Your blog was a lifeline this semester. A source of oxygenization, smart ideas, the occasional heated argument, and also a lot of just plain fun. Getting some (pictorial) content on your front page was a dream. I’m breaking camp in the morning for the trek back to my summer pasture in the eastern urb. I’ll be attending from there, too, perhaps under a new seasonal nom-de-blog (if that’s even done?), or perhaps the same old one. Can We Has sum mor Barbie blogging at some point?!? (This seemed like maybe the best thread to skyjack for this uncategorized endorsement.).

If you were a history book you’d be “Babe-raham in Arms.”

Don’t be surprised that the children were surprised at your appearance - it seems that most interviews on The History Channel are with gin-soaked, dewlapped septuagenarian British guys seated against a backdrop of animal heads and leather globes.

GayProf–well, beauty is subjective, of course. But, related to your observations of our colleagues at the AHA and most other conferences, I can tell you that I had one very well-meaning student at my old job who once told me, “Dr. Historiann, you’re the best-dressed professor in the History department!” She really did mean it as a sincere compliment–but considering the, shall we say, low level of competition, I had to laugh!

And Bing: I was really touched by their openness and their lack of cynicism and “cool.” How interesting that they’re the ones being forced by the state to be there, when our students of course are free to skip class and drop out.

As a musician, I go a little nuts when people–the same people as your students? I bet yes–call all pieces of music “songs,” even when there’s plainly nobody singing. I don’t expect them to distinguish symphonies from sonatas, though it would be refreshing if they could, but why not just say “piece” when “song” is manifestly inaccurate?

While I don’t know what you like in RL, My guess is that you are prettier than most historians. Have you been to the AHA? We are not an attractive crew.

Sounds like a restorative day on the way back toward pedagogy. There are some days in my classes when a fidget would be a good sign. Our students call all assigned monographs and even most documentary sources such as The Age of Reason or The Wealth of Nations “novels,” which we desperately want to interpret as signs of post-modern irony, but can’t quite persuade ourselves to do that. That would have been my question to your class’s teacher: why do they call things like these “novels?!?” Have the genres all melted together in K-12?

HJ