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The other week when I was texting a (Welsh-American) friend from college and the subject of his son's college applications came up, he mentioned that it seemed to them that Duke was "a high reach," to which I replied -
Not the change the subject, but "high reach" sounds like you're trying to jack someone off who's like 6'5"
- to which he replied -
It does seem a bit like that in practice.
. . .
(. . .)
...as I brush my teeth after breakfast, and prop up my smartphone on the against-the-wall high-and-tight elevated sink-ledge in order to watch some video as I brush:
Something falls out from behind the phone and lands in a small pool of water to the left of the faucet on the counter-top surrounding the basin where water tends to pool for some reason, probably because the counter-top has a backward slant that doesn't allow water to drain more easily into the basin, but instead directs it away from it, and anyhow there on the sink there is a very small light yellow centipede like the size of a fingernail clipping, only thinner, or at least there is one there until I cup my hands and put water in them and throw it on the bug in order to flush it down the sink into the drain, there.
…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor
of a historic hotel, whenever I start expounding on how the house cocktails are not only well-mixed, but also very reasonably priced:
"And remember, the more you drink, the more you save."
…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, whenever someone who seems chill enough orders a “Mick ultra” (Michelob Ultra):
Me: “Ahhh, a Mick ultra… The favorite drink of my friend’s ex-wife.”
. . .
(True story. They also usually don’t know what to say and I usually say this to the [macho] [white] guys who drink that shit, although once someone was like “Well, that’s something” and then said no more, which I guess is a lot like not saying anything at all in response, I guess.)
…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, when the managers are finally cutting me for the night but also seem unsure about whether to do so, yet:
Me (in game show voice): “Is that your final answer?”
I've come across work by people who have major institutional positions, like curatorships and stuff, and it's like, ERP.
And, these are major well-known places, too!
It's like a colleague who works on a different language family and who's given me good advice has observed to me when I relate stuff to him about the field, "What is this backwater?".
In the past half year, I got back some supposedly anonymous peer reviews for an article where a peer reviewer in the first round had tried to sabotage the project (probably because I'm obviously right, and they'd tried to put their hand to the notorious field-problem before, to no avail).
And, these new peer reviews you could work with, but they were still shocking. You could totally tell who wrote them, and although I’d previously categorized these people as better people in the field, there was still some pretty glaring eccentricities in thinking, as well as the use of widespread but poorly-grounded operative categories that they simply weren’t questioning, but instead rotely repeating as obvious touchpoints.
And, these are the good ones.
Like, what the f*ck is up with this field that I’ve been dabbling in, with the one ancient language that I’ve made myself into quite the expert in over the past number of years?
Honestly.
The quality of scholarship is just very bad, although I often charitably call it “uneven.”
I really don’t understand what these people do all day, since they certainly don’t seem to be solving major unresolved issues in scholarship.
