A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere...
This is one of those non-post posts to let you know why I am not really writing this week. First of all, all my blog energy (and a lot of Andy's, too) has been going into shifting over to my own domain (bye, blogger!) However, I have been having difficulty transferring my blog archives, so here we (still) are. I hope it works out, or the years subscription I paid BlueHost will be for naught.
My other excuse is that I am getting ready to hop on a plane tomorrow at 7:50AM headed for Fargo, ND. I am presenting a paper with a former professor of mine in NH. My first (hopefully not last) academic conference! We're going to the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota's 2007 Conference on “Memory, Memorial, Memorializing: Spaces of and for Remembering.” For those of you still reading (and not sleeping on your keyboards,) our paper is on the ways in which we remember bodies (and the people they were) after death. We touch on things like the Body Worlds exhibits, Saartjie Baartman (the Hottentot Venus) and the Donner Party. It has been an interesting project to work on because Liz (Dr. Wright, co-author of the paper) and I came at the topic with two different viewpoints. Liz felt (I'm paraphrasing here) as though bodies inherently deserve some sort of sacred memorialization while I feel exhibits such as Body Worlds that have no memory associated with the individual bodies can be valuable. But in the end, we sort of found a middle ground: people demand memorial of bodies in one way or another, eventually. Of course you would need to read the whole paper to get the argument here. I'd be happy to share it with anyone that interested.
Of course our paper might completely change after this weekend. The idea is we get up in front of an audience and present it, and then they are allowed to give us "constructive criticism" of our work. This is meant to help us in case we want to go on and rework the paper into a publishable state. This being my first academic conference, I have no idea what to expect from this and I am getting increasingly nervous about it as time ticks on toward Saturday. I don't expect to sleep much on Friday night. Nerves always keep me awake, as though they don't torture me enough in the day light hours.
Because of flight times out of Fargo going west over the weekend, I am going to be spending most of Sunday on my own there, free to explore as much (or as little) as I'm up for. I am bringing my new camera phone with me. Let's hope there is more to Fargo worth capturing than the stereotype in my minds suggests. You Betcha I'll listin' in on dem accents fer sure, dontcha know?
My other excuse is that I am getting ready to hop on a plane tomorrow at 7:50AM headed for Fargo, ND. I am presenting a paper with a former professor of mine in NH. My first (hopefully not last) academic conference! We're going to the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota's 2007 Conference on “Memory, Memorial, Memorializing: Spaces of and for Remembering.” For those of you still reading (and not sleeping on your keyboards,) our paper is on the ways in which we remember bodies (and the people they were) after death. We touch on things like the Body Worlds exhibits, Saartjie Baartman (the Hottentot Venus) and the Donner Party. It has been an interesting project to work on because Liz (Dr. Wright, co-author of the paper) and I came at the topic with two different viewpoints. Liz felt (I'm paraphrasing here) as though bodies inherently deserve some sort of sacred memorialization while I feel exhibits such as Body Worlds that have no memory associated with the individual bodies can be valuable. But in the end, we sort of found a middle ground: people demand memorial of bodies in one way or another, eventually. Of course you would need to read the whole paper to get the argument here. I'd be happy to share it with anyone that interested.
Of course our paper might completely change after this weekend. The idea is we get up in front of an audience and present it, and then they are allowed to give us "constructive criticism" of our work. This is meant to help us in case we want to go on and rework the paper into a publishable state. This being my first academic conference, I have no idea what to expect from this and I am getting increasingly nervous about it as time ticks on toward Saturday. I don't expect to sleep much on Friday night. Nerves always keep me awake, as though they don't torture me enough in the day light hours.
Because of flight times out of Fargo going west over the weekend, I am going to be spending most of Sunday on my own there, free to explore as much (or as little) as I'm up for. I am bringing my new camera phone with me. Let's hope there is more to Fargo worth capturing than the stereotype in my minds suggests. You Betcha I'll listin' in on dem accents fer sure, dontcha know?
And for those of you who's first instinct is to tell me to go out and find Paul B and his blue ox (it was mine, too,) I'll tell you now: it ain't gonna happen, sadly. I recently relearned that none of the film was actually shot in Fargo at all. I think the name of the city just lends it self well to a theme the C bros were striving for. And maybe I'm piggy backing on that now, too. This is, after all, a pretty far place to go to read a paper to a bunch of critics. But, when else in my life am I ever going to get to see North Dakota? I am excited about this. Wish me luck!
(This has been a parenthetical-heavy post. It's an odd instinct of mine to write this way (especially when I am rushing) but I do like parentheses (and how cool they are because they nest this way) despite how hard they can make reading. (Thanks for bearing with me today.))
(This has been a parenthetical-heavy post. It's an odd instinct of mine to write this way (especially when I am rushing) but I do like parentheses (and how cool they are because they nest this way) despite how hard they can make reading. (Thanks for bearing with me today.))
2 comments:
As a former Minnesotan, I believe I can speak on this with some authority.
"Fargo" isn't about Fargo at all; it's about Minnesota, both upstate and the Twin Cities area. On the other hand, as you point out, "Fargo" is a much better name for a movie than "Minneapolis". Kind of like "Ypsilanti" is a much better name than "Chicago". Everybody already knows what the hell Minneapolis and Chicago are all about, but almost nobody knows anything about Fargo or Ypsilanti.
I wouldn't count on the accent being quite what you expect, either...but it'll still definitely be interesting. (Random bit of trivia: Richmond, CA, which is -- seriously -- one of the most dangerous cities in the country, with many dozens of murders each year on a ~120K population, hired the Fargo chief of police to come head their department. At least at the time, Fargo had had one murder in the last two years combined -- and that involved large quantities of beer and a snowmobile. As Dave Barry would say, no, I am not making this up.)
Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyan are actually located in the amusingly-named Bemidji, Minnesota, which is a place where you probably *will* find that great accent, although it's a good three hours from Fargo.
As for what to do in Fargo? Um...I have absolutely no idea. Also a true story: the governor of North Dakota once lambasted Rand McNally because they published a list of fun things to do in each state, but only got 49 of them. ND was left out because there was nothing fun to do there.
Re: BlueHost, etc. -- I'm more than happy to help out if you want...I've set up a bunch of stuff on their systems so I know my way around them pretty well.
Good luck, Mary! You'll do great this weekend...sorry I've been in communicado...this has been one crazy week. I'll be in Vegas for work next week from Tuesday through Friday, but we should hang out when we're both back in town!
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