Reemergence
So I've been in bed for three days and now that I wander out to see the light of day, I realize that I've pulled a Rip Van Winkle - and I seem to have slept through Madison's equivalent of 100yrs. I caught three movies in the Wisconsin Festival today: James Benning's
Four Corners, The Last Life in the Universe, and Lars von Trier's
Five Obstructions. What a great, truly great triple feature. I always say that I'll write more about the films I see later, and one day, I might, but when you spend almost 8 hours at the movies in a single day, I can't be the practicing critic I want to be. It kills me that I didn't see movies on Thursday night and wasn't well enough to venture out on the weekend... but I am thankful for what I saw (these were three incredible films in their own right). I am also very peeved that I wasn't well enough to make it to Chicago, but in retrospect, I don't regret my decision to sit this one out. Had I gone, I am certain that I'd be fighting this miserable cold / flu for weeks to come - but just sleeping it off, I think my health and late-semester academic performance will be all the better. The sad thing is that this decision proves that I am growing up and making better decisions - as an undergrad, I would have been on that bus to Chicago, sucking down chamomile tea and fighting the feverish chills.
My week encapsulated: another very excellent movie week. Last weekend I went to see
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in some ways (like the movies I saw at the festival today) I am at a loss. I find it very troubling to come across something I like - I usually like things I can critique and pick at, but when something good comes along, I just have to throw my hands up and say, "you do it right, Charlie Kaufman." On Tuesday I watched Tati's
Mon Oncle and a 35mm print of Hou Hsiao-hsien's
The Puppetmaster (which ironically, is the first Taiwanese film I've seen in grad school). These were two masterpieces. When I was sick and laid up in bed, I watched another contender for the greatest movie of all time, Renoir's
Grande Illusion. It's like I am excavating a tomb of great treasures, these are the joys of (film) grad school.
Socially, it was an exhausting week. We had our prospective students visiting - a very young crop overall. But the department (and by extension, us) really puts their best foot forward to impress the new recruits. Mondays are always exhausting for me - but we took the kids out on the town and my health suffered. Tuesday night I chaperoned a trip to Magnus where an aged filmie was showing an hour's worth of experimental films before a band. It was very nice to meet some new people and we'll just have to see what ends up happening next year. If nothing else, it made me reflect back on where I was a year ago and how much I've learned in that 365 day span - I know a whole new lingo, about countless academic debates, and I've seen some incredible films / read some great books. The curve is very steep - but seeing how far I've come brings some payback.
Then I spent the latter part of the week (1) polishing the paper / finishing my clip DVD - in the hope of recovery (2) succumbing to an unavoidable illness. Honestly, I don't think I've been sick in six or seven years... and this flu just tackled me. I came home on Thursday afternoon and didn't really emerge until today. I was awake about four hours a day and spent the rest in bed, and not in that fun and sexy way. I am feeling a marked improvement, but I feel winded easily and my voice is still sounding like sandpaper. But I definitely think that the worst is over and I probably learned an important lesson about taking care of myself at the first sign of future colds.
As much as it's nice to have longer days, I hate that initial rush / frenzy caused by daylight saving's time (the feeling that I have been robbed an hour). This weekend I managed to get some grading done and I "finished" (when is a creative work ever decisively "finished") editing my scene project on Final Cut Pro. I wasn't really feeling up to reading much, but despite the late hour, I am going to put up a good fight and try to finish my Eisenstein reading in time for David's lecture tomorrow night (if nothing else, I can continue the panic and try to finish is late in the day). The only good thing about tomorrow being Monday is that I might have reached my personal threshold for the amount of time I can spend cooped up in my tint apartment. I will say, all those undergrads who walk around in their pajamas might be onto something - it is very nice to bum around in sweats...
posted by lmjasinski at 9:38 PM
