Tuesday, January 13, 2015

THE LAST SOVIET COMMISSAR

Today, at long last, I got a UNC ONYEN ["the only name you'll ever need"], a PID [a Personal Identification Number], a working computer in my basement office at UNC, and a One Card, with which, by paying some money, I will be able to use a parking garage only four or five blocks from Caldwell Hall, the home of the UNC Philosophy Department.  I have arrived!  At the One Card Office, the secretary took my picture, inasmuch as the One Card is a photo ID card, not just a card to swipe to get into the garage.

Here is the picture.  I do believe I look like the last Soviet Commissar.  If I could figure out how to do it, I would exchange this one for the photo now on this blog, which shows me with a lopsisded grin inappropriate for a very senior serious person.

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11 comments:

  1. Nate CJanuary 13, 2015 at 3:57 PM

    Thumbs up d(^_^d)

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  2. Andrew Lionel BlaisJanuary 13, 2015 at 4:38 PM

    Wunderbar!

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  3. Jerry FresiaJanuary 14, 2015 at 4:37 AM

    Dear Professor: you can no longer pretend you have one foot in the grave. My wife thought your voice in the Jack Russell interview sounded "youthful;" so did I and warm and congenial too. (Apart from the content, I enjoyed hearing the slight New York accent.) And this photo hardly suggests some old apparatchik. You look quite strong and noble, even wise. And your elbow is without pain. Amazing what difference a few days make. I think your next blog ought to be devoted to health tips.

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  4. MagpieJanuary 14, 2015 at 5:21 AM

    Sorry to be the contrarian, but I like your other photo better.

    I know it's just a detail, maybe even an unimportant one, but the new photo reveals no sign of humour.

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  5. Robert Paul WolffJanuary 14, 2015 at 6:13 AM

    Jerry, thank you. The show was really rather odd: Two expatriate New Yorkers, one in North Dakota, the other in North Carolina, talking about Marx in New York accents.

    Magpie, that is part of what I like about the photo! Since I am nothing if not given to himor, it is like a joke -- Sacha Baron Cohen playing a Commissar.

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  6. TheDudeDiogenesJanuary 14, 2015 at 9:34 AM

    I must say, Professor, you make a more convincing commissar than I think even SBC would!

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  7. JC BoueJanuary 14, 2015 at 11:40 AM

    Most distinguished. The spitting image of Eli Wallach, as I live and breathe

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  8. JimJanuary 14, 2015 at 4:15 PM

    I don't know -- you kind of look like an extra from a Serbian gangster movie.

    -- Jim

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  9. Robert Paul WolffJanuary 14, 2015 at 4:44 PM

    Jim, exactly. That is why I love it.

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  10. Jerry FresiaJanuary 15, 2015 at 10:05 AM

    Pefect. "...Marxist, atheist, violist, father, husband.....etc etc....and I'm also into irony."

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  11. UnknownJanuary 15, 2015 at 12:17 PM

    In colloquial terms...you look like a badass!

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