For a Good Time . . .

. . . check out the daily picture of the sunrise over Lake Michigan.

Love that lake! Miss that lake!

Dept. of Shameless Self Promotion

Sometimes a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do: toot his own horn. I have a short article on teaching a poem by Campbell McGrath in the new issue of Minnesota English Journal.

Line of the Week

"I wanted to make a dessert that would re-create the emotions Lionel Messi feels when he scores a goal."

—Jordi Roca, in Adam Gopnik's article, "Sweet Revolution," in the January 3, 2011 New Yorker

Three Novels I Did Not Finish Reading in 2010

• The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover

• Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

The Complete List of Subjects Treated in the "Partial List of Subjects Treated" in Garry Wills' Translation of Martial's Epigrams

Adult Homosexuality

Artifacts

Baldness

Banqueting

Body Odor

Cunnilingus

Debt Delinquency

Fellatio

Legacy Hunting

Marital Fidelity

Marital Infidelity

Misogyny

Pederasty

The Simple Life

Tributes to Emperors

Tributes to Friends

Tributes to the Dead

Wine

The Writing Profession

A Modest Bowl Proposal

I can appreciate a meaningless football game as much as anyone, especially if the grass is real and the weather is dismal, but bowl games aren’t supposed to be meaningless. The way I understand it, a bowl game is a championship of some sort. For example, the NFL has the Super Bowl. College has a tradition of bowls, which should be scrapped for a playoff, but I can accept a series of games spread out over the holiday season. In fact, it was just that lovely idea that had me preparing to clip the bowl game schedule, so I could post it on the fridge in anticipation of some leisurely tv viewing.

That’s where I found a list of 35 bowl games. Thirty-five! That’s 70 teams, a huge number of which are absolutely mediocre. 32 of the teams playing—almost half of them—have records of 7-5 or worse! That’s unconscionable, pathetic, appalling. I realize that’s where money can be made, and that’s where our power lies. If your team goes 7-5 or 6-6, please don’t fly off to some southern city to support them. Let them earn their way to a bowl game. And if you’re at home with nothing to do, don’t watch the game. What if no one attended these games, and the broadcasts garnered 0.0 Nielsen scores?

And by the way, what ever happened to the Cotton Bowl? That used to be one of the biggies.

For a Good Time . . .

check out the Literature Map. It's pointless, but it's fun.