Rob's incredibly satisfying, and not at all psychotic, approach to cutting oblong sandwiches

 I've decided to record for internet-mediated posterity certain snippets of brilliance that, since I have no one to pass them on to, would otherwise be consigned to the void upon my passing. 

This is something I started doing in grad school, when I satisfied certain nutritional and culinary impulse by baking half-sheet (or large baking sheet) sized loaves of focaccia.  Rob's focaccia involves 2.5 cups or so of flour, a couple teaspoons of active dry yeast, about a cup of warmish water (or some combination of water or milk), and something on the order of half a cup of olive oil, and a pinch of salt.  Stir to combine, using just about any method you choose to (dump it all together all at once, bloom the yeast in the warmish liquid with or without a pinch of sugar or some flour, go crazy).  When it starts to come together go ahead an knead it lightly, again in any way you prefer (10 or so minutes by hand, 4-5 minutes in a mixer on low speed with a dough hook, whatevs).  When it comes together into a softish, not sticky, dough, let it rise, gently covered, in a heavily oiled bowl, until it about doubles, which depending on your yeast, your kneading, the temperature you're doing it and so on, might to 45 minutes to 90 minutes.  If it's not doing anything at 45 minutes, bloom a little more yeast in a little more water/milk (warm or cold at this point), and stir it in, re-knead with a little more flour until it looks like dough again, and put it back in an oiled bowl and let it rise..  If it still doesn't do anything, your yeast is dead. 

Turn your risen/proved dough onto a greased baking tray (1/2 sheet pan or a jelly-roll pan, or something about the size of your oven) and press it out with your hands.  You're going for a combination of pressing/rolling kinds of motion and stretching (like a pizza dough) action.  It will fight back so when it doesn't want to spread out any more without bouncing back a lot, cover it with whatever you covered it with when it was rising for a few minutes (to let it relax) and then continue, until you have an oblong, vagule rectangular, flattish 'loaf' of dough.  poke your fingertips into the surface all over, to get a well dimpled surface.  Cover again and let it rise for about half the time of your first rise, when it should expand a little and rise to at least an inch to about 2 -2.5 inches thick. 

While it's rising, preheat your oven to 325-350.  

Uncover your tray and drizzle olive oil over the dimpled surface of the loaf.  Use a pastry brush or gentle fingers to brush some of the oil over the surface so it's all covered, but you still have some shallow puddles in the dimples. Sprinkle the top with a little sea salt, garlic or garlic powder, pepper, herbs, etc to taste.

Place on middle rack of oven, uncovered., and bake for 20-30 minutes or so (depending on your focaccia's hydration, oil content, temp and conditions in your oven, and so on.)  When it's golden brown over most of the surface, it's probably done.

Remove from the oven and let it cool to room temp on a rack. Or in the tray. Whatever. Cope.   

When it's cool enough to touch it can be served. I might slice it into thin breadsticky things for dipping.  Or cut it into cubes for using as croutons (as is or with an extra crispy-crouton step).  For sandwiches, cut the thing into four quarters and have four part-loves to make into sticks, or croutons, or make into sandwiches. (If you're feeding party, make one huge sammich and slice it into 2-3 inch mini sammiches.)  For each sandwich, slice the loaf into top and bottom slices.  Like you would a layer cake.  I don' t know how else to describe it. Don't just build your sandwich with one piece ont he bottom and another on top.  Use one piece to make both the top and bottom of your sandwich.  I don't believe I have to write that, but I'm sure someone won't have the common sense (or food-tv-watching experience) to do it right and I don't want to take the blame for the result.

My favorite treatment for the sandwich is sliced turkey, with pesto. If straight pesto is too strong for you, thin it with olive oil or stir some mayo into it. Good with or without cheese (provolone is a favorite, but anything you like will do--or just skip it. Up to you.)  I like to add a layer of leaf lettuce (green or red leaf lettis, bibb or butter lettuce leaves I use more or less whole, romaine I usually cut into slices, iceberg I shred)

You now have a large, filling, vaguely oblong sandwich that might be anywhere from 7-10 inches long or more, and 5-8 inches wide.  Not precisely wieldy if you like to pick up your sandwiches whole when eating them.  So you have to cut it into pieces to make it wieldy.

This is where Rob's incredibly satisfying, and not at all psychotic, approach to cutting oblong sandwiches comes in.  Halves are stlll a little unwieldy (and for larger sandwiches, half is not quite enough for a satisfying meal even if the whole thing is a little too much, and quarters are a little small to feel satisfying in the hands when eating, even if that gives you 3/4 to be a satisfying meal with 1/4 left over for a little snack later).  So you want to cut the thing into thirds.  But as the thing is oblong, with straight cuts on two sides, and only one right angle, it' s not obvious how to create vaguely even-in-volume and satisfactory edgedness.  So do what I do.

Make one cut (1 on the diagram) across the cut short edge of your sandwich. You now have a trapezoidal piece with only one, short, 'crust' edge and three cut edges, about 1/3 of your original sandwich. Not satisfying from the edgedness front, but big enough to be held in the hand satisfyingly and with enough corners and narrow edges to make eating pleasurable.

Then make a not quite perpendicular cut across the larger piece, roughly from something like where the fourth corner would be to  not quite the middle of the first cut (2).  This produces two portions with fairly long crust edges, and satisfyingly pointy corners with at least one cut side.

The result is three very different shaped sub-sandwich portions, but of more or less equal apparent volume, and each with its own unique and satisfying angles of approach.  Seriously.  Satisfying, and not at all psychotic.

If not eating immediately, wrap in parchment or waxed paper or 'basket liner', and (if your sandwich ends up being the right size) slip into a zip-lock or a sandwich holder or a lunchbox..  Keep cool until you're ready to eat.

Unwrap as necessary, select a portion, and shove it in your face in whatever manner you find most appropriate (and satisfying) given your face and which piece you're working with. Presumably in mannerly and satisfying, and not at all psychotic, bites.

Happy Pandemiversary!

 Everybody seems to have a different day.  Just got a mass email from the new University president commenting on the last year, noting that today (March 11) is the anniversary of the WHO declaring a global pandemic. I have other dates.  March 13, 2020 (Friday) which is the day the university told me to take Monday and Tuesday to prepare for on-line only delivery of the last several weeks of Winter 2020.  That Monday (the 16th) is the day I've been thinking about, since that was the first day I stayed home when I would normally have gone to the office.

As inconvenient as the last year has been, I have to say I'm having a blast.  As someone averse to human interaction, particularly with strangers, this enforced social distancing thing is great. While I'm not really any more productive at home than I am at work (and it is certainly inconvenient being separated from my books and teaching props and so on), it's a lot easier sitting down at my desk in my jammies and trying to work than having to get washed and brushed and dressed like a human, going to work, and then trying to do it.

Once I'd worked out most of my early technological difficulties (in particular, I tried to be a good little camper and use the tools the university told me to use, especially the ones they'd spent I don't know how much money integrating into the secure LMS, only to discover three weeks into the term that it was Just Not Going To Work the way it should have), bought some extra equipment (my own document camera, which actually now that I'm using regularly isn't really doing the job--no zoom, which is going to be necessary if I keep doing this; a green screen--likewise; some extra books, pens that camera well, etc.) things are going fairly smoothly.

The house is still a disaster area.  Probably more so, since now they're a year's worth of Amazon boxes to trip over, but this is sort of how I live. Except for really, really needing to do something about my kitchen sink. Literally.  

Now the uncertainty. Will we go back to in-person in the fall?  I'm guessing not, since even if they ramp up the vaccination rate they won't be anywhere near 70% by September, and as long as anyone has any serious objection to potential exposure, we'll have to delivery partially by remote teaching anyway, I say call it now and let us plan rather than let us wonder until mid June or whatever it was like last year. And in Arts we just do not have the room capacities to accommodate social distancing properly (let alone coordinating people entering and leaving rooms by the single doors available). And so far no one, thank heavens, is advocating trying to hybridize (as so many of my colleagues around the world have done, teaching to largely empty rooms while simultaneously present over the internet).  

So now I have to reboot my computer, because a year into it I have finally gotten around to trying to connect to the school shared network from home, which will further make things a little easier.  But in the few minutes I had while waiting for things to calm down, I thought I'd officially mark the pandemiversary with something. 

#JobAction Update #UMFA2020

Friday night, voting closed. By a margin just short of 55%-45% with 85.2% of eligible members voting, the administration's offer has been ratified (accepted) by the union.

In 2016, the University of Manitoba Faculty Assocation @UMFA_FAUM went on strike for 21 days. Central to the collective agreement that came out of that job action was that the opening of negotiations regarding salary and benefits would begin this year, in 2020, ahead of the end of the collective agreement, which is expires spring of 2021.

In 2016, the provincial government improperly interfered with negotiations, requiring public sector unions, including UMFA to accept contracts that offered no increase in salaries or benefits. This edict came down during negotiations, resulting in the administration retracting the benefits offer that was already on the table. Following the end of our strike, the 0% increase was left in place pending legal challenges to the province's interference

In the following year, the provincial government tried to codify this restriction through legislation: the Public Sector Sustainability Act (PSSA). The PSSA was never fully enacted into law, but nonetheless has made clear the province's intent. Under cover of 'austerity', they were intent on 'balancing the budget' on the backs of public sector workers, not only University academic staff, but public school teachers, police/fire/paramedic services, doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, social workers, public utilties providers, such as garbage collection, recycling collection, sewer and water maintenance and on and on.

In June of this year, the PSSA was ruled unconstitutional (and described as 'draconic') as an unwarranted infringement on freedom of expression and assembly. As in 2016, ours is the first public sector union to enter negotiations under these conditions.

The current provincial government, and especially the current Premier, is openly hostile to higher education (having said publically that the Province should not be funding any program that doesn't offer direct job training). He is, like many oligarchs, openly hostile to unions in general, and has demonstrated contempt for public sector workers multiple times.

The pandemic is being used as an excuse to continue this 'draconian' program, despite the PSSA having been struck down absolutely. The argument that the pandemic driven downturn in the economy has driven the 0% increase mandate is unsupportable. There was no such reason in 2016. It was clear through current negotiation that any increase to salaries or benefits, the only issues on the table this year, would be vehemently resisted by the administration in fear of reprisal from the province. (This, I think, is a reasonable fear, given the climate.) How this doesn't comprise interference in collective bargaining is beyond me, but we are assured by counsel it doesn't.

So after months of 'negotiation' there had been no movement at all from the administration. Early in November, the union authorized a strike vote, empowering the bargaining committee to bring the threat of strike to the table. The authorization passed with something over 80% of the vote. The union described it as the strongest mandate ever provided, and by the largest % of members voting. The administration's negotiating team remained incalcitrant. The union responded with a strike vote, authorizing a strike to begin on Nov 16 if there was no progress in negotiation.

This move forced the administration to accept mediation, which I have described earlier. Mediation began on Thursday (or Friday) and continued through Saturday. There being 'some' progress, mediation was continued through Sunday. The result was the 'offer' that was on the table Thursday night, the night of the ratification vote.

This offer consisted of:

• a one-time COVID-19 stipend of $1950 to every member, with the provision that the member could convert that stipend into untaxable travel and expense funds
• retention of our rights to court-ordered remedies stemming from the PSSA decision
• the immediate application of schedlued performance and promotion increments, which were withheld as of April 2020 due to the state of negotiations
• a study on the salary grid and job classification in a report to be comleted before June 30, 2021, to address discrepancies within the UofM's salary structure, and inequities between us and the other research universities

What it does not include is any discussion of salary, let alone even a 0% raise. No increase in any of various other benefits (travel and expense accounts, healthcare spending account, parking costs, etc.) So this agreement, having been accepted by vote of the union, leaves salaries and benefits on the table heading into negotiations over the whole collective agreement next spring. Nor does it include any increase in the COVID stipend for dependent care.

I'm not going to lie, I could use $1950. The result is a total outlay of under $2,425,880. Which is a lot of money, but represents less than one percent of the university's available (unrestricted) funds , i.e the current budget discretionary surplus. And having gone as far as 2.4 million and change, going to a full $2000 for the 1244 members comes to 2.488 million, still less than 1% of the university's $254 million, and a difference of just $62,200. The figure is just suspicious.

Offering a COVID stipend in place of an actual salary or benefits offer is flat out insulting. Most universities, we are informed, have provided similar COVID stipends, including extra payments for dependent care, just as part of the transition to on-line teaching necessiated by the pandemic. Offering, in place of any discussion of salaries or real benefits, a figure like $1950 rather than $2000, when that is still less than 1% of the available funds. No one is saying we should get a big chunk of that money. There are, after all half a dozen other unions on campus that will need to be negotiated with. But if they started with the idea that they could spend 1% of the available funds, $2000 would at least sound like they were not trying to nickel and dime us over $50.

Had the offer not been accepted, negotiations would resume. The strike authorization would remain, with the potential of a strike as early as 23 Nov. This won't happen. The union's board, or whoever, will decide when would be the most effective time to begin a strike. The last three weeks of the term is probably not going to be it. So they're floating the beginning of the winter term, in time for students to withdraw and potentially apply to coursework elsewhere. This term, in spite of the pandemic and the move to almost 100% online delivery, enrollments are up 3%. They were up a bit over 11% for the summer term(s).

So that's basically where we are. Negotiations are over, and will not resume until spring next year, when the whole collective agreement expires. By avoiding as strike, we avoid taxing the good will of students, who would surely be less supportive facing two strikes in two years. (Although by all accounts, the student bodies support UMFA's position and in fact endorsed our move to job action if required.)

On the other hand, salaries and benefits, rather than having been settled, become one of at least a dozen major areas that will be open for negotiation. So the next fight will be even harder, and the need for some kind of job action potentially more dire.

On the third hand, rejecting the offer would not inevitably have triggered a strike. As long as negotiation was ongoing, and remotely productive, strike action could be delayed indefinitely, as demonstated by the scheduled strike beginning Nov 16 was avoided by the administration's agreement to enter mediation.

This is where I move into solidly personal opinion:

• I think accepting the offer makes us look weak, and we need to turn that into looking strategic
• The PR firm (or communications specialist or whatever) the union hired needs to get out in front of this, with information about why this is a strategic move, and express our frustration with inappropriate and possibly illegal government interference
• Wab Kinew and the NDP (official opposition party) needs to do something to trigger a confidence motion in the legislature, if they have any hope at all of winning it, and get Pallister and his more-for-the-rich-nothing-for-anyone-else cronies out of office
• Given the administration's stand (on the province's mandate), there was never going to be a 'good' outcome to this, for anyone. The administration needs to grow a spine and stand up to the province (and be seen doing it) and the provinicial government needs to learn to respect is public sector employees
• I think there's no way to avoid a very rough battle, with a long, long strike, unless things change a lot between now and April

A question of rice

A number of cooking shows/webshows/vlogs I watch, when they make rice, have recently gone on about the 'absorption method' as if it were a new and revolutionary thing. I've been doing some reading and I'm confused.

From what I can glean, (white?) people traditonally cook rice like pasta, in tons of water and strain it before serving.

Where I come from, 'steamed' rice involves bringing rice to a boil in the right amount of water (in Japanese-American households, this is usually 'up to your knuckle'), clamping a lid on, and turning the flame down (or off) for something like 10 or 15 or 20 minutes, then pulling off the lid, fluffing with a fork or rice paddle, and either serving, or putting the lid back on and letting it sit off the heat for a while. From what I can tell, this is the 'absoption method'. It's also the principle behind a rice cooker. You put the rice and water in, you put the lid on, you press the button, and some number of minutes later you have cooked rice, which can be kept warm in the cooker, all without having to fuss with adjusting the heat at the right time.

Steamed rice, apparently, involves boiling rice in some amount of water (not exactly sure how much, sources seemed to disagree) and then somehow loading it into a steamer and setting it over a pot of boiling water to steam. I have never heard of this technique, which strikes me as a waste of time if you've already got the pot of boiling water and the rice going. But whatevs.

My question is the following: Do any of my enlightened friends/readers actually boil and strain rice like pasta? Is the absorption method really new and revolutionary to large segments of people? For that matter, does anyone routinely 'steam' their rice as described above? More importantly is the popularity of the rice cooker incumbent on the convenience of absorption vs boiling and straining? Does that mean Japanese people regularly boil and strain their rice? What about other rice-staple cultures?

Seriously. I want to understand.

I will forgo the 'salt or no-salt in the water' question (I salt mine, but I like my rice to be salted), or the 'butter or no-butter' question (which still confuses me, unless your idea of rice is that a) it's pasta, but b) you don't salt the water, and c) you add butter as a vehicle for salt). Do not get me started.

While my union gently mediates

This is a weird weekend.  We've just had our 'term break', which leaves us with just about 3 weeks left in the term.  We have been online only since March, so all of this term.  Working okay from my end, except basically I prerecord a lecture or give a lecture 6 days a week.  But last week, I caught up on a lot.

In the mean time, we're waiting on the outcome of mediation tomorrow.  You may recall that we (the University of Manitoba Faculty Association) went on strike for three weeks in 2016, in part because the administration withdrew a salary scale offer that had been on the table, among other weird bargaining practices. Part of the settlement to come back involved negotiation this year on salary scales only, ahead of next year when the whole contract comes up for renewal.

I forget the final settlement re salaries in 2016, but basically there wasn't one.  The administration took the line that they had been ordered by the Province to hold salary increases to 0%. The 'Progressive' Conservative government in power here is pretty traditionally NA conservative, in the sense of believing in privatization of as many and as much public service as possible.  This means they have adopted the strategy of defunding everything possible, to the point where it fails, and use that as the opportunity to sell it off. 

Now to be fair, the PCs inherited significant debt following some significant mismanagement by the previous NDP governments. But the PCs decided in 2016 to try to balance the budget on the backs of public sector workers, including, indeed beginning with, UMFA. They proposed the Public Sector Sustainability Act (in 2017) to hold all public sector unions to 0% salary increases.  This bill never passed into law, and was eventually found unconstitutional, as the PSSA would have directly interfered with collective bargaining, which was found to be protected as a form of freedom of expression and association.

The point is the Province illegally, or at least very inappropriately, interfered with collective bargaining by convincing the Administration that they were required to hold to 0% salary increases, prompting the Administration to withdraw their salary offer, relying on the eventual PSSA to back up their position. The court findings (still under appeal) ordered the administration to compensate UMFA and its members for losses incurred by the strike, as well as punitive damages and so on.  

For reasons I haven't followed, this year's pre-renewal renewal of the salary issue, has basically been the administration proposing 0% increase, again, and not bargaining anything. Which seems to me, in the absence of a law requiring them not to bargain salaries, strikes me as bad faith negotiation.  The Union has proposed binding arbitration (in which a disinterested third party listens to both proposals and picks one that is binding on both parties), which has/had been roundly rejected by the administration.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons.  The main one being that it suggests the administration knows they're in an untenable position.  Since they illegally, or at least very inappropriately, refused to negotiate salaries in 2016, and are doing so again, the chances that a reasonable third party would agree with them.  This is in stark contrast to 2016, when the administration was the one pushing for binding arbitration.  Binding arbitration tends to be conservative, in that no change is usually preferred over radical change. In binding arbitration, both parties present their best offers, and generally, the administration's offer will call for less increase in salaries and benefits, and generally be the more conservative. Arbitration over a whole contract is really dangerous for unions, because the arbitrator has to select one or the other offer.  They can't take the salaries issue from one offer, and the benefits issue from another.  Or whatever.

But this year, the administration has blocked binding arbitration. Since the only issue on the table is salaries...well, draw your own conclusions.

Which all boils down this weekend.  Starting Friday, negotiations entered mediation. Mediation is when a disinterested third party helps move negotiations along.  Listening to both parties' proposals and trying to help find a mutually amenable solution. In the last couple weeks, UMFA members voted overwhelmingly to permit the negotiating team to call for a strike vote.  When there was no movement, they called the strike vote, and once again, the overwhelming majority chose to authorize a strike.  These two moves appear to have gotten the administration to accept mediation.  

Mediation began on Friday (yesterday) and ends tomorrow (Sunday).  So sometime tomorrow, the mediator and the negotiation teams will announce either a) a settlement, in which case everything is copacetic, or b) no settlement, in which case we go on strike starting Monday, the day we're supposed to return to classes. I suppose there is a remote possiblity that there will be no settlement but there was enough movement to avoid the strike, but more probably if there is no settlement, we'll go on strike while negotiations continue.

So my stomach is not happy this weekend, since I have to emotionally prepare for classes and other academic stuff, as well as prepare to be on strike.  Because the city is back on COVID-19 lockdown (not quite as drastic as the first lockdown in March, but since the second or third spike depending on who you believe.  The positive test rate (for the province) has risen from 3% in August to over 12% now.  Can't find number specific to the city, but the vast majority of cases comes from the Winnipeg region.  

So a strike won't involve mass picket lines since a) nobody is really entering or leaving campus, and b) picket lines are not great places to try to maintain social distancing.  The union has tried to explain 'strike activities' to us, but I don't really understand. I'm guessing someone will tell me tomorrow when to check in on Monday, and I will spend time on Monday calling or emailing MLAs, public officials, media outlets, and so on, and spreading stuff on social media, or whatever they tell me to do.  

I support my union, not that I feel personally that I deserve a salary increase of any kind, but because as a group compared to comparable research universities in Canada, we are very poorly paid, which has clearly impacted both the kind and quality of programs we can offer students, and how we are able to recruit and retain colleagues.  But really, we're the first post-PSSA union to re-enter salary negotiations, so we're kind of the test case for all the rest. Public employees run our public universities, our public schools, and our public hospitals, not to mention our police and fire departments, our garbage and recycling collectors, our road and maintenance workers. But in particular our nursing and hospital staffs in general, who are overrun on the frontlines of COVID-19 on top of all the usual stuff they deal with, both in terms of patient care and their general physical and mental health.  

Not to mention the expired PPE masks that the province dumped on hospitals (again onto the backs of frontline public-sector employees) months ago, but that's a whole other scandal.

So our main hashtag this year is #UMFA2020.  I assume there will be others announced in the coming days. Expect to see them a lot in my Twitter and Facebook feeds, those being the only social media platforms I use, and I plan to use them primarily for strike things, rather than my usual nonsense, which mostly have to do with food and sleep anyway.

Update: #JobActionNews Mediation has been extended through Sunday the 16th. Work as usual on Monday. The earliest a strike would begin is Tuesday the 17th. But it looks like someone thinks there has been some positive discussion in mediation. Taking a slow deep breath. #UMFA2020

Update: #JobActionNews Tentative agreement has been reached, and will be taken to the union members for a vote. Negotiators/board don't seem enthusiastic, and from what I've seen it's not much of a deal, but at least it's a deal. And given the current political climate (read: interference) I'm not sure how likely we are to get a better one. But that's for another day. Strike action delayed indefinitely, pending ratification vote. #UMFA2020

Adventures in techological achievement

Just to set this up, I'm writing this on Blogger, which, when you write a post, you do within an actual editing environment, in which it happens that 'save' and 'publish' are (correctly) two different things, but if you want to see what the actual post looks like, you have to 'preview' it, which opens up a completely different tab to the Blogger reader interface, which of course doesn't have a way to save or publish the post, which you have to do back in the editing space.

I assume these things are designed by groups broken up into teams.  One team is responsible for the editing space, another for the previewing space, another for the publishing (or 'make public') space.  The worst case is when there is one team that does 'publish' that everyone else is supposed to provide a button to click on, but the different groups put it in a different place.  One at the upper right, one at the upper left, one hidden in a pulldown menu, one hidden under a menu hidden under a separate tab...

If you work for a large organization, like a university, the systems you actually use are usually purchased by administrators (who increasingly fail to be academics having ever run a course before, let alone coordinated several different kinds of courses) without any consultation with on-the-ground users.

So within a product, let's say a Learning Management System, you fall for a sales pitch that involves a whole lot of good ideas (look you can manage gradesheets! look, you can let students see exactly what's happening with their grades! look can make general announcements to the whole class! look you can provide actual information, like instructions on assignments, to the whole class) that are implemented differently by the diffferent teams actually building the front ends.

So for instance, to make an 'announcement' you have to click to go to the announcements tool, which opens a new tab/page.  You type in some kind of headline into one box, and the announcement into another, and then to actually make the announcement, the announcement tab gives you a menu to pulldown to select 'make public' or something like that. Which is fine for an announcement like 'class is cancelled on thursday' or 'there's a typo on page 152 I wanted to point out'.

For more substantive things, you don't make an announcement, you add a 'content'.  A content is like an announcement, in that it involves general information for everyone, but is usually longer and more detailed.  It's also put somewhere else within the course page in the LMS, and does not automatically generate a useful announcement, like 'hey everybody, I've added a 'content' that you really want to pay attention to')

Another random difference between an 'announcement' and a 'content', is that you save a content by clicking a button at the top left of the content-building page, and you make it public by choosing something from a pop-up menu located at the bottom right of the page.  To be clear, these are both reasonable things to do separately (although frankly 'make public' should always automatically generate a 'save').  But the point is that the two tools have different 'make public' procedures, and only one allows you to save something without making it public.

I assume this is due to different functions being designed and implemented by different teams (and at different times) without having an overall 'interface experience' manager to keep track of everything and make suggestions. 

I imagine some scenario such as the following leads to this kind of situation.  MacroFirm produces a suite of products. One does document editing. One does spreadsheets. One does document design (which is different from document editing), and one provides the user with a database-style inteface.  Each product/function is assigned to a different team.

The document editing poeple create 'new' 'open' 'save' and save as' commands, that can be accessed by a row of buttons at the top of the tool.  Your spreadsheet people have similar functions, but for whatever reason (perhaps they don't want to clutter the interface), put them in a menu.  Your document design people have similar commands, but for reasons of their own put them into a command window that you bring up by clicking on something else.  And your spreadsheet people cannot imagine a situaiotn where you would put something to a database and not want to save it, so they do away with 'save' altogether and just have everything written to the database in real time.

Fortunately, you are MacroFirm, and you're smart enough to know that your users are probably all going to use more than one of these products, and would really prefer a consistent interface.  So you set up a new time to devise said interface and then send down an edict to all the other teams that From Now On all our products will make use of the general interface. Including the same keyboard shortcuts and so on.

Now Macroform is fortunate in that The World has already come up with a preferred interface, these being the 'file menu', S for save, N for new, etc. So no reinventing the wheel there.  But then you discover (or decide) that no one wants a 'file' menu separate from an 'edit' menu, etc., so you shove them all into a ribbon.  And just because you know not everyone will want to clutter the interface with a ribbon, you make the ribbon hideable, and create a 'toolbar' where your favorite actions, like open and save, can just sit.  And your user can control where the toolbar sits, and what is on it.

What you can't do, apparently, is create a system where a general toolbar exists across all your products. So the default toolbar for your document editor as new, open, save, undo, redo, and print, as defaults in that order.  Your spreadsheeting product has new and open, but not print (because who routinely prints entire spreadsheets, and moreover does so often enough to having the button sitting and staring at them 100% of the time. 

Your database people, knowing that no one actually wants to save anything, continues its practice of automagic real-time saving, doesn't put 'save' or 'save as' (or for that matter any of the others) in the tool bar.  Fine.

Except your end user, dammit, wants 'new', 'open', 'save', 'save as' and 'print' in that order, more than they want undo (with or without redo) or any number of other commands in their toolbar.  And by the way, since neither the ribbon nor the toolbar can ever show you all of the available functions, you still

Learning to work at home

For the last I-don't-know-how-many years, I have been a work-at-work person.  While I can get stuff done at home, in the evenings, I find the office to be the best place to get work done. 

The need for social-distancing has led to a number of disruptions for many of us.  The University switched from regular course delivery to on-line only as of March 18th (unlike many of my colleagues, we got word on the Friday that we'd have no classes on Monday and Tuesday to make the transition before Wednesday the 18th). Some colleagues at other schools got word Friday after hours that they had their weekend time to make the transition so classes could resume online on the Monday.  Others were clever enough to schedule their spring breaks for the week of the 23rd, which made taking the week before and the week after possible

But anyway, in four days, I had to learn to voice-over-powerpoint, and explore the dark recesses of the Learning Management Software, which to my eye looks kludgey and awful, but I'm getting used to depending on it for all my student communication.

But anyway, I'm sheltering-in-place.  Others are calling this 'lockdown' or 'quarantine' which is sort of overstating things.  We're supposed to stay at home, unless you have to work at something essential, shop for necessary supplies, seek medical attention, or have up to an hour of exercise.  While maintaining, as much as possible, at least two meters distance from anybody else.

Easiest for me is to just stay in.  I've been out three times since we started this. All to get food or meds or stuff like that.  I have taught, as of today, two full weeks of classes at a distance, asynchronously.  Which has been a struggle, but since I audio record lectures to go with powerpoint slides, it actually doesn't take as long to prep, in that I usually don't rehearse my material except while I'm putting the slides together, and then don't have to spend another hour actually doing it all.  So unbelieveably I'm actually starting to catch up.

But one of the things that has always been a problem for me is having to work in the mornings.  Because grownup adult human beings get up at reasonable human hours, and work reasonable human hours, and go home and reasonable human hours.  And sleep reasonable human hours.

But it takes me weeks to get into a rhythm where I can get up before 9am every day and be vaguely lucid by 10:30.  And it only takes the space of a long weekend for my circadian rhythms to get completely fouled up.

But since I don't actually have to be anywhere in particular at a specific hour, I found that only after a week, I had pretty much found my natural rhythm.   I wake up around noon, sometimes later, get up, putter around and fiddle on the computer for a couple hours, and then I can actually settle into vaguely productive work, with frequent, but nondisruptive, breaks.  I hit my peak productivity between 7 and 9 pm, and pretty much work at stuff until 1 or 2am.  Go to bed, and sleep from around 4am to about noon.  And since this seemed to be working for me, I've decided to lean into it.  I'm making it my usual thing.  I'm not worried about trying to get to bed at a decent hour.  I'm being kind to myself about lying in bed until noon or 1pm.  I'm getting stuff done. 

I've always known I was an introvert, and that interacting with people was tiring.  I didn't realize how exhausting.  I'm doing great.  Everyone else is going stir crazy. I'm having a great time.

So there you go.  This is my new normal, and, pandemic disease aside, I'm really enjoying it.

Now if I could convert some of this productivity to housework as well, I could probably, in a month or so, be a functional human being, if not grownup adult. 

Thoughts on corporate exploitation of mental illness day

"I talk about sex a lot in my act, because, let's face it, if I was hungry I'd talk about food." — Adam Ferrara

B*ll let's talk day (hashtag B*llLetsTalk) is upon us again, the annual reminder to bring mental illness, particularly depression out of the closet.  Sometimes literally.  I was ambivalent about using the opportunity to blog about my mental health, which I've been meaning to do for a while, just because I talk about this kind of thing a lot. Especially on Facebook.  My feelings toward the corporatizaton of mental illness is summed up beautifully by my friend, whom I will call HL until I get permission from them to actually use their name.  But I'm stealing their opening Let's Talk Day post.

This was prompted by the annual marketing campaign of a telecommunications company. How I feel about the marketing campaign is not black & white.. I've read stories of the unsupportive way they treat their own employees that are dealing with mental health issues, then there's the concept of co-opting a mental illness for tax cuts and corporate gain, etcetera. However. Every once in a while, years later, I'll receive a message out of the blue from someone who read my first depression posts and is writing to tell me how it made them feel less alone, how it prompted some action on their part, how it helped them talk about their own struggles, how it changed their life. And that to me is so incredibly humbling and makes so clear the value of talking about depression and mental health, even if it's just once a year, even if it's a corporation reminding you to do so. To have an effect for the better on someone's life, just by sharing a little bit of what you're going through, and for them to tell you about it years later... It is profound to contemplate. So I am grateful that a corporation, benefit as they may, is reminding us all to talk about mental health.

For those of you not paying attention, I was  diagnosed with major depression in about 2004, and have been in on various antidepressant meds ever since.  Major depression is an acute (meaning it happens suddenly) form of depression (manifesting anywhere from catatonia to vague lack-of-energy, accompanied or not by physical illness, pain, and low mood). I rarely have non-functional days, days where I can't get out of bed, days when I can't make appointments or show up for classes or whatever.  I have, however, for the first time in my life, had days where (in the absence of a class or a meeting or appointment) I find myself climbing back into bed and unable to contemplate anything for more than 3 minutes, until it's evening.  Actually night.  Like 8pm, Rob finally emerges from the bedroom to take his pills, have a headache-reducing coffee, and eat something horrible.

For me major depressions are occasional acute manifestations of my chronic (meaning it doesn't happen suddenly, but is basically just always there) persistent depressive disorder (the DSM-V has merged my previous diagnosis, dysthymia, with something else, into PDD).  In my case, PDD is basically chronic low mood and  low energy, but not as low as when in a major depression.  A previous therapist described it as 'instead of being at close to 100% much of the time, you're hovering around 80% much of the time.  If a 'healthy' person hits a setback and goes down 20-30%, they're still functional. If you hit a roadblock, you're down to 50-60% and in crisis'. Having PDD is like having anemia--you may be basically okay, day-to-day, but you're not 100% like other people, and it takes less to take you into emergency territory.

So my update is that this year, with the encouragement (and assistance) of my regular doctor, my dean, and my HR department,  I am seeking help. I'm in talk therapy for the first time in 15 years, monthly, by myself in a comfortable little room with my therapist (actually 'counselor' because 'therapist' is apparently a separate certification in Manitoba).  Only seen him a few times so far but he's helping me re-shape my narrative, more than anything else, and keeping me on track with all the stuff I should be doing anyway: breaking down large tasks into small, manageable, and most importantly achievable, tasks and following through with them.

This means changing a lot of habits.  I tend to procrastinate because I don't like starting something I don't think I can finish in the sitting time I have available.  So marking stack of papers, I like to clear a fwe hours and mark, rather than doing a page or two of each, or one or two papers, over several sessions.  But I no longer have the concentration power to sustain 3 hours of marking at a time, so I have to learn to take shorter available patches of time, try to settle in to do part of something, and then move on.

So aside from helping normalize my experiences ('that's common enough', or my first breakthrough 'no, you're not a sociopath') and encouraging any small progress I can make (and teaching me to do so) he's also helping me reshape my narrative (I'm no longer just stupid, or forgetful, or lazy, I'm just having trouble keeping my brain in gear and have to concentrate more in small bursts  rather than just despairing at how out of control and unproductive my life is.  I love my therapist.

I spent much of the last few years dodging added responsibilities at work, for fear of overloading my limited neurotransmitter. Now, with the help of my doctor and HR department, I have registered some of my difficulties (the PDD, the sensitivity to light and constant noise, the pain in my foot, and so on) as factors that limit my abilities, and finding reasonable accommodations.  This has been pretty successful, actually.  I now have someplace to call when 'there's no place to sit in my classroom', 'the lights in my office are too bright' and 'I don't like keeping my door closed, but when I don't people interrupt my fragile train of thought'. Workwise I'm feeling a little optimistic and am slowly getting back into doing stuff regularly, this time in small bursts of productivity.  Still working on not starting something and hitting a burst of productivity and getting derailed having to go teach a class or something, but at least stuff is sort of happening. 

I have a new plan for the textbook I started writing, which is going to work much better.  I have an interesting project that will probably result in at least a conference talk but I'm going to try to sell it to a journal.  I  have some new tools to deal with bureaucracy that will hopefully head off complete frustration and anger and total roadblock in my own work. I've volunteered to run a workshop for students next month, and invited to give an invited presentation at a conference in May.  Productivity is occurring, which is more than can be  said of the previous few years.

So it's all about nibbling away at problems, like the mess on my kitchen counters, my research.  Even my teaching responsibilities, Even if I teach in blocks pre-scheduled blocks of time, I no longer feel  like I have to sit down and prep a whole lecture all at once.  It means I have to prep several lectures at a time, all at different stages, but apparently this is how grown ups manage their time. 

Another breakthrough I had with the therapist "oh, this must be how grownups do it". As in 'ah, housework never ends. You're never 'just done'.  The trick is to stay on top of it so there's no pile of crap building up around your desk that would take Herculean effort to clear out.  Or having achieved such a pile over time, understanding that it's going to take time to clear out, and better to deal with a couple of small things when you can than just leaving it to get worse until you feel 'ready' to tackle it.  You're never going to be ready for all of it, and you're just going to have to develop the habit of doing the small things (continually) instead of big things all at once.

In the housework realm, I'm being helped and amused by a book called Unf*ck Your Habitat, which is a housekeeping book aimed at people with mental or physical disabilities. You don't have the energy to clean a whole bathroom.  Guess what.  You don't have to, and no one actually expects you to.  But can you take 10 minutes and scrub the toilet?  Can you take another 10 minutes some other time and clean the mirror?

So anyway this is me talking for Lets Talk day, without acknowledging the corporate sponsorship of the activity.  Time to prep part of a class and write part of a test. Then later, there's a huge block of teaching, but tomorrow there are about 7 clear 30-45 segments of time when I could actually hack away at a couple of different projects.  And I'm not really dreading any of them, because I don't really expect to finish them, so none of them seem very hard.  This is progress. #robsbrain is no longer an excuse, it's just a factor in a new way of living.

Phonetic sharesies

General issues of personal research productivity aside, I'm fairly well known in my field. Sometimes liked. Even vaguely respected sometimes. Part of that is being the student of who I am the student of, and part of it is the fact that until recently I have never (and still rarely) turned down the opportunity to do peer-reviews for journals. "Always make nice-nice with editors" has long been one of my mottos.

Something else that comes up occasionally is that I'm actually kind of good at what I do, and helping others do it. To that end, I have a shareable dropbox folder I cal Px Sharesies where I put phoneticky stuff that might be of interest to colleagues.

At this point, some people will point out that my professional website hasn't actually been updated in close to 10 years, but we'll just gloss over that for the nonce.

The contents of Px Sharesies (px='phonetics', one of the many jocular abbreviations and acronyms I use, and sometimes even coin, regularly) grows occasionally, and not everyone I know who might care knows them.  Maybe I'll put them in a list someday.

Px Sharesies contents (March 2019)

King's Speech clips

Folder. Contains clips from the film The King's Speech (2010, directed by T Hopper) relevant to Logue's fluency techniques and treatment of King George VI's stutter

My Fair Lady clips

Folder. Contains clips from the film My Fair Lady (1964, directed by G Cukor) relevant to transcription, dialect, phonetics demonstrations, etc.

Phono Bingo materials

Folder. Contains instructions, notes for instructors, sample cards, etc. for a phonological/phonetic feature-based variant of Bingo

Annotated Bibliography for Speech Anatomy (Jan2019 draft).pdf

PDF document. Most current version of my list of books/reference works for speech-anatomy people

Ax cheats.xlsx

Excel spreadsheet with multiple pages:

• A short cheat sheet for calculating variations on c=fL and uniform tube resonances
• A spreadsheet for generating nomograms for a simple two-tube C/O-C/O model as a function of combined length and speed of sound
• A table for converting 100s of Hz to Bark (Zwicker, Traunmueller, and Traunmueller corrected for high and low Bark)
• A table with information for generating Bark-warped F1/F2 grids for plotting vowels

Bark-warped grid for vowel plots.pdf

PDF document. A page-sized graphic of a bark-warped F1/F2 grid for graphing vowel formant spaces. Based on the table in ax cheats.

gradesheeet eg.xlsx

Excel spreadsheet. Generic version of my gradesheet setup with automagic calculation of interim and final grades. If you remember to fix the grading scale formula and so on

Intro ToBI (Jan2019 draft).pdf

PDF document. Most current distribution version of my Introduction to ToBI pape

IPA 2015, labels redacted, symbols only.pdf

PDF document. The 2015 IPA update, but with all the labels removed, for student reference in exams

IPA 2015, symbols redacted, labels only.pdf

PDF document. The 2015 IPA update, but with all the symbols removed, for student reference in exams

sones.xlsx

Excel spreadsheet. A random table with μPascal-dB-sones equivalents (sones calculated via formula), with level descriptors (barely audible, whisper, city bus, etc.). I had to look up μPa to dB and/or dB to sones once, and built the table so I wouldn't have to keep doing it, but I don't think I've used it since. Not even sure where I got my loudness equivalents. Bad scholarship, but there it is

Coming soon (fsvo soon)

A very rough draft of some of the activities from my prospective workbook for acoustic phonetics

This being a public blog post, I don't want to just post the link, but if you have any use for any of this, send me a DM and I'll send you the link.

"Moby Dick is going to kill me!"

Originally from 2002, this essay is presented here because I think it's funny. Some copy editing and proofreading has occurred, although I noticed on readthrough that there's a typo that I now cannot find.

I have this list of Things I Really Ought To Have Read By Now. Great works of literature, institutions of popular culture, stories and characters we all know, allusions we all get, even if we haven't read the originals. Austen, Brontë, Chaucer. A Tale of Two Cities. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Odyssey. The stuff Great Books curricula and Warner Brothers cartoons are made of.

And every summer, I tackle a few. And here's my advice: Skip Moby Dick. Or if you feel you cannot skip it entirely, skip the first 200 pages or so. They're just not that important. Or if you really want to believe that it's a deep, symbolist novel that's really about the social struggle leading up to the American Civil War, go take some more drugs and read the Cliffs Notes.

First, here's what you'll miss, if you skip the first 200 pages. Ishmael is the narrator. He is like that shifty uncle no one likes to talk about, but who appears on the doorstep every 10 years or so, stays for a few months, and then leaves again for adventure and fortune, until adventure, fortune, and the generosity of other relatives are exhausted.

Ishmael has made his way to New England, intending to sign onto a whaling voyage, which entails sailing and hunting around the world, for a period of about three years. Most of the first 100 pages or so are spent in Boston commenting the darkness of the wood and the smokiness of the air in Ishmael's hotel. Here he meets Queequeg, with whom for reasons of space and economy, he ends up sharing a bed. Those hoping for a homoerotic, sailors-at-sea kind of interlude may be encouraged by Ishmael's copious descriptions of Queequeg's Savage Breast, his half-nakedness, and the supposed 'marriage' that occurs between. But alas, such people will be disappointed.

Advice: Skip Queequeg. Despite long lingering looks at his brown skin and tattoos, he does not embody any mysterious primal forces. He does not symbolize any unstated lusts either physical or vengeful. He's a harpooner, and whaling vessels need skilled harpooners. One might hope that he would occupy some Hideously Symbolic role in the story, or perform some Outrageously Meaningful act. He does not. This is left to one of the other harpooners. The closest he comes is when he builds himself a coffin, but it's mostly there to belabour the portents of death, rather than advance the story or symbolize anything.

Queequeg's primary activity in the story, besides being Savage and Naked, is being Pagan. Queequeg carries a little black idol whom he worships at regular intervals, at least in Boston. Much ink is spilled on this idol. Mostly on how black it is. Its primary purpose in the narrative is to provide something black for Ishmael to compare other things to--the night sky, the angry sea, the perilous storm, the skin of sundry harpooners and crewmen, and of course the odd mood or two. The whale, not being black, is not so compared. Nor is the lurid scar symbolizing Ahab's rage, nor his ivory leg symbolizing his vulnerability. So the idol mostly comes up at off-moments in the story.

Ishmael eventually signs on to the Pequod, Ahab's ship, for the full three-year hitch, for which he will receive something like one two-hundred-and-forty-seventh of one percent of the profits from the voyage. Ishmael's employers regard this as a ridiculously generous wage for a landlubber with no experience, so the reader is left to suppose it's quite a lot of money. On the other hand, it's an order of magnitude less than Ishmael spends the previous chapter planning to accept. One imagines Ishmael's relatives at this point hoping he goes overboard so they can have their guest room back for actual guests.

There are a few bits of reminiscence interspersed here and there, mostly as cultural background so you can understand how a whaling expedition is organized. There are also several remarkable essays, including Ishmael's three-chapter Taxonomy of Whales, which isn't based on any useful biological information, but on size, head shape, and quality of oil. There's also an aggravating (or perhaps charming) philosophical essay about whether or not whales are fish. According to Ishmael, they are. Noting that they bear live young, are warm blooded, and the bones that support their flippers and tail are long and jointed ke those of a mammalian hand or foot, they're fish. Apparently because the swim and have fins.

Advice: If you think this sort of thing is charming, and makes for a lively story, you spend a summer reading it and see if your friends are still speaking to you afterwards.

All of which is probably very meaningful in an encyclopedic account of whaling culture or a whaler-diarist's daily life. But Moby Dick is not presented as an anthropological treatise on whaling life in the 19th century. Rather, Ishmael appears to be sitting in a bar, telling the story in exchange for drinks. The story is interrupted at various times in the first third of the novel with side-anecdotes about the reactions of his various interlocutors, in bars around the world.

Advice: If you're ever in a bar telling a lively story in exchange for strangers buying you drinks, don't go on about your theory of whales, unless they're really drunk already.

So, around page 200 or so, the novel finally gets around to Ahab and the whale. Captain Ahab is an Aristotelean figure, in that his doom is a forgone conclusion due to his obsessive hatred of Moby Dick (the whale, although if he knew what kind of novel he was going to be wrapped up in...). In a previous expedition, Ahab was horribly maimed by Moby Dick. In addition to the fine ivory leg made from the jawbone of another slaughtered whale, Ahab has an awful scar on his face to remind him of the encounter. He appears, eventually, from wherever he was for the first several months of the journey, and begins to pace the decks, the brass tip of his artificial leg clicking ominously across the planks.

Early on, Ahab rouses his crew to the cause and places a symbolic gold coin in a hole he has worn in the deck of the vessel swivelling around on his ivory leg when not pacing. Or maybe he places it in a slot or something under the compass or the wheel or something. It's someplace people can go to gaze at it while they have interior monologues, which they seem to do a lot.
There are three other figures in the crew you need to know about.

The first is Young Pip, who is raised from poverty and made a gentleman by an anonymous benefactor. No wait, that's Great Expectations.

Advice: Don't get too attached to young Pip. Though he symbolizes youth and potential, if it were a WWII movie, he'd be that fresh, freckle-faced kid who gets blown up by a Nazi grenade in the first 10 minutes. He does make a rather mysterious, not to say confusing, return later as a ghost, the product of Ahab's growing dementia, but that's about all for Young Pip.

The second is Stubb, who symbolizes the human condition. He is the second mate, practical, experienced, wise, but taciturn. He observes, but does not judge. Much. He is primarily responsible for pointing out to us how obsessed Ahab is, in case we had forgotten, or how worried Starbuck, the first mate, is. He also, when actually hunting whales, is responsible for keeping up a constant, almost rap-like stream of exhortation to his crew which doesn't advance the story much because it doesn't consist of commands to do anything or observations about what's going on in the boat, but are more philosophical commentaries on how much danger they're in and how rich they're going to become, and how brave and strong everyone is. And how dead Young Pip is.

The third is Starbuck: he is regarded in literary circles as a Good Christian boy. He respects the whale as a creature created by God as he himself was created by God. And if God had not charged Starbuck with killing whales to make a Christian living, Starbuck would probably just as soon Live and Let Live, at least as far as whales are concerned.

Aside from inspiring aggressive coffee companies, Starbuck regards Ahab's obsession as dangerous to his ship and his crew. This causes Literary Tension between Captain Ahab and his first officer, and provides many opportunities for exploring each's perspectives via rhetorical devices like interior monologue. There doesn't seem to be a lot of conversation on Pequod.

I suppose the Starbuck-Ahab dyad reflects a contemporary moral dilemma between the dependence on the whale for its oil and the incredible cost, both to the whales and the whalers, of obtaining it, which or course reflects the modern moral dilemma between our dependence on natural resources and the results of our taking them. And I'm certain Melville meant for this relationship to reflect these things, because there's no other reason to add a hundred pages to a novel that is already too long by doing again and again and again and again.

Advice: If you want symbolic struggle between Man and Nature, go read Watership Down. At least the mammals aren't fish.

When not actively pursuing actual whales, much of the voyage is spent communicating with other whaling vessels. Given that this is pre-radio, this is done by bringing the two ships aside one another, someone is hoisted down to a boat, rows across to the other ship, and is hoisted up. These visits usually involve an exchange of information--where the whaling was good, what the weather was like, general news passed from one captain to another. Because of Ahab's obsession, these visits are usually reduced to some variation on the following theme:

Ahab: Have you seen Moby Dick?
Other: You mean that ghostly white whale?
Ahab: Yes, have you seen it?

To which the Other provides one of three possible responses:

1. I think so, but it was years ago and in an ocean thousands of miles from here.
2. No, but I heard from some other captain that some other captain he had spoken to had spotted him somewhere.
3. Isn't Moby Dick just an old wives tale, like the yeti or the Loch Ness monster?

None of these being particularly useful to Ahab, the encounter is usually cut short and Ahab retreats to brood.


About Moby Dick. Despite the novel's subtitle ("The White Whale"), Ishmael makes it clear early on that Moby Dick is not white. That is, most whales are gray or otherwise animal-coloured. A white whale would be ghostly, an apparition, something bigger than life, an elemental force worthy of legend and 500 pages of ponderous symbolism. Moby Dick has some white spots, particularly on its head, and is thus relatively easy to recognize, should you be unfortunate enough to be close enough to see. But there is nothing ghostly or mysterious about it. It does, for undergrads looking for something to write a term paper on, have a scar from Ahab's harpoon on its face. Discuss the symbolism of facial scars in Moby Dick.

But the point is that Melville takes pains early on to make it clear that Moby Dick really is a whale, not some elemental force, and that Ahab is a raving loon. Hence the point of the whole novel unravels. Ahab is a whaler, and whalers get mained and killed by whales all the time. Young Pip being the prime example. Sad, yes. Tragic, yes. Part of the price you pay for the wealth of whale oil, definitely. So if Ahab had been maimed my some run-of-the-mill, mongrel whale, there'd be nothing to get obsessed about. But Ahab was maimed by a normal whale, not by some supernatural Whale Force. You want Starbuck, as he holds his interior monologues on how dangerous Ahab's obsession is, to just give him a good dope slap across the back of his head and tell him to get over it. Which is precisely what someone should have done to me when I proposed to read Moby Dick just because I ought to have done by now.

Somewhere in the middle of the novel there's a moderately exciting episode involving an actual whale hunt. It is preceded by a long discussion of ropes and spools and things. During the actual hunt, the men are almost killed by the rope (attached to the harpoon, attached eventually to the whale). Then in the following chapter, Melville/Ishmael says, essentially, 'actually, the reason the flying rope was so dangerous is because there is a second harpoon attached to it that I forgot to tell you about.'
What the book needs is a good editor. Or a hot flame.

The last 30 pages or so are actually pretty exciting, comprising as they do a Great Three Day Chase when they're actually after Moby Dick. In the end, the ship sinks and everybody goes down, with a harpooner who isn't Queequeg hammering a flag to the tallest mast even as he is claimed by the unforgiving sea. Ishmael survives because at some point in the middle, he's thrown from his boat and is eventually rescued by a passing vessel. So how exactly he is able to relate how everybody gets killed isn't clear, since he's floating around somewhere else when it happens.

So to sum up:

• Melville is a frustrating story-teller, to say the least.
• Ishmael. He's not underdescribed or omniscient. He's a very specific guy in a very specific time and place.
• Ahab. He's an obsessed lunatic who should have been put off the ship by the crew early on.
• Starbuck. He worries a lot about whether he's going to make it back to his wife and child. If he had any heroic qualities he would have tossed Ahab overboard before everybody got killed.
• Everybody dies. This is required of tragedy. Well, Ishmael survives, but by the end you really wish he hadn't.
• It's not about 19th century whaling culture, since there's nothing normal or representative about the Pequod. There's no actual whaling culture in the novel that couldn't have been told in 400 fewer page with a better story.
• It's not about slavery and abolition and the turmoil leading up to the American Civil War. It's not an allegory for any instance of obsession and ruin, except insofar as any novel about obsession and ruin is an allegory for any actual obsession and ruin.

SLAP Get over it.