overheard (or, i know this much is pru)

(the Prudential building in Boston and the building next to it that one of my friends thinks is supposed to look like a chess queen)

"That the Pru and the building next to it are supposed to look like the King and Queen from a chess set (far right in this picture) -- did you make that up? I've twice mentioned this idea to other people and they didn't believe me."
"You were the one who told that to me. Seriously."
"No way! You were totally the one who told me. You are always mixing me up with other people. Totally."
"I have no idea who told me this if you didn't. I certainly don't vouch for it being true. I didn't even believe it when you told me about it."
"That's so weird. I didn't believe you when you told me about it either."

overheard plus

This one was actually submitted by JFW premium subscriber from Dwarfamor, ME:

"I really think I want to do something to make a difference this year."
"Me, too. The difference I am committed to making is that I'm going to go to my classes."

Another friend e-mailed me to say that her department has decided that this fall they will have a retreat. The idea being to talk about some larger and weightier issues about structure and collegiality. Northwestern sociology had a retreat this summer, although it was held in a conference room and was not that different from how you'd imagine a seven-hour faculty meeting. In the case of my friend's retreat, they are having a professional moderator--intriguing occupation, that--and they are talking about going to a lodge. As my friend was telling me about all this, I just kept thinking one thing: this is the best premise for an academic murder mystery novel that I have ever heard in my life. Sort of like Straight Man meets And Then There Were None.

the honeymooners

"Mom, have you ever been to Chicago?"
"We went there for our honeymoon. It was awful."
"What happened?"
"Before we went, my father said to me 'You go there, you look straight ahead. You don't look at anyone, or they'll stab you'."
"."
"And then we were staying on the nineteenth floor of this hotel and it had a fire."
"."
"That wasn't really so bad. What was bad was the entire time I was there I just kept thinking somebody is going to kill me."
"Well, that was 54 years ago."
"Yes, that was back when there wasn't as much crime."
"If you come visit, I promise you won't get stabbed."

overheard

1.
"She's kind of nosy."
"That doesn't surprise me."
"It would surprise her. She's the kind of nosy where she would be appalled to hear that someone else was saying she was nosy."
"That's exactly the kind of nosy I am."

2.
"[Prominent sociologist] says that if you see a coincidence and you don't know how to explain it, there's a social network operating."
"I know a woman who has dated two dwarves. Is that a social network?"
"Did the dwarves know each other?"
"No, different cities, completely unrelated. If they knew each other, it wouldn't be much of a coincidence, would it?"

3.
"I heard you can play shoots and ladders online. But it's not S-H-O-O-T-S, is it?"
"It's C-H-U-T-E-S."
"What's a chute?"
"What do you mean, what's a chute?"
"I don't know what a chute is."
"It's like, um. It's like a slide. My apartment has a garbage chute down the hall."
"Yeah, but you don't call it that."
"Of course that's what I call it. It's not a garbage slide. It's not a trash tunnel."
"You haven't called it a chute before."
"That's true, but that's just because this is the first conversation I've had about it, ever."

overheard

"Thanks for liberating my car."
"No problem. I was going to put a dead body in the trunk, but none were available."
"Everything went smoothly?"
"I was hoping for more of an ordeal. I thought I would have stories."
"I have no idea how I am going to do the Madison part of my move."
"You still have stuff in Madison?"
"My office."
"U-Haul."
"You know full well that I cannot drive a U-Haul truck in Chicago. Not even Evanston."
"You'll have to hire someone to drive it for you."
"They also re-keyed my office, charmingly enough, so I have to move out during a weekday."
"Why would they re-key your office? And why wouldn't they wait until you moved out?"
"I have absolutely no idea. The mysteries of Madison. Anyway, maybe I'll go buy an iPod today. Sooner I get another one, sooner I can lose it again."
"I say you wait until they make one you can put directly in your head. Then you can be bionic like your Dad."
"Maybe I should buy an iPhone just for all the non-phone features."
"How is that going to keep you from losing it?"
"I would probably lose it even faster, but I'd be so cool until then."

no competition to 'why is six afraid of seven?', but:

"What's a pirate's favorite letter?"
"I don't know, what?"
"You could guess 'aRRRgh!' Guess aRRRgh."
"Okay."
(several months pass. leaves change, fall, grow back green again. the protagonists age.)
"I've been meaning to ask. Is a pirate's favorite letter 'aRRRgh?'"
"No. It's P, because P is aRRRgh with a leg missing."
"Did you make that up?"
"No. I'm not a genius."

overheard

"Okay, talk to you later, Muggle Girl."
"Did you just call me Muggle Girl?"
"I did."
"Take it back. If the Harry Potter universe existed, I would be a pureblood."
"I would not be a pureblood."
"I would be a pureblood but a blood traitor. I would be scandalous for the promiscuous way I would snuggle with muggles."
"If you were a pureblood, [Relative A] would be a squib."
"[Relative A] would definitely be a squib. [Relative B] might be a squib, too."
"You would be a half-blood then, not a pureblood."
"I know I wouldn't muggle-born, though, because my Mom would definitely be magic."

assorted

1. "Role-taking" in symbolic interactionism refers to the capacity to adopt the perspective of the others, as in to understand the way a situation seems from the perspective the person to whom one is talking. I've come to wonder whether a penchant for using too small fonts in PowerPoint presentations be used to make a broader inference about people's role-taking skills.

2. Overheard from today: "She's the kind of person who, when you are with a group of people eating Indian food and one of the dishes is saag paneer, will cherry-pick out all the paneer as she's serving herself."

3. Also overheard:
"You might as well have just typed 'I'm losing it' and hit 'Post.'"
"What's wrong with not wanting anybody to spoil Harry Potter for me?"
"It's like you've announced to the world, 'World, I've sashayed over that boundary that separates the eccentric from the insane.'"

4. As for an actually-sociologically-interesting contemporary animals and society issue, this article on CBS SportsLine speculates that the Michael Vick trial will be lower profile but divide public opinion much as the O.J. Simpson trial did. Although Al Sharpton has already come out hard against Vick. I can't imagine there is ultimately going to be the same kind of evidentiary ambiguity in the Vick case as there was in the Simpson case. I wonder if/to-what-extent Blacks and Whites differ in perceptions of the severity of the crime, given various associations of dogfighting with hip-hop imagery and the more basic difference where Whites are more than twice as likely as Blacks to have pets.

overheard

"You're dwelling."
"Nope."
"You are, you're dwelling."
"I'm not. You just want me to be dwelling."
"Why would I want you to be dwelling?"
"Becuase then you would be right, and I would be pathetic."

(evanston) overheard

"Would the two of you like another round?"
"Well, we actually have a slight problem."
"What's that?"
"Him, he just wants another round of what he's having. Me, I would like something different."
"Of course."
"See, what I want is weird, and I'm worried you'll judge me."
"I won't judge you."
"It's weird, though, and I wilt easily when judged by others. I recently had this troll on my blog--"
"You have got to let that troll thing go."
"We have people order weird things here all the time, believe me."
"So, what I want is a rum and coke."
"Sure."
"And, I'd also like a chocolate malt with extra malt."
"Okay."
"You think I'm weird. I can tell."
"Do you want that all in the same glass?"
"No, separate glasses."
"You want the rum and coke in the same glass."
"Right. And the chocolate malt and the extra malt in the same glass, but not the glass with the rum and coke."
"Gotcha. Rum and coke, and chocolate malt."
"With extra malt. Life is too short to get a chocolate malt and not get extra malt."
"True dat."
"Extra true."

overheard

1.
"You're really mean in how you talk about [name]."
"I'm not mean! You should see how nice I am when I am talking to him."

2.
"What would you do if you could travel in time like David Blaine?"
"I would probably procrastinate more, but with less negative consequences. Other than looking much older than I supposedly am."

3.
"Don't you worry that your professional credibility is undermined by having a blog where you put this personal information about yourself online?"
"I used to worry a lot about it. But I'm an empiricist, and my blog has had numerous opportunities to manifest observable negative professional consequences and it hasn't happened yet. Besides, I don't blog anything especially personal, and things that might undermine credibility I often refer to obliquely or like I'm talking about someone else, not me."

4.
"I am totally discouraged and desolate about this paper I'm working on right now. I feel like I have gone from trying to spin a silk purse out of a sow's ear to feeling like I am trying to spin a silk purse out of a imaginary sow's ear. I must persevere with this, I know, but I must also take away lessons."

BTW: Happy birthday JECG, if you read this. Amaranthine.

postscript

"That post where somebody said, 'What else are you doing besides not listening to me?'--that was me, right?"
"What? No? I don't remember you ever saying this to me."
"I say this to you all the time."
"You've never--"
"All the time."
"Well, apparently you've been right each time that I wasn't listening to you."

dispatch from philadelphia

Sara and I took the train here together for the Eastern Sociological Society meetings. I bought a salad at the station but forgot to grab a fork. I picked up my ticket off the tray and went back to the cafe car for one. When I came back, the conductor was coming down the aisle to take tickets. I reached into my pocket for my ticket and it wasn't there. I looked all around my seat, in my bag, in my coat pocket. I went back to the cafe car and looked to see if I dropped it. The conductor went by, clearly hoping I would just find my ticket and not have to call into motion whatever Amtrak machinery there is for lost tickets. I looked all around my seat again, my bag again, my coat pocket again. I had Sara stand up so we could look and make sure it somehow hadn't fallen underneath her or into her backpack. I looked all around my seat, in my bag. I checked my cell phone to make sure that I had the Amtrak confirmation number in case I needed it with the conductor. I looked all around my seat, in my bag, and there the ticket was, right there the first thing I saw when I opened my bag. I understand the logical inference is that it had been in my bag all along and I just didn't see it when I was going through my bag looking specifically for it, as opposed to the ticket having some kind of magical invisibility or teleportation properties.

I said to Sara, "Welcome to my world. This is every day for me. It's like you just got to witness the ten minute abridgement of the story of my life."
"I'm not that surprised. You have told me how in the last year you've lost your iPod, cell phone, coat--"
"Did I tell you I lost an air conditioner?"
"How did you lose an air conditioner?"
"Remember how I bought two air conditioners, even though I ended up only installing one. I put the other one down in the basement and--"
"Later you took it back to the store."
"Oh, wait, you're right. I forgot that's what I did. Well, I can stop being perplexed about that."

carnal sociology coda

"I did some googlestalking of Erich Goode after you wrote that post about him."
"Do tell."
"His father was a sociologist. Si Goode."
"Former American Sociological Association President. There's a rumor that if you are a legacy in sociology you get a special EZPass through human subjects committees."
"His stepmother was also a sociologist. Lenore Weitzman."
"Really? She was the source of arguably the most spectacular error in the history of quantitative sociology." [full ASR debate here]
"About the consequences of divorce for the standard of living of men and women?"
"Yes. If her study had also looked at the financial consequences of out-of-wedlock births, Erich and 'Peggy' probably could have been a great case study."
"He also wrote this critical review of Carolyn Ellis's book on autoethnography."
"Autoethnography is where people do participant observation research that primarily focuses on themselves."
"You don't need to tell me that. You may need to clarify it for people who read your blog, which is why you've inserted this despite it not really being part of our conversation."
"In autoethnography, what is important is not literal truth but narrative truth."
"Anyway, Goode doesn't like how Ellis calls the people in her studies 'participants.' He prefers 'subjects.'"
"I can see where that would help for maintaining objectivity and distance, as well as keeping roles straight so that one doesn't cross any lines."
"He also writes: 'Like Leo Buscaglia, the guy from the seventies who always wanted to hug everybody to make them feel better, Carolyn Ellis hugs her students a lot.'"
"I read part of a Leo Buscaglia book when I was in high school. It made me want to die."
"Goode ends his essay by saying: 'Me, I'm not a hugger.'"
"It's true that in that in his essay, he doesn't anywhere talk about hugging any of the women from NAAFA. He wouldn't even offer to refill that one subject's glass of wine when he refilled his. I guarantee you Leo Buscaglia would've asked if she wanted more wine."

overheard

"I think she's worried that if she does that then later she's going to wake up in the middle of the night screaming, 'Dear God, what have I done?'"
"She's right. In fact, I can predict when it will happen: the very first night, and every night thereafter."

overheard

"It's a weird decision problem. It's not like choosing between Coke and Pepsi. It's like choosing between Coke and Cheeseburgers. Which isn't as bad as choosing between Coke and Playing Frisbee or between Coke and Paisley, but still--"
"Why don't you just say it's like apples and oranges?"
"Because apples and oranges aren't really 'like apples and oranges.' They're both fruit. They have a big bowl of fruit for sale at the cafeteria that has both apples and oranges. That's a regular choice that people make all the time."

now this feels like the madison i know!

I extended my supposed-to-be-brief trip to Madison through today. Which meant I got to be here for snow. Sal has been amused by my lack of patience for such modern contrivances as ice scrapers:



He's also been amused by my winter driving skills:
"We're sliding again!"
"Yeah, do you think we're going to hit that pole?"
"At least we're wearing our seatbelts."
"Hey, I forgot to put on my seatbelt!"
"I know. That was my way of saying something."
All this, and I still had time to put my seatbelt on before we stopped sliding (fortunately, short of the pole in question).

We're up on campus. Our need to work didn't mean that, on the walk from the parking lot to the building, we couldn't take a moment out to see if a stray laundry basket could be pressed into service as a sled.



Suffice it to say there are reasons sleds do not have wheels on the bottom.