Friday, October 10, 2003

Brevity*

I always fancied myself an absent-minded professorial type, but have recently been rethinking. Is there such thing as a mad social scientist?

Also, don't tape your students to the chalkboard. And does it matter what kind of tape was used? Stupid CNN.

I've come to realize that cyberspeak is perhaps the first language to evolve on a global scale. I've got kids who know how to cc without knowing what it stands for, and a walk down the dorm during study hall shows the same acronymic, emoticonic shortform of cybserspeak creeping into both asian character and western language IM sessions. I sure hope someone out there is making "so what does it all mean" their life's work for that one, because I sure as heck don't have time.

Tomorrow, my parents will be in the audience at a live taping of A Prairie Home Companion. If you listen real close to your local NPR station, you might hear applause that sounds like mine, except a generation older. If you live in St. Paul, keep an eye out for a guy that looks like me, except with shorter hair and a little bit more grey in the beard.

Now that shorts are becoming shorter from top AND bottom, at what point does it become sexual harrassment to actually see my students wearing them?

Libraries are nice. Shifted Librarian blogs are moreso.

*Brevity is one of my favorite words, partially because of the inherent semiotic connection in most minds with levity. I actually shot myself in the foot years ago by putting this word, and only this word, in a space on the Vassar College application when asked to "please list some of your best qualities and attributes."

posted by boyhowdy | 1:09 PM |

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