going backwards through my mp3s
Indeed. What a weekend. Somehow I've managed to be not-behind and in some cases, ahead, on the work I have to do this week. Though I have two papers coming up and also my last frisbee tournament, and so I project falling behind no matter how much extra reading I have already done for modern epic. This is all such a surprise because of how much sleeping and worrying about the election and hanging out with people I've been doing in the last week and a half. As well as spending Saturday night throwing up from a stomach virus, and spending Sunday recovering from said virus, eating little more than a can of soup and some bread and yet managing to read around 50 pages of literary criticism and the part of le petit prince when he learns that "C'est le temps que te as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante." (It's the time that you've lost for your rose [your friends] that make it [them] so important." Maybe "sacrificed" is a nicer way to put that. I don't know, all I have is the French. Very sweet, non? My french textbook vacillates between making me discuss inane abstract things (what is a friend? do you think it's better if your friends are like you or different from you?) and big important abstract things (I just had to explain "le sexisme" in a page or less. using examples.) it's actually sort of cool that we're doing this sort of thing, because the big complaint people have about language classes is that all you get to talk about is the blue pen of my aunt etc etc, and when you actually go somewhere and try to have a conversation that's not about the kind of foods you like, it's very, very hard. that said, I am wickedly afraid of going to paris. if that's where I decide to go. and that has nothing to do with living in a foreign country, living with someone I don't know, having no friends, all of the things that I'm sure I'll freak out about when the time comes; nope, it's all about the language and my apprehensible accent and my ability to communicate. but at the beginning of this year I decided that being fluent in (at least) two languages was something that I thought was Very Important, and I am holding myself to that conviction not only because I am proud that I am finally beginning to have convictions about things, but also because I still think it's true and that going abroad will be an amazing experience and so on and so forth. at least, I'm pretty sure that I think that.
I also finished Ulysses, which is cool to say and was at times cool to do. "cool." yup. now that I'm reading all of this criticism (though still not coming up with anything for a paper topic), I'm struck by how little I actually remember of the book. though that is what I expected even when it was happening. and of course, I like it a lot more in theory and reading other people's theory than many moments of actually reading it. there were some chapters that were absolutely fabulous and enjoyable and funny, fun to decode or just fun to get lost in. but there were also a lot that were really annoying and self-involved, and I honestly don't think that I like Joyce's writing that much. I tried to read Dubliners this summer and just couldn't get through it, and while it was embarrasing to not raise my hand when Charles Altieri (crazily acclaimed english/philosophy dude from berkeley who spoke today on "affect" as a mode of representation) asked who had read "The Dead," maybe it makes me special to not like Joyce. Or just it just relegate me to the plebian masses? Maybe if I come up with a good(-sounding) reason...
Elsewise, it's deliciously autumnal here. It has been for a while, actually, but I have yet to properly gush over it. As predicted since my childhood days of glee at LA rain, I really like autumn. Really really like it. I like it when it's chilly outside but the skies are completely clear and sunny and also when it's misty all day and also, of course, that I can kick fallen leaves to all sides of me when I walk anywhere 'round here.
* * *
I had 15 extra minutes before dinner and after finishing my weber-paper, so I read the first half of Nabokov's 1964 interview with Playboy. Notes taken on the back of more Joyce-crit:
"Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude - all this is something I find too boring for words. Let us skip sex."
"A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world."
" 'Art is simple, art is sincere.' Someday I must trace this vulgar absurdity to its source. A schoolmarm in Ohio? A progressive ass in New York? Because, of course, art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex."
*
I also finished Ulysses, which is cool to say and was at times cool to do. "cool." yup. now that I'm reading all of this criticism (though still not coming up with anything for a paper topic), I'm struck by how little I actually remember of the book. though that is what I expected even when it was happening. and of course, I like it a lot more in theory and reading other people's theory than many moments of actually reading it. there were some chapters that were absolutely fabulous and enjoyable and funny, fun to decode or just fun to get lost in. but there were also a lot that were really annoying and self-involved, and I honestly don't think that I like Joyce's writing that much. I tried to read Dubliners this summer and just couldn't get through it, and while it was embarrasing to not raise my hand when Charles Altieri (crazily acclaimed english/philosophy dude from berkeley who spoke today on "affect" as a mode of representation) asked who had read "The Dead," maybe it makes me special to not like Joyce. Or just it just relegate me to the plebian masses? Maybe if I come up with a good(-sounding) reason...
Elsewise, it's deliciously autumnal here. It has been for a while, actually, but I have yet to properly gush over it. As predicted since my childhood days of glee at LA rain, I really like autumn. Really really like it. I like it when it's chilly outside but the skies are completely clear and sunny and also when it's misty all day and also, of course, that I can kick fallen leaves to all sides of me when I walk anywhere 'round here.
* * *
I had 15 extra minutes before dinner and after finishing my weber-paper, so I read the first half of Nabokov's 1964 interview with Playboy. Notes taken on the back of more Joyce-crit:
"Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude - all this is something I find too boring for words. Let us skip sex."
"A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world."
" 'Art is simple, art is sincere.' Someday I must trace this vulgar absurdity to its source. A schoolmarm in Ohio? A progressive ass in New York? Because, of course, art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex."
*