I don’t know the official numbers yet, but based on some of the previous playoff ratings very few viewers tuned in last night to watch the decisive seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals. A shame, really. While Game 7 was far from classic–a 3-1 win by the Carolina Hurricanes who, in the previous two games, seemed less-than-championship worthy, getting outscored (and all-around outplayed) by the Edmonton Oilers 9-4–there was that unmistakable energy in Raleigh linking and feeding back among fans and players, the sort of intensity you rarely see except in the final game of a championship series. And even if you could care less about the ascension of “redneck hockey” to the height of NHL success, you gotta love the trophy presentation, which is always (and I seriously mean always) the best ceremony in sports.

As the title suggests, 6 Glasses hypothesizes that western (and even global) history was as much shaped by each period’s drinking obsessions as by its political, ideological, and cultural conditions. In early Mesopotamia, for example, beer constituted an important source of consumption and trade, becoming in fact one of the area’s most lucrative exports. At the same time, as Standage (and others) believe, Mesopotamians perfected one of the first writing technologies for keeping track of debts and exported goods, among the most common of course was beer. Using tokens etched with pictographic symbols before eventually turning to more symbolic inscriptions on large clay tablets, early Mesopotamians employed “writing” as a form of economic record keeping and accounting. Though perhaps too neat and a bit overstated in its assumption that writing and literacy enabled the rise of modern “civilized” societies, I must confess I like the implication that writing, as an inscription/accounting technology, is historically indebted to an emerging regional obsession for beer. If nothing else, it makes for a great story and a fun hypothesis to share with students. Though I wonder: assuming Standage’s story is true (or even partly true) then does having a couple of beers and watching the Stanley Cup Finals qualify as archival research applicable to my upcoming prelim essays?

Today’s mission: transfer the blogroll and catch up on what I haven’t had time to read in the past few weeks. As I started shifting names and links, however, two things occurred to me: 1) I’m linking more people than I can possibly read in a week (though I’m not convinced this is necessarily a bad thing), and 2) Despite #1, I should be reading more often because there’s a lot of great writing and thinking going on out there by some really smart and engaging personalities. I’m sure I’m not alone when I confess that my blog reading follows fairly habitual patterns, where I move through a set of practiced links that are almost always the same and almost always in the same order. Again, I’m not sure there’s anything bad or shameful about this–when faced with so much information and possible points of connection, we’re bound to simplify, even if that means ignoring the richly complex in favor of the richly simplistic. Still, with so much excellent work out there in the blogosphere, I want to (and am excited to) recommit myself to these blogs and bloggers, in effect to resist the comforts of routine and the trappings of familiarity (how’s that for melodrama and hyperbole?)

All of this is to say that I’m running a little behind on my RSA comments, which certainly echo much of what’s already been said and praised by other attendees. Simply put, an all-around fantastic conference. Though I must confess I was a bit disappointed by Memphis. The vegetarian thing aside, Memphis seemed to me to be stuck somewhere between Charleston, SC and Raleigh, unsure of which urban direction to go—the rich southern historical town or the up-and-coming modern (and commercialized) southern city. I suppose this is a fairly common tension in the South, even for places like Charleston and Savannah. Still, I found the tension in Memphis a little disheartening, particularly on Beale Street where, I think, the conflict between new and old South is most visible.

As far as the conference itself goes, I sat in on a number of terrific panels, including

1. Rethinking Rhetorical Artifacts/Theory—In particular, Thomas Rickert’s paper on the rhetorical leap, which in addition to being one of the best papers I heard at the conference reminded me that I need to reread Heidegger and Kierkegaard.

2. Rhetorics of Emotion, Affect, and Common Sense—Four terrific papers, including Donna’s on the “Burke Affect,” which made an interesting case for an affective reading of KB’s texts as well as his prevalence and persona in rhetorical theory. All of that and a t-shirt epigraph to boot. Not bad.

3. Counter-Publics, Counter-Rhetorics, Counter-Rationality—In addition to two UW-Madison presenters, a lively and productive exchange between Steve Mailloux and Diane Davis on the issue of hermeneutics and communication. I’ll have to confess I’m way out of my league on this debate and Levinas, but by my scoring Diane came from 4 down to win by 2 in the final seconds of the session. Swish….

As a grad student, however, one of things I appreciate most about RSA is the culture of mentoring that, as far as I can tell, is fairly unique to this organization. Whether in the form of official/scheduled sessions or less/unofficial meetings, RSA consistently enables novice scholars to share their work while at the same time receiving valuable support, encouragement, and feedback from more experienced and accomplished voices. All of this makes for one of the best grad student conference experiences around.

Altogether, a truly fantastic conference. Too bad we have to wait two years for Seattle.

Monday night in Raleigh: Carolina vs. Edmonton

Should be an excellent series, and since J will be in town for her defense, she’s hoping to stand in line Monday or Tuesday night to get a picture with the Cup and, oh yeah, finally get that PhD she’s been working on for some time…

As usual, I’ve got a busy summer planned, beginning almost immediately with RSA in two weeks. I still working on my paper (ok, working on a time when I can sit down and write my paper), but I’m really excited about the conference, my panel, and of course catching up with old friends and meeting some new ones. I couldn’t make the CCCCs this year on account of tending to that small zoo we call our house, so I’m especially eager to re-connect with colleagues and hear/discuss their new work…

I’m also planning to knock off as much of the prelim reading list as possible this summer. Thinking ahead as well to my own prelim reading list…?!

I’m also planning a Digital Rhetorics course for the fall, and since this is my first “content” course, I’m a little/extremely nervous about what to include and what to leave out. Right now, I just have a rough outline of some readings, but haven’t decided yet what books we’ll use. I’ll certainly blog about this over the summer, and probably bug a few readers at RSA later in the month…

And last but certainly not least, I’m going to spend some well-earned time with J, who as I write is putting the finishing touches on her disseration and packing boxes in preparation for the long drive from Raleigh to Madison. To quote the Boss, “It’s been a long time comin’…”

Update Forgot to mention, I’m also shopping around for another blog provider on account of Blogsome’s less-than-groovy comment coding. With (as far as I can tell) no commenters left authorized to post here, it feels a little like a blogging dictatorship at ole schizze and flows: no matter what I say, everyone seems to totally dig it…So, look in the coming weeks for a post re-directing you (yet again) to a new site. Sigh.

A nuisance to be sure, but no some are even being denied the capacity to post comments altogether–in some cases, even being barred permanently from commenting on ole schizzes and flows. As you might imagine, I’m pretty pissed about this. I really appreciate and value the comments I receive here (I mean, that’s an integral part of blogging, right?).

Of course, I’ve tried to get help from Blogsome, but so far no one’s stepped up to offer up a solution to this problem. I made the move to Blogsome some time ago because of similar frustrations with Blogger. And for the most part, I was/am happy here. If this issue doesn’t get settled, though, I’ll once again (sigh) have to move operations elsewhere…

Then…

Music. Really loud classical (string ensemble) music. More specifically, a really loud string ensemble version of “The Eye of the Tiger” (you know, the montage workout anthem from Rocky III). At first, I thought maybe a student had programmed the jukebox and tweaked the volume controls before retreating gleefully to watch our puzzled/angry expressions. The Old “Eye of the Tiger” String-Ensemble trick, huh? Touché. Eventually (but only because I’m in a bit of a daze here), I realized that what I was hearing wasn’t from the jukebox but was rather coming from outside the Union. A real string ensemble playing “Eye of the Tiger” on the street. With an audience. If they had only played “Tiger,” I might’ve suspected a happening (and a pretty cool one at that). But, it seems they have an entire catalogue of pop standards (an hour’s worth and counting), most recently a Star Wars medley, a full-length version of “Stairway to Heaven,” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

And so it goes.