Drying out randomness
While it is still raining, we're not deluged. National Guard are rumbling by in humvees and earthmovers, everything is damp and hot, and I think the last week of stress is catching up to Chrissie and I. She passed out early, and I have been suffering through insomnia again (luckily, it's a long holiday weekend). So as the cats found perches on her back and all the ladies slept in a blanketed heap, I fired up Netflix and soothed myself with directed air conditioning.
Twilight Samurai was so very very good. First, it stars Hiroyuki Sanada, whom I loved as Ujyo in Last Samurai. It gives us glimpses of a petty samurai's daily life -- he spends more time on accounts then in swordplay, moonlights as a farmer, etc. But the thing I fell in love with was this constant low grade sadness in the film. It's masterfully done, with nothing explicitly said to point to it, but it is there like another character in the film. Not tragedy, not melodrama, just this... it's a lowgrade fever of sad. Lonely and outcast and resilient and shamed. In a beautiful way. He persists, and struggles, and suffers. It was very honest-- maybe that's the quality I'm struggling to grasp here. Recommended to all. I'm actually going to shoot over to B&N in the morning and see if they have a copy for sale, and if so, c'mon over and I'll pop it in for you.
Tomorrow afternoon is class time. I have to start putting together my syllabus, and before I can do that, I have to decide what texts I'm going to use. I've been hauling around my old notebooks for years; I'm going to start there and see what triggers ideas. Keeping in mind the clientele, of course. Once I decide what I'm teaching, I can piece together how I'm going to organize it. And then, the building begins.
Time for bed. G'night all.
Twilight Samurai was so very very good. First, it stars Hiroyuki Sanada, whom I loved as Ujyo in Last Samurai. It gives us glimpses of a petty samurai's daily life -- he spends more time on accounts then in swordplay, moonlights as a farmer, etc. But the thing I fell in love with was this constant low grade sadness in the film. It's masterfully done, with nothing explicitly said to point to it, but it is there like another character in the film. Not tragedy, not melodrama, just this... it's a lowgrade fever of sad. Lonely and outcast and resilient and shamed. In a beautiful way. He persists, and struggles, and suffers. It was very honest-- maybe that's the quality I'm struggling to grasp here. Recommended to all. I'm actually going to shoot over to B&N in the morning and see if they have a copy for sale, and if so, c'mon over and I'll pop it in for you.
Tomorrow afternoon is class time. I have to start putting together my syllabus, and before I can do that, I have to decide what texts I'm going to use. I've been hauling around my old notebooks for years; I'm going to start there and see what triggers ideas. Keeping in mind the clientele, of course. Once I decide what I'm teaching, I can piece together how I'm going to organize it. And then, the building begins.
Time for bed. G'night all.