Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur » buttons

Crescat Graffiti goes to a Slavic conference

Quinn — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:25:22 +0000

Last week, right before I left for one of the big national Slavic conventions (where I was giving a Digital Humanities style talk contrasting data models and standards used by two Old Church Slavonic dictionaries), my t-shirts arrived, so I figured I’d take them to Boston for the conference.

To celebrate Russian at the University of Chicago, I wore my “One exam and one essay and I happened [supposed to be 'and I'm done']” (that would be me in the photo, with my dramatization of the Confused Russian Student). No one appears to have really noticed– or, if so, certainly not said anything. The person who I showed the original graffiti too didn’t even pick up on the mistake; there, I suppose, is part of the beauty of it.

Meanwhile, David Birnbaum kindly wore a button around, perhaps subtly suggesting the possibility of pursuing a different career for Slavists dissatisfied with the state of funding in the Humanities. (David, of course, also wins the distinction of being the first person to pre-order a copy of the book.) And today, for the last day, I pulled out my ‘Go to Italy’ shirt too. I wonder whether I’ll get any remarks at airport security; my inclination towards weird t-shirts sometimes leaves me doing more explaining than I’d like.

And finally, my father, recipient of the first copy of the book, proudly showed up to lunch in Fish Eats Brain, which apparently he wears around Keene, NH.

Lost and Found

Quinn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:49:57 +0000

A lot has happened in the last week in the Regenstein stacks. New doodles, new replies– more on those later this week. Today, for the first time, I risked an observer effect by leaving a button on two study desks with a high incidence of graffiti: our poor T.S. Eliot (see previous blog post) and the ever-growing discussion over O-chem.

I wonder who will find them. If it’s someone planning to write another response, will the response be more civil? Or maybe they’ll end up in the pockets of the students who reshelve books, though in the year and a half I had that job I never noticed the graffiti.

If you came across this site through a button, leave me a note in the comments; I’d love to hear abut it.

Buttons!

Quinn — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:28:34 +0000

Upon getting back from a 4-day trip, I found the buttons I ordered last week crammed in my mailbox. This round of buttons (there may be more, we shall see) features the much-loved “Go to Italy, be a cobbler”.

So how do you get a button? I’ve set aside one for each of the books I’m ordering in a batch to sell myself, so if you order a book through crescatgraffiti.com it’ll come with a button (along with being signed!) I’ve set aside a couple more handfuls for promotional stuff in case the book can find its way into any local bookstores. This leaves another handful or two for general purposes. If you ask me in person and I have some on me, I’ll give you one.

In other news, the package that I suspect is the second proof of the book was safely locked away in the apartment manager’s office, which won’t open until after I leave for work tomorrow. With any luck, though, I’ll be able to place the batch book order tomorrow night.