Life as an Extreme Sport

Finding Legs

The Monday afternoon class still hasn’t found its legs. I find that I’m floundering, in part because several of the students are also part of my group on Thursday, and I don’t want to repeat information. I’m not entirely certain where to take the class, what to do with it – to have it wide open and let it flounder, or to give it more direction. Some aspects took off tonight, and some didn’t…

…I need to think about what took off and figure out how to harnass it. Perhaps more personal narrative and mapping of experience onto text. That’s what lit them up tonight, and perhaps it needs to keep coming back to that. We can be Pop Culture 390.

Huh. It’s actually an idea.

everybody else’s girl

I was sitting in Bauhaus today when Journey’s “greatest hits” came on, and was surprised at the strength of negative emotion is sent coursing through me. Have someone dedicate a few of those songs to you, and you suddenly realize just how creepy the lyrics are. I wrestle with saying any more than that, which suggests it’s not time to.

But in the grand trip down memory lane that today turned into, this, this made me smile, and turn wistful thoughts towards someone I’ve not seen in years. He always used to say similar to me, and played other songs for me. I wonder where he is, and how he’s doing? He’d be so tickled with how my life is going; my Neuromancer project would have thrilled him (he’s the one who introduced me to the book, after all).

If I could tell him one thing, it would be that someday came, and I’m finally my own girl.

Do you ever realize how important the words you say now might be in 15 years?

A Copy of the Abstract Submitted to SCCUR

Desire, Affect and Time: Constructing the Appeal of Reality Television

If fantasy is where your desire is constructed, how better to visualize it than to see it actually playing out on television in front of you? As Jacque Lacan says, it is through fantasy that we learn how to desire, and it becomes precisely the role of reality television to specify the object and coordinates of desire. The viewer engages, and with this participation, reality television breaks the rule of one-way mass communication. Instead of being disengaged from direct viewer participation, it is in fact dependent upon it. This active participation stretches from the viewer watching fantasy to actually participating in the creation of the show. We become immersed in and can see our effects upon reality television. And because reality television is a slice of life of an actual person whose story begins before the show and will continue after it, as opposed to a scripted character, it has time, and time moves. Concurrently, the structure of the show insures that it steps just enough out of time to be fantasy, and not the real. It becomes a place where desires are temporarily found for both the viewer and the participant; when the television is turned off, the fantasy is closed and the desire is once more out of reach. We have formed a love affair with reality television because instead of being a self-contained system that we merely observe, it is something that constructs our desires, has the continuity of time, and we can touch, we can affect.

Refund!

The UBookstore offers dividends every year; any money not needed to the care and maintenance of store is returned to the customer, provided the customer give them back saved receipts from the past year. The refund is set yearly by the board; last year it was 10%. I got my check today, walked downstairs, and promptly spent it (this is my deal with myself – if I am organized enough to save receipts, I get to invest all that money in books, again). For a whopping $10 (because who can ever spend just the on target amount), I was able to buy:

The Primacy of Perception – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Phenomenology of Perception – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
The Nick of Time – Elizabeth Grosz
Ethics – Spinoza
Time and Narrative – Paul Ricoeur
Genesis – Michel Serres

The Serres book was by far the best buy – it’s a hardback, first edition of the book that was marked down to $10. Turns out it was used; someone had lightly made pencil marks in the margins of the first three pages. One eraser later, and I have a pristine, perfect copy of a very expensive book (the better for me to make my own scribblings in).

Fried Day

I spent too many nights out this week, and not enough in front of my books. But I had fun the first two nights, and an absolutely lovely time last. There’s something really cool about meeting new people and being able to sink your teeth into meaningful conversations that cross boundaries and expose vulnerability. It creates a closeness that makes for a much more satisfying experience. And, in the case of the two people I was with, I think it’ll greatly enhance our “professional” relationship, as well.

But it left me fried for today – two nights of only three hours of sleep does not an alert Kelly make.

I had a very odd experience today; well, several actually, but this one stands out in a sea of oddness. I ran into a former instructor earlier this week, and he asked if I’d write a few words over the class I took with him. I loved the class, I still refer to what I learned in my own work, so I said yes. By the time I was done, I had written my first letter of recommendation. For an instructor…about to receive his PhD from Stanford…a Fellow in The Jackson School.

Keep in mind, I’m a lowly undergrad two point five quarters from her BA. It was strange.

On top of that, there was the writing of an abstract (which I’ll post later, after I make the few edits suggested by his esteemable bossness), pulling off a surprise birthday dinner for one of my closest friends, and receiving a very nice thank you letter from a classmate.

The good and weird continues. But it was a good day.