Four Questions

1. Now that Ratty has been well and truly got, should I change my blog header picture? Although I still enjoy sniggering at it on an almost daily basis, it won't do to become sentimental for the days when we chafed under the ignominious yoke of the rodentocracy. And I do have heaps more pictures like that one to pick another from.

2. Is it 'in parenthesis' or 'in parentheses'? Seems to me it should be the former - a parenthesis seemingly coming into existence only when the closing bracket and opening bracket are both present. But earlier today I read the latter printed in a multi-award-winning work of literary fiction. Said novel also included numerous, misplaced, commas and the word 'guage', though, so it's not a reliable guide. Those toffs at Language Log would doubtless vigorously sneer at this second question in its entirety but that only deepens my desire to know the correct answer. And perhaps to blog away the approaching summer in a series of posts of increasingly dust-smeared and thin-lipped pedantry.

3. Was it maybe a mistake to cook my puddings in cloths instead of in pudding basins?

4. Do you now, or did you ever, knowingly ask for Stamina Self-Supporting Trousers?

lecture notes

I meant it when I said I'm over post-morteming the conference washup (I've been re-re-reading Moby-Dick for Ch 7 of Adaptation: The Very Last Word Upon The Subject and my mind's elsewhere) but an interesting comment appended to this post prompts me to say a little more about the apparently vexed question of public lectures and the making of recordings.

The commenter appeared to me to be in agreement with the ACA-reporter's basic notion: there's no point (or there is something elitist in) giving a public performance if it isn't also recorded and made freely available for wider distribution. I disagree completely. This way of thinking always relegates the performance to the status of a rehearsal, dry run, or pre-text for the proper event which is the recording. Some performances are exactly this, staged expressly so they can be recorded, but many are the exact opposite, acquiring their unique value precisely because of the unmediated, present, 'real' quality of the event.

To my mind, there's something elitist (or patronising) in the implicit suggestion that a recording of a performance qua performance can substitute effectively for participation in the event itself.

If you've been reading here for a while you'll know that for two years I taught English at the Mildura campus of La Trobe, commuting there by plane one day a week in semester. Almost all the lectures in the courses at Mildura are recorded on DVD at the central campus and replayed later at Mildura. The technicians and the lecturers, not to mention the students, have adapted well to this and the picture and sound are clear and crisp. The same essential information is conveyed. It could be (and is) argued that students who get their lectures pre-recorded have the advantage of being able to rewind and replay, and some of them do this when they write their assignments. But these students, almost all of whom have grown up with video as a fact of everyday life, merely patiently endured the recorded lectures. When a lecturer flew up to lecture to them in person, it was a completely different story. They paid a different and deeper sort of attention, and afterwards they had profoundly more engaged and involved comments to make and questions to ask. There's nothing mystical about this. It simply reflects the difference between a unique occasion for thought anchored to a living, present, and accountable human being, and an occasion for thought which presents itself as repeatable, decentered and drifting - easy come, easy go.

Although the decision to ask people not to record last week's lecture was not only mine (and it was not explicitly GG's, either, as I explain in the comments to the afore-linked post) I entirely supported it and these are some of the reasons why.

PS: if you couldn't make it to the lecture and want to get an idea of what was said, Helen, Kerryn, and Another Outspoken Female have all posted on the subject. And, while I'm linking, here is the delightful Radio National Book Show story on the conference: well worth a listen.

"Are the suburbs uncool or simply untenable?"

Inquiring minds want to know.

Elsewhere, minds that are so thoroughly steeped in the zen of uninquiringness that they may not even exist, technically, have already discovered the answer.

Meme

There aren't as many memes around as there were back in the good old days. I blame Howard. Now he's gone (where?) perhaps the memes will return. Lorraine Crescent had this one

1. Are you dating the last person you kissed?
I am.

2. Pretend you've had 10 beers. what you would be doing right now?
Being sick in the toilet.

3. What do you want?
I want my University email account to be turned back on, thanks.

4. Who was the last person you shared a bed with?
Dorian Jones.

5. Do you talk to yourself?
No, I have animals for that.

6. Do you drink milk straight from the carton?
Never at home, only in other peoples' houses, restaurants, shops etc

7. Who knows the latest secret about you?
Human Resources

8. How long is your hair?
28cm

9. Do you like Batman?
I don't know him, not even on Facebook.

10. Who was the last person who told you they loved you?
I'm not sure

13. Do you like anyone now?
Yes, I'm totally undiscriminating now.

14. When was the last time you lied?
Monday morning.

16. Is your birthday on a holiday?
It is on a day of National Significance which could very well come to be designated a holiday if it wasn't already very close to the silly season.

17. What instant messaging service do you use?
Speech

18.Last thing you cooked today?
A teabag.

19. Did you have a nap today?
Possibly I had a microsleep. Who would know.

20. Who's house did you go to last?
Betty, David, and Gareth's.

21. What do you wear more, jeans or sweats?
I never ever wear either.

22. Why is the sky blue?
Sometimes it isn't. Have you ever thought about that.

23. Do you like green beans?
They're OK.

24. Do you swear a lot?
I do.

25. Where did you get the shirt you're wearing?
Dimmeys of Heidelberg

27. Do you use an alarm clock?
Yes

28. Where was your default MySpace picture taken?
I don't have a default myspace picture. Basil does. His was taken in Rosanna where we used to live.

29. Do you ever snort when you laugh?
God, no.

30. Whats the first thing you notice on the opposite sex?
Embodiment, same as on the non-opposite sexes.

31. Is cheating ever okay?
Probably not although absolutes are rarely ok either

32. Do you want someone you can't have?
No but I enjoy listening to Morrissey singing about this condition.

34. Do you wear underwear?
yes. What a puerile question.

35. Do you wear a bra?
For gods' sake. Yes I do.

36. What Size?
No idea. Tit-sized presumably.

37. Are you a social or an antisocial person?
Depends on who's available.

39. Do you have a tan?
No, and I'm not proud of it.

45. Are you afraid of the dark?
Questions 40-44 missing. The conjunction of 39-45 lead me to wonder if the missing bits had something to do with race.

47. Do you miss someone today?
No; just my old mates 40-44, and, now I also notice, 38.

49. Do you still have pictures of you & your exs?
Just Frankie my ex-cat

50. Who's always there for you no matter what?
Me.

Sick of going on about Conference Post

Yes, tired of it now, and there are so many more exciting things to blog about: but let's just have some of those handy bullet points before we set aside our expensive but nevertheless inauthentic-looking Ancient Mariner disguise and move on forever:

• thinking of holding a conference? Best not. It is a far, far better thing to receive conferences than to give them. I can't really remember what people actually said, in most cases. I do vividly remember various people telling me that it is incredibly anxiety-prodcing to organise a conference. That's the truth. And all the while one is industriously producing anxiety one is well aware that the anxiety is ridiculous: one is not actually the person whose academic standing has attracted people to this event, nor the one behind the microphone giving the talk which is being intently listened to, let alone the person who wrote these exquisite novels in honour of which everyone has gathered.
  
• But here is a specimen of the type of situation which feeds anxiousness. I did not mention this en blog at the time, but back in April of this year, I came into my office one morning to find six or seven messages on my answering machine from a person who seemed to be saying she'd showed up at LTU on the weekend for the conference, and she was standing outside the venue right now and could I call her back straight away to tell her why nobody was around - where it had been moved to? Oh, and she'd come from Italy to attend. FROM ITALY. Can you imagine the abyss of horror which opened up beneath me? Can you? I'm sorry, but you can't. The original call for papers, sent out eighteen months earlier, had indeed mentioned this weekend as the probable date, but we'd changed it very quickly to coincide with the English Teachers' meeting. And of course nobody else had turned up. And of course ALL the subsequent promotional stuff very clearly gave the proper date. And of course it is incredible to simply turn up to a conference without at least re-checking that it's on, or even attempting to register, or looking at the conference website. Yet, still, here she apparently was. FROM ITALY.
  
• She apparently turned up again last Friday afternoon. The person on the conference desk said she'd appeared and wanted to know where her name tag was. Then we lost track of her again. I would have liked to sight her, from a safe distance (from inside a bird observation hut perhaps) but it was not to be...next time, no doubt.
  
• If, in spite of this potent warning, you still want to do a conference, overbook your speakers. Out of thirty-five, two will withdraw for good reasons and in plenty of time for you to make other arrangements; two will courteously let you know that they won't be coming in time for you to pull them out of the program, one will pull out a week before, and one will pull out by email at 6:24pm on the evening before the day her paper is scheduled at 10:45am. This person will be emailing you not from the Australian city where she resides, but from a country that is nine hours' flight away. How did she get there? you will wonder. Didn't it occur to her as she got on the plane....etc
• The sick feeling you will acquire as you contemplate what looks like the complete disintegration of your carefully assembled program will make it impossible for you to write your own paper, so you will withdraw it, thus making you feel like a total hypocrite and poser. Nevertheless, there will actually be more than enough papers, and you will eventually realise that all the agonising was unnecessary.
• Don't cancel the wildlife tour. It is what the internationals are looking forward to. You may think possums are boring, but they do not.

Important Post about Birthday Week

Yes it's Birthday Week again! The 35th Annual Birthday Week celebrations kicked off today with a long sleep in followed by a multi-hour laze around the house and back yard discussing Conference Week / Brendan Nelson Week festivities via phone with my friend in Hong Kong, followed by the discovery of an A4 sized hole in region of my dressing gown which normally covers the bottom.

I then went to work for a little while, then celebrated some more by going to see a movie about a man who dies alone in an abandoned bus after poisoning himself by eating wild berries.

The present tally is already looking like a new record may very well be in the offing, thus:

1. New shoes (Camper, dedicated post forthcoming)
2. Big umbrella for table on front patio
3. tickets to Spamalot
4. new purse with hologrammatic clover design
5. Block of chocolate
6. Box set of 'Brideshead Revisited' on DVD plus book of Regency drawings called 'Mrs Hurst Dancing'
   
7. Indian bedspread with elephants and peacocks on
8. Necklace and earrings from Jaipur
9. Book called 'British Fiction Now'
10. Punjab necklace
11. Assamese scarf, tablemats, and shoulder bag
12. Box of 'Natural Mozart' cookies from Japan
    

5 - 12 were the gifts of conference delegates and comrades who may or may not have been aware of the imminence of Birthday Week but I don't see why I shouldn't count them.

Wonder what the cats will give me?

Depriving the six million

GG's lecture was advertised to start at 7pm. At 5:15pm, while I was setting up the drinks and food for the pre-lecture reception which we had in the studio of Idlewild Press, I got a phone call from, I think, this man.* I can't honestly swear to the name but that was the organisation. As I struggled up the stairs of the Nicholas Building clutching trays of vegetarian sushi, phone tucked between ear and shoulder, images of Mike Moore's toupee swum through my head, interspersed with flashes of Steve Irwin manfully wrestling a crocodile, Diana being a devious moron, finished off with John Safran and Shane Paxton going through Ray Martin's rubbish bin.

I'm fairly confident the conversation went more or less like this:

ACA: So, Laura, this 'lecture' Ms G's doing today. It's OK for us to come and film it I assume?

LC: Oh no, it's not OK, you see, Professor G has put a great deal of work into her lecture and we want to preserve the integrity of her intellectual property in case she wants to publish it in some form in the future. There will not be any photography or recording allowed in the theatre. But I'd be delighted to see you there, if you have a ticket. It's sold out. All the seats are sold.

ACA: No ticket. But what about the other journalists who'll be there? They'll be recording.

LC: No, they won't. They might take notes, you know, Pitman's and stuff.

ACA: Taking notes is recording.

LC: No it isn't. It's taking notes.

ACA: (silence)

LC: But thank you so very much for your interest in Jane Austen. It's really gratifying to know that a national investigative journalism program recognises the significance of Austen's writing for the modern world.

ACA: Yes. It's very unusual to not allow recording in a lecture, what's the reason for that?

LC: It's not that unusual. I don't let people record my lectures. Only the University.

ACA: But what's the point of having it if we can't film it!?

LC: ....Well.... the six hundred and fifty people who've bought tickets to come along and listen to Professor G speak for an hour on Jane Austen, they can probably see a point. It's not often you get to hear a world-class Australian intellectual discuss Jane Austen before her home-town audience. I think there is plenty of point. Not before Jane's home-town audience, I mean.

ACA: But imagine if six million people could see it, what about that. You're depriving them of their chance. Their only chance.

LC: Yes I suppose so. But how wonderful that you think six million Australians are interested in hearing about Jane Austen! She's popular, but I never would have thought she had that many fans! Do you think I should look for some extra tutors for the Jane Austen seminar next year?

ACA: Goodnight Laura.

LC: Goodnight! And thank you very much for your call.

Conference over!

The last internationals have been safely seen onto airplanes and the rented glassware has been returned to Dan Murphy's, now all that remains is to figure out by how much the budget got blown, write the thank you letters, (most important) return the LTU stage banners to Marketing (I was very firmly told when I borrowed these that if I lost or damaged them in any way I would never work again in this town, ironic really considering that my contract expired on Friday and I'm out of a job now anyway, LOLOLOLOL ;D) and ha ha, start working on collecting the conference procedings and turning them into a book.

And blogging about it. Very necessary.

Where shall I start?

First of all I really want to make public gestures of blogospheric thanks and praise Sophie, Pav, and Alexis for creating one of the highlight sessions of the conference. It was absolutely perfect. With no disrespect at all to everybody else and their excellent contributions, their session was seamless, unimpeachably intelligent, and spoke to everybody present. I think it's fair to say that it was the only session (with one exception possibly) which successfully did that. The others were either mainly for the academic or for the enthusiast audience, not really for both. I know it was hugely appreciated.

Also: it was really great to see so many people I've met through this blog at the lecture on Wednesday night. Really. Thanks for coming.

Next: what do you want to hear about? The options before you do not actually include any further commentary on the content of the papers given. No, this will instead be one of those vigorously-scorned reports on 'the process of going to the conference, not the content of the conference itself' (a reference which is topical but I do hope obscure) So what shall I start on? My 4am meltdown and the resultant massive programming debacle? My 2pm meltdown and the resultant arrival on the scene of Dorian, in a work car, ready and willing to help me however he could? Meeting GG? The producer from ACA who rang me 3/4 hour before GG's lecture? How I came to learn how to use a mobile telephone? The person who emailed at 6.30pm the night before her sesison was scheduled to say she was in (a foreign land) and couldn't do her paper after all? Or what about the still bafflingly inexplicable Italian woman? The photographer from the Good Weekend?