burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Last meeting of Skarda's class was a house party per usual.  I kept feeling like there should be alcohol because last time i was there was the Christmas party at the end of Romantics class.  And then lo there was orange grapefruit compote with triple sec.  Which of course i didn't eat, 'cause hello grapefruit, but still.

On Monday i told Kate the Bluebeard story because she had never heard it (and it's my seminar reading for this week) and realized just how much i have totally adopted her gestures and inflections for storytelling.  Then i actually read the Perrault story, and found it so caricatured.  NMB actually finds the Grimms' "Fitcher's Bird" a more poorly put together story.

The last time i read Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" i was really into the heroine's sexual development, her awakening to the pleasures of S&M, and i was much less convinced this time around, which might mean that i was in a particular headspace last time and this time around am more aware of the fact that Carter didn't intend that (after all, the piano-tuner seems pretty vanilla) but given how much Carter uses the theme of awakening the dark primal bestial sexuality beneath the surface, and uses it as a positive thing, it seems to me a potentially valid reading of the text.  I want fanfic in which Bluebeard isn't a murderer and in which they negotiate a really hot kinky sexlife.  Alternatively, kinky post-canon fic.

Candi's doing her final paper on folklore motifs in Tori Amos songs, focusing on sex and violence.

It was sinking in on my way home from class that the class-taking phase of my undergraduate career is now over forever.

Poll inspired by a real-life story from a friend:
So, you're on a date with a guy.  Somehow it comes up in conversation that he would like to make a porn film, "But not the cheesy hardcore kind. Something classier - geared to women and couples."
[Poll #484240][And for those of whom your immediate reaction is, "I'm on a date with a guy? wtf?" just play along.]

And from a completely different context, phineasjones says, "i can't believe anyone out there is like, 'i have breasts, so i already have all the breast experience i need.' i mean, come on! there is so much variety to be explored!"

Fortune cookie: "Don't be hasty, prosperity will knock on your door soon."
If this soon-to-be-graduate believed on fortune cookies, this would be quite comforting.  (Though what's up with the implication that i'm being hasty?)  Extra fun if one adds on the requisite "in bed"  :)
And speaking of jobs for graduates, my father sent me this, which excerpts from a piece in The Christian Science Monitor that says the job market is improving for this year's college graduates.  ("The expected salary range for bachelor's degrees in liberal arts today: $29,400 to $35,000, according to CollegeJournal.com."  Hotness.)

House meeting re: house closing procedures didn't actually inform us of what to do if one actually has damaged furniture.  ecox asked how the college notifies/bills you, and Patricia didn't know.  I had thought there was a sheet we got at the end of the year whereon you can mark any damage in your room, but maybe i'm conflating that with the sheet you get when you first move in.

My Inklings paper is so much academic bullshit in the vein of my Eyre Affair paper.  In a novel which i whine about being full of stock characters, i ended up arguing for subtlty and complexity of characterization.  Huh.  I still need to do my reading journal, but that's even easier than the paper and can be turned in next week.  I am so excited to finally be able to work on my seminar paper in earnest.  I thought i had read nearly all the modern English language LRRH variants in existence, but i just read an article in a 1982 issue of International Folklore Review which contains the following paragraph: "It should be noted that these three obscene versions did not appear in pornographic magazines but were printed in The Smith, a perfectly serious American literary publication.  There are, of course, sexual illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood along this line in hard-core sex magazines which are unsuitable for reproduction here, but it cannot be denied that sexual interpretations of fairy stories in all degrees from refinement to crudity have become a popular form of entertainment among adults."  They do reproduce a 1974 Playboy cartoon and a 1978 Punch one, though.  And the footnote to that paragraph might get used in my paper (whose topic is LRRH as a willing sexual participant): "An advertisement for sexual stimulators showed a picture of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf with a variety of such devices and the caption 'The better to please you with, my dear.' Hustler, April 1978, 20."

I learned that Jane St. Clair wrote Voyager fic, including TNG crossover.  I, of course, refuse to read Voyager fic until i've watched all 7 seasons through.  I told Emma about the argument Cat and i had about TNG Q!sex given the Voyager canon, and she pointed out that if Q+human can have sex the Q way, shouldn't they also be able to the human way? ::hearts her::  I really need to rewatch that episode (preferably as part of a full canon tour, though).

Am considering hitting up the MFA Dance Concert on Friday and then leaving early to go to the One-Acts.  (The lack of Christopher Durang in the latter makes me sad.  But it's in the TV Studio rather than HF, which makes me think it's a different set of one-acts than usual.)

atpolittlebit points out a quote from "Life of the Party" (Angel 5.05) that could be seen to refer to Firefly.

NMB asked us to read the Grimms' "Snow White" and think about the symbols and what they meant to us and then read Gilbert and Gubar's article. I knew i had already read both and written a short paper applying the article to the Sigourney Weaver Snow White: A Tale of Terror, but i figured i could compartmentalize. What i hadn't expected (though i should have) was how much i was reminded of other tale variants as i read. Not that i conflated fanon and canon, but i was reminded of them -- like how certain Biblical passages or ideas remind me of Joel's class last semester. As i read the very opening of the story i thought of Angela Carter's "The Snow Child." At the introduction of the huntsman i thought of The Tenth Kingdom. And by this point i was well aware that i was aware of variants and i began to recall the assorted variants i had seen or read and the different presentations of the scenes flitted through my mind as i read the scenes. I also realized that i had forgotten the "Goldilocks"-esque quality of some of it. Also: the story is problematic in a multiplicity of ways that i hadn't caught last time (primarily in narrative integrity, 'cause i'm Consistency Bitch).

I want Snow White/huntsman fic.

From the point of view of the mad, self-assertive Queen, conventional female arts kill. But from the point of view of the docile and selfless princess, such arts, even while they kill, confer the only measure of power available to a woman in a patriarchal culture.

-page 295 in Maria Tatar's The Classic Fairy Tales

That was one of my favorite sections of the Gilbert and Gubar piece. (Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, "Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother" from The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, 1979)

I got to be smart in class. I used other texts as avenues into the Grimms' "Snow White" (not just saying "Let me tell you about all these interesting variants i've seen/read") and focused on imagery and made good arguments and yay. I talked about connecting the mother figures, and the creepiness of the opening scene (influenced by Angela Carter's "The Snow Child" and the Sigourney Weaver Snow White: A Tale of Terror) and the initiation into adulthood (helped by some poem i read and now cannot find -- oops, actually 10th Kingdom; IMDb quotage gives me: "Why did I let her in? Didn't I know she was bad? Yes, I did. But I also knew I couldn't keep the door closed all my life just because it was dangerous. Just because there was a chance I might get hurt."). Later in the class NMB actually handed out Angela Carter's "The Snow Child" and talked about it, and Becca came up with the great phrases "necropedophelia incest" and "adulterous affair with strange construct" in discussing the story.

And discussing sexual themes in children's lit and how much goes over children's heads, Heather said, "They're not watching porn like the rest of us." (Equally amusing was seeing the shocked faces of some classmates who clearly don't watch porn on a regular basis. Personally, i'll take Candi and her "eroticised childhood.")

Discussing "Snow White" and the G&G article, NMB mentioned Marina Warner's reading of the wicked mother figure in many fairy tales as a mother-in-law, which i'm fairly certain i read while taking Betsey's class, but which i had forgotten about. Becca pointed out that in French, "stepmother" and "mother-in-law" are the same word -- again with the me having forgotten from Betsey's class.
NMB talked about the daughter-in-law as teller of the story and the safe cottage as fantasy and said lots of things which made sense and maybe this time they'll actually stick in my brain so as to inform my future readings of Grimms' tales.

She also handed around the announcement of the department honors thesis presentations, and AJ said i can leave work early to attend the Monday one. I imagine at some point all majors will get the announcement e-mailed out to them, but for now here's the list.

Thursday April 21, 5pm - Candi (Nabokov) and Gillian (Doris Lessing)
Monday, April 25, 4pm - Victoria Whom I Don't Know (Auden's Spiritual Calendar), Liz In My Seminar (Lewis' Space Trilogy), Jessica (first creative writing thesis ever allowed by the Smith College English Department)

In Telling&Retelling, Skarda said that Mary Krull (The Hours) made her think of me because gender studies, people actually attend her lectures, and piercings. Um, cultural studies prof... i'm only vaguely seeing the connection here. I actually liked Robin Lippincott's Mr. Dalloway, and she said i could do my final paper on that if i wanted, which was nice, though i'm gonna stick with defending The Eyre Affair.

Skarda says they're gonna phase 199 into being optional, that you're gonna be required to take 2 of the following 4: 199, 200, 201, and the AmLit-1865 survey. Oh so much love.

In other news: apparently we're recycling a quote from a 2000 Jane interview. ("I'm the person most likely to sleep with my female fans.") I don't think i'd realized that she's said for years that she's bisexual.
from a 2000 Elle interview: "Honestly, I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street." and "I need someone physically stronger than me. I am always on top. It's really unfortunate. I am begging for the man that can put me on the bottom. Or the woman. Anybody that can take me down."
Who wants to write rps?

I had a nonsexual date with Cat (and Haven!Laura) tonight to go to the Senior Dance Concert. Johnna's was definitely my favorite. The fluid motions and the cool-color-end-of-the-spectrum outfits of tank tops and swishy pants that flowed into each other, and ShavedHeadGirl looked like she was enjoying herself so much, and the second part i was less fond of, but it grew on me, and part of the issue was just that the artistic vision of the song that Johnna was enacting was not how i would choreograph that song were i ever to. And yes okay it helped that i already knew and loved the music. (It was Ani's "Swan Dive" for the ensemble piece and then a solo to "Joyful Girl.")

ShavedHeadGirl reminded me somewhat of Bryn and at certain moments of paper_crystals. She's an '07, so there are only 3 semesters of classes i could have had with her, and recalling all those classes i can't particularly see her in any of them. It's possible that she just reminds me of Abigail in my Telling&Retelling class, but i feel like the memory goes back further.

"Marty the used car salesman" is from First Wives Club (Brenda's husband) -- for anyone who was there during that dinner conversation.

Cuthbert and Floris now grace my door.

I like David Brooks. (And Thomas Friedman.)

Today: Couldn't see blue in the sky, but it was still bright, almost blindingly so due to the fresh snow. Clearly i'm a freak; i did errands outside without a coat. And there was snow falling while i walked, almost unreal.

A Thousand Acres is more depressing than King Lear. And now that i've read it i wanna reread King Lear, in large part for the differences between the sisters. Except there's only so much time one wants to spend in the deep pit that is either of those narratives.

I just want to know what i'm doing next year. I keep planning things and then realizing that i don't even know if my circumstances will be such that those plans would make sense. And my current feeling is that i don't want to be in a PhD program next year, but i think that's my psyche reacting to the fact that i don't think i'll get in places. And yes i should just focus on all the work i have to do for the next two weeks, let the present be sufficient unto itself and all that, maybe meditate or something. I just feel everything so intensely recently. It may turn out that i'm hormonal, but that's not a helpful answer.

You know how... You get scared. Or worried, or nervous. And you don't want to be scared or worried or nervous, so you push it to the back of your mind. You try not to think about it. The limbic system is what lets you do that -- it's like a filter in your brain that keeps your feelings in check. They took that filter out of River. She feels everything. She can't not.
-Simon, in "Ariel"

I'm considering getting one of these icons.

Closing time
Open all the doors and let you out into the world
[...]
Closing time
You don't have to go home but you can't stay here
[...]
Closing time
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
[...]
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

It's possible that my time would be better spent copying down interesting passages from stuff i've read recently for my own future reference since all of like 5 people comment on my LJ, but hey, the journal's really for me first and foremost -- though obviously not entirely since this does get edited with the awareness of audience and all that.

( Wednesday-Saturday )

lasultrix says, "There's no such language as Irish Gaelic. There's a language called Scots Gaelic, but the branch of the Gaelic languages spoken in Ireland is just called Irish."

Nothing like an unintentional all-nighter to knock my sleep schedule back into whack.

7am: pale purples and blues, the shining moon above the buildings.

Mmm, Hubbard has yummy (pea)nut butters again. And Smith plowed liek whoa.

Filling out Skarda's "Student Introduction" form was fun. ( Read more... )

Class with Skarda continues to rawk. She was late to class and there was much banter, and then we actually started on Ourika and she said something like "Didn't you find it haunting?" and i said "No" and she said something like, "You can always count on Elizabeth [surname] to not like a book," and i said, "I'm a bad English major, what can i say?" and she said, "No, you're a good English major, that's the problem." I didn't actually participate much in the discussion, but much fun was had.

Meg and i finally got together and now have a standing lunch date for Tuesday/Thursday for the rest of the semester -- because what is a Tuesday/Thursday lunch without an off-campus Smithie? though of course no one could replace my darling.

And Moriah-from-NHS is coming to visit next Friday. Yay for people.

All week i've been saying that my seminar is the one class that isn't allowed to suck (because it's the one thing i can't drop/fail) and lo, i think it's my least favorite of all my classes. A whole lot of the Chaucer kids seem to have just migarated into the seminar, and the class is maxed out. Not that this is a bad thing, just a note. Something about the prof kinda bugs me, but i can't put my finger on it. I really think this course is gonna be my lightest reading load, even with the course reader, which is weird since it's a seminar. Though all of my classes seem to have really easy workloads in terms of papers/projects/exams, which makes the Booklists of Doom so totally doable. I have visions of a semester full of Been There Done That as far as the seminar goes, but we shall see.

For leading discussion, my first choice would have been

Fairy Tale to Contemporary Short Story I: Beauty and the Beast. Versions in Tatar, pp. 25-73, with special attention to Angela Carter's "The Tyger's Bride" (also in The Bloody Chamber) and "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon," The Bloody Chamber, pp. 41-51.

Instead i got

Folktale in Elizabethan Tragedy, contginued. King Lear III-V and "Cinderella in Maria Tatar, ed., The Classic Fairy Tales, 101-37

which upon reflection might in fact be a better one.

Serenity appears about 16 minutes into the Battlestar Galactica premiere episode.
Countdown 'til crossover fic, anyone?

Question for Firefly fans:

[Poll #426399]
I'm not looking for official statements about the character's ages but rather am curious as to what your impression of the age gap is as a viewer (feel free to tell me a range).