For all of you wishing that I would write something interesting or original here on the blog, I’m sorry to report that such interesting and/or original things are not available. Listen, finals are coming. It’s my tendency to procrastinate (what? you? never!) and so I’ll need a break. Look for more interesting content then. Until that time, here are some tidbits … mostly for my mom, who reads this blog every day after lunch.
One of my classes is coming to an end tomorrow, which means that Fridays are now reserved for hobo clothes. Not that wearing jeans every day to work requires all that much effort, but sweatpants and the like are signals that I am no longer beholden to The Man and his expectations regarding my clothes. Never mind that I have a couple of pairs of sweatpants-disguised-as-work pants. That’s not the point.
Still must read: Besides the hundreds of pages I’m behind in Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics (and I do mean hundreds), I must also do some reading related to thesis work. The list keeps growing, and now includes all of Errol Morris’s posts on his NYT blog. I think increasingly my thesis is about phenomenology and photography, but I haven’t decided yet. A lot has been said about Morris’s recent Standard Operating Procedure, and while that film is problematic (maybe it’s the less “pure” (?) form of what he was doing in The Thin Blue LIne) I still think he is the best filmmaker working today. But I’m biased.
I learned today that Roger Ebert has a blog. I think Roger Ebert is one of the best writers about film. Ever. Read the blog, and then check out The Great Movies and The Great Movies II. They’re like film dictionaries, but with better descriptions.
The thesis “to read” list now encompasses the following texts: Susan Sontag’s On Photography, Heidegger’s essays on art, “The Origin of the Work of Art” and “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” Merleau-Ponty’s essays “Cezanne’s Doubt” and “Eye and Mind,” selections from Descartes’ Optics, some crazy essay by Foucault, and Gibson’s The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. When these texts will be read remains a mystery to me.
On the Telly: Last week’s ep of LOST has me despairing. Instead of the smart, tight storytelling that has marked the series in the past, they’re now relying on visual shots that give us too much information. I find this insulting – it’s like they’ve gotten scared of an ambiguous, spare storytelling style (which they had) and traded it for cheap mystery and not-at-all satisfying “resolutions.” I will maintain this view until we get more episodes about theoretical physics and/or Desmond. Whichever comes first. AV and I are – and have been for a long time – fans of BSG. It is awesome. It is the second best show on television now (after The Office, which is hilarious). I can’t wait to see what will happen next. And I am a nerd.
On Film: Not much seen in the last couple of weeks, although Friday we’re seeing Detour projected. That will be exciting. Tom DiLapa is curating a series at the Denver Art Museum that shows two films in a kind of pairing – he showed The Searchers and “complemented” (?) it with Taxi Driver. He’s showing Detour with the Coens’ excellent first feature, Blood Simple. The second film will start well past our bedtime.
Working On: The usual end-of-semester projects (starts with a “G” and ends with a “RADING”), I’m putting together an online course for the summer. The infrastructure is a little bewildering – I’m unashamed to say I have little to no idea what I’m doing. At least it’s a distraction from the actual task of deciding how I’m going to teach Hume, Sartre, and Kant remotely.
Shameless Plug: Wednesday (4/30) I’ll be joining my pal Stan Astrovsky on the KUVO airwaves to ask for support for the Jazz Odyssey. If you’re any sort of jazz fan, you are duty-bound to check out KUVO, simply because it is the best jazz delivery system available. And the avant is relegated to late nights, so if you like the straight-ahead (but not “smooth” jazz, whatever that means) the daytime is chock full of glorious sounds.
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