The Dog Days of December

Whew! here it is November 26th, and this is only the second post this month. Perhaps that's because these are the days of deep semester: when papers pile up on instructors' desks, and assignments accumulate on students' lap-tops. These are the days of deep semester, when classes begin to run their course, and the combination of Christmas Musak and final papers churn the mind to muck--the Dog Days of the semester, when December looms. I get up in darkness and lie down in darkness, a pale dawn and a too-sudden twilight book-ending the daylight of teaching. Thankfully, we had Thanksgiving recess, during which we try to push off the anxiety of studying, writing, grading a few days, at least.
Mine was marvelously magnificent; I was able to enjoy the days immensely. Perhaps the advantage of age is the cultivated ability to live easily despite the threat that I need the time to "catch up" over the break. Or maybe it's just successful denial. Who knows?
Anyway, I thought I'd ruminate a bit about our company on Thanksgiving, or rather (geneologists, beware! here comes a conundrum) my step-daughter's half-brother Adam. Yes, my step-daughter could visit with both her step-brother and her half-brother together on Thanksgiving night, and was delighted, as were we.
My point, though, is that Adam is an English Major from WashU (St. Louis), class of '06, who was regaling us with his professional stories. Yes, English Majors, there is hope! Having journeyed to D.C. and taking a grunt desk job at MSNBC (recommended by a college friend) answering phones and e-filing, he interviewed with them for a position as political correspondent and was one of eight hired for the current Primary campaign season. He credits not only his writing experience, but his taking an internship at a local St. Louis radio station, where he got acquainted with the skills of deadline writing and interviewing. (And his minor was Psychology, not Journalism!) He's having quite the time traveling between Iowa and New Hampshire, having been embedded with the Fred Thompson campaign, of all people. (The reason he could join us was because NBC was flying him from the mid-west to the north-east, and he had no place to go on the intervening day.) He's glad that Fred finally recognizes him--for six weeks Adam was apparently considered by the candidate an extremely loyal camp follower ("Good to see you again; what was the name?").
He likens the stump speech (as a kind of verbal essay) to stand-up comedy routines: the framework is the same, but there are slightly new or changed sentences to appeal to the particular demographics at a particular location; these are cycled into and out of the stump speech as needed. So what he's on the look-out for is the significantly altered sentence that may signal a change or revelation of policy: what did Fred say about Fox News yesterday? Here's a link to a DailyKos story that cites his column; here's another to MSNBC's FIRSTREAD, where his column appears (Scroll down; if you don't find him, search for Adam Aigner-Treworgy in the search window at the top right of the page).
So much for my inspirational story concerning my Thanksgiving; perhaps later I'll review the first two films I've seen in the theater for the last year. . . .
--Jay

Here We All Are. . . .

At the English Department retreat on Saturday, October 27th, Alden, Ginger's husband, snapped this group photo of all the full-time members of the department. In the front are Lisa Kasmer, Ginger Vaughan, and Betsy Huang. Left to right in back are Jay Elliott, Fern Johnson, SunHee Gertz, Meredith Neuman, Winston Napier, and Steve Levin.
We conducted some good business--lots of consensus, which one might say is rare in academia these days! In any case, maybe this will help you put faces to the names in the course catalogue. Cheers!

--Jay