How Many Bloggers Does it Take to Dial a Phone?

The setting: A Chinese noodle joint in D.C.
The appointed hour: 8:20 pm on Friday, February 29th, 2008
The players: A veritable king's court of bloggers from up and down the Eastern seaboard -- The Grand Marnier, dl004d, the Rock Critic, Mr. Gray Pages, Enchanted Pants and the SJB.
The scene: Simultaneous phone calls to absent player SKBK, celebrating her 8th birthday in Florida.













The results: Phone lines tangled from Miami to D.C.; bloggers known to communicate mainly through Twitter entries and well-penned cutting criticism of the minutia of everyday life left to fend for themselves through verbal modes of dialogue; inside jokes, shocking revelations, one-liners, debates and counterattacks, phone messages embedded inside phone messages, accusations of incestuous relationships across high school, college and post-college boundaries; Blackberries pitted against iPhones; competing claims to the role of Crusty Old Dean in the hit one act play "Update #4: A Door!"; Rooster sauce attacking green sauce; chicken noodle eaters besting beef noodle eaters; widespread suspicion as to how many of us will blog about this... and who will win...

SPAN-106: My Office and the Politics of Ambient Noise

Now that I have a door on my office, I feel justified complaining about it. First of all, my preference when I'm in my office would be to leave the door open, so that passersby can a) see that I'm in my office, fulfilling the duties accorded me and b) say hello or otherwise remind me that I exist in a social environment¹ as opposed to a hermetically-sealed ivory tower. But all the doors in my building have recently been equipped with highly-advanced fire-protection devices that make it impossible to leave the door open. To keep the door open, you have to prop it with an illicit door-propping wedge that you must hide after hours so the janitorial staff -- fiercely protective of the self-closing door system -- do not confiscate it. This is what I do: I prop my door enough when I'm in my office so that I can nominally see and be seen, unless a) I'm watching a movie² or t.v.³ and I deem that others might find this too intriguing or too disturbing or b) I'm listening to non-classical music louder than at a whisper and I feel this may somehow reflect poorly on my scholarly abilities⁴ or c) it's the end of the day and I'm sick of people so I don't care if no one sees me.

But my office, Barrett 106, is right across the hall from Barrett 105, an annoyingly L-shaped and acoustically-flawed classroom generally used for Spanish classes, but also used for the occasional French class, and this semester for a Black Studies class as well.⁵ Everyone knows that language classes involve a certain amount of jumping around and yelling and pounding of fists and gales of laughter and so on. Well, Spanish classes in Barrett 105 apparently also involve insipid yet catchy Spanish pop songs played at high volume and repeated over and over again (in section after section), such that anyone with an office in proximity will be unable to stop "Por un beso de la flaca yo haría lo que fuera" or "Tú y yo, ale ale ale" or "La la la la la la la la la la la la" from coursing through his or her⁶ brain for the rest of the day. Such was the situation last semester, and, presumably, will be the situation this semester.⁷

But now, of all things, on Monday afternoons Barrett 105 hosts "Black Studies 63: Alan Lomax and the Politics of Afro-American Tradition," which is a course I really wish I could have taken as an undergrad, as it sounds fascinating. It also sounds like an endless loop of Woody Guthrie, what could be yodeling, something akin to hammering on an anvil⁸, some traditional-sounding African American folk songs and what I can only guess was Lomax himself talking about reel-to-reel tapes. Really great stuff, what an excellent class, yadda, yadda, but for the lowly Assistant Professor across the hall who can barely stop checking her email long enough to make it to class on time, too distracting to encourage the timely completion of her professorial duties.

The situation remains blameless -- pedagogy is pedagogy, after all -- but here's hoping this compromising arrangement can be included⁹ on my tenure file.

¹ As awkward as it may be.
² Yes, a Spanish movie.
³ Yes, Spanish t.v.
⁴ Classical music doesn't pose that problem because it's stereotypically cerebral; I don't necessarily agree with that conceit, but I accept that it's either my own insecure bias or part and parcel of the harsh judgments of the academe.
⁵ Full disclosure: I taught in Barrett 105 last semester, and so I'm guilty of the following accusation as well.
⁶ Her. The office on one side is a her, the office in front is a her (me) and on the other side is the bathroom.
⁷ The jury's still out on whether French classes use insipid French pop tunes.
⁸ yunque
⁹ Maybe as a footnote.

Open and shut

First it took a month to get a door, then it took 2 months to get the funding for a/v equipment, then coyotes moved in across the street, and now I've been informed that I need to apply for funding for the a/v equipment -- which is sitting in boxes on my office floor -- retroactively, by sending the funding committee seven copies of the application forms. But -- and this is perhaps paramount -- I shouldn't tell the funding committee that I already have the a/v equipment sitting in boxes on my office floor.

Why? Because I have to apply for the funding to pay for the a/v equipment I already have. Duh.

The First Week: Life Behind a Closed Door

Am I officially the last person on earth to finally Simpsonize myself? And my dog? It seemed like a good visual for my first week earning my keep from Lord Jeff. As the week draws to a close, I find myself miraculously still standing despite the mounds of work threatening to topple me, going through my "good" clothes very quickly, and enjoying the sights and sounds of an office with a door. Not only a door, but a nameplate, too, which I may or may not have audibly cheered upon seeing for the first time. On the heels of grad school, every time someone offers to make a copy for me, provides me with an endless array of free office supplies (Door stop? Check. One of those tray things with the in and the out and the racks? Check. Fancy post-it note dispenser? Check.), informs me that buying 10 Almodóvar movies on Amazon (and watching them) is considered part of the job, tells me I can check that book out for a year, and reminds me I have a TA to grade quizzes, I feel a little like I'm taking advantage of them. I think I can pinpoint the moment I realized I wasn't at Cal anymore: Monday night, 7:30, as I found myself amid the surreal scene at convocation, with a chapel full of dusty professors in mismatched regalia sweating through layer upon velvety-striped layer of polyester as President Marx told the class of 2011 they were certified geniuses. Where am I?

As for the classes and students this week, it pretty much went down just as Josh envisioned it, minus the singing. And the quill. Well, and the automatic tenure. Yeah, it was nothing like that, but it could have been. Maybe they'll give me another door! An even better door!

Update #4: A Door!

Friday, Aug. 31, 5:25 p.m.: A door. At last. Unfortunately, the installation of the door was supposed to be followed in quick succession by the arrival of my books and the installation of my sweet faculty computer. As you can see, the books made it but alas, the computer did not. Actually, they tried to tell me that I'd ordered a PC when I, ahem, would never order a PC. I'm a Mac girl tried and true. So, no computer until Tuesday, moments before classes start. I guess I'm not going to be able to hook up the robo-SJB to teach my first Amherst class. Too bad.

Door Update #3

Steel yourselves: Thursday, 9:39 a.m. No door.

Prof. SJB's office hours to be held in local abandoned barn. Bring rough drafts, a flashlight and bug spray.

Door Update #2

Tuesday, 7:21 p.m.: Still no door.

I see a doorway, there is no door

That's right, as I mentioned, I have an office, but it has no door. Apparently, there are only two companies that make a door to fit this particular building. If I don't get a door by the first day of classes, I'm putting up hippie beads and installing a lava lamp, administration be damned.

P.S. Can anyone identify the subject heading? Hint: It's Wesleyan-related.