Oct. 29th, 2007

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I haven't posted much this month, have I? Teaching. Busy. [livejournal.com profile] mraltariel and I have been mainlining Upstairs, Downstairs. (Don't spoil me! We're only up to 1916 and I've managed to go my entire life without being spoiled!) Want an icon of Hudson with the legend: "My quarrel is with the Hanoverian succession."

Convinced that Strictly Come Dancing is a MASSIVE FIX, and embittered that Willie Thorne got booted out. The message boards are funny, though.

Went out for lunch to Midsummer House on Saturday and got demonstrated at by people protesting about the foie gras. They shouted, "Blood! Blood! Blood on your hands!" and pipped a horn and blew a whistle for about an hour, until the police rolled up and moved them along. I didn't mind much: it doesn't do any harm to find yourself the object of someone's contempt every so often and, anyway, I had become extremely tipsy within fifteen minutes of entering the building.

Read Jack London's The Iron Heel (good article here; online version here) and was mildly depressed at how current it remains. I did get to add another to my list of Great Sociologists of Literature, however (now numbering three): "I only wish you fellows knew a little something about sociology," Ernest said wistfully. "We would be saved so much trouble if you did." Now trying to cheer myself up with a reread of Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn.

That's about it for my life right now. As the journal title says: Full life, trifle banal.

***

For the record, the three Great Sociologists of Literature that I have found are: Ernest Everhard in The Iron Heel by Jack London; Glen Bateman in The Stand by Stephen King; and the protagonist-whose-name-I-can't-remember in Bellwether by Connie Willis. If you know a Great Sociologist, please tell me. Perhaps I should just make up one of my own.

You get lots of Great Anthropologists in SF, particularly Le Guin, but I'm not counting them, they can make their own list. You can take interdisciplinarity too far, you know and WE DO STATS SO YAH BOO. I don't count all those characters in Sylvia Engdahl's books either, though I might, if it turns out one of them self-describes as a sociologist. My copies are upstairs and I'm not moving from this sofa tonight.

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