Tuesday, 27 December 2005

MLA: The Prelude; or John & Belle Host a Dinner

I haven't been to DC in fifteen years.  That time I arrived in the rear-facing jump-seat of a periwinkle 1987 Pontiac Sunbird Station Wagon.  Yesterday I accomplished a more stylish entrance, disembarking from an Original Boeing 737 only to find myself in a terminal built in 1958 and obviously remodeled to look "modern" sometime around 1976.  My new memories feel older than my old ones.  From the airport I taxi to the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel and Convention Center, which was built in 1916 by Harry Wardman, renovated in 1928 to feel "futuristic" and again 1999 to look like an unfuturistic 1928.  The cumulative effect of all these renovations resembles something designed in 1974 to look contemporary.  The style of this city declares its love for that cold corporate style of the 70s.   

Everything which should be white has a hint of grey-flannel.  The slight patina on the film stock of the decade's defining films hangs in the air here.  (I keeping looking for Gene Hackman and measuring my words.)  I'm not sure how to define the feel of DC without writing a predictable post about American auteur cinema in the 1970s . . . so I'll gently segue to the fact that I spent the night in Maryland.  Not because I couldn't stomach sleeping in a city, mind you, but because I missed the last train back into it.  Where was I that I required the Metro to return to DC?

Dining and chatting with John & Belle.  What did we discuss? 

Academic blogging. 

Our future publishing empire. 

What kind of performance a costume consisting of antlers and a scarf entails.

You. 

Your idiotic comments. 

Your inability to understand how totally Airwolf we are. 

Why you email me about what I write but not John for what he writes. 

How I'll probably never finish answering the 12,978 emails people (many of them lawyers looking to hitch their wagon to my absurd star) sent me when "My Morning" ruled the Internets. 

The sudden social acceptability of the Christian Bale man-crush.

Why I don't produce material like "How to Open an Academic Essay" anymore.

Anonymity.

The MLA.

The Future of Academic Blogging.

Setting up a conference panel at MLA 2006 on The Future of Academic Blogging.

Dec 27, 2005 10:52:00 AM | Academia, Books, Dissertation, Literary Theory, Literature, MLA 2005

5 Comments

Ray Davis

Except for wishing my job-hunting friends well I feel zero interest in the MLA, but it pisses me off royally that John & Belle have never invited me to dinner. Didn't Cory tell them how gracious I was? For an old guy, anyway?

Posted by: Ray Davis | Wednesday, 28 December 2005 at 10:59 AM

Ray Davis

I'd like to take that last remark back, since I haven't yet invited them to dinner, either. Fair's fair.

Posted by: Ray Davis | Wednesday, 28 December 2005 at 12:56 PM

Another Damned Medievalist

Damn. You guys make me feel all dumb and shit.

Posted by: Another Damned Medievalist | Saturday, 31 December 2005 at 12:43 AM

Scott Eric Kaufman

I can't believe I missed this comment:

ADM, we should. But only because we are totally Airwolf. I'm sure your intellection passes muster among normal folks.

Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Tuesday, 03 January 2006 at 03:32 PM

JPool

What does it mean when ads (for jobs in India) are posted in your archives?
Exceptionally smart robots or exceptionally stupid people?

Posted by: JPool | Friday, 13 July 2007 at 09:39 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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MLA: These Walls Are Paper-Thin The couple in the adjacent room have been alternating between loud recitations of “What Theorist X said” and extremely loud arguments about how one or the other has confused Theorist Y with Z for the fifth fucking time in a hour almost like you don’t even want this job we paid $1,000 for the privilege of being interviewed for. It now occurs to me that I should have 1) knocked on their door and asked them to keep it down or 2) kicked the wall and demanded they keep it down or 3) tattled. What time do these job interviews start anyway? 8:00 a.m.? I could squeeze in an hour before McLemee's panel. Isn't everybody finished interviewing everybody else by Wednesday afternoon? Or at least the early evening? Aren't the odds that these two will be at this another night slim? No? Humor me.

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