I know people

Have I accomplished anything of note recently? Not really.

But I know people...around (not so much 'in') the arts. Like, opera reviewer people. Seriously.

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2008/10/sunday_mozarts_idomeneo_at_the.php

It Tasks Me...

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event-in the living act, the undoubted deed-there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts for the mouldings of its features from the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the GRE is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. It tasks me, it heaps me; I see in it outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the GRE agent, or be the GRE principal, I will wreak that hate upon it.

Okay, maybe it's not that bad. Not at all, really. Still, I will be enjoying the celebratory beer and pizza dinner on Saturday night...

Thankfully, I'm taking the cursed thing downtown (we call it Uptown, which makes sense since most people in the area used to live SOUTH of Charlotte), so I won't have to fight the race traffic up the road at Lowe's Speedway(THE BEAST OF THE SOUTHEAST!). The traffic might have tasked me, verily.

I doubt Melville would mind the tweak. Besides, he's dead and this is public domain. Heh.

baudrillard sux

I have decided, authoritatively, I might add, that fact (in both the singular and conceptual sense) does not exist.

This has something to do with confirmation through observation, and also with social and individual constructions of reality, which are abstract concepts formed from (subjective) sensory input.

So, yes. Reality is a lie.

Pizza, on the other hand, is very real (thank God).

What we ACTUALLY talk about

Well, I've ranted on this before (that's a good start, right?). Still, I find it a little creepy, especially this time of year when football camps in college and the pros are starting to gear up, that sports writers and "journalists" constantly dip into the cliche pool and pull out something as tacky as "now that the new coaching staff has gotten their message across, these guys are really ready to drink the kool-aid."

...ready to drink the kool-aid? seriously?

What's disturbing to me is that I doubt many people younger than me are really going to get the reference, so whatever. The reference, though, is something that you probably ought not to make. You know, mass suicide. Striking any bells? Drinking the cyanide laced kool-aid?

This is of course, really in the spirit of the violence and media class I'm teaching. I might to a unit on socially acceptable violent language. Until then, I'll amuse myself with alternate sports cliches:

"These guys are really ready to close the garage door and leave the motor running."

"These guys are really ready to take a bath with a hair-dryer."

"These guys are really ready to commit Seppuku."

"These guys are really ready to self-immolate."

It bothers me also that Wikipedia has an entire article on methods of suicide (I looked because I forgot how to spell Seppuku.)

I will find a way to teach a Susan Sontag text even if it kills me.

Okay, so that pretty much says it all. I'll probably be using Regarding the Pain of Others for my Media Violence and American Culture class.

Ha. This is my revenge against reason and practicality for preventing me from teaching Illness as Metaphor in my satire class.

I laugh, and check that revenge off the list.

Happy 4th!

I wish you all a very safe and happy Independence Day!

Sad News

Well, this isn't much fun, and for that I'm sorry.

A couple weeks ago, my folks gave me a call to let me know that Max, the neurotic but lovable black lab, had passed away. She was struggling to breathe, and both of her hind legs had been pretty bad for the past couple years, so it was for the best. Still, this was a bummer, as I will always remember her running around the pool, eager for you to throw a twig or even a leaf for her to go fetch.

I'm also glad that I got to see her in March when I was at home, and we played a bit with the orange retriever dummy.

*Grrrrf*

Sorry for the down note. Back to regular, fun posts here shortly (first summer session is wrapping up, so know I have to knuckle down and shake the "i have all summer" mentality).

Full Frontal Nerdity

I am still breathing. I promise.

I've just moved. I'll send everyone that info via email this week. If you don't get that email, pester me and remind me of my shortcomings, and I will send it to you.

Then again, if you don't get that email and I don't know you, I'm probably not going to send you my address. No offence.

Anyway, I am sorting/categorizing my books for the first time since...well, ever. I started out with five categories, then I'll go to sub-categories (by date, subject, region, etc). The big five are: teaching/work reference, general/other reference, non-fiction, fiction/poetry/literature, and comics/graphic novels. Sounds easy, right? Meh. A few things came to mind:

1) Jesus tap-dancing Christ, I have a lot of books.
2) It is sooooo tempting to put Foucault in fiction...
3) Hmmm...surrealism...where should I...
4) Wow, did I take a Henry James class?
5) Well, the cynic in me says anything satirical should probably be non-fiction...
6) EL CID!! I'm organizing these books in a fortunate hour! Ha ha!
7) Okay, well, if medieval chronicles go in non-fiction, surrealism does too, damn it!
8) I own two Thomas Mann novels. You'd think I would have read at least one.
9) Jesus tap-dancing Christ, I have a lot of books...

Perhaps this will be continued later.

Harvester of Sorrow

Well, maybe "Harvester" indicates too much agency.

Anyway, avid readers may remember (or not) that I had promised to write a new scene from my play, featuring Greg as himself in his very own scene. This, I have done.

Sort of.

No, I did, it's just more of a "scene with Greg" than "Greg's scene" right now. It turns out that I had to do a lot of work in this scene, and the overarching purpose wasn't enough to carry the thing much beyond a page and a half. Granted, there's a fair amount of direction, and plenty of wiggle room for the actor, but I'm thinking 7-8 minutes tops.

The problem seems to be that I need for Greg to have more to say. Which, of course, means that I have to think more about what Greg has to say. Which is, of course, somewhat problematic since Greg's primary problem is his lack of really insightful things TO say.

Plus, thinking about Greg makes me squeamish. He's like an emotional black hole, from which no light or feeling or love can escape. And that's the thing. Everybody LOVES Greg (well, technically, they love what Greg used to be, but that's another post), so their emotions sink into the black hole. Yes, that is the 'answer' if you were writing a paper about this half-written, contrived play. He is pretty much the point around which Sorrow is Harvested (see? no agency).

Naturally, he is completely oblivious. That's his "thing." He doesn't really know that Winnicott is more important to him than Sharon, which is the obvious point of his scene and, frankly, not enough to make it interesting. I did add a fun touch, though. Sharon screams from offstage a few times, reminding Greg that she's in labor. That was fun.

I need to re-read Greg's scene with Vaughn and recapture the magic. Then deal with Vaughn killing Winnicott with a cardboard mailing tube. Oh...yeah, spoiler: Vaughn kills Winnicott with a cardboard mailing tube. Sorry.

Okay, enough self-aggrandizing. Hope everyone is well. After all, the semester is almost Ooooooover!


***UPDATE*** Damn, 4min, 17sec. Grrrr...

Small victories

Okay, so maybe the writing ain't goin' so hot... I've had a lot on my plate. No excuse, I know, but there it is.

Still, I did actually get a couple things done recently. Of course, by recently I mean on my drive to work this morning. Still, they're pretty important:

1) So, I finally solved Greg's problem. Greg's problem was, of course, that I couldn't get him in a scene with anyone...no character is allowed to share a scene with the person that is most important to them. So, no Winnicott, no Sharon, no Steve. Vaughn had a scene with him already, so that was out. So...eureka! Greg gets a scene all by himself, pacing nervously and trying to call Winnicott's house while Sharon is in labor. Ta da! (Okay, I know the whole no scene with important person thing sounds contrived, but it actually has worked really well so far...)

2) I picked a title! I'm thinking "Absentia" Of course, there's a bunch of "In Absentia" titles all over IMDB, but there you go.

Okay, that's progress!

Still, I only have Sharon in one scene while Vaughn and Steve have 3 and Greg and Winnicott have 2...

In other news, I'm teaching this image tomorrow (er...today):