Thursday, February 10, 2005
It's about goddamn time
The Facebook has jumped the pond. That’s kind of where I’ve been this past week, poking and profiling and messaging. I figured I’d try and surprise as many of you as I could before mentioning it. I’m having trouble finding some people, though--Kay, Jonah, Geraci, Little P-rince, etc. Where are you?
Even so, it’s a poor substitute. Simulacra and simulation aren’t enough. Mostly because it’s just a poor-ass simulation.
If I’ve not been Facebooking, I’ve most likely been writing the Harvard app or reading Bitter Waitress. The application is a lot less entertaining. I’ve got the first drafts of everything written, but damn it, short answers are hard for me. I’m a talky mother fucker. You want me to explain what’s my favorite book and why in HOW many lines? Seven? Cute. Really cute, Harvard. Also fun, in a real not-fun way, was the essay on Why are you transferring. Already the temptation to just bitch and moan about Ireland, Dublin and college is strong--expressing dissatisfaction is the office of my life. But one has to be positive, apparently, so I wrote about Horace Mann, and how badly I need that pressure again. I used the old stable and pressure cooker metaphors, of course (at this point, I’m attached to them). In tandem with the latter, a little life aquatic: “As with a deep-sea diver who has resurfaced too enthusiastically, the change in pressure has given me a crippling case of the Bends.” Bah. Bring on Chicago, at least I know what they’re looking for.
The recommendations are in good shape, though. Brenda Silver, the PoMo professor from Dartmouth, nearly screwed me when she finally wrote me back, saying that not only did she not have time, but my essay, while interesting (I hate it when people who aren’t me use that word) didn’t conform to her standards of what an academic essay should be.
Oh, wow, REALLY? Because I was trying for that, honestly I was. Scrupulously academic, that’s clearly what I’m after. Bugger off. Oy. Don’t know what I got on it, don’t really care; Deirdre’s comments on my Donne essay were so lucid, intelligent and helpful that I don’t feel the need for any feedback from a teacher who takes any less time with my work than she did. As much a product of Oxford as I am of Horace Mann, she disproves all the dirty things they say about T.A.’s, despite her colleagues’ making a terrific effort to prove them again. We met yesterday for an hour and a half, a lovely coffee at Cafe-en-Seine, during which we mostly told each other about ourselves, and occasionally digressed to talk not only about the essay, about which she was enthusiastic and encouraging, but about her writing the rec instead. She knows me better than anyone, and is happy to write it, but we both know that a rec from a T.A., no matter how sharp, doesn’t mean much to Harvard. So I had proposed to her that we do what Philip Coleman, the poetry lecturer who wrote the other one, had suggested (she replied that she would have suggested the same thing): that she write it, and then stand over Stephen Matterson, the beloved department head, and either have him paste it onto the page and sign it, or more or less take dictation from her. Sounds good to me; I rarely enjoy these things unless there’s at least some duplicity involved.
It was a delightful evening interlude, really: we more or less aired as many of our grievances about the school as we could in the time we had. Apparently there is no assumption in the department that students have, before coming to college, amassed a fair-sized mental library (because, you know, they only learned to read two years ago). Horace Mann assumed we were born knowing our anapests from our spondees; Trinity began last year’s poetry course by explaining iambic pentameter. She told me a story about how she was sitting in the T.A. office (a dingy hole in the wall at the end of a sad and darkling hall) when a tutor came in all flustered and excited: a first-year student had timidly mentioned that a text had made her think of Thoreau. No, there was no quoting, elaboration or class response, but don’t push your luck. Another tutor disbelieved: how could she have known who Thoreau was? They don’t do him until next year.
On another occasion, she was sitting in the same office, reading my paper (which she said had given her far more trouble than any other, knowing full well how proud that made me), and another tutor was reading over her shoulder. What’s that from? asked the backseat reader. Finnegans Wake, she replied. No, that’s impossible, came the reply. There’s no way he can have read Finnegans Wake.
Hand to God, that story didn’t even tickle my ego the way it would have two years ago. It just depressed me. I don’t see the Wake or Ulysses as achievements, just very, very good books, not that hard. Faulkner, now he baffles the fuck out of me. Can’t figure him out at all. No, that doesn’t make me want to read more of him; I don’t like difficult things. The only things worth my doing are the things that come easily. I have never enjoyed struggling and have always known that, being convinced that if I find something a struggle, I’m not predisposed to it, and would do well to leave it to those who are (math, carpentry, finance, collating, organization, gathering nuts and fruit for the cold winter months, etc). I am entirely Frederick. But the pride in the Joyce thing has ebbed, as has the obsession, leaving only intimate knowledge and a sense of protectiveness. He’s my Jimmy A. A. Joyce.
I grow old, I grow old...
After coffee we adjourned to the arts block: Terry Eagleton was giving a talk. Eagleton is one of the major dons of English letters: Cambridge grad, youngest fellow of Oxford in history, one of the foremost Marxists in the world, wrote the big book on theory, wrote plays, novels, then wrote the book After Theory--him heap big deal. Somehow the Literary Society coaxed him across the sea to read from his reissued play, St. Oscar, and do a question-and-answer. The turnout was high, but people from my year were, of course, scarce. The play is about Wilde, essentially an interrupted monologue. Eagleton is a terrific reader and a fine stylist, doing Wilde immaculately, but he really is a critic first. He’s no dramatist, but damn, does he know his Wilde. The play is, in fact, a work of criticism, as fine as I have ever read. I am even more convinced now that the most effective and lucid criticism replies to art in the same voice: a play to reply to a play, a poem to reply to a poem. Essays are only good for other essays. Criticism should basically be a rap battle.
Also, Oscar doesn’t get enough attention in curriculums, I think. Everyone reads Earnest and Dorian Gray, and maybe An Ideal Husband, and know him as the great Camp icon he certainly was, but his critical thinking doesn’t get the airtime it deserves. He was the proto-poststructuralist, well ahead of his time (many formalists would have done well to skip that unpleasant gestation period in the first half of the century, look back to Wilde and pick up on his insistence on surface play, before continuing the futile excavation for “truth” in the text). His theory is rock-solid and inspirational. He meant every word he said, especially when he said he was a genius. He was one of the few we have, and he deserves his due.
I have started Persuasion and thus far it is much ado about mortgages and vanity. Oy.
Even so, it’s a poor substitute. Simulacra and simulation aren’t enough. Mostly because it’s just a poor-ass simulation.
If I’ve not been Facebooking, I’ve most likely been writing the Harvard app or reading Bitter Waitress. The application is a lot less entertaining. I’ve got the first drafts of everything written, but damn it, short answers are hard for me. I’m a talky mother fucker. You want me to explain what’s my favorite book and why in HOW many lines? Seven? Cute. Really cute, Harvard. Also fun, in a real not-fun way, was the essay on Why are you transferring. Already the temptation to just bitch and moan about Ireland, Dublin and college is strong--expressing dissatisfaction is the office of my life. But one has to be positive, apparently, so I wrote about Horace Mann, and how badly I need that pressure again. I used the old stable and pressure cooker metaphors, of course (at this point, I’m attached to them). In tandem with the latter, a little life aquatic: “As with a deep-sea diver who has resurfaced too enthusiastically, the change in pressure has given me a crippling case of the Bends.” Bah. Bring on Chicago, at least I know what they’re looking for.
The recommendations are in good shape, though. Brenda Silver, the PoMo professor from Dartmouth, nearly screwed me when she finally wrote me back, saying that not only did she not have time, but my essay, while interesting (I hate it when people who aren’t me use that word) didn’t conform to her standards of what an academic essay should be.
Oh, wow, REALLY? Because I was trying for that, honestly I was. Scrupulously academic, that’s clearly what I’m after. Bugger off. Oy. Don’t know what I got on it, don’t really care; Deirdre’s comments on my Donne essay were so lucid, intelligent and helpful that I don’t feel the need for any feedback from a teacher who takes any less time with my work than she did. As much a product of Oxford as I am of Horace Mann, she disproves all the dirty things they say about T.A.’s, despite her colleagues’ making a terrific effort to prove them again. We met yesterday for an hour and a half, a lovely coffee at Cafe-en-Seine, during which we mostly told each other about ourselves, and occasionally digressed to talk not only about the essay, about which she was enthusiastic and encouraging, but about her writing the rec instead. She knows me better than anyone, and is happy to write it, but we both know that a rec from a T.A., no matter how sharp, doesn’t mean much to Harvard. So I had proposed to her that we do what Philip Coleman, the poetry lecturer who wrote the other one, had suggested (she replied that she would have suggested the same thing): that she write it, and then stand over Stephen Matterson, the beloved department head, and either have him paste it onto the page and sign it, or more or less take dictation from her. Sounds good to me; I rarely enjoy these things unless there’s at least some duplicity involved.
It was a delightful evening interlude, really: we more or less aired as many of our grievances about the school as we could in the time we had. Apparently there is no assumption in the department that students have, before coming to college, amassed a fair-sized mental library (because, you know, they only learned to read two years ago). Horace Mann assumed we were born knowing our anapests from our spondees; Trinity began last year’s poetry course by explaining iambic pentameter. She told me a story about how she was sitting in the T.A. office (a dingy hole in the wall at the end of a sad and darkling hall) when a tutor came in all flustered and excited: a first-year student had timidly mentioned that a text had made her think of Thoreau. No, there was no quoting, elaboration or class response, but don’t push your luck. Another tutor disbelieved: how could she have known who Thoreau was? They don’t do him until next year.
On another occasion, she was sitting in the same office, reading my paper (which she said had given her far more trouble than any other, knowing full well how proud that made me), and another tutor was reading over her shoulder. What’s that from? asked the backseat reader. Finnegans Wake, she replied. No, that’s impossible, came the reply. There’s no way he can have read Finnegans Wake.
Hand to God, that story didn’t even tickle my ego the way it would have two years ago. It just depressed me. I don’t see the Wake or Ulysses as achievements, just very, very good books, not that hard. Faulkner, now he baffles the fuck out of me. Can’t figure him out at all. No, that doesn’t make me want to read more of him; I don’t like difficult things. The only things worth my doing are the things that come easily. I have never enjoyed struggling and have always known that, being convinced that if I find something a struggle, I’m not predisposed to it, and would do well to leave it to those who are (math, carpentry, finance, collating, organization, gathering nuts and fruit for the cold winter months, etc). I am entirely Frederick. But the pride in the Joyce thing has ebbed, as has the obsession, leaving only intimate knowledge and a sense of protectiveness. He’s my Jimmy A. A. Joyce.
I grow old, I grow old...
After coffee we adjourned to the arts block: Terry Eagleton was giving a talk. Eagleton is one of the major dons of English letters: Cambridge grad, youngest fellow of Oxford in history, one of the foremost Marxists in the world, wrote the big book on theory, wrote plays, novels, then wrote the book After Theory--him heap big deal. Somehow the Literary Society coaxed him across the sea to read from his reissued play, St. Oscar, and do a question-and-answer. The turnout was high, but people from my year were, of course, scarce. The play is about Wilde, essentially an interrupted monologue. Eagleton is a terrific reader and a fine stylist, doing Wilde immaculately, but he really is a critic first. He’s no dramatist, but damn, does he know his Wilde. The play is, in fact, a work of criticism, as fine as I have ever read. I am even more convinced now that the most effective and lucid criticism replies to art in the same voice: a play to reply to a play, a poem to reply to a poem. Essays are only good for other essays. Criticism should basically be a rap battle.
Also, Oscar doesn’t get enough attention in curriculums, I think. Everyone reads Earnest and Dorian Gray, and maybe An Ideal Husband, and know him as the great Camp icon he certainly was, but his critical thinking doesn’t get the airtime it deserves. He was the proto-poststructuralist, well ahead of his time (many formalists would have done well to skip that unpleasant gestation period in the first half of the century, look back to Wilde and pick up on his insistence on surface play, before continuing the futile excavation for “truth” in the text). His theory is rock-solid and inspirational. He meant every word he said, especially when he said he was a genius. He was one of the few we have, and he deserves his due.
I have started Persuasion and thus far it is much ado about mortgages and vanity. Oy.
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