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.

Meet and Greet, Wine and Cheese

On Friday the University of Manitoba Grad program had their welcome back wine and cheese meet and greet.

I got my official Grad Student day-planner. I met with my professors. I drank some wine. And I'll be back for classes on Tuesday.

Mother and child

Here is my beautiful wife with my beautiful daughter.

It's a Girl!

Meet my newborn daughter, Guinevere Cathryn:



Jan is still in the hospital and I'm just home to pick up some stuff, but you'll hear and see more soon!

My library shows look like this:

Today I performed the last of the three clown shows I was hired to do for Summer Reading at the Library.

With a few variations and room for improvisation, my basic show looked like this:

I burst into the room once the kids are all settled. I nervously start to talk, then am overcome with shyness.

Then I have an idea.

From my trunk I pull a long rope, which I tie between two chairs, as a tight rope. I stand on one chair and nervously reach one foot out onto the rope .... but I am too afraid.

Then I have an idea.

I move the chairs slightly closer to one another, so that the rope is slack enough that it touches the ground when I walk on it. And I do--wobbling appropriately. The crowd cheers.

Then I tell a simplified version of Moby Dick, complete with balloon-animal white whale.

I balance a balloon on my nose.

I make a balloon elephant and tell a few elephant jokes (what did tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? "Here come the elephants")

Then I tell the story of the three little pigs, complete with juggling-ball pigs and balloon-animal wolf.

Take a bow, and say goodbye.

Still no Baby

In case anyone is wondering.

What's cooking?

I've been cooking lately.

For my birthday Jan gave me Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess (and she thought she was SOOO funny). So I made a ricotta cheesecake as my birthday cake, served with fresh strawberries:




Next we have a butter chicken pizza:

Which is essentially butter chicken in a thicker-than-usual sauce on a homemade hybrid of pizza dough and naan bread. It was an enormous success, and was inspired by our friend James, who likes to sprinkle curry powder on his pizza.

Some friends I know through the internet were having a cooking challenge themed on chocolate, so I decided to make chocolate-orange-shrimp, an idea I got from a cookbook Aaron had when he lived at CMU (and probably still has?). The chocolate is, of course, unsweetened, and goes very well with the spicy shrimp, adding a smoky, bitter, nuttyness.


Sage and squash risotto


And before that I made an almond cake iced with whipped cream and blueberries, which I brought to a going-away party for our church's pastoral associate Kirsten.

Changes

Inspired partly by Laura, partly by the vast changes that are about to come upon me, and partly by the deep state of stagnation and inactivity that has befallen this blog, I am changing things. This is stage one. There may be further stages.

I am also making an amendment to the general purpose of this blog. Although I will still post about other things from time to time, I'm going to try to make the main focus of this blog LIFE in GRAD SCHOOL. Kind of like the Furnace of Doubt.

I hab a code

It's not a stuffy nose cold.
It's a sore throat an coughy cold.

It seems to me that my throat has been sore for weeks, but it is actually only a few days. Hopefully I am on my way to health.

That is all.

Poetry for a rainy day

Rubber Boots
by Roo Borson

In Ontario, in autumn
black and limp, with shining curves,
they are the only footwear for the fields
All year they have lain in
fishy heaps at the back of closets
and now halls and entryways
are lined with them, pair by pair,
dripping onto newspaper,
upright, leaning drunkenly together, or toppled,
helpless as dull black beetles,
their legs in the air.
I remember the morning
Jane fell in love, in San Francisco,
with a pair,
glazed, brilliant as lemons
in the shop window.
But what shines in a wild pacific storm
would leak within minutes
when the world turns to mud
and sucks at the heels
in Elora or Owen Sound.
A gash is an unhappy thing,
especially in black rubber,
when boots are cheap:
the kind thing is to carve
the toes like jack-o'-lanterns
and let them leer
unexpectedly in hallways.
Nothing mourns like a boot
for its lost mate.
You must fill it with water,
and flowers.
Unlike other shoes,
they never smell of possession.
They have mapped the sodden marsh,
trod on ice.
You step into them,
sound and seamless,
with a double pair of thick socks.
You enter the Ark.

What? Amparo was here and I missed her AGAIN!?

I am currently reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

It was originally written in Italian, but since I don't read Italian it has been kindly translated into English. It's quite good so far.

There is a (minor) character named "Amparo", which since it is Italian I assume is pronounced something like "Am-PAH-roh". But every time I read it I pronounce it in my head as "AMP-a-ROO".