Thursday, February 03, 2005
The Waiter You Stiffed Has Not Forgotten
Academia Zydeco
Got lots done today. Had a nice chat with Philip Coleman (gave me the A+ on last year's poetry essay), who's happy to write the rec, and who had very good things to say. Got my Donne essay back at last, and I don't know about the essay, but the comments are the finest I've ever received. I don't mean in terms of approbation, I mean they're exceptionally intelligent, thought-through comments. Usually the comments I get back are all the same, each tutor assuming I've never in my life had someone--gasp--reproach me for flippancy etc., and that a punch in the mouth is all I need to get me on track, so they drop me a grade or three. That, or they actually appreciate the fact that I'm trying to make their jobs a bit more pleasant. They almost never engage with what I'm trying to do--that is, maintain my own fascination, and write for myself. But Deirdre, the young Medievalist postgrad out of Oxford, delightful and dorky as they come (did you know the Elvish in Lord of the Rings uses inflected verbs derived from middle Cornish?), quite brilliant, quite academic, but still hasn't had the fun beaten out of her, really read it. She also teaches me Romance, and with only one other guy in the class, it's hardly a chore (except for the 9am start time, which is why the class is so small). She also lets me get away with murder. Or at the very least analytical ravishing.
I don't care much about the content of the essays nearly so much as their form--working the form, that is, screwing with it, is the challenge and the reward, and she appreciated that. I was the first one in this morning, and she told me how I'd done (this was before I picked it up). She said she'd given me a first, but damn near worn out her hand writing comments. I'd corresponded with her about it at length beforehand, so I think she wasn't totally unprepared for lines about Donne Brandishing his weapon. Though that one she objected to not on the grounds of style, but of taste. I can understand.
You know you've done something right when the first line of a tutor's comment reads: "Well."
She gave me a 70, making two firsts and a II.1 so far, which is quite good, especially given that they've been pretty hot 'n' spicy, laissez-les-bons-temps-rouler zydeco essays. "We need to have a chat about academic detachment [never heard of it] and essay style. As you well know, this is very unconventional. However, I am not marking you down a class because you almost (and I only mean almost) carry it off [yeah, well, I wrote it in two days, what do you want from me?]. The substance of the essay is excellent, and your enthusiasm, your engagement with the texts, is admirable and infectious [Yes! That's all I really want to hear]."
But she then went on to give me a good explanation--good, but not convincing--for why I should try to put a little less ragin' in my cajun. The point is she tried. It's so rare to have a teacher that does. I'll meet with her, maybe tomorrow, maybe over coffee, maybe drinks, or maybe candlelit dinner...
I don't care much about the content of the essays nearly so much as their form--working the form, that is, screwing with it, is the challenge and the reward, and she appreciated that. I was the first one in this morning, and she told me how I'd done (this was before I picked it up). She said she'd given me a first, but damn near worn out her hand writing comments. I'd corresponded with her about it at length beforehand, so I think she wasn't totally unprepared for lines about Donne Brandishing his weapon. Though that one she objected to not on the grounds of style, but of taste. I can understand.
You know you've done something right when the first line of a tutor's comment reads: "Well."
She gave me a 70, making two firsts and a II.1 so far, which is quite good, especially given that they've been pretty hot 'n' spicy, laissez-les-bons-temps-rouler zydeco essays. "We need to have a chat about academic detachment [never heard of it] and essay style. As you well know, this is very unconventional. However, I am not marking you down a class because you almost (and I only mean almost) carry it off [yeah, well, I wrote it in two days, what do you want from me?]. The substance of the essay is excellent, and your enthusiasm, your engagement with the texts, is admirable and infectious [Yes! That's all I really want to hear]."
But she then went on to give me a good explanation--good, but not convincing--for why I should try to put a little less ragin' in my cajun. The point is she tried. It's so rare to have a teacher that does. I'll meet with her, maybe tomorrow, maybe over coffee, maybe drinks, or maybe candlelit dinner...
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Wow.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Yes, they played an encore
They played a whole lot of encores. The support band came on at 8:30 and sucked violently for nearly an hour. This is of course the point of the support band, and they did their job splendidly, because when Cake finally emerged, after nearly an hour of waiting after the support had fled, they were phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. One immediately thought back to the support and went, Wow, those guys were shit. These guys are awesome. They're a goddamn good live band, I have to give it to them. The singer's a good frontman, so long as you don't take the postmodern apocalyptic pronoucements too seriously. Comfort Eagle in particular brought the house down, and the song they played off the new album was a barnburner. They left out Commissioning a Symphony in C and Shadow Stabbing, which was a pity, but The Distance, Never There, and Sheep Go to Heaven were smashing. The songs really were immeasurably better live. The problem was that I couldn't find any fellow Cakeheads who were willing to drop €30 on a ticket, so I was by myself. Classical concerts are wonderful on your own, as are museums, but rock concerts, like movies bring the action to you so powerfully that you want someone there to share it with. The thrill of rocking is meant to be shared.
Had as said before a fairly mad weekend. Very little sleep, long hours at work, brunch on Sunday morning (excellently done by Sadie, Caitriona and Triona's younger sister, Gillian), and a hearty party on Thursday night. It was at Halls, though not with the usual crew. It was chez the people I spent last Easter with in Wexford. Don't see enough of them. It was an "un-birthday" party for Cristina, whose birthday is, I think, in the summer (how well I know the woe), and it was outstanding. Food, whiskey, cake, Moscow Mules (courtesy of me; I let someone else buy the vodka, and I bring a bagful of ginger beer and limes), more whiskey, singing, dancing, excursion out to Whelan's for further partying, a party built to last, shake me all night long. Along with serious peer pressure, the perfect potation of Mr. Jack Daniel was the catalyst, and the excuse, for certain persons performing (very much against their will) impromptu, solo, a cappella renditions of the Cell Block Tango, complete with knife action and heavy drinking during the vamps. Certain persons are never going to live this down.
Sadie and I have finished Carnivale--what a show, woof--and just in the nick of time I've borrowed season two of Six Feet Under from Jacob, my night manager. We finished the last Carnivale at midnight on Sunday and I ran over to work to pick up Six Feet Under. Got home, put it on, and had to hit pause five minutes in--who were these people, and what had they done with all the freaks? What's with the modern technology and fluorescent lighting? Where's the glistening sweat and sun-shocked sand, where's the creepy music and crazy supernatural stirrings? What's going on? We realized we had so utterly immersed ourselves in the cosmos of Carnivale--twelve hours is a long, long movie, and you don't realize how it consumes you--that we couldn't shift gears that fast. We took a breath and pushed play, trying to forget the habits of anticipation we'd learned in Carnivale. It was an unsettling moment of culture shock. One can transition between movies, because they're short enough that we don't become overly habituated to them. A good movie is still new by the time it ends. But with a twelve-hour series (or, God forbid, 24, which is next up, courtesy of Stephen), you all but start acting in it. I'm a big fan of that. It makes the case for gargantuan novels--but my Realism lecture yesterday was on Clarissa, and it occurred to me, it only makes the case for gargatuan novels that don't blow. And there aren't so many of those. Furthermore, there are even fewer with the good sense to keep their dramatis personae scant. What makes these series so engrossing is the smallness and tightness of the cast. In Carnivale, you only have two real storylines: the Carnies and their family dramas, each unhappy in its own special way, and then the saga of Brother Justin, demon-minister, and we know the two lines are converging, but we're not sure how yet. In Six Feet Under, you've got just the family and their significant others. The Sopranos, of course, is family drama. The second and third Matrix movies (Matrices?) were rubbish in part because they didn't keep the cast small and gritty, which is what made the first one enthralling (that and the originality had faded), instead trucking characters in out of nowhere and then shoving them back out the way they came. None of these figures ever had correlatives---no plausible genesis or backstory. I like to get to know my characters. I think half the fun of reading, if not all of it, is anticipating--writing the rest as you go.
Had as said before a fairly mad weekend. Very little sleep, long hours at work, brunch on Sunday morning (excellently done by Sadie, Caitriona and Triona's younger sister, Gillian), and a hearty party on Thursday night. It was at Halls, though not with the usual crew. It was chez the people I spent last Easter with in Wexford. Don't see enough of them. It was an "un-birthday" party for Cristina, whose birthday is, I think, in the summer (how well I know the woe), and it was outstanding. Food, whiskey, cake, Moscow Mules (courtesy of me; I let someone else buy the vodka, and I bring a bagful of ginger beer and limes), more whiskey, singing, dancing, excursion out to Whelan's for further partying, a party built to last, shake me all night long. Along with serious peer pressure, the perfect potation of Mr. Jack Daniel was the catalyst, and the excuse, for certain persons performing (very much against their will) impromptu, solo, a cappella renditions of the Cell Block Tango, complete with knife action and heavy drinking during the vamps. Certain persons are never going to live this down.
Sadie and I have finished Carnivale--what a show, woof--and just in the nick of time I've borrowed season two of Six Feet Under from Jacob, my night manager. We finished the last Carnivale at midnight on Sunday and I ran over to work to pick up Six Feet Under. Got home, put it on, and had to hit pause five minutes in--who were these people, and what had they done with all the freaks? What's with the modern technology and fluorescent lighting? Where's the glistening sweat and sun-shocked sand, where's the creepy music and crazy supernatural stirrings? What's going on? We realized we had so utterly immersed ourselves in the cosmos of Carnivale--twelve hours is a long, long movie, and you don't realize how it consumes you--that we couldn't shift gears that fast. We took a breath and pushed play, trying to forget the habits of anticipation we'd learned in Carnivale. It was an unsettling moment of culture shock. One can transition between movies, because they're short enough that we don't become overly habituated to them. A good movie is still new by the time it ends. But with a twelve-hour series (or, God forbid, 24, which is next up, courtesy of Stephen), you all but start acting in it. I'm a big fan of that. It makes the case for gargantuan novels--but my Realism lecture yesterday was on Clarissa, and it occurred to me, it only makes the case for gargatuan novels that don't blow. And there aren't so many of those. Furthermore, there are even fewer with the good sense to keep their dramatis personae scant. What makes these series so engrossing is the smallness and tightness of the cast. In Carnivale, you only have two real storylines: the Carnies and their family dramas, each unhappy in its own special way, and then the saga of Brother Justin, demon-minister, and we know the two lines are converging, but we're not sure how yet. In Six Feet Under, you've got just the family and their significant others. The Sopranos, of course, is family drama. The second and third Matrix movies (Matrices?) were rubbish in part because they didn't keep the cast small and gritty, which is what made the first one enthralling (that and the originality had faded), instead trucking characters in out of nowhere and then shoving them back out the way they came. None of these figures ever had correlatives---no plausible genesis or backstory. I like to get to know my characters. I think half the fun of reading, if not all of it, is anticipating--writing the rest as you go.
Monday, January 31, 2005
And now, your moment of Wow
Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the wind-swayed web.
--Don DeLillo, The Body Artist.
Apologies for the extended silence, it's been a bit of a mad mad mad mad weekend. Well, week, really. Have to get to a Cake concert shortly, though, so this is it for the moment. More is on the way, promise.
--Don DeLillo, The Body Artist.
Apologies for the extended silence, it's been a bit of a mad mad mad mad weekend. Well, week, really. Have to get to a Cake concert shortly, though, so this is it for the moment. More is on the way, promise.
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