Still a Freak after all these years

The first time I took the Myers-Briggs personality type test I was 18 and heading off to New England for college. It told me I was an INFJ- Introverted-Intuitivite-Feeling-Judging. I thought I'd take the shorter online version just for fun. I felt I had truly become much more extroverted and rational and would probably become an ENTJ, fitting in more easily with the general population.

But I was WRONG! Thirteen years later and I'm still an INFJ, still part of the tiny .5%. I don't know whether to be happy or sad (that's the "Feeling" part kicking in), but I will say this: the test never lies.

Here's what it told me:

Your Score: Freak- INFJ

33% Extraversion, 60% Intuition, 20% Thinking, 66% Judging

"Well, well, well. How did someone like you end up with the least common personality type of them all? In a group of 100 Americans, only 0.5 others would be just like you. You really are one of a kind... In fact, I do believe that that's one of the definitions for the word "FREAK."

Freak's not such a bad word to describe you actually.

You are deep, complex, secretive and extremely difficult to understand. If that doesn't scream "Freak!" I don't know what does. No-one actually knows the REAL you, do they?

You probably have deep interests in creative expression as well as issues of spirituality and human development.

You've probably even been called a "psychic" before, because of your uncanny knack to understand and "read" people without quite knowing how you do it. Don't fret. You're not actually psychic. That would make you special and you'll never accomplish that.

You're also quite possibly the most emotional of them all, so don't take this all too hard. Nevertheless you most definitely have the strangest personality type and that's not necessarily a good thing. "

This mini-analysis is just there for acerbic silliness. I don't know about any hidden secrets or being hard to read- usually I'm told I'm gullible and guileless and that my thoughts and emotions write themselves all over my face whether I want them to or not (I usually don't want them to!). I'm not psychic, but I do tend to respond more to people's emotional states than to what they may be saying. I do sometimes have dreams that seem to reveal that my unconscious has been picking up on others' unspoken emotional states.

And I always thought I was easy to understand! Maybe only by other INFJs and by myself, though. Of course the part that may not fit with INFJ is that, no longer a pianist or actor, I still have a desire to perform. I'm not sure whether this falls under the category of extroverted or not, since performing for me involves intense focus and reaching a state I call "the zone" where time stands still and one is both communicating and retreating inside oneself. But everyone who knows me even a little bit would surely agree that I am not a "quiet leader" as INFJs are frequently described. I'm pretty outspoken, both a blurter and (on good days) a firebrand. Perhaps it's best not to give too much credence to Mmes Myers and Briggs, though it's fun like figuring out one's astrological signs. Speaking of which, I'm both a Piscean and a Fire Dragon, which seems contradictory to me. Hmpf. Go figure.

Take the test yourself: http://www.okcupid.com/tests/3076838567116464195/Brutally-Honest-Personality

Phew!

Can't . . . move . . . arms . . . anymore. And this even after hiring "Two Men and a Truck" (that's the moving company's name) to cart the heavy furniture on Monday. All that remains are books to unpack and pictures to hang.

Saffron has adapted quite well to the new place, lounging around on the floor, testing the stability of the dresser by jumping on top of it from the bed, sitting in the living room window at twilight and making tiny cackling noises at fireflies.

Here's a sneak peak at the interior as it stands now. Vintage dining table on its way.

I discovered a fig tree in the front garden with at least nine green nubby figs on it, hopefully more by the end of the summer. Yum and yay! There is also a little stream and water-fall fountain fed by a pump that meanders under the stone path leading up to the front, constructed by previous landscape designer tenants. My landlord has promised to set up the pump for me. In the picture to the left you can see a dark crevace near the center of the photo. That's where the stream runs under the flagstones. It then curves around to the left, behind the japanese maple, and continues down to a little stone pond. The pump sends it back up through the garden to the top.

One Day Left!

I'm sorry if I've been out of touch for the past week- I've been gradually moving into my new house. It's so wonderful having a car and moving somewhere so close to home. It's much easier than the last four moves I made over the past four years, changing countries each time. I've made five trips with the hatchback packed full of material goods. I did manage to weed out some things I do not need and will be donating to Habitat for Humanity, but I still have so much "stuff" I think Marx would cringe. Still, it's quite nice to have carted and unpacked the entire contents of my kitchen, bathroom, closets, wall and window hangings. I feel mostly moved in- the only things left are books and furniture and kitty things.

So now please permit me to wax rhapsodic about my new house. And to gush about spending money on beautiful things I don't really need that nonetheless make me very happy. It is beautiful- I had the dining room and the sun room painted and both turned out really well. The dining room is a deep slate blue (Benjamin Moore's "Evening Dove") which looks charcoal grey at night and twilight blue during the day. The sunroom is a velvety cocoa brown with purple undertones (Benjamin Moore's "Desert Shadows"). Both rooms are matte which I think makes the rooms seem bigger and the color deeper. I'm sort of focusing on the dining room first because it is the focal point of the house. It's in the center, between the living room and the kitchen. The bedroom, study and bathroom are down a little hallway off to the right of the dining room. But when you walk through the front door, you're in the living room and your eyes are drawn to the dining room, though you can see all the way back to the kitchen. I'm not going to post pictures until after the furniture arrives (tomorrow), but here's a photo of the funky chandelier I bought for the dining room. Try to imagine it hanging in a slate blue room, the poppy colored kitchen just visible behind it.


I have also gone on a vintage furniture hunt. Last year I found four bentwood chairs by Thonet. I just purchased the perfect Heywood Wakefield table to go with them (hooray for Craigslist).

So imagine, if you will, a slate blue dining room, the poppy kitchen behind, the chandelier to the right hanging from the ceiling, and blond wood dining table and chairs (with a darker patina) in a lovely simple mid-century modern style. Decorating obsessed? Who me? I tend to work best surrounded by beautiful surroundings. So I'm only doing this to enhance my overall creativity, of course.

Muse of Muse

Yes, the muse has to have her own muse. Er, mews. A regular florilegium is Saffron: She never fails to fully digest the flowers I bring home. Currently she has one cabriole paw curled over the top of the laptop screen and is winking down at me as I type.

PLD

Today I have PLD (Post London Depression). I don't know if it is brought on by the jet lag, or by the stifling heat of the Southern summer, or perhaps by the sheer emptiness of this place this time of year but it feels dead dead DEAD everywhere and I want to go back.

Thankfully I ought to have my hands full with packing and schlepping and moving. And writing. But for some reason I haven't schlepped or packed a single thing, and I've only written a few hundred words.

Maybe I'm experiencing urban withdrawal and need another week to adjust. Maybe I just miss my friends and don't know when I'll see them again. In any case, I'm sad and lonely and bored here, and I'm not due for another visit to Montreal until August.

Time to write the book. Because there's really nothing else to do.

Anglophilia

I've been in the UK for over a week now and have gotten completely assimilated. Life here would be lovely, temperate and blissful- If I only had twice as much money, or more. And didn't have to work. I'm currently in Oxford with my friends Dearest B and the evil twin, enjoying a much needed visit to planet academia with people I haven't seen in a year and a half. Soon I'll have tea and catch up with faustus. Apparently everyone is on facebook but me, where they throw sheep and soup at one another contentedly.

In London I've seen two Mozart operas, two shakespeare plays, and two early modern manuscripts at the British Library. I've also eaten the best curry in my life and some very good Turkish food, and encountered people who have actually heard of the university where I teach, which, in London and Oxford is a miracle in and of itself.

More proper blogging later, I just wanted to post a quick update and let everyone know all was well. Please send money.

London-Bound

I leave for London the day after tomorrow. At the moment I'm drawing up a research and writing plan: I need to figure out what to do with my first chapter, whether I want to toss it and rewrite it entirely with a new argument about the same old text, or whether there are salvageable bits; I need to finish researching and writing my final chapter.

But the reading rooms of the British library aren't open all night long and they're closed on Sundays. Plus it can take up to half a day to get the books I need and I can only look at manuscripts until 5pm.

So I'll have some time to do a little exploring. I've spent lots of time in London, but I always stayed out of the way in Crouch End with my family friends. This time I'll be in Bloomsbury. I don't feel as if I know London particularly well. It's so big. The only place in the UK I know really well is Oxford, and that's because I lived there for a year and then dated someone there for almost two years. But back to London: I'm planning on doing some London walks, and already have plans to see an Opera with my mom's best friend, visit family friends, catch up with Oxonians and catch Othello at the Globe. And a pilgrimage to Ormonde Jayne, my favorite perfumer, which has a tiny shop in the Royal Arcade between Albemarle and Old Bond street and makes otherwordly scents out of black hemlock and violet and coriander, and of course I'll hang out in Islington and the East End. But I was wondering if any of my loyal readers (do you still exist?) who have much more London knowledge than I do, might want to make some suggestions of places off the beaten path for me to explore whilst there. Am I missing anything great? What are your London secrets that you don't mind divulging? Where is the best curry? What's your favorite pub? Which parks are hidden and beautiful?

And the Livin' is Easy

So I've been traveling a little bit this summer. Immediately after grading I dropped everything and headed off to Montreal for a week. It was relaxing and, well, at least there were two days of good weather! I saw lots of old movies and plasticized corpses and I ate really well (the advantages of dating someone with a newfound cooking obsession) and generally had a very nice time.

I returned to get everything in order here before going to London for two weeks. No fun- research only. I keep saying this again and again hoping that maybe it will come true and I'll actually get a lot of work done there instead of spending a lot of money I don't exactly have at the moment and pubbing it every evening . . . I'm really looking forward to it though. Haven't been to the UK in a year and a half and I miss the green and pleasant land terribly, along with all my friends there. I've also got a large number of academic pals who will be in London and Oxford whilst I'm there, including my closest colleague friend, who will actually be staying in the same B&B as me. No fun- research only. No fun- research only.

Then I'll return June 20 and begin packing and carting my things over to The New House. Once I'm settled there, I'll divide my time between planting lovely things in the garden (roses, rosemary, lavender, thyme); hunting for mid-century modern furniture, and cranking out my manuscript in my office on campus. Probably mostly cranking in the office, hopefully not sans manuscript and articles.

Yee-Haw

Done with grading. The summer awaits. Not thinking about the book and the articles. Not thinking about the book. Maybe thinking a little about the articles. Mostly thinking about sleep.

House Love

Yeah, you know you want it. You feel the love. Rooms you want to paint in Benjamin Moore "Evening Sky" and "Incense Stick." Arts and Crafts furniture you want to purchase and place in the rooms. Rose bushes you want to plant outside the bedroom window. Ooh, baby. Feel the house love.

I'm moving there in two months. I sometimes stay awake at night decorating and redecorating the rooms, adding a back patio rose garden and purchasing countless imaginary kilims for the back sunroom at imaginary Ottoman bazaars (don't forget to bring me back some from Turkey, M&D! Just because I can't go to the wedding there doesn't mean I don't deserve kilims!).

Here's an old picture of it from last summer before it was painted (now it's light green with white trim). The previous tenants were landscape designers who practiced in front and on the sides of the house. They ran a little stream through the front like a brook that is really a pump-fountain. I can turn it on if I like. The backyard is huge and hilly and unfinished. I wonder how much it would cost to cover it with daffodils. In the living room there is a working fireplace with the original iron "summer door" which will keep out the drafts and birds and also the cat. I can burn logs there in the winter and roast marshmallows even.

I can't wait.

The Shakespeare Authorship Question

Some time early in the semester I was randomly contacted by William Niederkorn to complete an online survey about the "Shakespeare Authorship Question" in my teaching. I duly completed the survey and have just received a follow-up e-mail with a link to the survey's results in The New York Times.

It's not particularly interesting. 82% of us (295 randomly selected Shakespeare professors at colleges and universities) think the authorship question (did Shakespeare write Shakespeare?) is irrelevant to the study of the works, and only 6% thought there was a good reason for discussing it at all. 11% said that possibly there was good reason.

What bothers me is not the fact that this poll tells us what we already knew, but that the New York Times didn't really do or say anything new or thought-provoking with the survey. The article ends with an anonymous Shakespearean wishing more people were as interested in the plays as they were in the authorship question, evidently a sentiment most of us echoed in our responses.

But why do a survey like this anyway, if you're just going to conclude that "Professors believe in him"? The tin echo of the language of religious faith aside, what's the point? It would've been far more interesting to interview professors about their pedagogy and methodology- how do they teach Shakespeare to undergraduates? To graduates? The authorship question has never been taken seriously by most of us, but the stability of the body of work known as 'Shakespeare' has already been toppled by scholars of material textual studies, and that some 14 years ago.

Do we all combine history and research in our teaching? Do we talk about "the genius" of Shakespeare in our 100-level courses, push students to discover textual contradictions (perhaps put there by Shakespeare himself) in our upper-level undergraduate seminars, and then ask our graduate students to accept the fundamental instability of the material text and the consequent loss of 'Shakespearean' identity? Has anyone been able to present a consistent picture of Shakespeare scholarship to their students of all levels? I think we are constantly lifting 'Shakespeare' up and breaking him (or it) down in our teaching, and also in our scholarship. I would have liked the New York Times survey to have done something more with its assessment: It's not simply that most of us don't think the authorship question is relevant; it's that we're asking our students to engage with the text in (frequently contradictory) ways that will seem new and exciting to most armchair Shakespeareans. Shame on this article for not articulating that.

Stuff I Learned in English Class

It's that time of year again. The time when students write silly things in their papers and I feel guilty for pumping them full of insufficient and erroneous information.

Today I learned that:

"Raping women was common in medieval times. Men would frequently rape women as a means of expressing their power and demonstrating their dominance over women."

I also learned that:

"When I say romantic love, I mean a love that hits you like a brick wall when you first see someone."

More coming up . . .

Pick Yourself Up

This is my all-time favorite number from Swing Time (1936), my all-time favorite Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. And it is here, on Youtube (though you have to click on the box above twice and watch it on the Youtube site but it's worth it).

Why do I love it so much?

- Because Fred mischeviously pretends he doesn't know how to dance

- Because she's a terrible teacher

- Because when they finally dance it's like they just discovered that they speak the same language

- Because of the art deco dancing studio with the little white fence

- Because they make it seem so easy and so egalitarian

Poking my Head Up Briefly

I'm buried under a mountain of final papers and exams. Oh, about 90 of them by the end of the semester which is in about two weeks. I also have two students defending their MA theses this week and I only got the theses last week and weekend. When did MA theses become like dissertations? 153 pages, 4 chapters, a scholarly introduction and it will be longer when she adds all the footnotes she's missing. Oy, Gevalt!

Ok, that's enough for now. I must return to my little house built out of papers.

Postscript: Pseudonymous Cat

In a conversation last night at the hotel bar, another blogger asked me what my cat was called.

"Saffron," I replied.

"Oh, so it is Saffron," she said.

"Yes," I replied, looking at her quizzically.

Then we both laughed because of course she thought I might have come up with a blog pseudonym for the cat, the way we do for our friends, colleagues, partners and institutions.

"An Antic Blogsposition": On Playing a Part, Disguise, and Being Funny

I'm at a big important annual conference. And I am having a wondeful time.

Perhaps it's because I'm surrounded by Shakespeareans, but I'm thinking about plays and players today. One of the best things I've discovered about blogging anonymously (though most of my dear readers know I am much less anonymous than those blogs I love to read and support), is that it is rather like play acting. One takes on a new identity that permits a liberty of language and expression only associated with performance and with assuming a role. In the same way that Rosalind-as-Ganymede really begins to relish the rhetoric, wit, and play of her newfound pants role, and Hamlet is able to transcend class barriers by insulting Polonius and ceding the platea to the grave-digger's joke routine, blogging under a pseudonymous identity permits a certain freedom and jouissance.

Which makes me think about a discussion I had over lunch yesterday with a gentle and sage senior professor at a small obscure university who expressed such a delight for our profession that it momentarily humbled my vaulting ambition. We were talking about Shakespearean clowns. He laid out his theory that clowning and "clowniness" is transferrable from character to character on the Shakespearean stage. Wit is, in other words, infectious, and easily picked up by characters surrounding a clown. He cited Viola's playing with Feste in Act V of Twelfth Night and of course Hamlet and the Gravedigger.

Since I have been investigating the philological and cultural impact of "antic/antique" for some time, I brought up the connection that Margreta de Grazia makes between Hamlet's "antic disposition" and clowning, that to have an antic disposition means to play the fool on the Renaissance stage (and to play the medieval vice character on the Renaissance stage). He concurred with me very graciously.

But what my research on "antic/antique" has also uncovered is that "antic" frequently meant "disguised" in the Renaissance, so in many ways it's not just about clowning but also about the way an assumed identity allows for a freer circulation of wit, humor and social critique.

Which is precisely what pseudonymous blogging at its best is all about. And that is the reason why it has to continue. At the conference, I may or may not have privately "made discovery" of a number of pseudonymous bloggers I greatly respect and depend upon for their humorous critique and celebration of the profession. However whether this is true or fabricated, I shall vehemently refuse to "delate" on them. Also, if wit is indeed transferrable, perhaps some of it might rub off on me.

In order for the academic blogging community to survive, we need to maintain their antic dispositions: Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of our time. And they are also very funny.

Spring is Here

Spring arrived yesterday. There are blossoming trees, soft green grass and chartreuse buds everywhere creating a kind of green haze in the air. Or maybe that's just the pollen.

Spring Break was deliciously relaxing and fun, full of cooking, hiking in the nearby foothills, and watching Lubitsch, Godard, and Murnau. Although we learned that rabbit shouldn't be roasted, and that quick rising yeast is not the same as Fleischmann's instant, I still enjoyed the best Italian meatballs and tomato sauce made from scratch I've ever tasted, pulled off a pretty decent creme caramel, and our morning crepes outdid any crepe I've had in Montreal.

No matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find a "comfort station" of any kind near the parking lot on our second mountain hike/clamber unless you count the poorly stocked bathrooms and the 65 cent soda machine from 1981. We did, however, find some pretty amazing barbecue in a local joint furnished with an excellent jukebox playing the Orioles, and decorated throughout with vintage tin advertising signs including one very old and rusty sign for the emerging "Goody" aspirin brand that read: GOODY: "They are good."

After bidding farewell to my dear visitor - who didn't believe we had a "Billy Graham Parkway" until we were actually driving down it - I took off for the exhausting and disorienting (disorientating, for you brits) conference. I don't think there is anything that leaves one feeling quite so uprooted and repotted than taking off for a weekend of intense and heavy conferencing and returning to teach three classes and hold office hours Monday morning. I felt as if I'd stepped in to understudy an actor in an unfamiliar play at the last moment and had somehow lost the script.

Thankfully, the library book sale redeemed me at the end of the day. I purchased an old 50-volume set of seemingly randomly labeled literary "classics" that don't seem to be quite so canonical anymore for $10. What made the editors decide to follow Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" in with Vergil's Aeneid, and Vergil with Cervantes? For $5 I also got a possibly complete (lacking only "The Two Noble Kinsmen") Yale Shakespeare, adorable tiny faded blue clothbound editions of the plays and poems edited in the 30s. It's fun to see what earlier editors have done without explanation, but of course more fun to fill my mammoth floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Now my students will think I'm smart and educated.

RSA Annual Venting

This was quite possibly the poorest organized RSA conference I have ever attended. I was stuck out in the boonies near the Miami airport in one of two "overflow" hotels that somehow cost more than the rooms in the conference hotel, despite being farther away and very close to a major highway not to mention low flying planes. I may have depleted my cash supply in my current checking account simply to pay for the cab rides back and forth to the conference, and this even includes cab rides split between two and three people.

Then there was the difficulty of getting to the beach, the ash-strewn South Beach (or so I heard-- I never actually managed to see it) populated by loud, hormonally challenged undergraduates.

Yes, there was good food to be had in South Beach. There were also beautiful Art Deco hotels. And $12 mojitos, which were good, but not $12 good. It was also ridiculously noisy. Maybe I'm just getting too old for that sort of thing, but half the time I could barely hear what my friends were saying.

Most of my gripes have already been stated with more panache by my colleagues (collblogs?) over at Blogging the Renaissance, so I won't prolong the vent.

But I will say this: We Renaissance scholars are not generally a bunch of complainers. We usually neither cant nor rant. Ok, we do a lot of both, but when we go to conferences, we like to forget about all we have to cant and rant about. We like to stimulate our minds, share our work, and enjoy good food, good company, and good wine.

Most of us, when provided with some basic comforts, find this relatively easy to do. This year it was much more difficult. Because of this, I would like to propose that some changes be made for the safety of future RSA conferences:

1. Don't name panels silly things like "Perspectives on English Literature IV" and "New Technologies and Renaissance Studies I, II, III, IV and V: Exploring the online Archive"

2. Don't stick Stephen Greenblatt's panel in a tiny side room that seats 10.

3. Don't make us pay $3 for crappy Starbucks coffee and $1 for a teaspoon-sized muffin.

4. Don't make it impossible for us to print out our papers without paying $5 to use your crappy computers in the business center. Don't cut off my internet connection every three minutes, crappy airport hotel! I'm trying to write!

Needless to say, I doubt I'll be at RSA next year in Chicago and I'm sure SAA in San Diego can only be loads more fun. Or at least loads more comfortable. At least I think it may be so in Denmark . . .

Despite the monumentally crappy organization of this conference it was still nice to see my dearest scholarly friends and to make new ones. And I met those I'd wanted to meet, who turned out to be generous and kind and silly and fun. And I may have solved a little mystery I wondered about.

So it really wasn't so terrible. But 50% of the time, I really rather would have been at home with my cat.

Spring Break Woo-Hoo

It's "Spring Break Woo-Hoo!" The campus has entirely emptied out, and I've got plans for a much needed drink with three of my gal pals this evening.

So why am I still here, you might ask.

Well, my friends, I am still here because I have thirty Shakespeare midterms to grade and another thirty revised first papers to mark from my writing seminar. Those I don't have to return immediately after spring break, but I don't want them hanging over my head.

Yes, I am that good. I will stay in my office until all of the midterms are graded and most of the papers are re-marked. Then I will go out with my friends. Then I will go home and sleep, getting ready for The Big House Clean. I am soooooo good. Then I will have a visitor from the Great White North for a whole week when it will finally be "Spring Break Woo-Hoo." We plan to sample off-the-beaten-path barbecue, wander around the artsy-fartsy, hippie-dippie mountain town, and partake of that oh-so-forgotten-American-diversion, the drive-in.

Once More unto the Thirties

31 today. Officially into the Thirties. And a prime number. That has to be worth something.

It's been a good birthday. I don't know if it's because 1) I'm an only child with parents who miraculously are still together, 2) I'm just ridiculously optimistic sometimes against all odds, or 3) I'm self-centered and spoiled (refer back to 1) but in 31 years I've never had a bad birthday. Kinne hurra.

Today has been no exception. The wind and the rain raged last night, turning off the power and causing some trees to fall. But I awoke this morning to a cloudless blue sky and the sun glinting off tree branches laden with buds almost ready to open.

It is also Saffron's birthday today- she's 5. We celebrated at breakfast: I had a cupcake; she had salmon flavored hairball remedy.

In addition to Saffron, two of my closest friends share my birthday and one of them is my evil twin. We were born half an hour and 1500 miles apart on the 2nd of March, 1976. Both friends are brits and oxonians. Happy Birthday, you two! Maybe some day we'll spend our birthday drinking one another under the table in a pub in Jericho. I'll lose.

When I got to work and turned on my computer today I received another unexpected birthday gift: a letter from the university president. And no, I am not being sarcastic, which I normally would be. There is to be a salary increase. Remarkably, it will affect me, and may indeed be more than 10%:

"With regard to faculty increases, we must consider carefully those in the assistant professor ranks, where the greatest salary disparity exists between us and a group of peer institutions. I have encouraged the Dean to give special consideration to those departments whose salaries lag furthest from their peers at other institutions."

Yay, yay, YAY!