Anyone out there?

If anyone is out there, and wondering where I've gone, the answer is ... I've gone away.

I might reinstate this blog at some point, but I don't think I will in the immediate future.

In general news, I'm moving to Newfoundland with my family to start a PhD in September, and that will probably occupy my time and attention for the foreseeable future. Just thought you might want to know.

You can find me on twitter @paulsmoffett or friend me on facebook if you want to know what's up in my life, or you can read my on-topic comics blog over at http://introtocomics.blogspot.com

The difference between Superman and Batman

via Every. Issue. Ever.

10 Ways Smallville could become good

1. Give up on Clark and Lana. Give up forever. Repeat after me: nobody is invested in this relationship.
2. Have Clark fall in love with Lois. LOIS.
3. Unrequited. UNREQUITED!
4. Make Clark wear glasses. All the time.
5. More people telling Clark: “You're Super. Man.”
6. Put Ma back on the farm.
7. Is it too late to start 5 years earlier?
8. Flights.
9. Tights.
10. Just end already.

Well hi there.

It's been a while. But I'm still here, and all is well. Mostly.

Life with full time school, a full time daughter, and a job working with youth ministry at the church that can be as full time as I let it is being a little difficult to juggle.

Fortunately, I've known how to juggle since I was 14 years old.

The only side project I've really been giving any attention to lately is Thpam (which if you haven't you should definitely check out, updates on Fridays). I've even been letting Weirdos of Winnipeg slip.

But here's what's going on with me as a scholar:

I'm taking two courses this term, one on Critical Theory, focused on Identity Theory, in which I'm hoping to write a major paper on theories of secret identities, and my other class is a film course on Modernism in the Media, focusing mostly on reporter films from the 30s. I'm kinda hoping to write a paper on the Fleicher Superman cartoons (after all, Clark Kent is a reporter).

I'm trying to organize my thoughts and start real work on a thesis--which is tricky to say the least. But (among other things) I'm making an Amazon wishlist of biliographical sources, which I'll link to soon. Then if you are interested, you can see what kind of books I'm using to write my thesis. Once I start actually writing it, that is.

THPAM!

Today my brother James and I launched our brand new webcomic! Check it out!

THPAM!

A Christmas Post

Christmas isn't about giving. It's about receiving.

I've heard many a sermon, not to mention a Christmas Special, about the season of giving. Charles Dickens may be the one who really popularized the idea of Christmas as the season of giving. I heard an (otherwise fairly good) sermon on Sunday that ended by saying: "If we know that giving makes us happier at Christmastime, we should know that we can be happier all year by giving."

I also heard a study on CBC radio that said there is now scientific evidence that giving makes the giver happier. We give, and it makes us feel good.

But Christmas isn't the season of giving. It's the season of getting.

Have you ever gotten a present from someone you didn't know very well, or didn't like very much? A present that was so much better than what you'd gotten them that you didn't really know how to react? Did it make you grateful, or embarrassed? How do you respond when someone you didn't get anything for gives you the best present of the year?

Christmas is about that kind of receiving. On Christmas we remember that we have received from God, not only all of creation, and not only our own life, not only the promise of peace on earth and goodwill among people, but the gift of the incarnation--God With Us. As we remember the birth of Christ we remember also the life, the teaching, the death, the resurrection. God has given us a gift beyond measure, so far beyond our ability to reciprocate that we must be only receivers, not givers.

Merry Christmas
Thanks be to God

How to Write A Major Paper: The Paul Method

1. Read the assignment instructions carefully
2. Re-read the instructions
3. Have you written anything else for this professor? If so, read the comments from that paper.
4. Choose your topic
5. Choose an appropriate number of sources. Make sure you use some current sources. Check JSTOR or some other academic database for online access to current journals.
6. You need a break. Watch TV, or even better, download an episode of your favourite TV show onto your computer
7. Make an outline
8. You need a break. Go for a walk
9. That outline doesn't look any good. Rewrite it
10. Re-read the assignment instructions
11. Write your first paragraph
12. That looks great! You're on a roll!
13. Update your facebook status to tell everybody about your great success so far at writing this paper
14. That first paragraph sucks. Rewrite it
15. You need a break. Surf the internet for awhile
16. Write steadily for 20 minutes
17. You're doing great! This is an easy paper to write!
18. How many pages?
19. Three! Awesome! That's practically done!
20. Wait. How long does this paper have to be again?
21. Re-read the assignment instructions
22. THAT long!?!?
    
23. Panic
24. You need a break. Go buy some junk food, and eat it while staring at a blank page
25. Write a paragraph
26. That paragraph sucks. Delete it.
27. Update your facebook status to show that your previous enthusiasm is waning
28. Re-read one of your sources
29. Stare at a blank screen
30. You need a break. Watch another episode of True Blood
31. Okay. Focus.
32. Man, it's late. You'd better get to bed
33. Next day: re-read what you have so far
34. Update your facebook status
35. Write for 20 solid minutes
36. Wow! You're amazing!
37. Update your facebook status
38. You've earned a break. Surf the net for awhile
39. Update your facebook status
40. Re-read the assignment instructions
41. Re-read what you have so far
42. Check the time
43. CRAP! The paper is due first thing tomorrow, and you're only halfway done!
44. Panic
45. Update your facebook status
46. Write steadily for 20 minutes
47. Re-read what you have so far
48. ... I guess it makes sense if you move THAT part over HERE
49. Now just add a conclusion
50. Conclusion...
51. Stare at your paper
52. Update your facebook status
53. Re-state your introduction
54. Go to bed
55. Wake up
56. Shoot! You need a bibliography!
57. Panic
    
58. Assemble and write your bibliography
59. Print your paper, and hand it in
60. Update your facebook status
    

Bobby McFerrin and a crowd sing Ave Maria

Via Ironic Catholic

A slightly abbreviated version of my sermon for the first of Advent

We have a rule in my house.

We don't start preparing for Christmas until the First of Advent. No Christmas carols, no decorations, not even any eggnog.

I made this rule up myself—though sometimes Jan has to keep me from buying eggnog—because I can't wait for Christmas.

Growing up, my family were never much for waiting. We didn't open our presents on Christmas morning, we opened them whenever my oldest sister decided to start opening hers. Which, since she's lived away from home, has usually been the minute she walks in the door. As I kid could never keep myself from eating all the chocolates in my advent calendar, all at once. I was the kind of kid who tried to find my presents and open them even earlier, and to be honest I still do that. When I get birthday presents in the mail, I always open them right away—even if they say “Do not open until your birthday”.

But a few years ago, after I started to fall in love with the Anglican church and its liturgy, I started to realize that Christmas, like Easter, is too important to rush into. Advent, like Lent, is a fast period that lets us get ready for the feast that ends it.

For four weeks all of creation holds its breath. Waiting.

Tomorrow is Advent. Tomorrow I get to start waiting. One of the beauties of the Church Year is that the church, in its wisdom, knows about the need to prepare.

Advent is a time of preparation, a time of renewal, a time of waiting. It is, like Lent, a time of penitence, and though it is a time of hope, it is also, a time of mourning—for even the most hopeful future means the loss of the present. In advent we do not only prepare for this coming Christmas—getting ourselves ready, decorating and buying presents, counting down the days until the party, and we do not only celebrate the first coming of Christ—putting ourselves in the mindset of the Jews under Roman rule, yearning for a long-promised Messiah who would at last set things right, waiting with breathless anticipation with Mary and Joseph, and Zechariah and Elizabeth, who knew that the time was at hand, but didn't know what to expect, and who could scarcely allow themselves to believe it—we also celebrate—we also prepare ourselves for the second coming of Christ. And though we look with hope toward the world to come, the new heaven and the new earth, we are also looking forward to death, and to the end of this earth. In advent we are waiting for the coming of the apocalypse.

In advent we wait. We wait for the master to return and set all things right, but what will we do if when the master returns, we aren't ready? What if when the master returns to set all things right, we are still wrong?

In the aftermath of World War One, the London Times wrote to several eminent English thinkers asking for essays on the topic: “What's wrong with the world?”

G.K. Chesteron responded:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton.

In our Gospel reading for today—as we enter Advent—Jesus talks about the end of the world. His imagery is not particularly reassuring. Jesus says:

"In those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light,

and the stars will be falling from heaven,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

The “suffering” that Jesus mentions here is the apocalypse he has been speaking of just before this passage begins. Jesus warns of wars and rumours of wars, of desolation and sacrilege, of false Christs and false prophets, and trouble such as has not been seen from the beginning of the creation. Jerusalem will be destroyed. Jesus gives his disciples a warning that should be especially poignant to Winnipeggers: “Pray that it may not happen in winter”.

There are two possible errors that arise from Apocalyptic passages like these—prophetic passages that gives us signs of the end of the age.

The laundromat across the street from my building has a tv that is often set to a Christian tv network, and the show that airs some show I don't know the title of, but the thrust of the show is to use news items to predict the end of the world. With a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other. they draw connections between current events and the books of Revelation or Daniel or Ezekiel. The goal of this show, and others like it, and countless books since even before Jesus' first coming—is to pinpoint the exact moment of the end of the world. It is about putting God on a schedule—or more charitably, trying to understand God's schedule.

But Jesus explicitly says that we don't know when the time will come:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

“You do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow”

So attempts to pinpoint the exact date and time of the second coming are futile, and the more literally we take this text the more literally we must take Jesus' extortions that no one knows about the day and hour.

The other error is complacency. To dismiss these apocalyptic messages as irrelevant to our world, as purely symbolic. To act as though this life were all that matters—were all that exists. To behave as though this world in its current incarnation were eternal. To live without hope, and without fear.

But Jesus tells us, in verse 23, just before our reading for this evening: “But take heed; I have told you all things beforehand”. And at the end of our gospel reading he says:

Therefore, keep awake-- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

The King James translates “keep awake” as “Watch”. Eugene Peterson translates it as: “Keep a sharp lookout”.

Jesus does give us signs that we may recognize. He gives us something to wait for. And he gives us instructions.

The two errors have both the same result—and ultimately the same goal. The desire to pinpoint the exact moment of Christ's return and the desire to deny the possibility of that return are both attempts to avoid the responsibility of waiting.

When I was in high school my parents would sometimes go out for an evening, and leave me with a list of chores to do before they came home. There were two basic ways the evening might go for me.

If they told me they would be home by 10:00, I would goof off, read, watch tv, until about 9:30, then frantically try to do all the chores before they got home.

If they didn't tell me when they would be home, I would try to guess, and then do the chores at the last possible moment.

Of course, what I should have done, was finish the chores immediately, and make sure that no matter when my parents came home I would be ready for them. And what is it that God demands of us? What does Jesus command us to do so that when he returns we will be ready for him?

Watch. Stay awake. Keep a sharp look out. Wait. Wait actively.

This kind waiting is harder than it sounds. For two thousand years we have been awake, and waiting. Longer. The reading from Isaiah already sounds like someone tired of waiting.

Like our reading from Isaiah, we feel sometimes that we live in a disenchanted world—a world devoid of God's presence.

And even though our inquities, like the wind, carry us away, and even though we may recognize, like G.K. Chesterton, that we are what is wrong with the world, we wait in hope. For when Christmas comes, when the Messiah comes, when Jesus Christ comes to us to make all things right, he will make us right also.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Beckett according to Sesame Street

Asplosions!

There was a bomb threat at U of M yesterday. My bus pulled in and I saw about 10 police cars, and the English buildings were all empty.

I wonder whether someone said "Obama" and it sounded like "I'llbombya". Because there wasn't really a bomb.

In other news, there was an explosion in my class yesterday--of the emotional kind.

Basically it went like this:
Him: "All texts come to us through an interpretive frame"
Her: "Not always."

Which lead to: Personal attacks. Recriminations. Tears.

Crazy

Stuff, things, and junk like that

I recently submitted an application for a SSHRC grant. For Canadian arts students, SSHRC is like a holy grail. It's a giant $17,000 grant that everybody applies for an few people actually get. But it's possible to get it.

It's important not to get one's hopes up too high, but on the off chance that I got this grant it would mean that I wouldn't have to work this summer--I could just work on my thesis instead. It would mean that the money I've been saving for tuition could either go toward my PhD in two years or could go toward something else. Like, say, a car.

It's quite the prospect.

In other news, yesterday I finished my last small assignment for the year. I managed to get them all done relatively early, so now all I need to focus on until Christmas are two major papers and two major projects. And my thesis.

For my Bibliography major project, I'm thinking of doing a comparative study of the history of early print culture and the history of early comic book print culture. Should be fun, unorthodox, and enlightening.

I have no freaking idea what I'll do for my final project in my other course.

It's my blog as word art!

Click to make it big, and to make your own!



I like how "Meaning" is off by itself.

Via Jan who was via Annemarie

More posts about grad school soon. But for now...

I posted over at Holy Heroes about Manitoba Comic Con and meeting Kurt Busiek there, and he commented! Check it out!

Hwaet! Zounds! Harrow!

Japes for Owre Tymes features a translation of newspaper comics into Middle English. I particularly like this, which adds a moral gloss to Family Circus.

Let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

For those of you too lazy to read comments, Steph commented in response to my last post and pointed out that it was Saussure, not Derrida who said that language was arbitrary. So here's your linguistics/literary theory lesson of the day.

Ferdinand de Saussure is called the father of linguistics. He argues that language is arbitrary. Saussure talks about what he calls "signs".

For Saussure, the word "tree" (for example), is a sign that consists of two parts, inseparable from each other, like the two sides of a piece of paper. A sign is made up of a signified and a signifier.

In the case of the word "tree", the signifier is the sound of the word. The signified is the idea of tree that comes with the sound.

The important part, for Saussure, is that there is no inherent connection between the signified and the signifier. It's arbitrary. Saussure didn't think that meant anything profound about meaning, he just wanted to point out that the sounds we make have no inherent connection to the real world objects they describe.

Then Lacan says: no, the signifier isn't the idea of "tree", it's other words. "Tree" has a meaning to me only because "bush", and "shrub", and "forest", and "cat" and "city" also have meaning and I can compare those words to each other. Lacan calls it the "signifying chain".

Then along comes Derrida, who says that language is constructed, and uses the term "deconstruction" to describe his approach to philosophy. Derrida says, in a nutshell, that written words do not stand for spoken words, which do not stand for thoughts, which do not stand for platonic ideas, which do not stand for metaphysical realities. Language, literature, it's all a semantic game. Texts have no particular meaning, because words have no particular meaning. Interpretation is endless, and there's no such thing as "truth".

And Derrida leads to English grad students who can't have a conversation without reminding everyone that the words we are using have no ultimate meaning, and that there is no meaning in texts. That everything can be a "text", and that you don't have to be able to read in order to "read".

And I say: Bah. Because language may be contextual but we exist in a context together, and if we want to, we can actually understand each other. If we want to.

Searle said: "Derrida gives bullshit a bad name"

Okay. Listen.

I know you think Derrida is the coolest. I know that deconstruction blew your mind.

Fine. Language is arbitrary and as a result meaning is contextual.

But you live in the same context as I do, and arbitrary or not we've all agreed together as speakers of this language to attempt to understand each other. Can we move on?

Thanks.

Give me Liberte or give me death!

Okay, seriously, Liberte yogourt is by far the best thing ever.

Seriously. No exaggeration at all. It is a million times better than anything else in the universe.

Classes

Classes began this week.

I'm taking two courses this semester, which is still considered Full Time, because of the amount of work expected in those courses and the other work (researching and writing a thesis, for example) that goes with being a grad student.

Both of these courses (like virtually all graduate courses) are seminars, which means that instead of the professor telling us everything about book history, the professor assigns books which everyone reads and then we have a lively, three-hour-long guided discussion. Typically each student leads at least one of these discussions, which means that on your day to lead a seminar you need to really know the text so that you can ask all the important questions.

My first class is Bibliography, taught by my advisor. Bibliography, for those who don't know, is basically the study of books as objects. I took a course a lot like this at CMU, called "History of the Book" (Hot-B).

This class happens in the back of the library, in by far the nicest classroom I've ever seen at U of M. The chairs are all cushy, with wheels, and the arms move up and down.

It's going to be an interesting class, in both good ways and maybe bad ways too. I'm very interested in the way the material, physical object of a book affects the way we think about things, so that will be cool. But the first class we had a discussion that to me felt more like "Man, kids don't write letters anymore" than anything academically worthwhile. Which was a little frustrating.

The prof, is brilliant, friendly, encouraging and gentle. And maybe that keeps him from saying "No, you're wrong and dumb." Or maybe not, we'll see.

My second class, is called "Writing the City", and it's a Canadian Lit course about cities and the way they get portrayed in literature, and how that affects the way they are in the world. It is going to be an fascinating class, if a little unorthodox.

The professor is a semi-famous Winnipeg author (famous enough that Jan, working in the library had heard of him, not so famous that I had). He's hairy and witty and full of stories about Winnipeg.

For instance, I learned on Wednesday that the first mayor of Winnipeg was the founder of Harlequin books, the largest publishing label to this day. Who knew?

One of the assignments for that class is to take a walk around an area of Winnipeg, and then write about it.

Neat.

There's no such thing

The most important thing about school--maybe about life--is finding the free lunches.

If you're a graduate student at the University of Manitoba there are free lunches provided almost every day of the first week of classes.

Now I only have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this semester, so it might not be worth going all the way to the University just for the sake of lunch.

Or is it? A bus ticket costs $2.25, so a trip to the University and back would run me $4.50. That's not bad for a lunch.

But there is a catch.

On Tuesday I attended a "Welcome to New Graduate Students" event hosted by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. I attended this, let's be honest, solely because of the promise of Pizza. The event started at 12 noon, and I had my first class of the year at 1pm. I figured I should have time to eat. Right?

You'd think so. But before pizza is served, we have to listen to 5 speakers. The Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies promises that each of these 5 speakers would have a time limit of 5 minutes each. Now I have a minor in Math, so I am able to quickly calculate that the speaking should be done by 12:25. Still enough time for me to eat and make it to my class.

Oh, says the Dean, I forgot, the first speaker doesn't have any time limit. So here he is to explain part of the University webpage.

But the wireless isn't working.

Hmm.

Techs are called, the speaker tries to improvise (and walks away from the microphone, so that I can't hear a word he's saying).

The Dean says this never would have happened on a Mac.

Meager laughs.

Finally the web guy gives up, and we move on.

But the Dean, of course has to introduce each speaker. And spend a little bit of time in witty banter.

The clock is ticking.

At 12:45, the last speaker is finally finished. Pizza, I think!

The Dean comes up to the microphone, as the pizza is brought in.

"The only thing between you and your pizza" he says "is PRIZES! I hope everyone kept their raffle tickets!"

I sigh, and head off to my three hour class, with an empty stomach and a mournful spirit.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.