Tagged

January 22, 2007

Posted by Jay Livingston

The Montclair SocioBlog has been “tagged.” If you don’t know what that is — as I didn’t— it’s just like playground tag, except that when someone tags your blog, you have to post five odd or obscure facts about yourself and then tag other bloggers.

I always hated tag when I was a kid. I was no good at it. I was slow. I was one of those kids who wore “Huskies.” Funny how feelings don’t change all that much from age nine to what now passes as maturity if not dotage.

But this is a collective blog, in principle at least, and that raises questions about the ground rules. Do we put facts about our department? About its members? I figure that some combination is probably the quickest way to get to five. So here goes.

1. I already mentioned it — the Huskies thing.

2. As a department of ten, we are fluent in Spanish, Mandarin, and Turkish, can get by in French, German, Italian, Russian, and Czech, and can toss off the odd phrase in Japanese and Yiddish. Some of us also speak English.

3. One of us shares a name with the musical brains behind the Beatles and a defensive lineman for the Giants when they won the Superbowl. Another of us shares a name with successful songwriter, and every December when he walks into stores and hears “Silver Bells,” he wishes that once, just once is that asking too much, ASCAP would send the check to his address instead.

4. None of us, as far as I know, has ever been in a rock band. Or wanted to be. Sad commentary.

5. When most of us came to Montclair, the social sciences were housed in what had been a girls’ dorm. Our offices had closets. With towel racks, even though the showers in the bathrooms and been disconnected.

I'm tagging These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty, the blog of Montclair grad Trish Pottersmith.