Swell is Other People
I've been spending the past few weeks in remarkable company -- the semester's wrapping up, and there is stuff that needs attending to, but overall it's been less about that and more about a couple of good clumps of people. Today, after work, there'll be football w/ a whole bunch of girls, with I believe one other guy who I haven't asked if he thinks, as I do, that football with women is preferable to any other kind (he might disagree: I don't think any of us are bad players, but he can kick our collective asses), and later I'm being taken to see The Two Gentlemen of Verona (which reminds me that the Shakespeare project has stalled at As You Like It -- I'm halfway through the plays and have not picked up the next yet), and tomorrow there's more Buffy than is probably healthy for anyone. And yesterday and the day before there was the watching of some much-loved movies: three of us are rotating films the others have not seen.
There's a part of me that isn't wired at all for this: that part wants to stay in a room w/ printed material for many hours. I don't think there's anything wrong w/ that side of anyone. Everyone needs a bit of solitude. But it seems as though we're built to be around others, which should somehow be less surprising than it is, but there you go.
It's not just that it's fun. It's not just that these people are all wonderful and great to be around, and that there is comfort to be derived from small crowds. It's also that all of these people can cook -- we're talking about remarkable people making remarkable dishes.
Which, while on subject, here is an NPR story about a once-remarkable man making some very unremarkable work, work so unremarkable it's actually remarkably bad work.
I've been spending the past few weeks in remarkable company -- the semester's wrapping up, and there is stuff that needs attending to, but overall it's been less about that and more about a couple of good clumps of people. Today, after work, there'll be football w/ a whole bunch of girls, with I believe one other guy who I haven't asked if he thinks, as I do, that football with women is preferable to any other kind (he might disagree: I don't think any of us are bad players, but he can kick our collective asses), and later I'm being taken to see The Two Gentlemen of Verona (which reminds me that the Shakespeare project has stalled at As You Like It -- I'm halfway through the plays and have not picked up the next yet), and tomorrow there's more Buffy than is probably healthy for anyone. And yesterday and the day before there was the watching of some much-loved movies: three of us are rotating films the others have not seen.
There's a part of me that isn't wired at all for this: that part wants to stay in a room w/ printed material for many hours. I don't think there's anything wrong w/ that side of anyone. Everyone needs a bit of solitude. But it seems as though we're built to be around others, which should somehow be less surprising than it is, but there you go.
It's not just that it's fun. It's not just that these people are all wonderful and great to be around, and that there is comfort to be derived from small crowds. It's also that all of these people can cook -- we're talking about remarkable people making remarkable dishes.
Which, while on subject, here is an NPR story about a once-remarkable man making some very unremarkable work, work so unremarkable it's actually remarkably bad work.
Dictation
Secretary is not a great movie, but it's sweet and unusual and worth watching: it's a very good small movie -- at heart it's a romantic comedy, but with a disturbing beginning involving self-mutilation (which yes, of course, is a disturbing subject, but made all the more unsettling, and all the sadder, because the girl has a little kit w/ knives, and iodine, and this little kit has been decorated w/ butterfly decals), followed by an unexpectedly sunny take on s&m (the usual disclaimer is that it's handled tastefully, but tact & taste, in these matters, seems overrated -- tone, on the other hand, strikes me as far more important, where the pitfalls are ponderous, pretentious, bombastic junk on the one hand, fluffy and harmless farce on the other).
The movie is based on a Mary Gaitskill short story, and I was surprised to find Frederick Exley singing her praises (not because Gaitskill isn't great, but because I had not thought of Exley in a while), which made me think of another hard-drinking man, James Agee, whose one original screenplay was the movie I watched earlier this week: Night of the Hunter.
So where am I going w/ this? OK, the people I was watching Night of the Hunter with liked it, kind of, which has always been my reaction to the movie -- I wasn't sure if it was good, but I was absolutely sure that I had never seen anything quite like it, and probably wouldn't ever again. Nothing could match it for weirdness. And it was a kind of cumulative weirdness, with Laughton, a first-time director, helping out considerably.
So there is Agee, and there is Exley, and there is also Southern -- all producing works unmatched in strangeness, some of which are both brilliant and strange, and some just strange. And all living piecemeal lives -- shorter than they could have been, strewn with wreckage, rife with wounded passersby, filled w/ long stretches of inactivity.
So where am I going w/ this? I don't know. Part of it is wishing that anyone who produces anything worthwhile live the kind of life wished upon by the narrator of The Lovely Bones in the last line of the novel, which by the way you should really read.
Secretary is not a great movie, but it's sweet and unusual and worth watching: it's a very good small movie -- at heart it's a romantic comedy, but with a disturbing beginning involving self-mutilation (which yes, of course, is a disturbing subject, but made all the more unsettling, and all the sadder, because the girl has a little kit w/ knives, and iodine, and this little kit has been decorated w/ butterfly decals), followed by an unexpectedly sunny take on s&m (the usual disclaimer is that it's handled tastefully, but tact & taste, in these matters, seems overrated -- tone, on the other hand, strikes me as far more important, where the pitfalls are ponderous, pretentious, bombastic junk on the one hand, fluffy and harmless farce on the other).
The movie is based on a Mary Gaitskill short story, and I was surprised to find Frederick Exley singing her praises (not because Gaitskill isn't great, but because I had not thought of Exley in a while), which made me think of another hard-drinking man, James Agee, whose one original screenplay was the movie I watched earlier this week: Night of the Hunter.
So where am I going w/ this? OK, the people I was watching Night of the Hunter with liked it, kind of, which has always been my reaction to the movie -- I wasn't sure if it was good, but I was absolutely sure that I had never seen anything quite like it, and probably wouldn't ever again. Nothing could match it for weirdness. And it was a kind of cumulative weirdness, with Laughton, a first-time director, helping out considerably.
So there is Agee, and there is Exley, and there is also Southern -- all producing works unmatched in strangeness, some of which are both brilliant and strange, and some just strange. And all living piecemeal lives -- shorter than they could have been, strewn with wreckage, rife with wounded passersby, filled w/ long stretches of inactivity.
So where am I going w/ this? I don't know. Part of it is wishing that anyone who produces anything worthwhile live the kind of life wished upon by the narrator of The Lovely Bones in the last line of the novel, which by the way you should really read.
Beer Flashback
Yes, we did this too. The highlight was always Norway, for the Grolsch on tap, which is the best beer ever. I don't drink at all anymore, alas, but once in a while I find that I do miss Grolsch, and of course Guiness. The not-drinking decision has stood since January of 2000. It hardly feels like it's been that long. Way too many many of my activies included, as an essential element, the drinking of way too much beer -- I'm not knocking the experience, but if it can't be done without going overboard continuously, which I did (go overboard cont., drinking way too much on nearly a daily basis, getting way too fat on it, not remembering the last third of most movies watched during that period), then it shouldn't be done.
(Via Dave Barry, not surprisingly.)
Yes, we did this too. The highlight was always Norway, for the Grolsch on tap, which is the best beer ever. I don't drink at all anymore, alas, but once in a while I find that I do miss Grolsch, and of course Guiness. The not-drinking decision has stood since January of 2000. It hardly feels like it's been that long. Way too many many of my activies included, as an essential element, the drinking of way too much beer -- I'm not knocking the experience, but if it can't be done without going overboard continuously, which I did (go overboard cont., drinking way too much on nearly a daily basis, getting way too fat on it, not remembering the last third of most movies watched during that period), then it shouldn't be done.
(Via Dave Barry, not surprisingly.)
Karma Police
Running on a worrisome streak of good luck: Dad & Maria are here, at the computer lab, while I finish up my shift. Then it's off for Cuban food. Then Spirited Away.
The assistantship for Fall 2003 has been secured. I'll be teaching a composition course & I'll continue to work at the Writing Center. There are also intimations of some kind of tuition waiver for summer, which would be good, as otherwise I'll be far more broke than I already am. And I'm the award winning graduate student writer this year, the department has decided. There aren't that many of us, so odds were pretty good for anyone, and they had to pick someone. I get a free lunch out of it.
This is how I feel about these things: I don't believe in awards unless I win them, in which case I would probably say that they're no big deal, that they mean little, while what I'm really wanting to say is, Hey, I won! I won! Me! Yay! Hooray for Zoydberg!
But I'm always worried about getting too many good things at once (family, waiver, awards, food) -- because I've yet to experience any of these things in the past year w/o the universe correcting itself and making sure that some kind of cartoon piano falls on my head, so as to keep everything in balance. But the piano is still in the air, and I can't make out its shadow on the field, and so yes, I'm happy: I'm buzzing like a fridge.
Running on a worrisome streak of good luck: Dad & Maria are here, at the computer lab, while I finish up my shift. Then it's off for Cuban food. Then Spirited Away.
The assistantship for Fall 2003 has been secured. I'll be teaching a composition course & I'll continue to work at the Writing Center. There are also intimations of some kind of tuition waiver for summer, which would be good, as otherwise I'll be far more broke than I already am. And I'm the award winning graduate student writer this year, the department has decided. There aren't that many of us, so odds were pretty good for anyone, and they had to pick someone. I get a free lunch out of it.
This is how I feel about these things: I don't believe in awards unless I win them, in which case I would probably say that they're no big deal, that they mean little, while what I'm really wanting to say is, Hey, I won! I won! Me! Yay! Hooray for Zoydberg!
But I'm always worried about getting too many good things at once (family, waiver, awards, food) -- because I've yet to experience any of these things in the past year w/o the universe correcting itself and making sure that some kind of cartoon piano falls on my head, so as to keep everything in balance. But the piano is still in the air, and I can't make out its shadow on the field, and so yes, I'm happy: I'm buzzing like a fridge.
Robot Parade
There is a real company called Mechanical Servants Incorporated, based off Melrose Park, IL. I have real news too, but am waiting on dad and the sister to drive in so don't have much time to relate. So instead, yes -- Mechanical Servants.
There is a real company called Mechanical Servants Incorporated, based off Melrose Park, IL. I have real news too, but am waiting on dad and the sister to drive in so don't have much time to relate. So instead, yes -- Mechanical Servants.
I attended an international student meeting a week and a half ago. The bad news: The US government pretty wants to know where I am most of the time. Since I am mostly taking naps, they should have no problem tracking me. The good news: We are now allowed a year of practical training per level, as opposed to one per lifetime. So after getting the MA (around summer of 2004, knock on wood), I'll be able to work for a full year. This is more than good news. The OPT visa is automatic and painless and pretty wonderful.
The plan had been to go straight from the MA to some MFA in creative writing somewhere -- anywhere that would take me. The new plan is to use the OPT to go somewhere, anywhere -- by which I think I mean New York. Work whatever. Do whatever. But I think the year off from school will be good. I'll miss Orlando. I like it here. There's good people. But I really need to be elsewhere, to remember what the color of blank paper is, in a different town, to paraphrase in the most ungrammatical way possible David Byrne's bit in True Stories.
All's well here. But "here" needs to be changed to "there." I hope all is well with you.
Moments vs. Chains
(Quoted excerpt from Hands that Mold the Imagination, via Robot Wisdom.)
"But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." (Dickens' Great Expectations)I've come to distrust causality. It exists, and most of what's important in our lives does happen as a result of some decision -- ours or someone else's. Nevertheless, the link between cause and effect never interests me as much as the moment -- its glow, its afterglow, knowing that it is happening as it's happening and knowing that it will be limited in duration, that it'll pass. There are always reasons. But to mull over reasons is to recollect the wrong thing. I find that my favorite memories are divorced from what led to them or what followed, the moment itself firmly impressed with durable pigments. There may well be a case against this type of memory -- in removing context, one learns little from experience or one turns reality into something else, to which I can only say that both learning and reality are overrated. Dickens, however, is rated pretty accurately: he is a hell of a writer and one can never say enough good things about his novels.
I like this passage for many reasons. It is, for one thing, a thoroughly Victorian moment - for a considerable driving force behind much Victorian fiction was the attempt to make sense of modern life precisely by tracing through it chains of causality and connection; and Dickens in particular was supremely good at excavating the submerged and sometimes fatal intimacies between people of different classes and clans. But there is also something here, I think, about the nature of fiction - for what is fiction but the following of imaginary lives along lines of possibility and hazard? - and, more importantly, a sort of enactment of the romance of storytelling itself.
(Quoted excerpt from Hands that Mold the Imagination, via Robot Wisdom.)
Ballpoint
I didn't watch enough of the Hussein/Rather interview to form much of an opinion. There's this much: yes, Hussein might be a loony, and he is a kind of distant, abstract threat, but this war thing is insane. From the interview itself all I gathered is that people who wear perfectly nice suits seem reluctant to appear, on camera, with perfectly nice pens. Both Hussein and Rather took notes with Bics. Or PaperMates. White stem, black cap. Humble and efficient and good enough -- yes. But are these Bic people? Are they? Really? I'm guessing they both own at least one half-decent fountain pen, the kind that doesn't require heavy presssing on the page.
So either Hussein and Rather are reverse writing utensil snobs or I am a fairly straightforward utensil snob. Else I should have been listening to what they were saying, as opposed to worrying about what they were writing with. And of course there's the surreal needs of the medium, which might have required that both Iraqui dictator and television personality appear with matching pens. So somebody had to hide his MontBlanc so as to not to appear as though he was putting on airs.
I didn't watch enough of the Hussein/Rather interview to form much of an opinion. There's this much: yes, Hussein might be a loony, and he is a kind of distant, abstract threat, but this war thing is insane. From the interview itself all I gathered is that people who wear perfectly nice suits seem reluctant to appear, on camera, with perfectly nice pens. Both Hussein and Rather took notes with Bics. Or PaperMates. White stem, black cap. Humble and efficient and good enough -- yes. But are these Bic people? Are they? Really? I'm guessing they both own at least one half-decent fountain pen, the kind that doesn't require heavy presssing on the page.
So either Hussein and Rather are reverse writing utensil snobs or I am a fairly straightforward utensil snob. Else I should have been listening to what they were saying, as opposed to worrying about what they were writing with. And of course there's the surreal needs of the medium, which might have required that both Iraqui dictator and television personality appear with matching pens. So somebody had to hide his MontBlanc so as to not to appear as though he was putting on airs.
Other, More Interesting Voices in Less Cluttered Rooms
Aimee's new site is up. Go visit http://www.poshlost.net/ for all the stripped down goodness. And may you bask in the glory of the Nabokovilian URL? You may.
Also, my friend Godfrey needs someone to adopt Whip-It. Adopt, if you can.
Life over here is good and tranquil -- buckets of fiction and nonfiction writing going on. Some of it is good. Some of it is staying in the bucket.
There will be more in the way of updates later, but for now it's all more of the same, w/ perhaps more homesickness than usual -- tuned out NPR this week (pledge drive) to the Latin radio station for a salsa and merengue fix, and was pleased to hear an Aterciopelados tune amid all the trumpets and tales of romance gone wrong. The homesickness might have something to do w/ working on a piece that might be the beginning of something bigger. It's set in Bogota but cribs liberally from Nerval's Aurelia and from The Wizard of Oz. It needs to be messed with -- as it stands it just stands... It's static, though tight and strange w/o veering into freewheeling surrealism, which I've come to distrust. So it's better than average but still in need of major surgery. (Oh, the nonfiction piece mentioned on 2/2/3 was tremendously well received -- more well received than it deserved.)
I finished the Garcia Marquez memoirs a week ago but have not had a chance to open the next nonrequired book, Jonathan Carroll's Wooden Apples.
Aimee's new site is up. Go visit http://www.poshlost.net/ for all the stripped down goodness. And may you bask in the glory of the Nabokovilian URL? You may.
Also, my friend Godfrey needs someone to adopt Whip-It. Adopt, if you can.
Life over here is good and tranquil -- buckets of fiction and nonfiction writing going on. Some of it is good. Some of it is staying in the bucket.
There will be more in the way of updates later, but for now it's all more of the same, w/ perhaps more homesickness than usual -- tuned out NPR this week (pledge drive) to the Latin radio station for a salsa and merengue fix, and was pleased to hear an Aterciopelados tune amid all the trumpets and tales of romance gone wrong. The homesickness might have something to do w/ working on a piece that might be the beginning of something bigger. It's set in Bogota but cribs liberally from Nerval's Aurelia and from The Wizard of Oz. It needs to be messed with -- as it stands it just stands... It's static, though tight and strange w/o veering into freewheeling surrealism, which I've come to distrust. So it's better than average but still in need of major surgery. (Oh, the nonfiction piece mentioned on 2/2/3 was tremendously well received -- more well received than it deserved.)
I finished the Garcia Marquez memoirs a week ago but have not had a chance to open the next nonrequired book, Jonathan Carroll's Wooden Apples.
Concordance
So not a few hours after posting the link below the girl in question e-mails me for a Buffy marathon the next day. I had a great time -- there is of course no question of a re-hook-up, nor would I be all that keen on one, and besides the boy she's dating right now is an acquaintance and actually a very nice person.
Spent an ungodly amount of hours in the company of good people watching angsty vampires. We ate more bacon than we should have. I drank a pot of coffee.
I'm still, unfortunately, far too inarticulate when we're alone, but at my normal level of inarticulateness when more people are present. This is a problem. Here's someone I'm really just very grateful to, someone who has done more for me than any girl has in years, and it's simply a failure at a social-grace-level -- don't have much of an excuse either, other than this part of it is fairly new too, spotting someone and wishing them all the best in one's head, a desperate wish to see that this person is doing well, is happy. To carry a conversation with the thank-you-hope-you're-happy-thank-you reel running in the background is a little distracting.
So not a few hours after posting the link below the girl in question e-mails me for a Buffy marathon the next day. I had a great time -- there is of course no question of a re-hook-up, nor would I be all that keen on one, and besides the boy she's dating right now is an acquaintance and actually a very nice person.
Spent an ungodly amount of hours in the company of good people watching angsty vampires. We ate more bacon than we should have. I drank a pot of coffee.
I'm still, unfortunately, far too inarticulate when we're alone, but at my normal level of inarticulateness when more people are present. This is a problem. Here's someone I'm really just very grateful to, someone who has done more for me than any girl has in years, and it's simply a failure at a social-grace-level -- don't have much of an excuse either, other than this part of it is fairly new too, spotting someone and wishing them all the best in one's head, a desperate wish to see that this person is doing well, is happy. To carry a conversation with the thank-you-hope-you're-happy-thank-you reel running in the background is a little distracting.
On Messing Around While Sober
A short piece for Frederick Barthelme's Public Scrutiny. (Professor Barthelme is the author of several wonderful books, including Bob the Gambler and (with his brother) Double Down.)
A short piece for Frederick Barthelme's Public Scrutiny. (Professor Barthelme is the author of several wonderful books, including Bob the Gambler and (with his brother) Double Down.)
Cheer Up, Emo Kid
I forgot to add that I've also been listening over and over again to ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's mindblowing Source Tags & Codes. They sound like everything I've ever heard and loved rolled into something noisy and wrong. Yes, some of the lyrics are a little on the emo-ish side, but you can hardly hear them anyway amidst all the guitar buzz.
Just sent four poems to The New Yorker, then read this article on the fiction turnover. I think I performed these actions in the correct sequence.
What else? Got 3.5 hours to go.
I forgot to add that I've also been listening over and over again to ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's mindblowing Source Tags & Codes. They sound like everything I've ever heard and loved rolled into something noisy and wrong. Yes, some of the lyrics are a little on the emo-ish side, but you can hardly hear them anyway amidst all the guitar buzz.
Just sent four poems to The New Yorker, then read this article on the fiction turnover. I think I performed these actions in the correct sequence.
What else? Got 3.5 hours to go.
"I could have been someone!"
To which the late, great Kirsty MacColl replies, "Well, so could've anyone." I've been listening to her greatest hits while working a full noon-midnight shift at the labs for the first time in months.
So what has been going on? The fiction piece was well received -- great suggestions were made, some nice marginalia was found on the copies that were returned, and the passive voice that is going on right now will be done w/ in a sec, I promise, though why it is here at all I don't know -- the bulk of the suggestions were pretty easy to put in and I've taken my professor's advice and submitted it.
Nonfiction workshop on Monday. No clue on what people will suggest, which is why workshops work. The nonfiction piece up for discussion derailed -- it has a page-long quote by Trollope plus two extended bits on waking up next to implausibly beautiful women in Bogota, plus several parenthetical apologies on the derailment, plus an illustration of a penguin and one of Trollope in his old age, but not nearly enough perhaps on the whole immobility-and-shyness problem when in the company of women. So right now it's a mess -- but it could be a succesful mess. Or it could need radical surgery.
So anyway: MacColl. When she replies like that to Shane McGowan of the Pogues it made me think of Jacques, the bitter old man in "As You Like It," saying that it was good to be sad and say nothing. (A quote I've been carrying around now for so long that it creeps into everything. I put it into the fiction piece as the title of a self-help book: It's Good to be Sad and Say Nothing!) Rosalind's reply? "Well, then, it's good to be a post."
I'm not sure quite what it is I'm trying to say here. Maybe it's just that women are amazing at dispelling gloomy bullshitty spells, and specially women like McColl and Rosalind, who throw their heads back and laugh, and who with that motion make it very clear what life is all about.
To which the late, great Kirsty MacColl replies, "Well, so could've anyone." I've been listening to her greatest hits while working a full noon-midnight shift at the labs for the first time in months.
So what has been going on? The fiction piece was well received -- great suggestions were made, some nice marginalia was found on the copies that were returned, and the passive voice that is going on right now will be done w/ in a sec, I promise, though why it is here at all I don't know -- the bulk of the suggestions were pretty easy to put in and I've taken my professor's advice and submitted it.
Nonfiction workshop on Monday. No clue on what people will suggest, which is why workshops work. The nonfiction piece up for discussion derailed -- it has a page-long quote by Trollope plus two extended bits on waking up next to implausibly beautiful women in Bogota, plus several parenthetical apologies on the derailment, plus an illustration of a penguin and one of Trollope in his old age, but not nearly enough perhaps on the whole immobility-and-shyness problem when in the company of women. So right now it's a mess -- but it could be a succesful mess. Or it could need radical surgery.
So anyway: MacColl. When she replies like that to Shane McGowan of the Pogues it made me think of Jacques, the bitter old man in "As You Like It," saying that it was good to be sad and say nothing. (A quote I've been carrying around now for so long that it creeps into everything. I put it into the fiction piece as the title of a self-help book: It's Good to be Sad and Say Nothing!) Rosalind's reply? "Well, then, it's good to be a post."
I'm not sure quite what it is I'm trying to say here. Maybe it's just that women are amazing at dispelling gloomy bullshitty spells, and specially women like McColl and Rosalind, who throw their heads back and laugh, and who with that motion make it very clear what life is all about.
Exclamation Mark
If there is anything to be said for extreme cold in Orlando, it is this: This is the only time of the year that you can walk around in a peacoat in Florida. Which I am doing.
Also, I've been watching less TV than usual, but have not have been having (have not have been having?) too much time to read non-required stuff. Been reading (and rereading) some stories for my fiction and nonfiction workshops, along with assorted articles for the satire class, plus the last two New Yorkers. My fiction bit is up for discussion this Tuesday. The nonfiction bit is due for next Monday, and I was having a hard time deciding what to write about, but will probably do a piece on hobbledehoydom and Bogota. The trick, which shouldn't be too hard to pull off, is to do almost a kind of essay on Trollope and his take on awkward maleness, along with illustrated examples of this awkwardness in action from life. Along of course with parts where the hobbledeyhoydom is overcome or come to grips with or when it is accepted. I am trying to find a way to do it all w/o resorting to the Hunter S Thompson-ish bits, the booze and the substances, but they do seem integral to the fabric of the awkwardness. And also trying to find a way to avoid an Oh-I-learned-so-much kind of bullshit little memoir, but also want to keep away from an I-regret-nothing type narrative. I learned little. I regret a few moments, moments where the hobbledeydom turned to assholishness. So right now the only problem is how much weight to give to each discrete part. We'll see.
There should also be at least a little bit on two exemplary hobbledehoys: Charlie Brown (ur-hob.) and Kermit (the hob. every awk. male should aspire to, the ideal hob.).
Anyway, I hope you're well. I hope you're wearing a peacoat. I hope you're happy.
I am almost unutterably so, and have no good excuse for it.
Also, visit Nicholas Laughlin! Say hi! His blog kicks ass.
If there is anything to be said for extreme cold in Orlando, it is this: This is the only time of the year that you can walk around in a peacoat in Florida. Which I am doing.
Also, I've been watching less TV than usual, but have not have been having (have not have been having?) too much time to read non-required stuff. Been reading (and rereading) some stories for my fiction and nonfiction workshops, along with assorted articles for the satire class, plus the last two New Yorkers. My fiction bit is up for discussion this Tuesday. The nonfiction bit is due for next Monday, and I was having a hard time deciding what to write about, but will probably do a piece on hobbledehoydom and Bogota. The trick, which shouldn't be too hard to pull off, is to do almost a kind of essay on Trollope and his take on awkward maleness, along with illustrated examples of this awkwardness in action from life. Along of course with parts where the hobbledeyhoydom is overcome or come to grips with or when it is accepted. I am trying to find a way to do it all w/o resorting to the Hunter S Thompson-ish bits, the booze and the substances, but they do seem integral to the fabric of the awkwardness. And also trying to find a way to avoid an Oh-I-learned-so-much kind of bullshit little memoir, but also want to keep away from an I-regret-nothing type narrative. I learned little. I regret a few moments, moments where the hobbledeydom turned to assholishness. So right now the only problem is how much weight to give to each discrete part. We'll see.
There should also be at least a little bit on two exemplary hobbledehoys: Charlie Brown (ur-hob.) and Kermit (the hob. every awk. male should aspire to, the ideal hob.).
Anyway, I hope you're well. I hope you're wearing a peacoat. I hope you're happy.
I am almost unutterably so, and have no good excuse for it.
Also, visit Nicholas Laughlin! Say hi! His blog kicks ass.
Back!
Hello! Happy New Year!
There have been some updates to the Nabokov site.
Life is pretty good.
Plenty of coffee, and I'm working 15 hours at the writing center (they offered me more hours and I figured why not) and 5 at the labs (I'd have worked more, but with the assistantship (which covers a significant portion of the hefty out-of-state tuition fee) I'm only allowed to work 20 hours, so pennyless, yes, but also more or less secured school-wise). And I'm taking two workshops this semester, fiction and non-, plus a seminar on satire (there's Dryden! and Pope! and Swift! and even David Lodge and Kingsley Amis!).
Hello! Happy New Year!
There have been some updates to the Nabokov site.
Life is pretty good.
Plenty of coffee, and I'm working 15 hours at the writing center (they offered me more hours and I figured why not) and 5 at the labs (I'd have worked more, but with the assistantship (which covers a significant portion of the hefty out-of-state tuition fee) I'm only allowed to work 20 hours, so pennyless, yes, but also more or less secured school-wise). And I'm taking two workshops this semester, fiction and non-, plus a seminar on satire (there's Dryden! and Pope! and Swift! and even David Lodge and Kingsley Amis!).
!
The first week of break has been fantastic, and not at all hectic. UCF has been justifiably abuzz about getting its first Rhodes Scholar. He seems vaguely familiar but I can't quite recall why. I don't think I had a class with him. But I was on my way somewhere today and ran across the vaguely familiar R.S. -- he waved and said Hi and I waved and smiled, thinking, This person, he looks vaguely familiar, and then realizing, Ah, R.S.!, and turning and saying "Congratulations!" To which he very graciously said Thank you.
Here's the thing: he looked vaguely familiar but not because of the R.S. thing. And now I'm not sure if we are somehow acquainted from before, hence his waving at me, or maybe he's been getting a lot of people looking at him, thinking, That person looks familiar, hence the preemptive smile-and-wave. I don't know. Anyway, he seems like someone who totally deserves this and will go very far. And he's an English major! And he speaks Spanish!
In other news, I received an e-mail from someone who was convinced that I was a hoax -- some fictive Colombian fellow concocted by someone else. Not so. I'm here, and I am who I am, and while I have no conclusive evidence I can offer this documentary proof from the new job at the writing center. I'm the blurry person in white on the bottom left hand corner of the group photo. You'll also find me under "The Consultants" -- Juan Martinez.
Oh, also: Updates to the Nabokov page!.
And: my friend Keith's life has been very interesting. I was given a heads up on the big news a few months ago, but you should visit and say hi and be nice.
The first week of break has been fantastic, and not at all hectic. UCF has been justifiably abuzz about getting its first Rhodes Scholar. He seems vaguely familiar but I can't quite recall why. I don't think I had a class with him. But I was on my way somewhere today and ran across the vaguely familiar R.S. -- he waved and said Hi and I waved and smiled, thinking, This person, he looks vaguely familiar, and then realizing, Ah, R.S.!, and turning and saying "Congratulations!" To which he very graciously said Thank you.
Here's the thing: he looked vaguely familiar but not because of the R.S. thing. And now I'm not sure if we are somehow acquainted from before, hence his waving at me, or maybe he's been getting a lot of people looking at him, thinking, That person looks familiar, hence the preemptive smile-and-wave. I don't know. Anyway, he seems like someone who totally deserves this and will go very far. And he's an English major! And he speaks Spanish!
In other news, I received an e-mail from someone who was convinced that I was a hoax -- some fictive Colombian fellow concocted by someone else. Not so. I'm here, and I am who I am, and while I have no conclusive evidence I can offer this documentary proof from the new job at the writing center. I'm the blurry person in white on the bottom left hand corner of the group photo. You'll also find me under "The Consultants" -- Juan Martinez.
Oh, also: Updates to the Nabokov page!.
And: my friend Keith's life has been very interesting. I was given a heads up on the big news a few months ago, but you should visit and say hi and be nice.
Overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed
Via RobotWisdom, a link on gauging how much radio sucks. Very mathematical. Very true. And I was looking and laughing and thinking, Yes, but there's always New Jersey's WFMU, and then I look at the URL of the link.
So yes. Of course. Today's shaping up to be a glorious Sunday.
Also: I have not shaved in like three days. The break doesn't really start until Tuesday, but I'm getting my break beard in early. I have no clue why. All I know is it's time for reading and drinking way more coffee than is good for me and for wandering around the arboretum for lunch, trying to figure out if there really are different kinds of cypresses or if the person who wrote the little labels with the descriptions is pulling my chain, because I can't tell them apart, though I'm doing better with the ferns, and of course it's been a great couple of days for running on the treadmill and for lifting weights and for doing some writing. But every day is a great day for that. But now it's being done while temporarily furry.
Anyway. More coffee.
Via RobotWisdom, a link on gauging how much radio sucks. Very mathematical. Very true. And I was looking and laughing and thinking, Yes, but there's always New Jersey's WFMU, and then I look at the URL of the link.
So yes. Of course. Today's shaping up to be a glorious Sunday.
Also: I have not shaved in like three days. The break doesn't really start until Tuesday, but I'm getting my break beard in early. I have no clue why. All I know is it's time for reading and drinking way more coffee than is good for me and for wandering around the arboretum for lunch, trying to figure out if there really are different kinds of cypresses or if the person who wrote the little labels with the descriptions is pulling my chain, because I can't tell them apart, though I'm doing better with the ferns, and of course it's been a great couple of days for running on the treadmill and for lifting weights and for doing some writing. But every day is a great day for that. But now it's being done while temporarily furry.
Anyway. More coffee.
This Must Be the Place
So for a while I had been in a funk, and the most surprising thing about it is how everything pretty much proceeded as normal -- continued to get up early in the morning to work out, continued to do well in school and at work. What's also surprising is that there was no real gradual funk-tapering. I went to bed one night whilst still sad and woke up not. Another surprising thing: I had not felt this low in ages, and for the weeks that it lasted it seemed almost welcome, this shift, this change from muffled tranquility to raw heart-on-one's-sleeve condition. And then back to tranquility, with newfound awareness and appreciation of the unscripted nature of living. So the temporary shift was welcome, and yet all the same there was a certain envy for other creatures that don't seem to have this kind of problem. Like stoats. Stoats don't shuffle around all angsty.
But a stoat could not read up on the Ministry of Defense of his mother-country: "It associates the act of desertion with something completely not real." Nor could a stoat have watched the remarkable remake of Solaris, and think that Soderbergh improved on Tarkovsky.
So for a while I had been in a funk, and the most surprising thing about it is how everything pretty much proceeded as normal -- continued to get up early in the morning to work out, continued to do well in school and at work. What's also surprising is that there was no real gradual funk-tapering. I went to bed one night whilst still sad and woke up not. Another surprising thing: I had not felt this low in ages, and for the weeks that it lasted it seemed almost welcome, this shift, this change from muffled tranquility to raw heart-on-one's-sleeve condition. And then back to tranquility, with newfound awareness and appreciation of the unscripted nature of living. So the temporary shift was welcome, and yet all the same there was a certain envy for other creatures that don't seem to have this kind of problem. Like stoats. Stoats don't shuffle around all angsty.
But a stoat could not read up on the Ministry of Defense of his mother-country: "It associates the act of desertion with something completely not real." Nor could a stoat have watched the remarkable remake of Solaris, and think that Soderbergh improved on Tarkovsky.
I Know Perfectly Well I'm Not Where I Should Be
Admit failure. Accept defeat. Embrace loss. Be sweet. Be brave. Be yourself. Be someone else. Be elsewhere. Be right here. Be aware. Be oblivious. Understand every chamber of your heart. Understand that you are, in fact, holding said organ in your hands. Understand that it's okay to drop it or to misplace it once in a while. Be attuned. Listen. Don't. Talk. Don't talk. Be very very small. Read. Smile. Give in. Surrender. Be obvious. Be inscrutable. Write. Write about all the obvious things. Expect. Don't expect. Be fit. Be faint of heart. Be temperate. Believe in the randomness of the universe. Be open to every small good thing that comes your way. Understand that everything passes. Be very old. Be very young. Trust everyone. Throw your hands in the air. Say nothing. Need nothing. Ask for nothing. Keep nothing from anyone. Give everything away. Keep every bridge burning at the same steady rate.
Admit failure. Accept defeat. Embrace loss. Be sweet. Be brave. Be yourself. Be someone else. Be elsewhere. Be right here. Be aware. Be oblivious. Understand every chamber of your heart. Understand that you are, in fact, holding said organ in your hands. Understand that it's okay to drop it or to misplace it once in a while. Be attuned. Listen. Don't. Talk. Don't talk. Be very very small. Read. Smile. Give in. Surrender. Be obvious. Be inscrutable. Write. Write about all the obvious things. Expect. Don't expect. Be fit. Be faint of heart. Be temperate. Believe in the randomness of the universe. Be open to every small good thing that comes your way. Understand that everything passes. Be very old. Be very young. Trust everyone. Throw your hands in the air. Say nothing. Need nothing. Ask for nothing. Keep nothing from anyone. Give everything away. Keep every bridge burning at the same steady rate.