Retired: A New World to Explore

 It's been a while.  Let's just say that there's so much unbloggable stuff for a chair, and anything that's bloggable is boring.  I don't think anyone wants to read about the hassles of trying to figure out which funding streams can be used for supplies, which for travel, which for stipends or other payments to people.  But now, all that's somone else's worry.  

I've been retired just over a month now, and I'd like to say I'm deliriously happy.  I'm pretty close, anyway.

It's long seemed to me that the most interesting blogs are written when people are doing new-to-them stuff: new PhD programs, new faculty positions, and so on,  So maybe this blog will be interesting in my adjustment to retirement.  At any rate, for a long time, the blog's been a way or recording memories in a semi-public way, and it can certainly have that function for now.

I'm not going to do some massive catch up post; I think I'll just catch things up bit by bit.  For now, I just finished Alison Bechdel's new book, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, and I'm disappointed to say it didn't do much for me.  I really used to love Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For.  A friend gave me a collected volume, probably one of her first ones, and then I got some others, and really enjoyed them.  They spoke to me.

But Secret didn't.  I think part of it is a graphic novel issue.  There's so much in the pictures that they slow my reading down a lot, and I just don't get immersed the way I do with regular prose writing.  I haven't read tons of graphic novels, just this and Persepolis, and Maus, so I guess mostly memoir, and memoir isn't a genre I really love a lot anyway.  At any rate, with the ones I've now read, it seems like you get a scanty sense of the narrator, and no sense of depth in other characters.  Maybe Bechdel was trying to respect her partners' privacy by not giving a strong sense of their lives, their individuality, but you don't get much.  And what you get, your told: so and so is strikingly beautiful or something, rather than being shown what makes them beautiful.

Bechdel's art is, as always, crisp and readable.  I could look at her drawings a lot more and be quite happy.  I liked the connections with the Romantics gang (Wordsworth, etc) and Beats (Kerouac), but Bechdel doesn't really get at the problematics of either movement in a deep way, nor think about how problematic her identifications with those folks are, and how they might add to her unhappiness.

Finally: the therapy thing.  As I understand it, the point of therapy is to help you accept and deal with things to be as reasonably happy as you can so that you don't harm others nor yourself unnecessarily.  Bechdel's narrator has been in therapy for a long while, but it doesn't seem to be working, really.  But it never seems to work, does it?  I never seem to meet people who say, "yes, therapy helped a lot and now I can deal with things reasonably well."

I read Secret because some friends and I have sort of formed a book group and one of them really wanted to read it.  For me, I'm finishing Maus next (it's taken forever) and then I'm thinking of rereading Pearl.  But I'll need to find a newer edition than I have (mine is from maybe the 30s?)

Spring Break, Day 1

Yesterday afternoon, I read my friend's book (good, and very fun for me), put the switchplates and such back in the living room, and with a neighbor's help, moved the furniture back in place.  And I graded my small stack of stuff before I left campus!

Today, I relaxed a lot.  And I cleaned and lubed my bike so I can go for a ride (the streets are mostly good now).  I graded 7 papers.  (12 more to go for this stack.)  That feels really good!  I also practiced, including practicing against a wall so I don't bow with my whole arm when I should bow with just the forearm (for a fast bit).  Ugh, I don't like practicing against the wall!

Goals for the rest of break:

1.  Grade 12 more papers.
2.  Reread Faustus for class on the Monday after break.
3.  Reread Reservation Blues for the Wednesday after break.  (yep, conflicted!)
4.  Reread "Yellow Woman" for the Monday after break.
5.  Write the next assignment sheet for the first year writing class.
6.  Clean up the garage (mostly sweeping at this point).  Move the kayak up out of storage, if I can get some help.
7.  Read Sing for your Life, which a friend lent me.
8.  Red up my campus office.  (The clutter bothers me!)
9.  Practice violin every day!
10.  Get out and ride my bike!
11.  Put up art in the living room.
12.  Do some birding!
13.  Start drafting the paper I worked on at the British Library.
14.  Clean up the house as I can (as the painting gets done).

I'm expecting a guest at the end of the break, who's coming to read poetry on campus.  I'm very excited, but the house is way too chaotic right now.

And my neighbor dog will also be my guest, and promises to take me out for walks!

Thoughts on my Days in the British Library

I spent my last 10 days in the UK mostly reading at the British Library.  Amazing.  What a place!  It's like the British people have given a gift to the world.  Well, probably some of it was stolen.  But what I read was pretty much all texts (manuscript and print) produced in England, often London, so those weren't stolen from afar.

The catalog system isn't as straightforward as it should be, especially requesting manuscripts.  Some of the librarians are fabulous, some less helpful.  (I tried to sign up for a session with a librarian, and I sort of had one, but not an official one because no one responded to my official request.  And the librarian I met with was less helpful than one would have hoped.

Figuring out the catalog moderately well made everything go better, but that took a while.  Fortunately, I'd started trying to figure things out (and did pretty well on print texts) in September, so that by the time I was really in London steadily, I was finding my stuff pretty well.

By the end of my time, I was doing that thing where you'd go through one day feeling like I'd pretty much read everything I needed to, and then near the end of the day I'd make a tiny breakthrough and realize I had a whole other area to read in, or had found some number of texts through a different search strategy in the catalog.  And the next day I'd have a full, full day, and the third day, I'd be back thinking I'd read pretty much what I needed to, until late in the day, I'd find more.  By the very end, I really was beginning to feel like I'd gotten a handle on a lot, and the one thing I wanted to look at was being "used" or held or something by another reader.

There's really nothing as good as holding a physical book in your hands and reading it, especially if it's a manuscript and a little hard to read.  But even a printed book is a lot easier to flip through to find things in person than a digital version ever seems to be.

Despite staying at a hotel with a good sized room and en suite bathroom, within a short walk of the Library, I was pretty much reading to be not staying at a hotel after 10 days.

So now, of course, I've had a few days at home, and then went on the road to my siblings where I'm staying for the holidays.  And then my Mother will come home with me for a few days, which I'm stressing out about because my house is dusty and I didn't really have time to settle back in.  Between she and my brother, she invited herself, and I couldn't say "no" of course, and wouldn't, but I'd like a bit of time to myself to settle back into my home and organize my British Library notes for the next step before I forget everything.

I haven't played the violin since mid-August.  I brought it along to my siblings, but would really like to just have time to myself without feeling like there's a judgmental audience listening and ready to comment.

Milton Lost and Milton Regained

For some reason, over break, I had the desire to reread Lycidas.  It's been a long, long time since I've read it, since, probably, I was preparing for my GREs.  At that time, I was reading in a study group, four of us at a city-located state university that (rumor had it) hadn't been able to buy new books for the library for some years.  We were all in the MA program, and all wanted to go on for a PhD.  So we got together and studied the Norton's, English, American, and World.  We met a couple times a week for most of a summer (all while working, too), and at the end of the summer, we took the GREs.

We worked really well together, each of us pretty much caring about an area, and having taken courses in that area more than the others.  So I helped a lot with the medieval and earlier early modern, and Eve did modern British, and Joy did modern American.  And there was a man whose name I don't remember right now, but he loved Romantics, and so he helped with the Romantics.  He made "Tintern Abbey" work for me, and it wouldn't have without him.

But none of us knew much about what we then called the "long 18th century" and so, well, that was my weakest area. 

And yes, Lycidas was there; I know we read it, and I know I didn't appreciate it.  And over this break, I was thinking, maybe I would get it now?

So when I got back from visiting family, I looked in my school office, and couldn't find my copy of Merritt Hughes.  I think pretty much everyone who studied earlier lit in my era had a Merritt Hughes, right alongside our Riverside Chaucer and our Witherspoon and Warnke.

Anyway, I looked in my school office, where I found an edition of Paradise Lost I used last time I taught it.  And I looked at my home office, where I came up empty.  And when I was at school, I looked again.  And at home, I looked again.  I'm pretty organized about my books.  At school, I have three big shelving units.  Top left shelves are Shakespeare editions.  Middle Left and bottom left is for books I'm using, reference books, oversize books, and some storage.

Middle is criticism, alphabetically by author.  All the way.

Upper right is modern plays.  Then medieval and early modern texts excluding Shakespeare.  Then a few novels and modern poetry and such.

And then reference series (MLA Approaches to Teaching, Cambridge Companions, the sorts of books that I'm likely not to remember the author, but to remember the series.). 

Then there are school stuff: advising manuals, catalogs and such.

At home, in the office, two big shelves: Left is criticism, alphabetically by author.  Right is Shakespeare, then early modern lit by author, then some reference stuff (dictionaries, etc).

Novels are in another room, as are birding books and such.

So, I should have been able to put my hands on Milton right away; he should be there, right after Middleton and before Rowley.  But no.

And this evening, for some reason, I looked again in my home office, and I noticed a thick book in the criticism section with a brown paper bag cover, the sort of cover I put on books that are worn but worth taking care of.  And yes, it was my Merritt Hughes Milton.  What it was doing there, I don't know.

But now I get to reread Lycidas, and I'm hoping I get more out of it than I did the first time.

Digging Deeper - My First MOOC

I just finished participating in my first ever on-line course, a MOOC, basically, from Stanford, on "Digging Deeper: Making Manuscripts."  There's a second part, and I've signed up for that, too.  And it's FREE!   (The next beings April 21.  Be there or be sad!)

The first course was six weeks; each week the organizers uploaded stuff onto the course platform on Tuesday morning, and we had a week to work on it before the next part got uploaded.  I probably spent about two to two and a half hours each week on the course.  About two thirds of that time, maybe, was watching/listening to the short videos or reading materials, and then another third was working on the "practical paleography" part which was practice in transcribing medieval manuscript texts.  (My lack of Latin really slowed me down on some, no doubt, because when we did a Middle English one, it seemed so much easier.)

For each week, there's be a short, one paragraph introduction to the week, and then you'd click forward, and do part one of maybe five or six parts for the week.  Each part would have a video of a few minutes, which might have someone talking, and showing pictures of a text or textual materials.  You could make the video run a little faster if you wanted (I went with 1.25X speed) and there was a running transcript so you could read as you listened and watched.  (I thought those two features were quite helpful.)  Then after the video, you often could scroll down and you'd be able to look at big pictures of the manuscript or materials in question, which was really great.  So you'd look, and then when you were ready, you'd click through, and go to a little quiz of 2-4 questions, multiple choice with buttons, mostly.  (A few you typed in a number.)  The quizzes mostly picked up on vocabulary from the video.  For me, the most difficult part of the quizzes was remembering to hit the "submit" button rather than just scrolling to the next question.  [And at this point you can tell just how obsessive I am about grade stuff even when it doesn't matter because I was frustrated with myself when I finally figured out that I hadn't hit submit a bunch of times and so "lost points."]

And then you'd hit a manicule (pointy finger graphic) and go on to the next part.

At the end of the video type parts for each week, there was a "practicum" section which would ask you questions about parts of a manuscript or such, and basically quiz you a little more deeply on what you'd learned across the videos for that week in full.

And then finally, each week had a "practical paleography" section which would set out a small bit of manuscript and some directions about abbreviations and such, and you'd transcribe it and hit submit, and then you could see what the professionals did with their transcription.


There was a lot to like about this course.  I had fun, and exercised my brain a tiny bit.  But it wasn't a college course, and I didn't learn in any week what I think my students usually learn in a week or even, say, two hours of classwork.  On the other hand, I didn't put in the time I expect my students to put in preparing, reading, and working on stuff for most of my courses.  I didn't get college credit, either, but supposedly if I finish the course with a certain percentage, I'll get a "Stanford Statement of Accomplishment."  I'm guessing they'll email me a pdf or something, and I may just put it on my wall to laugh about.  The most I've ever gotten out of Stanford before is a couple of pleasurable hours in a library, chatting with David Riggs who I ran into quite by accident.  (I certainly wasn't Stanford material as an undergrad, and frankly never thought that any actual mortals studied there.  No one I knew growing up had gone anywhere like Stanford.)

I think six weeks is a good time to set.  It's enough to get into it a bit, to enjoy knowing it's coming up, and to learn some stuff.  But it's not a daunting time where you'd worry about being gone and missing a huge chunk of stuff.

The organizers clearly did a fine job organizing.  Things were mostly clear and made sense, and they did an excellent job producing the videos, showing pictures of manuscripts and materials.  I think about the second week, they responded to people having difficulty with transcriptions by adding hints about abbreviations and a modern translation.  I found those useful.

I didn't find the forums useful; they were overwhelmingly huge to me, and I didn't tend to read many postings by other people.  That was fine for this course; there was no requirement that you read a lot of postings by others, nor were there papers due that we had to edit or anything like that.


All in all then, I enjoyed the course.  It was enough of a challenge to keep me interested, and familiar enough that I could find my way (except for my lack of Latin, to my shame). 

But it wasn't a college course.  It was more of a community enrichment course.  And that's fine as what it is.

My next question, though, is why?  Yes, I feel more positive about Stanford than I otherwise would, and here I am, mentioning it in my blog.  But that and five dollars will get you a small coffee at *$.

From the production of the videos, showing digital images from Cambridge and Stanford libraries, and faculty time and expertise to put it all together, I'm guessing this course cost Stanford thousands of dollars.  Are they basically trying out on-line learning platforms in low stakes environments where people will be forgiving?  Are they hoping we'll love it enough to pay for courses for credit?

Thoughts?

Hurray for the Bodleian!

Amidst the doom and gloom (aplenty here in the northwoods), here's great news from the Bodleian Library, in cooperation with the University of Michigan (credit where credit is due)!

Click that link and you're taken to an article about how the Bodleian and U of Michigan are making early texts available to the public for free!

From my short exploration, it looks like you can get full access to keyboarded and coded editions (is there a better term?) of the texts in modern fonts.  So, texts that haven't been keyboarded, you can't see more than the bibliographic information. 

So, if what you're after is the "content" coded in the words, this is fantastic!  It's way easier for most of us to read modern fonts than, say, black letter fonts.  That's especially true when the digital versions are hard to read.

Here's a link to the actual resource hosted at the U of Michigan.  I was able to search right off the bat, and then encouraged to make a guest account to have full access.  I made a guest account (email address and password), and was able to look at a text that was keyboarded, but not one that wasn't keyboarded.

So, basically, this has a lot of the good parts of EEBO without the expense.   You don't get to see digitized images, but for most uses, this is exactly what people need most!

I say, hurray for the Bodleian and the U of Michigan!  This is a boon to book lovers!  Thank you!

Bibliographic Happiness

I'm working on a paper about a pamphlet for SAA, and reading about pamphlets in the period, as you do when working on a genre you aren't well into, if that makes sense.  As I was reading, I saw a reference to a transcript of the Stationers' Register, and my mind went "zing!" 

So I started off looking to see if there's a copy of the transcript in the state system, and since there wasn't, if there is at a library a friend can access, and along the way, I found that there's a copy available ON LINE!  And formally, it's A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London.  1554-1640.  (I've linked the third volume, because that's where I was playing, but there are other volumes, and volumes for the years after 1640, even.)

I have to say, it's fascinating, just fascinating.  I found the entry for the text I'm working with, and then an entry for a seemingly related text entered by a different stationer.  So then I went to EEBO and tried to find that, but couldn't.  It either isn't in EEBO (I need to check the STC on line, still), or copies didn't survive, or it never actually got into print.

And then I started looking at other entries by the stationer who entered my text, and that was interesting, and then I looked for the stationer on EEBO.  It looks like the stationer had a fairly short time period in which he entered texts, and didn't enter tons of them, either.  Tomorrow, I'll go visit the DNB and see what I can learn about him.  And the other stationer, too, to see what's what.  My initial impression is that he lasted a whole lot longer in the trade.

A few hours playing bibliography on my computer and I learned and thought about the text a bit more sophisticatedly.  And I'm happy about that.  (Of course, what I learn down this path will probably end as a footnote of one sentence.)

Once again, I'm so grateful to the bibliographers, in this case, one Edward Arber, FSA (Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, I think that means), who published this in 1876.  (If you scroll through the first several pages, you'll see that the copy that's been digitized is numbered and signed by Arber, number 227 of 230 copies, privately printed.