The McLemee Meme

Recently, Scott McLemee who writes the Intellectual Affairs column for Inside Higher Ed started a blog meme and tagged myself among others to continue it. In turn, we have been asked to tag others. I would love it if you could do it (and in turn tag a few others).

Thanks to Paul Giamatti soundalike Dave White, the chain has worked its way around to me:

(1) Imagine it’s 2015. You are visiting the library at a major research university. You go over to a computer terminal (or whatever it is they use in 2015) that gives you immediate access to any book or journal article on any topic you want. What do you look up? In other words, what do you hope somebody will have written in the meantime?

I would look up most of the relevant texts on non-fossil-based fuels and time travel, two innovations I hope we mainstream by then.

(2) What is the strangest thing you’ve ever heard or seen at a conference? No names, please. Refer to “Professor X” or “Ms. Y” if you must. Double credit if you were directly affected. Triple if you then said or did something equally weird.

If you extend conference to include online chats, I probably have said or heard something strange at at least one of them. You can check here.

(3) Name a writer, scholar, or otherwise worthy person you admire so much that meeting him or her would probably reduce you to awestruck silence.

In this age of technology, I'm usually awestruck and silent at first meeting authors whom I've read but haven't corresponded with online. This applies mainly to authors who stop by other authors' signings.

(4) What are two or three blogs or other Web sites you often read that don’t seem to be on many people’s radar?

Ken Harvill's LiveJournal and Lee Goldberg's blog.

Oh, and I tag Graham Powell, Megan Powell, Aldo Calcagno, John, and Jen Jordan to go next.