Field Trip City

Well, I'm going to Germany. Got my ticket and everything. I'm leaving on December 28th and coming back on January 4th, so I'll be having the coolest New Year's in pretty much my entire life (though eating that bowl of vodka jello at Cam's place in my teenage years will be hard to top. Sometimes I really miss my capacity to do shit that stupid). It will be my first trip to Europe. I'll get to spend time with my lady. It's all roses.

That, however, is still three months off. In the meantime, I finally finished putting the grant for the OAC together. I received Pixie's DVD in the mail today, as well as Donna's reference letter. I spent a few hours doing some fine-tuning and printing off every last copy. It's done. On Monday I'll send it off to do its thing.

Today at school I held a 400-year-old book in my hands, as well as some really old editions of Don Quixote and old translations of Plato and Socrates. One of the Socrates works belonged to and was annotated by Northrop Frye. I wrote down one of his annotations because I thought it was endlessly funny:

Socrates: "And I ask again, What do we do when we weave? The answer is that we separate or disengage the warp from the woof."

Northrop Frye: "Huh?"

Classic. I get a good vibe from the Bibliography prof. He seems very intelligent and approachable.

I watched the film "Closer" for the first time. Just an amazingly brilliant piece of work with incredible performances by all. I want to see it again, but I think it would be a hard movie to sit through multiple times... the actors essentially take turns being the biggest living piece of shit in the film. The dialogue is overcast with emotion and eroticism without being hokey - very hard to pull off given the intensity behind each scene. It plays around so deftly with ideas of honesty and truth while at the same time using both as justifications for unconscionable behaviour. A really amazing film.

Bedtime is way overdue. Nuit Blanche tomorrow! Hopefully I'll be updating with some pictures.