You're one of them!

I've decided to quit posting on the excellent Philosophy Job Market Blog (albeit, I still read it).  I'm not comfortable in the role I somehow automatically assumed of giving out advice publicly to people in the job search situation.

(1) The job search stinks no matter how you cut it, and advice giving always lapses into this weird hyper-Protestant thing where people are at fault for the bad situation they are in (i.e. "you don't have a job because you haven't done X").

(2) When dealing with people individually I can give them prudential advice without coming across as a defender of the status quo.  Somehow, I couldn't manage that in the blog.  This is perhaps because I have a (in the context of the blog) completely inappropriate yet very ingrained view that teachers and researchers of philosophy are in some ways like the cooks of Anthony Bourdain's writings and the fellow punk-rock musicians of my own life experiences (going back to the late 80's).  In all three cases the sense of fraternity arises in part from common sacrifice and suffering (usually leavened with weirdness and alcohol).  This is all good and well if you've managed (lets face it, in no small part due to luck) to get a tenure track job and then tenure.  And yes, in the words of J.B.L., "If I smell like smoke, it's because I've been through fire."  But to cop that attitude with people who are not yet through the fire, and who may not make it (given the market, through no fault of their own), is simply preposterous.

(3) Related to the above, all of my friends with Ph.Ds that could not get tenure track jobs (or gave them up for one to follow a spouse to her academic position), are living satisfying lives with jobs that involve creative use of their intellect.  It took some of them a couple of years to get there, but they are there.  Again, in the context of counseling a friend, this can be very important advice, but in the context of the blog it was extremely odious to point that out.

(4)  Some of the tenured people are dispensing really, really bad advice on the blog, advice that has more to do with justifying their life choices than telling people what they need to do to maximize their chances of getting tenure-track and then getting tenure (and given the easy access to replacement labor with the job market, getting tenure is very difficult to do these days).  Unfortunately, a lot of the bad advice can more easily be flavored with a patina of "the kids are alright" than can the good advice.  So to pick just one example, my statement of the cold, harsh truth that the vast majority of academics have very little control over where they live (and the corresponding fact that the vast majority of those who fetishize where they live only make themselves miserable and insufferable), somehow becomes the man (me) being down on the kids.  Unsurprisingly the debate became submental.

(5) Though lots of tenured people have been posting there, I was the only one not doing so anonymously.  (a) I always thought the point of tenure was to protect people who might have unpopular opinions.  While I do respect other people's situations where they aren't in a position to take advantage of that aspect of tenure, this wasn't going on in every case. The people doling out really bad advice protect themselves from the justifiably negative views of their peers with anonymity.  In the context of the blog it is very bad.  Consider the examples of whether people with tenure track jobs should remain on the job market year after year, or whether the same people should dishonestly get other departments to make job offers solely with the purpose of getting a raise in their home department.  Defenders of these odious (and ultimately self-destructive in the vast majority of cases) practices had the gall to argue that it doesn't hurt your reputation when people figure out that that's what you are up to.  O.K., then why don't you identify yourself as being one of those people? (b)  When I entered into debate with these people (at least one of whom I know, and whose initial pretense at not knowing me bordered on dishonesty in the context of the debate), it was just too weird; for some reason the one-sided anonymity made it impossible to have a decent conversation.  The reasons that this undermines dialectic are actually pretty philosophically interesting I think.  There you go.

(6) The point of the blog is not tenured people wingeing at each other.

(7) My interlocutors asked for personal information about me; I think the ex-colleague was fishing for facts that would show I have a personal axe to grind. Well, in the words of Black Flag era Henry Rollins ("ain't nothing wrong with me, I'm alright").  This blog has all sorts of strange personal details if anyone is interested.  In addition, a slightly out of date version of my C.V. is here, and some badly produced songs from my current rock band are here.  All that stuff is googleable! 

This being said, I really don't like it when people ask me my favorite color.  I don't want to fly off the cliff like that one dude in the Monty Python movie.

And for some more cool Black Flag youtubery see:

(0) Pretty fantastic version of My War, (1) Some high school kid's Anti-Bush mash it up video set to Rise Above (while the video's perhaps overly hagiographic towards useless demonstrations, it still brings out the power of the music nicely), (2) A very nice montage of moments from the very so-so movie Falling Down set to Nervous Breakdown, (3) Black Flag's own pretty awesome video to one of their weaker efforts- T.V. Party, (4) Black Flag's own so so video to the equally preachy (but more rocking and all the cooler for being addressed to Motley Crue's Vince Neil long before Neil burned down that cigar bar with equally drunk best friend Mel Gibson) Drinking and Driving, (5) a live version of Modern Man (sorry the sound is so bad, it's the only clip I could find documenting Chuck Biscuits of later Danzig All Star String Band's tenure on drums ),

Yes, I've focused on Rollins era flag here.  This is a justifiable and moreover safe ever since Keith Morris got off the hard stuff (Keith- that's your pipes on the version of Nervous Breakdown I posted; and I promise to do a post on your contributions to Black Flag and the Circle Jerks soon).  Henry Rollins is the punk rock equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne.  But he never found his Randy Rhoads (or Sharon Arden, for that matter) analog after Black Flag broke up.  Given Black Flag's position in the pantheon of Rock, it is surely no insult to note that nothing Rollins has done since Black Flag is nearly as legendary (though his unjustly neglected second solo L.P. Life Time had more transcendent Rock moments than any of us will amass in our own life times; and if Rollins jumped the shark with the portentiou (and unfortunately) titled The End of Silence, Ozzy has done far, far worse, and often no involevment from Lita Ford).  In addition, some of Rollins' non-musical stuff achieves perfection: (1) when in his stand up comedy he navigates between the Scylla of new age preachiness and the Charibdis of high school jock (and we all become our enemies to some extent) meanness, (2) many of his publishing efforts, especially Hubert Selby Junior, and the titles of his own books (e.g. "Pissing in the Gene Pool," "Art to Choke Hearts"), and (3) his at least belated (after a bout of all too typical Rollins-the-star-of-stage-and-screen a-holeness) recognition that Nardwuar the Human Serviette is a genius.  Besides, the guy fronted Black Flag in their glory days, give him a break already.

I've invoked the spirit of John Bonham several times to try to get all of the divinities of Rock to force Rollins, Kira, Greg Ginn, and one of their great drummers to reunite and destroy once and for all the kind of sing-songy "punk rock" that M.T.V. has been shoving down the gullet of America's youth (who it must be said all have grossly distended musical livers by this point; and we know where that leads).  The incantations always go wrong at some point. 

Comments

[Neal Hebert]

Stay away from giving advice on-line unless you have a well-established internet personality with the group of people in question.

The whining about not having a tenure track job thing seems like it must be insufferable. I think the problem is that lots of people assume that education at college/grad school comes primarily from classes rather than from extracurriculars and social interaction. My problem on the job market was finding out about opportunities; typically, when I got an interview, I would do very well (losing out because of over-qualifications or being too smooth).

Maybe it's just me, but I think anyone going into academia should be required to spend a semester or two serving in their student government senate or doing university service in some capacity through student government. The learning experience of working with administrators (or, to be less nice, seeing administrators try to work the rubes) prepares one completely for exactly what a university looks for in future members of the status quo.

I don't know if you got lucky Jon (because I don't recall you ever telling stories of your involvement with your own student government from undergrad), but you'd have done well during our Senate's glory years. No higher compliment can I give.

-neal

[Robby B.]

Dr. Cogburn- My friends and I strode into our hotel elevator at the first Lollapalooza(sp.) music festival in Dallas, Tx. and, lo and behold, Henry Rollins was standing there. For 14 floors he stood board-stiff, staring straight ahead, expressionless. Kind of reminded me of those guards at Buckingham Palace.

As far as jobs are concerned, I don't understand how the number of jobs available in academia can be even close to the number of graduate students hoping to enter the academic job market. I have heard some explanations about certain amounts of professors retiring and that is supposed to open up positions, but I don't think that is a significant number. Moreover, people that are in the professorial demographic-at least in the US-are living longer, and therefore, I think working longer, particularly as things like good insurance and other benefits are harder to come by, and social security and other entitlements have increasingly become diminished in their capacity to provide. I wish, like Neal, that I didn't get a job because I was overqualified.

[languagepolice]

Dr. Cogburn,

Just wanted to thank you for your comments on the Phil Job Market Blog. There's way too much tension revealed in many posts...I tend to view blog conversations as being akin to bar chatter. So, when various anonymous commentators on the blog seemed to jump up and demand you account for your statements, it seemed to be confrontational in a much more serious way than the social context should allow for. "Relax! Drink your beer," I want to say...

Of course, it is very hard to relax amidst the job search, and in my case finishing up work on the diss. I have a lot of sympathy for the stressed-out folk over there (and on the Chronicle forums) -- especially since I am one of them. For the record, I don't think I'm going to get a job this year (with the PhD not in hand till May), although I have faith I will get a TT job in the next few years. But it is faith; I accept that the odds don't look good.

One thing I like about that job market blog is that the main postings seem to reflect the sense that the process is dehumanizing to all of us (and I can't imagine it is much fun for SCs to work through 200 application packets). At least in acknowledging this unfortunate circumstance, there may be some respite from the alienating aspects of the job search.

Anyhow, I'll be reading over here from time to time, beer in hand or not (not at present as it is 11:17am as I type).

Cheers,

languagepolice

[Jon Cogburn]

languagepolice,

Thanks tons for your nice comment. I'm sure that sleep deprivation from a new baby combined with a harsh deadline made a lot of my posts a lot less pleasant than they should have been.

Bar chatter is one of life's great pleasures, and I'm going to start gestalting blog chatter the same way.

Best,

Jon

[jwr]

Jon,

How can you not know that Rollins's *End of Silence* is a transcendent classic?

[Jon Cogburn]

JWR, I thought so at the time it came out as well.

But in my estimation the songs haven't stood up to recent listenings (while the previous four Rollins albums- "Hot Animal Machine," "Lifetime," half of "Hard Volume," and the live album of that era are all transcendent classics). Timbre wise, it is a classic of good production (I know this matters greatly to you), but melody wise it's much worse than his efforts with Black Flag and his own earlier works. The lyrics read like Morrisey without the literacy or cleverness, and somehow manage to be mean spirited at the same time. I don't know, get "Lifetime" and compare the two.

There are three things you have to understand about punk rock verses jerk rock; (1) Jerk rock involves spitting your beer on the audience, while punk rock involves spitting it up in the air and (perhaps inadvertantly) getting covered in it, (2) Punk rock might involve saying "f*** you" when the car of tormentors (whether they be jocks or cops or frat rats or whatever) is safely out of distance; Jerk rock involves sneeringly saying "f*** you" before beating up the punk kids, (3) Punk rock's complaints about loneliness, etc. are essentially romantic; Jerk rock's complaints are just the apotheosis of baby boomer selfishness.

With "The End of Silence" Rollins entered jerk rock territory. There are still hints of the old Rollins here and there, and the man didn't stop being a genius, but the gods of the Rock and Roll pantheon are quite honestly saddened.

Another example of perhaps unwitting jerk rock is Rage Against the Machine. How many fraternities have spelled out their stupid, infantile lyrics, "F*** you I won't do what you told me!" in beer cans in the main room of their house, rocking out to Rage as they get drunk and plot date rape. It's a prime case of far left (the amputators of the Shining Path) and far right (and fascism is simply fraternity without liberty and equality) being identical. No thanks. You can keep the melodically challenged jerk rock of late era Rollins, Rage Against the Machine, Limp Biscuit, etc. . . The whole era is the complete overturning and death of grunge inspired genius (such genius as was expressed the albums released by Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and Soundgarden all around Cobain's death, as well as Rick Rubin's work with Johnny Cash). No thanks! I'll stick with Iggy and the Stooges.

Robby, I've had two run ins with Mr. Rollins that I'll blog about soon under the category "Real Life Rock and Roll Moments." One of them was pretty unpleasant.

languagepolice, Being on the other side of a hire always makes me sick to my stomach for days on end. There are three reasons: (1) of the hundreds of files you get initially and then as the group gets narrowed down, most of the people are very, very good- and you know what a tough time they are having and that it is not unlikely that some great philosophers (and people) you don't hire will not get an academic job; this is just acute when you start to interview people and realize that many of the people you interview deserve a job more than you and your colleagues, (2) to the extent that it even bothers them, most professors deal with the possible cognitive dissonance by convincing themselves that many of the candidates they don't want (for whatever reason) are defective, and the candidates they want are the only ones deserving; this is morally very bad by my lights, and (3) hires (and retention and promotions for that matter) are the times when faculty can be unbelievably nasty with each other, exacerbating greatly whatever other problems the department have. It's hard to be a good Christian (or Stoic, or Buddhist) during the process, because the crap way people are treated inspires anger.

One thing that is necessary for job seekers in this process is I think, is just a crazy, irrational ability to keep getting back up and swinging after getting knocked down over and over again (getting a Ph.D in some departments requires this too, and publishing in journals definitely requires this). I think I reacted so badly to the people griping about living in BF rural America because it seems like an unhealthy manifestation of reneging on the necessary irrational craziness. In my case I had to be an instructor for a while and it was rough financially, physically, and psychologically. I don't live anywhere near my folks or my wife's folks and this is rough (especially with a baby). But it's completely worth it to get paid for doing something I love, and I don't have any sympathy for people who got tenure track jobs and who whinge about it.

This song has really helped me through the years http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o . It's not jerk rock.

The whole "advice" thing was bad almost entirely for the first reason I gave in my post. Much better to drink a beer and shoot the shit (in that spirit, check out the fantastic and soul affirming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfcnoIkBdjc ).

[Jon Cogburn]

Oops, JWR's question requires a short answer.

Since "Know" is a success verb (if one knows that P, then P), nobody knows that "The End of Silence" is a transcendent classic.

[Neal Hebert]

Did I miss the email that declared Rage Against The Machine incapable of writing a good melody?

I'm not a big fan of the band, but the only reason Rage Against The Machine is listenable is because they write great fucking melody: Bulls On Parade practically requires one to jump up and down.

And as someone who owns several Black Flag and Rollins Band albums, I think it pretty safe to say that Henry Rollins hasn't written a truly transcendent album since quitting Black Flag. The jury's out as to whether he even wrote a transcendent album with Black Flag, since Black Flag may well have been a better band before Rollins joined.

But then again, I'm not a punk fan once you get past The Clash and The Sex Pistols and that one Misfits album that they then re-made over and over again with slightly different lyrics for a few decades.

-neal

[Jon Cogburn]

Neal,

Everything you are saying is defensible (though it's possible that if I brought my guitar over and explored the actual song structures of the Rage album, you'd temper your enthusiasm) with the exception of your claims about the Misfits.

(1) With the Misfits, you have to focus on their actual studio releases, not all the compilations and re-releases to which you've been subject.

"Legacy of Brutality" era stuff for the most part songs with standard 1950's song structure and timbre, written about sci-fi and horror movies. With "Walk Among Us" they deepened the Alice Cooper themes, but branched away from the 50's song structure into something unique. The songs are still extraordinarily catchy, and every one on the album could be covered nicely by Johnny Cash. Their final Danzig era effort, "Earth A.D." is the bible album of speed metal, as well as one of Metallica's biggest influences (though obviously Metallica has many virtues that the Misfits lack). While the songs are less catchy, the ambiance of the album is astounding. It really sounds like a soundtrack to a very, very good movie involving traditional conceptions of Hell.

Since reforming years after Danzig left, they've reverted back to the 1950's musical schtick a lot more. Danzig continued to grow in Samhain (which had the Misfits' bass player), in my opinion peaking musically with November Coming Fire.

Then Rick Rubin hooked Danzig up with ex-Black Flag drummer Chuck Biscuits and the rest is history. The eponymous first album of the Glenn Danzig All Star Shoe Band is in my estimation wonderful. Pick up a copy of Paradise Lost, fortify yourself with strong red wine, and let the fun begin.

(2) The thing about Rollins era Black Flag is that they all experimented with a lot of different musical approaches, so the albums vary wildly from the original package Greg Ginn got their various early singers to help him deliver. I think "Loose Nut" and "My War" are (though completely different from one another) are better albums than anything Black Flag did prior to Rollins, and all the other stuff is worse. This being said, the pre-Rollins Black Flag is so great, that I have to respect your opinion.

(3) J.W.R. does not have the proper Lester Bangs infused hatred of progressive rock. In fact he listens to it. This monstrous aesthetic failing should make us all wary of his judgments re: seignior Rollins.

[Neal Hebert]

I'm not claiming that the Rage stuff is particularly complex beyond its difficulty to play without electronic effects, I'm just saying it's catchy. I can play tabletures on Guitar Hero with the best of them, and the song's tabs are very repetitive and don't require a lot more than dexterity and muscle memory of a few simple patterns. Of course, I can't play guitar, but I can read tabs fairly well to know repetitive song structure when I see it.

As for your claim that "obviously Metallica has many virtues that the Misfits lack" I'm not sure I'd agree. I find Metallica to be a largely boring band, albeit successful; they've written some catchy songs (almost all from either Master of Puppets or the Black Album, if you're keeping score), but I personally don't really see them as possessing anything that they misfits lack aside from success.

The problem with writing off Prog Rock completely as a valid and potentially-worthwhile aesthetic experience is that it yields absurd results: while one does need to exclude the entirety of the Mars Volta's oeuvre- as well as everything written by Yngwie J. Malmsteen between 1992 & 1996, Coheed & Cambria's catalogue, and W.A.S.P.'s 1996 prog/death metal gem "Kill, Fuck, Die"- from the canon of good rock and roll, ruling out prog rock entirely doesn't get us where we need to be. For one, we would have to exclude Pink Floyd's the wall from good music, which is about as prog rock as it gets (which does not make any incidental claim to the music's goodness or worth).

More pressing than Pink Floyd, however, is that the demonization of prog rock would have us claim that Queensryche's "Empire" is not a great album; while I'm perfectly willing to cede Pink Floyd into musical irrelevance (it's no worse than what they've done to themselves for thirty years), opinions that maintain Queensryche can't play good music are, much like Socrates, 'monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo.' Queensrhyche's my ne plus ultra.

I loathe much of what passes for prog rock these days. But I'll defend Tool's album Lateralus, Queensryche, Yngwie albums written outside for the fugue years, and assorted other things as good music because they are. And prog rock will never really die as long as true believers cna listen to Queensryche's Empire and go nuts to "Jet City Woman", "Another Rainy Night" and "Hand on Heart".

And on the above, I'm sleepy. So I'm going away.

[Inquisitor Generalis]

My favorite Black Flag singer was probably Keith Morris, but they're really not my favorite from that era of Southern California punk rock. More from that era...

The Adolescents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp9snI9Jonc

My favorite band from that era, one that needs no introduction (and be sure to watch for all the Catholic imagery in this one):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9f3DMOee2U

[Jon Cogburn]

IQ- thanks tons for the cool links!

Neal- When I'm referring to "prog rock" I mean the earlier bands like Genesis, Rush, King Crimson, Yes, and ELO. Boring, pretentious crap. Led Zeppelin veered into that territory when they ran out of melodies, at which point Bonham promptly ascended.

Queensryche was always the band my friends who were more impressive technical guitarists than me raved over. It reminded me too much of the kids in junior high school in the back of the bus who recited horrific lyrics from the latest Rush and Kiss albums to one another. No thanks! I had to crank a cassette of the Dead Kennedys "Plastic Surgery Disasters" in my walkman to preserve what little was left of my Rock and Roll integrity in those days. It was a narrow escape.

Pink Floyd way overplayed the psychedelia thing, and the drugs prevented them from seeing how dreadfully boring was some of their earlier stuff, but at they're best they are restrained in a way none of the above bands are (with the exception of DK). Rodger Waters was basically writing musicals, not pretend classical music. Much of his music either completely rocked out, or achieved ambient perfection without the god awful pretense and boringness of the above.

The Beatles from very early on wrote some melodies with the harmonic progressions at a par with classical music, as did the great popular composers during the heydey of American swing-influenced musicals. Unlike with progressive rock, these guys all rocked out as well.

Popular music with catchy melodies is the core of all music, whether it be classical, religious, country, jazz, etc. When a genre loses sight of that (as has bop jazz, much twentieth century classical, and contemporary R & B) it becomes either aural wallpaper that solely exists so that people's brains can be further disengaged, or it becomes a pretentious niche thing that solely exists for pedants to differentiate themselves from the hoard. The Gods of Rock are always willing to descend and appoint new champions to protect Western Civilization from these evils- from punks and rockers who rip up the pretense, to great songwriters and performers like Willie Nelson who (in his Red Headed Stranger period) shamed a whole genre into briefly improving itself.

It's a constant, twilight struggle though, and there is nothing "progressive" about the true soldier of Rock.

[Jon Cogburn]

Oops!!! Insert "Rush and Police albums" for "Rush and Kiss albums" above.

Kiss is a whole 'nother ballpark, properly placed in the "cool stuff my older brother's friends were way more into than me".

[Neal Hebert]

Maybe it's just me, but when listing crappy prog bands I would never include The Police, largely because I don't think they're boring and because I think they wrote great melodies.

Synchronicity kinda seals the deal on The Police's inclusion as a great band who can write great melodies.

While I do think that Rush is kind of pedestrian, they have written some great songs as well. I just don't think they've written a great album -- no matter what anyone says, 2112 sucks.

-neal

[languagepolice]

Jon,

Thanks for your remarks and links...I can imagine that hiring can really exacerbate departmental tensions. I know that is the case in the department in which I am pursuing my PhD. (The dept is hiring this year in a specialization -- my specialization -- that used to be very strong in the dept but is now apparently viewed as passé by some faculty.)

What is interesting to me about all this is how the hiring process has a way of bringing out the worst in many of us (probably all of us, at least some of the time). This is why it is so important to be able to disengage from the zero-sum game that the job search feels like. (There are a couple of shows coming up in my town that I'm looking forward to -- Broken Social Scene being one...)

Which brings me to say that I am also enjoying the intermittent discussion of music. Here are my 2 cents:

- Mixed feelings on prog rock -- I like ironic reappropriation (say with The Flaming Lips), but I can't say I have much use for Yes or Genesis. Maybe that's my loss...It's pretty close to impossible for me to critically evaluate Pink Floyd since they played such an, uh, inspiring role in my teenage years. [shaking my head...]

- Depending on what you mean by "bop" I may well agree with your take on Jazz. I enjoy most incarnations of Jazz from its origins until about the mid-60s. After Freddie Hubbard and early-mid John Coltrane, I start to waver. I like Miles Davis here and there (but 'Bitches Brew' is the last album I have of his). It's just too hard for me to find my footing from that point on with the Jazz world. I almost feel like I'd have to be a jazz musician myself to appreciate more recent movements. In the 90s, I did enjoy going to jazz clubs in SF that had various bands doing jazz/hip-hop/latin fusions, but that was mostly a minor local phenomenon (with occasional groups coming from NY and LA).

- Punk v. Jerk rock. Amen. But I think rock (esp. of the more empassioned sort) always runs the risk of turning jerky. Maybe this is similar to how the bragging in hip-hop can turn into taunts or threats. A little danger may be necessary in these genres, but keeping that danger culturally subversive over a career is hard work. Besides, maybe the violent themes lead to greater sales. I remember when Fugazi said they would write no more anthems because they didn't want to encourage violence. A laudable goal, but it also made them seem old.

Incidentally, I've been listening to a fair bit of Social Distortion in recent weeks (through the job search and dissertation maze). Good for the soul! And this brings me back around to your thoughts on being able to get up again after being knocked down. Music (and the aforementioned bar chatter) are really helpful with this.

all best,

languagepolice

[Drew]

languagepolice -
if you do like Bitches Brew and have 60 bucks lying around, go buy Miles' "The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions."
It's almost overkill with all the takes of the same songs but, imo, at its best it's much more sucessful as a melding of jazz, funk, and rock than Bitches Brew. Whereas much of BB was sort of meandering free bop with electronic instruments, the tracks off of Jack Johnson rely on funk and rock song structures and rhythms as a basis for jazz improvisation. The original album only has two cuts on it (both sort of Frankenstein pieces, assembled from different studio jams) but the Complete Sessions fill up like 5 disks.

Honkey Tonk and Konda are the two real standouts for me, the former being pretty much the most rhythmically fun piece of music I've ever heard.

Columbia Records should probably pay me for plugging their stuff like this.

[Jon Cogburn]

Neal- No, I didn't mean to say that the Police were prog rock. For my money, the drummer and guitarist are genuises and Sting complete (albeit talented) tool. I'm allergic to the idea that rock should be "deep" in any way, and Sting's freshman English major affectations render most of their stuff just awful for me.

languagepolice- Right on. I agree 100% with your thoughts regarding Pink Floyd, jazz, and the fact that the possibility of turning into jerk rock is an essential part of rock.

Drew- I'm sorry I've yet to be re-educated vis a vis my love of a lot of pre Great Depression jazz and classic musicals influenced by swing jazz, combined with an extreme loathing of 99% post WWII jazz (Miles Davis and singers like Mose Allison being big exceptions). When I'm back in town, I want to borrow some C.D.s from you.

Jon

[Neal Hebert]

And here's something crazy:

Jay-Z released a new album a few days ago that can only be described as prog-rap.

And if you want to try something different, I can whole-heartedly recommend it as a great album. Jay-Z telling the story of a 1970's era gangster while using it as a very thinly veiled narrative device to comment on his early career (when he purveyed every gangster movie cliche and called it his life) is quite impressive.

-neal

[Drew]

Sure thing, I'd like to see how you feel about some of the more rock-oriented stuff.

Though it seems like I'm just listening to The White Stripes and The Black Keys lately...

[languagepolice]

So much for bar chatter --

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/how-do-departme.html

It looks like you were wise to get out when you did!

By the way, if you are still out there Drew, thanks for the recommendation on the Jack Johnson sessions...Will look into them...

[Jon Cogburn]

Well. . . The Leiter Report is very good at tracking departmental prestige.

But- (1) Pick the top n Leiter Report schools, unless they are graduating extremely few students, it's a simple fact of math that most of the Ph.Ds from those schools won't be employed in the top n Leiter Report Schools. So the way he covers the horse trading of promising young stars can be pretty misleading to the rest of us, who are overwhelmingly likely to be downwardly mobile Leiterwise. Given how much work he puts into the horse-trading aspect, I don't know if he got peeved by my advice not to go on the market once you have a tenure track job, but again, what applies to young faculty he covers just doesn't apply to most of the young Ph.Ds even from his top 50 schools. (2) We have no idea how well the PGR tracks placement, because there are no uniform statistics for percentage of a given matriculating class that have tenure track jobs within ten years (i.e. you have to do this in terms of initial matriculation, because if most people wash out, a school's high placement rating that really doesn't mean anything). It would be nice if the APA could keep a database of these as a condition for Ph.D programs advertising in the JFP, but there are probably too many practical problems to implementing something like that.