There is cautious optimism...
I've spent most of the last ten days or so wreaking vengeance upon yellow legal pads. In a considerably less dramatic phrashing, that means I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out just what the hell my argument for my dissertation is. Or, even, trying to really *nail* my question.
And, of course, you ask: Don't you have this shit figured out?
Well, no. As one my colleagues put it: "A Dissertation is a very *slippery* thing." And *it is.* You think you have that whole question/theory/data problem figured out. Then some jerk of an advisor, who is "helping" you, blows it all up with a single comment. Or you read about some critical case that just blows a big hole in all your thinking. After all that, you pick up the pieces and head back to the drawing board.
I spent a large part of this week staring at a list that distinguished between states that did and those that did not aid internal railroad improvements. All I could think was: "Why are New York (aided railroads) and Massachusetts (did not) different? Why are Rhode Island and Alambama *the same* (neither aided railroads)? Why are Georgia and Pennsylvania the same (both aided railroads)?" There was teeth gnashing and *everything.*
I think I figured it out. It has to do with whether or not space was a *problem* for that state. Massachusetts, like most of New England, has a pretty sweet harbor. Similarly, states like Lousiana are very well served by rivers and waterways. States like New York, while having access to a harbor, are quite *large* compared to other Northeastern states. Georgia is pretty much land locked, and couldn't acces the "ocean highway." So, states that saw space as a serious problem - took initative and supported rail development. Of course, this doesn't mean that states that chose not to support rail didn't have railroads. In an industrial state, where there was free capital and a need for large-scale, regularized, year-round transportation - private industry stepped up the plate. But I'm less interested in what private capital did, and more interested in what states are up to.
So, I'm sure I'm wrong with this little theory. But I think I'm on to something. I have something that, I think, works, and is reasonably parsimonious. I think I've got a theory that will need "tweaking," and not full scale "scrap and revision" type changes. It lends itself to a number of hypotheses (why some states were involved, why did some states push for a federal role, how do state sponsported/federally sponsored/fully private rail systems differe in planning). And all those little hypotheses nicely answer my question of: How *did* the United States (and, in implicataion, *all nation-states*) deal with the problem of "spatial development? I have theories about all those other little questions, but I won't bore you with those. All I know is that, for the first time in weeks, I feel pretty comfortable with what I have. I think I have my cases figured out, and I'm ready to start trolling 19th century census reports.
Oh yea: Lou Reed's Transformer might be the greatest album, beginning to end, *ever.*
I've spent most of the last ten days or so wreaking vengeance upon yellow legal pads. In a considerably less dramatic phrashing, that means I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out just what the hell my argument for my dissertation is. Or, even, trying to really *nail* my question.
And, of course, you ask: Don't you have this shit figured out?
Well, no. As one my colleagues put it: "A Dissertation is a very *slippery* thing." And *it is.* You think you have that whole question/theory/data problem figured out. Then some jerk of an advisor, who is "helping" you, blows it all up with a single comment. Or you read about some critical case that just blows a big hole in all your thinking. After all that, you pick up the pieces and head back to the drawing board.
I spent a large part of this week staring at a list that distinguished between states that did and those that did not aid internal railroad improvements. All I could think was: "Why are New York (aided railroads) and Massachusetts (did not) different? Why are Rhode Island and Alambama *the same* (neither aided railroads)? Why are Georgia and Pennsylvania the same (both aided railroads)?" There was teeth gnashing and *everything.*
I think I figured it out. It has to do with whether or not space was a *problem* for that state. Massachusetts, like most of New England, has a pretty sweet harbor. Similarly, states like Lousiana are very well served by rivers and waterways. States like New York, while having access to a harbor, are quite *large* compared to other Northeastern states. Georgia is pretty much land locked, and couldn't acces the "ocean highway." So, states that saw space as a serious problem - took initative and supported rail development. Of course, this doesn't mean that states that chose not to support rail didn't have railroads. In an industrial state, where there was free capital and a need for large-scale, regularized, year-round transportation - private industry stepped up the plate. But I'm less interested in what private capital did, and more interested in what states are up to.
So, I'm sure I'm wrong with this little theory. But I think I'm on to something. I have something that, I think, works, and is reasonably parsimonious. I think I've got a theory that will need "tweaking," and not full scale "scrap and revision" type changes. It lends itself to a number of hypotheses (why some states were involved, why did some states push for a federal role, how do state sponsported/federally sponsored/fully private rail systems differe in planning). And all those little hypotheses nicely answer my question of: How *did* the United States (and, in implicataion, *all nation-states*) deal with the problem of "spatial development? I have theories about all those other little questions, but I won't bore you with those. All I know is that, for the first time in weeks, I feel pretty comfortable with what I have. I think I have my cases figured out, and I'm ready to start trolling 19th century census reports.
Oh yea: Lou Reed's Transformer might be the greatest album, beginning to end, *ever.*
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Just when I thought I had lost my last opportunity to make snide jokes involving rosettes and/or straitjackets, the good people at Project Runway handed me a pair of beautiful presents wrapped in an excess of black and white fabric: the unexpected, terrifying, and blessedly temporary return of Vincent and Angela, each of whom was given one more chance to show exactly the kind of specialness that got them run out of TV Land once already. Forget the silly ''everyone who won a challenge gets a second chance'' rationale (they conveniently neglected to mention Keith, who won the very first challenge this season): This was really an excuse to inject a booster shot of crazy into a final fivesome that was beginning to look a little sedate.
And did the demented duo let us down? They did not. Given a smart challenge _ to design a cocktail dress in black and white, using every square inch of cloth you purchased _ Vincent and Angela's comeback quickly turned into a go-away-again. Why? Because Angela designed a ''shrug'' (that's fashionspeak for ''bizarrely tiny doggie jacket that real humans don't wear'') that made her model look like Little Bo Peep _ that is, if Little Bo Peep had slaughtered a lamb, skinned it, buried it, and worn the little furry pelt to its funeral. And because Vincent made a sticky-looking black skirt that rode up his model's backside like underwear on a cross-country Greyhound trip, and solved the fact that he bought enough black fabric to outfit the Flying Nun by simply dumping the bolt over his model's shoulders. Bye again, guys! Seriously: Show up one more time, and I'm calling an exorcist.
The Vincent-and-Angela revolving door (without even a kiss from Heidi this time _ she looked ready to throw a knockwurst at them) still meant that one designer had to go. Now, last week, I got a stern lecture from many of you about my poor understanding of couture, specifically regarding the virtues of Jeffrey's immense yellow clown outfit. So, people, bring it on again. Explain to me the kind of cocktail party to which it's appropriate to wear thigh-high Our Lady of the Truck Stop leggings, a Daisy Mae top, and approximately 8,000 polka dots in between. That wasn't couture, and despite the judges' bizarre insistence on the term, it was ''rock & roll'' only to those who believed Donny Osmond's claim that he was a little bit rock & roll.
As Kayne aptly said, Jeffrey's dress wasn't something that ''if I was a girl, I would wear to a cocktail party.'' (Whaddaya mean, ''if''?)
Nevertheless, after two straight wins, the Neck would have had to turn into a gigantic vampire bat and attack the judges to get himself kicked off. This was destined to be either Kayne's or Laura's week to go _ and while Laura got a fairy-tale ending (she cried, she hormoned, she got advice on how to make her dress look younger from her fairy godmodel, and she finally won her first challenge), Kayne wasn't so lucky. The judges _ Nina, Michael, and sharp-dressing and thoughtful guest panelist Zac Posen _ busted him for cumulative lack of taste, ironically in a week when he didn't have a rhinestone, a sequin, or a glue gun to call his own. Kayne departed gracefully (well, perhaps ''gracefully'' is a mite generous, given that he called his competitors ''bitches,'' ''heifers,'' and ''cockroaches'') and vowed not to continue life as a ''seamstress.'' Have no fear, Kayne _ as long as awards telecasts have red-carpet preshows on E! and starlets need dresses that say boobs, Botox, and Mystic Tan, your hands will never be idle _ and you'll be able to pay people to get on their knees and sew those hems for you.
So now there are four _ one of whom will go home, and three of whom will stay in New York for Fashion Week. (Though the results won't air for a while, the finalists will show their collections in New York this Friday.) And suddenly Michael isn't looking merely like a contender but like a front-runner. His white cocktail dress with a carefully patterned black cummerbund and lots of intriguing, not-quite-horizontal lines was a stunner _ well thought out and sensitive to his model. (It was especially nice to hear him talk about designing specifically for dark skin, a theme that the show, with its array of models of color, ought to explore more.) On top of that, his dress was, as always, dead sexy.
By contrast, Jeffrey and Uli both got mild tongue-lashings from the judges for going to the same well once too often _ Jeffrey for his manic horror-show style, and Uli for an addiction to wild prints, loose silhouettes, and ropy straps. (Tip for next week: When you make a dress so busy that it looks like an astigmatism test, don't compound the felony by throwing a seaweedy noose around your model's neck.)
What did you think? Have you ever heard anything more despairing than Tim Gunn's ''Oh, Jesus'' when he saw Kayne's dress? Didn't this week's bloated sponsor-smooching L'Oral segment stray a little too much into ''Ford Focus on the Contestants'' territory? And next week, who's going to be cleaning out his or her workspace and cursing Nina Garcia's name?