Friday is upon us once again, and pumpkin spice season has already descended on the Ivory Tower Boiler Room… as evidenced by a lively discussion in one of our recent meetings about pumpkin spice vs apple as the better autumn flavor. Erika, who is usually the one encouraging us to “embrace the and” came down firmly on the apple side of things.
This week Andrew and Adam sit down with Karen Kelsky and Kel Weinhold to talk about the innovative academic mentoring over at “The Professor is In.” While the conversation is filled with frequent laughter, no one avoids talking about the difficult things. They talk about the ways that academia is like a cult, and the risks of conforming, or resisting conformity, by learning to “speak like a straight, white, male.” Questions about #MeTooPhD come up and why modern, liberal professors still allow, or even perpetrate, sex crimes on their students. The discussion also asks why so much of the onus for social change is left to those already carrying the heavier burden: women, queer people and People of Color. If you found yourself nodding along at any of these topics, we hope you walk away knowing that there is support and community waiting to help you, and that you have options.
After you listen, you’ll keep wanting to know more about these guests, so keep reading to find out more about Karen and Kel.
Kel shared the following answers to our fabulous questionnaire with us:
1.What are you listening to, reading, watching?
Listening: “Keep It” and “Unlocking Us.”
Reading: “Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought.”
Watching: “Astrid” and “Unforgotten”
2.Do you like to cook? What is your favorite thing to make?
I love to cook. I was a chef in a former life. Last year I was fixated on Japanese food using the blog https://www.justonecookbook.com/. In the past few months, I am all about Indian food via Chaheti Bansal and Rooted in Spice https://www.takeme.to/rootedinspice/
3.What is something you have read and loved, and wish more people would read?
Toni Morrison’s “Playing in the Dark.”
4.Did you grow up with video- or computer-games? What were/are some of your favorites?
PONG! (I’m 60)
5.You’re taking a sick-day from work. What movie are you putting on?
Notting Hill
6.What’s your favorite excuse for why you have writer’s block?
I am sooooooooo busy.
7.What’s a book everyone says you should read, but you either read it and hated it, or haven’t read it.
Anything by Jane Austen. Same goes for those Bröntes. They are tolerable, but not compelling enough to tempt me past a few pages; and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to characters who are demeaned incessantly by asshole men. Don’t @ me.
And Karen’s also shares her answers:
1.What are you listening to, reading, watching?
The Wolf Hall series by Hilary Mantel. I’m on book three and I love it. I say, “excuse me while I go back to the 16th century.” It’s my coping mechanism.
2.Do you like to cook? What is your favorite thing to make?
I do like to cook but Kel’s a former chef and does most cooking; however, I’m awash in fresh garden heirloom tomatoes so in the past three weeks I’ve made salsa, pico de gallo, Greek haloumi tomato salad, an INCREDIBLE masoor dal bhat, Japanese tomato shiso salad, multiple capreses, a spectacular basil garlic pasta sauce, and a Moroccan spiced bisque. With more to come!
3.What is something you have read and loved, and wish more people would read?
The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964)
4.Did you grow up with video- or computer-games? What were/are some of your favorites?
Nope. I’m 56.
5.You’re taking a sick-day from work. What movie are you putting on?
Knives Out 🙂
6.What’s your favorite excuse for why you have writer’s block?
*gestures widely*
7.What’s a book everyone says you should read, but you either read it and hated it, or haven’t read it.
Every Harry Potter book (and this long predated the author becoming a notorious TERF). Those are just objectively bad books.
And as always, the team has kept our own lists of what we’re watching, listening to and reading…
Andrew has been busy this week reading Possession by A.S. Byatt to prepare for our first ever Ivory Tower Boiler Room Book Club! And, Hagar’s Daughter by Pauline Hopkins to begin teaching it in his “Whitman’s Multitudes” course. None of his students have ever read it so it’s going to make for an exciting classroom literary conversation. And since he’s going to be staying in Manhattan for his birthday weekend, he’ll actually get some extra time to read these texts on the train ❤️
Andrew’s following Mary’s True Crime lead and got into Only Murders in This Building…He says “Steve Martin and Martin Short feed off of each other so nicely.”
For music this week, Andrew is celebrating the reopening of Broadway with the Beetlejuice, Wicked, and Lion King musical cast albums. Andrew’s also fully enamored and captured by P.J. Vernon’s Bath Haus audiobook! He reminds us that “the actors are so good. I have to be careful not to listen at night… it’s that psychologically thrilling.” (What a hint for our October Ivory Tower theme, too.)
Mary is still focused on reading We Keep the Dead Close.
She’s been watching Norm MacDonald’s standup (new and old), his Late Show appearances, and SNL characters ( “how can you forget Turd Ferguson?”) and says “rest in peace” to a comedic genius.
Last week Erika mentioned the Matrix 4 trailer… This week, Mary’s been listening to “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, which she recently heard in the trailer for Matrix 4: Resurrection. She is completely obsessed due to the references to Alice in Wonderland-Mary’s favorite children’s story. Feed your head.
Erika and Adam are back to trading music recommendations again. They’ve both listened to recordings of Kol Nidre this week. Adam’s pick is this vocal version, while Erika went for an instrumental version… on viola of course. Erika’s Thursday evening writing began with Bach Cello Suites before she decided she needed something much more melancholy.
Adam also brought up Tori Amos’s cover of “Time” by Tom Waits, which Erika agrees is incredible. If you’re interested in the Tom Waits version, you can hear that, too.
Erika has been happily working her way through The Guncle this week and is so excited for Steven Rowley’s upcoming interview with the Ivory Tower team. Her reading time has also been a lot of WordPress related things, and things about alterous attraction. She is also incredibly frustrated because she is having an incredibly difficult time trying to get a copy of Meg Grehan’s Baby Teeth (queer love, lust, vampires and lyrical poetry…Erika is not the only one who finds this really exciting, right?)
It hasn’t been a thrilling week for things to watch, even if Erika is still doing more of that and less of other things than she would like. She was excited that Season 2 of DotGay’s The Library premiered this week (and season 2 of The Dictionary will premier next week, which Erika will definitely watch, too.) Erika is really just waiting for the premier of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. In spite of living in Florida, she was hoping things might feel safe enough to go see Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield in The Eyes of Tammy Faye but that will have to wait. In the meantime, whether you can or can’t go see it, Erika highly suggests checking out the 2000 documentary of the same name. And after mentioning it last week, Erika started watching SheZow again…performative gender with a little twist.
Adam has been reading while walking lately, which he can do when the streets are empty because of Yom Kippur and the like. We’ll see if that remains a safe activity. Reading what, you ask? Why, Adam happens to be a third of the way through The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s biography of Bob Moses and New York City. It’s an ongoing source of frustration because it’s too many pages and it’s too depressing (with all the corruption and political infighting and casual racism) and there are so many upcoming books to read for Ivory Tower Boiler Room events, but… when a book hooks you, it hooks you.
Adam has been listening to a bit of Brenda Harris’s operatic arias lately, as well as the aforementioned Tom Waits and Kol Nidre. And of course singing a lot of Jewish music (because it’s just been that kind of week for some of us).
Adam is nearing the ending of the sixth season of Buffy, and, not incidentally, could really use a pat on the shoulder and some assurance that things will be ok. They won’t, but as a wise person once said: “lie to me.”
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