Most ridiculous thing I've found for sale on itunes ever (yes you can buy the whole album):

Weird academic conferences (absurd academia, pt. 2)
I mean. It does kind of sound like fun if you were into motorcycles. But I'm not hugely surprised that this is "the only online peer-reviewed journal dedicated to motorcycle culture."


Call For Papers: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOTORCYCLE STUDIES CONFERENCE,
Colorado Springs, Colorado, June 3-6, 2010
The International Journal of Motorcycle Studies (IJMS), the only online,
peer-reviewed journal dedicated to motorcycle culture, will be hosting its
inaugural conference at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, June
3-6, 2010.

IJMS is dedicated to the study and discussion of motorcycling culture in all
its forms‹from the experience of riding and racing to the history of the
machine, the riders and design to the images of motorcycling and
motorcyclists in film, advertising and literature.

We welcome submissions on all areas related to the cultural phenomenon of
motorcycling worldwide. We invite contributions from all members of the
motorcycling community. Suggested topics include:

€ The motorcycle or riding in film, literature, art and music

€ The motorcycle as art

€ Motorcycle racing

€ Motorcycle history

€ The role of place/environment in motorcycling

€ Motorcycling and issues of safety and risk

€ Motorcycling and the law/legal issues

€ Motorcycle technology/design

€ Motorcycling and race, class, ethnicity, sexuality or gender

€ The psychology of the motorcycle, the motorcyclist and the ride

€ Motorcycle travel/tourism

€ Motorcycle rights and politics

€ The commodification of motorcycles, motorcycling and/or motorcyclists

€ Motorcycle clothing/fashion

€ Advertising/marketing of motorcycles, gear and motorcycle culture

€ Media representations of motorcycling

€ Other literary, anthropological, geographical, historical,
sociological, political, economic/business or psychological perspectives of
motorcycling culture

In addition to traditional academic paper presentations, we encourage
submissions using alternate forms, such as photographic exhibitions or
multimedia presentations.

The Tropical Wood Ring Holder you REALLY didn't need to see:



(available at Urban Outfitters).

getting in some shaftesbury just under the wire: beauty is good!

Also, re: the below necklaces:

The one that was highly preferred:
Forever 21, approx $9

The one that was not approved:
Anthropologie, approx $50

However; what is perhaps most interesting is that at least part of this is photography; I looked at both at them and the one from Anthro is definitely a lot nicer (the Forever 21 necklace basically looks like junk, which basically it is). But Anthro has that weird extra long chain. Not surprisingly, I haven't actually bought either one. But at least this kind of relieves my mind that there definitely IS an improvement over Forever 21 at Anthro, even if it's not quite as much as one would hope.

Deus ex machina fail (so far; there's still another week and a half-ish for someone to intervene. Who should I be supplicating to?).

In the meantime: SPARKNOTES. Also: JSTOR!

Weird academic papers:

(I probably shouldn't put this on my blog in case someone from the department is stalking me. . . but such a classic example of academic bizarreness!).


Carnivorous Virility, or Becoming-Dog

*Monday, November 16, 2009* Please note date!
3:00-5:00pm

Humanities Instructional Building
Room 135

This paper argues for a queering of temporality that would undo our
nationally circumscribed and periodized fields of literary study in order to
work through topoi--discursive commonplaces--that haunt texts across
historical eras. Prof. Freccero's case study involves cyanothropy, the
merger of human and dog; it takes as its starting point the Columbian New
World encounter, from reports of dog-headed cannibals to accounts of the
devouring dog as the ubiquitous companion/weapon of Spanish colonizers; and
concludes with the attack of Diane Whipple by two Presa Canarios in San
Francisco in 2001. The symptomatic figure--itself already haunted by long
histories--repeats itself, travels between and among subjects and objects,
and condenses in itself a whole series of New and Old World meanings, from
companion to cannibal, primitive savage to savagely civilizational. Prof.
Feccero wants to argue that in order to understand the historical and
affective work such figures do, we must make use of fantasmatic
historiographies whose temporalities resemble psychoanalytic understandings
of the working of time as subjectivity and affect more than they do the time
of progressive history

Urban Outfitters is selling a Twilight t-shirt??

Team Edward T-shirt

I think they have officially become un-hipster. If UO ever was hipster, which has yet to be clear to me to begin with (hipster? hipster wanna-be? hipster wanna-be by definition being hipster anyway?).

But NO, NO, I DON'T prefer the stone-cold sparkly variety!

POLL!!! Which is better:

Necklace A:




Or Necklace B:

Can I just take a minute to comment on the absurdity of the way jeans are named? I know we've all thought this before.

From J.Crew, below, we have:
(1) Destroyed matchstick jean in vintage dark distress wash
(2) Destroyed matchstick jean in busted stone wash

Do I want my jeans Destroyed, Distressed, and Busted? Well, ok I like them to be kind of soft. But like, what's with the extreme linguistic punishment of denim these days?

So sad, so true:

But pretty darn amusing: Make Your Own Academic Sentence (link)

Exam Notes. I know you are all probably not that interested in reading my exam notes from Pocock's Virtue, Commerce, and History. My question, however (mostly for myself) is whether even taking these notes is at all useful. Like I think these notes say something, but I am concerned by the number of question marks, which indicate confusion, e.g., is x and such really true or a total misinterpretation on my part?

Anyway, here's Whiggism for you. Below, on other posts for today, there is a cartoon and a picture of a pretty outfit to make up for this.

Chapter 11: ‘The varieties of Whiggism from Exclusion to Reform: A history of ideology and discourse.”
Complication of defining Whiggism across the period. Negotiation of different categories: when Whig and Tory overlap; the difference between “Old Whig” and “Modern Whig.” Evolution of a morality of politeness in the early 18th century (the Spectator circle). Toryism slowly fading (?) into a few real Jacobites in the country. Concern that virtue of the arts losing integrity under corruption of Walpolean polemic. But also idea that “Augustan” art flourished under peace and prosperity, and therefore also under Whig supremacy (?). Idea of Toryism changing with George III and his apparent effort (from the POV of the Whigs?) to reinstate power of the crown (“patriot king”). Commerce in C18 held to entail presence of an aristocracy. Regrouping of Whigs with French Revolution. Romantic idea that Whigs associated with mechanical philosophy. Romantic radicalism flowing from both republican (?) and Tory source. Coleridge’s “Tory utopia.” Neomedievalism.

And this (actively stolen from Marie) is the reason I'm drawn to shopping rather than reading for my exams:

Stress = Too much shopping.

Or, as the bank account is suggesting, covetousness.

omigod.



At Free People for a lot of Money

Want. So much.