the coriolis effect

"What we seek in a love-affair is not self-gratification; not even confirmation of our own objective reality, as in a mirror (though that comes into it); but an escape from the uniqueness of our own subjectivity. we want to come face to face with the naked subjectivity of another human being, and to feel that this other human being has come close to our own subjectivity."
and it goes on: "This is why the sexual act is feared. This is why we feel uneasy about the idea of its being watched. To a greater or lesser extent it symbolizes the self-revelation and self-dissolution of love."- Michael Frayn

Examine. Discuss.

Though this little book (Constructions) fell into my lap while I was discharging stuff at the library, it doesn't have quite the revelatory power I suppose I had hoped it would have. Ann Fadiman's Ex Libris, another little book that literally (ha. HAHAHA) fell from the shelf once, set a high standard. I suppose I find it incomplete, partial in the wrong places, enough so even that I notice (which is a rare thing). But novel, and perhaps true when the lighting is right.

Chonchi, Chiloe 

Valparaiso, New Years 

the Patagonia, Chile....yeah.  

I thought there was nothing worse than catty people in an airport terminal at 10 AM. til, of course, I got home, and the boston pops, nso, ny philharmonic, and amtrak system were playing an ives piece and schoenberg piece simultaneously. in the jungle. cicadas. psycho man, psycho.
has it been a year, almost, really?
wow. back to where I started.

what is the POINT of having us memorize 168 slides? the things I could do, like reread the notes to have something intelligent to say about the oh, 18 actually on the exam. or maybe, sleep, because I really can't think anymore. 168. like the 70 swing songs, its an exercise in futility. how many look alike, make the same point. how many spent 3 minutes on a screen, and about which nothing to nothing much significant was said.
168. really.

I'm a little scared of myself. Its two in the morning, and I'm writing a paper on Ariel Dorfman's poetry and the response of exiled writers to the dictatorship (more or less). And I just wrote the following paragraph:
Porque la agenda del gobierno utilizó a tal grado una manipulación del lenguaje para proteger su poder, en conjunto con el papel social tradicional de la literatura latinoamericana, en el campo de literatura se puede ver los esfuerzos de poblaciónes marginalizados por el gobierno de reafirmar su derecho de participar en la creación de una estructura cultural alternativa . En particular, para los escritores desterrados, su capacidad de entrar en la esfera del lenguaje natal reemplace la negación forzada del derecho de ocupar un espacio físico dentro de su paiz. José Donoso trata de mitigar la pena de exilio y dice que “the homeland of a writer is not really a place, but a language” Pero los escritores exiliados se dieron cuenta de que su papel durante la dictadura no bastaría con ser testigo, sino que tambíen embarcar en el “monumental effort of reconstructing and regaining one’s vernacular, or inventing a vernacular that will take its place and possess a charged semiotic field” Los procesos deconstructivos del postmodernismo les ayudarían, porque habían ampliado el espacio discursivo a métodos no tradicionales de comunicación literaria.

Because the government's agenda used to such an extent a manipulation of language to protect their power, in conjunction with the traditional social role of latin american lit, one can see in literature the efforts of groups marginalized by the government to reaffirm their right to participate in an alternate cultural structure. In particular, for exiled writers, the ability to enter into the sphere of their native language replaces their denied right to occupy a physical space in their country....etc etc. ad nauseum ad infinitum.

Two things:
One, ironically, the only thing that has a right being in Spanish is the Donoso quotation- which I found in English.
Two, I'm lucky all my papers aren't in Spanish- my own approach to the language makes me infinitely wordier and ultimately ridiculous sounding in it. But my own unfamiliarity with the language makes it that harder for me to notice. especially at 2 AM until I try to translate it. ok, just wanted to share. and say, I think I'm going crazy.

awesome
home in two weeks...exams DONE in two weeks...laugh all you all want...we don't start til september 20 in the fall. and I finally cashed in and am getting two paid trips to the southern hemisphere this summer. hopefully.

I've been swept up, and swept away, and I even waltzed. and yet...and yet...a comparison of how Freud, Conrad and Edgar Rice Burrough's portray the "other" is not nearly as exciting as it should be.

The new Jet Blue ads are somewhat disturbing. Are they supposed to be ironic? Its a bunch of people being like: I got free snacks on a flight! I asked for water, and I EVEN got ice.
yeahyeahyeah....the dehumanizing treatment of other (American) airlines. whatever. Lanchile? Air France? AirLingus? I was on a 5 hour flight and I even got 2 free meals. and free wine.
The implication of the Jet Blue, that we really have been reduced to groveling for ice...is kinda pathetic.