zip-line

[frontdispatches]

Ah, friends.

It’s been awhile since last I posted, and we’re in finals now.

Last week was a good one (graceful, restful), and it marked a pleasant conclusion to the otherwise revolutionary month of May, in which altogether too many things (most of which were stressful) happened; indeed, the turbulence of the past four weeks was entirely unprecedented, and had me considering things I hadn’t ever really thought of before, and reconsidering things long-thought well established. Like the May that preceded it by 40 years, however, it was all a bunch of turbulence that ultimately resulted in nothing, a period of pretty chaos that was more noise than action, more complaint than active change. Of course some things did change, and now in June I find myself in new [old] provisional lodgings (the third official residence of the year), cheated out of a substantial amount of money and pretty much banned from taking books out of the library for the remainder of the school year - but none is lost, and in this first week of the new month things are going pleasantly well.

The first of the finals was held yesterday; it went well, and I went well, study-wise, sitting down to look over a few pages around 10 pm on Monday evening and unexpectedly annotating 30 of the 45 pages of class notes in that single sitting. I covered the rest of them after a short nap from 3 to 6, barreled off to school at half-past 7, revised with the Minister for a scant hour (during which, hilariously and at total random we both broke into this song) and took my seat at 9.30; the exam was for Investigative Journalism, and I feel fairly confident that, if not a triumph, it was certainly a well-respectable performance on my part.

The next final is to be held on Friday, around noon, methinks; it is for History of Social Communications, class which I’ve largely neglected, but which has been largely interesting the times during which I’ve been present (it suffered from being scheduled at a positively inconvenient time, reason for which 90% of the students regularly missed the weekly Wednesday sessions, given no one felt inclined to get up at the crack of dawn to attend a 45 minute lecture when there were no other classes to be taken until 4 in the afternoon). The class notes don’t seem to be too brutal, tho they are extensive, and so I expect I’ll start on that once I complete this missive, and at some point during the following two days I’ll have to squeeze in a few hours to finally write an essay on The Prince, requisite for passing.

Independently from finals, and prior to this week, other university things have been keeping me busy and initiating me into the nocturnal schedule traditionally followed during this season. A couple of weeks back I spent a night hastily preparing a well-composed presentation on the differences between the Administrative Boards of The New York Times Company and Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, and that went well enough; a week ago I presented one on the myth of Oedipus and its cultural impact upon Western Civilization. This second presentation went exceedingly well, and was pleasing; I spent the night working on it and, indeed, it was already well-enough when I arrived to class (an hour late), but my peers’ presentations were moving along so slowly that I was able to take advantage of the lumbering pace of their tedious expositions not only to spruce up my own, but also to check my mail, take care of neglected correspondence, read every vaguely interesting article in the Times and update this very LiveJournal. When it came time it all went very well, and the teacher was nice and told me I was brilliant, and for the first time in awhile the compliment wasn’t leveled in a chiding tone (i.e., “You’re brilliant, and therefore you should have done better on this assignment”).

It was cold and rainy last week, but the weather has since taken a turn for the better, and at the moment I sit in my room with the windows opened onto a cloudless, sunny sky, and the beams of light fall upon the cat perched on the windowsill and spill onto my ever-unmade bed. It is a good time, the early afternoon, and this period in general. I still have worries, but they aren’t too pressing, and the exam things I feel will go well-enough. On a more social level, I’ve been having a nice time meeting up with people as of late, and randomly going for drinks or turning up at flats to talk and booze. Last Saturday I made Poulet à la Madeleine for Maria, and the whole afternoon session was cool; one of my favourite thing in the world is having long, drawn out, alcohol infused lunches that stretch across the quiet hours of the afternoon, during which everything seems to move with the slow panning of a Robert Altman movie. Meals cooked by Liz were always like this, and so, too, weekend meals at home during mid-high school; they are fantastic, and I’d like to have them more often.

The Pamplona Expedition, too, grows nearer, and I’ve begun to plot out a trajectory that I think will be pretty awesome. Part of me still wants to extend it further, and make what will likely last a bit over a week instead last months, but I figure that as a first-time thing I’ll have enough to handle with what I’ve already got on my plate; still, I’ll admit I felt envious upon hearing this kid’s story. It’ll be interesting to see if the rains and floods of the past couple of weeks are still noticeable in the rivers and streams as I travel up; we shall see, we shall see. I’ve also begun to put together a list of supplies, which so far stands at the following:

• Compass pending: one poss. in beach house
• Road Map [to Peace] pending: must buy / borrow from the Bush Administration
  
• Sleeping bag, mat √
• T-shirts (8) √
• Jeans (1), shorts (1), swimming trunks (1) √
• Handful of socks, boxers √
• Small towel √
• Basic toiletries (deodorant, tootbrush/paste, comb) √
• Flashlight pending: one poss. in beach house
• Pen and notebook √
• Cheap Walkman (+ batteries) pending: one poss. in beach house
• Camera (+ charger) √
• Toilet Paper √
• Band aids, Aspirin √
• Blister bands pending: must buy
• Water bottle (tho seriously considering taking a bota) pending: one poss. in beach house
• Sunscreen pending: must buy
• Good knife, small cutting board √
• Books: The Collapse of the French Third Republic, The Sun Also Rises (ordered, pending: must buy)

If anyone can think of something else that ought to be brought along, let me know.

Independently from that, I’ve been watching a shit-ton of films.

L'âge des Ténèbres. Saw awhile ago with Claire; third installment of Denys Arcand’s trilogy, preceded by Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain and Les Invasions Barbares. Vicious satire of modern life, bureaucracy, and, basically, the insignificance of life as a member of the bourgeoisie. Really good, although not nearly as good as The Barbarian Invasions, and a bit of a downer. Still, pretty hilarious, and Rufus Wainwright as a very random singing prince was interesting, to say the least (because Rufus Wainwright is hilariously self-obsessed, even when playing other people).

[REC]. I first knew of [REC] when I saw a preview for it prior to seeing El Orfanato last year; Justin laughed at it, and I thought it looked like a silly, low-quality Spanish take on The Blair Witch Project. Surprisingly, it was actually not bad and kept up a very good, tense pace. Of course, I may be biased, given it combined two of my favourite things: zombies, and the pettiness of Spanish building community relations. Naturally, a U.S.-remake is already in production.

Savage Grace. Total shit. Like, total, total. Just awful.

¡Viva La República! Fun ficto-mentary that parted from the base premise of, “What if the IInd Spanish Republic had won the Civil War?” Nice use of stock footage to recreate nearly 70 years of history and wipe out all traces of the Franco Dictatorship and the restoration of the monarchy; the suggestion that the King would have instead become head of the International Olympic Committee (thus justifying the use of the real images of him inaugurating the 1992 Barcelona Games) was pretty brilliant.

Life After Humans. Melodramatic and alarmist apocalypse porn. Had they just delivered a straight-forward documentary it really would have been a million times better. Also, they completely ignored the whole matter of, “if all the humans died tomorrow, what impact would billions of rotting corpses have upon the world?” Disappointing, all things considered, and the narration delivered by the movie previews guy was just obnoxious.

Out of Africa. Gah, this movie just never gets un-great. R.I.P. Sidney Pollack.

Nightwatching. Beautifully filmed picture about Rembrandt and his consideration / work on The Night Watch, mixing in a mystery regarding pederasty and murder in XVIIth century Amsterdaam. The set-up is unconventional, as the staging is much more like an actual stage performance than a film, with a number of painting-like tableaus that constantly bring to mind the great Dutch portraits. Despite this, they still manage to keep it lively and do amazing outdoor shots; the colours are fucking mindblowing, the blocking of figures and the constant movement is totally brilliant, and the acting is really great and quite amusing. For a period piece, and a fairly imaginative one, they manage to keep up the pace; reminded me a lot of Julie Taymor’s version of Titus. The lead is played by the same guy who was Arthur Dent in the film version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and he’s quite funny and brings a lot to the character of Rembrandt; the rest of the actors are either British or, based on their accents, presumably Dutch. The film does a much better job of presenting the Dutch Republic than the utterly wretched and boring Girl with the Pearl Earring; even if it hadn’t, tho, it would have still been better than that film given this one has the good fortune of not counting the obnoxious Scarlet Johannsen amongst the members of the cast. To summarize, really enjoyable and just absolutely visually stunning.

Paranoid Park. Still working on this one, but so-far, so-good.

Finally, tho not a film, this is certainly the greatest music video I’ve ever seen:

Click to view

And so that covers that, and this entry in general.

Over and out, kids.