Rocking the I-91 Corridor

I don't write concert reviews, but I went to two great shows this weekend, and while the guy sitting to my left or right (depending on the show) was hard at work, I, too, learned a couple of things:

#1 According to Lyle Lovett, heard on Saturday night at the Calvin Theater in Northampton, the best apple pie can be found at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Mass. It's apparently second only to his cousin Wilbert's apple pie, which he admitted was difficult to get, since "you have to know him."

#2 It's not unusual for Jeff Tweedy, seen on Sunday night at the Shubert Theater in New Haven, to think that people in the front row are so excited to see Wilco that they've peed themselves.

#3 Buying a band T-shirt and putting it on immediately is kinda lame. I mean, we know you're a Wilco fan, and we all saw those T-shirts on sale downstairs, so just put it on at home, dude. The above sticker may just be the greatest band sticker ever, though.

#4 John Hiatt likes cheese. Also he wrote "Have a Little Faith in Me," not Jewel, which I did not know.

#5 Beer-swilling Wilco fans over 50 rival drunk college kids at football games in terms of sheer loud-mouthed annoyingness.

For much less randomly subjective reviews of these shows, you'd be advised to read ERD's thoughts.

Things I would rather see on the live AmhCam

This is a video of the main quad of campus, where you can stalk anyone walking between the Chapel and my building, it looks like. Entertaining, but I'd rather see a live streaming video of:

• Parking spots still available around the quad.
• Students lurking outside my office.
• A scanning view of the lunch specials at the faculty dining hall and the salad bar situation.
• The inside of the classroom I'm about to enter, with the number of students who've shown up and their relative energy level (eye-level close-ups would do).
• The outside of my building and anyone who's standing there smoking.
• The workout room at the gym, including whether there's a line for the treadmills and which students or colleagues I'm going to run into there.
• My mailbox and its contents, so I know if I should bother to check it.
• The circulation desk at the library, to see if that woman who thought I was a student is working today (so I could either avoid her or find a pipe and a tweed jacket so she doesn't make the same mistake again).
• And also: the inside of the Red Room, just prior to any faculty meeting I must attend there, with a reading of the temperature inside the room on the bottom left-hand corner (so I can bundle up) and a best guess estimate countdown clock of how much longer the meeting's going to go on (so I can properly numb my mind in advance) in the bottom right-hand corner.
  

Bueno, bueno, bueno

What goes around really does come around: I'm teaching La familia de Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela in my Postwar Spain and the Novel course right now. I first read this book in Sr. Zintel's Spanish 5 class in high school, and remember being scandalized by the pig that eats little Mario's ears before he falls into a jug of olive oil, Lola and Pascual gettin' it on on Mario's grave, and Pascual shooting his dog in cold blood and later stalking and killing his mother, among other cheery moments.

I've read this book a couple of times since then, but it never fails to transport me right back to that second floor classroom of West High, where generations of necios would sing "Lola, la la la la Lola" (by the Kinks, although I didn't know that at the time) to Sr. Zintel's goofy-tied delight and mock-horror. SKBK (né SKB) and I would follow that up with a rousing round of the Police's "Sending out an Eso es," while dl004d and Leo countered with "Too legit, la tía Tula legit." Good times.

Anyway, now I get to be the one reveling in delight and mock-horror. Not a bad gig.

The Orphanage

While Chameleon Man makes his annual Superbowl halftime contribution to Flak, I've penned my annual review of a Spanish movie. It's up on the front page today, and after that you can find my review of Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage here. Enjoy!

Climbing the Tower

Two friends, loyal SJBlog readers, and founding members of Team Taboo have recently crossed my path on their quests for jobs at institutions of higher learning. Happily, they've both secured at least one job, with perhaps more to follow.

This time last year and, for that matter, the year before that, I was making similar marches around the country, thinking about how many coffee shops I would require to live in a small Iowa town, trying to feign enthusiasm driving by Joe Paterno's house, scandalizing seemingly liberal faculty at SF State with Almodóvar movies, marveling at the quaint mounds of snow and sheets of ice in Vermont, and asking myself why Amherst smells like beef bullion.

Despite not really knowing how I landed where I did (and recently being told that my hire was an "agonizing decision"), on a campus that still smells like beef bullion, I'm finding myself doling out advice on negotiating contracts, managing campus visits, playing your cards close to your chest, distracting yourself while waiting for the phone to ring, and surviving in a town with two streets like I'm some kind of expert. I never thought I would be nostalgic for the job search, but having landed happily on the other side of it, I admit that it's kinda fun to watch my friends go through it, remembering the days when I didn't know whether I'd need to invest in a lot of fleece or start paying attention to college football or -- horrors! -- both.

Buena suerte, PJ and Ms. Mattsie! For what it's worth, I own more fleece than I did a year ago, though I'm still cold most of the time. But I still don't care about college football. And I need a minimum of two coffee shops, both of which must have a decent selection of tea and maybe a panini on the menu, for me to feel human.

Gunn to Profs: Coiffe it!

According to Tim Gunn, swanky Project Runway fashion guru and once-frumpy academic at the design school Parsons, step one to being a well-dressed professor is combing your hair.

Sounds easy. Gunn also suggests, in this interview from the Chronicle of Higher Education, that elbow patches aren't that bad, the right pair of jeans can communicate that important hip prof look, and backpacks are soooooo undergrad.

The three most important sartorial elements for the put-together professor, according to Gunn? A jacket, a nice pair of shoes "that don't look like they were wearing them when they were 14 years old," and a watch.

That's all very well and good, but has Gunn ever heard of female professors?