I got about eight pages of my Race and Cinema essay written yesterday, if you count the images I added, which I will to make myself feel better. Today I'm going to watch Stalag 17 and Hart's War and take notes for the second part. Two more days. I guess it's doable, though I have to say it isn't really provoking my interest.

I found out that I received an A on my Avant-Garde conference paper, which was worth 55% of the course. That puts me in pretty damn good standing. It's stuff like that that makes me think, "PhD? No problem!" But we'll see how everything else lines up.

I did my taxes the other day. Getting a giant return. For a moment it said that I owed money, but then I remembered I hadn't included my tuition. I'm going to be okay money-wise for awhile. I just wish I knew where it's going to come from once it starts running out.

I'm in between classes dropping my laptop back off at the apartment. I just delivered my Avant-Garde conference paper and it went okay, though I rambled a bit during the question period as per usual. That class is over with, Tragedy is done. Biography and Race and Cinema are soon to follow. I have to print out my bio paper and head back to campus. No rest for the weary.

Literally. No rest. I was up late working on the paper and had three hours of sleep total. And I couldn't have a coffee this morning because my stomach was still wonky from the pizza. I should plan meals like that better.

Onward ho.

Almost forgot to update today. I haven't done a lot of work today, and the day has gone by fast. I just ordered a pizza and I need to press myself on that last presentation. Five more pages. Yesterday I finished my biography presentation at Pratt, so barring some last minute editing it's pretty well good to go. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

I was up kind of late thinking about things, the future, what have you. Something inside me is going to break eventually, and soon. I can feel it. And I'm looking forward to it happening. I'm going to leave behind all this childish worry, apply myself and find happiness. It's just a matter of time.

Last week Tim mentioned a prof he used to have whose only comments about a presentation he had made had to do with his hair and clothes. He was joking around, but this morning I decided to shave and get a haircut. I'd been planning it for awhile, anyhow. I wanted to look different, and now I do, and I feel a bit better about my last few weeks. 26 days, apparently. Start the clock.

I slept in late today. Yesterday I hit campus for awhile and browsed some electronic literature websites, and I think I'm going to shift the focus of my avant-garde paper a bit to discuss how the "reader" of a text is transformed into a "user," or a reader-author hybrid. I discovered some really strange art websites, of which there really is no shortage.

I couldn't stay at the library, so I went to Tim Hortons and then walked home from Keele Station. I love those walks. They give my thoughts room to roam around. I thought a lot about what lies in store in Ottawa. I'm trying to remind myself that nothing lies ahead of me but possibility, but I have to put first things first. Four more papers and one more presentation. Then I can start figuring out where life is going to take me next.

I found a live stream of Wrestlemania, so I was able to catch about three hours of it, only having to put up with a slight delay in audio and announcers who sounded like Darth Vader. Ric Flair had his last match and I was happy to see it live. I stayed up late looking at photos and thinking. Today I have to read a couple of essays and write a response paper.

Tomorrow is the first day of April. The beginning of the end!

I'm going a little stir crazy being in the apartment so much this weekend. I have to return a library book today, so I'll be rejoining the land of the living, however briefly. I made it about halfway through the MacEwen biography, wrote my McCaffrey response (which ended up being a comparison of Perloff and Susan Sontag's ideas of interpretation) and watched my first Fassbinder film, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, which I'm looking at this week in Race and Cinema. What makes that film so interesting is the back story behind it. The male lead was Fassbinder's lover for a period and ended up hanging himself in prison after stabbing three people.

I went to the grocery store yesterday, but it was closed, so I ordered pizza. Jay went home for Easter and to my family's for dinner. My parents packed up some food for me, which was really thoughtful, and now I don't have to shop for a few days. When he came back I was knee-deep in playing True Crime: Streets of LA on the PS2. It's fun to run over and shoot people. I tried playing Final Fantasy XII but there was too much storyline and not enough actual gameplay.

I also talked with Rachael for a bit, which was nice, because we haven't talked in months. Today I'll be reading more about MacEwen. I'm liking it a lot more than Sullivan's last biography. She's more inclined to involve the process of writing about a subject, and I find that the most interesting part.

Off to London today. Yesterday I hit campus to watch Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates, the earliest known film written and directed by an African-America, and Scar of Shame, both of which were released by the Smithsonian as part of an African-American historic film collection. I also finished the readings for Avant-Garde on the Harlem Renaissance.

And now, to finish packing. And start.

Yesterday I went to the library and gathered material for the bibliography. I packed my shoulderbag to maximum capacity and walked at a slight tilt to the subway, then to Matt's place. We watched Brick and this new show Breaking Bad that he's into, drank some beers, ate some food. Then I walked home and promptly passed out.

I almost forgot to update. Kind of a busy morning as I had to hit the grocery store. When I got back I wrote up my response to Stein and wrote an annotation for the Avant-Garde bibliography. I have 3-4 more to go, plus my Tragedy response. If I can get that stuff done I'll be okay for tomorrow.

It's Groundhog Day. Depending on whether you believe Wiarton Willie or Punxsutawny Phil, you can take your pick of when winter's history. I wonder how global warming will impact Groundhog Day. Shadow. Shadow. Shadow. It's enough to make me switch to canvas shopping bags.

I did watch Groundhog Day yesterday. A fantastic film that always makes me laugh. My favorite exchange:

Rita: What should we drink to?
Phil: To the groundhog!
Rita: I always drink to world peace.
(NEXT DAY)
Rita: What should we drink to?
Phil: I like to say a prayer and drink to world peace.
Rita: ...to world peace.
Phil: To world peace. *pause* Amen.

I finished Achebe's book and also read Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Here's a great depiction of the latter by Charles François Jalabert:


I finished my Avant-Garde readings on Dada. What blows me away is the movement's foray into nihilism, particularly Francis Picabia. Richter lets off lines like this about him: "In spite of the fanatical, truly desperate battle that he waged against art, in spite of the theoretical anathemas he hurled at art, he never escaped from it." He also talks about condemning the "life-impulse" that forces artists to create. I don't BUY artistic nihilism. If the creative force within you is so strong that you HAVE to create in spite of your desire not to, the entire concept of nihilism can't apply to your output. Who the hell in their complete freedom of expression hates art so much that they feel as though they have to create against their will? It's complete bullshit. If you're a nihilist, don't create. All you're doing by creating is saying that you wish you weren't creating, and that's the most pretentious state of being possible.

Yesterday was Kim's birthday, and she and Matt are having a bunch of people over tonight after a pub stop. I have to pick up beer.

I woke up to the Eels collections I ordered from Amazon sitting on the kitchen counter: "Meet the Eels: Essential Eels Volume 1 (1996-2006)" and "Useless Trinkets: B-Sides, Soundtracks, Rarities and Unreleased (1996-2006)". As the names suggest, the CDs contain the band's more well-known material as well as pretty much all of their b-sides PLUS most of their videos, footage of their 2006 Lollapalooza performance, and booklets of pictures with E's written musings on the songs. This is what all CD releases should aspire toward. I'm excited!

Presentations in Tragedy started rolling yesterday, and Quayson completely tore into the girl who was presenting. I've seriously never seen a presentation derailed like this. First of all, she had prepared about 20 minutes more than she had to, so he told her to condense it. Then, she read for about two minutes, talking about metaphors and phallic symbols in the play, and Quayson interrupted with, "What makes this play tragic?" From there on in the presentation was pretty much out the window as the girl tried to connect the threads of her material to what he wanted her to talk about.

Glad I didn't go first.

Avant-Garde was terrific as always, and I've decided to write my essay on technology's effect on art. The bibliography is due in two weeks, so I'm going to dig into some Perloff, McLuhan, Barthes, and Landow to see what I can come up with. After class I had lunch with Amanda at Tim Hortons and got a bit of reading done before heading to the Ontario Archives. After being given the tour we were able to go through some fonds of information. I had a look at things belonging to the Gregg family of Toronto around the turn of the 19th century - papers, diaries (the actual, physical books), letters, recipes, photos, greeting cards, prayer journals... really fascinating stuff. This is where all of the random stuff I've saved over the years is going to end up, I know it. 100 years from now some U of T grad student is going to be rifling through my collection of movie ticket stubs, wondering why in the world I kept them.

After I got home I watched Nanook of the North and The Daily Show, went to bed and tossed and turned until around 2:30. I have a couple of things to read before Race and Cinema tonight. Right after I rip this Eels stuff.

I love the Eels.

Andrea's flight was delayed, but she eventually made her weary way back to Canada and onto a shuttle to London. We spent about 15 minutes together. Totally worth it.

I spent a few hours in the library yesterday reading Renato Poggioli's The Theory of the Avant-Garde, which is a fascinating read and feels contemporary even though it's 45 years old. He quotes a great line from Umberto Saba in his section on Agonism and Futurism (the destruction of the past and the sacrifice of the present for the betterment of the future): "The twentieth century seems to have one desire only, to get to the twenty-first as soon as possible." I have my response done. Hell, here it is:

English critic and poet Matthew Arnold observed in the latter half of the 19th century that his society sat between epochs with regard to approaching social, political and cultural utopia. In Jung’s terms, modernists operated in a state of “transition” that welcomed an oncoming epoch, preparing the way ideologically for future generations (Poggioli 74).

What does this say about the period of the postmodern? Given the way it attacks modernist precepts, can it be seen as what Poggioli describes as a term of “decadence” – that is, an end in itself (or art for art’s sake) rather than one with a more futurist outlook? This would eliminate the idea that postmodernism is an avant-garde movement, given that agonism, or the sacrifice of the present for the birth of new social, political and cultural futures, is an avant-garde strain that opposes the cultural Zeitgeist. The implications of the Zeitgeist defined as one conditioned by an entirety of self-awareness should be considered, along with what this says of the current avant-garde.

Perhaps the current avant-garde is wholly reliant on technology for its administration. Poggioli calls creation and experimentation “an impossible synthesis” (137). Is this true, or are methods of experimentation via technological advancements elements of a creative approach punching holes in postmodernism by revealing how little mass culture actually understands of itself? Consider record companies currently scrambling for ways in which they can continue to profit from music distribution. Perhaps this is the result of an avant-garde aesthetic calling for an end to historical precedent.

I received Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Souvenir of Canada (woo!) in the mail yesterday along with a Chinua Achebe novel I need for my Tragedy class. Today it's all about Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill before I meet up with Ren for dinner and There Will Be Blood. I'm expecting blood.

Since I returned from Europe I've been waking up under my own power at 7 AM, including today, though I chose to sleep in until 9. I have the feeling I won't be able to sustain this pattern.

WHAT I'M IN FOR (PART ONE)

Day one back at U of T is in the can. My first class on Tragedy in African and American Literature under Professor Quayson has a pretty intimidating workload: 2-4 page responses due every week, a presentation, a thesis proposal, a paper, plus a 40-item annotated bibliography. He also made it clear that he can't stand lateness or laziness. I should probably just live at the library like I was originally planning.

The Avant-Garde: Theory and Practice with Professor (call me Tim) Yu sounds amazing. I can already tell his lecture style is comprehensive and that the material is going to be thought-provoking (with even some Canadian content thrown in - Steve McCaffrey's Seven Pages Missing). Five 250-word response papers, presentation, paper, a 5-7 item annotated bibliography, plus a participation mark.

The Pragmatics of Writing Bibliography is helmed by Professor Sullivan, who knows many famous people and their relatives. She's also written biographies for Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Smart and Gwendolyn MacEwen. It's my smallest course by way of population (eight people) and according to Sullivan will be run like a workshop. Fine by me. Because I was late in registering for the course, I missed the email instructing the students to have a subject picked for a research project to work on. I'd really like to do Coupland in preparation for my PhD but it might be tricky given that we're ideally supposed to choose a subject whose records are kept in Toronto. I'll think on it. The course has a short reading list (four texts) and further requires a project bibliography, a paper and a presentation of research.

In between classes I went to the Varsity and saw Atonement, which blew me away with its technique of telling a story visually before gradually setting it to words. It brought to mind the atmospheric elements of Picnic at Hanging Rock and the brutal scope of Cold Mountain.

Tonight from 6-8 I have my final course in Race and Cinema. After that I'll pack a tent and make my way for Robarts.