Friday, November 28, 2008
Have a tryptophan-filled day
You know when your sinuses are all clogged and nothing really makes sense? Yeah.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
off the record
Yeah, so I'm busy. I work all the time, have too many papers to write, etc etc. Blah blah blah.It's too bad, really, since there is SO MUCH that I want to post on the blog but that the never-entirely-anonymous nature of blogging is preventing me from writing. Shame. Because otherwise I would tell you that, last Monday, I very stupidly decided to go to class on migraine meds. Not only did I almost pass out on the walk there, but I arrived late, which ensured that the ENTIRE CLASS witnessed me walk into a closet door--thus creating an enormous lump in the middle of my forehead (which blossomed into a bruise later in the week). Not my finest hour.
I would also tell you that on Friday there happened to be yet another encounter with the elusive Rebound from last year, in which the following conversation took place at approximately midnight:
Me: "Are you seeing anyone?"
Him: "Uh, no."
Me: "Well. Do you want to see me?"
Him: "Ok."*
[There may have been partial nudity involved. Maybe.] I would confide in you that the migraine that seemed to have gone away on Tuesday returned so forcefully Saturday morning that I had to go beg at the health center for a shot of medication I hadn't had to resort to since 2003, after which I went home, split a bottle of Lindeman's Framboise with my fabulous roommate who made me pigs in blankets, and slept until about 5 minutes before going to work on Sunday. I would also tell you that, on Sunday morning, the heat and hot water were out, which meant that I hadn't showered for about three days** when, Sunday night at the gallery--less than 48 hours after seeing the Rebound and approximately 56 hours since my last shower--I got asked out on a date by an attractive man.
...IF I were to post about all this on my blog--and this is NOT EVEN COUNTING the making out with fellow students, the debilitating inability to get to bed before 2am which is seriously f*cking up my life, the very ambiguous email flirting with professors (which may just be in my own mind), the not-so-ambiguous flirting with artists, the annoying cigarette habit I seem to have developed over the summer which has proved obnoxiously hard to quit, the encounters with ex-boyfriends, etc.--alls I would be saying (if I were to be saying this, you understand) is that these must be some DAMN strong pheromones I'm pumping out. And also, that the dude I'm meeting up with on Wednesday is clearly blind. But I'm cool with that.
* I am not known for my subtlety.
** Okay, seriously, if you don't sweat all that much and the hair isn't too greasy, then it's not that big a deal. ...Unfortunately, I sweat a lot and my hair gets gross after about 36 hours. So, clearly: dude is blind.
And we now return to our regularly scheduled hibernation.
See you in January!
See you in January!
Monday, November 10, 2008
purple-headed womb ferret?
I am too busy to write down all the crap I have to do these days, but I have to bring myself out of semi-hiatus to post the following video of Kate Winslet on the English TV show Extras:
Some of the best euphemisms I've ever heard (and that's saying a lot considering my most recent paper) delivered by Kate Winslet wearing a nun costume? I almost stopped breathing I was laughing so hard. The lines after the jump:
"Why don't you just start off with something light, you know. Like, um, 'I'd love it if you stuck your Willy Wonka between my Oompa Loompas,'--you know, something a bit fun, a bit jokey. And then you can get more hard-core, rattle off the old classics, like, 'I'm playing with my dirty pillows. I'm aching for your big purple-headed womb ferret.' And then go straight in hard, like: 'Get 'round here 'cause I'm fudding myself stupid and I'm bloody loving it.' Alright?"
Some of the best euphemisms I've ever heard (and that's saying a lot considering my most recent paper) delivered by Kate Winslet wearing a nun costume? I almost stopped breathing I was laughing so hard. The lines after the jump:
"Why don't you just start off with something light, you know. Like, um, 'I'd love it if you stuck your Willy Wonka between my Oompa Loompas,'--you know, something a bit fun, a bit jokey. And then you can get more hard-core, rattle off the old classics, like, 'I'm playing with my dirty pillows. I'm aching for your big purple-headed womb ferret.' And then go straight in hard, like: 'Get 'round here 'cause I'm fudding myself stupid and I'm bloody loving it.' Alright?"
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
jumping for joy; or, [almost] all my research dreams have come true
Oh my god. After I emailed the professor [of my class on African masquerade (subtitled: "Rhetoric, Theory, Practice")] a few sections from books I'd read recently, she suggested and approved a research topic on the trope of masks/ masquerade/ masking in contemporary romance fiction. She thinks it might be publishable. You know what this means, right? I’m going to read romance novels FOR A RESEARCH PAPER. OH MY GOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD. I almost just jumped around the campus screaming with glee. Seriously.
Philippe Halsman, Dalì Atomicus, (1948)
I connect more with Dalì in this photo than with the cats.
Yes, I'm an art historian. No, as yet there's nota whole lot of any art involved in the paper. No, I haven't really studied literature since my Shakespeare class eight years ago. So, you know ...if any of you actual literature scholars have any thoughts or suggestions on the topic--i.e., masks as a theme, pulp fiction as a research topic--I would be forever grateful. Rex, I'm looking at you, sir.
Woohoo!
The paper proposal itself--along with more happy jumping--after the break...
PROPOSAL:
For a genre as widely popular as mass-market paperback romance novels, there is much that lies unexplored and, therefore, unproblematized in scholarly discourse.[1] I propose to write about the role of masks/masking (and potentially masquerade) in [primarily] 20th and 21st century romance novels. Has masking as theme and plot device remained stable within the literature? How has it changed? Who is masked and why? What do they mask? What are the gender politics involved? How are masks and the act of masking structured in these writings? I anticipate that the story of Cinderella as an archetype will be a pivotal part of my inquiry; I may briefly explore masks and masking in fairy tales. The Regency era, being frequently depicted in such literature, will likely provide the bulk of primary source reading material.
For example, Julia Quinn’s novel, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, with its heroine who feels more "herself" at a masquerade—and who secretly writes a society column under a pen name—uses masks, masking, and masquerade as both explicit and implicit themes. Another example is that of Gaelen Foley’s Lord of Fire, in which a grotesque, carnivalesque masquerade is a scene of revulsion, arousal, and revelation; that this event occurs in the house of a spy, whose profession he conceals from everyone (except, in the end, his beloved), is only fitting. Eloisa James’s Duchess at Nightwill serve as [this proposal's] final example: the heroine spends a large portion of the book in drag as a male. Using these and other examples, I plan to explore different uses of and reactions to masks both literal and metaphorical, masking as an act of concealment, disguise, or liberation, and masquerade as setpiece and long-standing leitmotif.
The proliferation of masking themes extends beyond the sphere of plot and even beyond that of the book itself. The covers of mass market paperbacks often consist of a titillating scene of seduction, peril, or high drama concealed behind the title on the cover. The act of purchasing and reading these books is often fodder for derision on the part of serious-minded folk—with concomitant shame on the part of the reader. In response, many readers of such works of fiction hide or deny reading them—indeed, they are often said to mask their enjoyment. A corollary is the double life that an author of such books sometimes chooses to lead: a high-profile example is that of Mary Bly, a Fordham professor who pens novels under the name Eloisa James.
I am also trying to feel out what sort of links there may be with Bakhtin's conception of carnival (if any)—both are escapist forms of popular entertainment underpinned and dependent upon levels of fantasy and inversion of "everyday life" (where the heroine always gets her hero, and the hero is always worth getting). (There are significant and enormous differences, of course; I am not going to claim that they are the same thing. ...On the other hand, carnival is only one type of expression of utopian fantasy—perhaps, as Nancy Scheper-Hughes suggests, a particularly male one[2]—while a more introverted activity (like reading) functions as both ideal for and idealized by a still-disenfranchised and often sexually exploited population.)
And now, because I've just got to put this photo in, variants of Dalì Atomicus:
According to Wikipedia, repository of all known knowledge and supposition, it took 28 attempts before both Dali and Halsman were satisfied with the result.
Philippe Halsman, Dalì Atomicus, (1948)I connect more with Dalì in this photo than with the cats.
Yes, I'm an art historian. No, as yet there's not
Woohoo!
PROPOSAL:
For a genre as widely popular as mass-market paperback romance novels, there is much that lies unexplored and, therefore, unproblematized in scholarly discourse.[1] I propose to write about the role of masks/masking (and potentially masquerade) in [primarily] 20th and 21st century romance novels. Has masking as theme and plot device remained stable within the literature? How has it changed? Who is masked and why? What do they mask? What are the gender politics involved? How are masks and the act of masking structured in these writings? I anticipate that the story of Cinderella as an archetype will be a pivotal part of my inquiry; I may briefly explore masks and masking in fairy tales. The Regency era, being frequently depicted in such literature, will likely provide the bulk of primary source reading material.
For example, Julia Quinn’s novel, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, with its heroine who feels more "herself" at a masquerade—and who secretly writes a society column under a pen name—uses masks, masking, and masquerade as both explicit and implicit themes. Another example is that of Gaelen Foley’s Lord of Fire, in which a grotesque, carnivalesque masquerade is a scene of revulsion, arousal, and revelation; that this event occurs in the house of a spy, whose profession he conceals from everyone (except, in the end, his beloved), is only fitting. Eloisa James’s Duchess at Nightwill serve as [this proposal's] final example: the heroine spends a large portion of the book in drag as a male. Using these and other examples, I plan to explore different uses of and reactions to masks both literal and metaphorical, masking as an act of concealment, disguise, or liberation, and masquerade as setpiece and long-standing leitmotif.
The proliferation of masking themes extends beyond the sphere of plot and even beyond that of the book itself. The covers of mass market paperbacks often consist of a titillating scene of seduction, peril, or high drama concealed behind the title on the cover. The act of purchasing and reading these books is often fodder for derision on the part of serious-minded folk—with concomitant shame on the part of the reader. In response, many readers of such works of fiction hide or deny reading them—indeed, they are often said to mask their enjoyment. A corollary is the double life that an author of such books sometimes chooses to lead: a high-profile example is that of Mary Bly, a Fordham professor who pens novels under the name Eloisa James.
I am also trying to feel out what sort of links there may be with Bakhtin's conception of carnival (if any)—both are escapist forms of popular entertainment underpinned and dependent upon levels of fantasy and inversion of "everyday life" (where the heroine always gets her hero, and the hero is always worth getting). (There are significant and enormous differences, of course; I am not going to claim that they are the same thing. ...On the other hand, carnival is only one type of expression of utopian fantasy—perhaps, as Nancy Scheper-Hughes suggests, a particularly male one[2]—while a more introverted activity (like reading) functions as both ideal for and idealized by a still-disenfranchised and often sexually exploited population.)
[1]They are read by millions—a glance at the New York Times bestseller list almost invariably shows a romance novel among the other escapist fare listed. Indeed, the Romance Writers of America data show that in the past five years the percentage of male readers of romances has shot up to 22 percent, "a shift that surely warrants someone's critical attention." Selinger, Eric Murphy. "Rereading the Romance," Contemporary Literature XLVIII, 2 (2007), p. 320.
[2] In Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Carnaval," Death Without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 480-504, 555.
[2] In Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Carnaval," Death Without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 480-504, 555.
And now, because I've just got to put this photo in, variants of Dalì Atomicus:
According to Wikipedia, repository of all known knowledge and supposition, it took 28 attempts before both Dali and Halsman were satisfied with the result.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
this seems equally insulting enough
Um, did I mention that I forgot to register to vote in New York? I am ashamed.
Monday, October 6, 2008
seriously, make me stop laughing
In searching for Georgette Heyer eBooks to download (for a paper on masks and masking in popular romance fiction), I ran across the eHarlequin.com bestseller list. Witness:
Top 10 Bestsellers:
I cannot stop laughing. I especially enjoy the question mark on #8, as well as the fact that Italians are the lovers of choice. I think if you combined it all into one, you'd get an arranged marriage to a Mediterranean billionaire prince who, having never seen his betrothed before, mistakes her for a courtesan and abducts her--on Christmas! After he [ruthlessly!] beds and impregnates her, this captive [former] virgin runs--waywardly--away to the Upper East Side? [Then they live happily ever after, etc etc etc ad nauseam.]
Really, just how many adjectives do you need for one title? Especially when the cover pretty much says it all (i.e., SEX).
Top 10 Bestsellers:
I cannot stop laughing. I especially enjoy the question mark on #8, as well as the fact that Italians are the lovers of choice. I think if you combined it all into one, you'd get an arranged marriage to a Mediterranean billionaire prince who, having never seen his betrothed before, mistakes her for a courtesan and abducts her--on Christmas! After he [ruthlessly!] beds and impregnates her, this captive [former] virgin runs--waywardly--away to the Upper East Side? [Then they live happily ever after, etc etc etc ad nauseam.]
Really, just how many adjectives do you need for one title? Especially when the cover pretty much says it all (i.e., SEX).
Friday, October 3, 2008
word of the day: palimpsest
palimpsest |
pæl
m
s
st
noun
A parchment or other writing surface on which the original text has been effaced or partially erased, and then overwritten by another; a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing.
· In extended use: a thing likened to such a writing surface, esp. in having been reused or altered while still retaining traces of its earlier form; a multilayered record: [Cy Twombly's art] is a perverse sort of palimpsest.*
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-), The Italians, 1961, oil, pencil, and crayon on canvas, 6 feet 6 5/8 inches x 8 feet 6 1/4 inches (199.5 x 259.6 cm), Museum of Modern Art, NY.
*Roland Barthes, "Non Multa Sed Multum," (1976) in Nicola del Roscio ed., Writings on Twombly (Schmirmer/Mosel 2002), p. 94.
pælmsstnoun
A parchment or other writing surface on which the original text has been effaced or partially erased, and then overwritten by another; a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing.
· In extended use: a thing likened to such a writing surface, esp. in having been reused or altered while still retaining traces of its earlier form; a multilayered record: [Cy Twombly's art] is a perverse sort of palimpsest.*
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-), The Italians, 1961, oil, pencil, and crayon on canvas, 6 feet 6 5/8 inches x 8 feet 6 1/4 inches (199.5 x 259.6 cm), Museum of Modern Art, NY.*Roland Barthes, "Non Multa Sed Multum," (1976) in Nicola del Roscio ed., Writings on Twombly (Schmirmer/Mosel 2002), p. 94.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Warhol + graffiti = tomato spray
Also pasted on the wall surrounding the vacant lot next to the gallery was the following poster:
It serves absolutely no purpose other than being witty, and for that, I love it.
It serves absolutely no purpose other than being witty, and for that, I love it.
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