I'm sort of suspended in time at the moment- nearing the finishing of my chapter but unsure how to end it nicely, nearing the end of my visit to London but still not having seen my three closest transatlantic friends yet (hopefully this weekend).
Last week my mother visited and we had a wonderful time, though I think I may have exhausted her with all the walking, especially when I took her up Tottenham court road where I was convinced there was a wonderful tea house, only to discover the teahouse was in Soho, and also when I confidently took us down Commercial st. in the east end in the wrong direction for four blocks. Don't even get me started on my greatest flub: when I got to the library I told her she could easily get a reader's card since the website says all you need is proof of address and signature. Instead the guy there quizzed her about her research project and asked what specific texts she wanted to see. She didn't know, so he refused to give her a card. Luckily there was still a lot for her to see at the library, so when we met up after I'd finished looking at my rare books she stopped me from groveling. Note to non-academic, formerly academic or partly academic friends: make sure to check out the catalogue and invent a research project before you apply for a reader's card at the BL.
I've seen three plays so far: Michael Frayn's Afterlife at the National- brilliantly written but hampered by its own conceit; The Female of the Species in the W. End- excellently acted by Eilieen Atikins, Anna Maxwell Martin and Sophie Thompson, but ridiculously behind the times and heterosexist. I mean, how can you write a play about feminist criticism and not have heard of Kristeva and Butler? And jazz-age Twelfth Night in Regent's park- not quite jazz-age and a little bit imbalanced. None of them thrillingly good, but all very entertaining.
I've seen a French film (L'heur de l'ete) at the Curzon, had divinely good and affordable Dim Sum (in Paddington, of all places! Better than Royal China and Wong Kei- it's called Pearl Liang and it's transcendental) and returned to Whitechapel for my favorite curry, which was still excellent though I noticed they'd upped their prices by about a pound all around. I also discovered that the bus I take to the British library stops around the corner from the divinely inspired curry place (which is near the Whitechapel Bell Foundry), which means I'll probably get to have the curry twice more before I leave. Yay! I've also spent time with my oldest friend from home and her family, along with family friends old and new, all of whom live or stay in North London.
I still have to return to Islington to my favorite pub, meet up with various friends from the early modern blogosphere, catch a prom, and see the aerially acrobatic Timon at the globe and the Goth Revenger's Tragedy at the National.
And I have to finish this chapter.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Londinium
A selection of random observations about this particular trip to London.
1. The flat I'm occupying is owned by perhaps the nicest 60-ish couple I have met other than my parents. He's a distinguished prof on the West Coast, she's an artist. The flat is large for London, though it doesn't get a lot of light. It's furnished with English antiques and books. There's a small bookcase near the doorway to the bedroom, full of books on the topic of which this professor is an expert. I pulled one off the shelf, thinking I'd learn a bit more about his subject- and discovered that everything in the shelf was authored by him.
This makes eight books published in the US plus 2 or 3 published in Europe, plus a 7 volume translation. Okay, so he collaborated on the most recent book and on the translation. But not one is an edited anthology, so still, it's a phenomenal amount of work for any one professor, and even more when you consider that every one of these books is about the work of the same author. Grand total of books authored, edited and translated by this professor: 18. Grand total of books authored, edited and translated by Pamphilia: 0; 1 in progress. (.75 Down, 17.25 to go).
2. I just finished Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which was hilarious. There's no television in the flat, so I've been reading novels (not that I'd watch TV in London anyway of course). Anyway, it's sad and hilarious. At one point the hero decides to go on the lam with his partner and they check in to a hotel "under the name of Saunders." Hee- they think they're being obscure and literary but it's Winnie the Pooh.
Anyway, at the back of the book was an essay by Chabon about writing his first novel. He says that there are three parts to being a successful writer: talent, discipline, and luck. And the only thing anyone ever has any control over is discipline. So that became his work ethic. I keep thinking about this while I'm here because I've actually become a lot less disciplined than I used to be. I mean a long time ago, when I was in high school and did all my homework every night and practiced the piano every day for 3 hours. I was fairly disciplined in College too- I don't mean that I drafted my papers in advance, but I did turn them in on time. I wonder what happened- when or where I lost this rigorous discipline. Was it in graduate school when I had the luxury of focusing only on one thing? Or was it living by myself that eroded my discipline- there was no one around to tell me what to do, or to set a good example? In any case, I've resolved to become more disciplined.
3. Taking the bus from where I'm staying to the BL today in the rain (I sat up on top), I overheard a lovely elderly British couple narrating the bus-trip to one another. He was pointing out landmarks to her, so she must have just come in to town. It was sweet the way they talked with wonder about all the newfangled technology taking over the world- cellphones with email and pictures and music and such. When we passed Mme Tussaud's the man said that he went once, but that was "before the War." I don't know which war he meant, but "things were different then."
4. I didn't really know what "Expensive" meant until I had been here a week. "Expensive" is basically the fact that everything that should cost what it would cost anywhere else, is not available for anything less than a ridiculously high price. Sandwiches are $7, and lunch is $30. EVERYWHERE. It's July and lots of things are "on sale." This means that tee-shirts are only $40 instead of $80.
5. The British Library is full of people you think you know, but don't. Everyone looks vaguely familiar and you will inevitably bound toward someone thinking he or she is your friend or colleague and then be embarrassed when they turn around. This meant that when I did see a colleague from a neighboring university, I approached him timidly and barely whispered his name. Which of course meant that our entire conversation was conducted in barely audible whispers because he thought I was being extra polite (sssh, it's a library).
6. Timeout London knows everything. Where else can you find information about the London Bat Watch and nude men's yoga in Islington?
1. The flat I'm occupying is owned by perhaps the nicest 60-ish couple I have met other than my parents. He's a distinguished prof on the West Coast, she's an artist. The flat is large for London, though it doesn't get a lot of light. It's furnished with English antiques and books. There's a small bookcase near the doorway to the bedroom, full of books on the topic of which this professor is an expert. I pulled one off the shelf, thinking I'd learn a bit more about his subject- and discovered that everything in the shelf was authored by him.
This makes eight books published in the US plus 2 or 3 published in Europe, plus a 7 volume translation. Okay, so he collaborated on the most recent book and on the translation. But not one is an edited anthology, so still, it's a phenomenal amount of work for any one professor, and even more when you consider that every one of these books is about the work of the same author. Grand total of books authored, edited and translated by this professor: 18. Grand total of books authored, edited and translated by Pamphilia: 0; 1 in progress. (.75 Down, 17.25 to go).
2. I just finished Michael Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which was hilarious. There's no television in the flat, so I've been reading novels (not that I'd watch TV in London anyway of course). Anyway, it's sad and hilarious. At one point the hero decides to go on the lam with his partner and they check in to a hotel "under the name of Saunders." Hee- they think they're being obscure and literary but it's Winnie the Pooh.
Anyway, at the back of the book was an essay by Chabon about writing his first novel. He says that there are three parts to being a successful writer: talent, discipline, and luck. And the only thing anyone ever has any control over is discipline. So that became his work ethic. I keep thinking about this while I'm here because I've actually become a lot less disciplined than I used to be. I mean a long time ago, when I was in high school and did all my homework every night and practiced the piano every day for 3 hours. I was fairly disciplined in College too- I don't mean that I drafted my papers in advance, but I did turn them in on time. I wonder what happened- when or where I lost this rigorous discipline. Was it in graduate school when I had the luxury of focusing only on one thing? Or was it living by myself that eroded my discipline- there was no one around to tell me what to do, or to set a good example? In any case, I've resolved to become more disciplined.
3. Taking the bus from where I'm staying to the BL today in the rain (I sat up on top), I overheard a lovely elderly British couple narrating the bus-trip to one another. He was pointing out landmarks to her, so she must have just come in to town. It was sweet the way they talked with wonder about all the newfangled technology taking over the world- cellphones with email and pictures and music and such. When we passed Mme Tussaud's the man said that he went once, but that was "before the War." I don't know which war he meant, but "things were different then."
4. I didn't really know what "Expensive" meant until I had been here a week. "Expensive" is basically the fact that everything that should cost what it would cost anywhere else, is not available for anything less than a ridiculously high price. Sandwiches are $7, and lunch is $30. EVERYWHERE. It's July and lots of things are "on sale." This means that tee-shirts are only $40 instead of $80.
5. The British Library is full of people you think you know, but don't. Everyone looks vaguely familiar and you will inevitably bound toward someone thinking he or she is your friend or colleague and then be embarrassed when they turn around. This meant that when I did see a colleague from a neighboring university, I approached him timidly and barely whispered his name. Which of course meant that our entire conversation was conducted in barely audible whispers because he thought I was being extra polite (sssh, it's a library).
6. Timeout London knows everything. Where else can you find information about the London Bat Watch and nude men's yoga in Islington?
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
John Milton: Sexy Rockstar
So I'm heading off to London today, to catch the tail-end of the Milton conference and mostly really to finish writing my book. That sounds equally satisfying and fictitious, "to finish writing my book," as if I were some sort of creative genuis, when really all I'm doing is finishing a chapter, fixing another up, and writing a new introduction. Hardly qualifies as "book writing."
Waiting for my flight, I decided to catch-up on some older issues of the New Yorker, where I found Jonathan Rosen's little piece on Milton, which I think a colleague had recommended I check out. Much as I love the way a kicky modern word or phrase must be employed where no other will do (like when Rosen describes Satan and Gabriel "trash-talking" for instance), I did find myself biting my lip with disapproval. Rosen portrays Milton as a sexually avid rockstar well-versed in kamasutra and polyamory: "Nevermind that there were actually three Mrs. Miltons, and that Milton, who defended divorce and even polygamy, was a sensuous Purtitan, exquisitely attuned to the "amorous delay" of life in Eden." This is clearly a case of the poet being confused with the poetry.
I mean, really. Just because he happened to have three marriages- hastened not by two tame divorces as Rosen suggests here, but by two tragically premature deaths - and wrote stunningly beautiful passages about angelic and Edenic sex, we are supposed to believe that Milton was great in bed?
"Exquisitely attuned to the 'amorous delay'"? What is that supposed to mean? Milton was Casanova? He knew all about foreplay? (Maybe delay is the reason his first wife ran away for three years).
I, for one, would rather not try to imagine what Milton was like in bed, though I'm sure an historical novel is already in the works (by Philippa Gregory). Suffice it to say, it will not be taking up residence on my nightstand. . . unless some idiot buys it for me.
Waiting for my flight, I decided to catch-up on some older issues of the New Yorker, where I found Jonathan Rosen's little piece on Milton, which I think a colleague had recommended I check out. Much as I love the way a kicky modern word or phrase must be employed where no other will do (like when Rosen describes Satan and Gabriel "trash-talking" for instance), I did find myself biting my lip with disapproval. Rosen portrays Milton as a sexually avid rockstar well-versed in kamasutra and polyamory: "Nevermind that there were actually three Mrs. Miltons, and that Milton, who defended divorce and even polygamy, was a sensuous Purtitan, exquisitely attuned to the "amorous delay" of life in Eden." This is clearly a case of the poet being confused with the poetry.
I mean, really. Just because he happened to have three marriages- hastened not by two tame divorces as Rosen suggests here, but by two tragically premature deaths - and wrote stunningly beautiful passages about angelic and Edenic sex, we are supposed to believe that Milton was great in bed?
"Exquisitely attuned to the 'amorous delay'"? What is that supposed to mean? Milton was Casanova? He knew all about foreplay? (Maybe delay is the reason his first wife ran away for three years).
I, for one, would rather not try to imagine what Milton was like in bed, though I'm sure an historical novel is already in the works (by Philippa Gregory). Suffice it to say, it will not be taking up residence on my nightstand. . . unless some idiot buys it for me.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Sparks of Light
It's Friday the 4th here in the land of legalized fireworks. I'm still getting used to that. People start setting them off a full two weeks before the holiday, in their backyards, on the street. Yesterday evening I wandered over to my colleague's house to say hello and her husband nonchalantly gathered about six or seven (on sale at Walmart!) and lit them in the street. If she hadn't objected, he would have lit them all at once. We sat on the terrace and watched, her four-year-old son rapt.
Tonight the 4th conincided with a local gallery hop, which happens once a month. It's not much- about three blocks of galleries and shops that stay open late with free food and sometimes wine. But I'm very glad it exists. It's nice to see the sub-culture here (aka liberals) getting a chance to strut its stuff.
Going to the gallery night and watching fireworks reminded me of the city where I attended graduate school. It's a place I will always associate with a combination of joy, melancholy and irony. Probably because that's what it feels like to be a graduate student, more than anything else.
I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this before, but it's become the story I tote out once a year on the 4th of July. Like on my birthday when my father tells me the story of the Great Ice Storm of '7_, and how while I snuggled under my mother's arm in the hospital as she slept off the anesthetic, he had to stay at home without power, grading papers in the bathtub surrounded by shabbos candles with the cat on the toilet and the dog on the bathmat.
Anyway, one summer, towards the end of our careers as doctoral students, my friends and I hovered in a liminal state of not-being-quite-done, not knowing where any of us would be in two years time, and I think I was heading to Oxford in a few months.
My dear friend e__ had been volunteering as a docent at a crumbling, dilapidated 19th century former prison- a Panopticon -on the top of a small hill in the city. At the time, the place was applying for historical landmark status, though it was in such a state of ruin that everyone who visited had to wear a hard hat. It was great fun, though- in addition to tours of the cells there were ongoing art installations during the year and film screenings in the summer. Anyway, this friend of mine had keys to the place, and since the lookout tower of the prison was very near the location of the city's main firework display, she contrived to sneak us into the prison and up into the lookout tower. We had brought picnic food, wine and beer too, I think. Since we had to sneak in, we used flashlights. It was still very dark.
It was deliciously thrilling, in that somewhat illicit way that makes you feel like a teenager breaking curfew or a kid playing "ghost in the graveyard" at dusk, near a real graveyard. [Edit: I have since learned that this place is featured on a documentary about real ghost hunters. Apparently the electromagnetic reverberation thingies or whatever they call them are off the charts]. Once we got to the top of the lookout tower, we waited for it to get darker and for the fireworks to start. We saw far-off ones bursting over one of the rivers, little pocks of light. Suddenly they were right overhead. I mean, literally over our heads and larger than any of us had imagined. If it weren't so beautiful, I might have compared it to what I imagine a psychedelic alien abduction might feel like, with lights as big as spaceships reaching their fingers down toward our heads.
This city also had a monthly gallery night, to which I and my friends duly repaired. And I remember for the first time (in early September) wandering into one that was unlike the others. For one, it was completely dark. There were black velvet curtains in the window blocking out all the light. A small card rested on the window sill stating that the gallery's hours were "By chance or appointment." There were velvet curtains in the vestibule (dark purple, I think). It was hushed inside, but there might have been faint, ambient chords struck now and then. At least that is how I remember it.
When I got inside, it was still dark, with black walls illuminated softly by chandeliers, pendant lamps, and sconces constructed out of collected ceramic and metal objects. These lights seemed magical, iconic in a sort-of Jungian way. And funny. A ceramic rabbit standing on two legs dressed in a suit, holding an umbrella made out of a sieve through which tiny points of light sparked. A chandelier like a medusa's head of twisted copper pipes, with tiny flame-shaped bulbs flickering at the end of each snake. And my favorite, a chandelier made entirely from teapots, their spouts pointing down and out away from the center, ending in bulbs the shape of little jets of water.
I know it's still there. But I checked the website and couldn't find the teapot or the rabbit lamps.
Tonight the 4th conincided with a local gallery hop, which happens once a month. It's not much- about three blocks of galleries and shops that stay open late with free food and sometimes wine. But I'm very glad it exists. It's nice to see the sub-culture here (aka liberals) getting a chance to strut its stuff.
Going to the gallery night and watching fireworks reminded me of the city where I attended graduate school. It's a place I will always associate with a combination of joy, melancholy and irony. Probably because that's what it feels like to be a graduate student, more than anything else.
I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this before, but it's become the story I tote out once a year on the 4th of July. Like on my birthday when my father tells me the story of the Great Ice Storm of '7_, and how while I snuggled under my mother's arm in the hospital as she slept off the anesthetic, he had to stay at home without power, grading papers in the bathtub surrounded by shabbos candles with the cat on the toilet and the dog on the bathmat.
Anyway, one summer, towards the end of our careers as doctoral students, my friends and I hovered in a liminal state of not-being-quite-done, not knowing where any of us would be in two years time, and I think I was heading to Oxford in a few months.
My dear friend e__ had been volunteering as a docent at a crumbling, dilapidated 19th century former prison- a Panopticon -on the top of a small hill in the city. At the time, the place was applying for historical landmark status, though it was in such a state of ruin that everyone who visited had to wear a hard hat. It was great fun, though- in addition to tours of the cells there were ongoing art installations during the year and film screenings in the summer. Anyway, this friend of mine had keys to the place, and since the lookout tower of the prison was very near the location of the city's main firework display, she contrived to sneak us into the prison and up into the lookout tower. We had brought picnic food, wine and beer too, I think. Since we had to sneak in, we used flashlights. It was still very dark.
It was deliciously thrilling, in that somewhat illicit way that makes you feel like a teenager breaking curfew or a kid playing "ghost in the graveyard" at dusk, near a real graveyard. [Edit: I have since learned that this place is featured on a documentary about real ghost hunters. Apparently the electromagnetic reverberation thingies or whatever they call them are off the charts]. Once we got to the top of the lookout tower, we waited for it to get darker and for the fireworks to start. We saw far-off ones bursting over one of the rivers, little pocks of light. Suddenly they were right overhead. I mean, literally over our heads and larger than any of us had imagined. If it weren't so beautiful, I might have compared it to what I imagine a psychedelic alien abduction might feel like, with lights as big as spaceships reaching their fingers down toward our heads.
This city also had a monthly gallery night, to which I and my friends duly repaired. And I remember for the first time (in early September) wandering into one that was unlike the others. For one, it was completely dark. There were black velvet curtains in the window blocking out all the light. A small card rested on the window sill stating that the gallery's hours were "By chance or appointment." There were velvet curtains in the vestibule (dark purple, I think). It was hushed inside, but there might have been faint, ambient chords struck now and then. At least that is how I remember it.
When I got inside, it was still dark, with black walls illuminated softly by chandeliers, pendant lamps, and sconces constructed out of collected ceramic and metal objects. These lights seemed magical, iconic in a sort-of Jungian way. And funny. A ceramic rabbit standing on two legs dressed in a suit, holding an umbrella made out of a sieve through which tiny points of light sparked. A chandelier like a medusa's head of twisted copper pipes, with tiny flame-shaped bulbs flickering at the end of each snake. And my favorite, a chandelier made entirely from teapots, their spouts pointing down and out away from the center, ending in bulbs the shape of little jets of water.
I know it's still there. But I checked the website and couldn't find the teapot or the rabbit lamps.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
London Countdown
8 days. God, I cannot WAIT to get there- it is beautiful but almost a wasteland here in the summer, and I seriously think I might go insane here with nothing but the book I'm writing, an internet connection, and the cat.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Addiction
Okay, I'll admit it. I'm totally addicted to Apartment Therapy. I like looking at "sneak peek" slideshows of other people's houses (people and houses far more creative than anyone I know). And I like reading about DIY vintage furniture rehab projects, how to make hanging lights out of mason jars, wacky color combinations and the "smallest coolest apartment" contests. I spend too many hours reading about beer-keg balcony planters and staircases that double as bookcases on blogs like Design Sponge out of Brooklyn, and the twee Oh Joy! out of Philly.
I'm an apartment-geek. I confess it freely. I don't know where this obsession comes from- maybe it derives from living on the cheap in tiny urban apartments over the past 10 years. Or maybe it's because even now that I live in a (tiny) house, I live in the South, where interior design generally falls between suburban "Country" and overstuffed Louis XVI.
Despite the fact that I am insanely jealous of the cute couples who blog about their urban domestic bliss (most of which has to be- just has to be -literary fiction: No one's life is that perfect, and if it were why would you blog about it?), I keep coming back. So I guess maybe this addiction is really about fantasy- that domestic bliss can be had at all.
End of confession.
I'm an apartment-geek. I confess it freely. I don't know where this obsession comes from- maybe it derives from living on the cheap in tiny urban apartments over the past 10 years. Or maybe it's because even now that I live in a (tiny) house, I live in the South, where interior design generally falls between suburban "Country" and overstuffed Louis XVI.
Despite the fact that I am insanely jealous of the cute couples who blog about their urban domestic bliss (most of which has to be- just has to be -literary fiction: No one's life is that perfect, and if it were why would you blog about it?), I keep coming back. So I guess maybe this addiction is really about fantasy- that domestic bliss can be had at all.
End of confession.
Inaugural Gazpacho
First of the summer using (almost*) all local produce, with homemade Minimalist Bread.
*illegal immigrant bell peppers
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Dog-baby Afternoon
Spotted, Saturday afternoon, at Eastern Market:
1. cute guy with baby in snuggly and two dogs, one in each hand.
2. cute guy with baby in snuggly and adorable puppy.
3. Two cute guys, each with baby in snuggly, each with dog(s), buying ice cream for their wives.
Cute guys: 4
Babies in snugglies: 4
Dogs: 5 or 6- who cares any more?
1. cute guy with baby in snuggly and two dogs, one in each hand.
2. cute guy with baby in snuggly and adorable puppy.
3. Two cute guys, each with baby in snuggly, each with dog(s), buying ice cream for their wives.
Cute guys: 4
Babies in snugglies: 4
Dogs: 5 or 6- who cares any more?
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Fun with History: Wikipedia Date Search
I just discovered something neat: Wikipedia date search. Type in a date, any date, and you get a list of happenings around the world. I tried 1327 and got Edward III crowned king of England and Petrarch meeting Laura, plus a list of famous births and deaths.
Type in 1453 and you learn that the Ottoman capture of Constantinople coincided with the end of the Hundred Years War and the invention of Guttenberg's printing press. All in one year.
Being the narcissist I am, of course I typed in the year of my birth. And learned that the first commercial Concorde took off into the air around the time the UN vetoed a resolution to create an independent Palestinian State. Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth II sent the first royal e-mail and the DC Metro opened. In music, the first Eurovision song-contest coincided with the Ramones releasing their first album, U2 getting together for the first time, and the Eagles releasing "Hotel California." Along with the first known outbreak of the Ebola virus and the death of Mao Zedong.
(Supposedly. It is Wikipedia, after all)
So- how old am I? (More importantly, what search term did you enter to find out? Ramones, Mao, or Eurovision?)
Type in 1453 and you learn that the Ottoman capture of Constantinople coincided with the end of the Hundred Years War and the invention of Guttenberg's printing press. All in one year.
Being the narcissist I am, of course I typed in the year of my birth. And learned that the first commercial Concorde took off into the air around the time the UN vetoed a resolution to create an independent Palestinian State. Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth II sent the first royal e-mail and the DC Metro opened. In music, the first Eurovision song-contest coincided with the Ramones releasing their first album, U2 getting together for the first time, and the Eagles releasing "Hotel California." Along with the first known outbreak of the Ebola virus and the death of Mao Zedong.
(Supposedly. It is Wikipedia, after all)
So- how old am I? (More importantly, what search term did you enter to find out? Ramones, Mao, or Eurovision?)
Friday, June 20, 2008
Why I am not (yet) a Miltonist.
Because studying Milton is like studying Kabbalah: it is preferable to do it when you are over 40 and have read and studied everything else there is to read, in every language.
Okay, so I know that's not true, but it's a funny I came up with at Tea and a Real Miltonist told me it was good material.
Milton's a little later than most of the authors I study, and even though I am enraptured by his writing and teach it as often as I can, I just don't quite feel mature enough to write about it. It's not about the Hebrew, Latin and Greek- (sm)all of which I have (boast much, Pamphilia?). It's about the ideas contained therein. Sure, I might reference Milton in my writing now and then, do a reading of a passage, that sort of thing. But a reference does not a Miltonist make.
I think I'll wait to publish anything seriously devoted to Milton till I'm 40. Or after tenure. At this rate, they'll both happen sooner than I'd like to think.
Okay, so I know that's not true, but it's a funny I came up with at Tea and a Real Miltonist told me it was good material.
Milton's a little later than most of the authors I study, and even though I am enraptured by his writing and teach it as often as I can, I just don't quite feel mature enough to write about it. It's not about the Hebrew, Latin and Greek- (sm)all of which I have (boast much, Pamphilia?). It's about the ideas contained therein. Sure, I might reference Milton in my writing now and then, do a reading of a passage, that sort of thing. But a reference does not a Miltonist make.
I think I'll wait to publish anything seriously devoted to Milton till I'm 40. Or after tenure. At this rate, they'll both happen sooner than I'd like to think.
Progress!
The loose ends of my argument are finally coming together. I've also written large chunks of the chapter and I think I might be able to corral them into a solid document quite soon. Finally.
I've got only a few more days here and I'm doing all I can to continue writing and to call up any old books I need to investigate before I leave. It's making me kind of hyper.
I also just e-mailed a Major Important British Scholar, who has done a tiny bit of work on my Material Objects of Study and he a) remembered my critique of a paper he circulated at least 6 years ago at my graduate institution and b) was interested in my project and said he'd love to read more! He also directed me to his latest article on the subject, which just came out, and has helped me even further.
Even more exciting, today I went down to the PRs and finally surveyed the canon of scholarship on one of my Renaissance authors. I was thrilled to learn that there is still very little treatment of this text. More important, a Major Book that examines his work in relation to the sexier of my two Scholarly Territories does not even mention this text. This is a golden elipsis for me! And the other Renaissance author? Not to worry- everyone hates him.
I can feel that this is going to be something big. So much so that I'm having to check my enthusiasm at this point. I want to keep most of what I've found in my research to myself and guard it well, until it's ready for print. This is a new feeling for me, protectiveness of my ideas. I guess it stems from my belief that anyone could make these connections, if they just knew where to look. And the more I read, the more it becomes clear to me that what I am going to say about my genre and my two Scholarly Territories not only needs to be said, but needs to be said now.
Whew! If I smoked, I would definitely reach for a cigarette.
I've got only a few more days here and I'm doing all I can to continue writing and to call up any old books I need to investigate before I leave. It's making me kind of hyper.
I also just e-mailed a Major Important British Scholar, who has done a tiny bit of work on my Material Objects of Study and he a) remembered my critique of a paper he circulated at least 6 years ago at my graduate institution and b) was interested in my project and said he'd love to read more! He also directed me to his latest article on the subject, which just came out, and has helped me even further.
Even more exciting, today I went down to the PRs and finally surveyed the canon of scholarship on one of my Renaissance authors. I was thrilled to learn that there is still very little treatment of this text. More important, a Major Book that examines his work in relation to the sexier of my two Scholarly Territories does not even mention this text. This is a golden elipsis for me! And the other Renaissance author? Not to worry- everyone hates him.
I can feel that this is going to be something big. So much so that I'm having to check my enthusiasm at this point. I want to keep most of what I've found in my research to myself and guard it well, until it's ready for print. This is a new feeling for me, protectiveness of my ideas. I guess it stems from my belief that anyone could make these connections, if they just knew where to look. And the more I read, the more it becomes clear to me that what I am going to say about my genre and my two Scholarly Territories not only needs to be said, but needs to be said now.
Whew! If I smoked, I would definitely reach for a cigarette.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Fish slime and Brine
So without giving anything away, I've been working with English translations of a racy (to early modern people, apparently) text for this book chapter I'm finishing.
This is only a sampling of one terrible Greek-to-English translation from the middle of the 17th century:
"Fish slime and Brine have made thy penance great,
Come now, into my bosome drop thy sweat."
Hmm . . . I think there's actually good reason why it didn't garner as much acclaim as the more famous version.
This is only a sampling of one terrible Greek-to-English translation from the middle of the 17th century:
"Fish slime and Brine have made thy penance great,
Come now, into my bosome drop thy sweat."
Hmm . . . I think there's actually good reason why it didn't garner as much acclaim as the more famous version.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Archival Interior Decorating: Brûlé à Gant
My room here is HUGE- three large windows facing the street and the front garden, which at the moment is full of lavender, roses and hydrangea plus some kind of huge bush with glossy laurel-shaped leaves, covered with little sprays of white flowers (they look like miniature lilacs) putting out a too-sweet, very heady scent. The room is twice the size of my bedroom at least.
It's got some nice posters on the wall from the library, one an enlarged miniature portrait of Elizabeth which I quite like and couple of John Austen drawings. But directly above the couch is something a little disturbing. Two facsimile engravings. The bottom engraving depicts what I think are French or Belgian Protestant martyrs at the stake, but after being burnt, all charred and skeletal, with bits of hair and everything. A giant lumbering peasant is poking one of them with a pitchfork. The caption says "David et Levina etrangler et brûlé à Gant, Anno 1554." Anyway, it's kind of cool, but a bit gruesome for a bedroom. (If I had little kids, I'd have to hide it).
The top engraving is much less creepy- it's a portrait of Simon Mercier's arrest in a marketplace in 1553. There are some lumbering, drooling catholic friars in the background ready to pounce, but Simon seems in good health. Nonetheless, the caption reads "Simon Mercier, brûlé à Bergue-ap-Loom, Anno 1553." I thought I knew who Simon Mercier was but I googled him and couldn't find anything. And who are David and Levina and why do they have Jewish names?
Don't even get me started on the anti-Catholic woodcut of bishops at a feast over the bed. As a friend said, it's a good thing I'm not Catholic. Or Vegetarian.
It's got some nice posters on the wall from the library, one an enlarged miniature portrait of Elizabeth which I quite like and couple of John Austen drawings. But directly above the couch is something a little disturbing. Two facsimile engravings. The bottom engraving depicts what I think are French or Belgian Protestant martyrs at the stake, but after being burnt, all charred and skeletal, with bits of hair and everything. A giant lumbering peasant is poking one of them with a pitchfork. The caption says "David et Levina etrangler et brûlé à Gant, Anno 1554." Anyway, it's kind of cool, but a bit gruesome for a bedroom. (If I had little kids, I'd have to hide it).
The top engraving is much less creepy- it's a portrait of Simon Mercier's arrest in a marketplace in 1553. There are some lumbering, drooling catholic friars in the background ready to pounce, but Simon seems in good health. Nonetheless, the caption reads "Simon Mercier, brûlé à Bergue-ap-Loom, Anno 1553." I thought I knew who Simon Mercier was but I googled him and couldn't find anything. And who are David and Levina and why do they have Jewish names?
Don't even get me started on the anti-Catholic woodcut of bishops at a feast over the bed. As a friend said, it's a good thing I'm not Catholic. Or Vegetarian.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Major Breakthrough
Hooray, I've made a major breakthrough in researching this final chapter. I don't have the whole thing written yet and I'm still ironing out the kinks in the argument, but I finally know exactly what to do with the second half of it, and I've discovered something really interesting about the text I'm working with.
Today the rain is coming down sideways in sheets. Its green outside and there's thunder and lightning. This library is already fairly dark inside, and I usually prefer to work in the better lit modern wing, but with the storm outside it's dark in there too.
And I can think of nothing more pleasing than being here, with my books, while it storms outside.
Today the rain is coming down sideways in sheets. Its green outside and there's thunder and lightning. This library is already fairly dark inside, and I usually prefer to work in the better lit modern wing, but with the storm outside it's dark in there too.
And I can think of nothing more pleasing than being here, with my books, while it storms outside.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Dogs and Roses
Ah, how good it feels to walk again! I've been exploring my new neighborhood (no longer with cousins, but in one of the library's apartments), and it reminds me a lot of where I lived in grad school, only with more rose gardens and more dogs (if that is even possible). The smell of roses, lavender, clematis, jasmine and honeysuckle is dizzying. But how good it feels to transport oneself on one's legs. And I'm starting to feel more grounded and less tired too- all it took was a week.
Today and yesterday evening I went exploring, and this afternoon I discovered the nearby market, which expands on the weekends to include local farmers, artists, jewelers, craftspeople and a flea market. I picked up some amazing local strawberries and artisanal cheese, and spent the better part of an hour taking in all the people, including many babies, dogs and cute guys, some with babies, some without- is there anything more adorable than a cute guy wearing a snuggly facing out with a wiggly 2 month-old, I ask you? No, there is not. Except maybe if he were also holding a puppy. Then I think I'd faint.
Now it's gotten very dark and thundery, and rain pours down in buckets. The library's only open for another two and a half hours, and there's tea at 3. I had planned to explore a different neighborhood this afternoon, but I do like a good cozy library and a nice cup of tea, especially when it's raining outside.
Today and yesterday evening I went exploring, and this afternoon I discovered the nearby market, which expands on the weekends to include local farmers, artists, jewelers, craftspeople and a flea market. I picked up some amazing local strawberries and artisanal cheese, and spent the better part of an hour taking in all the people, including many babies, dogs and cute guys, some with babies, some without- is there anything more adorable than a cute guy wearing a snuggly facing out with a wiggly 2 month-old, I ask you? No, there is not. Except maybe if he were also holding a puppy. Then I think I'd faint.
Now it's gotten very dark and thundery, and rain pours down in buckets. The library's only open for another two and a half hours, and there's tea at 3. I had planned to explore a different neighborhood this afternoon, but I do like a good cozy library and a nice cup of tea, especially when it's raining outside.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Marionetta
Good Lord, I am Out of Shape. I arrived in DC last night after a lovely 6 hour train journey and today I decided to go for a nice long walk, explore some shopping neighborhoods by metro and then walk back. The metro stop is only a 12-15 minute walk from where my cousins live, but it was 90 degrees in the sun. I was out of breath and sweating by the time I reached the cool, subterranean metro. And then while trying on clothes, I took stock of my figure and noticed flab in places I never thought could get flab before. And the strain in my lower back, oy vey! Since I moved to suburban southern city to teach, I stopped walking for transportation, started driving. According to a recent visit to the doctor, I have gained 10 pounds over the last 2 years in the south. So my body has not been accustomed to this much walking.
I felt like a marionette, my joints swaying with every step I took.
Thankfully, by the end of my five and a half hour expedition I started to feel more grounded and less out of breath.
This month I'll be walking everywhere again, but for good measure I've also decided to purchase an unlimited monthly pass at a yoga studio near Dupont Circle, which offers Ashtanga 3 times a week, along with Pilates and four levels of Vinyasa flow. I intend to go to class 3-4 days a week. I may not lose those 10 pounds, but at least I will feel like a Real Girl again.
So there you have it. My schedule: 9-5 library; 6:30-8 yoga; 8-whenever, blissed out post-exercise happiness.
I felt like a marionette, my joints swaying with every step I took.
Thankfully, by the end of my five and a half hour expedition I started to feel more grounded and less out of breath.
This month I'll be walking everywhere again, but for good measure I've also decided to purchase an unlimited monthly pass at a yoga studio near Dupont Circle, which offers Ashtanga 3 times a week, along with Pilates and four levels of Vinyasa flow. I intend to go to class 3-4 days a week. I may not lose those 10 pounds, but at least I will feel like a Real Girl again.
So there you have it. My schedule: 9-5 library; 6:30-8 yoga; 8-whenever, blissed out post-exercise happiness.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Dramatic Fugues
Yesterday I had a delightful coffee with Hip Colleague, and we talked about our book projects. He's writing his second book and had a question for me about Renaissance drama. One of his chapters is on Tony Kushner's play Homebody/Kabul and he described the way that play (and much of the Kushner oeuvre) explores a theme or issue through one character, then pass the theme on to the next set of characters, who in turn pass it on to the next, etc. He wondered if there was a literary or dramatic term for this.
I thought about it. And truth to tell, I couldn't find it operating in early modern drama or classical drama. I tend to think of political issues in Shakespeare operating in a somatic way (the body politic, the humors, the veins, the trickling down), and I tend to think of ethical dilemmas in Greek drama and tragedy working vertically downwards from the top to the bottom. Nowhere could I find an early modern or classical drama in which a problem is passed from hand to hand the way my friend was describing.
So I volunteered the term "transference," which sort of sounds literary and theoretical, maybe psychoanalytical too, though I have no idea why it popped into my head at the time. This term, of course, made me think of the pattern my colleague described as a kind of viral movement, which would make sense for Angels in America, though perhaps less so for Homebody/Kabul.
Then I thought of music- fugues in particular. In his fugues, suites and partitias, Bach takes a theme, breaks it down to its smallest elements ("motifs") then works it through different voices, inverting it, turning it inside out and upside down, and augmenting it into larger chord progressions. By the time the fugue finishes, we have seen the theme and its motifs carried through a metamorphosis.
And this kind of musical fugue happens on the 20th century stage as well, most notably in American Musicals- for some reason especially those to which Sondheim contributes. In what I consider his best musical, Sweeney Todd, Sondheim takes the opening of bars of the Latin Mass, inverts it and it becomes "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." Then he takes the Dies Irae and uses it as a repeated counterpoint motif (as musical accompaniment to a different melody) to signify Sweeney's descent into insanity. You can hear it in the background when he sings "We all deserve to die" in "Epiphany" and it appears in the same song when he returns to the tragic fate of his wife ("My Lucy lies in ashes"). It comes back significantly in the very end in the musical surge when he slits the throat of the beggarwoman.
A concurrent motif from the Dies Irae theme is the tritone interval, a diminished fifth known in Medieval and Renaissance music as diablos in musica, or "the devil in the music." The tritone has a hauntingly unresolved feel to it. It's dissonant and begs for a resolution. Sondheim and Bernstein made great use of it in "Maria" and the opening "Rumble" in West Side Story- you can hear the tritone on "Ma-REE-", and it's resolved on the "-ah." But it's really used to much better effect in Sweeney- you could even say the tritone is the main musical calling card of Sweeney Todd. It shows up in the male ingenue Anthony's ballad "Johanna" which is very similar to "Maria," but much creepier because Sondheim doesn't resolve the tritone into a major triad for a several lines; he keeps it suspended longer. And it shows up again in the harmonies of the hilariously macabre duet "A Little Priest," which closes Act I. When Mrs. Lovett joins Sweeney in cadencing the refrain, they are usually a fourth or a tritone apart, and at the very end, the orchestral accompaniment rises to a series of fast syncopated tritones, an antic and uneasy way to pull the curtain down.
So musically, Sweeney Todd passes the themes of demonic possession, Judgement Day (dies irae or day of wrath) and tragic loss from character to character until they culminate in the "Final Sequence," the tragic denouement in which Sweeney kills his wife and learns of Mrs. Lovett's deception too late.*
So I said all this to my friend and he said he had actually spoken to one of our colleagues about musical motifs in Kushner before, which kind of validated what I'd said, even though I was sort of stretching.
I think one of the reasons why I don't write about Renaissance drama (I prefer poetry and book history) is because if I wrote about drama, I'd really prefer to write about American Musical Theatre.
* I highly recommend the Original Broadway Cast recording from 1979 with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou, though nearly as good is "Sweeney Todd in Concert" (2001) with George Hearn (Sweeney No. 2 on Broadway) and Patti Lupone with the New York Philharmonic and a number of noted opera stars, along with Neil Patrick Harris who is excellent as Toby.
I thought about it. And truth to tell, I couldn't find it operating in early modern drama or classical drama. I tend to think of political issues in Shakespeare operating in a somatic way (the body politic, the humors, the veins, the trickling down), and I tend to think of ethical dilemmas in Greek drama and tragedy working vertically downwards from the top to the bottom. Nowhere could I find an early modern or classical drama in which a problem is passed from hand to hand the way my friend was describing.
So I volunteered the term "transference," which sort of sounds literary and theoretical, maybe psychoanalytical too, though I have no idea why it popped into my head at the time. This term, of course, made me think of the pattern my colleague described as a kind of viral movement, which would make sense for Angels in America, though perhaps less so for Homebody/Kabul.
Then I thought of music- fugues in particular. In his fugues, suites and partitias, Bach takes a theme, breaks it down to its smallest elements ("motifs") then works it through different voices, inverting it, turning it inside out and upside down, and augmenting it into larger chord progressions. By the time the fugue finishes, we have seen the theme and its motifs carried through a metamorphosis.
And this kind of musical fugue happens on the 20th century stage as well, most notably in American Musicals- for some reason especially those to which Sondheim contributes. In what I consider his best musical, Sweeney Todd, Sondheim takes the opening of bars of the Latin Mass, inverts it and it becomes "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." Then he takes the Dies Irae and uses it as a repeated counterpoint motif (as musical accompaniment to a different melody) to signify Sweeney's descent into insanity. You can hear it in the background when he sings "We all deserve to die" in "Epiphany" and it appears in the same song when he returns to the tragic fate of his wife ("My Lucy lies in ashes"). It comes back significantly in the very end in the musical surge when he slits the throat of the beggarwoman.
A concurrent motif from the Dies Irae theme is the tritone interval, a diminished fifth known in Medieval and Renaissance music as diablos in musica, or "the devil in the music." The tritone has a hauntingly unresolved feel to it. It's dissonant and begs for a resolution. Sondheim and Bernstein made great use of it in "Maria" and the opening "Rumble" in West Side Story- you can hear the tritone on "Ma-REE-", and it's resolved on the "-ah." But it's really used to much better effect in Sweeney- you could even say the tritone is the main musical calling card of Sweeney Todd. It shows up in the male ingenue Anthony's ballad "Johanna" which is very similar to "Maria," but much creepier because Sondheim doesn't resolve the tritone into a major triad for a several lines; he keeps it suspended longer. And it shows up again in the harmonies of the hilariously macabre duet "A Little Priest," which closes Act I. When Mrs. Lovett joins Sweeney in cadencing the refrain, they are usually a fourth or a tritone apart, and at the very end, the orchestral accompaniment rises to a series of fast syncopated tritones, an antic and uneasy way to pull the curtain down.So musically, Sweeney Todd passes the themes of demonic possession, Judgement Day (dies irae or day of wrath) and tragic loss from character to character until they culminate in the "Final Sequence," the tragic denouement in which Sweeney kills his wife and learns of Mrs. Lovett's deception too late.*
So I said all this to my friend and he said he had actually spoken to one of our colleagues about musical motifs in Kushner before, which kind of validated what I'd said, even though I was sort of stretching.
I think one of the reasons why I don't write about Renaissance drama (I prefer poetry and book history) is because if I wrote about drama, I'd really prefer to write about American Musical Theatre.
* I highly recommend the Original Broadway Cast recording from 1979 with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou, though nearly as good is "Sweeney Todd in Concert" (2001) with George Hearn (Sweeney No. 2 on Broadway) and Patti Lupone with the New York Philharmonic and a number of noted opera stars, along with Neil Patrick Harris who is excellent as Toby.
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