Sunday, August 31, 2003

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(Over)heard and seen at American Political Science Association's annual meeting

Below are some of the snippets of conversation that caught my ear over the past four days. Note that all of them are not necessarily verbatim what I heard, but rather the best approximation of what I remember when I wrote them down.

Looking at the Brad DeLong post that inspired what follows, I've come to the sad conclusion that either economists are wittier than political scientists or that most of the interesting conversations took place out of earshot. Such is life:

  • From a panel discussant: "I was playing golf yesterday, and only psychologically left the golf course five minutes after this panel started. And let me just add how happy I am that APSA moved its starting time for the early morning panel from 8:45 AM to 8:00 AM."

  • "The profession has a lot of neomoralistic moralizing."

  • "My family is just thrilled that APSA is during Labor Day weekend."

  • From a paper presenter: "There's nothing worse you can be than a conspiracy theorist, even though there are so many conspiracies out there." The presenter then went on to imply that the myraid assassinations of prominent liberal figures during the 1960's was part of an organized campaign from the right.

  • "Oh, yeah, mlb.com is a great procrastinator when you're a graduate student."

  • "The papers were all competent, and yet -- somehow -- evil."

  • "I need to finish quickly, since the governor signs all University of California diplomas, and I want to avoid a Schwarzenegger signature on my diploma."

  • "I'm back to writing something real. I was sick of working on ir-real stuff for the past few years."

  • "There's a rumor circulating that the perestroika crowd is distributing a 'most-wanted' deck of playing cards with the top rational choice scholars on them."

  • "99% of APSA's membership could write Paul Krugman's column: 'I loathe Bush.'; 'Bush is stupid.'; Yada, yada, yada."

  • "I fear that in this business we don't reward people who build data sets -- such as me."

  • I can't believe I missed Pedro Martinez vs. Andy Pettite for this panel."

  • "W. has been very good for business."

  • "I'm finishing this project on a combination of cognitive psychology, linguistics, cybernetics, and international relations theory.... it's weird, but good."

    • posted by Dan on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM




    Comments:

    "I'm finishing this project on a combination of cognitive psychology, linguistics, cybernetics, and international relations theory.... it's good."

    Sounds like an Alexander Wendt project :-)

     posted by: Matthew on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]

    >>"The papers were all competent, and yet -- somehow -- evil."

    I've been to conference sessions like that...

     posted by: Brad DeLong on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]

    Couldn't have been my panel. I'm evil and INcompetent.

     posted by: John Lemon on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]

    Apparently you missed, "Boo-yah! My football team kicked your football team's ass."

     posted by: John Lemon on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]

    Other things that Dr. Drezner missed by refusing to hang with ye olde Lemon.

    "Um, since when does 'Yale' mean 'I get to go to the front of the breakfast line'?"

    "Tell me Mr. Bartender, what do you think of Derrida's work?"

    "Whoa, dude! Grow a mustache. I don't care how much you know about bowling."

    "Sorry. I thought this was a Phish concert. I didn't know you were doing new political science."

    "Isn't perestroika supposed to mean 'happy' in Russian? ...and where's the vodka?"

    "You in line to read www.danieldrezner.com too, or just here for email?"

    [In all honesty, my best "overheard line" came at a smaller conference when a much older academic than I asked if her table could order one breakfast buffet for the three of them and split it.]

     posted by: John Lemon on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]

    And the sad part is that 98% of political scientists could write Krugman's column and do a better job of it.

    Of course, this could just be economist-envy speaking.

     posted by: Chris Lawrence on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]

    "99% of APSA's membership could write Paul Krugman's column: 'I loathe Bush.'; 'Bush is stupid.'; Yada, yada, yada."

    So could 99% of trunk monkeys.

    and 110% of valley girls could write MoDo's blather.

     posted by: Robert Schwartz on 08.31.03 at 06:07 PM [permalink]


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