the skinny malinky

I really have been out of the soc blogosphere loop — I had no idea The Soc Shrine was back! I was very sad to see them go. I really enjoy those little nuggets over there, and I never had the issues with them some bloggers seem to have. But I also have no problem at all going along when I have no idea what the topic of conversation is, or what the words mean. When I did my study abroad term in college at the University of Amsterdam (let’s just say… not my my most focused semester), I connived my way into this amazing graduate anthropology seminar. The class was small, maybe ten people, and though graduate classes were taught in English, for many of the students, that was their 3rd language, Dutch being their 2nd… so class usually slipped into Dutch at some point. My Dutch skills consisted of “Stok brood met kaas, alsjeblieft” (“Stick bread with cheese, please!”), but I just sat there happily all semester having no idea what anyone was talking about, enjoying the conversation nonetheless. At the end of the term, I wrote a paper about Shaker influences on modernist design, because I walked past a fancy furniture store every day on my way to class.

Anyway, voting for Best of 2008 has commenced. The Skinny Malinky has stopped campaigning among librarians and bike riders — we figure we’ve got those votes locked down — so we’re concentrating our efforts in swing states, stats departments, the heartland, and Home Depot, with phone banks dedicated to reaching gun owners and life-long ABD museum guides. As they say at the neighborhood gay bar, “Yes she can.”

(The title of the present post, btw, just to tie it all together, is how my Danish friend made during aforementioned semester abroad translated back into English the Danish version of that Pollack/Fonda masterpiece. Always intrigued by her synopsis, it was years until I was able to track the movie down.)