Last day up at the cottage. We head down to Toronto in a couple hours, then I'm in Toronto for a few days. Back in Minni-snaps on Thursday night.
I'm totally bummed to be leaving (see: title). My uncle and aunt keep congratulating me on having survived so much time up here on my own (there was a full two weeks they weren't here, and I've been here for a month, total), but honestly, I don't feel like I've been that solitary. I've enjoyed the time alone, I've read a lot, written a lot (not as much as I wanted, but then, one never does...), swum and biked and cooked a lot (pictures forthcoming) and Taken Stock a lot, and the solitude never felt weird or oppressive. And thanks to high-speed internet and the occasional phone conversation, I've been in touch with a lot of friends and it feels like due the to the distance or all the free time I've had up here, the conversations I've had with people have been meaningful: we've actually emailed and talked About Stuff, and I've caught up with some people I've haven't talked to in a while. Plus the lack of social time has made me appreciate my friends and look forward to spending time with them. I feel like the time here has deepened my connections to people, not severed them. I've spent a lot of time with my uncle and aunt and realized that I need to spend more time with my Canadian family. I like to complain/boast about being an only child with no cousins, but the truth is, I _do_ have family, and I should take more advantage of it.
Gosh, though, apparently being up here has made me maudlin.
It's time to go back to the flatland, though. I'm reading The Magic Mountain, which is about this dude, Hans, who goes up to visit his cousin at a retreat for people with TB, up in the mountains. He get so seduced by the orderly, reflective way of life that he sort of psychosomatically gets TB, too. He becomes addicted to leisure--a not particularly intellectual guy in the past, he's exposed to all these thinkers, all these different ideas about society, life, death, disease, the whole process of Taking Stock, in other words. He gets so wrapped up in it he becomes unfit for actual life, down below.
So I don't want to end up like old Hans. I do believe in the importance of quiet, of Taking Stock, of reading (reading, as DFW points out, is like the least lonely thing you can do, in a way -- it's a really intimate connection with another person's mind), of reflecting, of taking time to synthesize. But you need some action in your life, too. You can get too seduced by passivity, because the rewards of passivity can be great. After all, you need a lot of quiet and leisure, you need to spend a lot of time by yourself, if you want to write. I guess it's about having the discipline not to get too wrapped up in your own head; to make sure what you do has a connection to the world.
Or something. What do I know, anyway?
Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Writing: The Soundtrack
Had a good morning of writing so far today. 2 pages or so. Wrote four or so yesterday. So, instead of continuing on the productive streak, I thought I'd obsess briefly about music.
In a tribute to the power of displacement behavior, I've created what I believe to be the perfect writing soundtrack. I used to be a big needer of quiet: perfect silence had reign all around me for me to write. Now, I honestly crave some background noise. If the noise is created by me--i.e., music I have specifically chosen and associate with writing--this is much better than random noises that I can't control.
The current soundtrack is a little short, but otherwise I think awesome. The songs are all songs that a) have some thematic connection to writing or b) aren't so distracting that they can't fade beautifully and atmospherically into the back of my consciousness. As anyone who knows me knows, I like melancholy songs, damp with sonic atmosphere, bleating guitars, plincky-plonky piano solos and trembling voices. For writing, this is perfect. I don't have to feel apologetic for my sad mixes. I tend to make playlists entitled "Spring Happy Mix" only to put the songs on and have friends say, "What is this? The wrist-slitting soundtrack?" But for writing I can get as quiet as I like.
1) Cake, "Open Book." Pretty obvious choice, seeing as how it begins, "She's writing, she's writing, she's writing a novel..." But my first play was called Open Book and...whatever.
2) The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver." Another obvious choice, seeing as how the chorus runs "I am a writer, a writer of fictions..."
3) Devendra Banhart, "At the Hop." If you read gossip magazines, you'll have seen Natalie Portman with her new boyfriend, a bearded and scruffy hipster who looks chic-ly homeless. No one seems to get the relationship, but upon hearing that the boy in question was the author of this song, I got it. This song was on a mix Cybele gave me -- I don't know any of his other music, nor do I want to, because this song breaks my heart. And it fits on my writing mix, because the lyrics are all about the break between imagination and reality (my Great Theme) -- the singer keeps exhorting his love-person to imagine him in various impossible ways: "Pack me in your suitcase...cook me in your breakfast..." He admits that he won't "stop all of my pretending/that's you'll come home/you'll be coming home soon."
4) Neutral Milk Hotel, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." Okay, I can't think how this has to do with writing. It's just moody and atmospheric.
5) Radiohead, "All I Need." I was never a big Radiohead fan, but "In Rainbows" is not only a great album, but it's the best album I've come across to write to. It's lovely without being over-the-top and I've done so much writing to this song in particular. It doesn't hurt that the song is also Dead Sexy.
6) Rufus Wainwright, "Imaginary Love." Forget "Poses" or the later stuff. I'm all about his debut, self-titled album. And this song fits in the writing mix because of the "Imaginary" theme...and it's also a dope song. And he doesn't mumble! As much.
7) Ryan Adams, "Sylvia Plath." On the writing playlist for the literary reference, obvs, and also for the Moody and Atmospheric qualities. It's from the "Gold" album and is quite different from his usual guitar-heavy-country-blues-influenced stuff (which I also love). There's just a piano and some strings. The song isn't about Sylvia Plath so much as Adam's evocation of "a Sylvia Plath" that he "wishes" he had: "busted tooth and a smile...with cigarette ashes in her drink/the kind that goes out/and then sleeps for a week." There's something incredibly charming about his imaginary lady: she's a mess, but she's awesome. The fantasy gets more elaborate: "Maybe she'd take me to France/Or maybe to Spain/She'd ask me to dance/In a mansion on the top of hill/She'd ash on the carpet/and slip me a pill/And she'd get me pretty loaded on gin." And maybe because I drink a lot of gin-and-tonics up at the cottage, and because I discovered this song up at the cottage, and maybe because I used to ash into my drinks when I smoked, and mostly because of this part: "And she and I/would sleep on a boat/and swim in the sea without clothes/with rain falling fast on the sea/as she was swimming away, she'd be winking at me/Telling me that it would be all be okay/On the horizon and fading away/And I'd swim to the boat and I'd laugh/Gotta get me a Sylvia Plath" this song really reminds me of being up at the cottage, going skinny dipping, going out in the boat. I'm pretty sure the swimming part is actually about death, but nevertheless, the song makes me feel happy and peaceful, not sad at all.
8) Modest Mouse, "Dance Hall." Name check!: "Woke up this morning/Seemed to me/That every night turns out to be/ A little bit more like Bukowski/And yeah I know he's a pretty good read/but God who'd want to be...such an asshole." Says it all.
9) New Order, "Age of Consent." Okay, I just like this song.
10) Radiohead, "Videotape." Also great for writing to. And it sort of fits! "When I'm at the pearly gates/This'll be on my videotape." Good song to end a mix to.
So obviously I'm procrastinating. I've also made several mixes for friends: Jake (belated birthday present -- also, guilt trip. Give me music!); Min (I made you a cheerful mix, I swear); and Dan. Anyone else want one?
In a tribute to the power of displacement behavior, I've created what I believe to be the perfect writing soundtrack. I used to be a big needer of quiet: perfect silence had reign all around me for me to write. Now, I honestly crave some background noise. If the noise is created by me--i.e., music I have specifically chosen and associate with writing--this is much better than random noises that I can't control.
The current soundtrack is a little short, but otherwise I think awesome. The songs are all songs that a) have some thematic connection to writing or b) aren't so distracting that they can't fade beautifully and atmospherically into the back of my consciousness. As anyone who knows me knows, I like melancholy songs, damp with sonic atmosphere, bleating guitars, plincky-plonky piano solos and trembling voices. For writing, this is perfect. I don't have to feel apologetic for my sad mixes. I tend to make playlists entitled "Spring Happy Mix" only to put the songs on and have friends say, "What is this? The wrist-slitting soundtrack?" But for writing I can get as quiet as I like.
1) Cake, "Open Book." Pretty obvious choice, seeing as how it begins, "She's writing, she's writing, she's writing a novel..." But my first play was called Open Book and...whatever.
2) The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver." Another obvious choice, seeing as how the chorus runs "I am a writer, a writer of fictions..."
3) Devendra Banhart, "At the Hop." If you read gossip magazines, you'll have seen Natalie Portman with her new boyfriend, a bearded and scruffy hipster who looks chic-ly homeless. No one seems to get the relationship, but upon hearing that the boy in question was the author of this song, I got it. This song was on a mix Cybele gave me -- I don't know any of his other music, nor do I want to, because this song breaks my heart. And it fits on my writing mix, because the lyrics are all about the break between imagination and reality (my Great Theme) -- the singer keeps exhorting his love-person to imagine him in various impossible ways: "Pack me in your suitcase...cook me in your breakfast..." He admits that he won't "stop all of my pretending/that's you'll come home/you'll be coming home soon."
4) Neutral Milk Hotel, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." Okay, I can't think how this has to do with writing. It's just moody and atmospheric.
5) Radiohead, "All I Need." I was never a big Radiohead fan, but "In Rainbows" is not only a great album, but it's the best album I've come across to write to. It's lovely without being over-the-top and I've done so much writing to this song in particular. It doesn't hurt that the song is also Dead Sexy.
6) Rufus Wainwright, "Imaginary Love." Forget "Poses" or the later stuff. I'm all about his debut, self-titled album. And this song fits in the writing mix because of the "Imaginary" theme...and it's also a dope song. And he doesn't mumble! As much.
7) Ryan Adams, "Sylvia Plath." On the writing playlist for the literary reference, obvs, and also for the Moody and Atmospheric qualities. It's from the "Gold" album and is quite different from his usual guitar-heavy-country-blues-influenced stuff (which I also love). There's just a piano and some strings. The song isn't about Sylvia Plath so much as Adam's evocation of "a Sylvia Plath" that he "wishes" he had: "busted tooth and a smile...with cigarette ashes in her drink/the kind that goes out/and then sleeps for a week." There's something incredibly charming about his imaginary lady: she's a mess, but she's awesome. The fantasy gets more elaborate: "Maybe she'd take me to France/Or maybe to Spain/She'd ask me to dance/In a mansion on the top of hill/She'd ash on the carpet/and slip me a pill/And she'd get me pretty loaded on gin." And maybe because I drink a lot of gin-and-tonics up at the cottage, and because I discovered this song up at the cottage, and maybe because I used to ash into my drinks when I smoked, and mostly because of this part: "And she and I/would sleep on a boat/and swim in the sea without clothes/with rain falling fast on the sea/as she was swimming away, she'd be winking at me/Telling me that it would be all be okay/On the horizon and fading away/And I'd swim to the boat and I'd laugh/Gotta get me a Sylvia Plath" this song really reminds me of being up at the cottage, going skinny dipping, going out in the boat. I'm pretty sure the swimming part is actually about death, but nevertheless, the song makes me feel happy and peaceful, not sad at all.
8) Modest Mouse, "Dance Hall." Name check!: "Woke up this morning/Seemed to me/That every night turns out to be/ A little bit more like Bukowski/And yeah I know he's a pretty good read/but God who'd want to be...such an asshole." Says it all.
9) New Order, "Age of Consent." Okay, I just like this song.
10) Radiohead, "Videotape." Also great for writing to. And it sort of fits! "When I'm at the pearly gates/This'll be on my videotape." Good song to end a mix to.
So obviously I'm procrastinating. I've also made several mixes for friends: Jake (belated birthday present -- also, guilt trip. Give me music!); Min (I made you a cheerful mix, I swear); and Dan. Anyone else want one?
Friday, July 25, 2008
I am so SMRT
Although on a discussion over at Jake's, I repudiated the idea that authors wrote "difficult" books so that some people could "feel smart" I have to say that the experience of reading Infinite Jest has made me feel smart. I toughed out the rough beginning of a long book, and got into it; I feel like the points I've gotten from the book--judging from the secondary materials I've looked at, interviews with DFW, etc.--seem pretty close to "right" (for whatever that's worth); and the questions I was left with, plot-wise and theme-wise, seem to be the questions that most readers are left with, questions that seem to be quasi-deliberately left up in the air. DFW designed the book so it would be "thinky" but entertaining, and that's just how I found it: it made me think, it challenged me, but it was fun. It made me feel smart.
No, before you're all like "Oh, Easy O, you think you're so much smarter and better than everyone else," let me just say that, come on, I need things like IJ to make me feel smart. Let me share the following stories:
So, making coffee. Making coffee is not that hard. But hear this tragi-comic Catch-22 of making coffee: You need to make it before you've had your coffee. And, honestly, without coffee, I'm dumb. So very, very, very dumb. And I know coffee is #1 on the List of Stuff White People Like, but who are we kidding? If I was any whiter I'd be off the visible spectrum.
Things I have done trying to make coffee, in blurry coffee-less morning state:
1) Place unground beans directly in filter.
2) Put lid of coffee pot directly on filter. Ponder for several minutes why filter would not fit in machine with mysterious lid on it.
3) My uncle and aunt's coffee pot has this springloaded thing that the coffee drips out of. I couldn't figure out how to open it, and was too embarrassed to ask, so when making coffee by myself, I would stand there and hold the springloaded clasp open by hand. The other day I put the coffee on and wandered away, knowing full well the coffee was going to build up inside the filter. I got distracted by something, I don't know, my own navel or whatever, and when I went back to check on the coffee pot, found coffee overspreading the entire kitchen counter. When attempting to clean this up, I knocked the filter out of the machine entirely. Stared at mess, making something between whimper and a sob.
So you see, I need stuff like books to make me feel smart. I need all the help I can get.
No, before you're all like "Oh, Easy O, you think you're so much smarter and better than everyone else," let me just say that, come on, I need things like IJ to make me feel smart. Let me share the following stories:
So, making coffee. Making coffee is not that hard. But hear this tragi-comic Catch-22 of making coffee: You need to make it before you've had your coffee. And, honestly, without coffee, I'm dumb. So very, very, very dumb. And I know coffee is #1 on the List of Stuff White People Like, but who are we kidding? If I was any whiter I'd be off the visible spectrum.
Things I have done trying to make coffee, in blurry coffee-less morning state:
1) Place unground beans directly in filter.
2) Put lid of coffee pot directly on filter. Ponder for several minutes why filter would not fit in machine with mysterious lid on it.
3) My uncle and aunt's coffee pot has this springloaded thing that the coffee drips out of. I couldn't figure out how to open it, and was too embarrassed to ask, so when making coffee by myself, I would stand there and hold the springloaded clasp open by hand. The other day I put the coffee on and wandered away, knowing full well the coffee was going to build up inside the filter. I got distracted by something, I don't know, my own navel or whatever, and when I went back to check on the coffee pot, found coffee overspreading the entire kitchen counter. When attempting to clean this up, I knocked the filter out of the machine entirely. Stared at mess, making something between whimper and a sob.
So you see, I need stuff like books to make me feel smart. I need all the help I can get.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Ms. Difficulty
So I finished Infinite Jest and honestly I loved it.
In the spirit of affectionate snark, however, I do think that the main narrative thrust of the book can be summed up by this:
The title of this post is a nod to the fact that I'm reading several "difficult" books right now: finished IJ and I'm still trucking through The Magic Mountain. Got Ulysses sitting on the bedside table. It's weird, cause I'm not usually a "difficult book" person. Not that I'm not a difficult book person...you know what I mean. Right?
Don't worry, I still watch bad TV on the internet.
Cooking people: tips on making green beans? I'm making some with garlic and rosemary, I think. Also, re: banana bread, do you think, a la scones, that if you coated the outside of banana bread in some butter, it would produce a yummy, shiny exterior? Or would that be weird? I feel like my banana bread is always so dry.
Pages written yesterday: 4.75
Pages written today: TBD!!!
I finally biked all the way into Port Carling, to return a library book for my aunt. Port Sanfield (one mile away) has food but no booze or library or anything else really and is freakin' expensive. So far our neighbor has driven me to the IGA out at Port Carling twice to go grocery shopping, but I wanted to actually bike out there myself. So I did: about seven or eight miles, so about fourteen miles total. Is that actually a long bike ride? Or as a newbie to biking am I thinking I'm all bad ass for nothing much? I feel kinda wiped. My bike is also really old and pathetic and rusty and there are lots of hills. As I strained up several of them, my bike complaining and creaking and close to falling apart, someone on a speedy sports bike dressed in spandex would inevitably speed by in the opposite direction, as if mocking me.
In the spirit of affectionate snark, however, I do think that the main narrative thrust of the book can be summed up by this:
The title of this post is a nod to the fact that I'm reading several "difficult" books right now: finished IJ and I'm still trucking through The Magic Mountain. Got Ulysses sitting on the bedside table. It's weird, cause I'm not usually a "difficult book" person. Not that I'm not a difficult book person...you know what I mean. Right?
Don't worry, I still watch bad TV on the internet.
Cooking people: tips on making green beans? I'm making some with garlic and rosemary, I think. Also, re: banana bread, do you think, a la scones, that if you coated the outside of banana bread in some butter, it would produce a yummy, shiny exterior? Or would that be weird? I feel like my banana bread is always so dry.
Pages written yesterday: 4.75
Pages written today: TBD!!!
I finally biked all the way into Port Carling, to return a library book for my aunt. Port Sanfield (one mile away) has food but no booze or library or anything else really and is freakin' expensive. So far our neighbor has driven me to the IGA out at Port Carling twice to go grocery shopping, but I wanted to actually bike out there myself. So I did: about seven or eight miles, so about fourteen miles total. Is that actually a long bike ride? Or as a newbie to biking am I thinking I'm all bad ass for nothing much? I feel kinda wiped. My bike is also really old and pathetic and rusty and there are lots of hills. As I strained up several of them, my bike complaining and creaking and close to falling apart, someone on a speedy sports bike dressed in spandex would inevitably speed by in the opposite direction, as if mocking me.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Found out I'm getting a story published here, which is "chuffing." They actually sent me galleys! (just a pdf, but still).
Wrote nine pages the other day, although two of them were re-appropriated old stuff.
It's been storming, off and on. My sleep cycle is all off and weird.
Thinking about the new story.
Just made some banana bread. I discovered the we don't have a loaf pan -- there's absolutely everything else. A bundt pan. Cookie sheets. Muffin tins. Etc. No loaf pan. So I divided up the batter into two pie tins. I honestly don't know how they turned out. It's weird to see bread in a circular, lumpy shape. Plus, the oven here is really hot. The two half-batter-full pie tins only seemed to need to bake about half as long as the recipe called for, which I guess makes sense. They smell delicious and I was happy with the batter but I'm still nervous. We'll see. I guess I could have put all the batter into one pie tin, but I was worried it would rise too high.
And this has been today's edition of "the nervous cook." Where L. fucks something up in a recipe, tries to fix it, futzes nervously, and it _usually_ works out okay.
I'm charmed by Morgan's request that I write about my May Term class, as I am charmed by most thing Miss M. does. However, Morgan was fortunate enough to be out of town while I was teaching, otherwise she would have realized that talking to me during that time period tended to go like this:
Friend: How's it going?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch --made some mistakes on the first day, which got things off on the wrong foot -- some good discussions though -- bitch bitch bitch
Friend: So what else is going on with you, besides the class?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch
Friend: What do you think of the presidential campaigns?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch
Friend: Isn't the sky a pretty shade of blue?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch
So, yeah, basically it took over my brain for the whole three weeks. I learned _so much_: about the subject matter, about teaching, about designing a class. But it was stressful, some things went very wrong (though some went very right) and it was an odd mix of students (though many were great).
Wrote nine pages the other day, although two of them were re-appropriated old stuff.
It's been storming, off and on. My sleep cycle is all off and weird.
Thinking about the new story.
Just made some banana bread. I discovered the we don't have a loaf pan -- there's absolutely everything else. A bundt pan. Cookie sheets. Muffin tins. Etc. No loaf pan. So I divided up the batter into two pie tins. I honestly don't know how they turned out. It's weird to see bread in a circular, lumpy shape. Plus, the oven here is really hot. The two half-batter-full pie tins only seemed to need to bake about half as long as the recipe called for, which I guess makes sense. They smell delicious and I was happy with the batter but I'm still nervous. We'll see. I guess I could have put all the batter into one pie tin, but I was worried it would rise too high.
And this has been today's edition of "the nervous cook." Where L. fucks something up in a recipe, tries to fix it, futzes nervously, and it _usually_ works out okay.
I'm charmed by Morgan's request that I write about my May Term class, as I am charmed by most thing Miss M. does. However, Morgan was fortunate enough to be out of town while I was teaching, otherwise she would have realized that talking to me during that time period tended to go like this:
Friend: How's it going?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch --made some mistakes on the first day, which got things off on the wrong foot -- some good discussions though -- bitch bitch bitch
Friend: So what else is going on with you, besides the class?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch
Friend: What do you think of the presidential campaigns?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch
Friend: Isn't the sky a pretty shade of blue?
Me: Bitch about May Term class -- I'm so stressed -- class dynamics -- so much photo-copying -- four hours of teaching -- four days a week! -- some fabulous students, but a weird mix -- did I design the class correctly? -- I'm taking it so personally because this class was my design -- frustrates the fuck out me when students don't like the reading, for example -- bitch bitch bitch -- after class I tend to go to my desk and sit in a corner and moan softly -- was the class even a good idea? -- some students loved it -- others admitted to taking it for an easy A and some credits -- attitude problems -- why am I such a spazz in front of the class? -- bitch bitch bitch
So, yeah, basically it took over my brain for the whole three weeks. I learned _so much_: about the subject matter, about teaching, about designing a class. But it was stressful, some things went very wrong (though some went very right) and it was an odd mix of students (though many were great).
Thursday, July 17, 2008
I don't even want to think about what day it is
Pages written today: 0 (But! But! But! I did think long and seriously about the end of the book, and work out some end-of-the-book stuff. I did that thing -- doubtless this makes me sound crazy, but whatever, that ship may have sailed -- where I walked around and sort of wrote in my head for awhile and could see the end. See the end shimmering in front of me, an actual end point, like the finishing line glimmering at someone running a marathon -- not that I've ever run a marathon or ever will--no fucking way--and it's entirely possible the end I see glimmering and winking at me might be simply a mirage, but...you know. It was still a nice feeling).
Pages written yesterday: 7, although to be fair, two or so of those were imported in from elsewhere, something I had written earlier.
Pages written day before yesterday: 2.
I think I have an idea for a new story. It's inspired by the Malcolm's Lowry's crazy-town foreward to Under the Volcano, which, by the way, is such a great and such a fucking heartbreaking book. Really. How you can not love a book that has sentences like this:
Like all brilliant sentences, in my opinion, it teeters just thisclose to being the worst sentence every written and it comes out the other side, weird and unexpected and somehow perfect.
I'm also getting more and more into Infinite Jest. I'm on about page 458, so nearly halfway. Can't quite believe that, actually, but it's true. I feel almost embarrassed because everyone else is like "Gosh, I'm too busy to read the book, what with work and my life and all" and because I'm up in Canada with literally no one around (Uncle and Aunt back down in Toronto) I'm zipping through the motherfucker.
I like to say "motherfucker" today, apparently.
As promised, as the sections start getting longer, the book gets more and more compelling. The addiction stuff is can't-put-down-able. Gately, I love, love, love. Everything about him and addiction sections (including P.G.O.A.T's suicide attempt) feels very real, raw and real and earned. And there's the pleasure of figuring out how the bits fit together and learning about the imagined future (figuring out the acronyms and getting less off-put by them, figuring out the "historical" stuff, etc.).
Here's my "theory" on Infinite Jest if you can really call this a theory. More a thought. But here it is, take it or leave it:
The form of the book, the fractal inspired structure discussed over here and on The Dependent Clause, is off-putting and when you don't know the details about the alternative future DFW has imagined, that can be very confusing. But when you've got a handle on that, when you've figured out how to read the book, essentially, then well...it isn't, in my opinion, all that complicated.
If I had to bastardize and compress a lot of stuff, The Point is (as I see it, and keeping in mind that I'm only half-way through, so I could be wrong, or meant to think this, only to have all my notions turned on their head): American society is based on the idea that Freedom, which has come to mean, the right to pursue your own individual happiness, is the most important thing of all. This has become confused with the right to be entertained, to be able to whim-satisfy, basically. And this idea of the paramount importance of "freedom to choose to be entertained" is easily manipulated, by, say, advertisers who create needs that don't really exist, or lather people up to feel it's their "right" to have a "choice" of different kinds of entertainment and this "choice" of entertainments and products is all that matters. And this has engendered an in-ability of Americans in particular to say "no" -- and that desire to keep hitting the morphine button, so to speak, and feeling like you have a right to hit the button--is usefully mirrored and reflected by the phenomenon of addiction to various Substances. America has become vulnerable and addiction prone. So much so that we don't think through or don't want to think through the consequences of our we-want-what-we-want-when-we-want-it system, and prefer to literally export our waste and focus on the aesthetics of being "clean" rather than being actually clean and sustainable as a society.
And as I see it, DFW takes this basic idea (which is actually more complicated when I wrote it out; it was simpler in my head) and "iterates" it: through addicts, through the Tennis Academy (which, I think, in DFW's view, tennis has to do with moving beyond your personal desires, with facing failure -- but I haven't quite parsed all that yet), through the films that Hal's dad makes, through the misfortunes of the dystopian America (or O.N.A.N) that DFW has imagined.
Add a soupcon of family drama, inter-textual relationships to things like Hamlet (and way more I'm sure I've missed), reflections on the pressures that high-expectations and early talent put on people...and viola! Infinite Jest.
The pleasures of reading Infinite Jest, as I see it, so far: 1) The pleasures of figuring out the world he's created -- basically the pleasures of world-building. The tennis academy had to be pretty fun to think up -- it's sort of an athletics kid's Hogwarts, let's be real -- and there's great pleasure to be had in figuring out the history of the dystopian America. DFW smartly doesn't front-load the book with those details -- you have to keep reading to figure them out, and you do figure them out, in time. Meanwhile, you keep reading to figure out things like: okay, so why is every year named after a product? What the fuck is the Great Concavity? And the way he tells you things -- student papers, Mario's film -- are clever and funny ways of doing it. No awkward exposition. 2) The pleasures of figuring out the structure. Figuring out the chronology; figuring out how the different strands fit together. 3) The great pleasures of the writing, which is weird and in some places hilarious -- I was pretty blown away by the AA meeting section, when I was laughing out loud at these horrible stories, while still being horrified by them. The mixture of pathos and humor and weirdness is just right, in places. 4) The characters, which are varied and weird and flawed and likeable, in ways that intentionally reflect and speak to each other. 5) The America-society satire, which is pointed and right-on, though, maybe not ground-breaking. By that I mean, while I take DFW's points, I don't know if I've hit a point yet where I'm like, slapping my head and going "No! Surely not no!"
None of this is to be like "Psh! Infinite Jest -- how simply is it, really?" And let's restate again I'm only halfway through and expect to look back on this and scoff at myself. But...it's to revisit once again the thought that while the book is formally challenging, to be sure, the pleasures of reading it and the stuff that I've gotten out of it aren't necessarily any more complex than any other thoughtful book I've read. It's hard, but it's not completely opaque or impossible to understand. I really do feel that at its center, there's a pretty simple idea that's been "spun out" in all sorts of different directions (a la a fractal).
Pages written yesterday: 7, although to be fair, two or so of those were imported in from elsewhere, something I had written earlier.
Pages written day before yesterday: 2.
I think I have an idea for a new story. It's inspired by the Malcolm's Lowry's crazy-town foreward to Under the Volcano, which, by the way, is such a great and such a fucking heartbreaking book. Really. How you can not love a book that has sentences like this:
He had not played one, and Hugh could play almost any kind of guitar, for four or five years, and his numerous instruments declined with his books in basements or attics in London or Paris, in Wardour Street night-clubs or behind the bar of the Marquis of Granby or the old Astoria in Greek Street, long since become a convent and his bill still unpaid there, in pawnshops in Tithebarn Street or the Tottenham Court Road, where he imagined them as waiting for a time with all their sounds and echoes for his heavy step, and then little by little, as they gathered dust, and each successive string broke, giving up hope, each string a hawser to the fading memory of their friend, snapping off, the highest pitched string always first, snapping with sharp gun-like reports, or curious agonized whines, or provocative nocturnal reports, like a nightmare in the soul of George Frederic Watts, till there was nothing but the blank untumultuous face of the songless lyre itself, soundless cave for spiders and steamflies, and delicate fretted neck, just as each breaking string had severed Hugh himself pang by pang from his youth, while the past remained, a tortured shape, dark and palpable and accusing.That, my friends, is a motherfucking sentence.
Like all brilliant sentences, in my opinion, it teeters just thisclose to being the worst sentence every written and it comes out the other side, weird and unexpected and somehow perfect.
I'm also getting more and more into Infinite Jest. I'm on about page 458, so nearly halfway. Can't quite believe that, actually, but it's true. I feel almost embarrassed because everyone else is like "Gosh, I'm too busy to read the book, what with work and my life and all" and because I'm up in Canada with literally no one around (Uncle and Aunt back down in Toronto) I'm zipping through the motherfucker.
I like to say "motherfucker" today, apparently.
As promised, as the sections start getting longer, the book gets more and more compelling. The addiction stuff is can't-put-down-able. Gately, I love, love, love. Everything about him and addiction sections (including P.G.O.A.T's suicide attempt) feels very real, raw and real and earned. And there's the pleasure of figuring out how the bits fit together and learning about the imagined future (figuring out the acronyms and getting less off-put by them, figuring out the "historical" stuff, etc.).
Here's my "theory" on Infinite Jest if you can really call this a theory. More a thought. But here it is, take it or leave it:
The form of the book, the fractal inspired structure discussed over here and on The Dependent Clause, is off-putting and when you don't know the details about the alternative future DFW has imagined, that can be very confusing. But when you've got a handle on that, when you've figured out how to read the book, essentially, then well...it isn't, in my opinion, all that complicated.
If I had to bastardize and compress a lot of stuff, The Point is (as I see it, and keeping in mind that I'm only half-way through, so I could be wrong, or meant to think this, only to have all my notions turned on their head): American society is based on the idea that Freedom, which has come to mean, the right to pursue your own individual happiness, is the most important thing of all. This has become confused with the right to be entertained, to be able to whim-satisfy, basically. And this idea of the paramount importance of "freedom to choose to be entertained" is easily manipulated, by, say, advertisers who create needs that don't really exist, or lather people up to feel it's their "right" to have a "choice" of different kinds of entertainment and this "choice" of entertainments and products is all that matters. And this has engendered an in-ability of Americans in particular to say "no" -- and that desire to keep hitting the morphine button, so to speak, and feeling like you have a right to hit the button--is usefully mirrored and reflected by the phenomenon of addiction to various Substances. America has become vulnerable and addiction prone. So much so that we don't think through or don't want to think through the consequences of our we-want-what-we-want-when-we-want-it system, and prefer to literally export our waste and focus on the aesthetics of being "clean" rather than being actually clean and sustainable as a society.
And as I see it, DFW takes this basic idea (which is actually more complicated when I wrote it out; it was simpler in my head) and "iterates" it: through addicts, through the Tennis Academy (which, I think, in DFW's view, tennis has to do with moving beyond your personal desires, with facing failure -- but I haven't quite parsed all that yet), through the films that Hal's dad makes, through the misfortunes of the dystopian America (or O.N.A.N) that DFW has imagined.
Add a soupcon of family drama, inter-textual relationships to things like Hamlet (and way more I'm sure I've missed), reflections on the pressures that high-expectations and early talent put on people...and viola! Infinite Jest.
The pleasures of reading Infinite Jest, as I see it, so far: 1) The pleasures of figuring out the world he's created -- basically the pleasures of world-building. The tennis academy had to be pretty fun to think up -- it's sort of an athletics kid's Hogwarts, let's be real -- and there's great pleasure to be had in figuring out the history of the dystopian America. DFW smartly doesn't front-load the book with those details -- you have to keep reading to figure them out, and you do figure them out, in time. Meanwhile, you keep reading to figure out things like: okay, so why is every year named after a product? What the fuck is the Great Concavity? And the way he tells you things -- student papers, Mario's film -- are clever and funny ways of doing it. No awkward exposition. 2) The pleasures of figuring out the structure. Figuring out the chronology; figuring out how the different strands fit together. 3) The great pleasures of the writing, which is weird and in some places hilarious -- I was pretty blown away by the AA meeting section, when I was laughing out loud at these horrible stories, while still being horrified by them. The mixture of pathos and humor and weirdness is just right, in places. 4) The characters, which are varied and weird and flawed and likeable, in ways that intentionally reflect and speak to each other. 5) The America-society satire, which is pointed and right-on, though, maybe not ground-breaking. By that I mean, while I take DFW's points, I don't know if I've hit a point yet where I'm like, slapping my head and going "No! Surely not no!"
None of this is to be like "Psh! Infinite Jest -- how simply is it, really?" And let's restate again I'm only halfway through and expect to look back on this and scoff at myself. But...it's to revisit once again the thought that while the book is formally challenging, to be sure, the pleasures of reading it and the stuff that I've gotten out of it aren't necessarily any more complex than any other thoughtful book I've read. It's hard, but it's not completely opaque or impossible to understand. I really do feel that at its center, there's a pretty simple idea that's been "spun out" in all sorts of different directions (a la a fractal).
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Emotional Loon Rescue
This was a headline in the local paper, The Muskokan.
But I also want it to be the title of my first autobiography.
Pages written today (so far -- yes, touching optimism): 4.5
Pages written yesterday: 4.5
I've gotten over a rather bad "patch" in which I was...very stuck. Stuck as things that is stuck in sticky things. But I--knockity knock on wood!--seem to have gotten through it. I've written through a scene that was giving me some troubles (a dinner party scene -- ugh). I think what I've written may--gosh, what's the technical term?--suck, but right now I just want to get it down. Some of it is obvious placeholders that I plan to go back in and make less terrible at some point in time that is not now.
As a gift from Sara, check this out.
But I also want it to be the title of my first autobiography.
Pages written today (so far -- yes, touching optimism): 4.5
Pages written yesterday: 4.5
I've gotten over a rather bad "patch" in which I was...very stuck. Stuck as things that is stuck in sticky things. But I--knockity knock on wood!--seem to have gotten through it. I've written through a scene that was giving me some troubles (a dinner party scene -- ugh). I think what I've written may--gosh, what's the technical term?--suck, but right now I just want to get it down. Some of it is obvious placeholders that I plan to go back in and make less terrible at some point in time that is not now.
As a gift from Sara, check this out.
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