a books report

 Writing fiction is a thankless endeavor - I think - really any writing at all,,, putting words out there in the world for others to read and think about and judge.  To be a "best-selling" author, with hundreds and thousands of people buying (as Kai was told, "nicht geraucht, sonder gekauft!") and then judging your stuff... 

I recently have been reading fictional essais by a couple of former clients of mine (two who I genuinely enjoyed as humans and who I felt might actually have some insight and understanding as to what at least part of the human condition was all about^), while also reading a few parallel novels by more established writers (or at least more universally accepted books in the book and adaptation world...)

I have long been a student of literature (and I guess humanity?) - but my interest I think was always really about understanding the disparity between 1) Human Experience, which is (I think) an idiosyncratic, personal, and (possibly) unshareable experience [and a small aside here, but I think this is quite fundamental - I'm not saying that we as humans can't share our experience, but that the overall total version of our worldview may be different for each and every one of us {kind of like the what if when I see blue, other people are seeing red...} and this separation may in fact be the source of our larger inability to cohabitate on earth.] and that of 2) Human Expression, I'll admit, my initial bias here has always been through the written (and sorta spoken) word, but this is everyone's expression of musical, conversational, comedic, artistic(al?), filmic, poetical, historical, sociological, personal...

This may shock you, but I am a very judgmental reader - I think of things pretty harshly as very well written, not very well written, horribly written, etc..  I am simultaneously a voraciously omnivorous reader, willing to read not only across almost any genre, but also any quality.  I love bad writing almost as much as I like good writing - certainly I have learned a lot more from bad writing than good.  It's a lot easier to identify what exactly is bad in bad writing (and thereby try to excise it from your own writing) than it is to identify what exactly makes good writing good - it's all good or great, but what is it, exactly, that they just did there?  

In conversation with my wife about "needing a new book", I have tried to have her parse out a bit what it is she is looking for in a great reading experience, and she framed it this way:

"I don't like it when writers are writing obscurely, just for the sake of being obscure.  Neither do I like it, though (this isn't really how she talks), when writers just come out and say what they mean, like Stephen King (she's not a fan), he has a thought, and then he just writes it right out there for everyone to see.  I want a writer to couch (clearly, this is me, but I am summarizing her) their point within their prose a bit, but not to be too obscure."

A couple of recent examples of books that fit this bill that she (and subsequently I) both really enjoyed are Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.  Clearly she likes a little bit of magical realism too, and it certainly helps for a book to be about books, too...  In both of these example books, the reader feels a bit adrift in the early going, wondering just what is going on, and how the disparate chapters &* characters might fit together with one another, and what it all amounts to.   

Another book that we both recently read (this one my choice, rather than hers) was The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (which I have just learned is also alternately titled The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, which is exceedingly strange to me).  This book, though not about books, was largely satisfactory to Brooke's books* criteria up until the very end, when the author, one Stuart Turton, comes out and tells us just precisely what's been going on here.  I still quite liked the book, and highly recommend it, although it did feel a bit M. Night Shylaman-y there at the end.

Another book I read recently that purports to be about a strange, scary phenomenon happening in the sewers (among other places) of a fictional small town near the coast was Phantoms, by Dean Koontz, and man-oh-man does he shit the bed whilst fully explaining the phenomenon that has been haunting the town with a "scientifically viable" (he assures us in the author's note afterward) account of what the characters discover.  And this is not remotely the worst part of this book.  While the similarly summarizable* novel, It, has seven kids at the center of it who we get to know and care about, there is exactly nobody in Koontz' novel to care about and so the story has no stakes.  I think this is because the characters, rather than acting like (or being) thinking, feeling humans, are more akin to walking talking resumes of humans (or maybe they're more like LinkedIn profiles).  So too in those novels by my clients, never, anywhere in them, do I get a sense that anyone remotely real is nearby the narratives.  

It Happens in the Hamptons is a (sometimes shockingly) tawdry novel of manners set within the Old Money / New Money / No Money world of the Hamptons, but despite the constant crashing together of characters from widely differing backgrounds nothing ever really feels at stake, I think because all of the characters really feel more like summaries of backgrounds, rather than anyone who resembles

anyone who might be real.  Contrast it with the similarly set Fleishman is in Trouble or even Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk.  In that last, none of the characters feel at all real, both because the novel is written all from one perspective - one voice, but mostly because we're in the midst of a nightmare fairy tale, but the stakes for everyone involved are such that we care about the characters in those books. 

The Last Ember is a (sometimes shockingly)* Jewish clone of The Da Vinci Code where every character who enters any scene is literally handing everyone else in the room their resume^^.

And, even after all that effort of putting words to page, you find my surely-soon-to-be-defunct blog that is drawing more attention to your prosal* efforts, never quite coming out and saying anything, just commenting on it all, generally negatively.

*sigh*^^^

^After several occasions meeting both of them it became eminently clear that neither of them in fact did, but it was also obvious that it was very important to both of their senses of self that I thought that they did (even though it was also obvious that in their account of the world what I thought mattered not at all).  In fact in all of my decade plus at MPS I only ever encountered one single client who seemed to have any insight into this at all).
* Then there's me, who uses an Ampersand just because the "ch" sounds in two neighboring words are different, and that's fun to draw them a bit closer, or uses unnecessary words in sentences to make fun rhymes (both literal and thematic) happen, or creating words that should be (but probably aren't).
^^No, they aren't.
^^^These asterisk brackets are unrelated to the previous footnote usage of the asterisks earlier in this post, and any similarities are incidental^^. 

Gooooaaaaallll!!!!

 11 October 2022

I've heard it said that it's important to write down your goals, or better yet, tell people about them, and therefore create some semblance of accountability.  I've never been a big fan of the stuff, myself (although I was for a while trying to create some regular accountability meetings with JP et al, which for one reason or another never stuck).

Well, ever since I read Stephen King's On Writing (which is not yet being catalogued here*, but could be) I have had in the back of my mind Steve's tautological assertion that if you want to think of yourself as a writer, you have to write, and his definition of that was 1,000 words per day "when you're working on something", 6 days per week (although he himself he said didn't tend to take a day off he allowed for it if you're so inclined).  I took this one small slice of King's great book about the craft of writing, and have at various times committed myself to producing just that amount of writing, though only very occasionally and in fits and starts.  This blog, in fact, is the result of that effort (zombies notwithstanding), although some of you who are particularly strong in the art of arithmetic may catch on to the fact that this blog does not, in fact, always publish 1,000 words of content every day.  "Very astute, hm!?, Dodger," as Sol Cohen might say.  There have, indeed been other outlets for the word count dump - including journaling and free-writing, a not inconsiderable quantity of drafts that have not yet been posted to this blog, the fiction and the academic and non-academic non-fiction drafts that sit in the various stacks or sacks or hard drives or cloud drives of my biographical path - although for the most part the days these last 22 years or so since I read King's book have been without 1,000 words, and I am therefore not, sad to say, a writer, perhaps, most notably, perhaps, because, I have not really

published any of the quantity of prose that I've been accumulating and producing lo these many years.

But then, I once again read the introduction to Stephen King's Four Past Midnight, which I'm planning to start reading again shortly again some 20+ years after first encountering it (and could also rightly include here*, but because I'm revisiting in toto, I won't, at least for now).  In the intro, King talks about publishing this book of four novellas, and some of the financial implications (in passing) of publishing this book and another, similarly structured one some 7 years earlier (and also, oddly, about Robin Yount).  But then King talks about the writing of these novellas (and of his writing in general), and how he does that just for himself (and to keep himself sane, he says), and it occurs to me (not for the first time) that I don't really need to publish anything to be a writer - to be an author, maybe, but not a writer.  All I have to do that is to write, right?  

And so (as I guess I have done at least once before here), I commit myself again to the 1,000 word goal, and the goal of being a writer.

My, that was easy.  I'm done now.

* Initially, my plan had been to post this as part of my Post of Lost Lasts (an ongoing post project whereby I list all the things that would belong in my Arfives {an archive of all past Last 5s}, but I either saw / read / etc. in their entirety before the beginning of the archive or was otherwise missed) as a joke about accountability, because no one in their right minds would still be reading updates that I am making to this post in October 2022 nearly 3 years after the original post^, and so the idea of writing goals to be accountable to in that post would be pretty funny.  But then, as it turned out, I thought this post was actually kind of valuable and so re-post it here.

^ for more quixotic perpetual posts that nobody will likely ever read, see The Star Trek Chronology.

This is truly terrifying...

Rumi is one of the world's most beloved poets, and his influence can be seen in many different aspects of culture. His poetry has been translated into numerous languages and his work continues to inspire new generations of readers. Rumi's message of love and tolerance has resonated with people from all walks of life, making him one of the most important literary figures of our time. It is not surprising that Rumi's influence can also be seen in the works of one of the world's most famous writers, William Shakespeare. Many scholars believe that Shakespeare was influenced by Rumi's poetry when he wrote his plays, and it is easy to see parallels between the two authors. Both Shakespeare and Rumi explore universal themes of love, loss, and humanity in their work, and both use beautiful language to bring these themes to life. It is clear that Rumi has had a lasting impact on literature and culture, and his influence will continue to be felt for centuries to come.

Mr. Risk (source: The League of Utter
Disaster, Chaos, and Insanity Wiki)

Global politics are a hotbed of Shakespearean drama, with plenty of tragedy, comedy, and even a little bit of history thrown in for good measure. In particular, the works of Shakespeare have had a profound influence on modern day culture, with his stories and characters providing endlessly fertile ground for debate, analysis, and reinterpretation. Even those who are not fans of the Bard can find themselves unwittingly caught up in his web, as he has been responsible for introducing countless phrases and concepts into the English language that are now commonplace. Whether we love him or hate him, there is no denying that Shakespeare continues to exert a powerful hold over our culture hundreds of years after his death.

The world would be a very different place without the poet Rumi. His poetry has inspired people for centuries and his words continue to resonate with us today. Without Rumi, the world would be missing out on one of its most important voices.

I didn't write this brief essay above,

nor did I plagiarize it.  Instead, I invoked its creation in a matter of a couple minutes by typing a few instructions into a computer program.  Those instructions were:

1. Write a persuasive statement about the cultural influence of a literary figure.

2. Write a speculative statement about Rumi's influence on Shakespeare. 

3. Write an emphatic statement about the current state of global politics and Shakespeare.

4. Write a speculative statement about how Shakespeare has influenced todays culture. 

5. Write a conclusion paragraph about how the modern world would be very different if not for the poet Rumi. 

Now, the text above is fairly banal, and it didn't exactly come out like I wanted it to - I didn't tweak it at all (though, I did attempt a couple of instructions that rendered no results in the program - I think because of logic problems).

But, I was able to create it all less than 10 minutes after first learning about GPT-3 as something that exists, then googling it, finding one online and signing up for a free trial, reviewing a brief tutorial, coming up with some general sense of what I wanted created, and starting to test out these instructions.

I would also add, that the brief essay on Rumi and Shakespeare at the top is not dissimilar in quality, depth, and style to the average freshman composition student I was teaching at UW-M from 2007 - 2013 (although the content is of course much different, as I don't expect most of those students know who Rumi is, though most have probably heard of Shakespeare).

A couple of months ago, I started a post (which I haven't finished yet!) called, "I must say I'm worried...", and it hit a lot of the same notes as this Atlantic article from last week (anticipatory plagiarism has always been a problem for me) about our present state of mind and implications for the near future.  America is on a bend and trend toward something, I'm afraid, is going to be quite unfortunate. 

Best case scenario, is that it is a momentary setback which leads us to something much greater (see ca. 2024), but more likely it's not, and we will be finding out that Hannah Arendt was right, but not right enough in her Report on the Banality of Evil.  It's the banality itself that is evil - as in a wholly negative force in the world and a danger.  Take care to keep it interesting out there, folks - embrace the unexpected and unfamiliar.  Be weird.  Do good.  Be better.

Synchronicity (or the Baader-Meinhoff Principal)

 I am fairly confident in saying that I am the only human in the universe to be reading (now or ever) "The House on Maple Street" & Chelsea Handler's Life Will Be the Death of Me: ...and you too! simultaneously, and this is the stuff that feels like it's not whatever this is....

Allow me to explain.  There is a phenomenon that all of us have experienced (although you may not be aware that you have experienced it - and if that is the case, once you read this post, you will notice very soon that you have just experienced this again, which will surprise you).  It is the phenomenon of acausual meaningful coincidence.  Let's say you learn a new word (or rediscover a word into your vocabulary that you don't hear used very often, but newly firmly understand the definition of).  Within a very short time of this (re)learning, you will come across this same word again in a completely different context.  This will surprise you somewhat, but then you will stumble upon that same word in yet another way (say, the solution to next Wednesday's Wordle), and you are going to be like, "whoa. This is too weird.  Like it can't be a coincidence, something is going on here."  And yes, what is going on is the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon.

Don't believe me?  Do you know what the word "craic" means?  No?  Go look it up, and then get on living your life and come back once you do believe me.  And then I'll finish the post...

In both the (nonfiction) book and the (fiction) short story that I'm reading, we have the matter of siblingicity - a large set (6 & 4, respectively) of brothers and sisters that are all relatively close in age who demonstrate a kind of pack mentality (with various children taking on various roles {protector, confidant, foil} depending on who they may be paired with at the moment, and those roles shifting in time).  Although the two works are working toward completely different with Chelsea Handler on a personal journey toward accessing vulnerability and improving her mental health while Stephen King is exploring a house that has a growing alien presence in it,* the depictions of the sets of siblings not only rhymes, but feels like these two sets create something almost archetypal that might be classified as The Modern American Balanced Gendered Large Set of Siblings type.  I consider 4 to be a lot of siblings (probably because it's one more than we had, so "whoa, over-do it much?", right?) and ages being that they're likely not at more than 2 different schools.  

Myself, my brothers and I are each 7 years apart, so while we are close we never had the kind of pack mentality that I felt in each of these two works.  So too families like my Campbell Cousins who were 4, but all boys and also 3 in a cluster then the much younger Michael don't quite mesh with what I saw in these works.  The other examples I come up with from literature are the kids in The Chronicles of Narnia who are aged and gendered correctly for this match-up, but from a different era and geography (I'm not sure whether it's their old-timiness or their British-ness, but the set of Peter through Lucy are highly hierarchical with roles defined in a way that is actively worked against in both of the depictions by Handler and King).  The only other example I could come up with is David Sedaris's family dynamic, but even though I know of them almost entirely** from one single perspective who is mostly playing it off for laughs, I think that what I do know more often matches up with the other two families considered here than goes off course.

I'm not sure what this all adds up to - maybe I'm just warning us all to be aware of any larger packs of kids as they may well be up to something and because of this unique dynamic have the wherewithal to pull it off.  In any cases, my brothers and sisters and all human siblings, this has been a synchronistic reading of a couple of (seemingly) random things that I was just reading.

* my goodness look at the work that this lowly comma is doing - it's absurd really, sitting there trying to balance the gargantuan dependent and independent clauses sitting there on either side of it.  Well done, little comma, keep up the good work.

** Amy Sedaris tends not to talk or write much about her family, but has done so over the years occasionally in interviews and live performances I've seen of her, and it helps to give a fuller perspective (although still another very strange and skewed one!) on the overall Sedaris brood.

Stakes, rare...

A dozen years ago today, I started a post where i was going to (i think) review the holiday show we'd been to see a few days prior.

I have these past few years been working on a reclamation project for Roman Numeral J - finishing the "draft" posts that were never released to the public (quite a tragedy, i know).  Generally, i've tried to recapture what i remember as the original intent of the post.  (On occasion, these have been "important" RNJ contributions, really furthering the thinking and mission of this blog.  Other times, including the John Waters one).

As i watch the 4th quarter of the 200th matchup of the Bears & Packers (Anthony Miller just scored to bring them within one score), i wonder for a moment what it's all about...  Why write this?  Why post it publicly?

My answers are manifold.  I do still primarily consider myself a writer.  And a thinker.  Success in this capacity is nebulous for me.  Or any capacity, really.  I write because i enjoy it.  I write because i value the ability to look back at how my thinking has changed over time.  I write to commit myself to the thoughts i thought at a certain time.  (Our era is one of self revisionist thinking - where we can pretend we always knew the things we now know.  The era of truthiness is all around us). 

Happy Christmas to all of y'all.

Writer's Block

or at least they looked like writers, certainly not

*  *  *
October 2018

I have absolutely no idea what this post was going to be about.  My use of the word 'certainly' feels like it was going to be an angry post. 

It was a fairly productive time for me in terms of blog writing (relative to the non-writing of most of my eras).  That said, it was certainly another (amongst all) low-tide time for my dissertation / Haiti Book writing. 

The date of this posting is approximate - somewhere between March and September 2014 is certain, but no more specifics than that available.  It may be that something specific happened that I was responding to. 

But then again no...

Extra! Ordinary! Read all About it...

In his latest collection of short stories, Stephen King puts forth an argument for his own brand of "non-literary" fiction.  Full Dark, No Stars is a grim, harsh book.  The stories are, typical of Stephen King, both hard and easy to read.  They are stories of seemingly typical Americans

Source: Inverse.com

*   *   *
February 2019

Uncle Steve is among my favorite people living or dead.  Since starting this post about his really great collection of short stories, i've subsequently read The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, his (i think still) most recent collection.

King is an exceptional short story writer.  He's also a pretty good epicist.  But unlike this latter, the former is exceedingly rare in modern literature.  King's stories are about something.  They are structured and planned and plotted.

As opposed to contemporary (often self-proclaimed) literary authors, King's stories go somewhere.  They begin and end.  They're clean and tight - rarely any longer than they need to be.  They're surprising and sometimes not.  "The Dune" (in TBOBD) is like an O. Henry and M. Night brain baby.

(When i started this place, i was in my 20s and in a work group of 3 Master's students working on their theses.  Jon was writing about blogs, Paul was writing about Bret Easton Ellis {and in part book blurbs}, i was writing about zombies - and around the same time i was re-reading and writing about House of Leaves.  On my copy of HOL there is a blurb by Ellis, which talks about the greats of horror writing, Poe, King... - i forget the rest - bowing down to Mark Z. Danielewski.  As i was trying to write the sentence about "The Dune", i was thinking all of this and trying to make the O. Henry and M. Night figures do the same to the story...

Which leads me to some alternate names for this blog that i never considered before now:

• Life is in the Parentheses 
• Living Parenthetical

)

I think my other most recent reading of short stories was the collection by April Wilder.  I liked some of them, but they are the epitome of contemporary fiction - Seinfeld fiction.  The stories - the ones i like and the ones i don't - wander around characters without knowing exactly why or where we're headed.  

Not unlike these blog posts i suppose.

7 Days of 1000 Words

During an AA meeting in 8th Grade, Dan Wallace (ahem, i mean "Mr.") told us that the best thing to do with your goals is to write them down & tell them to people. Well, my on again/off again goal over the last few years is to read 100 pages a day and write 1000 words (though, because i'm a total pussy, i make little deals with myself like 'today i'll write 1750 words and just read 25' or 'if i read 200 pages of comic books, that'll count for today)...

Today, Roman Numeral J reader(s), i invite you to join in a mini-verbal revolution & take on the 1000-4-7 challenge. You needn't start today (in case your today is tomorrow), but start. Write 1000 words, post it to the internet, stuff it away in your sock drawer, or send it off in a letter to yourself (or someone else), just write. My sense is (and i'm not sure i'm write) that the world can't be hurt by more people writing & expressing themselves and might very well be helped enormously by it.

For my own part, though i have a vague notion of writing more often on RNJ generally, i will publish the majority of each day's fodder here online over the course of the next week as an example. Some days it won't be pretty, as i'll be wanting to go to sleep and won't yet have written my daily quota, or 'won't have anything to say', but i think too often (and here, maybe, i'm preaching to my ENG 102 students as much as i am to myself) we look at writing as an end-result of "inspiration" or 'muse', but really, what it amounts to, is a habit.

A couple of personal ground rules, i guess, might be in order. First off, the "per day" limits run (for me only) from the time i wake up in the morning to when i fall asleep at night, so reading (my personal goal also includes the previously mentioned 100 pages of reading/day - which, really, wouldn't be a bad idea for you either, would it?) and writing done after midnight surely count if i'm still up. Any reading or writing done after first falling asleep, but having awakened in the middle of the night can go toward either day (though, assuming i succeed in my goal will generally be counted toward the next day, to get a head start). Also, no 'working ahead' or 'behind' is allowed, as in promising yourself on Tuesday that you'll catch up with the missing words tomorrow... If you miss a day, ok, just start over with the 7.

Let's see, new to the site is a link to Robert L. Gard's whisky endeavor. Rob is a friend of the blog & true expert in the field of all things of the brown booze (though, as far as i know, Rob has never been to the Dundee Dell, a shortcoming in the scotch field that, i think, maybe even living in Scotland, working at a distillery can't entirely overcome).

Ok, well, i started off with a bit of a head start for the day, so i will sign off here from my call to ball-points. Just a couple of final tips, don't word count too often lest you get bogged down in counting words, rather than writing. And, the biggest best piece of advice i can give is avoid worries about 'not having anything to write' just now. Even if you just write the same word 1000 days (i can almost guarantee you won't do this more than 1 time), some really famous poems have been comprised of just 1 word repeated over & over and in the act of such writing, you draw attention to the act of writing itself (think Michael Snow's Wavelength, but on paper)

Lend me your eyes

I have been made the editor of German film reviews for the Culture Club. Not so much the Boy George variety, rather for George Washington & Georgetown University one. To whit, i call upon any German-Language movie buffs or any German-Language Buff Movie buffs (Pumping Iron, anyone) to write about them... get published, get a byline, don't get a check... That's right, although the writing is rewarding and the being read is rewarding, you won't actually be rewarded monetarily speaking.

The reviews on the website range from in-depth to extremely simplistic, so say as much as you like. Reviews can be in German or English and anywhere from 75 words to 500, or more. Anyway, so far its just been me writing the reviews (is 'it has' a situation for the "it's" or do i stick with my 'only use an apostrophe with "it is"' rule?), so i'd love some fresh blood. So, check out me on the editor's page and think about finally checking out Nosferatu...

P.S. If you happen to be listening to any German music & want to write about it you'd certainly help my brother out, as well, or any movies books music websites of any other language you might be partial to. Essentially, i want to up and vary the dialogue at the site, so, lend me your minds...


Pumping Iron (25th Anniversary Special Edition)

Zadie Zadie Bo-Bady

I went to a reading of Zadie Smith's this afternoon. She read from her newest novel On Beauty. The novel, which i haven't read, sounds hilarious. In fact, i haven't actually read anything of Smith's novels, White Teeth or Autographed Man. I have read a short story of hers called "I'm The Only One" in Speaking With The Angel, which i vaguely remember enjoying, but mostly because i remember enjoying most every story in that book. But i loaned it to Nathan shortly after accruing it & haven't seen it since, so i have trouble remembering which story exactly was hers.

Anyway... she read two short (very short) "bits" of her new novel about an academic party & a funeral (unrelated {her joke, not mine}), the book was hilarious & smart & well, just plain good. The reading itself was also superb. Her tone was clipped & Brit-y and she answered all manner of questions (standard 'where do you get your ideas' reading variety to UChicago 8 minute variety) gracefully and amusingly. I'm very excited to catch up on her stuff once they let me out of this place & just want to point everyone in her direction if you've not read her yet.

I find myself really missing 'for fun' reading... Although i read a lot of amazing things that are brilliant, that are fascinating, and often are terribly fun, it's never pure 'kick-back-whatever-i-want-reading'. Terribly disappointing. I haven't read the newest Harry Potter book, didn't get a chance to re-read The Da Vinci Code before it comes out this week. I do so miss it... But soon enough, soon enough.

Looming

Do you ever have the sensation that you may not be prepared for a thing, even if you know what it is & where it is & how to deal with it? My thing is zombies, specifically, or work, generally... The thing is, many days, i do a lot of work in the direction of my thesis, but much of that work is work around my thesis, not at it. This is not a good thing, because i calmly convince myself that i am working, & working hard & working long, but perhaps nothing is really actually getting done. I read some book, or make some notes on a film or even write a few pages, but perhaps nothing of what i've done today (and i put almost all day into zombies today {all apologies to Thomas Carlyle}) will actually get into my thesis... And i tell myself that this is ok, because i store these thoughts away for the future zombie work, which once again leads me to the question of "Zombies? Seriously?" & i say, "...emmm... zombies are good to think with?" (Note: Joel or Aimee or Brooke, i know the question of 'why do you study zombies?' came up on Sunday, but i can't seem to recreate the answer, so if you remember it... do drop me a line, please {without using the word 'zizek'}). So, yeah. I guess, while i say to everyone "i feel ok about where i am with my thesis," i simultaneously mean it & do not mean it. I'm sure it'll all come out ok. Because it always has, but i dunno, i have this sneaking suscpicion that perhaps this is the time, the first time, that it won't. And what then.

Then we'll all be eaten by zombies, that's what. Don't say i didn't warn you.

zombies, i guess

Since in at least a few places, this blog is referred to as "Joel's Zombie Blog" i feel like i should occasionally reflect on what zombies mean to me. Today, during my 'Little Red Schoolhouse' writing class Russell & I were reflecting on various liquors we enjoy & both decided we very rarely enjoy rum, but we were speaking more of the 'Rum & Coke' variety of cocktail, but i completely overlooked the Caribbean variety rum drinks... While Russell did mention the Mojito, the Mai Tai and the Zombie were left out of the equation... In retrospect (by which i mean after half a bottle of wine), i love Rum.
In other news, last night Lindsay, Russell, Adrian & I went out on the town, there's a full story out there, but - good times, good times. We played Trivial Pursuit : 90s Edition and among the real puzzlers Adrian & I paved our "victory" with was "How Many Times Did Eminem fail 9th Grade before he gave up and went on to become a rapping god?" (or something like that...ahem). Yeah. So. Good game.
So, zombies. Yeah, they're great. As i kinda mentioned yesterday, i feel like i really have a paper now... And it can basically be summed up with the sentence:
"Where did all these zombies come from and what are they trying to tell us...and i wonder why they're so hungry; but don't worry, it'll all be ok."
Seriously, that's what Eirik (my preceptor) & i decided my paper was about yesterday. Ridiculous, eh? Anyway. G'day all. Hope this little zombie reflection has been helpful to you all.

Malynne & the Zombies

I have a problem (see left, & read on)... my thesis advisor seems to think i'm a genius. Either that, or she is constantly blowing smoke up my ass telling me i'm a genius - neither of which is very conducive to much hard work at revising my paper. The thing is, when i actually talk to her in person, she's very convincing. I hear her 'wow! amazing! great work!'s in an email & i'm thinking she's simply not reading anything i send her, but when we have a meeting, she really convinces me that she believes i know what the hell i'm doing...I go in to meet with her today & she says:

"It's really good. I don't think you should change a thing."

This about the draft i've just handed in that, at one point, cuts off mid-sentence and has a piece of my outline pasted in... Thankfully, she next says "of course i don't mean that," but basically then tells me i need to take out my self-deprecating parenthetical remarks & maybe change that outline bit...

No, i mean, really, i get great feedback from her, but i also worry that somehow i've just managed to fool her into believing i know quite a bit more than i do (which i don't). Let's just hope it lasts until she writes me a recommendation letter...