READIN

Monday, May 10th, 2004

This thread on Brad DeLong's site reminded me that I have not read Heart of Darkness since college -- in the same class indeed where I first read Don Quixote -- and that I have very little memory of it. Time to go back and reread; I picked up a copy of this newly topical book at Coliseum today.

posted afternoon of May 10th, 2004: Respond
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Wednesday, May 5th, 2004

Played guitar with Bob, Janis and Jim last night -- it went really well. I'm not sure what I was doing different but my guitar was just a lot louder and most of the notes were right, and when I missed a chord I was able to improvise single-note runs to play on top of it. I even played my first genuine, spontaneous solo against "St. James Infirmary". (On which note, I've been getting loads of idle fun lately from singing the relevant two lines of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" to the tune of the first two lines of "St. James Infirmary". For some reason I have been remembering "I went down, to the Delta drugstore" instead of "Chelsea drugstore"; make of that what you will.) By "genuine, spontaneous solo" what I mean is, we were playing the song, Jim singing; he got to the end of the verse, there was the turnaround, he signalled me, and I started playing the solo -- I had not worked out a solo beforehand, just made it up as I went along -- then the turnaround, and Jim started singing again, and I went back to playing rhythm. Totally seamless and coordinated.

We also played "Shine a Light on You" and "Loser", both sounded great.

posted evening of May 5th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, May third, 2004

Flags in the Dust -- Bayard seems totally dissipated after his grandfather dies. I think this may have been true from the beginning of the book but I was reading with the wrong lenses in my glasses or something; I had seen Bayard as possessed of some depth of character and potential. The moment I really understood Bayard, I think, was during his visit to the MacCallum's place when he undressed to go to sleep and Buddy warned him to wear warmer clothing in bed.

posted morning of May third, 2004: Respond
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Sunday, May second, 2004

We finally got around to watching House of Sand and Fog on tape last night. That is to say -- I did; Ellen was involved getting Sylvia to stop screaming... Not too impressed by the movie. Ben Kingsley's performance was wonderful as was Shohreh Aghdashloo's; Jennifer Connelly was good, Ron Eldard made a good effort at playing a role for which he was fundamentally miscast. The problem as I saw it was that none of the characters was developed as fully as they were in the book -- this may not have been possible, so it could be argued that reading the book spoiled the movie for me. I think the only moment in the film where I felt fully involved with the action on screen was when Massoud was in the hospital, praying for his son's life.

Update Sunday evening: Sylvia is quiet this evening (knock wood) and Ellen is taking the opportunity to watch the tape.

Update Monday morning: Ellen stopped watching before the climactic scene because she could not take the suspense. (She also had a really hard time with reading the book at this part.) She agreed with me that Ron Eldard was a poor choice for Lester (actually she thought he was a lousy actor).

posted morning of May second, 2004: Respond
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Friday, April 30th, 2004

🦋 Poem in your pocket day

Lilith has suggested that everyone post a favorite poem today. Here is my contribution to the effort, an early poem by Rilke with my own translation.

    Der Novembertag

    Kalter Herbst vermag den Tag zu knebeln,
    seine tausend Jubelstimmen schweigen;
    hoch vom Domturm wimmern gar so eigen
    Sterbeglocken in Novembernebeln.

    Auf den nassen Daechern liegt verschlafen
    weisses Dunstlicht; und mit kalten Haenden
    greift der Sturm in des Kamines Waenden
    eines Totenkarmens Schlussoktaven.

    The November Day

    Cold autumn can muzzle the day,
    silence its thousand jubilating voices;
    from the steeple whimper, so peculiar,
    death bells in November's mist.

    On the wet rooftops lies sleeping
    a white fog; and with cold hands
    the storm inside the chimney's walls strikes
    a death-karma's closing octaves.

posted morning of April 30th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, April 27th, 2004

On the web site of the University of Illinois at Chicago, I found an interesting paper, titled Flags in the Dust: A Continuum of Immorality Lost in a Lilac Dream. There does not seem to be any information about the author of the paper except that his first name is Juan. I will try to find out more and post it.

posted afternoon of April 27th, 2004: Respond
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Flags in the Dust -- It occurs to me that I may have given the impression in my last post that I think Horace is a con man. Far from it -- he deceives himself probably better than anybody else. The narration around him is written in the same affected manner he uses when speaking; I did not understand what was going on before since the narration is in the third person, but I think now that he is actually narrating -- and maybe that each scene is narrated by the character who is central to it.

posted morning of April 27th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, April 26th, 2004

We saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tonight and loved it. (Well I did anyway, I'm not sure if Ellen was quite as enthusiastic about it.)

posted evening of April 26th, 2004: Respond

Flags in the Dust -- This evening, as I was reading the scene where Horace is visiting Belle, it occurred to me that Horace is a poseur. And with that understanding, everything his character did started to make more sense. The other characters so far seem by and large to be either unreflective or else withdrawn and unsocial; but Horace is extroverted, and busy with self-consciously projecting a façade to the people around him. His fancy language is tiresome and unnecessary, and he knows this on some level; but he keeps it up in order to maintain a consistent false persona. This is his connection with Belle, who is a bit of a faker herself.

posted evening of April 26th, 2004: Respond

Flags in the Dust -- the Bayard's Wild Ride section seguéd nicely into a chapter dealing with the return of Narcissa's brother Horace. I am having a little trouble with this chapter. Horace doesn't really seem that concrete or believable a character, at least when he is present and speaking. When his time in Europe is presented as a story, it is interesting and fun, and the high-flown language seems playful; but when he is moving around Jefferson and talking to Narcissa, it is just dreary.

posted afternoon of April 26th, 2004: Respond

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