I had this classic Monty Python sketch in my head this morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tym0MObFpTI
It struck me that now when I hear the words “Spanish Inquisition” my first reaction is to laugh rather than to be horrified by all of the lives it unjustly destroyed. I am not sure how to feel about this. I suspect that this reaction is shared by most others who are familiar with the sketch. Are there other examples of pop culture rehabilitating an atrocity to this wide extent?
I love all of the pageantry associated with the beginning of the college school year. Aside from all the fun stuff in class–the awkward get-to-know-you games, the endearlingly horrified look on students’ faces when I tell them how many books we will be reading, their nervous laughter at my wry jokes–there are the gatherings of colleagues which always remind me why I enjoy being an academic. This afternoon is our first department meeting of the year, and tonight there is the annual Welcome Back Party at the president’s house with lots of food and drink. The knowledge that all of one’s colleagues are along on the journey as well is a warm, comforting feeling.
A new semester begins tomorrow. I am excited to meet my students and get things going, but I will also miss the free time that this summer has afforded. I’ve had a very productive three months, writing two conference presentations, a book chapter, and some productive brainstorming notes for another book chapter that is due next spring. I have also sustained this blog at a satisfactory level. Writing here almost every day has really helped my academic writing because it helps keep me sharp. It is always a struggle to find writing time when classes are in session, but I am going to try to continue to write here at least every other day, and also make time for my scholarship. I have good momentum going and want to keep it up.
Aldrich, Nelson W., Jr., ed. George, Being George: George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals–and a Few Unappreciative Observers. New York: Random, 2008.
I am fascinated by George Plimpton as a sort of public intellectual who was one of the last of his kind. However, this fascination hasn’t arisen as a result of his writing, but as a result of his various film and television appearances (e.g., in Good Will Hunting, in Ken Burns’s Baseball, and on the The Simpsons [His appearance as a crooked spelling bee promoter/hotplate salesman is priceless, but unfortunately I can’t find it on YouTube. His final line is “Now I’ll go back to doing whatever it is that I do.” Exactly.]). I decided that it is time for me to learn more about him and his writing, so I bought Aldrich’s oral history of Plimpton’s life and Plimpton’s oral history of Truman Capote (who also fascinates me).
Beachy, Stephen. Boneyard. Portland: Verse Chorus, 2011.
One of my favorite poets, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, recommended this novel to me because of my interests in LGBT literature and Mennonite literature. Intersections between the two are extremely rare, but I am so glad that she introduced me to Beachy’s novel because I just finished it tonight and it is amazing! One of the top five novels I’ve ever read, probably (top ten for sure). It is as though Kathy Acker were male and an ex-Mennonite, and decided to write about her/his Mennonite baggage. It has immediately become the next work that I will write scholarship on.
Plimpton, George. Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Apparently this got excellent reviews. It’s slightly thicker than Aldrich’s book.
Sullivan, Nikki. A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory. New York: New York UP, 2003.
I’ll be teaching a literary criticism and theory course next semester and am starting to look at potential textbooks. Sullivan’s book has gotten good reviews and is supposed to be accessible, so I thought I would check it out.
All bought on amazon.com.
I finished reading William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun this evening. I was reading it partly because I’m teaching it’s prequel, Sanctuary, this semester, but also because I am fond of the famous quote from it about the past not being past, and wanted to learn more about its context. I had always thought the quote was “We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. In fact, it is not even past.” However, the quote is actually “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It turns out that the version I had in my head is a misquotation of Faulkner from one of my favorite films, Magnolia. I am sad that the film’s version is incorrect because, even though both make the excellent point that the past constantly affects the present (especially in Faulkner’s work, where the Civil War always happened yesterday), the longer version depicts the past as a foreboding presence, always gaining on us as we try to escape it, which seems fitting for Faulkner’s writing.
Faulkner, William. Requiem for a Nun. 1951. New York: Vintage, 2011.
I am teaching Faulkner’s Sanctuary in an independent study this semester, and bought its sequel Requiem to read as part of my preparation. Reading Faulkner is a guilty pleasure–his writing is beautiful, and he is an essential figure in the development of American literature, but for some reason his personal despicableness bothers me more than any other writer’s aside from Ezra Pound’s. I certainly believe in judging a book based on its artistic merits rather than on its author’s biography, but Faulkner’s statement that he would shoot African Americans down in the street if ordered to do so by Mississippi’s governor is difficult to get past.
Bought on amazon.com.
Poore, Michael. Up Jumps the Devil. New York: Ecco, 2012.
I received this book in my school mailbox today, presumably as an (unasked for) exam copy from the publisher as there was no note with it, so I doubt it is from a colleague. The secretaries usually open mail that isn’t obviously personal (which is weird because I feel bad having someone do a task for me that I could easily do myself, especially one that tends to be enjoyable. I, like Virginia Woolf with her servants, feel tremendously awkward around secretaries. I am uncomfortable with the power imbalance, it makes me feel bourgeois.), so I did not get a chance to see the return address. The novel, Poore’s first, sounds like it could be interesting, but it is not something that I would have bought myself, so who knows when I’ll get around to reading it.
Castillo, Ana. The Mixquiahuala Letters. Tempe: Bilingual, 1986.
This is Castillo’s first novel, and wow have I missed out waiting this long to acquire and read it! I began reading the book this afternoon as soon as I unwrapped it from its shipping envelope (as C.S. Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy, there is really nothing like the happiness of receiving a package in the mail that one knows has a book inside), and not only is the writing up to Castillo’s usual beautiful standard, but it has a postmodern form as well! There is a note at the beginning of the table of contents which instructs readers not to read the book chronologically, and then gives them several options for how to read it depending on their personality type, as seen in these photographs:
I am reading the novel as a “cynic.”
I have enjoyed Castillo’s work for half a decade, but the new-to-me work that I have been reading the past few days has shown me that she is someone I must write scholarship about. It is wonderful to discover an author who fits my interests in ethnic literature, LGBT literature, and postmodern literature.
Delany, Samuel R. Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction. Rev. Ed. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2012.
Samuel R. Delany is another rare author who fits my three primary scholarly interests. I have been looking for a copy of Starboard Wine‘s out-of print original 1984 edition for over two years without luck, and then found out a month ago that Wesleyan University Press, which has published or republished most of Delany’s literary criticism, was publishing a revised edition. It just came out, and I am very excited to finally have the chance to read it.
Both books bought on amazon.com.
Ana Castillo’s short story collection Loverboys is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It’s so smooth, it feels like someone is talking to me and in doing so enchanting me instead of me actively reading. I feel like I’m in a dream while reading it to the point that I sometimes lose sense of the longer stories’ plots because I am so engrossed in the characters and how vivid they feel.
One of the things I love about Castillo’s writing is her descriptions of food, which always make me ravenous. Loverboys makes me hungrier than any of her other books aside from The Guardians. I also am enthralled by its lesbian love stories because they are so matter-of-fact, which is refreshing. The narrators in all of the stories grab love where they can find it, realizing how precious it is, and do not let its loss crush them, instead moving on to find it somewhere else. It is a hopeful book. It both makes me want to write about it professionally and send it to all of my good friends, a combination that I do not often experience.
Yesterday I was at one of my favorite non-bookstore stores in Salt Lake City, the vintage shop Unhinged, when I came across a nifty green typewriter.
Upon taking a closer look, I discovered that, though it was completely intact, it didn’t have a 1. I have never seen a qwerty keyboard without all ten numerals on it before. (Incidentally, “qwerty” is one of 23 words with a q and no u that are legal in Scrabble, as is its plural, “qwertys.”)
I suppose that the makers of the typewriter thought they were being efficient by saving space in their exclusion of a 1, since the sans serif “I” seems to match the font of the other numbers.
However, this would really mess up one’s typing technique. Instead of hitting the 1 in its usual place, one must hit an uppercase “I” instead. I bet that this model resulted in an abnormally high rate of typing errors, frustrating secretaries and students everywhere. But because I could just appreciate the typewriter as an object instead of having to use it, discovering its oddity made my night.
Castillo, Ana. Loverboys. New York: Norton, 1996.
—. My Father Was a Toltec and Selected Poems 1973-1988. 1995. New York: Anchor, 2004.
Ana Castillo is an author that I really enjoy, especially her novel The Guardians, which I’ve taught several times. She is the writer-in-residence this semester at my college, so I thought I would get more familiar with her work as I also have the opportunity to get to know her as a colleague. I haven’t read her poetry before, and Loverboys, a short story collection, sounds really fascinating because it involves some same-sex love stories. I look forward to reading both.
Genet, Jean. Prisoner of Love. Trans. Barbara Bray. 1989. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1992.
I enjoy Genet’s novels and I am also fascinated by the history of the Black Panther Party, so I decided to buy this book, which is about Genet’s experiences with the Panthers and with Palestinian refugees, both of whose causes he advocated.
All three bought on amazon.com.
Daniel Shank Cruz 