enough for all her hungry brood

Nearly (gasp!) two decades ago, my oldest nephews liked a book about baby farm animals. Each time I hear a story about the woman with fourteen kids, a disembodied line from that book flashes through my mind: "enough for all her hungry brood." I can't listen to bad morning radio shows whilst showering and commuting without hearing opinions about this woman's use of in-vitro fertilization to help her have fourteen kids, her reliance on public assistance, her singleness, her history of mental illness, her obsession with motherhood.

The story challenges our collective affinity for simplistic readings of current events. We want issues to fall into black-or-white, partisan categories. The environmentalist suggests that having fourteen kids drains resources (the disposable diapers alone...). The anti-welfare crusader sees this mom as a mythic archetype, the welfare queen. The moralist questions her lack of a husband and her use of fertility technologies. The medial ethicist critiques the fertility clinics who helped her reproduce. The pop culture junkie watches with bemusement as she gets her own series. The feminist questions the assumptions of all the aforementioned critics.

Does a poor, single woman have a fundamental right to as many kids as she wants? Do private companies have the right to provide her with technology to help her make that happen? Does a public spectacle--orchestrated in part by a team of publicists who represent the woman--help (via revenue) or hurt (via embarrassment) the family?

As lines from children's books flash through my mind, so do the faces of the thousands of unwanted kids in southeastern Michigan. My students and I have worked with foster care agencies in Detroit, for instance, who search desperately for good placements for babies, kids, and teens. Stories of violent foster families and unplaced kids sleeping in Department of Human Service building bathrooms fade as quickly as the stories of the octuplet mom inevitably will.

I would never advocate for repressive laws that strip the rights of adults to reproduce at will. I've read (and even taught) too many dystopic novels: Margaret Atwood, et al. But I do wonder how many parents-to-be--whether single or married, rich or poor, virile or sitting in a fertility clinic--even take a moment to think about the unwanted.

We live in a culture where asking an adult (especially if married and "financially secure") who has no kids "Why don't you have kids?" is socially acceptable. But asking a parent or parent-to-be "Why ARE you having kids?" is awkward at best and probably offensive. Personally, the "why don't you have kids?" question doesn't bother me at all. That's not my point. I'm just saying that the normative impulse leans toward reproduction and overlaps with other normative impulses: marry, be straight, have kids.

And then, out of nowhere, a story like the octuplet mom challenges those impulses. "Yes," the collective culture says to her, "we're glad you have kids and are heterosexual, but pay for the kids yourself. Oh yeah, and get married."

non issues

Andrew Card, could you be less relevant?

Career politician Card, who held numerous white house jobs with the last three Republicans to grace the West Wing, criticizes Barack Obama for allegedly relaxing the White House's dress code. How relaxed is Obama's West Wing? Probably not enough to justify Card's quips about his turning the place into a locker room.

The right can't find anything worse to level at Obama than a critique of his decision to take off his jacket? Remember during the campaign when *speaking well* and *getting into a prestigious law school* topped Obama's list of faults?

In many ways the far right's over-reliance on ineffectual, non sequitur critiques makes me happy. After all, this emphasis on non-issues hasn't distracted most Americans. On the other hand, we all suffer when the public discourse is so vacuous. Come on, let's have serious conversations about the stimulus package.

budgeting

So much information about the economy spins, circulates, swirls, and alarms. In today's NYTimes, news of Exxon's record-high 2008 profits of over $45 billion. Reports, too, of banking industry bigwigs who gave themselves $20 billion in bonuses as Congress authorized the infamous $700 billion bailout. President Obama, to his credit, called those bonuses "shameful." On the national level, a budget deficit. A crisis.

Meanwhile, closer to home, Mayor Cockrel (a fan of Gang of Four and Joy Division) proposes city employees take ten-percent salary cuts so Detroit can avoid laying off 1,000 workers. City workers ask, what will we do? Others--callers to our local NPR station this a.m.--ask, what would you do? If you had the power to make the call, would you take the cut or impose the layoffs on others? The mood in the city and the region rivals the most dystopic, instrumental moments from Joy Division's catalogue and the most radical lyrical moments from Gang of Four's catalogue ("to hell with poverty/we'll get drunk on cheap wine").

And what of Arizona State University and its mandatory unpaid furloughs for virtually all employees? Take off a week or two and deal with the lost wages. Better than layoffs? Better than paycuts? Better than even larger tuition increases? Better for whom? Again, if you had the power to make that call, what would you do?

Such questions (one-hundred salary cuts or one-thousand layoffs?) reduce complex issues to a zero-sum game. Still, we are in crisis mode. What to do. President Obama uses the rhetoric of sacrifice very effectively. His calls for individual sacrifice (skip Starbucks, skip that vacation, accept that unpaid furlough, take that paycut) provide counterpoints to "buy more stuff," Bush's post-9/11 mantra. At what point does personal sacrifice begin to obscure systemic problems? Like, say, those shameful bonuses?

I love the idea of shared problem-solving. Not just the WWII nostalgia (remember when everybody grew victory gardens and only bought butter once a month?), but the genuine, in the moment, potential for collective civic action. Easy for me to say...I don't have kids and work in a sector that's less affected by market down-turns. I want to advocate for that kind of civic action on the part of everybody in a way that doesn't place the burden on the working- and middle-classes and off of the elite. I think President Obama does too. I hope so.

fumes fumes fumes

...As in, this blog runs on fumes. Bet you--if a "you" even exists anymore--thought the next post on this blog would be the increasingly common "facebook is killing this blog" post. Nah. After nearly five years, this blog still has some life. Such as it is.

Facebook is fascinating for a million reasons that I don't even want to explore. Reveling in mundane things. Giving friends and pseduo-friends and people you barely knew in high school windows into your odd existence. Turning family members onto facebook's joys four years or so after turning them onto blogging. Watching those family members go from "who has time?" and "get a life" attitudes toward FB to "this is cool." If I had more motivation, I'd take a scholarly interest in such things, but I'd rather update my status with crap about what's on cable or on top of my stove.

But the blog still lives too. If for no other reason than to say I'm looking forward to seeing The Dirtbombs in Hamtramck on March 6 and Animal Collective in Royal Oak on May 18. I'll probably make the same point on facebook.

don't go away mad, just go away

From CNN.com:

Sarah Palin is credited with making Tina Fey a world-wide star and boosting Katie Couric's ratings at CBS.

But in a recent interview with conservative John Ziegler, Palin said both "exploited" her twelve-week candidacy — a fact, she said, that "says a great deal about our society.”

Fey's widely-applauded portrayal of the Alaska governor boosted SNL's ratings, while Couric’s audience grew after a series of interviews during which Palin now-famously faltered.

“I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year and Katie Couric’s ratings have risen," Palin said in the interview. "I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don’t know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration — that’s a little bit perplexing, but it also says a great deal about our society.”

The Alaska governor was particularly upset with an SNL skit during which Fey's version of Palin said, "I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers."

The line was a clear reference to Palin's 18-year-old daughter Bristol and her fiancé Levi Johnston. The two announced shortly before the GOP convention that they were expecting a baby and had plans to marry.

"The mama grizzly rises up in me, hearing things like that," she said of a skit. "Here again, cool, fine come attack me. But when you make a suggestion like that that attacks a kid, it kills me."

In the wide-ranging interview, Palin also faulted the McCain campaign for agreeing to a series of sit-downs with Couric after the first one appeared to go so poorly.

“I knew it didn’t go well the first day, and then we gave her a couple of other segments after that," she said. "And my question to the campaign was, after it didn’t go well the first day, why were we going to go back for more…going back for more was not a wise decision either.”

During one of those follow-up interviews, Palin took heat for appearing to be unable to name the newspapers or magazines she reads: "Um of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years," was the Alaska governor's response.

In the interview with Ziegler, Palin called that answer "too flippant" and suggested the question itself offended her.

“To me the question was more along the lines of, ‘Do you read, what do you guys do up there, what is it that you read?’”

"…Katie, you’re not the center of everybody’s universe," Palin added off-handedly.

Palin, who has long criticized media coverage of her campaign performance, also said she is interested to see if reporters are equally tough on Caroline Kennedy as she pursues the appointment to the likely-vacant Senate seat in New York.

“I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled, and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope,” she said.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here, also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be," she also said.

fiesta

We hosted our Peace & Justice group's belated Christmas party last evening. I made one of our favorites, peppery chicken curry, from the best cookbook ever (sadly out of print). Friends brought wheatberry salad, wine, and other goodies. Good times as conversation veered from dogs to the spaghetti dinner we're doing next month to movies to home improvement stories. Our place, far from fancy, lends itself to parties. One of my resolutions: hosting friends and family more often. Between last night and the upcoming inaugural "ball," we're off to a good start.

In somewhat-related realms...what an enjoyable and productive week. Some solid writing (mostly at my favorite Caribou). Check. Syllabi for the term completed. Check. Essays rated for a MALS (liberal studies) program initiative. Check. E-mails caught up. Check. Meeting with new community partner for the service learning class. Check. House cleaned. Check. Made time to see "Doubt." Not sure what to make of Meryl Streep's campy, caricature-driven performance and over-the-top Bronx accent. I appreciated how the movie emphasized the relationship/power struggle between her conservative nun character and the enigmatic young priest played by P.S. Hoffman. If you see the film, notice how the latter, on one hand, has progressive learnings and on the other hand, enjoys the benefits of the church's sexism. Overall, though, the story seemed too impressed with its own cleverness and ambiguity. I left with the sense that the outstanding performances added up to something less than their I continue to champion "Gran Torino" as my favorite awards contender. Still on my list: "Milk," "Frost/Nixon," and "The Wrestler."

Finally...will blogs become dodos? Too soon to tell, but how about Facebook's rapid ascendancy? In (rhetoric and composition) academic circles in particular, Facebook has really taken a bite from blogging activity. I must admit, the Facebook update is a fun, fun genre. I think a combination of texting and facebooking has increased the instances of ellipses in my writing. See, for instance, this post.

thought for the day

Time to show those evil spuds what's what.

ballers

Nicole and I are hosting an inauguration ball for our town's democrat club. We'll be clearing all the furniture out of our backroom for maximum dancing. I need to put together a playlist. There are some obvious picks--"Revolution" by The Beatles and "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac--that reflect the theme. There are artists like Jay-Z and Aretha Franklin who ought to be represented due to their support for Barack Obama.

Any suggestions? What songs get people dancing? What songs represent the historic moment?

blogging the movies

Recently on netflix...

The Corner. Relentless and outstanding piece of work. The creative team behind The Wire is responsible for this 2000 HBO mini-series and you can certainly see that team developing its signature style: realistic, character-driven, slowly unfolding narratives about drugs in Baltimore. But The Corner values depth over breadth. The Corner doesn't have The Wire's broad scope, instead benefiting from a more tightly focused gaze on two middle-aged heroin addicts and their teen son. Imagine The Wire if the stories all revolved around the day-to-day lives of Bubbles and Johnny Weeks and Michael's mom. Depressing stuff, but powerful too. Grade: A-

Transsiberian. Not my cup of chai. Despite a good performance from Emily Mortimer, this is a suspense film that never made me anxious. Essentially, a troubled American couple finds intrigue on a long and snowy train journey across Russia. The plot had loads of potential and I was really looking forward to what I thought would be part Hitchcock homage and part moody and cold melodrama. The story never struck me as real and, though the characterizations were interesting, I never felt all that invested in the good guys, bad guys, or morally ambiguous guys. This reminded me of a lot of the post-Fargo, mediocre, late 90s films (think "Simple Plan" with Billy Bob Thorton) about everyday folks who get caught up in crime and/or their own moral underworlds. Grade: C-

Step Brothers. Bloody awful. Only the most devoted Will Ferrell fans need apply. Grade: F

Tom Petty: Runnin' Down a Dream. I watched this documentary and "The Waiting" played in my head for about a week. Actually what was in my head was Eddie Vedder's brilliant rendition of the song, backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as heard in one of the many excellent live clips from this doc. Though cool in their own right, those live clips are bested by the film's characterization of Petty himself. The film introduces Petty in his own words as well as the words of his colleagues and peers, admirers, producers, bandmates, and even ex-bandmates. We get a view of Petty as a great songwriter and performer and also as a staunchly individualistic and ambitious (sometimes to a fault) dude. "Runnin' Down A Dream" tells some great stories: Petty fighting with his record label, attorneys, the industry at large. The stories suck us in, but so do Petty's traits. I'm not sure I'd want to be a Heartbreaker. See this great documentary and maybe you'll see what I mean. Further, this is a documentary that manages to make an argument. "Dream" (successfully) makes the case that Petty's music bucks trends but also fits nicely within unexpected genres like, say, first-wave punk. Don't be scared off by the four-hour (!) running time. Even casual music fans (admittedly, I am NOT in that camp) will appreciate the many ways "Dream" transcends "Behind the Music" cliches. Grade: A

Recently at the cinema...

Gran Torino. Loved it. I haven't seen much of this winter's Oscar bait, but so far this is my pick for best film of '08. And not just because it's set and filmed in Detroit. Clint Eastwood, director and star of "Torino," puts a subtle exclamation point on his career. The story is low-key and energizing all at once. Eastwood plays an utterly unlikable racist. See the film and notice that he never really becomes likable. It takes some real narrative restraint to tackle themes like redemption without a feel-good protagonist or a whole lot of comic relief. Imagine "The Shawshank Redemption" if the Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins characters were both pricks. There are so many things that "Gran Torino" doesn't do: tell viewers how to feel or how to think about big things (Race. The City. Catholicism.) or small things (Eastwood's character's parenting skills), fill up the soundtrack with swelling music, provide easy answers, etc. I could go on but I won't. See this. I got home and put all five Dirty Harry movies on my netflix list. Grade: A

Seven Pounds. Speaking of films that take on big themes and moral ambiguities. Here's a film in which Will Smith plays with his own unimpeachable likability (as he did in Hancock) by playing a character who makes some screwed-up choices. Like Eastwood's character in "Gran Torino," the enigmatic Will Smith character is a new kind of vigilante. I won't reveal the film's secrets but I will say that, although the film is emotionally manipulative, it resists facile readings. Are Smith's actions good? Are they bad? Ultimately do his choices benefit the common good? Do they benefit himself? You might hate this movie but if you really stop and think about these questions, you won't be able to come up with easy answers to them. Overall, this is a fair piece of work. Grade: C

Slumdog Millionaire. Thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely not the best film of the year, but I appreciated the original mode of storytelling. In fact, I love the very *idea* of telling somebody's life story by explaining how that person knows the answers to particular trivia questions. And I was captivated by the unflinching representations of poverty. The early acts of the film have an affective quality that's almost indescribable. You'll walk out of the theater remembering many of the images. Hats off to director Danny Boyle. You know those moments in Trainspotting that still take up space in your cranium? Boyle offers a whole bunch of those this go around. Grade: B+

break

The story of break is the story of food. Cooking to relax. Cooking to entertain. Some highlights...

Christmas Eve is all about the fish and seafood. My dad is the main architect of the dinner, but my sister and I helped. A lot of frying--croppies, shrimp, smelt--and I have the burn to prove it. Then there's the squid, which can't be undercooked or overcooked or it becomes inedible. I take no credit for the squid. That was all dad. Ditto the bacala salad. When I was a kid, my grandma served the bacala straight, but my dad's taken to combining the fish with eggplant, artichokes, celery, et al which is a brilliant move.

After the late-night drive, Christmas day. I made turkey with all the trimmings for the wife's side of the family. Even the gravy (I'm notoriously inconsistent with gravy) turned out well. Drippings from the turkey in a pan, I shake up milk and flour in a tupperware and then whisk the mixture into the drippings. Add a dash of salt and pepper, and that's it. Good stuff. Simple mashed potatoes. Simple stuffing (lots of celery and sage). Lots of homemade cookies. All-American meal after the seafood extravaganza of the previous night.

Yesterday, we celebrated Nicole's birthday. I made chili, a big fruit salad with lots of wedges of clementines, and a ricotta cake with cherries on top. That pretty much capped off the cooking frenzy. I'm starting a healthy eating plan a day early, missing the new year's rush.

the 2008 mixtape

I love year-end lists. Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em. Best films. Most interesting people. Most incomprehensible things overheard in the UM-Dearborn Arts Sciences and Letters Building. Strangest Gatorade flavors.

In his work on journaling, scholar Tom Romano talks about imagining an audience for his journal writing: himself as an old man, an old man who may or may not remember what it felt like to be 20 years old, or 35, or whatever age. Lists freeze a moment like few other genres can.

As a fairly obsessive music fan, the music lists are by far my favorite. As an old man, maybe forgetful of what my 34th year was like, what will I remember as my favorite music of 2008? Here's the recorded music I most enjoyed...

10. Tie: Hard Lessons, "See and Be Scene" and Estelle/Kanye West, "American Boy"

Two great duets. The Hard Lessons let the boy-girl vocal sharing mirror the fact that the guitar and organ share lead duties too. The vocals, which critique hipsterism, are a bit predictable, but that doesn't stop the song from being a great 60s pop throwback anthem. Meanwhile, Estelle (yes, her voice is gorgeous) and Kanye raise the bar for r&b ballads.

9. REM, Accelerate album

Is this the greatest thing REM's recorded? Of course not. But listen without prejudice and find lean, fast rock songs like "Living Well is the Best Revenge" and "Man-Sized Wreath." Who cares if they're old? So am I.

8. Belle and Sebastian, "I'm Waiting for the Man"

From the two-disc BBC Sessions record, this live Velvet Underground cover is, out of nowhere, one of B&S's essential recordings. How can a band that does twee get so gritty?

7. Beyonce, "Single Ladies"

I'm not a big fan of much top 40 music, but Beyonce turns out such hooky, well-written, well-executed singles, you can't help but listen.

6. The Kills, Midnight Boom album

They do dirty blues-rock better than The Black Keys in my opinion. Antagonistic lyrics and an overall aggressive ethos, but without sacrificing melody. Standout track: "Tape Song."

5. SSM, Break Your Arm for Evolution album

Psychedelic synth-rock from Detroit. The weirdest record I heard all year. Best when consumed loudly.

4. Dengue Fever, Venus on Earth album

Dengue Fever gets tagged with the dreaded "dad rock" and "NPR rock" labels all the time and, well, I first heard them on NPR, so I guess the tags have merit. Who cares? DF is a psychedelic-rock band fronted by a Cambodian diva who on some tracks sings gorgeous love songs in her native tongue. Other tunes, sung in English by various band members, take a more traditional rock approach. The opener, "Seeing Hands" is hypnotic. "Sober Driver," a kind of re-telling of Wilco's "Passenger Side," is funny and sad all at once.

3. TV on the Radio, "Golden Age"

What a messy and beautiful collision of funk, Afrobeat, pop, and rock: "It comes like a natural disaster/all blowin' up like a ghetto blaster."

2. Santogold, s/t album

Like TVOTR, genre and race boundaries are a non-issue for Santogold. Take a little ska, a little punk, a little dance, a little electronic...you get the point. A lot of the year's best music seems influenced by the mash-up movement that was so popular a few years back, except now artists are mashing the disparate genres on their own, making later mashes unnecessary.

1. The Dirtbombs, We Have You Surrounded album

Thematically, the tightest record yet from the best band in Detroit. Lyrics about urban unrest and anxiety set to a fast and fun amalgamation of soul and punk rock. The perfect soundtrack for a year when things fell apart in motown.

Bill O'Reilly Flips Out

Via stereogum.com part 2. Most people have probably seen this already, but it's like a fine wine...

Bert and Ernie

via stereogum.com

thanks jerk

Thanks Blagojevich. The country's not in enough of a mess. Obama doesn't already have a hard enough time cleaning up a dozen different spills. He really needed a distraction like this. Of course by all credible accounts, Obama's circle seems to have had absolutely nothing to do with this knucklehead's schemes. But that won't stop the right from doing a guilt-by-association number ("they're all part of the Chicago machine"). At any rate, thank goodness Blagojevich has given the media something to divert people's attention from dumb stuff like the auto industry crisis, the recession, and the legacy of Bush foreign policy.

How stupid was Blagojevich? He apparently didn't think anybody would be paying attention to the appointment of a replacement for that obscure Illinois politician WHO JUST GOT ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Nah, nobody's gonna be watching that process.

what haven't you read?

This week's AV Club has a nice piece called "Art We've Resisted," in which staffers talk about the music, tv, or film they've never made time to consume. "Resisted" is a telling and appopriate choice of words. When you consume pop culture in Big Gulps (the 48-oz. variety), you're essentially making a choice not to see the buzzworthy film or listen to the record that pitchfork gave a 10.0.

Me? I've never seen Titanic, Top Gun, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've never listened to a Radiohead studio album from beginning to end. I've never read Thomas Pynchon, except for the Crying of Lot 49, which I read for a class (this would have been circa 1995, Postmodernism taught by Prof. Culik).

At my former institution, we once played the "what book haven't you read?" at an English Department party. The highbrow version of the AV Club article, I suppose.

How about you? What haven't you read? What haven't you consumed?

mini-review: Belle and Sebastian

Like The Smiths, Belle and Sebastian invoke Andy Warhol on most of their record sleeves. Their new release, "BBC Sessions," is no exception. And the young hippychick, shown in black and white lost in a smile, is suggestive of the experience of hearing B&S, who for the most part showcase their optimistic pop inclinations on "Sessions."

The new record consists of two discs, one a collection of several appearances on BBC radio and one a concert taped in Glasgow in 2001. The BBC disc offers mellow versions of some of the best songs from "Tigermilk," "If You're Feeling Sinister," and their late-90s EPs. The standout track is a reading of "Lazy Line Painter Jane" (here called "Lazy Jane" for some reason), a song rightly considered one of the band's finest hours. The "Lazy Jane" version is, well, lazy sounding, but in a good way, as the melody lilts along without a whole lot of effort. Beautiful. Several unreleased songs, all heavy on Isobel Campbell vocals, end the disc, including the bouncy "Magic of a Kind Word," another standout moment. Over and over again, listeners are reminded of what a big sound B&S creates, combining rock guitars with string arrangements, percussions that echo 60s pop-rock, and even the occasional horn or two.

Even more enjoyable, the high-energy live disc. While the BBC tracks are slightly more mellow than the studio versions, the live tracks sound aggressive and fast. Even with the additional strings, the band never sounds orchestral in a wimpy way. In short, the live set rocks. "Me and the Major" benefits from the speed-it-up ethos of the set. So do covers of "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "The Boys Are Back in Town." Do we need another indie band doing an homage to the Velvet Underground? Yes. The band's reading of "I'm Waiting for the Man" is dirty, fuzzy, free of frills, and essential. With the exception of Yo La Tengo, I don't know another act with the breadth of Belle and Sebastian. Both discs of this new release see the band moving from lush and twee to raucous and fun. Recommended for diehards and newbies alike.

this is great

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

winter blues

Smokey and Hyatt six short weeks ago, enjoying autumn in the backyard. These two really miss those fall temperatures. Hunker down, guys, you won't be lounging in the fresh air for at least three months.

is Christmas frightening?

So last night Nicole and I put up our Christmas tree whilst enjoying some seasonal music. I should admit up front that aside from Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and the Ronettes' version of "Frosty the Snowman," I'm not a big fan of Christmas music. I love Christmas. I love music. Christmas music? Not so much.

Having said that, what's the story with "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"? Specifically, the line about the Christmas party where people share "scary ghost stories." Who tells ghost stories at a Christmas party?

Also, how about Louis Prima's "Shake Hands with Santa Claus." Not bad for a Christmas song, but what's with the whole verse about bananas? "If you want bananas, I'll give you bananas." I think this line is supposed to be from Santa's perspective, and I guess the implicit point Santa is making is that he can give you anything you want. I'm not sure bananas are the best way to illustrate the breadth of Santa's gift-giving ability. Alternate interpretation: Prima is lapsing into his King Louie persona from The Jungle Book.

back

Oh how the semester starts to disappear after Thanksgiving. So does free time. Not a good day to be sluggish. I got in a morning workout at the rec center and tried tried tried to catch up on work in my office. Emails. IRB paperwork. Prepping for class. Marking student papers. Generally getting organized. I've just organized the rest of the day's work and I'm heading home before the snow starts to accumulate.

Despite feeling sluggish, nice to be back after a great week in Arizona. The house is still standing. Hyatt and Smokey are still the most neurotic dogs in the motor city. And sadly Michigan is still cold.

As always, our Arizona hosts were awesome and showed us a good time. We did a quick trip to Tucson but mostly stayed in the Tempe-Phoenix area, where we took in the Botanical Gardens (which has a spectacular Chihuly Glass installation right now) and The Heard. Nicole and I ended up spending the better part of a day at the Heard Museum and got a lot out of their exhibit on the awful Indian boarding schools the government set up for kids who they essentially kidnapped in order to "civilize."

No matter how cool Detroit is, there's always a part of me that wonders why we ever left Arizona. Especially this time of year.