Thursday, September 16, 2010

Back Now

Back now. Took a break, as some noticed.

My posts are usually quite frivolous, and it just didn't seem right. I still can't believe my friend Mel Hinich is dead. I owe him a whole lot.

Kevin Grier clearly got me tenure, by writing a bunch of articles with my name on them.

And Mel Hinich got me promoted to full, and got me the job at Duke, by letting me write or edit three books with his name on them. People always laughed when, after they asked me which parts Mel wrote, I said, "Tell me which parts of our books he has even read!"

The answer was not much. Mel was a talker, and a thinker. And I profited enormously from writing down what he said. Well, I only wrote down about 1/3 of it, and some of that turned out to be wrong. But the 1/6 or so that was good was SO good that it made all the difference in the second half of my career.

I owe Mel more than I can say. I was a better scholar just being his stenographer than I could ever be writing down whatever vapid crap I came up with on my own. Thanks, Mel.

3 comments:

Chris said...

Sorry for your loss Mike. The vapid crap you crap on the keyboard sure is fun and insightful, though. Keep it up because we appreciate the work you do!

Angus said...

Welcome back Mungo. My fingers were getting tired.

sincerely,

Angus

PS. No way can you stick me for all the blame on our joint articles.

David said...

Indeed, my condolences.