It's finals week, and instead of writing a 20-pager on Shaw and Joyce, I'm blogging. What a waste of my academic brain.
That's okay, it's mush anyway - since 1:30 this afternoon when I suddenly got dizzy and my hands started shaking. That's in addition to all of the other finals symptoms, which include nausea, chest pain, back and shoulder pain, difficulty focusing, and fatigue.

My grammar has abandoned me. It joins my social skills, sense of humor, and memory. I am grateful for word processing software.

In the meantime, I finished a 15-pager yesterday about the authority structure in five of Gilbert's Savoy operas (Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Grand Duke, The Goldoliers, and Utopia, Limited). I think I had the most fun with it than I have ever had writing a paper before, and I really enjoy writing papers. I sang "tit-willow" to my 112 class and my roommates all day (off-key) and had other tunes in my head from Iolanthe.

Two more finals, and then maybe I'll write some more really bad poetry. I know - you can't wait.

Joyce

While we were discussing the first two chapters of James Joyce's Ulysses I was caught by an analogy in that stream of consciousness from Stephen Dedalus's perspective. The old lady comes in and serves milk to her conqueror, and the gay betrayer. It's meant to be read on at least three different levels simultaneously, but I picked up on one that Joyce definitely never intended. The phrase "gay betrayer" coupled with the image of Buck Mulligan, the large, jocular irishman reminded me instantly of Bruce Campbell's character on the USA show "Burn Notice." The conqueror could Michael's new handler, and just like Stephen Dedalus is feeling trapped in Dublin, Michael is stuck in (was it Miami?). Anyway. It almost made me laugh out loud.

We got to another place where we discussed betrayal. Queen Penelope in the Odyssey was true to her husband, but Stephen Dedalus is often compared to Hamlet. Queen Gertrude was certainly not as pristine. That image of the Queen caving to a usurper was extremely familiar, and I remembered the Alliterative Queen Guinevere. She gave the sword Caliburn to Mordred, and then disappeared into a convent when she heard Arthur was returning.

Sadly, James Joyce is certain never to have heard of Burn Notice in 1904. Nor is he particularly likely to have used such a strongly English story cycle as King Arthur. He did live in Paris for a while. That may indicate that he'd be more likely to use the French Vulgate Arthur, if he were to use the stories at all. Still, these are pretty fun images to play around with.

Epitaph

I love epitaphs. I'm fascinated by poetry about death (and if you go with the Metaphysicals, it's death and sex, and extremely odd combinations of both). Charles deLint begins one of his story collections with an epigram he found on a graveyard somewhere in the North-Eastern US. I don't recall where. It was, "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." I was struck immediately by the hope and faith in that, and how purely it echoes my sentiments. There are loved ones in death that I have not been able to see here in the daylight of existence, even when they were alive. I cannot be afraid of something that holds so much possibility. Blackness is not a fearful or empty thing, but instead is full of the possibility of life and wonder.

While reading ahead in my Sunday School lesson I came across a quotation. Joseph Smith spoke at quite a few funerals, and some of his most profound truths and most touching eloquence are recorded in those speeches. He described death as, "to sleep and wake in each other's embrace and renew their conversation." What a beautiful thought! To be laid down into a grave near ones sweetheart, and to be awoken in the resurrection to continue where life left off, like falling asleep in each-other's arms and waking as if nothing has changed, for it will not have altered so dramatically.

Truthfully, there is an awareness between death and resurrection, and there is likewise very little likelihood that one will die chronologically near one's spouse, but in the larger scheme of the eternities, the pause between death and life should be the briefest of agonizing blinks, the agony of which will be mitigated by joys, and hope, and rest.

And so I've decided that Joseph Smith's quotation above should be my epitaph if I am ever buried. And if I have no spouse here, it is because he is waiting for me there.

Something Found

My best friend Jennifer had a daughter whom I have not yet met. While digging through Romantic literature for my class at Oxford University I found the following:

“I cannot tell whether it was from [Ruth] or from my father’s Foster-Mother’s Tale—that I first learned the word Savannah . . . one of the noblest sounding words that I know in any language—and presents the most beautiful image of any landscape world whatever” -Hartley Coleridge (for whom Coleridge Sr. wrote) “Untitled Essay on Books”

I know Jennifer doesn't actually read my blog (honestly, I wouldn't either), but here's proof that I'm thinking about them so far away.

Romance and Romantics

It occurred to me that by studying Arthur and Coleridge in the same semester, the title to this entry is what I'd get.

So the round table was a wedding gift from Guenevere's father, and Wordsworth wrote a hundred+ page psychological autobiographical poem. None of this would bother me in the least, 'cept I have to read them.

I'm surprised that my professor did not assign T.H. White. I may purchase a copy while I'm there just for fun and read it along with the regular assigned class texts. It will be interesting to see a different spin. I think Disa was heavily pre-history and old-English. I think this semester will be more Malory.

I should pick a specialty one of these days. Critical Theory isn't enough. I need an era.

Heart of Darkness

I think novels are too long to be pinned down into a single idea, which leaves us with absolutely no responsibility to finally "get it." That makes me relieved, and it gives me an interesting perspective on Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" which I just read for the fifth time (and still enjoyed it). Technically, it's a novella, but it still has that complication - that "Conrad's trying to say seventy things at once" feeling. In brilliant prose. Fortunately, this means we can still justify teaching it (and reading it) despite it's Imperialist overtones.

Kafka, on the other hand, writes the funniest jokes without punchlines. I feel a great responsibility to try to "get it" and I don't always. "The Penal Colony" was pretty simple, but some of his earlier stuff needed to be waded through. His translator knew how to turn a phrase, though.

Being Arrested

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/chicago101/busted/
For Chicago, anyway.
I think this information indicates that my character has to be brought in for questioning, rather than actually arrested. I wanted her to have both a major antagonist and proponent in the police force - people who would have access to the parts of the building where she was being held.
http://www.youthinformation.com/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=90763
English law is quite well spelled-out here. I wonder if the American system is quite the same.
http://www.ralphbehr.net/lawyer-attorney-5406C99B-C869-42F9-B58B67416343ED64.html#D8472FA6-3FEA-4B08-8F5DFAD38CE14666
Florida law! Very helpful, especially the complete litany of the Miranda rights (slightly different in each state? I'll have pick a state and setting. The interview can happen anywhere. Interrogation, I guess it's called.

IMPORTANT: if you don't speak, or if you in some other way assert your right to remain silent, NOTHING YOU SAY after that (in that interview) can be used as evidence at your trial. The police would likely stop the interview at that point, as they can't hope to get evidence from you to convict you.
This is the quotation (it makes more sense than I do) "If the police continue to question you after you have asserted your right to remain silent, they have violated Miranda. As a result, anything you say after that point -- and any evidence gleaned from that conversation-will not be admissible at your trial."

The Miranda warning is only necessary AFTER an arrest. Answers to questions are admissible evidence before an arrest without the warning.

Recovery

I've given up the PTSD story because it's a used idea and I don't think I could contribute to the body already written. My character is still good, though, I'll just have to find another angle.

I'm working on an essay comparing Supergirl to Catwoman (the movies) just for fun.

Last semester I had more fun writing than I have ever had before. I think the longer paper format allows me to use my voice, and to elucidate ideas rather than try to cram pure facts in a clipped, journalistic voice into five pages. It's still hard work, and it takes more time, but it really is quite liberating.

I think I'd like to continue exploring death as a scholarly theme. After I took "death and dying, a how to" as an undergrad and was shot down for my unique, humorous and optimistic ideas, I sort of took to it.