2006-03-30
Ho-Hum
Ho-Hum. Tweedily-Dee. Tweedily-Dumb.
Had a great time in Chicago... shit, that was almost a month ago. Met up with Colin whose "Introduction to Geopolitics" is coming out next month sometime. He's stoked. I'm stoked -- I loved TA-ing his course that the book is based on, and I'm pumped to see my maps and charts make it into a textbook of such kickass nature! (There is a picture of a grenade and M-60 bullets on a blood-red on the cover of this book, that's how cool it is.) He keeps telling me the Mackinder map remake I did is going to "be famous." I can only hope so, as I would much rather make maps than work for a living...
I have switched topics. I made the plunge. I am now a cartography grad student. It was a little difficult telling Helga, and I'm not sure how she took the advisory switch, but I hope she understands. It was interesting running a session on post-socialist transformation at the AAG with a bunch of big-wig, famous geographers in that arena, knowing damn well that other than as a side interest, I won't be doing research there in the next year or so. Still, it was great to meet Adrian and John, and John has basically rewritten the field of cartography from scratch, so we just chatted about critical GIS, etc.
***
I've been on a real reading kick recently. I don't know what has gotten into me. I think the topic switch has rejuvenated my interests in everything other than social theory. I read a great book, "Longitude," about the inventor of the chronometer, John Harrison. Read three or four Monmonier books, including a reread of "How to Lie with Maps." His "Bushmanders and Bullwinkles" was great too, but perhaps my favorite of his so far is "Expository Mapping," which has everything you need to know about mapping in it, including copyright laws and rules, etc. The book that turned my crank most was "The Power of Maps" by Denis Wood, whom I later heard was arrested for touching kids or something. (A lot of academics are insane. Hell, at Penn State I took a seminar from someone who was a triple-murderer and had served 30 years in prison. He was outed shortly after the class ended and kicked out of the university for lying on his resume. Is it really "lying," though, if you just fail to mention that you murdered people? Particularly if they fail to ask this question?) "Power of Maps" was fascinating. One of the most poorly written books I have ever read -- the guy uses " . . . " like they are going out of style. He does it about three times in every paragraph. But his arguments were really convincing and really pushed the envelope for me. Another good read has been "You Are Here," which is basically all pictures and a little text, including a four-pager by Denis Wood. It shows maps from around the world as done by artists and critical academics. It even has a section on imaginary land maps, which makes me wonder what happened to all of the Top Secret, Vampire, and D&D maps I made as a kid. Damn, I wish I still had those, I could write a paper on them!
I've been reading novels too. The crazy thing is, I've been doing more reading in the past month than I think I've done in the past two years. And even when I read this neoliberal counter-theory shit, I wasn't really absorbing it. Now I feel as though I'm actually soaking everything up. I have been busy buying all of these map books, so I'm just grabbing novels off the shelf in the guest bedroom that Birgit and I haven't had time to read despite our best intentions. Basically, I wanted to know what the buzz about Dan Brown is all about. And I decided it is ridiculous. I read Digital Fortress first, which was basically a crappy thriller novel about the NSA and its ability to spy on everyone' s emails, etc. So corny, yet oddly a obsessive read. One thing that drives me nuts about Dan Brown is how he writes about women and their thoughts. I actually wonder if he has ever slept with his wife, because he writes about women characters from the most bizarre male gaze possible. I think he is deprived. Having read his obscure, first or second novel, I decided to tackle the one he is now being sued over. Birgit picked up the softcover in the Vienna airport last summer, but never got around to reading it. I dusted it off and began. It was an entertaining read, but Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene! It isn't that great. Hell, Ludlum has done much better stuff. And one thing that drives me nuts about Dan Brown is how predictable it is. I almost feel like his editor makes him drop in too much foreshadowing, as maybe s/he is worried that the general public will think his books are too complex otherwise. It was so obvious Sophie was the great-grand-daughter of Christ from about page 70-on that I was completely disappointed to find that after reading the next 522 pages, that was the surprise climax. Complete fucking bore, I say! Why didn't they find the grail, expose the church, start World War III and set up a sequel? Arrrggghhhhh... but I guess this is why I am not a novel writer. My books would never sell. Hell, they wouldn't even make sense, so I'll just leave writing novels to the experts; after all, as much as I opine that it sucked, I couldn't put the piece o' crap down.
***
I'm off to Brazil. I leave on May 5. I'm excited and a little nervous. My brother has been getting a little testy lately. I am curious if I will pull my hair out on this trip -- not that there is that much left to pull out anyway... getting old sucks, man! But hell, to see Brazil for 16 days, to be in a place without a television or computer hookup, to just read on the Atlantic Ocean in a fishing town... yeah, I'll make it. The most stressful part is getting a visa. There are all these pesky requirements. I filled out the forms, got my visa photos, was all ready to send the application fee, etc. And then I looked at the money order I got and it was the wrong kind. I had already filled in "Pay to: The Consular General of Brazil" and I can't even send it. So now I'm $100 in the hole and have to start over. Merde!
Luckily I met up with Ivan right after that for a "coffee," which turned into a beer at Bullwinkles and pre-season baseball between the Red Sox and Pirates. Ivan is a grad student here hailing from State College. The only one that I've found this past year that has a life outside of social theory. Glad to see I found another baseball fan.
***
So yeah, as much as I bitch, life is good. I am happy with my topic swtich. I'm flying off to Brazil to hang out with my estranged brother. My dad called me for the first time in over a year the other day. I had a great time hanging out with my step-dad in our basement a week ago, watching two flicks Birgit had no interest in seeing -- "Jarhead" and "Lord of War." I am feeling creative again for the first time in years. I have this cool dissertation idea that may harness some of that creative energy, if I am allowed to go through with it. I am journaling again -- longhand, which just feels right. And coolest of all, our fledgling little studio business is doing quite well considering we haven't even had time to finish our website. We've got that geopolitics book coming out in the near future. We have maps coming out in an Anthropology edited volume. I did a map for an upcoming coffee hour. We have contracts with various organizations that are fairly large. And Birgit and I are ditching both of our families for the Easter holiday to run off into the country, lock ourselves in a B&B, and spend the three day weekend hashing out everything that needs to be done for Muehlenhaus Studios. We're just going to bring our laptops and external hard-drives and seriously work around the clock somewhere on a lake. A Muehlenhaus Studios weekend retreat! The first annual one. Hopefully it is a tax write off. Hell, we hope to finish more for the business than at any time previously, including the website, establishing our rates, finalizing our generic contract for clients, and creating business cards. We now officially have stationary, which I completed over spring break. So all we need now is a polished website and business cards and we are ready to roll!
***
Cathartic ramble. Not very exciting. But I feel better and that is what counts. Ciao.
***
One more thing. I am pleased to announce that Muehlenhaus Studios is now an official business with a tax number, etc. Some windmill people seem quite irked about this development, but tough teletubbies. We keep getting hits from Europe of Germans looking for information on windmills. I think they are actually looking for www.muehlenhaus.de. I guess this means we are accidentally trans-national!
Had a great time in Chicago... shit, that was almost a month ago. Met up with Colin whose "Introduction to Geopolitics" is coming out next month sometime. He's stoked. I'm stoked -- I loved TA-ing his course that the book is based on, and I'm pumped to see my maps and charts make it into a textbook of such kickass nature! (There is a picture of a grenade and M-60 bullets on a blood-red on the cover of this book, that's how cool it is.) He keeps telling me the Mackinder map remake I did is going to "be famous." I can only hope so, as I would much rather make maps than work for a living...
I have switched topics. I made the plunge. I am now a cartography grad student. It was a little difficult telling Helga, and I'm not sure how she took the advisory switch, but I hope she understands. It was interesting running a session on post-socialist transformation at the AAG with a bunch of big-wig, famous geographers in that arena, knowing damn well that other than as a side interest, I won't be doing research there in the next year or so. Still, it was great to meet Adrian and John, and John has basically rewritten the field of cartography from scratch, so we just chatted about critical GIS, etc.
***
I've been on a real reading kick recently. I don't know what has gotten into me. I think the topic switch has rejuvenated my interests in everything other than social theory. I read a great book, "Longitude," about the inventor of the chronometer, John Harrison. Read three or four Monmonier books, including a reread of "How to Lie with Maps." His "Bushmanders and Bullwinkles" was great too, but perhaps my favorite of his so far is "Expository Mapping," which has everything you need to know about mapping in it, including copyright laws and rules, etc. The book that turned my crank most was "The Power of Maps" by Denis Wood, whom I later heard was arrested for touching kids or something. (A lot of academics are insane. Hell, at Penn State I took a seminar from someone who was a triple-murderer and had served 30 years in prison. He was outed shortly after the class ended and kicked out of the university for lying on his resume. Is it really "lying," though, if you just fail to mention that you murdered people? Particularly if they fail to ask this question?) "Power of Maps" was fascinating. One of the most poorly written books I have ever read -- the guy uses " . . . " like they are going out of style. He does it about three times in every paragraph. But his arguments were really convincing and really pushed the envelope for me. Another good read has been "You Are Here," which is basically all pictures and a little text, including a four-pager by Denis Wood. It shows maps from around the world as done by artists and critical academics. It even has a section on imaginary land maps, which makes me wonder what happened to all of the Top Secret, Vampire, and D&D maps I made as a kid. Damn, I wish I still had those, I could write a paper on them!
I've been reading novels too. The crazy thing is, I've been doing more reading in the past month than I think I've done in the past two years. And even when I read this neoliberal counter-theory shit, I wasn't really absorbing it. Now I feel as though I'm actually soaking everything up. I have been busy buying all of these map books, so I'm just grabbing novels off the shelf in the guest bedroom that Birgit and I haven't had time to read despite our best intentions. Basically, I wanted to know what the buzz about Dan Brown is all about. And I decided it is ridiculous. I read Digital Fortress first, which was basically a crappy thriller novel about the NSA and its ability to spy on everyone' s emails, etc. So corny, yet oddly a obsessive read. One thing that drives me nuts about Dan Brown is how he writes about women and their thoughts. I actually wonder if he has ever slept with his wife, because he writes about women characters from the most bizarre male gaze possible. I think he is deprived. Having read his obscure, first or second novel, I decided to tackle the one he is now being sued over. Birgit picked up the softcover in the Vienna airport last summer, but never got around to reading it. I dusted it off and began. It was an entertaining read, but Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene! It isn't that great. Hell, Ludlum has done much better stuff. And one thing that drives me nuts about Dan Brown is how predictable it is. I almost feel like his editor makes him drop in too much foreshadowing, as maybe s/he is worried that the general public will think his books are too complex otherwise. It was so obvious Sophie was the great-grand-daughter of Christ from about page 70-on that I was completely disappointed to find that after reading the next 522 pages, that was the surprise climax. Complete fucking bore, I say! Why didn't they find the grail, expose the church, start World War III and set up a sequel? Arrrggghhhhh... but I guess this is why I am not a novel writer. My books would never sell. Hell, they wouldn't even make sense, so I'll just leave writing novels to the experts; after all, as much as I opine that it sucked, I couldn't put the piece o' crap down.
***
I'm off to Brazil. I leave on May 5. I'm excited and a little nervous. My brother has been getting a little testy lately. I am curious if I will pull my hair out on this trip -- not that there is that much left to pull out anyway... getting old sucks, man! But hell, to see Brazil for 16 days, to be in a place without a television or computer hookup, to just read on the Atlantic Ocean in a fishing town... yeah, I'll make it. The most stressful part is getting a visa. There are all these pesky requirements. I filled out the forms, got my visa photos, was all ready to send the application fee, etc. And then I looked at the money order I got and it was the wrong kind. I had already filled in "Pay to: The Consular General of Brazil" and I can't even send it. So now I'm $100 in the hole and have to start over. Merde!
Luckily I met up with Ivan right after that for a "coffee," which turned into a beer at Bullwinkles and pre-season baseball between the Red Sox and Pirates. Ivan is a grad student here hailing from State College. The only one that I've found this past year that has a life outside of social theory. Glad to see I found another baseball fan.
***
So yeah, as much as I bitch, life is good. I am happy with my topic swtich. I'm flying off to Brazil to hang out with my estranged brother. My dad called me for the first time in over a year the other day. I had a great time hanging out with my step-dad in our basement a week ago, watching two flicks Birgit had no interest in seeing -- "Jarhead" and "Lord of War." I am feeling creative again for the first time in years. I have this cool dissertation idea that may harness some of that creative energy, if I am allowed to go through with it. I am journaling again -- longhand, which just feels right. And coolest of all, our fledgling little studio business is doing quite well considering we haven't even had time to finish our website. We've got that geopolitics book coming out in the near future. We have maps coming out in an Anthropology edited volume. I did a map for an upcoming coffee hour. We have contracts with various organizations that are fairly large. And Birgit and I are ditching both of our families for the Easter holiday to run off into the country, lock ourselves in a B&B, and spend the three day weekend hashing out everything that needs to be done for Muehlenhaus Studios. We're just going to bring our laptops and external hard-drives and seriously work around the clock somewhere on a lake. A Muehlenhaus Studios weekend retreat! The first annual one. Hopefully it is a tax write off. Hell, we hope to finish more for the business than at any time previously, including the website, establishing our rates, finalizing our generic contract for clients, and creating business cards. We now officially have stationary, which I completed over spring break. So all we need now is a polished website and business cards and we are ready to roll!
***
Cathartic ramble. Not very exciting. But I feel better and that is what counts. Ciao.
***
One more thing. I am pleased to announce that Muehlenhaus Studios is now an official business with a tax number, etc. Some windmill people seem quite irked about this development, but tough teletubbies. We keep getting hits from Europe of Germans looking for information on windmills. I think they are actually looking for www.muehlenhaus.de. I guess this means we are accidentally trans-national!
