Last season I was kind of partial to blaring Rage Against the Machine through the ipod headphones before interviews. Totally pumps you up. Srsly. Guest poster Iamjob takes a decidedly more mellow approach to things. What about y'all? --PGOAT
I thought it might be fun to start a thread of songs that we're listening to to get ready for the job season.
I'll get us going with some smooth classics:
Built to Spill -- "The Plan"
Bruce Springsteen -- "Growin' Up"
Pavement -- "Major Leagues"
Wilco -- "Either Way"
Gordon Lightfoot -- "I'm Not Sayin'/Ribbon of Darkness"
If I were an even bigger nerd, I'd link to mp3s. Oh well.
-- Iamjob
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
31 comments:
the clash "career opportunities" (which are, notably, the ones that never knock)
!!! "shitscheissemerde"
Fuck Wilco, ya damn pothead.
Now Gordon Lightfoot, that I can get behind.
Post interview when the rejection letters start coming in...
"Kiss Off" Violent Femmes
"Lose Yourself" by Eminem has got to be the best pump-up song ever, for any occasion. And it seems to fit interview prep quite well.
Nine Inch Nails - 'The Wretched'
Just a reflection
Just a glimpse
Just a little reminder
Of all the what abouts
And all the might have
Could have beens
Another day
Some other way
But not another reason to continue
And now youre one of us
The wretched
The hopes and prays
The better days
The far aways
Forget it
It didnt turn out the way you wanted it to, did it
Now you know
This is what it feels like
Now you know
This is what it feels like
The clouds will part and the sky cracks open
And God himself will reach his fucking arm through
Just to push you down
Just to hold you down
Stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss
And its hard to believe it could come down to this
Back at the beginning
Sinking
Spinning
And in the end
We still pretend
The time we spend
Not knowing when
Youre finally free
And you could be
But it didnt turn out the way you wanted it to
It didnt turn out quite the way you wanted it
Now you know
This is what it feels like
You can try to stop it but it keeps on coming
You can try to stop it but
You've been checking on my facts
And I admit I have been lax
In double-screening what I say
It wasn't funny anyway
I stand corrected
No one cares when you are wrong
But I've been at this far too long...
-Vampire Weekend
Wouldn't a better -- or more realistic, at least about the job market -- Built to Spill song be "You Were Right"?
You were wrong when you said
Everything's gonna be alright
You were right when you said
You can't always get what you want
You were right when you said
It's a hard rain's gonna fall
Naw, I'm down with Wilco.
Tweedy Bluesy.
Hmm...Here are a couple things I've been listening to while working on job materials:
Goodbye, Babylon - Box Set
Fripp & Eno - Evening Star
Bob Dylan - Live 1966
Freddie Hubbard - Ready for Freddie
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig Lazarus Dig
oh yeah, and pink floyd -- since Richard Wright (RIP) passed on to that great gig in the sky...
you can never go wrong with Gang of Four ... or The Jam (esp Underground). But I am telling my age, I suppose.
for my money this is the best ever!
www.myspace.com/crunkosophy
anon 9:05, as long as you're talking about early gang of four, i'm with you, but there was some scary stuff they put out a bit later on...[shudder]
As for telling you're age, who knows? I saw that gang of four victory lap tour (back in 2004?) and the crowd was evenly divided between geezers and young riff-raff.
Is such good taste a hallmark of philosophy graduate students?
Pretty much any System of a Down will work, for example "Attack" or "F**k the System".
Garbage also provides a lot of options: "Only Happy When it Rains" (my personal theme song), "It's All Over But the Crying," "I Think I'm Paranoid," "Shut Your Mouth."
For interview prep I'd suggest Aerosmith's "Eat the Rich" and Guns 'N Roses' "Get in the Ring."
And my number one choice: Flybanger's "When Are You? (Gonna Die)".
Agreed, 4:41, I thought it was the English department blog where everyone tried to one-up each other with their impeccable musical tastes.
I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you
i'm also inclined to agree with michael phelps that young jeezy is great pre-performance "pump-up" music. (although, to be honest, i like the original version of "put on" waaaay better than the remix with jay-z.)
Um, okay Anon. 6:46. This better?
"Pour Some Sugar On Me"
"Summertime" (Will Smith)
"Let's Get It On"
"No Woman No Cry"
"Enter Sandman"
"Saved the Best for Last" (Yes, Vanessa Williams)
"Ramble On" (actually--that's a pretty good choice)
"All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You"
"Skater Boy"
and...
The Gummy Bears theme song
slacker/druggie music? uh, no.
If we're going with Built to Spill, I think the excellent Built to Spill + Caustic Resin song "When Not Being Stupid Is Not Enough" has to be in the conversation:
when not being stupid
is not enough
when not being wrong
is not enough
waited such a long time
have I waited too long?
in a world that's so bad
it's not hard to feel good
you do what you have to
not as much as you could...
How much music listening and other procrastination techniques would you have to engage in in order to take 18 years to finish your Ph.D. at Harvard? Read the recent article "The Thinker" in the New York Times. You will probably like the article and its positive note for philosophy, until you think about the implications of hiring a Ph.D. from Harvard who took 18 years to finish. I liked the chair until I read this and thought that such a hiring decision was a sign of extremely poor judgment. Any thoughts?
Forgive me if this has been addressed, but whatever happened to PGS? I miss his incredibly dark humor.
FWIW, I have shockingly bad taste in music. Like, I won't admit my taste in music until I've known someone for a few years.
Okay, my thought on the Auburn article (besides sounds like a cool chair) was - why did Harvard let that person take 18 years? I don't know that much about their dept politics, so perhaps this is par for the course, but my guess would be, there's a story behind that time span. My own dept, not nearly as exalted, would have cut that person off long ago, whatever the personal reasons.
I don't know much about Hamawaki, and a cursory Google didn't turn up much but surely the charitable assumption is that not that he was continually enrolled for eighteen years listening to mp3s, but that '18 years to finish' probably indicates significant time off/away with the clock ticking.
If something like that is the case, then Jolley looks very smart, looking past the conventional wisdom for someone talented who is a good fit with what he wants to do with his program, not necessarily trying to grab the brightest new star (which might be hard for Auburn to do.)
Can I ask: "Iamjob" is that, perhaps, a reference to "Mrs. Doubtfire"? If so, I admire your kitschy-ness...
The chair is 42 years old and has been there fore 17 years. That would make him 25 when he was hired. That would have to be the youngest Ph.D. hire I've heard of. Also, I can find no publication record for this 18-year Ph.D. from Harvard. He is in the acknowledgments section of a book, where the author mentions their conversation. It is a warning to us all with middling pedigree: No matter how long it takes, it is better to get a Ph.D. from Harvard (or another Ivy) than one from Ho-Dunk State University. Ho-Dunk will get you a barista job at Starbucks; Harvard will get you a teaching job at Auburn.
I believe the article suggested that the chair was ABD when he took the job at Auburn. That's still very young, but I know one person who had his PhD by 24 or 25 (admittedly, only one, but that's also all we're talking about here).
Yes, Hamawaki was more or less an active graduate student during his 18-year span at Harvard. No, you probably wouldn't get a job after 18 years at Ho-Dunk State.
Of course, if you were at Ho-Dunk State in the first place, you probably wouldn't be the type who, while at Harvard, was generally recognized by his professors and fellow grad students as among the most knowledgeable and deep/careful-thinking student philosophers they'd ever met. That said, the time for such grad students, including those at Harvard, is over.
Hamawaki does not and probably will not ever have an impressive quantity of publications. While this may upset professional philosophy grinders--who would like to believe that talent and merit can be measured solely by counting one's journal articles and books--they might console themselves with the knowledge that he is sui generis and almost certainly the last of his kind.
Best of luck on the market to all.
Was Hamawaki perhaps *cough* paying fees the whole time? *cough*
Also, when did Podunk become "Ho-Dunk"?
Belle and Sebastian's, "Take your carriage clock and shove it".
I listen to that song a lot.
Anon 12:08
The point is not that you would not get a job after 18 years at Podunk state. It is that Podunk would cut you loose after 10 years in the program. So you could not get a Ph.D. at Podunk after 18 years. He would not have passed muster at Podunk; but he managed to pass muster at Harvard. What is the relevant difference?
So, what you are saying is that he was brilliant but lazy? Why is his case unique? If you go to Harvard and have the requisite sense of entitlement, why wouldn't you think that you were entitled to keep your spot in the Ph.D. program for 18 years? People get into Harvard and do not deserve to..just like people get into Podunk and do not deserve to.
Given the case of Hamawaki, might we be justified in saying that Harvard has a lower standard than Podunk State (which cuts you loose when you exceed 10 years in the Ph.D. program)? Oh, such heresy...
Post a Comment