Sean Carroll is disappointed with academia, at least as revealed through the Chronicle of Higher Ed's article on guilty pleasures of academics:
As it turns out, compared to my colleagues I’m some sort of cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Caligula. Get a load of some of these guilty pleasures: Sudoku. Riding a bike. And then, without hint of sarcasm: Landscape restoration. Gee, I hope your Mom never finds out about that.
But the award goes to Prof. McCloskey, who in a candid examination of the dark hedonistic corners of her soul, managed to include this sentence:
Nothing pleases me more than opening a new textbook.
Arrrgh! Stuff like that sets back the cause of academic non-geekiness for centuries!
I'm with Sean. Surely, we can do better than this. So, what are your guilty pleasures?
Actually, it's a little tough to come up with anything that really works, in this age of blogging. After all, a guilty pleasure is something you don't want other people to know that you enjoy, and a lot of the really good candidates in my life are here for the whole world to see. I read trashy genre fiction, and participate in SF fandom, which would count as "guilty pleasures" in the academic community, but it's not like I'm doing a bang-up job of hiding them. There's the whole blogging thing in the first place, but people have been finding the blog a few at a time for the last couple of years, and since the book deal, I've been flat-out telling people about it.
Probably the best "guilty pleasure" I can offer here that I don't already talk about regularly is this: Terrible paranormal documentaries on cable. I'm a sucker for "Aliens built the Pyramids" shows, the hokier the better. I particularly like the ones with blurry, overexposed dramatic re-creations, and lots of shots of people with dubious credentials holding forth on the TRVTH and the way that the Establishment is covering everything up.
But, really, that's not a whole lot less lame than most of what the famous academics interviewed for the Chronicle piece came up with. So, OK, I can't do better, but maybe you can...
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In the outside world, this isn't a big deal, but in academia: one world -- Idol.
Guilty is the key word here. I cannot tell you mine in an open forum like this because it is, I suspect, prosecutable.
As Chad points out, the problem with these sorts of discussions is that no one ever confesses their true guilty pleasures. I mean, if you had asked Larry Craig about his guilty pleasures two months ago, what do you think he would have said?
Hey, wait! That's not exactly what I meant!
No fair, you stole MY guilty pleasure! Those things are like the X-Files meets soap operas, how can you NOT be entertained?!
In the eyes of many academics, I'm sure blogging would class as a guilty pleasure...
OK, *this* one I can win ;-). Miniature wargaming. [And boardgaming, but that seems to attract less confused ambarrassment :)]
To the point where in my current job search, members of the interviewing committees are poking fun at me about it; hardly hidden, these days, following a simple Google...
Aristolochia gigantea "brasiliensis" growing up a 10-foot wide and high trellis then over lines across the yard to the opposite roof. Datura metel four feet wide and high out front. Showy primrose, South Aftrican pencil tree (flame), night-blooming jessimine and cereus. Platycerium superbum mounted on a thick plank from two 600-lb test steel cables (because I am a pro-active optimist).
They drive the Vista Filare Housing Association (a cabal of stunted Hitlers without the charm) up a wall. Stated architectural standards are composted wood waste and moth-eaten crappy lawns on the ground plus "Nomadic Taupe" walls. So sue me for giant flowers and sweet scents. Poltroons!
Re-touching my experimental data so that they look completely gorgeous in the presentation, then covering the tracks.
(Just kidding)
"Arrrgh! Stuff like that sets back the cause of academic non-geekiness for centuries!"
I realize he's being flippant, but there's a serious question embedded there somewhere: is there a cause of academic non-geekiness? I say there isn't.
lolcats
Butter.