← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

A Prolegomena to Any Future Perseids

UD‘s insta-meteor blogging starts here, in this historically registered cabin on a Maryland sheep farm. UD has left ‘thesda for dark open sky, and so far things look pretty good. The cottage keeper prepared for us by setting two chairs out at the edge of the pasture. “Just be sure to lock the gate behind you.” Three sheep will share the star party.

It’s hot, I’m not gonna lie to you. Our walk across the pasture just now (it’s late afternoon) was sweaty and buggy. But a breeze is coming up, and it’s bound to be cooler at three AM.

Speaking of bugs, I saw, on my way to the creek, a gold and black horned spider at the center of a vast web. Must find out what it is. Also saw maybe a skunk? Not sure.

Butterflies are everywhere, of course – a big garden opens out from the cabin, and right now a lot of it is about blooming butterfly bushes.

The window unit here in the bedroom keeps things cool. There’s a musty smell all over and lots of exposed beams and a small library upstairs which includes a 2008 Critical Inquiry.

The plan is as follows: Les UDs go back down county for dinner. On their return, they sleep until midnight. Then they steal out to the pasture (scaring the shit out of the sheep, I guess), place their chairs in the center of the field, and look up.

Margaret Soltan, August 12, 2013 5:33PM
Posted in: snapshots from home

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=40863

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories