Between the large number of classes I wound up teaching this past spring semester, and all the other craziness that’s been sideswiping me here in 2021, my ability to do research for my next book just hasn’t been what I want it to be. When I relaunched my Patreon last summer with an exclusive-content model, where a substantial amount of that content is going to be my extended thoughts about the books I’ve been reading, I vowed that I would read a minimum of five…
How YouTube Screws Small Creators (slippedisc.com)Victory Over False Copyright Claim! (The Piano Keys on youtube.com) I’ve been wanting to do more on my Twitch channel than just play video games for a while now. Some of the streamers I support on there do “chill streams,” where they write or craft or work on other things, while creating a welcoming atmosphere for others to do the same through music and casual conversation. That feels like something more suited to my skills (and desires) than playing video…
My last summer in Toledo, when I was staying in a friend’s guest room, may have been the last time in my life when I had an extended chance to get some rest. As I prepared for my move to Colorado later that year, I was dealing with so much emotional baggage that even on days when I didn’t have work, I still felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what I was about to do. Once I got to Colorado, of course, I set about…
As the end of a term approaches, I often tell my students about the inverse relationship between student stress and instructor stress that surrounds finals week. While students are busy cramming for exams and finishing final projects, we instructors are usually taking as much me-time as we can to help us recharge our batteries, because just as soon as our students finish all that final work, we’re called into action one last time to get everything graded, final grades calculated, and all the associated paperwork…
Jim Steinman: Tributes paid to ‘the Wagner of rock’ (yahoo.com) I will defend Mom to the ends of the earth on pretty much everything of consequence, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily share her taste when it comes to people and media. She had her share of crushes that I could never understand — William Shatner, Franco Harris, Kevin Nash — and although we shared a deep love for several musicians, we definitely had some favourites that were incomprehensible to the other. Mom was a…