Dr. $hiraz sent me a story in honor of Halloween. In case you were wondering how universities really operated… THE DEPARTMENT OF EVIL STUDIES Epic is the lie that tells the truth. Satire is its snarky younger sibling. Any resemblance to people living or undead is incredibly coincidental. The department hires a new assistant professor [...]
Archive for October, 2011
More Effective Humor: Keep Wall Street Occupied Video
October 29, 2011I have a horrible confession to make: I don’t like protests. Shouting and large crowds are two of my least favorite things and I’m also not sure it’s, y’know, working? Yes, yes, I get the idea of being a visible presence, but this assumes people with influence will a) notice and b) care. On the contrary, [...]
Finish This Joke: Non-Educators Running Education Policy….
October 28, 2011Jokes are my favorite form of communication because they get across complex ideas in seconds flat. There’s a particularly effective joke structure that Freud called “the novel association of two elements.” My favorite example: Eddie Izzard’s declaration that “oranges are Stalinist fuckers.” You probably haven’t heard those two ideas connected before. But there’s also some logic to [...]
Crimson Newsflash: Facebooking Students Entirely Your Fault!
October 25, 2011F everyone’s I, students Facebooking in class is educators’ own fault. Oh, don’t worry, there’s “science” behind this, if by science you mean an article in the Harvard Crimson claiming that student Facebooking is inversely proportional to how awesome a teacher is. (In Dr. Evil voice) Riiiiiiiight. Been there, done that. Torn gazes from Facebook again and again. Seem [...]
Yup, We’re Tired
October 24, 2011On the Facebook page I recently posted the Gizmodo article, “Generation X is Tired of Your Bullshit.” Every Gen-Xer I know fell madly in love with its combination of sly Reality Bites references and cranky cynicism. But more than anything, we collectively nodded in recognition: we’re tired. And the thing about Gen Y is that it [...]
Call Me Superstitious
October 18, 2011I once spent a summer in Italy on an archaeological dig; in the evenings after we finished work, a group of us would read Plato in Greek — and yes, it was lovely, but the university’s awesome policies put everyone in debt so don’t get too misty about it. We finished The Phaedo but not The Apology. On the [...]
Made of Literary Fail: Forgetting Banned Literature
October 14, 2011Last weekend I was touring an exhibit on banned books, in preparation for an upcoming talk I’m giving on obscenity. One of the banned books was the Grapes of Wrath, and the person with me asked “Do you remember how it ends?” Total panic. Did I even read that book? I’m pretty sure I did. [...]
The Edutainer
October 7, 2011In a move they will surely regret, The Austin Dionysium has invited me to be on their team. I wasted no time wielding my newfound power like a colossus and strong-arming Dr. $hiraz into being a presenter. She was blown away by the sheer number of actual, interested questions both during the Q & A [...]
Super Important Fact: Mindy Kaling Can Translate Latin!
October 3, 2011She says so, here, on her new website, and we should believe it because the prestigious New York Times reports that Kaling was a “Latin whiz” at prep school. Also, she entered Dartmouth as a Latin major but left with a degree in playwriting. I’m going to ignore the fact that this puts my own [...]
Bad Blogger (Austin Blogathon, 2011)
October 1, 2011Note: I gather the idea of a blogathon is to write a bunch of blog entries. 9:15 am Arrive at Blogathon. 9:30 am Realize where I am (Link Co-working) after coffee kicks in. 9:45 am Apply more caffeine. Hey, this office chair is 10 times more ergonomic than the one I have at home! And [...]