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Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Special year-end-wrapup extravaganza!

That’s right, folks, this blog is officially signing off for 2004.  Today the family and I leave for Janet’s extended-family haunts in Connecticut; from there we go to the Modern Language Association convention in Philadelphia, which for me will be just chock full of so many quotidian, soul-sucking professional tasks that I might as well be attending the International Insurance Adjusters’ Convention in lovely downtown Omaha.  (I serve on the Delegate Assembly Organizing Committee and the Executive Council.  Don’t ask.  Don’t even think of asking.) And then we come back to little State College on New Year’s Eve.  Woo hoo!

So I’ll have to wish everyone a Merry Secular Solstice and Happy Pagan New Year now.  Let’s go to the wrapup!

Blog

It appears that this relentlessly annoying blog will wind up with something like 640,000 visitors in its first year of existence.  Not that I’m counting!  Honestly, I do appreciate your stopping by, and I want especially to thank Chris R., Chris C. (awesome hemp beret ballad, dude), Romy B., tc, jw, Bean, Sian, Roxanne, Mitchell, PZ, Dr. Wu, Carol, Doghouse, thehim, Ms. Not Together, random, Riggsveda, Terence, Librarian, Bellatrys, Glenn, Idelber, Emily, Amardeep, Wendy, Uncle Kvetch, Jonathan, Barry, and all my regular commenters (yes, you too, Jorge and the two Daniels– my apologies if I missed anyone) for being the very best on the web.  If I have one regret about this damn blog, it’s that I was too damn timid and/or stupid to turn on comments until May 10.  My loss.

One brief maintenance note: I learned recently that some conference organizers had been trying– and failing– to get in touch with me for a couple of weeks via the email address “michael at michaelberube.com.” Apparently, that address has not worked since this blog’s near-fatal crash on November 1.  So if anyone’s been sending me mail at that address and I haven’t replied, it’s because I never got it.  (As most of my correspondents can attest, I usually respond to email pretty quickly.  Not because I’m especially conscientious, mind you, but just because I get all weird and antsy when I have more than 30 messages in my “in” box.)

Home

On the home front, the second half of 2004 consisted of a Series of Unfortunate Events, the most recent of which involved our new oven bursting into flames about two weeks ago.  (Now who says that male academic bloggers don’t write about such things?) It turns out that we have mice– very tiny, very cute, and now (I hope) very dead mice– and that they had been stealing Lucy the Dog’s dog food and storing it under the oven floor, where it had been slowly fired into something resembling a volcanic-rock serving platter.  Our kitchen and pantry are now dotted with “glue boards,” but after one mouse inexplicably escaped from a glue board, the exterminator (after saying, “I’ve never seen that in all my years etc.”) gave us what can only be described as little glue pits into which the mice were supposed to fall face first and suffocate.  Alas, the mice fell into the glue pits sideways, expiring slowly and in great rodent-soul terror as they struggled vainly to free their doomed little bodies from the devices before one of the Bérubés– and you can just guess which one of us was assigned this job– showed up to deposit them, pit, body, soul and all, in a plastic bag and take them out to the trash.

On a happier note, Jamie is doing well in sixth grade, and seems to be the class’s resident expert on sharks.  Nick is home from Washington University in St. Louis, and we are pleased to report that he did not grow a goatee while at college.  The boys continue to rock.

Hockey

Recently a reader wrote to me– really and truly, I’m not making this up for once– and asked me when, if ever, I would get around to reporting on the NHL lockout.  I told him I couldn’t say anything that King Kaufman hadn’t already said better, but that I would be happy to update everyone on my own career– at least until DirecTV offers me a package that includes reruns of the Rangers’ 1993-94 season!  Ordinarily, as part of my Secret Other Life as a forward in the Nittany Hockey League, I play about 25-30 games a semester with my A-league team, the Centre County Misfits (CCM) and my B-league team, the Capitals (in other words, 50-60 games in a season that runs from September through April).  But thanks to our long Series of Unfortunate Events, together with Janet’s and my various academic travels, this fall I have played a mere eight games with each team.  In my four years in the NHL, this is an all-time low, and if I hadn’t played a game this past Saturday morning and two games on Sunday night, my all-time low would have been even lower.

In those sixteen games, however, I have helped CCM go 8-0 and the Capitals go 6-1-1, while scoring 12 goals and 6 assists with CCM and 17 goals, 12 assists with the Caps (who don’t really need me, having gone 14-1-2 overall).  The strangest thing is that despite my sadly diminished playing time, I actually have a semester-long goal-scoring streak in both leagues, having put the puck in the net in all eight games in both leagues thus far (my longest streak in the A league, before this, was a mere four games).  The A-league stats are reassuring, because the A-league talent gets pretty serious. Those 12 goals exceed my A-league total for all of last year, when I played 25 games and wound up with 11 goals and 8 assists– a severe dropoff from the really-not-bad 29 goals in 31 games of the 2002-03 season, a dropoff that was so dispiriting as to make me wonder whether my A-league days might be over.  (Especially since the only reason I broke 10 for the year was that I scored three in a late-season game against a weak backup goaltender.) And I have no penalty minutes in either league, so if the real NHL decides to make its many trophies available to the Nittany Hockey League in the 2004-05 season, I’m in the running for the Lady Byng.  What am I saying?  Nobody cares about the Lady Byng.  It’s much more important that in Sunday night’s doubleheader, I scored two as the Capitals defeated their archrivals, the Flatliners, 10-6, and then, mildly exhausted, scored two more as CCM beat their archrivals, the Geohabs, 4-1.  Not that I’m counting!

Of course, as ancient hockey superstition has it, scoring streaks end the minute you blog about them.  Remember what happened to Newsy Lalonde in the 1921-22 season, after four consecutive years of exceeding a goal a game– all because of his damn blog!  But it’s OK with me if the streak doesn’t survive the new year.  You know what they say– I’m just happy to be playing.  And besides, players who focus too much on scoring wind up neglecting the very things that make scoring opportunities possible– good conditioning, good forechecking, good passing.  So in 2005, I’m going to concentrate on being a better all-around player . . . and specifically on making sure that I get open for that first outlet pass out of our zone and don’t turn it over in neutral ice.  I don’t usually turn the puck over anywhere– except on the outlet pass, which I sometimes have trouble handling.  This bothers me no end, and so it must stop.

Work

I’m still plugging away at Liberal Arts, my book about what liberal-left college professors like me actually do for a living (and why every good citizen should help us defend academic freedom from the radical right’s attacks!).  Although the October 30 deadline has come and gone, I’ve been working steadily, ignoring the blog (and everything else) for the past week while completing a 15,000-word chapter.  I don’t know yet if the chapter is any good– it has to sit on the windowsill and cool for a while.

In the meantime, I’ll have a long review essay coming out in the Nation the week after next or thereabouts.  I wrote it in June, but you know how these things go– and my first draft needed some serious work in July.  The subject is affirmative action, as addressed by four more-or-less recent books.  If I recall correctly, I parse the books carefully and conclude that affirmative action is complex.  No doubt the essay will draw some fire from critics who will insist, No It Isn’t.  To which I will surely reply, Oh Yes It Is.

Res Publica

I was going to remark on the fact that Bush was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year just as events in Iraq became grisly beyond belief, but I decided that would be a cheap shot.  This blog does not take cheap shots!  This blog feels the Bush Administration’s pain for all who have lost their lives in this vitally necessary conflict, and throbs to the administration’s heartfelt desires to let the Iraqi people breathe free in elections that will doubtless bring a renaissance of political sweetness and light to the very cradle of civilization itself.  I was particularly moved by Bush’s earnest, unscripted, almost spiritual testimony on behalf of Donald Rumsfeld at his press conference on Monday.  For those of you who haven’t consulted the transcript, I have an excerpt of it here:

QUESTION: I’d like to go back to Secretary Rumsfeld. You talked about the big-picture elements of the secretary’s job, but did you find it offensive that he didn’t take the time to personally sign condolence letters to the families of troops killed in Iraq? And if so, why is that an offense that you’re willing to overlook?

BUSH:  Listen, I know how– I know Secretary Rumsfeld’s heart. I know how much he cares for the troops.  And I also know this.  No one knows what it’s like to be to the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes.  No one knows what it’s like to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies.  But Secretary Rumsfeld’s dreams– they aren’t as empty as his conscience seems to be.  I have heard the anguish in his voice and seen his eyes when we talk about the danger in Iraq and the fact that youngsters are over there in harm’s way. And he’s a good, decent man. He’s a caring fellow.

QUESTION: Exactly how caring can he be, if he’s not even signing condolence letters and he’s never admitted making a single mistake with regard to this fraudulent and obviously worse-than-counterproductive war?

BUSH: Listen– let me finish! and get that wire out of my back, goddammit!– no one knows what it’s like to feel these feelings like Secretary Rumsfeld does.  No one bites back as hard on their anger– none of his pain and woe can show through.  But, as I said before, the Secretary’s dreams are not as empty as his conscience seems to be.  He has hours, only lonely.  His love is vengeance that’s never free.  And no, I don’t really know what that last sentence means, and as I said before, I’m not going to negotiate with myself about it.  Or with you– it wouldn’t be right, it’s not the holiday spirit.  Thank you very much.

Happy second term, everyone!  Happy 2005!  And thanks again!

Posted by Michael on 12/22 at 04:21 AM
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