conversation #4

XXX: morning
me: morning
XXX: (um, right?)
me: yup
how's XXX?
XXX: yea
XXX is pretty good
felt much better today
me: I'm glad
XXX: and there were no surprise visits from my somewhat bosses
me: phew
that's always a plus
XXX: also the magical flying pirate ship i'm working on in the modeling tutorial
me: !!!
XXX: is starting to look more like a pirate ship
and less like a bad modern art sculpture
me: hahaha
oh, dude
mad modern art is the best
was it all post-cubist?
XXX: heh
oh very
me: awesome
XXX: all kinds of geometric shapes popping out where they aren't wanted
me: hehe
if you were having an especially picasso evening there'd be the odd stray horse-head
XXX: mm
yes
me: which would be wholly undesirable
XXX: rather
though this program does have an amusing feature
whereby, if i wished, i could have random teapots
all over the ship
perhaps the ship is crewed by teapots
and sails on their steam
ha ha ha
me: (I just got an email that begins:

Those gloaming hours again in which I wonder what, given its virulence and ubiquity,the plague was doing around 1400 when it could have been cutting shorter John Lydgate's infinite flow.)
Wow -- is there a teapot button?
XXX: hah wow
me: that's amazing!
XXX: yes
quite literally
a teapot button
me: I
Love
Whimsy
XXX: or even a teapot paint brush, actually
and also that is a fantastic start to an email
wow
hah
me: haha - he is reading lydgate
and not liking him much
as you can probably guess
XXX: i imagined not
heh
me: How come your status is breaking?
XXX: oh
on break
break-ing
sorry
better?
heh
me: got you
sorry I just got paid
XXX: or wait did they do those commercials in the uk?
me: and was taking a moment to be happy
yup
XXX: ooooooh
YEA for getting paid!!
me: man I love it
money is great
oh! have you read quicksilver?
XXX: nope
that's neal stephenson, right?
me: yeah
XXX: i've just started the, um, cryptonomicron
it's my first of his stuff
me: or did I already tell you about it?
ah
XXX: nope
go right ahead!
me: cryptonomicon is amazing
XXX: greatly enjoying it so far
though i wish i had bought an edition with bigger pages and font
me: quicksilver is the prequel to Cypto. It take place between 1660 and 1715
XXX: but that is neither here nor there
ooh hmm
me: or rather the trilogy of books does
XXX: (nods)
24 me: um... it's a cast, operatic, brainy, sexy, swashbuckling, incredibly researched monster ofa piece of work
*vast
XXX: wow
that sounds, um, incredibly cool
me: It includes lots of liebniz and newton
and pirates
XXX: !
so cool!!
me: and about 5 seperate heists
and Louis XIV
XXX: ...hah though i admit i had some unkind thoughts about mr. isaac newton when i started calculus
similar to your friend's in that email
whoa
....i must read this book
me: monarchs coercively having sex with other monarchs' subjects
XXX: !
as proxy or by design?
or wait
don't want to know
me: haha, calculus, oh my
No, it's not graphically unplesant
XXX: oh oh not that
me: also... pepys, and the foundation of the royal society, and of MIT
XXX: was just interested in motivation
oh!
wait
mit?1
geeesh
this guy is rapidly becoming my idol
and i haven't even finished one of his books
me: haha
I will put quicksilver in the package.
XXX: yea!!!!! (does little happy dance)
me: woop woop
I will try to include short stories and maybe poetry too if there's room in the box
XXX: hah no poetry ;-) :-p
me: do you not like poetry?
XXX: though i, um, appreciate the thought
mm
me: you lose, dude
XXX: (bows deeply)
mah
other than (weirdly) a few authors/poems who stick with me
i am not a fan of poems
me: wow - that's a sentence I could never type
XXX: hah i know
me: mind you, that's cause poems are my thing
XXX: you like the dunciad :-p
heh yes
me: and how!
XXX: i have great respect for poems and people who like them
just not my thing
me: :-)
XXX: that's actually how i encountered claude rawson
me: fair enough
XXX: trying to dodge my poetry requirement
me: oh?
ha
XXX: i had to take something with poetry more modern than milton
me: oh noes!
XXX: and ended up winning an arguement to the effect that his seminar on satire counted
as it included pope and etc.
me: that seems reasonable
XXX: it was
...i'm glad they didn't check what i wrote my papers on ;-)
me: but .... but, what about all the great 20thC american poets?
XXX: .... (sigh)
me: Lowell? Frost?Bishop? Moore? Berryman? Ashberry? Roethke? Crane?
XXX: i like some frost
out of that list
me: (author's note: I am smiling)
XXX: i also like some atwood
hah hah i thought that might be the case
also i like eliott
for whatever sadistic reason
but i think this is because he writes long poems
me: yeah, whoops that was a fairly substantial oversight on my part
XXX: i need my narrative
(laughs)
and ironically enough
my first real literary paper (pre-college, but it was the first one i everwent to crit for) was on zukofsky
me: I know zukovsky not
XXX: mmm
likely better off
very modernist
me: ha
XXX: very "ooooh eliot makes cool allusions that are impossible to understand I must do this to but make it EVEN HARDER"
but i seized on the bits that i liked
like the idea of having an image that is tied to an idea
but is not a metaphor for the idea
my poem was about a grasshopper
me: Ok, this is interesting
XXX: zukovsky?
he is interesting
me: mhm
what you are saying is interesting
XXX: oh
hah
me: bozo, what else am I going to be talking about?
XXX: (laughs)
me: (except myself, of course to which I don't usually refer as 'this')
XXX: hah ha ha ha
well you could have gotten a bonus or something...
kidding
me: It's my first month on my new pay
for that is nice
XXX: yea!
but yeah
i've tried to explain my feelings about poems to people before
i can read them
but they don't really mean much to me
me: it ok if you need narrative
XXX: the way that stories do
me: it happens
it's sad
XXX: hah
me: but for some people
you know... that's all they have
XXX: (is laughing)
me: in seriousness, I get it
because I struggle with narratives
I'm like, you want to me to do what? Analyse it? What?
XXX: yes!
exactly!
me: but how!
it's so wishy-washy!
XXX: ha ha ha
you read it and are like "okay, that was nice. ....what? I have to write a whole paper on this?!"
i love how we are having the same conversation
me: see for me poetry is just the crunchiest, most economical, most beautiful words with none o the extraneous crap about people and stuff happening to other stuff and yadda yadda
XXX: or the same feelings at least
about the opposite things
me: yes!
XXX: mm and for me narratives allow you to meet real characters, people you can learn from and encounter like actual people, and provide a looking glass and a suggested pattern for what to do with your life
...i don't have the gift of being able to describe this well
you can carry ideas to their conclusions
without unneccessarily veiling them in allusions and cryptic language
gah
(gives up)
me: no, I think I see what you mean
I just think that there's more to life than narrative would have you believe
XXX: heh
me: take closure, for example
XXX: mm
me: and I'm sorry that I haven't finished your paper yet
the weekend got in the way
XXX: ha ha aww
's okay
i hear your thesis is quite brilliant
you have to send it to me sometime :-)
me: but what happens in closure is intensely interesting and reveals the fundementally problematic nature of narrative, which is that we actually have no idea how one thing causes another, only that one thing follows another
follows, even
I think poetry is interested in those gaps
XXX: oh ho ho.... that's not a problem of narrative
that's the point!
me: where the narrative isn't
XXX: to figure out how these things happen!
me: not where the narrative isn't interested - i was unclear - I mean, where it is absent
ok, that's a fair point
XXX: exactly! that's where we come in! that's where the engagement happens!
and not just in comics
more generally
me: and whoever has been talking to you about my thesis is telling porkies!
XXX: hah
now now i thought XXX was a nice person
me: she's lovely
XXX: who certainly knows what she's talking about
me: and ((((hugs)))) on your letter
XXX: thanks (sigh)
i kinda knew it was coming
and it spurred me into action in a sense
i actually emailed u mich and harvard
me: I still kinda hoped it wasn't
oh, good on you
XXX: to be like "yo. what's going on?"
(um, in that, "thank you so much for taking the time to read my email during this busy season" kind of way)
me: yeah, of course
XXX: yeah
i dunno
i'm almost relieved in a sense
because it would have torn me to shreds to be accepted without funding
and have to deal with that
me: yes
XXX: i also agree with what many people are saying about how funding difference poisons the atmosphere of a program
because i saw that happen when i was interning
about a quarter of us were paid
the rest of us were not
me: mmmm that's interesting, but not at all the atmosphere in Berkeley
XXX: and it created a lot of bad feelings and divisions
hmm
that's good!
wow
me: XXX is sufficiently sensitive to have picked up on that, as an unfunded person
XXX: ...maybe everyone there is supernaturally nice
(nods)
oh i certainly imagine so
me: actually, because she's unfunded she gets TAships and RAships
XXX: ooooh
me: and the funded people are anxious
!
XXX: i thought that the funding, um, was entailed upon taships
me: (anxious that they're not good enough)
XXX: and that if you weren't funded then you had no shot at such things
interesting
me: some people (eg XXX) get fellowships
XXX: (nods)
me: that is what being funded is
everyone has recourse to some funding
just unfunded folks have to work for it and don't get much
XXX: ahh
huh
interesting
me: ... and have to pay tuition in the first year
XXX: ....don't really want to think about it at the moment
ah
yes
me: no no I know
sorry
XXX: there is always that
me: sorry
XXX: 's okay (sigh)
my friend lectured me today
about how i appear to be "grasping for a scattershot of programs"
me: what about?
ouch
XXX: (sigh) that is not true
this all makes sense in my head
me: ouch
XXX: i am still angry
as you can tell
me: of course it does!
well, yeah
XXX: partly because i think he's just bitter as he did an english masters
and hated it
and is still not done with said thesis
me: they clearly have no idea of you, your interests, or your applications
XXX: (firm nod)
me: ((((hugs))))
XXX: (hugs) thanks :-(
i have to remind myself
me: people are occasionally rubbisyh; there appears not to be any way around this
XXX: that things other people say are not always true
just because other people are saying them
they are
me: no! absolutely not
of course not
brb
XXX: ok
me: I have fucked up at work
will be back
sorry
XXX: oh no!
you go!
good luck!!!
(hugs)