Year End Lists are bunk!

I have a hard time remember what went on in January, or what I thought (in the middle of the year) was neat enough to be included on a year-end list. But I'm going to make a game attempt anyway.

Top N (where n = some as yet undefined number of things) Things of 2007.

1. Two night Hold Steady extravaganza. Exactly what it sounds like. Marcus and I went to go see the Hold Steady in Milwaukee one night, crashed at my friends, made fun of juggaloes, and then went to Madison to see the Hold Steady again. Bonus points for: getting up on stage and dancing the first night, and seeing Craig Finn jogging before the show the second.
2. Directed a Show. I directed a production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia for the New Revels Players this year. Something I've wanted to do for some time, so it goes in here as a personal best.
3. The Weakerthans. Possibly the best 90 minutes of the past 6 months, for serious. Got there just in time for the Weakerthans themselves, and saw them play everything, pretty much. I was running a fever in the car on the way to the show, and by the end of the set, it was done. Magic, I tell you!.
4. The Baroque Cycle. I love Neal Stephenson. He wrote two of the best SF novels of the 90's (Snow Crash and the Diamond Age) and one of the great-novels-I-have-yet-to-read, The Cryptonomicon. He also wrote a several thousand page group of novels about the period between roughly the Restoration and the Hanoverian Dynasty. It's huge, both in concept and in size, massively immersive, a bit messy, and incredibly fun. It took me basically all summer to read, but man-oh-man, was it worth it.

It's only a 4 item list, I'm afraid. But those were the big ones. If there are any I've missed that you think I should remember, let me know.

Happy New Year.

On Edit:
Duh, LOLcats, and LOLChthulu, and LOLsecretz, and all the other spawn of image macros. Brought so much joy into my life this year. I'm not even lying. I just noticed today that Paris' Airport is called Orly, and it made my heart sing. It was a very good year.

Happy Christmas Eve

For a present, enjoy this greatness I found at Mitch Clem's Blog today.

http://community.livejournal.com/ru_nn2s/

I'm gonna tear those nachos a new asshole, it's only fair.

Or, waiting for Santa. Allegedly, my mysterious fellow-author is going to post tonight on a subject near and dear to both our hearts. I'll be staying up to hear the hoofbeats on the roof.

Somewhere loving justice shines

Dear Vice Magazine,
I hope your kids hate you. Stop lying to yourselves. You* are going to try and hold on to your youth for as long as possible, and that's fine, but making fun of old people trying to be cool is just a way of storing what our common friends, the hippies, would refer to as "some seriously bad Karma."

Love,
TLAD@UofI



*I created a personification of Vice Magazine in my mind. Two of them. Joel and Patricia Vice.

Sorry for all the link-posts.

Life in Rockford tends to revolve around Denny's coffee, cigarettes, and boredom. So, I come home and get online and look for something cool. I've been checking out ffffound for a while now, and really enjoying it, so I'm going to share it.

Sometimes, you just gotta look at something neat.

Rockford is so fun, I had to make another city

http://upper-nowhere.myminicity.com/

It's a city, based on Rockford.

Jarvis Cocker looks like the 10th Doctor

You know it's true.

He (the 10th Doctor, David Tennant, not Jarvis) is a supporter of Derry City F.C., a team with the wonderful nickname "the Candystripers."

That's enough for tonight. I'll try to blog* interestingly about Rockford over break.


*I actually hate myself a little for using this as a verb.

DI Roundup, part 2

I'm trying terribly hard not to make this a Paul Schmitt fan column, but the man is made of gold.
Gold whose chemical structure is a continued obsession with our favorite Village Person.

For instance, this week is semester retrospective week, and number two on Our Mr. Schmitt's list of UI's All-Stars is the Chief. Yes, that Chief. Above the US Military (we saw three really neat flyovers*, and, you know, that whole risking life and limb in service to our country thing**). Below Illini football, but that's only to be expected give Rose Bowl Fever.

His All-Stiffs list***? The C-U Senate, most of the upper administration of the University, and the funding committee. After his citation for the funding committee (which was right on) he carps that people complain that he doesn't have his priorities straight. Now, if actually making UIUC livable was his chief (sorry) concern, I'd agree with his bafflement, but as it isn't his Chief concern, I have to say that he doesn't.



*It looked like two by F-16s and one by F-18s. It made my inner 5th grader really happy.
**He puts this below the flyovers. Probably not intentional, but bad form.
***I'd like to rename the "Feast of All Souls, Commemoration for the Faithful Departed" All Stiff's day, but it's probably in bad taste. Also, does anyone know how to enter daggers, double daggers, and all those other great bits of miscellany, so I don't have to use greater and greater strings of asterisks?

I'm glad it's free.

I mentioned in passing when I was talking about Paul Schmitt last week that there were bigger race issues at U of I than the Chief. Specifically, I think I mentioned the fact that the University is overwhelmingly white and suburban.

Some numbers by way of illustration. 6% of the students at UIUC are black, compared to 15.1% of the population of Illinois. 6% of students are Latino, compared to 14.3% statewide. The only overrepresented non-white group would be Asians, 11.0% of students are Asian, compared to 4.1% statewide. For completeness' sake, non-Hispanic White students make up 76.74% of the University's population*, compared to 65.8% statewide. (Sources: U of I's own Facts 2007: Illinois by the Numbers and the Census Bureau).

So, with the numbers out of the way and hopefully sticking in the back of your mind somewhere, I can tell you what brought this up. A column by an Illinois Student Senate member in the DI, which said, basically, that U of I is hostile towards minority students, and suggested that we make it better. So far, so good. Personally, I'd like to see the University do more to get downstate kids here, too, but that's my ax to grind**. Where she leaves the rails a bit is in first getting overly histrionic, talking about individual acts of hostility***, and then suggesting the university do more to control these, which raises the specter of speech codes, which are beyond worthless.

The problem with discussing racism at UIUC is threefold.
1.) It all comes back to the Chief. The first comment on this column? Mr. Paul D. Schmitt, talking about the author's support for taking the Chief out of homecoming, and citing the well-worn statistic that 70% of campus is pro-Chief. It would be nice to have a discussion where we could talk about race without bringing up our favorite member of the Village people.
2.) Affirmative Action. Probably (just making a back-of-the-envelope guess here) 80% of the comments were about affirmative action, with the attendant cries of "but unqualified blacks and Hispanics are taking away spots from qualified candidates (of any color)"**** and complaints about lowered standards. One poster made a particularly charming comment about " Let?s not even start on how many scholarships are going to these folks who urinate them down the drain." [sic] It's always a wonderful thing when people get together for a free exchange of ideas, isn't it?
3.)And, because UIUC is so disproportionately Asian, someone is bound to bring up the model minority myth. Several times. In this case, it was formed as "why do you want to sabotage your own race by letting less qualified people in." Especially lovely.

So, that's today's DI roundup. Stay tuned next time, when I remember again why I'm glad it's free.



*This is down from my freshman year, when non-Hispanic Whites made up 79 and a bit percent.
**I couldn't find a by-county or by-region breakdown of enrollment, but I don't see a lot of downstate kids here, and the ones I do know were doing FWS jobs with me.
***Which are unfortunate, and do contribute to a hostile environment, but focusing on them lets people say "oh, some hicks are so rude" and ignore the structural inequalities that are still as strong as ever.
****That one confused me. I mean, most Americans recognize what, 4 races, and two of them are black and Hispanic* so, that seems to me to be a really inept way of saying "taking spots from white people.
* please don't remind me that Hispanic is not a race. It seems to be recognized as such, so I'm treating it as such, kthxbye.

Finals time

So, I have a Latin final on Thursday, and that means I feel like this


The three other people on the planet who like both Latin and Lolcats should find that hilarious.

Christmastown, the settlement of which I am the mayor.

So, it's December, the greater Champaign-Urbana area has had its first dusting of snow, and that means that it's time for eggnog and Christmas music. To that end, I'd like to recommend A John Waters Christmas to everyone. Now, those of you who know John Waters may wonder what he has to do with a holiday celebrating either the birth of our Lord and Savior or the return of the sun. Well, not much actually, but he put together a series of true gems on a CD, wrote some funny liner notes, and shared it with the rest of us. The CD includes the predictable (Alvin & the Chipmunks,Tiny Tim), the odd ("Santa Claus is a Black Man"), and the sublime ("Christmastime is Coming" and "I Wish You a Merry Merry Christmas"). It's a fun time. Fresh Air did an interview with Mr. Waters when this came out, and it's a joy to hear him talk about the songs, and his love of trash. So, put some rum in your eggnog, make a pot of glogg, and have your friends over to listen to this.

When they make me king

I will change the spelling of "blog" to "blaag." It seems more futuristic that way.

U of I roundup.

If you magically live in both Chambana and a cave, you might be interested to know that the Fighting Illini are going to the Rose Bowl. If you don't live in Chambana, you probably don't care. If you don't live in a cave, you probably already knew.

Now, this is terribly exciting if you follow football, or own more than two items of Illini gear (sad story, I own one, a graduation present). If not, may I suggest an alternative to this Rose Bowl fever.

Illini Hockey.

Seriously, 5$ to get in (last time I checked), the rowdiest fans ever (the infamous Harassing Illini)*, nice breaks between periods where one could, theoretically, seek liquid refreshment elsewhere**, and you know, it's hockey, which is scientifically proven to be 8 times less boring than football***. Seriously, check out a game. It's a good-ass time.

In other news, apparently some other Illini people have blogs. One of these blogs is by a friend of mine. Another causes acute chest pain. Yet another is mostly pictures. My hypothetical readers are all smart people, I'm sure you can tell which is which.

The DI has given the president of "Students for Chief Illiniwek" his own column. This fella, Paul Schmidt, ran for student trustee based solely on saving the Chief. Now, as you see from the linked page with his DI columns, he has other concerns****, and the DI can hire whoever the hell it wants, but giving the head of a campus pressure group, especially a group devoted to such a complete***** non issue, weekly space in the paper rubs me the wrong way.

That's pretty much all I have to report.



*in a stunning, but entertaining, display of bad sportsmanship, I once saw them end a game against Minnesota (6-1 Illinois, I think) with a chant of "bring out the short bus."

**I mention this only for the sake of completeness, and do not condone drinking at the theoretically alcohol-free Ice Arena. But it is theoretically possible. I mean, they have to zamboni all that ice. Those are long breaks.

***Yes, football is boring. I like baseball, which is proverbial for being boring, and I think football is boring. That's how boring it is.

****To recap: the farm column was interesting, his support of a pope who looks to repeal Vatican II is unfortunate, and his labored comparison of George w. Bush and Harry S. Truman is unfortunate and poorly researched.

*****complete, utter, fucking, non-issue. Make Lincoln Hall habitable, make the student health services not suck, get classes down to below 400 students, address the actual racism on campus (admittedly, this may be a bit hard in a school that's overwhelmingly white and suburban, and not actually the administration's fault), do something about how goddamn expensive college is, and then maybe, maybe, worry about the fact that we have (had?) a mascot just this side of the tasteful line from the grinning fella from the Cleveland Indians. But not before.