Anger (Under New) Management

I could login here almost daily and list a dozen or more complaints about bothersome conditions that invade my otherwise placid world, but I’m tired of bitching. Tired of being a bitch.

Yeah, that’s right: you read it here first. Being a grumpy, middle-aged, overworked adult—despite all justifications—just isn’t who I ever thought I’d be. Primarily because I’ve been saving that up for when I’m 80.

So in an effort to conserve, to preserve, to reserve all that is good about who I am, I hereby list the conditions of my life for which I have every cause to be thankful. Enjoy.

• Two beautiful and delightful cats.
• A partner who still adores me after almost 17 years of washing my clothes.
• A handful of intelligent and beautiful friends spread over the globe who refuse to acknowledge my many flaws (or at least hold them against me).
• My passport as well as my ticket to Istanbul.
• Esteemed colleagues and mentors who challenge my intellect even when we’re drinking and laughing our asses off.
• Enough money to pay the bills and then some.
• A lifetime of experiences, loves, passions, and thrills both behind as well as ahead of me.
• The good sense to know what I need to do not to lose my mind.
• Stable (and relatively healthy) relationships with (what’s left of) my family.
• Good manners and a sensible diet. Remarkable hygiene. Straight teeth. A wicked sense of humor.

Bolesław Leaf
March 19, 1994 - March 16, 2008

Rest in peace, my little orange baby.

Broken Wing

There are few things more tragic than a suffering animal, whether that animal be human or not. Watching the demise. Witness to the dissipation. All you want to do, all you feel you can do, is hold on to something no longer there. If it ever was. Knowing full well that nothing you do can effect any change in the situation of our own mortal vastness.

I’ve studied enough Hinduism to know that it’s all illusion: the pain, the suffering, even the conception of life itself. But the illusion is all we have. All we can know of life.

The post-structuralists are accused of nihilism, but only by those who don’t understand them. They gesture toward the im/possibility of death. It is always already outside of our phenomenological experience of life. It’s a death that lives on (sur-vivre as survival), that dissolves ontology, absent both the ontic as well as the logos. Something singular yet universal, embracing all horizons.

And yet it’s not death that concerns us, as the Cynics would agree. It’s dying. It’s the slippage from being to nonbeing. The erasure of all but the trace. The omnipresent absence neither here nor there. The unbearable void that muffles the word, the name, the universe.

But everyone—even the so-called Christians—agree: it is only through dying that one becomes immortal. Too bad none of us will be around when it happens.

Please keep Bolesław in your thoughts.

Northern Latitude Dreaming

Instead of just sitting still long enough to grade 39 quizzes in US history over my break/office hour I've instead read through a couple of blog posts, did a search for Joris-Karl Huysmans' novel À rebours at my university's library (we have several copies), and ate a 280-calorie dark chocolate "energy" bar. I've holed up on the 5th floor of the library, sitting next to a window from where I can see--apart from a few office buildings in the distance and a handful of cars in the parking lot--a line of trees running alongside the western creek on campus. I seem to have caught fall fever: I don't want to be in love or run naked in nature. Instead, I'd really prefer to wrap up in some warm clothes in front of a fire somewhere and read a good book (perhaps Huysmans' novel) with a warm drink and even warmer cats. Considering this is Texas and today's high is in the mid-80s, it is unlikely I will get to have this experience any time soon. Even the promised thunderstorms don't seem to be on their way.

I have slightly more than a week to complete my term paper over Celan, about two weeks before submitting my final drafts for the translation workshop, and maybe three weeks before my project on Redon is due. Then there's final exams in US history to grade and then finally my final for philosophy is scheduled for December 11th. Now if only I can get through these damned 39 quizzes to set the rest of the term in motion. Ah, December! when life comes due.

Bullet-Point Friday

• I'm enjoying my trek through Daniel Weissbort's From Russian with Love, a book about his friendship(s) and (professional) relationship(s) with Joseph Brodsky, translation theory, Russian, literature, and death. It is everything that John Felstiner falls short of. Throughout Felstiner's work (specifically Translating Neruda and Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew), he steers the reader toward this totalizing conception of identity and poetry: he reads Neruda and Celan as if their names were always in capital letters, as if they were homogenized, monolithic, unified Cartesian subjects, as if his biographical/literary/psychological/physiological uncoverings and excavations had the final say on what their poetry was all about. Weissbort, on the other hand, speaks toward an actual and real person he met, befriended, and knew, and yet who escapes any insincere attempt toward totalization: was 'Joseph' a Jew, how much of a Jew was he, how does his translation of his own poetry speak the same as their Russian versions. 'Joseph' is always moving away, eliding Weissbort’s efforts to read him, his words, him through his words, his words in his (own) voice, his words in his Russian (or Russified English). Felstiner reminds me of why I stopped reading literature and poetry all those years ago; Weissbort makes me want to read everything Brodsky ever wrote (as well as everything Weissbort ever wrote).
• I have approximately 50 pounds of books about Mark Rothko I need to work through this weekend as I prepare for an in-class presentation on the Rothko Chapel next week.
• Tonight is First Friday at the Ft. Worth Modern. I thought I would take myself out for the evening to enjoy the new exhibit and then maybe a nice vegan meal at Spiral Diner. (I can’t wait for the Spiral Diner to open up in my neighborhood!)
• Tomorrow is already “full up to the neck”: German class from 10:00-12:00, a visit (during the Texas-OU game) to the Dallas Museum of Art to come up with a subject for my term paper, and then Lauren’s party in the evening celebrating the release of Superficial Flesh. Perhaps one of these days I’ll actually have some down time and do some pleasure reading or spend an afternoon just brushing my cats. Maybe December.

Happy Kitty/Happy Birthday

March 19th we celebrated our babies' birthday. Bolesław, Zimba, and Griga turned 13. Here are some photos the day after their big celebration that included games, treats, and lots of pets. Bolesław is the oldest, being born about 20 minutes before Zimba, the middle boy, who in turn was born about 20 minutes before Baby Griga. Bolesław is orange, loves to sing, and is definitely a morning guy. Zimba smells like pine cones, also likes to sing (albeit unintelligibly to the human mind), and his hobbies include standing on his hind legs ("squirreling") and being brushed. He also is known for his "crooky" tail. Griga is solid black except for a small white dot on his neck; he smells like wet grape vine and adores to be either "little spoon" or in the middle when in bed--his favorite place in the whole house.