movie: Trick and/or Treating
The remains of the weekend
There’s actually a longer post embedded in some of these items, but for now, I thought I’d just get some of these down here. After all, I had intended on doing so last night but went to bed instead….
- Cheryl Ball posted on Tech-Rhet asking about a Mac organizing software from a company (or maybe that’s the software) called Circus Ponies. It’s an organizational tool, which might be useful, though I find that my problems with organization and/or “getting things done” are not software-related.
- Talking/working with Derek on a panel, and two ideas I want to get down before I forget: 1) it sure seems like a lot of people (including me) aren’t blogging at the same rate they used to blog (that’s a post one of these days, btw), and 2) while Facebook and Twitter are kinda cool, they aren’t a very good replacement for blogs.
- Where have blogs gone? Well, one theory I have is as newspapers and other print journalism go online, they are pressing into the space that was once occupied more by individuals. This is not to say that individual blogs are going to go away, but why read (or even write) on your own individual blog if there is going to be a big newspaper out there willing and able to host your posts and comments?
- Clancy “CultureCat” Ratliff notes some of the writing on the backs of desk chairs of classrooms where she is doing evaluations.
- Alex Reid has a nice post about learning to write and how it impacts how we should and shouldn’t teach classes like first year writing. I’ll need to come back to this. I never actually took first year writing– I tested out of it. I even was videotaped giving the speech I gave to get out of it, and I believe they took me and the other people who tested out to a lunch. Thinking back on it briefly now, I believe we were an informal focus group.
- Fine writing advice, he gist of which I give all the time and which I have to work very hard at myself to follow (and I frequently fail at that).
- I kind of feel like I been a teleworker/web worker/distance worker/whatever for a long time, but that’s because I teach a fair amount online, and also because tenure-track faculty tend to have the luxury of working wherever they want. Of course, the problem with “decentralized” work in general and defining “the work” of a college professor in particular is that I’m always working, in an office or not.
- What’s the big trend now? Nowism. Actually, it’s more interesting than it sounds. I like the list of “now applications” that are down the page a ways, and I like the term “Liquid Modernity” which comes from Zygmunt Bauman.
- “The lost chicken hatcheries of Iowa City, IA.” Of course I have to note that, even though I am not all that crazy about chickens in Ypsilanti (I have yet to spot a coop in my neighborhood).