An Interlude
Right, well as long as I’m in a plaintive vein, a threnodic vein, a sorrowful, plangent, mournful, whingey vein – I think I’ll just take a moment to ponder the grief of living in an out of the way corner of the world. And corner it is, too; tucked or rather jammed up in the far far far northwest corner of the whole damn country, not on the way to anywhere except Alaska (and maybe Japan but only if you’re starting from Idaho). It’s not Los Angeles, it’s not San Francisco, and it sure as hell is not New York or Paris or London. It’s not central. It’s not a capital. It’s not a place where things happen and interesting people sooner or later end up, so that one can just walk out the door at a leisurely pace, no need to rush, stroll along to the tube and in a few minutes be chatting with, I don’t know, Umberto Eco or Yo-yo Ma over lunch.
Well, yes it is, actually. People do come here. It could be much worse. It could be Puyallup or Sequim (you don’t know how to pronounce either of those, and I’m not going to tell you), to which people really don’t go. But people do come here on book tours and lecture circuits. And besides, it was my idea to come here, I wasn’t dragged here in chains. And I like it here. It’s just that –
Well it’s just that my insufferable colleague and his colleague are having lunch (have already had it by now, unless they opted for a very very late lunch, more like pre-dinner, or high tea) with Alan Sokal today. And I’m not. I’m over here, in this hick town, facing the stupid Pacific, missing all the action. And I am devoured by jealousy. Consumed by it. It is so unfair. There they are giggling and chewing and telling jokes about Lacan’s mathematics and Butler’s transgressions, and there I’m not. It is so unfair!
It’s not, of course, it’s not a bit unfair. And it’s also not geographical. If I were there, would I be there? No! Because I wouldn’t be invited, because there’d be no reason for me to be. So it’s not in the least unfair, and I know that perfectly well. But I’m just so jealous. So I’m having an Unreasonable Moment. You don’t think I’m always rational do you? No, of course you don’t.
No, I just thought I would pine a bit, to relieve my feelings. Sokal is something of a hero to people who dislike Fashionable Nonsense. Well he is to me anyway. The parody was such a brilliant idea, and he carried it out so well, and it worked so beautifully, and it made them all look so silly and self-serving – how could one not admire? So one does, and one wishes one could have been there, to ask the great question of our times: why do Americans like pizza with pineapple on it? But I’m an adult, and semi-rational some of the time, so I’ll get over it. I just wanted to pine first.
Update. Just to clarify, by way of making sure no one misunderstands. That is of course mostly joke. It’s quite true that I’d have loved to be there, but that’s all. I’m not really pouting. Sobbing gently now and then, but not pouting.
Second update. You’ll be pleased to learn that my guess was right – they really did laugh about Lacan’s mathematics. I’m clairvoyant.
You think this is a hick town? Try spending your adolescence in a village in a particularly desolate part of Alaska, where the diff tween wind and IQ is the wind gets over 100 sometimes. Parents, if you really think your kids are smart, don’t drag them out to the back end of nowhere. It makes Squimm and Pyoowallop look glamorous. –But seriously, I share your admiration for Sokal. When that thing 1st broke, I hadn’t laughed so hard since the day I–oh, never mind. And it is great when people who have irrational moments have the brains to recognize it.
I’m an American and I don’t like pineapple on anything.
Hey, Seattle isn’t that bad: we’re here.
You mean Pyoowallop isn’t glamorous?!
But seriously, yeah. Transgressing the Boundaries – hilariously funny and with a massive sting in the tail.
I hate pineapple, and as for on pizza – ! It’s an outrage!
Oops, cross.
I know, I know. I did say. But it was just this one thing. I can take a lot, but…
At the other end of the spectrum when I was at Georgia Tech, Andrew Ross came to speak. I’m not sure why I went to hear him but I thought he might be at least a little repentant, which he wasn’t. So thank heavens you’re also free some poseurs like Ross up in Seattle.
Yeah, well… I’m in New york City, and I am also a fan of Sokal (doesn’t he teach at NYU?). I might as well be in Peoria for all that matters, so I totally understand the feeling, the quiet sobbing at not being able to having lunch with Sokal and making fun of Lacan’s inadequate use of math. A bored-with-work engineer-cum-artist with a strong interest in practically everything else who happens not to know any of the people whose books he devours, definitely has no possibility of ever being invited to anything like that. But you? Why wouldn’t there be any reason for you to be there? Your colleague was there, so why couldn’t you?
Perhaps they’d invite you if you changed your name ….
Interesting about Ross. Clearly Scott McLemee wasn’t just choosing at random when he named the MLA’s Dangerous Hipness award the Andrew Ross Dangerous Hipness Award.
Oh well, because my colleague wasn’t there because he was my colleague (that is, because of B&W) but because he’s his other colleague’s colleague, or rather because they are each other’s colleague (that is, because of TPM). There’s an interview with Sokal in one of their books, so…
Still. You never know. Maybe someday the B&W-lunch link will work out.
Anyway I certainly can’t (and don’t) complain overall. I get to have email interactions with a lot of people whose books I devour, and some of them even send us articles. That was just a lunch-whine, that’s all. I’m greedy, that’s all.
Or I could change my name. To…Butch? Spike? Cutie-pie?
I think we were there because we misinterpreted his rhetorical invitation as a real invitation!
But it was cool.
Not as cool as having lunch with Ed Wilson, though! :-)
Oh dear, did he look disconcerted when he saw you? How embarrassing.
That’s right! Twist the knife!
“Oh dear, did he look disconcerted when he saw you?”
Well he greeted me with “Hi, we’ve met before, I think” – to which I replied, “Er, no!”. :-)
“That’s right! Twist the knife!”
It was also pretty cool spending an hour with Steve Pinker (notwithstanding the whole humiliating myself thing)! :-)
Am I smug, or what?
You’re insufferable, just as I said!
But, fortunately, so instantly forgettable that ‘Al’ thought he’d met you before. Um…
“so instantly forgettable that ‘Al’ thought he’d met you before.”
Either that or so memorable that people remember meeting me when they haven’t.
Though I can’t imagine that I’m as exciting in imagination as I am in real life…
Really? I can imagine that you’re exactly as exciting in imagination as in real life. It’s quite easy.