The Pasty Trip
Jan. 8th, 2002 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupSo I am back from my trip to San Francisco. I had a pretty good time, overall, actually, but I did not get any interviews, so it was probably just a pretty expensive waste of time. I missed Mrs. S. the whole time, too...
The conference was a bit creepy to be at for a while. Most historians look kind of the same, and there were a lot rushing around all over the place. Everyone is trying to be all dressed up but they all look so indistinguishable. For the men, the look was: bald on top, with beard. All the women have these 1920s haircuts and suits. Everyone looks so pasty. And I kept thinking I saw people I knew. Actually, I did keep seeing people I knew-- Hopkins grads, who could only have been there because they had interviews. Another great ole feeling.
But I went to a lot of sessions and managed to say some smart things, and networked as much as I could stand without loathing myself and my entire existence. I also met a couple of CB people and that can't hurt. Saw a session about the book of one of my former advisors at Chicago, Peter Novick, who couldn't be there for health reasons. The people discussiing his book made some minor, insubstantial criticisms, and he responded (in his comments, which were read by the organizer) by tearing them new assholes. He described this one guy as having "taken unrelated parts from my book, putting them in the blender, setting it on puree, pouring the resulting mess out on the page, and pronouncing the resulting mess unpalatable." It is rare to hear academics gasp in a public setting. I wish he had been there-- I would have paid money to hear him going ape-shit like that in public. What a jerk. Great fun.
Talked shop with some of my friends, like Ed, who I worked with at DLI and who is also looking for a job. He let me crash with him a couple of nights (turned out his room was paid for by his department-- very nice) and we talked a lot of shop. He is more fucked than I am, careerwise, as he actually has a book contract and better teaching experience, but he is having the same lack of interviews. Oddly, I talked to enough people to know that there really wasn't much else I could do to get a job. It is a stupid and arbitrary process and there is nothing I could do that I'm not doing already. So I left not feeling entirely pathetic. I suppose that is a worthwhile thing.
The high point of the weekend was seeing my friend Sam out there; she drove me around to see the city (which I wouldn't have had a chance to do otherwise-- with no interviews, I felt pressure to make the trip "useful" by going to all the professional things I could). Started out by going to the only place I really wanted to see, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which was gorgeous at night. We went to an exotic vegetarian restaurant, and the evening ended at a bar in Chinatown with a picture window overlooking Coit Tower. We just talked about life and had a good time. I feel tremendously happy and grateful to her for it, because it made the whole trip so much more fun. It meant a lot, somehow, to feel like I could still be shown a beautiful place and appreciate it. The bay is pretty wonderful, I have to admit.
Saw Josh & Dalit's baby, with Dalit. Very sweet. Went to a kosher shawarma place for lunch that I happened upon a block from the hotel. Krispy Kremes in the hotel. Also saw my cousins out on the West Coast, who have a baby too.
This was the first time I went there without a protective cordon of parents, but I think it went pretty well. My aunt treats me like the big historian come to town... telling me things will change, she knows this. I mused for a second that my mother-in-law was saying the same thing to me this time last year; she sensed that things were going our way. People are nice and they want to communicate that I seem far too smart to them to be in this predicament. At the same time, since I know how random and intractable things really are, I can't help but wince a bit at what they're saying. It is far, far beyond the stage where hopes or feelings mean anything. If I get an academic job, it will not (I feel anymore) be because of any particular skill or even luck on my part. Just an entirely arbitrary thing, like getting your taxes audited or something.
Anyway, quite a bit to do. I had some interesting run-ins with my former company that I would love to write about, but I think that will wait for later.
The conference was a bit creepy to be at for a while. Most historians look kind of the same, and there were a lot rushing around all over the place. Everyone is trying to be all dressed up but they all look so indistinguishable. For the men, the look was: bald on top, with beard. All the women have these 1920s haircuts and suits. Everyone looks so pasty. And I kept thinking I saw people I knew. Actually, I did keep seeing people I knew-- Hopkins grads, who could only have been there because they had interviews. Another great ole feeling.
But I went to a lot of sessions and managed to say some smart things, and networked as much as I could stand without loathing myself and my entire existence. I also met a couple of CB people and that can't hurt. Saw a session about the book of one of my former advisors at Chicago, Peter Novick, who couldn't be there for health reasons. The people discussiing his book made some minor, insubstantial criticisms, and he responded (in his comments, which were read by the organizer) by tearing them new assholes. He described this one guy as having "taken unrelated parts from my book, putting them in the blender, setting it on puree, pouring the resulting mess out on the page, and pronouncing the resulting mess unpalatable." It is rare to hear academics gasp in a public setting. I wish he had been there-- I would have paid money to hear him going ape-shit like that in public. What a jerk. Great fun.
Talked shop with some of my friends, like Ed, who I worked with at DLI and who is also looking for a job. He let me crash with him a couple of nights (turned out his room was paid for by his department-- very nice) and we talked a lot of shop. He is more fucked than I am, careerwise, as he actually has a book contract and better teaching experience, but he is having the same lack of interviews. Oddly, I talked to enough people to know that there really wasn't much else I could do to get a job. It is a stupid and arbitrary process and there is nothing I could do that I'm not doing already. So I left not feeling entirely pathetic. I suppose that is a worthwhile thing.
The high point of the weekend was seeing my friend Sam out there; she drove me around to see the city (which I wouldn't have had a chance to do otherwise-- with no interviews, I felt pressure to make the trip "useful" by going to all the professional things I could). Started out by going to the only place I really wanted to see, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which was gorgeous at night. We went to an exotic vegetarian restaurant, and the evening ended at a bar in Chinatown with a picture window overlooking Coit Tower. We just talked about life and had a good time. I feel tremendously happy and grateful to her for it, because it made the whole trip so much more fun. It meant a lot, somehow, to feel like I could still be shown a beautiful place and appreciate it. The bay is pretty wonderful, I have to admit.
Saw Josh & Dalit's baby, with Dalit. Very sweet. Went to a kosher shawarma place for lunch that I happened upon a block from the hotel. Krispy Kremes in the hotel. Also saw my cousins out on the West Coast, who have a baby too.
This was the first time I went there without a protective cordon of parents, but I think it went pretty well. My aunt treats me like the big historian come to town... telling me things will change, she knows this. I mused for a second that my mother-in-law was saying the same thing to me this time last year; she sensed that things were going our way. People are nice and they want to communicate that I seem far too smart to them to be in this predicament. At the same time, since I know how random and intractable things really are, I can't help but wince a bit at what they're saying. It is far, far beyond the stage where hopes or feelings mean anything. If I get an academic job, it will not (I feel anymore) be because of any particular skill or even luck on my part. Just an entirely arbitrary thing, like getting your taxes audited or something.
Anyway, quite a bit to do. I had some interesting run-ins with my former company that I would love to write about, but I think that will wait for later.
