FREEEEEEEEDOM
Papers done! (My professor liked my takedown of Ann Douglas's The Feminization of American Culture. VICTORY IS MINE.) Grading finals done! Off to Chicago tomorrow! Will probably not be back on the internet until Monday, which is unfortunate, because rarewomen stories are going up tomorrow and my poor writer will be on tenterhooks all weekend (assuming I have a story, because I ended up defaulting).
But CHICAGO.
(Maybe someone could leave a comment on the story to let my writer know that my neglect is inadvertent? Volunteers?)
Also! As a reward for myself I went to the local book/bead/rock/card/everything store and got myself the copy of Germinal that I didn't buy last time I was there. I brought it to the counter, and the bookseller is like, "So what is this?"
"Uh...a book?" I am not really at my best talking to strangers.
Scowl. He had a bristly sort of face. "What is it about?"
"So these French coal miners decide to take over the coal mine and, like, socialism?"
(It occurs to me that this is not entirely accurate: they don't take over the coal mine, they just go on strike. Souvarine, who is the nuttiest socialist of them all, lectures them about how "Seizing the means of production means continuing to produce things after the revolution," and they are like "Haha, that Souvarine, he is always saying crazy things he doesn't really mean."
Souvarine: means all the things he says. Even when he is saying stuff like "Oh, blood, what does blood matter? The earth needs some blood." That is a quote.)
Anyway, I say this and he's like, "Do you like worker's histories?" and as I start nodding, he grabs an IWW baseball cap off a shelf and smacks it down on the counter. Apparently he keeps it around to interrogate customers? "Do you know what the IWW is?"
"The Wobblies!" said I, and thus exhausted my knowledge of the IWW. (They're a labor organization. They got arrested a lot in the early twentieth century. I think they were the ones infiltrated by Pinkerton detectives?)
"We had our May Day celebration yesterday!" he said.
Me, in my mind: "Is he trying to recruit me? Please say he's trying to recruit me. This is almost as awesome as the time the Mormons proselytized me!"
This was back in high school, when I went to newspaper camp. I was walking with some girls who I was attempting to recruit as my camp friends, and we ran into a pair of Mormon missionaries, with whom I chatted about Joseph Smith and his golden tablets.
I did not become friends with those girls. It occurs to me that my little festival of Mormon geekery was probably responsible.
Also did not get recruited into the IWW. But I do possess a beautiful Everyman's Library copy of Germinal now, and I keep picking it up and stroking the cover because it is such a beautiful edition. Maybe when I've finished Les Mis, I should embark on a summer of All the French Literature.
But CHICAGO.
(Maybe someone could leave a comment on the story to let my writer know that my neglect is inadvertent? Volunteers?)
Also! As a reward for myself I went to the local book/bead/rock/card/everything store and got myself the copy of Germinal that I didn't buy last time I was there. I brought it to the counter, and the bookseller is like, "So what is this?"
"Uh...a book?" I am not really at my best talking to strangers.
Scowl. He had a bristly sort of face. "What is it about?"
"So these French coal miners decide to take over the coal mine and, like, socialism?"
(It occurs to me that this is not entirely accurate: they don't take over the coal mine, they just go on strike. Souvarine, who is the nuttiest socialist of them all, lectures them about how "Seizing the means of production means continuing to produce things after the revolution," and they are like "Haha, that Souvarine, he is always saying crazy things he doesn't really mean."
Souvarine: means all the things he says. Even when he is saying stuff like "Oh, blood, what does blood matter? The earth needs some blood." That is a quote.)
Anyway, I say this and he's like, "Do you like worker's histories?" and as I start nodding, he grabs an IWW baseball cap off a shelf and smacks it down on the counter. Apparently he keeps it around to interrogate customers? "Do you know what the IWW is?"
"The Wobblies!" said I, and thus exhausted my knowledge of the IWW. (They're a labor organization. They got arrested a lot in the early twentieth century. I think they were the ones infiltrated by Pinkerton detectives?)
"We had our May Day celebration yesterday!" he said.
Me, in my mind: "Is he trying to recruit me? Please say he's trying to recruit me. This is almost as awesome as the time the Mormons proselytized me!"
This was back in high school, when I went to newspaper camp. I was walking with some girls who I was attempting to recruit as my camp friends, and we ran into a pair of Mormon missionaries, with whom I chatted about Joseph Smith and his golden tablets.
I did not become friends with those girls. It occurs to me that my little festival of Mormon geekery was probably responsible.
Also did not get recruited into the IWW. But I do possess a beautiful Everyman's Library copy of Germinal now, and I keep picking it up and stroking the cover because it is such a beautiful edition. Maybe when I've finished Les Mis, I should embark on a summer of All the French Literature.