I feel like a 16 7/8 rpm transcription record playing at 78 rpm. (There’s some obsolete technology for you.) Actually, I feel as if I’m riding on a 78 rpm slab of shellac, and the pace promises to pick up over the next few days. But lest I forget….

1. The University of Mary Washington’s graduation ceremonies are tomorrow. The reception for senior English majors was this afternoon. I saw many of my favorite students and flashed back to many amazing, transformative moments in the classroom: that is, moments when they amazed and transformed me. I hope one day they understand how important they are to me. Maybe they already do.

We also bid a reluctant farewell to Dr. William Kemp, a Shakespeare scholar and dear friend with whom I have spent many happy hours watching movies, listening to music, cooking up teaching schemes, debating hermeneutics, and generally making sublime nuisances of ourselves. I’ll miss him terribly, but I won’t say goodbye, because now I can bug him even more regularly and with complete impunity.

2. Adam Curry is creating what he hopes will be (in current parlance) a non-evil podcasting network, the Amazon.com of podcasting, in which rich and famous podcasters subsidize small, grassroots podcasters and help to drive traffic to their sites by locating their Big Podcasts in the same directory space (www.podshow.com) as the little guys. The strategy show I heard last Saturday was very interesting along these lines, though it could have used some judicious post-production. (I didn’t need to hear all the hey-pal-come-in off-mike stuff, and I’m usually very tolerant of loose moments like that.) And Adam’s been talking about his plans all week this week on the Daily Source Code. Latest news: a podcast promo channel on Sirius. That’s pRomo, not pomo. Jerry’s not sure the podshow.com concept will have ramifications for teaching and learning (private conversation–write him and ask him to blog his side of the argument). I’m thinking the line between “educational” materials and the rest of the multimedia world will get finer and finer, and may eventually disappear. Never mind the mainstream media: textbook publishers must be ashen with fear.

3. The tenth annual University of Mary Washington Faculty Academy on Instructional Technology is coming up next week: May 10-11 in Combs Hall on the Fredericksburg campus. We’ve got what I think is a very strong lineup of speakers and presentations, poster sessions, workshops, and seminars. Here’s the program. If you’re within the sphere of this blog and you can make it on down, you’ll be very welcome.

I’ll even take you to Carl’s, home of the best soft ice cream on the planet.

5. A new podcast series is on the horizon: A Donne A Day. Watch this space.