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Saturday, April 02, 2005

World News Tonight

In world news tonight, Illinois defeats Louisville 72-57.  In a related story, the blogger known as corndog owes me a can of something authentic.  As he said in comments on March 31 at 2:44 pm:

I’ll bet you a can of authentic Kentucky Burgoo against whatever soybean/corn abomination is considered native south-central Illinois cuisine that the innocuous but dangerous UL Cardinals defeat the Fighting Illini.

Y’see, corndog, “I’ll bet you” is one of them what-we-call “performative utterances,” and I’ll tell you what—that means I don’t have to whip you up any of Champaign’s distinctive east central Illinois ethanol casserole.  Au contraire, I stand ready to receive my can of authentic Kentucky Burgoo, whatever it is.

Next victim:  the erudite and cosmopolitan Idelber Avelar, who, for reasons that remain obscure to me, stopped by later on the 31st to say:

How about a 6 CD-R, 120-song homemade compilation of Brazilian music against signed copies of The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies and Life as We Know It (I’ve read and love the latter but don’t own it) that the Heels will slaughter the Illini by a double-digit lead on Monday night?

I’m thinking, that’s so cool!  I’m gonna get me a 6 CD-R compilation!  Now, just how long will it take me to learn all 120 songs?

Go Illini!  You play better without that nasty Chief, too.  After all, you can’t argue with 63 percent shooting in the second half.

Posted by Michael on 04/02 at 08:13 PM
(28) Comments • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, April 01, 2005

World Nut Doily?

Something very strange has happened to The American Street.  I insist that you go look for yourself.

Posted by Michael on 04/01 at 02:31 PM
(9) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

More from Houston

It’s been a long week and I’m tired of typing.  On top of all this here blogging, I wrote an essay with Janet for this Sunday’s Boston Globe, and I’m going over the page proofs for an essay on “Disability and Narrative” that’s slated for the next issue of PMLA (look for it at your local newsstand!).  So enough verbiage already—it’s time for some pictures!

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Here’s Jamie on the balcony of our room at Houston’s Warwick Hotel, overlooking the Museum of Fine Arts.

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In the Reptile House.  Jamie and I have a little routine with behemoth pythons like these guys.  I freeze in terror and say, “pythons!” He says, “Michael”—I have been “Michael” for about a year now—“don’t be scared.” I point at them with a trembling hand and say, “but they would squeeze me like a balloon,” and he says, “they will not squeeze you like a balloon—there, there,” patting my head.  He thinks this is really funny.  We have versions of this routine for great white sharks, tarantulas, and the dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

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Chameleons are cool.


What’s this doing here?  Well, I just got my first sales report from Blackwell, and it appears that some of you haven’t bought your copy yet.  (Yes, I’m looking at you.) It’s so easy, too!  They’re still for sale right here.  Each one comes with a defense of the formal analysis of works of art; an argument that subcultural analysis has long been interested in the aesthetics of social forms even if it doesn’t always put it that way; a critique of the idea that the primary task of cultural studies is to determine a work’s place in the War of Position; a series of essays on the role of evaluation in popular culture; and this colorful cover, a detail from Liza Lou‘s Kitchen.  Something for the whole family!  (And my thanks to David Banash for a very nice review.)

Have a fun weekend and a fine April Fool’s Day, everyone.

Posted by Michael on 04/01 at 07:59 AM
Jamie • (4) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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