Substitution

Oh sure, I could tell you all about spending three days in Metropolis. I could talk about how I fully intended to work on the article of impending doom, bravely lugging 80 pounds of photocopied articles and books down to the city with me, only to spend my time walking around various neighborhoods. I could even tell you about being inappropriately touched by the Dean of a school sponsoring a big grant initiative that my institution is taking part in. I could do lotsa things.

Instead, however, since it's midnight, I'm going to ask a question that betrays how fully behind the curve I am. Here it is: what the crap is up with Vampire Weekend? I know they're getting press in the Times and even NPR, but seriously, anyone want to give me the skinny? I mean, I get the whole "we're preppy, Ivy League dudes who play faux reggae with clever lyrics" and I'm all about the cheap pop hook. I'm down. Really.

More specifically, what to make of the lyrics to "Campus"? Assume, for a moment, that they're not just throwing together phrases that sound cute together (and the oft-quoted "spilled kefir on your keffiyeh" might contradict this idea). Is this seriously a song about having an affair with your literature professor with a penchant for Arab fashion? Really?! Or is the more tame NPR interpretation correct: "the thrill you get from seeing your crush walk to class..."

I don't know whether to be stiff with shock, winking at the cleverness, or amazed that it's taken this long for someone to immortalize the professor/student hook-up taboo in popular music...

Boy/Girl Blogging

Over at the inestimable Nimue's place, I ran across her reference to the "Gender Genie"--a site that purports to predict the sex of the author of a chunk of text by analyzing the use of certain words. Who's NOT up for that kind of game?

Here's the odd thing: when I fed the genie a post from this here blog, I came out predominantly female; or, as the results put it:

Female Score: 954
Male Score: 712

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

Just for fun, I fed it a post from the blog that I keep for work purposes. Check this out:

Female Score: 558
Male Score: 1080

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

So, apparently, when I'm talking about work, I'm a bit more butch then I am here. Actually, I'm more than just a bit butch--I'm twice as male as I am female, compared to my writing here, which is just slightly more female than male. I bet I could extrapolate some theories about the gendered components of different discourses, but you all can guess where I'm going with that.

[And for the record, no one told me that in the new Blogger you could change the color of your text with ease. Thanks a LOT, early adopters!]