Sometimes, the best of times, realization of a key concept comes with a near-audible *click*. A moment of revelation occurs in which the free-floating globs of information snap to and resolve into a readable, comprehensible virtual text. Progress toward understanding can then immediately begin; with previously incoherent facts calcified into a conceptual skeleton, one can see how to go about fitting together the muscles and organs and finally smoothing it all over with a pleasing countenance. Or something like that.

Other times, like this one, the underlying concepts are so hateful or disappointing that one is left with a morass of shadows and gauze. Nothing ever comes together, one is cursed to work with water instead of stone, and when one finally finds dim glimpses of underlying structure one realizes that the form of what is sought is in fact formlessness. There is a chaos of contradiction or incomprehensibility at the heart of the matter, and one is left realizing he is going to have to trudge through to the end.

I’ve just had my moment of anti-realization with the Academic Libraries paper. I’ve realized why I’ve been unable to find fertile ground for a good, strong thesis: Collective bargaining units and academic structures are fundamentally incompatible, but also both are inherently worthwhile. Considered together they constitute two theses that are immune to the dialectic; they will not yield a synthesis when in conflict, nor can either be disregarded.

The crux of the biscuit is this: Academic librarians exist within a multiply recursive hierarchy in which they are at once both management and labor. Collective bargaining, as it is practiced and supported by law in the US at least, is predicated on the tension between management and labor. The academic librarian within a collective-bargaining context, then, is at once included in and excluded from all viable positions. We end up with an unresolvible and un-ignorable situation in which the fundamental and practical aspects of the employment/professional/labor situation are in constant struggle, creating a mucky ground on which no firm footing for anyone can be found.

I think this, at the very least, explains why there is so little literature available on the subject. Giving an intellectually honest, good-faith treatment to the subject is like feeding one of those “why is a mouse when it spins?” questions to a 1960s science-fiction computer; nothing good will come of it but a nifty pyrotechnics show.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I have just finished watching the very first episode of the very new Doctor Who. After a wait of around fifteen years, all I have to say is *squeee!*

I am pleased.

It looks like Eccleston is continuing the tradition (Peter Davison excluded) of stamping a very personal imprint on the role. This time around, our favorite Time Lord is a modern Doctor for modern times, or something like that. Acerbic, a little bumbling, and (mmmm) Northern, this interpretation I think will be very pleasing indeed.

I like Rose’s festiness, too, and the fact that she’s still a little less sharp-edged than Ace (whom, make no mistake, I adored). And the series looks just great all-on-film, the production values seemed pretty superb, and and and…well, I’m just a gushing fanboy, aren’t I.

Bloody hell. I have to at least get the Academic Libraries paper done by Thursday, and what do I have so far? Bupkis, that’s what. Part of the problem is that it turns out a good treatment of my topic would require actual original research; all of my materials date from a brief flurry of interest in the topic in the late 1970s through the mid-80s. As the nature of work has changed radically since then, I constantly approach my materials with an overwhelming knowledge of their inadequacy.

Also, I’m plumb out of good blog-post subjects. I am still *grumpy* (thanks, Amy, by the way, for the kind words last week). Blech.

I haven’t been completely unstudious today. I gathered together all my librarian-unions source materials. I read prefaces, flipped pages, scanned keywords, and still came up with nothing. This paper is going to be the death of me, or at least of my academic career.

Vent vent vent.

Because when I wake up, it will be Spring Break Monday. And Spring Break Monday means I have to finally get cracking on my term papers, due in a scant month.

The plan is to have a rough of my Academic Libraries paper on collective bargaining among academic librarians put together by the close of Tuesday, giving me Wednesday and Thursday to start pulling stuff together for my Archives film preservation/storage thing. Then Thursday night or Friday morning it’s off to glorious Huntsville, where there will be lunch with Mom and movietime fun with Rachel and Angela (if this is, indeed, the best of all possible worlds) and later a play with Donnie (where we’ll see the remarkable Jim Zielinski take on the role of Tevya).

Wait, sorry, got sidetracked by all the fun and technicolor excitement of next weekend. Let me deface this ghastly optimism with an appropriate pall of despair…wait…hold on…there we go.

Yeah. Gloom, doom, agony etc. Don’ wanna write about poopy old librarians’ unions! Hmph.

(which we weren’t, but work with me here)

Does anyone else think it’s mighty odd, peculiar even, that we (and by “we” I guess I mostly mean “Westerners”, although I think at least Asian cultures are just as bad) fixed our annual cycle such that the old/new-year transition occurs not only mid-season but actually within the season that mostly represents death and decay and very much un-birth?

I mean, it just seems to me so much more appropriate for an annum’s terminus to be tied to an equinox–either one, but the vernal for preference–than to the solstice, especially the cold bleak winter one.

Maybe it’s all the rising sap talking, but I think it’s nutty.

If you drop in to meet with a a team member, which by the way you’ve never done before in the two months this project’s been ongoing, and express impatience with his progress, it is incumbent upon you to at least pretend to be interested in what the team member shows you. (Actually, it’s probably not a good idea to express impatience with a project’s progress upon receipt of a memo saying a draft of the final product will be available at the end of Week 8 of a ten-week project, but that’s sort of beside the point.)

Also, you are not allowed to sniff at the work being done, saying that what you wrote in the design memo isn’t actually what you’re going to need. If it’s a multiphase project, fine; you could have mentioned that earlier, but since you haven’t ever made an opportunity to meet with your design team you probably didn’t have an opportunity to do so. Ahem. But you just simply can’t get snippy when the work being finished up in (what turns out to be) Phase One is insufficient to the requirments of (the heretofore- unknown) Phase Two.

We won’t mention the mailing address incident.

362. Never eat when you’re really, really hungry. Drink a couple of glasses of water first, or you’ll really come to regret it.

(There was a point, about halfway through my dinner, when I thought, “I’m usually full by now; why do I keep shovelling this yummy stuff in?” But, true to form, I neglected my own red flag and continued chowing down until my plate was empty and my stomach, I realized about three minutes later, beyond full.)

No good reason, I just am. I blame the pre-tornadic weather, although the truly depressing dark cloud is probably the many, many papers I have to get underway during spring break. I gots an A on my final Advanced Reference reference assignment, which is damned nifty but still not cheering.

A special shout-out to Mark, whose condolences I found truly touching.

And speaking of the funeral, I think my mom wants me to talk about her relatives. I foresee such an entry turning out to be either a real hoot or a disturbingly visceral look at true family dysfunction, depending on how carefully I’m able to manage my verbiage. Watch this space, and keep watching the skies.

Last night I went down the street to the Jupiter to see the Drive By Truckers. Marnie–I *heart* Marnie–had introduced them to me last semester (although I’d first been made aware of them by Kenan), and I immediately decided I liked them very much indeed. When Marnie told me she and her husband Todd would be going to a DBT show locally, I became as excited as a very excited thing and remained so until the day finally rolled around.

I met up with out merry band (which grew to include Michael P. and [C/K]atherine and her posse) at Egan’s pre-concert, and my anticipation cllimbed right up into the red. Well, not really, but it makes for a better story that way.

We got in about fifteen minutes before the opening act finished their set, arranged ourselves with drinks, and during the break pushed down toward the stage. We ended up with an awesome spot, just three lines of people back from the band itself. Instruments were swapped out, sound levels were checked, and finally the band took the stage.

They opened up with a real rocker, and I fell right into the mood. They were great, even better than in their recordings, and I knew I was in for a terriffic night indeed.

And then, by the time they made it to their fourth song, I decided I’d had enough. I still liked their music, actually thought they were great, but I just didn’t want any more of it. I couldn’t think of any gracious way to exit, so I started hope the band would play an abbreviated set (not likely, in their home state) so I could…I dunno, just stop listening.

I don’t get it. I have no idea what trigger flipped in my brain, and I have to reiterate that at no point did I ever stop thinking they were cranking out some great tunes. I’d just had my fill and wanted to move on. Weird.

Lucky for me, Michael P. seems to have enjoyed the set a bit less than I, and he made excuses to bail during the fifth number. I decided to follow him out, said my goodbyes to Marne and Todd (and felt like a bloody great heel) and left.

I have a theory, but it would involve a premature introduction of a thesis on (what I call) Southern Exceptionalism, and I don’t want to get into that right now. It probably did have a lot to do with the mood live being considerably different from the mood I get from their recordings, and I may return to this in the future.