Monthly Archives: October 2007

The ants read Tennyson

Via Andrew Sullivan, here’s evidence that ants read Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (1842 [1833]): WORKER ants accurately gauge their life expectancy, regardless of their actual age, and take on riskier tasks as they feel their days ebbing away. Here’re the relevant lines … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on The ants read Tennyson

Addressing the important issues

Dunkin Donuts has too many choices.  I don’t think I’d like to be able to order pizza at a donut shop (though my students tell me it’s pretty good for fast food pizza*).  I like Dunkin Donuts, and we drink … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Addressing the important issues

Fiendish conference ideas: The Abstract Police

Before dinner this evening, I was chatting with someone at the conference–not my designated conference buddy–who was still grappling with cuts in her paper.  Eventually, she came round to the view that, after all, no one in the room would … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Fiendish conference ideas: The Abstract Police

Packing for a conference: Notes to my future self

One of the funniest things about the conference I’m currently attending–which, I should add, is jam-packed with academic goodness–is that there are a pretty limited number of flights to the conference city, and so the last couple of days have … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

This month’s column: An interview with Mark Edmundson

The October issue of Bookslut is up, including installment 2 of Psycho Slut.  This month, I briefly discuss Volume 1 of the Standard Edition: “Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts,” before getting down to the real business of the column: An … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on This month’s column: An interview with Mark Edmundson

Two interesting online tools

WikiMindMap creates mindmaps of the links in Wikipedia pages.  Here, for instance, is how it represents the entry for Charles Dickens. (Thanks, Tom!) ZIPskinny pulls census data on a zipcode-by-zipcode basis.  Here’re the results for my ZIP code; while the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Two interesting online tools

Interview with Joe Wenderoth

This week at Bookslut, I’ve posted an interview with Joe Wenderoth, author of Letters to Wendy’s and, last month, No Real Light.  We talk about YouTube and poetic performance, about political poetry, the fate of poets in the American University, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Interview with Joe Wenderoth