[Professor] Frampton sees academia’s denizens as creative misfits who deserve special protection. “People who are socially inept can nevertheless be the most creative people,” he told me one afternoon on the telephone. “It’s very important that they can’t be fired. This is the genius of tenure.”
Turns out the Argentine legal system doesn’t extend special protection to tenured professors. He’ll be in jail for awhile.
The New York Times article about a man this blog has followed closely for the duration of his martyrdom (type FRAMPTON in my search engine) strikes the right tone — that of telling an extended joke.
March 8th, 2013 at 11:29PM
I can’t believe that after four posts on this guy you still haven’t used the heading Frampton Comes Alive!
March 9th, 2013 at 12:08AM
Alan: Yikes – I assume I should be embarrassed about this, but — I don’t know the phrase.
March 9th, 2013 at 9:33AM
Peter Frampton was a British rocker. He started first in a group and then went solo. He had an enormous best seller (it sold for years, not months) that was contained on two albums, if I recall correctly. The title was Frampton Comes Alive! I also wondered why you didn’t use the title.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:04AM
Van: Thanks!
March 9th, 2013 at 11:36AM
Van, Humble Pie was the group. We’d derisively pronounce his name Framp-tune.
March 10th, 2013 at 2:38PM
Humble Pie! Don’t know why I drew a blank on the name. I should have mentioned that the Alive! in the title comes from the fact the album was a live album and was considered one of the better live recordings up to that time.
March 11th, 2013 at 4:04PM
I meant to comment on this earlier, but this is really a spectacular piece of personal takedown. The author really nailed the comic timing w/ all of Frampton’s “top one percent” achievements, culminating in his confidence that he will be found to be the one percent of drug smugglers who are not guilty.
March 11th, 2013 at 8:05PM
Rita: Yes, it’s just a matter of making the Argentines understand that his extensive and detailed text messages about smuggling the drugs were a joke.
March 11th, 2013 at 8:41PM
It can be so tedious to deal with the 99 percent of unfunny people when you happen to be gifted with a one percent sense of humor.