Everyday is like a Sunday...
The best thing to do on a rainy Sunday is lock yourself in your window-less office, listen to the Smiths and Jackson Browne, and fill out financial records or read film theory. Since this "business as usual" song and dance routine takes up such a little part of my life lately, I will confess that might actually be something refreshingly productive about it.
At the same time, I've deeply enjoyed being refreshingly unproductive. Us grad students have a rather skewed view of things, especially in terms of progress and time-well-spent. I also think this is made more complicated by the curse of liberal arts education [digression: while in college, and even thereafter, I am a big fan of making lists - movies I should see, books I should read, interesting exotic locales I simply must visit. The problem is, when faced with the chance to do something - even innocuously for fun - I always feel plagued by a sense of guilt if I am doing something that doesn't fall into one of these important categories of life-long enrichment].
Yesterday would have been a culturally enriching well-spent Saturday for anyone in "the real world" who sees weekends for what they should be - recreation, or in accordance with the ancient Greek noble sense of word "leisure." Friday night started by meeting Eric for a stiff drink at Magnus, a hip and sophisticated bar with a jazz trio and masterfully constructed cocktails. Afterward, Patrick surprised me with a candle-lit Greek-cheese and walnut desert, a definite perk of being in a relationship with a cook. The following morning we got up early and drove to Chicago. We had tickets for the Rembrandt etching show at the Art Institute. It's actually very fun to go to a show like this with a cinematographer who has very interesting things to say about lighting. The show was very crowded and crowded with annoying people - everyone had those head-sets on and moved in sluggishly slow herds from one "listening station" to the next. The museum was handing out magnifying glasses to examine the details of several small prints - just the same, it was sort of annoying to navigate the crowds because it felt like playing Where's Waldo / hidden pictures with hundreds of old people. Good show just the same... and the art institute has some other treasures, like Coibotte's "Rainy Day in Paris," lots of Magritte, an impressive showing of Joseph Cornell boxes, and enough Rothkos, Pollocks, and Matisses to remind me how great BIG paintings can be up close and personal.
After that, we grabbed a quick lunch and I remembered how much I miss "good bread" (Madison is significantly lacking in the bread / bakery department). In the afternoon, we went to an architecture tour called "Culture and Commerce." We saw a few great things (it's hard not to see GREAT things in downtown Chicago / Michigan Avenue), lots of Burnham, Sullivan (interiors and exteriors), and even the new Gehry outdoor concert venue in Grant Park. If you find yourself in Chicago, these tours are two-hours well-spent [www.architecture.org]. Following great buildings, we had some great food at this soul food place called "Wishbone." Perfectly simple, but great menu - black beans, mashed sweet potatoes, spinach, and one of the best salsas I've ever tasted. It rained the whole way home... but we managed to make it back by 9pm for the second Talmadge movie, a maternal melodrama called "A Lady." Although it was reputed to be her best performance, it wasn't my favorite in the series. Also, the print was missing a few entire reels and some parts had terrible nitrate damage - the resulting feature was about an hour long. Maybe it was the big dinner, or the walking, or the getting up early, but I dozed a little... by the end of the night, I was really longing to be "a civilian again" and having the kind of job that would allow me to have more Saturdays like this.
So far today isn't quite living up to my high expectations of getting all of my work done and sinking my teeth into a big paper due next week (I have one due on Monday, a second on Wednesday - and now is about the time to start panicking) but I am still having a hard time concentrating on "what's important." Although this sounds very sappy, this week I've reconsidered, maybe even altered, my definition of important... but I have a deal to reward myself later tonight if I can make some progress and maybe that's all the motivation I need to actually read a page or two.
posted by lmjasinski at 2:00 PM
