January: Snowmaggedon I, II, III, IV...

January began in Costa Rica, swinging over the rain forest on zip lines and gazing at monkeys:

Suspended bridge in Monteverde, Costa Rica

 And the month ends in Northampton, slipping down streets and trying to find the dog under 3 feet of snow:

January is not a bad month to be on sabbatical, especially when every other day you wake up to another foot of snow knowing that your Honda hybrid would have gotten stuck on the way to work anyway.

Days #227-231: After swapping hiking boots for heels, I flew out to LA for the MLA.  Gave my first MLA presentation on a panel called "The Globalization of the Holocaust," caught up with myriad colleagues and left coast friends, and scoured the city for culinary delights unavailable in New England (namely Pinkberry and Beard Papa).  Also, I caught some great views of the Grand Canyon out the airplane window.

Days #234 and #246: Phase one of the Almodóvar Project is completed, with the viewing of La flor de mi secreto (1995) and Carne trémula (1997), both excellent mid-period Pedro films.  I was excited to discover that La flor includes, embedded in the narrative, a plot synopsis of Volver with the delightful Chus Lampreave playing essentially the same role in both movies.  Now I've seen all the early and mid-period Almodóvar films I'd missed!  Late period Almodóvar I've got covered.

Day #238: Cross country skiing!

Days #240 - 245: Eating, American style.  Meat loaf, mac and cheese, burgers, pizza and wings.  Vegetables are for losers!  Stocking up before it's all paella, paella, paella.

Day #241: I cold-emailed one of my academic idols who said he'd be "delighted" to give a keynote at next year's Five College Symposium.  Whoo!

Day #242: 6 hours on the road/6 hours in the city: a beer at Pete's Tavern, dinner at the Union Square Coffee Shop, and the Jayhawks at Webster Hall in NYC.  We make it home riding the front end of another Nor'easter. 

Day #244: Saw The King's Speech.  Reminded me of my first, disastrous conference presentation and how I overcame it to become the King of England.

Day #246: Finished Keith Richards' autobiography, Life.  Then I burned it and snorted it.

Day #250: More snow!  More X country skiing!

Days #250-252: A visit from an old friend (and certainly the most fashionable U.S. government employee I know) for a lovely weekend enjoying the sights and delights of Snowho.  A great staycation before I leave for España...

SJB baja al sur

The SJBlog will dim its lights for the next ten days as its author makes her first trip to South America, to the only country there where she can't speak the language. Yes, it's back to the overwhelming crowds at the Latin American Studies Association conference, which is a whole different ballgame than the stuffy, tense, never-exotically-located MLA conference. Unfortunately, there aren't very many panels about Spain, but I guess that would be a lot to expect, huh?

It seems that after the last time I presented at the LASA conference, in 2006, I was prescient about this moment:

In fact, I suspect that in 2009, when LASA goes to Río de Janeiro, I will once again find a pressing transatlantic issue in my research, so I can ditch the MLA and party with the Latin Americanists!

And that's what I did. My presentation is on Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican filmmaker, and his two films set during the Spanish Civil War: El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno. Most of you probably saw the latter, translated as Pan's Labyrinth. Last month, I was able to give three Guillermo del Toro newcomers a private screening with the author of "Why is Spain in the Frame? Guillermo del Toro, Mexico and Historical/Mythical Resistance," and responded to their tough questions ("Wait, is she dead?" and "Are those guys the fascists?" and "Is that really what goes on with mandrake roots?" and "So, why did he make this movie?") with, arguably, aplomb. All excellent practice for a presentation at 9am on a Sunday morning in Río which only the really hardy and hungover will attend.

Where the Elite Meet to Sound Indiscreet

Actual panel proposals culled from the 2009 MLA Conference Call for Papers:

Dogs in Art and Literature in Early Modern Europe.
Naturally, I'd bring Addison as a visual aid. She would most certainly agree to sniff everyone in attendance.

Transformative Texts: Books that Rocked the World.
If this were about Books that Rocked My World, I'd talk about how I was scandalized the first time I read Catcher in the Rye at all the f-words.

Rethinking Sex.
Not something I want to do in a room full of academics, frankly.

Romantic Climates.
Logically the above session should be paired with this one, right? I'm thinking the Bahamas... Except that "Rethinking Sex" is in Women's Studies in Language and Literature and this one is in the English Literature category, so they could be real snoozers (...with apologies to anyone in either of those fields who might take offense. But, really, lighten up!)

Eighteenth-Century Thing Theory.
I have a theory about things. But it's a 21st Century theory. Alas.

Teenaged Monsters.
aka four papers about Buffy.

Framing Ourselves: Glasses in Literary Academia.
Obviously the nerdiest frames win.

Stolen Lives: Identity Theft and Contemporary Narrative.
Social Security number and mother's maiden name required for all abstracts.

And the winner for most quintessentially self-deprecating, metatextual, annoyingly abstract and cheeky panel topic goes to:
MLA in Free-Fall: The Unbearable Hollowness of MLA Conventions
"Conceptual vacuity, lessness of theory, urge for back- to- basics in MLA papers and the dying culture of capital." Now go hit that 15th Century Germanic Literature happy hour, everyone!

Seen and Heard at the MLA

There's nothing like a few days of bleary-eyed interviews, professorial types festooned with nametags on every street corner and the welcome faces of former colleagues (well, with one exception: see below). This, my blog-friends, is the MLA (Modern Language Association) convention. Here's a taste:

• An interviewer (male) with what I can only assume was a homemade Christmas ornament dangling off his left ear, showing no restraint as he grilled me on my dissertation.
  
• "You're teaching a 50-minute intermediate language course. Today's topic is preterite and imperfect. The students have read a story before coming to class. What story would you pick and how would you teach this grammatical lesson using it? Please be specific."
  
• The 1812 Overture, as interpreted by the cell phone of the chair of another interview committee, just as I was expounding on something profound about my dissertation.
• $6 MLA tote bags -- get 'em while they last!
• At the only panel I was able to drag myself to: another stare-down from Julián, the freaky-bordering-on-psychotic former Cal grad student; an interesting paper on the Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao subway maps, given by the guy who has 'my job' at Madison; convention center carpeting that should have been replaced with the new millennium, and oddly incorporates the zig-zag from Charlie Brown's T-shirt; and a moderator with a notoriously overblown ego heckling one of the presenters on his own panel.
  
• "Would you like to sit on this chair or the chaise lounge?"
  
• Lots of suits, but not on me. I went with the skirt and sweater look this year.
• "Do you speak or read Basque?"
• A short film about Christmas celebrations in Catalonia, in which children whack a log with sticks in order to beat presents out of it (I guess), on an episode of "Teletubbies" in my hotel room. Why there isn't a panel on this custom at the conference, I just don't know. Bon nadal!
• An extraordinarily long line for free wine and snacks in the middle of the book expo. I guess the quest for free food doesn't end with graduate school.
• "Are you afraid of the Midwest?"
  

MLA updates foiled!

Well, I wanted to use this forum to post a few cheeky observations about the MLA (Modern Language Association) convention in Philadelphia, where the elite meet tout suite, but upon arrival I've discovered that it's damn near impossible to find a free wireless internet connection around here. My hotel seems to think that it's appropriate to charge an extra $12 a day (on top of their already steep room price) for the use of their internet connection, and adjoining hotels are of like mind. Luckily, after roaming the convention center for half an hour, I have found a pocket of wireless open to the public. I don't know where I am right now, but I'm online, so I must be somewhere.

Anyway, I won't be able to give timely updates, but I'll try to file away a few things to say in these brief moments of limited access to the internet, so stay tuned.