Miss Kitt to Me

Another one of my data entry divas has passed. First Yma Sumac, now Eartha Kitt. When I first moved to New York, I had a series of temp jobs. While helping evil law firms beat off class action lawsuits from cancer victims, all of us night-shift coders would alternate between snarky observations about our work and (when the shift supervisors started their surveillance) listening to music over headphones. Occasionally we'd exchange CDs. I learned about Miss Kitt (and Yma Sumac) from a middle-aged gay guy who spent his days trying to become an actor.

People who know her only as Catwoman on Batman should check out some of her older videos on YouTube. Forget "Santa Baby"—try "I Want to Be Evil." Eartha had a jet-set sophistication before the jet set really existed. The Times obituary says she spoke four languages and sang in seven, but that may be underestimating it. On one album (Live at the Plaza) she sings in six—English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Turkish, and Tagalog—so perhaps there were several more. She presented herself not only as a world traveler but as an associate of world leaders, oil magnates, and the international demimonde (she was too good for the likes of mere Hollywood celebrities). She was vividly sexual but never allowed herself to be exploited—she was always firmly in control.

Granted, this was all part of her shtick, but I think she was as good as anybody at playing to a weird 1950s desire to be dominated by symbols of material goods, sexuality, and a female power that had nothing to do with domesticity (and I don't think this desire was exclusive to men). Eartha Kitt let her fans imagine a world where dissolute rich men behaved badly but misogyny was banished at her own personal request. Of course, she was the only woman allowed in this world, so she wasn't necessarily advancing the cause of women's equality. But how could you not love a song like "Monotonous," which she introduced in 1952:

T.S. Elliott writes books for me
King Farouk’s on tenterhooks for me
Sherman Billingsley even cooks for me
Monotonous, monotonous

"Monotonous" is full of period name-dropping ("Ike likes me"), so you're probably not familiar with the name Sherman Billingsley. Billingsley was the proprietor of the Stork Club, a super deluxe center of swank in Manhattan's midcentury clubland. It's even less likely that you know that the NAACP instituted a picket of the Stork Club in 1951 after Billingsley et al. refused service to Josephine Baker (you can read all about it in Martha Biondi's book To Stand and Fight). Well, that was in 1951. Anyone see the irony here? Eartha Kitt was a black woman who bragged (or yawned) that Mr. Billingsley cooked for her. No one who heard her sing "Monotonous" in 1952 would have missed the pointed reference.

Another Eartha Kitt song I love is "Angelitos Negros." (It was recorded by Roberta Flack on her first album, and more recently by Cat Power.) The lyrics are by the Venezuelan poet Andres Eloy Blanco:

Pintor nacido en mi tierra,
con el pincel extranjero,
pintor que sigues el rumbo,
de tantos pintores viejos.

Aunque la virgen sea blanca,
píntale angelitos negros,
que también se van al cielo,
todos los negritos buenos.

Pintor si pintas con amor,
¿por qué desprecias su color?,
si sabes que en el cielo,
también los quiere Dios.

Pintor de santos alcoba,
si tienes alma en el cuerpo,
por qué al pintar en tus cuadros,
te olvidaste de los negros.

I'm basing my knowledge of this song on the Spanish I learned in an intensive class that I thought I needed to take in order to get into grad school, so I'm probably way off. Spanish-speaking CQ readers are invited to correct me. But the song is addressed to a painter of Christian iconography in churches and asks why, if there are "negros" (which I translate as Diasporic peoples, knowing that Latino racial designations are really complicated) in heaven, angels must be painted white. If there's a soul in your body, the singer reproaches the artist, why do you forget to paint los negros? The political import of the song is obvious. And again, Eartha Kitt sang this at the same time as African Americans North and South were challenging the color line. (I also like the funked-up English-language version she does on Sentimental Eartha, "Paint Me Black Angels"—much more overt and angry.)

Like I said, I think Eartha Kitt took white fantasies of power and glamour and forced them to accommodate a black woman. Of course, she did this in part by exoticizing and sexualizing herself, and you might also say that giving white people an integrated fantasy allowed them to ignore a segregated reality. On the other hand, I think she was cool and savvy at a time when those qualities were almost prerequisites for survival as an adult. Her presence was calculated and exacting; I can't think of another performer, black or white, who simultaneously embodied cold war rationality and decadence. And, at all times, she knew exactly what she was doing.

Santa Delivers (and So Does My Cousin-in-Law)

CheeseQuest sends brie-covered, chèvre-crusted congratulations to my cousin and cousin-in-law on the birth of their daughter. Welcome to the world, CMK!

I Feel Real

I was going to save this for a later post on gender-ambiguous singers, but as a holiday treat I'm going to offer this promotional video for the most awesome disco song ever, Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)." Someone who did a job talk recently at Cheeseville U. talked a lot about this song and even played it from an iPod. I think the stuffed-shirt deans who came would have gotten the point of the talk a lot better if they could have seen this video.

What's the most amazing aspect of this video? I cannot even begin to pick one. All I can tell you is that I lived through most of the 1970s, and if there were gay waiters in white socks and hot pants walking around in circles somewhere in my subconscious, I didn't notice them.

Sage Wisdom

The following comments are collated from advice sessions I had with members of my committee and other faculty.

• The academic job market is in freefall. Be afraid.

• You're concerned about the job market now? That sure didn't stop you from applying to grad school, did it?

• It's not like modern U.S. jobs at second- and third-tier state universities are suddenly going to dry up.

• Your dissertation will get you a lot of interviews with search committees who are just curious about your topic and not at all interested in hiring you because they don't consider your topic serious.

• Networking is overrated. I've seen great networkers who got crappy jobs because they produced crappy dissertations because they were spending too much time hanging out in the TA lounge complaining. No, don't bother too much with networking. Now goodbye. [on the way out] Did I ever tell you the story about how I didn't get a plumb job right out of grad school because I had no interest in networking?

• Yes, the job market is awful. But you might make it. Just try to [whisper whisper whisper] or apply to postdocs, then [whisper whisper whisper] before your first book [whisper whisper whisper]. I'm going to meet with a prospective student now. Should I tell them to apply to grad school?

• The job market doesn't apply to me.

Light, Camera, Action Figure

If I weren't so special (i.e. if I weren't wasting my fellowship money for the year), I'd be grading bluebooks and laughing about the things those craaaazy undergrads write in their exams. What I am experiencing, however, is a great lull when the university basically grinds to a complete halt for finals and everyone leaves for winter break. This has affected my work, in that I just don't feel like doing it. Hence I have none of the usual gender curiosities or crabby rants to post. I'm left feeling kind of like an action figure—poised for heroism but unable to move because I'm a little piece of plastic. But here are some action-packed trivialities for those who care.

• MK and MS took me out for breakfast today. It was an unusually exciting morning. After our pancakes and bacon, we walked out to the parking lot only to witness an accident. Actually, MS and I only heard the big crunch; MK saw the whole thing. No blood or airbags, thank god, but there was quite a bit of glass and plastic on the asphalt afterward. You'd think there'd be no topping that excitement, but there was—a trip to Target, where I bought two trash cans and...

• ...a tripod! I spent some time after my return practicing opening and closing it as quickly as possible. Just like your martial arts chops, your archive-techie spy moves have to be ready to go when the time comes. After about an hour, I managed to get my time under 8 minutes. Not bad!

• Xmas came early to the CheeseQuest household. Thanks to Father Electronics, I now own a 1 TB external hard drive. Sick, huh? This thing will remember stuff for me when I have Alzheimer's. Thanks, Father Electronics!

• I finished two grant applications yesterday, for the Incomprehensible Weekly Seminar Fellowship and the Improvisational Vernal Chaos Award. I want money. That's what I want.

• My doc gave me a sun lamp on loan till May. It's so I don't get crabby while there's no light out. You only have to sit in front of it for 20 minutes, but it's so bright it's like being interrogated. I'll leave it to those of you who interact with me regularly to judge its effectiveness. The only problem is, it's so damn ugly that I hide it under my desk and sometimes forget to use it in the morning.

• Finally, I'll be joining the lovely and talented DV and J in Philly Monday night in preparation for a risky operation on Tuesday at an archive in the City of Brotherly Love. First archive I've been to where they charge you to get in. Can't wait!

Beards, Babies, Infidels, Gold Teeth, and Mannish Women

I keep meaning to help you score that poll that I had a few weeks ago about the types of people you like.

First, some background. I took the questions from what came to be known as the Terman-Miles M-F Test. It's cited in a lot of social science literature at least through the 1960s. You can find the whole thing in Lewis M. Terman and Catharine Cox Miles, Sex and Personality: Studies in Masculinity and Femininity (New York, 1936). It's one hell of a psychometric test—it goes on for 42 pages and even includes gendered inkblots. (If you see an ax, that's masculine; if you see a baby, that's feminine.) In one study I found, it was administered to male prisoners to see if it could separate the "wolfs" from the "punks." Yes, they really used that terminology.

Interpreting the entire Terman-Miles M-F Test is a complicated affair, but scoring it for an individual is not so hard. For each answer, you add a point if you pick a masculine option and take away a point if you pick a feminine option. (Hey, just like real life!) There's also a neutral category where you neither add nor subtract a point. If you wind up with a positive score, you're on the masculine side. A negative score means you're more feminine.

OK, so hopefully you remember what you liked. (Those who missed the excitement of the poll can still play along now.)

Men with beards: +1 if you like them; -1 if you dislike them; +1 if you neither like nor dislike them.

Babies: -1 if you like them; +1 if you dislike them; +1 if you neither like nor dislike them.

Infidels: +1 if you like them; +1 if you dislike them; -1 if you neither like nor dislike them.

People with gold teeth: 0 if you like them; +1 if you dislike them; -1 if you neither like nor dislike them.

Mannish women: -1 if you like them; +1 if you dislike them; -1 if you neither like nor dislike them.

(Isn't this just like Seventeen? Someone should write an article on the advent of personality tests in teen magazines!)

So what's your score? CQ got +1. (Beards: neither like nor dislike; babies: neither like nor dislike; infidels: like; gold teeth: neither like nor dislike; mannish women: like.)

Roosters and Hens, or Wow, That Hat Sure Subverts Some Gender Identity!

My friend KRM sent me a link that didn't seem to work, but I think she wanted me to see this piece of sheet music. Seems to be from 1926 or so. Thanks, KRM! It appears to be all over the interweb, but I thought the rest of you might enjoy seeing it. Here are the lyrics:

Masculine women, feminine men,
Which is the rooster, which is the hen?
It's hard to tell 'em apart today! And, say!

Sister is busy learning to shave,
Brother just got a permanent wave,
It's hard to tell 'em apart today! Hey, hey!

Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot,
Now we don't know who's who, even what's what!

Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide,
Nobody knows who's walking inside,
Those masculine women and feminine men!

YouTube also has this (rather boring) video of a player piano reel playing the song.

For those who keep track of my whereabouts, I'm subverting gender identity from a glass box in midtown Manhattan. A couple nights ago was the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, and I had a rather scary encounter with a police barricade and a swarm of tourists when, with no coat on, I stepped out for a cup of coffee around 6 p.m. Luckily (I suppose), I got back into the building. I had to work way, way into the night, so I never had to face the remnants of the Britney-hunting mob. There were lots of cops still around, though.

It's been a long week. Thanks to KRM and EDB for letting me crash on their couches.

UPDATE, 6 Dec.: KRM sent me the real link. Go to Out History's Wiki and click on the Masculine Women, Feminine Men postcard exhibit.

The Mystery of Mitzi

Found this in a New York City newspaper from 1920. I can't figure out who Mitzi was. (It's not Mitzi Gaynor—she wasn't born till the 1930s.) There's a script for Lady Billy at the New York Public Library, so I may check that out. You've heard the plot a million times before: countess disguised as boy comes to America. According to the New York Times, "there are alarms and excursions, escape and discovery, and final haven in the arms of the stalwart lover." Sidney Greenstreet was also in the cast. There's some sheet music from Lady Billy offered on eBay. The Times called Mitzi an "accomplished young person," which makes me think she might have been a juvenile actress. I'm not sure whether it's worth it to try to look for interviews or articles in the papers that are blurbed in the ad. Girls-dressed-as-boys roles were pretty common and could be the subject of a dissertation in themselves (actually, I'm sure they are). So for now, Mitzi will remain a mystery girl.

Sensitive Cowpokes Need Not Apply

Illustration from "The Feeling of Inferiority" in the magazine Hygeia, March 1926. I know you need to squint to read the caption—I'm still working out how to get the exposure right.

The Camera Craze

OK, second crabby post in a day, forgive me.

I know a lot of you out there love you some digital cameras for archival work. Snap, snap, snap, and you can copy an entire book if you feel like it. For free! (Not that you'd ever break copyright restrictions.)

Me, I feel frustrated and overwhelmed by digital photography in archives. There are practical difficulties, like the books that won't lie flat (which can cut off inside margins), and trying to hold your hand steady, even when you have a camera that has that steady-hand correction thing (which mine does). I've also been trying to work with extra-large magazine formats, and when you manage to fit those big pages in your viewfinder you wind up with a resolution that's not all that readable.

But more to the point, are you downloading, saving, naming, and printing all your files? This is what mystifies me about taking pictures. What's the purpose in taking all those photos if you don't have a good system of organizing them? How can you organize them without going through and naming all of them? Do you really read them on your computer screen, or do you have to print them out (like I do)? That costs lots in ink cartridges, and when you print them out they look like crap. And why can't I figure out how to make a sweet multi-page PDF that I only have to name once?

Oh, and if you've managed to solve these issues or they don't make a difference to you, I have one thing to say: don't do a project where you're working with documents on kids. Lots of archives will not let you make photocopies, much less do the ol' snap-snap with your Canon PowerShot.

So, digital photography: OK, not great. I hope that I can be proved wrong.

What Is Wrong With You, Library?!

I have reached the boiling point. It seems the library system is moving all these bound periodicals that I really, really need from the main library to the storage facility. Plus, they haven't got around to updating their catalog system, so the catalog says they have a periodical, but when you go to the bound periodicals room it's gone! I understand not everyone may need to have the complete run of Playground or Survey at their fingertips. But these things are not online, they're not on microfilm, and they're too recent to be on Google Books. I have no alternative but to troupe out to the storage annex, where they do have a reading room, but it's in a remote corner of campus, and it's getting cold out! Wa wa wa, I know.

Oh, and another thing. I need to see a few volumes of Ladies' Home Journal from the 1920s and '30s, which are on microfilm reels at another branch of the university. But my request keeps getting cancelled automatically because we have two years of LHJ online—those two years being something like 1888 and 1889. Library, those are not what I'm looking for. Please don't be stupid and tell me these are online, because they're not. Duh.

Library, I'm going to find out where you live, and I'm going to get you.

Warriors and Priests

It's funny how you can find precedents for contemporary theoretical concepts in documents created a long time ago. I was looking for magazine articles on the "boy problem." I'm still not sure what the "boy problem" was (I think it has something to do with eugenics and the supposed declining "generative impulse" among white people), but it's all over the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature for the years 1919-1921. So I looked up some of these articles, and I found this, from the Atlantic Monthly of March 1920. I know it's long, but try to get through it.

I think that we all know enough of human nature to know that in ... primitive society, if any individual boy had not these [masculine] virtues, he must assume them; he must believe he had them and make others believe it.

Here arose a source of confusion. Internally, for himself and to himself, a boy was, first of all, a conglomerate human creature, compact of innumerable capacities and perceptions, incapacities and obtusities. He could not by any amount of determination or self-deception be other than that particular bundle of individual traits which he happened to possess. He could not by any effort really conform to a type. The most he could do, of course, toward that imperative community demand was to assume an outward aspect of invincibility; while the best he could do for the race as well as for himself was to develop his own traits, each to its best use, irrespective of whether he resembled in consequence any other boy or any accepted type. The early community demanded many more enthusiastic physical fighters than it naturally produced, so the rest of the boys must pretend to these warrior virtues if they could. If they positively could not, the monastery became at last open to them. What these non-fighters did in the earlier ancient days, when opportunities to be priests were comparatively few, it is hard to guess. (Perhaps fewer dreamers were born, since the need for them can have been so little felt.) ... And so, from time immemorial, boys have pretended to be what they are not, as all persons do upon whom an unattainable expectation is laid. The pretence has not been conscious most of the time. They have fooled themselves, as we all do in the process of submitting to others' expectations. So boys, personally self-wrapped and uncomprehending of others and of themselves, laugh at each other, traditionally and tribally, for showing personal feeling, special interest, or individual taste.

Get rid of the essentialism, the "from time immemorial" ahistoricity, the bizarre picture of "primitive" society, and the "duty to the race" garbage, and don't you have something close to the idea of gender as performance? What this passage captures for me, in a way I think we downplay or can't see today, is the depressing nature of performativity. We just don't have a choice; we're on the performativity treadmill from the day we're born. Similarly, the options this piece presents are bleak. If you simply can't "pretend" that you're a warrior, "the monastery became at last open" to you. But the author seems to know that this isn't a choice. Perhaps fewer dreamers were born, indeed.



On the other hand, I do appreciate the author's awareness that more than one kind of masculinity is available. This is something I don't think a lot of scholars of U.S. gender history realize yet. Most of us seem kind of locked in to what we think of as hegemonic masculinity, which changed to this he-man thing around the turn of the 20th century and which we believe still rules today. I have long doubted this and (gladly) have been finding evidence that complicates or contradicts this picture.

What it means for girls, however, is still a mystery. More later.

I Don't Think I'm Ready for This Jelly

Am I the last one to see this awesome Beyoncé video for "If I Were a Boy"? I'm not crazy about the song, but I keep wondering if this is Beyoncé's message that she is actually a gay man. How else to explain her appearance in a police suit just as she sings, "If I were a boy..." as she sits down to breakfast with her hot hot hot boyfriend?

Sorry for the wishful thinking—you can tell grad school has gotten to you when you can't stop reading against the grain.

P.S. to Beyoncé: Thanks for your correct use of the subjunctive in the title of your song. Oh, and plus you are hot in this video!

Yes We Can!

I've totally drunk the Kool-Aid.

Lure of the Xtabay

A drag queen once told me that Yma Sumac was the Peruvian equivalent of Carmen Miranda. If that makes any sense to you, you probably already know about Carmen Miranda and Yma Sumac, who died recently. According to the New York Times, which I take for my bible in all things camp, her name was really Imma Sumack (not Amy Camus, as the rumor had it), and she was born in Peru (not Brooklyn). And she really was an Incan princess, according to the Peruvian government.

I'd listen to Yma Sumac, along with Eartha Kitt and Barbra Streisand, while I was working one of my late-night data entry jobs after I first moved to New York. I remember vividly how I'd code data for an evil corporate law firm that was working on an asbestos case. Yma, Eartha, and Barbra hinted that there was a world beyond all this.

I'm bad at describing music, so I hope you'll seek out Yma Sumac for yourself. She was known for her high notes, but as you can see here, she could also growl. Unfortunately, some of her best songs—"Mambo" and "Xtabay" in particular—only show up as tributes on YouTube.

I think of Yma Sumac as one of Julie Taymor's birds, with a 1950s nightclub act. You'll either love her or you'll hate her. It's camp all the way.

Gimme an A! Gimme a B! Gimme a D!

My defense: awesome. No, wait: totally awesome. No, wait: so totally super mega fucking awesome. My committee said such nice things. They also found all my insecure-buttons and pushed them repeatedly. But on the whole I am a happy Ph.D. candidate. That's right, CANDIDATE.

It's all a blur, though. Ask me what happened when I've recovered a little bit.

We Are T Minus Five Days Until Launch

I defend my proposal Monday at 11:30. Now it can be revealed: I've had a defense date set for months but it was a secret because the Russians might find out! Now there is no way they can move their missiles to Cuba in time to stop my defense. I'm sorry to have kept this secret from all of you, but there are sacrifices you make when you work for the department. The history department, of course.

Keep watching the stars.

CQ's Political Scoop

Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama today. There's been speculation about how he came to this decision—some, of course, contend it's because they're both black. But CheeseQuest was on the case first. And as we learned last month, it wasn't some kind of "tribal" (to use Chris Matthew's word) affiliation. It was because McCain stole the man's joke.

A Minor Setback, and Further Adventures in Archives

So it develops that Professor Famous cannot be my outside reader. But fear not, dear reader, for CheeseQuest is undaunted and will turn now to Professor Respectable, who may in fact be a better match.

In other excitement, I had another archive caper last week. Poring over fan letters written in 1984 to a fiction factory, I came across one from a girl who affixed two stickers to her epistle. Gracious, I whispered, I think I had that sticker! Then I realized it was a scratch-and-sniff—a round, yellow circle with a green smiley fact that read "Dino-MITE!" Furtively, I cast a glance about the dim reading room to make sure no one was watching, and rubbed the sticker slightly.

Reader, I sniffed it.

Ah, the sweet scent of lemon drops, made even sweeter by the knowledge that this sensory experience had transcended the mists of time. What I smelled, she had smelled. And the realization that I probably owned that sticker, and that the author of this document was approximately the same age as I, made me think that on some level I knew her—we breathed as one.


Desperate to give you a sense of my experience, I looked for this sticker online. Alas, no yellow "Dino-MITE!"s, but I did find this gumball machine, which I am positive was in the same family of stickers. Enjoy it to whatever extent you can.

Dr. Shock

Historians love us some case studies. They're snapshots of people's lives, albeit filtered through the pathologizing lenses of psychiatrists, physicians, social workers, and other professions.

It's pretty easy to find books with a ton of case studies in them. Maybe the most fascinating is Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis. Anticipating the work of Alfred Kinsey, Krafft-Ebing collected dozens of case studies of "abnormal" sexuality, many of them from people who sought his help, some of them from people who wrote to him describing themselves and asking to be cured. Jonathan Ned Katz gives a great account of Krafft-Ebing's contribution to the "invention of heterosexuality."

The case studies I'm looking for are a bit different, of course. Browsing around the website of the Kinsey Institute's Special Collections, I found the papers of a gynecologist and sex researcher named Robert Latou Dickinson, who did a lot of work during the period I'm studying. Since he seemed slightly relevant, I went to the massive (ha!) Cheeseville U. library to look up some of the work he did. I found A Thousand Marriages (1931). Case studies galore! But there was stuff in there I wish I hadn't read. In this passage he's talking about "Widows Over Sixty."

Pelvic examination indicates that memories or physical excitability give a strong reaction in the office of the gynecologist. Extreme distaste may appear or such vulvar congestion, marked mucous wetness and erotic behavior, even at seventy-five, that it is desirable to relieve the patient's embarrassment by hurting her, lest she have orgasm.

Dickinson died in 1950. You have to wonder whether really old gynecologists were trained by this guy, or people who studied his methods. Ugh.

Best Shot

Only a week past my self-imposed deadline, I handed in the final version of my prospectus today. It clocks in at 42 pages, including notes and bibliography! That's altogether ridiculous, but I didn't feel like doing the extra work to cut it down to 20. Besides, my adviser wanted "anecdotes and quotations," so I'm only following directions, right? I still need an outside reader, so I haven't scheduled a defense date. But here goes nothing!

Apparently, You Do Need a Weatherman

Is this the McCain campaign's October surprise? Bill Ayers? I thought we went through this during the primaries. Steve Schmidt, you can do better than that. How about "Obama would raise taxes on pet hamsters!" Or "Obama has an inter-species alien love child on the space station Mir!"

Meantime, Sarah Palin still can't complete a sentence. Try diagramming this passage:

We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for all of us.

(Thanks to Vgirl for the grammar article!)

Enough With the Classist Stereotypes!

An AP writer calls out Sarah Palin for her usage of the term "Joe Sixpack." I think this meme emerged right after the debate on Thursday, because I've seen it on a few blogs. However, no one (to my knowledge) has probed the origins of this term. I remember it vividly from my childhood in the 1970s.

According to one of the "On Language" columns Bill Safire used to do, the term first emerged in a 1970 story a Boston Globe reporter wrote about a local politician who ran against Louise Day Hicks for Congress. The reporter got lots of angry mail from readers, who accused him of perpetuating Irish stereotypes. Imagine that!

I also did a search on ProQuest (a distant relative of CheeseQuest, if you must know), and the first hit I got was "Freedom to Outrage," published April 17, 1972, in the NYT. It was an opinion piece by critic Herbert Mitgang, complaining that American TV was nothing like the BBC. "Nothing better illustrates the superiority of British television than the field of drama," he wrote. "Without it, American television would be confined to the routine homegrown series on doctors, boy detectives and Joe Sixpack families." Well, la di da!

The term has stayed in use since the 1970s. Among its perpetuators: Bill Clinton (see the Safire column above).

"Joe Sixpack" was condescending then, and it's condescending now. Enough, Sarah Palin!

PS: I feel the same way about the use of "Main Street," which the Dems also love to use.

Inside the Mind of a Pirate

The NYT interview with a pirate.

Q: Have the pirates been misunderstood?
A: ...We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.

Q: Why did you want to become a pirate?
A: We are patrolling our seas. This is a normal thing for people to do in their regions.

Things I would have asked:

When did you start having fantasies about being like a coast guard?
Do you have a need to be in control?
Do you ever think people are out to get you?
Do pictures of Errol Flynn make you think you're fat? Or that you need another pair of boots?
What pops into your mind when I say "booty"?
I sense some hostility. Are you feeling aggressive now?
I think we should terminate this session. When can I expect some of that $20 million?

When Men Become Tomboys

I'm into serious procrastination mode, if that's not already apparent. I'm almost done with the proposal, so I feel somewhat justified in having a little fun by posting here.

Before I go back to work, I thought I'd tell you about a funny little article from the Chicago Defender, perhaps the most prominent African American newspaper of the twentieth century. In 1951 it ran a story about two hometown baseball players, "Tomboys Minny, Nellie Show Muscle Men How," about Cuban-American outfielder Orestes Miñoso and white second baseman Nellie Fox. Here are some of the most intriguing passages.

Someone remarked to the sportswriter who shared a room with Orestes "Minny" Minoso, that Minny was his "old gal," as they say in boarding school.

"Yeah," the sportswriter answered dryly, "but he's sure a Tomboy."

Matter of fact, there are two Tomboys on Paul Richards' White Sox...

The other Tomboy is Nellie, sometimes known as Nelson Fox, Jacob Nelson Fox, and Little Nell.

These two have done pretty well by themselves in a man's game....

...Their combined batting average is .351, with Minny hitting .361, and Nellie batting .348. The team batting average is .292, which indicates the gals must be pretty good.

Oh my stars, I can scarcely begin to analyze this. In fact, I really can't—I must get back to writing. What do you think?

The Naked Diss

Because I've been preoccupied with such pressing matters as Nazi resistance and wondering what's so funny about Republicans, several faithful readers have wondered whether the proposal process is stalled. In a word, no. It's moving right along, and if my upstairs neighbors stop making so much fricking noise, the final draft will be done Monday. I do not yet have an outside reader, so I haven't scheduled a defense date. I got all three committee members to get me comments, and I'm trying to incorporate them as best as I can. Which, even though they have no major disagreements, is not as easy as it sounds. Two committee members want it front-loaded with anecdotes and citations; the third (who only got comments to me Wednesday) wants major chunks of the introduction moved to a later section. Guess which bloc wins?

So that's the story. Write, procrastinate, write, procrastinate.

Bald lady (above): Constance Towers, the hooker with a heart of gold in Sam Fuller's Naked Kiss (1964). No, I don't consider my dissertation a hooker. It's just feeling vulnerable and exposed, but it's still coming out swinging.

Look Deep Into My Eyes, Vladimir

If you're like me, you totally lost it when McCain said, "I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw three letters: KGB." I went to Youtube this morning to reprise this moment and I found this:



You can imagine how disappointed I am in Senator McCain. Here I thought this "KGB" stuff was completely off-the-cuff and memorably wacky. Turns out he's been telling this joke for over a year!

UPDATE:

Wait, there's more. In this one, from ten months ago, he waxes even more eloquent: "I looked into Mr. Putin's eyes and I saw three letters: a K, a G, and a B...I mean, duh!"



EVEN FURTHER UPDATE:

About a year ago, the Wall Street Journal caught McCain out for stealing the KGB laugh line from Colin Powell. Something tells me the way Powell told it, it was actually funny.

John McCain: the Robin Williams of politics?

SON OF UPDATE:

It's weird how this joke's morphed beyond Powell's original point, which was to criticize George W. Bush for his remark about looking into Putin's eyes and seeing his soul. McCain isn't using it to criticize the president's diplomatic naivete, he's using it to attack Obama and liberal foreign-policy realists. In the debate he didn't mention that the original soul-gazing was done by Bush; he implied that it was Obama's touchy-feely philosophy about dealing with the Axis of Evil. McCain's gotten sloppy with this joke. Now that he whipped it out in a nationally televised debate, perhaps he'll retire it permanently.

UPDATE VS. MOTHRA:

Colin Powell told this joke as early as October 10, 2006. As good a reason as any to endorse Obama.

Debate Questions I Hope Get Asked

Dear candidates,

Assuming the foreign policy debate goes on tomorrow, here are some questions I want answered.

• Was microcredit a good idea?
• Is the cold war really over?
• How many member countries will it take to satisfy NATO?
• Can we afford to alienate Russia if Iran poses such a huge nuclear threat?
• What to make of North Korea's revival of its nuclear program soon after rumors of Kim Jong-Il's death?
• Are we at war with Pakistan?
• Is Iraq a sovereign state?
• How can we continue to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if American taxpayers are on the hook for $700 billion?

Thanks in advance for your direct, concise answers.

CheeseQuest

Project Wipeout

The Prada show in Milan this season was notable for a few reasons: the sumptuous snakeskin prints, the glamorous golds, and the heels so high they gave the models altitude sickness. Or so I've concluded having watched this video:



UPDATE, 29 September:

It was the booties' fault!

Thanks, Non-Hispanic Whites!

As sensitive as ever to trends that reflect the tough life of affluent white New Yorkers, today the Times published an article on how census figures show that "white flight" in New York has apparently reversed in the past few years. This, according to one expert quoted in the article, is "a harbinger of racial equilibrium."

Actually, the article is mostly about Hispanic immigration, which has leveled off (and in some places decreased) in recent years, possibly due to tougher immigration enforcement and a recession that's led to job losses. But the story is front-loaded with a certain racial subtext: We're baaaaaaack.

That's right, the population of "non-Hispanic whites" in New York has actually increased for the past several years. What we don't get from the story is a sense of who these NHWs are. But my guess is that they're what John McCain would describe as "middle class."

One also has to wonder about "racial equilibrium." It sounds so nice—like another word for tolerance and mutual respect. But this is not really the case, is it? How much ass are these NHWs ready to kick in the name of maintaining "racial equilibrium"?

The image above was a parody magazine cover created by the wizards at Stay Free! magazine. It's now defunct, but I'm told there is an anthology in the works.

Higher Ed: Future Shock?

I've been watching a lot of cable news lately—the election and all. But the big news the past few days is, of course, the financial crisis. I'm wondering how it will affect me. Luckily, I'm a moron when it comes to financial instruments, so I keep all my money in my mattress. Not really—it's in a low-yield savings account that's FDIC-insured. (Thanks, big government!) I'll be just fine, thanks. For now. But in ten years....?

What does the financial crisis mean for higher education, and for those of us who will hopefully finish our dissertations within the next few years? I really have no idea. Like I said, I'm a moron about the "finance." But I don't think it looks good.

First of all, consider the importance of credit to students and their parents. Something like three fourths of Cheeseville U. students are on some kind of financial aid; 57 percent have student loans. I don't have statistics on parents taking out home equity loans, but I'm sure that's pretty high, as tuition at Cheeseville has gone up and up and up, as it has at institutions all over the country. Of course, Ben Bernancke et al. are on the case* so that we can still have access to credit. But seriously? Will kids and their parents be able to afford higher education in a few years? Fewer students means fewer undermotivated butts in the lecture halls.

Demographics are against us too. There are going to be fewer students now that the children of the baby boomers are graduating. Employment in higher education was probably going to contract anyway, but if fewer students and their families can afford college, will we also be looking at declining salaries?

The other thing you have to wonder about is the investment portfolios that universities have been building up. Here is another thing I know nothing about. But don't you just wonder what universities have been investing in all these years? Have they been buying these crappy mortgages? Hmmm, I hope no hedge funds. Weaker endowments could mean higher tuition, hence fewer students, hence other bad things. Bad for us.

Finally, this post will end with the hand-wringing that no discussion of academe is complete without, and that's the erosion of tenure and the elimination of tenure-track jobs. Why create a line when the university is in straitened circumstances? Frankly, I'm also afraid that adjunct positions will be eliminated.

Am I Chicken Little?




*I'm being facetious. They're on the case on behalf of the big guys. See Kathy G's awesome posts over at the G Spot, especially this one.

Subject: Humans

The archive I am salivating over has thrown a roadblock in my path. It seems I need approval from an internal review committee to conduct research on human subjects. They sent me this eight-page application. What are your research protocols, CheeseQuest? Are you coding the results? Please list all of your coauthors. 

Whaaaa? I'm a humanist, which means I study humans, which means humans are already my subjects...maybe? To me, Protocol was a career-defining moment for Goldie Hawn. "Coding" (a.k.a. data entry) is scut work I used to do for law firms. And coauthors? Are you serious?

I remembered a grant-writing workshop I took. Some of those social-science types were talking about something called the IRB, which had to do with research on human subjects. So I googled them, and there is a kind of certification you can get from Cheeseville U. that says you're competent to do this kind of research. But I don't know whether it applies to me. They give examples of projects that need IRB approval and ones that don't. One of the examples they give of a project that does NOT need this certification is getting your co-investigators to bungee-jump off a bridge to measure how far they snap back. 

I'm a humanist, dammit! All I want is a few lively quotes to back up the anecdotes I tell at the beginning of each chapter, which the historical profession has decided it cannot live without. I'm not using any names or correct initials. It's just a history dissertation no one except my mother, my committee members, and hopefully some search committees will read.

Maybe I will go back to my original dissertation topic—a history of bungee jumping. No human-subject approval necessary! Wheeeee!

Do you know who I AM?

I handed in the first draft of my prospectus about two weeks ago, knowing I'd have to revise it after my committee members read it. I pictured this whole process taking about two weeks. Silly CheeseQuest! My adviser has read it and given me comments. Thanks, adviser! But where are your colleagues? Don't they realize how important the CheeseQuest dissertation is going to be? Why are they dragging their heels?

I feel kind of like the sister of my friend M. M's sister was a dancer in Martha Graham's company, back when Martha Graham was alive and had a company. M and her sister are African American. One day, M's sister was at a grand old department store makeup counter, and (oddly enough!) was not getting any attention from the salesperson. Finally she caught her eye. "Do you know who I AM?" M's sister thundered. "I'm Martha Graham!!!" M's sister then got immediate, obsequious service, although it's not clear whether the salesperson thought M's sister really was Martha Graham or whether she thought she was just so crazy that she needed to be served immediately so as to get her out of the store as quickly as possible.

I am not (as far as I know) African American, but I feel like cornering those members of my committee and saying, "Do you know who I AM? I'm Martha Graham!!!" Maybe that will make them work faster. Or maybe they will think I'm crazy and give me a token M.A. to get me out of the program.

Hatred on the Bridge

I can't believe I walked past them for over a year without noticing them.

There are at least four swastikas on the bridge between Cheeseville and Winetown. (I was going to post photos of them, but I don't want any white supremacist types downloading them and posting them on their own sites.) They are small and a little hard to see. Three of them are on the less-traversed side of the bridge. But there they are. 

And if I have any say in the matter, they will soon be gone. 

CheeseQuest is on the case. Watch this space for further developments.

Applying to college while black (ATCWB)

Congratulations, you just got into UCLA! You're smart and awesome! Oh, wait a minute, you're black? Well, despite the fact that you make up only 5 percent of the incoming freshman class, we think you might not really belong here. One of  your professors has resigned from the admissions committee because it seems that some of you (how many we can't say) wrote about being black in those moronic personal essays that you must write in order to get into college. How dare you? This means that UC admissions committee members, who are prohibited by state law from taking race into account when admitting students, could tell your race from what you wrote and sneakily let you in, according to this guy, who may just be grading some of your papers very soon. This subterfuge must be stopped! From now on, UC admissions officers will shred applications that mention race and use them to line their birdcages. And as for you students, no more self-expression—you must write about how you spent your summer vacation cleaning toilets at a soup kitchen in India like your white peers. (Dude, it so totally changed my life!) Only once we all censor ourselves and conform to the same idiotic life story will true diversity be achieved. 

Sad news

Del Martin died yesterday.

A decent proposal

I'm close to finishing the first draft of my proposal. And a drafty draft it is! I'm not quite sure the methodology matches up with the research questions. I don't know whether I got a lot of stuff in the lit review right. Heck, I don't really know what's in some of the archives I'm going to list. I think this is OK, because the all the good stuff I've found in archives so far has been in random collections. I almost wrote off the diaries of the girl with soldiers when I first read them because she wasn't like, "I am a tomboy, this is what I think about being a tomboy," etc. So I figure it's OK to fudge some of the sources part. It's not a brilliant proposal; it's a decent proposal. I'm sure I'll have to rewrite it anyway to please my eclectic committee. That's why it's called a draft: you can feel the air whooshing through all the holes in it. Here's hoping it's done by Friday so my committee can spend all Labor Day weekend reading it!

Castling

OK, last post on Budapest.

I have always loved castles. But when you grow up in the United States, they're kind of hard to come by. Actually, on the outskirts of Cleveland there is this thing called Squire's Castle where we used to have picnics. It was built by a Standard Oil tycoon who just really wanted to live in a castle. I know the feeling! But, of course, castles are different in Europe. They come with a lot of baggage attached—you don't just up and build yourself one because you suddenly come into a lot of money. No, the true measure of castle entitlement is not to do a damn thing to get it, which is one of the reasons they're so cool.

The Budapest Castle is actually a complex of buildings packed high on top of a hill in Buda overlooking the Danube. It is more of a palace-type operation than a big stone fortress, although some kind of castle has been there since the Dark Ages, I think. Unfortunately, there are no royals to be found there these days. But walking around, you still feel a kind of awe and a sense of being very, very unimportant. For instance, all the doors are tremendously high and you have to reach up to about shoulder height to turn the handles that open them. My host AK pointed out that if you were anybody who counted, you had doors opened for you, and if you were the person opening the door, reaching up would have reinforced your lowly status. I'm not sure many Americans would think to imagine life in a castle from that perspective.

We visited the castle district at dusk, which made for some stunning views of the Parliament building over on the Pest side, across the Danube. The picture above is part of the castle; the one below is the view of Parliament.

Bath-stravaganza!

The medieval guys who thought it would be a good idea to settle Pest probably were drawn to this lovely site on the Danube for a few reasons: the view of Buda, the palinka, and the hot springs. Today Budapest has several amazing baths, at least one of which goes back to the  Ottoman days. My friends and I chose to visit the Széchenyi Baths, which are in this large park in the middle of Pest. They are (I believe) the largest baths in Europe, with a whole complex of indoor baths, a couple sauna rooms, three outdoor swimming pools, and masseurs. And did I mention they're gorgeous? The indoor baths have these very cool vaulted ceilings, and the bath temperatures range from 20 C. to hot hot hot. We spent hours there. You feel like you're floating in this dream palace. Hey, was that a Habsburg drifting by?

Hungry in Hungary

I've just returned from a vacation in beautiful Budapest. The weather was great, the hospitality delightful, the palinka potent, and the cheese plentiful. I had cheese practically every day, mostly soft white cheeses with things like dill in them. This is a picture of a cheese stall in a small market set up during the communist days as a small-scale free-market experiment. The market survives to this day. Despite our inability to speak Hungarian, BG did an excellent job ordering the cheese by the point-and-gesture method. The cheese lady was extremely nice. We got there when the market was closing, and she had to get rid of her cheese before it spoiled, so she gave us tons of free samples. The market also has fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, pastries, and an array of Hungarian cleaning products.

Of course, most of my time was not spent eating cheese. I had a rather history-themed vacation. At the Hungarian National Museum I saw the coronation robe, Magyar stirrups, portraits of random Habsburgs and their buddies, a sarcophagus, and an exhibit on ladies' fashion. It's interesting the way they do the Communist period. The whole museum is pretty much silent, as museums tend to be. But when you turn the corner into the Communist display, all of a sudden you're overwhelmed by the strains of the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh (that's the sorrowful one, not the angry one). Wonder what the official line on Communism is now! And here I was looking for the shiny happy people of socialist realist propaganda to cheer me up. In the gift store I bought a small poster of three young people looking confidently into the future. But I forgot it in Budapest! Is that a sign?

I also went to the House of Terror on Andrassy ut, a tree-lined boulevard with lots of lovely buildings. It sounds like it might be a wax museum with Jack the Ripper recreations, but the House of Terror is actually where political prisoners during Hungary's fascist and communist periods were detained, interrogated, and tortured. The whole thing has been turned into an aesthetically sleek conceptual art piece that shows how Hungarians were victimized by the Arrowcross and Communist regimes. Now, this is an important part of history. But it was really heavy-handed on the victimization by outsiders. At one point the ripoff of an audiotour said that Hungarians were humble, religious people who would never do anything to hurt anyone and rejected all kinds of fascism. This despite the mind-blowing history of the country's participation in the Holocaust. In fact, there is almost nothing on the Holocaust, period, except as something Hitler wanted Hungarians to do. Also, did you know that no Hungarians were interested in Marxism till the Soviet occupation? Just humble kulaks. What's really interesting is the gallery of perpetrators as you leave the place. Some of these people are still alive. And according to my host, people have "informed" on some of these people, so some pictures are up there based on hearsay. My host thinks the whole thing is a piece of right-wing propaganda.

We did make it to the Holocaust museum, which had a much different tone and seemed geared more toward Hungarians than the House of Terror. It was also almost completely empty (House o' Terror had a line around the block when I left). I was a little confused by some of the chronology, so I imagine that you'd have to have a passing familiarity with Hungarian history before you go. Also, there was a kind of weird video about anti-Semitism that was probably directed at anti-Semites. At one point it was like "OK, the Jews did kill Christ, but that was just a few of them, so can you really hold it against an entire group of people?" Wha....? There were lots of visual touch-screens that presented actual type-written documents that I imagine ordered deportation and the final solution. They are all in Hungarian with no translation, so I guess they are mostly for Hungarians to read. I think actually the most affecting part for me was this part at the beginning where you have to walk down a long, dark hall. You notice footsteps behind you. They get louder and louder until it's impossible not to look behind you. I thought that was a good use of technology in a museum—so often these days the "interactive" stuff seems pointless. After the whole thing, you emerge in a restored synagogue, which at first seems like an up note until you realize that it, too, is completely empty (of course, this is a function of there being no one at the museum at the time). There are glass benches with the names and occupations of some of the victims there. 

Well, there's much more, but I'll save it for another time. 

Lost Lesbian Literary Masterpiece!

Just kidding. About the masterpiece. The lost lesbian part is true.

Many years ago, my friend KL gave me a book: Freshmen at Arden, by Bertha Goes. KL said she was convinced it was a lost lesbian novel. I said thanks, put it on my shelf, meaning to read it, and forgot about it. 

I came across it again the other day. Remembering what KL said, I opened it again and read a few pages. Seemed like a 1930s school story. Not that great. But THEN I turned to the inside front cover. It was signed "To Hildegarde, with many thanks and deep appreciation, Bertha Goes, 1936." But not only that: there were two obituaries pasted there: one for Bertha Goes and one for Madge Anderson, her "dearest friend," according to the obituary. Bertha and Madge died within six weeks of each other in 1980.

Then I noticed there were seven little photos pasted inside the back cover. They showed what I assume is Bertha and Madge on vacation: frolicking in a lake, holding hands in a hammock, sitting at a picnic table...I was stunned. Here's a picture for you. Bertha is on the right. 

Oh, snap! dissertations

I've been reading a few books that started as dissertations related to my topic, and I think I have figured out some winning strategies for writing them and getting them published. You just have to give it that "Oh, snap!" element. Here are two ideas.

1. Make a minor theoretical distinction that will save the planet. This is an especially useful strategy when a single book has defined your field and no one will admit to hating it because the author is something of a rock star now. Changing this book's theoretical wording may allow you to assert that while it is useful (which no one believes), it is ever so slightly (i.e. extremely) reductionist, essentialist, etc.

2. Pull off the presto-changeo trick. This is kind of related to no. 1. What you do is take something that everyone thinks is progressive and prove (i.e. assert) that it is (presto-changeo!) actually conservative, imperialist, racist, sexist, or in service of the white middle class. Your argument will distract everyone from the fact that it makes no sense and is based on nonexistent evidence and a knowledge of history culled from books that came out in 1989. Because so many things that seem progressive in real life really are conservative, imperialist, racist, sexist, and in service of the white middle class, people will take you seriously.

If you can think of any other "oh, snap" strategies, let me know.

Panini Awareness Week

CheeseQuest is a proud sponsor of Panini Awareness Week.

This delightful panini* was brought to you by Pax Wholesome Foods on 6th Avenue and 40th Street, right across the street from Bryant Park and one long block from NYPL.

Panini Awareness Week is actually a direct ancestor of the CheeseQuest Challenge. Back when I was copy editing for a living, there was one day when every upscale lunch place in midtown started selling panini. It really happened all at once. One morning when I got out of the subway,  there were even barkers at this little deli, yelling, "Hot panini! Hot panini!" Except they were talking so excitedly it sounded like hoppaneenee, hoppaneenee. At lunch that day, my coworker GF overheard a guy saying, "Lemme have one o' them pye-annies." How that grated on the ears! We decided it was necessary to institute Panini Awareness Week. GF made some signs that we posted near our cubicles. My idea was to eat a different panini every day of the week, but that didn't seem to catch on. Nonetheless, P.A.W. was a big success. I noticed the guys at the little deli always sold out all their panini, at least for a while.

We have accomplished a lot, but there is work to be done. While you can get panini in locales as remote as Cheeseville, I believe that panini awareness is not enough—we have to work up to panini consciousness. Hence, next year we will start P.C.W. Start getting ready now. Clear your mind of everything but panini and become one with it. Mmmmmm...

*I realize the singular is panino, but I'm an Amurrcan.

Archive Trips Now Secret Missions!

I heard from someone in the department today that we are investing in a couple of these so students who don't drive can go to archives and conferences. You have to bring your own helmet for now, and you have to count your mileage in order to get reimbursed. But I think we should applaud this effort to cut costs and get our grad students to archives in style.

If I Can Research Here, I Can Research Anywhere

I'm in New York for a week to do some copy editing for a little extra cash. I am only one long block from the New York Public Library, but I don't think I'll be able to do any research there--their Special Collections hours are exactly the same as my work hours. Wah! According to their website, I also have to "consult" with an archivist before they'll let me touch anything. That's fine. You usually do that anyway, by email or phone or whatever. But to be honest, I am scared of these people. I once did a phone consult with someone (a librarian, not an archivist, I think) at their science and business library. It went something like this.

Me: Hi, I am calling because I am researching _______ and I can't tell from your online catalog what you have in your collection. It would really help me if I could talk to someone who knows this collection or who can check a finding aid for me.

[NB to Mom and other non-historian readers: finding aids tell you exactly what's in every box--sometimes in every folder in the box!--and they're not always online. Hey, someone should make a finding aid for my life! anyway...]

NYPL librarian: Well, let me pull up the online catalog. [pause] It says here we have a collection related to ______.

Me: I know. I'm calling because I want to know more about what's in the collection.

NYPLL: I don't know what's in the collection! You should check our online catalog!

Me: I'm looking at your online catalog RIGHT NOW!

NYPLL: Well, you didn't tell me you were looking at the online catalog!

[click!]

Probably going in person to see these folks will help, but my experience with the NYPL is that they think you have no idea what you're doing. So maybe I'll do this consult on my lunch hour this week. To be continued...

Can You Measure Masculinity?

You sure can try.

The twentieth-century historians out there are no doubt familiar with the vogue of psychological testing and "personality inventories" that started around World War I and ended...I guess never. 

I found one that measures masculinity. It took an already existing test, rearranged the questions, applied lots of new variables and coefficients to it, and came up with a new, supposedly improved test. One thing it tried to account for was masculinity. It asked "objective," yes-or-no questions like "Do you prefer to take the lead in groups?", "Do you like to persuade others to your point of view?", and (most objectively) "Are you a male?"

The researchers thought men would score high on the questions that determined masculinity. But it turned out this was the least reliable part of the whole test, because women answered masculinely to a lot of those questions! So what did these researchers say? You guessed it: "This is a problem for future work."

The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Amplified Pipes of Pan

The time is nigh for me to bid farewell to Crunchburg. I'll probably be back for more research, and it's good to have found my way around.

There are many things to like about Crunchburg: there are almost no chain stores, there are many good and moderately priced restaurants (some of which serve cheese!), there are lots of used bookstores, you can get around by walking, the ladies are lovely, and I must say, it's pretty gorgeous compared to Cheeseville (I can see the mountains shrouded in mist from my hotel room. I can also see a bowling alley).

I learned a lot about myself on this trip. One is that I don't particularly care for the street performers, and Crunchburg was chockablock with their whimsy. Last night I went out to eat, intending to get something quick 'n' cheesy, and there was some sort of street fair with street musicians near the restaurant I wanted to go to. And they were amplified! It was some kind of down-homey band with sousaphone, clarinet, banjo, and those god-awful new age pipes of pan or whatever they are. The adults were clapping along, and the kids were gaga. So I had to walk another quarter-mile to find a restaurant away from the sound of that music. Who wants whimsy when you're trying to eat?

On the other hand, I got used to seeing ladies in what I call yoga clothes. You know, those long, flowing, fair-traded, earth-toned linen (or is it hemp?) garments. Well, in Crunchburg, they really know how to work those yoga clothes. Even the youngsters! I decided that if they could do it, I can do it. No, I am not planning to change my well-established look. I just think that if I had to, I could.

So two cheers for Crunchburg! I'll be relieved to get back to Cheeseville (or, I should say, Winetown, which is just over the bridge from Cheeseville).

Girls With Guns

It's hard to tell a tomboy when you meet her in an archive. One of the problems is that many girls do both "masculine" and "feminine" things.

One girl I've found was really into toy soldiers. She collected them obsessively and noted in her diary which ones she bought. Often she drew pictures of them. Above is a picture of an anti-aircraft gun she had. This was in the 1940s. She lived in a coastal area and often saw WWII sailors. Drew them in her diary too.

But would it surprise you to learn that she also wore lipstick? What is the deal? Oh no, is my entire ambiguously articulated thesis going down the drain? More research is needed.

Introductory

Welcome to CheeseQuest.

This site is what amounts to plagiarism, which could get me kicked out of grad school. Well, not really. I got the idea of blogging about my research from Your Small American and Fontaine Comme Fontaine, whose madcap adventures in Berlin and France, respectively, were followed by many. The poetic Vgirl and the wisecracking dame Could Be a Model have also enlivened many a dull day in the basement office. So really I am just another grad student writing a blog. Maybe that is the same as stealing an idea. 

About the name of this blog: on the main strip near the main campus of the university I attend, there are many restaurants, but they all seem to serve dishes with cheese on them (i.e. pizza, wraps, burgers, etc.). This includes the sushi. (OK, not really. But be warned that if you order a spicy tuna roll, you will get a tuna roll with some Korean chili sauce squirted inside. That is not the same as spicy tuna!) So one day I threw out the idea of a CheeseQuest Challenge: get a bunch of people together and eat every single meal with cheese on it. You have to eat out every time and you can't repeat a meal (although eating a cheese slice from two different establishments would count as two meals). The winner is the last person to drop out from severe constipation. The CheeseQuest Challenge has yet to find an enthusiastic contingency.

Now that I'm doing serious archival research, I am wondering whether I should have done the Cheese Quest Challenge all by myself, because eating on the road is kind of like the Iron Man triathlon, and I didn't do any training. Last night as I was eating a quesadilla (with spinach in it so I could fool myself that it was nutritious), I realized that there will be a lot of cheese in my future as I try to keep my food expenditures down to $7-$10 a day (including coffee). Hence an involuntary CheeseQuest Challenge.

No, I'm not going to write exclusively about the cheese I eat (stay tuned for next post). But really, is my research any more interesting? That's why I am naming my blog CheeseQuest.