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Caspar David Friedrich Chalk Cliffs on Rügen
(I want to go to Rügen so, so bad. My ideal travel plan this summer is Copenhagen-Rügen-St. Petersburg)
Ok, I take back all the bad stuff I ever said about Romantic poetry. Once I got going (and no I didn’t even mention Kant or the sublime) I enjoyed it tremendously. Wordsworth and I are now like Batman and Robin, like Thelma and Louise, like Simon and Garfunkel. I’m his bodyguard and he’s my long-lost pal. It’s potentially the best essay I’ve ever written (or rather, it has potential of becoming the best, so far my rather grand statements are fairly underdeveloped). I think this every time I write an essay, I must have megalomaniac tendencies. But honestly, isn’t it the nature of literary criticism? It’s so arbitrary and subjective. There are no facts, only opinions. And in my essay, only my opinions count. You hear, clearly not healthy for your gracefully modest sprit. Well, of course, getting criticized for your essay isn’t exactly an ego-boast, but it doesn’t mean I was wrong, it just mean I wasn’t able to persuade you I was right.
So, the LSE Literary Festival kicked of last night with a panel discussion on the somewhat misleading topic ‘How would a Robot read a Novel?’ Discussing almost nothing of what was initially promised, it was still amazingly interesting. The whole thing is very timely indeed. I am more than ever questioning the benefits of an English degree and the purpose of literary studies in general. I see no direct attachment to the real world; I find no specific benefits of Lit-crit in the greater context. I know culture is important; I’m just not sure what I’m doing is. So a weekend of exploring the relationship between the sciences and literature feels absolutely vital for my sanity (and probably good for other reasons too). And the LSE! Seriously, what a stimulating environment. What resources they have. I feel smarter just by being in proximity.
Now, Friday night has finally arrived. Time to put on a dress and drink some wine methinks.
…this is what I like.
Essay: Zadie Smith on the essay. (bonus: Joan Didion anno 1967)
Perspective: everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy. (bonus: very funny!)
Philosophy: The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand.
Radio: Weekend Woman’s Hour
Tune #1: Tougher than the Rest with Bruce Springsteen (bonus: fashion anno 1988)
Tune #2: Pata Pata with Miriam Makeba
Poem: “Spellbound” by Emily Brontë:
The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow. And the storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below; But nothing dear can move me; I will not, cannot go.
Painting #1: Waterhouse – St Eulalia
Painting #2: Millais – Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind
Painting #3: Friedrich – Winter Landscape
Not much happening here to report at the moment. Flatmate has gone to Germany for a wedding so it’s just me in an empty, quiet flat. Bored to death. I am shunning any situation of social character at the moment and will probably be doing so until mid May as I have a sickening amount of school work to take care of until then. This also means I’m spending a sickening amount of time on the Internet, which is evident by recent blog posts, including this one. But why break a bad habit now?
BBC sums up how Amazonfail was born. Frankly, I am still buying my books from Amazon, trustworthy or not, they are the cheapest option and I can’t afford to have morals.
The Washington Post is one of many news medias to closely follow the Kutcher/CNN Race to a Million. Completely irrelevant to everyone except Kutcher, Ted Turner and potential malaria victims, but I’m eagerly following its development.
Tanya Gold writes about the ugliness of Susan Boyle. Or was it we that were the ugly ones? Anyhow, finally someone pointing out the fact that “Gordon Ramsay has a dried-up riverbed for a face.”
Oh, and finally, just to convince myself that I do some useful things, at least sometimes; here is Jim Holt’s essay on learning poetry by heart which might sound like one of the most useless things you could do, but he makes a pretty good case for it. Am aiming to have memorized Arnold’s Dover Beach by the end of this week. Hoping that it will come in handy at exam times if nothing else.
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
This is brilliant….and addictive.
TED – Technology, Education and Design. Loads of speeches from the conferences they hold every year are available online. They are brief and concise but so intelligent, engaging and inspiring. And quite funny.
EXHIBITION: London College of Fashion had their postgraduate Fashion Photography Show at the Mall Galleries this week. Great diversity among the students and exiting to see such artistic approaches to something so commercial as fashion. Was a bit disappointed in the complete absence of free alcohol though. Apparently that is exclusively for the fashion industry people (like they’re the ones who can’t afford to pay for their drinks….)
Cate and Brad as Daisy and Button. Gorgeous!
FILM: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Take a great cult film director, a script based on a short story by great American author, let two of the most stunning and talented movie stars of our time star and add an enormous budget. What could possible go wrong? Well….it’s a bit like Forrest Gump without a soul. But who needs a soul when you have Brad Pitt?
Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in the 1931 year’s film version.Lugosi was buried in his vampire cape.
BOOK: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Apparently Dracula is a quite substantial book, and NOT a film. It is strange when a literary work is drowned in a sea of its own reproductions. On one hand, the countless films and book adaptations lets the original become legendary, on the other, the original source and its author sinks into oblivion. Like with Mary Shelley and her Frankenstein, Bram Stoker is surpassed by the character he has created. So back to basics.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARWI!
TV: Yesterday, February 12, was the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Well worth celebrating by checking out BBC’s Darwin Season, especially the David Attenborough documentary. Or for a more interactive approach; the Darwin Exhibition at the Natural History Museum.
