May 25, 2004
In a related development, it has been brought to our attention that the state of Texas should probably not actually be “sawed off the mainland and pushed out to sea.” Electrolite regrets the error.
Elsewhere, Electrolite is entertained to find itself included in a list of scholars who blog. Electrolite is now entertaining suggestions as to what we’re a “scholar” in. Along with fellow scholar Avedon Carol, we will be setting up shop as a full-fledged academic movement just as soon as this question has been fully answered to our satisfaction. [09:59 PM]
Ah dude, you're a generalist. Multidisciplinary and all that. Trust me, it'll be much harder for them to pin you down that way.
Oooh, my widdle nose is out of joint, you're a scholar and I'm not. I must have blown my credibility by graduating from high school and attending university (for a while).
Aw, you wouldn’t believe how much money Halliburton was going to make off that Texas-sized saw!
There's that bit in Foucault's Pendulum as a brainstorm kickstart. —Urban planning for nomads, say.
You're the number one scientific doctor of tiromancy on the web, Patrick.
Ok, here's the deal.
We start our own University, We get a "Lord" to fund us, give us a small plot of land (what, there must be some swamp land in New Jersey, right?). We get all the folks who don't want to fight to join us--what do you think all those semi-educated clerks were doing in university anyway, second sons of nobility, bastard by-blows of higher church clergy etc. who had no skill or feel for fighting ?
There must be a lot of failed dot-com kids by now, right?
I don't want to live in the Middle Ages. And there was never a time of "middle" anything and nobody ever "lives" in an "age.".
Do YOU feel like you live in an age? Thought not.
I just wish those considered Cult Figures (at least according to some folks) were now in charge of our country.
Like the wacky Unitarian Tommy Jefferson. Or both of the Adams guys.
I am proud to be a Unitarian Univeralist. Even if I haven't figured out quite what that means. But I do know one thing. The first credo, so to speak, that we as UUs have to adhere to is the "inherent dignity of every human being".
As a former Catholic, let me tell you this is a harder trail than the Vatican credo ever set me to. The thing is, UUs don't have a get out jail free card...and I like that very much.
I have dibs on 10-15th English history...
Claire, I've long thought that the modern world needs a revival of (voluntary, of course) monasticism.
Steve: Quelle fromage!
I do hope you will graduate at least one Undersecretary of Something Or Other With Primary Responsibility for Assuring That Particular Undersecretarial Office Has a Name on the Door.
Teresa, you and I aren't "scholars," we're . . . well, we live in book-lined caves, produce papers on arcane subjects, and have twitchy internal mechanics and a fondness for concocting strange things in the kitchen. We're Consulting Wizards.
You're the number one scientific doctor of tiromancy on the web, Patrick.
Considering where I work, I really should not have had to look that up.
I think you should found the Department of Vintage Autodidacticism. I would pay large to audit the core course, "You need me to tell you to pick up a book?"
I also think it would be neat to have a real live educated-type doctor lady as the co-chair of such a department.
Well, I have seen the term "independent scholar" used for such people as Catharine MacKinnon, in which case I will take broccoli. (The term seems to specifically mean someone with no affiliation to an institution, whether educational, thinkety-tankety, or The National Alliance for More PCBs In Food.)
At any rate, the outfit we are chartering here obviously needs some impressive sounding names to attach to things, preferably insubstantial ones. At a start, I would suggest:
--The Whitmore Cellar of Antiquities
--The E. B. White Chair of Not Using "Literally" as an Intensifier
--The Django Fett Concert Hall and Automatic Weapons Range
--Regius Professor of Garlic (gonna be a major scrap over that one)
--The Research Refectory
--Thog Professor of Hideous Sentence Construction and Allied Arts
--Liberty Hall (applications for Head Cat now open)
--Little Chapel of the Possessive Apostrophe
--The Mathom Gallery
What was that thing the Scarecrow got in The Wizard of OZ--Doctor of Thinkology--?
I think that's you all over, Patrick. Congrats.
Some days I think my career goal is to be an independent researcher, aka "crank". (I threaten to retire into this position as soon as Marissa sells her books.) It'll be great--- I'll attend conferences to ask annoying questions, and produce voluminous papers on useless topics. Can I start writing polemics against your movement now, or do I have to wait for it to actually be defined?
I just wish those considered Cult Figures (at least according to some folks) were now in charge of our country.Like the wacky Unitarian Tommy Jefferson. Or both of the Adams guys.
Ansel and Gomez?
Patrick is obviously not just a scholar, but a scholar and a gentleman.
Want a degree, Patrick? I'll mail you one of mine. It's not doing me any good anyway.
I vote that Patrick is a scholar of Philology.
With the old fashioned meanings of 'logos': words, speech, discourse, story, prose-writing...
Besides, it sounds cool.
Fafblog is on the list, too. I thnk your Institue should definitely include Fafnir.
Scholarly subject? Rejectomancy, of course. In proper academic fashion, you have become the object of study.
We could call it the Ship's Barber Institute for Ideas That Are Not Studied By Any Institute
We could call it the Ship's Barber Institute for Ideas That Are Not Studied By Any Institute
Oh, come on. How much of the faculty of the Invisible College is already reading this?
You could be a 'Pataphysician. Though there already is a College de 'Pataphysique in both Paris and Quebec ( I think, unless it's Montreal...) but there's nothing stopping you from opening the Alfred Jarry 'Patathinktank, other than a few gaudy writs and some absurd proclomations about the nature of the Universe; all easily fixed.
Late nights all alone with a test tube. Oh oh oh oh.
Glad to hear the sawing off will not occur. This will make it easier to visit the family in Texas in a couple of months. Last time I was there, I went to see several family members performing folk and clasical music at a Unitarian church in Kerrville.
If you can come up with a way of just sawing off the really evil bastards nominally in charge of Texas, without taking members of my family with them, I'll be happy to hold the tool chest while it takes place.
Similarly, if you can come up with a similar plan in re those nominally in charge of the USA, ditto, in spades.
Looking forward to the Institute. Already, I'm hearing those big high school boys on the bus I used to ride to school, chanting "Rooty toot toot / rooty toot toot / We are the boys from the In-sti-tute..."
Since Patrick is a musician too, he could claim his credentials in the same way that Dr. John and Professor Longhair got theirs.
Can I have the Chair in Moaning, Bitching, and Whining? Alternatively, something to do with cooking. I do have an advanced to degree but as it's in Library Science and is currently doing nobody any good at all I don't think it should count against me.
MKK
I think what this institute needs is a chair of geodetic carpentry.
Consulting wizard! Makes perfect sense. I'm happy now.
I'm just curious - how did you come to the conclusion that Texas doesn't need to be sawed off, etc.? Although I must admit that Kip W's remarks make sense!("If you can come up with a way of just sawing off the really evil bastards nominally in charge of Texas, without taking members of my family with them, I'll be happy to hold the tool chest while it takes place. Similarly, if you can come up with a similar plan in re those nominally in charge of the USA, ditto, in spades.")
Oh, and can I be Minister of Pants?
Teresa, you're a scholar--Making Light is listed, maintained by "Anon." So what are you hiding from?
I don't know what kind of institute Electrolite may be, but I believe I just endowed a Fellowship..
Cheese sandwiches, anyone?
Instead of a department "chair" how about chaise lounge? Or an ottoman? I'd love to be the "Recliner of Accidie". Lazyboy seems to pale in comparison.
The Electrolite Institute of Whatever The Hell is honored to offer the Eohippus J. Glyptodon Chair of Mammalness to the esteemed Professor Rivka. (Psst: You'll find the Mallet of Overdue Correction in the third drawer down the back.)
Faculty include:
Aeron Chair of New Economics
Ottoman of Istanbul (engaged in a long intradepartmental feud with the Ottoman of Armenian Genocide Studies)
Throne of Good Reading
Beach Chair of Light Reading (part of the Physics Faculty)
Hank Williams Barstool of Philosophy
Casting Couch of Gender Studies
Backseat of Adolescent Psychology (alternatively, any donor without sufficient manna to back a well-endowed chair could take a backseat instead)
John Ford Saddle of Cinematography (sometimes confused by newcomers with the John M. Ford Lab Bench of Metaphysical Word Games)
Movable Feast of French Culinary History
Movable Beast of Comparative Evolution
Bleachers of Sabermetrics
Nosebleed Seats of Sports Economics (whose holder confounded everyone by marrying the new holder of Club-Level Seats of Corporate Strength)
Broken Down, Scraped Up, Paint Chipped, Rained On, Taken Out Back But Looked So Bad Even the Garbage Men Turned It Down Chair of Blues Poetics
Guest scholars who have overstayed their welcome could be banished to the Divan of Longueur.
I'm sure there are more, but it's time for breakfast.
The Electrolite Institute of Whatever The Hell is honored to offer the Eohippus J. Glyptodon Chair of Mammalness to the esteemed Professor Rivka. (Psst: You'll find the Mallet of Overdue Correction in the third drawer down the back.)
A mallet! *thwack* Oooh, that has a nice *thwack* balance to it; I *thwack* can feel my academic gravitas in- *thwack* -creasing by the moment.
Chair of Mammalness! *thwack* Those shoddy scholars the monotremes will simply be green with envy. Of course, I've always said that if you're going to have fur and lay eggs, you can't expect anything more dignified than an Interdisciplinary Studies Certificate.
The only thing I worry about is the heavy fur on my full academicals. New York in August, after all, for Convocation. And whose bright idea was it to put the nipples on the hood? I don't care if they're only symbolic, they shouldn't be dorsal. But I'll do my best to carry it off with dignity. *thwack!*
The Simeon of Sisan Pillar of Eremitical Theology
The Bed of Jurisprudence (believed to date from the reign of Louis XIV)
The Seat of Reason
The Thomas Malory Temporary Chair of Mediaeval Mythology (also known as the Siege Perilous)
The Martin-Baker Chair of Aeronautical Engineering (also a non-tenure appointment)
Oh dear.
An otter example of the violence of academic dispute.
What about the Major Major Department of Redundancy Department?
and let's not forget the grandddaddy of Texas bashing, Gen. Phil Sheridan (yes, the guy who said "The only good Indian is a dead Indian") who opined "If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell."
You're a scholar of fanography. This differs from hagiography in that the subjects ain't saints.
Ooh! Could Blaisdell Polytechnic get reciprocity, at least in the cafeteria and staff lounge? We have a professor of Anathematics and Uncivil Engineering, and the other Obelisk and I co-chair the department of Egyptology, and so forth.
Joint faculty party, perhaps?
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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