This weekend has turned out to be quite excellent, a bit to my surprise.

My Friday started out well. I only got about four hours of sleep because I had to get up for my radio show. I'm so happy I decided to do the KRLX thing. Even though I'm not a particularly charismatic DJ, it's a massive amount of fun, and a great way to start the day. I get to play a bunch of music I love at full blast (because it doesn't matter how loud it is on the studio monitors) and I get to feel hardcore for getting up at 4:30 AM. This week's playlist:

From a Motel 6 -- Yo La Tengo
Risingson -- Mezzanine
Black Cab -- Jens Lekman
Bottle Up and Explode! -- Elliott Smith
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood -- Neko Case
In the Deep -- Bird York
Kicked it in the Sun -- Built to Spill
Suffering -- Jay-Jay Johanson
Old People in the Cemetery -- Of Montreal
Johnny Appleseed -- Mia Doi Todd
Resurrection Fern -- Iron & Wine
Blame it on the Tetons -- Modest Mouse
Far Away -- Cut Copy [new music]

I decided not to go to bed after the show, because past experience told me I wouldn't get much more sleep anyway. So I went to Blue Monday for the first time since early last term. The rest of the day became increasingly mediocre, however. PoCo was alright, though discussion can still be frustrating, though I give props to Arnab, who has taken concrete measures to improve the class. I'm also excited about our extra weekly meetings to discuss selected postcolonial theory and associated readings. We're reading Hegel's Reason in History for this week, which thus far has been pretty interesting, and surprisingly readable considering it's fucking Hegel. The rehearsal for Steph's piece was good, though I seriously messed up my knee because of a fall that I made up for a floor combination. My own damn fault, I guess. Then I made my trip to the record libe and found some good stuff, and went home feeling depressed about my social life.

But then the day got infinitely better. I  went to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra performance with Jenny and Tomoka. They played a couple of works by Stravinsky and one by Haydn, and the performance was amazing. From what I've heard of Stravinsky, his counterpoint is detailed and requires really crisp performance, and the SPCO delivered beautifully. Their violinists and their oboist were certainly the highlights for me. After that I hung out with Steph and Rachel for a bit, the first time I actually saw them this week. Then I went to Battle of the Bands around midnight to see Fuctape (because I figured I wanted to experience the terror before I died). Even though I knew what to expect, they were still remarkably bad. I also caught a bit of the act before them, which was also pretty lackluster. I left after about 15 minutes, and I'm glad I decided not to go earlier/stay longer. (Listen to outstanding musicians play nuanced, complex music or spend an evening getting drunk, ravaging my cochlea and wasting precious stereocilia on mediocre bands. On my way home, however, I ran into a friend who was apparently in an awkward situation with two other people interested in each other. She called me a few minutes later and ended up coming over to my place, where we chatted for three or so hours. I need more of these great conversations (and conversationalists) in my life, I think. I feel like I come alive for a brief time. It's hard, though, to find people with whom you feel you can be completely candid. I have very few people who fall into that category, and it's nice to feel like I've found another. I guess I just hadn't realized how compatible we were before. Funny that. I fell asleep listening to Talking Heads, I gave Remain in Light to someone recently, before I had listened to it, and he didn't seem to enthused, but I'm not sure why; it's great stuff.

Today has also turned out to be really good. I got some reading done in the morning, had brunch with a friend, and went to Semaphore. Although we weren't very productive today (we ran Sarah's piece, worked some more on Liz's piece), it was low-key and it felt nice to spend a couple hours conversing and diddling around. We also got our sweatshirts today, which are both green and fuzzy (i.e. splendid). I got a little work done between "rehearsal" and shopping for/making an Indonesian nut stir-fry for dinner, which turned out pretty well, though I spilled some molasses on my shirt. Fuck (but it'll come out). After that I reconvened with some Semapeeps for the Indian dance show, which was gorgeous though severely under-attended (and shockingly, considering the last Indian dance performance at Carleton, which was packed). I went to the library after the show, but didn't get much reading done because I kept on running into people and getting into long conversations. Thankfully all were pleasant. Around 11 I decided to go to a party I had been invited to, had a good time for a couple of hours, and then I came home.

Tomorrow should be good too. Katie and I are headed up to Zenon in Minneapolis for a rehearsal for Sarah's piece (with a different cast) to be performed at the Ritz sometime in May. It should be cool. And I get to bring my car to Northfield afterward, so I can get out of this godforsakenn town whenever I want/need to.

Now I'm going to listen to music and maybe watch some Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I've a craving for Meetwad.

This week's moment of self-discovery: For a long time I've felt in crisis about my own particular balance of introversion and sociability, and I've been afraid of the idea that I've often claimed to prefer solitude only because I lack social graces. I don't think this is true, though. True, there are certain people to whom I turn off immediately, but when I'm around people I actually like (familiar or unfamiliar), I can actually be very extroverted and energetically social. That said, I still think I require more time alone that a lot of people to be happy. So often when I'm alone do I feel free to explore/think/read/watch whatever I want in my own time frame, and it's really liberating. As I've said, though, there are definite limits. I've explored some of that this week, and while I'm still trying to figure out where my depression/emotional distance from certain people fits into this equation, I feel like I've made a good deal of progress this weekend. I've connected with a number of different people both familiar and unfamiliar with various intensities and I've still had a good enough amount of time to feel like I'm still cultivating and individual self.

I had my first real solo radio show this morning, and while of course it was far from smooth technically (I had never actually touched the equipment before...so trying to adjust modulator and microphone levels while speaking and queueing music was I problematic juggling act), it was still a lot of fun, which was the point. I've decided not to feel bad at all about my fuck-ups since I know it takes most people a while before they actually, you know, sound good. I've learned that I really need plan out how much cross-fading time I need between each individual song so that I don't end up with as much dead air. My cross-fading worked well at the beginning of the show, but sort of broke down later when I started playing more experimental stuff.

The theme of this week's episode was Pride Month. I haven't really "celebrated" Pride at Carleton this year for a number of reasons, so I thought I would devote an hour to exploring all sorts of work from GLBTQ musicians, not just stereotypical divas and dance party stuff, although that was, I think, also represented somewhat. This week I played, in order:

I Love Rock 'N Roll -- Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (because she's Joan Fucking Jett)
Flamboyant -- Pet Shop Boys
Cripple and the Starfish -- Antony & the Johnsons
Wilderness -- Sleater-Kinney
Nightclubbing -- Iggy Pop
Gloria -- Patti Smith
The Maker Makes -- Rufus Wainwright
Crank Heart -- Xiu Xiu
Another Thought -- Arthur Russell
City Hall -- Vienna Teng
Spondee -- Matmos
Proud -- Heather Small (I don't care how cheesy this anthem might be, it's uplifting)
Midnight Radio -- John Cameron Mitchell (as Hedwig)

Last night I went and danced with prospies (i.e. in their presence, not "with" them in a sketchy way) at the Cave. I was going to stay around for the second act, but they were taking their sweet time setting up, it was 11, and I still had my French to do.

I also learned that dancing barefoot on Bell Field in the dark, while dirty, is a great release.

The train whistle is blowing in tune with the Books track I'm listening to. It's eerily beautiful.

Also, I'm pretty excited about the James Baldwin Symposium going on on campus. Although it's been a hectic couple of weeks I've been trying to go to events. I went to part of the film festival last night and watched a biography of the writer which was quite interesting. I wish I had had time Tuesday to see Go Tell It On the Mountain, though I guess it's better to wait until I've read the book. I've only ever read the "gay novel" with which he officially came out, Giovanni's Room. Sadly, I don't think I appreciated it as much as I would now.

Today is national poem in your pocket day. I'll be carrying G.M. Hopkins' "Carrion Comfort":

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? 
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. 

The past week has been somewhat blasé with regards both to my classes and my general attitude toward Carleton.

French has been hectic with two oral presentations, an exam, a longish essay, and the six or seven regular daily assignments. The workload has been fine, actually, it's just that my prof (the ridiculously gorgeous one) has been a tad scatterbrained. In the first couple of weeks she was M.I.A. once for illness, and then she was gone two other times for conferences. Other profs filled in, but with little coordination. No one, for instance, even mentioned a test or a paper in class, which would be fine if our moodle site actually had information on either of them. Mais non. Conclusion: ambivalent.

I become slightly more disillusioned with Arnab's professorial style with each class period. Let's have a play-by-play of this week, shall we? We've been reading Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World. On Monday, we opened class by making a long list of binary oppositions at play in the novel. Arnie then proceeded to lecture for the rest of the period on the place of women in Indian society in the context of emerging nationalism. We ran out of time without having really touched the novel, and he essentially told us that on Wednesday we would talk about how this lecture applies to the book. What a horrid way to approach literature: it allows for little intellectual exploration. But this is how he guides discussion, more generally, as well. He structures our conversations so rigidly, as if ultimately to prove whatever "suggestion" he has made or will propose. Today's class (mercifully held outside) offers an example of Arnie's other principle flaw as a professor. People will make observations for about five minutes, and then he'll stop and "synthesize" what people have said. The problem is, however, that his is less of a synthesis of what people have said and more of a flash-forward to some grand, utterly totalizing and glib reading. But my issue goes beyond his unpacking of the text for us; I get particularly inflamed when he can't clearly articulate that reading. He self-consciously chides PoCo theory for its legendary impenetrability, and yet he cannot extricate himself from it. He starts blabbing on about sublimated narratives and such like and wonders why people don't get what he's saying. What kills me, though, is that these are rather elementary concepts. All he was trying to say is that good novels (and yes, he was speaking this generally), of which Tagore's is an example, have a dominant narrative and other counter-narratives that challenge that dominant narrative. The novel, through its characters, descriptions, and so on reveals more than one reading. Whoopty fuckin' doo. I don't need to go to a 300-level lit class and have my prof tell me that there are things called sublimated narratives that cause ambiguity. (He also holds our hands through the paper-writing process. We have to consult him if we're making our own topic for a 4-5 page paper because he wants to make sure it's appropriate and has an argument. I'm a senior English major who just finished my comps, and it was fine. I think I'm gonna be fine for a 5-page trifle.)

This doesn't really lead into my next big issue of the week, but oh well. I went to see the SMUT production of My Fair Lady this past weekend and it was, if I may be so frank, the worst production I've ever seen at Carleton. There were a few positive aspects: the woman who played Eliza did well with her singing, acting, and accent; the guy who played Alfred, Eliza's father, played a passable drunk (and he's actually an alum); the guy who played Freddy, whom I know to be an excellent voice student, delivered an outstanding solo; and the woman who played the maid (a very small role), had good physicality, a good accent, and, when she sang, had a pretty (and tuned) voice. Other than that I didn't find much to appreciate. The orchestra was flat and falling apart, the acting was terribly dull and poorly paced (much of the cast lacked variable facial expressions, for instance), the singing was wretched (not loud enough -- i.e. poor engineering with microphones for those who had them -- off-key, off-rhythm, and entirely without spirit. The staging was also exceptionally bad, with stage-hands (some not even dressed in black) awkwardly shuffling on and offstage to change scenes while the scenes were still going on.  The choreography, while simple, didn't bother me at all. It would have been fine it anybody actually performed it correctly, or together, but without even that it just became more painfully evident how lackluster the choreography was. The costuming, while sometimes tasteful, was on the whole notably icky. My personal favorite was when Henry Higgins, the play's paragon of class, struts off to the races in a brown suit (with pants too long for the actor), a black hat, and black shoes. How stereotypically gay of me to say that, but really -- an Englishman of that time period would have noticed (and speaking of time period, others tell me that most of the costumes were 1920s style for a play set in 1912; I didn't notice and that seems a little unfair even to me). I could go on and on about other disasters (esp. the ball-room scene; again representing the epitome of class with dancers running into each other and skipping around as if it were a farce), but I'll only mention one other. Perhaps the greatest irony of this whole production came with the casting of Henry Higgins. If there's one thing the actor of this role must, without a doubt, be sufficient at, it is enunciation -- he's the snarky, snobbish professor of phonetics for godsakes. But apparently that was too much to ask. The performer (who I'm sure is a nice guy) relentlessly overacted, running around the stage madly squawking his outrageous accent without cease. One of the first things we learned in conservatory about acting was that if you feel the need to move when speaking, chances are you shouldn't. And lo, it was bad. At intermission when a good proportion of the audience vacated, I told myself I'd stick it out to the end. But then it started again, and it was even worse (Col. Pickering was a joke of a singer...not just tone deaf and rhythmically challenged, but several tones and several beats away from the orchestra at any given moment). I had to leave.

I don't mean to prattle on like this, ripping the poor production to shreds, but I do it for a reason other than simply to play the powerful and pitiless critic. I do it because for the couple of hours I sat in Arena Theater I felt like I was attending a dramatization of the Carleton experience -- a microcosm of the Carleton condition. Holy shit that sounds grand. What I mean is that My Fair Lady is a demanding musical. It's long, it requires crystal clear accepts, comic timing, strong singers, etc. This is not something to be pulled off within the space of 10 weeks. But I feel like so often we are biting off more than we can chew, and excusing our mediocrity by shining our badges of liberal arts education. In my experience this goes for many aspects of Carleton student life. Classes are an obvious starting point. We have fewer than 10 weeks to cram in as much as we possibly can. I have such fond memories of stuffing Moby-Dick down my throat in about 1.5 weeks, then having 2 days to compose a thoughtful, polished essay on the damned thing. I also recall reading two of Shelley's immensely difficult plays ("theatre of the mind"...too dense to really be staged, except perhaps by the avant garde) and the other Shelley's Frankenstein within the space of a single week at the end of the term. What can you possibly say about Prometheus Unbound in 65 minutes? How can you fully explore in Melville's masterpiece in 10 days? And what about the ENGL 110 atrocity I've heard of in which the entirety of Paradise Lost is assigned for one or two class periods? It's not even worth picking up the damned book if that's the way we go about it. And what about the culture of perfectionism that plagues us? There's no time for revision of writing, for full development of thought, so we expect ourselves to produce perfect papers the first time around, and when we get to comps we have internalized the notion that revision is bad. Although I lack the time and energy to provide further examples (or even to make this ramble concise and eloquent enough to sound impassioned), I think this applies broadly to other aspects of student life. From my limited experiences and various discussions with other students, campus activism is mostly a joke. The music program is sad and uninspiring (except for some a capella ensembles). Student theater, while often decent, is rarely impressive. It is, in short, immensely difficult to produce anything of quality here, and to me this mode of learning is frustratingly shallow.

I have a lot to thank Carleton for, of course, but right now I'm feeling rather cynical.

Peace.

Overall this has been a pleasant week.

My PoCo (postcolonial) lit class with Arnab has been excellent this week. Not only are we reading one of my favorite books, A Passage to India, but the class has under 15 people in it, most of whom are rather engaging and insightful. Class discussion has been invigorating -- it's a great way to end the academic day. For the most part I like Arnab. I think he's a funny guy and he certainly knows what he's talking about. He can, however, be awkward at points (e.g. starting discussion with that most hated of questions: "So, what did you guys do with/think about the reading?"). Also, considering that until this term he's only taught 100- and 200-level courses, I think he's still getting adjusted to teaching a class that actually gives a shit about literature. He also focuses more attention on formal/structural elements than I generally like, often providing pat readings which, by his own admission, don't really work. As was the case with Kipling, however, we didn't have enough time to really break those readings down to my -- and I think others' -- satisfaction.

French has been sort of meh. I was fine reading "La Belle et la Bête," but reading "La Légende du pain" has been sort of annoying. To be fair, my annoyance primarily derived the fact that I had to give a group presentation Wednesday on the author, Michel Tournier, with a less-than-inspiring group. As usual, I ended up making the powerpoint myself, which was more time-consuming than I had hoped. The presentation went fine, though.

Hopkins today went pretty well. We discussed some of his early poems, in particular "Spring and Death," "For a Picture of St. Dorothea," and (my pick and personal favorite for the day) "Easter Communion." Since our independent study has become semi-focussed on the musicality of Hopkins (and thus an exploration of how composers have sought to capture his poetics through musical setting), we also listened to settings of "Heaven-Haven" by Barber and Britten.

Semaphore has, as usual, also been great. Sarah's piece is getting better, though we still have a ways to go as far as intensity is concerned. Since the piece is a lot of contact improvisation, however, that means more that just drilling set movement. But it will get there soon enough (and Katie and I have been invited to perform in the piece with another cast at the Ritz in Minneapolis, which is pretty cool; I hope it all works out). Wynn's new piece, "Unquiet Grave," is also getting better. It's far more energetic than her first piece for us, "Floating World." Whereas the latter piece was difficult because of how grounded you have to be to perform it well, the new piece demands a lot of attention to details. I moves very quickly and fluidly, and it will look like we're flailing unless we get every detail as crisp as possible. It makes for intense rehearsals, but it'll be 100% worth it. We just started working on a new piece tonight, choreographed by Liz Tan. It'll involve video projection, and it is going to be awesome, with multiple realities and shit. Shweet.

Other than that not much to add. I've been studying in the GSC all week. I made a new friend -- Hubert -- who works in the adjacent Office of Multicultural (or is it Intercultural?) Life. We had a nice discussion about poetry (Milton, Hopkins, some Latin American wonders). I also had a really nice conversation with Justin Smith. Whenever I talk to him I remember how cool he is.

Now I've got to fill out an application and go to bed, so I can wake up at 4:30 and have someone teach me how to do my radio show. I'm excited.

Oh yes, and props to Saira who is awesome and had a birthday and to whom I promise to write an extended email/letter thanking her profusely for her lovely mix and thoughts.

So technically there's nothing wrong with my life right now. I feel like I've gotten closer to my Semapeeps through ACDF, I have post-graduation plans that are exciting, I got a distinction in comps, and I just finished a long and wonderful evening of conversation with various friends. Classes are aso going well (even if Arnab is perhaps too focused on structural approaches to literature). Yet still all I want to do is get the hell out of Northfield. The moment I stepped back onto this godforsaken campus I felt my whole body clench. Last term was a rather manic experience, and I poured all of my strength (until about 1 in the morning virtually every night) into comps and other meaningless work trying to crowd out other shit, trying not to deal with other thoughts. Now it's spring term senior year and I'm supposed to relax, and instead I'm wondering why I even came back when I could have been done early. I know it's really for Semaphore and for sundry other aspects of closure that in the end will be necessary for me. But I nevertheless find myself striving to cram more and more into my schedule so that I won't have any time to think, so that time will zip by without my noticing. Then I can leave Northfield and forget all the shit locked up there. I'll be able to sleep again, perhaps be happy again. Who knows? I'm looking forward to a time when I don't have to feel hateful and bitter much of the time. When I can live in peace. When the past won't feel like such a grotesque animal. When I won't have to write petty posts like this.

I'm so proud to have a niece who came out of the womb ready to kick some ass.

Although still not all that thrilled about being back in Northfield, it seems like my classes this term will be excellent.

I'm excited to take French from Stéphanie Cox again, and equally thrilled to learn more complex grammar and to read actual (albeit simple) literature. We're starting with "La Bell et la Bête" (1756) by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.

PoCo will also be highly rewarding. I like Arnab's tendency toward snarkiness (e.g. he relabeled "ideology" -- in terms of Althusser's application of the idea to the colonial machine -- "bullshit").

Poetics of Inscape damned well better be awesome since I'm in control of what I do. Hopkins is one of the few writers that get me really enthralled about poetry.

Currently listening to: John Cage et al., "Pulse! Percussion Works"

Currently reading: my racist French book, which includes in the vocabulary the phrase argot for "to murder French": "parler francais comme une vache espagniole."

Also, my sister Abbey just had her second child this morning. Her name is Lainey Ann Bailiff and she was 7 pounds 9 ounces.

Lacking the energy to fully record Robin's and my exploits in Portland, I've opted to provide a bare-bones itinerary despite the fact that it likely won't mean much to anyone...

Saturday, 22 March
Cup & Saucer Diner
Think Cupcake
Powell’s
Tea Zone & Camellia Lounge
(Ran into Whitney Quon on corner just outside of Tea Zone)
Replica of Chinese Bronze of Elephant
Pioneer Square (“Portland’s living room”)
Cinema 21 (saw Paranoid Park) – According to Chuck Palahniuk, known as Enema 21 by employees
The Roxy (24-hour diner with gaudy as fuck décor)

Easter Sunday
The Chaos Café (Brunch with Liesl)
The Portland Art Museum
Half & Half (tiny café featured in Paranoid Park, down a sidestreet near Powell’s)
Wandering through Inner Southeast P-town
Met Carly, Robin’s friend from work, for coffee at the Pied Cow Coffeehouse (apparently haunted by a ghost named Lydia, according to Chuck Palahniuk)
Doug Fir Lounge for Concert (Bachelorette, Weather, Faun Fable)
Union Jack’s Strip Joint for athletic pole dancing fun (I count this as a cultural event, considering that Portland is famous for its number of strip clubs – higher per capita than even Las Vegas!)

Monday, 24 March
Powell’s Part Deux
Japanese Garden
Holocaust Memorial
Music Millennium (home of the ‘Keep Portland Weird’ bumper stickers)
Restful evening at apartment/reading/watching Capote

Tuesday 25 March
Samurai Bento
Under U for Men -- random stop in a men's underwear store, where a smelly clerk showed me hemp and natural rubber     undergarments
Le Happy (founded by manager of Pink Martini, but closed when we got there)
Little and Big Finnegan’s (Toy Stores)
Random Order Café
Halo Thai (with Anne)
Anne’s House
Jimmy Mak’s Jazz Club (Mel Brown Septet) – pretty swank; sampled the Fat Tire, a local beer

Good times were had by all.

In other news, I don't really want to be back at Carleton, though I didn't realize it until I got here.

I’ve been silent here for a while now, but I thought I might offer some reflections (which at points will read more like an itinerary, since to reflect on all of it might be a more epic endeavor than I have the energy for) on one the better spring breaks I’ve ever had – fitting, since it’s likely also the last one I’ll have in the foreseeable future.

It began on Sunday, March 16, when I traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah with Semaphore for the Northwest Region American College Dance Festival (ACDF). Of course, the first things I was excited to see were the mountains, which surround the city on all sides. Actually, our plan landed just before dusk, when the sun was peeking from behind the mountains in the west. As we descended, every metal and water surface shimmered in single bright flashes; the landscape was orange and atwinkle, one of the most lovely I’ve seen . . . We didn’t have anything official to do that night, so it was pretty chill. We did go out to a local microbrewery called “Squatters.” Not only was the ambience rather cool (in the relaxed sense – for example, we sat along a long window looking out on a patio area entirely illuminated with beautiful blue lights), but the food and beer were excellent as well. I, for one, sampled the Polygamy Porter (“Why just have one?” the slogan goes). We toasted to a promising stay in Salt Lake.

Monday was another fairly low-key day, since the only official duties we had were to register for the festival and attend a concert in the evening. So in the morning, we wandered around town for a bit. First we stopped at an outdoor mall to get a map of Salt Lake. We had to wait a few minutes for the shops to open, and at 10:00 sharp, the fancy mountain at the mall’s central plaza spurted and trumpeted the day’s beginning. It was a ridiculous display, with melodramatic orchestral/choral music and a hundred or so jets creating an aerial hydro-spectacle. Later, the plaza speakers blasted some country diva belting “America the Beautiful.” At that point we left for the (in?)famous Temple Square, home of the Mormon Tabernacle and its astounding choir. To be honest, although I went with an open mind, hoping to dispel some of my own misconceptions of Mormonism, I did not find the experience particularly illuminating. In fact, I left the square feeling a bit frustrated. I don’ feel like writing a self-righteous diatribe at the moment, preferring to have an actual dialogue on the subject with whoever may have an interest.

In any case, after Temple Square, we met our fearless leaders Judith and Jane (and Jane’s awesome daughter Audrey) at the hotel, and then made our way up the hill to the University of Utah campus, where we registered for the festival. This is where we received the information packet for the festival. At this point, it may be worth it to more clearly explain what the festival is. ACDF happens about eight times each year in different regions of the country. Carleton ended up in the Northwest Region this year because it’s on the trimester system, and so our finals period coincided with the festival in our own region. As its name implies, ACDF is an opportunity for college dance groups and companies to take various classes with noteworthy choreographers and teachers in the national dance community. It also provides an opportunity to have a piece adjudicated by a trio of panelists (this year: Loretta Livingston from Los Angeles, Gabri Christa from Curacao, and Zvi Gotheiner from Israel). Especially important for me was the opportunity to see a lot of dance, much of which was innovative and technically accomplished (though there were certainly some doozies as well, which is to be expected).

The festival officially opened Monday night with a concert featuring four local professional ballet and modern companies: Ballet West, Odyssey Dance Theatre, Repertory Dance Theatre, and the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. Overall the show was phenomenal. Highlights included a piece creatively using towels to launch dancers and such, an aptly titled postmodern work called “Nine Person Precision Ball Passing” (both performed by the Repertory Dance Theatre), and a 20-minute epic by Ririe-Woodbury called “Lost.” I think this was my favorite piece of the evening, even if the choreography was a bit disjointed at the performers weren’t always dancing together as crisply as they could have. In any case, I found much of the movement breathtaking. While often athletic, the piece also incorporated some softer vocabulary, like one dancer curling into the space beneath another one in plank position. I found the partner work and the unison duets (particularly with the two lead male performers) especially engaging. The work was structured by moments when the dancers would recollect into the same line (from down- to upstage) that opened the piece. At these moments the music was replaced by a voice reading the German poem "Lied vom Kindsein" by Peter Handke. The poem is about the loss of childhood innocence and thus establishes the central motif, but the fact that it was in German (and thus impenetrable for much of the audience) seemed an odd choice, unless it was some sort of metacommentary meant to distance and lose the audience, a not wholly satisfying interpretation for me. Powerful nevertheless, with good music by the Doors and Nick Cave. The Odyssey pieces were impressive on a technical note, but lacked emotional spark. Ballet West presented a pas de deux from Cinderella, which was pretty (you can tell I’m not a ballet connoisseur).

Tuesday, we got up at the ass crack of dawn (5:30), had a fairly impressive continental breakfast, and then went to the U of U campus to register for the day’s classes (1.5 hours each). My first class was Baroque, and focused on theory, technique, and notation of French court dance of the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries. It was surprisingly interesting, as the instructor talked a bit about how ballet developed from some of the techniques we learned. Baroque dance, like the parallel movements in music and art, is highly ornate, and as such requires more head than bodywork. My second class was the polar opposite. I took a modern class taught by Loretta Livingston, one of the adjudicators (each one taught a class during this period, and each schools got one ticket for a student to take each one). It was extremely fast-paced and, to be frank, sort of frightening. It was the first time I had ever been in a classroom with so many foreign bodies, many of which had clearly trained for many years. Although terrified at the time, retrospectively it was a really good, humbling experience. I learned complex phrases faster than I ever have, and Livingstone even complimented my C-curve!

After modern we had lunch and then attended a panel discussion with the adjudicators, who spoke about their past and present creative involvement in the dance community. (When asked about how they keep themselves centered, Livingston noted that she once disbanded here company to climb Mayan ruins, lived alone in a lodge in Alaska watching eagles for a year, and visits her psychotherapist weekly.) The last class of the day was a jazz class, which was also intimidating, but fun. The guy who taught the class was really laid back. For isolations during the first half of the class, we danced to the first few tracks from M.I.A.’s Kala, which was awesome. For the last part of class, conversely, we learned a lyrical jazz phrase to Steely Dan’s “Asia.” My companions were less enthused by this “elevator” tune, but I couldn’t help but enjoy it considering how much the instructor got into it. It was precious indeed. As per usual in jazz classes, there were lots of divas. I guess I wasn’t expecting that half of them would be men!

Tuesday night was the first of two adjudicated concerts, each of which were four hours long. I’m not convinced that I can really do justice to the breadth of works presented without long, boring descriptions, so I’ll try to spare you. Highlights included a piece by Idaho State University called “Temporarily Out of Order,” which was much like Morgan Thorson’s “Worst Case,” performed at Carleton by Semaphore last spring and fall (the crazy pomo piece). A solo piece called “this is my rite” was also phenomenal. A woman with a bouncy ponytail on the top of her head came out, arranged some plastic plates in a large circle, placed a brownie on each one, and did some neurotic movement within the circle, binge-eating the brownies. My description doesn’t do it justice, but it was uproariously funny, and its brilliance laid it its ability to touch humorously on OCD and eating disorders among other topics. “My Shoes” was another solo by a guy named Luis Sancho, who DJed and choreographed the piece. Essentially he stumbled upon a pair of shoes, which make him do some pretty suave hip-hop moves. It worked because he had great stage presence. Utah Valley State College’s “Fanfare to the Common Man” was a lush, gorgeously choreographed and danced piece which on the of the adjudicators interpreted as a troubled narrative of immigration and the witnessing of human failure within the adverse conditions of that context. Perhaps the most powerful recurring image in the piece was when, it double or triple duets, one dancer would “fall” into an arabesque and the other would catch her foot. The dancer in arabesque would sort of swing with her own weight for a couple of moments until her holder/protector had to let go. It sounds melodramatic, but it had a poignant subtlety to it that worked well. The third act of the show included a lot of multi-media work with film and slideshows, which worked to varying degrees. It also featured an amazing, very theatrical piece involved scooters, a Segue Way®, and much hilarity.

On Wednesday, most of us slept in (we didn’t get back to the hotel until about 11:00), opting to miss the first class since we would perform in the concert that night. I took another modern class when I got to the campus. A guy from Belhaven College taught it, and it was fantastic. It was fast-paced, but for some reason his movement felt natural in my body and I could learn it quickly and feel as though I could fully perform it in class. By the end of the hour and a half, I was covered in sweat and out of breath (more than usual, considering the higher altitude). None of us went to the afternoon classes because our tech/spacing rehearsal cut into both of them. After the rehearsal, we went back to the hotel to rest and retrieve costumes and such, grabbed dinner at a Wild Oats store on the way back to the U, and then waited around and warmed up until we performed around 9:00 (for those of you at Carleton in the fall, this was Wynn Fricke’s “Floating World” which opened the fall concert). Although all of us felt incredibly nervous about the performance, the piece went extremely well, better I think than we’ve ever performed it – even in rehearsals. It was a bit of a bummer, though, when they messed up the final lighting cue, cutting our ending – the part of the piece many of us appreciated the most – short. Although in retrospect it didn’t really change or spoil the piece, we were pretty disheartened, to put it mildly.

After we performed, we joined the audience for the rest of the concert. As a side note, one thing I valued highly about these concerts was the fluidity between stage and auditorium, between performance and spectatorship. It was neat to watch dancers on stage, and then have them come in and sit next to you a few minutes later. I think a lot of people felt this connection, and it created an environment that was more supportive than competitive. Taking class with everyone also helped foster this recognition. Instead of being a performer appearing only within the transient world of a giving dance, it was easier to see these as people. This may seem an obvious point, but I didn’t realize how easy it is for me to see the stage as a separate world until I felt this connection viscerally in this context.

The remaining act and a half of this second concert was, by and large, pretty strong. There was a really charming piece called “Several Things About Spring,” performed by students from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. It involved large tulips as well as lots of charm and general adorableness. There was also a charming piece involving playground balls (the colored ones), as well as a really powerful duet. The piece that closed the concert, “Ghost Ship” by the University of Utah, was also excellent, though I took some issue with it conceptually. The movement vocabulary was highly engaging, innovative, and masterfully performed (by semi-professional grad students, who likely have worked for some time in the professional arena). One of my friends described it chillingly beautiful, and I would concur. This was particularly true of the central image of the piece. One woman on stage alone performs the central recurring phrase, ending in a lunge position with her upstage leg raised perpendicular to the floor creating a Z-shape with her arm and torso. Just then, a solo female voice in the music reaches a chilling high note, and then rice begins to fall from the sky in a single column just behind the dancer. Now, I know that rice is over-done in art and apparently in dance in particular, and I also recognize that there was really no reason for rice to fall from the sky at this moment, unless it was a tractor beam from an alien ship. While in accordance with the title, this idea nevertheless seems silly judging by the tone of the rest of the work, which focused more on the falling movement of the rice, the shapes the rice made on the floor, and movement within the “pool” of rice. Although this particular spectacle belonged to another dance (or at least deserved more central attention in this one, which would have been difficult given that it happened in the last couple minutes of a 12-minute work), it really was gorgeous. The virtually perfect spirals made in the rice by dancers’ feet, the grains dynamically flying this way and that – even into the audience, was still magnificent to behold. It was with that image that we headed back to the hotel.

The next morning (Thursday), a few of us got up for the early massage class. Not only did this class feel great (free 45-minutes of muscle relaxing deep massage? Hell yes!), but it was also neat to learn some massage techniques for the whole body. Much needed at that point. After this class, we attended the first informal concert of the day (informal in the sense that it wasn’t adjudicated; it still had lights and costumes). Unfortunately, I didn’t find many of the works very impressive. There was one humorous character-driven piece called “S-P-EYE,” but it was ruined at the last minute.

After a free lunch of startlingly greasy pizza, we went to our adjudication feedback session. Gabri Christa and Loretta Livingston both really liked Wynn’s piece and commented that we had executed it very well – “cool, clean, and crisp.” Livingston connected the title and the tone of the piece to the “floating worlds” of Hokusai and other similar Japanese woodblock artists, and liked how the piece was structured in “islands of poeticism.” Zvi Gotheiner was less enthusiastic, saying that the music had a numbing effect, that he couldn’t find a through-line in the choreography (no, he wasn’t more specific), and that he was put off by how similar the opening image of the piece is to a really famous work by African American choreographer Alven Ailey called “Lamentations.” Jane was a bit annoyed by this last comment, feeling that he made this association right away and dismissed the whole things uncritically. I sympathize with her position. Not only did he fail to offer any constructive criticism, which was part of the point of having him there, but he was so vague in his descriptions that it almost seemed as though he hadn’t really watched closely. In any case, all three judges were blown away by Dot’s solo work. Good marks overall.

After our feedback, the five of us performing Lily’s piece (“Day After Day” to the Johnny Cash song “Bird on a Wire”) in the second informal concert had to go have our brief technical rehearsal. The performance went really well, and we all performed with what felt like an almost absurd intensity, which, if you’ve seen the piece, is pretty much what it demands. The audience really liked it, which was cool.

After that, we scuttled back to the hotel. I showered, removed my stage makeup, and then we met in Jane and Judith’s room because Judith wanted to apologize for messing up the light cue in our piece. She was pretty upset about it and even started crying, saying that she knew how hard we had worked to embody that movement and how disappointed she was with herself. Of course, we had already forgiven her, and quickly the mood lightened. (Judith, by the way, is amazing. She had done so much work on the lights for this piece. She had spoken at length with Wynn and she had met with the original light designer. After setting the lights in our tech rehearsal, she called the engineers back later that afternoon because she wasn’t satisfied. She did all of this without our knowledge.) Afterward, we all went to Squatters for dinner. I sampled another local beer: Captain Bastard’s Oatmeal Stout. Thumbs up.

The closing event for ACDF was also that night: the Gala concert, curated by the adjudicators, and the post-concert reception/party. There were certainly some surprising selections for the Gala concert, and the judges omitted several pieces over which they’d gone ga-ga (such as the aforementioned “this is my rite,” about which Zvi commented “I wish I’d choreographed that). Overall it was a great concert, though, and I got to see several works that I had missed because they preceded us in the second concert. One of these was “Pink and Blue,” an R&B piece that took me a while to get into, but which ultimately had really powerful movement which, I felt, distinguished beautifully between internal (self-directed) and external (community-directed) violence. Another particularly good piece – and I think my favorite at the whole festival – was a brilliant satire called “Self Defense,” which featured the New Age “philosopher” Eckhart Tolle reading part his own work (from a book on tape), blabbing about some bull-shit like “It is necessary to suffer until you realize that suffering is unnecessary.” It began with one woman, dressed in a pink dress and pearls, carrying a white purse and wearing a cone on her head, much like you put on dogs to keep them from scratching their heads. She walks upstage and mechanically dumps out the purse full of silverware, and then vanishes in dark. Then the Tolle begins, and she reappears on stage, doing this really neurotic movement that I can’t really describe in words. But it was so precisely articulated and powerful when juxtaposed with Tolle’s words and the costumes. After a while, four or five other women in identical attire enter the stage space, doing very similar movement – a frenzy of crazy housewives listening to New Age drivel. I won’t try to describe any further, but it was so genius both in its conception and its execution. It was kind of sick how enthusiastic I was about it when the curtain went down.

To be brief (ha!), then next day we flew back home; nothing eventful to report there. In summary, Salt Lake City was a beautiful place, and ACDF was a wonderful experience, reinvigorating my love for dance, and expanding my understanding of what dance can do. In terms of my own artistic growth, I consider it pretty much invaluable. Furthermore, it deepened my appreciation for my travel companions. I’ve never before been on a group trip in which I haven’t, at some point, been annoyed by at least one individual. Everyone in Semaphore is so passionately engaged with dance (critically, aesthetically, technically), and I think that helped enrich our respect for one another. Good show!

But that’s just the half of it. I’ll try to post another, though hopefully not so lengthy, account of my adventures in Stumptown (Portland) with Robin in the next day or so. Until then, adieu!

T-cake

Currently listening to: Grizzly Bear, Yellow House; The National, Boxer; and I’m just starting to work through some of the stuff I acquired from Robin.

Currently reading: Burt Ramsay, The Male Dancer (a really fascinating read; highly recommended thus far). I also finally got around to reading The Female Circumcision Controversy (Ellen Gruenbaum), which we never read in Ethnography of Africa and Anagrams (Lorrie Moore), which we never read in PoMo. Both were a bit disappointing. The Gruenbam does a good job with the ethnographic portion of her work, which examines the place(s) of circumcision in contemporary Sudan society. She loses her bearings and specificity in the later sections of the book, however, when she tries to outline the possibilities for change. At first, I liked the Moore book conceptually: each section of the book is like an anagram of one woman’s life, with the overall structures and issues remaining constant despite rearranging the details of her job or the nature of her relationships with certain people. This concept breaks down in the second half of the book, though, and so feels empty. Furthermore, much like Delillo’s White Noise, Anagrams is far too aware of its own postmodern condition, often explicitly invoking questions of ontology and existentialism. In this way, it feels totally derivative and unoriginal. Not recommended.

I also read Chuck Palahniuk’s “guide” to Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, which is full of 100% useful information (if you’ve read any of his fiction, you might imagine what he puts in here). Indeed, he admits that his portrait is not really of “Portland” per se. Nevertheless, still highly recommended if you’ll be in the Stumptown area.

I also read Robin’s collection of graphic novels by Jason, including The Last Musketeer, You Can’t Get There From Here, The Living and the Dead, and Why Are You Doing This? I really liked the first and last titles. The middle two were mediocre. Overall, though, Jason’s style is pretty minimalist and subtle. So yeah.

I haven't really written here for a while, but that's a good thing for me. It means I've been keeping busy and generally enjoying myself. Semaphore is probably the best thing in my life at the moment; the dances we're working on right now are all so much fun. I leave rehearsals feeling creatively engaged, and that I'm actually contributing to the ensemble.

Classes are fine, if a bit on the boring side. Comps is going well. Just now I'm revising the Ngugi section, which is proving far more fun than the initial drafting.

I've had a great weekend, too. Friday I worked all day, but then went with Anjelica to the Cave to see Babyguts and Gospel Gossip. It felt good to let loose with someone new for a while, who hasn't already been conditioned to think that I'm a recluse. I've felt more socially inclined of late, and I'm hoping to mostly leave behind my more reserved self. It's been working well so far.

Other than that, Semaphore rehearsal, and homework, I haven't done too many exciting things. I made a Spanish veggie stew for dinner last night, complete with a nice dry wine, warm and crusty peasant bread, and a bar of dark chocolate with cherries and peppers. Fuckin' nummy, mes amis. I also went to see Michael Clayton at SUMO at 11:30 last night. It got late, but I really enjoyed the movie.

More later. Until then, peace.

Currently listening to: Built to Spill, Keep It Like A Secret; Daft Punk, Alive 2007; TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain; mixes I've been making for friends in the past week.

Heute Abend, als ich die Landschaftsmalereien der achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhundert fuer Comps recherchierte, habe ich etwas ausgezeichnet entdeckt. Normalerweise finde ich Fussnoten ganz aergerlich, aber John Ruskin, der die Analyse der modernischen europaeischen Landschaftsmaler geschrieben hat, gab den deutschen Philosophen ein Bitch-Slap in einer Fussnote:*

[This afternoon, while I researched landscape painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for comps, I found something spectacular. Normally I find footnotes annoying, but John Ruskin, who wrote the study on modern European landscape painters, dealt a bitch slap to German philosophers in a footnote:]

"In fact (for I may as well, for once, meet our German friends in their own style), all that has been subjected to us on this subject seems object to great objection; that the subjection of all things (subject to no exceptions) to senses which are, in us, both subject and abject, and objects of perpetual contempt, cannot but make it or ultimate object to subject ourselves to the senses, and to remove whatever objections existed to such subjection. So that, finally, that which is the subject of examination or object of attention, uniting thus in itself the characters of subness and obness [my personal favorite]  (so that, that which has no obness in it should be called sub-subjective, or a sub-subject, and that which has no subness in itshould be called upper or ober-objective, or an ob-object); and we also, who suppose ourselves the objects of every arrangement, and are certainly the subjects of every sensual impression, thus uniting in ourselves, in an obverse or adverse manner, the characters of obness and sub-ness, must both become metaphysically dejected or rejected, nothing remaining in us objective, but subjectivity, and the very objectivity of the object being lost in the abyss of this subjectivity of the Human.

There is, however, some meaning in the above sentence, if the reader cares to make it out; but in a pure German sentence of the highest style there is often none whatever. See Appendix II. 'German Philosophy.' " (Ruskin 1878, vol. 3, 158).

I found this particularly enthralling because later in the afternoon, while reading a German article on "Frauen und Landschaft" [Women and Landscape"], the third sentence in the damn thing was almost as long as Ruskin's lovely parody.

*I felt inspired.

Does anyone else find Modest Mouse's "Blame it on the Tetons" a surprisingly intelligent song? It's just grabbed me pretty strongly in the past weeks, though I've liked it from the first time I heard it. I guess that's why I've been including it in mixes for people lately...


Furthermore, if you are looking to get into the pants of some hotty, I would encourage you never to employ the following term of endearment: "my tomato plant growing on the rich soil of an abandoned homestead." It really isn't all that flattering.

Working on comps in the last couple of weeks, while greatly rewarding, has also been exceptionally exhausting. The amount of material to negotiate, coupled with the length of the project (and, as always, that annoying time deficit so familiar at Carleton  -- und die Welt von Momo) has lately left me in a state of mind I have had some difficulty in articulating. One thing, though, is that I find myself far more hateful and resentful of others than is usual. I tend not to want to be around happy people because I find them unbearably annoying -- this is especially true with smiling strangers. I also find myself trivializing the problems others are facing. Granted, it has generally been standard practice in my years here for seniors to "trump" everyone else's suffering with the comps card; but I promised myself I would never do that. I'm generally so organized and (though often stressed) still pretty much together, despite what I might say sometimes. While I am actually managing comps well enough, it is still such a completely different beast from anything I've ever done academically that even I found it surprising. In a good way, yes; but I still feel bitter toward all of those people who actually get to enjoy their midterm break. Mine...well, I'll be locked in Laird, listening (almost obsessively) to Talk Talk -- who, by the way, really are rather amazing. Despite the relatively wide range of instruments they use, and in spite of their name as well, The Laughing Stock (in an experimental project begun in its predecessor, Spirit of Eden, which I haven't yet heard in completion) is fairly minimalistic, but dense enough to be both beautiful and engaging. The liquid guitar in "New Grass" I find particularly powerful. Highly recommended.

Also, a message to my friend Steph:
You actually write beautifully and with subtlety. I admire you and I'm thrilled that you're writing. Keep going!

All in all, today has been a decent to good day. To begin, the delicious fuzzy navels, sex on the beaches, and tequila timer shots from last night’s Semaphore party thankfully did not come back to haunt me when I woke up this morning. I ate brunch with a guy named Vince. He was on my floor freshman year, and I’ve had a couple of classes with him. He’s an English major, and he’s doing the first fiction comps the department has seen in a while. His project sounded pretty interesting; he’s working on a story/novella playing with the concept of the Bildungsroman. I’ve always liked Vince, even though some of his comments in Lit II frustrated me sometimes. But I really came to respect him in my postmodern American literature class last term. He’s a really intelligent guy, and I found his level of engagement with so many of the texts rather inspiring. I actually remember getting frustrated with him one day in pomo class when we were talking about Barthe’s Snow White. He made a comment about how disconnected he felt this art to be from the everyday American; that no “real” average Joe would ever pick this up and actually make it through, much less enjoy it. At the time I dismissed his comment because I felt like that kind of a question wasn’t really the prerogative of the course at hand. “So what,” I thought, “if the average American couldn’t read it. It wasn’t meant for a popular audience, and that’s okay. Art doesn’t have to be immediately accessible in order for it to be ‘good’ or ‘worthwhile.’” But as the term went on, I began to think more and more about what he had said. At the time, I was working away at refining my comps proposal, and it struck me that what intrigued me so deeply about the potential dialogue between Isak Dinesen and Ngugi wa Thiong’o – indeed about African literatures in general – was that there was a pervasive sense of immediacy in their work. In Ngugi’s case, for example, so much of his literary theory was caught up in the discourse of Marx and Fanon. He believed that language itself could be revolutionary, and indeed when he published Devil on the Cross in his native Gikuyu, it had an immediate and profound effect on the “everyday” people for whom he had written it. People were reading it aloud in huge groups everywhere in Kenya. To get back to Vince’s comment, I realized that he didn’t necessarily mean that pomo theory was illegitimate or useless, but, as we talked about today, he was lamenting what he felt to be a disconnect between most Americans and this art which explores quintessentially intellectual crises. Who can relate to antifoundationalism, or the manifold nature of reality? These are the problems of the white intellectual bourgeoisie. Again, this isn’t a problem, per se, but I would agree with him that there’s a sense of disconnect from real world issues that makes studying it feel somehow dirty. There’s something much more profound for me in studying the deeply felt cultural consequences of textual production that postmodernism could never offer. So yeah, we talked about some of that. I like Vince because he’s so thoughtful and down to earth, and it reminds me that I don’t want to be the pretentious snobbag I often feel I’m in danger of becoming. He keeps me thinking.

So then I danced for three hours. Now, when I say “dance” I really mean sat on nasty Cowling floor for three hours doing slow painful movement as Wynn tried to get every precise detail of the 2 or so minute opening of her new piece for Semaphore. Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s going to be really beautiful, it’s just not particularly fun at this juncture. The rest of the material we have, however, is much quicker, more buoyant, and generally excellent.

 

Then the rest of the day was rather like a blob. I finished reading the first half of Wangari Maathai’s memoir for African environmental history, figured out what I’m writing on for that class, and studied me some Français. Then I watched a ridiculously stupid movie called Hoodwinked with the Creatures. Kudos to Saira for that’n.

 

But that’s about it. I have so much shit left to do, but it will get done. My Bloody Valentine will get me through. Maybe some Feist, too. Goodnight y’all.

 

…according to my preposterously attractive French prof, people in New Orleans don’t always have the best French. For example, on the billboard for one church was written: “Dieu blesse l’Amérique.” Unfortunately for them, the verb blesser is one of those dastardly faux amis; it means “to hurt.”

Here I am at work. Bored. Again. Carol is out and the three other student workers who come in the morning have pretty much covered everything.

I've been doing pretty well since I last posted. I've been surprised (though I know I shouldn't) the amount of time comps consumes. I essentially spend all my waking moments working on it and thinking about it, taking breaks only to do the work for my other classes. I shouldn't complain, because comps is actually progressing splendidly, and my advisor is really happy with the direction of the project and with the progress I've made thus far. I just finished drafting the Out of Africa section, which explores the ways Isak Dinesen's attempts to establish her legitimacy over the land, her physical interaction with the land, and her textual production/representation of landscape function in tandem to dismantle the 3-D time-space-culture matrix signifiied by land in pre-colonial Gĩkűyű ideology. Now I'm ready to begin working on the Ngűgĩ section (for which I currently lack a concise explanatory blurb). I'm very happy with comps.

Though I enjoy French, I increasingly find the quia exercises useless and a waste of my time. At least Steph and I were paired for our oral test today, for which we composed a dialogue about hygiene and daily routines between Harold Bloom and Jacques Derrida.* It's fugging awesome. Also, although I've been finding the material covered in the readings for African environmental history stimulating, Jamie Monson needs to learn how to run her class. Discussion is as painful as pulling teeth without anaesthesia, and this is not necessarily the fault of my fellow students. Tuesday, for example, we spent the first half of the period "workshopping" our research paper ideas. Granted, few people had concrete topics...but this should have tipped Jamie off to the notion that now was not the time to waste an hour dallying on indecision. Consequently, we had only ten minutes for lecture on actual course material before we went to the library to learn how to do research, and how to "historicize" our topics. In my view, a lot of what we were told should have been covered in freshman seminars, and not in a 200-level seminar...but hey, that's just me.

Semaphore is wonderful. I love the people, and I'm really excited by the work we've been doing with Wynn Fricke and Sarah Jacobs (a Carleton alum). I'm excited for our spring break trip to ACDF in Salt Lake City. (I'm also excited to visit Robin in Portland afterward, and then possibly Lucy and Debbie in Madison too!).

Other than that, I've little else to say, other than things are getting difficult very quickly. I'm already getting worn down by going to bed every night at 1:30 and waking up at 7:00. That's not so bad, I guess, but 5.5 hours is not enough sleep to be getting five days a week.

Currently listening to: Neko Case, "Maybe Sparrow"; My Bloody Valentine, Loveless

Take care, friends.

*Says Bloom about his sleeping problems: "Je dors mal depuis dix années. Je me réveille au milieu de la nuit avec des idées fantastiques pour mes nouveaux livres génials de théorie littéraire."

Ever have the feeling that something deeply wrong has been lodged at the bottom of your esophagus for days, weeks? Like you're just waiting for whatever it is to surface and destroy your composure once again? Like you're trapped in and by your worries for other people and yourself, so intricately intertwined?

Someone whom I'm lucky to be getting to know better looked me in the eyes today and said, "Taylor, you're such a happy person." I smiled and said, "No. I'm really not."

Thinking about: Shortcomings, Ghost World, and other graphic novels detailing lives of quiet desperation.

We are all of us so very fallible, though I wish the saying of that adage could more readily alleviate the scorch of its truth.

Still listening to: Built to Spill, Perfect From Now On. It still holds true for me that the more randomly discovered something is, the greater is its potential to possess. This one grabbed me and it's still holding on. Singing:

That net does not make me feel safe
All those holes make me nervous

We're special in other ways
Ways our mothers appreciate
We're special in other ways
Ways our mothers appreciate

Also, upon second and third and fourth listenings, I've come to retract my initial negative judgment of M.I.A.'s Kala. Though it lacks the spice and spunk of her debut, and its clear(er) resonance with (what I've heard to be) contemporary rap and r&b stylings -- in its production fidelity, its incessant self-referentiality, and its invitation of other artists who are equally self-reflexive -- there is still a lot to like about it. More later, but I really like "Bamboo Banga," "Hussell" (sp?) and "Paper Planes" (the controversial one that gets airtime and that everyone loves). It just doesn't preserve that revolutionary spirit, either in form or content -- less bongo with the lingo.

This weekend has, in general, been pretty good, though it didn't have the most promising beginnings. The Rainbow Retreat occupied my thoughts some yesterday, reminding me of how disconnected I feel from the queer community at Carleton. I know it is meant to provide an opportunity to forge connections, but I don't feel I have enough in common with most of these people to make that a worthwhile effort. For myself, sexual orientation isn't enough to establish group solidarity; rapport requires more substance. I guess this opinion additionally stems from my distrust of several individuals, and a general disillusionment with what I've perceived as the clique-forming, "incestuous" and often gossipy group dynamics. This cynicism frustrates me deeply, especially when others seek connection with that network and, it would seem, find it somewhat easily.*

This no doubt fits neatly into my general feelings of isolation of late. When I think about the situation objectively, I don't think it would be particularly difficult to seek and hang out with "new" people. There are a good number of people on campus with whom I feel like I could connect more deeply if I invited it. There are logistical problems, though, as I realize I have far less time in my schedule than at first I thought, as I think about how little time I have left at Carleton in the first place, and as I question the extent to which others might wish to connect with me. The latter point is, at the moment, especially acute for me; I'm not interested in expanding my social network in the tenuous mode à la Facebook. I don't need more acquaintances; I feel starved for more profound connection.

Granted, this really isn't the moment for me to complain. Last night, after seeing Sweeney Todd with Steph and Rachel, the three of us had perhaps the most powerful and enriching conversations we've ever had. It felt really good to open up, especially with Rachel, with whom I don't typically have personal conversations. But to really feel like I could lay out my thoughts exactly as they formed (and have all that accepted and understood) felt so liberating, and it helped me digest some long-harbored thoughts on suicide, depression, and other related matters.

I don't really have much else to say right now, though I feel fairly thoughtful. In the end, though, I guess I don't want to sound like I'm a pessimistic defeatist regarding my social life. I know that I have worth and that I am a complete person -- it's just finding a cathartic, fulfilling outlet that proves difficult.

Currently listening to: Built to Spill, Perfect From Now On [my current favorite]; Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood: Feist, The Reminder.

*It doesn't help that I've felt body conscious and sexually undesirable lately. That's definitely an element of my frustration when I think about the queer community.

So. There's been some changing going on, and though not altogether pleasent, positive nevertheless. Mike and I put an end to our romantic relationship this weekend for numerous reasons; we needed a stronger friendship and we needed a change of expectations, among other things. As sad as it is to feel like my last year with him is now "over" -- and in spite of the troubles I will always have many poignant memories that will never leave my mind -- this really is a positive change. This pain is very different (and much more managable) than the stress-driven depression that had been consuming me since the summer. It's nice to feel like I'm coming back for the long haul. At the same time, of course, I would like to actually build that stronger foundation of friendship with him. I'm starting to wonder, though, whether I'm the only one who really wants that; if that's even possible. I'd like to believe it is, but I don't want to be the only one.

In other news, my mind has been occupied by the growing ethnic violence in Kenya following te deeply flawed election that made Mwai Kibaki president. I have hopes that Kenya can reestablish peace and perhaps retain its pride as the one major stable state in the horn. I just also know that the cleavage between the Gikuyu and the other ethnic groups is clearly and strongly defined, and that tension runs deep historically -- not all groups were treated the same during the colonial period, of course. And as we've seen with many ethnic conflicts (not necessarily always violent) worldwide and not just in Africa, ethnic identification -- especially when founded on a common set of historical grievances, intitiated during colonialism and reinforced during neocolonialist "independence" -- often serves as the kindling for violence. Two weeks ago, the spark fell. Pay attention.

Currently listening to: Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Although I've wanted to listen to this for a long time, I was still a little unsure about it when I bought it. I was pleasantly surprised, though, how much I liked it when I started listening to it, though. The countrified reverb works better than I thought it would, likely because the songwriting itself is relatively unconventional in terms of form and structure. The lyrics, too, are intriguing and well-wrought. It's a keeper, indeed.