Dr. B.'s Blog - 4Cs

On NOLA and a Sense of Loss

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:09:59 -0400

I fully recognize the need for tourists to go back to NOLA, but as a 20 year "regular" (pre-Katrina) I was sickened by what I saw and heard from the locals while I was at CCCC last week. I was afraid to go back and more and more I am wishing that I had not. The Quarter and the Convention Center area have been restored for the most part but the Ward and the East side are now (for the most part) non-existent. Natives trying to return to the area are finding that they have to leave again because they are no longer able to get the jobs that they have held for so long. I miss the NOLA that I knew, the corner bars and Po' Boy/Gumbo spots and the love of a people like no other.

This shit really pisses me off. Three years later we still see FEMA trailers and tent cities are popping up under overpasses. You still see houses marked with the mark of the dead. People are homeless, desperate, and hungry. While poverty is not something new to these folks they now find themselves alone with no community or family left to lean on. What pisses me off even more is the accusatory looks that I got from folks because African American natives chose me to speak to, converse with, commiserate with, share with...quit fucking whining about "discrimination" and understand (or at least don't share with me) because when I am faced with the REALITY of Katrina 3 fucking years later I can really give less than a shit if you are mad because a young African American woman hands me a flier for a poetry slam and ignores you or comes to me first at a counter or speaks to me on the street (did you speak to them first or clutch your pocketbook a little tighter when they rounded the corner?). Really???...is that your biggest concern about what you have seen (or chosen not to) while in New Orleans?

If you are offended by what I have written maybe you need to be. In the end, one can only pray that the real New Orleans can one day be resurrected.

CCCC, Maybe We'll Leave NYC Soon

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 13:20:11 -0400

I was going to take some time to blog about the conference and tell a funy story about trying to get a flight out of NYC, but it's not funny any more so I don't even want to talk about the conference right now.

In a nutshell I went to the Delta website this morning to do online check in and found out that our later flight out of NYC had been cancelled and that they had moved us to a noon flight (nope, nobody told us). The noon flight was then delayed until 2:20 then 2:30 now 3:08. We are really starting to wonder if we are ever going to get out of here. That may be a negative. I just paid 8 bucks for wireless access to keep me entertained because I packed my ipod in my checked luggage and Lisa didn't (yep, that means that she is in her own little world).

We did have our SnB on Wednesday and I'll post pictures when I get them off of the camera. Unfortunately my own session was about the only one that I went to because I am on Executive committee and that means I give my life to meetings at the national conferences for the next three years. Hey, I'll do what it takes to do some good.

I was also re-elected co-chair of queer caucus, but I think that was because no one else wanted the job. I am actually excited about that because now I'll get to do some CMS stuff for the caucus.

Ok, I am writing more than I meant to because I really just wanted to sulk, check email, and read other peoples' blogs!

2nd Annual 4Cs SnB

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 14:54:35 -0400

Here are the promised pictures from the 2nd annual 4Cs Knit Out activity. This year we met at Miller's Pub and there were almost 15 of us! Do you think that one day NCTE/CCCC will give us our own SIG so that we can discuss how knitting has helped us get through conferences, student presentations, and the tenure process? It was good getting together with a group of women with a common ~~obsession~~ passion and talk yarn, shop, and yarn shops :-)

Pictures below the fold. If you wouldl like to supply names for the ~~victims~~ photo subjects please add them in the comments or email me!

I Still Have Things to Say

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 15:11:49 -0500

about Cs last week. I have pictures waiting to be edited and uploaded. I am still not feeling back to my old self. Food is getting better, but I'm still tired. I didn't go to many sessions at Cs, but I did catch up with a lot of old friends and do some networking (that's what conferences are for, right?)

There was a night with the transexual J-Lo and Whitney Houston. Shhhh.... One trip to an awful yarn shop and some quality time spent with Lisa and my mom (who was also around for the night with the trannies). Yes, my mom is cooler than your mom!

Right now I am spending the weekend hanging window treatments so that the neighbors don't have to see what I really look like at 6 a.m. and getting ready to spend a little downtime with a soon to be colleague tonight.

More later, I promise!

Blogging the Cs

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:59:13 -0500

I'm in Chicago! I almost didn't make it. I seem to have gotten a case of food poisoning/stomach flu that had me in the hospital overnight. I was sprung Tuesday morning at about 8 and it took all of the persuading that I could muster to get Lisa to let me out of the house.

We're staying at the Club Quarters and it took 3 room changes before we got to the right room. My mother is taking the train in from Detroit tomorrow to keep Lisa company through the weekend while I conference (or at least try to).

I saw Clancy in the lobby when I was checking in (and she forgot her knitting!), but no one else yet. I am going to the 1up gaming SIG at 6:30 and then going to the 2nd annual Cs Stitch n Bitch at 8 (Miller's Pub...reservation under Blackmon). I may even hazard a bit of solid food tonight, but I'll probably be staying away from alcoholic beverages.

Kinda weak still so I won't be carrying the laptop right away. You'll be waiting for blog posts until I return to the hotel at night. Alrighty...off to the Palmer House.

I've started a trend?

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 11:59:59 -0500

It seems that folks remember that there was a first annual (I know, never use that phrase) 4Cs Knit Group and now they are looking for the 2nd. I put my head together with Clancy and we have decided that we'll meet on Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. (after the meeting of the Coalition of Women Scholars) and I'm going to try to reserve us a space at Miller's Pub right next to the Palmer House. Now I'll have to make sure that I bring a portable project that is intricate enough to be impressive yet simple enough to work on after a couple of beers!

Interested in knitting with us at Cs? Leave me a comment or send me an email at (sblackmon@REMOVETHISPARTcla.purdue.edu). I'm looking forward to seeing how many people now feel comfortable enough to knit a little bit during sessions!

Finally some pictures from Cs

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 23:13:23 -0500

I told you that I did have some pictures from Cs. For the sake of space pictures are located below the fold (i.e click the read more link)

Games and the Military

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:58:06 -0500

Cindy Selfe talked about violent video games being the product of a violent society rather than the other way around. During her talk she also talked about the games that were being used and or produced by the military for training and recruitment purposes. It makes perfect sense to distribute a military shooter for free and then "give gamers the opportunity" to report their scores back to the game site for posting. Shit, that way you have a running record of folks who might be prime candidates.

Mary Flanagan is guest blogging over at Grand Text Auto and blogged about games and the military. She is directing folks over to the Department of Defense Game Developers' Community to check out their articles and research section. There is some interesting stuff there.

Andrew Stern , regular over there at Grand Text, links to the blog of one of the developer's of America's Army (the game commissioned by the Army for recruitment), Scott Miller of Game Matters, and his discussion of the political madness that surrounded the game.

This is more stuff for me to read once I actually get caught up from Cs.

4Cs Conference Wrap Up

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 00:46:05 -0500

I have to say that today I bailed on all conference sessions. I was feeling a bit overloaded so I decided that I needed a day out and about. I slept in and then had Indian for lunch and headed out for a local yarn shop that makes their own yarns. Very nice stuff at Art Fibers , but a little too novelty yarnish for me. (Pink sparkly yarn isn't exactly my style). Then I took a taxi to another yarn shop down by the Castro, Imagiknit and walked around for a bit and bought a few things :-) After that several of us meet up for the 1st annual Stitch n Bitch 4Cs. Pictures will follow when I get back to Indiana.

Back to the conference, I know that I have sounded pretty negative over the last couple of days, but I can say that I did go to some good panels. (More below the fold)

Blogging the Cs-Day 3

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:01:25 -0500

Day Two Continues: I went to a really good session on technology with Amy Kimme Hea, Gail Hawisher, and Cindy Selfe (after walking out of a panel billed as "role-playing games" that was actually about friggin' role playing, yeah, I know, rude but I don't really care at this point because some of these sessions have been really friggin' bad). Amy did a paper on wireless technologies, Gail on girl gamers and video games, and Cindy on violence in video games. Cindy's paper wasn't the usual video games are violent spiel, but rather looked at how violent video games are a product of our society rather than the other way around. She looked specifically at games created and/or used by the military. Good papers all around. They redeemed many of the crappy papers I had seen up until that point.

Meet with Will Banks and Barbara Schneider about the Technology Institute that we are doing at WPA this summer and then went to the Queer Caucus. I was elected co-chair, but I suspect it was a set-up :-)

Ensemble 2.5: Camo pants, black t-shirt, black doc martens

A night in the Castro

Yep, I have got to be the only queer person who ain't crazy about SF. Homelessness is rampant, even among young folks. The bars in the Castro were late and smelled really bad. There was good company though so it had its redeeming moments (notice that this post is all about redemption). Walked 4000 miles back to the hotel because we missed the last MUNI!

Day Three:

Ensemble 1: Spiderman pajama pants and a blue tank top.

Yep, slept in late because I have been busy as hell for the last two days and I have to be in sessions or SIGS until 7:30 tonight!

Planning on a video game panel at 11 and two featured sessions in the afternoon. Also a panel/book brainstorming meeting after the last featured session. Let's see if I make them all. More later.

Update: Enseble 1.5: I tried to wear jeans, I really did but I just couldn't. I opted for tan khaki, a red sweater, and white tennis shoes. Yep, just as I thought. I did get some strange looks as if I was just too casual. Me in Khakis and I'm watching other black women walking around in dresses and 3 inch heels (sorry, never happen)

I did see some good things today. I'll blog about them later when the level of snarkiness has decreased enough that I can blog about the good papers in the session without trashing the bad ones.

i.e. Paper titles: Technology the Great Equalizer*

Text of paper: blah blah blah technology blah blah blah white male privilege blah blah blah graduate student blah blah blah my first paper of my MA career .

Opps, see, sorry snarkiness quotient still too damned high.

More Later!

*Titles have been changed to protect the idocent .

Cs Days One and Two

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:17:13 -0500

Cs Day One

Research Network Forum

Clothing Ensemble #1: Khaki pants, white shirt, brown suede Hush Puppies (workshop informal)

Presenting work in progress paper on Race Representation in Video Games (the Rhetoric of Race Representation) and get paired with 3 folks all doing whiteness studies who all kind of look at me like I'm nuts when I suggest that it might be useful to look at critical race theory or that essentializing the "Black Experience" of the students they claim they want to help might not be such a good idea. I'm thinking we pretty much all left that table pissed off. At the break went to Lunch with Janet at a local bar. We thought that it would be quick , yeah right. Had a beer to fortify myself for the afternoon. The next group that I got paired with were two graduate students that were both working on visual rhetoric and one other was working on video games! Much better discussion, lots of suggestions and citations flowing between here. Only one mention of whiteness studies which I quickly dismissed and said please don't say that again. Things went smoothly after that.

Clothing Ensemble #2: Blue Jeans, Chick Magnet t-shirt and brown Birkenstock clogs Left the Forum and had a meeting that really sucked (not sharing that). Moved on to meet Janet for a drink. Recommendation: If you are ever in San Francisco, make it a point to go to Red's Corner bar on Mason St. It is definitely off of the beaten path and a good seedy hangout. Met two great bartenders. The lovely and entertaining Dee and the snarky ass Jersey boy, Tommy, who made a killer shot called a "Sexy Alligator". Well, a few hours after we walked into Red's we stumbled out for the evening. Walked Janet back to her hotel and returned to mine to find that my roommate had come in late and gone out scrounging for food alone. Went out to retrieve her from the very cool diner around the block, Cafe Mason. Came back to the only semi-skanky Mark Twain hotel and ~~passed out~~ turned in for the evening.

Cs Day Two

Woke up @ 6 a.m. with a pretty good headache. Must be developing a weird allergy to hamburgers. Not feeling too well, maybe it's mild food poisoning. Showered and dressed in ensemble #3: Black pants, white shirt, brown suede jacket w/ black shoes (Trendy Business Casual). Went to the WPA breakfast. After walking uphill for 20 minutes Barbara and I make it to the Bank of America bldg. Beautiful dining room on the 52nd floor. Had to stand in the buffet line for 20 dang minutes. Made it through breakfast and then walked back to the Mascone Convention Hall where I nodded off during the opening session. Left there and went to the digital troubleshooting orientation). Debated over whether or not I should go back to the hotel. Opted to stick it out and go to my roommate's session. I'm there now waiting for it end that I sneak in a nap!!

Blogging the Cs-Day 1

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:39:50 -0500

Yep, I'm here and ready to start blogging. Blogging when I should be getting dressed. I got into town last night and Charlie and I went to dinner at a dinner and called it a night. I spent a couple of hours trying to get signed up for wireless in my hotel (didn't happen until this morning) and then finally went to bed. So now I am packing up my electronic arsenal and getting ready to high tail it over to the Research Forum Network. No word on the outfit choice. Picture later!