I'm back, in body, if not in spirit.
Things went well: people liked my ice cream parlor, and the other papers on the panel, dealing with other "typical" ethnic foods, were also toothsome. In fact, I've never heard as many really good graduate student papers before, which is a good sign for the discipline.
The only really dreadful paper I attended was by a very eminent scholar. He has far more publications and institutional honors than li'l ole Sensei, so I'll call him Dr. Kopfleiner. He gave a talk on a new theory (well ... t'was new to him -- I gave a paper on it back in '95) that I'll call Crispics.
Essentially Crispics holds that all ideas are ultimately derived from the need of our DNA to replicate itself. DNA, through evolution, creates a "survival machine" to ensure its perpetuation through mating strategies, and one part of this is a brain that stores and uses symbolic communication to share strategies for Copulation. Hence, stories are expressions of neurons optimally designed through natural selection to hear, store, and broadly disseminate information on selecting an optimal mate to bear your genes. So when you're listening to a fairy tale, you're actually unconsciously gaining and storing information on whom to pick to sire or give birth to your children.
Well ... maybe ... but the paper spent all its time stating the theory and said little about the tale it was allegedly discussing. The audience, notably Prof. Curmudgeon (emeritus) had questions, during which he used the rather rude R-word (as in "Don't you think that this approach is a wee bit r*********** in attributing everything to Copulation...").
Even I at one point used the dreaded E-word (as in "May I please see the e******* on which your interpretation is based...?"). Even the discussant, whose job it is to celebrate the panelists' papers, was very nervous about Dr. Kopfleiner's paper, and one could see her being very careful not to use the B-word. (As in, "Underneath several layers of theoretical b*******, one can discern that his thesis is ...")
At this point things got very interesting: Dr. Kopfleiner's remarks took on a
decided ad hominem tinge: he accused me of not listening to his paper (I was ... just didn't hear any e******* in it) and said it "blew his mind" that Prof. Curmudgeon (emer.) was daring to use the R-word in his presence. People jumped up in the audience, testifying in deep emotion how much Crispics had meant to their lives and saying that there was all kinds of e******* to support it, including brain scans, work on neuronal chemistry, etc. etc., Prof. Curmudgeon (emer.) stormed out of the room (though in truth I think he wanted to get to the plenary talk on medieval jewish folklore before it started), and in general the event threatened to turn into one of those Intelligent Design camp meetings, except that the proponents had all converted to Darwinism without affecting in the slightest their capacity to construct a logical argument.
But Dr. Kopfleiner cut the discussion short, saying that he had to go to a local school to do storytelling, presumably about Copulation strategies, so the session ended without any real mayhem.
Ah, yes ... these are the paper panels that make these meetings well worth attending! A fruitful error, as Goethe (I think) said, is far more interesting than a sterile truth. [Note this quote's obvious relevance to optimal mating strategies...]
I got properly inducted as a Fellow, though I was disappointed that there was no initiation ceremony. The Women's Folklore Section has an elaborate and much admired "Croning" ritual for its senior members, and I'm tempted to agitate for a "Manly Folklore Section" to institute a similar ceremony for senior male folklorists. At least I expected to have to suck an olive out of King Neptune's navel.
And I got the midterms graded on the plane, and even had a little time left to read a bit of
The Monkey and the Monk, an abridged translation of a Chinese epic called
The Journey West." Golly, what a story! Someone ought to try to turn it into an anime series ...
So ... I'm back.
Runs over to see Vampyreshoujo's sparkler
which means I get a free lunch Friday (It's $35 in subsequent years). 
At least it is not me 
