In search of the perfect Urban Renewal tattoo

2009-05-05T15:13:00.000-04:00

Our dear friend John Hayes got a tattoo to commemorate his successful history dissertation defense. He wrote about Johnny Cash, so his custom-designed tattoo features a ring of fire, an open Bible, and a smoking gun. Imagine my surprise to see his arm in a 20" x 30" -ish sized print, on exhibit at our other dear friend Maury Gortemiller's MFA exit show.

I cringe at the very thought of needles, especially ink-filled ones, but nonetheless, I find it fun to imagine what my very own post-history dissertation defense tattoo would look like. I'm writing about successive waves of urban renewal in downtown Atlanta since the Second World War. Right now I'm in the throes of a chapter detailing big-wig developers of the 1970s, and I can tell you far more about the specs of any hotel and/or exhibition hall than you would ever care to know. What about a "I-285" circle, with a jammed-in skyline of all of the downtown buildings? Or....I'm open to other ideers, folks.

Next time, it's a Holiday Inn.

2009-03-09T12:21:00.000-04:00

Belated post, but better late than never.

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be PhD Candidates in history. There are no jobs. The economy makes things worse, but things weren't that good to begin with. Yesterday, (Sunday) the NYT printed an article about the difficulties in finding a tenure track position in the humanities. It was largely a reprint of an earlier Chronicle of Higher Ed article, in which the columnist urged folks not to go to grad school in the humanities. I feel certain that Bruce Springsteen will soon be crooning a song about the economic restructuring of academe, particularly in the humanities. It'll be like his song, "My Hometown," only instead of talking about the deindustrialization of the 1970s, it'll be something about how universities only want to hire temporary instructors, so they can pay less and forego providing health insurance and benefits. I think he should title his new song "Adjunct City." I will get to work on the verses.

But I digress. It's a crappy job market, which, when I let it, makes me terribly depressed. But yesterday's column, and the prevailing lack of jobs reminded me to finish a nearly-month-old posting. I have discovered that I am too old for the new, hip and trendy jet setter hotels. How is this discovery related to the non-existent job market for budding historians like myself, you ask? Well, just the other weekend, I dragged my Better Half off to Atlanta for a teacher recruiting conference where I was going to interview...for secondary schools. (Fearing the judgment from fellow academics, as well as from myself, I'm writing the rest of this quickly.)

We, the Better Half and myself, decided to make a weekend out of the ATL conference, and I made us reservations at a hip, trendy new midtown hotel. Oy vey.

The hotel was hilariously bad. We didn't have a bad time, but never have we felt so out of place. It's hard to explain what all it was that we found so very, very comical about the whole experience. On first impression, it was as if we had touched down into a really bad MTV reality show, and we experienced all the unedited footage. I initially wondered if I didn't like it because I'm older than the hotel's target demographic by about a decade, but I know that's not all of it. I saw folks alot older and uglier than me going in and out of the lobby's automatic glass double-doors. Upon further reflection, I think I chafed at the hotel's lavish, conspicuously consumerist, celebrity-conscious ambience that seemed to be utterly oblivious to the current economic crisis.

We pulled up into the porte cochere. Bell hops were in abundance, but no one noticed us. I fear it's because we're in the Camry. Our ride ain't pimp, but that's how we roll. Grumpy, Better Half slogged off to find luggage carrier. When clueless teenage bell hop arrived at car door, luggage is already loaded. Better Half harumphed, "We've got it now," and dismissed him, but the bell hop had already commandeered luggage cart, steering it towards lobby door.

The lobby was dark, and tiny speakers blared house techno from the faux rafters. The check-in desk looked like a kidney-bean on wheels. The front desk staff, spotlighted with overhead halogen pucks, all seem to have been born around the time of the first Gulf War. Somewhere, a projector splayed a kaleidoscope of colors on the wall above the "front desk" like an ever-changing stained-glass rosette. Is this the Brooklyn warehouse clubbing experience I've been missing?

Our check-in specialist chirped at us for trying to take the luggage cart up to our rooms. She was wearing a headset microphone piece that reminds me of a Garth Brooks concert in the early 1990s. It is verboten, we learned, for us to take the luggage cart upstairs. Hunh? We could either schlep all our luggage bits up by ourselves, or we could opt to have a Welcome Ambassador bring the cart for us. A what?

Starting to feel like nickel and dime curmudgeons, we reluctantly left luggage cart behind. Walked to elevator lobby. Lighting in here seemed even dimmer than front lobby, echoing the club feel. Did I mention that it's only 3:30 in the afternoon? In elevator vestibule, I swore that there was an air freshener that is pumping out Drakkar Noir. I looked around to find the high school boys.

Upon reaching our floor, we swear we can smell doobage coming from one of the nearby rooms. Hunh?

Luggage-less, we entered room, which was quite possibly designed by the set crew of The Real World. Glitzy. Lots of recessed and track lighting. Plenty of chartreuse, purple, and faux oriental floral patterns. Opulent. There, on the "work" desk station, we found a mini-bar fit for an investment banker pre-mortgage collapse. No bottom shelf liquor here. Above the "work" desk station was the largest flat screen I have ever seen in a hotel. Entire outer hotel room wall was window, with view of even more luxe midtown condo joint across street, Piedmont Park, and Stone Mountain on the far horizon. Gorgeous view. I could write a dissertation chapter alone on that view. But a quick glance across the room and I've started to see that everything is only gilded for luxury. The "sofa-chaise" was a knock-off of a knock-off, a black faux leather Le Corbu. The desk was a black laminate veneer. The bed, while it seemed to constitute a zip code all its own, consisted of a low-slung foam mattress with lots of cotton fluff. Feeling bratty and guilty and smug, I waited for the Welcome Ambassador.

Ambassador arrived, and was ready to get this party started. Better Half wisely left the room for a bathroom break. Ambassador took me on a "tour" of my palace. Wanted to set the mood with music. Showed me alarm clock where I can dock my iPod, which I then produce from my bags and hand over to him. My iPod, obviously more in sync with the room than I am, shuffled itself to Al Green's Love and Happiness. Ambassador cranked volume.

"Alright!" he shouted over the music. "I like your taste!" he bellowed, head bobbing.

I grimaced and laughed nervously, worried about disturbing other guests. I felt eighty. At window, he pointed out ATL landmarks I have already discovered. Taught me how to operate the tv remote (really? seriously?) Showed me how to operate telephone, and encouraged use of concierge, who, he promised me, can get me whatever, whenever, even if it's a chartered jet to the Caribbean. I know it's rude, but I stared in disbelief.

"Ohhh, cool," I stammered.

"We want you to enjoy your hotel experience," he added. He's very comfortable. And off the Ambassador went to fetch some ice for the bar.

"We might need to tip him more," the Better Half grumbled from the bathroom.

Don't know what's funnier-- that the Ambassador suggested that me, an unemployed history graduate student, trying to get a job, any job, in the midst of an economic crisis, could spring for plane to the Islands....or the fact that I, standing there in my dumb, unsexy, orthopedic Dansko clogs, totally un-designer jeans, and oversized oxford button-down and sensible cardigan, looking as ill-fit for the hotel as anyone perhaps ever has, could think of no more witty comeback for him than, "Ohhh, cool."

Don't mean to be hatin' on the ATL or the hotel. I'm thrilled that there's new places going up in the ATL, and hoping that my fair city will weather out the recession better than most. (And if I know anything about the ATL, my guess is that we'll have our Chamber of Commerce boosters exclaiming how great the city is doing even if it isn't.) There are plenty of other sociological musings that I had during my hotel stay, err, experience. Like, for example, I was fascinated with and excited by how there didn't seem to be any color line there. But I'll save those for a separate post.

We got a good chuckle out of our stay, but we were laughing at the hotel, and not with it. Maybe the hotel was laughing back. It was an experience-- this was Disney. But I wanted a place to chill out my unemployed self, and this place made me feel guilty that we weren't bringing the band back to party after the show. I think I'd rather make my own experiences outside the four hotel walls than play into the hands of the "you're a celebrity" vibe that I got from the hotel staff. I fear that comes across as elitist and smug. It could also mean that we're old and square and completely out of sync with reality, such as it is. Still no word yet on the job front, but next time, I'll be content with a boring old Holiday Inn.

Post-Valentines Day

2009-02-18T13:53:00.000-05:00

I think someone is about to be demoted from marquis sign posting.

The Day after Groundhog Day

2009-02-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Imbibing winter. Back to hibernating. The dissertation is a jealous bitch, and she doesn't look kindly upon me seeking outside company. Have gotten more done in the last two days than all of last week. Am grateful for the opportunity to be able to write--just write.

Last week, I attempted to learn how to *rate* 8th grade essays for the Georgia Department of Education. In the land of No Child Left Behind, these essays help to determine whether or not a student will be promoted to the next grade. I furtively memorized rubrics with multi-bulleted points that explained how to rate an essay on ideas, organization, style, and grammar. I read over what must have been thousands of the previous year's essays, in the hopes of understanding with some certainty the difference between a 3 and a 4 score on essay style.

It was a disaster. Despite my decade of teaching and grading experience, for this gig, I *rated* too slowly. Sometimes I *rated* too harshly, othertimes, too leniently. There wasn't any logic to why my *rating* ever differed, other than the fact that at each turn, my rating was being compared to different raters. Essays are subjective things, right?

I found the whole exercise troubling-- I don't like the idea of a standardized rubric for an essay and a roomful of automaton raters deciding the fate of thousands of eighth graders. I felt like the essay scoring was like trying to force the proverbial square peg into a round hole. While the essays might have prevented unqualified students from advancing on into high school, the essays did not (and could not) have addressed the gross inequalities in the varying school systems throughout the state. I came home each afternoon simultaneously anxious that I had not yet mastered the *rater* mindset and utterly despondent that THIS essay was how the state of Georgia evaluated the 8th grade.

All that to say, at the end of the day Friday, I quit. While I so desperately wanted to find a way to pay for my health insurance, it will just hang out on my credit card for a bit. In the meantime, I have returned to Atlanta, Cousins, Portman, and the writing.

Ivy League

In search of the perfect Urban Renewal tattoo

Next time, it's a Holiday Inn.

Post-Valentines Day

The Day after Groundhog Day