July 6, 2010
Not Exactly "A Rose for Emily"
This woman had them (her husband and her TWIN) exhumed and brought home!!
Don't go blaming the gothic South for this one - she's from Pennsylvania!
Click here for Faulkner.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:49 PM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2010
There's a stain in my notebook / Where your coffee cup was
So, Shelton - should I move to Nashville? Think Luke could get me a job?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:22 PM | Comments (1)
January 3, 2010
A Museum of Modern Art - in Charlotte. In 2009.
Someday the use of capital-M Modern to describe 1900-1980 (or so) will end, but not yet.
A new museum dedicated to showing Modern art opened the other day in Charlotte, NC - the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art (their own site). Here's a blog story about the collection. This family collection was held in Switzerland until now.
The building is by Mario Botta and looks interesting. The big Niki de St. Phalle sculpture outside is the most - um - grounded firebird I've seen. I found a photo on flickr - the poster there suggested that some locals call it the Disco Chicken.
This will certainly be worth a visit if you're in Charlotte; we'll hear, eventually, if it's worth a side trip.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)
January 2, 2010
Time to head back to Upstate New York?
Well when the snowflakes start drifting from the sky in the 37405, maybe my warmer winter break is over. I leave Monday. The snow is far too leisurely to be called a flurry, even, but it's under freezing. Of course, weatherbug tells me that it's 14 in Geneva right now, so I'm in no rush!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:11 AM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2009
And...OFF!
What an exam week! I just posted the grades for European Studies 101. I'm waiting for some last bits* of Early Medieval to trickle in, but I can do that via email.
I'm off to a wedding in Florida and then to Chattanooga!
*Saturday morning: Is it a bad sign that no one who said "I'll go right back to my dorm and send you..." sent me anything?
*Monday morning: Well, two out of three delinquents turning stuff in isn't bad. Final grades are due today, so as soon as I get home to the parents' I'll check one last time for those Bible homeworks, and then it's a zero.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:20 PM | Comments (2)
November 16, 2009
Rice Stadium - attendance defeat!
My university - 2,400 students in my day - has a stadium that seats 72,000. Yes, 3 zeros.
They have given up on ever filling the end zones.
Click on the picture to go to my flickr stream - there were great banners on the concourses - on one side they had photos of famous football players. On the reverse, Nobel prize winners. That's Rice for you.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:17 PM | Comments (5)
November 13, 2009
And arrived...
at the lovely Hotel Za Za - formerly the Warwick! Someone once told me that Frank Sinatra thought the view of Rice and Herman Park from the top floor bar at the Warwick rivaled anything in the world. I'll see.
I need to dash - a carfull of ladies from my past is picking me up in moments to start the mad social whirl.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:38 PM | Comments (4)
October 15, 2009
Obama insists he's just getting started...
NEW ORLEANS - Insisting he's "just getting started," President Barack Obama defended his administration Thursday against complaints from some residents of the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast that federal help in recovering from the 2005 disasters hasn't improved much since he took office."We've got a long way to go but we've made progress," Obama told a town hall at the University of New Orleans. "We're working as hard as we can and as quickly as we can."
As a candidate, Obama criticized former President George W. Bush's response to Katrina, when the government showed up late and unprepared and the Federal Emergency Management Agency became the object of widespread scorn.
Oh - I forget, he's Not-Bush.
"I expected as much from the Bush administration, but why are we still being nickeled and dimed in our recovery?" the man asked.
Yeah, yeah - vote for Hope and Change and what do you get? You get to keep hoping for change.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:33 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2009
How long do people who specialize in RIGHT NOW need to read a book?
I find it odd that the only two mentions on Cliopatria, the History News Network blog, of the Taylor Branch/Bill Clinton interview book are published reviews. I mean, come on. Tell us what you think! Isn't it interesting that he was giving these private interviews to one historian and denying the rest of you access?? Any ideas of what this means to the profession?
What I've read on the web makes me eager to run into the president of my Colleges in a private corner to ask what he thinks.
Further - Ralph Luker responds and I thank him for the insight.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2009
Omigosh
Less than 2 months until my 25th Rice reunion. I guess I should make hotel reservations (thanks, for the pointer Grayson!) and start building a playlist.
The problem, of course, is that we have very little class identity. Really, Rice should rotate on a regular basis among the Colleges - say have Hanszen and Baker in year 1, Weiss and Sid in year 2, all those unknown new colleges in year 3, etc.
I have much more in common with a Hanszenite from 1965 than Weissman from 1984. And isn't Reunion about shared references, shared love, and fundraising? Cater to us!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:12 PM | Comments (1)
September 1, 2009
I am happy to be a native Tennesseean . . .
I am happy to be a native Tennesseean - and stories like this make me wish I were more than ancestrally or residually a West Tennesseean. If I lived in Memphis, I'd be tempted to vote for Prince Mongo.
Be sure to enlarge the picture after you click.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:27 PM | Comments (3)
August 16, 2009
New Uses for Kudzu!
Somehow this seems less vital than the headline - extract of kudzu reduces alcoholic cravings in rats. Southerners just want it to all VANISH.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:02 AM | Comments (2)
July 20, 2009
Anniversary of a Moon Landing?
Time for massive Moon Pies! Yes, from the Chattanooga Bakery.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:39 PM | Comments (3)
July 13, 2009
Off to the beach!
I'm in transit to the beach and blogging in mid-air - thanks to a promotional coupon for Gogo Inflight Internet. Fun, fun!
I haven't been to a beach for the sake of, you know, beachiness, in a long time. My idea of a vacation is usually a city, after all. But I'm joining family friends - an I'm sure the Redneck Riviera will be lots of fun.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:49 AM | Comments (2)
June 30, 2009
May in Chattanooga
I have been flickr averse lately for some reason - I still have piles of things to post from Europe (all of Torino, Dusseldorf and Essen). Things have gotten out of order -- but this is one of the better photographs I've taken lately: coral bells in my parents' backyard, early May.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:52 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2009
Weirder and weirder - they've found the body of the UGa Killer Professor
What on earth? They found his naked body buried in the woods.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:41 PM | Comments (3)
February 9, 2009
Pretending to be a Covered Muslima in Arab, Alabama
And surprised that people smiled at her. Bet they offered her sweet tea, too.
You know, the gullibility of people conducting what passes for experimental social 'science' never ceases to amaze me.
Of course everyone was sweet to her - it's Arab. That's where my mother was raised! They're all sweet, even some of our family who aren't so very nice.
Driving around in America and having people not be ugly to you because you're dressed funny does not mean they tolerate or fail to tolerate Muslims. I wonder how folks looked at my cousin the Orthodox priest when he was home for his father's funeral. I mean, he wears what might well pass for a dress and certainly looks warm.
Would American Muslims please remember that all this practice of covering the head in public is a very recently-ended phenomenon in the West. My not-so-very-long-ago-deceased Grandmother only stopped wearing hats and gloves when she went to Birmingham to shop about the time I was born?
Oh, well. Good luck, fake Muslima. Don't try Walmart if you're looking for someone to be rude to you!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:19 PM | Comments (2)
January 31, 2009
Mile Zero - Chickamauga Dam
I took the Tennessee Riverwalk yesterday - click and see.
It was a nice farewell to Chattanooga after a happy visit here.
Next pictures from Frankfurt!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:07 AM
January 15, 2009
Manhole Covers and Representational Art
I don't think the Scenic City landscape seal (click here and scroll down to see the full color version of the seal) works well in this context.
Oh - that's a spurt of pink paint in the center of the picture plane, not a photographic problem.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2009
Yes, 2010 races are beginning in earnest
Frist decides not to run for governor of Tennessee in 2010. Others jockey for position.
My parents' representative, Zach Wamp, has signs up all over East Tennessee already.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:46 AM | Comments (1)
December 31, 2008
It's just not like it used to be . . .
Chattanooga, that is. And when former Chattanoogans say that they mean that it's so much nicer than when we were children. Mother and I got down to the river front for a long walk on Monday. Almost every visit there's something new and interesting in the mix - since I was here this summer they've opened up the connections between Coolidge Park (between the two bridges) and the new stretch of park downstream.
We're on the road now to NoVa for second Christmas with the nephews and nieces.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:57 AM | Comments (2)
December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Many of the wrapped presents under the tree are destined for nieces and nephews next week - but there's some loot for us older folks under there anyway!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:15 AM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2008
Yes, there's been a lot of snow already
Which is why I'm leaving for the sunny South! I know it's been cold in Chattanooga lately, but it hasn't been like what you see here!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)
December 2, 2008
The City of Atlanta wants a bailout?
Really. I say no. Talk about a time to resurrect Gerald Ford vs. NYC.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:07 AM | Comments (0)
December 1, 2008
Just UNFAIR
It's snowing in Chattanooga right now. It's 40 in Geneva.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:43 AM | Comments (2)
November 30, 2008
If you missed me, sorry . . .
. . . the house in the mountains was big enough to hold a dozen family members, but the internet wasn't turned on! A 3 day internet fast is good for us all occasionally.
My Aunt Sarah has a friend who has a house in the mountains in North Georgia who kindly loaned it to us. My immediate family drove in along the gorge of the Ocoee River, took the first right in the state of Georgia, and there we were. Lots of food, conversation, drink, crosswords and board games. Cat Ballou and Some Like it Hot. Reading murder mysteries and comparing authors. Sitting on rockers in the sun. No one saw a deer or the bear we're assured lives nearby. We all had a great time!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:56 AM | Comments (1)
November 2, 2008
Chattanooga - home of the Moon PIe
Chattanooga, my home town - soon to be your source for a Volkswagen midsized sedan?
Oh - for all your Moon Pie needs (MoonPie is a figment of modern marketing, thank you very much) go here.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:50 PM | Comments (3)
October 11, 2008
Worried about economic collapse? Get over it!
Apocalypse postponed. Normalcy restored.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:42 PM | Comments (2)
October 5, 2008
You think I'm joking about the Apocalypse? How 'bout them 'Dores?
Vanderbilt goes 5-0 for the first time since 1943. Beats Auburn for the first time since 1955? My friend the chaplain went said it was the first time he's ever had trouble getting tickets to a Vanderbilt game; I'm praying that his voice holds up for Mass in the morning. As the article my other faithful Nashville correspondent sent me suggests, it's the Revenge of the Nerds - and that was last week!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:14 AM | Comments (2)
September 25, 2008
"I don't think it's too much of a stretch to blame it all on the Amish."
Amy Welborn expresses herself about Fort Wayne, Indiana. If you've ever longed for the close-knit, the familiar, the traditional . . . you might want to read this.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:54 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2008
Natural Disasters Past and Present
As Ike was heading toward Galveston I listened to a different kind of disaster history - John Barry's Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (link to the Audible abridged version).
Barry keeps two things going on through the book - the enormous permanence of the Mississippi River and the incidental fact of the 1927 flood. I've seen the Mississippi, after all, and know how big it is, but I had never really understood what that means. That, for instance, the river bed is at sea level already at Vicksburg. In other words, the water on the bottom at Vicksburg has no particular reason to GO anywhere - so the flow on the upper levels produces turbulence. That's why the currents are so crazy on the Mississippi.
Barry traces the attempts to control the river back to the first French levees, but he's really interesting in the 19th Century engineers, because it was their systems that finally failed in 1927. He gets in lots of detail, but so fluently that I never felt swamped by it. Mississippians come of much better than the enormously selfish power brokers of New Orleans in the treatment of the flood and the aftermath; once again I wondered why we keep rescuing New Orleans. Pretty place, I know, but really.
The aftermath - recovery might be too kind - of the flood changed America, too. The enormous government intervention catapulted Herbert Hoover to the Republican ticket for 1928, despite a really unsuccessful relief effort. FEMA has a genealogy. The enormous economic ruin of the flood also accelerated the emigration of Southern Blacks to the North. Barry does an excellent job explaining the peculiar paternalistic system exemplified by Leroy Percy in Greenville, MS, and how the flood stopped it dead. William Alexander Percy, author of Lanterns on the Levee, comes off considerably less well; I'm going to have to reread Lanterns - it's been a long time. I have to suppose that Walker Percy at least gets a passing mention in the book version, but he fell before the needs of abridgment in the audio version.
My verdict: interesting and well-told, but I wouldn't pick up the book to see what was left out in the abridgment. Really, the only bad thing was the title. Why "rising tide" if it's about a RIVER? What was he thinking?
By the way, the water's rising now. Go look.
Rising Tide from Amazon.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:06 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2008
Hurricane Shut-down
My alma mater is battening down the hatches.
We dodged hurricanes during my four years (1980-1984). There was one pretty serious blow that happened just before orientation week one year; when we got back the live oaks were missing many of their leaves, but I think I remember that only one tree went down on campus. There was a legacy of masking tape on all the windows for months!
Sometime during my first year someone explained to me that the map of the Gulf on the big brown shopping bags at Weingarten's were actually printed there so that you could cut one up, stick it to the refrigerator with a magnet, and track the incoming tropical storms.
Here's praying William Rice's Marsh doesn't fill up this time!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 3, 2008
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
This week I've been listening to John M. Barry's Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Sadly, it was only available in an abridged version on Audible. For instance, the book-on-iPod version manages to tell the story of the Flood of '27 and the Percys without ever mentioning Walker Percy. Somehow I figure the unabridged print version doesn't do that. Still, it was an interesting book - and fit my definition of recorded book perfectly - something I probably wouldn't get around to reading on the page. In this case, it's quite rare that I bother to read American history.
It also seemed fortuitous that I'd bought this before Gustav came along, since so much of this book is about the fall of New Orleans from major city to backwater in the aftermath of the Flood - and the horrible behavior of the New Orleans elite, who rather cheerfully decided to flood two downstream parishes.
I didn't know much about the Herbert Hoover side of dealing with this particular disaster before. Barry is very interesting on the machinations between local, state, Red Cross, and federal relief efforts. Is there something comparable on the Galveston Hurricane? Listening to this would perhaps give a little perspective to some people who wailed and gnashed their teeth about Katrina, except those who think that the Federal Government should be able to achieve all things.
LeRoy Percy comes off as a much greater man than his rather unsatisfactory son, William Alexander Percy, in this telling. I read Lanterns on the Levee a long time ago - I need to read that again.
All in all, I think I'll be recommending to book to a lot of people.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:35 PM | Comments (2)
August 30, 2008
Church bells and waves of nostalgia
The Methodist Church chimes just rang six o'clock - and then played the bit of Brahms' First Symphony which some of my readers know by heart as the Bright School Song. There - bet you're humming already, Shelton! Follow the link and you can download the music for Country Gardens, too!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2008
Lord of all he surveys
I've been slow about uploading pictures lately - I just put up some on Flickr from my stay in Chattanooga last month.
Here's Luc, 18 and still pushing people around, enjoying a shady moment on the back patio of my parents' house - which was uncharacteristically uncluttered. When I was home last summer it was simply too hot to ever sit out there, but that was in August. This year, and in May, it was quite lovely - and I got a good signal from Mother's wireless.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:18 AM
May 13, 2008
Almost ready to return to the frozen North
After 4 months in Italy I have a pretty severe food reaction, and this trip was no different. Since getting home I have eaten variously and well, but I've covered most of the bases - Chinese, Indian, Southern, Mexican - and today barbecue! And tonight, Krystals!
I guess I can head back to Geneva, now.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:26 PM
May 9, 2008
Strolling through someone else's graduation
I'm visiting my life-long* friend the Catholic chaplain for Vanderbilt University for a few days. For various logistical reasons (remember last year's summer-of-the-tenure-case hell?) I haven't been to Nashville for a couple of years (he was appointed chaplain in the summer of 2006), so I've had some catching up to do. We're still working on scheduling lunch with another high school friend, (both of whose parents were also at Vanderbilt with ours, by the way, and with whom I went to school from K-12).
We walked over to the graduation to see part of the procession. I was struck with how BIG Vanderbilt is - or maybe what a small liberal arts college these Colleges are. Vanderbilt has to have a Jumbotron on the Quad! The music was shaping up to be splendid, but we left before the faculty procession; I wanted to stay for the headgear, always the highlight of regalia, but Father has a funeral.
Click and send money to the Chaplaincy. Father Baker promises to have a more integrated click-and-give function up soon!
*At the brunch he threw for graduating students, people kept asking how I knew Father. The simple answer is that all four of our parents knew each other at Vanderbilt - I don't remember not knowing Father.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:21 AM | Comments (1)
May 7, 2008
The power of the visual
Stage-managing a rally to create a sense of the overwhelming enthusiasm for Change for the Sake of Change - go look. Yet another sign of the normal behavior of the Obama campaign. Everyone on both sides does this kind of thing, but it's always nice to get it confirmed.
Be sure to scroll down for the bumpersticker, too.
via Instapundit
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:30 AM
April 25, 2008
Getting Ready for HOME
And the Leningrad Cowboys kinda help. Thanks, Dan!
Though all things considered, I prefer Shelby Lynne's version of home:
Though given where I'm headed, Miss Patti Page* is more appropriate than Miss Lynne. Well, we Southerners are enriched by our suffering, so multiple melancholies can only help.
Why melancholy? Well, I leave Rome Monday after a very good four months. We had a good program, I made some friends, I liked my apartment. Still and all, I'm headed home, and that's good.
*Omigosh - she released that the year before my parents graduated from high school!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:02 AM | Comments (1)
January 1, 2008
Going and Growing
Yesterday in the midst of erranding around Mama and I went to the newest stretch of park on the North Shore. We saw a flock of Segways, and me without my camera! Evidently someone is offering Segway tours of the waterfront. Here's a news story. The Renaissance Park, to the west of the Market Street Bridge, is so odd - so many disconnected straight line board walks, pyramidal mounds, and objects for contemplation - that if I taught locally I'd have my students imagine they were archaeoastronomers and try to figure out the alignments. Some of the elements point to decorative features across the Tennessee River, but not all of them!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:42 AM
December 28, 2007
Ack! I leave in 4 days!
Christmas was great. I seem to have gotten over my early-life "O Holy Night" trauma finally (that was 9th grade, by the way). I do like the texts for the Mass of Christmas Day a lot. There was more loot than I'd asked for, but no dress shirts, which was an explicit request. With some luck I won't wear a button down shirt and tie in a classroom for some time, so I can cruise on the current backlog. The one tie I got (thanks, Patrick!) is interesting and, I think, wearable with the tweed jacket I'm taking to Rome. Of course, I intend to buy ties there!
Mother and I ran down to Birmingham to see the big show of stuff from Pompeii - bound for Houston, next. If you're in range you ought to go! It's great!
Of course, being the happy South and having two of the ingredients for the game satisfied (mid-South, college-educated) we had not one but two small-world incidents in the museum restaurant.* As we were finishing our meal one of my favorites of my father's former colleagues came in with his wife and mother. We went over to say howdy to them, and one of mother's first cousins walked over. Cousin Julius at least has the excuse of living in Birmingham, but we certainly hadn't planned to run into him Wednesday!
My current traumas?
1. Not all the students who are not taking the group flight have told us when they intend to arrive. Oh, well - it was made clear to them from the get go that if they can't meet us at the airport they are responsible for their own ground transfer to the first hotel. Still, in loco parentis and all, one worries.
2. Then, in the midst of corresponding with one of the ones who had until then not told us when she intended to arrive, I find out that there is a major disagreement between what the HANDBOOK gives as the arrival time and what everyone seems to think as the arrival time for the group flight. I'm confused. I'm sure it will work out, but one worries.
3. I'm still working on reconstructing a book of readings which I foolishly misremembered as being all neat and pretty .doc files ready to print. No such luck.
So - it'll get done, I'll get away, but it's not going to be pretty.
*some of my long-term readers may remember the Small World party game (though I used to play it in bars and hotel lobbies in the Atlanta of my youth). Name 3-4 characteristics, and if the crowd has them in common I will know someone or someone's college roommate or someone's sibling. Mine used to be Southern, private high school or college, Presbyterian or Episcopalian. That usually did it. Mr. Barrow isn't a Southerner, but he's lived in Chattanooga 35 years or so. Southern and the kind of people who go to museums worked Wednesday, and I bet if I'd asked around we would have found some more remote hits. What are your 3 or 4?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:31 PM
August 18, 2007
What I did with my Summer Vacation . . .
I turned in the Big Box of Me and fled Upstate New York for the Purgatorial Fires of the South. GOSH it's been hot down here by any standards. Luckily, my parents have been gradually putting some a.c. in the house (their new bedroom wing is all chilled for their comfort), so it wasn't so bad.
My sister and I took some of her chirren down to Coolidge Park to the water park and the carrousel - and the whole occasion was photogenic.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)
August 4, 2007
$250 million facelift for Graceland
Yes. Two hundred and fifty million dollars. For Graceland.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:41 AM
July 23, 2007
A complete tapestry!
I love The Closer!
Tonight was Hollywood Airhead Night + Detectives in Protective Gear. It's hard to explain - but the woman who hired a lunk head to kill her husband gets dragged out of the interrogation room screaming "It's a complete mystery of justice! A complete tapestry!" And then she attackes the lunk head. Beautiful.
You know, Kyra Sedwick really does a good job of sounding like a nice girl from Middle Georgia, at least by filmic standards. Yeah, I've mentioned the fact that she can act before.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:52 PM
June 5, 2007
News from Home - Goats for Kudzu Control
The city of Chattanooga is using goats to eat kudzu on Missionary Ridge. I think that's a lovely idea - but folk wisdom teaches that animal flesh fed on kudzu is green, so this is not going to be a closed-loop system. Maybe the kids will be unaffected - they're tastiest, anyway!
I used to park next to a stand of kudzu at a summer job (and I was always a little afraid the car would be taken before I came out in the afternoon), but I learned then that kudzu flowers smell like grape jelly. Not grapes, grape jelly, a freshly popped jar of Smucker's grape jelly.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:46 AM | Comments (3)
March 30, 2007
The Rotunda and the Lawn
When I was blogging about UVa the other day I remembered that not everyone has a good visual memory ('visual learners' my foot). Google images didn't turn up what I wanted, but a flickr search did. This is from Steve Cholewiak, who kindly agreed to let me upload it to the blog. Click and see his other photos, especially his amazing high definition range photos of a clock tower at Purdue! Ain't the internet great?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:22 PM
December 26, 2006
The Aftermath
Luc is tired. So am I. In a good, nephew-and-niece-oriented way, of course!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:20 PM
December 24, 2006
Christmas Eve shopping
I don't know about the other parts of Chattanooga, but out Hixson Pike to Northgate Mall and the environs is not crowded at all - I'm glad not to be a retailer today! I think I would be frustrated.
Someone paid for billboards all over town: Buy your wine and liquor early! Liquor stores closed Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve!.
Useful advice - I shopped early.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:37 PM
December 23, 2006
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Snoops for Cash
Sorry I didn't have my camera with me, but I saw a great billboard in Red Bank, TN, for a service provided by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation advertising their willingness to sell you a background check for $29.00. Yes, the state agency does it for a fee. Download the form, fax it in, wait for the results and know what's up. Their webpage asks, "Why Judge a Book by its Cover?"
I did click on the FAQ and find this, which suggests that the TBI isn't all that thrilled about doing this kind of work either:
Why is there a fee associated with the checks?Note that "forced".
The TBI was forced to launch a new unit to process background checks for the general public. A portion of the $29 fee is used to cover salaries and other administrative costs. Any money earned above and beyond that will be used to offset budget cuts sustained by the Bureau over the past two years.
Of course, given the long, narrow shape of Tennessee (Chattanooga's metro area runs into Georgia and Alabama isn't far at all, Memphis is next to Mississippi and Arkansas, and Nashville is spitting distance to Kentucky) I wonder how useful a one-state-only background check would be.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:29 PM
September 5, 2006
Life in the Carolinas
The things you learn from reading blogs!
You have to poke a hissing cockroach pretty dang hard before it'll hiss at you.
And that's only one of 6 things to learn from Big Arm Woman today!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 5:24 PM
August 28, 2006
Media accents
You know, Kyra Sedgwick for someone who was born in New York City and is married to Kevin Bacon isn't very bad at sounding like she might be from somewhere north of Atlanta. Not anything like Holly Hunter, who really is from south of Atlanta, but you know. We Southerners accept small dialectical mercies. Her "Thank yew" is especially strong.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:09 PM
August 6, 2006
Dad. Daddy. Mama. Mother.
Ugh. Billy Crudup refers to his Daddy as "Dad." Well, it is Albert Finney, who's not anyone's authentic Daddy from some real place in the South.
Big Fish. Big disappointment. The only human being in the first 4 listings is Jessica Lange. Not a good sign. I mean, I love Helena Bonham Carter, but she's not a real person, is she? Just look at her depiction of the Witch. Might as well be one of those little puppets from Rudolph
Though I will say that the idea that the local giant needs a Big City with All You Can Eat buffets is kinda charming.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:18 PM
July 19, 2006
What to do with peaches?
The New York Times runs a dessert-with-peaches suggestion from the owner of my favorite restaurant in Atlanta, Floataway Café. Anne Quatrano is big on ice milk with peaches. '“Why bother making a custard?” Ms. Quatrano said. “I understand the richness thing, but the lightness of an ice milk is much more appealing in the summer.”' Hmmm. Interesting.
Bear in mind that my favorite restaurant in Atlanta is now a pretty meaningless designation. I haven't spent more than 10 days there total since August of 1999 (though I have eaten at the Floataway 3 times since then). I never liked Bacchanalia, their flagship restaurant, quite so much. Floataway is in a strange little 1960s industrial park called Zonolite Road - my last Atlanta mechanic was just around the corner from them.
There are times I miss Atlanta. There are lots of times I miss the South. Anytime I think about fresh peaches I sure do!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:24 AM
July 3, 2006
Cookouts and celebrations
Last year's edition of the cookout I went to yesterday was held Memorial Day weekend and was in celebration of tenure for the host; this year we (well, the members of his department who were there) were celebrating his elevation to department chairman. Yay, Nick! Or, maybe, Sorry, Nick!
He seems pretty sanguine about his future as a catherd.
I've lived up here long enough to figure out that despite their desire to be known as adventurous and daring people who eat all sorts of exotic cuisines, the humble black eyed pea is not a big seller among the rootless intellectual class. So I suppressed my own preference and made a black bean and brown rice salad. I had misplaced the recipe and ended up calling my Aunt Sarah to confirm; it turned out splendidly, and there's even a little bit left for today:
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups cooked black beans
3 cups cooked rice
1 tomato - diced
1 avocado - diced
1 red pepper - diced
2 teasp cumin
1/2 cup chopped scallions
2 tbsp chooped cilantro
1/4 cup lime juice
1/3 cup olive oil
salt
pepper
METHOD:
...In a mixing bowl, combine the drained beans with the rice, celery, tomato, avocado, and red pepper.
...In a small bowl, whisk together all of the dressing ingredients.
...Pour the dressing over the beans and rice mixture and stir thoroughly.
...Chill.
...Garnish with extra cilantro or parsley.
Easy and tasty.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:51 AM
June 12, 2006
Weddings and gravestones
The wedding came off with no fatalities - just all the very best of family stress. It really doesn't matter whether it's genetics or environment, but all the women in my family (oh, hell - all of us) have very clear ideas of what we want. The sad truth that we produce these events cooperatively means that titans clash . . . but in a good way. The groom from the last one (THAT one was a beach wedding - if you can do anything in your power to avoid a 'destination wedding' at a beach I advise you to do so) turns out to be a very useful addition to the family; he's capable of looking around a garden, finding something to do, and doing it without asking - yay, Josh! Everyone cleaned up nice, too, and the dancing (powered in part by yours truly's iTunes) went on and on.
I'll post some pics of gravestones over on Flickr - we had fun and family piety aplenty.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:23 AM
June 7, 2006
Ah, Summer
Well, I'm thawed - the last few weeks of Upstate New York are working out of my system, and we're headed to West Tennessee today for a wedding (yay, cousin Mamie!). Barbecue (Unlce Jimmy's version of the family sauce). Tinklers abounding. Pretty much everyone will be there but my sister and her family, because of their blessed event scheduled to happen . . . to happen . . . . Cate? We have our cell phones turned on!
Of course, we were thinking of leaving at 9 and at 9 my mother starts watering impatiens. My family. I love 'em.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:15 AM | Comments (3)
May 27, 2006
University Building
Here are two very interesting, very different articles from the New York Times Magazine about universities and construction projects - Columbia and the University of Virginia.
Columbia is dealing (rather poorly, the article suggests) with its neighborhood and a very difficult past as it tries to expand. Columbia ends up sounding much more like a real estate developer flacked by prominent architects promising urban renewal through Modern Architecture (my capitals) than like a university with space problems. I'm not convinced, and the neighborhood isn't, either.
The University of Virginia is facing an impossible question - imitate Jefferson, or the Spirit of Jefferson. That is to say, classcism or innovation? It doesn't help that the University is stuck in a marketing problem, too - but not with its neighborhood so much as with the alumni who have to agree to pay for the building. The article quotes the Dean of the School of Architecture: "We all love the Lawn here," she said. "We just love it in different ways." That sums up the balancing act pretty well.
On Columbia's expansion project into West Harlem.
On UVa's ongoing attempt to decide what style to build new campus buildings.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:52 AM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2006
The Andes...
The Andes are as tall and pointy as they always looked in pictures! Malbec is even better sipped at the winery!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:03 PM | Comments (1)
November 25, 2005
How to rebuild after a hurricane
So what do you do after a hurricane blows away your house? The State of Mississippi is hoping people will rebuild in local styles and is giving away a pattern book for it:
Next week, the Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal, which was organized by the Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, will begin giving away free copies of "A Pattern Book for Gulf Coast Neighborhoods."I've got to get my hands on this item of the New Urbanist conspiracy (neocons in architecture?).The 72-page pattern book details the basic features of traditional houses and, starting with a letter from Governor Barbour himself, strongly urges people to replicate them as closely as possible as they rebuild.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:51 AM
October 5, 2005
Talkin' bout my generation . . . .
Well, most of us have much (yes, Mr. Clark, you still have 'much') of our hair still, but no one was displaying any tattoos. That made this thorough article on tattoo removal all the more poignant today. I shoulda asked my classmate the Nashville plastic surgeon what he thought of tattoo removal as an income generator. I've told several of my students that if I were to go to medical school I'd think about nose-piercing reconstruction and tattoo removal as a specialty. THEIR generation's going to need a lot of it.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:46 AM
June 12, 2005
Middle Age
Go see what you buy if you're a really nice early-middle-aged man from Chattanooga, TN. It's enough to make me take up riding my bicycle faster just so I can justify one.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:35 PM
May 4, 2005
This is why I can't take talk about Harold Ford seriously
Harold Ford for President? Let me put it this way -- he has more family baggage than Hillary!. Read this one about his father the state senator.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:43 AM
April 30, 2005
The Fish Tank adds salt
I never cease to be amazed by the Tennessee Aquarium; it has driven the redevelopment of my hometown's downtown almost exactly the way its founders said it would -- if not more so. They exceeded their predicted number of visitors the first year and have continued to do so. Now they've added a large saltwater section (they always had one large saltwater tank, but this is a whole wing).
One of the neat things about the Tennessee Aquarium is that it has a narrative. You start by riding a very tall escalator to the top of the building to a "mountain cove" setting where it mists, real birds fly around chirping, and the otters play (my father still swears he's never seen an otter and that they are just a marketing tool). As you wend your way down through the building to the exit you are following the course of the water from the Appalachias to the Gulf of Mexico, with the displays reflecting that. When they do "rivers of the world" it's in the same area as the main channel of the Tennessee River. It's a very cleverly designed building. I'm looking forward to seeing how they integrate a new wing with a salt water setting, or if they simply declare "heeeeere's the Ocean!"
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:14 AM
March 5, 2005
Oh, my. The old neighborhood just ain't what it was.
A note for my Southern readers:
My parents next door neighbors' children are having a benefit concert in their back yard tonight. One of 'em is in a Phish-like jam band - but they very politely asked permission of the neighbors and left a cell phone number to call and complain if they got too loud. My parents and their immediate across the street neighbors are now very much the oldest people on the street; several of the neighbors are contemporaries (and one is a grammarschool classmate) of mine. There are two houses at the foot of the hill with Tibetan prayer flags on their porches. North Chattanooga is really something, lately.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:57 PM
February 23, 2005
Interested in NEW Catholic Colleges?
If you have a strong feeling that people should go to NEW Catholic colleges because they're more likely to be orthodox than old ones, try this one - Southern Catholic College. I'm not at all sure that I agree with the put-your-college-in-an-isolated-location model*, but Dawsonville isn't far from Atlanta.
Read this article about the high level administrators at Southern Catholic. These are people with appropriate professional experience to do their jobs and with good local connections. They look well-financed, and without all the money coming from a single donor.
Their reason for starting the college isn't some quirky view of education or some idea that they will provide the salvation for Catholic education -- they wanted a Catholic college in the Atlanta area and they have the money. The archdiocese of Atlanta has seen an explosion of Catholic schools - both diocesan and independent - and this is the fruit of that growth. There are now at least 6 Catholic high schools in the archdiocese (4 diocesan, 1 Marist, 1 Legionaries of Christ**, 1 independent [though with an interesting relationship to the chancery]). THEN there are all those other Catholics across the South who are severely underserved by Catholic colleges without snow on campus.
*I know, I know - I teach in centrally isolated Geneva, NY. - but I chose to go to college in Houston, myself.
**Pinecrest is up to 10th grade this year, so in 2 years they'll be k-12. They already have 700 or so students. Demography in Atlanta is kinda scary.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:33 PM