Field Trip City

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.