being a work in progress

Hang a left, next exit

2006-02-16T02:24:00.000-05:00

I have finally gotten around to moving all the stuff from this blogger site to the site I actually pay hosting for! So, slowly, this blog will be forgotten, though the entries will keep coming, slow and steady; gathering steam.

The ol' site is still "undergoing renovations", but they'll be sort of ongoing throughout anyway.

Click on the link below: it will take you to me blog/site.

deadwhitemales.net

With a little luck, i'll be updating regularly - more than I have been doing on this site.

See you soon.

The Gordian Knot of Literature

2006-01-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

Gordian Knot: a difficult problem, generally solved through the aplpication of forceful and sometimes violent action. (Mythology: the Gordian Knot was a knot tied by a Greek king. It was said that whoever untied the knot would rule Asia. Alex here, in the picture, decided he couldn't take the time to work it out, so he took his sword to it and simply severed it.)

I'm just trying to dump a little baggage and get some clarity before getting back to the essay I have to hand in tomorrow.

Essentially, I have been asked to analyse a discourse. Which is? Well, it's basically a "theme", for lack of a better word, or maybe a socio-historical concern of the text, whether explicit or implicit. My problem with this: I don't think you can so easily separate and analyse separately different "discourses" in a text, because while it's talking about, say, Culture, it is also talking about progress, language, literature, nature, etc.

In my mind, this is an application of the sword to the knot. Cutting it short. Even harder than that, is trying to pin point what to call this supposed discourse in the text: "I am analysing the discourse of? Society? Writing? The City? Reason?" Maybe I am trying to go about this in too much of a holistic fashion and should just be content to draw the sword of Alexander the Great and cut arbitrarily in one spot and watch the excess fall away.

Frustration. Every time I get to writing a paper. I know I will do well (I always do) but I stress about it, circling in wide circles until after too much delibration I dart for the center-ish and start writing somethign out. Eventually, I end up with SOMETHING which often seems to me as intelligible as, say, "discourse."

Mandatory Comment followed by Cracking India

2006-01-24T18:38:00.000-05:00

For those who don't speak French, the picture says: "Stephen Harper: What if you could do anything, just like George W. Bush, for 4 years?" The caption at the bottom, loosely translated: "Steph the All-Mighty!"

I don't want to harp on... no, I take that back. Lemme start again...

[beep!]

I don't want to go on about this: we have a new Prime Minister and government in Canada and this is he. What I do want to say though, is go visit this link: http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/. Then, scroll down until you see an icon/box that says "Liberal" on it. This is a spoof of a Liberal add campaign that a Canadian comedian wrote up. I died of laughter when I saw it last night. In fact, I am dead now and writing this from beyond the grave...

So, the only other thing to say about the election: Jack Layton and NDP won 11 extra seats than last time, which is a good thing. And, despite Harper being (very likely) a total dick, I will at least give him the benefit of the doubt. Which really means: I will watch and wait for him to fuck up and then unleash my barbaric yawp in a maddening cacophany of protest! (If tries to fuck with my schooling, I will end him. In fact, i am well-acquainted with an individual who has volunteered to assassinate him if necessary...)

Enough about that, and on to things entirely unrelated.

I have discoverd, as of late, a deep fascination with South Asian history, particularly that history surrounding and defined by the partition of India and Pkistan, and the subsequent formation of Bengladesh. I think it is a mixture of romanticised notions of orientalism with the historical contrast of violence and peace. Think Gandhi. Then think of an entire train of dead Muslim bodies arriving at the station in lahore. Think the kindly-looking white-bearded Seik that takes the bus with you every morning to work. Then picture a guy much like him running into battle, his sword drawn, his hair let lose and falling down to his ankles as he decapitiates people of a different faith that he used to play with as a child...

Something about that mixture of peace and violence, of secular society and religious fervour just entices me. I think it's that I love tragic stories and that such a land and situation has all of the lements of a serious tragedy. And, of course, like all good tragedies, there is an element of culpability; the audience looks on and identifies with the players, and sees how they have been manipulated. And by virtue of being a psectator, you are in position to know enough to know better (or so you think) but are powerless to affect the outcome, or else get swept away in the madness. the culpability, in this case: I am an english-spekaing memeber of the British commonwealth, in this case, a canadian. But, the religious tolerance practiced in pre-colonial India/Pakistan was disrupted by the needs of the colonising force - divide and conquer. By the time the british withdrew, they had stirred the pot so much that now, rather than accepting a multiplicity of faiths, many extremest and fundamentalist groups have transformed religion into a defining characteristic of national identity.

it is odd to think that a problem seemingly so remote from my experience could move me so powerfully. I was reading Cracking India, by Bapsi Sidhwa and several of the scenes moved me to physical discomfort. Not tears - I think some of the attrocities presented there are beyond that, but a certain general discomort and sibeleif fighting with the horrific realisation that THIS IS TRUTH! (the more i read and learn about the colonial/postcolonial, the more the world seems broken, but the less it seems impossible to repair. Consciousness of the cuase and the issues can go a long way. Now, if ony we could get people to stop and listen for a few moments, long enough to stop killing each other for a few minutes, maybe this could work...)

Perhaps another aspect is how this is violence on a personal level - people are going after their neighbours and friend with clubs, axes, swords... some guns, but most of it was fire and hand-to-hand. It was not just killing, it was violation, humiliation, complete and utter dehumanization. here is just one passage to illustrate:

He saw a naked woman, her light Kashmiri skin bruised with pruple splotches and cuts, hanging head down from a ceiling fan. And looked on with a child's boundless acceptance and curiosity as jeering men set her long hair on fire. he saw babies snatched from their mothers, smashed against walls and their howling mothers brutally raped and killed.

I recommend the book to anybody and everybody. there is also a movie, by a canadian director called Deepa Mehta. The movie is called "Earth."

You can read up on the author here: http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/bsidhwa/biography.html

What is the Statute of Limitations on Debt?

2006-01-18T15:56:00.000-05:00

Does anybody know what the Statute of Limitation on debt is, in canada/Quebec? I can't seem to find anything on this. I figure I will go visit my bank soon-ish and find out from someone there, but I would like to know just the same...

So, my friend sends me this wookbook about getting pumped for the new year and making resolutions and sticking with them. I know that much of my year will have to revolve around looking for extra income to build a pile of money I can use to climb out ot that hole in the ceiling of my prison. (I know this is a picture of the Pantheon in Rome, but I am asking you to work with the trying-to-claw-out-of-a-hole conceit here, which would assume this is a prison.)

So, year-old debts have started poping out of the woodwork. But they are so old that, by this point, one wonders if there is any way to wiggle out of them...

Valuable lesson of the day #1: debts that a company is not presently collecting do not freeze when they are passed along or seem to slink into obscurity. Interest is still calculated on a similar per annum type basis. Translation: you didn't have the money to pay it then, but now it's grwon like a cancer... Time to operate.

Valuable lesson of the day #2: judicial action os not a recourse collections have access to in order to get their cash back.

info: http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=2&file=/R_2_2/R2_2_A.html

So, my credit being shot, one wonders what options are available: off to the bank to see about "buying back" that debt with a 10% interest loan... which is less than half of the interest presently being charged. Will they lend me the money? Well, one way of looking at it is: unless you lend me this money (with deductions from my pay deposits going to the financial institution regularly) the likelyhood of the debt being paid (in the next year, say) is minimal at best. BUT! If I can get a head start buy lowering the interest rate, then I can start with minimum payments that will actually reduce my debt, rather than keeping it stable or just slowing its progress. And if I can eventually clear this debt, then I might up their business by eventually wanting more "credit products"...

IRONY! Countries, like Canada and the United States (just two examples of ALL!) are still able to go about their business and their conceptual "lives" without so much harassement.

IRONY! When I get back in the saddle with my debts, I will be investing in collection agencies. people borrow more and more and it stands to reason that htere are millions of people like me out there who made stupid mistakes in money mis-management in their youth and now must carry them like a heavy yoke.

But one must keep the faith that something will come around... I have bonuses coming to me at work... Interesting bonuses. I have to pay school (which is what I explained to the collections agency before lying and telling them that the address they had on file WAS the right one...) which is over 2000$... anything left = smack down on the debt.

Pleasant.
Fuck this sucks.

Under the Vent in Winter

2006-01-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

At my last grade school, I remember that we used to have to go outside during recess. You could not go to the library, or some common room for 15 minutes, or an hour, you had to go outside. The fenced-in school yard was hal concrete and half grassy hill. Right smack in the back wall of the school there was a heating duct, I guess we can call it, with a grill on it, which was the exit for the school's ventialtion system. All of the air that had circulated through the school was expelled here in a constant rush of air. It stuck out of the wall about 2 or 3 feet or so, and blew all the air downwards so that in almost any weather, the cement directly underneath was dry. In the rainy spring and fall, and in the cold of winter, I would sit there alone waiting to go back in. I never understood why no one else ever seemed to be interested in that spot after I "discovered" it. Or why no one else faught with me for a little warm solitude there. I would watch the others running or playng and wanted no part on days like this. These were days for sitting still and watching the world go on without you.

I used to have a bedroom with no windows. There was always darkness for sleep. I never slep while there was light in the sky. I ceased to be diurnal. I lived at night. My mother's boyfriend called me the vampire living in the basement. I can't remember if he was the one who turned out to be a rapist or the one was was only verbally abusive. In the middle of the night, light was forbidden in that room by the commands of the mother-on-high: the computer screen flickering went on without notice most days. She needed only to fool herself into thinking I was sleeping, the rest didn't matter. Like a bear in a cave, I awoke one day to find that it was spring and I had missed a whole season.

I play video games, I read many books. I carry music in a portable format. Headphones protect my ears from the world. Opaque paper is a screen saving me from other beings. I always break eye contact first. Video games ensnare me and keep me isolated hours at a time, blissfully hibernating away the coldness of being, the terror of existence. I sit in public, unseen. I would pawn my savings for an ocean to cross, a country to explore, but I am always mysteriously broke. In my mind, I would conquer. But I never leave, never start. I am always finishing and refinishing the minutiae of my life in new and unexpected ways. When I finally go to war, my sword will reflect so much light from polish that I will have effectively blinded myself.

The imagination is free to dream up worlds as we would like to have them, as opposed to the one we have. Northrop Frye says that people who talk in prose are very rare. Prose is a literary conception - we recognize things which are laid out in prose as literary, as connected to literature, a world with it's own standards and realities. Ironically, literature tells us more about the nature of literature than the real world. People seem baffled by that. Even the most die-hard scholar of literature admits to an escapist urge in its study. Why does it not tell us as much about life? Life speaks in english; books speak in English. There is a difference. one deals with communicating on a superficial level - at the grocery store, at the nak, on the phone. Aother deals with forming mental concepts, such as theories inn physics and for the contruction of workable models we use to describe the world. The level of literature seeks to form a bond with and a control of, one's environment. It seeks to turn an objective, unfeeling environment into a home: we shape our lives into narratives because that allows us to relate events, elements, ourselves and other people to one another to forge the limits of our "world." It allows us to identify withthe world I suppose. Maybe I'll get into Northrop Frye's theories some other time. This is enough: literature speaks the language of myth and meaning, and like ancient magic, seeks to give us a feeling that, in some small way, we control the outcome.

Some want to run away and join the circus. I want to run away and join literature. But I am afraid to write myself in, to live on the page like everybody else. If we are to have the courage to live, we must see ourselves as the main characters of a book we are writing, to belive we can produce a life which makes for good reading and of which we are ultimately the masters.

But I just sit under the vent in winter, my claustrophobic world, until it's time to come inside.

Veni, Vidi, Vici!!! (or close enough)

2005-12-16T21:19:00.000-05:00

This, incidentally, was the runner-up for the new picture on my profile. I decided to go with the anonymous poet picture, which i like a lot. (Did I mention I liked literature?) Nevertheless, this is a great pic, I believe. For those who may not know, this is Ares, Greek god of war. (Mars for those who prefer Roman terminolog.) He wasn't generally a nice guy. But, you wanted him on your team though, right?

Anyways, it so happens that Mars is "my planet," and I've always been drawn to and attracted to the idea of "warriors" in a general term. Not mindless killers, mind you, but rather I think I've alwyas had a love affair with this idea of the Heroic Code. Witness: Gaming? But also: Beowulf, "The Wanderer" and other Anglo-Saxon poetry... Hagakure and Samurai... Duelists. You get the idea. (I didn't find many good pictures of Beowulf...) And boxing...

So, yesterday I wrote my final exam of the semester: British Literature to 1660. So, lots of old warrior poetry. And then, noble knights and romances (Sir Gawain, Arthur and his knights, etc.). And, of course, those Elizabethans - courtiers with attitudes! No need to get that excited though - I start school again in less than 3 weeks, so I don't get much of a break. Still, I love it (see previous post) so it's really not that taxing. It really is quite fun! (Then again, I think Milton's Paradise Lost makes for some nice "light" reading... well, not quite, but you get the idea.) Another semester conquered and crushed beneath my conquering heel.

I'm trying to get my act together. Not like my life is in shambles or anything: I'm in school, which is really the main focus of my life right now. While this is great and I really want to do this, I've been feeling rather two dimensional right now. It seems to me I was "in to more things" and got enraptured more...

Essentialy, I'm aiming to get away from having to work at my crappy (but decent-paying) job as much as possible, all the while increaing my cash flow to give myself the ability to do some of the other things I want to do. Mundane things like by some clothes a little more often, to more lofty goals of wanting to travel, have extended stays in other courties, go do my Masters at whatever university I feel like. I'm trying to diversify my income, rather than have it all come from the same soul-sucking and redundant source of HELL!

See, money is not the problem: having more is good, not bad. What makes us feel at times like we hate it is that, I think, it tends to be associated with doing things we don't like in order to get it. It's the problem of seeing money in terms of how it is acquired vs. what it gets us. That, and the thought that tomorrow, we'll have to do that displeasurable thing again. What we hate about money is what it costs us in time away from what we would rather be doing - living our lives. So, finding shit that makes money and makes you happy...

So, i figure, this is where that warrior mentality / warrior code comes in.

I think I can say that I approach many facets of life as little wars and battles and that a warrior, if he knows how to handle himself in a fight, can handle various types of fights. That's why I like doing Muay Thai (which is one of the things that have suffered from this crappy work thing... not enough money, working extra hours there sucks and the shifts conflict with my classes.) Anyways, I'm one of those over-zealous sensei types who is always talking about how martial arts is life, but I think that to some extent it may be true.

Paraphrasing from Hagakure: "A samurai must make decisions in seven breaths. He does not doubt but takes seven breaths to make up his mind. Then, he dedictaes his entire being to bringing about the realisation of that thought. Doubt is death." (Something like that...)

See what I mean? These are words to live by. So, what's the secret? Well, allow me to point you to the following blog entry: http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm. DO IT NOW is presently my screen saver. (Overall, I must say, this blog is very good, though at times he's alittle extreme and, well, weird, for me. But, there is no arguing with the guy's dedication.) Anyways, to sum up the article (which is rather lengthy): you don't need to know how you are going to get somewhere, but you do need to know where you are going. And then just stay alert and open for opportunities rising up to make that happen. But you need to have a clear set of earnest goals, whatever they may be.

He keeps talking about intention-manifestation: imagining the outcome, really "intending" to do something, will "manifest" ways in which to make it possible. Or, will simply manifest it! Now, in terms I can realte to: (from hagakure again): "Even if his head is cut off, the samurai should be so focused on his goal of cutting down his opponent, that he should still be able to perform one final action."

So now all I need are some targets to hit. That's something I think I can work with..

What else is there?

2005-12-13T00:59:00.000-05:00

I had a more twisted picture of Caliban (from Shakespeare's Tempest)to put up here, but I liked this one better - the others I have found (inclding pictures of a BAND called Caliban) didn't really have the feel i was looking for, for Caliban... But also the others.

Caliban's the dark, sort of beastly guy on the right. he's presently cowering in fear from Prospero, the guy with the beard who looks like he's casting a spell, or threatening to. the woman behind Prospero is his daughter, Miranda, a naive little woman who's never seen a woman in her life save her own reflection, and the only men she's seen are Prospero and Caliban. That fairy-looking thing in the backgroud is Ariel, an island spirit that Propero freed from imprisonment in a pine tree and who he has enslaved for a time so that it could help him get his revenge on the people who banished and usurped his throne. (Then again, it could be that's the ship that gets wrecked at the start of the play... Nah. Must be Ariel.) As you can see, they're standing at the mouth of the cave where Caliban lives. Hmm... I think this is in act I, scene 2... seems right: that's when they first visit Caliban in his cave, I think.

Tangent Alert: Everybody I know, it seems, has a blog. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. In fact, its likely a very good thing. I feel I've missed the point, though, you know? I don't tend to feel this urge to bitch about bad movies, or bitch about government, or what have you. The only two things I generally care to get excited about are: literature and gaming. And, after a while, what are you going to write about when all you really care to say is "Yup! I still really dig this stuff!?

What am I writing about anyways? I feel like the only thing I care to talk about much is literature and gaming. Maybe I'm becoming a little flat for it? A little 2-dimensional? Who knows?

Gotta make the money. (This has nothing to do with Caliabn, well, yes, it does, but not really. But I'll make ti work, I'm sure...) I feel like I'm right at the edge of a breakthrough of some sort, though about what, why, in what way? I have no fuckin' clue! But, whatever it is, it's like it's just out of reach. Lately, I've been really considering how to make money in a way that does not involve a quantified exchange of time for money, like most jobs out there. I'm in some weird Limbo space right now... Ah HA! This is how this all ties into the Tempest!!! (I knew I'd make it work.)

Consider a "traditional" comedy: you go to the theatre and it says: "The Comedy of the Tempest, by Bill S." and you know one thing right from the start: you'll end up with a happy ending, with likely at least one marriage on the horizon. Now, the marriage bit: I'm not talking about that. Ever. But the happy ending you expect to find: that's what I feel right now. I know, or feel for certain, that in a few years, once I get the right degrees and have jumped through the right hoops, I'll get my happy ending: I'll get that teaching job and I'll be able to, like Caliban, go back to living on my little island with the stuff that I like. But, in the mean time, I have to go through 5 acts of a play to get there, and deal with this asshole Prospero (who's not a bad guy, actually, unless you happen to be Caliban) until he finally gets what he wants and goes home to Milan.

So, I'm sort of at the " what do I do for those 5 acts until I get the happy ending?"

So I'm trying, as I said, to find ways to make money to give me more options and more time, so I can go out and do the things I want. And trying to get the balls to get off the island! (See how seemlessly I made that work? lol!) I feel I have all of these so-called "little dreams" but that none of it is getting done: want a motorcycle, want to travel a little, whatever. And I think still have this daydream of being paid to design/play role-playing games... (I guess you just keep bombing the shit out of other people with words until a few get through and you get a call back? Which is why I reread the Tempest in the firts place - to write a gaming article based on it.)

So, good news: I know what I ultimatley want to do. And I'm working towards it. great!
No-so-good news: Where does one turn for help, not with the big questions, but rather, the little questions of "Wanting a motorcyle" and wanting easy cash?...

2005-11-17T02:47:00.000-05:00

I wish I could remember the site I got this picture from... Anyways, kudos to this guy.

This is somewhat representative of my current state: I had two in-class tests, one after the other (yes, IMMEDIATELY after the other) on tuesday, and then I had a 6-7 page paper to hand in for my British Literature class - which I hadn't started yet. I don"t think have ever written this much in one day - or at least, nothing requiring any evolved thought processes. If my exam what at about 11:30 am, and I finished my paper at 4:30 am... that's 19 hours. minus about 3 hours - emails, hockey game - so it's about 16 hours of writing about literature.

My brain is gone and this sweat creature you see here is what remains of me: all my higher functions = gone.

So, to celebrate and come even closer to this picture, I got drunk after class with my teacher's assistant (the one who will be grading my paper) and the other teacher's assistants... as well as the professor herself. Yet, somehow, no one is worried about any conflicts of interests - to hear them tell it, my A to A+ is pretty much in the bag so long as I am breathing at the end of the term. (Mind you, I really DO gain nothing from this fraternizing: I know that they'll grade it fair. besdies, like it was told to me - I don;t give you an A+, you just get it because your paper deserves it.) So that was fun. And then, stumbling and mumbling, I get onto the metro to go hang out with some friends for an hour (or so)...

Somehow, I have no classes tomorrow other than Russian in the evening and I have to motivate myself to do my homework and learn some of the material which I missed recently. Joy. I am finding that getting A's in the class is easy, yet I feel I know very little Russian for my troubles. Oh well. There's still like 4-5 months to go, so I guess it will come in time...

Side note - the people for illiteracy never got back to me. You would think that they would welcome volunteers.

Also: trying to put pen to paper (I know, I know... I never learn when to stop trying, even after my harrowing day...) and get something done which has nothing to do with grades or required reading. (And, which reminds me - I have a play and a novel to read still before the end of the semester...)

Lastly - my bathroom flooded a few days ago, which sucked...

True to the picture - nothing insightful today.

Volunteering for Literacy

2005-11-09T00:07:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking about doing this for a while, but about 3, maybe 4 weeks ago, I found an add about volunteering some time every week to helping people learn to read and write. It happens to be an unlikely coincidence that Jacques Demers, former Stanley Cup winning Montreal Canadiens head coach admitted to his illiterate status before I sent out the email to the organisation.

So I should be getting some training - about 4 to 5 hours, I take it, and then we'll see how it goes.

I personally, could not imagine a world without writing, a world without the joy of written words. In many ways, we define civilization by the existence of writing. Sure, nowadays, writing is everywhere, so much so that all building, etc. are endentified in writing, wheras a few hundread years ago, and less than that in fact, tavers might have been identified with pictures instead.

While I realise that I wil be teaching people how to read and write as something which is largely functional - perhaps being able to read reports, or something related to meliorating someone's job prospects, I entertain the hope of being able to gift someone with an appreciation for words in and of themselves, as artefacts blessed with a certain moving power, if you will. After all, I live in words, and what is literature to me if not a necessary condition of my being? It is identity, a maker of identity, a mirror of identity, a tool for growth. Everything.

So, having considered for a long time this want to volunteer, I am happy to feel I have lighted upon a cause that I REALLY believe in, believe in enough that I could say: "If I were in that position, I would be lost!" It comes from knowing what you're missing, I suppose, but still.

So, let's see what their response has to say.

2005-11-08T01:47:00.000-05:00

Ian McKellan as Doctor Faustus, from Christopher Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/drfsta10.txt. Which I should have finished reading by now, but which I will read in one sitting tomorrow night. Sigh. beause tonight I just finished reading a novel from cover to cover, that should have ALSO been read by now. At least with this great push, I will have caught up and be back on top, enough to hopefully put some extra work into my Russian as well as knock off an essay this weekend - so I can prepare for the two test I have next week. So it's a busy time.

To add to all this - I am supposed to be getting my computer serviced - read: upgraded and purged. And I mean a toal purge! Like, FORMAT C: purge. SO, I've also had to go through all of my (scattered, of course) writing folders and others to separate what I need to back up from what I want to get rid of. And I have to get it done ASAP because, with papers and exams and stuff pouring in, I will surely need my computer here...

But back towriting and to Kit Marlowe for a few moments. I notice now that just about everything I do invariably cycles through some piece of writing, or is somehow connected to it.

Either A strange neurosis has taken over my mind, or I am honestly doing something which I really care about. I was sitting in clas today, when suddenly a deep and irrational fear that I was not "good enough" or "literary enough" to go on to teach this stuff took hold of me. It passed a few moments later as I got lost on some other thought and scribble I was writing down during the teacher's lecture about Marlowe. Somehow, I take this as a validation, I suppose it it becasue, on the one hand, I feel that this is something which remains challenging to me, as opposed to many other disciplines I have sampled over the past few years - as witnessed by the initial fear. It is the response to that fear that really does it for me, though. Instead of spiraling down into a cicle of self-loathing and doubt, my inital reaction was to say: "then I will make sure to work dilligently in order to give every reading its honest anddue attention." And immediately afterwards, the thought was: "Besdies - this shit is too much fun to pass up, even IF I weren't any good at it."

So I have been asking myself how, exactly, I came to this place. After all, I felt that my love of literature was somewhat... dormant until fairly recently. I realise that it was partially intimidation - the idea that literature was somehow inaccessible. And that first class in literature sort of turned me around and I realized that I knew all of this inately (it would stand to reason, right? People have been reading Shakespeare for years without formal training in literature and somehow "gettign it") but that I didn't rust the feeling.

But I also realized - my love of literature is intimately related with my love of role-playing games, and the power of words, not only to build up a story, but complex characters somehow existing in a completely fictional state which is wonderously compelling. Basically, it is the sheer wonderment at the power of the word, its evocative and creative power, I guess, though I could have never verbalised it beforehand. Now, I find that all of my characters are poets, or inspired by writings. Take that picture of Doctor Faustus - I just want to crack open a bag of dice and roll up some stats for him and take him out on a spin, to try him on for size. "The Tragical History of Dr. Fausuts" does not only tell us about the make-believe Doctor Faustus, but it creates an entire world around him which supports, tests and expands Faustus, and this wrold is then expanded by Faustus' interaction with it. And, this story, of course, is then read (or, in this case, viewed by the audience) by an outsdie world and is compared and contrasted in order to, hopefully, provide some insight into, let's call it, the human condition. Everything is wonderfully inseperable and each element brings meaning to the others...

Hmm... I am writing all of this and I realize that what prompted this entry was really just that I was sitting in class, loving the writing, the talking, etc., and I was scribbling notes for character ideas inspired from the discussion of Marlowe's life and the Elizabethan world. And that, maybe, what I am really liking about this while study of literature thing is what I love about gaming as well; I get my cake and eat it, too.

What I guess this means is that I get to study the great texts, the stories themselves, and be entertained. But, I also get to see, through thee lenses of words, other worlds, sometimes far removed in time, and how they relate to the words I am reading, and what types of characters wrote them. I can move back and forth between all of these spheres and the best reading basically is the story of a work's relationships. And that's gaming I think (except gaming is free to romanticise and gloss over certain details for the sake of story which 'scholarship' is not supposed to).

So, in the spirit of gaming, here are some vital infos you need to know about the "gaming street value" of "The Tragical History of Doctor Fautus":

Christpher Marlowe, playwright: A contemporary of Shakespeare's in Elizabethan London. There are all sorts of rumours (after his reported death and to this day) that he wrote Shakespeare's playes (which is likely false, and the evidence is faulty, but it makes for a good story). He was killed at the age of 29 *I think), stabbed through the eye in a tavern fight. Rumours have iot that he was killed, possibly, by hired killers (sent by whom?). In fact, Christipher Marlowe, it seems, had been a spy under Elizabeth - he was charged with rooting out Chatholics in a Protestant England. He was charged with heresy and atheism, and he was gay and loved to smoke, as I undertans it.
Elizabethan London: Courtly intrige; courtly love; packed theatres crawling with thieves and pickpockets; back alleys where maksed men held up rich bishops and merchants; world exploration; fencing schools duels and horsemanship; plague masks (really neat masks shaped like crows worn by the people who collected the dead or ministered to the sick); witchcraft; new "sciences"; outskirts of town called "Liberties" where such activities as protitution, theatre, bear-baiting and BOWLING! all occur...
Doctor Faustus: A man seeking knowledge, who makes pact with the devil in order to gane preturnatural powers to further increase his knowledge? Come on!!!! Great stuff! With a chorus in the background like specters haunting his steps only the audience can hear... Great shit!!!

So yeah - now, amidst all the work I need to do, I have begun sketching out the blueprints of a fictitious "
London"-like city to run an urban game... I will never learn.

The Pleasures of Rereading

2005-11-03T22:45:00.000-05:00

I have come to believe that REAL reading only begins when you reread those books you really loved. And ir onically, I am generally NOT someone who rereads much of anything, other than in sections when writing papers or when I otherwise need to refer to specific passage of it for whatever reason.

But I say this primarily because, really - you don't get everything the first time through. it could be argued, you probalay don't get much of anything the first time through. You get a general sense of the plot, the characters and an estimate of your (initial) response to a text, but little else.

When you reread, particulalrly after having sort of thought about and considered the text somewhat, then you read in a very different way.

For instance - I have been reading Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1 for my Shakespeare class. (The picture is of Falstaff and Prince Hal.) Now, of the plays we have read thus far, I think this is likely my favourite - it feel rather rich and highly complex and it gives one lotys to appreciate. But the first time through - well, it was good, but you're not quite sure why! But then,. I was going back into certain sections of the play and rereading: wow! Like, when you know it and you've talked about it, and after your first reading you read ALL of the glosses at the bottom (eg: the text that explains the meaming of archaic words, or words that have since changed meaning) you just fly right through it! It really brings home the point - Shakespeare's audience would have gotten most of this the first time through. They would have appreciated a reread as well... But whatever...

I think the idea i was making is that I don't reread. Or, very, VERY seldom. But, I HAVE tried, on several occasions, to keep a list going of stuff TO reread. But I never seem to get around to it and I always seem to misplace my list. I had tried to to keep all the books I want to reread in one shelf but that didn't work out for some reason. But, I think this is somethign really worth doing! (Mind you, I may get fed up when I go on to other studies, at having to reread a lot of this stuff then, but I doubt it. At least, not for a while. )

Another good reason for rereading - it's very (or fairly) easy to write an undergraduate [paper on a pretty focused and pointed question regarding the text. But full-scale textual analysis requires more attantion - so you sort of read in progressively smaller scope. 1st time for story, plot, etc. Then, second time to see, say, how elements of the site of the book contribute to that meaning. And perhaps things that expand on it, or suggests other meanings, etc. And you sort of go on like this until you have a convincing vision of the book. I'm sort of over-simplifying, but that's what it looks liek. And really, when it comes to reading - I like my fluff from time to time, but I MUCH preffer something with some meat on it, something to digest!

Where was I going with this? I am not even sure. But all this to say - I intend to start rereading, and making a commiment to keeping an ongoing list of stuff to reread. And even, if I can, great sections, quotes, etc. (WHich I will likely add to the "poetry journal" - expanding it's original purpose, but not really.) So, I guess I will keep the list in the pouch...

Well, in goes Henry IV, part 1, and others soon to follow...

School News

2005-10-28T01:52:00.000-04:00

So I got a letter from this guy, David Graham (unfortunately not the man in the picture: that's Thomas Arnold, once headmaster of Rugby Schhol andf the father of the Victorian social critic Matthew Arnold), apparently the dead of the Faculty of Arts and Science at Concordia University.

The signature on the letter looks legit - I belive he signed it - though I am certain he has no idea who I am. Still it is good news: I made the dean's list due to my academic performance last semester. Neat, hun?

So, what does this get me? Well, the letter informs me that the dean's list for the 2004/2005 academic year will be printed in the newspaper, the Montreal Gazette, on November 5th, 2005. Where it will be printed, I have no idea, but I should try to get my hands on a copy...

I also looked into what is really near to my heart, though: money. Or, rather, money to pay for school, so I can continue to get good academic results. Well, it turns out that I found this text on the Concordia website related to this. here it is:

The Dean’s List is compiled every year after the Last Annual GPA has been calculated. Students can calculate their GPA's though their Portal.
For a student to be eligible to be on the Dean’s List, they must meet the following criteria:
Complete a minimum of 12 credits in an Arts and Science program within an academic year
Have a Last Annual GPA of 3.75 or above.
The top students on the Dean’s List, and who are on-going Arts and Science students may be eligible tp receive an award valued at $250. These students are honoured as Arts and Science Scholars at an Awards Night that is held in the Fall.

So, yeah - 250$ - let's hope I'm in the upper crust! (Unlikely, not because I don';t believe I can be there, but I assume I might have heard about forthcoming monies had I been chosen... Still, one can hope!) Also, it would be cool to sport the title "Arts and Science Scholar." (I guess I should look into this some more, eh? I also wonder - how many people make this list? I guess I will see on November 5th.)

So that was good news item number 1. Number 2...

It would appear that, though I have yet to receive the graded paper, my t.a. bent protocol by informing me of my grade... I went out for some beers with the 3 teacher's assistants to some pretty chill jazz dive, and as we drank, the teacher-student rapport was quicly eroded. Which was nice: it means now I am "in," so to speak, so I get to go for more beer with them. (I had a great time - my t.a. got pretty drunk and on the way started going on and on about how John Milton is a wanker and that Paradise Lost is just a huge farce because he asks all the right questions then cops out at the end... This reading stands as unverified by myself. lol!) But, it also means I have connections, like I am starting to get noticed and am somewhat distinguished from my "fellow students'. (I consider precious few students my "fellows"...) That, and being on these commities in the department: I am really collecting victories and points towards my eventual graduate and post-graduate applications...

Oh, yeah: the grade I got is an A+, which is nive because it means I start at 4.3 GPA instead of 4. It's like gettgin bonus points. It's great! Better still, I got mega-compliments. My t.a., who corrected the paper before passing it on to the professor for verification, claims he himself has never seen or written a better paper of comparable length.

It's a good feeling, I must say!

but mostly, I'm in it for the hanging out. Despite whatever friendships we may have, there are just some things you can't discuss with your friends because they either don't get it or don't care: they aren't all that interersted, is all. So you need people who, while they never replace your friends, are the people you can "talk shop" with - they are into the same things, and in my case, don't laugh when I tell them I love reading about aesthetic theory and writing essays - they are exactly like me as far as that goes. (It's also kind of a mentor thing - I get tips on what to read, good critics, etc...)

And lastly (and I hope no teaqchers are reading this and taking this the wrong way): I get the straight dope on ALL the teachers!

A brief moment of vanity -some family pics

2005-10-21T22:50:00.000-04:00

Today, not much of a post - I have one planned, but I have some Russian homework and some reading to do so I can watch hockey tomorrow with some people from work.

So, as i have mentionned it to a few friends of late, here are some pictures from my brother's wedding: some family, some friends and of course, my niece and nephew.

Enjoy!

This is my brother's family. From the left: my nephew Mikael, 9 months, my brother Bob, 24, his wife Marilou 22 (?) and my niece, Gabrielle, 3 and a half. You know, I have to admire the guts - there is no way I would be able to have a family right now. And yet, there they are!

This is basically my family (left to right): my girlfriend, Christine (she's in the other room trying to slam together a portfolio for studio arts - she's flipping out about the need for 3-D art...), myself, my mother, my brother again, his wife, and the guy at the end is my father.

Myself and my brother - can you see the resemblance? There's quite a contrast of styles, though (if there is a resemblance at this point!) Long hair versus short; facial hair verson none. the eyes, though, look similar, I think.

The woman on the left is my grandmother. She has ridiculous fortitude - she put up with my gradfather for 50 years+ (he is unfortunately deceased) AND she spent the last 4 years or so, plitting her time between Amqui in Quebec, Montreal and Toronto, basically. Almost always on the road taking care of my aunt, a former teacher with severe depression, and my uncle, a former IT manager for Sony - also suffering from depression...

This picture is possibly my favourite - it creates the illusion of any closeness whatsoever between the men of my family. Despite, I think it's a very interesting dynamic - my father and my brother see quite a bit of each other, yet they are very different in temperment. My dad and I, because we both are basically hermits, see very little of each other, but I think he's who I get my brains and my desire to teach from - he used to be a fighter jet turbine engine technician and then taught it for several years before retiring from the army. His first language is French, but despite his accent, he English is more elevated and grammatically correct than most English majors I know.

Here's the little man, Mikael. I am determined to teach im Russian so he can live up to the name! That, and he could likely be a Russian mob leader if he did learn and kept his sense of style!

And of course, my niece, the cutest kid alive. (I know everybody says so of their own family but come on!) Apparently, she looks exactly like my grandmother when she was a kid (not the one from the pictures, the deceased grandmother.) That's good news for her, becasue my grandmother looked like a 40s and 50s movie star.

So there you have it!

The real cost of buying books

2005-10-20T20:56:00.000-04:00

Is this what a library is supposed to look like? (Well, if you're the Vatican, I think so...) Seriously, how insane is this library? (I would like to draw your attention, however, to the fact that it is curiously devoid of books. If you look carefully, other than the illuminate manuscript in the bottom right corner of the picture, there are only a handful in the first case/table in the bottom left. Notice the red-clad bishops in the painting on the right. Oh, and the necessary glass case protecting the manuscript.)

I was at the university library for the first time this semester. The last time i walked into the library was last april to get some books for a research project on Gerard Manley Hopkins for my Victorian Literature class. This time, I went in to get a book called English Renaissance Literary Criticism. One of my teachers was supposed to lend it to me (it's a fairly new book, though the content may not be), but she had too many books to cart around with her to class, so instead, she did all the leg work for me and found out if they had it at the library. It's better this way - would have hated to drop coffee on her book. These academic books are expensive.

This got me thinking. I own many books. Who knows how many. A few hundred. I've seen larger private collections, but mine's not bad. I've got many worthwhile books in it as well, books that I guess you could say are worth owning, but I also have a bunch of garbage. I guess a better way to put it - I have a bunch of books I've read and have no intention of reading again (though I did clean those out a few months ago) and a bunch of bargain books which looks interesting but aren't exactly investments for a future literature professor. (Not that all the books we read need to be "worthy" - sometimes you just want fluf - but there are some stinkers in there, I am sure.)

I think I like having books, and buying books, almost as much (if not moreso) than I like to read them. I haven't counted, but I get the impression from looking over my bookshelves, that 40%-50% of my books have remained unopened. And then I realized that, for the most part, the books I own and have read are the booksI have read period. I am an English major who does not use the library: national, university or public. I think I used to borrow books when I was in high school. At least, I remember having a library card and I remember going to the library with some regularity. What the hell did I read back then?...

Where was I going with this? Oh yes. I realize that I have this real interest for literary criticism and "writing about writing" if you will, I really LOVE the stuff I'm studying, but i never seem to have the money to buy the books I would really enjoy and would refer back to. Or, maybe I just feel that, despite the fact that this is what I want to do for a living, I can't rationalize spending 30$ on a book. And this is largely because I am addicted to the cheapie table and when you're used to paying less than 10$ a book, you forget that the vast portion of the book industry is fuelled by people buying bokos at the price written on the sleeve. Worse, I am addicted to increasing the SIZE of my library.

So, I have decided to make a commitment to myself, to sort of return to the library thing: I wil try very hard NOT to splurge on the cheapie table at the books store, unless I am getting somethign valuable to me. And, perhaps more importantly, unless I am gettign a book I plan to read at some point in the next month, say. (Exception: "literary" books - those I allow myself to buy.) And instead of getting a bunch of garbage in my book shelves, I will use the money I save from that to buy books on literature that I want to buy. And as for the rest, I will spend much more time going to the library, getting myself free books of the "read once, and drop" category. (Whatever that is.)

This is very important. (I think I am back on track now with what I wanted to say - not that the above is untrue.) The reason is that, in addition to being a waste of money in some cases, what is more significant is that people who buy books then read from their stash tend to direct their reading in a very passive way - choosing form the list of "available" options rather than going out and reading what might be more rewarding to them. So, for me, I suppose this is less a case of wasted funds, and more of a case of wasted opportunity or wasted time. By settling for the books which happen to be on special, and then the ones that I happen to have bought, I am double filtering my basin. Also, my reading is therefore in large part directed by the publishing and the book retail business. It gets even harder when you consider that I am motivated by a stubborn need to finish reading all my books, so I tend to close the door on the possibility that I might be better served, and enjoy myself more, if I were reading something else. (Ancillary benefit of library books - having only 2 weeks to read a book is likely to speed up the reading.)

What I am arguing for myself then is the need to take charge of my reading and start reading what I want to read, rather than what is convenient to read. Best analogy: it's like watching daytime TV just because it's playing. And who wants to do that? May as well turn the damn thing off. And if not, then take advantage of free cable and watch something interesting!

So - on to English Renaissance Literary Criticism!

Heard American Literary Critic speak; missed CASE meeting.

2005-10-15T00:27:00.000-04:00

I have no idea who this man is, but I worship him for the follwing reason: he is standing, presumably in front of a crown, wearing a ribbon like looks like it should belong on a Christmas present, holding what looks to be a glass of beer. And maybe because of the gaudy ist-place county fair hog ribbon he has, or some other factor we can only guess at, he looks completely dejected...

So, today, I finished work early. This was fortunate because this afternoon, at the university, some American literary critic by the name of... I can't recal right now... (who I am told is one of the more recognised critics of American literature, though I honestly know NOTHING about any of this, least not yet) was giving a lecture which , at the time, I had no notion of the subject.

I showed up a little late, by the time I left work and made it to the school, and sat in the university cinema and slowly got into it and began making sense of what he was trying to say. If I recall correctly, the gist of his argument was something like this, suported by some textual evidence from a book that apparently was not very good (I forgot to get the name of it all - I took no notes, which is very uncharacteristic of me):

Racism in america, or rather, the fact that neo-liberalism in america is so preoccupied with the concerns of racism and discrimination (whether sexual orientation, religioss beliefs, ethnicity or gender, say) that in all matters of debate of economic equality and "racial" equality, the primary debate always seems to be this pressing need for a ever-watchful anti-racism. basically (and I really can;t do it more justice than this without the quotes, examples and 1+ hour long discourse which eventually leads to the conclusion) what he is saying is that anti-racial ideas of identity and diversity are also being applied to economic disparaties. The difference is that race is not something which is necessarily hierarchic: it has been used in the past to enfore hierarchies and and create difference, but there is no basis for ACTUAL superiority or inferiority on the basis of race. Wealth, however, is necessarily hierarchic, meaning that it is organised along a vertical structure, and there IS a real and actual difference between rich and poor, and that having more money is better than having less money. Simply put - saying someone it poor, rather than rich, is not discriminatory - it is a statement of relative fact, wheras a statement that says that Africans are less culturally advanced than europeans is blantantly discriminatory and makes a derogatory value judgement on something which is simply a differnce in human adaptation.

The problem, he was arguing, is that for poverty, the issue should be concerns of wealth redistribution which are geared towards making poor people less poor. Suppose you are talking about a culture, say... african americns, generally, and for simplicity, let us say a male. When an african-american male is being discriminated against, that is an attack against his identity, fundamentally, who he IS - his cultural and personal heritage, which we should all reognise is no better or worse than any other. Poverty, however, is a quantifiable state: poor is "poorer" than rich, and sayng so does not make one a bigot. To draw an easy paralel: we would all consider it a bad thing for african-americans to loose their heritage, but while poverty is something that CAN and often is inherited, it is not heritage: we don't (or perhaps should not) think it is a bad thing for someone to get more money and become less poor. However, this issue this speaker was bringing was that what popular sentiment reinforced by liberal (neo-? I'm not sure on the terminology) ideology of anti-racism - of descriminating against people on basis of race, gender, etc., an ideal think we can all agree with - has been transplanted to a diferent arean where it has no place. What it boils down to is that, rather than trying to address the very REAL problem of economic disparaty, the issue is being turned into one of group discrimination; rather than saying we need to make poor people less poor, we are preaching instead the need to be accepting of the "culture" of poverty. So, what has effectively happened is that an economic reality, an economic situation, has been seen as neither good or bad, but simply "different," the same way an Iranian and a Frenchman are culturally different, and as such, according to the mode of liberal anti-racism, we are taught either to be accepting of the poor among us.

He linked this to the underlying belief of the american free market, namely, that people are free to engage in capital exchange in whichever way they wish, with whoever, so in this case, paying a mexican immigrant less than minimum wage to clean your house is sanctionned by the system: "We cannot discriminate against the poor for living in squalor. It is not their fault they are poor. We must accept their poverty, and not judge them by it." Under this guise, we find a system that legitimizes cheap labour with the xcuse that we are forcing no one to clean our house for 5$ - we offered, they accepted. This to a large extent absolves us, so long as we stick to the anti-racism mode of non-descrimination. So, while the debate rages of both economic and racial concerns, it is the accepted mode of this ideology that in all cases, the "descrimination" issue always seems to come out on top as more significant. Case in point - while we see many photo-ops of political leaders with visible minorities, they are always classified by their cultural group rather than their economic situation.

Whew. I thin that's basically it. There was a bunch more, but I think this largely captures the idea. it's also a bit messy, but hopefully it will make some sense.

( I really wonder if my guy in the picture is drinking beer...)

On a side note, I forgot that, at the same time today, was the first CASE general meeting of the year... grumble. I don;t know which I would have gone to if had to choose, so I guess it's a good thing that I didn't, but I somewhat bemoan the fact that I missed it. Oh well. Most likely the general assembly would have been tedious compared to this speaker.

Vote Eric for Speaker's Committee!!!

2005-10-12T22:54:00.000-04:00

Actually, there is no vote required - I was the only postulant, so the job is mine by default! Therefore, I find myself a proud undergraduate representative on the Speakers Committee.

Rewind to: INBOX - you have 1 new message. Content: blah, blah, blah... need volunteers... blah blah blah... sit on committees... a) Speakers Committee; b) Curriculum Committee... blah, blah. Respond. If required, elections Friday, oct 14th.

So, I reply to said email send the response back to the CASE president (Concordia Ass. of Students in English) saying I would be interested, figuring 2 hours a month to sit on a committee, which is likely to look good on an application when one aims for grad school = good thing.

Today: INBOX - you have 1 new message. Content: tag, you're it! there's no competition...

So, this is how I find myself sitting on this committee. I figured I would take a shot in the dark, it seemed interesting enough at the time, but I really didn't expect to get picked - the CASE bunch, nay!, the ENGLISH department bunch is somewhat... hermetyical? Selective? Let's go with... self-referrential, meaning most of them seem to be in together, know each other, etc.

So, now that I'm in, I'm sort of wondering how this will go down. I mean, I know nothing about anything about selecting academic speakers. However, I figure since I hope to one day be one of these academic speakers myself, this might be golden opportunity to come in through the side door, and out through the back - to sort of slip my way in without having to go through the front door.

Other issue: I really have no idea how all of this works, though if such a general appeal for volunteers was sent out, I can't imagine it requires and special talents beyond literacy. very likely, it will be a general assembly-type model with "we want this guy - vote," but who knows? Only good things can come of it, though - I will go from knowing abosolutely nothing about the "scene" to being slightly connected. (I just remebered - I will likley have more cred than many others who could have ended up in this spot - I, an undergrad English student, managed to get myself invited to give a 30 minute presentation at a graduate conference on Religion last february. I guess that gives me cred... Though I never DID find out what happened to my essay I submitted to them for publication in their journal... I think they never got it. Hmm...)

The persons on this committee are mostly faculty, I believe. I may simply be a token voice. I think the teacher who is supposed to communicate with me to feed me more info on this is my Postcolonial literatre prof. Hopefully, I'll have something of a menu to pick from! lol! (And being in one committee, one has to assume a certain amount of connectedness to both the department AND the other committees. So, I should be in the loop.)

You know, framing it like this, it really fells like I'm sneaking in through the back. Cool. And, I really have little to worry about - barring a major fuckup, they will be unlikely to turn away their ONE volunteer.

How's that for "job security?"

The Little Black Book of Poetry

2005-10-08T02:03:00.000-04:00

I am trying to gather up, in a notebook I bought with this express purpose, all of the poetry I really love. I want to be able to sort of go back to it, memorize bits, quote bits: my little black book of poetic bits. Sort of building, not an academic collection, but build it up like a movie collection of old favourites you keep going back to even if you know them off by heart!

Poetry, or the state of poetry, is a funny thing.

And before I continue, I should mention - I am a very recent convert to poetry. I was, and am largely still, one of these people that laughts at the thought of peotry slams and shudders (though now only occasionally, as opposed to as a matter of course) at the thought of an open mic event. I feel that I am not exceptional in this regard: most people I know feel that poetry is something they should at least presume as part of their reading history and antecedants, though most would be hard pressed to remember any of it, or would in no way beyond a stock phrase, be able to tell you anything about any of it.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, nor a good thing, it's just an observation, really. It still feels strange to belong to the camp of the pro-poets because I changed alliegance such a short while ago. The medium has changed, and along with it, so has poetry and literature in general, I suppose.

Thus - a little (and I mean violently short) history of poetry in English.

c. some time before and to and past) 800 A.D. Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. This peom, the story of a warrior who slays the eeeevil monster Grendel. Basically, this poem is the central identification myth of a entire people. It is transmitted orally and completely memorized - thousands of lines worth - by the "poets." The Word is magical - see Bible, Book of Genesis. These people believed in the magic of the word.

Jump ahead to the 16th century: Shakespeare. Poetry such a big deal, the guy writes all of his plays in verse, not prose. Not that this was exceptional or anything. Doesn't a SHakespearean drama sound so damned important? Iambic pentameter magic, right there!

Another leap: Victorian England c. 1840s - the begining of the end! The novel begins to rise into promience as, not only a popular form of entertainment, but begins to be seen as a powerful medium to communicate to the growing urban middle-classes. Basically, it becomes legitmized as an artform. As a result, poetry goes from something every literate individual indulged in, to move towards a sort of special, "higher" status. poetic elitism.

Victorian Fin de Siecle - Oscar Wilde. the artist as some sort of different, super-individual, standing in the face of popular sentiment. Now, combine the new position of the artist with the idea that while prose is political, social, etc, with the "disconnected" artist, art for art's sake, turning to the "higher" world of poetry for self-expression. To now-ish.

This is sort of a caricature - I mean, it's not that simple or even that true, but the aura that surrounds poetry is one of it's existing in a cloistetered environment and people assume that in order to appreciate and enjoy, mostly just enjoy, poetry, one has to be a special individual.

Now, I have training in literature, and I can say that, for my part, my own preconceived notions about poetry did more to make it confusing and "special" to me in the past than anything else. I mean, I never felt the same way with novels, right? I just read them and "got them." Why could the same not be true of peotry?

If one studies literature, one discovers all sorts of other layers, implied meanings, and blah, blah blah, about the stuff, but here is the golden rule, gleaned from my own experience, and synthesized for you all, which really boils down to:

"if YOU like it, then that is a good poem for you. You don't need to be able to talk about prosidy, meter, scantion, whatever. That particulr gathering of words just works for you. If you can read a langauge, then you have all the necessary tool to 'like' poetry."

Contrary to popular sentiment, poetry is not something which is, by design, difficult to get, in fact, the opposite is true - good peotry just works, good poetry WANTS to be understood. Most bad peotry is simply written by people who think that poetry, or "artsy-ness" is about being creatively misunderstood. (Hence the fear of open mics)

Bullshit. If you feel you can tell a movie you like from one you don't, then you can do the same for anything else. This stupid poetic mystique makes people feel that they somehow have to be "right" about poetry. More bullshit. And that it's somehow just for a select group of people.

As a literary critic, one has to be able to know how writing, poetry in this case, "works" - that is, how it communicates or not) and what it may actually be trying to say. But even that, in the end, is really an artistic exercise, which in turn cound be (and is) examined by the same rules.

And, at base, it really doesn't have anything to do with deciding whether or not something is any good. Example - someone can tell you how to make shepherd's pie, the ingredients, but they can't tell you if you should like it or not in any "objective" sense. if they do, it's just their own value judgement disguised as methodical examination, the over-compensation of someone who is not able to simply accept that it boils down to a matter of perosnal taste. (which is not to say that talking about literature is a moot point, just that is someone tries to shaft your choice with fancy words, you should call them on your bullshit.)

See, literary criticism is great - I love the stuff! I really, really, REALLY do! But, reading literature is not about criticism, it's about emotional response (and I hate the fact that people belittle funny poetry - if it's funny, it worked, right? = good!!!) - about liking and not liking. Period.

And fuck anyone who says otherwise!

-------------------

here's the poem from the comic strip above, in case you can't read it:

Distant Hills (some cow poetry)

The Distant hills call to me.
Their rolling waves seduce my heart.
Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys.
Oh, how I want to run down their greeen slopes.
Alas, I cannot.

Damn the electric fence!
Danm the electric fence!

Studying at a REAL school.

2005-10-05T01:45:00.000-04:00

Regarding this, there are two main problems.

This is a picture of a section of the Harvard campus. I make no apologies and no excuses - this is where I want to be, in the next few years, and I feel that I am potentially good enough to be there.

Mind you, I don't necessarily mean Harvard, I just mean a recognized university, particularly for my graduate and/or post-graduate studies, as opposed to Concordia University in Montreal which has the virtues of thrift and proximity, though little else.

If I were to populate the list of possible schools, it might include:

University of Califronia, in Berkeley
Cambridge University
University of British Columbia
Stanford University
John Hopkins University

And, of course, there could be many others - which brings me back to the problems.

The first problem: I have no idea what schools are recognised for English Literature, I have no idea what is really required to get into these schools. In fact, the whole graduate/post-graduate thing is still very nebulous and undefined, and in some sense, does not even seem attainable. Or, rather, I have no conception whatsoever as to what awaits me at the graduate stage, let alone can I truly conceive studying in a challenging environment like Harvard, say.

What the hell is it like? What choices do I need to make about my academic "career" to make it real?

The second problem: how in the name of God does anybody get the cash for a Masters or a PhD? How does one get the cash to study at one of these uUniversities? How does one get noticed for scholarships in one's field? Tuition at Harvard for 2 years - about 30 000$ US. Is this for real? And the students in Quebec are bitching about tuition that, for three years, will amount to a little less than 10 000$ CAN.

Basically - how does this all work out in the end?

With all this in mind, I realise that I need to speak to someone about all of this stuff, but I am not entirely sure with whom I need to address these concerns. How have others before me beeen able to do this? Who helped them? I suppose there must be someone at the university that can help me with this...

I guess, then, that I now begin the bureaucratic dance of scheduling appointments in order to be referred to other departments, and bounced like a pinball until I land in the right spot.

Я гавару русский? Well, not quite... not yet.

2005-10-02T15:45:00.000-04:00

Част первая - Part One

Invariably, the first question is "Why?" Because I like the sound of the language... yes, but no. It's because I want to be there! I want to go to Russia!

Do people not learn new languages for the love of culture? For the love of language? Of sight and sound? For love of travel... hmm.

Language I feel, is the most complete marker of culture, that distincly human phenomenon. Inherent in a langaue is a place and a time, an entire series of cultural practices and norm, or of human adaptations. Often, we take for granted our own "native" language (s). We don't realise how that langue defines our outlook: language is a "code" which we use to communicate, yes, but it also "codes" our experiences. Basically, it is a slippery medium which, when we come into contact with it either through reading or hearing, is already at least one step removed from the actual intent, from the actual experience.

Част вторая - Part Two

Learning a new language is like being in kindergarden all over again. Or perhaps grade school. it's a great learning experience, having to learn a new alphabet, a brand new form of handwriting or cursive script. it really underscores how much we take our own proficiency, in English or French, in my case, for granted.

Learning a new language is probably one of the most humbling experiences I have had. To be sitting in a room, unable to do even simple things like introduce yourself, or even, unless you are told, to read your own name!!!

In English: Eric Jean
In French: Éric Jean
In Russin: Эрик Ян

I think veerybody should be made to learn a new language as an adult. And it really doesn't matter which one; Russian, french, English, Japanses, Spanish, German... There are hundreds to choose from! I think that the world would benefit from such a mass humbling. And the linguistic compassion it might engender!!!

Not to mention, an increased awareness of our own linguistic imprisonment. And, often, thee are found in the little things. Just finding out that while there may be equivalencies for certain expressions in another language, that there is no literal translation - that says something about how this cultre, the language's regional culture, say, works out the concpet of "gratitide."

Част третья - Part Three

So, now I am learning (rudimentary) Russian. I hope to be able to read a news article from end to end by Mai of 2006. But, more significantly, I hope to be able to get along well enough to hopefully get over some elements fo fear and go live in Russia for a few months, though at this point, I would settle for 3-4 weeks! I was hoping to perhaps land a job teaching in Russia for a while, in order to be able to stay there somewhat long-term. Though again, it's always the struggle between the desire to get away, the real cost of travel, and my desire to finish school.

I have a very real fear of travelling, I think. I also feel there are two types of people: those who endlessly talk about travelling, and those who travel. I unfortunately, belong to the first, though I suspect I have an inkling about how to migrate from the former to the latter.

I think it's a fear (q.v.), born out of intimidation, misconconception and a lack of understanding of the true cost and conditions of world travel. And I feel that this aura is picked up on, and then carefully manipulated, by the airlines, perhpas, but mostly the travel agencies. a case of the middle-man understanding that without the artificially created "need" for mediation in organising travel, there would, in fact, be little need for these agencies.

So, I guess, to get back to "Why?" - to democratize the process of travel. To be able to say: "No, that's okay - I don't need you to contact people over there for me and put me on the tour bus: I can read the instructions myself, I can ask people where the hostel is, I can ask for the toilet - туалет - myself, thank you."

Also: round trip ticket from Montreal to Moscow, booked through Air Canada = 2200$CAN. Same trip, booked through Аерофлот, Russia's national carrier = 600$CAN.

Част четвертая - Part Four

Fear. Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say I am intimidated by the very idea that travel to these places, living there, is within my grasp, is within the possibilities available to me.

We romanticise travel, as an upper-class leisure activity. We don't the glamourize long-term cultural exchange and immersion, which is my goal.

suspect that we make travel seem harder than it is: people do it all the time, why can't I? I would love to go backpacking accross Russia, say, but I am grounded by my fear. I have the notion that reading up on travel, independant travel, will help me in this, but i often feel it goes deeper than that as well.

Maybe it is because I know no one who has done this. Perhaps talking about it would help, with someone who could give me an objective, non-patisan account, not of the places they have seen, but of HOW THE HELL THEY DID IT!!! HOW MUCH DID IT COST THEM!!! WHERE DID THEY GET THE MONEY???

In short - I know I want to go, but I don't know how. I have no plan. I'm not sure how to begin working on one, but I felt, mybe, perhaps, learning russian might, in some way, help motivate me. it's not even the ability to speak, almost, it's just trying to give myself a shove out the door, and onto a plane!

It's all very terrifyingly nebulous. I have a destination, but I feel I have no way to get there. I have a fear, more importantly, that will NEVER get there.

And THAT is a disheartening thought, one I am still uncertain how to address...

P.S.: The above picture looks to my like a student pass, or a student ID perhpas. I have no idea who the guy in the pic is.

Making something of oneself

2005-09-29T04:18:00.000-04:00

How does one construct a self?

1996: I want to teach English, or something.
outcome: nothing.
1997: fail out of CEGEP
1997: Get back in.
1998: fail out of CEGEP.
1998: Get back in. Stop going - money.
2000: Go to university.
2001: Fail out of university.
2004: Go back to university.
2005: I want to teach English.
outcome: something, credits, new books.
Still nothing.
Stubborn? Character?

Re: Making something of oneself?

Oneself is a work in progress, undefined. If you don't do anything about it, you will remain that way.

It's not like steel - we don't keep our shapes when we cool. Or rather, we might once we've stiffened, but what does that help?

Oneself is like ice - sculpt it, leave it in the sun. Freeze it again. Scultp again, forget it in the sun.
Start over. But evaporation takes a toll.

Re: Art. Making something new. Creation. We pick the building blocks.

Words don't melt.
Or, words don't melt so quickly.

Write myself, then.
And say what? What?

Edit.
No... start over.

Here's what you can expect to see if you follow for the next while, though hopefully, in somewhat more coherent form at times: faulty sentences for incomplete thoughts.

In short, the rough draft(s) of a work in progress.
So don't mind the introduction.

---

Men at Forty (by Donald Justice)

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it
Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices tying
His father's tie there in secret

And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Somthing is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound
Of crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
behind their mortgaged houses.