Life as an Extreme Sport

I had a good day. A good Monday. Does this bode badly for the remainder of the week?

I want to get this out and down while I’m thinking about it. It’s been weird, today, the convergence of school and friends. Specifically, I was listening to a CD given to me by one of the musicians in 390; stuff he’s worked on over the past while. It finally clicked, after several days of heavy rotation, that one of the bands reminded me strongly of Crowded House. This, of course, meant listening to Neil Finn, and whenever I listen to Neil Finn I think of Lisa and I smile. A good thing, and something that probably means there is now a link between this student, Lisa, and smiling for the rest of my neural life.

The 390 focus group went well tonight. We ended a bit early, but it was a good place to stop and I knew two of the students needed to talk with me. Ended up spending several hours chatting with one, and just had a lovely time. I really like getting to know people better in those one on one situations; it makes me feel good about my meager role in this whole life-thing. She’s a smart girl, and I think things will smooth out quickly.

Focus group – right. We focused on travel, and what Flaubert and Nightingale have in common with one another, and then ourselves. Why do we travel? Why did they travel? What are their reasons versus our own, and their attitudes versus our own? It was a fun discussion, with much side conversation about the Ick-Factor of Flaubert. If they only knew the half of it (for which I’m ever so “indebted” to John for sharing). I felt really good about the class, and pleased with the constant participation. Adam really nicely picked up and ran with things (especially given he’d not been around for the planning of it).

Phillip, as usual, is right – teach from your passion, and everything will fall into place. Step outside that zone, and things will fall apart. I already know what I’m doing for Thursday, and am confident it will go well.

Plus, hugs and congratulations from Phillip, as well as a sweet “I told you so” and verification that he has much more faith in me than I have in myself. Yeah, a good day – I’m feeling very confident and good about myself; it’s nice to have that feeling stick around a few days. Maybe it will even stay a few more.

Edward Said spends the second chapter of Orientalism talking about the history of orientalism, if you will. He starts with Sacy and Lane, and from those two move forward in chronological order, briefly addressing some of the most influential writers of that period. Chauteaubriand, Nerval, Flaubert, and Burton are all mentioned (in basically that order). Said draws some interesting distinctions, noting that the British writers tend to follow Lane in being very dry, academic, and empirically scientific when discussing the Orient, while the French are much more romantic (as well as Romantic), preferring instead to move within a narrative framework of the dream of the Orient.

Said concludes this walk thru the process and progress of Orientalist thought by ending with Burton, a man he claims walked a line between Orient and Occident, understanding the Orient while still retaining the power of the Occident. What I find interesting, though, is how Said treats Burton. Specifically, Said doesn’t focus on the extensive research Burton did on homosexuality in the Orient (especially India), his translations of the Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden, that the annotations to the Kama Sutra were considered pornographic for their time, or that Burton’s widow burned a new translation of The Perfumed Garden (renamed The Scented Garden), as well as 40 years of diaries and journals, because she didn’t want the world to know of Burton’s fascination with bizarre sexual practices and perversions (fearing people would label him as such).

For someone who’d just spent some large chunk of book discussing how the Occident eroticizes the Orient, and particularly taking Flaubert to task for it, it seems odd that Burton’s own fascination with the Orient and all aspects of sex is so completely ignored.