This semester's classes...

...In the order in which I have them:

1. Philosophy and Feminist Theory (GWSS* 5122)
2. Baroque Art Seminar: The Art of Caravaggio (ARTH 8340) (I'm only auditing this one)
3. Ideas of the Sacred (ANTH 8810)
4. Directed Study: Close Reading of Early Modern Paintings (ARTH 5993)

You're salivating, aren't you? And you haven't even seen the syllabi!

Today in the anthropology class (which is really more philosophy, at least so far), we discussed Zupancic and Bataille's readings of Kant and Hegel respectively, and then watched a clip from Blade Runner. Some days I love grad school.

"Home... home is where you wear your hat..."*

So, Bryant and I are back in Minneapolis after quite a lot of traveling and the having of good times. We spent Christmas and the next week at my parents' in the desert; Christmas day (shown here) was 72 degrees and sunny, and the day we left was 78 and similarly beautiful.

One highlight of the California time (and also accentuated by sunshine) was the Rose Parade New Year's Day in Pasadena. My cousins make a tradition of going--reserving seats on the same corner, where you can see both the front, side, and back of the float, 24 hours in advance and then guarding them until parade time--but I don't even recall having watched it on TV. It was pretty spectacular.

After California, we drove north, hitching a ride with Bryant's mom in Vancouver to the Wonders' apartment in Bellingham. Saturday we went snow-shoeing (my first time) at Mt. Baker with their puffball of a new puppy, Sebastian. Sunny and Colleen taught me how to crochet; here Sunny is modeling one of the Seuss-esque mittens that evolved from these newfound skills.

Colleen dropped Bryant and I off on the trip south so that we could spend some time with my siblings, and the next morning the two of us took the train from Tacoma to Vancouver. I'm totally sold. We got a deal on our tickets (less than $30 for both of us), so it cost only a little more than driving. Plus, the views were better, there was more leg room, there was no driving stress, and we could get up and walk around. Brilliant.

After Vancouver, we drove to Walla Walla and stayed at Teri's inimitable bed-and-breakfast. Ted and Heather introduced us to their cat Penelope, Guitar Hero, and Terry Pratchett, among other things.

The next morning we headed east, stopping in Caldwell to see the Kings' house and animals and then dining with them in Boise. We spent the night with Tammy and Carissa, and the next day went snowboarding at Bogus Basin. I had more fun than was good for me... and my bruises have mostly healed.

The next two days, we just drove. Montana and North Dakota are two incredibly long states--and I was glad Bryant drove through the majority of the snow we encountered. We arrived in Minneapolis at about 10:30 Saturday night.

There were no classes today, but tomorrow it all starts back up again. Last night it snowed about four inches, and today's high was eleven degrees. I keep trying to remind myself that I love art history, that I love being in school, that I actually generally enjoy the Twin Cities, and that I chose this punishment path. I'm afraid I'm going to have to start running again, though, to make it through this winter, which is a daunting prospect indeed.

I feel spoiled after getting to see so many great people, eating so much delicious food, and getting so much sleep and sunshine over the past few weeks--and, predictably, I haven't had enough. Hopefully, it will be enough to get me through.

P.S. I straightened my hair over break, and since I didn't include any pictures last time, I'm posting this one, which is unfortunately the best I've got. This photo, along with all the others here, is courtesy of Bryant.

* "...I feel so breakup, I wanna go home. "

Dressed for success

As I was pulling my clean laundry and gallon of paint from my car this afternoon, I thought about the teenaged Ace Hardware employee who had waxed enthusiastic about sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison while he mixed my paint (he had made a William Gibson allusion about computers taking over humans' jobs; I admitted to owning Neuromancer [thanks, Ted], and it went from there). Then I thought about the balding man who had excitedly described to me the recent book he'd read on gram-positive and gram-negative germs and the Salem witch trials, after seeing the cover of my Guns, Germs and Steel (thanks, Bryant).

I was wondering why these two nice fellows had been so excited about talking to me. Then I realized that I was completely makeup-less, and that, with most of my clothes in the laundry, I was wearing my gray ear-flap hat, my black wool pea coat buttoned completely over a too-small sweater, gray wool slacks, and trail runner tennis shoes with white sport socks.

Clearly, that is the winning combination.

You know it's been a long week when...

...As you're filling out the evaluation forms after your last class of the semester, when a classmate says, "Have a good holiday!" you think, "Thanksgiving? Is it Thanksgiving?"

"Dicembre, erano mesi che non usciva il sole..."

Today in Film we watched Three Kings (1999), which I hated when I first saw it in the theater, primarily for its visual style, which I found pretentious in its attempt to be "artistic." The fact that these overwrought and self-conscious visuals masked a narrative that was not only extremely violent, but thoroughly vapid, merely added to my distaste. I had not been looking forward to watching it again.

This time through, somewhat surprisingly, after three more years of college and two and a half of grad school (including almost a full semester now of Film), I found the visuals less offensive. I'm not sure whether that had to do with the recent upsurge in that particular style of production (its ubiquity rendering it familiar and banal), my own exaggerated memories of the film, or my intervening education, but this time what I hated most about this film wasn't its visual style.

What I hated most was its flippant inanity. The film goes from raucous extended scenes of frat-boy soldiers drinking and dancing after "liberating Kuwait" to lots of shooting and explosions, with the same driving rock soundtrack (mixed up at times with middle-eastern samples); then tries to redeem itself by inserting an accurate (but generally lost) political statement on the Iraqis who had been hung out to dry by an American administration that had promised support for an uprising against Saddam, but then had failed to deliver. There are some very funny moments, and even a few interactions that actually border on touching, but overall the film is a schizophrenic mismatch with delusions of artistic and philosophical grandeur and, for all its pretensions, is merely another Hollywood film that both glorifies war and trivializes its actual costs.

There is one classic scene during which an Iraqi asks the American soldier who he has imprisoned, "What is the problem with Michael Jackson?" He continues, "Your country made him chop off his face....A black man make the skin white and the hair straight, and you know why? Your sick f*ing country make the black man hate himself just like you hate the Arab and the children you bomb over here."

However, the occasional insightful, if hardly subtle, messages like this one are overwhelmed by the general attitude of the film and the actions of its characters. The tacked-on "happy ending" essentially erases any lingering thought that may actually have been provoked--and using U2's "In God's Country" for the epilogue and credits was simply unforgivable.

Clearly, not everyone agrees with me: it scored a 93% on the tomatometer at RottenTomatoes.com. Then again, Last King of Scotland got an 89%.

Personally, if I'm looking for saturated, eclectic visuals with minimal content, I'll stick with music videos. (And in Italian, the lyrics even seem deep!) Hollywood films are disappointing when they purport to have a message but fall apart upon thoughtful viewing and analysis; music videos, where relatively low expectations are a given, can only impress.