I won't bore everyone with details of my New Year's Eve celebration (seriously: it's boring), but I will say that this year it included watching Elvis Costello on Austin City Limits. I don't know. After three and a half days of MLA saturation, I was exhausted. The MLA always reminds me that I actually like academia. I like the idea that you can research discursive strategies of Victorian dress styles mentioned in the Brontes and at least three other people will sit in a room to listen to your analysis.
Academia has the problems that plague the rest of the world population: a fair number of pompous assholes, careerist opportunists, impotent handwringing, and incompetent individuals. However, it also has committed individuals and brilliant analysts and provides hope that one day I too can be paid to read books and talk about them (and not in some glib way like a talk show host - who is generally paid to read a staffer's gloss of the book and pretend he/she has read it).
Speaking of books, the final day of the MLA was a frenzied search for bargain books, as publishers strove to unload all their floor samples so they wouldn't have to box them up and take them home with them. I found out that the hotel charged $90 for a hotel staffer to move a box of books from the exhibit hall to the shipping area. What a racket. I'm willing to bet the hotel staffer got to see about $2.00 of that charge. I was holding out for Grove to drop their prices to $2 bucks a book, but they stood firm at $3, so I only bought one: two novels in one binding by Robbe-Grillet. I did manage to snap up two texts from the Continuum series "Live Theory" for $5 bucks each.
For the first time at the MLA I saw the "Ayn Rand Institute" hawking their cult leader's relatively sparse output: The Fountainhead, Anthem, Atlas Shrugged. The new editions have beautiful, simple covers. However, that doesn't change the fact that inside those new covers the text remains pure shit. In a deliciously ironic moment, it appeared to me on Friday that the Randians were giving away (yes! for FREE as in "Free Lunch") stacks of the books. Even more delicious was that no one was taking them ("no one" meaning that huge stacks remained at the end). I suppose next year I'll see the Scientologists there hawking Dianetics.
Next year the MLA is in Philly. With any luck (OK, if you have to go to Philly already you're out of luck), I'll be there "on the market" as they say.
5 comments:
You should totally be one of those people with a great job. I'd take your classes.
I'm with MA. I'd love to sit and listen to you expound.
In the meantime, I'm looking into setting up a "Budget Book-mover" company in Philly. I think I'll charge a mere $45 per box. And I'll pay my workers a civil $5.00 per box, at least.
Will you go to Philly or is that too much of a pain in the neck?
MA and CCG: thanks for the endorsements. I will probably go to Philly since it's only a few hours away, but who knows what will be happening by December 2006.
I heart academia, but have to agree with your description of academics. I think that is pretty fair.
Happy New Year!
Roaring with laughter at "pure shit" comment.
Post a Comment