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.