Rounding Third to Home
Song of the Hour: Mona Lisa by Grant Lee no Buffalo
Annoying Belltower Chimes by UNC
Well, I just took my third and final, well, final. I have completed all the testing I will be subjected to for the semester, and the relief is palpable. So what if I didn’t do well on any of them, they’re over, right? The Feminist Geography final I just took- tell me, how does one "spectulate on the lives of mexican immigrants who leave their children with grandparents in Mexico so they can send remittances"? how do you grade a speculation? Anway, fun while ambigous class, it’s over.
All that’s left to me is my Literature in the Media Age final project and semester portfolio, due, that’s right, 5/9. 5/9. 5/9. My final project (this is the class the podcast, playlist, collages, and film review were for) is to make a 3-20 minute video related somehow to literature and/or culture. I’ve pretty much set my mind on a soundtrack running of ginsberg reading selections of Howl and America, while scenes of real world 1956 (when it was published) play, hopefully with some kind of ironic juxtapositioning b/t the images and the words. I hope. 1956 is a cultural goldmine. I’ve been cutting up clips of Tom and Jerry, Elvis videos, I love Lucy, Foghorn Leghorn, and my personal favorite, The Ten Commandments (may charlton heston roll over into a grave). I’ve been trying to get my hands on some digital version of Peck’s Moby Dick, but I’m not having any luck with it (if you can help, please do. Do you know how long it takes to get the 10 commandments off of limewire? Who the fuck has the 10 commandments on their computer? Well, I do now. Anyway.) I’ve got a ton of beatnik pictures to use (ginsberg, burroughs, and bob dylan haning out on a street corner. what’s not to love?) and will soon be collecting whatever I can of world news images from the time. lots of countries were fighting for their independance from britain and france that year. I haven’t put much of it together yet, so for the love of something, feel free to contribute your collective genius. Ialso have to have some text running throught the video, and I have no idea what to do with that layer of things. putting up the words to the poems being read feels lame. well, if it’s just snatch phrases to emphasize irony, it could work. i dont know. help me out. I think I’m gonna run dj spooky’s remix of ginsberg singing "end the vietnam war"- never even know it was ginsberg until I heard the original. rocks.
otherwise, I can taste freedom just around the weekend. I’m so happy I could dance. cry. sing. graffitti a never-ending-chiming belltower. (wait, is that related?) I’m also sad to report, that I think my engagement to Dr. Armitage is off. Part of my canadian lit final involved organizing all of the poets we read by region- ontario, british columbia, quebec, maritime, arctic- things I never payed the slightest attention to, nor did we really focus on in class. I got maybe 1 out of 5 on that one. And it was evil. I’m not sure I can marry a man capable of evil, no matter how cute, 74, and british he may be. I just might have to call of the wedding. my final grade will tell. (sniff).
And for jenny-s out-of-the-ordinary activity for the week, I’m going to a party. Anne/Martha is graduating, having finally after much toil gotten her master’s degree in architecture, and is throwing a party on a scale and scope I wouldn’t ordinarily set foot in. People from every imaginable walk of life have been invited, and no one excluded. Not even that guy that hangs out at bell tower mart up the street that alternates between catatonia and hysteria, that is always complementing his wardrobe with either vomit or urine because I’ve never seen him without one or the other- he too, has been invited. Don’t for a minute think I’m exaggerating. Anne’s party. I’m really hoping the professor she TA’d for shows up too. Anyway, against my usual grain, I’m going. And I’m sure anyone who reads this meandering nonsense is also invited, out of state though you may be. come on. it’ll be a blast.
As for now, I have to go meet a friend at Yeats. I’ll update you on saturday for party antics. In the meantime, if you have any ginsberg/1956 jenny’s first production advice, please write or call. preferably write, seeing as how I have to work all weekend.
rounding third, almost through. 5/9. 5/9. 5/9.
love.
