My Year With Proust - Day 266

One thing only came near to destroying my pleasure during our adventurous ride, owing to the angry astonishment into which it flung me for a moment.  "You know," Saint-Loup suddenly said to me, "I told Bloch that you didn't like him all that much, that you found him rather vulgar at times.  I'm like that, you see, I like clear-cut situations," he wound up with a self-satisfied air and in an unanswerable tone of voice.  I was astounded.  Not only had I the most absolute confidence in Saint-Loup, in the loyalty of his friendship, and he had betrayed it by what he had said to Bloch, but it seemed to me that he of all men ought to have been restrained from doing so by his defects as well as by his good qualities, by that astonishing veneer of breeding which was capable of carrying politeness to what was positively a want of frankness.  Was his triumphant air the sort that we assume to cloak a certain embarrassment in admitting a thing which we know that we ought not to have done?  Was it simply the expression of frivolity, stupidity, making a virtue out of a defect which I had not associated with him?  Or a passing fit of ill humour towards me, prompting him to make an end of our friendship, or the registering of a passing fit of ill humour against Bloch to whom he had wanted to say something disagreeable even thought it would compromise me?

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, p. 414

Proust's appreciation for Robert Saint-Loup, and for that matter their very friendship, takes a hit when Robert admits that he had shared confidence, and, more accurately, lied, to Marcel's friend Bloch.  Marcel had been so relieved to have Robert show up unexpected, but now he is hurt by this admission and tries to sort out the possible reasons, ranging from a conscious decision to provoke harm or an unconscious flaw in his character.  Mainly, he is stunned that Robert should have been "restrained from doing so by his defects as well as by his good qualities."  Essentially, Robert had displayed all the attributes of being a good friend, but, failing that, he had enough sins of his own that one would think he would have the common sense to not spread rumors.  What Marcel doesn't consider is that it is Robert's own bad attributes that inspired this act, both his desire to appear as the unpredictable "bad boy" but also his desire to look like the better person by pointing out (or fabricating) something hurtful.  I have many flaws but I am a steadfast, at times almost comically, loyal friend, and I expect the favor to be returned.  Like all of us, I suppose, I have a list of ex-friends, both in the broader world and here in Burlington, who I left behind along the way, but in my case, and relating to this discussion, it relates mainly to the issue of trust.  Simply put, there have been friends of mine over the years who proved to not be true friends, in that they would say one thing and mean quite another, if not actually speak out against me behind my back.  Life is too short to have people like that in your life.  They didn't become my bitter enemies or anything like that, simply because they aren't worth the time.  I'm interested to see if Robert somehow redeems himself in Marcel's eyes.  I've forgiven friends for many things, but duplicity is something I just can't seem to get past.  In a bad mood one time I proposed that the only things you acquire in life are false friends and true enemies.  Now, I'm sure I don't really believe that, but in someways the true enemies are more appreciated because at least you can depend upon them to act as such.

My Year With Proust - Day 265

. . . For the next few days physical pleasure seemed to me to require, to be properly enjoyed, not only this serving girl but the timbered dining-room, so remote and isolated.  And yet it was to the other, in which Saint-Loup and his friends dined, that I returned every evening, from force of habit and from friendship, until I left Doncieres.  but even of this hotel, where he boarded with his friends, I had long ceased to think.  We make little use of our experience, we leave unfulfilled on long summer evenings or premature winter nights the hours in which it had seemed to us that there might nevertheless be contained some element of peace or pleasure.  But those hours are not altogether wasted.  When new moments of pleasure call to us in their turn, moments which would pass by in the same way, equally bare and one-dimensional, the others recur, bringing them the groundwork, the solid consistency of a rich orchestration.  They thus prolong themselves into one of those classic examples of happiness which we recapture only now and again but which continue to exist; in the present instance it was the abandonment of everything else to dine in comfortable surroundings, which by the help of memory embody in a scene from nature suggestions of the rewards of travel, with a friend who is going to stir our dormant life with all his energy, all his affection, to communicate to us a tender pleasure, very different from anything that we could derive from our own efforts or from social distractions; we are going to exist solely for him, to make vows of friendship which, born within the confines of the hour, remaining imprisoned in it, will perhaps not be kept on the morrow but which I need have no scruple in making to Saint-Loup since, with a courage that enshrined a great deal of common sense and the presentiment that friendship cannot be very deeply probed, on the morrow he would be gone.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 411-412

As I grow older I seem, naturally enough, to be more and more jealous of my time and how I spend it.  I guess I should just blame stupid Adam Smith because I think this is one of those issues where scarcity drives up cost.  With each passing day I have less days to pass, which means that each remaining one is a little more valuable than the previous one.  Proust, writing as a younger man than I am now, already appears to understand the question of wasting time, and rather we can ever actually waste time with dear friends.  "We make little use of our experience, we leave unfulfilled on long summer evenings or premature winter nights the hours in which it had seemed to us that there might nevertheless be contained some element of peace or pleasure."  I'm sure that Marcus Aurelius would disagree with this point, since he always stressed using your time productively; every actions should be directed towards making yourself better intellectually and the world around you a better place.

True, but Proust would, I'm assuming, respond, "But those hours are not altogether wasted. When new moments of pleasure call to us in their turn, moments which would pass by in the same way, equally bare and one-dimensional, the others recur, bringing them the groundwork, the solid consistency of a rich orchestration."  Who knows what moments are actually productive?  That trip up across the border to the southern most Tim Horton's, besides providing delicious donuts and male bonding, might also feature the conversation that inspires the next great project that gives direction and meaning to life? And the donuts.

My Year With Proust - Day 264

   We set off together to dine, and on the way downstairs I thought of Doncieres, where every evening I used to meet Robert at his restaurant, and the little dining-rooms there that I had forgotten.  I remembered one of these to which I had never given a thought, and which was not in the hotel where Saint-Loup dined but in another, far humbler, a cross between an inn and a boarding-house, where the waiting was done by the landlady and one of her servants.  I had been forced to take shelter there once from a snowstorm.  Besides, Robert was not to be dining at the hotel that evening and I had not cared to go any further.  My food was brought to me in a little panelled room upstairs.  The lamp went out during dinner and the serving-girl light a couple of candles.  Pretending that I could not see very well as I held out my plate while she helped me to potatoes, I took her bare fore-arm in my hand, as though to guide her.  Seeing that she did not withdraw it, I began to fondle it, then, without saying a word, pulling her towards me, blew out the candles and told her to feel in my pocket for some money.  For the next few days physical pleasure seemed to me to require, to be properly enjoyed, not only this serving-girl but the timbered dining room, so remote and isolated.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, p. 411

Marcel stops at a little inn for a meal with Robert after his friend's unexpected return.  I don't know when this became a term but my students always use the word "rapey" to describe a person who gropes you inappropriately (which I guess brings up the question of whether you can be groped appropriately, and also the peculiarities of language).  I don't know if I like the term, but my students assure me that it's an actual term in use, and it's certainly one that you can understand as soon as you hear it.  If it is a term, then Marcel certainly seems "rapey" here.  Truthfully, I'm more interested in what he has to say in the second half of the paragraph but this information, I would argue, is necessary prologue.  I'll talk about that tomorrow.  That said, Marcel's actions here scream privilege.  From what we're told the serving-girl is not a prostitute, but Marcel certainly acts as if it is inconceivable that she would or could reject his advances.  For that matter, are they even "advances" if you know she has to comply sexually?  I don't know if it is simply male privilege or the privilege of wealth or probably some combination of the two, but the scene gives us some insight into societal mores and also Marcel's complex character.  On the one hand Marcel appears to be a remarkably sensitive, empathetic soul, but on the other hand he's clearly a man of privilege and understands what that entails.
  

My Year With Proust - Day 263

   . . . I caught sight of a huge bundle of carpets, still rolled up, and propped against one end of the sideboard; and burying my head in it, swallowing its dust together with my own tears, as the Jews used to cover their heads with ashes in times of mourning, I began to sob.  I shivered, not because the room was cold, but because a distinct lowering of temperature (against the danger and, if must be said, the by no means disagreeable sensation of which we make no attempt to react) is brought about by a certain kind of tears which fall from our eyes, drop by drop, like a fine, penetrating, icy rain, and seem as though they will never cease to flow.  Suddenly I heard a voice:

   "May I come in?  Francoise told me you might be in the dining-room.  I looked in to see whether you would care to come out and dine somewhere, if it isn't bad for your throat - there's a fog outside you could cut with a knife."

   It was Robert de Saint-Loup, who had arrived in Paris that morning, when I imagined him to be still in Morocco or on the sea.

   I have already said (and it was precisely Robert himself who at Balbec had helped me, quite unwittingly, to arrived at this conclusion) what I think about friendship: to wit, that it is so trivial a thing that I find it hard to understand how men with some claim to genius - Nietzsche, for instance - can have been on ingenuous as to ascribe to it a certain intellectual merit, and consequently to deny themselves friendships in which intellectual esteem would have no part.  Yes, it has always been a surprise to me to think that a man who carried honesty with himself to the point of cutting himself off from Wagner's music from scruples of conscience could have imaged that the truth can ever be attained by the mode of expression, by its very nature vague and inadequate, which actions in general and acts of friendship in particular constitute, or that there can be any kind of significance in the fact of one's leaving one's work to go and see a friend and shed tears with him on hearing the false report that the Lourve has been burned down.  I had reached the point, at Balbec, of regarding the pleasure of playing with a troop of girls as less destructive of the spiritual life, to which at least it remains alien, than friendship, the whole effort of which is directed towards making us sacrifice the only part of ourselves that is real and incommunicable (otherwise by means of art) to a superficial self which, unlike the others, finds no joy in its own being, but rather a vague, sentimental glow at feeling itself supported by external props, hospitalised in an extraneous individuality, where, happy in this protection that is afforded it there, it expresses its well-being in warm approval and marvels at qualities which it would denounce as failings and seek to correct in itself.  Besides, the scorners of friendship can, without illusion and not without remorse, be the finest friends in the world, in the same way as an artist who is carrying a masterpiece within him and feels it his duty to live and carry on his work, nevertheless, in order not to be thought or to run the risk of being selfish, gives his life for a futile cause, and gives it all the more gallantly in that the reasons for which he would have preferred not to give it were disinterested.  But whatever might be my opinion of friendship, to mention only the pleasure that it procured me, of a quality so mediocre as to be like something half-way between physical exhaustion and mental boredom, there is no brew so deadly that it cannot at certain moments become precious and invigorating by giving us just the stimulus that was necessary, the warm that we cannot generate ourselves.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 409-410

Here Proust ruminates on the values of friendship.  Marcel is devastated by the letter from Mme de Stermaria cancelling his anticipated assignation, and almost magically his friend Robert shows up.  As I get older I become even more certain that there are few things, if anything, more valuable than friendship.  I remember years ago when my marriage was falling apart and I had finally left home, and was dealing with some crippling guilt for failing my wife and son, as well as some other personal crises, and, much like Robert, my great friend Cinse appeared out of the blue to save me, even if that simply meant listen to me lament about the cruelties of fate, while also having the common sense to occasionally tell me to shut up so that we could talk about her problems.

Namibia?

OK, it's not as if I need more travel courses to plan, but in addition to finalizing the planning for the Spain and Portugal trip - and reworking the plans for this spring's India and Sri Lanka trip - I'm in the process of putting together proposals for trips for next year (and considering trips for the following year).  Steve and I are definitely locked into a longer return trip to Zanzibar, but in addition I'm getting fixated on a trip to Namibia.  I'm pestering my good friends Cyndi and Kristin for a trip to Namibia.  Why?  I think this picture's probably enough, but there are other reasons . . .

The only coastal desert in the world.  Seriously, how cool is that?

George "Honey Boy" Evans Symposium

We've just kicked off our fourth year of the George "Honey Boy" Evans Symposium at Champlain College, and for almost that entire time I've been meaning to include a post about it here on the blog.  It's about time I put something up, and I'll do my best to go back and update it.  One of our traditions (and my friend Cinse Bonino says that one of the things I do best is create traditions) is snapping pictures of that evening's presenter receiving the prestigious "Honey Boy" cup, filled with their favorite adult beverage, from the previous presenter.  Presenters get the keep the "Honey Boy" cup, which the excellent Mike Lange found, purchased, polished and had inscribed, in their office until the next presentation.  Mike and I started the HB series because we felt that although Champlain is a teaching school there are still folks who are doing serious research, and that our disciplinary identity is a key part of who we are, of living the life of the mind.  If you go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York you will see a very large trophy which the Vaudevillian George "Honey Boy" Evans (he wrote "In the Good Old Summertime") presented every year to the best player in baseball (which was determined by highest batting average).  In the age before the advent of the Most Valuable Player Award, Evans, like all right-thinking individuals a baseball fan, felt it was a shame to not recognize the best player, so he just took it upon himself to give the designation, and the trophy, himself.  Not surprisingly, it routinely went to Honus Wagner or Ty Cobb.  Mike and I felt that since the college didn't provide the opportunity to present on your own research that we would set something up ourselves, and thus the perverse logic of entitling it the "Honey Boy."  Anyway, I think I have pictures of all the presenters, with the exception of me, from the inception of the HB, and now I just need to get them all up on the website.  The long absence is a reflection of my general incompetence, and not a lack of appreciation for the folks who presented.

The original "Honey Boy," George Evans.

Dr.. Brian Murphy, receiving the HB from Kerry Noonan, presented on "We the Dead: Media Preservation and the Future of Memory in America" in September 2016.

Dr. Kerry Noonan, receiving the HB from Erik Shonstrom, presented on "Dates with Jesus and Yoga with Mary: Pushing the Boundary of Catholic Practice" in April 2016.

Kelly Thomas, who presented on "Devising Intersections: My Year of Writing and Performing for Social Change" in November 2015, presenting the cup to Dr. Dave Mills, who presented on "Double Bind: Abraham, Isaac, and Derrida in the Ashes of the Holocaust" in February 2016.

Brian Murphy handing over the Honey Boy to Cheryl Casey, who presented on "In This Boat Together: Dragon Boating and the Language of Survivorship" in October 2016.

Cheryl Casey handing over the Honey Boy to Steve Wehmeyer, who became the first professor to present twice in the series.

"Honey Boy" Presentations

Dr. Steve Wehmeyer, "Saints Who Cast Shadows: Ethnohagiography in New Orleans," March 2014.

Dr. Katheryn Wright, "Violence on the Second Screen: A Case Study of AMC's Story Sync," April 2014.

Dr. Michael Lange, "Terroir and the Culinary Meaning of Maple," September 2014.

Dr. Kristin Wolf, "APIStemology, Pedagogy, Outreach and Entrepreneurship with the Bees," October 2014.

Dr. Adam Rosenblatt, "Early Voting: The Case for Children's Suffrage," November 2014.

Dr. Megan Munson-Warnken, "What Makes a Reader?: Understanding the Role of Identity in Readership," November 2014.

Dr. Gary Scudder, "Monsters - Both External and Internal - in The Journey to the West," February 2015.

Dr. Betsy Allen-Pennebaker, "I Didn't Do Any Field Work for the Lecture: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and the Dawn of Masochism," March 2015.

Dr. Matt La Rocca, "Music from the Arctic Circle: How to Make a Concrete Statement in an Abstract Art Form," April 2015.

Dr. Sanford Zale, "Robert Joliet, the Dual Monarchy, and the Future of French History in the Early Fifteenth Century," September 2015.

Dr. Eric Ronis, "Performing Authenticity and Virtue in the Face of Islamophobia: A Rhetorical Analysis of Mahmoud Jabari's Champlain College Graduation Speech," October 2015.

Kelly Thomas, "Devising Intersections: My Year of Writing and Performing for Social Change," November 2015.

Dr. Dave Mills, "Double Bind: Abraham, Isaac, and Derrida in the Ashes of the Holocaust," February 2016.

Dr. Eric Shonstrom, "The Incendiary Spark: Curiosity as the Fire of Imagination and Scourge of Institutional Expectation," March 2016.

Dr. Kerry Noonan, "Dates with Jesus and Yoga with Mary: Pushing the Boundary of Catholic Practice," April 2016.

Dr. Brian Murphy, "We the Dead: Media Preservation and the Future of Memory in America," September 2016.

Dr. Cheryl Casey, "In This Boat Together: Dragon Boating and the Language of Survivorship," October 2016.

Dr. Steve Wehmeyer, "Black Magic Matters: Tinfoil Sorcery, Conjurational Contraptions, and Other Conversations about Race in Vernacular Esotericism." February 2017.

My Year With Proust - Day 262

   Thus it was no longer entirely Mme de Stermaria that I should have wished to see.  Forced now to spend my evening with her, I should have preferred, as it was almost the last before the return of my parents, that it should remain free and that I should be able to seek out some of the women I had seen at Rivebelle. . . . And the door onto the outer landing never closed by itself, very gently, against the draughts of the staircase, without rendering those broken, voluptuous, plaintive phrases that overlap the chant of the pilgrims towards the end of the Overture to Tannhauser, I had in fact, just as I had put my towel back on its rail, an opportunity of hearing a fresh rendering of this dazzling symphonic fragment, for at a peal of the bell I hurried out to open the door to the driver who had come with Mme de Stermaria's answer.  I thought that his message would be: "The lady is downstairs," or "The lady is waiting." But he had a letter in his hand.  I hesitated for a moment before looking to see what Mme de Stermaria had written, which as long as she held the pen in her hand might have been different, but was now, detached from her her, an engine of fate pursuing its course alone, which she was utterly powerless to alter.  I asked the driver to wait downstairs for a moment, although he grumbled about the fog.  As soon as he had gone I opened the envelope.  On her card, inscribed Vicomtresse Alix de Stermaria, my guest had written: "Am so sorry - am unfortunately prevented from dining with you this evening on the island in the Bois.  Had been so looking forward to it.  Will write you a proper letter from Stermaria.  Very sorry. Kindest regards."  I stood motionless, stunned by the shock that I had received.  At my feet lay the card and envelope, fallen like the spent cartridge from a gun when the shot has been fired.  I picked them up, and tried to analyse her message. . .

   What added to my despair at not seeing Mme de Stermaria was that her answer led me to suppose that whereas, hour by hour, since Sunday, I had been living for this dinner alone, she had presumably never given it a second thought.  Later on I learned of an absurd love match that she made with a young man whom she must already have been seeing at his time, and who had presumably made her forget my invitation.  For if she had remember it she would surely never have waited for the carriage, which I had not in fact arranged to send for her, to inform me that she was otherwise engaged.  My dreams of a young feudal maiden on a misty island had opened up a path to a still non-existent love.  Now my disappointment, my rage, my desperate desire to recapture her who had just refused me, were able, by bringing my sensibility into play, to make define the possible love which until then my imagination alone had - though more feebly - offered me.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 405-408

You should probably just ahead and start listening to the Overture to Wagner's Tannhauser opera and re-read Proust's words, not only because the music is beautiful but also it provides the backstory to the denouement of this adventure.  At the last moment Mme de Stermaria has stood up Marcel and probably for the cruelest of reasons; she apparently simply forgot.  So, why did Proust take the time to tell us that Marcel was listening to Wagner's Tannhauser, and, for that matter, why did I include the link to the Overture?  And it's not simply that at times Proust's narrative is a tad over-heated, and, well, who better to convey that than Wagner.  Rather, the opera itself focuses on the misadventures of a knight who has ignored the demands of chivalrous behavior and is more than a bit of a man whore, at least by 13th century standards, when the legendary actions take place, or by 19th century standards, when Wagner wrote his opera, until he is later repudiated by the Pope.  It's a classically Wagnerian theme of sacred vs profane love, and, truthfully, what better musical backdrop could Proust provide for this section?  Marcel is determined to see Mme de Stermaria because his friend Robert has assured him that she is a sure thing, and his conquest of her will validate his view of himself as a sophisticated man of the world.  In the hands of a less skilled author this could easily be rendered as a mere morality play in which Marcel has learned his lesson, but I'm pretty certain that Proust won't leave us at that level.  It's also interesting to me because it reminds me of something I end up discussing with my students quite a bit in Concepts of the Self, and Aesthetic Expression and also Heroines and Heroes: the challenges that an artist faces in using symbols or metaphors or, for that matter, references that the audience will understand.  There was a time when an educated audience would have immediately understood the Tannhauser reference and Proust relied upon it as he constructed the scene, but that age is long past.  Truthfully, although I assumed that there was a deeper meaning (as I would tell my students, Proust could have had Marcel listening to anything at that moment), I didn't get the reference initially and had to do some research.  Maybe this is really what we're trying to teach our students in the Core at Champlain; not mere facts (although we don't avoid them), but the habit of mind to do something with those facts.  So, in this particular instance, I assumed that there was a story behind the choice of the Overture from Tannhauser, which provided the context needed to get at a deeper appreciation of the story.  I didn't have to know the facts, but rather what to do with the facts.  Looks like my students are getting more Proust on Tuesday.

Blood Brother

Here's a picture I actually stumbled across on Facebook.  I've been off FB for all of 2016, and probably will be for 2017 as well, and only briefly rejoined because I needed to check the contact information for a group of American ex-pats in Lisbon.  My goal was to carve off time for writing and other projects, although, of course, it also meant that I ended up devoting more time to Twitter and to the blog itself.  My brief pop in to Facebook reassured me that I'm not missing a thing.  It's amazing how much of FB is nothing more than advertisements and packaged videos and that users swap endlessly (sort of the social media equivalent of a STD).  However, while back for my brief visit I checked to see if most of my friends were still alive, which, thankfully, they are.  When I checked out the Islamic Society of Vermont (one of the groups I follow) page I came across this picture of me giving blood there during a blood drive (and which I casually nicked).

It was one of my first visits to the masjid for Friday prayer.  The vast majority of mosques would not be welcoming to non-Muslims to attend the communal Friday prayers, but, well, Vermont is Vermont, and the ISVT is a wonderfully welcoming environment.  The Imam mentioned that the following Friday they were going to host a blood drive, and he then invited a representative from the local Red Cross to speak.  During the conversation the Imam popped in and pointed out that giving blood counted as charity; that is, charity, or more generally giving back to society, is one of the essential obligations of the faith.  None of us like to give blood, and I remember smiling at the Imam's comments because, even though he was completely telling the truth, he was also very cleverly and gently putting the pressure on everyone to contribute.  At that point one of the brothers raised his hand and asked if they should fast, which was a very natural response to the Imam equating the act of giving blood with an obligation.  The Red Cross official was somewhat taken back, although in a good way, and replied that it would be better if folks did not fast.  It was one of those when worlds collide moments, but in in the best possible way as two groups came to understand each other in pursuit of a laudable goal.

Of course, by the following Friday I had completely forgotten about the blood drive, but decided to stick around anyway to give blood.  This has to be the only existing picture of me giving blood, not simply because, seriously, who has pictures of themselves giving blood, but also because I don't give blood that often.  I'm much more likely to give blood now than before (as recounted below, I have a thing with needles), but I don't have the opportunity to give blood very often.  If you've passed through Africa or India you're not supposed to give blood for an entire year, and it seems that I manage to pass through one or both of these areas every year so I immediately get bumped.  On this particular occasion I knew I was heading off to Zanzibar in a couple weeks and that would start the clock ticking.  I had to tell the Red Cross to stop calling and asking me to give blood for a year, but I'm heading off to India this March, just about the time the Zanzibar year ban is up.  So that will take me through March 2018, when I might conceivably give blood - unless my friend Steve and I end up taking students back to Zanzibar in December 2017 - or Cyndi and I end up putting together a trip to Namibia that March (I think you get the point . . .).

I seem oddly calm.  One of my great early phobias was giving blood, and one of my reasons for forcing myself to give blood, beyond trying to be somewhat useful to society, was to force myself to conquer the fear, which I do by thinking of Marcus Aurelius maxims (which I'm only passably able to do) and my natural ability to fade away (which, as my family and friends can attest, is one of my greatest strengths/weaknesses).

My Year With Proust - Day 261

   Albertine spoke hardly at all, sensing that my thoughts were elsewhere.  We went a little way on foot into the greenish, almost submarine grotto of a dense grove on the dome of which we heard the wind howl and the rain splash.  I trod underfoot dead leaves which sank into the soil like sea-shells, and poked with my stick at fallen chestnuts prickly as sea-urchins.

   On the boughs of the trees, the last clinging leaves, shaken by the wind, followed it only as far as their stems would allow, but sometimes these broke and they fell to the ground, along which they coursed to overtake it.  I thought joyfully how much more remote still, if this weather lasted, the island would be the next day, and in any case quite deserted.  We returned to our carriage and, as the squall had subsided, Albertine asked me to take her on to Saint-Cloud.  As on the ground the drifting leaves, so up above the clouds were chasing the wind.  And a stream of migrant evenings, of which a sort of conic section cut into the sky made visible the successive layers, pink, blue and green, were gathered in readiness for departure to warmer climes.  To obtain a closer view of a marble goddess who had been carved in the act of springing from her pedestal and, alone in a great wood which seemed to be consecrated to her, filled it with the mythological terror, half animal, half divine, of her frenzied leaps, Albertine climbed a knoll while I waited for her in the road.  She herself, seen thus from below, no longer coarse and plump as a few days earlier on my bed when the grain of her neck appeared under the magnifying glass of my eyes, but delicately chiselled, seemed like a little statue on which our happy hours together at Balbec had led their patina.  When I found myself alone again at home, remembering that I had been for an expedition that afternoon with Albertine, that I was to dine in two days' time with Mme de Guermantes and that I had to answer a letter from Gilberte, three women I had loved, I said to myself that our social existence, like an artist's studio, is filled with abandoned sketches in which we fancied for a moment that we could set down in parchment from our need of a great love, but it did not occur to me that sometimes, if the sketch is not too old, it may happen that we return to it and make of it a wholly different work, and one that is possibly more important than what we had originally planned.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 403-404

Proust returns from spending time with Albertine, and reflects upon three different women that he had loved: "When I found myself alone again at home, remembering that I had been for an expedition that afternoon with Albertine, that I was to dine in two days' time with Mme de Guermantes and that I had to answer a letter from Gilberte, three women I had loved, I said to myself that our social existence, like an artist's studio, is filled with abandoned sketches in which we fancied for a moment that we could set down in parchment from our need of a great love, but it did not occur to me that sometimes, if the sketch is not too old, it may happen that we return to it and make of it a wholly different work, and one that is possibly more important than what we had originally planned."  I love his point about our lives, like an artist's studio, being filled with "abandoned sketches," which, specifically, in this instances, deals with the women in his life, but more generally could be thought to speak to our entire life.  Essentially, maybe we need to return to those sketches later, when we're better able to address them.  Not surprisingly, I guess, I found myself thinking about the artist Jan Van Eyck, who either invented oil-based painting or made profound early innovations in oil-based painting, which meant that since the paintings now took a lot longer to dry you could revisit them and devote more time to them; you were better able to appreciate them and, for lack of a better term, "finish" them.  In the case of Van Eyck it meant that he could add extraordinarily fine detail, even down to using single hair brushes.  I just think this is an amazingly apt metaphor.  How often do we throw away our live's "sketches" - our relationships or our projects - not because they are worthless, but because we lack the skill or the knowledge or the maturity or the patience to "finish" them.  Maybe we need to need to remember to more deliberately set aside our sketches, hopefully in a safe place, and not discard them, and then reconsider them when we are better, more experienced artists.  It also makes me think that Albertine is not quite the "abandoned sketch" that Marcel portrays her to be.

Jan Van Eyck's painting of Giovanni Arnolfini, which may or may not be of a wedding, but it is fascinating painting.  Here's a link to a talk from the Khan Academy, which breaks down some of the different parts of the painting.

Twice last week in my first year Concepts of the Self class I had my students grapple with sections from Proust, much to the amazement/horror of my first years (and my colleagues). We're discussing David Linden's The Accidental Mind, and I was nudging my students to consider the complexity of perception and memory.  So, when Proust wrote a paragraph such as, "Albertine spoke hardly at all, sensing that my thoughts were elsewhere.  We went a little way on foot into the greenish, almost submarine grotto of a dense grove on the dome of which we heard the wind howl and the rain splash.  I trod underfoot dead leaves which sank into the soil like sea-shells, and poked with my stick at fallen chestnuts prickly as sea-urchins" it wasn't simply a case of him desperately loving adjectives, but that he actually saw the world in a richer, more detailed, more expansive way.  My students determined that it must have been exhausting to be Proust.

Discography - Week 23

We're getting dangerously close to half-way through our year of discussing music, which is both exciting and also, oddly, a little sad.  More immediately, we're only two weeks away from our third thematic week, which, per age old tradition, I'll be revealing this week.  In Week 25, per high level negotiations with the excellent Jack Schultz, we'll be discussing the best use of a song in movies or television.  I think Jack's initial suggestion was that was discuss songs that were better than the movie that made use of them, but I decided to broaden it a bit.  As a shameless film whore, I'm definitely looking forward to this discussion.

Gary Beatrice

Iggy Pop, Lust for Life

I was and I remain a tremendous David Bowie fan. But I was surprised and puzzled by the outpouring of grief at his death. Dave Wallace and I had a conversation about it, my point being that I didn't think he was tremendously popular, and I certainly didn't think he was as influential as, say, Lou Reed. Dave made the points, ones that I believe were accurate, that Bowie hit so many styles that his influence was broader than his sales reflect, and perhaps more importantly, he was a good, friendly, giving man, and so his musician friends truly grieved his surprising passing.

To Dave's point, very early in his career, before he had a ton of success and money of his own, Bowie made tremendous contributions to the careers of Ian Hunter, Iggy Pop, and, yes, Lou Reed.

But I am posting about Iggy Pop.

As much as I love the music of Iggy and the Stooges (and I believe it was Dave Marsh who said that the Stooges made punk rock for fans who found The Sex Pistols and The Clash to be a bit too mellow), my favorite Iggy Pop music came from his Bowie albums, and nothing more so than the dynamic Lust For Life.

Lust For Life has the driving drum driven sound that glam era Bowie frequently featured, but it is very true to Pop ("hypnotizing chickens"?  "of course I've had it in my ear before"?).

 Has there ever been a song whose title better describes the song itself? How many hours will it take you to get this riff out of your head? Why would you ever want to?

Dave Wallace

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here

When Pink Floyd's leader and frontman, Syd Barrett, essentially lost his mind, the band re-grouped and pressed on without him.  In this situation, the natural reaction would be to put some distance between a band and its past charismatic leader.  Instead, the Floyd doubled down and made an entire album about Barrett.  Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall were more popular and are arguably better, but this may be my favorite Floyd album.  The title track is the highlight.  With its beautiful, subtle guitar line, the band's sense of loss pours forth.  "How I wish, how I wish you were here/ We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year/ Running over the same old ground/ What have we found?/ The same old fears/ Wish you were here."

Miranda Tavares

As foretold, this was inspired by the recent discussion about your most awesome venue 

Against Me!, Sink Florida Sink

Nate and I first went to see Against Me! (the exclamation point is both telegraphed and gratuitous) because I was obsessed with exactly one of their songs: the most recent single release that I heard on the radio. Yup, I was that girl. The song was Thrash Unreal, and it was about the life of an addict. Don't worry, I won't subject everyone to that kind of post again. Its a decent song, though, and you guys should check it out. Anyway, we almost didn't go, because the show started at10 p.m. on a school night, and although this was years ago and we were younger and stupider than we are now, we still had jobs, and responsibilities, and a propensity toward hangovers. But this was way early on in our relationship, and neither wanted to admit to the other that we couldn't hang, so we went. Freaking amazing show. It was quickly apparent to us that (and this is, of course, not unusual) the song getting all the radio play was far from their best. Our favorite was my pick for this week, Sink Florida Sink. We rushed home to download the album version and it left us wanting. We found a live version and felt fulfilled. The lyrics are open to interpretation, obviously about a relationship ending, but I wont pretend to understand the specifics. The chorus contains...not quite a Millennial whoop (thank you Cyndi, for that amazing phrase!), but more of a...Gen Xer lament? We Gen Xers are not as into the drama as the Millennials, much more "...woe is me..." than "OMG!!!!!" Also, I love the lines:

you will see what is wrong with everything
what is wrong with you and me
they make all the right reasons to fuck it up
you're gonna fuck it up

I am such a sucker for well-placed profanity. Beyond that, my insight is lacking, but it's catchy and fun and has a bit of an edge.

Nate Bell

The White Stripes "Lord, Send me an angel down"

The White Stripes - Lord, Send Me An Angel

Everyone on this blog knows that Rock and Roll is originally just amped up blues at its very base--white people who drank too much coffee playing great music originated by black folks.

One person that I really think deeply understands both folk and blues music from a rock and roll perspective is Jack White.  He has covered many an old tune, and does not very much to change the arrangement or the timing on many of the songs, he just lends a little more energy (and electrification) to the guitar, and belts out the time-honored tunes in his plaintive voice.

I find this to work especially well for the blues.

Lord, Send me an angel down is an old blues tune originally by Blind Willie McTell.  Jack takes this tune and does what is really a heart felt and earnest homage.  

It's a very simple, classic and naughty blues song where the singer is a philanderin' man and the women are fickle cheatin' beauties.  The first link in the title is the album version, and I especially like the lyrics about married women:

"Used to say  married women 

sweetest thing ever born

you better change that theory leave married women alone

Take my advice, married women

Boy, let em be

'Cause their husband'll corral ya

beat ya ragged as a cedar tree"

Which just has some funny, apt, and gritty phrasing that lets you know the singer knows this from experience.

True to the original, there is also an alternate version of the lyrics, where the singer is an unrepentant philanderer.  this is version II (Gary please include this second link as well?):

The White Stripes - Lord Send Me An Angel Live (Epic)

In this version it's a different reason he avoids married women:

"Married women, they'll tell you 

that they'll love you, love you all their life

then find a man on a corner and tell that same lie twice"

I also like in the second version where the singer is an unrepentant dog, and he says

"I cannot be trusted

I cannot be satisified

when the mens sees me coming they pin their womens to their side"

I guess it appeals to an almost surreal fantasy version of self where one is someone Good With the Ladies (something which I have never been ever, nor even good with people for that matter, or complex objects)  

This is pure Blues, and at the same time pure Rock and Roll, wicked, a little dirty, with a fantastic, unforgettable guitar riff that is just a simple few chords. Yet, it invades the ear and possess the foot to tap.  Once I hear this song it stays in my head until a have heard it at least half a dozen times.

Dave Kelley

Little Steven, Sun City

Key member of the E Street Band and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, consigliari to Tony Soprano and Bruce Springsteen, several fantastic solo records under his belt, founder and driving force behind  Underground Garage radio , producer of records by many fantastic artists, responsible for many new rock artists getting their break, heavily involved with giving students access to musical instruments and training, and outspoken social critic consistently on the side of the angels.  I am sorry, but Steve Van Zandt gets my vote as the coolest mother fucker on the third rock from the sun.  When introducing the band at the end of his shows, Bruce often describes Little Steven as "the keeper of all that is righteous on E Street."  Amen.

Let's be candid, "We Are The World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas" blow musically.  They raised money for good causes, but who wants to listen to that shit.  Not so my choice this week.  "Ain't Gonna Play Sun City" justs kicks ass fom the Miles Davis intro through all of the great rock and hip hop musicians who contribute.  Miles Davis, Jackson Browne, Lou Reed, Bono, Dylan, Bruce, Herbie Hancock, Run DMC, Peter Gabriel, Darlene Love, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Joey Ramone, Grandmaster Flash, and many others contribute.

Sun City was a casino and resort in apartheid era South Africa that brought in high priced entertainers (Fingers pointed at you Paul Simon) partially to give legitimacy to the whole sordid system.  Little Steven called bullshit on that.

"You can't buy me 

I don't care what you pay

don't ask me Sun City

because I ain't going to play."

The song raised money and drew attention to a good cause.  It is also just a fantastic song IMHO.  And unlike other such songs from the eighties, it will not cause diabetes of the ear.

P.S.  Fuck Donald Trump!!!!!

Mike Kelly

Buffalo Tom, Torch Singer 

This is the happiest song about unrequited love in the last 30 years.  In addition to being one of the most underrated bands ever (fun fact: the brown haired guy sells real estate in Boston these days) the Toms wrote the lyrics as poems first and then started to fuck around with their instruments later.   This matters because what better to write a poem about than that hot girl who doesn't like you back or "has a boyfriend" or some other harrowing, poetry-worthy thing?  

Here's how the creation of this song played out in my head.   Bill Janovitch gets all banged up one night and sits down to write down some ideas that he had for a song after being ignored by the girl.  He dusts some Old Grandad by himself and doesn't finish the song before falling asleep.  Then, he wakes up and walks down the street to go get a coffee. It's early fall and the leaves are starting to turn and the crispness of the fall erases last night's bad thoughts and stale cigarette smoke.  He goes back home and finishes the song after the coffee kicks in and figures out that in the middle of writing this depressing song that things are pretty damn good on the whole.  

Of course, that's probably not how it happened at all and I could probably write the guy an email and he'd tell me the actual story that I don't even want to know because I've loved this song and this made-up narrative for the better part of 20 years.  Because here's the thing:  There is something that's life affirming about the "salvations in false starts" that make up the next thing to be hopeful for.  We all make up these cheesy narratives about being Mr or Mrs November and that hope is the daily sustainability that keeps us going.  The idea that her words, which "sing softly just like slik," might actually be said to you at some point is a more powerful hangover cure than even the best bloody mary.  

Happy autumn 

Gary Scudder

Bruce Springsteen, Candy's Room

Dave and Jack could have seen this one coming, since I was yammering on about this song on Twitter a couple weeks ago.  I was going to promote it earlier, but I couldn't compete with Dave's Springsteen post.  This has always been my favorite Springsteen song from my favorite Springsteen album.  I recently downloaded Darkness on the Edge of Town on my iPod, as my album and CD copies had not survived college or divorce, respectively.  I was not surprised, but instead pleasantly reassured, by how much I found I still loved the album, and how it still completely held together.  Like Tonight's the Night, it has a central logic, an organic integrity, while not giving into the temptation of being a concept album.  When I think of Darkness on the Edge of Town as a musical film noir this is the song that best seems to express that vision.  It is a song, I would argue one of the best ever, about desire, not simply in a purely physical, carnal sense, but also in a more existential dimension.  To get to "Candy's room you gotta walk the darkness of Candy's hall."  I remember it as one of the first songs that made me think about girls and sex and desire, but to also realize that in real art there was always a more profound meaning. "Cause in the darkness, there'll be hidden worlds that shine/ When I hold Candy close she makes the hidden worlds mine."

My Year With Proust - Day 260

   At the same time, my Balbec desires had so generously ripened Albertine's body, had gathered and stored in it savours so fresh and sweet that, during our expedition to the Bois, while the wind like a careful gardener shook the trees, brought down the fruit, swept up the fallen leaves, I told myself that had there been any risk of Saint-Loup's being mistaken, or of my having misunderstood his letter, so that my dinner with Mme de Stermaria might lead to no satisfactory result, I should have made an appointment for later the same evening with Albertine, in order to forget, during an hour of purely sensual pleasure, holding in my arms a body of which my curiosity had once computed, weighed up all the possible charms in which it now abounded, the emotions and perhaps the regrets of this burgeoning love for Mme de Stermaria. And certainly, if I could have supposed that Mme de Stermaria would grant me none of her favours at our first meeting, I should have formed a slightly depressing picture of my evening with her.  I knew only too well from experience how bizarrely the two stages which succeed one another in the first phase of our love for a woman whom we have desired without knowing her, loving her rather the particular kind of existence in which she is steeped than her still unfamiliar self- how bizarrely those two stages are reflected in the domain of reality, that is to say no longer in ourselves but in our meetings with her.  Without ever having talked to her, we have hesitated, tempted as we were by the poetic charm which she represented for us.  Shall it be this woman or another?  And suddenly our dreams becomes focused on her, are indistinguishable from her. The first meeting with her which will shortly follow should reflect this dawning love.  Nothing of the sort. As if it were necessary for material reality to have its first phase also, loving her already we talk to her in the most trivial fashion: "I asked you to come and dine on this island because I thought the surround would amuse you.  Mind you, I've nothing particular to say to you.  But it's rather damp, I'm afraid, and you may find it cold - - -" "Oh, no, not at all!"  "You just say that out of politeness.  Very well, Madame, I shall allow you to battle against the cold for another quarter of an hour, as I don't want to pester you, but in fifteen minutes I shall take you away by force.  I don't want to have you catching a chill."  And without having said anything ot her we take her home, remembering nothing about her, at the most a certain look in her eyes, but thinking only of seeing her again.  Then at the second meeting (when we do not even find that look, our sole memory of her, but nevertheless still only thinking - indeed even more so - of seeing her again), the first stage is transcended.  Nothing has happened in the interval.  And yet, instead of talking about the comfort or want of comfort of the restaurant, we say, without apparently surprising the new person, who seems to us positively plain but to whom we should like to think that people were talking about us at every moment in her life: "We're going to have our work cut our to overcome all the obstacles in our way.  Do you think we shall be successful?  Do you think we'll get the better of our enemies - live happily ever after, and all that sort of thing?" But these contrasting conversations, trivial to begin with, then hinting at love, would not be required; Saint-Loup's letter was a guarantee of that.  Mme de Stermaria would give herself on the very first evening, so that I should have no need to engage Albertine to come to me as a substitute later in the evening.  It would be unnecessary; Robert never exaggerated, and his letter was quite clear.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 402-403

You have to give Proust credit for honesty here, because he's certainly not painting a particularly pleasant picture of Marcel.  He points out that if for some reason his planned assignation with Mme de Stermaria didn't end as planned, then "I should have made an appointment for later the same evening with Albertine, in order to forget, during an hour of purely sensual pleasure, holding in my arms a body of which my curiosity had once computed, weighed up all the possible charms in which it now abounded, the emotions and perhaps the regrets of this burgeoning love for Mme de Stermaria."  So, failing the expected consummation of a new love, he considered constructing a backup planning using a woman he now claimed to no longer love.  As he tells us, "my Balbec desires had so generously ripened Albertine's body, had gathered and stored in it savours so fresh and sweet", but his interest in her now seems purely physical if not totally carnal, if we can believe him, of course.

Has Marcel actually reached a point where he is so sophisticated, so much a man of the world, that he has developed the appropriate emotional and moral callous that men of that stature attain?  In an amusing section he details the folly of first and second dates, and how he will not have to worry about that idiocy with Mme de Stermaria.  Why?  Because his friend had guaranteed that she "would give herself on the very first evening," and "Robert never exaggerated."  As I've said before, I'm still not completely convinced in this new more worldly, almost proudly amoral, Marcel; it seems he might be posing a tad.

OK, it is pretty childish, but I'm suddenly having strange visions of Proust as John Cucask's Gib from the 1980s film The Sure Thing, with Mme de Stermaria as "the sure thing."

My Year With Proust - Day 259

   But to this island, where even in summer there was often a mist, how much more gladly would I have brought Mme de Stermaria now that the cold season, the end of autumn had come!  If the weather that had prevailed since Sunday had not in itself rendered grey and maritime the scenes in which my imagination was living - as other seasons made them balmy, luminous, Italian - the hope of Mme de Stermaria mine in a few days' time would have been quite enough to raise, twenty times in an hour, a curtain of mist in my monotonously lovesick imagination.  In any event the fog which since yesterday had risen even in Paris not only made me think incessantly of the native province of the young women whom I had invited to dine with me, but since it was probable that it must after sunset invade the Bois, and especially the shores of the lake, far more thickly than the streets of the town, I felt that for me it would give the Isle of Swans a hint of that Breton island whose marine and misty atmosphere had always enveloped in my mind like a garment the pale silhouette of Mme de Stermaria.  Of course when we are young, at the age I had reached at the time of my walks along the Meseglise way, our desires, our beliefs confer on a woman's clothing an individual personality, an irreducible essence. We pursue the reality.  But by dint of allowing it to escape we end by noticing that, after all those vain endeavours which have led to nothing, something solid subsists, which is what we have been seeking.  We begin to isolate, identify what we love, we try to procure it for ourselves, if only by a stratagem.  Then, in the absence of our vanished faith, costume fills the gap, by means of a deliberate illusion.  I knew quite well that within half an hour of home I should not find mystery in Brittany.  But in walking arm in arm with Mme de Stermaria in the dusk of the island, by the water's edge, I should be acting like other men who, unable to penetrate the walls of a convent, do at least, before enjoying a woman, clothe her in the habit of a nun.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 400-401

I'm trying to think back to my early days as a boy pretending to be a man (which probably, sadly, takes me through yesterday) as I reflect upon Proust's comments.  I'm intrigued by his observation that, "Of course when we are young, at the age I had reached at the time of my walks along the Meseglise way, our desires, our beliefs confer on a woman's clothing an individual personality, an irreducible essence." I think of how much time we spend imagining what a woman looked like under her clothes, and convincing her into take off her clothes (usually through the clumsiest of machinations, as compared to simply asking her) - and then the mystery truly begins.  The clothes are at least tangible, and as Proust opines, "We pursue the reality."  However, the clothes are not even real, but at least they are a "deliberate illusion."  As the great Canadian philosopher reminds us, "You're only real with your makeup on."

However, despite the mystery, we know that we're supposed to be doing something.  As Proust tells us, "But in walking arm in arm with Mme de Stermaria in the dusk of the island, by the water's edge, I should be acting like other men who, unable to penetrate the walls of a convent, do at least, before enjoying a woman, clothe her in the habit of a nun."

My Year With Proust - Day 258

   And then, the last carriage having rolled by, when one feels with a throb of pain that she will not now come, one goes to dine on the island; above the quivering poplars which endlessly recall the mysteries of evening more than they respond to them, a pink cloud puts a last touch of living colour into the tranquil sky.  A few drops of rain fall soundlessly on the ancient water which, in its divine infancy, remains always the colour of the weather and continually forgets the reflexions of clouds and flowers.  And after the geraniums have vainly striven, by intensifying the brilliance of their scarlet, to resist the gathering twilight, a mist rises to envelop the now slumbering island; one walks in the moist darkness along the water's edge, where at the most the silent passage of a swan startles one like the momentarily wide-open eyes and the swift smile of a child in bed at night whom one did not suppose to be awake.  Then one longs all the more to have a lover by one's side because one feels alone and can believe oneself to be far away from the world.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, p. 400

There are a number of reasons why I cull out specific passages from Remembrance of Things Past for my own clumsy reflection.  Certainly I'm trying to make sense of the novel and so sometimes I out paragraphs because they introduce a new character or more fully flesh out a character.  Or a particular scene seems to be an important plot point and thus I should tag it, if for no other reason than I can come back and take a look at it as the story plays itself out.  However, sometimes I pull out a passage simply because it is beautiful, because, come on, we don't just read for the story or for attaining knowledge, we, maybe most of all, read for beauty.  I find this brief sliver to be mysterious and elegiac.  Proust is describing the island in the Bois de Boulogne where he is hoping to spirit away Mme de Stermaria for their assignation; and as we discussed earlier, he chose the place and then the woman to fit the fantasy.  Naturally the beauty will take you to more profound places because beauty, true beauty, never exists at the surface level anyway, and thus you are already swimming beneath the surface.  The language is lush and evocative, and who but Proust "walks in the moist darkness" or notices that "the geraniums have vainly striven, by intensifying the brilliance of their scarlet, to resist the gathering twilight"?  And after Proust has lulled you into this "slumbering island," he concludes with this line:  "Then one longs all the more to have a lover by one's side because one feels alone and can believe oneself to be far away from the world."  Often I find myself posing questions because I'm just not ready to answer them, and this has raised another one: When have I felt most alone, and wanted someone by my side?  When have I felt myself to be most far away from the world?  From the beginning I envisioned this process as one of scaffolding: reading and taking notes, and then coming back weeks later to reconsider the marked passages, and then sometimes typing them into the blog as rough drafts and reconsidering them again after a few more days, and then finally writing up my reflections - and then down the road re-reading my entire blog posts on Proust and editing them once again.  This is definitely one that I will revisit time and again.  This one paragraph, as much as any other, offers us even more proof of the brilliance of Proust and, I would argue, for the essential role that literature plays in our lives.

Following the Path of Rama - Sort Of

It looks like I'll be heading back to India in the spring, and including a trip to Sri Lanka (which would be a first) as well.  I've been using short re-tellings of the Ramayana in my Heroines and Heroes course for years (well, 500 pages, but in regards to the Ramayana that hardly qualifies as a pamphlet) and finally decided to build upon the experience and embed a spring break trip into one of my COR 270s.  I started talking about it last year and my students started to freak out at the thought - some even going so far as to duck last spring's Zanzibar trip and this fall's Spain/Portugal trip on the chance that a) the Rama-themed trip made and b) that as a junior (who come behind sophomores in the pecking order for the course) they could get in the class.  I quickly recruited my great friend Cyndi Brandenburg, and it didn't take much cajoling.  We wanted to follow the path of Rama - or at least the mythological/literary path of Rama - and that became more than a bit of a logistical nightmare immediately (more on that later).  So, in the face of incredible challenges, why not just dream bigger; and thus the India trip became an India/Sri Lanka trip.  Again, I'll fill in more details later.  How can it not be epic?  Wait, I used that tag line before on the Zanzibar trip, so I guess I need a new one.  Nevertheless, it will be epic.

Four days in India and four days in Sri Lanka are an insanely short amount of time, but you have to start somewhere.  I'll include a lot more detail later.

My Year With Proust - Day 257

   What I wanted was to possess Mme de Stermaria: for several days my desires had been actively and incessantly preparing my imagination for this pleasure, and this pleasure alone; any other pleasure (please with another woman) would not have been ready, pleasure being but the realisation of a prior craving which is not always the same but changes according to the endless variations of one's fancies, the accidents of one's memory, the state of one's sexual disposition, the order of availability  of one's desires, the most recently assuaged of which lie dormant until the disappointment of their fulfillment has been to some extent forgotten; I had already turned from the main road of general desires and had ventured along the path of a more particular desire; I should have had - in order to wish for a different assignation - to retrace my steps too far before rejoining the main road and taking another path.  To take possession of Mme de Stermaria on the island in the Bois de Bouelogne where I had asked her to dine with me: this was the pleasure that I pictured to myself all the time.  It would naturally have been destroyed if I had dined on that island without Mme de Stermaria; but perhaps as greatly dimished [diminished?] had I dined, even with her, somewhere else.  Besides, the attitudes according to which one envisages a pleasure are prior to the woman, to the type of woman suitable thereto.  They dictate the pleasure, and the place as well, and for that reason bring to the fore alternatively, in our capricious fancy, this or that woman, this or that setting, this or that room, which in other weeks we should have dismissed with contempt.  Daughters of the attitude that produced them, certain women will not appear to us without the double bed in which we fine peace by their side, while others, to be caressed with a more secret intention, require leaves blown by the wind, water rippling in the night, are as frail and fleeting as they.

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 398-399

Proust continues to reflect upon his recent tryst with Albertine, but more important in regard to the planned assignation with Mme de Stermaria.  There are two observations that really intrigue me:

"Besides, the attitudes according to which one envisages a pleasure are prior to the woman, to the type of woman suitable thereto.  They dictate the pleasure, and the place as well, and for that reason bring to the fore alternatively, in our capricious fancy, this or that woman, this or that setting, this or that room, which in other weeks we should have dismissed with contempt."  Here Marcel seems to be saying that his excitement to see Mme de Stermaria really has almost nothing to do with her unique existence as Mme de Stermaria; rather, he was excited about the potentiality of the erotic adventure he had created in his mind, and Mme de Stermaria was just the perfect prop to make it happen.  Thus, "the attitudes according to which one envisages a pleasure are prior to the woman."  You imagine the time and place and intensity and nature of the act, and then you find the woman to best make that fantasy come true - rather than starting with the woman and constructing a fantasy around her own specific qualities.  I may have to read this passage to my students the next time we discuss objectification.

" . . . I had already turned from the main road of general desires and had ventured along the path of a more particular desire; I should have had - in order to wish for a different assignation - to retrace my steps too far before rejoining the main road and taking another path."  I'm sure I'm reading too much into this statement.  Doubtless, he's simply saying that he's already devoted so much time to fantasizing about his assignation with Mme de Stermaria that if it did not happen he would be crushed, not the least of which would be because of the amount of time that he had already spent constructing the event in his own mind.  He would have to go too far back in another direction to reenter the main road.  However, part of me thinks that Marcel is really admitting something here, that his "more particular desire" is an expression of homosexual desire, which stood in contrast to the "main road of general desires" that the time and place required.  However, as the excellent Professor Sakmyster used to remind me in graduate school, "Gary, I think you're thinking too much."

Discography - Week 22

Yes, we've made it to Week 22 of our Discography music discussion.  There are several things of note to report: 1) we are joined this week by the excellent Margie Beatrice, which means that our Overall Beatrice numbers are up, meaning, like cholesterol, we have higher Good Beatrice (Margie) numbers to make up for the Bad Beatrice (Gary) numbers; 2) inspired by Miranda's post from last week Cyndi did go with the long jacket/short skirt look one day last week to favorable reviews; 3) next week, Week 23, we will be announcing the theme for Week 25's thematic week, our third, and 4) we continue to percolate along with many great songs and insightful comments - and also some popularity.  The blog enjoys unusual traffic (routinely over 150 page views) for Discography posts, which dwarfs the usual numbers for my mind-numbingly inane running commentary on Proust.

Margie Beatrice

The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing

I knew  this was a cool group when we visited NYC NBC tour and the tour guide asked if anyone had heard of the Ting Tings. I was the only one to acknowledge I'd heard of them. Apparently they were going to be on SNL that week. Impressed the hell out of the tour guide.   They are kind of addictive. They don't take themselves too seriously.  It's all about the sound.

Cyndi Brandenburg

Neko Case, Furnace Room Lullaby 

I just love Neko Case so much, and I have been thinking about adding something of hers to this blog since the day Gary asked me to join in.  There are so many good choices though, that it felt nearly impossible for me to settle on a song.  But then last night this happened (true story):

Much like so many other nights in this middle-aged stage of my life, I found myself wide awake at 3:30am.  The perseverating interruptions of a good night's sleep are never the same, but there is a certain element of commonality to them all in that they almost always involve the people I love most.  I'm worried, I'm sorry, I'm trying, I'm confused, I'm uncertain, I can't figure out how to make this right, I'm trying to find a way, please forgive me, I forgive you, I love you, I care so much, are you going to be okay? 

This time, after tossing and turning for a while, I put in in my earbuds and played this song. The perseverations stopped, and before I knew it, I was soundly asleep.  While on first read of the lyrics, a semi-literate Edgar Allen Poe fan will see it as an obvious homage to "A Tell Tale Heart," that has never been how this haunting song resonates with me--it's all about heart, and love, and care, and the deep deep challenges and occasional pain that inevitably accompany everything that matters most. 

Know that whatever ends up spinning around my head during the night, when morning comes, I always feel better. (If you know me, you know that I am a quintessential optimist who doesn't find it hard to find a ton of joy in every single day.)  But at the same time, any coping mechanism that helps me to get through an hour or two of middle-of-the-night loneliness is welcomed.  Neko, this one is a keeper. 

Gary Beatrice

Son Volt, Windfall

Part of the reason I've been disappointed with Jay Farrar's post Uncle Tupelo output is quite unfair to him. In my opinion he peaked with the very first song from his very first album.

Son Volt sounds fantastic on Windfall, and Farrar's voice, which I am not always wild about, works perfectly with this melody. I can't help but feel I am sitting next to him as he hits the next time zone while switching over to the AM dial.

More than anything though, I love the chorus. I do not know a song that has a more genuinely sincere and caring sentiment than "May the Wind Take Your Troubles Away".

Dave Wallace

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Summertime

I have to get this one in before the official end of summer.  It's hard to remember that Will Smith got his start as a rapper, and I'm not sure that he was all that great as a rapper, but this one is special.  Incredibly evocative in reflecting the laid-back, mellow mood of summertime.  It also draws vivid pictures of different scenes that are part of summer:  "Sitting with your friends cause y'all reminisce/About the days growing up and the first person you kiss/And as I think back makes me wonder how/The smell from a grill could spark up nostalgia/All the kids playing out front/Little boys messin round with the girls playing double-dutch/While the DJ's spinning a tune as the old folks dance at your family reunion."  I obviously don't know what this exact experience is like, but this song makes me feel like I do.

Dave Kelley

Van Morrison, When the Healing Has Begun

Released in 1979, the album Into the Music for some reason has never garnered the attention that some of Van's other records from his golden era have enjoyed.  It was either DW or GB that introduced me to the album many years ago, and it is still perhaps my favorite of his.  When The Healing Has Begun is on side two of the record which is just otherworldly IMHO.  Van Morrison has been covered by others on the blog before, and he has countless great songs from which to choose.  I selected this one in the hopes of turning others onto this often overlooked song and record.  At its most basic, I suppose the song is about makeup sex, but the emotions it conveys run much deeper.

"I want you to put on

your pretty summer dress

You can wear your Easter bonnet

and all the rest

And I wanna make love to you 

yes, yes, yes

When the healing has begun"

I really have nothing to add other than I feel sure you will enjoy listening to this one.  Great melody, tremendous instrumentation, and that voice.

Miranda Tavares

Andrew Duhon, Gonna Take a Little Rain and Sidestep YourGrave

Yes, another two-fer, but it's worth it, I promise. I am not an Andrew Duhon fan, exactly, but I like his stuff and I love these two songs. And I can't talk about one without the other, because one is yin and one is yang. One is soft and soothing, and one is grinding and, perhaps not quite galvanizing, but close. One is a hard night of knocking back whiskey and hustling pool, and the other is a glass of wine on your porch on a pleasant evening. But a life without either one of these things is a life I'm not particularly interested in (ok, the hustling pool is just a fantasy), and taken together these songs, in both music and lyrics, do a pretty good job of summing up what if feels like to be alive. And in the end, stripped down, they both have the same message: good things can turn bad, and bad things can turn good. Just keep on going until you find what fits.

Nate Bell

Radiohead, Just

Radiohead is one of those bands where people are either complete fanboys, or seem to completely loathe them.  Strangely I fall somewhere in the middle, and I appreciate that they have some very good guitar work, some very intense, intricate lyrics...but the depressive and sometimes maudlin level of self pity can be ...wearing.

The song "Just" is something of an exception.  The chorus is my favorite part:

You do it to yourself, you do
And that's what really hurts
Is you do it to yourself, just you
You and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

It seems like a refutation of the wallowing self-pity that many of the die-hard fans immerse themselves in, which makes me love that little chorus.  Originally the song is about a stalker that the band had, but I prefer to think of it as a heartfelt response to some of the Radiohead fans after an imagined droning self-involved backstage conversations the band has had to endure from their emo fans.  Even M has said she likes this song, and she despises Radiohead.  

The guitar is very impressive with its swelling crescendos, and the vocals are compelling with clear energy that sometimes is absent in other Radiohead pieces.  The video is really, really well done as well---bonus points to anyone in the group who can lip-read well enough to discern the fateful and paralytic phrase that is uttered.  I also like to think of the video as a commentary on the professional depressives that make up a small but significant portion of the Radiohead true fan base.  

I suppose I should have issued a trigger warning to any died in the wool Radiohead fans, but friends and compatriots, I like the music Radiohead does, generally, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em. :)

Gary Scudder

Miles Davis, Summertime

I changed my mind for this choice, which is not particularly unusual because even though I follow my rule of posting whatever I'm thinking about or listening to that week, I still will end up starting and then rejecting several choices - mainly because on Friday I'm suddenly fixated on some song than I was on Tuesday.  However, even by those loose standards this is a last minute change - because it truly was a last minute changed, inspired by Dave Wallace's choice.  You've all suffered through my sincere belief (and you know that I'm not prone to hyperbole) that Miles Davis is the great American genius of the 20th century (and ALL right-thinking individuals know this to be true).  He produced so many albums that changed the world of jazz, especially those where he worked with Gil Evans.  I almost downloaded the entire Miles Davis - Gil Evans collaboration on the my iPod the other day, and then I realized that I already have all the individuals albums anyway (which is why I'm waiting to do it until today; if you can locate logic in that statement, bless you).  This week's selection is his cover of Summertime from his album Porgy & Bess, which is a rendering of the George Gershwin opera of the same name.  I sometimes forget what an extraordinary album that is, from start to finish.  In this case the beauty is in the simplicity, which in this instance is Davis playing in his normal mid-range.  Sometimes you just trust the song.