Vague kind of update
Oct. 29th, 2007 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielI haven't posted much this month, have I? Teaching. Busy. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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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no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 06:23 pm (UTC)i'd better not tell you that World War I ends in 1918 then. Oops!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 07:34 pm (UTC)I think Upstairs, Downstairs is one of the things my grandmother used to watch and my parents didn't (along with Crossroads and wrestling), so I saw occasional bits of it, which means I cannot spoil you for it. I am glad you are reveling in it.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 09:26 am (UTC)What is is with grandparents and wrestling? My grandfather (one of the gentlest men ever) loved wrestling.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 07:45 pm (UTC)Glen is so great. I mean, he's an atheist academic who can rationally explain why it's right and necessary for atheist academics to become warriors of God (without sacrificing their atheism). And he's owned by literature's greatest dog. I love Glen.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 09:27 am (UTC)Absolutely with you on the Glen-love. And Big Steve too.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 08:09 pm (UTC)I say: I have a vague recollection that the Foundation series is based on an allegedly-great Sociologist
You say: You get lots of Great Anthropologists in SF, particularly Le Guin, but I'm not counting them, they can make their own list.
I say: Anita Cohen Williams already has (the list uses the American definition of 'anthropologist' which includes 'archaeologist' and 'linguist').
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 01:45 am (UTC)Oh yes, she was cool.
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.
No, if I recall correctly, they all self-describe as anthropologists.
And she has a new book out! Whee! Which I have ordered! Whee!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 10:28 am (UTC)Um, yeah, now that you mention it, someone really wasn't thinking about that one, ohdearohdearohdear....
no subject
Date: 2007-10-30 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 12:38 am (UTC)Someone should've sent them out a plate of nicely cooked black pudding with a note stuck in reading 'And in our dinner!'
Perhaps I should just make up one of my own.
You should! How about a detective series with a hero who solves crime with the power of sociology? And Q-analysis!
(Could you count Carnac as a sociologist hero? I guess socioanalysts are what you get when you have sociologists Tampering With The Forces of Life Itself.)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 01:55 pm (UTC)How about a detective series with a hero who solves crime with the power of sociology? And Q-analysis!
By redefining what we mean by "crime"! And by "criminal"! Hmm, this may need more work.