"playing with prodigal sons"
This weekend I went out with school-peers, and while this in itself is not an anomaly, the fact that it was finally with the affiliated school kids with whom I wanted to go out certainly makes it such; it was fun, and funny, and coincidence filled ("Where are you from?" / "Andalucía." / "Oh, my family has a place there, in a beach near Sevilla." / "No way! Where?" / "Matalascañas?" / "Oh man, you summer in Matalascañas?! I'm from Ayamonte, the next town over!" / "No way! Do you know Francisco Javier de Ayala?" / "Javy? Of course, he went to school with me!"). I like these kids, a bit: they're saucy, they use the term "gremio" ("guild") in self-mocking self-reference, they're good-hearted (something for which, I've discovered lately, as in over the past two-or-three-years, I've a great appreciation / weakness), and they remind me of my Miami kids in that they feel obliged to keep things interesting. I shall repeat again next weekend. I was supposed to repeat tonight (or yesterday, rather), but, ehhh, sundays, and more ehhh, Kaptial (something like the Buddha Bar of Madrid - yech) was enough to persuade me to defer, decline, demurely say "no". Still, fun, I'm looking forward to the next weekend, aye aye, what what; to quote someone far wittier than I, it is "as exciting as discovering that, due to an administrative error, the new boy in the dorm is actually a girl with a big chest, a sense of adventure and no pants!"
Which kind of segues gracefully, more or less, with a sort of Vernon Castle step, to m'next point: contrary to popular belief, proletariat street rumours, and those upstarts at The New Yorker magazine, I shall summarily not be home next week, and if I can have anything to do with it, the week after the next will find me in Seville & das beach estate or, alternately, Germany. I love how that sounds; how gloriously ass-ish. Both are pending, course, and if it's too out of hand I'll intervene, course, and head back earlier (in which case I'll head to Seville later this week), but, egads, options are really, really funny / entertaining / generally gold. Even if it ends up being impossible though, wow, I really like options, especially when they're so diverse as to encompass tanning / doing charming Romeo-in-the-earlier-scenes-of-Baz-Luhrmann's-adaptation-of-Romeo-+-Juliet-type-things on the southernmost coast of Spain or, alternately, trainhopping and partaking in the pastoral diversions / peasant festivals of southwest Germany. Gelb!
It was called the "Shit Summer" earlier this week, but I'm beginning to think it will be more of a "Sunbleached Garden Party / Alcoholized Afternoon / Algonquin Round Circle Late Night Gables Walks / Softly-Coloured Bloomsbury Group with Flasks in their Garter Belts" Summer of 2006. Interesting schtuff, what what. I will enjoy the inevitable dinners, and dusk at the Venetian Pool, and finally dominating the fine art of motoring and its affiliated matters ("He'd Have To Get Under, Get Out & Get Under {To Fix His Automobile}"), hear hear. And the revivals of the long lunches with my mother, who is at her most congenial when everyone else is abroad (which, tis confirmed, they shall be); 2003 was probably one of my best summers largely due to this fact (and then everything that followed afterwards in Tübingen).
On a vaguely related note, I wonder if anyone knows their IQ? I had passively wondered for ages - it wasn't discussed in-house, to avoid hurt feelings or elitism and the like - and during the conversation tonight she dropped it randomly (randomly, in that she was discussing some gifted course that she's teaching, and started talking about specific sorts of gifted students, adn then randomly mentioned which category I fell into, due to my number ranking). (Which is 155.) (Which isn't bad - enough to give me noticeable social issues, but not enough to make me the guy from Shine [she said this as if it was a grand revelation, which I found funny - as if we hadn't all caught on this the matter in grade school, and adjusted to it some time ago]. And I have the top one in the house, score! Not bad, all things considered.)
Other things:
1) Some weeks ago, while procrastinating on studying for history, I stumbled upon the Catholic Communication Campaign, an organism run by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after following a series of links in a NyTimes article on (course) The DaVinci Code. Now, their movie review section is hilarious enough, given that they warn their readers that determined films contain "a permissive view of premarital relationship", and employ the following rating system:
- A-I -- general patronage;
- A-II -- adults and adolescents;
- A-III -- adults;
- L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
- O -- morally offensive.
You can imagine what they gave DaVinci. Separately though, I only felt the need to mention the CCC because they've also run a lovely contest, apparently executed amongst parochial schools, asking kids to send in drawings of how they think Jesus would communicate his teachings were he physically present today.
The entries were remarkably hilarious (unintentionally, clearly).
My favourites:
(Is anyone else reading these in a deadpan voice and feeling like the kids are mocking "xoJesusRox33ox" via i.m.?)
(This one is up solely because 1) I thought "Jesus" was actually a girl with a fang coming out of the top of her open mouth, 2) W-H-E-A-R-T can just as easily spell WHEAT as it can HEART.)
2) Entirely unrelated, I love these kids / really enjoy this picture:
But not nearly as much as I enjoy that boy in center (B.I.C.) is wearing a shirt that says "JUST CAUSE", referring, course, to the military operation against Noriega and Panama in December of 1989. Love it.
3) I love the thing when you hug someone and you have to leave, but you don't totally want to let go of each other, so you do the whole grasping until the last moment thing, and a hug turns into a grasp that turns into a long sweep with the tips of the fingers following down the length of the arm and past the wrist and across the arm and down to the last moment with the fingers before breaking off completely. I love that, alot.
4) I love that Pilar Equiza (Written Communications, of "Estudiantes...Estudiantes...Les voy a decir algo muy importante.", peering-over-the-reading-glasses, flight-stewardess-look fame) has an excellent grasp of closure, which goes with her "tough old broad" demeanor.
Student: Well, it's been a pleasure. I'm sure we'll see each other around.
Equiza: I don't see why we would.
Student: Oh? Are you retiring?
Equiza: No, I'll be here.
Student: Then surely I'll see you again-
Equiza: Maybe in a hallway. Luck in life!
"Luck in life!" I love it when my professors live up to their stereotypes.
5) I also love how the lyrics to songs from the '20s are ridiculously dirty. Ahem, "William's made an honest woman out of Wanda, now that Willy's on his way", "All I need is you, a blanket and a hot dog".
6) If you can hear this, you're still young. Try it on your parents. They're probably not.
7) Movies: There were a bunch, but I've kind of forgotten. Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou: Bah. It was alright, but I swear, after all the hype I really was expecting something god-like. Royal Tenenbaums was a gazillion times better. This, in contrast, didn't really even provide too many laugh out loud moments (save the crew aboard the Hennessey, and even then, bleh). Tsk. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington: Meanwhile, this one I fucking loved. I mean, sure, I'm a sucker for Claude Raines, but wow, I loved it. Shrug, de gustibus non est disputandum. RKO281: Fun. Everybody loves that whole Welles / Hearst fued. And that Marion Davies, why, geez, she's just the bee's knees. Soldados de Salamina: I really liked it, especially for the "eh" feeling on which it ended. Well done.