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To AKMA's Seabury-Western Home Page Email me at Seabury AUTHENTICITY PREMISES Voice, Authenticity, Style, Politics Faculty and Administration of the University of Blogaria  Prof. of Hyperlinked Humanities, Primus Inter Pares David Weinberger Provost and Vice Chancellor of Imaginary Affairs Frank Paynter Wealth Bondage Registrar Halley Suitt Dean of Memetic Engineering and Reader of Thoughts Kevin Marks Research Professor of Markup Cryptology Phil Ringnalda Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon Foundation Professor of Early Japanese Literature Jonathan Delacour Abraham J. Simpson Chair of Desultory Conjecture Steve Himmer Clued Professor of Micro-journalism and Women's Studies Jeneane Sessum Prof. of Digital Psychometry Eric Norlin Christopher Locke Prof. of Comparative Kim Novak Ray Davis Ho Chi Minh Chair in Vietnamese Studies & American Poetry Joseph Duemer Section 508 Prof. of Web Accesibility and Useability Mark Pilgrim Professor of Haemophagy and Laputan Linguistics Naomi Chana Harley Davidson Saddle of Comparative Literature Tom Matrullo Prof. of Melanesian Hermeneutics Alex Golub Prof. of Linguistics Dorothea Salo Zimmerman Professor of Music and Poetics Mike Golby Senior Lecturer in Tlonian Area Studies and Chaplain A. K. M. Adam Szarkowski Chair of Photography Jeff Ward Prof. of Analytic Philosophy and Korean Area Studies Stavros Alfred E. Newman Foundation Chair in International Blogging Relations Shelley Powers Prof. of Gluation and Scissorology Mark Woods Professor of Folklore & Mythology Renee Perlmutter Crone-in-Residence, Purveyor of Eclectic Mysticism and Professor of Rhetorical Ritual Elaine de Kalilily Prof. of Fractured Philosophy Tom Shugart Director of Music, Blogaria School of Divinity Tripp Hudgins House Band Shannon Campbell Audio-Visual Guy Josiah Adam Campus Cat Dizzy, at Allan Moult's place DAILY BLOGS The Usual Posse Doc Searls Dave Rogers Victor Echo Zulu Gary Turner Textism Jordon Cooper Elke (Sisco) Zimmermann sacra doctrina Mike Sanders ZINES The Ekklesia Project Fellowship 
Member of the JOHO Curling Team  
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Saturday, August 03, 2002 ( 10:30 PM ) No RivalriesTripp who?Say, perhaps we can get somewhere if we both agree that Martha Stewart must be a Presbyterian. . . . ( 10:21 PM ) Greetings from. . . ClevelandMargaret and I have taken these days to come to the annual conference of the Catholic Biblical Association, meeting this year at John Carroll University in the metro Cleveland area. We arrived in Cleveland at nnon after a satisfactory plane, arrived at JCU at 2:30 after a vexingly long subway trip out to John Carroll (at the opposite extreme end of the city, from west side to east) (but it was only $1.50) (but that didn't console A. J. Levine, friend and colleague at Vanderbilt University, who wound up arriving late for a 2:00 meeting), a somewhat sparse dinner (not vegetarian-centric), a lecture by CBA president Francis Moloney, which lecture featured a Power- presentation (it was -Pointless). Usually there’s a terrific social hour at the end of a CBA day, but tonight’s social had a coffee+liquors theme, and neither Margaret nor I drinks those, so we came back to our dorm room (nearest women’s bathroom = measured in statute miles), ate some pistachio nuts, and now I’m blogging.We met some of our publishing pals at the book display—the really interesting part of any conference—which reminded me that I still hadn’t posted a picture from the Ekklesia Project conference in June. Jim Tedrick from Wipf and Stock found a Seattle Mariners bobble-head doll and customized it to look like Stanley Hauerwas, identified in Time Magazine as “America’s Best Theologian” in last September’s “Best-of” issue. Apart from the fact that Stan is a Cubs (and Durham Bulls) fan of long standing, it’s an amazing accomplishment: Not listening to music tonight, so no Dave Rogers Music Alert. Permalink -Main Page- Friday, August 02, 2002 ( 10:29 AM ) Days of Past FuturesNate (no blog) and his online friends have discovered the joys of electronic translation games. They’re concentrating on English-to-German, then German-back-to-English translations of song lyrics, and Nate delightedly transmits to me a favorite:There is a lady, who is safe that everything, which is gold sparkles and the stairway buys it to the sky.(Nate’s been revelling not only in Fatboy Slim lately, but also Led Zeppelin; we’re sending him to Eastman to study music theory, but I’ve successfully implanted some appreciation of the finer things in life.) I’m surprised that Nate isn’t using Altavista to derive impromptu translations of opera libretti. To return to a topic on which I’ve divagated before, Philip K. Dick anticipated this pastime in Galactic Pot-Healer (if not also in other works—he repeated himself often, as might be expected of a writer who forced out as vast a body of writing in as little time as he did). As best I recall, the protagonist, Joe Fernwright, trades computer-generated translations of movie titles with a colleague in Russia or Japan. GP-H is one of the titles I sold off in my massive de-acquisitioning of Dick’s novels, so I can’t check this easily. Anyway, PKD was there thirty or forty years ago, anticipating cultural memes as well as political maneuvers such as “pre-emptive self-defense.” DRMA: “Happy,” Kirsty MacColl; “Sleeping on the Roof,” Flaming Lips; “The Reels,” Black 47; “When You’re Ready,” the Roches. ( 9:18 AM ) Home Economics of DivisionSad to say, Tripp seems determined to set laborer against laborer in a way that only ever breaks down solidarity among workers and clouds the weightier issues that impinge on all who toil. He pushes further in his lamentably retrogressive household politics, according higher status to laundry workers than to dishwashers. Worse still, he aggravates this deplorable stance by identifying laundry labor with “real men,” invoking invidious gender role hierarchies, and supporting macho masculine stereotypes. And he characterizes Jonathon Delacour, David Salo, Jason Kottke and me as “little woosey men” [sic; I think you mean “wussy,” right, Tripp? And it’s “Martha Stewart”—or do real men not care about spelling?] who are feminized by the use of “silly little specialized tools.”So let’s get this clear, Tripp (I will not invoke your entire class-overdetermined name, with its numerical appendage): No kind of work in the household of God intrinsically merits boasting, so long as it benefits others (not just oneself); no characteristics of labor especially befit men or women, nor are particular sorts of work uniquely appropriate to real men. 〈denominational ribbing alert〉Oh, but I forgot, Tripp—you’re a Baptist. You believe in things like “men’s roles.”〈/denominational ribbing alert〉 By the way—I do laundry here, too. Mostly my own; I’m not hip enough to what kinds of Margaret’s clothes go through which separate cycles (or which don’t go through the dryer). But I wash Margaret’s plain old “AKMA can’t ruin these” clothes when she needs a hand. DRMA: “Buzz Fledderjon,” Tom Waits; “Mr. Me,” They Might Be Giants; “Someone Bigger Than You or I,” Marion Williams; “Mama’s Opry,” Iris Dement; “Lord Will Make a Way,” Mighty Sam McLain; “Soul Kitchen,” X; “Cheap Sunglasses, ” Z Z Top; “Go To Sleep Alone” Jimmie Dale Gilmore; “You Can’t Hurry Love,” the Supremes; “Private Universe,” Crowded House. Permalink -Main Page- ( 7:29 AM ) Left in the LurchThanks, Doc, for identifying me as a “Lefty Blogger.” Like Doc, I don’t feel satisfied by any labels—I have some theological convictions that would get me kicked out of most true left-wing organizations (or at least kept out of any position of responsibility), but if we’re obliged to locate ourselves on a linear spectrum, left is certainly where I’d want to be. (I was a little concerned when, a while back, someone described my blog as reflecting real “compassionate conservatism.” I can hear that as praise, but it still makes me a little nervous.) (Edit: Ryan Irelan stepped forward to identify himself as the blogger who wrote, "Unlike George W. Bush and his Republican yahoos, A.K.M. really is a compassionate conservative in my view - and I mean that in the best of all possible ways." As the context makes clear, and as Ryan and I have emphasized in correspondence, that’s a neat compliment. And I’d like to have lunch, or coffee, with those characters too, especially if Ryan joined us.)I was raised in the thick of the peace and civil rights movements, with a strong labor consciousness; “Joe Hill” and “John Henry” weren’t just songs, but childhood heroes. My adherence to peaceableness as a defining characteristic of human social life drives me further left than most contemporary “liberals,” too. I’m not hopeful about any political process—it’s hard to overestimate the extent to which most US politicians show themselves tractable when someone waves money in front of them. I mean no disrespect; I’m simply looking at voting records. On that criterion, the American liberal politician as a species drives me batty; I’d rather be identified as just about anything than “liberal.” If one has to live as a label, call me a “theological anarchist.” DRMA: “Summertime Blues,” Eddie Cochran; —“Can’t Stop Killing You,” Kirsty MacColl; “Blues Instrumental,” Big Bill Broonzy; “White Teeth,” the Beautiful South; “Fake Out in Buenos Aires,” They Might Be Giants; “I Don’t Like Mondays,” the Boomtown Rats; “John the Revelator,” Beck; “Shangri-La,” the Kinks. Permalink -Main Page- Thursday, August 01, 2002 ( 10:10 PM ) OS X First ImpressionsI tend to be a late adopter when it comes to OS changes. I usually have machines that lag behind the bleeding-edge power required effectively to run new versions of the OS. New OSes notoriously need debugging that I’m happy to leave to others. And I’m a creature of habit, such that I want the OS to hide from me, not shout at me.So I just got around to test-driving OS X for the last two days, and I have to say I like a lot about it. The file directory system will drive me nuts, and the way that the system wants to decide for you where certain files file belong, these frustrate me—but I expect I’ll adapt gradually. The Aqua interface is quite lovely, and was pretty fast on the PowerBook I was test-driving. I do miss lots of the familiar points. I don’t want to have to go look somewhere to find out how much diskspace is left on my drive. The Dock occludes the the bottom of the screen, which I actually like to use for open documents (silly me!), and even when you hide the Dock, it sneaks out if you stray too far south. The icons that jump to get your attention are—well—some people will hate them, but they amused me. I’ll miss it till I get my real new computer, and it’s frustrating to spend the next week looking out for OS X goodies while not being able to use them, but this was a good orientation visit.X will be welcome when it arrives next week, and will be even more welcome when Jaguar comes. ( 9:06 AM ) Digital Reproduction ManagementI greatly appreciate the Norlin-Marks Auseinandersetzung at mediAgora, but my particular interest in this area concerns the ways in which our habits from the print-and-vinyl economy constrict our vision of what's possible and perhaps inevitable in the digital economy. My interest develops not only from a junkie’s hunger for easily-available music and literature (I suppose I'll get het up about digital video someday, but not yet), but also from attention to the broader economic consequences of locking a nation’s or region’s system of transactions into an artifically constricted model. If the US and EU adopt strong DRM policies and Malaysia (let’s say) doesn’t, the giants may be swamped by waves that the less-fettered economic environment generates.I’m no American historian, but don’t I recall that one of the elements in the US’s rise to international prominence came precisely from the relative fluidity of its economic and social structures at a time when industrial capitalism made possible tremendously efficient new configurations of production, transportation, finance, and exploitation? How many people want to consign Euro-America to the status of has-been economic engine in order to perpetuate property, labor, investment and class institutions from an obsolescent social context? Not to beat up on Microsoft (however tempting that may be), but simply to take it as the pre-eminent example of a technological-economic power broker, even Microsoft can’t beat “free.” If someone in Kuala Lumpur (or Calcutta or Cape Town or Auckland) produces software and hardware that make possible electronic transactions that aren’t possible in Los Angeles, London, Berlin, and Tokyo, don’t you think there’ll be a massive interest in obtaining Malaysian computers? How much economic energy do we want to commit to policing our borders against computers that do what computers actually do very well, unless you construct limitations on them? “Excuse me, ma’am, I have to examine your motherboard. . . .” DRMA: I’m not listening to music just now, but NPR’s Morning Edition. Permalink -Main Page- Wednesday, July 31, 2002 ( 10:57 PM ) Dishes or Towels?Tripp protests that his laundry marathon should eclipse my dishwashing (and others'!) for Blogarian renown. Shucks, that’s okay with me—if Tripp really thinks that laundry should elbow dishes out of the spotlight, why we dishwashers are a classy enough bunch to move aside. And hey, if the screaming fans and autograph hounds follow the glamorous sudsmongers wielding Dishmatiques, then that’s just the vox populi.Joe: tell us how to tell bad poetry from good, and make the connection to theology. This will be excellent. Si compares his online gig at UBlog with his day job at Seabury—and UBlog comes out pretty well. Thanks, kid! And just in time for orientation at Seabury: Sex in the Seminary (the long way round, courtesy of stavrostwc). There was another copyright article in there somewhere, bu tI lost it. That means it’s bedtime. ( 10:42 PM ) Take That, Hilary RosenAt a certain point, these stories become redundant; how many times do people have to demonstrate that file-trading doesn’t put musicians out of work? Today, Wilco (thanks, Margaret) and the somewhat less-well-known Brobdingnagian Bards (thanks, Jenny) testify that mp3s do not kill the market for packaged recordings of music.I have yet to see reason to think that the Industries are not nearly so afraid of losing money to digital media as they are utterly terrified of changing their business models. Napster or no, they’ll make their thirty pieces of silver, and pass along the pence to the musicians. If they have to change business as usual, though, they may have to come up with something other than the present thinly-disguised payola system, and devising something new involves a risk of failure (for which even a music industry executive might be held responsible). Tuesday, July 30, 2002 ( 11:54 PM ) What’s Goin’ OnThis address has been a shade less active than usual the last few days, in part because we’ve been trying to keep a firm hand on the rudder at home since Margaret came home from her travels with an enlarged thyroid—a really enlarged thyroid. When we took her in for tests last week, the lab called up her doctor in the middle of the night, and the doctor called in a prescription immediately and arranged for us to see a top local endocrinologist.Anyway, it turns out that Margaret does indeed have Grave’s disease. That’s not a huge problem, though the scale of the problem seems to have been unusual. The catch for us is that it’s her second autoimmune problem; she also has celiac sprue, a disease of the digestive system. Our endocrinologist suggested that having two autoimmune diseases did raise the odds—and the stakes—relative to other possible breakdowns. Again, thyroid problems are very common, affecting about one in ten people (the vast preponderance of them women). We can manage this. It’s the looking over our shoulders at whatever else might be happening that gets spooky. ( 11:43 PM ) Trend-setter at the SinkYeah, sure now everybody’s blogging about doing dishes. Well, I don’t begrudge you all the pleasure of writing out the ecstatic buzz one derives from that last spray of rinsewater around the sink; once you get the excitement of the post-purification euphoria, it’s tough to kick the habit. Myself, I washed up after we hosted dinner for nine this evening—though I shared the joy with Jennifer, on whom I have to keep a watchful eye lest she usurp my joy in cleansing.’Specially now that she’s experienced the joy of a Dishmatique. Monday, July 29, 2002 ( 2:29 PM ) On SafireIn my vanity, I was vexed that William Safire didn’t mention “Blogaria.” Margaret pointed out that he’s clearly not really in tune with the online world. . . .Permalink -Main Page- ( 7:55 AM ) Next Year’s Summer BlockbusterA smooth-talking African-American convict escapes from jail and embarks on a quest to track down the mysterious head of a racist transnational corporation who stole the affections of his wife by means of hypnotic drugs. Along the way, he and his companions encounter a variety of characters drawn from classical mythology and early-70’s blaxploitation movies. A funky soundtrack featuring urban roots music will underscore the outrageous plot, the eccentric characters, and the gently insistent political undertones of the film.Title: “Undercover Brother, Where Art Thou?” Sunday, July 28, 2002 ( 11:26 PM ) Minority Report ReportBefore I get to the movie, I will observe that the trip to Gurnee went all right this morning. It’s a pretty high-church parish (the Rev. Edgar Wells was once their rector) which suits me just right, but as is so often the case with high-church parishes, they weren’t entirely prepared to communicate their particular liturgical observances with a hit-and-run priest. Everything went fine, but not perfectly. The sermon was well received.After I collapsed in a heap to nap for the afternoon, I went to the store for Margaret, ate a delicious dinner of gluten-free quiche (with a crust you could never tell was gluten-free if you didn't already know), washed dishes, and then we headed to the Evanston Megaplex (which is why I haven’t had time to blog today). The movie does an excellent job of keeping your adrenalin pumping steadily enough to divert attention from the plot holes, which are probably not so much “holes” as the inevitable problems that arise in change-the-course-of-time plots. Tom Cruise was no more irritating than usual, and the other players actually acted. The overtones of the Patriot Act sounded clearly, to my satisfaction. What I most liked about the movie, though, was that it took the premise from Philip K Dick’s story and fleshed it out richly, strengthening a number of elements that often remain thin in Dick’s fiction, and also retained some very Dickian touches (the absolutely intolerable advertisements that call out your name as you pass were spot on--though as Nate pointed out, in Dick’s fiction they would never have been shilling for actual companies). On the other hand, the particular ending brought too glib a Hollywood resolution to Dick’s vision; I don’t remember that kind of ending from his story (though I have terrible recall of individual works of his, so I may just be confused). In all, a good job and worth having seen. And I was glad to be making some kind of contribution to the Dick estate—though I’d rather have put the money into the pocket of the writer when he was living. I used to haunt bookstores to get copies of everything of his I could find, every edition of every book; I sold my collection off at Books Do Furnish a Room in Durham when I decided that a Philip K. Dick collection was too costly, too space-intensive, and too idiosyncratic a hobby for me. DRMA: “There’s a Touch,” the Proclaimers (the acoustic version from their website); “Highway Patrolman,” Dar Williams; “Repo Man,” Iggy Pop (nice random juxtaposition); “Carry Me Away,” Indigo Girls; “Round Midnight,” Miles Davis; “No Love for Free,” Joan Armatrading. Permalink -Main Page- All times are local. Local times may vary. Minutes do not expire. A. K. M. Adam That which we have not yet bothered to imagine is not therefore impossible. |
He seems like a nice guy. Has he written any books? Would he come speak to us?
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