Field Trip City

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.