Acoustic Dylan and Site News

GP is tackling serious stuff. The kind that I won’t touch for fear of making too many enemies.

-c has added a blogroll and writes about football.

The Ambassador hasn’t done anything since our lurker in South Carolina freaked her out.

Yours truly has his second column up at Faster Than the World (hint) and is waiting for Michele to get sick of him.

I just realized that over a week has passed without a police blotter post. That must be remedied. Oh, wait, it can’t. There is no blotter up on the local paper’s website. Well, I am certainly not going to actually go out and buy a freaking newspaper. Not even the Daily Nexus has a blotter report on their page. It isn’t like I’d go get one of those either, considering that I can only procrastinate so much before flunking out of school. Go, click links. It’s what the Internet was made for. Here’s some Dylan.

More Electric Dylan

Five days in LA with the family was enough to remind me how nice life is, and coming back home was icing on the cake. I have, as of today, finished all four presentations in my very first quarter as a graduate student and still without a nervous breakdown. Two weeks to go and two papers to write, then I can officially feel like part of the new community. So here’s some Dylan from 1976 because I’m in a pretty good mood. Let’s see how long it stays up.

The Horse Isn’t Dead, But…

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and happy Thursday to my Canadian one. Since I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, I have decided to make a Thanksgiving resolution: Get some homework done before going to Grandma’s tonight.

I’ve been de-virginized over at Faster Than the World, so go check out the column. It’ll be familiar to some, new to others. While you’re at it, check out the others as well because they’re funnier than me, which drives me nuts but serves as an inspiration. Like an older sibling who gets better grades and/or more action. Enjoy the rest of the day and watch out for the kooks on the highways.

Pre-Thanksgiving Police Blotter Post

I found myself so swamped with homework a few days ago that I told everyone to not bother looking for new content here and directed you all to Faster Than the World. Well, it looks like I might now be a regular contributor over there. Can’t very well turn down an offer to write among those who I admire, now can I? So, I guess this means a new deadline and no more drinking on weeknights. If everything goes as planned my first entry should be up on Turkey Day. As the wise ones say, no good deed goes unpunished.

This post was going to be a public domain image, but either WordPress or my computer is acting funny so it’s a blotter post instead. The blotter isn’t too interesting today, but this item is kind of amusing:

A handful of females fighting in Isla Vista, including an 18-year-old cosmetology student wearing “platform shoes,” were quickly subdued with a blast from a can of pepper spray.
The brawlers were arrested for unlawful fighting and challenging others to fight.

I’m not sure what exactly constitutes “unlawful” versus “lawful” fighting. I can say, though, that I hope someone captured that on video and is currently plastering it all over YouTube.

Placeholder Post

Blogging will be very light for at least a week. I suddenly realized how much homework I have to do and so all writing energy will be concentrated elsewhere. (GP: I’ll try to pick up the conversation where we left off.)

In the meantime, check out Faster Than the World if you haven’t already. They’re in the sidebar as well. It’s an excellent site and I have wasted entirely too much time over there. Not only that, but I discovered The Dresden Dolls there, also highly recommended if you don’t know them.

Go, my five or so loyal minions! I command you!

The out-of-Towners Can’t Hold Their Liquor

It’s Tuesday again, and that brings out the crime blotter. Suddenly the blotter and I are back on good terms after my disappointment with the lack of post-Halloween horror stories. Police blotter, allow me to formally apologize and offer my mended heart back to you.

Normally I’m a stubborn kind of fellow and wouldn’t dream of taking back a wayward lover, but the blotter has brought me not one but two fine gifts this week:

An ill 18-year-old found passed-out in an Isla Vista park tried to blame his nausea on a peanut allergy. However, when law enforcement attempted to get emergency medical crews to the scene, the vomiting man changed his story.

“No, I didn’t really eat peanuts,” he confessed. “I had too many shots (of alcohol) in a row.”
No longer needing paramedic assistance, the 18-year-old student from the University of Southern California, unable to care for himself, was arrested for public intoxication.

I knew the damn Trojans were a bunch of wimps. Don’t let the football fool you. One too many shots and they’re faking allergies to the police. Man up, boy! You’re drunk. If you are going to get yourself arrested for public intoxication at least act like a complete asshole. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Second item on the agenda:

After scaling a wall to a second-story balcony, the unknown male entered an upstairs apartment through a set of French doors, alarming the only resident home at the time. The victim told deputies she was sitting at her desk in her Isla Vista bedroom when the young man described as “cute,” poked his head around the corner.

Stating he was looking for a friend, the well-dressed slender man “with spiked hair,” quickly left the scene the same way he’d entered.

Funny, I did something similar earlier this year. But I was sober, I swear, and I only knocked on the wrong person’s door. It was dark. No Spiderman attempts here. The drunkards in this area are lucky that there is a fairly low redneck count. Otherwise I suspect there would be far more shootings. 

If Anyone Cares to Weigh In

The two posts that receive the most hits from search engines here are the one on Audition and the one on Francesca Woodman. Searches of the former usually have something to do with plot or characters while searches of the latter usually have something to do with Woodman’s suicide and mental illness. When I wrote the piece on Francesca Woodman I tried to play down her violent death, because that’s just something we generally do when dealing with an artist who commits suicide. My issue is that I am beginning to wonder why we do this and to what degree that sort of thing influences a reading of an artist’s work.

In studying Renaissance literature we now pay a lot of attention to biography and politics of the period, thanks to the so-called New Historicists (who are getting very old as we speak.) There are heavily end-noted and indexed lives of Shakespeare, John Milton and Andrew Marvell, just to name three. The biographers dive into every possible motivation behind a particular work at each stage of the author’s life, whether the motivation owes perhaps to politics, personal tragedy, friendships, patronage, etc.

Now, when dealing with someone like Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf in literary criticism we generally shy away from this seemingly crucial part of an author’s biography. Oddly, though, I think that anyone who is not ignorant of the final event in the author’s life would take the issue of suicide into account. Undergrads are usually curious about this sort of thing but professors politely squash questions about it. “Yes, Hemingway shot himself, but don’t think about that.”

I understand the impulse to disassociate the author’s death from the author’s work. If I was teaching  Mrs. Dalloway I probably would not want to field too many questions relating Septimus Smith to Virginia Woolf. That could easily become tedious and perhaps take away from the importance of the novel. On the other hand, if critics and scholars are all so eager to historicize everything, why leave this part out?

My real point, though, is a different question: How much can we “read” something like suicide into an author’s or artist’s work? Can we see it about to happen, if even only in retrospect? Finally, is it fair to look at art this way?

In case anyone has an opinion I’d be curious to know your thoughts.

It’s My Weblog and I’ll Post What I Want To…

One of two poems by Ezra Pound that I can stand:

Cino

Italian Campagna 1309, the open road

Bah! I have sung women in three cities,
But it is all the same;
And I will sing of the sun.

Lips, words, and you snare them,
Dreams, words, and they are as jewels,
Strange spells of old deity,
Ravens, nights, allurement:
And they are not;
Having become the souls of song.

Eyes, dreams, lips, and the night goes.
Being upon the road once more,
They are not.
Forgetful in their towers of our tuneing
Once for wind-runeing
They dream us-toward and
Sighing, say, “Would Cino,
Passionate Cino, of the wrinkling eyes,
Gay Cino, of quick laughter,
Cino, of the dare, the jibe.
Frail Cino, strongest of his tribe
That tramp old ways beneath the sun-light,
Would Cino of the Luth were here!”

Once, twice a year—
Vaguely thus word they:

“Cino?” “Oh, eh, Cino Polnesi
The singer is’t you mean?”
“Ah yes, passed once our way,
A saucy fellow, but . . .
(Oh they are all one these vagabonds),
Peste! ’tis his own songs?
Or some other’s that he sings?
But *you*, My Lord, how with your city?”

My you “My Lord,” God’s pity!
And all I knew were out, My Lord, you
Were Lack-land Cino, e’en as I am,
O Sinistro.

I have sung women in three cities.
But it is all one.
I will sing of the sun.
. . . eh? . . . they mostly had grey eyes,
But it is all one, I will sing of the sun.

“‘Pollo Phoibee, old tin pan, you
Glory to Zeus’ aegis-day,
Shield o’ steel-blue, th’ heaven o’er us
Hath for boss thy lustre gay!’                                                                                                                    Pollo Phoibee, to our way-fare
Make thy laugh our wander-lied;
Bid thy ‘flugence bear away care.
Cloud and rain-tears pass they fleet!

Seeking e’er the new-laid rast-way
To the gardens of the sun . . .

***

I have sung women in theree cities
But it is all one.
I will sing of the white birds
In the blue waters of heaven,
The clouds that are spray to its sea.”

Could This Be the End?

I just killed off the blogroll today and it feels great. The only people to whom I will link on the front page are those who actually comment here. I might just stop reading those blogs I formerly linked to altogether. I can’t say I have yet, but I am weaning myself off of them.

I hope (but doubt) that yesterday did to the political weblog what 2004 did to a certain fat guy from Michigan and a certain online San Francisco based cult. My side lost the election due to their own incompetence, which quite honestly would have happened with or without weblogs. Reading the comments on conservative and right-wing weblogs last night was a lot like reading the comments on liberal and left-wing weblogs two years ago. “I voted…Why did we lose?” Dude, because you and those in your echo chamber were not representative of the majority of the voters this time. Tough shit.

Charles Johnson and Rusty Shackleford have been good at uncovering blatantly stupid mistakes made by the mainstream media, but that is really all they have done. Hopefully they’ll keep doing it. “Screw Them” Moulitsas won a primary and lost the one election that he depended on for real clout. Congratulations. I’m sure he’ll get some undeserved recognition for pulling out the vote. Glenn Reynolds will continue to write posts consisting of “Heh.”

Please let this be the death knell of the political bloggers. We need the Internet bubble to burst again and force everyone to find real jobs. 

Quick Update: I just got rid of an old post that has been getting me unwanted traffic for over a month. This is sweet!

Public Domain Picture of the Week

In honor of myself for finishing another presentation, here’s an illustration of Paradise Lost by Gustave Doré. I think it’s Satan addressing the fallen angels.

Happy Monday/Tuesday to all. Perhaps this will become a regular feature. Yes, I am really that uninspired.