Adios, amigos.

This charming electronic postcard comes to you from an undisclosed location somewhere in Mexico where, distant from the chemical-leeched wastelands of the Maquiladora region, sequestered from the soupy, smog-laden skies of Mexico City, and catacombed from the cacophony of Cancun, AHB III breathes the dry, salubrious air of the mountains, all the better to becalm his asthmatic wheeze. No longer will yr mustachioed maven of meritocratic malfeasance have blue Mondays, since every day and every night here will be a most pleasurable Saturday. My departure is both joyful for I will be at last unchained from the tyranny of quotidian posting, but wistful, for I am loathe to disappoint those who so ardently hoped that I would remain the Andrew Montour of the history profession, forever crossing the frontier between Metropole and Periphery and interpreting the one to the other; or the Elizabeth Van Lew of the early twenty-first century, cleverly disguised to carry messages between historiographic battlefields; or the latter-day Wallace Thurman, constantly shifting identities and affiliations while presenting his culture to another.

To my fans and foes alike, I hoist a fine crystal glass containing the delightful elixir of the blue agave and offer a heartfelt toast that you may live in interesting times. May you live long and prosper whether you inhabit Flyover America or are one of the good old boys or girls of the elite, whether you dwell in Podunk or in Princeton.

No doubt, I will enlighten my many dinner companions here with fine tales of the foibles of the American academy. Perhaps, good blogfellows, blogstresses, lurkers, lovers, tattlers and tipplers, the underplaced and, yes, the overplaced, I shall return again in another guise. Should the Fates or the Goddess Clio have something interesting in store for me, our paths may cross again. Or they may not.

Some parting words, which yr faithful correspondent hath taken the liberty of scribbling here for you, since the one-dimensional nature of this medium does not permit you to read the inscription on the obverse of the above postcard.

"Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think it a pretty good way to depart this life, lest my assassin is bedecked in the colors of orange and black. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico - ah, that is euthanasia!"

As always yr humble servant,
AHB III

The trivial Bierce? the populist Ambrose?

Friends, AHB III has had a most interesting and unexpected journey over the last twenty-four hours. His mailboxes and comments section have been filled with missives, overwhelmingly in favor of his remaining a tribune of history department gossip. He also knows more than he wants to know about what people know, a most peculiar position for a foible-ist like himself.

Among those bloggers who have commented on the Broad-Gauge Gossip, one has made strong argument against my little broadsheet. After reading the reproachful post of Mr. Tim Lacy, I am tempted to head into the hills of Mexico for good. Lacy argues that

we should not promote the crassness inherent in delivering sound "byte" blows, slipping in snarky snippets, and promoting silly dramas. This is one reason I'm not a fan of the so-called Ambrose Bierce history gossip weblog. There's nothing like reducing the profession to a soap opera.

To Mr. Lacy's charges, I admit guilt, for crassness, snarky snippets, and silly drama can provide a necessary diversion from our otherwise serious endeavors and, in part for that reason, I created this blog. Soap operas are one of the oldest and most popular genres of our culture. Should historians always have to position ourselves on a lofty perch above such amusements, looking contemptuously down up the throngs in the bear-pit? AHB III loved Melrose Place, in part because it was a southern Californian version ofHuis Clos, with petty and pretty people. He reads the celebrity gossip in his local rag daily. Our profession needs a little levity now and then.

Many of those pleading me to keep from jumping the Rio Grande have served up a counterargument that this blog is not trivial, but actually a useful, even redemptive form of journalism. And much to yr. mustachioed maverick's surprise, a theme runs through several comments and letters like the clear waters of the Columbia River before it was befouled by industry and agriculture. AHB III could not have anticipated the argument, viz. that he is a voice of transparency and democracy, someone who breaks open the vault of elitism and provides a useful service by revealing its contents to those who do not have direct access to it because they are not part of the "old boy's network."

"We need ya brotha," reads a private note from one of my populist readers, in such charming argot. Another, deploying the argot of the cultural historian right down to the passive voice, contends that "a public discourse of our profession is direly needed." I can't add much to the splendidly-named "Gurgling Cod," except to protest that I am no "Homer, Publius, and Franklin W. Dixon." And "Ahistoricality" offers this quite compelling response to my existential crisis: "those of us who aren't well-connected to the old boys networks have never gotten a good look at the profession like this before."

Of all of the missives that I have received, whether from cod, dinosaur, or human, the most thought provoking came in an electronic missive that I received last evening. My correspondent, who revealed his or her identity to me, allows me to post the following, on the condition of maintaining her or his anonymity:

I read your post on anonymity earlier today and thought I'd respond. I'm not sure I have a firm opinion either way on your anonymous nature. But it does strike me that your blog serves some useful purposes. The public voice of this profession does largely tend to be big guns at big institutions. Folks with this inside access to the workings of these hot departments and schools have a degree of professional advantage over the rest of us who are sweating it out at mediocre schools in flyover country (but who aspire to at least slightly greater heights). I'm really struck by how much more "gossip" my pals at hot northeast schools have access to than I do. I could be wrong, but my sense is that this gossip is at times useful information that helps people guide their professional decisions. You're setting this information free -- something that is bound to be useful to those who lacked much access to it.

This doesn't exactly speak to your question about the merits of anonymity, though your anonymity, I presume, enables you to do your job better. People I guess are more likely to give you inside info if they don't know who you are. Anonymity makes your blog better. Anonymity is a means to an end.

Back in the day, my hacker pals would always say that "information wants to be free". I guess I would look at your blog more in terms of questions about information and power and access to information, rather than in terms of ethical and moral responsibility for making information or your analysis of it available.

The above letter raises issues that I had not hitherto considered, viz that this broadsheet is a sort of chant democratic.

Good readers, I have not yet decided my course of action. My bags are packed and I am prepared to retreat to Mexico, but the latter message and several others that expressed a similar theme leave me wondering whether perhaps I should continue this adventure at least for a time.

Professor Bierce's very blue Monday

Yr mustachioed purveyor of piffle and prurience is having a very blue Monday indeed. He is considering retreating to the mountains of Mexico, a good place, he hears, to disappear.

With a revivifying dose of the Black Ichor of Life coursing through my veins, I made a most delightful discovery this morning: that I had gained the favourable attention of the Tenured Radical, Wesleyan's once anonymous blogger, Claire Potter. But she, that fabulous fan of Batman and his masked companion, offered a caution that has cut to the quick of the spirit that dwells within me. I am pondering her words deeply. She warns that anonymous blogging is a dangerous thing.

She is not the only one who has offered such counsel. Several well-meaning correspondents have also suggested that I be cautious lest the mustache may be ripped from my fine visage, revealing my constructed identity as well as my real one (though reader, let me instruct you that gender and race are indeed social constructions and that, as a constructionist of the not-too-strict variety, my identity is here fluid, indeterminate or, at least, situational).

Whilst I do occasionally fret about my unmasking, I am clothed in the protective garment of academic freedom. The pleasure of my nights is seldom perturbed by narcissistic fears of the diminution of my already modest reputation. I am a mostly honest scribe who stands behind the truthfulness of everything, save about my own persona, that has appeared in this humble broadsheet. Indeed, in the company of fellow historians I have oft heard expressed opinions far less charitable and far more scandalous than anything I have posted here.

Yet, I worry. Friends, I do fear for my mortal soul. AHB III aims not to injure but to entertain, not to abuse but to amuse. That thought leads me back to Middletown's electronic Rosa-Luxembourg-for-life. Upon reading her following missive, published some time ago, AHB III is reconsidering his current avocation as masked historian who unmasks his fellows' pretenses.

Here below is an excerpt from the Tenured Radical's missive on the ethics and practice of anonymity. You may read it in full here.

I do think anonymity raises ethical and practical issues that everyone at all ranks of the profession ought to think about on an ongoing basis, and not just those unprotected by tenure. As I reflect once more on my blogging life prior to my decision to give up anonymity, several things come to mind.

When we publish things anonymously that are incautious, and we are more likely to do that when we believe ourselves to be anonymous, there are immediate and sometimes long-term consequences for ourselves and for others. There's the equivalent of the flaming email phenomenon -- putting up a post in a fit of rage, or self-righteousness, or manic humor -- in other words, making a set of thoughts public in a way that doesn't engage one's own super-ego as it should. I know because I've done it, and I had to go back and edit or delete a bunch of stuff once I came out that seemed funny at the time (was, in fact) but was potentially hurtful since the humor depended on sarcasm or on exaggerating the characteristics of composite characters that real people were too likely to see as themselves. I remember at the time how differently I saw some of these posts once I had to imagine the reality of them being attached to my name, and to real people at Zenith. That change in perspective is a learning experience I have not forgotten.

But even when the posts are serious and accurate, I do think you need to ask yourself, before publishing something that is critical of others, would I stand up for this in public? After all, simply because something is the "truth" doesn't mean you should publish it. If you can't imagine saying such a thing to someone's face, or don't want to engage your own critics publicly, you probably shouldn't put something up on the web.

I want to emphasize that I personally don't feel critical of anonymous bloggers, and complications in my blogging life will not necessarily be problems on your blog....

This is all a way of saying that the question of one's reputation, and one's responsibility for the reputation of others, is a very serious one indeed. It has many dimensions that anonymity makes very, very ethically complex...

.

Should yr amiable companion Ambrose Hofstadter Bierce, III, retreat into the rugged terrain of his beloved country south of the border, where he will surely consort with some revolutionaries rather than fretting away his time on this blog? Will that sabbatical mark his disappearance?

Of such a fate, AHB III remains ambivalent.

So much delectable news of our profession remains yet unreported, viz. yr commentator's mostly-written critical dissection of departmental rankings, in which he points out the folly of a system that favors the Greats of Yore but undervalues the recently risen stars, especially at ambitious state universities, most of them outside of the metropole, in the heartland and in the west...Or in which he covers the fascinating quest by the University of Southern California to become the New York University of the Golden State...Or in which he tells the yet-unfinished story of the extraordinary efforts of Vanderbilt to poach talent from its would-be Ivy competitors, undertaken with the ambition and riches of the Vanderbilts themselves... Or in which he explores the remarkable diaspora of early American history from its former centers at Harvard, Yale, and Hopkins to places major and obscure... Or in which he takes to the trenches to cover the bloody battle within the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations over the most controversial John Yoo... Or in which he watchfully accounts for the intellectual torpor in such recently trendy fields as environmental history, whiteness studies, and women's history...Or in which he recounts the remarkable recrudescence of a field only a decade ago left for dead on the scholarly battlefield, the history of international relations...Or in which he finds himself in the madhouse that constitutes the annual history job market...Or in which he serves up the delightful dish that concerns such esteemed departments as Harvard, Cornell, Chicago, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Berkeley, Davis, Brandeis, Rice, Georgetown, and Alabama that has begun to crystallize into would-be posts on this fair broadsheet...Or in which he demonstrate his polymathic talents by posting knowledgeable comments on Russian, Chinese, and Renaissance Italian history and its practitioners, they of many splendid scandals and travails? Aye, there are many splendid tales both great and small that your bard wishes to sing.

Should your bard remain cosseted in the cloak of invisibility, which is so ill-fitting to the body of his ethics? Should he instead be sipping tequila in the company of latter-day Zapatistas, leaving the purveyors of gossip to huddle in the hallways of the AHA?

Such ponderous thoughts are making AHB's Monday particularly blue. Should you not hear from me again, I will gladly read any and all of your comments and treasure them, whether they are thoughtful or inane. I will carry them with me, along with my fine computer, into the hills of Chihuahua, where if you are lucky, you may find me living a meaningful and ethical life indeed.

Yr humble servant,
AHB III

Bierce as Wonkette

Your faithful Professor Bierce is reveling in his new-found status as the Wonkette of the history blogosphere, though he believes himself to be a rather wittier writer than the gossipy scribe of Washington. Alas, he is not possessed of Ms. Cox's luminous beauty.

A small bit of trivia for you Historians: the original Wonkette, Ana Maria Cox shares the connubial bed with a historian, the redoubtable Chris Lehmann, an erstwhile student of the late Christopher Lasch. Every great woman should share pillow talk with a historian.

Professor Bierce's blue Monday

As you may have surmised, Professor Bierce adamantly resists one of the banes of the modern American academy, viz working on the weekend. My apologies to those of you who have visited this humble blog on Saturday or on the Lord's Day. The life of the mind requires, indeed demands, the nurturing of more bodily pleasures on those two days that serve as a hiatus to the tyranny of the other five.

Fortunately college towns these days are bountifully provisioned with shops that purvey the essential brain-starter of the week, the essential antidote to Blue Monday, the black Ichor of life. So here I sit, soon to sate your voyeuristic desires while I sate my need to for an essential infusion. Yrs, AHB.