reminder: asa blogger extravaganza

The ASA NYC blogger get-together, a.k.a. YearlyRojas, is Saturday at 6PM, with the present plan to proceed from the Hilton Lobby. I have misgivings about this plan, as I don't quite get how people who are a little later are going to figure out where we are, but I am passive-aggressive in these misgivings, choosing just to state them publicly rather than act toward any kind of alternative. Anyway, you're invited. You? You. Fabio is offering to buy a drink to people who have pre-ordered his book. Dan is offering to buy a drink to anyone who can name a Kiss song that is not on his iPod. I am offering to thank anyone who pre-orders my drinks.

Also, Tuesday 8:30 am, at an as yet undisclosed location in the Hilton, "Blogs as a Forum for Public Sociology," including Hargittai, Healy, Uggen, Freese, and two people I don't know. Somebody should bring bagels.

who's got the funk?

Answer: Dan Myers. Unfortunately, it's a blog funk. He was able to overcome the splayer-haters who didn't appreciate his stylish way of crushing a can, but now he's been laid low by some combination of a bothersome commenter and the cyclical character of blogthusiasm. Keep the faith, Dan!

Meanwhile, I cannot tell if Kieran is serious about having his own secret blog or not. I won't even speculate about what the content of it might be. He should leave clues for its location like Masquerade, which I accidentally purchased today using my Harvard purchasing card and now have to fill out a form and write a check to reimburse them for it.

My own solution to blog malaise, which has been an open secret for some time now but perhaps you are one of the people not in the know, has been to keep a pseudonymous second blog under the name "Gwen." Part of my gimmick with "Gwen" is that every time I write a post having to do with the Animals and Society ASA section on this blog, I have her adopt another pet on her blog.

one of the two b's in bible is for me

You know the Bible 86%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic! You find this blurb insipid and over the top! Fortunately, you can add a couple snarky sentences to the end of it!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
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Kieran got a 97% on this quiz. I decided to take it also because, in the course of my Lutheran upbringing, I actually read the entire Bible when I was in high school.* Cover-to-cover, alpha-to-omega, Genesis-to-Revelation, In-the-beginning-to-Amen.

The quiz provided some intriguing foggy mental nostalgia: several things I recognized as questions I would have once been able to answer but now the memory was past dim and into just plain dark. And then there was this one question about a donkey that I didn't even recognize as something I would have once recognized, although I'm sure it was something I once knew full well. Anyway, as you can see, my scriptural retention was much worse than Kieran's, and I will not be winning any games of Go To The Head Of The Sunday School Class.

BTW, the two parables of Jesus that still come to mind for me from time to time are that of Workers In the Vineyard and that of the Two Sons. Although, in neither case, do I take away the intended lesson: the former comes to mind as I think about how I should focus on my own rewards and not worry about things relative to the effort/reward of others, and the latter to mind when I think about how it is worse to tell someone you are going to do something and then not follow through than it is just to tell them you aren't going to do it in the first place.

* Granted, it was "The Living Bible," which is an attempted easier-reading translation. It says something about the readability of the Bible that while the most common word in written English is easily "the", and the most common word in spoken English is even more easily "I", the most common word in the Bible is "and."

cause of dumbo's cognitive deficit revealed!

So, a few days ago I noted a Rock-Paper-Scissors alternative allegedly called Earwig-Human-Elephant and played in "non-English speaking countries." Turns out it's Earwig-Man-Elephant and unclear if it's played anywhere other than Indonesia. But: while Man squishes Earwig and Elephant squishes Man, Earwig defeats Elephant by crawling through his brain. How much more awesome is that than "paper covers rock"! Still no word, however, on how the handsign for "earwig" is made.

Kieran made reference to a little known variant called Economist-Sociologist-Philosopher, believed to have been invented by members of the Merton family. I'm presuming the order of play is Economist beats Sociologist beats Philosopher beats Economist, although if you play the game at a public university one can also play "Hostile Legislator" and automatically win, while the same goes for private university and "Barking Mad Prospective Donor." I'm curious about all of the corresponding handsigns for this game.

annals of public sociology

Check out the review of Kieran's book in the NYT Sunday Book Review. Score one for public sociology served up without any icky self-righteous-preening aftertaste, and score one for sociologists with blogs as well.

Meanwhile, I was hanging out with a friend yesterday while she was reading Loïc Wacquant's Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. I went back just now and looked up the 2003 NYT article on that, which includes:

"Body & Soul," which Mr. Wacquant says is only the first installment of his work on boxing -- a second, more ambitious book, "The Passion of the Pugilist," is under way

Does anyone know the status of this book? Wasn't the fieldwork for Body & Soul was done in 1988? I recognize there is no statute of limitations for ethnography, especially "carnal sociology" that is dependent on personal, embodied experiences that I'm sure can be easily recaptured in fully accurate vividness by a quick re-consultation of one's fieldnotes, but I was just wondering if there was any word on whether the second book would be out by the 20th anniversary of Wacquant's experience as a boxer.