The Summer Through a Super Angulon Lens

Day

 

End of semester

Hello.

Semester 4 has ended. 2 years at Lewis and Clark. Amazing.

There’s a moment in my life that has stayed with me. It was in 1999, in August. I was living in Palo Alto with my friend Daniel. I had thought I would come down there and work for him at his web startup, but I arrived just as the bubble burst. The money dried up and so I just paid rent with cash I borrowed from my parents and worked on my second (failed) novel.

Anyhow. Sometimes I took BART into the city and hung out in downtown San Francisco. It was (and is) a pretty city — and so I’d write in some cafe or hotel on my laptop and then wander back out to the suburbs. On one such night, I walked all the way back to the house from the train station (rather than call and have Dan come pick me up).

It was a warm summer night, and just walking and being alone and unencumbered — it gave me a resolute sense of joy, a shiver, that I’ve felt rarely in my life.

In the geography of mental status, I’m certainly closer to the side where depression lies — those formidable dark lands that can be such a struggle for many. But I have had a few moments of happiness, of happiness so pure you can feel it in your body. That night, walking from the train, I experienced one. For no reason, other than I was walking. And I was young. And it was a pretty evening in the Bay Area.

Now, sitting in my classroom, my 94-seat auditorium where I held a lecture class on the Rock N’ Roll Novel this term, I experienced the same feeling. It was the end of classes. My last exam. And the seats were silent. Quiet. I was alone with the classroom, and my memories of the class, and the formidable performance that is teaching. And I was filled with that same happy visceral shiver.

 

From Emerson’s Self-Reliance

“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”

-1841

 

Dickens Comic Books!

 

The work of students.

Sorry about the lapse in posting; although if you read the dates on the posts from the past two years, you’ll see that I am prone to these silences. I think it’s just part of not being entirely comfortable in the self-disclosure of the web. Anyhow.

But, I wanted to post a paragraph by one of my students, Adam Rager. This week he turned a 51-page story in to workshop. It was really wonderful in so many ways. This is the last paragraph of his story:

“…So this is the end.
Our dreams are paper cities. Our metaphors are paper cities. Our fictions are paper cities. Our truths are paper cities. God is a paper city. I am a paper city. Sadness, loss, and death are paper cities. Happiness, love, and life are paper cities. We are paper cities.”

 

Teaching

I think that teaching is very difficult. I enjoy it, but there are times when I wonder about the goals of reading literature in the classroom. I think that reading is a peaceful activity, and one that leads to understanding. So: These are two things that I love about teaching. It values two things — peace and understanding — that are integral to making the world a better place. I guess that these are the same two things that I value in writing. My books seemed — seemed — to care for me when I was a teenager. Books can care for you in a way that people can’t. They are reliable and, even when they challenge you, they do it to make you smarter and stronger. I think. So: That’s my rambling monologue about teaching for the day.

 

I have seen two good films this week. The first was Ballerina — the documentary about the Kirov ballet in St. Petersburg.

Technically, the film wasn’t anything remarkable. But seeing the Marinsky Theater again brought back memories of the summer — and watching Giselle in its enormously ornamented, almost Baroque interior. Lovely and nostalgic.

Second, I went to see Let the Right One In.

A Swedish vampire movie. But that’s really unfair, since the movie is really about the fragility of childhood — and the ways that a society supports or conceals violence. God, it was beautiful. And sad. And strange. And funny, in places. I guess I’m a sucker for snow scenes. There’s something about having luminous ground that makes winter images so captivating. To me, anyway.

 

German Video

The German press that is publishing my book (tomorrow!) — Rowohlt Berlin — did a trailer for it. You can see the trailer, here:

The link!

I was amazed. This is the first time I’ve seen anything I’ve written on a screen, in any language.

 

Griffey!

I can’t believe that Ken Griffey Jr. is coming back to the Mariners!

Unbelievable. So wonderful.

 

A Quote From Socrates

“Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul — on which they mightily fasten.”

I thought that was a beautiful quote.