One quick note of complaint to the Universe:  why oh why can’t Carlos and Tiffany book more decent music at the Highdive?  As everyone has noted again and again, the place is an ideal venue for good music, yet each Friday and Saturday they stick a dj in there for confused teenage booty-shakers who want to squirm about a space that is most obviously not a dance floor. 

Last night I managed finally to make my way into the Great Cover Up—a venerable Champaign institution wherein local bands play cover tunes, always keeping the identity of who they’ll be covering a secret up until they get on stage.  There’s lots for room for dress-up and being clever about who you cover, so it’s always a fun time.

But this year Carlos & co. (who also own Jupiter, Guido’s, Bar Fly and one or two other bars in downtown CU) held the event at the (very small) Cowboy Money (aka “the Old Blind Pig”) rather than at the Highdive.  This, I must observe, sucks.  I couldn’t get in at all on Friday.  Then last night clumps of miserable people huddled in the rain hoping to get into the show.  Which was bad for those stuck in the rain, and also for those inside, since the line outside made it impossible to escape for even a moment CM’s over-amped sound system, or to go outside to smoke.

For our little lives, we simply cannot figure why Carlos etc. won’t open a place with an actual dance floor, and let the Highdive see more than occasional use as the fantastic music venue it was born to be.  (otoh, the Carlos downtown empire as it stands now could surely survive scheduling a bit more good music at the Highdive, even without a proper dance floor, yes?) 

Still, last night was a fun evening.  Had delicious Indian food at Ed’s that was far too good for my deserving.  Enjoyed some fun conversation with SD at the Eqsuire, before making our final successful attempt to get into the show.  Late in the evening ran into (weirdly) ex-GEO physicist Mark P., who was animated as usual. 

By the end of the show I was liqueured up enough that the old chestnut of a tune that served as the evening’s finale somehow hit me like a big golden hammer.  Perfect.

It’s interesting having attended the same university for almost all of my post high school educational career.  Probably not as interesting as having moved around more, but still.

State schools like UI have policies against hiring their own graduates, for very sound reasons.  But at the same time, I think I can understand why some of the top private schools avoid this rule–even aside from the fact that their own graduates are a high percentage of top names in their fields.  I seem to empathize with undergraduates here more easily than I probably would if were from elsewhere, and I tend, in general, to have an interest in and affection for the place more than most folks around here seem to. 

I love, for example, the ponderous sculptures of Loredo Taft, from the early twentieth century.  And I love the inscriptions on campus buildings by previous generations of UI builders and administrators.  As U of I shifts to endorse more private, corporate-based forms of career training, the values of its founders (see also) peer down on the administrators, casting a wary eye on empty rankings and measures of “excellence” as reported by US News and World Report. 

I’m not sure what to make of UI’s plan.  Some aspects of it seem encouraging.  But to me, most do not.

As UI announces its plan for the future (higher tuition and more international programs), it’s more quietly announced a plan for campus preservation.  Now, when I was bemoaning the lack of UI alumni among faculty here, one thing I was thinking of was campus preservation.  Because on this campus, historical preservation is something no one cares about.  For example: as if the total gutting of Harker Hall wasn’t bad enough, the admin plans how to totally hollow out the shell of Lincoln and replace everything with suspended ceilings and mauve carpeting.  A plan that I’m amazed anyone could seriously propose.

So it was with some surprise that I read about UI’s new campus preservation program.  I was tempted to feel encouraged—until I read the above article, which details the plans of Melvyn Skvarla, “campus historic preservation officer in the Planning Division of Facilities and Services.”  It seems that the people most interested in destroying campus architecture have been put in charge of preserving it.  Here is what we learn from the article about Skvarla’s plans for preserving campus:

[Skvarla] said the university may pursue designation of Memorial Stadium as a National Historic Landmark in order to make it eligible for grants that would help fund needed renovations. The stadium, dedicated in 1924 as a memorial to 189 students and alumni who died in World War I,is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and designation as a National Historic Landmark due to its significance in the development of recreation in America.

“With the historic landmark designation, there’s a potential of getting up to $2.5 million in grant funding. And in some cases, Congressmen can make more funds available,”

Well, I’d thought that other buildings on campus that don’t sell tickets for admission and broadcast rights might be better candidates for preservation funds; still, more money for campus rec is good, I guess . . .  What else does he say?  Well:

Historic preservation architects also will evaluate whether refurbishments to some historic buildings should incorporate the materials used in the
original construction or if more cost-effective, modern materials might be used that would preserve the aesthetic integrity.

“A few years ago, the original wood windows in Engineering Hall were replaced with aluminum-covered wood windows,” Skvarla said. “To the purists, that’s a big no-no. But the average person wouldn’t’t know the difference. Our maintenance people don’t have to repaint the aluminum-covered windows every five or 10 years. Painting windows is a time-consuming and costly process, and aluminum windows can go 25 years without being repainted.”

Well, I guess he finds those purists kinda funny, with all their talk about preserving architecture and whatnot.  But maybe, anyhow, he’s at least a conservationist at heart ?

“We’re probably also going to re-evaluate some of the buildings that have been designated as eligible (for the National Register) because they have been designated by such a small margin, and perhaps they’re too inefficient and a plaque would work better than having the inefficient building there.”

The head of UI’s preservation program has on his list of things to do the replacement of inefficient building with plaques.  Welcome to the University of Illinois, 2006.  Say goodbye to the past.

I’m sitting in the far back of downtown Champaign’s most poorly lit coffee shop, getting set to fold up the laptop, go rent a dvd and get some sleep.  An early, quiet night, after a late loud evening yesterday that I didn’t recover from til mid-afternoon today.

Saw yesterday evening the opening of a few new exhibitions at the Krannert Art Museum.  The Hedda Stearne exhibition was large and impressive, and was put together I discovered by someone I sort of slightly know.  There’s also one about clothing and meaning and fashion, which is also super cool and which I bet will be quite popular. 

I was also very excited to check out an exhibition that was supposed to be a kind of reply to the work of llya Kabakov (his 1992 “Incident at the Museum or Water Music” was for me a revelation).  The Krannert reply to him was however a dissapointment. 

So I’ve slowly kicked about town today, and have only just now managed to accomplish just a bit of actual work.  And I did learn one exciting thing.  It seems like the my favorite Champaign used bookstore is about to double its size.  Despite the loss of Acres of Books, Babbit’s and the wonderful little bookstore in the basement of the YMCA, CU has some amazing used bookstores.  Priceless in Urbana is quiet and clean and has great prices and is always getting fresh stuff on the shelves.  Jane Addams is pricier and has some unfortunate carpeting, but has lots of titles and a fun maze-like upstairs.  But if you’re a fan of books that skew a bit towards the pulpy and strange, and ephemera, and records, then you can’t do better than Main Street Books.  I’m always a sucker for the beautiful old Modern Library editions Main Street keeps in their own section (I picked up a choice Tristram Shandy today).  The proprietor owns the whole building, I think, and is rehabbing the upstairs apartments, and expanding the shop to include the space of the shoe store that had been next door but that’s moved down the street.  The new space will be mostly music (Main Street already has lots of vinyl and some CD’s too).  Downtown Champaign is getting ever more habitable.

Ok.  I’m gonna go grab a bite, watch a DVD, and grab me some sweet sweet sleep.  Goodnight, citizens.

GWB’s text adventure.

Apropos of a long conversation with Dana C. the other night, I finally got around to asking a longstanding question of mine to the grand hive-mind at AskMeFi.  While no one’s yet been able to resolve my confuision, one responder took the oppritunity to remind us of the heroics of Mr. Stanislav Petrov (”heroics” here in the most serious sense available).  At the next available occasion, I will try and remember to raise a glass in Mr. Petrov’s honor.

Why do I feel I have no time to blog lately?  Classes are set to begin shortly.  I’ve gotta get my course packet set up and delivered today.  I’ve had to report for jury duty at 8:30am all last week (and will need to do so on Tuesday and Thursday of this coming week); however I’ve been sent home at 11 each day, as cases settle at the last minute.

So, not much really going on, but a looming sense of busyness.  A need to get some more writing done before the semester really crashes down on me.  That sort of thing.  All of which has meant a bit less writing here than usual, as I seem to have occupied a post-holiday stasis field.

One thing I’ve done in the break was to reorganize the countless piles of paper and file folders all around my house, using these new Storex file cabinets I found at Staples, with which I am in love (with the cabinets, not Staples, you fool!).  These plastic $20 or $22 modular filing units are truly the better mousetraps of the filing world.  You can stack them (up to ten high!), and rearrange them as needed.  They are quite deep and just tall enough to put files folder in. 

I’ve also jumped on the Moleskine bandwagon of late.  These perfect little notebooks are worth the their high price and even the silly bourgeois pretentiousness of being (in the maker’s dubious claim) “the legendary notebook, used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin.”  They are sturdy, small, and comfortable to use (see viral marketing-type blog).

Well then, I’m off to prepare some course materials!

The war on Christmas Continues . . .  (video)

Sorry, but this clip is just too perfect in too many ways.

So what were your life altering experiences?

  Did you know that there’s a feminist army complete with mechanized infantry and heavy armor camped on the border of Iran?  The army of the People’s Mujahadeen (or MEK) claims to have about 10,000 members, and is led by Maryam Rajavi, who is not only an opponent of conservative interpretations of Islam that at present justify the oppression of women in Iran, but also a long-time socialist, who’s sister was executed by the Shah.  Pushed from Iran by the executions of family members, and Khomeini’s fundamentalist revolution, Rajavi did not mourn, but organized.  She ended up with her own Iranian parliament and standing army in exile.

But, as you might guess, it gets complicated.  And a number of inconvenient facts interrupt our fantasy of charging across the Ayatollah’s border with the feminist rocket brigades.  For one, Rajavi’s organization not only found shelter in Iraq, but often did the bidding of the Baathist regime, killing Kurds and rebels in Southern Iraq, for example.  The organization has been, in general, regarded as a terrorist group.    Finally, the group is often regarded as “a group with odd, cultic overtones.”  In a detailed first-person report for the NY Times Elizabeth Rubin is reminded by the MEK more of Pol Pot than Salvadore Allende.  Members of the army appear to be isolated from outside news and are required to maintain strict celibacy.

All of which leads us to why this is becoming important.  Certain Republicans have been pushing hard to remove the MEK from the State Department list of terrorist organizations.  This may be because the MEK, having signed a cease-fire agreement with the United States, is already conducting a war in and against Iran on behalf of the United States.  While her husband is in charge of the MEK army, Rajavi is the President of the National Council of Resistance in Iran, which has been adopting the rhetoric of American Democracy, and positioning itself as the legitimate government in exile, in the hope of a US sponsored or conducted invasion of Iran (the old iconography of the MEK is right out, needless to say).  While Rajavi’s new website and some of her writings depict her as a friendly pro-western proponent of liberal democracy, others depict her as a power-hungry thug.

In short, having funded Bin Ladin’s mujahadeen against the Soviets in the 70’s and 80’s, the US appears now to have enlisted militant socialists against the Islamists in Iran.  Furthermore, these former shock-troops of Saddam are now regarded as the weapon of choice against the religious extremists that pose a terrorist threat to the West.  It’s all a bit head-spinning.

In any case, one might hope that that the presence of socialist opposition to religious fundamentalism in places like Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan will pose an obstacle to the Bush regime’s plan to dominate the region through ‘free market’ rhetoric and mechanisms.  I certainly don’t know enough about the Rajavi, and the MEK and Council of Resistance to discern whether they are principled actors or mere oppritunists.  But I hope in any case that secularists, feminists, and socialists in Iran and Iraq organize into a broad political movement, rather than enlist themselves in a romantic vanguard sponsored by American power.

I tend to find Edge.org annoying, since (like this site) it’s run by a self-promoting conservative blogger, and is dedicated mostly to proving the coolness–”edgyness” of its cog-sci minded white male contributors, who are supposed to constitute the new cool kids club.    Nonetheless, the list of “dangerous ideas”  supplied by its minions is undeniably interesting.  Will keep you reading for a while, I bet.  (See also).