Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 60

The Oxford/Berkeley exchange is still going on. Here is their site. The info that is up currently is still for 2006 Summer session, so some of the info I've gathered might have changed by the time you get to it.

I am a big fan of continuing education programs. I take them myself and I always encourage others to do so as well. People who want to learn for nothing more than a love of learning are the best people on this planet, and there needs to be more of them. Having said that I have to say that I have a few reservations about this program.

There is no application process, barring the ability to pay the 5+ g's to go. Four of the courses look like fine excuses to take in a nice bunch of country houses. A course on "The Scientific Imagination" includes a boat ride to Greenwich. I'll put money down that the "Winston Churchill and the Liberal World" course included at least one nip up the road to Blenheim. The faq says that "the average participant is 50 to 60."

Frequent visitors to this site will have long ago inferred that I work in academia. I'm going to put that hat on for just a moment. If you, dear reader, are currently an undergraduate who thinks that this program is an excellent opportunity for study, I heartily recommend that you request a syllabus from the course that you wish to take from this program and bring a copy to your course advisor NOW. There is a very small chance that you might be allowed to earn one or two semester hours from this.

If you, dear reader, are someone who would like to drop a Madison for the opportunity to go to Oxford and "pursue independent study in one of the university's many libraries or perhaps under a tree in a beautiful garden," then all power to you. Just a word of perspective for you. If you are going because you have time and money to burn, then go. You will have fun, it will be interesting. If you are sincere about your desire to learn and travel and experience life, then you will better yourself.

If you are going so that you can earn the opportunity to drop the phrase "Well, when I was studying at Oxford" at cocktail parties then you are a jackass. Sooner or later you will bump into someone who actually was a student, who worked long and hard and earned an actual degree for their efforts, and they will call you on it and make you look to everyone present like the shallow poseur tourist that you are. I hope I'm there to see it.

So anyway. India.

It's Incomparable! If I had much more free time, I think that an interesting thing to study would be the way India is depicted in travel literature throughout the years. I suspect that in contemporary ads you find a bigger trend towards actual contemporary Indian culture. Of course, were I to take up that challenge, I would most likely not even use this ad at all because it tells me next to nothing. Interestingly, Journeyworld seems to have maintained their passion for the destination: They've moved to Bhutan!

The Assembly Steakhouse has also moved. But just across the river to New Jersey. But it's more than a great steakhouse, it's a truly comprehensive and utterly freaky set of links for steak and steak related items. I suspect that it might be compiled by searchbots, which might explain why when you click on Kobe Beef, you get a subsection on Kobe Bryant. You also get another subsection on Semen. Told you it was weird.

About six years before this ad appeared, everybody in my family got one of these nightcaps from Santa. Looking back on it, I start to wonder if the parents decided to start turning the heat down to save a bit of money. What I know for sure: while it might be possible to wear one of these babies in a suave and fashionable way, it is far too difficult to bother. Also watch out for static and the most amazing hat-hair you'll ever see, that is if it doesn't fall off in the middle of the night.

I suspect Putnam Antiques went out of business, by the way. Pity, I'd have wanted to find out if the hats themselves were antiques. That might be more suave.