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Suitable for any occasion

It appears that Chris Clarke’s latest masterpiece, the graphic-novel version of What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?, has been reposted on various Internets servers without any attribution or acknowledgment.  This is a travesty—and it should remind us all that with this so-called “net neutrality” and these kids today, unscrupulous cyberpirates can take an Internet that’s not even theirs and put it into a tube where it can clog up somebody else’s Internet that’s still waiting to be made into a graphic novel.  Or, as Chris himself points out, “there was a time when you could steal images from something and then add text to them that riffed on another guy’s hard work and put the result somewhere and people would respect your property.”

Well, I’m not going to take this lying down.  I’m going to do the only thing I know how to do:  announce the arrival of another new book!

A whole box full of Rhetorical Occasions: Essays on Humans and the Humanities just arrived on my doorstep.  This book is not yet available in graphic-novel form, so if you want to find out what happens at the end, you’ll just have to go see for yourself.  I will, however, provide the table of contents here, so that you can get some general idea about which humans and humanities I talk about:

Part One: Physics

(This section is mostly about the Sokal Hoax and its aftermath.  There are smarter discussions of the hoax out there, sure, but mine is the only one in which you can find a sentence that ends with ten igneous rocks that rotate voluptuous velvet ocelots with friendly tomato juice—and a brief discussion of Dirac’s Large Numbers Hypothesis, at no extra charge.)

1.  The Sokal Hoax for Beginners
2.  The Return of Realism and the Future of Contingency
3.  Of Fine Clothes and Naked Emperors
4.  The Utility of the Arts and Humanities

Part Two: Positions

(This section is about various figures and fields in the humanities: Stanley Fish on the interpretation of interpretation, Martha Nussbaum on education and cosmopolitanism, American Studies in the Cold War and the present, and Thomas Frank’s take on cultural studies.  Mix and match!)

5.  There is Nothing Inside the Text; or, Why No One’s Heard of Wolfgang Iser
6.  Citizens of the World, Unite: Martha Nussbaum’s Plan for Cultivating Humanity
7.  American Studies without Exceptions
8.  Idolatries of the Marketplace: Thomas Frank, Cultural Studies, and the Voice of the People

Part Three: Professions

(This section consists of shorter essays on teaching, lecturing, and some distinctive features of Life on Campus.)

9.  Days of Future Past
10.  Teaching to the Six
11. Working for the U.: On the Rhetoric of “Affiliation”
12.  Dream a Little Dream
13.  Professing and Parenting
14.  Speaking of Speakers
15.  Universities Should Be Open for Business
16.  Analyze, Don’t Summarize
17.  The Top 10 Contradictory Things about Popular Culture
18.  The Elvis Costello Problem

Part Four: Politics

(From a review essay on Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country to a review essay on Paul Berman’s Terror and Liberalism and all the turmoil in between, this section consists of my essays on debates in and about the American left.)

19.  The Lefts before September 11
20.  Nation and Narration
21.  Can the Left Get Iraq Right?
22.  For a Better—and Broader—Antiwar Movement
23.  Fighting Liberals
24.  The Loyalties of American Studies

Part Five: Posts

(Essays drawn directly from this humble blog!  No fair hunting through the archives to find them here.)

25.  Azkaban Blogging
26.  Back in Les États-Unis
27.  Vacation Reading II
28.  Republican National Convention, Second Night
29.  More Plans for Democrats in Distress
30.  The Beinart Effect
31.  Theory Tuesday II
32.  Theory Tuesday III
33.  Was I Ever Wrong

Best of all, Rhetorical Occasions is endorsed by Krusty the Clown, who says, “I heartily endorse this event or product or collection of essays.”

Now, about that book cover.

It’s just asking for trouble, I know it.  I mean, it’s my great big fat looming head, which, however ghostly and gray-tinged, is still big and fat and looming.  I don’t know what to tell you, except that my initial suggestions for the cover (all of which had to do with “rhetoric” or “speaking” or “occasions” or “occupatio”) were so terrible that we eventually decided just to go with an author photo and leave it at that.  I didn’t realize, at first, that the photo would wind up being a big fat ghostly head, but I suppose it’s appropriate, since, as my family members have often remarked over the years, I do indeed have a big fat head.  (UNC Press threatened to make a bobblehead of me and label it “actual size,” and they wouldn’t have been far off, either.) But the question remains as to how many people will want to read a collection of my essays that has a great big looming ghostly me-face on the cover.  I can think of only two answers.

One is that if you buy thirty or forty copies of the book, line them up face out (literally!) on a bookshelf, and repeat the words “rhetorical occasions, rhetorical occasions, rhetorical occasions” over and over, you’ll find that you soon leave yourself utterly and travel in a trancelike state to pure objective reception of the outer world. Sounds silly and pretentiously spirituel, I know. But it worked for me.

The other is that these books are quite sturdy and provide excellent material for dart practice and pin-the-tail-on games.  The book paper, including its paper cover, meets the guidelines for permanence and durability set out by the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources and the International Darts Federation, so let fly! 

As for why I am publishing two books this fall, one close on the heels of the other: I thought we were clear on this, everyone.  This blog has made it clear time and time again that our goal is world domination by 2009, and let’s be realistic about this, all right?  There’s just no way to achieve world domination on that kind of schedule by publishing just one book at a time.

Actually, some of the essays go together quite well with What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? But then, I was tweaking the second section and rewriting much of the Sokal section (and writing the first essay entirely from scratch) in 2005 whenever I wasn’t writing Liberal Arts, so there’s no surprise there.  And just as I was finishing the book, there was some encouraging science news in the reality-based community, and then this blog found itself hosting a discussion of science-studies scholar Steve Fuller’s strange defense of Intelligent Design, to which I finally replied the day after I mailed off the manuscript of Rhetorical Occasions.  So it all makes sense somehow.

Except for the Kandinsky mural in the Student Union building.  That’s all Chris Clarke’s work, and I had nothing to do with it.

Posted by on 09/20 at 10:23 AM

  1. This is a travesty

    Or a clever way to save on bandwidth expenses. You decide!

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/20  at  11:48 AM

  2. If the book has your mug on the cover, are we soon going to see members of the PRSU-GC sell it at street corners, praising Chairman Michael?

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  11:59 AM

  3. Physics!

    I just wanted to say that.

    Posted by Sean Carroll  on  09/20  at  12:11 PM

  4. From Michael’s description of the cover, I was expecting something like the images of a white-haired, relaxed Rorty on the cover of one of his essay collections.  Only I was hoping Michael would be featured in an all-white tux, top-hat & cane, sipping some drink in a hollowedout coconut from a flex-straw, maybe with a real, Ansel-Adams-in-dayglo airbrushed tropical sunset in the background.

    But what spooked the poop out of me was the spectral image of Michael’s face on the actual book cover.  I mean, you zero in on the tilted “o” in the book’s title, your eyes shift to the stack of books (stacks like the stacks my cats like to knock down, proving that cats are very smart and just plain pissy)—and then, just as you’re about to flip to the table of contents—out of the aether, conjured like something conjured by Madam Blavatsky or by the people in that early chapter in *Gravity’s Rainbow*, full of haint, benign maybe but terrifying nonetheless—out of the *other* world, appears Michael’s face.  Boo!

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  12:53 PM

  5. OH, you make me tired!

    I am not going to write about another Berube book.

    Well… maybe not.

    And you could leave a little room for other writers… at least until 2009 comes around.

    Please?

    Posted by Aaron Barlow  on  09/20  at  01:07 PM

  6. The perspective on the stack of books suggests that they have either just issued forth from your forehead, or that this pilar of texts is just another wave of paper crashing into your reluctant skull. Either way; you look sort of put-out by the whole thing.

    Though I’m convinced a third eye in the center of your forehead would have been a nice touch, my real concern is this: is the image fading into the text or out of the text… or has it just been caught mid-haunting?

    Posted by Central Content Publisher  on  09/20  at  01:17 PM

  7. Oy, that cover.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  09/20  at  01:19 PM

  8. I’m of two minds about the cover.

    Mind #1:  I’m glad the Ghostly Heed ("Heed!  Heed!") matches the author photo, or it would be very confusing.

    Mind #2:  What, no hockey stick?  How can rhetoric exist without the threat of sweater-pulling violence?

    Separately, I was wondering how much authorial presence (ghostly or not) it takes (in an age of celebrity and branding) to affect the ability of readers to judge the actual content of essays like this.  That is:  at what point did Gore Vidal (or Wm. Buckley or Mailer or whichever example comes to mind) become a predictable brand in essay writing, the same way Stephen King became one in fiction?  And is that “brand identity” something to avoid (because readers will self-select for or against the content) or to embrace, because it possibly expands the potential audience? 

    Was this a discussion you had?  Or was it more along the lines of:  “Oh, man, my face on the COVER?”

    One note:  the books that most commonly have author photos on the covers (in my memory) are humor books, from writers like Dave Barry or Erma Bombeck.  (I choose not to analyze this thought to a conclusion of any kind.)

    Posted by MoXmas  on  09/20  at  01:44 PM

  9. Wait, you mean “suitable for any occasion” as in calla lilies?

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  01:51 PM

  10. For some reason the cover brought to mind this great site of humorous captions to some strange government terrorism graphics. (Good stuff, check out)
    Thus inspired, my ripped-off-from the-site caption is:
    “If radiation turns you into a detached ghostly head, hide behind the books and papers on your desk. No one wants to see that shit.”
    Have at it.

    The second thing that came to mind was something like this, but I think Clint needs to lose the hat.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  02:09 PM

  11. If the book has your mug on the cover, are we soon going to see members of the PRSU-GC sell it at street corners, praising Chairman Michael?

    Finally an easy question!  Yes.

    From Michael’s description of the cover, I was expecting something like the images of a white-haired, relaxed Rorty on the cover of one of his essay collections.

    Funny you should say that, Luther!  I actually suggested to UNC Press that they simply reproduce the cover of Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.  They refused.  Something to do with “copy” “right,” like I care.

    Though I’m convinced a third eye in the center of your forehead would have been a nice touch

    What third eye, CCP?  I need a second eye on that cover before I can have a third eye.

    my real concern is this: is the image fading into the text or out of the text… or has it just been caught mid-haunting?

    Wait til you get your own copy and find out that it all depends on the angle at which you hold the book!

    And is that “brand identity” something to avoid (because readers will self-select for or against the content) or to embrace, because it possibly expands the potential audience?

    Was this a discussion you had?  Or was it more along the lines of:  “Oh, man, my face on the COVER?”

    The correct answer is (b).  Compounded by the great-big-fat-looming thing.  But who knows?  Maybe I will put an end to this kind of branding.

    And Roxanne, I’ll have you know that I designed the cover of Public Access back in 1994.  After that, it’s all been up for grabs—and didn’t you agree with me that the other six proposed covers for What’s Liberal were far worse than the one I OK’d?  I believe you remarked that my backup choice looked like the cover of an OB-GYN textbook. . . .

    Anyway, UNCP did a lovely, lovely job on the book.  I’m partial to Garamond, myself.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/20  at  02:10 PM

  12. Spectral image or no, I just purchased the one remaining copy in stock at Amazon. See, you say “Jump!” and I say, “How many copies?” Er, something like that.
    captcha: did!

    Posted by ms lynch  on  09/20  at  02:34 PM

  13. What ghost head? I don’t see what everyone is talking ... DAMN! Sorry, got a little startled there. Okay, I see what you all mean.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  03:11 PM

  14. Wow, congratulations—Two books out in one month. On behalf of all your readers on the tenure track let me just say thanks. No doubt my Dean will get wind of this and wonder why I can’t put two books out in one month too.  There was a time when you could get tenure for possessing a winning smile. Then you had to have one book. Now two. Soon, after the Berube factor kicks in, it will be 24 a year. Back to curling into a fetal position in the corner of my office and weeping uncontrollably (after I purchase Rhetorical Occasions, of course).

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  03:13 PM

  15. I think JP Stormcrow has something with that second link (#10).  You are, after all, a Pale Writer.  (Groan.)

    I was also reminded of this disembodied head.  Yours has accessories, too!

    Posted by Dr. Virago  on  09/20  at  03:49 PM

  16. PS - Occupatio!

    Just wanted to say that.

    captcha word:  speak.

    Posted by Dr. Virago  on  09/20  at  03:51 PM

  17. "And Roxanne, I’ll have you know that I designed the cover of Public Access back in 1994.  After that, it’s all been up for grabs—and didn’t you agree with me that the other six proposed covers for What’s Liberal were far worse than the one I OK’d?  I believe you remarked that my backup choice looked like the cover of an OB-GYN textbook. . . .”

    Yeah, by comparison. But this one’s a real horror. The picture of you in front The Gates would be much more preferable. And you know what I think of THAT pic.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  09/20  at  03:54 PM

  18. There was a time when you could get tenure for possessing a winning smile. Then you had to have one book. Now two. Soon, after the Berube factor kicks in, it will be 24 a year.

    Books? I’m happy if I can produce two papers in a year… Michael is wrecking the curve. And I would have preferred a Cheshire Michael on the cover.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  04:02 PM

  19. But what spooked the poop out of me was the spectral image of Michael’s face on the actual book cover.

    PS - Occupatio!

    Oddly enough, these comments allude to what disturbs me most about the cover.  I look at the table of contents and think, “What a delightful book to have on hand for ‘library’ visits.” But I can’t have a book in the ‘library’ that has someone looking right out of the cover at me, and still function properly.  I suppose I could make up an alternative cover from page one of this funny TA story I just downloaded from the Internets…

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  04:10 PM

  20. And why would anyone bother to ante up for the 4-color printing of that.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  09/20  at  04:14 PM

  21. Or, as Chris himself points out, “there was a time when you could steal images from something and then add text to them that riffed on another guy’s hard work and put the result somewhere and people would respect your property.”
    Actually, i believe Larry Lessig said pretty much the same thing when he was developing and promoting Creative Commons copyrighting.  However you correctly pointed out that the failure to attribute constitutes the invalidation of the CC™.  Now is Chris suggesting stealing w/ attribution or without?? But just in case: did the Moody Blues get attribution for Chapter number nine, number nine, number nine???

    A whole box full of Rhetorical Occasions:
    But it is a book right; when it would have made an awesome box, with little drawer-like slides that reveal each of the main topics?  I suppose Chris could work on that as the form for the next graphic-novel edition, composed in all recycled product w/ additional hemp/kanaf blend.

    The book paper, including its paper cover, meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
    Or in other words, more clearcutting of the Canadian boreal forest was necessary to insure the quality of the pulp stock.  Oh well, what the “hell” (captcha).

    I’m partial to Garamond, myself.
    You and Eco. 
    Just one last thought, UC Davis is not well known for being one of the largest university campuses in the country (90% of which is ag land, sold off to developers when necessary to build new facilities).  Fortunately it is all flat and makes for the most excellent bicycling; one would hope Evan Watkins rides one.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  04:18 PM

  22. I think the trend of images on covers might be more about the need to grab hold of a real human in a modern sea of disembodied ever-competing ideas, than it is the triumph of celebrity over substance. Or is that the same thing?

    Maybe if there was a picture of George Clooney on the cover.

    (note to author: you don’t need to see a second eye; it’s suggested by our ever-present anthropomorphic imperitive… I hope)

    Posted by Central Content Publisher  on  09/20  at  04:43 PM

  23. Take a stroll through this collection and imagine what could have been with Michael’s new book: Czech book covers of the 20s and 30s

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  05:13 PM

  24. Occupatio!

    On an arbitrary but fun Friday well before the advent of the blogosphere, some friends and I sat around and made up some new rhetorical devices. My favorite was urinatio, which could be summed up thusly: “I would effortlessly refute your paltry argument right this instant if not for the unfortunate fact that I have to go to the bathroom.”

    Allows one to retire from the fray, unvictorious but unvanquished.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  05:35 PM

  25. I’ve always been fond of the good old <ei>genetrix copulatio,</i> which was of course best exemplified in Gaius’ immortal remonstration to Pompey, “Tui mater gerit calces militare.”

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/20  at  06:22 PM

  26. And now a centurion is gonna show up and make me write well-formed html tags all over the walls of the village square.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/20  at  06:25 PM

  27. I am suffering a bit of Poster’s Remorse for not even acknowledging in my comment upstream that this is great stuff before charging off on an uncharitable low comedy tangent. So let me say “This is great stuff”. And in paperback too! I belatedely realize (yay! I loathe hardbacks.  ... although for $55.00, who could resist? Nobody.)

    I liked this statement from the one blurb.
    Very often a single piece can be read productively by a lot of different audiences.
    Chris Clarke (with an assist from jfuller) is proving the truth of this even now.

    So, kinder and gentler version of my caption:
    “If radiation turns you into a detached ghostly head, hide behind the books and papers on your desk. No one wants to see that crap.”

    And the more I think about it, the hat and serape thing (cigar optional) would work for you - go playoff beard for a few days to scruff it up - and Clint’s got nuthin’ on ya. Nuthin’.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  06:36 PM

  28. There was a time when you could get tenure for possessing a winning smile. Then you had to have one book. Now two. Soon, after the Berube factor kicks in, it will be 24 a year.

    We currently have no plans to alter our tenure and promotion standards so as to require 24 books per year.  All we ask is that junior faculty produce two books during their probationary period, one of which must feature their great big fat looming ghostly head.  On the front cover.  Is that really so much to ask?

    Posted by Chris Robinson's Dean  on  09/20  at  07:44 PM

  29. I liked this statement from the one blurb:

    Very often a single piece can be read productively by a lot of different audiences.

    Glad you liked it, JP!  We decided to go with that one instead of “I very much enjoyed the Garamond” (Umberto Eco). 

    And it was very bad manners of me not to acknowledge that the stuff in your first link in comment 10 made me laugh so goddamn hard.  Between that and the graphic novel of the other book, this has been a very funny week.  And Amanda, as for urinatio . . . !

    Posted by Michael  on  09/20  at  07:53 PM

  30. Re: the “second eye” issue: I have a pretty good idea why UNCP leaves your left side to the imagination.

    You decide.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  08:50 PM

  31. You’re pathetic!  Publishing a book that simply reproduces an entire section of posts from your “blog.” No doubt it’s dripping with Blogofascism!

    Mature writers like Lee Siegel stick to serious media like magazines nobody reads anymore.  Besides, your New York Times Sunday Magazine article couldn’t carry the jockstrap of his New York Times Sunday Magazine interview.

    Has Ezra Klein’s mother every written you a fan letter? Are you aware that she wrote one to me him!

    Now I expect that all those PRSU sheep who post to this site will start attacking me.  Well, lay on, Macduff! Was uns nicht umbringt, usw.

    Posted by  on  09/20  at  09:09 PM

  32. Looming head:

    mb

    Posted by Bill Benzon  on  09/21  at  06:24 AM

  33. See the resemblance?

    masked man

    Posted by Bill Benzon  on  09/21  at  06:39 AM

  34. “I would effortlessly refute your paltry argument right this instant if not for the unfortunate fact that I have to go to the bathroom.”

    Of course, this technique requires consumate sprezzatura in order to have maximum rhetorical impact. There can be no hint of tension in the voice and one must saunter gracefully to the bathroom; no fidgeting.

    Captcha: “party” as in “it’s party time in blog Bérubé.”

    Posted by Bill Benzon  on  09/21  at  06:48 AM

  35. Well, partly for the reasons Pat suggests in those nasty hyperlinks, I was getting tired of this beard (I’ve been wearing it ever since that appendectomy sixteen months ago), but Bill has convinced me not to shave.  I’ll just get myself a mask!

    That picture (in 33) would’ve done wonders for sales.

    You’re pathetic!  Publishing a book that simply reproduces an entire section of posts from your “blog.” No doubt it’s dripping with Blogofascism!

    The curious thing is that it is dripping with Blogofascism, even though all the entries predate Siegel’s important discovery of the phenomenon.  But you’re quite wrong, sprezzatura—if that is your real name—to think that Rhetorical Occasions “simply reproduces an entire section of posts.” Wait til you see the beautiful and inspiring tale of two sisters with which we illustrated those posts!

    Posted by Michael  on  09/21  at  07:40 AM

  36. "Together, these essays are evidence that Bérubé is one of the most effective writers in the discipline."--Evan Watkins, University of California, Davis

    “normally a fulminating leftist… He has half a second thought here which should be applauded… even though he is a life-long Communist [and] cannot be ... mature, legitimate and popular...”—David Horowitz

    Posted by  on  09/21  at  08:42 AM

  37. Could have been worse:

    mb

    Posted by  on  09/21  at  08:59 AM

  38. ”...cannot be ... mature, legitimate and popular...”

    I spy a new tagline for this blog!

    Posted by Roxanne  on  09/21  at  09:05 AM

  39. <img width="200" height="123" border="0" src="http://roxanne.typepad.com/rantrave/images/raydititto.jpg" title="Raydititto" alt="Raydititto" >

    Posted by Roxanne  on  09/21  at  09:17 AM

  40. OT, but:
    http://qlipoth.blogspot.com/2006/09/antipathy-for-devil-chavezs-speech-to.html

    Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, Delivers Remarks to U.N. General Assembly, New York,
    September 20th, 2006

    HUGO CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPULIC OF VENEZUELA

    “Madam President, Excellencies, Heads of State, Heads of government and other governments’ representatives, good morning.

    First, and with all respect, I highly recommend this book by Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious intellectuals in America and the world, Chomsky. One of his most recent works: Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project). It’s an excellent work to understand what’s happened in the world in the 20th Century, what’s currently happening, and the greatest threat on this planet; the hegemonic pretention of the North American imperialism endangers the human race’s survival.

    We continue warning about this danger and calling on the very same U.S. people and the world to stop this threat, which resembles the Sword of Damocles over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but for the sake of time, I shall just leave it as a recommendation. It reads easily. It’s a very good book. I’m sure, Madam, you are familiar with it.

    (APPLAUSE)

    The book is in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German.

    I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil—the devil, himself, is right in the house.

    And the devil came here yesterday.”

    (APPLAUSE) ...

    Posted by Kalkin  on  09/21  at  09:54 AM

  41. “...cannot be ... mature, legitimate and popular...”

    I spy a new tagline for this blog!

    Oh, Roxanne, Professor Bérubé is very popular!  (RateMyProfessor is full of lying liars who lie.)

    Or does it mean that one cannot be all three of those things at once?  I could accept it, in that case (e.g., my ‘library’ remarks above were, like, totally legitimate, yet neither mature nor popular).

    And Mr./Ms. CHB Worse, I’m not sure that image would actually be worse.  At least the head is not spectral.  The ethereal nature of Professor Bérubé’s head is what qualifies the cover for genuine heebie-jeebiehood.

    And now, if you will excuse me, urinatio!*

    *One day I hope to publish the definitive history of bathroom humor, starting with the Indus Valley Civilization and backing up to today.  And yes, Mr. Clarke, HTML graffiti in Roman lavatories will be included.

    Posted by  on  09/21  at  10:01 AM

  42. When it comes to looming ghostly heads you can’t beat what happens roughly half way into this Betty Boop cartoon, “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You.” Can’t beat the sound track either.

    Posted by Bill Benzon  on  09/21  at  10:28 AM

  43. 2 books in such quick succession? Obviously an ill-disguised tribute to both the Vatican in 1978 and/or Use Your Illusion I & II.

    Posted by saltydog  on  09/21  at  11:26 AM

  44. I’m torn. Is the ghostly disembodied head more French or dangeral?

    And is it possible that the books were sneezed out of the nose?

    Posted by Orange  on  09/21  at  12:07 PM

  45. I don’t know if I’d say “fulminating” so much as “mercurial.”

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/21  at  03:10 PM

  46. I think next time the opportunity arises for a cover photo, it be more like this one for HORIZONS
    Except maybe Michael can be skating across a frozen pond in the bleakness of whiteout winter, so the ghostly apparition theme plays forward.

    Posted by  on  09/21  at  03:37 PM

  47. I don’t know if I’d say “fulminating” so much as “mercurial.”

    Coincidentally, as it turns, out, Hg(ONC)2 actually is referred to… Oh!  Ho, ho, Mr. Clarke, you’ve done it yet again.  And it’s a great parallel; Professor Bérubé is also heavy, sweet, and poisonous, with a tendency to explode if handled incorrectly.

    Posted by  on  09/21  at  04:20 PM

  48. Hey! Despite all the reviews and graphic novel versions I’ve seen, no one mentioned there was a chapter called ‘The Elvis Costello Problem’. Why didn’t you say?
    When does it come out in Blighty?

    Posted by Backword Dave  on  09/21  at  07:27 PM

  49. Please note that the captioning meme and most of the captions in the link in 10 originated in a thread on the Internet Infidels Discussion Boards:
    http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=56995&
    TheBoxSet.com takes them without attribution.

    Very minor pet peeve of mine, since I used to post on IIDB…

    Posted by Kalkin  on  09/22  at  12:26 AM

  50. I hear the National Review is selling these pajamas to protect its readers from the influence of dangerl studies:

    jammies

    But isn’t “pajama” a foreign, that is to say, heathen, word?

    Posted by Bill Benzon  on  09/22  at  12:11 PM

  51. Hey kids!  Who’s up for a Children’s Crusade?

    Posted by Michael  on  09/22  at  12:35 PM

  52. Sir:

    Are you seriously suggesting sending the children of American theocrats on a fool’s errand that culminates in most of them being sold into slavery?

    Okay, I’m in.  Reads like a metaphor for their lives anyway, assuming HeHo gets his way and purges the colleges of liberal thinking.

    Posted by  on  09/22  at  12:44 PM

  53. Are you seriously suggesting sending the children of American theocrats on a fool’s errand that culminates in most of them being sold into slavery?

    I thought we were already doing that?  The latest count of children put down, up through this year* so far, is:
    20,811 receiving the sacred purple heart upon their rosy cross chest; and
    <b> 3,037>/b> released unto their lords and saviors and whatnot off in some other than earthly realms. 

    We are doing an outstanding job in this particular crusade.

    * -captcha

    Posted by  on  09/23  at  01:31 PM

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