I really need to buy new underwear. I mean really, it's getting ridiculous.

Last night I went to bed at around 2 with a page or so left to write in my essay, but my mind was racing, so I got up and just finished the damn thing: "Re-visioning Convention: African American Representation and the World War II Film." I still couldn't fall asleep until 5 or so, so I'm tired this morning. I had a pretty great idea for a new art project that I'd like to work on once I'm back in Ottawa. It would take some coordination, but I think it would be really neat.

It's going to be a bit of a long day, as I'm heading to campus to hand in the paper, having lunch with Amanda, and then meeting up with Ren to see Buck 65. Pretty much makes today a write-off for working on my last paper.

One more paper. Right now it sounds good. I'm sure I'll be driven nuts by the time it's done. Should make the few remaining updates on this site entertaining.

I am apparently more concerned with organizing a party taking place two weeks from now than I am with writing an essay that's due tomorrow, the reason being one is much more fun than the other.

Anyhow, I'm getting this puppy done today. I need six pages to hit the minimum, though I'd like to get eight. I'll be shoving off to the library soon. Yesterday I watched Stalag 17 and Hart's War and tried to come up with possible comparisons. It's difficult commenting how how race is used to change a narrative. In a way, though, I feel by writing a paper like this it takes me out of a sentamentalist approach to the subject matter. I can't write a paper on race that just screams "Prejudice is unfair!" over and over in a variety of ways. I have to take a step back and analyze how prejudice is affecting the film from a structural standpoint. That's hard to do, but I'll give it a shot.

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.

Well, I've had my morning "Will I find a job?" freak-out and I'm ready to get back to working on papers. Yesterday I watched Twelve O'Clock High and The Tuskegee Airmen back to back and took a bunch of notes. Hopefully I'll get eight pages written today.

It's hard to believe that I'll be in Ottawa in a week and a half. As slowly as January and February passed, March and April have whizzed right by.

I got a bunch more writing done last night. I think I'm worming my way back into a groove.

So it looks like a transit strike is immanent, which would really put a kink into library work. I don't know how I'd get to campus. I suppose I might have to ask Jay to drop me off at insanely early times before he heads to work. But hopefully things will get resolved and it won't come to that.

I finished transcribing the Coupland interview. I'm heading to campus today to write at least the bulk of it. As much research as I need to pull in for it, it's also heavily narrativized, so it should be fun to write. I sent him a few of the pictures I took and he responded with a nice email saying he hoped to see me many more times in the future.

I need to track down a copy of Twelve O'Clock High for my Race and Cinema essay. I'm abandoning the structure I had in place for it and doing two sets of comparisons, one on Twelve O'Clock High and The Tuskegee Airmen, the other on Stalag 17 and Hart's War. I'm going to take a look at the generic changes that occur in a WWII film when a plot concerning race is grafted on to the narrative.

I got some more writing done last night. I don't want to jinx it, but hopefully this marks the start of a new routine.

Things are getting hectic, and updating keeps slipping my mind. But classes are DONE. I'm three papers and a bibliography away from my Master's degree. Which is still a hell of a lot. But it will all be over with in three weeks.

The last of the Avant-Garde conference went down today, and actually went over in time, making me 20 minutes late for Race and Cinema. But we had our last class at Bar Mercurio, so things were a bit looser than usual. We sat around bashing the film Crash for a couple of hours before filling out course evaluations. Now THAT was an interesting task to perform after a pint. It felt unnatural.

I had some McDonald's on the way home. I'll probably just chill out for the rest of the night. Last night I slept for a long time and had some really weird dreams about Steph and being in an air crash. Which is not a great dream to have before you get on a plane. But I'm sure it doesn't literally indicate that my plane will crash. It's probably just quite metaphoric for what became of mine and Steph's friendship.

Richard Widmark just passed away at the old age of 93. I just saw him in Judgement at Nuremberg a few weeks ago. A couple of years ago I analyzed a scene in How the West Was Won that featured Widmark for a paper on Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water. A great actor.

I just read an article by Mary Ann Doane called Dark Continents about race and gender representations in Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, which I watched earlier today. She concentrates on the value of perspective and the visibility/invisibility of individuals in the film, making the claim that her arguments aren't finished until they are taken up by, most notably, black women. This is truly where academia is poised today, it seems. Matt just sent me a look at the new English course requirements at Carleton, which now include two credits in "South Asian, African, Aboriginal, Caribbean, American, and other literatures." Multiplicity of perspective.

I will say that I'm really enjoying the African and African-American texts I've been exposed to so far this semester. I get a little bogged in the theory sometimes, but I'm trying to make sense of it. I still feel funny that 95% of the students taking these classes are white. I think a little more diversity in experience would help the discussions.

I went out last night with some folks from the Cinema Studies program for Dru's birthday. I knew a few of them superficially from classes we'd taken. The night was okay though I was in a pretty shy mood. At the very end of the night I had this weird altercation with someone in my Race and Cinema class. I was leaving the bar and she pulled me aside and apologized for being assholes. I didn't know what she meant, but she was referring back to a presentation I gave at the beginning of the semester. She and this other guy pressed me with follow-up questions about Althusser that I didn't really know how to answer, and she had heard that I was angry about it.

First of all, I wasn't the one who brought it up - someone else made the observation that they seemed to be giving me a hard time of it. I also find it kind of weird that she found out. The class is comprised of a group of English students and a group of Film students, each of them close-knit, so I suppose one of the Film students heard the comments and passed them along. I don't even really remember what was said. So I pretended I had no idea what she was talking about, and that I didn't think they were assholes. Which I don't, really. It takes a lot for a person to become an asshole in my books. I might have been annoyed at the time, given that it was my first presentation of the semester and I wanted it to go well, but questions are part of any course.

I suppose I'm explaining it here because I only know these people in the context of a classroom. I haven't made what I would consider to be any good friends during my run at U of T and I find it a bit upsetting that people would think I could harbour grudges against them.

It was a pretty okay night. Dru seemed happy. Tony came out too, who is always fun to talk to, and I'm now about 95% certain he's gay. Taking the Olivia Newton John pieces in "Summer Nights" at a karaoke bar is a pretty solid confirmation.

I still think that Terry Lee Hale's "Dead is Dead" is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.

I got a lot of work done on preliminary research for my Race and Cinema essay, and I should be able to hand in the prospectus this week (a week early). It will be nice not having to worry about it when Andrea's in town. And it actually seems like it will be an interesting essay to write - I'm going to look at representations of African-Americans in WWII on film, so I'll be looking at old propaganda films and then examining the gap between the war and narrativized accounts of how they were actually treated.

I bought a bunch of Coupland books I didn't have previously: Souvenir of Canada, Terry, and City of Glass, which I've been reading obsessively to get an idea of what to expect in Vancouver. I ran across a video online of Coupland giving what he announced as the last reading he'll ever give back in October (it's right here). At the end of the clip he says, "That part of my life is over." It makes me wonder what part of his life he views as beginning.

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.

Class: Have you seen the film version of Beloved?
Quayson: No, I won't watch it, I don't want to see it.
Class: Why not?
Quayson: Oprah.

One more class to go. Unfortunately, it's Race and Cinema and I have neither watched the film nor done any of the readings. Although I have read three out of the four articles in the past (Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" several times), so it could be worse. I have the movie on my computer, so I'll watch it soon - Jezebel, a Warner picture from 1938 with Henry Fonda and Bette Davis. Amazingly, I've never seen a Bette Davis movie.

The discussion of Stein in class yesterday was interesting. There's something about trying to get at the root of intent that turns me on about the avant-garde, starting with the notion that a writer is saying something, anything, and working towards illumination.

I really need a shave.

Yesterday I met someone who shares all of my musical interests. She doesn't look like much, but she's knowledgeable, organized, and easy to turn on.

Meet Lacie:


"Lacie" is the name of the company that makes the drive as well as the friendly name that pops up whenever her USB cable is connected. That's right - she's completely plug and play. And one day she'll hold my entire music collection. That is, if my CD burner can take it. I doubt it's looking forward to ripping all of that material. I tried to go entirely digital about three years ago and all of that music is currently sitting on the hard drive of a desktop PC that, last time I checked, is suffering severe problems. The process took me a long time. But I miss not having all of my music at my immediate disposal, so I'm starting the trek all over again.

I wrote the scene analysis for The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, which is an excellent film. I had a lot of fun picking it apart. It's been awhile since I've done a scene analysis and it really opens up a whole new way of watching the film. I imagine I could sit down and analyze a film shot-by-shot and come up with literally hundreds of pages of material. That's the beauty of the moving visual image and its relationship with the senses.

I had a much better Wednesday yesterday than what has proven usual lately. Class was stimulating. It snowed really hard, which gave being on campus one of those "last of the population left alive" qualities. Lots of work to do this weekend.

Grad school is hard. I got a B+ on my Race and Cinema report and presentation. Apparently there wasn't enough of "me" in it, but as far as I'm concerned I can't put much of "me" into a 3-5 page paper that's supposed to "report" on an article. I've never put a thesis into a report. That's what makes it a REPORT. Journalists don't typically put themselves into their REPORT on changing oil prices. Semantics.

I walked home from Keele Station and got shoved by a prick who wouldn't give me enough room on the sidewalk. No way I was going around him. I had "dinner" at McDonald's and thought the cashier short-changed me, but she was probably right.

Wednesdays are starting to tick me off.

I watched the Eels video collection yesterday. Their video for Rags to Rags is hilarious. It's a parody of America's Funniest Home Videos and features a bunch of segments in which Butch gets hit in the balls in a number of ways. You can't argue with funny.

Always felt like giving in
To the feeling I can't win
But I took it on the chin
Now I'm finally cashing in
Meeting every day with the rising sun
Looking up, it's looking like my losing streak is done

Thanks E.

I'm really hoping Wednesday isn't going to turn into a day on which I comment on the deaths of talented young actors. Heath Ledger was found dead in his home yesterday, and toxicology reports have yet to be processed to determine whether or not it was due to a drug overdose. That guy was destined to become one of the biggest actors on the planet. He's still to star as the Joker in The Dark Knight this summer, which is going to be completely disturbing to watch. I've been obsessed with the trailer for that film and looking forward to it intently, mostly due to Ledger's performance. If you haven't seen it, check it out:



Sigh.

I've got a seminar presentation to make in Race and Cinema today. I need to catch up with the other readings beforehand. I'm really enjoying the Tragedy course so far despite the enormous work load. Marks are starting to come in, but only in the two courses I knew about: A- grades in both Opera and African-Canadian Lit. And I might be interviewing Coupland in a few days depending on Professor Sullivan's interactions with his agent.

Yesterday I watched D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms, which was meant as a response to the criticisms that Birth of a Nation was racist in its portrayal of African-Americans. It flirts with a love story between a Chinese shopkeeper and a destitute, abused white girl but can't bring them together in convention. At least he tries, I suppose.

I have about 90 pages left to go in Native Son and another page to write for the report. Today I'm focusing on the presentation I have to do for my Race and Cinema class on Wednesday, especially since I just found out I have to provide a summary of it by tomorrow.

I watched The Lost World: Jurassic Park last night, which I hadn't seen in full since 1997. It's not as good as the first one and it feels like Spielberg was just phoning it in most of the time. There are a couple of good action sequences, though, and Pete Postlewaithe's character is pretty awesome (though apparently it was originally supposed to be Bob Peck reprising his role as Muldoon, which would have been ten times as cool). And if you ever want to see Vince Vaughn play an alpha-male environmentalist, there's your chance.

I have to mail a cheque to my old friend Mike. He lent me a considerable sum of money to go back to school over five years ago and I can finally afford to pay him the rest of what I owe him. Although technically I suppose I now owe it to someone more faceless and demanding. At least I'm thinning out the herd of debtors.

The biggest news to come out of yesterday is that I redecorated my room on a whim. I couldn't take it any longer. I had no space to move around. Every time I would open my door it would whack my computer chair. I always had to struggle to free my laundry basket from the corner as it was wedged between my desk and Jason's dresser. The dresser's bottom two drawers were blocked by boxes. Plus, the entire room was filthy and cluttered. Now, my desk is nestled neatly into the closet, my bed is turned at a 90 degree angle while the dresser sits across from the door. I have about five square feet of floor space as opposed to a ten by two rectangular strip. This should appease the feng shui dragon.

New semester, new room. It's almost as though I were making myself uncomfortable on purpose.

I picked up some additional course materials at Indigo and the Bob Miller Book Room, and since I was in the neighborhood I brought what was left of my euros back to Calforex. For some reason they wouldn't take change smaller than one euro and couldn't recommend a place that would. Okay. I suppose I can chalk them up to souvenirs.

WHAT I'M IN FOR (PART TWO)

Race and Cinema is taught by Professor Alice Maurice in the room I had for Touch of Evil Project last semester. A few of the folks from my African-Canadian Lit class are taking it along with a few Masters Film students. It's interesting to see the faceoff between those two groups. It's a good time to be an MA student in Film because the program is brand new. Thus, every MA student has a TA position and a license to gloat over foreknowledge of the course material. Don't get me wrong - I'm envious. But I also like to think I know my way around a film syllabus. I'm presenting on Cecil B. DeMille's The Cheat in a couple of weeks. There's a 3-5 page report tied to the presentation, a 2-4 page analysis, plus a 15-20 page paper.

I'm off to return some library books, pick up my OSAP and hopefully start tearing chunks out of my readings for next week.