Here's what I read during my time off:

Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills
Nella Larson, Quicksand
Gerald Vizenor, Father Meme
Robert Frederick, Peter Pan and Wendy
Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller
Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats
William Yellowrobe, Collected Plays
Zitkala Sa, Indian Stories
James Welch, The Death of Jim Loney
Bich Minh Nguyen, Stealing Buddha's Dinnner
Anon., Lazarillo de Tormes
Adrian Louis, Skins
Don Lee, Wrack and Ruin
Alejandro Morales, Waiting to Happen

That's about half the books I was hoping to read.

My favorites: Linden Hills, just awesome writing, deep, entertaining, cool story, complicated realism of community; and, My Year of Meats, funny! insightful, inciting, wonderful exposition of what we do to the food we eat.

Of the Native lit, I liked The Death of Jim Loney. It's one of those understated novels in which very little happens, but it's simultaneously stark and beautiful, reflecting the landscape and the communities and individuals the landscape shapes.

I recommend all of them, except maybe the Morales, which has a lot going on, and is interesting, but not necessarily good.

I'm trying to decide between these two business card templates.

Which do you like, and why?

This one:


Or, this one:

One of the worst elements of my forthcoming move to NYC is that I'm compelled to sell my car. Driving in the city is bad, but it's nothing compared to parking in the city. It will cost hundreds of dollars per month just to park a car I can't really drive anywhere. Since I'm still making payments on the car--and would be for another couple years--I'd really be throwing good money after bad to hang on to it. It might be different if I were going to live in an outer burrough, but not in Manhattan.

But, as a Californian, the notion of parting with my car is somewhat akin to amputation.

Anyway, I brought my car in to a Carmax in LA this weekend, and they offered me something almost $3000 below bluebook. I was tempted to take it, even though it was about $1000 under what I would've been willing to take. But, I decided to bring it back to SB and see if I can move it on Craiglist.

So far, I've gotten a couple nibbles, and we'll see what comes of them. If I don't get some positive results, I might still sell it to Carmax (their offer is good for a week). The good news is I have positive equity, so either way, I'll be coming away with a little cash.

But I just kinda hate this sort of thing; I'm not a natural salesman. I hate the dance; I hate the mis/distrust; I hate the bureaucracy. I want to be done with it, but I also want to not get what I can. I'm trapped somewhere between two of my many wonderful qualities: laziness and greed.

Ok, so I haven't posted the pictures yet, cuz photobucket was being a pain, but here's the update:

The trip to Taiwan was fucking awesome! I mostly hung out with a group of people consisting of Taiwanese, a couple US ex-pats in Taiwan and China, and a Brit who teaches in Japan. Each morning we met up in the hotel lobby for breakfast which consisted of all manner of Taiwanese breakfast food (rice porridge, veggies, dim sum, fried fish) and eggs, ham, bacon, plus desserts. Also a Tamsui local thing called iron eggs which I found nearly inedible. I also ate some veggies I've never seen before (some kind of succulent) and bell fruit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_apple) that are SOOOO good. The fact is, I think I spent half of my waking hours at meals. Breakfast each day, lunches were short little boxed affairs, and then HUGE banquets that lasted hours and hours. I came to realize that a lot of the Chinese food I've had in the states (well, in CA, anyway) is pretty "authentic." But, everything was good and we ate and ate and ate. Highlights: a canteloupe chicken with a light citrus sauce, whole steamed fish (at every meal), spicy glazed skrimps, and a chicken soup prepared by baking a whole chicken inside a hollowed out watermelon for 6 hours. Lots of chicken, seafood (you name it), pork, veggies, and tofu. Plus, Lychee are in season and were part of every dessert--often served on the branch.

The conference itself was fine. Uneven like most conferences. My panel kinda sucked, cuz the other 2 presenters both went way over their time so I had to cut my paper short and there was no time for q&a. Seriously, how do you not know that your paper is 10 minutes too long? Or do you just not care?

The day after the conference I was gonna roam around Taipei by myself before my 11PM flight, but the group I was hanging out with invited me to lunch (with the watermelon chicken soup), and we ended up visiting the world's tallest building, Taipei 101, going up to the observation deck, then getting a drink at a highrise hotel bar. Four of us sat around, talked about Native and transnational indigenous lit, drank wine and martinis, and looked out over the city from the 38th floor. When I looked at the hills, I kept getting the feeling I was in San Francisco. That's how confortable it felt. Anyway, it was amazing and beautiful and great.

Then we took a cab to the train station, they talked me through getting on the high-speed train, to a bus, to the airport. All of that was not only easy, but it cost like 5 dollars. The signs and announcements on all their public transportation are in English as well as Mandarin.

A brief 12 hour flight and I was back at LAX, but with a newfound yearning to explore more of Asia. I got an invite for Japan, so maybe that's next!

In a bizarre twist, I just now had a drink with someone (in Victoria, British Columbia) who I had lunch with 3 days ago in Taipei.

ETA: I forget to mention that something like 25% of the people in Taiwan (and on the flights to and from) were walking around in surgical masks, scared of swine flu. It made for a surreal street scene.

I've been putting off calling the woman in charge of faculty housing at Columbia for a couple of weeks now. I'm supposed to call her, as my dept. chair puts it, "just to let her get an early sense of who you are." I take this to mean, "shmooz this lady cuz she can make it so you get a nicer place." I don't really like shmoozing by phone; I'm much more comfortable doing it face to face.

I've been on the road a lot lately, from SoCal to NorCal, and for some reason I didn't want to call her til I got home.

So last night I wrote down some questions to ask The Housing Lady. I got up today intending to call her, but realized it was almost 9 AM here, which would make it noon there, and she'd probably be out to lunch. I decided to do a little laundry, do a little cooking, and call in an hour and a half.

After switching the laundry, and turning down the chicken stock I was making, I sat down to call her. But I couldn't find my phone. I looked on all the tables, the desk, in the kitchen. Not there. Then I started looking under the cushions on couches and chairs. No luck. I looked under papers. Under furniture. All the weird spots I could've put it.

Then it dawned on me that I may not have taken it out of my pocket before I put my shorts in the laundry. I went downstairs, opened the door to the laundry room, opened the dryer door, and out fell the cover to my phone's battery.

When I put the battery back in, one light comes on and the vibrate function comes on and stays on. But that's it. I have it all opened up and sitting in front of a fan now, hoping it'll dry out and come back to life. I was planning on switching phones in July, when I'm due for an upgrade, but that timeline may have changed.

Anyway, I feel pretty stupid about this and I keep hearing a little voice saying "that's why you can't have nice things." Also, we got rid of our landline in SB, so I still can't call The Housing Lady.

A while back  scarletjinx and I were watching a PBS show about Jewish actors, writers, directors, etc who fled Europe in the 1930s and 40s and came to Hollywood.  At one point the narrator described all the bit players in Casablanca, the seeming regulars at Rick's, and it turns out that they were all heavy hitters in European cinema, most of whom were having trouble making it in the States.  Anyway, they were showing the scene where the bar drowns out the singing Germans with La Marseillaise.

(If you don't know it, you can watch it here www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iYbEPZVVIA )

And, I thought.  That might be my favorite scene in all of movie history.  Cliche, I know, but probably unusual from a non-Francophile.

And so I ask you: what's YOUR favorite scene.  Not your favorite movie--it might not even come from your favorite movie--but, what's your favorite scene?  And why?

It's a Xmas breakfast donut miracle!  It's a day of feasting.

last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes! last day of classes! last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!last day of classes!

just voted: long lines on a rainy day in a pretty small town.  It's raining all over eastern Virginia (DC suburbs and Hampton Roads--the two critical areas in VA), but turnout still seems high.  Fingers crossed.

Hey folks, I'm looking for comparative ethnic literature professors who might be interested in reviewing an ecocritical manuscript for a university press.  Can anybody think of someone who fits that description AND is nice?  They don't have to be ecocritically-minded themselves, just open to such approaches.

Any thoughts?