The two sweetest words in the life of any college student, other than "spring break": Fall Break.
It's right around the corner, and I for one am looking forward to it. I'm also shocked as hell at how quickly the semester has flown by. I mean, we come back from fall break next week and it's maybe three more weeks of classes. Where did my semester go?
Time is sneaky like that, and so in the interest of taking some stock of it, let me advise any fellow grad students of the following: Mountain Dew Code Red and the cable company's music channel option of "all jazz all the time" is fantastic for getting a paper that you didn't realize was due on Monday typed up on Saturday night. But it can lead to an awfully long time to get to bed.
I speak from recent (last night) experience...
But (knock on wood) I got it done, and I'm up on most of my reading for this week before the break (got a couple of pages left in one book, but I should be able to bang it out before Wednesday) and my exhaustion is that of a man who has earned it by...sitting in one place and reading a lot?
I have to admit, with my previous work experience, "sit here and read this article, book, website, what have you" actually sounded pretty awesome. Like a lot of things that sounded awesome at the time, it's proven to be more complicated, but I'm stressed in a good way. Usually when I'm stressed, it's been over work (and how futile my experience of it at certain jobs has been) or girls (how futile my experience at wooing them has been). But this is a good kind of stress, I think. I'm actually being required to use that thing that's between my ears, covered by a thin (but not too thin) layer of skin and hair. I'm blanking on what it's called, actually, but it starts with a letter...jeez, I should really plan these things out before hitting the "publish" option, but what are ya gonna do?
After last night's binge of Code Red and jazz, I am worse for wear today, though I hope in a good way. I do not plan to imbibe as much Code Red as I did last night (if indeed at all) and I might avoid jazz music for a while, as it can both get me energized or slow me down (and if I'm totally honest, always make me feel like I'm in a Woody Allen film). I spend the bulk of my time at home today, reading Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. It feels like a dry run for Inherent Vice, and actually suffers a little by comparison, but it's not bad in and of itself, and I look forward to possibly finishing it later tonight, after checking to make sure the paper I wrote last night is legible. Not that that's ever stopped me from turning in something before.
Anyway, I look forward to the oh-so-brief vacation period that is fall break (unless they rescind it for some reason), and I don't honestly know what I'll be doing during that week, other than maybe (hopefully) getting ahead of some end-of-the-semester assignments and also just relaxing. I'll probably steer clear of any Code Red, however. That shit will kill you...
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Baseball Been Very, Very Good to Me
This is the NFL season in which I have not watched a single game all the way through (and as a Giants fan, I think I saved myself some grief in avoiding the shutout they suffered against the Eagles last week). I made this moral stand because Roger Goodell is a poopy-head, but also because I have come to question the morality and ethics of a sport in which a man like Ray Rice can be seen beating his significant other and this somehow qualifies as only meriting a two-game suspension (yeah, I know he's on the "do not call" list now, but if not for the uproar he would still be looking at a chance to come back to his team ASAP). So as a longtime sports fan who must find *something* in which to invest his time, I turn to that old stand-by, minor-league hockey.
I kid...actually, my first love when it comes to sports was baseball. Like a lot of first loves, I moved on a while ago, on to other loves (basketball, football, golf...no, not that last one, that will never happen). But I remember baseball fondly, and I turn to it now because, goddam it, there is nothing wrong with it.
"Ahem," I hear you say, "how soon you forget the steroids era, Barry Bonds, and so on?" And you're right: I'm a huge hypocrite. But at least with baseball, I know nothing is left that could shock me, really.
When I got into baseball, it was at a time in my youth when I could still hold to the tenet of every young sports fan: these guys are heroes. Nowadays, of course, I know instinctually that this isn't the case (even though my heart wants it to be so, when I get invested in a team or a player). But disillusionment with the game of baseball didn't kill my love for it. Yes, Ty Cobb was a racist asshole, but most of his records have been broken now. Yes, baseball was ignorant in segregating itself from black players who had to make their own way in the Negro Leagues, but that's why Jackie Robinson is the most important baseball player ever (if not the most important athlete ever). Baseball is a reflection of America's sins as much as its saving graces, but one of the sports' saving graces is that it can contain such seeming contradictions as Cobb and Robinson within its collective history and not implode.
Baseball also lends itself well, perhaps too well, to poetry. Literature about baseball is hard to beat (the closest any sport comes to matching baseball for pure lyric beauty, in my opinion, is basketball; football, based on the books I've read, is third, though how far back or close depends on the author). Baseball is lyrical, as anyone who's read anything from a cheap Fifties-era bio of Willie Mays aimed at children or W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (the basis for Field of Dreams) could tell you (and that would be me, specifically). It lends itself much better to the written art, because it combines the drama of the individual with the drama of the collective team effort. Football is more martial, more military: when George Carlin died, Sports Center ran his monologue about football versus baseball and completely missed the point (Carlin was praising baseball, and damning football). Football is perfect if you're using metaphors about war; baseball is more peaceful, more pastoral. And as anyone who's studied pastoral poetry can tell you, the poets who wrote about the beauty of the country were poseurs, dandified city-dwellers who faked it.
Baseball has never been, nor ever will be, perfect; I saw Field of Dreams last night on TV and, while I appreciate James Earl Jones' soliloquey to it, I'm calling bullshit on the part about baseball representing what we could be again if we only just tried. It's more complicated than that, though of course it's deceptively simple. Baseball has seen its fair share of issues (there's that whole racial-discrimination thing I mentioned at the top, for starters, but also cheating, steroids, domestic abuse, drug abuse, booze and so on), but at its core it's a beautiful thing to behold. Yes, the pace is glacial at times, and yes, the element of human error can cost a game (I'm not sure how I feel about instant replay being used; I admit it's useful, but do we really want to eliminate human error from the game?). I have complicated feelings about it, but I've already been through the wringer with baseball; the Ray Rice thing is my trial by fire with the NFL, and so far they're losing me. I don't know that I'll ever really look at football with quite the same amount of affection: if Jameis Winston goes to any team that I care about, the odds are I'll be doing this self-imposed football ban for quite a while. But I know baseball is fucked-up, at least. I'm comfortable with the contradictions, for now (barring something on the same level happening with MLB). Baseball and basketball in particular translate well to the written and cinematic medium; that's why you'll never see a football Field of Dreams or even Major League. Football may be exciting, but I wonder if it's too much so. Baseball's just about my speed now. Too bad I came to this realization right as the World Series is about to be played, followed by months of off-season. But like baseball, I never said I was perfect.
I kid...actually, my first love when it comes to sports was baseball. Like a lot of first loves, I moved on a while ago, on to other loves (basketball, football, golf...no, not that last one, that will never happen). But I remember baseball fondly, and I turn to it now because, goddam it, there is nothing wrong with it.
"Ahem," I hear you say, "how soon you forget the steroids era, Barry Bonds, and so on?" And you're right: I'm a huge hypocrite. But at least with baseball, I know nothing is left that could shock me, really.
When I got into baseball, it was at a time in my youth when I could still hold to the tenet of every young sports fan: these guys are heroes. Nowadays, of course, I know instinctually that this isn't the case (even though my heart wants it to be so, when I get invested in a team or a player). But disillusionment with the game of baseball didn't kill my love for it. Yes, Ty Cobb was a racist asshole, but most of his records have been broken now. Yes, baseball was ignorant in segregating itself from black players who had to make their own way in the Negro Leagues, but that's why Jackie Robinson is the most important baseball player ever (if not the most important athlete ever). Baseball is a reflection of America's sins as much as its saving graces, but one of the sports' saving graces is that it can contain such seeming contradictions as Cobb and Robinson within its collective history and not implode.
Baseball also lends itself well, perhaps too well, to poetry. Literature about baseball is hard to beat (the closest any sport comes to matching baseball for pure lyric beauty, in my opinion, is basketball; football, based on the books I've read, is third, though how far back or close depends on the author). Baseball is lyrical, as anyone who's read anything from a cheap Fifties-era bio of Willie Mays aimed at children or W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (the basis for Field of Dreams) could tell you (and that would be me, specifically). It lends itself much better to the written art, because it combines the drama of the individual with the drama of the collective team effort. Football is more martial, more military: when George Carlin died, Sports Center ran his monologue about football versus baseball and completely missed the point (Carlin was praising baseball, and damning football). Football is perfect if you're using metaphors about war; baseball is more peaceful, more pastoral. And as anyone who's studied pastoral poetry can tell you, the poets who wrote about the beauty of the country were poseurs, dandified city-dwellers who faked it.
Baseball has never been, nor ever will be, perfect; I saw Field of Dreams last night on TV and, while I appreciate James Earl Jones' soliloquey to it, I'm calling bullshit on the part about baseball representing what we could be again if we only just tried. It's more complicated than that, though of course it's deceptively simple. Baseball has seen its fair share of issues (there's that whole racial-discrimination thing I mentioned at the top, for starters, but also cheating, steroids, domestic abuse, drug abuse, booze and so on), but at its core it's a beautiful thing to behold. Yes, the pace is glacial at times, and yes, the element of human error can cost a game (I'm not sure how I feel about instant replay being used; I admit it's useful, but do we really want to eliminate human error from the game?). I have complicated feelings about it, but I've already been through the wringer with baseball; the Ray Rice thing is my trial by fire with the NFL, and so far they're losing me. I don't know that I'll ever really look at football with quite the same amount of affection: if Jameis Winston goes to any team that I care about, the odds are I'll be doing this self-imposed football ban for quite a while. But I know baseball is fucked-up, at least. I'm comfortable with the contradictions, for now (barring something on the same level happening with MLB). Baseball and basketball in particular translate well to the written and cinematic medium; that's why you'll never see a football Field of Dreams or even Major League. Football may be exciting, but I wonder if it's too much so. Baseball's just about my speed now. Too bad I came to this realization right as the World Series is about to be played, followed by months of off-season. But like baseball, I never said I was perfect.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Putting Away Childish Things?
I turned thirty-five this past week, so I guess technically I'm a little older than I was before my birthday, but I don't feel it yet. I had a mild scare when, getting on top of my bed last night to rest and get some reading done while having the TV on for mindless white noise in the background, I felt a pain in the upper part of my left leg, but that's why God created Aleve. Plus, I've had bad legs, a bad back, a bad neck, bad hair, bad skin, bad eyes, and bad everything else for a long, long time.
The thing about getting older is, you're supposed to put away childish things. But as I get deeper into the concept of being a "graduate student," especially one in a field like English, I wonder if that's wise advice. In a sense, childish stuff is *all* we deal with, and I'm not just talking about the children's lit majors.
We deal in a world of make-believe, unlike historians or scientists. We contribute ideas more than things (unlike engineers), and we won't save lives with our otherwise invaluable insights into the themes of love and women's rights in Jane Austen or some other such research. Nobody dies if we screw up the interpretation of Gravity's Rainbow, in other words.
I have been a reader far longer than I can remember, and I take it for granted that when I open a book, I'm going to forget that what I'm reading is just words, just symbols, arranged on a page in order to make coherent thoughts (or in the case of William S. Burroughs, fucked-up junkie delusions). No, I get carried away to East Egg and West Egg, aboard the Pequod or in a beat-up car driving across the country and into Mexico and beyond, or whatever book I find myself in (that last one was The Dog of the South by Charles Portis, by the by). I remember reading the book How To Read Literature Like a Professor, which pointed out this fact to me, which should have been screamingly obvious, but it's still worth considering. True, a similar process can occur with film (even if the screen is miniscule, you can still get caught up in what's going on) or with music. Both of those fall under the rubric "the humanities," which is kinda what I do now. I'm a humanist in training. I'm all for humans, you could say.
"The life of the mind" is a phrase Barton Fink uses in the movie named for him to describe what he does (in the case of the movie, trying to write a script for a wrestling movie when he's more well known for social dramas about immigrant families in the urban tenements far from the eye of Hollywood), and it's used in the film to show how cut-off Barton is from his fellow human beings, because he's an "intellectual." We have a long history in this country of dismissing and holding suspect our self-professed intellectuals, as well we should. But it's important to point out, in the recent drive to promote the sciences and other more "practical" majors in colleges and universities, that art should be an essential component of anyone's education. I guess I'm going into that good fight for the integrity of the arts, those "childish things" that we use to define us. Putting them away? Nah, I'm just getting started. One of the things I love is when I think I've read/seen/heard it all and I get proven wrong. I look forward to getting proven wrong a lot over the course of my time in grad school. We might not save the world with our work, but we sure will make it a lot more interesting (I hope, anyway).
The thing about getting older is, you're supposed to put away childish things. But as I get deeper into the concept of being a "graduate student," especially one in a field like English, I wonder if that's wise advice. In a sense, childish stuff is *all* we deal with, and I'm not just talking about the children's lit majors.
We deal in a world of make-believe, unlike historians or scientists. We contribute ideas more than things (unlike engineers), and we won't save lives with our otherwise invaluable insights into the themes of love and women's rights in Jane Austen or some other such research. Nobody dies if we screw up the interpretation of Gravity's Rainbow, in other words.
I have been a reader far longer than I can remember, and I take it for granted that when I open a book, I'm going to forget that what I'm reading is just words, just symbols, arranged on a page in order to make coherent thoughts (or in the case of William S. Burroughs, fucked-up junkie delusions). No, I get carried away to East Egg and West Egg, aboard the Pequod or in a beat-up car driving across the country and into Mexico and beyond, or whatever book I find myself in (that last one was The Dog of the South by Charles Portis, by the by). I remember reading the book How To Read Literature Like a Professor, which pointed out this fact to me, which should have been screamingly obvious, but it's still worth considering. True, a similar process can occur with film (even if the screen is miniscule, you can still get caught up in what's going on) or with music. Both of those fall under the rubric "the humanities," which is kinda what I do now. I'm a humanist in training. I'm all for humans, you could say.
"The life of the mind" is a phrase Barton Fink uses in the movie named for him to describe what he does (in the case of the movie, trying to write a script for a wrestling movie when he's more well known for social dramas about immigrant families in the urban tenements far from the eye of Hollywood), and it's used in the film to show how cut-off Barton is from his fellow human beings, because he's an "intellectual." We have a long history in this country of dismissing and holding suspect our self-professed intellectuals, as well we should. But it's important to point out, in the recent drive to promote the sciences and other more "practical" majors in colleges and universities, that art should be an essential component of anyone's education. I guess I'm going into that good fight for the integrity of the arts, those "childish things" that we use to define us. Putting them away? Nah, I'm just getting started. One of the things I love is when I think I've read/seen/heard it all and I get proven wrong. I look forward to getting proven wrong a lot over the course of my time in grad school. We might not save the world with our work, but we sure will make it a lot more interesting (I hope, anyway).
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