Bloodless Coup

On stage

FSP talks about the ways in which scientists are - and are not - like rock stars. I've thought about this before, but more in terms of the similarities in being on stage and being public personalities.

When I first moved to a small university town and took a teaching job that called for me to teach classes sized in the hundreds instead of tens, I underestimated the degree to which that would make me a recognizable public figure. I guess everyone makes this adjustment, even if they don't teach large sections, especially in a small town. I've also done community forum things, being on stage in front of a few hundred people, after which non-students would also recognize me. It changed my behavior and habits, it changed the way I dressed, and it changed the way I felt about my house as a home.

Much of it had to do with being increasingly professional or "on" at times where I normally wouldn't have thought about it. Wearing a short skirt to the grocery store for a quick trip was now a no-no because of the students who were baggers whose eyes popped out of their heads staring. Students "happened" to ride their bikes by my house, catching me in the yard, filthy, in a tank or possibly a bikini top, digging in the dirt. They'd stop by to ask for books. I'd be walking down the street or in a restaurant and they would come up to say hi, or bring their mom and dad over to be introduced.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about having people who appreciated my work. And I have always been grateful to be the kind of teacher who students could approach (even though this is devalued among many in the profession, and is seen as being stereotypically female). However I became a lot more conscious of the professional role I increasingly played.

Likewise I started to realize how looking at a few professors (and in my area, often only one who is a woman) a year from a crowd differs from looking at a few hundred students: I may recognize them and know all their names and know even more about a subset, but they all stare at us. It is a little bit like being a rock star, recalibrated for nerddom. If politics is Hollywood for ugly people, academics are the rock stars of the dork world. We've all heard some academics referred to as "rock stars" because of their work, and there are always people who scan the crowds at conferences looking for the big names in order to bask in the presence.

I suppose that some people like to bask in the attention, while others appreciate it but find it still fairly puzzling, and others don't want to have anything to do with their student public after class lets out. I'd put myself in the middle category... generally happy to engage with students and their families, sometimes puzzled, and sometimes exasperated at others' inability to respect boundaries. That to me seems a pretty fair parallel to what happens with real rock stars, although they surely endure far far more boundary crossing (not even talking about media).

This has always been one of the reasons that I am not generally interested in meeting the bands whose music I love so much. I think about how when I'm getting ready to give a lecture (our version of performance) and am trying to get mentally ordered, but someone wants to come up and chat about something random, just because they want to share with you. Or you're done, and you have pets or people - or let's face it, a new book - to get home to, and the "minions" (as one of my colleagues always calls them) want to stay around to chat. You like them, you are glad they are there, you enjoy the energy they give to the mutual experience that is a class, but there are limits. How many of us have multiple, insistent signs insisting that We! Request! Privacy! DO NOT DISTURB! us in our offices as we are Trying! To! Think! and yet the knocks keep coming. A little peace and quiet is essential, even to a big extrovert.

There are a couple of bands I've seen a multiple times - a girlfriend and I have been to see the Flaming Lips a bunch and Baltar and I have hit Drive By Truckers shows pretty heavy the last couple of years. At least one member has acknowledged our presence for "hanging with" the band on the road over several dates. But to me that's the end of the natural boundary line. I expect that students aren't going to show up at my house, and I'm not going to go hang out by the door to the bus (unless that is where the line forms to get in the venue). There's an experience in the moment, and maybe an expression of gratitude when it's over, but beyond that I think about how it sucks not to be able to let your dog out while wearing your jammies in the morning or even simply having some down time where you can stop being "on" and just be.

Besides, all good things come to an end, and a little mystery never hurts.

Thank you Morgantown... GOOD NIGHT!

Posted by binky at July 3, 2008 05:20 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Music | Random Thoughts | The Academy