Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for October, 2009

Trick-or-Treaters and Headless Horsemen

Posted in books, cartoons, musicals, periodicals, photography, visual culture, tagged on October 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Dear idling experts, I’ve lived in Massachusetts for three Halloweens now, counting tomorrow, but I’ve yet  to trek to Salem for their ghoulish festivities. From what I hear, they’re a real hoot—if by hoot, you mean a gross misappropriation of the past. Why worry about Puritans persecuting each other when you can visit  a psychic [...]

Read Full Post »

Musical Marxists and Jazz Hands

Posted in music, musicals, theater, video, tagged , , on October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Dear die-hard dilettantes, Some of you know that I’m a teaching fellow this semester for a popular course at Harvard called, “Gender and Performance,” taught by the extraordinary Professor Robin Bernstein. This week’s all about Bertolt Brecht, an artist I’ve had a love-hate relationship with ever since my freshman year encounter with Mother Courage. I’m [...]

Read Full Post »

Board Games of Life

Posted in advertising, domesticity, fun, periodicals, tagged , , , , , on October 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Dear La-Z-Boy loungers, I don’t know about you, but I vastly preferred board games as a child over the more dangerous (and potentially embarrassing) pursuits of the athletics field.  Still I can’t help but think all of those hours spent on the living room rug must have prepared me in some way for adulthood. “Monopoly” [...]

Read Full Post »

Dust Bowl Ballads of Love, Loneliness, and Mules

Posted in music, photography, tagged , , , , on October 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

To the easily exhausted, Believe it or not, I was a lazy scholar even in high school. Ah yes, the days of Netscape and dial-up service, I remember them like they were yesterday! Even then you could find me at my family’s computer, scouring online archives for primary sources sooner than I’d touch the dusty [...]

Read Full Post »

The Dangers of Sugar and the Joys of Steak

Posted in advertising, commerce, film, food, visual culture, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Dear snooze-button specialists, Eating may be one of the more delightful ways to delay work. People who don’t spend their lives in libraries and classrooms for a living might, in fact, be surprised at how many lunches, teatimes, coffee breaks, iced coffee breaks, brownie breaks, suppers, dinners, desserts, and happy hours you can fit into [...]

Read Full Post »

Fiddling Pigs and Finely-Dressed Foxes

Posted in books, children, visual culture, tagged , , , , on October 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Dear power nappers, On Saturday, David and I headed to the vertical Long Island—that is, New Jersey—to meet my new nephew Sammy, a beautiful little boy who has the eyes of his father (my brother), the ears of his mother, and the sleep patterns of a lazy-scholar-to-be: he spent the majority of our visit napping, waking [...]

Read Full Post »

Tippecanoe and Dead Presidents, Too

Posted in politics, visual culture, tagged , , , , , , on October 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Salutations to the slothful, Travel back with me today to the year 1840, when William Henry Harrison led the Whig party to the White House! Thanks to Cornell’s delightful (and remarkably easy to navigate) Political Americana collection, you, too, can relive Harrison’s glorious slaughter of the Native Americans at the Battle of Tippecanoe with this [...]

Read Full Post »

Dime Novels, Killer Elephants, and Drug Rings

Posted in books, periodicals, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

To my fellow worshippers of Hypnos, Bruce Handy’s recent New York Times essay on why he disliked Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are as a kid—but not as an adult—has got me thinking a little about what boys read and why. Consider, for instance, Stanford’s wonderful collection of turn-of-the century dime novels and story papers. [...]

Read Full Post »

Cartoons and Commerce, Together at Last!

Posted in books, cartoons, economics, humor, visual culture, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Dear siesta sympathizers, Those of you following the Lazy Scholar blog may be asking yourself, “Who is that handsome devil on the homepage?” No, dear readers, it’s not a portrait of yours truly, but rather the official Lazy Scholar mascot—known in his own time and place as Paul Nebeker Bogart. The mixed-media caricature comes from [...]

Read Full Post »

Queers On the March

Posted in LGBT, periodicals, photography, politics, visual culture, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

To my fellow followers of Rip Van Winkle, As some of you may know, Sunday, October 11 marks National Coming Out Day, a day for everyone to show their queer or queer-allied colors—and, in this year’s case, march on Washington for marriage equality. (You can read about the history of Coming Out Day—or COD, if [...]

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.