merit badge (and other news)

I just conducted my first ever on-the-record, fully consented, I-have-written-permission-to-quote-from-this interview. And it's an hour and three-quarters long.

Huh. I might just get this dissertation done after all.

... and on that note, here's an illustration of why I'm thankful to be beyond the 'pre-field' stage. (Warning: requires some time to download.)

(Apologies to members of the pre-field crowd for the gloating, and thanks for posting the link!)

In other news, that great (if confounding) theorist of post-modernism, Jean Baudrillard,is dead. Let us raise our collective glasses to a man who probably confused more people than he could begin to know. I suppose a hyperlink to his obituary in the NYT is a strangely suitable form with which to salut him. Ah, the ecstasy of communication!