Carnivalesque XXXVII: The Tiny Shriner Ancient/Medieval Edition

In that hour when the light has the fineness of sand,
I happened on a street unknown to me,
ample and broadly terraced,
whose walls and cornices
took on the pastel color of the sky
that nudged the horizon.
. . . . .
Only later did I come to think
that the street of that afternoon was not mine,
that every house is a branching candlestick
where the lives of men burn
like single candles. --Jorge Luis Borges, "Unknown Street"

It's that time again, and for this ancient/medieval edition, the Tiny Shriner is your guide. Although he appears immobile, even water-logged, on the ledge of JJC's office window, he's a veritable time-traveler, a frequent flyer, a regular at the Metropole, a flaneur of the alleys of cyber- and other spaces. For this venture, we at In The Middle stitched for him a tiny backpack loaded with tiny ham-and-cheese sandwiches, tiny pickles, two tiny bottles of Sancerre, a tiny handheld g.p.s. p.d.a, tiny Marvel comix and issues of Vogue [for the down-times], extra tiny black ties [to always look spiffy], and a tiny bag of bread crumbs [so he could find his way back]. We picked him up yesterday at the Foggy Bottom metro stop, and while his arms were tired, his heart was brimming over with these notes and letters and burning arrows from the ancient/medieval blogosphere:

WARNING: Because the Tiny Shriner has taken a New Year's vow to try to live a life that is as anti-hierarchical, anti-organizational, anti-schematic, and anti-linear as possible [and that also includes room for more meetings in the dark], he offers these worthy entires in no particular order, but he gives all of them his recommendation. After all, he bound them all together in a fascicle, a quire, a papery bundle, a rolled broadsheet, and he leaves them here as fragments.

From Muhlberger's Early History, we have the supposed recent discovery of the corpse of Hugh Despenser the Younger, the "favorite" of Edward II who was executed by "drawing and quartering" in 1326, and whom Muhlberger describes as a "terror victim." And over at Zenobia: The Empress of the East, the question is asked: "Was Philip the Arab a Secret Christian?"--likely not, but at the very least, he might have been some kind of sympathizer to Christians during the earlier reigns of anti-Christian terror. The slipperiness of descriptions of mounted calvary soldiers in medieval wars, which can lead to "the illusion of chivalry," is fruitfully explored at The Wapenshaw. Since we're in the groove of torture and morbidity, the Tiny Shriner is excited to broadcast the news of a weblog, Executed Today, entirely devoted to the "unrepresentative but arresting view of the human condition across time and circumstance from the parlous vantage of the scaffold." Check out, especially, Perpetua's end on March 7th in 203 and Dante's execution in 1302 on March 10th. And just in case disinterments and executions get you down, you might be happy to know about the re-interment of 3,000 eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon skeletons. But enough about torture, terror, war and death; what about elves and fairies? Richard Scott Nokes over at Unlocked Wordhoard contemplates the relation of medieval elves and fairies to contemporary bugs, viruses, and aliens.

How do we write a book and "master" the "vast and complex archives without re-instating master narratives over them? is the important question recently explored by Stephanie Trigg. How do glossing and phenomenology "both express a longing to go beyond words and images to the reality of things themselves, not by transcending words and images, but by entering more deeply, perversely, wonderfully into them, by conjuring the presence of the res ipsa apophatically, via explanation as the intensification of absence, as the presencing by absencing of what is explained"? Ask Nicola Masciandaro at The Whim. Thinking about Nicola just always naturally leads the Tiny Shriner to the question: Was Moses tripping when he saw God? Check out Archaeporn's skeptical take on this question at "A Review of Methodology in Biblical Entheogens." Did you ever want Hellenistic illustrations on your Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers, but it seemed too much to ask for? Look no further than here. Should "medievalism" sometimes give us pause? Yes, says Jeff Sypeck, especially in relation to medieval toy shopping and the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, in his post "Your face, your race, the way that you talk . . . ." Can you write about sex and still be successful? The question seems a tiny bit odd to the Tiny Shriner [but then, what does he know?], but see the answer for yourself at Magister et Mater's post, "Sex, historians, and assumptions."

The Tiny Shriner has to confess something: does anyone do professional "problems" and "dilemmas" and "questions" within medieval studies and academic life more generally better than Dr. Virago? Probably not, and it's worth sharing here more than one of her recent posts, as well as the responses she often inspires in other corners of the academic blogosphere: so, regarding what kind of "life" it is, and what kind of "work" we do within a humanities department, check out "From Dr. Virago's e-mail inbox," as well as caught in the snide's response, "On Teaching, Research, and the Academic Class System." Equally interesting is Dr. Virago's response to the "Why I Teach Literature" meme: "Why I Teach Medieval Literature," and also Matthew Gabriele's contribution to this discusson over at Modern Medieval and Larry Swain's at The Ruminate. Our very own Mary Kate Hurley had an early volley in this meme over at her blog Old English in New York. Finally, and ever more recently, Dr. Virago has sparked a lively discussion on publishing and visibility within medieval studies, to which we at In The Middle have responded here. And just so we don't think it's always about "us," Dr. Virago also had a lovely and moving [if brief] post recently about remembrance, Chaucer, and the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University.

Did they have "fan fiction" in the Middle Ages? Carl Pyrdum at Got Medieval has some thoughts on that. Might it be true that, after the passing of the Pax Romana, there was "no catastrophic break, rather antiquity faded into the medieval period seamlessly and qualitatively life went on"? Check out Razib's answer in "The Material Consequence of the Pax Romana" at the group weblog Gene Expression. How weird can the intersection between the medieval and modern get? The state of Arizona is interested in building a moat to keep out Mexican immigrants, that's how weird. Do societies really "evolve"? Phil Paine says that when we think so, we're "Barking Up the Wrong Tree." Is the so-called "Secret Gospel of Mark" a "find or a forgery"? Thoughts on Antiquity shares an interesting panel discussion on the subject. What happens to our books when we're dead and gone? Mary Beard has some answers in "Dead Men's Books," but be forewarned: it isn't all pretty. Wait, didn't we say above we're taking our leave of morbidity and turning away from the icky dead? So let's stick with Mary Beard, who is usually fun, and ask, "What Made the Romans Laugh?" But be forewarned [again]: you may not get the joke. Finally, the Tiny Shriner would like to say that he always wanted more sex out of the Gospel of Philip, and now, thanks to Philip Harland, he's got it. Yes, this is a good place to stop.

The Tiny Shriner Review, Issue #2: Things that Are [Almost] Funny

When not occupying his usual spot on J.J. Cohen's occasionally flooded office windowsill, the Tiny Shriner [not to be confused with Travelocity.com's gnome] surfs the blogosphere looking for interesting threads and conjunctions. But first, the Tiny Shriner agreed to pass along an intereresting moment of convergence [or is it synchronicity?] between BABEL and Michael Crichton, which he and I, following Karl's injunction, thought might be funny, in a trans-species kind of way. This past October, when the BABEL Working Group was in Oxford, MS at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association, one of their invited speakers, Deirdre Joy, who is a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health in the Labaratory of Malaria and Vector Research, delivered a paper, "The Planet of the Apes Comes to Mind," in which she informed us that,

In 2001 a paper was published in Science in which human brain stem cells were grafted into the brains of fetal monkeys. Subsequently, a working group was convened to consider the ethical implications of such studies and the findings were published in Science in 2005. The working group unanimously rejected ethical objections grounded on unnaturalness or crossing species boundaries. A recent National Academy report notes the notion that there are fixed species boundaries is not well supported in science or philosophy.

They agreed that the central issue is whether introducing human cells into nonhuman primate (NHP) brains raises questions about moral status. One conceivable result of human-HNP neural grafting is that the resulting creature will develop humanlike cognitive capacities relevant to moral status. How does that change our moral obligations towards them? To the extent that a NHP attains those capacities through neural grafting, that creature must be held in correspondingly high moral standing. (Which I suppose might include not having to undergo neural grafting).

The criteria deemed plausible and widely accepted for determining moral status were mental capacity such as the ability to feel pleasure and pain, language, rationality, richness of relationships. But there’s a problem here, acknowledged by the working group - establishing whether and in what ways engrafted animals undergo cognitive or behavioral changes requires an understanding of what the normal range is for a particular NHP species. But we really don’t know. The report concedes that, “Even if we observe what appears to be more humanlike capacities in an engrafted animal, we may be unable either to establish whether capacities are outside of the normal range of that species or to interpret the moral meaning of observed changes.”

As the Tiny Shriner himself concedes, in such difficult ethical dilemmas as these, we must turn to the fiction writer. It appears our wait is already over, as Michael Crichton's new novel, NEXT, the promotional tagline for which is "welcome to our genetic world--fast, furious, and out of control," in addition to a main plotline about a cancer patient, Frank Burnet, who is being hunted down by a biotech company who wants his rare cancer-fighting cells, includes the following side-plots:

Tourists in Sumatra are cursed in fluent French and Dutch by an orangutan that has human genes, the result of an experiment barred in Europe. A transgenic parrot named Gerard embarrasses people by reproducing the words they say and the sounds they make during illicit love scenes. A UC San Diego scientist, Henry Kendall, learns that sperm he donated to a federal primate research center in Maryland has produced a son, a 4-year-old transgenic chimpanzee named Dave. Dave is scheduled to be terminated — this experiment too was illegal — but Kendall sneaks him out of the facility, takes him home and tries to raise him as a normal child, though schoolmates call him "Monkeyboy" and a passing farmer sizes him up as stoop labor. Advertisers dream of implanting their messages in genetically altered fish and animals.

Since Karl has been asking us to think about humor, is it just me and the Tiny Shriner, or is the above really, really funny? Or, scary [as Crichton would likely have it]? In other, related news, I think we can go ahead and laugh at Crichton's vision of the future [present?], since Richard Dawkins has finally decided to make it [almost] definitive: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God.

Got medieval, anyone? Still trying to stay in Karl's humor groove, we note that over at Geoffrey Chaucer's blog, the apparently self-styled medievalist rapper Baba Brinkman, who created The Rap Canterbury Tales, has absolutely no sense of humor at all. Meanwhile, Glaukopidos is laughing at Britney Spears reflecting on Antigone, among other things. JKW of Pistols in the Pulpit has finally posted his 2007 Dead List, which for some, including JKW, may be funny. And Margaret Soltan over at University Diaries lets us know that Christopher Hitchens has decided women are not funny at all, which Prof. Soltan finds amusing. The Tiny Shriner is not laughing. The Tiny Shriner is also hoping that Pete Doherty, as JKW surmises, will not die in 2007, as that would leave Kate Moss all alone with no one to behave badly with and look good together while doing it.

Tiny Shriner Review: Rainy Day Edition

The Tiny Shriner gazes down from his active water feature on JJC's window ledge, piercing the electrons of the internet with his diminutive Eye of Sauron.

He couldn't write worse prose if he tried to inscribe miserabler prose. Sadly, he composes this wretched prose without really trying.

But enough that is prosaic. Let's get back to the rainy day, as storm systems move across DC, dropping buckets of water and reverberating with rumbles of thunder that sound vaguely like "Alberto" "scandal" "subpoena" "resignation" and "Paul Dundes Wolfowitz."

What could be wetter than a mermaid? Actually, what happens when a mermaid sprouts legs and walks away from her aqueous existence? Check out Coffee and Critique for a slightly acidic but fair trade cup of analysis: Getting to the Bottom of the Little Mermaid. You will also be enlightened into the mysteries of the dinglehopper.

End of the year grading got you down? Well, the whole process will come speedily alive if one of your students threatens to sue! Delaying on finding entertaining ways to procrastinate instead of grading papers? (Sometimes our repetitious prose is so redundant we chuckle even as we type it.) Check out the Google referral links to this or any other blog. Machina Memorialis did, and discovered the Tiny Shriner's second favorite type of chat room (Tiny's most favorite focuses upon the sexual proclivities of gnomes.) If you prefer your erotic musings to be more medieval in their leanings, read the dapper Dr. Richard Nokes on Charlemagne's tawdry tangle with Shirley MacLaine. Or his link to a codpiece video.

Did you know that in the Middle Ages what we know was told to us by the church? And that nowadays what we know is told to us by aggregates of public opinion? Well, you will know these facts if you read Larry Sanger's essay at The Edge (Sanger is a co-founder of Wikipedia, an online resource that suffers the serious lacuna of having no entry for "Tiny Shriner"). Ironically, though, Sanger's piece is a traditional single author essay that tells you what you know and how you will know it while arguing that wikis and aggregates tell you what you know and how you know it.

Speaking of making things up, Dr. Virago is claiming she ran the Boston Marathon. Yeah, yeah Rosie Ruiz, we know you did. Just like JJC just got back from helping Stephen Hawking on his space flight. Medievalists exert themselves by lugging around Latin dictionaries. In cases of extreme emergency, they get up enough forward momentum to shamble. They do not run.

Finally, the Tiny Shriner wishes Stephanie Trigg a safe trip home. Her post from London captured well a familiar yearning that seems to haunt the last days of a trip abroad.

[For previous editions of the Tiny Shriner review, look here, here and here]

And the Votes are In!

(a small victory montage for Tiny)

by Mary Kate Hurley

One week ago, we asked our ITM readers this question: With which ITM blogger do you most self-identify?

And, in an overwhelming victory, despite some questionable campaign tactics, the Tiny Shriner, though last among us in height, towers over the other ITM co-bloggers in stature among the reading public, proving what I've always believed: Everyone can identify with the Tiny Shriner.

The final results:

The Tiny Shriner: 38% (37 votes)
J J Cohen: 17% (17 votes)
Eileen Joy: 17% (17 votes)
Karl Steel: 12% (12 votes)
Mary Kate Hurley: 12% (12 votes)

total votes cast: 95

Long live the Tiny Shriner! Let us not be short in praising his virtues.

(the ITM co-bloggers pose with the Tiny Shriner)

The Tiny Shriner's Kzoo Adventure I

I wish that I could announce that the Tiny Shriner is an engaging travel companion, but the truth is that he is rather high maintenance.

You'd think that our blog mascot, someone who spends most of his life as part of the natural water feature in my office staring out the window from a ledge where he might see the occasional Pope process but otherwise not moving around too much (there are exceptions), would be rather sedate and easily pleased. Wrong on both counts.

Tiny was not at all happy that we took Southwest airlines to Detroit, mainly because they do not offer first class seating. In fact they do not offer much besides a small package of small peanuts, which they lob at you from quite some distance. Tiny didn't like it either when the a nearby wailing baby attempted to use him as a pacifier. In the photo to the left you will glimpse Tiny sourly contemplating some cumulus clouds, wishing for an airborne martini.

Things didn't get much better when we arrived in Detroit. I'd reserved a compact car, and it turned out to be an ivory colored PT Cruiser. Tiny kept calling the car the "PT Barnum" because (he says) it is so small that it must be a clown car. I reminded him that clowns are in fact significantly larger in their dimensions than he is, and that a Jestermobile would in fact offer plenty of space for him. My observations failed to improve his mood significantly, especially because it was now getting late and he had had enjoyed no lunch, no dinner and so far no drinks. When he seemed about to have hissy fit about the lack of a Mercedes or Lexus, I threatened to attach him to the "PT Barnum" as its hood ornament. He sulked but got inside, and we commenced the two hour drive. Do I need to add that we fought over which radio station to listen to? I was intrigued by an NPR story about six year olds who believe themselves born into the wrong body, "gender disorders" versus "transgenderism." Tiny wanted to listen to some inane Top 40 station blasting Celine Dion. I considered abandoning him in a hay stack.

So we were both in pissy moods when we finally arrived in Kalamazoo. Imagine our surprise when the ordinary hotel room we reserved at the Radisson was upgraded -- for no particular reason other than Tiny flashed his winning painted-on smile in the check-in line, and I mentioned to the woman at the desk that she was doing an admirable job of remaining cheerful despite an onslaught of guests more high maintenance than Tiny. So now he and I have so much space that we might never see each other while rooming together. Click on the picture and see if you can spot the Shriner.

Tiny has had a long day and is very tired. Here he is trying to find his sleep number in a bed that could fit all the ITM co-bloggers. I'm not sure I have the heart to tell him that there is a BABEL karaoke party tonight.

Start Voting for Me or the Tiny Shriner Dies

by J J Cohen

Some of you readers think it is amusing to self-identify with a plastic figurine with a legendary penchant for booze, rude comments and sensual indulgence over a tenured professor of English who has superpowers and can fly (<-- formulation taken from the fantasy world of Katherine Cohen, age 4). Well, stop it. Because as you can see from the photo I just took, the Tiny Shriner is in peril: should you continue to vote for him over me, he will be plunged seven stories to his painful demise.

Think I'm kidding? Try me.



[Figure 1: Tiny Shriner suspended. Note expression of shock and dismay on face. Fortunately for him, his fez is glued in place.]

Objects, Love, Madness, Queer Muses, and Problematic Pets: Where Will You Be At Kalamazoo 2011?

Figure 1. the Tiny Shriner "in his cups" at yet another medieval studies conference (July 2009)

by EILEEN JOY

The Kalamazoo Congress is a ridiculously large event and it is nearly impossibly to get to everything you want to get to and to see everyone you want to see. I thought I would share here with everyone my own preliminary itinerary, and as long as I don't pass out under some table somewhere after too many martinis early on during the Congress, then this is where you can find me [and it would be lovely to know where the rest of you might be, if you'd like to share]. I also misplaced my program and thought this would be a nifty way to remind myself where I am supposed to be [since I can access In The Middle in special mobile format on my iPhone]!

THURSDAY, May 12th
10:00-11:30 am
Fetzer 1005

Session 21: Objects, Networks, Materiality (Roundtable)
Sponsor: Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute, George Washington University
Presider: Jeffrey Cohen
Speakers: Laurie Finke, Julie Orlemanski, Valerie Allen, Elizabeth Blake, Kellie Robertson, and Lowell Duckert

*I'll be podcasting this session; some may want to know that at the same time that nets, ice ages, and things without faces are being discussed in Session 21, in Session 5 [Valley II, Rm. 202], Ruth Evans, Tony Hasler, David Hadbawnik, Chris Taylor, and Kate Koppelman will be throwing down with Medieval Lacan

1:30 pm-3:00 pm
Valley III, Exhibits
Myra Seaman and I will be at the Palgrave Macmillan booth in the Books Exhibits, so this is a good time to come and talk to us about possible future special issues of the journal.

*I would like to also point out here that if I could bi-locate, I would also be in Valley II, Rm. 202 so I could attend Medieval Badiou, a panel discussion organized by Ruth Evans and featuring remarks by Eleanor Kaufman, Tony Hasler, Erin Labbie, Kevin Spicer, and George Edmondson. If I could tri-locate, then I would also be in Valley I, Rm. 110 in order to hear Amy Hollywood talk about "Secular Sin."

3:30-7:00 pm

likely sneaking around trying to figure out where the Tiny Shriner hid the bourbon bottle

7:30-9:00 pm Bernhard 204
Session 164: On the Love of Commentary (In Love)
Presider: Nicola Masciandaro
Sponsor: Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary
Speakers: Michael Moore, Anna Klosowska, Valerie Wilhite, Eileen Joy, Karmen Mackendrick

*I'll be podcasting this session; and speaking of Glossator, check out their new issue on Occitan Poetry, co-edited by Anna Klosowska and Valerie Wilhite, and featuring essays by Cary Howie, Virginie Greene, Bill Burgwinkle, Marion Coderch, Huw Grange, and Simone Marchesi, among others.

FRIDAY, May 13th

10:00-11:30 am Schneider 1360
Session 217: The Transcultural Middle Ages
Sponsor: postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
Co-Presiders: Laurie Finke and Martin Shichtman
Speakers: Lydia Fletcher, Jonathan Hsy, Su Fang Ng, Matthew Boyd Goldie, Heather Bamford

*in the spirit, again, of tri-location, I shall send avatars to Valley II, Rm. 205 for Problematic Pets in the Middle Ages, where our very own Karl Steel will be talking about "dead animals and lost humans," and also to Valley I, Rm. 100 for Medieval Taxonomies, organized by Emily Steiner, and where our very own Jeffrey will reveal to the world whether or not rocks have souls; I would also like to point out here that, although I will not be in attendance, "Death by Hot Tub" [Session 209] wins for best session title in this time slot, and hell, maybe for the whole conference

1:30-3:00 pm
Bernhard 159

Session 276: Madness, Methodology, Medievalisms (Roundtable)
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group
Presider: Eileen Joy
Speakers: Mo Pareles, Jennifer Little, Nicola Masciandaro, and Eileen Joy (Respondent)

3:30-5:00 pm Bernhard 105

Session 332: Queering the Muse: Medieval Poetry and Contemporary Poetics (Roundtable)
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group
Presider: Anna Klosowska
Speakers: Daniel Remein, David Hadbawnik, Sean Reynolds, Chris Piuma, Christopher Roman, Katharine Jager

5:15 pm Valley II, Rm. 204

Business Meeting: BABEL Working Group [this meeting is completely open to anyone interested in BABEL and who would also like to help us discuss session ideas for next year's Congress; the Tiny Shriner will be mixing miniature bourbon cocktails for all comers]

9:00 pm-midnight-ish
The Eccentric Cafe, Bell's Brewery
355 E. Kalamazoo Avenue

Everyone is invited to join BABEL at Bell's to celebrate the launch of punctum books: spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion.

SATURDAY, May 14th

10:00-11:30 am
Schneider 2335

tough choice; still trying to decide between:

Session 389: Surface versus Symptomatic Readings
Sponsor: Exemplaria: A Journal in Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Co-Presiders: Patricia Clare Ingham and Elizabeth Scala
Speakers: Ruth Evans, Mark Miller, Bruce Holsinger

Session 393: Glossing the Past in the Present (Roundtable)
Presider: Dana Oswald
Speakers: Kimberly Bell, Justin Brent, Betsy McCormick, Christine Neufeld, and Teresa Reed

11:30-3:30 pm
recuperate

3:30-5:00 pm Fetzer 1010

Session 471: Beowulf and History (Panel Discussion)
Presider: Diana Coogle
Speakers: Eileen Joy, Thomas D. Hill, James W. Earl

5:00 pm onwards into the night/morning
general debauchery

SUNDAY, May 15th

drive home very early in the morning with apologies to all those giving papers in Sunday sessions; let me just say here that this will be the first Kalamazoo Congress since 2001 at which I do not attend a Sunday session [or two], so I hope I can forgiven, especially since I leave again for the University of Copenhagen 3 days after returning home, where I give another paper at this conference.

And one last thing: bring your umbrella. And remember to also bring your best chain-mail dress:

Tiny Shriner's Kzoo Adevnture, Fin

So Tiny and I are sitting at the Detroit airport, waiting for the plane that will speed us back to DC and the ordinary world. He's sipping a caramel macchiato ("short" of course) and I am just realizing that this is the most solitude we've had since Wednesday. I am looking forward to returning home, of course, but I miss the conviviality of Kalamazoo as well.

Yesterday was our much anticipated ITM Bloggers Day Trip to Celery World, an expanse of celery and bike trails that can be described best as either "green" or "stalky." The sky was that crisp blue that holds sway only on perfect days, and the pathetic fallacy was in full swing as we walked nature trails, pointing out wildlife to each other ("A duck!" "A goose!" "A squirrel!" "A toddler on training wheels!" "Celery!"), and for a few leisurely hours reveled in how much we enjoy each other's company. Tiny's legs are too stubby for him to keep up with us, so he climbed into Mary Kate's purse and peered in regal splendor from its outer pocket. As we left he insisted on riding a tractor. Though the Celery Interpretive Center was closed for the season and its gate locked, Eileen declared (in typical Eileen fashion) "Fences are for climbing!" and spryly sprung over the top, Tiny clutched in hand. He enjoyed the tractor but admits he is a city boy ... and let's face it, even celery towers over the guy.

Later in the day, in the midst of lunch, he climbed to the top of a soda bottle and proceeded to lecture us on how repulsed he was to learn that the celery in his Bloody Marys grows in the ground, and bugs touch it. Luckily Karl was eating a sandwich nearby, so he didn't get to deliver too long a screed before hopping from the bottle top due to whizzing mustard.

Tiny was exhausted, so he missed the panels and the 5 PM wine hour. He wants you to know, though, that the winners of this year's Best Coiffed Medievalist were announced at that libation celebration. Among the men the unanimous victor was Dan Remein, who thanks his stylist Kelly. In the women's category we had an UNPRECEDENTED three way tie (it was a good year for coiffure): Christina Fitzgerald, Betsy McCormick, and Christine Neufeld (reconfirmed after numerous recounts and brief hanging chad scandal). Congratulations to all, and remember: you are not a serious medievalist unless you possess serious hair.

The Tiny Shriner thanks all the friends who made this conference such a good one. He looks forward to returning to his ledge for a few weeks, though, and dozing away the patina of learnedness he accidentally accumulated.

Thank goodness he blacked out after one drink.

Despite what you might have read at Gawker, we ITM co-bloggers actually enjoy each other's company and don't refer to each other via abusive epithets when out of ear shot. (While it is true that I call Karl "The Scold," I call him that to his face. He has in fact been quite scoldy to me this conference).

We ITMers and a cohort of our BABEL supporters had dinner together last night. The repast commenced badly, with the Tiny Shriner demanding quite imperiously

1. to be removed from my coat pocket
2. to sit at the table with the adults
3. to have a booster seat so that he could see something other than those areas of human bodies that used to get medieval monks' knickers all knotted cowls all crumpled
4. that he be given more of a say in blog content
   

He also kept winking at Eileen, and I could tell she was getting very uncomfortable -- he muttered something about being better than any damn gnome. Tiny then went on to lecture us about how our readership isn't as high as it could be, how our posts are predictable and do not feature Tiny Shriners nearly enough, how if he hears one more time how much we love each other he is going to hurl Tiny Chunks all over our oven roasted garlic appetizer spread. When he began to implore us seriously to start featuring "All Naked Tiny Shriner Tuesdays," we knew we had to act.

MKH gave him a glass a wine. He drank with gusto, reeled for a few minutes, and .... well, let's just say that dinner was a lot quieter after that.

From the Tiny Shriner's Twitter Feed

by J J Cohen

Yes we know, not everyone had the time and inclination and wherewithal to follow the Tiny Shriner's Twittered adventures at Kalamazoo. Below are some of his favorite tweets from the conference. Enjoy.

-----------
TinyShriner ....

is not sure which ITM co-blogger he finds more repugnant

wants you to know that he was born to Twitter. OK, he was poured into a mold in China by child laborers, but same thing.

is itchy and would like to remove his fez, but fears his head is hollow.

Got the invitation to the BABEL party (misaddressed to JJC). Going. Sweet. Hope not to vomit in fez this year.

is not pleased to be on that damn ITM blog so much. They should live their own lives, not vicarious bon vivanting via me.

was discovered rubbing himself with Renuzit® air freshener gel in the Super Odor Neutralizer scent. Is that so wrong?

snuggly in a bookbag munching Breathsavers like donuts

wonders what his shelf life is, because he has lived much of his life upon a shelf

wonders if the lascivious antelope on JJC's shelf will miss him while he is gone to Kzoo

wants you to know he types by jumping up and down on the keyboard. It ain't easy, esp. when the martini spills.

REALLY misses the Lascivious Antelope

is packing his tighty whities.

has decided to mail all new Twitter followers tiny plastic fezes.

warning: a tiny plastic fez that you may receive as a gift will bind to your skull and cannot be removed, even surgically

The surgeon general has determined that plastic fez wearing may be injurious to your cerebellum.

is ALMOST finished packing. Final count: 17 small suits, 33 miniature plastic fezzes, 6 photos of Kate Moss, and a cattle prod

@jeffreyjcohen dude where is my fez cleaning brush?

is in a snit. He may not go to Kzoo after all.

@jeffreyjcohen NO, you had it last

@jeffreyjcohen your ability to annoy is matched only by your propensity to irritate

@jeffreyjcohen never mind, found it, we r cool

is going to Kzoo after all

Landed in detroit

awaits his luggage while the UMD delegation has departed for rental car lot

is hellbent on beating Theresa Colletti to Kzoo. She has a head start.

may have to sabotage TC's car

Medievalist Highway Bumpercars

at Radisson, using coffee mug as jacuzzi. Beat TC -- woot!

feels like the bean burrito he ate on the plane is never going to leave his GI system

is happy to be at the Zoo again. The air is crisper, the hair taller, the grunge more scabrous.

Thinks Eileen is less charming than she thinks she is

failed in objective (there is some vomit in my fez this morn)

poisoned the olive in JJC's martini; now he thinks he has swine flu

can't seem to find the turquoise fez he packed; will go with the burgundy one today

can't seem to get his tie in the Windsor knot he prefers. Stupid clip on.

just ingested a scone roughly seven times his size

dwells at the gates of difference

BABEL party just ended not sure where I am

woke up in bed with Eileen Joyless, Stephanie Trigg, Dr Virago and a tall guy from the Babel party -- not sure of his name

glistens with day old Renuzit

has been spitting in the cups at the Kzoo wine hours, hoping to give everyone Shrine Flu.

dreamt he met a Tiny Anchoress last night

woke up in a champagne flute not his own

would attend the Kzoo dance tonight, but finds the plastic base to which he is melded an impediment.

declares the Best Kzoo ever then packs his spare fezzes to head home

wants you to know that he attended your Kzoo panel. Though he will quibble with your translations, it mainly pleased him.

wishes you safe travels homeward. Life after Kzoo = falling action and anemic dénouement.

is home.

realizes he left a chartreuse fez in Kalamazoo

Festive Friday: Spout a Gnome

by J J Cohen

It's Friday. Your neurons are not firing with the precision they possessed earlier in the week. Your "To Do" list hovers at the same number of items that clogged Monday. That essay which is two weeks past deadline is moving towards three. Your fez needs cleaning.

We know how you feel. But we also want to say: snap out of it! Stop loving yourself so much! Why is it always about you, you, you?

For this Festive Friday, we invite you to spout a gnome. No, not "a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man." Keep that kind of gnome to yourself. By gnome we mean "a short pithy saying expressing a general truth": we're talking wise, not wizened. A kind of Old English-y gnome. Given that aphorisms tend to be highly conventional, we propose the following rule for its articulation: your gnostic utterance must follow the formula "Medieval Studies needs less X and more Y." Example: "Medieval Studies needs less Charlotte Allen and more Tiny Shriner."* You may then follow up with another maxim that is sillier. Mine: "A Tiny Shriner belongs on a bar stool, old and proud of his martini." Got it? And bonus points if you can identify the actual medieval proverb that I warped to create that last one.

Oh, and you are not allowed to think too much before you spout your gnomes. They must spout quickly or they must not spout at all.

*a scholar of proverbial utterances would know that this formulation equates to "Medieval Studies needs less delight in policing its enjoyments, and more creativity in its enjoyment."

Guess Who Else is Going to Kalamazoo?

Look who received an invitation to the K'zoo BABEL party.

The artsy postcard emblazoned with the Official BABEL Image arrived wrapped in an inconspicuous envelope. On the back is all the top secret information about hwere, when, and which password to utilize. Though addressed to me, I know how these things work, and promptly presented the postcard to the Tiny Shriner, its truly intended recipient. In the picture at left you can see him perched upon his ledge, party invitation in hand. Behind him is the framed T-O map he has been consulting in order to find exactly where Kalamazoo is located (much to his surprise, it is NOT the navel of the world).

Carbon footprint be damned, Tiny will be boarding that plane with me. It's Southwest, so first class is not a possibility ... but the Tiny Shriner is used to slumming it.

The Tiny Shriner is Your Facebook Friend

by J J Cohen

Or at least your frenemy.

If you haven't friended (or frenemied him) yet, you may do so here. Don't forget that he is also on Twitter, and the Tiny Shriner Adoration Society is now 42 poobahs strong. Via BABEL, he also hawks merchandise.

The Tiny Shriner Goes to Kalamazoo

by J J Cohen

The space on my office tchoke shelf ordinarily occupied by the Befezzed One is vacant. Examine the photograph at left and you'll see how forlorn the Lascivious Antelope has become. No one lingers to play with the mini boomerang, or the tiny tea plate imprinted with the Queen Mum's head. No one rolls the Ganesha Disc of Doom around the shelf. The gargoyles are melancholic in their solitiude, while the champagne-stained mug that Tiny uses as his jacuzzi stands so empty that its utter vacancy has become a kind of black hole of existential gravity.

This disappearance from his perch surveying Pennsylavnia Avenue can mean only one thing: the Shriner has left the building. Like thousands of medievalists from around the globe, Tiny is headed to Kalamazoo.

If you can't come this year, don't worry: the Shrinester has informed me that he is going to be sending constant tweets of his whereabouts and observations. If you are on Twitter, follow him. If you aren't, you can subscribe to his Twitter account's RSS feed, or you can read his musings in the box we added to the righthand side of the blog, or you can patiently await our posting of his musings here at ITM as a blog post.

Safe travels to those headed to Michigan. See you soon!

"Bodies, Embodiments, Becomings" Conference: Saint Louis University, Oct. 2-4

by EILEEN JOY

I have finally finished assembling the program for the 34th annual meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association [theme: Bodies, Embodiments, Becomings], to be held at Saint Louis University from October 2nd through 4th, and I'm quite proud of it, if I do say so myself. Jeffrey, Steven Kruger, and Amy Hollywood are the two plenary and featured speakers, respectively, and the BABEL Working Group has organized four sessions, including two organized by Jessica Rosenfeld on "Eros and Phenomenology," featuring papers by myself, Cary Howie, Anna Klosowska, Tony Hasler, Jessica R., Lara Farina, and Nicola Masciandaro; one organized by Liza Blake on "Bodies in Between," that features papers from some of our favorite people [Liza, Mary Kate, and Dan Remein]; and one organized by Myra Seaman on "The Place of the Medieval in the Present," featuring papers by Myra, Betsy McCormick, and Justin Brent, with Anne Clark Bartlett as Respondent. I also assembled, with individual abstracts that had been submitted a wicked panel on "Waste, Excrement, Ingestion, and Meat," featuring our very own Karl, Michael Johnson, Susan Morrison, and Fabienne Michelet. And I could go on and on, but I won't, so just check out the program, and ask yourself, "what am I doing the first week of October that is more important than this?" Gentleman, get out your Tiny Shriner buttons and affix them to your lapels, and I'll see you in Saint Louis.

Conference Program: 34th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association

As to where to get your Tiny Shriner buttons and other BABEL and SEMA conference paraphernalia, go here.

Speaking of Violet Saunders: The Tiny Shriner Review Late Edition

Earlier today, in The Tiny Shriner Review, we learned that Violet Saunders has decided that, "I don't 'do' the Future." Say it ain't so, Violet! Okay, all kidding aside, on Violet's LiveJournal, she had this to say:

We do not always plot our futures. Things happen by accident, in defiance of our best laid plans. However well we think we know the past, the future is impossible to predict. There is no linear connection between the two. I abhor teleological thinking which tries to make such simple linearities between past, present and future.

Neither future nor past exist of course except in our imaginations, when most often we use them to justify what we do in the present. This leaves me with a dilemma. My fascination with the past is in the differences it offers us, in the disjunctures, in its deadends and failures. In the potential is offers for alternative presents.

A famous blog repeatedly asks: 'How are we humanists going to to contribute to the sum happiness of the future?' But I have trouble with this. Because I just don't know understand what this Future they keep referring to is. I must have a few genes missing somewhere.

Reading list please?

I posted this on her Journal:

Okay, Violet, don't give up on the future yet, even if, as you rightly suspect, traditional teleologies are somewhat bankrupt. It may be that making a decision to think about the future is an ethical choice--i.e., I can only inhabit a certain present [albeit, that present is mainly defined by the continual traffic in my brain between "that already happened" & "that's where I think I'm going"], and I can certainly just concentrate on inhabiting that present in a kind of fullness of awareness of "nows" strung along a continuum, but if I want to be ethical, and think about others, not just those alongside me, but those behind me, and even up ahead of me, I can't discard the future. Think of Walter Benjamin's statement, in his "Theses for a Philosophy of History," that the claims of the past upon the present cannot be "settled cheaply," and also, that those in the past are always turning [leaning] toward "the sun that is rising in the sky of history."

Of course, this is a mainly too-brief and summary answer, and I actually think Violet's assertion that neither past nor future exist, except in our imaginations, is really important, and we should maybe spend some time here debating that assertion. I have two minds on the subject. The first says, "Duh! Of course we're always inventing the past and present--the former is over and gone, and the latter is not yet here--therefore, the past and future are mainly what we need them to be at any given moment and are essentially ungraspable." My second mind says, "Just because the past and future are ungraspable by me, at any given present moment, does not negate their very real and materially vibrant existence, either just behind or just up ahead of me." And I think, further, that striving to encounter, and even "reckon" the materality of both the past and present [either through a kind of historical "accounting" or by actions, especially loving actions, designed to affect certain forward motions, respectively], could be very important ethical gestures par excellence. If I have any secretly heretical notions on the subject, it's that the future may matter a hell of a lot more than the past, and that the past can even, occasionally, be a heavy drag on the future's progressive momentum.

Reading list? To hell with a reading list, Violet! You're better than that! Look around you. Everywhere you go, the past and future demand your attention. Try to take every step as if you were a newborn. It's impossible, isnt it? Walk down the street and consider every passerby--where have they been, and what might they be--to you? Every moment is fraught with both history and the possibility of what you might have been, and that, my friend, is the future. No books required.

The Tiny Shriner Review

being a new feature in which one of this blog's many mascots surfs the web and blogosphere to tell us what is new, amusing, worth reading

While Anhaga has been thinking about how to translate the future -- even how to (as Ursula LeGuin asked) translate from languages that don't yet exist -- Violet Saunders has become quite disenchanted by futurity. She writes: A famous blog repeatedly asks: 'How are we humanists going to to contribute to the sum happiness of the future?' But I have trouble with this. Because I just don't know understand what this Future they keep referring to is. We at In the Middle write: We're FAMOUS??!! OMG, who knew.

But then we add that we're not so sure what the future is either, since -- following Brian Greene's reasoned analysis -- we recently had to admit somewhere in the comment section that time is a loaf of bread, and movement through time is the illusion of this baguette being sliced. Only it remains whole. Oh yes, and we probably live on the moldy crust.

Creationists are opening a museum. With dinosaurs. This allows the English to poke fun at dumb Americans. And make us seem scary. Which we suppose we are. We suggest that creationists start reading The Edge, perhaps making a first stop at Stuart Kauffman's commensensical Beyond Reductionism. Kauffman, like we at In the Middle, is a big fan of wonder. So, in a spirit of wonder, we wonder if creationists believe that medieval knights perhaps jousted against Tyrannosauri reges? (We at In the Middle are so snooty about our Latin that we insist on the proper pluralization of "T. rex"). And perhaps these dragons dinosaurs breathed fire and flew? Like monkeys used to do?

Speaking of creation, a new medieval blog has appeared (Fiat blogus! Et blogus erat), combining Sarah McLachlan with Yeats and Lacan: yes, Slouching towards extimacy, we get the references. Speaking of a postmodern chanteuse for the masses, Dr. Virago gives us breaking Britney Spears news. Apparently she was married, and now she is not married. Or something. The good doctor's Liberalpalooza post is also well worth perusing (and no, "liberalpalooza" is not the sound a whoopee cushion makes in a Blue State). [footnote: for more on Whoopee Cushions, read this, where at 8:15 you will find a connection between flatulence pillows and the Grim Reaper] Machina memorialis meanwhile seems to be composed by Super Medievalist Grad Student: John Walter presents at conferences, reads blogs, teaches, applies for jobs, works in an archive, dissertates, and blogs about it. Then again maybe that makes him Ordinary Grad Student, these days.

Scott Eric Kaufman's nose is itchy. Scratching it caused a brief eruption of genital-centered conversation at In the Middle. Confessing Mermaid is vacillating between Buffy and Pliny, while ADM keeps using the word NaBloPoMo, which makes our heads hurt and sounds vaguely like profanity (well, NaBloPoMo you too, ADM!). She also seems to be poking fun of our raw and cooked metaphor stolen from Le Bérubé.

Barbarian update: Capital One has yet to respond to our letter. The late payment notices, however, are unaffected.

And that's it from the Tiny Shriner, whose mood has been sunny since Election Day. Please add your feedback to the comments, and let us know what has been missed.

memories of Kzoo, 2011

MEMSI panel

by J J Cohen

In no particular order, some images and affects from an intense four days at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

• I flew from BWI to Detroit with Liza Blake, Lowell Duckert, and the Tiny Shriner. Southwest had given us some drink coupons, so Tiny enjoyed a gin and tonic during the short flight. We rendezvoused with Karl at the airport, then proceeded in what we called our clown car of scholars across Michigan. We raced another such clown car, and even tried to trick its occupants into thinking that we had arrived far ahead of them by texting pictures of a hotel bar in Chicago and telling them we were at the Radisson. Our inability to text images with any of us actually in them proved our undoing.
• As we entered the Kalamazoo city limits, our XM radio blared "You Can Go Your Own Way." Not much of a song, perhaps, but one you might recall from last year's post. It almost seemed too perfect ... and that is why during karaoke at Shakespeare's Pub that evening I was singing the hymn with Lowell and Dan Remein. But we were completely outshone by Air Supply's "I'm All Out of Love" as interpreted by Karl, backing vocals by Lowell.
• Sometimes I think that I should possess more dignity, and maybe even set a better example. I'm not sure from where that thought arrives, and fortunately it never lingers long.
• The GW MEMSI session on Thursday morning on "Objects, Agency and Materiality" was well attended: excellent presentations, lively audience, more to say than we could possibly fit into 90 minutes. Eileen was kind enough to record the conversation, so look for audio files soon.
• I had an unusual and severe bout of insomnia on Wednesday, so by 9 pm on Thursday (right after the "Commentary" session) I was ready to drop. I was back in my room by 9:30 and unable to leave. This marks a first for me, but I was sad to miss Lorraine Stock being awarded the first Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship that evening. 
• The next night, though, was the punctum books launch at Bells: a thronged and exuberant event. The festivities concluded with a feast of Chinese food delivered to the Radisson at 3:30 am, so maybe it is a good thing I got some sleep the previous night.
• Thursday afternoon was Bruce Holsinger and Andrew Coles' series of sessions on "Secularization." Unfortunately the room was far too small, and the talks coincided with the worst of the Kzoo weather: sweltering, humid, stagnant air. It was hard to concentrate, especially by the room's edge: if only these sessions had been in one of the newer buildings ...
• On Friday morning I delivered my paper on the souls of stones in a session on "Medieval Taxonomies" organized by Emily Steiner. Kellie Robertson did a good job of summing up he collective findings of the session when she spoke in the Q&A of taxonomy not as the power-driven control mechanism (as it always turns out to be in Foucauldian readings), but as a kind of messy and creative art. This panel had one of the most engaged audiences of any session I've attended at Kzoo, and there were many people there (about 70 by a quick count). Clearly Emily is on to something with this topic. Michelle Karnes and Claire Waters gave papers from which I learned a great deal. Chris Cannon canceled, so we each got an additional five minutes, and that made quite a difference: more leisurely exposition, more time to chew over our framings and findings.
• On Friday I also attended a poetry reading, mostly because I think so highly of Dan Remein. It was enjoyable to attend a different mode of presentation at this scholarly conference, and in fact that session lead naturally to the rich "Queering the Muse" panel directly afterwards.
• GW MEMSI sponsored a disaster plagued dinner Friday evening that included a monsoon, a restaurant that reserved a table for our large group for the wrong night, a relocation to its sister restaurant, free lobster fondue to apologize, and the most undercooked meal most of us had ever eaten. But there was prosecco, and the twelve of us, and the launch of punctum at Bells thereafter.
• We'd decided to stay up all night on Friday, but do you know what? Everything in Kalamazoo closes promptly at 2 am. If we hadn't been able to track down a Chinese resturant willing to deliver, we would have had to go to bed at 3:30 rather than eat spring rolls and friend rice in the mezzanine lobby of the Radisson as night became morning.
• After the well attended Exemplaria session on Saturday morning, and lunch at a nearby middle eastern restaurant, Lowell and I took off for a walk round the Celery Flats where the ITM bloggers spent their first real day together many moons ago. There isn't all that much to see here: some swamp, some trees, a creek, some birds. But getting away from the conference for a bit was envitalizing. As was the whiskey tasting we did when we returned in a secret and always empty bar that I will never tell anyone else about.
• Patty Ingham twice brought us around in conversations to a topic that is on many of our minds: how do we contextualize what we do within the current animus towards and cuts of scholarly endeavors, especially in the humanities? No easy answers to this one, but a reduction in available resources to many who'd come to the conference was palpable after even a few conversations: many people I know abbreviated their stays and watched their money very closely because so little was being reimbursed by their institution.
• Sunday was our early morning return to Detroit. Liza and Lowell snored in the backseat while Karl and I chatted about, well, everything, and the rain and wind slammed the car. On the plane flight home an idea for how to extend the MEMSI panel's conversation into the sphere of ecocriticism hit me as well.



a lesson from late night food delivery

• And speaking of ecocriticism ... someone peppered the conference with a flyer for a session on ecocretinism, complete with fabricated scholars and universities. It is probably the best joke I've seen worked at Kalamazoo.

More from me, and my fellow bloggers, soon. Those are some quick thoughts on a stormy DC Tuesday.

The Tiny Shriner pauses for refreshment

Bonnie Wheeler holding my handout

The BABEL Working Group is on Facebook

Figure 1. Tiny in his favorite position: upside-down in a pint glass [University of Leeds, July 2009]

by EILEEN JOY

Just a quick note to say that the BABEL Working Group is now on Facebook, and in addition to our regular website, this is just another way to keep track of the ongoing activities, publishing and other projects, and peripatetic wanderings over land and sea of the Group. Become a fan and we'll send you Tiny Shriner kisses, or Tiny high-fives, or coupons for half-off of Tiny sneers, if that's what you prefer. Plus, you'll be able to access all sorts of embarrassing photos of ITM bloggers, caught with Tiny in compromising positions all over the globe. Seriously, who doesn't want to see those?

BABEL Working Group on Facebook

Celery World, We Are Coming

Today the ITM Bloggers are taking their first annual daytrip. We'll pack into the PT Barnum, strap the Tiny Shriner to his booster seat, and drive to a nearby celery farm (which we have rechristened Celery World, making it seem more exciting than it actually likely will be).

I'm a little worried about Tiny, though. He stayed up far too late last night at the BABEL party. A small scandal is swirling around him: he was seen emerging from a closed coat closet with a well known medievalist who had been in the running for our annual Best Coiffed competition. Suddenly s/he had hair so rumpled that said medievalist was immediately disqualified.

I just found Tiny in my coffee mug, insisting it is a very compact jacuzzi. He is about to learn otherwise.