Weekend update
Listening to people speak for three days straight, eight hours a day can become very tedious, very quickly... But despite that, I actually enjoyed the conference quite a bit. All the nerves were mostly unfounded and it seems (according to feedback from professors in attendance) that it went spectacularly. Honestly, it all seems a little silly when put into perspective, our language becomes so specialized, so exclusionary that even those of us that study language, literature and the possibilities of what can be done with words, end up reducing our language to a level of destitution that can be summed up in a handful of key words. Depressing. If I were in charge of the world we would use the richest possible lexicon and flee like wild banshees from jargon. But then that's just me. Also, sadly, I admit, that the things that I write are probably much less "accessible" to the populace-at-large than I might think.
Wednesday night, to my chagrin, or charmed surprise I. was not only ok about spending the night with Alicia and Ignacio, but she kept telling us all we could go ahead and leave, her teeth were brushed and she was ready for us to be gone. But the sobremesa went on and on. Alicia "threw together" a paella, but I was in awe. Of course, I suppose on some level it is like having an Italian throw together a risotto, A Mexican some chilaquiles or an American a tuna casserole, but when it is something that one doesn't make, it always seems much more complicated. I couldn't sleep, even though my paper was totally in order and Sara at the last minute made me go searching for the reason that "Krisis" was spelled with a K (I found out, of course, that it has to do with neo-marxist criticism of the capitalist model of the 21st century) but it would have been much less stressful if maybe she would have posed the question, I don't know, say a month before the conference, not a day. Oh well, I got a catchy title out of the whole thing, and it just acted to reinforce my argument. But I only slept from about 1-4 am at which point I got up, packed my little black overnight bag and braved the sunless storming skies to meet Marcelo at the gas station for our drive down to Irvine. If it hadn't been raining, we would have been scot-free (hmm. what is the etymology of this expression, I wonder?) but because California drivers are morons (and because as everyone knows, it's always sunny in SoCal) there were several traffic issues stemming from accidents with which we had to contend.
My IPOD lighter thingamajig didn't work in my car and so I was left with no options but the radio. I love NPR for five minutes but I don't want to hear the same damn "news" over and over and over. I was flipping between classical and classic rock, pop and rap and found myself amused. Playlist: Benjamin Britten, Primus (reminds me that for strange reasons of fate I have seen them live, twice, despite not being a particular fan - opening for my very first concert-going experience - here is where I divulge my infancy- for U2's Zoo TV tour (Philadelphia), and then again five or six years later opening for Phish in Worcester (pronounced Wooster) Mass.) Green Day, Steven Stills ("Love the one your with"), Ravel, CCR, Stravinsky, some unknown (to me) rapper going on about rubbing and licking in preparation for what one might only assume to be the sex act, but from whose euphemistic language (don't you just love the possibilities of heteroglossia) it was impossible to ascertain a definitive or unequivocal interpretation. Then I got tired of the radio and I turned it off.
I felt better driving down in caravan (Marcelo had to leave a day earlier than I) and we made it there, and deciphered the mystifying UCI parking system, in time to hear Sandra Lorenzano give her talk (wow... I was speechless... and the best part is that she is coming to give a Key-note presentation in two weeks for the conference that I am (help!) organizing, so I can be mesmerized once more). It was a long day, but there were several interesting presentations (and several other not-so) and I met an interesting theater researcher from D.F. whose company was extraordinarily pleasant. Afterwards we headed over to the hotel, checked in, and we went out to dinner.
We opted not to go out or buy a bottle of wine, about which we had debated, and instead climbed into our respective beds, as if at one of my fabulous teenage co-ed sleepovers, and talked about things in the dark until a hush settled over us and sleep swiftly ensued.
In the morning after breakfast we ditched the very first hour of presentation to practice reading aloud our ponencias. We timed ourselves and made a few corrections, then headed back over to the university. Now, I must admit that while I have the capacity for focused attention, after a while, one's mind begins to wander. I think that it mostly has to do with the quality of the presenter as I rarely wander if I am captivated by the speaker, but tend to become trapped in mental vagueries when the words begin to act as simply masks to cover what, in essence, is a lack of latent meaning. That is, when the speaker begins to create a baroque flourish of buzz words, and a string of vacuous statements while never touching base with reality or reining themselves back in to the text or texts at hand. It also occurs to me how impatient and intolerant I have become, in my old age, for dogmatic readings of texts and historical moments that are anachronistic and instead of proposing any kind of positive action, end up whining about the unfairness of historical practices, or worse, cosmovisions that can obviously not be changed from this point in time (and more likely cannot either be understood in such simplistic terms)... but I won't rant on about that, it is just embarrassing to watch. The day ended with a fascinating talk by the film director Arturo Ripstein, and his wife: Paz Alicia Garcíadiego, who it turns out is also the screenplay writer of his last 13 films. While I would have liked to stay for the screening of Principio y fin I was too tired and ultimately had other pressing matters.
At the end of the day, I was left alone, well not totally- Sara and Tim (my professors) were still there- but I took off to see Lucía and Eric whose baby is, if not yet born, imminently on its way, and bring them the presents that we have been collecting over the last several months. It was great to see them and amazing to feel the baby, who is now fully formed and separated from this wordly realm by nothing more than a thin (ok, a couple) membrane of human skin. I felt his tiny fist move along her belly and my heart pitter-pattered. Babies, babies, babies... meanwhile, I. was doing spectacularly, having Indian food with M. and heading happily for a great second (and then third) night with A. and I. Guess the mama isn't that impossible to live without, at least for a few days. After a late night botana of wine, cheese, steak, lox and crackers, and exquisite melt-in-your-mouth kalamata olives, I headed out, leaving Lucía with what seemed to be waves of contractions. And of course, as is wont to happen when one needs mental peace of mind, I got lost on the way back to the hotel. Ok, so not totally lost, I just drove for 30 minutes the wrong way on Euclid... heading north instead of south. Dammit, and I could have sworn that I was going back out the way I came in. It must just be the Anaheim urban sprawl of strip malls and Vietnamese and Mexican restaurants that make everything look exactly the same. I tried not to panic, despite my exhaustion, and M. who was on his way to work at 12:30, talked me through it until I got back on the 5 (California speak for I-5).
I was in bed by 1:15 and up by 6:45, breakfasted and ready to go, then I went back to the dining room to sit with S. and T. while they had their breakfast and we were joined by a dramatist who came to give a talk on the "interpretation" (not theatrical) on the importance of her own work. (Eyebrows raised - highly suspect, I say). After narrowly avoiding an altercation with the shuttle driver who dissappeared for five minutes (just before I theoretically needed to be in place), I squelched my panic, and raced up to the conference building to find that I was the second person present and free from worry. My presentation went well, my voice wobbled not, I made smiling eye-contact with members of the audience that were laughing at my humoristic interjections (and I didn't stumble horribly over the word "ineficiencia"). All told, I felt much better after it was over and I hadn't been ripped to pieces by a pack of hungry wolves. In fact the ambience was one of tolerance (to my shock). The one thing that I did notice, in a moment of divagación was that when you boil it down to the bare bones, almost everyone in the room is really there having a very long internal monologue which revolves mostly around the "highly important" things that they are going to say, and not so much listening to others. Ah well. All part of the game, and another line on my resumé. At least I can find some fun in all this.
On the drive home I remembered to pull out the cassette adapter from my glove compartment and therefore was accompanied by Sarah Harmer (unbelievable, one whole year ago I was obsessively listening to this album, it was a pleasurable, if nostalgic, return trip to NH in the spring) Martin Sexton, then the radio when I started to smell something funny, then Manu Chau, when the cassette cooled back down. There was little traffic, but the sun roof closed improperly causing a high pitched whistle which was highly unacceptable, and so I was forced to open the roof again, and sing at the top of my lungs (in spite of the fact that I was beginning to lose my voice) for the entirety of the trip. I was wiped out, but did I go home? No. I went straight to Eric's to meet M. and the girl, and ended up staying at the party for a while and jamming (to destroy what was left of my vocal cords) a bit before finally going home at 11:30. Strangely, AAA was invoked again this weekend, because Samuel and Griselle (new Puerto Rican friends who, though I didn't mention it, we had dinner with last weekend when we went out with María José and Naseem for Italian food at a little bistro whose outside charm was far better than its service) had locked their keys in the car when they got out at the 7-11 to buy beer. At this point I was beyond merely soporific, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out.
Now, instead of sleeping in this morning (which would have been the intelligent thing to do), we went to have machaca, tamales and oaxacan chocolate with Laura and Liber, Marcelo and Rosa over at their house on West campus. And so, here I am, about to read La vida es sueño, not surprisingly with my very own sueño and a sleeping babe by my side, home, once again (happy to have my fingers flying over the keyboard, perhaps even more so because I resisted for four full days!).
Wednesday night, to my chagrin, or charmed surprise I. was not only ok about spending the night with Alicia and Ignacio, but she kept telling us all we could go ahead and leave, her teeth were brushed and she was ready for us to be gone. But the sobremesa went on and on. Alicia "threw together" a paella, but I was in awe. Of course, I suppose on some level it is like having an Italian throw together a risotto, A Mexican some chilaquiles or an American a tuna casserole, but when it is something that one doesn't make, it always seems much more complicated. I couldn't sleep, even though my paper was totally in order and Sara at the last minute made me go searching for the reason that "Krisis" was spelled with a K (I found out, of course, that it has to do with neo-marxist criticism of the capitalist model of the 21st century) but it would have been much less stressful if maybe she would have posed the question, I don't know, say a month before the conference, not a day. Oh well, I got a catchy title out of the whole thing, and it just acted to reinforce my argument. But I only slept from about 1-4 am at which point I got up, packed my little black overnight bag and braved the sunless storming skies to meet Marcelo at the gas station for our drive down to Irvine. If it hadn't been raining, we would have been scot-free (hmm. what is the etymology of this expression, I wonder?) but because California drivers are morons (and because as everyone knows, it's always sunny in SoCal) there were several traffic issues stemming from accidents with which we had to contend.
My IPOD lighter thingamajig didn't work in my car and so I was left with no options but the radio. I love NPR for five minutes but I don't want to hear the same damn "news" over and over and over. I was flipping between classical and classic rock, pop and rap and found myself amused. Playlist: Benjamin Britten, Primus (reminds me that for strange reasons of fate I have seen them live, twice, despite not being a particular fan - opening for my very first concert-going experience - here is where I divulge my infancy- for U2's Zoo TV tour (Philadelphia), and then again five or six years later opening for Phish in Worcester (pronounced Wooster) Mass.) Green Day, Steven Stills ("Love the one your with"), Ravel, CCR, Stravinsky, some unknown (to me) rapper going on about rubbing and licking in preparation for what one might only assume to be the sex act, but from whose euphemistic language (don't you just love the possibilities of heteroglossia) it was impossible to ascertain a definitive or unequivocal interpretation. Then I got tired of the radio and I turned it off.
I felt better driving down in caravan (Marcelo had to leave a day earlier than I) and we made it there, and deciphered the mystifying UCI parking system, in time to hear Sandra Lorenzano give her talk (wow... I was speechless... and the best part is that she is coming to give a Key-note presentation in two weeks for the conference that I am (help!) organizing, so I can be mesmerized once more). It was a long day, but there were several interesting presentations (and several other not-so) and I met an interesting theater researcher from D.F. whose company was extraordinarily pleasant. Afterwards we headed over to the hotel, checked in, and we went out to dinner.
We opted not to go out or buy a bottle of wine, about which we had debated, and instead climbed into our respective beds, as if at one of my fabulous teenage co-ed sleepovers, and talked about things in the dark until a hush settled over us and sleep swiftly ensued.
In the morning after breakfast we ditched the very first hour of presentation to practice reading aloud our ponencias. We timed ourselves and made a few corrections, then headed back over to the university. Now, I must admit that while I have the capacity for focused attention, after a while, one's mind begins to wander. I think that it mostly has to do with the quality of the presenter as I rarely wander if I am captivated by the speaker, but tend to become trapped in mental vagueries when the words begin to act as simply masks to cover what, in essence, is a lack of latent meaning. That is, when the speaker begins to create a baroque flourish of buzz words, and a string of vacuous statements while never touching base with reality or reining themselves back in to the text or texts at hand. It also occurs to me how impatient and intolerant I have become, in my old age, for dogmatic readings of texts and historical moments that are anachronistic and instead of proposing any kind of positive action, end up whining about the unfairness of historical practices, or worse, cosmovisions that can obviously not be changed from this point in time (and more likely cannot either be understood in such simplistic terms)... but I won't rant on about that, it is just embarrassing to watch. The day ended with a fascinating talk by the film director Arturo Ripstein, and his wife: Paz Alicia Garcíadiego, who it turns out is also the screenplay writer of his last 13 films. While I would have liked to stay for the screening of Principio y fin I was too tired and ultimately had other pressing matters.
At the end of the day, I was left alone, well not totally- Sara and Tim (my professors) were still there- but I took off to see Lucía and Eric whose baby is, if not yet born, imminently on its way, and bring them the presents that we have been collecting over the last several months. It was great to see them and amazing to feel the baby, who is now fully formed and separated from this wordly realm by nothing more than a thin (ok, a couple) membrane of human skin. I felt his tiny fist move along her belly and my heart pitter-pattered. Babies, babies, babies... meanwhile, I. was doing spectacularly, having Indian food with M. and heading happily for a great second (and then third) night with A. and I. Guess the mama isn't that impossible to live without, at least for a few days. After a late night botana of wine, cheese, steak, lox and crackers, and exquisite melt-in-your-mouth kalamata olives, I headed out, leaving Lucía with what seemed to be waves of contractions. And of course, as is wont to happen when one needs mental peace of mind, I got lost on the way back to the hotel. Ok, so not totally lost, I just drove for 30 minutes the wrong way on Euclid... heading north instead of south. Dammit, and I could have sworn that I was going back out the way I came in. It must just be the Anaheim urban sprawl of strip malls and Vietnamese and Mexican restaurants that make everything look exactly the same. I tried not to panic, despite my exhaustion, and M. who was on his way to work at 12:30, talked me through it until I got back on the 5 (California speak for I-5).
I was in bed by 1:15 and up by 6:45, breakfasted and ready to go, then I went back to the dining room to sit with S. and T. while they had their breakfast and we were joined by a dramatist who came to give a talk on the "interpretation" (not theatrical) on the importance of her own work. (Eyebrows raised - highly suspect, I say). After narrowly avoiding an altercation with the shuttle driver who dissappeared for five minutes (just before I theoretically needed to be in place), I squelched my panic, and raced up to the conference building to find that I was the second person present and free from worry. My presentation went well, my voice wobbled not, I made smiling eye-contact with members of the audience that were laughing at my humoristic interjections (and I didn't stumble horribly over the word "ineficiencia"). All told, I felt much better after it was over and I hadn't been ripped to pieces by a pack of hungry wolves. In fact the ambience was one of tolerance (to my shock). The one thing that I did notice, in a moment of divagación was that when you boil it down to the bare bones, almost everyone in the room is really there having a very long internal monologue which revolves mostly around the "highly important" things that they are going to say, and not so much listening to others. Ah well. All part of the game, and another line on my resumé. At least I can find some fun in all this.
On the drive home I remembered to pull out the cassette adapter from my glove compartment and therefore was accompanied by Sarah Harmer (unbelievable, one whole year ago I was obsessively listening to this album, it was a pleasurable, if nostalgic, return trip to NH in the spring) Martin Sexton, then the radio when I started to smell something funny, then Manu Chau, when the cassette cooled back down. There was little traffic, but the sun roof closed improperly causing a high pitched whistle which was highly unacceptable, and so I was forced to open the roof again, and sing at the top of my lungs (in spite of the fact that I was beginning to lose my voice) for the entirety of the trip. I was wiped out, but did I go home? No. I went straight to Eric's to meet M. and the girl, and ended up staying at the party for a while and jamming (to destroy what was left of my vocal cords) a bit before finally going home at 11:30. Strangely, AAA was invoked again this weekend, because Samuel and Griselle (new Puerto Rican friends who, though I didn't mention it, we had dinner with last weekend when we went out with María José and Naseem for Italian food at a little bistro whose outside charm was far better than its service) had locked their keys in the car when they got out at the 7-11 to buy beer. At this point I was beyond merely soporific, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out.
Now, instead of sleeping in this morning (which would have been the intelligent thing to do), we went to have machaca, tamales and oaxacan chocolate with Laura and Liber, Marcelo and Rosa over at their house on West campus. And so, here I am, about to read La vida es sueño, not surprisingly with my very own sueño and a sleeping babe by my side, home, once again (happy to have my fingers flying over the keyboard, perhaps even more so because I resisted for four full days!).
posted by ilana at 2:29 p.m.
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