Visiting Kew Gardens Saturday, Jul 3 2010 

England and travel thisgaudygildedstage 2:14 pm

Two of our goals while we were in England last week were a) to find new things to see in London and b) to do relaxing things. My first year as dean has left me spent and tired; I definitely wanted a vacation that didn’t exhaust me even more.

To these ends, PJ recommended that we take the Thames River tour over to Kew Gardens and spend most of a day roaming around the Royal Botanic Gardens. Both ideas turned out to be excellent!

Inside the gates of Kew Gardens

The boat tour took about an hour and a half. The weather was wonderful: sunny and warm, perfect for a boat ride. The only down side was that we were unprepared for the sun, and both got rather sunburned as a result.

Once we arrived at Kew Gardens, we made a quick list of activities and sites that we wanted to do. These included Kew Palace, the Treetop Walkway, lunch, Queen Charlotte’s Cottage, Temperate House, and as much of the grounds as we could fit in.

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SotW: Fire with Fire by Scissor Sisters Friday, Jul 2 2010 

music thisgaudygildedstage 1:28 pm

It’s been a while since I’ve had a song of the week, but this morning I purchased the new Scissor Sisters album, Night Work, so I thought I would revive my SotW feature so that I can write about it.

Here’s the video for the first single off the album, “Fire with Fire”:

Of course I’ve heard about the Scissor Sisters since their first album came out, but I’ve never really listened to them before. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s probably just inertia or something. But then Jake Spears was interviewed in Butt Magazine, a queer zine that I love. (Click here and here for the interviews.)  Then I started to pay a little more attention.

While we were in England, we kept seeing advertisements for Night Work, so at some point I decided that I would give it a listen and see if I liked it. I sampled it on iTunes and enjoyed it, so I downloaded it so PJ and I could listen to it on our way to see his family in Indiana over the weekend.

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Back from England Thursday, Jul 1 2010 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 2:34 pm

PJ and I got back from England on Monday. It’s taken me a few days to fully recover from the jet lag, but I’m starting to feel normal again.

We had a lovely time throughout our trip. The weather was lovely — mostly in the 80s and sunny or partly cloudy. No rain.

And we enjoyed all of our tourist activities. During the first part of the trip we were in London, where we took the Thames River cruise and visited Kew Gardens and Churchill’s War Rooms. We also saw a musical of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and a play called Holding the Man. We then went to Bath, where we visited the Roman Baths and the Abbey and generally walked around. We also took two bus tours, one of the Cotswolds and one to Stonehenge, Avebury, and other places. Then we were back in London for a couple of days to celebrate my 40th birthday. We saw the Queen’s Gallery and visited the Wallace Collection in addition to the Imperial War Museum. We also saw a gay version of Dangerous Liaisons and a play called War Horse.

Throughout the trip we ate incredibly well. In addition to a few pub meals, we had Thai, Indian, and French meals. And our hotels were the best we’ve ever stayed at in England — PJ did a great job picking them!

So, I now have lots to blog about in the coming days. I just hope to gather up the energy to be productive!

 

Gone to England Sunday, Jun 20 2010 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 11:03 am

Today is PJ’s birthday, and my birthday is Saturday, so we’re flying to England to celebrate.

We’ll be spending a couple of days in London before going to Bath for three days. While staying in Bath, we’re going to take a couple of day-long bus tours to the Cotswolds and Stonehenge. Then we’re back to London for my birthday. We’ll fly home on the 28th.

The main plan is to eat well, visit museums, and generally relax and enjoy a week away from work. As much as I love my job as dean, I’m looking forward to a vacation!

I’ve been so busy over the past six weeks that I’ve barely blogged. This trip should also give me lots to write about! Until then, cheers!

 

True Blood Season 3 Tuesday, Jun 15 2010 

television and What I'm Watching thisgaudygildedstage 7:49 pm

True Blood season 3 started on Sunday with a great episode. I didn’t really care for the Maryann story line of season 2, so I’m glad that we’re moving on now. I thought the episode had a good balance between continuing with the aftermath of the second season while moving the plot lines forward in new directions.

Of course the best part of the episode was the sequence between Sam and Bill:

This has to be the hottest scene in television history! And even though PJ immediately said that this had to be someone’s dream, I liked the way it started off realistically — the part where Sam has to invite Bill into the hotel room, for example.

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Celebrating National Man Day Monday, Jun 14 2010 

holidays and male models and queer culture thisgaudygildedstage 10:32 pm

Today was declared National Man Day by two of my fellow Hoosiers. According to a story I saw on The Huffington Post,

Ninteen-year-old Joel Longanecker of Celestine and his 26-year-old brother Aaron, of Indianapolis, have for months been rallying thousands to their masculine cause on Facebook. More than 260,000 people have pledged to “stand up and do manly things” on Man Day.

I’ve decided that the “manly thing” I want to do to celebrate National Man Day is probably a bit more queer than the originators had intended: I’d like to celebrate some of my favorite hot, manly men!

Hot Manly Tennis

Throughout this year’s clay court tennis season, I’ve been enjoying watching Fernando Verdasco, one of the hottest players on the ATP tour:

Among tennis fans, Verdasco has been recognized for his hotness for a couple of years now, but this year his fame has grown. On the one hand, his tennis has improved over the past year. He was one of the top clay court players this year — so much so that he over-played and ended up costing himself some of his competitive edge when it came to the big tournament, the French Open.

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1st Anniversary (Of Sorts) Thursday, Jun 3 2010 

academia thisgaudygildedstage 9:31 am

It was one year ago today that I was offered my current position as dean. I well remember receiving the call from the provost asking me to take the position and laying out the general offer. It was definitely one of the most exciting moments in my career thus far.

One day later was the first public acknowledgment of my appointment, which is where this picture was taken. It was at the college’s annual potluck. It was rather precipitously decided that I would be announced at this event because the word had gotten out on facebook that I was the new dean. (My little sister wrote something about it on my wall, and some of my students saw it before I was able to delete it.) The university didn’t officially announce it until the following Monday.

This year’s potluck is also this afternoon. So, this is a good moment to think back and assess my first year as dean. I few people have pointed out how happy I look in this picture. And I definitely was ecstatic. It felt like everything I had ever wanted had suddenly come to fruition.

The main thing that’s on my mind as I reflect today is how naive I was about the job I was getting into. I look back and realize that I knew next to nothing about being a dean. I see just how minuscule my experience really was in such areas as management, budgets, fund-raising, dealing with a couple hundred students and all of their problems, and even many of the basic aspects, policies, and programs of the college I would subsequently lead.

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Sex and the City 2: A Review Saturday, May 29 2010 

movies and queer culture thisgaudygildedstage 7:18 pm

Yesterday, PJ and I saw Sex and the City 2. We both loved the series and the first movie, so we were looking forward to the new one. Each of our heroines is facing a problem: Carrie is worried that she and Big have lost their sparkle; Miranda is being silenced by her boss; Samantha is going through menopause and is worried about what it’s doing to her libido; and Charlotte is scared that her husband will have an affair with their bra-less bosomy nanny. Along the way, Anthony and Stanford get married, and the “girls” get an all-expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi.

Here’s the trailer:

I enjoyed the movie, but everything we’ve heard about it has been negative. Reviewers have routinely been calling it one of the worst movies of the year. In writing about it, I recognize that I want to say two somewhat contradictory things about it.

First, Sex and the City 2 is not exactly the caricature that reviews are making it out to be. Lisa Swarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, for example, complains that, with the exception of Miranda, “not one of the fashion friends lifts her head out of her luggage to get a clue” (June 4/11, 2010, p. 95). Accordingly, Swarzbaum presents a satirically simplistic summary of each woman’s storyline. As she writes, “Charlotte is upset that motherhood is hard; Miranda is upset that she is unappreciated at work; Samantha is upset that she can’t outrun menopause.” But her darts are really aimed at Carrie, who’s problems she sarcastically reduces to being “upset that she’s got everything.”

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It’s Complicated: A Review Saturday, May 29 2010 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 6:24 pm

Last night, PJ and I finally watched It’s Complicated from Netflix. We both love Meryl Streep, so we should have been anxious to see it, but we’d heard so many mixed to bad reviews of the movie that we weren’t sure we’d enjoy it. Streep plays a Martha Stewart-type named Jane who becomes involved in an affair with her ex-husband, Jake, played by Alec Baldwin, who married “the other, much younger woman” after his divorce Jane 10 years ago. Comic mayhem ensues.

Here’s the trailer:

Contrary to some of the advance buzz, PJ and I both really enjoyed this movie. One of the criticisms we heard (from a friend) was that Jane’s life is too perfect. In particular, she lives in the perfect house and has the perfect job as a chief who owns her own bakery. While it’s true that Jane lives a life a luxury, I don’t see why this would be a problem. After all, movies are often an escapist art. And some people do actually live the life that Jane has.

Second, we heard that Jane laughs too much, which is also rather silly. She does laugh a lot, but in scenes in which it totally makes sense. As the trailer suggests, she laughs while she drinking with her girlfriends and she laughs while high with her architect/boyfriend. So, under the influence of alcohol and/or pot, she laughs a lot. Seems rather easy to believe to me.

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Tell Me You Love Me by Leela James Wednesday, May 26 2010 

music and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 8:53 pm

I saw Leela James‘s new album, My Soul, on iTunes and immediately felt that it was just the kind of album I would love. So, I surfed over to YouTube and watched the first of her videos to come up, “Tell Me You Love Me”:

I liked what I heard, so I sampled the tracks on the album and decided to download it. So far, I love it! This is exactly the kind of music I love, neo-soul. James reminds me a little of early Tina Turner crossed with Anthony Hamilton. Listening to her also reminded me that I want to download Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings’s new album too.

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