Best Classrooms on Campus

Second floor Classics, originally uploaded by Nat Hansen.

I would like to document the best classrooms on campus. This is a start: I like this seminar room, on the second floor of classics. It looks out on the quad, it has a solid seminar table, and antique maps on the walls.

I was the TA for Ted's J.L. Austin class in here in fall of 2005.

Artifice

Q_TCS_Manystuff059, originally uploaded by Qompendium.

Recent art by Wyeth for a show in Germany.

South Carolina BBQ Odyssey

The parts of South Carolina that I have visited deploy either vinegar or mustard-based sauce on their barbeque, as indicated on this map. I like vinegar best, because the mustard sauce I've had tends to be too sweet. Does anyone make a spicy mustard sauce? That would be ideal.

Melody and I tried three new barbeque spots during the latest trip. First, we stopped before we even entered SC at Allen & Son, in Chapel Hill.



Pictured above: two sandwich platters, which we ordered based on Esquire's claim that they're the best chopped pork sandwich in the United States. They were pretty good. My fried okra was excellent, as were the mugs of sweet tea. The hush puppies were like donuts. Their Brunswick stew was full of corn and was extremely viscous.

With an intermission consisting of Bo-jays and Thanksgiving, we drove out to the main culinary attraction: Bub Sweatman's. We visited two years ago and we were very excited to return. We drove two hours south of Charlotte and drove into the Sweatman's parking area which was deserted. That was worrisome.


Sweatman's supposedly doesn't have a phone, so we didn't call ahead, and we got burned:


We sat in the parking lot for about thirty minutes consulting our mobile devices and observing as one car after another pulled into the parking lot, saw the sign, and dejectedly drove away. The fourth or fifth place we called turned out to be open: Big T's, outside Columbia. My phone was still full of podcasts, so the detour was no problem. (I recommend "The Stakeout", from The Moth.)

Big T's turned out to be a satisfactory substitute. They had homemade pork rinds, collard greens, and barbeque and hash covered in mustard sauce.




I had to ask for an account of the difference between "skins" and "cracklins". Turns out cracklins have more fat. The skins were good, even though some of them were so tough they seemed likely to knock my molars out.

The next day we finished our barbeque holiday with lunch at Mac's Speedshop in Charlotte with Melody's brother. They had weak sweet tea but pretty solid sandwiches. I saw a dude eating a piece of meat attached to a bone the size of my forearm. (I think it might have been the "Kansas City Beef Rib".)

For another recent survey of food on a recent trip to the Carolinas, see this post.

Gate Checked Luggage

Our "gate checked" luggage is delivered as we disembark on the tarmac at O'Hare, in the sleet.

Z&H Marketcafe

Z&H Marketcafe up on 47th street stocks fancy cheese, varieties of paté, and coffee made from a Clover machine. If you go in a couple of times, the guys who work there will call you by name.




Like any good hangout in Hyde Park/Kenwood, there's lots of Foucault floating around. In this case, it's a copy of Le government de soi et des autres.

Color Adjectives

A representation of the meaning of the adjective "green", during a joint meeting of the Wittgenstein Workshop and the Semantics and Philosophy of Language Workshop.

Blindness--Significance?

Class on Oedipus Tyrannus, Cobb 430, University of Chicago.

The Scope of a Serious Birder

Keith's Leica Televid 77. With patina.

Fall in Hyde Park

Fall in Hyde Park, originally uploaded by Nat Hansen.

Last week, Hyde Park was in the grip of some extreme autumn weather, with piles of crunchy leaves, temperatures dipping into the 40s, and increased squirrel activity.

Now it's just cold.

Polling Place

Nov 4, 2008: Hyde Park Neighborhood Center, originally uploaded by Nat Hansen.

Hyde Park neighborhood club.

Melody spent her morning and afternoon defending the rule of law at some polling places up on the north side.

Holzer Halloween

The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art had an opening and book signing for Jenny Holzer's exhibit Protect Protect on Halloween. We got a catalog signed, saw some decent costumes, shared a table with a U of C grad student in English working on an 18th century travelogue, and watched the projection on the outside of the building. The SLR-carrying droog in the third shot took our picture without permission inside the gallery, so I retaliated out on the steps.