Not All Who Wander Are Lost

In a two-barber town, you go to the barber with the bad haircut. In blogging, I guess, one solicits comments. Even oracles don't look to themselves for the answers.

And so I prostrate myself before you in my quest! Slake my thirst for knowledge! Speak, O Bloggiverse!

Why does it take a two year old fifteen minutes to clean up one can of magenta play-doh?

Where did I put those CDs...you know, the newer Norah Jones, and the other Deb Talan album...probably some others with 'em, too...

Is it better to see my family at lunch every day and by 4 each evening but come home to a cramped rent-free prep school dormitory...or make slightly more, leave work at work each evening, rush home -- an hour commute -- to a tiny, mortgaged suburban cottage, and see my daughter for a single hour before her bedtime?

When did I decide to stop looking at schools too far from our parents?

How far is too far?

Why is it that all the students I most loved over the years are falling apart and dropping out -- just like I did when I was their age?

When did I become a man whose happiness depends exclusively on getting the kiddie cart at the supermarket. You know, the one with the red plastic truck built into the front. Yeah, the one your daughter keeps falling from. Into the path of oncoming old ladies whose noses are stuck in their shopping lists.

Why can't I cook fish?

When you pour an entire saucepan of chunky fish grease down the kitchen sink, where does it go?

What does the quadratic equation do again?

What am I doing wrong?

Is it Spring yet?

Why?

A satirical parody of Wikipedia, this free encyclopedia of politically incorrect non-information is equally wikified.

But satire is not as clear or as culturally agreed-upon a standard as the practical truths of the reference book. Interestingly, then, I note that, where Wikipedia "works" by gradually diverging on some sort of universal, shared truth-of-the-times, there is no such single pinnacle of order waiting for its sinister cousin the Uncyclopedia. The wildly divergent mandate -- a form of "must be funny" chaos, not order -- with which the cyberbastions are charged in the Uncyclopedia does not lend itself to consistency or stability, not in time, and not in space.

The ramifications are fascinating. What could/will a humor wiki end up being, even/especially one with parodic premise? Will the answer relate to the ways in which the community which finds humor on the web is by now broad and often fragmented into subsections, and/or the fact that the wiki concept is beginning to be open to all such groups, from highbrow to low, and even the mildly technovirginal? Will it tell us, finally, what humor is, and how it works for us, and why?

Indeed, though stillwaters notes that the site currently "has a ridiculously American college-liberal slant," there is no reason to expect the site will always slant in that way. Instead, I imagine one of an almost infinite set of possibilities, including:

This resource makes the cultural rounds, appearing gradually through various sites and spam. As new groups find out about Uncyclopedia, they come in en masse with new fervor, redefine the site in their own brand of humor, then move on.

A single community or typography colonizes the site, and manages to become entrenched enough that no one else ever bothers to visit long enough to make a difference in the community. In this scenario, the site might not retain exactly its current slant, but it would become commidified, and might or might not garner mass appeal.

Some version of the above will happen, but since some groups are more interested in some topics than others, various nodes of humor types may form. In this culture-with-subcultures model, for example, British subject matter may take on a decidedly British form of humorous delivery; similarly, Star Trek pages and Firefly pages will be equally geeky in their hilarity, but not in the exact same flavor.

None of the above -- the vandalism inherent in being silly/funny, coupled with the fact that the site has no practical purpose (as Wikipedia does) and thus need not be protected, will result in a site which is utterly destroyed most of the time.

Something entirely different but, in hindsight, equally obvious happens.

The more I think about it, the more I want to write this thesis. What would/could we learn from a host of other similar collaborative cybercontentbuilding exercises on a global scale, cyberanthropology experiments all, from hazy-subjected collabora-blogs (What is love?) to wiki newspapers for local communities (what happened?)? What can an anarchic wiki-premise tell us, and about whom? Anyone looking for a PhD candidate?

(via stillwaters)

[Update 9:31. For now, with the blush still on the rose and but a few entries up, Uncyclopedia is totally addictive. Feel free to check out one of my own pitiful entries, though by the time you get there, it may not look like that anymore, if you know what I mean. ]

While I was out looking for work, the Wall Street Journal reports that

officials from the Harvard Business School said they will reject 119
applicants who used a hacker's instructions to try to find out whether
they had been accepted by the school.

An interesting dilemma, on the surface: does the natural urge towards curiosity, coupled with the illicit capabilities of a renegade hacker, deserve such sanction?

Most young people would certainly argue that the response is way too harsh for this minor transgression -- after all, the students involved aren't the hacker, just the peekers.

But at the risk of setting up a straw man, I think Harvard not only well within their rights to decide that all prospective peekers are prospective no more, but more, that their response is absolutely appropriate in scale and scope.

First, it is sad that it takes the political and academic cache of a Harvard (or, I guess, THE Harvard) to make it clear to a generation of students that just because peeking is technologically easy, it is no less egregious than, say, real world peeking. But it is no less true for Harvard's having said it. In this case, the scenario is absolutely comparable to, upon hearing that someone had jimmied the locks at the Harvard admissions office, rushing into the physical admissions office to spy on one's own files. This is called accessory after the fact in our legal system, I believe (lawyers, anyone?).

Second, I think Harvard had to do that in order to preserve its precarious self-image as the most selective university in the universe. After all, Harvard has far too many equally and highly qualified applicants; realistically, if something like this doesn't tip kids off the scales, then neither should any other of the myriad niggling factors which currently knock applicants off the 10% short list.

But these are mere legalities. Most importantly, I support Harvard's decision exactly because the decision is perceived as over-the-top by most young people. This is a wonderfully valuable thing that Harvard has done -- because it reveals, for a generation of students, just how over-the-top our worship of places like Harvard has become, and how out of touch Harvard is with the moral realities (my own opinion and the law's opinion notwithstanding) of the actual culture of the modern adolescent.

I've said it again and again: Harvard isn't for everybody, or even for most. Its name aside, like any other school, Harvard best matches (and best serves) those students whose minds and hearts best match the way Harvard teaches. Period. It is only the "best" school for those who would most benefit from its particular style of undergrad education. A name is no substitute for a mind.

And yet in my seven years teaching prep school I have known many students who have been raised to expect Harvard, and apply knowing nothing about it, or themselves. Luckily, most of these kids get rejected. Unhappily, however, plenty get accepted and go, thus dooming themselves to someone else's best education.

At Harvard, like at so many other, lesser-known private educational institutions (trust me on this one), brand has taken over, to the point that it interferes with good education or even quality of care. (I'm not speaking out my butt here; I've been to lectures by Harvard professors on exactly this subject, including a notable session at BloggerCon2 last year.)

So hurrah for Harvard for laying bare their acceptance of such superficiality by treating the students who peeked as criminals, not as students in need of care and guidance. Anything that helps students see that the name brand is quite often not worth the educational stakes, while making it clear that Harvard students are selected based on that group's ability to perpetuate name brand cache more than anything else, is a great day in the Ivies, in my book.

I'm off looking for work in suburban New York for a day or two. Back Friday with news, good or bad; until then, as always, enjoy recently updated archives, and stay cool -- Spring is coming!

Incidentally, sorry for the light blogging this week. Yesterday's snowstorm only added pressure to an already overwhelming mound of jobsearch paperwork and finally finished end-of-term grading.

Earlier, coming out of the library, final progress reports in hand, I swatted a bamboozled fly into a muddy snowbank, stepped over a stillcold bee huddled on the drying concrete. Outside the house the maple trees drip their sweet thin tap tap tapped lifeblood steadily into tincovered buckets. Inside, my daughter coils by a cracked-open window, breathing in the breeze.

Tonight I dodge meltwater puddles up the dim lamplit campus walk, key into the deserted classroom building, fumble for lightswitches in a dark staircase. The basement radio booth is pristine, freshly cleaned by kids working off a future term's workjob by full-timing it for break.

In the morning, or maybe after lunch, more kids will come to the trees by our door, empty buckets into buckets. It will rain. The dog will jump up on the windowsill, and growl at them through the open window.

Signs of impending Spring ooze everywhere on this quiet campus, and the silence is no exception. It's Spring Break, after all. The prep school dorms are deserted, and most teachers, having finished their own grading, are off for sunnier climes.

But not me. The kids are gone, but the music goes on.

Some longer songs in there tonight -- I usually go for short and diverse, but with the kids gone I can be reasonably sure that the average listener has a longer attention span. Included the iPod shuffle posted earlier today, though not in the same order, because I wanted to hear 'em all again, and share with the universe. Decided, too, to read poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet picked out of the air for a 30 minute English teaching demo this coming Thursday -- a choice based entirely on a half-remembered love affair with the God-enamored brit in a college lit course fifteen years ago -- and now I need all the practice I can get.

Anyway. As always, playlist follows. Hope weblisteners enjoyed the show -- those who missed it should bookmark this link and remember to come back next Monday from ten to midnight EST for another stellar edition of...

Tributary 3/7/05

Skavoovie and the Epitones -- Fat Soul
Trish Murphy -- These Boots Are Made For Walking
Crowded House -- Chocolate Cake
Maroon 5 -- This Love (Kanye West Remix)
Guster -- Barrel Of A Gun
Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks -- My Cello
Phish -- Back On The Train

Poem: God's Grandeur

Los Lobos -- Bertha
Patty Griffin -- Love Throws A Line
The Afghan Whigs -- Can't Get Enough Of Your Love (Baby)
Kathleen Edwards -- One More Song The Radio Won't Like
Barenaked Ladies -- The King Of Bedside Manner
Sheryl Crow w/ Stevie Nicks -- Strong Enough

Poem: The Starlight Night

John Mayer -- Message In A Bottle
Juliana Hatfield -- Spin The Bottle
Evan Dando -- The Ballad Of El Goodo
Peter Mulvey -- Oliver's Army
Dan Zanes and Friends -- Wonderwheel
Paul Simon -- She Moves On
California Guitar Trio -- The Marsh

Poem: Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord

Alison Brown Quartet -- Mambo Banjo
Stevie Wonder -- Too High
Gillian Welch -- Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor
John Gorka -- Branching Out
Bruce Cockburn -- Going To The Country
Phish -- All Things Reconsidered
Nick Drake -- Pink Moon
Rufus Wainwright -- My Funny Valentine

You've been listening to Tributary, your ten to midnight Monday night show here on WNMH. Music, madness, and the best of Spring sent from the Connecticut River Valley foothills of the Green Mountains through the datastream -- and, finally, crammed in your ears -- every week without fail.

Though the kids are gone, the music goes on!

Tonight's special Spring Break edition of Tributary, your ten to midnight Monday night show here on WNMH, features the usual genre-mashing spectrum of familiar, new and new-to-you tunes from funk to folk, jazz to jambands, blues to bluegrass and everything in between...in addition to bedtime stories on the hour and the half hour, a weekly contest and just the right amount of inane airwave-chatter.

Tributary streams live tonight from ten to midnight EST. Set your clocks and c'mon in -- the music's fine!

More proof that my iPod can read mood and mind: In the vein of that still-ubiquitous but almost-passe meme wherein folks hit shuffle and then log the first ten things that come up, the following "best iPod shuffle experience ever" sprung unbidden from what has become a pretty even mix of 4100 (!) mp3 blog downloads and personal CD tracks.

Trish Murphy -- These Boots Are Made For Walking
California Guitar Trio -- The Marsh
Los Lobos -- Bertha
Crowded House -- Chocolate Cake
Paul Simon -- She Moves On
Gillian Welch -- Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor
Stevie Wonder -- Too High
Dan Hicks -- Cello
Kathleen Edwards -- One More Song The Radio Won't Like
The Afghan Whigs -- Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Baby

Ah, music. Four cover songs out of ten, a wide swath of genre-busting tuneage, and all is right with the world again.

Want to hear the playlist? To keep the RIAA off my back, let's say tracks are available by email request only.

Mega-phat bonus points to anyone who can identify the source of today's blogtitle.

Well, I'm back, and about to forget the trip, so I better get this down in cyberspace before I lose it completely.

Tried posting a few times from Philly, but the hotel wireless kept eating my posts, and once I got into the swing of things at the prep school placement agency faculty recruitment forum I didn't want to process too much, lest I lose my interview momentum. Too tired Saturday night to blog, and too happy to spend time with my family after too long an absence yesterday to get to it any earlier.

What follows, then, is a backtrack two-fer, as short as I can without missing the blogworthy. Enjoy!

Hit the road just before dawn for the long multi-stage trek down to Philadelphia, illicitly hardwired into the iPod (the iTrip is still dead) and smoking like a fiend. Parked at Hartford airport by 8:00, made 9:30 flight with time to spare. Got half the plane to myself -- guess there's not much demand for a midweek Hartford to Philadelphia.

Stopped at the airport info desk on a whim upon arrival, and decided to take the train in to downtown and walk from there, thus saving much cab fare throughout the week as well as avoiding that international sweat and leather cab stink. Train went nowhere near the hotel where I was staying, but came within two blocks of the hotel hosting the prep school faculty recruitment forum, so I decided to stop off there first

Good thing, too. Arriving at 11:50 after a decent walk through the financial district I discovered that, despite notification that I wasn't going to be in until 1:00, one of the schools I was interested in, a unique combo of public and boarding prep school in the midst of Maine, could only see me at noon. Off went the coat, and there I was in the hotseat.

Like all four following, the interview went well, and that's all I'm saying for now -- as previously mentioned herein, I'm trying to preserve the semi-private nature of the jobsearch process. Except to mention some harsh generalities: First, that there seem to be an awful lot of boarding schools out there that don't have housing for families, and second, that if I coached varsity basketball, I bet I could have any teaching job I wanted.

Other than a quick between-interview check-in at the four-star hotel Dad took care of, spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly through a 12 block radius, enjoying the city. Pork buns from Chinatown for lunch, a spicy andouille sausage sandwhich and belgian fries for supper from the great pub across the street, and more history than you can shake a musket at. Even found a sign marking the site of the first photo ever taken in America -- in 1830, of a school that no longer exists. Fell asleep happy at 10:30, stuffed with television.

More of the same until noon the next day -- two early interviews, a quick lunch with another NMH jobseeker, and a final 30 min chat with yet another Upper School Head, this time from mid-Pennsylvania. A philly cheesesteak (yum!) from a street vendor and a quick zip through the Franklin Institute museum's giant walk-through heart exhibit, where I bought Willow a real stethescope, and I was back on the commuter rail, still in my tie and coat, beginning my six hour plane, train, and automobile back home -- this time surrounded by the beginnings of spring break Harford (woo!).

For those interested: in all, the interviews were more like those cheesy table-hopping speed dating events than anything else, though broken up by hours of down-time. The competition was younger, mostly, and single -- which unfortunately means cheaper and easier to house in-dorm, though I'd argue that when you hire a 32 year old with a new second child you get a commitment to stick around for a while. Now it's days of follow-up letters and -- I hope -- a few calls for school visits as we enter the home stretch, so keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

Because I already wrote it, and need sleep -- the Philadelphia Report can wait until tomorrow.

Ongoing discussion over the past few weeks between Library, History and English faculty here at the prep school about teaching citation. Started in response to increasing teacher and student frustration about how to handle an ever-more-vast spectrum of media types, we've subsequently wandered into a wider discussion covering everything from the usual "MLA or Chicago" standardization concerns to more minutia-level issues concerning, for example, the infoglut that currently exists to handle missing data:

...what [says the History department Chair] if a key piece is missing (author's name, for example)? Either no single reference seems to cover every exception, or, the case or example you want is difficult to dig out of the welter of other material.

Tricky stuff. In this case, coworker and Instructional Librarian Susan weighs in on this ongoing discussion as follows:

I usually tell them to somehow indicate that the author is unknown...which at least lets the reader (of their paper) know that they "tried" to credit the author. Is this the right thing to tell them, or do you have other suggestions?

Which, naturally, allows me the prompt I need to address, holistically, The Bibliography As Medium. My response:

I was taught in college that one alphabetizes "works cited" pages by the first item, regardless of whether an author exists or not. A random selection of history books pulled from the library book sale are all consistent with that rule -- instead of Susan's take.

But that doesn't mean that Susan is wrong, and it doesn't mean that the books are wrong, either. What I think we want to remember is that Susan's comment holds the key to citation rules. They are, as I understand it, SUPPOSED to be fluid to some extent -- because different fields, different teachers, different students -- different CONTEXTS -- create different balances between the differing reasons we cite in the first place.

Let's look at what happens when we can't find the author, for example. This example currently under discussion, to take one criteria for a works cited at the high school level, balances a need for clean-looking and easy-to-follow works cited pages against the need to be able to know, as Susan says, that students have done "due diligence" in looking for an author. There are at least two possibilities, each with its own faults and benefits:

1. Susan's suggestion, which creates a context in which students work hard to find an author when it is not clear at first, and then -- under the standard flag of "academic honesty" -- leave some textual marker ("author unknown") to show that they have made their best effort to look for that information, but that to the best of their abilities and knowledge, the "author" information does not exist.

2. My own suggestion, which is consistent with the books we have in our library now, as best as I can tell. Using TITLE first when no author info is available avoids lumping one or more entries at the top of the works cited page (under "A" for "author unknown") -- a problem because I recognize a DIFFERENT and contradictory function of the works cited page as ALSO important for students and readers alike -- that function being the ability of the reader to follow up on cited works, and access them easily.

I have, in fact, been taught that the bibliography lists in information in the order it does BECAUSE that order goes from "most likely to find that info" to "least likely to be helpful in finding that info." If a student has listed a resource as being BY "author unknown," then it is harder to skim a works cited page and then go find that work that has been cited -- because, in the world of information, that information is best accessed by TITLE (because there is NO author known).

Note that neither of these is "better." But they cannot be used together.

This, then, is an example of why we get conflicting and contradictory info in different sources.

Given that: I think we may be looking for a red herring if we want outside resources to be consistent with each other. These are STYLE manuals, not rulebooks.

My opinion on this issue, then:

I think we best serve students by asking them to think about WHY we ask for works cited pages, and let them -- as a class or as individuals, depending on teacher preference -- decide how to be consistent and clear when faced with the world of exceptions.

I believe that THIS is the best way to prepare students to use works in college and beyond -- and, more importantly, to be prepared to use and understand the particular resource or style handbook of their college (and, later, their chosen field). It makes them adaptable to the real world of information in all its forms, where HOW you are writing often determines which form you use (APA or Chicago or MLA), because it helps them see WHY a field might choose to use one standard or another. In my experience, that understanding of WHY helps them "get it" faster.

More importantly, I think it also would help them figure out how best to use and cite media which as yet do not exist. Because, yes, new media - with new citation needs -- are coming at us all the time.

That said: If we want to have a schoolwide discussion about whether we want our own consistent rules, then I think we should go for it! As has happened with standards for writing itself in the Writing Across the Curriculum group, however, we may find that different departments and different teachers prefer different styles -- making a schoolwide consistent resource either moot...or only possible by fiat.

Thanks for reading all this, folks, and for indulging me the length needed to make this point.

I'll be in Philly today and tomorrow looking for work and generally just puttering around. Unless net access is free at the hotel (hah!), no blogentry for you!

When I return, an exciting post about Bibliographies as Media (really), and of course our usual Monday night radio show. Until then, recent posts and archives remain scintillating as always.

And pre-emptively, for those about to keep reading...no, I'm not depressed. I'm just ready for a vacation.

Yeah, one of those days.

My new haircut foofed up from slick to "totally unmanageable" by noon. I spent ten bucks we didn't have on resume paper only to find an unopened pack of it on my desk when I got back from the school bookstore. I spilled coffee on my favorite casual friday pants on my way in to work, slipped on the ice and slashed the lower lid of my eye on the open car door just after lunch -- I'll be the only guy at the recruitment forum with a black eye, but at least they'll remember me.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

And it doesn't look like it's going to be getting much better for a while.

Had to cancel the car reservation for the ~~meat market~~ recruitment forum in Philadelphia in order to be able to pay for the hotel room Dad reserved and thought he paid for, but didn't, and can't from Israel.

I'm spending hundreds of borrowed dollars on a trip to the city of brotherly love, for just three half-hour interviews spread over two days. And I can't afford to do anything the rest of the time -- bars and museums are just too far outside the budget.

I'll be going into the interviews wearing pants held together by a thread and a prayer.

I killed another tie trying to iron it.

I hate being broke. I hate being a total "low limbic awareness" spaz who can't keep a watch face more than a month without breaking it. I hate ADHD. I hate not knowing if I'll have a job in June. I hate that the most significant emotional response I have when I think about the baby coming in April is that there will be one more mouth I cannot feed, when I should be feeling blessed. I hate that my last full day at NMH was full of pain and frustration, when I wanted to leave this place with my head held high.

I hate that school is on break for the next two weeks. I like my work. The wife and kid go to bed at 8:30, and there's no TV at home.

I hate that I have to stay up until 12:01 to get my boarding pass online, but I have to be up by 5 to make the flight.

I'd move to Australia, but I can't even afford the guidebooks.

Also in this episode: Ozzy tries Google, but gives up after he can't use a mouse.

Thanks to awardwinning audioblog Stereogum for making me wish we had cable at the new house after all. And just when I was getting used to life off the infogrid.

True story, incidentally: in 1997, I had to teach my Sociology prof how to use a computer in order to show him the hypertextual portion of my "plan" (Marlboro College's version of an undergrad thesis). Poor guy had never seen a computer -- when I backed up all the way to "this is a mouse, it moves the pointer on the screen," he picked the mouse up and waved it in the general direction of the screen: "Like this?"

Then again, this was the same guy who resisted getting a phone in his office, too...and, when the school finally talked him into it, pulled it out of the wall a week later and returned it because "the little red light won't stop blinking."

Yeah, I know. I'm old. But at least I know what that blinking red light is for. Even if I can't remember my voice mail code to make it go away.

Hayden House, known affectionately by the boys as Motel H

Last dorm duty tonight.

The kids and the house faculty, God bless 'em, threw a cake and ice cream party at check in, listened to my almost-teary speech, gave me a book full of photos and personal messages -- my own personal yearbook -- a balloon and a book of inspirational quotes. I managed to keep from tearing up until I got 'em all in their rooms and headed out to the car, but it was close.

Seven years doing once-a-week 7-11 service for a dorm full of adolescent boys. One weekend a month, too, both Friday and Saturday night. The hallways I've stalked and walked, the kids I've caught in wrestling matches and late-night illicit booze sessions and academic despair, the adult peers and confidants I've seen come and go, the ping pong table, the solarium: I've been there longer than any of the folks at the party tonight, spent the first five of those seven in that second floor apartment right there.

No more.

Tomorrow is my last full day here at NMH. When we come back from break, I'll be on afternoon-only paternity leave until graduation.

My pitch gets wobbly when I sing the school song at assemblies.

A few Fridays ago a friend who used to teach Religion here, and is now 9th grade Dean at Cambridge School of Weston, stopped by for a visit. When I asked him how his new life was he said fine. And then an afterthought: but NMH will always haunt me.

Tonight, standing out in the stillfalling snow, crying until the dorm turned blurry, I began to know what he meant.

Even if I weren't still jobless. Even if we weren't expecting our second child in April. Even if I wasn't spending down my political capital in a vain attempt to leave this Godforsaken place better than I found it, for the children's sake.

It's going to be a long, long couple of months.

There's so many lasts to come.