Academic Intelligence

Indulgences

The Academic Life asked several scholars to share their secret (or not so secret) guilty pleasurestheir passions outside the classroom and the laboratory. Professional wrestling, anyone? Trolling for Krispy Kremes in the wee hours? Here's what they said.

Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist, California Institute of Technology

In the fall of 2003 I was driving from Chicago to Santa Barbara, passing through Las Vegas along the way. I had recently read James McManus's Positively Fifth Street, a book about poker and murder, but really about Vegas. I expected to be repelled by the city, but instead I was hooked. A 24-hour society, in which seedy reality rubs shoulders comfortably against baroque fantasywhat's not to love?

Standing under the fake sky of the streetscape at the Paris casino, or sipping cocktails within roaring distance of the lions at the MGM Grand, or soaking in the unfettered opulence of Caesars Palace, I can only feel grateful that modern capitalism has poured millions of dollars into creating such a spectacle just for me. If you can't find me at 2 a.m., check the poker room at the Bellagio, where my flush draw and I will be bluffing our way through the night.

Laurie Fendrich, painter and professor of fine arts, Hofstra University

Yoga Toes. They're rubbery, Jell-O-colored contraptions you put on your feet to separate your toes from one another. The resulting splayed toes give you a mildly pleasant feelingfor about an hour. After that, you go into a rabid frenzy of clawing and ripping. (You'd give away your children just to get the horrible things off.) Until that moment, however, you experience a profound bliss — lolling about and occasionally gazing fondly at your newly prehensile feet. Once the Yoga Toes are removed, a tiny space lingers between each toe for another 10 minutes, as if your feet belong to a monkey. In fact, I happen to know that Darwin was wearing Yoga Toes when he came up with that theory of evolution of his.

Robert H. Frank, professor of economics, Cornell University's Johnson School of Management

I think of a guilty pleasure as something I would consume way too much of without conscious effort at restraint. The two atop my list are Sudoku puzzles and Elmore Leonard novels. I've long since devoured Leonard's lengthy backlist. And since he now writes a new novel only every year or two, he's no longer a problem. As for Sudokus, I've come up with a rule that's both a self-control device and an incentive not to procrastinate: I let myself do as many of them as I like while I'm riding my stationary exercise bike.

Jacob S. Hacker, professor of political science, Yale University

It's not exactly a guilty pleasure, but I like to ride my bike. More specifically, I like to go out for long suffer-fests with other fast local ridersfew of whom, thankfully, are very interested in what I do off the bike. I've been riding since I was 15. At one point I harbored illusions I'd turn pro, but now I rarely race. Yet I still ride seriously and love the sport. Oddly enough, one of my colleaguesnot a cyclistis a big fan of the Tour de France: We sometimes camp out in a nearby office that has cable TV and watch it live. Maybe my professional and cycling lives are merging.

I hope not. I like to be able to get away from it all, and I love taking my two kids (Ava, 7, and Owen, 3) out on the local trail on the weekends. I'd also rather if my one lasting legacy at Yale wasn't "Hacker's corner" — the hairpin turn where I once spectacularly crashed — however reverentially cyclists invoke my name when they pass it.

Deirdre McCloskey, who teaches economics, history, English, and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Studying languages. A pleasure it certainly has been, acquiring small Latin and less Greek, undertaking lesser assaults on Italiano, Norsk, Sanskrit, Gaeilge, trying at age 63 to learn Nederlands and, at age 64, Afrikaans.

Nothing pleases me more than opening a new textbook. Oh, the joy in memorizing a famous piece of a foreign tongue with which to startle the natives: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita ... Then what's the guilt? That I am in fact an utter dunce at languages. Hundreds and hundreds of delightful hours with grammars and children's books have yielded, essentially, nothing. Wayne Booth called it "amateuring." But professors are supposed to be professionals at learning. Oy vey iz mir. Add Yiddish to the list.

Anne D. Neal, president, American Council of Trustees and Alumni

My particular passionbesides ACTA? That's easylandscape restoration and design. The Harvard historian Donald Fleming [now emeritus] introduced me to Frederick Law Olmsted in his American intellectual-history course decades ago. And while it was not love at first sight, my passion for Olmsted and his remarkable landscape firm have only grown with time. For the last 15 years, I have dedicated my spare time to learning more about the Olmsted firm, its landscape philosophy, and other prominent landscape architects. And because of this passion, I've served as the co-chairman of the Olmsted Woods restoration at the Washington National Cathedral.

I get real (not guilty!) pleasure from removing "exotic invasives," ending soil compaction, and reducing storm-water runoff. And what started as a volunteer interest has become an academic one: I have taken a night course on landscape restoration and contributed to several scholarly publications, including Ecological Restoration and the Handbook of American Women's History.

Cass R. Sunstein, professor of law and political science, University of Chicago

My secret pleasure is Lost, the television show. Are Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, et al. actually in purgatory? I thought so, I knew so, for a couple of hours, and was thrilled to have discovered, all on my own, the show's deep secret — only to learn that my theory was a pitifully old one, developed long ago by thousands (millions?) of people, and long ago debunked by the show's writers. And yes, I've spent time on Lostpedia (and not only because I have an academic interest in wikis). The show's flashbacks, with the back stories, have real depth. We see people in our lives, we're on airplanes with them, we talk to them, and usually we don't think, even for an instant, that every single one has a back story, with grief and tragedy and love and hope.

The best episode, of course, was "I Do," showing Jack's heart being broken when he saw Kate with Sawyer (which is to say, Kate and Sawyer making love), and featuring the episode-closing conversation between Jack and Kate.

Jack to Kate: "You remember what I told you on the beach?"

Kate to Jack (crying): "YES! Yes, I remember!"

Jack: "When you get safe, you radio me, and tell me that story."

Kate: "I can't leave without you."

Jack: "Kate, damn it, RUN."

http://chronicle.com
Section: The Academic Life
Volume 54, Issue 3, Page B7