Okay, I'm back in the hotel room and I'm fucking exhausted. I guess the obvious observation about the smoker is, seeing thousands of philosophers all crammed into the same crappy corporate hotel ballroom is really fucking weird.
I'll have more real commentary on the smoker another time, but for now I'll just say my pick for the evening's highlights were the lights going up and down at random times. At a couple of points over the course of the night, the lights in the crappy corporate hotel ballroom got really bright, and it sort of felt that point at the end the night when the lights come up in the bar and the bouncers start kicking you out into the street. Then, at other times, the lights went almost totally dark, and all the cool kids who go to rock shows started cheering, I guess from some sort of indie-kid reflex.
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11 comments:
In a past life I spent more than my share of time in those crappy hotel ballrooms... the lights are controlled by sliders on one wall -- and people lean on them.
Gotta love those indie-kids.
They started serving Guinness at the end of the night. Thanks Richard Bett!
The smoker is a cross between a junior-high school dance and the selection at Auschwitz.
Skipped it last night; hadn't had my interviews yet. I'll brave it tonight.
"....and the selection at Auschwitz."
Gosh! I think that the smoker can be grim, but not *that* grim.
I love this blog! The miseries described herein make me feel so much better about my own.
Good luck with the remaining interviews. (I wish my department were hiring; I think y'all would make fabulous windowless-office mates.)
What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "Tell you what. I'll give you a modest stipend and enough free time so that you can spend the next five or six years thinking and writing about whatever you want to think and write about. At the end of that time, you'll be able to compete with your peers for a chance at a reasonably well-paying permanent job doing the same. Your odds of landing one of these jobs will be low but not insignificant -- say in the 25-50% range."
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "Hey, come to think of it, that's not a bad deal, when compared to my other options. I'll take it!"
Who are the drowned and which lovely souls are the saved.
is it truly being saved to be selected to grovel at the feet of the masters until tenure is granted?
or is being saved being one of those who are not picked, who are left to persue dreams lives and families in places of their choosing?
And some words of wisedom that move beyond Zarathrustra and address Surviving in Auschwitz
"Clearly they will [not hire] us, whoever thinks he is going to [get a job] is mad, it means that he has swallowed the bait, but I have not"
“Can [annoying ivy league biatch who whined about only having 7 interviews while sitting next to me at arestaurant on thursday] fail to realize that next time it will be his turn? Does [annoying ivy league biatch who whined about only having 7 interviews while sitting next to me at arestaurant on thursday] not understand that what happened today is an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty, which nothing at all in the power of man can ever clean again?
If I was God, I would spit at [annoying ivy league biatch who whined about only having 7 interviews while sitting next to me at arestaurant on thursday].”
Meet some people. Talk about your work. Terrifying.
Was anyone else disappointed to find out that the booze wasn't free tonight?
On the plus side my bartender made a mean "Maddy."
"Hey, come to think of it, that's not a bad deal, when compared to my other options. I'll take it!"
See also my post on 'Why Doctor Faustus was a freaking wuss, and should just get over it (and by the way, that Helen of Troy chick was *way* too hot for hım)
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