Look with your eyes, not with your hands.


Such a minute fraction of this life do we live: so much is sleep, tooth-brushing, waiting for mail, for metamorphosis, for those sudden moments of incandescence: unexpected, but once one knows them, one can live life in the light of their past and the hope of their future.



A grad student muses on her life, film, friends, politics, reality televizzle, and music.

 
If Only Every Week Could be Thanksgiving Week...

This is going to be the first Thanksgiving that I've hostessed. It is also a strange, alternative Thanksgiving that reeks of being my first. I will have three dinner guests, all of whom are committed vegetarians, so the spread won't be your typical turkey - instead, I am making a stuffed pepper casserole dish with fake meat. This is definitely Morning Star Farm territory. Anyway, so I will contend with entertaining and cooking (things I really like to do) tomorrow. But it is definitely a first-Thanksgiving kind of thing. For starters, I only have three chairs, leaving my fourth guest to actually bring a chair over. Thankfully, I have four plates...

It is kind of nice when the rest of world is going on vacation and you are just taking it easy. I spent Sunday, Monday, and all of Monday night in a furious huff to finish my documentary term paper. Finally, it's done and I couldn't be happier. I found that I have a lot of interest in the topic of autobiographical documentary, or autobiographical film in general (this topic has a lot of overlap with avant-garde), but writing the paper was still a challenge. I did most of my research weeks ago, knowing that this time of year would be hairy. As a result, I think was I already burned out writing this paper by the time I actually sat down to write it. I am doing my avant-garde paper on some autobiographical / journal films as well, so hopefully I can rev up my enthusiasm.

Now that the paper is done, I find that I have a little bit more time on my hands than I usually do. I can spend the next few days catching up / getting ahead, and that is such a nice luxury. Last night I ended up staying in. I went grocery shopping the afternoon, napped to take off my all-nighter grouchiness, and then spent some time reading for various classes. I also became reacquainted with an old friend, a beloved, long lost friend, the telly. I was pleased to catch a new episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and then spent the rest of the evening realizing that life without cable doesn't have to be terrible. I then watched a series on PBS called Independent Lens, which I would like to see a lot more of in the future - the show runs full-length documentaries about the off-beat by independent film-makers. I watched last night's film, Livermore, about the ultimate suburb, a small town in Northern California. The film was a collage of strange occurrences / facts about the town, but it was truly superb and deeply entertaining. One of the best sequences was about the longest-burning light bulb in America, which happens to be in a firehouse in Livermore. The bulb recently celebrated its 100th year - and the town got together for a celebration. The bulb actually has its own webpage and you can watch it on a webcam. Only in America... but it's great. Check it out if they are replaying this episode of the program in your area anytime soon. Generally speaking, the program airs at 9 or 10pm (I am unsure how central time effects its run) on Tuesday nights. After that, considering that my faith in television had been revived, I decided to keep watching. On Nightline, there was an interesting topic - basically about these new blacklists that are forming at some colleges. Usually, Republican student groups are penning these lists to label the professors that are "under watch" for their extreme liberal bias. There was a farily lively debate featuring the editors of some college papers, including the editor of the UW Daily Cardinal. The whole idea definitely sickens me, and now that I've become one of those leftist leaning pseudo-faculty members, I find it even more discouraging. Hopefully this is a passing fad - but I think this could quickly snowball out of control and turn into a new McCarthy-like witchhunt (coincidently, another infamous Wisconsinite). I'd be against these lists regardless of who they blacklisted, it is just a terrible idea in general... and I resent the fact that college students will be so indoctrinated by comments in the classroom that they'll be unable to form their own opinions. We live in an age so saturated with editorials and information that it shouldn't matter what one professor's political opinions might be... to round out my night, I read a little more Bordwell, a chapter from Thoreau's Walden and called it a night.

I am embarrassed to admit how much time I've wasted today. I came to the office (since my to-be-graded papers were here, as was my computer). I spent a lot of time cleaning up my desk and organizing piles of papers, but there is still much to be done. I am stuck here for at least another hour (I have a screening of Alain Resnais's La guerre est finie at 7pm) and I hope to chip away a little more at a few piles. I think I have a false sense of time - because I know that I have a few extra days away from school. Ambitiously, I rented four movies to watch over break - the recently released Gus Van Sant movie Gerry, an Errol Morris documentary (since he's coming to show his new film and speak in December, I wanted to see more of his work) called Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, the recent Oscar-contender Far From Heaven (since I just watched Sirk's All that Heaven Allows, which is what the contemporary film is based on, I figure that now is as good a time as ever to see it). I am also excited for the fourth film, Zhang Yimou's Hero. I don't believe that this was ever released (on DVD / Video, or possibly at all) in the US. But this is basically Zhang Yimou throwing Crouching Tiger in Ang Lee's face... and really using special effects in innovative and remarkable ways. I saw a clip of a fight scene, and wow, like nothing I've ever seen before. If I am feeling ambitious and get all of the speeches graded, maybe I'll do a movie review or two, something I sadly don't do enough. Since I've heard so many *glowing* things about, I'd also really like to see the new Russell Crowe movie, Master and Command(er?) at some point. If only there was no school and all movies... Already I can't wait for Xmas break.

Anyway... back to the grindstone, Happy Thanksgiving to all.
posted by lmjasinski at 6:06 PM