monoceros blogs?We are each the love of someone?s life,? observes Max Tivoli of The Confessions of Max Tivoli.
Spoilers ahead:
Max Tivoli, the man whose body ages in reverse, loved one woman all his life. In turn, she loved one man too - not Max - though she never married him. In the twilight of her years, she meets him once again. Just once. And when she sees him, her hand flies to her heart. Max watches as his beloved's startled gaze settles on a man who isn't him. It's a painful moment.
?We are each the love of someone?s life.?
The book is full of unrequited love. Each tragic character going through life and marriage without fulfilling his desire for that one person.
Another bitterly realistic story is Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle, a beautiful book that young girls should read. Dodie Smith wrote this novel before she wrote 101 Dalmations and I love it more than most coming-of-age novels. She doesn't give you a contrived happy ending and Cassandra, the protagonist, is smart, naive, kind, fearful but eager to love, and has her emotions hopelessly tumbled and tested. In the book, it's clear we can't always choose the ones we love, nor do we always win them. Love is a murderous thing, Cassandra tells us. In the DVD, a movie by BBC, the final scene shows her writing the last page of her journal. "I love. I have loved. I will love." It's a sad moment, but one brimming with hope and possibility.
Both Max and Cassandra repeatedly dream of loves that will never surface. And I found the perfect poem that captures their pain:
Summer Storm
We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.
We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.
The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.
To my surprise, you took my arm -
A gesture you didn't explain -
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.
Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.
I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn't speak another word
Except to say goodnight.
Why does that evening's memory
Return with this night's storm -
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?
There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won't stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.
And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.
~ by Dana Gioia
Last evening, Peiming had her first of three recitals for the semester. I'd have to say my favorite was Camille Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103. Peiming was accompanied by a 35-piece orchestra, which was brilliant on the ears and eyes. The music was by turns lyrical and rousing and my heart certainly rose in line with the ascending notes on the piano and violins. A few of our friends were among the players; Noella was lead cello and Lim Jia played in the trumpet section. No tuba for this work, so Jake was part of the audience this time. He'd just returned from a conference in D.C. where he purchased a new tuba which he let me try playing after the performance. Needless to say my diaphragm was too weak to produce a nice brassy sound on the tuba. I barely managed two toots and that was it.
A nice spread of food courtesy of Peiming's aunt and uncle, who drove down with their children from Buffalo, New York that day and were driving back after the recital. Her uncle was in computer science before picking up theology and is now a pastor at a Chinese Christian church. Very nice people. I picked up the sushi from Saica which was slow in the making and then worked on putting little eclairs and cream puffs on silver trays. A few pieces disappeared, of course.
Although I hadn't planned to stay long, I was one of the last to leave, having indulged in conversation with old friends I haven't seen in a month. Noella, Leslie and I talked wedding, even deciding to make a trip to Chicago during spring break for Noella to find her dress. I've also promised to find a sea-themed poem for their wedding card. Yew Hoe related how he wouldn't be headed to Shanghai after all. And Boon and Isabel had to witness my painful stint with the tuba.
A delightful evening with music and friends, and now I'm back to work. I hope I can manage. Too many eclairs.
I just discovered another little gem of a novel. Some time ago, I raved about Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, and if anyone out there read and liked it, the next book to read is The Confessions of Max Tivoli, another unusual and lovely tale about a man with a great love that is tested by his peculiar physical being. Max Tivoli is born looking like an old man, and his curse (or gift) is to become younger as his mind and soul age. At the age of seventeen, trapped in the body of a fifty-three year-old man, he meets and falls in love with a fourteen year-old girl named Alice. In the proceeding years, he is given three chances to win her heart because at each encounter, she fails to recognize him. The novel is set in 19th and early 20th century San Franciso, a terrific setting (I'm biased, of course) for a love story.
What a time to have discovered a new book when I have so many other materials that I am required to read. I'll have to save this for March. Maybe.
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your voyage is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
~ by Constantine Cavafy
Before I set off to Italy in 2000, I attended a session for the students studying abroad that year. A wonderful professor read us two poems. One of them stayed with me long years after. I heard "Ithaka" read aloud once again this past week in my travel writing class. Few things make me happier than the resuracing of a beloved song, scent, or poem.
Apart from writing, reading, obsessing about music and my deadlines, I also like fiddling around with figures and figurines. A success story back home, Stikfas clinched a deal with Hasbro and out came a slew of products.
Here's what I do with mine -
Note: a l is a fan too and now we have another thing to compare notes on. It's rather funny how our virtual friendship began with a little soundtrack for a movie called Il Mare.
So all that snow made the air really cold, and the White Rabbit got really weak. Her car battery, that is. It went dead actually. After the Brewer's guy came to jump-start my car I had to drive it for half an hour to charge it. I took a nice and easy drive to my friend Michelle's place. After that, I didn't want to go back yet so I drove onto Nixon and turnd onto another side of Green Road where I discovered some pretty apartment complexes. I think they may be under the name Chapel Hill? I'll have to return and explore one day.
Then, I got back onto Nixon and drove the other way down. On my left were large open spaces and seven deer in a snow-covered field. Since the long road was empty, I had to stop and stare. They were beautiful creatures, some standing still in the pale evening light, one grazing, yet another moving gracefully across the field. Further on, I passed by small farms and more beautiful vistas. The sun was setting and the sky above the treeline was suffused with pink, then violet, and finally when the eye reached the dome of heaven, a deep wash of china blue.
I have to go back with my camera again. This certainly was one of the loveliest drives I ever had.
Not Only the Eskimos
We have only one noun
but as many different kinds:
the grainy snow of the Puritans
and snow of soft, fat flakes,
guerrilla snow, which comes in the night
and changes the world by morning,
rabbinical snow, a permanent skullcap
on the highest mountains,
snow that blows in like the Lone Ranger,
riding hard from out of the West,
surreal snow in the Dakotas,
when you can't find your house, your street,
though you are not in a dream
or a science-fiction movie,
snow that tastes good to the sun
when it licks black tree limbs,
leaving us only one white stripe,
a replica of a skunk,
unbelievable snows:
the blizzard that strikes on the tenth of April,
the false snow before Indian summer
the Big Snow on Mozart's birthday,
when Chicago became the Elysian Fields
and strangers spoke to each other,
paper snow, cut and taped
to the inside of grade-school windows,
in an old tale, the snow
that covers a nest of strawberries,
small hearts, ripe and sweet,
the special snow that goes with Christmas,
whether it falls or not,
the Russian snow we remember
along with the warmth and smell of our furs,
though we have never traveled
to Russia or worn furs,
Villon's snows of yesteryear,
lost with ladies gone out like matches,
the snow in Joyce's "The Dead,"
the silent, secret snow
in a story by Conrad Aiken,
which is the snow of first love,
the snowfall between the child
and the spacewoman on TV,
snow as idea of whiteness,
as in snowdrop, snow goose, snowball bush,
the snow that puts stars in your hair,
and your hair, which has turned to snow,
the snow Elinor Wylie walked in
in velvet shoes,
the snow before her footprints
and the snow after,
the snow in the back of our heads,
whiter than white, which has to do
with childhood again each year.
~ by Lisel Mueller
I just watched the trailer for Tim Burton's stop motion animated film Corpse Bride, and it's hilarious. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Emily Watson lend their voices to the lead characters. Even the lead guy, Victor, looks a little like Mr. Depp with that floppy lock of black hair.
The movie is based on a Russian folktale which you can read here. It's a good story. Sad, but good.
My favorite moments in the trailer - when Victor's fiancee finishes his sentence for him..."married," and when Victor addresses a skeletal dog, and says in a very endearing voice, "Play dead." Gotta love that bumbling groom-to-be.
Oh, and McFarlane is doing the figures for the show. Spawn is just great with figures.
I've also been watching the trailer for Bride and Prejudice. Aishwarya Rai is just luminous, and LK is smitten. We're hoping the film will open in the US the week he visits.
For my part, I seem to be smitten with Ioan Gruffudd, who will play Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. The movie Fantastic Four looks promising in the trailer, but I won't keep my hopes too high. Not sure about Jessica Alba as Susan Storm. And anyone who mistakenly assumes that the powers of the Fantastic Four resemble those of the Incredibles' should be aware that it's the other way round.
It's stopped snowing, and after finishing a revision of one story, I decided to go out for a bit. I bundled up ? thermal shirt, fleece zip-up sweater, Nautica parka, tights, my trusty ski pants, Saloman gortex boots.
I was incredibly excited. I stepped out and checked on the White Rabbit, which had a thick - very thick - layer of snow on the roof, and banks of snow surrounding it. I went round the building to the little field between the four apartment blocks. Outside my window, the snow was certainly more than two feet, the wind blew quite a bit of the powdery snow and added to the pile. The snow was mid-calf deep along the walkways and in the field itself, I was knee-deep in it.
I trudged in the snow all across the field, and it was really delightful. I stomped, I jumped, I yelped in joy. Okay, maybe I didn't do the last one, but if any of my neighbors had looked out of their windows, they'd have seen a very happy and crazy girl dragging herself in circles round the field. I ruined the pristine landscape, my big boots making deep holes in the snow. I wanted to lie down and make a snow angel, but with snow that thick, lying down would probably just cause the snow to collapse all over me.
The sky was clear by then. So clear that the moon shone out and a few stars joined it in its path across the sky. I could hear the occasional car going by (I bet those roads must be a mess), and I could hear and feel the wind blowing through the trees and blowing fine snow and altering the slopes and falls of the snowscape. I bent down and looked at the top layer of snow - very much like the sands of dunes that drift in the wind.
I wish I could have stayed out longer and romped in the snow, but I had work to do, so I dragged myself back to my apartment, and settled in for the night. I was glad I made that little memory, perhaps one of the last ones I'll have of a wintry Michigan night.
December Moon
Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.
Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.
Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?
How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.
~ by May Sarton
I stole the title for this entry from The Weather Channel, which I've been watching for the past half hour.
Ann Arbor is now under the warning, "Snow Condition Yellow," upgraded from a travel advisory. This is the highest snowfall thus far for the season. It's a good thing it's happening on a Saturday and most people don't have to worry about getting to work or school. I stayed home all day, forgoing the library sale, and trying to get work done. The snow is falling and falling.
Here are some snowfall estimates courtesy of The Weather Channel.
Boston - 15-25 inches
New York ? 12-18 inches
Southern New England ? 2 feet of snow
Ann Arbor ? 9-15 inches
In Chicago, winds (or rather, gusts) of 50 to 60 miles per hour caused a rather large pileup on the highway. And at the O'Hare Airport, 700 of 2000 flights today were cancelled. With the windchill, it's way below 0 degrees F there. Even The Weather Channel rep speakng from Chicago said he was going to get out of the snow because his nose was beginning to sting, the first sign of frostbite.
I have several Moleskine notebooks - a daily planner, a book for ideas, and one for poems (from my bouncy friend at overacuppa). Famous oilcloth-bound notebooks with an elastic band. I discovered them when I was a student in Florence and I got my supply from a little store that sold delightful things like marbled paper, brass seals, and colored wax sticks. I found them also in the U.N. Building in New York City, and recently, in the Borders store in Ann Arbor.
Bruce Chatwin, among other famous writers and artists (see the website for a list, and also explore the link "Stories" - some people have put delightful things in their notebooks), brought them with him on his travels. Sadly, they stopped making the notebooks, as Chatwin notes in Songlines. Legend has it that he emptied a shop (or all shops?!) in Paris of Moleskine notebooks (he ordered a hundred of them for his journey to Australia) - "Le vrai moleskine n?est plus" would have been the reply of the stationery shop's owner if you wanted to buy a Moleskine at the time.
Thankfully, they're making them again. Modo and Modo, an Italian company, are the nice folks behind the revival, and I'm really pleased I can still buy them. I wonder if they're available in Singapore. I'll certainly miss using Moleskines if they don't stock them back home. And here's my daily planner (my ideas notebook is bound in blue fabric) with the traditional black cloth.
And that's my little Stikfas friend, just newly put together, who was designed and made in Singapore. More on Stikfas in another entry!
Sad melody, even sadder lyrics. I'm a sucker for such stuff. At some point in our lives, we all could play this song and think, she's singing my lines.
Sheila Nicholls's "Fallen For You"
~ from the movie High Fidelity
Fallen for you.
Did you ever see me
Watching from periphery?
I was playing another game,
I hoped you catch on all the same.
Fallen from view.
Did you ever touch me,
Floating through your potpourri?
I thought I felt your fingers once
After waiting all these months.
But I was wrong, so wrong.
That was just another song
You wrote for another girl.
And I hoped the day could be
When you'd write a song for me.
But it never came.
I thank you all the same,
But I'll go now, so you won't know how much I've
Fallen for you.
Boy who's trying to be a man,
Boy who don't know if he can.
I thought I knew you well enough
But your walls are still too tough.
But I was wrong, so wrong
That was just another song
You wrote for another girl.
And I hoped the day could be
When you'd write a song for me.
But it never came.
I thank you all the same,
But I'll go now, so you won't know how much I
Thought about you all the time,
Walking round the Guggenheim.
Like a rhyme in my mind,
There you are in my car,
But we don't drive very far
To the beach, out of reach,
Next to me... my fantasy.
Fallen for you
Did you ever see me,
Watching from periphery?
I was playing another game
I hoped you catch on all the same.
I finished Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa and am now starting Bruce Chatwin's Songlines, something my old boss recommended a long time ago. I even have the little post-it with his chicken scratching on it - Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. Five chapters in, and it's very, very good.
A little note - Chatwin mentions his notebooks, which were bound in oilcloth, and which he could get only in Paris. And I know precisely what kind he's talking about. Moleskine! More on Moleskine in another entry.
Out of Africa was the first piece of literature to bring Africa to the European world. Interstingly, Dinesen (who's really Baroness Karen Von Blixen) kept much of herself out of the memoir. We never know what she looks like; we never learn of her marriage or of her affair with an Englishman. She writes only of Africa, the land and its people. And she certainly knew how to ride and shoot. She shot lions, by the way. And she had a resident gazelle who came and went as she pleased. Lulu was her name. Another intersting animal - a parrot who quoted Sappho. An old Danish sailor told the baroness about an old Chinese prostitue he met in Singapore who received this parrot from her lover before he left her. And it was the Danish sailor who finally interpreted for her the Greek words that the parrot said over and over all those years.
I'll certainly be reading more of Isak Dinesen's life and works. She writes splendidly. Next up is Winter's Tales. One thing I love about teaching and taking classes is the exposure to wonderful books. They're more than I can read at this time, but then I have a lifetime to do so. My list is long, long, long.
I won't be presenting Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams after all, but I'll be doing Mary Lee Settle's Turkish Reflections. Someone else wanted to do Arctic Dreams very badly, and since I had been eyeing Turkey, I gave up my hold on the Arctic.
In the space of two weeks - when I should have been hurriedly revising my thesis - I have been planning two rather large projects. Inspiration has struck at the wrong time. I have two pages full of notes for a novella, which may not be completed in time for my thesis although my advisor believes it could be the hinge story for my collection of short fiction.
Today, I was doing some research on travel-writing when a little seed took residence. In one hour, I completed two pages of notes...for a novel this time, something which I hadn't planned to attempt until I finished the program. But this may be a good thing, since I need to go to a part of Michigan for some exploration. And possibly Montreal. I might as well do that side of the research while I'm still in North America. I hope LK's up for a road trip or two.
A novel! I'm not sure I'm up to the task, but it's pretty exciting. I feel rather torn now. Should I go home to Singapore or should I hope for a job/fellowship that will let me stay here while I write and research?
Update: I now have four pages of notes. Now to get down to writing that shitty first draft!
It's been an interesting time for a few of my friends. One has taken the plunge and entered a relationship; another got into a relationship and was swiftly and cruelly pushed out of it; and yet another, who has been in an on-off and long-distance relationship for some seven years, was welcomed back warmly for a few days before being told that someone else was going to take his place after all.
Love isn't just about emotions, it's also about shifts in the balance of power. The power to bring joy and to also destroy. Expectations, disappointment, secrets, pride, vulnerability, sex, lies, and videotapes. (Okay, scratch the last one.) I'd need several hundred entries in this weblog to even begin to chart the movement of love. Could one ever write it all down? A book, a painting, a composition titled "Love: A Symphony in Infinite movements"? It's the stuff of songs, movies, novels, poetry, art, gossip, history, deaths. Everyone encounters it in some form and everyone gets to experience both sides of the spectrum at least a few times - from happiness to devastation (which can sometimes happen in the space of two minutes.)
Love's a frightening thing, both beautiful and terrible. And I'm running into cliches now, so I should stop here. One last thing. Or two things. The first (another cliche! Yay!) - to love and to be hurt is what it means to be human, a sad beauty of our existence. The second - a poem that champions love. Composed so very poignantly by a favorite fellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who I discovered on the shores of Lake Winnepesauke many summers ago.
Give All To Love
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse;
Nothing refuse.
'Tis a brave master,
Let it have scope,
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope;
High and more high,
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But 'tis a god,
Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
'Tis not for the mean,
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending;
Such 'twill reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.
Leave all for love;?
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise,
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho' her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
~ by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Both these titles are English translations of the originals. La Finestra di Fronte is an Italian film and Xin Dong, a Taiwanese/Hong Kong one. (I have to resort to hanyu pinyin since I don't have Chinese script on my computer).
Both these films have theme songs set to pop music that instead of coming across as cheesy, work really well for the movies.
I won't list the lyrics but the gist of the Chinese song is about remembering a love from the past and wondering where he or she is now. It goes roughly like this: He lives only in my heart now, and his memory accompanies each breath I take (which sounds like another song, but I'm going to ignore this; the song really is a lot nicer in Mandarin). What else: the pain of not being able to recall his smell, his voice. Hmm, maybe someone else should be doing the translation. I think I'll have to ask LK to help me out. Thank goodness I married a fellow whose Mandarin far surpasses my own.
The movie is a terrible (as in too effective) tearjerker, starring Gigi Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro. And I got suckered into watching it after my godsister and FatGirl said it was one of their favorite films. The airport scene at the end really broke my heart.
The English title for La Finestra di Fronte is Facing Windows, and the film has a nice subplot about two neighbors with facing windows, played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno (her last name literally means mid-day) and Raoul Bova. Raoul Bova, I repeat! Even with those Clark Kent glasses, he is a dream. Then again, so is Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who really lights up the screen with her face. Those eyes, that hair. To continue, the main plot is about Giovanna's friendship with a strange old man her husband finds wandering the streets of downtown Rome. That story is the more compelling one. The one with Raoul Bova, (again) is a heartbreaker, but less interesting.
Anyhoo, I really like the soundtrack for the film, composed by Andrea Guerra. It has an old Spanish tune, "Historia De Un Amor" or "story of a love," and a terrific end credits track, "Gocce di Memoria," which means "drops of memory." The English titles sound really corny, but the songs are great. I wish I could offer a link, but there weren't any I could find.
Movement III of Jonathan Elias's The Prayer Cycle is featured on the trailer of Kingdom of Heaven, and it's great. Moving, haunting, all the good things to be expected of choral music. An unusual ensemble of guest singers - Alanis Morrissette, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor. But the one voice that stands out belongs to a young male (who sadly remains unnamed) whose vocal chords remind me slightly of Ben del Maestro's. Ben del Maestro can be heard on the soundtrack of The Fellowship of the Ring and the other two titles in the trilogy.
In the mean time, I've also been listening to the Children of Dune soundtrack. It's been a week and I haven't taken it out from the player. I'm even tempted to hunt down the dvd to watch the montage scene, the very one in which the song, Inama Nushif, is playing.
But, I have some writing to get done. And 372 pages to read this weekend - Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa. I could just watch the movie, but that'd be cheating.
The travel writing class I'm taking requires each of us to present and review a book from a list made up by the professor, Nick. I've narrowed my choices to a handful, which include Frances Mayes' Under a Tuscan Sun, Mary Lee Settle's Turkish Reflections, D.H. Lawrence's Sea and Sardinia, and Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. Ever since I made my first trip to Europe, which began with Istanbul, I've been particularly fascinated with the city that straddles both Asia and Europe. Barry Lopez's works have also been on my books-I-need-to-read list. So I'm torn between Turkish Reflections and Arctic Dreams.
Today, I noticed a link on the university's website to an exhibit featuring photos of the Arctic landscape. They're taken by a photographer named Subhankar Banerjee, who was a physicist before becoming a photographer. If you check out his site, be sure to read about his projects which concern the preservation of the environment, especially that of the Arctic. The draw, of course, is the site's gallery of photographs, which are splendid and accompanied by wonderful quotes. Even Barry Lopez has something good to say about Banerjee's work.
Looks like I may pick up Lopez's book after all, although it is 496 pages long. The Arctic or Turkey? Hmm... .
Sheekjek Valley by Subhankar Banerjee
Very foggy today. I stepped out to collect some things from the rental office and I couldn't see the retirement home across the street. It was incredibly surreal and I loved the scene. My camera batteries are kaput, so I couldn't take a picture. I hope the drivers on the roads are extra careful though. Visibility is less than a mile. There's also a flood watch since the rising temperatures are melting most of the snow that fell over the past few days.
I'm nursing a cold, and to cheer myself up, I decided to draw up the game plan for my writing marathon this semester:
- 1 introduction for a visiting author
- 40 pages of travel writing
- 1 book review (6 pages) for my travel writing class
- Polish 140 pages of prose for my thesis, part of which still needs to be written
- Polish 30-35 pages of creative non-fiction
- Polish 70 pages of a play
We'll see how much of this I can actually accomplish. In the mean time, the snow is changing to rain, and then to fog, and then back to snow.
Mood at present: The pits. (And I'm sure everyone has heard by now about the Pitts, who're probably in the pits themselves; or at least one of them is.)
Note to self: write less corny entries in the future.
Country of Origin is probably one of the few novels I'll get to read for pleasure this semester; the bulk of my reading will be for school, although I'm sure some of the books will be terrific.
Don Lee is the editor of Ploughshares, esteemed literary journal in the US. He's also the author of acclaimed short story collection Yellow. I read several of his short stories and have recently completed the novel, which was an excellent read. Part mystery, part literary fiction - my kind of book. Compelling elements set against the backdrop of Japan in the 80s - a little speeding incident; deception; death; missing persons; spooks (aka CIA agents); exclusive lounges in Japan with a couple of gaijin hostesses.
I picked up the novel from the library on Monday and finished it on Saturday night. Looks like I might be able to get that introduction for him done soon.
One of my favorite past-times as a kid was to sit beside my brother as he played PC games. I eventually played several of those games myself - 7th Guest, Leisure Suit Larry. But most days, I would just watch him play. One of those games was based on Dune, the world that Frank Herbert created in a series of books. In the computer game - a strategy one - my brother would build cities and monitor the spice flow. My sole task was to alert him of the great Worm that appeared every now and then, and off he'd go, rescuing his buildings and the people of Dune.
It was noob who got me hooked on the song "Inama Nushif," written in Fremen, the native language in Dune, by Brian Tyler. The young composer's dedication led him to plough through Herbert's novels so that he could learn enough of the language to put lyrics to one of the 174 tracks that he'd written and recorded in six weeks. The result of those six weeks is a startingly majestic TV mini-series score that is available on CD. Alas, it contains only 36 of those original cues.
So noob had (or still has?) the song on repeat mode in his car (a neat feature to have), while I recently got hold of the rest of the score. I put it on the Ipod, brought it with me to the Commons on Friday night, where I read Don Lee's novel Country of Origin while listening to the entire score. Didn't even have to skip a track. It's that good.
Tyler has scored some other films; he started small and then he got bigger jobs. His latest project is the film, Constantine. Children of Dune has really impressed me. I listen to it before going to school - the music gets me into the right mood. Very rousing.
Inama Nushif
Inama nushif (She is Eternal)
Al-asir hiy ayish (No malice can touch)
Lia-anni (Singular and ageless)
Zaratha zarati (Perpetually bound)
Hatt al-hudad (Through the tempest)
Al-maahn al-baiid (be it deluge or sand)
Ay-yah idare (A singular voice)
Adamm malum (speaks through the torrent)
Hatt al-hudad (Through the tempest)
Al-maahn al-baiid (be it deluge or sand)
Ay-yah idare (A singular voice)
Adamm malum (speaks through the torrent)
Inama nishuf al a sadarr (Forever her voice sings)
Eann zaratha zarati (through the ages eternally bound)
Kali bakka a tishuf ahatt (Sacrifice is her gift)
Al hudad alman dali (one that cannot be equaled)
Inama nishuf al a sadarr (Forever her voice sings)
Eann zaratha zarati (through the ages eternally bound)
Kali bakka a tishuf ahatt (Sacrifice is her gift)
Al hudad alman dali alia (that Alia will one day equal)
Inama nushif (She is eternal)
Al-asir hiy ayish (No malice can touch)
Lia-anni (Singular and ageless)
Zaratha zarati (Perpetually bound)
My brain sure is addled by stress and exhaustion. I'm glad the day is over - my first day of the term actually. First day of the final term.
Nerves were shot. Some eczema on the mouth. Lots of snow; I wore my boots to school and forgot to bring an extra pair of shoes for teaching.
The weekend is here again. Prep work, reading, writing. Maybe an organ recital tonight. My plate is full as usual.
I finally understand what it's like when folks call you up only when they need you to do something. Hmm, am I getting cynical and selfish? Perhaps. I'm getting older and busier and more guarded with my time. Bah, maybe I do the same to people too and don't realize it. Okay, I'll just shut up now. I shall be as The Giving Tree.
Will rest now.
These are the shadowboxes I got from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. To hang in the bathrooms, of course.
Finished fiddling about with the syllabus. I need to proofread it, of course. Oh, the mortification I experienced as I read aloud my syllabus last year and spotted a grievous typo. In fact, several times during the semester, as I read aloud some handout I'd written, I would spot some horrific mistake and inadvertently exclaim "Bugger!" in the middle of a sentence.
And on the eve of the first day of winter term, we have a storm warning. By Thursday afternoon, we should have some 9 inches of snow. It begins 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday.
Friendster.com is a strange place to visit. You secretly check up on people you haven't seen in a long while. You don't really want to meet all of them; you just want to know what they've been up to. It's strange to see how some folks are married or have become parents. I find it hard to imagine certain people married. Oh wait, people find it hard to imagine me married. Then again, most of us are of the marrying age, although I remember so many people as secondary school girls or JC-going 17-year-olds.
What a silly post. I'm going back to the syllabus.
Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday.
I haven't written much - thesis or weblog - these days since I'm bursting my head putting the syllabus together. The reading list is complete and I dropped off the coursepack materials today. Apart from this, I'm not quite ready for school to start up again.
To de-stress, I've been watching the first few episodes of Wolf's Rain, the anime from the same team that did Cowboy Bebop. They even got Yoko Kanno to do the soundtrack. Quite good, I must say. Them wolves look cool.
It's awfully sad to read about the thieves who've been looting the homes of people reported dead or missing in the tsunami disaster. And raping the survivors, kidnapping children? It's just sick.
The Sixth of January
The cat sits on the back of the sofa looking
out the window through the softly falling snow
at the last bit of gray light.
I can't say the sun is going down.
We haven't seen the sun for two months.
Who cares?
I am sitting in the blue chair listening to this stillness.
The only sound: the occasional gurgle of tea
coming out of the pot and into the cup.
How can this be?
Such calm, such peace, such solitude
in this world of woe.
~ by David Budbill
Rainy this morning, but I stepped out of the apartment to meet Irene for brunch at Cafe Zola. We had crepes and then coffee at Sweetwater Cafe across the street. With a window view of the grey sky and large low clouds, we discussed teaching and books. I told her how I was invited to do the introduction for Don Lee's reading (major pressure again), and she told me about the English 124 class, What Is Literature, that she'll be teaching this semester. The subtitle of her course is "Maps To Anywhere," and it deals with images, perceptions of beauty, travel, and cultures. I managed to give her some suggestions since most of her material is familiar to me. The material is so familiar that I wish I were taking her class. Here are some of the books and movies she's including in the syllabus:
- God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt
- American Beauty
- Amelie
Graphic novels and movies? Persepolis and Amelie? If I were a freshman, I would be first to sign up. I told Irene about the Michael Sowa paintings hanging on Amelie's bedroom walls, and said they'd be interesting to discuss in the classroom.
At Shaman Drum, the local independent bookstore, I picked up books for my travel writing course, and inspected the books ordered for my own course. After that, I wandered around looking at books for other courses - one of my favorite activities. Many interesting titles and I had to stop myself from buying books for a course I'm not enrolled for. One of the most compelling courses - Graphic Narrative. Titles include Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth by Chris Ware; Maus I and II; Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns; Edward Gorey's Amphigorey. Pity I've maxed out the course load this semester, and I'm maxed out of semesters anyway. The reading list on the course website is one of the best I've seen.