…but it is rather silly, in its own way. Consider: First there was the Facebook Hamlet, at McSweeney's. Then there was the Facebook Aeneid ("Dido changed her relationship status to Married. Aeneas changed his relationship status to It's Complicated.") and the Facebook Pride and Prejudice.* And the college class that reenacted Romeo and Juliet on […]
I somehow missed Stephen Greenblatt’s guest appearance on The Colbert Report. But thanks to the magic of the internet, one can still watch it: I particularly like the Richard III moment at the end. (Via Riba Rambles.)
I hardly ever post about the day-to-day details of my work life, but I’ll make an exception to say: One of the underappreciated perks of working at Swarthmore is that you can be going about your regular business on an otherwise unremarkable Valentine’s day when suddenly, a student dressed as a ninja rushes into the […]
There exists a Library of Congress subject heading for "roller disco." Unsurprisingly, when I searched WorldCat for it, eight of the ten results were first published between 1979 and 1981. You can also catalog works on roller disco using a combination of the subject headings "Roller skating" and "Disco dancing." There’s an entire MARC fixed […]
This video has been making the rounds amongst my coworkers, and it cracked us all up. Something about the juxtaposition of ’80s exercise-video music ("Shout! Shout! Let it all out!"), ’80s library technology (the terminals! the microfiche catalog!), and the shots of people aerobically shelving books and spinning globes — well, maybe it’s funniest if […]
My Free Will Astrology horoscope has this to say this week: Using your common sense, you might assume you could swim faster through water than through syrup. But research published by Professor Edward Cussler has shown that’s not true. In his paper "Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?", he proved that the breaststroke […]
This all-purpose generic blog comment thread (via Crooked Timber) made me snicker, then guffaw. Partly because it reminded me so much of this skit. Update: They’re having more fun with it over at Making Light. And, since I am a copycat, I will now boil down half the posts on this blog to the following […]
I want to go to the GeekProm! (Is it open to info-sciences and humanities geeks as well as math and science geeks?) If only I lived in Minnesota. Every state should have a Geek Prom, don’t you think? Who’s with me? Who wants to organize one? Via PZ Myers, who has been honored with an […]
Yarrrr! Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, mateys! (On a related note, a friend reminds me that Talk Like A Pirate Day marks the end of Pastafarian Holy Week. All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!)