The New York Sophist

I wait for the Cornell shuttle at the NY Public Library on a really amazing September day. Bryant park is not that crowded, mostly tourists taking photos with the fountain, with the food stands, with one another, with anything really. I like this so I take some pictures too. I wish I took more pictures in general. Trying to do more of that, so I took my camera with me to Ithaca. Here’s the library from where I was waiting. 

This trip is really like time travel. Here I am at the library, the final spot for really doing the hard work on my dissertation, which I started long after Sam, my friend at Cornell, pushed me into graduate school at Syracuse University. Seems funny that I wait at a finishing point to travel back upstate, to the place where the ideas were just bubbling, nowhere close to firming up to be served. 

Why do I do this lecture every year? It’s something I really look forward to doing every term. I get to see an old dear friend. I get to have some great food. I get to walk around in upstate NY. I get to walk around on the set where my past was performed. 

There would have been no way to predict where I am now in life and professionally from those days in the early 2000s when I was soaking in the incredible alien-ness of upstate New York. Everything was from far away, and it was where I lived. The air, the smells, the trees, all very different. The snow intimidated me as I had not seen it yet, and imagined it powers that only fear can grant to something. So coming here to wait for the bus that will take me back to where this whole life began in 2001 is a pretty cool thing to think about. 

I also took some great pictures of a bug, we call this a “katydid” in Texas but I have no idea what the actual name of the bug is. If you know, feel free to put it in the comments. He landed on this small turtle sculpture on one of the flagpoles and hung out for a while. It made me think about this part of this book I assigned to my public speaking students called The World is Made of Stories by David Loy where he talks about the “turtles all the way down” moment in East meets West philosophy and epistemology. This guy had no idea he was on the back of a turtle or probably even what a turtle is. It’s one of the best pictures I think I’ve ever taken and I really like it, and I like the bug too. 

Moving backwards – this guy went back to the tree which was a good idea. But moving backwards is rarely thought of as a good idea. The NY Public Library represents a conclusion for me, the end of an era and the beginning of a new life. Going back to where the new life was planted allows me time to reflect on everything and gives me the chance to think about how good and bad things are in balance. It’s a good meditation. 

Add to the situation that I am travelling back to upstate New York to lecture on the foundations of rhetoric, the discipline that had been calling me so long through various vicissitudes over the years which I now serve in all of my work. Returning upstate to talk about the scholarship that I spend most days and nights pondering is like bringing home some of the things I’ve found along the way. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I often think of the scholars who lugged all those heavy books through Nepal and the dangerous mountains to Tibet to translate. This physical moving of knowledge through the world is something we rarely think about. I was able to send a book to a student tonight via email in less than 20 seconds of labor. Information is now truly light in a dimension that Marshall McLuhan didn’t know, but predicted.

With information moving so quickly, what’s the value of slowing it down to human body speed, both physically and vocally? Why not record something, or appear on Skype, or email something to them? Why not link one of the many videos of this lecture that exist on my YouTube page? I think there’s a value in having the distant guest speaker appear and teach the course, bringing the information to them from afar. This conveys a type of value and a type of . . . I don’t know, pleasure? Some sort of enjoyment for the effort that flavors the teaching differently. It is why online courses lack something we can’t name since all the parts are clearly there. There’s something about the body, the body moving through space, going back in space and therefore going back in time, wondering about a life long over but somehow is still very much being lived, even if it’s not thought about directly every day. 

The bus arrives, and I get on – we move away from the city to Upstate New York, to the past that could never assume or predict that I would live where I live and do what I do. 

Trying to defend your ideas on cold medicine should be added to the graduate curriculum. I wish i was feeling a bit better, but i was called by my colleague to defend a lot of the critiques i make about debating. I should have recorded it.  Not because it’s good or worth preserving,  bit could be a good thing to examine for some later critique. The audience was a great one: someone who is into debate but did not come up in it, and who is really impressed with debate’s transformative power. The missing element is always rhetorical dimensions to the education of “good argument.” I wonder if nascent composition and writing across the curriculum programs also faced this similar problem. Just because you agree with something doesn’t mean it’s a good argument on universal or overarching standards. Just because the smartest people in the room think it’s a good argument doesn’t mean it’s a good one. A good argument reaches other people; most debate arguments are designed to perform exclusion, thereby making the participants think and feel they are exceptional people. Not the sort of art you want to practice in the service of a functioning, representative social model.

Also why are people misconstruing dissertations as “life work?” It’s 2017 people. I can accept that sort of read from someone embedded in the mindset that being a professor is all about “respect” and “disrespect” like some of the idiots around my place. It should rather be about craft and service, and practicing an art that is meant to provide encounters with difficult ideas to those who may not be ready to meet those ideas. A dissertation is a test, like any test, that then authorizes you to go work on what you value and be able to connect it to the standards of your field. That’s it. Proof that you can conduct a good research project. 

Anyway, it was a good chat in the car, then I flew back to NYC. Much, much better than Campus 2 Campus the Cornell bus. Might have taken my last Cornell bus trip! End of an era, but it was a good one. I am one of few people who can say that I have brewed a cup of Keurig coffee in the back of a 50 foot coach.

 I am very happy to be sitting in the Syracuse airport about to fly home to Queens. I can go to be office and work a bit as well as attend my own debate club meeting, which I often have to skip when I come up here. 

The meeting was great, and the debate was great. Lots of good, smart, young expressive people tonight. The debate was energizing and interesting. The take away for me tonight was: Don’t be satisfied with the first thing you discover you can argue on the motion, go 2 or 3 layers deeper. Try to narrow it down to the specifics of the charge provided by the motion. Ironically, this will provide a better, deeper debate. 

Wish I could type more, or be more substantive but after two days in a row that were over 14 hours of being up and doing stuff, I’m pretty spent. The flight was only 30 minutes so I spent it reading and resting my voice. Tomorrow is a day to play catch-up before it’s off to the airport again on Thursday. I’m wondering if I have the prioritization of this exercise right – instead of energizing me and getting me thinking fluidly, I feel like I’m obligated to type to meet a deadline before midnight. Not what I was hoping for at all. Instead of the blog working for me, I feel like I work for the blog. I think I’ll start with a morning post and then see how the day goes tomorrow. Might be able to get a few of these longer stories out of my head and notebook and posted here.

Is it cheating to write ahead? What if I type up something and have it post tomorrow or the next day? I think this might meet the demand of obligation to the deadline, but be absent the commitment to write daily. But If I am working on content daily, but it doesn’t post on the same day, that could work. . . .

Trying to defend your ideas on cold medicine should be added to the graduate curriculum. I wish i was feeling a bit better, but i was called by my colleague to defend a lot of the critiques i make about debating. I should have recorded it.  Not because it’s good or worth preserving,  bit could be a good thing to examine for some later critique. The audience was a great one: someone who is into debate but did not come up in it, and who is really impressed with debate’s transformative power. The missing element is always rhetorical dimensions to the education of “good argument.” I wonder if nascent composition and writing across the curriculum programs also faced this similar problem. Just because you agree with something doesn’t mean it’s a good argument on universal or overarching standards. Just because the smartest people in the room think it’s a good argument doesn’t mean it’s a good one. A good argument reaches other people; most debate arguments are designed to perform exclusion, thereby making the participants think and feel they are exceptional people. Not the sort of art you want to practice in the service of a functioning, representative social model.

Also why are people misconstruing dissertations as “life work?” It’s 2017 people. I can accept that sort of read from someone embedded in the mindset that being a professor is all about “respect” and “disrespect” like some of the idiots around my place. It should rather be about craft and service, and practicing an art that is meant to provide encounters with difficult ideas to those who may not be ready to meet those ideas. A dissertation is a test, like any test, that then authorizes you to go work on what you value and be able to connect it to the standards of your field. That’s it. Proof that you can conduct a good research project. 

Anyway, it was a good chat in the car, then I flew back to NYC. Much, much better than Campus 2 Campus the Cornell bus. Might have taken my last Cornell bus trip! End of an era, but it was a good one. I am one of few people who can say that I have brewed a cup of Keurig coffee in the back of a 50 foot coach.

 I am very happy to be sitting in the Syracuse airport about to fly home to Queens. I can go to be office and work a bit as well as attend my own debate club meeting, which I often have to skip when I come up here. 

The meeting was great, and the debate was great. Lots of good, smart, young expressive people tonight. The debate was energizing and interesting. The take away for me tonight was: Don’t be satisfied with the first thing you discover you can argue on the motion, go 2 or 3 layers deeper. Try to narrow it down to the specifics of the charge provided by the motion. Ironically, this will provide a better, deeper debate. 

Wish I could type more, or be more substantive but after two days in a row that were over 14 hours of being up and doing stuff, I’m pretty spent. The flight was only 30 minutes so I spent it reading and resting my voice. Tomorrow is a day to play catch-up before it’s off to the airport again on Thursday. I’m wondering if I have the prioritization of this exercise right – instead of energizing me and getting me thinking fluidly, I feel like I’m obligated to type to meet a deadline before midnight. Not what I was hoping for at all. Instead of the blog working for me, I feel like I work for the blog. I think I’ll start with a morning post and then see how the day goes tomorrow. Might be able to get a few of these longer stories out of my head and notebook and posted here.

Is it cheating to write ahead? What if I type up something and have it post tomorrow or the next day? I think this might meet the demand of obligation to the deadline, but be absent the commitment to write daily. But If I am working on content daily, but it doesn’t post on the same day, that could work. . . .

Finish a two and a half hour lecture, head to the hotel for some decongestant and Emergen-C. Then type a blog post. Party time. Exactly how I imagined post-PhD life. 

This trip to Cornell University has really sparked a lot of things to write here. I really enjoy coming here and teaching these students about rhetoric. It’s not just coming to the hallowed ground of Wilchelns or anything like that (something like that). It’s more about things like a sense of purpose, or a sense of doing that thing that you thought you were training for in graduate school – spreading the joy of the perspective that you take for granted, but shouldn’t. 

There’s a lot to do, a lot to do. But right now I have to go to bed. Had a great dinner at the Statler Hotel here on campus as usual with my great friend and colleague Sam. We talk about teaching debate as the sun sets over the campus behind us. Then it’s off to his class. It’s the only class with rhetoric in the title offered at Cornell, at least speech communication style rhetoric. I bet there are a ton of composition people. One day, future allies in a unified program that will dictate the entire scope of the university, I hope!

Now I wonder why I come out here and do this every year. Why bother? What’s it for? What’s the point when we have such obvious problems on my own campus? Before my talk my student texts me about a Government professor who says evidence is simply “facts.” No justification or explanation as to what that means. No sense of epistemology. Just facts are evidence, evidence is the facts. No ability to discuss it either with someone trained in rhetoric (my student). Of course, he’s a lawyer in his other job. God save us from Universities that think lawyers automatically make good teachers of law, persuasion, or anything for that matter. Most lawyers aren’t even good at practicing law, which is why there are so many slinking around as adjuncts, taking jobs away from actual teachers.

I digress. Why come out here and do this? I am not sure. But I have a number of possible reasons. All to come over the next few days. Can’t stay up and write tonight as I’m meeting Sam again at 7AM to say farewell until the spring to do this again.

Teaching about rhetoric’s abilities makes rhetoric able. Saying the thing makes it so. I had a room of pretty disinterested folks really nodding and smiling by the end. I took a lot of liberties with rhetorical history and theory, but I think that even you, O professional rhetorician will find some value in the lecture. Posting it possibly tomorrow if I can get around to it. 

Cornell is such a nice spot. Really great. Makes me feel a bit nostalgic for Texas A&M. Didn’t take enough photos but it’s go, go, go when I’m here. Next time. There will hopefully always be a next time.

Sleep In Saturday was followed by Suck It Sunday, which started with a lot of joy and positive energy that within an hour of waking up collapsed into misery. My poor wonderful partner came down with food poisoning right before she was going to head to an event she looked forward to all week. It really crushed me too; September is a tough month for me to hold it together. 

I think I’m pretty over extended most of the time, and a lot of the projects I engage in involve students, who, for all of their wonderful positive qualities just don’t have the same level of investment that I do in these things. That, plus the natural feelings of immortality and hubris that come when you are near 20 years old just make me very careful and cautious about everything. This really stresses me out. September is pretty bad, but October somehow calms down – I suppose I get used to the demand. You’d think after so many years of doing this I’d be used to it. Well, I never took into account that I would get older and my feelings of security and worry would change. When I was 23 or 24, driving through the night with a van full of students was normal. Now I would never do such a thing, even the idea gives me a terrifying feeling. 

So anyway, I am at maximum stress with some sort of proto-sinus infection going on from re-entering the university, and then this happened, which really drove my day into the dirt. Destiny 2 helped a bit, as did working on some videos for my class (I’m missing a bit this week due to travel) but it was constant interruptions. Even the food delivery guy wanted to talk for 20 minutes about hurricane Irma. That’s a good representative anecdote for the level of quality of my day. 

Lovely Shot of Cornell University

Add to it learning that on Tuesday I am not going to get to hang out with an old friend and great interlocutor. I am headed up to Cornell University tomorrow to lecture, and I plan to video it and all that. I’ve done this lecture many times before, and I am considering linking them all into one post here so you can chart the differences – it’s really evolved over the years. But every time I go, my friend and I express sorrow that the visit is so short and we’d like to chat more. Well this time we scheduled it so that we could spend most of Tuesday together – until I learned today he’s booked solid starting at 11AM. So that means I get to sit alone for 5 hours until my bus leaves. Of course I have work to do and all that, but it’s just better to do that work at home – especially when my soundboard, mic, and nice computer are all here to do that kind of work. I hope I can get an earlier time!

I’m thinking about going to a book group at Book Culture on Wednesday night after I get back. They are an essay-focused reading group, and I should have more to say about that either on Wednesday or Thursday. Then Thursday – Monday I will be in Helena, MT doing some debate stuff out there. One of the newest debate tournaments that I’ve helped with sticks around to be one of the last that I’ll work with. Pretty funny how this is all phasing out. As I expressed to my wonderful partner earlier tonight after this really terrible day, the time has come for me to just teach my classes, read, and play some video games. I do feel that I have expired in the debate world, that the time for me to be there is done, and it’s high-time to work on some other initiatives regarding teaching, speaking, rhetoric, and debating. Not sure what those are yet, but I’m sure they will come stumbling down the road soon enough.