So, among other things, I watched not one but 2 movies this weekend. The first, despite a complete lack of feedback from my readers, was A Nightmare on Elm Street. This was quite a lot of fun, and the one brief comment I'll offer is that while Nightmare is based on really a pretty clever concept, I will never ceased to be amazed by the metaphysics of these particular films. For instance, the solution to the problem occurs to our sleep-deprived yet still lucid heroine in this flash of insight: If Freddy can hurt me in the dream world, then all I have to do is grab him in my dream and wake myself up, bringing him back into our world, at which point my boyfriend can pummle him to death with a Louisville Slugger. No one, of course, has any conversation about the major philosophical and logistical problems surrounding this situation; it's just taken for granted. I wonder if there are "Freddites" out there who develop websites dedicated to explaining the holes in the Nightmare series. They would have a lot of work to do.
The second and more provocative film I watched (in my typical belated fashion) was Garden State. Briefly, I very much enjoyed the film and believe it has some lasting artistic value. There were definite lacks (for instance, the relationship between father and son could have been more fully explored) and the film had no qualms on ending on a pseudo-hollywood note, which really wasn't that bad. That being said, the film's biggest shortcoming is that it has set itself up (probably unintentionally) to be a period piece. Its indy-cred soundtrack and perscription drug-shrouded protagonist, at least to me, screams the coming-of THIS age; that is, we will watch this film in the future (its characters are too strong for us not to) but we will be watching our past, the same way we watch a film like Reality Bites. I don't, however, think that we will watch something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in such a way.
But this raises all kinds of interesting questions about the historicity/lack of historicity of film which I cannot answer or deal with now, since I have to leave. I'd like to hear what other people have to say about this film.
This weekend, I am celebrating pop culture and taking a break from more rigorous forms of discourse by renting a classic selection from a staple in American Cinema: the horror film. As much as I enjoy those films as a genre, my actual list of ones I've watched is meager. So, I am going to pick one of the following (assuming both are in) and will watch them with Capria and our buddy Max.
So, which, dear readers, of these to films do you recommend?
OR
My choice is (at least somewhat) in your hands.
I'm not a good blogger.
But I've dealt with that. I have no excuse for my laziness, nor my lack of rigor in making this site what it could be. There will be time, I suppose.
I have been having a good quarter. There is no excuse for busyness, either. I think I am becoming a full-blown caffeine/adrenalin/nicotine junkie (in that order), with a healthy dose of alcohol to bring it all down on the weekends. Sounds healthy, doesn't it? Actually, I've been pretty healthy overall. Just moving. I'm a shark in the ocean, baby; gotta keep going forward or you sink.
Enough with the pseudocorporate pep rally baloney. I still really love graduate school and its going well. I just need to remember to schedule in purge days. How else will I keep my figure? I've been working on American poetry "After Modernism" (problematizing any critical terms such as postmodernism used to describe that period) and I may have found a literary love. There is something about poetry and the way we can talk about (and through) poetry that has revitalized me. I've been specifically focusing on the somewhat obscure poet George Oppen, particularly his serial poem "Of Being Numerous." Go check it out. He is of particular interest to me since I can approach my theoretical and philosophical urges through his work. Very cool.
Incidentally, I have just been accepted to present my first conference paper, which will be on George Oppen and the possibilities of poetry. This is exciting and terrifying. But I am mostly excited. It's so funny that I get paid to do this. I don't understand it (although I'm immensely grateful).
In my other course, I am reading "Heart of Darkness" (among other things) with a focus on the political import of literary texts and the relationship of that import to theory. This is a major question, (I write on the worst day for US troops in Iraq thus far), and I don't think it can be fully contained. But just when I feel that theory is absolutely useless (particularly any political theory, which, if you think about it, is something of an oxymoron), I discover an amazing although nearly impossible to read writer like Gayatri Spivak. Reading a recent essay on Marx (more specifically, on re-reading Marx), I see the possibility of theory's work in our world. A possibility, mind you, but one that is nevertheless real. In particular, her willingness to challenge the ideas of both Left and Right politics, in a time when those ideas seem to be the totality of our discourse, is quite refreshing.
But I digress. (I think this entire post is but one long digression. Yet another confession.) Let me get to the heart of this: I love you, my readers, very deeply. I do not write this lightly, and I do not say it as an excuse for my self-indulgent prose. Sometimes in the visual noise of existence we lose sight of our being, but ultimately it is love, because God is love. In our sentimentalized world we perhaps degrade such a construction, but I believe that you are hard pressed to find more profound words, words written so that an 8 year old can understand them, words that give us hope, and light, and existence. So I echo those words to you. Remember to pray.
I just got out of the first day of my second quarter teaching, and I had a particularly fun time. After much internal debate, I put the first line of "Karma Police" by Radiohead as an epigraph on my syllabus, copied from the album lyrics: "karma police arrest this man he talks in maths he buzzesLikeAfridge hes like a detuned radio." I did it for three reasons: 1. It's kinda hip 2. It refers to police, and in our discussion of Foucault we talk a lot about discipline 3. I wanted to start the course with a close reading challenge for my students, to emphasize that all texts are based on context and audience, and we need to be aware of that.
So I handed out the syllabus and asked them what this quotation had to do with writing and why in the world would a writing class instructor put such a grammatically anarchistic passage on his syllabus. They stared at me for a few seconds. "OK, what do you think it means? Anything at all," I asked. Finally, a bold individual commented that there seemed to be a contrast between the radio as a machine and the idea of karma. This was great, so I wrote it on the board. With a little coaxing on my part, they offered definitions of math (abstract, communicable, logical system) and this led, of course, to language. This contrasted nicely with the nonlanguage noise of the detuned radio. Suddenly, we have a conflict between meaning and meaninglessness, and the police are needed to put an end to this nonsense and restore order. By the end of the discussion, I had ink all over the white board.
It was beautiful. I then said "would you believe if I told you I had none of this planned before I walked in here?" (which was more or less true.) They didn't believe me.
I was struck by the human ability to make meaning even in the most strange of circumstances. Obviously, I was the power forcing them to do so, coaching their connections; but they were able to produce something meaningful from a rather strange phrase. We are such creatures of communication; we can't help it, I think. We interpret. I hope we can keep that energy throughout the quarter.
This one's nominated for the least original post title ever.
Well, friends, I have been gone for some time now. I understand your frustration; I imagine you've spent hours hovering over your computers, clicking "refresh," asking "why, oh why, won't he post?" One: I had nothing very interesting to say. Two: I have been visiting my family in Pennsylvania.
Capria and I had a great holiday. It was nice to see my family and get out of Seattle for a while, although we're both glad to be back. We watched a lot of TV, sat by the fire, read (I read Lolita for the first time over the break, and I may post on it in the not-so-distant future), and played poker with my brothers and sisters. That was fun; I haven't had my gambling fix for a while. It reminded me how much I missed it.
On Tuesday we caught the tail end of US Airways holiday weekend debacle. Long story short, we ended up hanging out at the Pittsburgh airport for nearly 12 hours. A good time, let me tell you.
But nothing compared to what happened in South Asia. Such an event makes my hands shake. We humans think so highly of ourselves sometimes, and then the earth has a twitch and we're wiped out. At the same time, we humans reflect God, and so we have something to think highly of ourselves for, which is why something like this tsunami should sadden us. A paradox. Our existence is a paradox, I think.
Well, I'm going to go now. Capria and I are going to see The Life Aquatic tonight. I'll keep you posted.