Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

Geeking Out

Check out what I found: an audio recording of Flannery O'Connor speaking on "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" (slightly different from the version in Mystery and Manners) and reading "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Awesome!

And let me just confirm, the reports of her accent are not exaggerated.

Oh You and Your Crazy Reading Self . . .

I came to Baylor this morning to sit in on a sophomore-level undergrad class (oh, the memories) in order to write an evaluation for my Research & Bibliography course. The class is reading Ernest J. Gaines' A Gathering of Old Men, in which football plays a rather prominent role. As a result, Dr. Ford was using the topic to draw out discussion from the students:

"I'm not really the intended audience here. I don't get this whole 'football' thing. I'm one of those people who sees the fans on TV, cheering the game with their bodies all painted, and thinks, 'Don't you have anything better to do?' So, help me understand why football is such a big deal."

One of the first students to reply was a large, athletic-looking fellow sitting in the corner, who (in a rather affectionately condescending tone) asked, "I suppose you'd rather read a book than play football, huh?" When Dr. Ford replied in the affirmative, the student just shook his head with a knowing grin and settled back into his chair with a chuckle.

Oh, you crazy, crazy English lit professors and your reading . . . Will you never learn?

(Sidenote: It's weird to remember that I used to always share class time with these people.)

Art Imitating Life

A few weeks ago, I was reminded of the existence of PhD comics by my cousin, who is currently doing graduate work in sociology at UT Austin. The link to the comic is still down there on my list, but sadly I gave up regularly reading comics about a year ago. It was sort of odd to read PhD again and realize that I hadn't visited since I started at Baylor. It was even more odd (and frightening, and depressing, and etc.) to stumble across a few scenes stolen directly from my life as I trolled through the archive. Check it out:

Oh, magical time management skills, why do you continue to elude me? (Let the snarky shots at the timestamp on this post begin.)