...or perhaps farce? When it comes to my life, at least. I was recently in Meijer restocking my apartment's liquor corner. The last time I did this it was May or June, and somehow over the subsequent months my guests and I have managed to drink in such a perfectly proportionate fashion that I've run out of all my supplies at once. So I'm walking around the grocery store with a basket of booze (and some bananas and green beans, I think) slung over my arm, and who should I bump into but the superlatively kind and straight-laced parents of one of my favorite students. They see me (despite my sweatshirt/vest/scarf scrubby college kid ensemble) before I recognize them, and we chat for five minutes. The whole time, I'm casually inching my basket from its rather conspicuous position and trying to move it out of their field of vision. I'm pretty sure it doesn't really matter that they saw what I was buying, but I still felt a little guilty and awkward as I made my way toward the international foods aisle for some salsa (tragedy: 1 comedy 0).
In other news, today I went outside to put my trash in the bin, and found my back patio had turned into an icy slush lake. I usually don't mind a good morass of snow and water, but today I was only wearing flip-flops (my original plans had me heading somewhere NOT outside to switch my laundry), so wading around the side of the house was interesting. Actually, I felt like I was walking through World 6 of Super Mario Bros. 3, and it was surprisingly warm outside, so that adventure turned out much better than it could have (tragedy: 1 comedy: 1). Other tragical/comical/ironical/romatical/historical/heroical events as of late include: a bat coming (and the quickly going) from my apartment, Mossing's bridal shower carrying off well enough, and my accidental and temporary gluing together of my vocal chords (sort of). I suppose this is what happens when I have time on my hands and I don't want to research or write or read or grade or plan and there's nothing left to clean.
Final score: comedy: 3 tragedy: 2
...but who's really keeping track?
And, just because I like you so much, I will leave you in Eddie's competent and well-manicured hands as I finally make my way to bed.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
When I want to remember why I like Modernism so much, I like to read Wallace Stevens...
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
...against Ezra Pound:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.
So that's the first tidbit for today. Since last Ash Wednesday, I do not feel like I have made much progress toward learning to care and not to care (learning to sit still...). I have been reading (too much?) Joyce and Joyce criticism, where essayists like to describe the symbolic structures in terms of constellations, a word which I especially like when it is used outside of astronomical contexts. Next I have to learn everything I can about Ezra Pound and cobble together an essay of my own. It's going to be great, but I'm afraid that I'm going to be so awash in the hopelessness that is the Modern psyche that I might get a little (read: intolerably) morose. Finally, despite having more snow days than school days for the past two weeks, I am staying busy working ahead in work/class/life because apparently February is the month of Fun Things Happen All Weekend Every Weekend, and I want, nay, I need to be prepared. More updates as events warrant (read: see you in March).
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
...against Ezra Pound:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.
So that's the first tidbit for today. Since last Ash Wednesday, I do not feel like I have made much progress toward learning to care and not to care (learning to sit still...). I have been reading (too much?) Joyce and Joyce criticism, where essayists like to describe the symbolic structures in terms of constellations, a word which I especially like when it is used outside of astronomical contexts. Next I have to learn everything I can about Ezra Pound and cobble together an essay of my own. It's going to be great, but I'm afraid that I'm going to be so awash in the hopelessness that is the Modern psyche that I might get a little (read: intolerably) morose. Finally, despite having more snow days than school days for the past two weeks, I am staying busy working ahead in work/class/life because apparently February is the month of Fun Things Happen All Weekend Every Weekend, and I want, nay, I need to be prepared. More updates as events warrant (read: see you in March).
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