DIARY
– SORRY – Normally I try to get these things up in the morning. But if you’ll let me explain…
– UNDER PRESSURE! – It’s a good thing that I quit my second job, because there was no way I was going to stand a chance this semester while working full-time. The workshop load is comparable and probably lighter than the last time around. The seminar, on the other hand, is probably going to be the most intense class I’ve ever taken, and having graduated from the U of C, that’s no mean feat. Our reading list is:
Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne,
Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov,
The Third Policeman, by Flann O’Brien,
Ryder, by Djuna Barnes,
The Dead Father, by Donald Barthelme,
Naked Lunch, by William Burroughs,
Hopscotch, by Julio Cortazar,
Cobra, by Severp Sardiu,
A Form / Of Taking / It All, by Rosmarie Waldrop,
Wittgenstein’s Mistress, by David Markson,
La Maison de Rendezvous, by Alain Robbe-Grillet,
and Invisible Cities, by Italio Calvino.
If the names don’t mean much to you they are all associated with density and difficulty. Additionally, we are each to “introduce” one of the texts to the class (I will be introducing Ryder), write up a 1-2 page emulation each week as well as a series of three questions suggested by the text. Finally, at the end of the semester we have a critical paper due.
I don’t mind this measure of activity at all; in fact, it’s one fo the things I most enjoy about school, and especially college. Such hard work generally means I’m getting my time and money’s worth, and I’m stingy with both these days.
But there will be no rest.
No rest!
I tested this theory out yesterday when, after exercising, I set off to Williamsburg to pick up a copy to Tristram Shandy. I’ve come to appreciate New York more and more the last few months, and in some ways, even admit that I has qualities I wouldn’t mind finding in Chicago, Detroit, or Flint. That said, disparaging comments by Chicagoans and New Yorkers alike, hipster Williamsburg has nothing on hipster Wicker Park. Don’t get me wrong, Hasidic Williamsburg seems to be awesome, as does Hispanic Williamsburg. But after scrounging around all morning for two tiny bookstores, one at which nobody had even heard of Laurence Sterne, and the other with a fiction section about the size as the shelves in my apartment… either there’s an underground bunker somewhere or these are some very ill-read hipsters.
In the end, I had to take a train to Manhattan to get the book, meaning I didn’t get home until after three.
– PRESSURE YESTERDAY – With the exception of fixing dinner for Jess and myself, taking an hour to watch the O.C. and maybe a half-hour to screw around on ytmnd, I spent the rest of the night reading. But I do mean the rest of the night. I read the first of nine volumes of Tristram Shandy, a short story by Shelly Jackson (my seminar teacher), three submissions to the workshop by other students, and spent an hour revising Adrift on the Mainstream (I’m submitting the first twenty pages to the class next week). I went to bed at four thirty.
– LEAD IN TO MY TARDINESS TODAY… – Meaning that getting up at 10:30 was an actually accomplishment, and after exercising, showering, cleaning, some routine chores, and now writing, it’s going on 1:30 and I haven’t put up the post-of-the-day yet! Oh no!
– WEATHER – We’re finally getting something approximating seasonal weather, at least east of the Mississippi, though things are supposed to warm up on the weekend. This may just be a prelude to doom, however, since the jet stream is finally expected to make a dive south across the great lakes which will compress all the warm air we’ve been feeling and fire it out over the Atlantic. Meaning that New England (and quite likely NYC) may be hit by a storm and plenty of snow. Seattle, meanwhile, can have their rain.
– JANUARY – Is the month of Financial Wellness.
– TODAY – Is the beginning of the St. Paul Winter Carnival. TOMORROW – Blueberry Pancake day.
– HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Lewis Carroll, Thomas Crapper, and Mozart. Sunday – Anton Chekhov and Thomas Paine.
NATION OF THE WEEK
The United Arab Emirates.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
What’s under your bed?
END OF POST.