Sendak Research

The bright, untroubled surface of Academia's incestuous self-love pool glitters in my eyes tonight like the lake-bound, sentient oil slick which dissolves and consumes four unfortunate college students in Stephen King's cautionary, tell-folks-where-you're-headed-of-a-Friday-evening tale, "The Raft."

"Soon," this libidinous beast whispers, "soon, Becky, if you stick to the right track, you too can be putting out essays in PMLA in March that another professor will be referencing in The Michigan Quarterly Review come April, so that when you're citing his dirivitive article in The Journal of Evolutionary Psychology come July, his colleague will have time to add your second piece to the bibliography of her tangentially related work coming out in December in The Hollins Critic.

But only if you're good, Becky, and only if you eat all your green beans."

To this sick whisperer, I say only "fuck no!" I've enjoyed this second shot at Sendak research for the essay I hope to publish with Clifford, I really have. The two articles UM actually had full-text access to were very interesting. I even took down some quotes for my own personal pleasure.

But you've got to draw the line somewhere, and I wash my hands right now of all the back-patting cross-references. Like Lyle Lovett says of redneck-ness, academic citation "has got to be a disease; you get some on your fingers and it just crawls right up your sleeve." Book and article titles swapped back and forth like Daryl Strawberry rookie cards. Uh-unh. No way. I'm out. Send me a copy of Bridget Jones and drop a little flag into my fruity drink, 'cause I'm on a l-ooooong mental vacation after tonight.

A vacation, goddammit, for one! You leech-y colleagues can climb right out of that suitcase and slink along to the next blood meal. I mean it. Go. Now!