An interesting conversation over at Historiann’s in which I’ve been properly roasted has reminded me of what’s becoming a really ugly part of my personality: the degree to which I’ve become unbelievably jaded and cynical.  I used to be cheerful and optimistic but that’s long gone, courtesy of huge traumas my senior year of high school and the aftermath. I’m an incurable pessimist. On a good day, I’m a realist, but that’s as good as it gets.

This trait of mine popped up over at Historiann’s in a conversation about what the left’s to do in the face of the Democratic Party’s routine selling out of progressive interests. I don’t actually disagree that progressive interests aren’t being served but I’ve given up on politics. Something happened over the summer as I watched the “death panels” panic from afar; politics in the US is broken. The fact that we still think it’s acceptable to have a debate over whether it’s all right to leave tens of millions of people without any access to healthcare tells me something’s gone horribly wrong. I don’t expect much from our system so I’ll take what little’s coming.

If I were just cynical about politics, maybe that’d be fine. But I’m this way about pretty much everything. That can’t be good.

What’s going on with Nigel? He seems more off than usual this season. Ryan’s the best ballroom dancer ever to dance contemporary? What about Lacey’s first Mia Michaels routine? Nathan could be one of the best dancers ever on the show? So much for Jakob in this season alone to say nothing about Danny Tidwell or a little ol’ somebody who is doing some of the best choreography of the season, Travis Wall. I’ve got no issue with Nathan but such outlandish praise seems way premature, especially since Nigel is using the praise to hit Nathan over the head with how much he’s underperforming. But even that seems overblown. Last week’s salsa was abysmal but I thought he did a fantastic job with what was an underwhelming routine. If anything, Nathan’s being dragged down by his partner, who isn’t getting any of Nigel’s wrath.

And about the choreography: there’s a lot of questionable choreography this season and the judges aren’t saying a thing about it. Laurieanne’s choreography may be fine for music videos and concerts but her pieces consistently miss the point of the show. There’s not nearly enough connection between the two dancers; there’s just a whole lot of dancing side-by-side in sync. The only redeeming factor is that she’s one of the few who uses ultra-current music. She doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, frankly. Her routines would be forgettable if it wasn’t for the fact that the music just hit the airwaves. I’d like to see what she can do with a group routine but her work is just not suited for the show. Tyce Diorio is also turning in a ton of clunkers this season. This time, the problem wasn’t so much the dancing but the strange music choice. And don’t get me started on Napoleon and Tabitha. This was one of their best pieces in a while but that’s really not saying much. The judges are always talking about growth but these two never seem to be pushing themselves. The pieces are always too literal and always too much of the same kind of story. Enough with the woman being left behind, whether it’s for war, work, another woman. Even this wouldn’t be a problem if they weren’t responsible for 75% of the hip hop pieces on the show for the last three seasons. It’s just too much.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this season. It’s good and there’s some exciting stuff happening, but there’s a decided lack of excellence all around.

For what’s ostensibly an academic blog, there’s been very little in the way of academic topics for the past few months. Part of that is probably because the kind of stuff I’m supposed to be working on at this stage in my program is so specific that I can’t really write about it. If I’m too specific, I reveal who I am. If I’m too vague, then what I write has little meaning. (There’s certainly an argument here for a few password-protected posts, although I don’t think I have a large enough readership for that move not to seem pretentious.) But I think another part of it is that I’ve become so disenchanted with so much of academia and academic life lately. The return from abroad was rough; I didn’t want to come back to the US at all, let alone back to the university. And now that I’m back, I remember why I pretty much ran out the door a few years back: the pettiness, the thinly veiled elitism, the unnecessary competitiveness when no competition actually exists, and the deep flaws both in my program/university and in academia as a whole. I can’t say I was “happy” when I was gone but whatever I was was significantly better than this. To make it worse, I don’t even love my project. I like it fine enough but just liking it isn’t really enough to sustain me when I’m being dropped in the deep-fat fryer, as has tended to happen fairly consistently over the years. Academia is so screwed up and is clearly not meant for people like me: people who need more in their life than the life of the mind but who didn’t arrive in graduate school with the support system of family and spouses in place. I think the only thing keeping me going is the fact that I love my field and I’m excited about future projects that will reflect my scholarly interests more accurately than my dissertation, cobbled together from a set of interests that were less “interests” and more “the only things i learned about during the disastrous coursework phase.” But at a point, I have to wonder whether the promise of future academic pursuits can get me through what has been and is continuing to be a fairly awful phase of my life.

So at the end of August, I had a few posts about my summer obsession, the UK’s version of Big Brother, but I never wrote about the conclusion.

It was pretty anticlimatic. Wolverine may have played the best game but he was voted out the week before the finale and Iranian Fashionisto stayed. After being saved one last time by the public, Iranian Fashionisto became even more insufferable. On the night of the finale, with five contestants remaining, the Brazilian was evicted first, to the shock of the house and to the shock of the less than 2 million Brits who watched. My favorite followed him in fourth. The final two were Iranian Fashionisto and the other girl, who’d been the best friend of the Brazilian. She won, with 75% of the national vote, the highest winning percentage ever.

Things got more interesting after the show was over. Irish Lass and her American Ex had broken up by the time of the reunion show and rumors spread that she was dating Hot Guy. From what I can tell, that’s all over. My favorite Geordie and the Brazilian dated for a hot minute (about a month maybe) and then things ended. Who knows why, who cares, but it seemed ugly.

Next summer is the last season of Big Brother in the UK; in all likelihood, I won’t be there but I’m sure I’ll be following intently from afar. But if this past season had to be the last season I watch onsite, then I’ve done well. The season was spectacular; the end may have been a bit of a snooze but the middle six weeks were among the best six weeks of reality television. What was the key? Unlike the US version, the UK version has had a tendency to hunt out the strangest, oddest people they can find. There’s a certain novelty value to that approach but it’s really annoying to watch strange people for 13 or 14 weeks. This season, they had the requisite amount of strange people but most of them were evicted relatively early on, leaving behind people who may have had outsized personalities but were largely recognizable. Better yet, the standard hot guy was evicted early as well. He’d been in a fledging “relationship” with the girl who won. She wouldn’t have won if he’d stayed much longer; neither would my favorite, who was close friends with him. Instead of the tedious relationships between some hot guy and some boring girl, it was women who had the power this season (Irish Lass and another even more poisonous contestant). That made for much more interesting viewing.

Michiko Kakutani’s review of Sarah Palin’s book has a paragraph that sums up precisely why I found the success she met within certain ranks of the Republican party so troubling. It wasn’t her brand of conservatism, one that I’m pretty familiar with. It wasn’t her background. I was repulsed by the way she tried to divide America in ways that excluded minorities from the “real America” but even that wasn’t my biggest issue with her. It was this:

“Yet, Mr. McCain’s astonishing decision to pick someone with so little experience (less than two years as the governor of Alaska, and before that, two terms as mayor of Wasilla, a town with fewer than 7,000 residents) as his running mate and Ms. Palin’s own surprisingly nonchalant reaction to Mr. McCain’s initial phone call about the vice president’s slot (she writes that it felt “like a natural progression”) underscore just how alarmingly expertise is discounted — or equated with elitism — in our increasingly democratized era, and just how thoroughly colorful personal narratives overshadow policy arguments and actual knowledge.”

That’s the key for me: “how alarmingly expertise is discounted–or equated with elitism.” It’s a very disturbing trend lately. I understand the criticism of elitism and I agree with it in a lot of cases but expertise, knowledge, and preparedness have to remain values we prize. Without them, we’re lost.

I just had the most ridiculous conversation with a friend of mine. He and I are huge fans of So You Think You Can Dance and have been from season 1, which was roughly when we met each other. So we’ve been talking about the same contestants and dances ad nauseum for years and we think we’re experts.

So today we were critiquing this season’s competitors.

Was Ryan and Ellenore’s tango amazing? It was good, props to her for keeping it together with the dress, but we’d rather have seen Janette and Brandon do it.

How great is Legacy? He’s done extremely well for what he’s been given but we’ve certainly noticed how little of the floor he’s being asked to cover. He’s improved immensely but ballroom (especially latin) will be the true test when he actually has to do a lot of footwork. Funny how he hasn’t been assigned that yet.

My friend and I also watch the occasional video of past contestants. Blake’s samba with ashle comes to mind (season 1). That dance wasn’t nearly as lifty as subsequent dances have become but the absence of lifts/tricks meant there was no place to hide. Either they had the samba down or they didn’t. It looks simple in comparison but I wonder how many of the contestants in the past two or three seasons could actually get through it.

And what about that Victor/Channing contemporary? We both thought the choreography was spectacular, the dancing pretty good, but it missed the spark it should have had. Plus (and this is where my friend and I collapsed into giggles about how we think we know what we’re talking about) Victor seemed to be too weighty, my friend said, and didn’t quite know how to use his taller body in the same way that Danny Tidwell did.

So…here’s a question. Favorite routines, favorite dancers, favorite choreographers from the past six seasons? I have a tendency to focus on the men, rather than the women, so my list will reflect that.

Best male dancer: Danny Tidwell. (Is this even a question?)

Runner up: Travis Wall. (Imo, he’s the most complete dancer ever on the show in terms of what the show’s looking for. Talent, likeability, versatility, etc. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s the only non-ballroom contestant who returns to choreograph. But Danny beats him out in terms of sheer sublime talent.)

Honorable mention: Brandon and Blake. These two were both excellent but has just something missing. I never really clicked with Brandon’s personality and while Blake’s left much to be desired, he was so talented, it didn’t matter. His big failure was the lifts and, if I’m really being picking, his spins weren’t at the same level of Travis/Danny. But that’s splitting hairs.

Best male ballroom: Pasha.

Runners up: Artem and Dmitry. I think these three might be the best we get.

Best female ballroom: Janette.

Runner up: Lacey. This is a close one for me. Lacey was outstanding but her personality left me slightly cold. Janette was sensational, imo. Both were in some of the best ballroom routines we’ve seen and both shone in other genres as well.

Honorable mention: Anya. She left way too early in her season. She might not have been particularly versatile but she was scintillating in ballroom. Plus it’s hard to think who else Danny could have been partnered with in those early rounds.

BBoys: I don’t really have a favorite here; two really stand out in my mind. Hok, both for his tricks and the Wade Robson hummingbird routine, and Dominic, for staying the longest of any bboy. But Dominic didn’t get to show how good he is until America’s Best Dance Crew. All in all, the bboy thing is a mixed bag. We’ll see what happens to Legacy once he’s forced to do a lot of footwork.

BGirls: There’s only been one but she was pretty good. Sara.

Best male hiphop: Joshua Allen, without question. No runners up yet but I suspect Russell’s going to be fast on Joshua’s heels.

Best ballroom (not tango) routine: Danny and Lacey samba. Runner up? Blake and Ashle samba.

Best tango: Janette and Brandon. Insanity.

Best hip hop: This is a bit of a mixed bag; there’ve been quite a few weaker offerings and few outstanding ones. I’d say it’s a tie between Shane Sparks’s zombie offering with Kayla and Jason (season 5) and NappyTabs’ first piece ever, No Air, with Joshua and Katee.

Best Mia Michaels routine: Where do you start? Because it changed what the show was, I’ll say the park bench routine. But there’s so much else. Special recognition has to go to last season’s “gravity”/addiction piece, which was far superior to cancer dance.

Best Wade Robson routine: Again, where do you start? I have to say Sexy Back but tomorrow I’d probably say something else (Ramalama?). I will say this about Wade though; a lot of times, I’d rather see him do the dancing than the contestants.

My favorite solo: Danny Tidwell’s version of the Wade Robson dance to John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” that all 10 contestants had to dance.

My favorite routine (any genre, any season, couple or group): Season 2, top 6 group routine to Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek”, choreographed by Mia Michaels.

Your thoughts? Categories you want to add? (After all, it is skewed heavily male at the moment.) The comments await…

I can’t blog about this but I wanted to have a placeholder here that registers what has happened, no matter how obliquely. Suffice it to say, I have been dropped into the graduate school shit once again, without warning and without reason. I’m distraught, I’m angry, I’m bitter, and I’m starting not to care about this at all. That’s really sad b/c I just got really energized about my work and I had just realized how much I loved my field. But this may be a step too far.

I give my conference paper today. Here’s hoping… I’m not wildly happy with it but I just think I’m being wildly too hard on myself and it’s fine for the occasion and for the stage I’m at in my work.

And after that? Application fun.

My first year of graduate school, a friend of mine told me that he couldn’t trust straight people (until they proved themselves to be allies, of course). I was offended. Then again, I had the luxury of getting offended.

But now I get it and he’s right. I wish I didn’t understand because the recognition of all the hatred makes me jaded. Having spent so much time observing the US from the vantage point of the UK hasn’t helped. I’d like to think we’ll move past this soon (although the fact that interracial marriages are still considered sinful in some quarters does not give me a ton of hope). But how many lives are going to be ruined by the hate and fear that underlie votes like yesterday’s.

In the next three weeks, I have to:

1. write and present a conference paper at the major conference in my field. The paper comes from a chapter I wrote some time ago but I’m increasingly unhappy about this chapter and I have to wrangle it into something presentable and analytical.

2. create the appearance of a compelling project for several fellowship applications.

3. do all this while battling a particularly crippling melancholic spell. I’m struggling to get out of the apartment at this point and I can’t get any work done in the apartment. And even if I do get to campus, I’m generally not getting anything meaningful done either.

It’ll be nothing short of a miracle if I can get this all done without being embarrassed of the result. I’m also pretty much giving up on having a productive semester. The chapter that I needed to write this semester (but that is also a beast) is not going to happen.