New CanadianBaconBarbie site!!!!

Direct yourself and your browser to: http://canadianbaconbarbie.com/

My birthday present from my wonderful sister Megan and her wonderful husband Liam!!! Thank you!!!

Sorry blogger. :P

Those Crazy Swedes

I also found this vintage travel guide for Sweden, which I thought was pretty enjoyable. I've wanted to visit Sweden for a long time now, but if I have a chance to wear a red or white leotard and frolick in the grass while doing some sort of rhythmic gymanstics, then I am *definitely* on board!

I like this one because I lived in Pennsylvania for 5 years and was often in precisely this position, with two kids and a dog in the backseat of my car, all rolling about with no seat-belts. I used to have a yellow hair band and matching cardigan just like that one, and my man always wore a crisply pressed shirt and never got pissed off when we had to stop and ask for directions.

Some Maps from the Good Old Days

When people took car trips together without the aid of electronic mindnumbification devices so the kids would shut up and stop annoying them. When the friendly guy at the Esso station in a bow tie and matching cap would give you directions, and everyone had a cheerful grin rather than the pouty expressions that car trips currently evoke. I found these at the thrift store for 25 cents a piece and couldn't resist.

Wacky Stuff on Women's Bodies from The Olden Days

I was in the library today looking for some stuff on the history of women's education and got side-tracked by some weird old books on women, education, and bodies. I found this 1880 text, The Coming Woman: The Royal Road to Physical Perfection, where a lecturer and teacher of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene named Eliza Barton Lyman provides the following useful advice: (seriously. You can't make this stuff up).

1. Don't marry someone with a large brain and small neck, especially if he kind of looks like you: "Take a man and woman of equally refined nervous constitutions, with large brains, small necks and chests, weak muscles, similar color of hair, eyes, complexion and conformation of head; let them marry, and if children come, they will be puny and short-lived in most cases, intensely excitable, disposed to brain and nervous disturbances" (195).
   
2. Pregnant women should not have sex since they "as a rule, are averse to the sexual union during the period of gestation, and if a desire should be manifested at the time, it may be regarded as the result of some abnormal condition: perhaps from ulceration of the womb, leucorrhea, granulation of the vagina" (219). According to Lyman this can also cause epilepsy in the unborn child and give it a "stupid, animalized look" (221) and "the idiotic condition" (221).
   
3. Men should be forewarned that "an excessive loss of semen is just as destructive to physical, mental, and spiritual upbuilding, as a daily drainage from the arteries would be" (222). Semen is composed of "the best arterial blood" and would otherwise be directed to the brain or muscles. One ounce of semen equals 40 ounces of blood.
   
4. After a baby is born, you should coat its entire body in vaseline or, if that is not available, oil from chickens or turkeys (which is preferable to vegetable oils since it is "more penetrating and softening, and less gluey" (234).
   
5. Don't let your baby wear a diaper for too long, since this can destroy "the balance of the body" and produce "the extreme of 'toeing out,' bow legs, halting gait, etc.'" (240).
   
6. "It is the duty of every woman to make herself as attractive as possible, and thus be enabled to do a greater amount of good in the world" (298). If your husband cheats on you, it is your fault for not keeping yourself "sweet and pretty".
   

Pre-warding Part II

As a preward for sending my manuscript out on Monday. (or Tuesday. At the latest.) I checked out the following books from the library:

• Laura Esquivel - Como Agua Para Chocolate
• Cristina Garcia - A Handbook to Luck
• Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Missing Soluch
• Neil Bissoondath - The Unyielding Clamor of the Night
• Barbara Gowdy - Helpless

Yay! Fun reading!

I also bought myself a rubber tree plant. It seemed appropriate.

Satisficing

When I was studying technical writing as an undergraduate we learned about satisficing--the tendency for readers and users of technologies to do, read, or learn just enough to perform a task satisfactorily. I've been thinking about this mainly because I'm getting ready to send my book manuscript to a publisher for review, and I'm trying to decide whether I'm being really thorough or whether I'm satisficing. I've read through the whole thing twice in the last week, once for substantive editing and once for proofreading. I'm so sick of the whole thing that I'd love just to send it out tomorrow. But part of me feels like I should read through it one more time, just to make sure I didn't miss anything. I think I should satisfice, though.

But I wonder how people to decide when to satisfice. In other words, when do you say enough is enough? Here are some examples from today's news:

• Researchers have succeeded in reawakening a severely brain-damaged person through an experimental form of surgery. The guy had been in a "minimally conscious" state for 6 years, and now he can feed himself and communicate with others. Had the doctors and scientists decided to satisfice, they would probably have figured they were doing what they can, and this guy would've stayed in his minimally conscious state forever.
  
• CNN just showed a graphic indicating that the nation's roads and bridges have received very poor grades in the past. Problems with the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota had been identified in 2001, according to a CNN report: "Two reports published since 2001 pointed to structural problems with the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed Wednesday into the Mississippi River, but both reports determined the bridge was safe despite deficiencies." In other words, people were satisficing, assuming that the bridge was in good enough shape despite the structural problems.
  

But clearly, we have to satisfice sometimes, right? Otherwise we'd never get anything done. We'd be mired in miniscule details of everything, from the blueberries in our cereal (do I go through and pick out the stems?) to our work (Do I keep working for 14 hours just to make sure everything is perfect)? It seems like satisficing has to do with the rhetorical concept of kairos, or right timing--it's a sense you get of when you should keep working and when you should stop. But it's pretty hard to know whether you are stopping out of satisfaction with the job or out of laziness.

As an aside, I'm betting technical communication experts will be looking pretty carefully at the reports about the bridge problem. As was the case with the Columbia and the Challenger disasters, there are communication as well as engineering/structural problems at stake here.

I am very seriously thinking of doing this. Or this. Sorry, Brazil.

We're being attacked by pollution on all fronts

Apparently our office printers release toxic particulate matter equivalent to the amount of pollution produced by a cigarette smoker. And, we are being inundated with electromagnetic radiation from our "cordless phones, cell phones, wireless computer networks, baby alarms, and microwaves." According to a company that markets an Electrosmog Detector, "a vulnerable minority of sensitive individuals" may be in for a range of symptoms including "sleep disruption, nosebleeds, headaches, migraines, lethargy, increased blood pressure, skin problems, the triggering of epileptic attacks and electrical hypersensitivity."

Of course, there's no escaping pollution. Even if we decided to retreat to some kind of remote rural area and raise our own yaks, we'd probably still be subject to methane. (Do yaks produce as much methane as cows?)

Women Scientists... sort of

Francis Crick's wife, Odile, died on July 5th. According to the New York Times, Odile Crick actually drew the sketch of the double helix that appeared in the original publication of "A Structure for Deoxyribonucleic Acid" and circulated widely in textbooks and articles. Meanwhile, the original article was typed by James Watson's sister Betty.

The article doesn't say whether Betty or Odile were paid or otherwise acknowledged for this work, but I'm guessing no. Somehow I'm guessing that Rosalind Franklin and other women scientists in that time period didn't have wives to type things for them or draw their pictures. Although some of them, like Lydia J. Roberts, a nutritionist, lived with family members. (Roberts lived with her sister, who basically kept house for her while she pursued her research).
The Doomsday Clock, used by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to indicate "how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction" was designed by a woman as well: Martyl Langsdorf, the wife of Alexander Langsdorf, Jr. , a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. (Incidentally, according to the Bulletin, it is 5 minutes to midnight, or in other words, "We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age." Back in 1991 we were only 17 minutes to midnight. This could not be good.)

At any rate, this kind of supportive collaboration is interesting to me. Women have for many years, even centuries, worked as scientific illustrators, popularizers, and support workers. This continued well into the 20th century, and even today--the editor of the PBS science show Nova is a woman: Paula Aspell. Unfortunately, popularizers of science don't tend to get the same kind of credit as the interpid, adventurous researchers making the big discoveries--even if those discoveries wouldn't have occurred, or wouldn't have been known to others without them.

Birth Control Pills for Birds

Apparently pigeons in Hollywood will soon be put on the Pill. People are complaining about the large pigeon populations and especially the large amount of poop pigeons generated. But, um, isn't this an environmental disaster waiting to happen? The drug in question, OvoControl P, will be placed in bird feeders around the city. But what if other species eat the food? What about the chemicals they are introducing into the ecosystem? Does OvoControl P contain hormones that have already been shown to affect male (human) sperm counts? Gees. Maybe pigeon condoms would be a better idea.

Update: Name Discrimination Plus Some Thoughts on Apologies?

Apparently the name discrimination issue I posted about the other day is a little different than previously reported by the CBC. According to the venerable CBC, government officials are now saying that

"asking applicants to provide a surname in addition to Singh or Kaur has been an administrative practice used by our visa office in New Delhi as a way to improve client service and reduce incidents of mistaken identity. This was not a mandatory requirement. There is no policy or practice whereby people with these surnames are asked to change their names."

They have also admitted that the letter they sent to Jaspal Singh, (the guy who brought this issue to light) was "poorly worded." This seems to be the written equivalent to the apologies politicians have been giving for oral miscommunications. For example, when Joseph Biden called Barack Obama "clean and articulate" he apologized by saying that it was not his intent to insult Obama and that his words were taken out of context.

So, I know we are in a post windowpane theory of language moment... we know that the effects of language always exceed the speaker's intent, and we question the speaker's sovereignty over that intent in the first place, and that meaning is slippery. But examples like these show that language does have concrete effects and that we'd like to hold people responsible for what they say. Right?

TagCrowd

I'm copying Chris, but here's the TagCrowd for my book prospectus:

academic articles book changes chapter college communication composition cultural discourse edited examines expertise female field gender genre homefront japanese knowledge madison national nutritionists opportunities power practices project psychologists regendering reports research resettlement rhetoric safety science scientific scientists shaped social studies systems technical texts war wartime wisconsin women work writing written

created at TagCrowd.com

And here's the one for this blog:

american apparently arguments aside barbie bike canada canadian care class comments entirely federer friend girl health hike jordynn keys labels least leave maybe mountain nice night number pack people pm posted really rhetoric river seems something sound spinning sure things think trail trip uniform universal war wear women work workers

created at TagCrowd.com

Some stuff about reading and writing

BoingBoing posted this bit about "Writing in the Age of Google," quoting William Gibson on his writing habits. Gibson suggests that having online distractions actually improves his ability to write: " I need a certain stimulation. It kind of feels like when you're floating underwater and you're breathing through a straw. The open Firefox is the straw: like, I can get out of this if I have to. I can stay under until I can't stand it anymore, and then I go to BoingBoing or something." I've been noticing lately that my own attention span is getting increasingly short, thanks to Facebook, this blog, and Allmj.com (online MahJongg--the real kind, not the solitaire kind). All these little addictions don't seem to be improving my writing or anything, but they do keep me tied to my laptop so I guess that's something. I could be practicing my salsa moves or playing my guitar or actually cleaning my house or something. So maybe in the end the micro-seconds where I am actually working will add up.

Also, people apparently read websites using an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal movements followed by a vertical scan down the page. They found this out using eyeball tracking software of some kind.

Another random nugget: in conversation with some friends the other night about how we motivate ourselves to work, I coined the term "prewarding." I used to reward myself for good behavior (i.e. finishing a book or a few pages of writing or whatever), but I have gotten into the bad habit of prewarding myself. i.e. Let me buy these cool pens and post-it flags so that I will be motivated to proofread my manuscript.... or Let me just go shopping and buy that yellow dress I was thinking about, and then I'll do work for a good 6 hours, because otherwise I will just be thinking about the dress anyway and I'll be distracted. Between the prewarding and the microsecond attention span, I have actually been rather productive, for some reason: I proofread and edited my manuscript once in 5 days (one chapter a day) and also drafted my bodies/wartime/women workers article (although I still need an argument). So maybe I deserve another preward before I go through the manuscript again.

Name Discrimination

The Canadian government has apparently banned two common Sikh last names under its immigration policy: Kaur and Singh. The reasoning is that these names are too common. According to the CBC, "In a tradition that began more than 300 years ago, the name Singh is given to every baptized male and Kaur to every baptized female Sikh." Hmm. It's not like immigration policy ever pretends not to discriminate. But still. This seems kind of ridiculous.

Rhetorical Recalcitrance

Two editorials in the New York Times have got me thinking about "rhetorical recalcitrance" or, in other words, the stubborn resistance of arguments that seem like they'd be easy to refute.

In "Final Period," Karen Houppert discusses a new birth control pill that eliminates periods completely, linking it to the recalcitrant argument that women are somehow physically and mentally debilitated by their periods. This argument has emerged periodically throughout the last 100 years (and more), and is generally trotted out any time women seek more rights or to enter into spaces from which they were previously excluded. In my research on women scientists during World War II I found an article by psychologist Georgene Seward, called "Psychological Effects of the Menstrual Cycle on Women Worker" (published in the Psychological Bulletin in 1944) in which she smashes previous arguments against women workers that were based on menstrual debility. She notes that women who got more exercise and worked more actually had fewer premenstrual symptoms, suggesting that PMS and related infirmities had more to do with culture than biology. Yet we still get the message that women are somehow weakened by menstruation and that, thanks to modern pharmaceuticals, we can just avoid menstruation all together.

Similarly, Paul Krugman argues that "the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments." While I wish this were the case, even Krugman cannot magically vanquish all arguments against universal health care by fiat. I'm sure that they will continue to circulate as the debate continues, with opponents offering the same objections they've been offering for years: universal health care = higher taxes, longer waits, etc.

What accounts for "rhetorical recalcitrance"? It doesn't seem to have much to do with logic, that's for sure, but it does have a lot to do with the values, beliefs, habits, and customs that give certain arguments a kind of "rightness" or "appropriateness" to audiences. Plus, these resistant arguments tend to have a lot of backing from economic interests.

On an unrelated note, from a NYT Editorial on Conrad Black: "there is nothing so frighteningly passive-aggressive as a well-irked Canadian."Also, with regards to Canadian Exceptionalism: "In Canada, any disagreement with the United States is typically cast in David and Goliath terms, with the Canadians as beleaguered underdogs and the Americans as rapacious swindlers (see: soft wood lumber, treaties regarding)."

Advertising Rhetoric

A short article in the latest issue of the Chronicle features a rhetoric professor who has made T-shirts with phrases like "Ask Me About Rhetoric" and "Isocrates, Youplato," in the hopes of raising public awareness of rhetoric as a discipline.

After a little searching at CafePress, I've decided to put these T-shirts on my Christmas list:

• Team Rhetoric
• I Love Rhetoric
• The Canon
  

Plus, this rhetoric sticker. As a public service I might order a few hundred of these and plaster them on telephone poles and stuff wherever I go.

The Chronicle also featured a piece about a Dictionary of Canadianisms, including the following quiz. (Match the term with the corresponding image. I'll post the answers tomorrow).

Canadian Exceptionalism

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggests that Canada offers a "unique style of leadership" that is somehow a "third way" between American (i.e. neo-liberal, WTO and World Bank driven) policy and left-wing, "regressive," anti-American approaches in Latin America. This is pretty good example of the rhetorical trope of "Canadian Exceptionalism":

"Canada is an open, free and democratic society with the strongest economy in the G8 today, while also being a proud and independent country with our own way of life. Canada's political structures differ substantially from those in the United States. Our cultural values and social models have also been shaped by unique forces and we've made our own policy choices to meet our own needs."

As is often the case in Canadian rhetoric, the primary function is differentiation from the United States. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I'm really not sure how this "third way" is all that different from the American approach, unless Harper is assuring Chileans that they can still sell and market whatever their equivalents are to Canadian bacon, stuffed moose dressed up as Mounties, and mass produced "First Nations" artwork.

If I wanted to be rich, I'd invent and market a Personal Sound De-Amplifier. It would be kind of like the Listen Up Personal Sound Amplifier. If you haven't seen the commercials for this, check out their website. The device allows you to eavesdrop on your neighbors while pretending to check your mail, among other things. Anyway, my device would have the opposite effect, allowing you to selectively stifle annoying sounds in your general milieu. Ideally my invention would work with a remote that you could point at people and things to turn down their decibel level. I can think of the following uses for such a device:

• Drown out HPGs (High Pitched Gigglers). One of these is sitting two tables away in the coffee shop where I am currently working and does not seem to want to tone down her supersonic laugh, despite my dirty looks.
  
• Stifle the LTs (Loud Talkers). The male half of a couple playing backgammon today was an LT and did not seem to knotice that the entire coffee shop could hear his game.
  
• Reduce outdoor mowing/weedwhacking sounds, which seem to occur only on the days I want to sleep in.
  
• Turn down the volume on passing trucks and cars when you are trying to talk on your cellphone outside.
  
• Turn down the volume on annoying cellphone talkers

It's a pretty self-centered device, really. So I think it would have a pretty good market.

Backpacking the Shenandoahs

Trip at a Glance:

• Number of Deer Spotted: 6
• Number of Deer Who Thought They Were Actually Dogs: 1
• Number of Bears: 0 :(Number of Miles Hiked: 12
• Number of Pounds Carried on Back: I'm guessing 45 if the water bottles were full
• Number of Bug Bites: Only about 10. Not bad.
• Number of Stoned Hippies: At least 100.
  
• Most Interesting Encounter: The super fit father of 4 grown children who was biking the entire Skyline Drive on Saturday--all 112 miles--and then going back the other way on Sunday.
  
• Biggest Oversell: The coffee at Aunt Sarah's in Richmond, VA
• 2nd Biggest Oversell: The Park Rangers super-favorite-secret campsite on Patterson Ridge Trail
• Best Freeze Dried Dinner: Santa Fe Chicken from Backpacker's Pantry
• Most Overpacked Item: Clothing
• Easiest Trail: The Appalachian Trail - at least where we were. It was pretty even didn't require too much climbing.
  
• Biggest Climb: Jones Run Trail - about 1000 feet in our estimation.

Overall Rating: 3/5 Stars

The Shenandoah National Park offers an range of options for the hiker. Skyline Drive runs along the top, with side trails going down into the valleys or up along mountain ridges. You can head down any of these side trails for some backcountry camping, or set up at a larger campground and do day hikes. Even if you are doing the backcountry option, as we were, you can emerge from a trail onto Skyline Drive and get a cold soda and a burger at the Wayside Cafe, or get a cold shower and do your laundry at the Loft Mountain Store.

We started our trip heading down the Doyles River Trail. At the trailhead, we encountered the baby deer/dog (see above), who kept cantering out from behind an RV in the parking lot to check us out. He'd pause, and then dart off in a circle to his hiding place behind the camper. After watching the deers antics and loading up our packs, we headed down the trail for about 2.5 miles and camped at the confluence of Doyles River and Jones River. Both of these were more like streams than rivers. There were a few small waterfalls on the way down, but having gotten a late start we pushed ahead to find a campsite. Field mice scampered about the site at nightfall looking for a bite, and we heard a couple of owls calling, but fortunately our food stash seemed undisturbed in the morning.

Jones River Trail seemed like a popular day hike--we saw several passers by as we cooked up oatmeal and coffee in the late morning. We set off up the trail, which climbed steadily back up tot the top of the ridge. After three or four hours of uphill hiking, we hit the AT for a couple of easy miles and returned to the Doyles River trailhead.

Overall the valley experience was nice, but we decided we'd try to stay up on the ridge for the second day. After a cold soda and some fried food at the Wayside Cafe (where we met the crazy cyclist), we drove up to the Loft Mountain Campground to inquire about a prime backcountry hike with a view. The Ranger suggested Patterson Ridge trail, where his secret campsite offered a huge pine tree with a soft bed of needles, a partial view of the canyon, and wildflowers and bunnies. It was also a short 20 minute hike away from main road. Well, this was a bit of an oversell. We found the campsite about 100 yards off the trail, and it was nice, but not quite what A. was expecting. So we decided to hike back to the car, watch the sunset at one of the overlooks, and spend the night in Charlottesville so A. could get an early start back home in the morning (work duty called).

I was a tad bit disappointed not to do a second night of camping, but Charlottesville, VA turned out to be a nice surprise. The historic Main St. of the town is closed to cars and full of cafes with outdoor seating and, on this particular occasion, hippies leaving some kind of Grateful Dead spin off concert. It was nice to get a fresh meal and a nice shower. But I haven't had my fill. A. and I both thought that next time we'd look for a prime site on one of the ridges, where we could leave our heavy packs and do some day trips up the mountains or into the valleys. But I'd also like to do a big chunk of the Appalachian Trail sometime... maybe in North Carolina.

Packing List

I'm going on a three day backpacking trip in the Shenandoah National Park, but by the looks of my guest bedroom, where I've spread out all my gear, I'm leaving for a 3 month expedition in the Himalaya's. The thing about such trips is that the basic gear stays the same whether you are going for 2 days or 10. The only difference for a longer trip is that you need more food and more socks.

So my packing list includes:

• tent
• sleeping bag
• sleeping pad
• lightweight backpacking stove and gas cannister thingy
• water filter (thanks Jen!)
• water tablets and Crystal Light (my preferred method but apparently not satisfactory in the Shenandoahs).
  
• 3 Nalgene bottles
• 3 pairs hiking socks (need to locate 1-2 more pairs in the bottom of my closet/sock drawer)
• a couple shirts, pants, shorts, etc.
  
• cooking gear and eating gear
  
• food: two prepackaged freeze dried meals, granola bars, oatmeal, crackers. (A's bringing more).
  
• first aid kit
• toiletries
• camera
• whistle and compass
  
• book: Harry Potter y el misterio del principe (These books are a great way to keep on my Spanish... aside from traveling places which is way better of course.)
  
• A bunch of other random crap: rain poncho, tarp, bungees, rope (for hanging food out of the way of bears)
• Topo map (very important)
  
• Medium sized "Juice box" of wine--this is a very handy invention
  

Since I'm meeting my hiking buddy A. near the park, we are going to sort through our stuff before striking out. So maybe some of these things will be duplicates and I can jettison them from my pack, which last night weighed about 30 or 35 pounds. This is I think more than I should be carrying but on my last trip my pack was 45 pounds so this felt like nothing. And I am using a new internal frame backpack made for women, as opposed to the 1972 external frame pack I used on my last trip.

We checked out a number of possible routes but I think we've settled on this one. It looks good for a weekend: easy 2.3 miles the first day, which is good because we are meeting at 3:00 and will probably need at least another hour to get our s**t together. The second day is 8 or 9 miles and covers some of Furnace Mountain without making us hike the whole thing all at once (apparently it is called Furnace Mountain because the sun beats down, nearly boiling one in one's own skin). The last day is 6.4 miles or so. So hopefully the weather will be nice and my pack won't suddenly way 20 lbs more when I put it on....

Siamese Cherries

Also the name of a band.

Weighing in on Sicko

I went to see Sicko tonight with 3 admittedly liberal academic friends. Behind us were two Young Republicans. So the film offered a nice opportunity to do a little observation of the film's effectiveness in persuading these different audience. The Young Republicans guffawed at nearly everything. I didn't hear all of their comments, as they weren't sitting directly behind me, but they did seem to repeat the word "taxes" on several occasions.

Afterwards, the 3 of us discussed what might have been done differently to persuade such an audience, if indeed they were persuadable on such a topic given their apparent political leanings. Mark suggested that the Reagan era had inculcated a deep distrust of taxes, big government, and any other perceived infringement on "choice" or "freedom," one that might prevent some audiences from accepting (or really listening to) arguments for universal health care. Laura suggested that more facts and statistics might have been useful. In addition to showing how a family in Britain or France lived, for instance, Moore might have shown how much those families paid in taxes for their free health care and cheap prescription drugs. Lauren and I felt that Americans are trained NOT to identify with people who appear to be lower-middle class or below. So even those who might be in similar financial straights as the families who were led to near bankruptcy to pay for medical bills might not identify with those families... no one wants to admit to being anything less than middle class.

More observations:

• Canada comes out looking pretty good in the movie, but not nearly as good as France.
• There are cute doctors in England and Cuba. Must visit Cuba.
• Not too many people in the theater seemed to get the joke about not being able to show the viewers how to get to Cuba by boat.
  
• The Young Republicans found it extremely funny that the Canadian golfer identified himself as Conservative, politically, but that he supported universal health care. This goes to show how deeply entrenched the conservative/liberal dichotomy is in the United States and how it does not map neatly onto other countries. Oddly, there are political parties actually named Liberal and Conservative in Canada.
  
• Someone needs to do a project on Tommy Douglas, the Canadian who apparently single handedly convinced all of Canada to support socialized medicine (according to the golfer in the movie) and who was recently named The Greatest Canadian. I'm sure he was a very eloquent person, but there's got to be more to the story than that. Anyone? Anyone?
  

Friendemies and Agon

I'm not a tennis fan and I don't really know much about the game, but yesterday's match between Federer and Nadal seem to me like a pretty good example of agon. A match between two really good opponents seems to elevate both players' games. and ultimately has beneficial effects. Granted, Federer still wore his flashy white suit after winning, but even he seemed somewhat humbled afterwards. This is why Federer and Nadal are friendemies. When we talk about rhetoric and agon and athletics and kairos and pedagogy (along with people like Debbie and Chris) This seems to be precisely the kind of relationship that is at stake.

I can definitely attest to the pedagogical value of the friendemy relationship. When I was younger I had a ballet friendemy, Laura. We were both around the same skill level, but we were the most advanced students at our school, at the time. Since we were closely matched, talent-wise, we ended up pushing each other to improve. If she got something down before I did, I'd work extra hard to perfect it, and vice versa. Here's the thing about friendemyship, though: it's entirely unspoken. Laura and I hung out and never said anything to each other that so much as implied a rivalry, or jealousy, or anything like that. I don't know much about Nadal and Federer but it seems like they have a similar relationship--friendly on the outside, with a bit of enemy on the inside. But it's the kind of relationship that can be difficult to inculcate, deliberately. The Williams sisters probably had a built-in agon relationship, given their closeness in age and skill. In fact sibling relationships are ideal for this kind of thing. But it's not like you can just put any two people together and expect the same kind of relationship to emerge. It seems to require proximity and time, two things we can't automatically engineer in a classroom setting.

As an aside, if I were Nadal I think I'd have a little bit more enemy feelings on the inside because of Federer's self-presentation. The guy had a colour-coordinated ensemble, which included white pants and jacket, and the following items with gold detailing (to match the championship cup): shirt, sweater-vest (or golf shirt? couldn't tell), white bag (with four gold medallions symbolizing each of his Wimbledon championships), and shoes (also with gold medallions). Of course, Barbie has nothing against colour-coordination and I'm sure there's a Tennis Barbie out there with a similar ensemble. Maybe they can model a Tennis Ken doll after Federer. I'm sure he'd appreciate the opportunity for one more endorsement deal, wouldn't he?

Pink

I'm sure there's no conspiracy involved here, but according to my friend M, her brand new baby Layla (born yesterday) will be clothed entirely in pink as long as she is wearing the gifts they've received so far, with the exception of a cute blue sunsuit our friend Mark bought them. I've heard the same thing from my friend S, who says that when she does laundry for her baby Katie, it looks like a Pepto Bismol explosion. Now, Barbie has nothing against pink and has built a very lucrative empire almost entirely on that colour. But even leaving aside the social message, what kind of fashion message are we sending to our baby girls? You don't see me wearing a pink Canadian Mountie outfit, do you?

Incidentally, I don't blame the gifters. Speaking from experience, you have to deliberately search for non-pink baby girl items. I bought both Layla and Katie two outfits each--one lavender and one blue--to try to offset the pinkness. A girl needs options, right?

Bodily Metrics

In spinning class on Tuesday I felt kind of like the Princess and the Pea. I got to class 5 minutes before it started and began to adjust the bike I usually use. When I mounted, however, I realized that left pedal was not attached to the bike but lying on the ground. All the good bikes were taken, so I proceeded to spend the first 20 minutes of class moving from bike to bike. They all had problems:Bike #1: Made a grinding sound, like it needed some wd40, and was difficult to adjust the tension (a slight tap on the adjuster thingy led to an exponential increase in tension).

Bike #2: Wobbly

Bike #3: (purportedly new): Right pedal seemed to be attached incorrectly, so it was slanted, so when we did a standing climb my foot did whatever the opposite of pronation is.

Bike #4: Wobbly, but super easy tension wise, so I looked like a badass with the tension cranked all the way when actually I was working at an 8/10.

I ended up settling for Bike #4.

Ever since I took a spinning class at my old gym with this guy who is on the UNC cycling team, I have become very particular about adjustment. I don’t like it if I can’t lower the handlebars or if the seat doesn’t move back and forth. UNC Cycling Guy encouraged us to write down the exact measurements we had determined on an index card, which he kept on file, so we could check everything carefully before class: height of seat, position of seat, height of handlebars, distance form handlebars to seat, etc. They had a brand new fleet of yellow bikes that were easily adjustable.

At my new gym nobody seems to care too much about all these things, possibly because all the bikes are from 1972 and don’t easily adjust anyway. But isn’t that wrong? Or am I just too anal? There is something rather Foucauldian about the specific bodily metrics I learned at my old gym. Perhaps this is evidence that have become a docile body of the spinning institution, or something. But then again maybe I feel a lot comfortable if I can adjust everything appropriately and get annoyed when the above situation happens.

Then again, everyone at my old gym got really into spinning and started to emulate the instructor, who taught the class in fully spandex regalia replete with a UNC logo. First they started wearing the little shorts, then the shoes, and then people started showing up in the full outfit. Because wind resistance is a big problem with indoor spinning.

Rather than inculcating these forms of bodily discipline, my new gym has instead invested time and money into converting the spinning room into a “cosmic spinning” room. (My term, not theirs). This means that they have painted the walls and floors black, with a highway and buildings and palm trees in fluorescent colors. The class is conducted under black lights. The instructor’s teeth glow so I always think she is chewing fluorescent yellow gum. Of course this is completely pointless, but maybe it is a cheap way to distract us from the sub-par quality of the equipment.

A Lesson Learned About the Life of Things

If given the opportunity, keys will go off and have a little adventure on their own. They will suddenly disappear from any of the usual places: the little shelf right inside the front door where you are supposed to leave the keys so you can find them again, the little table inside the front door where you leave other stuff you're always losing, any of the 4 or 5 purses you could have been using in the last day or so. You will search high and low for the keys, checking each purse and all of its pockets at least twice. Then you will hunt for the 52 spare keys the previous homeowner gave you but which--coincidentally?--have also disappeared. In the process, you will find some other cool things you had forgotten about: 2 Lindt chocolates leftover from Christmas but tasting no worse for the wear; a set of semi-humorous magnets with images of billboards on them; an entire package of green latex gloves leftover from a painting project but that could offer protection from hazardous chemicals and other nasty stuff. Finally, after enduring several minutes in the sweltering attic, and two days of worrying that someone had found your keys and would use them to enter your house at night, the keys will return (snickering to themselves in mischievous delight) to the pocket in your purse, which you checked at least twice but which you *swear* was empty just minutes before.

Ok, so maybe this doesn't happen to other people. It is possible that there are tiny invisible elves or fairies at work in my house. Which would explain why I can never find anything else I need, either.

Is it anti-feminist of me to kind of want this game?

I had an interesting conversation last night with a friend who is an American living in Canada, about the state of rhetorical affairs in our respective countries. I was telling him about one of the RSA Institute presentations we heard, from Nan Johnson, about the Gettysburg Address and how it has come to stand as the exemplar of American oratory. Yet I can't think of a single item of Canadian rhetoric that has had nearly that level of influence--i.e. people can quote from it, learn to recite it at school, etc. The only thing that comes close, in my opinion, is the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, which we all head to memorize and recite on Remembrance Day. Or, more recently, "The Rant, " which was from a commerical for Molson Canadian (and, we decided, is an exemplar of an epideictic refutationtm).

To explain this phenomenon, we generated the following hypotheses:

1) A revolutionary country requires an early investment in producing national identity through rhetoric, while a country that gradually weans itself away from the great mothership has less of a need to do so, (until it is struck by its own identity crisis much much later in the 1970s.)

2) In America, rhetorical displays of patriotism are produced and driven by the market (see "Proud to Be an American," etc.) I guess that's the true definition of freedom--no one has to force you to produce patriotic pap for the radio; it just naturally arises from the patriotic spirit of the nation. Or something. In Canada, the market does not naturally produce rhetorical displays of patriotism. At least not in song. It didn't even produce many good singers until the CANCON rules were inaugurated. So these have to be commissioned by the government, as was the case when the government sponsored a contest for a song to commemorate the 125th anniversary of confederation in 1992. The song sucked, not surprisingly.

Apparently Canada has a long list of patriotic songs, including these:

At The Canada Jubilee
Bells of Canada
Canada, Land of the Maple Tree
Canada in My Pocket
The Canadian Boat Song
Canadian Folk 'Overture'
The Canadian Girl
Canadian Man
Drink Canada Dry
Hockey Night in Canada Theme
Sweet, Sweet Canada
Un Canadien Errant (A Wandering Canadian)
Young Man From Canada

Aside from "Oh Canada" and "God Save the Queen" (which really isn't about Canada) and "Hockey Night in Canada" (which as far as I know has no words), I haven't heard of any of them. And I'll bet most of these were commissioned for various milestones in Canadian history.

3) Canada defines it self in contradistinction to the United States, and you can't wax poetic (or rhetorical) about a lack.

*****

In case you were wondering, here's more about Canadian Girls in Training:

World War II didn't start the uniform trend for women. Far from it. But the pseudo-military uniform, outside of wartime, was usually meant for girls and teenagers who were encouraged to join clubs and training groups, I think. I belonged to Explorers and then to Canadian Girls in Training. Both were kind of nautical-themed. In Explorers, we had to wear a white blouse onto which we sewed these different badges. I think you had to get six of them, for things like memorizing the Explorer creed or what have you. Then you could move up to CGIT, where you got to wear a sailor blouse called a middy (see left). The uniform also entailed a "lanyard," which I think was some kind of white rope thingy. I forget. The whole point of these organizations was to emulate the premier group, the Girl Guides, who were in turn emulating either the American Girl Scouts or the British Girl Guides. I wanted to be a Brownie (precursor to Girl Guide), in part because they had a cute brown uniform that they got to wear to school on Remembrance Day. We didn't wear our Explorer uniforms on Remembrance Day.

Aside: The whole episode is kind of representative of my childhood. Whenever I asked for something, my mom would give me a reasonable facsimile, which she thought was better. But I just wanted the original. So, for instance, I wanted a Mr. Potatohead and asked for one for 7 consecutive Christmases. Instead, I got this kind of dumpy, flat, pear shaped plastic thingy that came with a bunch of different Colorforms for hair, eyes, and clothing. Not the same as a Mr. Potatohead. I'm not knocking Colorforms or anything, though. In fact, if I had this set I'd probably still play with it. It's very mod.

Where Have All the Uniforms Gone? (Long Time Passing)

I'm working on an article... or chapter... or something about the body of the woman worker during World War II. I've been looking at books and pamphlets and newspaper stories about a) women's physical capabilities (as described by those seeking to constitute them as suitable for war work) and b) women's uniforms/clothing for war work. Part of getting women into the war effort, it seems, was giving them stylish uniforms to wear for such duties as driving a bus or acting as an Army Emergency Relief person. For example, the female bus driver got to wear the above ensemble, designed by couturier Helen Cookman. This entailed, according to a New York Times description, both a "slim, fly-front, flared skirt" and "matching knee-length shorts." You can't really tell from the picture, but I guess this means it was a skort. Kind of a fashion faux pas, if you ask me, but maybe it was functional for driving a bus.

The Army Emergency Relief uniform sounds a lot nicer: "a fawn-colored skirt topped by a cocoa-colored tailored jacket with double-breasted slanting pockets," along with "a crepe blouse in beige with a Peter Pan collar." Of course, this descriptive language masks the fact that you'd actually be clothed entirely in brown. Trust me, the effect is not that attractive, which you would know if, like me, your family was famous for a group portrait of all five children wearing identical bowl haircuts and brown outfits, on a brown backdrop. I'll post it if I get the chance to scan it in.

At any rate, reading these descriptions kind of makes me wish more people got to wear snappy skirt suited uniforms these days. Aside from flight attendants, it seems to me that most of the uniforms people wear today have been designed from a kind of unisex perspective. Think of the postal worker, for instance. Or the UPS driver. Every once in a while you'll hear about some fashion designer creating a line of uniforms for hospital workers or something. (Or for postal workers, which they did on Project Runway.) But these never get adopted. And the uniform has mostly become a marker of the service profession, so that many of us never get to wear one. Unless you count the ballet uniform I had to wear for exams (which in the early days was a pastel little dress, with white ankle socks, and later turned into a scratchy nylon v-neck leotard provided by my teacher) or the faux sailor-suit I wore for Canadian Girls In Training (yes, it's a real group), I've never had the honour of wearing one. I wouldn't mind if we had some kind of professor uniform to wear on occasion. Not the academic regalia, though, because that is a) horrifyingly fugorific and b) not very figure flattering. I'm thinking more of some kind of skirt suit, maybe in tweed, with a cool badge to indicate your area of expertise. Skort optional.

Name Your Blog

FYI, here are some of the blog names I rejected, courtesty of the Band Name Maker, before settling on the current gem:

Piss Ant of the Eloquent Groove
Chronotope Monkey and the Rhetorical Effect
Chronotopic Ruminations
Adverse Forehead
Rhetoric of the Devious Controller
Nectarine Of The Rhetoric Bandit

I kind of like some of those. I'll keep them in mind in case I ever need another blog. Or a band.