DIARY
– LAST COUPLE DAYS – The day before yesterday was particularly strange… I’d stayed up until 4 AM (for about the third night in a row) finishing Tristram Shandy. I succeeded, but was sufficiently zombified the next day to the extent that caffeine was of limited use. By 3 PM, I was on the verge of making embarrassing mistakes, so I excused myself from work early. I think they were pretty irritated by this move, and I do feel bad (I said so), but I really don’t know what else I could do. I did schedule myself to go in early next week, and that should be sufficient to make up lost time. I went to New School, since even leaving early there wasn’t much time to go home, sleep, and make it to the colloquium on time. On the way, however, I stopped at the Barnes and Noble and bought my books for seminar. $125. Damn. And this was after I scoured the Strand for used copies. No luck. Then, I went to New School and slept in a chair in the study lounge for about two hours. This whole time there was a boy in the chair just next ot me, muttering the lyrics of some song or other the whole time. So that was irritating. When I went to the colloquium, the room was filled out to the hall, the speaker being somewhat famous. So I didn’t try too hard to get in; I hung-out in the hall and talked to Reinhardt, who’d been recruited to sell book. Afterwards, Shelley’s class went well. We finished discussing Tristram Shandy, and it really came into focus how expansive and ambitious the book is. And asshole as it is, can I just say, what a damn shame the cures for tuberculosis have so affected the quality of magum opuses in the last century. I was still exhausted this whole time, and when I left class, I left my $125 of book behind.
The next morning, I was inclined to sleep in. Instead, I spent an hour-and-a-half taking the train into Manhattan, retrieving the books from the classroom, and coming back home. In theory, the rest of the day should have been given to critiquing for workshop and reading the next book for seminar, Nobokov’s Pale Fire. However, I’d reached the critical halfway point of The Monk, the un-put-downable park, so I spent the rest of the day taking frequent naps and finishing the book. Jess and I had Macaroni and Cheese for dinner, and watched the O.C. Ho hum. Season three stomps on. I still call the writing somewhat weak.
– THE MONK – Is extraordinarily grotesque; easily the most graphic and violent of a gothic novels I’ve read so far. It is also probably my least favorite so far, though I must also admit that is has had, far and away, the most challenging and compelling villians. The last page was so horrific and excessive I’m still trying to decide of the overload was deliberate or accidental. I’ll write more on this later.
– TODAY – I was going to go out and explore Brooklyn some, but I think I’ll have to put that off still a little longer. Tristram Shandy set me far back in everything else, and I’m still trying to make it up…
– WEATHER – It’s actually seasonal in New York right now, though I wish it was compensating for lost time, and there’s no snow. But I’ll take what I can get. Actually, the East Coast is supposed to be hit by a Nor’easter… cool winds from the Pacific and cold winds from Canada will converge over the southern Appalachians and drive against the moist, warmer fronts of the Atlantic. Some places could get a foot of snow. We’ll be waiting for that… You’ll be expecting more cold, but not much snow. Who are you? Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Minneapolis; the Midwest.
– FEBRUARY – Is Soup Month.
– HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Gemma! And Bertolt Brecht. “For the villainy of the world is great, and a man has to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen out from underneath him.”
NATION OF THE WEEK
Zambia.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Not so serious: What’s the most unusual name that someone in your family has had (to your way of thinking)? (To anyone who wonder’s we’re not poking fun; we’re just curious).
More serious: What’s your take on the Danish editorial cartoons and response in the Middle East?
END OF POST.