Well, the income tax is done...

[rolanni]

I'd sorta been thinking I'd have some downtime yesterday at the day-job. Silly me. I did manage to put period to the final follow-up detail on a "special project" (read, in addition to my normal workload, but with no extra pay) that was supposed to take "a few hours" of my time in July. Of course, it wound up taking many hours of my time throughout the fall semester, when I was crushed under the weight of five separate searches, one of which received more than 300 applications. But! that project at least is done, gone, dead, dead, DEAD. And there was much rejoicing.

Today, I did have some few hours to while away as I awaited an Executive Decision from the boss. I spent the time reading a New Yorker article about a "narrative artist" (as distinct from, oh, an illustrator, a description which he rejects) and outlining the next chapter of Mouse and Dragon, which is continuing to be Great Fun (or at least I think so). Tomorrow, the Executive Decision having been made as of late in the afternoon, I will actually have to work at work, which is, like, Totally Unfair.

One of the other things I learned while making posters this week is that...I don't get the whole race thing. I thought the Ideal was transparency. I see -- a girl! She has pretty eyes, and long, dark hair, and... Not so, apparently. I had made a poster using a certain model (who was, if I just may say so, perfect), showed it to the person in charge of the event -- who told me to redo the poster, using a "less provocative" model. The provocation? The model was Asian.

Oh, well. They pay me by the hour. But the replacement poster is...boring.

On the home front, the income taxes are ready to go to the accountant. Which isn't quite the same thing as being "done" but feels like it. My next task is to catch the accountant in the office and nail down a time when we can get together.

Edited to add: We have the authors' copies of the Duainfey mass market in house!

Comments

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

I had made a poster using a certain model (who was, if I just may say so, perfect), showed it to the person in charge of the event -- who told me to redo the poster, using a "less provocative" model. The provocation? The model was Asian.

"Provacative" of what, for heaven's sake?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

One of the programs I work for is Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, which studies All Kinds of Weird Stuff. The talk in question is trying to figure out if cyber-prostitution is the "same" as "real" prostitution. The model I chose was a woman sitting in a chair, with her ankle resting on the opposite knee. She's wearing high boots, a skirt so short you can almost see a little bit of it under the laptop that's resting on her lap. She's wearing a double-looped beaded necklace, a low cut, sleeveless shirt and an expression that is Simply Priceless in the Oh, please category.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, I think I get it.

The person-in-charge didn't want a sexy Asian model, even though the talk is about real and cyber prostitution, because a) she/he didn't want to open the whole "Oriental women=exotic sex objects" can of worms, possibly out of fear that doing so would instantly cause the talk to be about that issue instead of its intended subject (and you know that there's going to be somebody in the audience already primed to react that way, just from looking at the poster), and b) she/he is an academic, and part of the whole academic way of looking at stuff like the commercial representation of sex and violence involves divorcing oneself as much possible from its intended effects.

This is why it's possible to take an entire semester course in American humor and not once hear the instructor or anybody in the class actually laughing (this in fact happened to me, once upon a time), or attend a lecture on, say, politically-oriented pornography in the Age of Enlightenment and never hear anyone admit to finding the material sexually arousing. And it's why I was always careful to explain that my interest in Old English and Norse literature was all about the sentence structures and the careful deployment of understatement as a rhetorical technique, rather than coming right out and saying that I liked stories about battles and blood feuds. (For the record, though, the sentence structures are fascinating, too. The Anglo-Saxon poets did some great stuff with subordinate clauses.)

It's an odd mind-set, in a lot of ways, and in a lot of ways almost diametrically opposed to the writerly one.

[katmoonshaker.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. Similar things have happened to me. I do have to say that I enjoy the duality of certain subjects... and sitting in classes and having to hold that second (or third and fourth and...) aspect in my head could sometimes be irritating. It's much better being out of school and being free at home to just let it all out. ::weg::

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

his is why it's possible to take an entire semester course in American humor and not once hear the instructor or anybody in the class actually laughing

Aha. And which is yet another reason why genre fiction ought not to be taught at the college level.

*descends from hobby-horse*

I have had some ...interesting... discussions with faculty members in the past about whether this-or-that poster was "true," which just makes me want to put my head down the desk and weep. The graphic is suppose to pull the eye, which will then hopefully be tricked into Reading the Words, which the mind will find Interesting, thus motivating the Whole Meatloaf to attend the event. Sort of like -- cover art! But, some people, they worry, bless their hearts...