recurring themes this week about which i would write forever if they were not either a) private, b) boring, or c) overwhelming when added all together and divided by the amount of brainspace i have available:
1) the staggering disparities i’ve found between evaluating work from a critical perspective and evaluating it from a writerly perspective. i had a lengthy discussion with my american lit professor about how i didn’t think had any business writing a paper asserting that despite caddy’s lack of voice in the sound and the fury, when combining all three different perspectives on her the reader can know her just as well as if parts of it had been from her point of view. it was a good topic, my professor said, and i agree with her that it is. but, as i asked her later, what right did i have to try to tell other people what william faulkner intended? who the hell do i think i am to make those types of assumptions about his technique and his characters, things that are his? she told me that that’s what writers want; they want people to read their books and say, “hey, this work is way too complex for me not to evaluate in depth and give some further attention to.” and i agree with her completely, but personally, my only consolation is that faulkner is dead, and as such will not be able to think i’m a dumbass.
2) falling asleep in front of the television and waking up the next morning in one’s clothes from the previous day. ’tis an accidental holiday quite frequently observed by me at my own house on my futon, but imagine my surprise when i went to rob’s house last night, fell asleep in front of the television, and woke up the next morning on his couch. he was asleep on the other couch, it was very bright, and the movie was over. i have very vague memories of john goodman , but that’s about it. ’twas quite surreal.
3) song covers that should be allowed and those that shouldn’t. after hearing two cover bands at two different bars last night, i’ve come to the conclusion that it is okay to cover tracy chapman, but not stevie nicks, and that it is okay to cover america but not the beatles, and it is never okay to cover “american pie.” also if you are over 35 and/or you do not have that special one must have in order to successfully wear leather pants, you should not wear leather pants.
4) tennessee williams. i had a williams with phil thursday night, and then on friday i went to a zelda fitzgerald art exhibit with tony, at which they had a few pages from a play that williams wrote about zelda and f. scott, called clothes for a summer hotel. it was an ill-received work, apparently, but i’d be interested in checking it out sometime anyway. even tennessee williams’ stage directions are beautiful. what i really love is that my copy of cat on a hot tin roof has paul newman and elizabeth taylor on the cover. i can imagine paul newman as brick, but the idea of elizabeth taylor as maggie is somewhat frightening. sure, she was oscar-nominated for it and all, but still. ick.
5) the fact that i have rather unique perspectives on a lot of things, perspectives that would be really interesting to write , perspectives that are fairly unique, i think. but i’m scared to write about them, in case i suck. so this way, if i don’t write about them, i can brag to everybody about how i could have written some awesome stuff, and what an incredibly romantic tragedy it is that i never did, because my stuff wouldn’t have sucked, that’s for sure. “let’s not talk about this anymore,” i said to johanna last night after she told me things that were painful to know.
but hey, at least i don’t have ramen in my lungs.
6) head-shop incense with names like “dragon’s blood.”
