Three dollars and 63 cents

I hope you have a great day, and that the birthday fairy brings you

The academic job market is always pretty fiercely competitive, but this year there seem to be a lot fewer job listings, which will in turn mean more people applying for each job. Most colleges and universities maintain their endowment funds by investing them, and with the stock market as crappy as it is right now, schools are losing millions. A lot of schools aren't making as many hires this year, or have instituted all-out hiring freezes. I'm already starting to think about what I'll do if I can't find a tenure-track job for next year. Right now, I'd be pleased to find anything full-time wh

I'm still plugging away but am hoping to get caught up in the next few days. I saw one of my friends last night who teaches at a college here in New York state. She just started her job this semester, and part of her duties is to run the visiting writers series. She managed to book Junot Diaz for sometime in April, even though his agent charges $12,000 for a reading. She said Diaz himself seemed embarrassed when he told her that, and that he's been very friendly and quick with his emails so far. But $12,000!

One of my classes is doing a unit on technology. We read an article the other day talking about disintermediation--the idea that the internet enables us to do a lot of things ourselves that used to involve working with other people, things like shopping and cashing checks and things like that. What I realized by the end of our discussion that day was that many of them would be completely content if they never had to deal with people face to face. It was a little disturbing.

I'm about to go back on the academic job market. Last time around, I applied for about 75 jobs and managed to get only one initial interview (for semifinalists), and I didn't get a campus visit (for finalists). I was going to be working as an adjunct for $2,000 per class until the college where I work now had a last-minute vacancy in July. Things worked out well for me at the eleventh hour last time, and I certainly have more experience than I did two years ago, but the market is pretty bleak right now. I hate automatic forms. It seems like a lot of community colleges use them. Some things g

I saw some great shows at the Moon when I lived in Tallahassee in 2001-2003. It's a great place to see a show.

My new wallpaper

My alarm goes off in exactly six hours, but I'm glad I stayed up for the speeches and I have a lot running through my mind right now. Things won't be any different tomorrow, but I'm sure I won't be the only one feeling optimistic that there are a lot of changes coming for this country soon.

The parking lot of the community center where I vote was jam-packed (I actually had to park in the grass), but I guess it's the polling place for two different districts and most of the traffic was for the other district. I only had to wait a minute or so. The whole trip there and back took maybe 15 minutes, if that. Our booth was the old school pull the lever kind, with a lovely green and blue plaid curtain. The place where I voted is touted as "the hamlet of Varna" on the signs (), but it's only a mile or so from the Cornell campus, in the country outside of Ithaca.

I listened to Evangelista's Hello, Voyager a few times this morning, and now I have Sonic Youth's Sonic Nurse on repeat while I try to finish grading a stack of papers so I can go home.

Color of Pain is awful. I played it once and immediately unchecked it so it won't even go on my iPod. The album is definitely growing on me, though. I added four or five songs from it to the Ryan Adams play list I made a month or two ago and listened to it for most of the day yesterday. My main criticism of it is that many of the songs feel rushed, though, especially the first few, all of which end pretty suddenly. The RAA is a strange place. I thought about joining a few weeks ago, until I saw how they started deleting posts complaining about what happened in Atlanta. The moderating is w

I paid $2.89 on Saturday. That's the first time I've paid less than $3 for gas here in ages.

I really only know Jeff Parker from his involvement with the Scott Amendola Band, but I loved seeing his trio when I was in Chicago in June. I know he's got a new trio with Scott Amendola and John Shifflett and that Scott is going to be selling downloads of a show they did in San Francisco last month on his website soon. Can anybody recommend a few other Jeff Parker albums for me to check out?

Both of my QBs had a bye week this week. Considering how poorly Garrard played yesterday, I probably would've been better off picking up a free agent, but I had to do something.

In some ways, I think it goes against the spirit of the movie to release it in a higher-quality format. Such a big part of it is about how Wilco didn't have the polished, radio-friendly, platinum-selling sound a big label wanted them to have. The grainy quality of the cinematography in the movie seems to match Wilco's "then we'll do it ourselves" spirit, and to touch it up seems to be overlooking that point.

I recommend catching the groups involving Mary Halvorson Sunday night. I've really been enjoying her latest album, Calling All Portraits (released by a German label only, though you can get it on iTunes for a fraction of the import CD price).

Can we have one more week? I'm really enjoying what I've read so far, but I still have a ways to go and would really like to be able to participate in discussion this time. Most of my time lately has been with student papers.

This part of his website hasn't been updated in awhile, but it should at least give you an idea of the kind of equipment he uses.

I'm on my second listen of this, and I already know I'll play it again when it's over. It's a fun, catchy album. I thought it was a little overhyped when it came out, but I'm glad I finally gave it a listen.

That's a really good description of that song. It does seem to have something otherworldly about it that I love. Speaking of Talking Heads, "Wild, Wild Life" came on my last.fm station while I was here at work the other day, and I had to stop what I was doing and rock out to it. That's a song that always makes me happy

Here's the album cover: Jeff Gauthier is a guest blogger this week over at Green Leaf Music. He posted an entry yesterday about the two albums and about his 30-year friendship with the brothers Cline. The entry also includes one track from each of the albums, available to stream. Nels's song, "Prayer Wheel," is so radically different from anything else I've ever heard from him. It seems rooted in that same quietness that characterized "Recognize I" and "Recognize II" from the last Singers' album, but it's richer and far more complex, and there's a real brightness to it in places, too. One

Jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson's latest album, Calling All Portraits, has some crazy experimental violin by Jessica Pavone. She's not as good as Jenny Scheinman, but certainly a good example of something less traditional. The album is an import and is ridiculously expensive on CD, but you can get it on iTunes for $7.99 (or at least could when I bought it the other day).

Double check the show's website; they may have at least clips available online, if not the whole episode.

Don't sit too close to your TV--it's all fun and games until one of Jay Bennett's dreadlocks pokes you in the eye.