Vivre Sa Vie

Clearly I'm a terrible person - I don't call, I don't blog, I don't write. Theoretically, it could all part of my cunning scheme to keep you in suspense -- the minor flaw being that there's nothing in my life about which to ferment mystery. Except, of course, my secret ambition to become Sailor Moon. But that you already suspected.

Things have been incredibly busy lately, again with no particular reason. The new assistant is growing to be a huge help, but oddly enough, I continue to feel rather overwhelmed with my workload. Try telling that to the higher-ups. It's also the season for performance appraisals, which went pretty well, minus the ulcer I bore around in my stomache during the week. I finally went home one night and had Yorgo recite excerpts because I was too nervous to read them on my own. He teased me and cheered me up, but I'm still tentative about any praise that has been issued and am constantly scanning the paragraphs for latent criticism. Because when you're a prat like me, accepting constructive feedback is parallel to dental surgery.

AK in Action

1. Last Weekend! Two talks hosted by the ACLA (American Comparative Lit. Association) conference held in Princeton. One morning seminar on Renaissance Humanism and Critical Theory -- yours truly crawled out of bed and staggered across campus to be blasted by speeches on Leonardo and Lacan, Herbert and negative theology, and Petrarch in Rome. Amazing. Sitting there listening to a paper on 'The Pulley,' I felt the speaker's eloquence gradually become a material sensation that climbed my spine and fired off every neuron in my brain. I think I've forgotten the massive mental and physical stimulation of meeting someone who can not only penetrate the complicated rhetoric of poetry, but who can actually articulate his/her thoughts in a lyrical manner. I love being so easily humbled yet seduced by language.

2. Plenary talk on Humanism and Human Rights in the evening. Simon Gikandi is a brilliant, endearing man. Go see him talk if you ever get the chance. The rest of them were decent but uninspired; by the time we made it to the final speaker, the guy next to me was practically resting his head on my shoulder. Also met interesting California professor who won points by laughing at my jokes and passing on ridiculous tidbits about all the famous people present. Date material?

3. Tuesday! Discussion with Alain Badiou and Cornel West: "Is it Possible to Enjoy Personal Liberty without Collective Equality?" Clara accompanied me and sat rapt as 'Brother Badiou' rambled on (in a most systematic fashion) about his theory that we need to "bring the outside inside." An hour later, Brother West had to resurrect us from what felt like a dull funeral.

Now while Monsieur West is certainly a lively speaker, it must be noted that he relies more on histrionic flights of thought rather than substantive ideas. His sentences are the aural equivalent of jeweled boxes; they mesmerize you as you listen, but at the end of the day, they reveal themselves as being purely decorative once you open them up and discover their threadbare contents. I'd like to see him speak again if only because his aptitude for quotation and rhythmic intonation is wonderful. Plus his hornet's nest haircut is the only one I've known to successfully occupy an entire horizon line. It's practically panoramic.

4. In an effort to avoid going home to an empty house, I then wandered over to the local bookstore to read. Met an energetic youth who spent the next 40 minutes stunning me with his detailed knowledge of practically every modern poet - Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Williams, Strand, my mother...I finally purchased a book out of sheer obligation and fled home in haste, feeling the swiss-cheese consistency of my own academic foundations.

4. Wednesday! Poetry reading with Louise Glück and Yusef Komunyakaa at a local creative writing event. Hearing LG read was a shock to the system; I imagined her as having a more soothing and reflective voice. Instead, she read with a raspy tone that lent a bitterness to almost every moment.

Yusef Komunyakaa, on the other hand, was pure joy to listen to. He does have a more practised air to his performance, but I refuse to fault him for this simply because his cadences are exquisitely chosen and capable of rendering the most simple line into something that makes my pulse quicken with pleasure. At the end, as he circulated the room, he gravely shook my hand and asked if I was a poet, whereupon I flushed extensively. So much for poise. 

5. Went to the Ivy with Bob, Debbie K., and some dude named Blue (married, one child - why he came, I'll never know), where we merrily ran into Heath, Clara & Mike. There was lots of dynamic-shifting over the course of the evening. We elucidated the meaning of "cock-blocking," whereupon I busily planned to incorporate this into any and every exchange for the rest of the week. Got to know Jeremy a shade better, which was lovely.

7. Thursday! Serious morning meeting regarding the fate of the art list. Very, very interesting to observe. Meet some bigwig art historians; am wowed. Feel slightly off-colour for the rest of the day, attend bizarre symposium on "Utopias" in the evening and hear Edouard Glissant. Why he read in French I'll never know, since he kept intercepting the translator's efforts with his own English renderings.