Thursday, May 03, 2007

From the desk of JJC

The following is excerpted from an official email that I sent yesterday. In all fairness to myself, I was replying to the minutes of a meeting of our graduate committee that did state that "all references to Prof. X's underwear have been omitted" from the transcript, and that the eventual ambition of the graduate committee was to take over the English department. [Prof X., I should add, is a member of the graduate committee; I suspect that he is the one who instigated the, um, Boxer Rebellion conversation -- and probably made the topic incredibly relevant to Shakespeare, somehow].

Dear Graduate Committee,

I read your meeting notes with interest. I would have read them with more interest had references to [Professor X's] undergarments not been deleted, since for a long time faculty members have been speculating on this intriguing issue.

I don't think anything you outline requires the bylaws to be changed (unless of course you are actually serious about your colonization ambitions; then the bylaws will need to be burned and [the Deputy Chair] and I will have to be hanged from the 7th floor windows) ...

Thanks for keeping me in the loop. I have a new office chair made of bungee cords that is fun to bounce upon, if you do take over the department in its entirety and grow bored of taunting the Office Manager.

Jeffrey

Ah, end of the term giddiness. I think we are all tackling too much work on too little sleep.

8 comments:

Jeffrey Cohen said...

OK, I just can't stop. Here is another:

Dear Faculty,

The Dean has asked me to pass along the list of all English Department faculty who will be attending the CCAS Graduation Celebration ... Would you email me immediately and let me know if you'll be joining me on stage in your lovely academic gown? (Contrary to any rumor you may have heard, this is the single day of the year on which I personally cross dress -- it's a showy crimson number that many of you have seen before).

bwhawk said...

Perhaps your next correspondence with the Graduate Committee should make subtle reference to their eventual need to lay siege to your office using trebuchets before they may fully take over the English department. That is, as long as you can keep getting away with these amusing additions to your emails.

Anonymous said...

Hmm. . . siege warfare is beginning to sound delightful! The funniest things I'm getting these days are all funny in an ironic, sad, WTF kind of way. Like a raging e-mail from an angry father (it would be impolitic to quote it here, but oh, my). Or a student who thinks that Ann Coulter is a reliable scholarly source for the history of the Crusades.

Happily, I'm looking forward to my own cross-dress fest tomorrow, with the myriad delights of K-zoo soon to follow!

Uh-oh--the Dean's office just phoned to warn me that the aforementioned father is on his way to campus, so I'm going to duck and cover now.

KT

N50 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Profane said...

Jeffrey - us Edinburgh folk are required to cross-dress for graduation ceremonies - whether we take the stage as a TRUE Scotsman is, however, something that we do our best to keep a secret. . .

History Geek said...

I've always suspected that the Professors were just as crazy as some of us students by semesters end.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Brandon: I'm not so attached to my office that I wouldn't vacate it before the trebuchets are arrived. Seriously, an offering of baked good would probably get me out of there.

KT: Ann Coulter is NOT a reliable source on the crusades??! Damn, I will be rewriting my K'zoo paper all weekend now.

Profane: Yes, some secrets are best kept, um, secret.

History Geek: isn't it a little humanizing to see that under our grave demeanor we academics have a small vein of humor?

Glaukôpis said...

I have *got* to stop reading your blog in the library.

And I want an office chair made of bungee cords . . .

So do you think they'd hang you from the 7th floor windows with the bungee cords from your office chair? Although, if you're already "in the loop," as you say . . .

Dammit, your loopiness is catching. :-P